Blood Atonement (27 page)

She knew instantly it was him. Her heartbeat, pounding from fear, now began to beat with excitement.

She went to the window. A. gibbous moon sweated in the sky.

She cursed the night for being so clear. There was no sign of him on the ground. As always, he must be hidden behind the barn. She climbed into a dress, grabbed a bag she had packed in anticipation of his coming, with a family portrait of herself, her mother and siblings and a few items she thought she may need, and laced her boots. She opened the window and cast an eye around the room, trying not to think of the times she had shared here with the girls, before slipping out and shimmying down the front of the house as she always did.

He was there behind the barn, his jaw set and determined, eyes burning into her.

‘Thank the Lord you came,’ he said.

‘Didyou ever think I wouldn’t?’

He shrugged. ‘I did not know. I wasn’t sure you could ever face leaving your people behind.’

‘There was never any doubt,’ she replied. He grabbed her and wrapped her up tightly. They held each other close for an age.

‘Where are we going?’ she whispered when they came apart.

‘Somewhere far away from here. I have a horse tethered by the wood. We will ride as far as we can. To the east, to the coast. Then we will leave this benighted place because I swear your father and your brothers will come and they will try to find us.’

‘Leave? For where?’

‘England. There is money to be made there for those willing to work hard. Come on.’ He grabbed his bagfrom the floor, shouldered it, and then took her hand.

England? she thought. It was half a world away. All the people she had ever met from there were those that left after hearing the Gospel. They barely had a good word to say about the place, though she suspected they ran it down in such a way to justify their decision to leave. Still, if it be his will…

‘Stop right there.’ The voice came from behind them. A voice she knew. Alfred, her eldest stepbrother. Mean, dumb and aggressive.

He was the last person she wished to find them.

Horton turned slowly to face him, tightening his grip on her hand.

She could see the cold flash of hatred in those eyes. She tried to smile at Alfred, even though her heart was sinking and breaking. His face carried the same vicious sneer it always did, though the dull eyes twinkled with triumph. He looked at her. In his hands was a rifle, pointing straight at them.

“I knew you’d try and make a run for it. Father said you would.

Sorry, Sarah, but you have no chance. I’ve been patrolling this wing of the house. Orson junior is patrolling yonder and out front is guarded by Robert.’ He looked at Horton. ‘You picked the wrong family to mess with, little boy.’

Horton’s grip on her hand tightened so hard Sarah felt she might scream. What would he do? She did not want him harmed.

‘Alfred, I will come back into the house. You can take me to Father. Do what you wish. But I begyou, let Horton go. This was my idea, he —’

‘Be quiet, Sarah,’ Horton barked sternly.

Alfred narrowed his eyes, then a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. ‘Want to be the hero, do we, little man?’ He looked back at Sarah. ‘Sorry, but it’s not for me to decide what happens to this piece of dirt. It will be decided by Father and the elders. If it was up to me, I’d have him strung up on the nearest tree for his insolence, the filthy godless pi—’

Horton had slowly released his grip on her hand. His went into a pocket and pulled out a pistol. A shot echoed through the night.

Alfred dropped his gun, bovine face frozen in surprise. No words came, just a gurgle in his throat. The bullet had gone straight through his heart. He fell down dead at their feet.

‘Run!.’ Horton urged, and she followed, head spinning. She turned back, half-expecting it all to be a joke, for Alfred to jump up and administer a beating like the bully he always was. But no. His body lay slumped against the side of the barn. ‘Just run,’ Horton exhorted her again, the pistol still in his hand. But as she turned, her toe stubbed a rock and she fell face down.

She felt his arms wrap round her to pick her up, just as there was a loud crack and something whistled over their heads. Someone was shooting.

She heard Horton mumble something. From the house she could hear voices being raised. On her feet again, she looked back and saw Orson junior and Robert. Another loud crack. Closer this time. Now Horton cursed louder. My own family is trying to kill me, she thought.

He led her by the hand, building up speed, veering away from the centre of the field, where they were an easy target, towards the hedgerow to one side. He turned round and fired a shot over his shoulder, without looking, almost a reminder that he had firepower, too. It met with another whistling reply, one that furrowed the soil ahead.

Thank goodness they were such wayward shots.

The sky seemed to glow brighter, her senses sharpened by the fear and the excitement. She was barely a hundred yards from her bedroom but it felt like she had crossed deserts and mountains. There could never be any going back. With him she dived headfirst into the hedgerow, brambles tugging at their clothing like tiny grasping fists.

They emerged the other side. The horse was there. He leapt up and hauled her behind him, dug in his heels and called for the animal to respond. It did and soon they were away into the night.

She did not look back once.

As they sped away from the city, Nigel watched in a mixture of wonder and bewilderment as they passed strip mall after strip mall, wide characterless boulevards littered with sign after sign selling fast food and God. It was miles before they hit any kind of open road, through monotonous wilderness, few distinguishing features in any direction, a stark reminder of the brutal, vast place Utah had once been until the Mormons had conquered and tamed it.

They were on their way to Llewellyn, capital of Cache County, the nearest town to Temperance. Nigel wondered who Llewellyn might have been — a Mormon Welshman, he presumed, who left the rolling valleys for a life on God’s chosen plain. Temperance itself was no more than a tiny hamlet, with a population of around a hundred inhabitants. Llewellyn lay seventy-five miles southwest, and boasted a library, a hotel and a few other signs of life, so they figured they might have more luck there.

Donna was at the wheel, intermittently shaking her head at having discovered back in Salt Lake City that Nigel didn’t possess a driving licence when she’d deferred to his masculinity and asked if he wanted to drive. ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes in the States,’ she said, eyes still wide with disbelief. ‘Public transport is for the poor and we just don’t do walking.’

He smiled, let his head rest on the window, gazing out at the scenery, its size and homogeneity giving it a hypnotic beauty. Religiously, culturally and geographically, he felt like he’d stepped into a different world. His body longed for sleep and rest but his mind was awake, hungry to know more and to soak up as much as he could. Not least from Donna.

He turned to her. ‘Forgive me for asking, and feel free to say it’s none of my business, but how come you’re still a member of the Church when you doubt its approach, the way it covers up its history, and the fact you’re …’

‘A divorcee and a single mom?’

‘Well, yes,’ he added, a little taken aback by her directness but grateful for her sparing him having to use a polite, strained euphemism. ‘It is, after all, based on family and the sanctity of family, isn’t it?’

‘Amongst other things, yeah.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s my Church. I grew up with it. I have a few problems with some of the doctrines and covenants, but then show me any Christian who agrees with everything that’s said in the Bible. And there’s a heck of a lot of Christians who have a problem with some of their Church’s attitudes. The fact is, I got married to the wrong man and it didn’t work. The way I look at it, if I’m going to be sealed to a man for eternity, which is a mighty long time, then the least I can do is make sure he’s not an asshole. I ain’t gonna burn in hell for that. I’ll just be a damn sight more careful the next time. But the basic tenets of my Church I fully believe in.

We have our jerks and our fools, just like any other Church — hell, just like any other religion — but I’m not gonna let that get in the way of me following my faith. And I still have it. Long as I do, I’ll be a Latter-day Saint. Soon as it goes, I’ll be downing bourbon and sleeping with any man that looks cute in jeans, like the rest of you godless heathens. Ain’t that right, Heather?’

There was silence. She checked the rearview mirror.

Heather was in a deep sleep.

‘Maybe not then,’ she added. ‘Though perhaps Heather ain’t the Lee Cooper jeans kind of girl.’ She gave Nigel a look from the side of her eye he could only describe as sly.

‘Maybe she likes her buttoned-up English guys in, I dunno, tweed or something?’

Nigel said nothing, even resisted the temptation to check his herringbone jacket.

Donna laughed softly yet wickedly. She leaned in towards him. ‘I’ve seen the way you look at her,’ she whispered. ‘Is it an unrequited thing you got going on there, Nigel? Or do I sense a bit of history?’

Nigel cleared his throat. ‘I’d rather not discuss it, actually,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘OK, I see. I’m guessing there’s a clue right there in what you said, but I know Englishmen don’t like to talk about these things. She’s sure pretty, though.’

‘Yes,’ Nigel said. Yes, she is.’

Again the softer, wicked laugh. ‘You told her how you feel?’

Nigel glanced in the wing mirror; he could still see Heather sleeping. ‘It’s complicated,’ he muttered.

‘As far as I see it, it ain’t that complicated. You tell her how you feel and you all know where you stand.’

‘Maybe I did once and maybe I didn’t like what happened next. You know the phrase “once bitten, twice shy”? Well, there’s something to be said for that.’

Donna gave him a kind look. ‘Sometimes it’s worth hanging in there, honey. I don’t know much, but people appreciate someone who loves them without question.

My ex-husband only loved himself. Me, I’m looking for someone who loves me happy or sad, fat or thin, with make-up or without, the whole nine yards. Generally someone who thinks the sun rises and falls at the back of my ass. Do that with Heather and she might come to her senses. I mean, I look at you and I think she’s mad. If you knew your doctrine and covenants and got yourself a temple recommend, I’d be looking to get sealed with you for all eternity.’ She squeezed his thigh to emphasize her point.

Maybe the Mormon Church wasn’t so bad, he thought.

They entered the city limits for Llewellyn as the afternoon light left. In the rapidly descending twilight it was hard to see much of the town, though Nigel suspected he might not be missing a great deal in terms of scenery. He was wrong: as they drove into town, Donna pointed out the dark shadow of the LDS Temple on a hill overlooking the town, backlit by a dramatic blood-red sky. They rode downtown, past the historic district and along the main drag, past shops and the occasional office block until they reached the library. As the car stopped, Heather woke from her slumber with a start.

‘Have I been asleep all the time?’ she mumbled apologetically.

‘Sparko,’

Donna said.

The library formed part of the county office building, a grand old department store comprising several buildings connected and remodelled over several decades. The library occupied the ground floors and seemed cramped in such a tight space, though there were few people using it at that hour. Donna wasted no time approaching the desk and asking for copies of the Logan Leader. They were pointed towards the library’s collection of microfilmed newspapers.

The Logan Leader was there but its origins were the same as that in Salt Lake City — the missing editions were still absent. Nigel went back to the desk and to the demure young woman manning it.

‘Do you have the originals?’ he asked.

She shook her head sadly. ‘We donated most of our materials to the Church,’ she said. ‘That includes the newspapers.’

He cursed. ‘Do you have anything at all about the history of the area?’

She showed a few local histories, but they mostly told the story of the pioneers and their heroic struggles against nature, disease and apostates. He went back to the desk.

‘Do you have anything, anything at all, about a place called Temperance?’

She looked shocked. ‘Temperance? Why, no, I don’t think so. Is it a genealogical inquiry because we have family search …’

‘No,’ Nigel said. ‘Not really’ He decided to be honest.

‘I’m trying to find details of an incident that took place in Temperance in 1890, maybe a disaster of some kind, where quite a lot of people died …’

His question tailed away as he saw the blank look on the woman’s face. It was clear she did not know what he was talking about.

‘Sorry, sir,’ she said. ‘Have you checked the newspaper reports for the area? We have them all on microfilm.’

Not all, he thought, but he couldn’t be bothered explaining about the missing copies. ‘Thanks,’ he said and went in search of Donna. She was ploughing through another section of local histories and memoirs with an equal lack of success.

‘This is pointless,’ Nigel said wearily.

Donna’s resigned look suggested agreement.

You people want to know about Temperance?’

The voice came from behind them. They both turned.

A woman in her forties with jam-jar spectacles and a friendly face was smiling at them.

‘We sure do,’ Donna said. ‘Why, can you help?’

She looked over her shoulder. ‘Might get myself in some trouble over this, but I know someone who can.

What do you two think of frequenting bars?’

Nigel looked at her as if she was mad. What did she mean?

Donna laughed. ‘These guys are English. I don’t think they’ll mind. Which bar?’

‘Oh, we only have one in Llewellyn. Called Hooky’s, just off Main. You’re looking for a guy named Pettibone.

Josiah Pettibone.’