Destroying Angel (35 page)

Jacob almost got the knife free with his other hand, but then Taylor Junior flung it out of reach. The man now fought him with both hands, and he was still too strong to subdue. Somehow he got to his feet. Jacob tried to pull him back down and, failing that, dragged himself up instead. He pinned the man against the wall, the hand still groping at the broken ribs.

And then, at last—at last—Taylor Junior went limp, perhaps surrendering, perhaps trying one last trick.

“Mercy!” he screamed.

“Like the mercy you showed at Zarahemla? Like you showed my brother Enoch? Or my father? Like you showed my
wife
? That kind of mercy?”

Jacob grabbed Taylor Junior’s hair at the temples on either side of the head and forced him against the stone fin at the man’s back.

“The angel! He lied to me! They all lied to me!”

“Yes, it’s all lies, isn’t it?”

Jacob yanked the man’s head forward and slammed it back against the stone. Taylor Junior cried out and made a final lunge, but Jacob held him up with his knee and hip. He slammed the man’s head back again. And again. After a moment Taylor Junior stopped struggling, but Jacob didn’t stop bashing his skull against the rock until he was sure. At last he let the man go. Taylor Junior slid to the ground and slumped facedown in the sand. The back of his head was a ruin.

Jacob staggered a few feet and then dropped to the ground. He crawled forward, needing to put distance between himself and the body. Every muscle felt like rubber, but he didn’t stop until he was at least twenty feet away, and then he rolled onto his back and put his hands over his face.

“It is over.” He took down his hands and opened his eyes. “Please, God, let it be over.”

The sun was up now, peeking over the sandstones. The sky was a clear, brilliant blue, but there was no warmth in it yet.

Jacob climbed unsteadily to his feet. He gave one backward glance at Taylor Junior’s body, needing to be sure, needing to verify the man was dead.

And then he staggered from Witch’s Warts and back into Blister Creek.

The first outside authorities to arrive in Blister Creek came in a pair of police cruisers from Cedar City at midmorning. They pulled up in front of the temple with lights flashing. Jacob and David had laid out the bodies on the lawn and were covering the last one with a sheet, weighing it down with rocks. There were seven dead here in all. The four conspirators—Taylor Junior, Elmo Griggs, Levi Cobb, and Jason Johnson—and three people killed by gunfire in the battle at the reservoir, two women and a boy of twelve. Two more dead at the abandoned missile silos, 150 miles to the east. They would need to be recovered later.

Four officers climbed out of the police cars, led by the chief, a big man named Trost whom Jacob had met after last year’s attack. He had a big gut that overhung a narrow waist, and he hoisted his pants as he stepped up onto the curb. He took in the
scene in front of the temple with a grim expression and a long, heavy sigh.

“Thought you guys would never come,” Jacob said.

Trost said, “Dispatch didn’t get me the message until a couple of hours ago. We’ve got flooding all through town, and it’s all hands on deck. The power plant got flooded, and half the town lost electricity. There’s something wrong with the grid. I…” He stopped and looked around. “Where is everyone?”

By
everyone
, Jacob assumed Trost meant law enforcement. Half the town—mostly children and women—milled around the temple grounds, looking at the bodies, and the other half were either at the Christianson house or patrolling the valley, in case there was a final, undiscovered gunman on the loose.

But as for the authorities, there were no FBI agents and no Highway Patrol. Carol Young had called from Panguitch to warn Jacob that the hospital staff had called the Garfield County sheriff when she brought Stephen Paul in with a gunshot wound to the leg, but they hadn’t sent anyone to the hospital to investigate yet, last Jacob had heard. They certainly hadn’t sent anyone to Blister Creek.

“The FBI said they’d send someone,” Jacob said, “but couldn’t say when.”

Trost snorted. “After last year, I’d expect the feds to have a permanent headquarters in Blister Creek, what with that bastard still on the loose.”

“He’s not on the loose anymore.” Jacob peeled back the tarp to show Taylor Junior’s face. The dead man’s eyes stared dully skyward.

“Good. I hope he gets what he deserves on the other side.” During their conversations last year, Trost had revealed that
he was a mainstream Mormon, but he didn’t seem hostile to fundamentalists.

David had been talking with one of the deputies, but now he came over. “Maybe the FBI figured we’re more trouble than we’re worth and decided to let us fight it out this time.”

“I don’t think so,” Trost said. “They spent six months riding my butt about this Kimball guy. Weekly calls, visits once a month to make sure we were still searching. If you only knew how much time I spent hiking around the hills, looking at old hunting camps and following up on crackpot phone calls and e-mails.” He tugged at his pants again. “Lost ten pounds last year.” A shrug. “Guess it didn’t kill me. Anyway, what about that lady agent?”

“Agent Fayer?” Jacob said.

“Right, Fayer. She was a good one. And tougher than Aunt Tillie’s titty. Where’s she?”

“Fayer’s not in charge anymore,” Jacob said. “And the FBI has bigger fish to fry these days.”

“Figures. Blasted country is falling apart at the seams. Literally. You feel that earthquake last night?” He turned back to the bodies, apparently unconcerned with the answer, and gave Taylor Junior’s corpse a nudge with his toe. “Tell me what happened.”

Jacob gave Trost an overview of the night’s events, starting with the warning from Krantz about armed men leaving the abandoned missile base, and ending with the battle at the reservoir and the chase through Witch’s Warts. He left out the part about the evil spirit.

When Jacob finished, the officers looked over the rest of the bodies. Trost and his deputies turned away with sickly expressions when they got to the women and the child. The boy, especially,
was in a gruesome state, nearly cut in two by machine gun fire. Jacob pulled the tarp back up over the child. The poor kid was only two years older than Jacob’s son.

“I’ve seen enough,” Trost said, his voice strained. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, but stared at the row of bodies beneath their tarps. When he spoke again, his tone was all business. “If the FBI ever bothers to show up, it’s pretty obvious that your story holds up. We’ll take pictures, but the bodies have been moved already, and you’ve got a zillion witnesses, so I don’t see any reason to leave them out here. Do you have someplace air-conditioned? Let’s get these bodies out of the sun.”

The next day, Jacob stood on his porch, chatting with Eliza on the cordless, but her words turned into a drone when a white sedan with government plates pulled up to the curb, followed by a troop transport truck that came to a stop with a squeal of air brakes. Giant windshield wipers swished lazily back and forth to clear the cold drizzle, and for a time it sat there, lights blinking and diesel engine rumbling.

He thought at first it was the National Guard, which he could have used a couple of nights earlier, but then he spotted the blue-and-green logo of the US Department of Agriculture on the side of the truck. Eight men with M16 assault rifles poured out of the truck, and two men in suits climbed out of the car. Even these two wore sidearms. The men in suits pulled out umbrellas and huddled in consultation. One of them gestured at the Christianson house. The other man punched something into a smartphone or PDA.

Eliza said something on the other end of the line, and he belatedly realized she was asking him a question.

“Jacob?”

“What? Sorry, I missed all that.”

“I said, should we come back?” Eliza, Miriam, and Krantz were still in Green River with Lillian and the survivors.

“They don’t need you anymore?”

“Lillian is in charge, and she’s bringing the whole crew to Blister Creek as soon as the police lets them go. Miriam, Steve, and I are good though. At least, nobody is telling us no, and I’m not going to bother asking permission.”

Jacob was still staring at the government officials. He recognized Chip Malloy, the man Jacob and Stephen Paul had dragged all over the valley, showing him herds and silos. Malloy had a brusque, businesslike appearance now, mustache shaved, and was in a suit instead of a shirt with bolo tie. He’d lost the cowboy boots too. Malloy gave orders to the soldiers, and two of them set off on foot toward the temple. Two more moved across the street toward the edge of Witch’s Warts, and the last four flanked the vehicles and fanned along the sidewalk. Rainwater dripped off the brims of their hats and the tips of their rifles.

What the devil?

“Are you still there?” Eliza asked.

“That guy from the Department of Agriculture is back, and he looks serious.” Jacob stared at Malloy as the two men in suits came up the sidewalk. “Come back as soon as possible. I’m going to need help.”

He hung up and turned to see his daughter Leah and one of his younger half sisters playing at some sort of paper craft on the
covered porch. “Go inside, girls. Leah, tell Mom to keep everyone inside. Quickly, now.” The girls gave a quick glance at the street, jumped up, and banged the screen door on the way in.

Malloy left the second man midway up the walk and stepped up to the porch. “Crazy weather, huh?” He shook the water from his umbrella, folded it, and propped it against a railing. “How is the reservoir holding up?” He held out his hand.

Jacob took the man’s short-fingered hand. “Not as full as a couple of weeks ago. We enjoyed a dry stretch, which sure helped.” He glanced at the truck. “I had no idea the Department of Agriculture had its own ground forces. That must be useful when the grain silos offer resistance.”

Malloy looked embarrassed. “Oh, I know. Silly, isn’t it? But there’s been trouble. Not in Utah—it’s a well-organized state, you’ve got to give that to the Mormons—but in a few small towns in the Midwest. Again, I don’t expect that sort of problem around here.”

Jacob wasn’t sure—in Utah there was plenty of suspicion about the government. Show up unannounced with quasi-military force, and that suspicion could turn to hostility.

“What kind of trouble are we talking about?” he asked.

“You know, the usual conspiracy stuff when people think you’re trampling their rights. They don’t appreciate the national emergency. Two of my colleagues were killed last week in Nebraska. There’s a town in Iowa that’s in open revolt. And then there’s this mess in California.”

Jacob hadn’t been following the California news, but he didn’t like the sound of that. Iowa and Nebraska were distant, on the other side of the Rockies, but you could head down to St. George,
jump on I-15, and get to Los Angeles in nine hours. Or vice versa, as the case may be. A California mess could become a Utah mess in a hurry.

“And so you considered our reputation in Blister Creek and thought better safe than sorry?”

Another apologetic shrug. “It wasn’t my call.”

“A warning would have been wise. After what we’ve gone through, you’re lucky people didn’t take one look at your truck and start shooting.”

“That would have been a terrible idea.”

“Obviously.” Jacob felt the peevish tone in his voice and tried to tamp it down. “Look, all I’m saying is that a heads-up would have been neighborly.”

“I didn’t want to do that and then find out you’d barricaded the road.”

“Why on earth would we do that?” He looked back at the truck. “Mr. Malloy, just what are you doing here?”

Malloy opened his mouth to say something, but then a pickup truck pulled up to the curb. Stephen Paul climbed out and hoisted himself upright, his cast-bandaged left leg outstretched. He grabbed a pair of crutches from the truck bed and hobbled up the walk toward the porch. Anger contorted his face. One of the armed men moved to intercept him.

“Move out of my way,” Stephen Paul said.

“Back off!” the man barked.

“I’m warning you…”

Jacob came down from the porch. “Hold on, everyone settle down. Brother, calm down.”

Malloy came after him. “It’s okay, Finch, I know this one.”

Finch lowered his weapon and took a step back, but his posture remained rigid.

Stephen Paul turned on Malloy. “What in blue blazes are you thinking? That wheat belongs to us. That’s outright theft.”

“What wheat?” Jacob asked. He looked at Malloy, confused and growing angry. “You’re not confiscating our food supplies, are you?”

“It’s illegal hoarding.”

“There’s nothing illegal about it. And anyway, you had no problem last time you came.”

“How would you know that? You never declared it.”

“Yes, we did. What kind of game is this?”

“Thirty-five hundred tons of wheat. You need more than a ton of wheat for every person in Blister Creek, on top of all of your other hoarded food? That’s taking advantage of the food crisis. It’s outright profiteering.”

Jacob sputtered with anger. “Are you crazy? We don’t have any…” He caught the troubled look on his counselor’s face, and his voice trailed off. “What is it? What’s going on?”