October Skies (51 page)

‘Why?’ he gasped.

‘I’m doing this for Emily,’ Sam replied. ‘For me, for Johanna . . . and all your other bastard children.’

Preston squirmed and gurgled.

‘I’m doing this for Momma. She was going to tell them all about you, but you had Saul kill her. I hate you!’

Take his eyes.

Sam raised his clawed hand and smiled. ‘So, now you’ve seen.’

With a sudden thrust, the sharpened point of the bone claw strapped to his index finger penetrated Preston’s left eye. It burst with a soft, wet pop. He pushed the claw in all the way to the knuckle, feeling cartilage and bone crack and surrender.

Preston thrashed convulsively for a moment, and then was still.

 

‘And this, ladies and gents, is it,’ said Grace, stepping down over the moss-covered hump of a fallen tree into the clearing.

Shepherd followed her over and then stopped, surveying the open expanse of grooves and bumps covered with an undulating blanket of smooth, green moss.

‘Oh, I assumed there would be more to see,’ he said with a look of disappointment.

‘Don’t worry, it’s all there . . . buried,’ said Julian quickly, ‘and surprisingly well preserved because of that.’

‘And this place is where you found that journal?’

Julian nodded and pointed across the clearing. ‘Over on the other side; you’ll see where the moss has been disturbed.’

Grace looked up at the sinking sun. ‘We’re not goin’ to have time for playing around in the muck today, people. We should get the tents out whilst we’ve got some light to work with.’ She looked across at Shepherd. ‘If that’s okay with you, Mr Shepherd?’

‘Sure.’ He smiled genially. ‘You’re the boss out here, Grace.’

Grace smiled. She liked that he said that.

As they stepped cautiously across the uneven clearing, Rose sidled up to Julian. ‘Shepherd’s doing a good job of winning over Grace, isn’t he?’

Julian shrugged. ‘Of course he is. He might end up being her next President.’ He turned to her. ‘Do I detect a whiff of jealousy?’

Rose wrinkled her nose. ‘No . . . it’s, it’s just that, I dunno . . .’

‘She didn’t bow and scrape quite so much for us?’

She smiled. ‘Yeah, I suppose.’

Julian looked up at the man ahead of them, and his body-guard walking along warily to one side. ‘Power does that. The smell of it stimulates our inner serf.’

Grace led them to the same relatively flat area they’d camped on last time. It was surrounded by a subtle, roughly circular hump. The blackened soot from their last campfire a week ago remained undisturbed.

‘We’ve got about an hour of light to pitch our tents. Let’s do that, then I’ll get a campfire going for some coffee.’ She turned to Shepherd. ‘You okay putting up your tent, Mr Shepherd?’

‘I’m okay, my dear,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve done my fair share of hiking in my time.’

‘Mr Barns? You okay with that?’

The Fed nodded. ‘I’m good, ma’am.’

 

Grace put together a surprisingly tasty stew from the contents of several tins and a perforated bag of spices that she threw into the bubbling pot a few minutes before serving.

‘My word, this is delicious,’ said Shepherd, blowing onto a steaming spoon.

‘Nothing like a stew when you’ve been walkin’ out in the fresh,’ Grace replied.

The fire crackled warmly between them. Julian felt it was noticeably cooler this time around than a week ago. But then, it was into November and, according to the local weather man this morning, snow several weeks overdue would be covering these hills soon. Julian shuffled slightly closer to the fire and blew a cloud of steam out of his bowl. ‘You said you’ve done a bit of hiking before?’

‘Yes. My father and I . . . a long time ago now, I’m afraid. We took quite a few trips to the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas. I don’t seem to have much time these days to spend it like this, away from the end of a phone network. It’s hard to truly get away from that.’

Julian smiled. ‘I can imagine. Not that long ago it wasn’t so hard to find somewhere off the grid, but—’ He pulled out his BlackBerry and checked for a signal. ‘Nope, nothing. Well, there you go. I guess you can still find places off the grid.’

‘So, you were sayin’, you’ve come along because you’re interested in this story of Rose and Julian’s?’ said Grace.

‘Yes. I’ve an interest in history from this time, particularly early Mormon history. Fascinating thing, the birth of a brand new faith, so recently - historically speaking.’

Rose blew on her spoon. ‘Isn’t it awkward timing for you to duck out from campaigning, just to join our field trip?’

Shepherd chuckled. ‘I guess there’s no such thing as a good time. But I felt like I needed time to recharge my batteries, have some quiet.’ He looked across at Julian. ‘And your colleague’s email arrived at just the right moment. It gave me an excuse to get away from things for a short while.’

They ate in silence for a few moments, listening to the hiss of a breeze through the swaying branches around them.

‘So,’ said Julian, ‘you’re a Mormon yourself. That’s right isn’t it, Mr Shepherd?’

He nodded. ‘I was born and raised one.’

‘How does that factor into your voter appeal?’

Shepherd sighed. ‘I was hoping to get away from work,’ he replied with a weary smile.

‘Jules, let the poor man eat in peace,’ Rose chided him gently.

Shepherd raised a hand. ‘No, I don’t really mind.’ He looked at Julian. ‘As long as you’re not interviewing me?’

He smiled and shook his head. ‘No Dictaphone. Off the record. I’m just curious.’

Shepherd shuffled to get comfortable. ‘It’s definitely a factor. There’re about thirteen million Mormons out there. And to be honest, not all of them would put a vote my way. But I hope the people I’m getting through to are not necessarily Mormons, not necessarily Baptists, but a large, quiet groundswell of middle-ground voters who are tired of the other two parties, the sleaze, the corruption, all that self-serving manoeuvring they do on every issue.’

‘But your core voters, the ones you’re aiming at are . . . are what? Protestant Christians?’

‘Not at all. I hope I’m talking to people of every faith. I hope I’m getting through to Catholics, Muslims, Hindus . . . people of all faiths, Julian. People who see beyond the immediate I am, therefore I will have.’

Rose frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘This selfish, me-first society we’ve gone and built. There’s no social bond left in this country of ours, no sense of community, of a greater good. We all go our own separate ways, grabbing what we can for ourselves . . . and screw everyone else.’

‘Yup,’ Grace muttered. ‘That’s about it.’

Shepherd nodded. ‘We’ve spawned a generation of selfish, self-obsessed product consumers. A younger generation who know nothing more than their local mall, the internet, Mc-Donald’s and their iPods. Kids who don’t care a damn for their community, for their family even. Moms and dads both working double shifts to pay for the shiny gadgets the TV tells their kids they need to have.’

Shepherd shook his head. ‘The great big capitalist experiment, ’ he sighed, ‘went and broke our society big time. There’s no Thanks in Thanksgiving, no God left in Christmas. Those days are nothing more than carefully branded herding to drive the cattle into the mall twice a year. And hell, we do it all over again for Easter.’

‘The world has become too commercial,’ agreed Rose.

‘With no faith left in our lives, no meaning to our lives,’ Shepherd replied, ‘all that is left is’ - he shrugged - ‘buying things.’

Julian finished his stew and placed the bowl on the ground. ‘You know, what you’re saying sounds refreshingly left wing, for America at least. Don’t you worry you might sound too . . . I dunno . . . socialist for voters to accept?’

Shepherd shrugged. ‘People know what’s right. In their hearts they do. Our broken country needs some kind of glue to put it back together. To reconnect kids with their parents and rebuild all those fragmented, dysfunctional families; to rebuild those isolated families into communities and those communities into a country that once more understands the notion of a common good.’

‘And that glue is faith?’

Shepherd nodded. ‘It’s all we have left. Let me ask you a question, Mr Cooke. Who would you prefer as your neighbour: Homer Simpson or Ned Flanders?’

Julian laughed and pushed his glasses up. ‘Seriously?’ Shepherd nodded.

‘Well, it’s got to be Homer, annoying though he is.’

‘Because?’

‘It’s the God thing, I’m afraid. Sorry. I struggle with the ridiculous beliefs most religions insist on slavishly subscribing to. You know, the world being created in seven days and being only six thousand years old, that kind of thing.’

‘If we’re talking about the other faiths too,’ Rose cut in, ‘how about the idea of women being the property of men? Or heaven being a place where a man can get satisfaction from seventy-two virgins? Or to take another faith, that any sin, no matter how awful, can be instantly written off by muttering a Hail Mary.’

To their surprise, Shepherd nodded. ‘You’re right, both of you.’

Julian looked up from the fire. ‘What?’

‘It’s all a load of crap.’

The crackle of burning firewood filled a long silence.

‘The world’s faiths are contaminated with age-old superstitions, most irrelevant and many very dangerous. After all, every one of them was formulated and prescribed at least a thousand years ago. How, in God’s name could any of them be relevant to our lives now? What we need—’ Shepherd stopped short and looked around at them. ‘I’m sorry. You got me whipped up into preacher mode.’

Julian sat back. ‘Uhh, I’m pretty sure you’ve never preached that kind of message on your TV station.’

Shepherd shifted uncomfortably. ‘No, you’re right, I haven’t. No one’s ready to hear that kind of thing. It would sink my campaign in a heartbeat if they knew how I felt.’

Julian shook his head. ‘What you say out here is off the record. I’m not interested in who becomes President eighteen months from now. It’s Preston’s story that I’m interested in.’

The kettle on the fire began whistling and bubbling. Grace leaned forward and carefully unhooked it from a small ‘A’ frame suspended over the fire.

‘Mr Shepherd?’ She topped up the stewing coffee with steaming hot water. ‘I believe you were going to tell us what we need. You know, before you stopped short there.’ She stared at him. ‘You were just beginning to make some sense to me.’

Rose nodded. ‘I’m intrigued too. I believe you just rubbished all the world’s major religions. And yet you are a man of faith, right?’

‘I am.’

She shrugged. ‘Well, uh . . . isn’t that a problem for you?’

He reached for the coffee pot and refilled the chipped enamel mug on the ground beside him in silence. He sipped the black brew hesitantly, his mind elsewhere for a moment.

He spoke quietly. ‘I’d like to see those old faiths swept aside. And all the malice, the hatred, the bigotry, the ignorance that goes with them. More than anything,’ he said, the slightest hint of passion stealing into the timbre of his measured voice, ‘more than anything . . . this broken world needs to have a new conversation with God.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Julian.

Grace emptied the dregs from her mug. ‘You’re talkin’ about a new faith?’

Shepherd nodded.

‘And Mormonism is that faith?’

He shook his head. ‘I was brought up to believe that . . . and perhaps I once did. But not any longer. The Lord’s word was corrupted by ambitious men - not good men, not pure men. We’ve been living in a state of apostasy for too long.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I believe this tired, troubled world of ours needs to hear from God again in a language that makes sense of the twenty-first century.’

Rose stared at Shepherd, quiet now, lost in his thoughts, a detached, faraway look in his eyes. The silence continued long enough that Grace finally decided to cut in.

‘I’m beat. I’ll be turnin’ in. The fire needs to be completely dowsed before we sleep, and the pan properly covered. And if any of you need a pee before bed, be sure to do it well way from the tents.’

She stood up and gathered their empty bowls. ‘Mr Barns? Give me a hand?’

Agent Barns nodded. ‘Sure.’

They headed across the moonlit clearing, a flashlight lancing out into the darkness before them, with bowls and cutlery in hand, and Grace carrying a two-litre plastic jug of water. Rose watched them stop at the edge of the clearing. Grace began to rinse the bowls and spoons.

‘So, Mr Shepherd, do you mind if I ask something?’ Rose spoke quietly.

He looked up at her and smiled. ‘Of course.’

‘Would you consider yourself . . . pure enough?’