“You think this is it?” he said aloud. “I survived a rattlesnake bite—this is nothing. And when I catch you, I’ll show you what real pain is like.”
He tried to picture Lillian’s face, but while he could remember her white-blonde hair, all he could see was Eliza Christianson’s smug expression as she taunted him outside the chapel the day he attacked Blister Creek.
I killed your brothers and I’ll kill you too
, she’d mocked.
“Nobody can kill me. I’m the Lord’s anointed.”
He took a step, and then another, grimacing in pain. After a few minutes it grew easier, but he still moved at half the pace he’d kept before stepping on Lillian’s booby trap.
Worse still, as he continued, he thought about that second branch hacked from the bush. A second trap. Maybe she’d cut two and tossed the less suitable branch from the wash a few minutes later. But he thought not. He thought she would set another trap—maybe the same kind, maybe not.
The sun was in his eyes now as it began its slow descent into the west. A wind picked up from the west. Across the top of the ravine
it blew a fine dust, which caked his nose and mouth and coated his eyelashes and beard. The ravine moaned, a sound that modulated up and down in tone as the wind gained or lost strength.
He wouldn’t catch her before nightfall, and that left him with a choice: Continue in the dark, or make camp and go on at first light.
“Go back,” a voice said.
He whirled and saw the angel standing behind him in the wash. He held the bloody thorn Taylor Junior had pulled from his foot and thrown away in disgust.
“She’s tiring,” Taylor Junior said. “She has to stop soon.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look at her pace. It’s slowing down hour by hour.”
“Unless it’s another trap. Unless she has more strength than you think and she keeps hiking half the night. And then you’ll be in the desert, an untreated wound in your foot. It might get infected, and then what?”
“So what should I do?” Taylor Junior let a sneer rise in his voice. “Limp back, tell them a girl beat me? And when Lillian reaches the road and gets help? When she tells them exactly where we’re hiding? I can’t let her do that. Any fool would see I have to hunt her down. Any idiot knows.”
He didn’t see the angel move. One moment he stood twenty feet away, the next he was on Taylor Junior, driving him to the ground. One hand closed on Taylor Junior’s throat. The other shoved the thorn at his eye. Taylor Junior froze, unable to move or pull away or even shut his eye. The bloody thorn approached until it blurred, too close to see clearly. It rested, the barest, slightest pressure on the surface of his eyeball.
“In it goes,” the angel said. “One fraction of a millimeter at a time. First the pain, then a drop of blood, and then your eyeball explodes.”
No
, Taylor Junior tried to say, but he couldn’t form the word. Fear turned his muscles to stone. Only his hammering heart and his gasping lungs kept moving.
“You have eyes, but you see not,” the angel said. “Ears, but you hear not.”
He pulled away and still Taylor lay rigid, muscles taut and quivering with exhaustion. His eye uninjured.
“You chased her into the desert,” the angel said. “That way lies desolation. If she survives, if she finds water and doesn’t become disoriented and lost, it will take two days, maybe three, to reach the highway. You have plenty of time. Return to the sanctuary, gather your people.”
So, what? We run again? Where do we go?
“No,” the angel said. “The time for running is past. And there is no time to gather more soldiers. You have to move now. Gather the other men and fly to Blister Creek. You are few, but you are well armed.”
It’s a suicide mission.
“Perhaps. The hour is short, the world hurtles to its destruction. Blister Creek must fall before the coming of the Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord. It cannot wait. Either attack our enemies tonight or I shall spew thee from my mouth and find a more worthy servant. And if you die in the service of your god, so be it. You will receive your just reward in the world to come.”
Thou sayest.
And then, as if in reward for his obedience, a plan came into Taylor Junior’s mind. He thought about the Humvee with the mounted machine gun, the assault rifles. He imagined the vigilance of Blister Creek and the men who would rise up in fury to meet Taylor Junior in battle, led by Jacob Christianson himself. And what about that motorcycle he had stashed in the Ghost Cliffs? Was it still there, wrapped in tarps and hidden with brush?
At last Taylor Junior gained control of his muscles. “Is that it? Is that how it will be done?”
Nothing answered but the low moan of the wind down the ravine. He looked around, but the angel was gone. Groaning, he climbed to his feet, turned, and limped back the way he’d come.
The angel had spoken. He would obey.
Frederick van Slooten took the whiskey bottle without a word, uncorked it, and sniffed its contents while I explained. We made a mistake when he came, I said. We should have cooperated instead of resisting. If he took this as a peace offering, we could start over, and maybe both sides could live in harmony.
He took a sip, swished the whiskey around in his mouth, and swallowed. “Yep, that’s it,” he said, words slurred from his earlier drinking. His scar glowed white against the flush on his face. “Why is a gaggle of Mormon women crating whiskey into the desert?”
“It’s medicinal,” I said, and then I added a lie. “My husband is a doctor and sent me with all his supplies. There is an entire crate of whiskey. If we can only get along…” I let my voice trail off.
His eyes widened. “A whole crate, you say?” He took another pull, this one deeper.
I suppressed my excitement and nodded gravely. “You shouldn’t drink too much at once, Mr. van Slooten. Eat your supper first. You’ll feel better.”
Another swig. “I can hold my liquor. You ladies fetch my supper now.”
He retreated toward his tent, stopped in front of the entrance, turned around, and took another pull as he stared at us. I shot hard glances at Laura, Maude, and Annabelle, and they made themselves busy. Van Slooten ducked inside and pulled the canvas flap closed behind him.
“What shall we do now?” Laura asked.
“Get him his supper,” I said. “Look busy, but don’t rush. I want as much of that going down on an empty stomach as possible. A full quart of spirits already. No man can put away that much and stay on his feet.”
They nodded. Laura looked determined, Maude terrified. A tight, angry expression was fixed on Annabelle’s face. Her earlier cowardice had vanished, replaced by a look I can describe only as bloodlust. She would happily take an ax to the man’s head while he slept, I realized. Perhaps I should encourage it. Whisper in her ear, put the bellows to her hatred. Then, when we went into the man’s tent, hand her the gun.
No
, I told myself.
You’re the leader here. If you mean to kill a man, do it yourself.
“There will be no communal meal tonight—the four of us will cook supper alone. Maude, tell the other women to stay in their homes and wagons, and for the love of all that is holy, do not let any of the children out. I don’t want them seeing this.” We set to work.
Van Slooten staggered out of his tent thirty minutes later. He’d stripped off his hat and boots, his shirt and pants, and stood in long underwear marked with yellow sweat stains. He held the whiskey bottle in his hand, already two-thirds gone. How the devil was he still on his feet?
“Where’s my supper?”
“It’s coming, be patient,” I said.
He gestured at his face with his free hand. “You know how I got this scar?” He raised his voice. “Well, do you?”
I was stirring a pot of soup at the fire and looked up with what I hoped was an expression of mild irritation. “Mr. van Slooten, you know we can’t cook with all of these vexations.”
“A Mormon. Brigham Young sent him, man tried to kill me. A Danite assassin.”
Annabelle snorted. “There is no such thing.”
“By g–d there is. Came in the night, tried to cut my throat. I fought him off.”
“What a story,” Annabelle said. “You got in a bar fight. It wasn’t a Mormon assassin.”
“Annabelle!” I said in a sharp voice.
Van Slooten swaggered over, stumbled, and nearly fell in the fire. He approached Annabelle, who shrank back, her expression suddenly fearful, and then wheeled on me. “It was 1870. Bet you wasn’t even born.” His whiskey breath roared in my face. “I been in the Dakotas, fighting Sioux and Chippeway. One night, outside Laramie, we come upon a man and his two wives. Second lady was none too happy. She wanted us to bring her and her babies to the fort, said her husband meant to take a third wife and she’d had enough. So we took her.”
He stopped long enough to take another drink. “That night, I hear a cry from Lieutenant Huff, and I look over and seen a man in our tent, cutting Huff’s throat. I reached for my gun, but he was on me in a moment. Fought him off, but he got away. Took his woman too.” Van Slooten gestured to his face. “Left me this. Huff was dead. Some day I’m gonna find that man, and we’ll finish what we started.” He nodded. “He’d be in his forties now. Maybe he’s your husband.” He turned. “Or yours.”
“We’ll never finish your supper,” I said, “if you don’t go back to your tent and leave us in peace.”
“Hurry up, d—you! I’m hungry!” He stomped back to his tent.
“How much longer?” Maude asked in a trembling voice.
“Not much,” I said. “Twenty minutes. Then I’ll finish it.”
And before a half hour had passed, I stood outside van Slooten’s tent with a steaming bowl and a hunk of bread on a plate. “Mr. van Slooten?” No answer. “Your supper is ready. May I bring it in?”
Still no answer. I glanced at the other women, who stood a pace off, wringing their hands. I gave them a nod, then used my free hand to push aside the tent flap and entered.
It was dim inside with the falling sun, and sweltering hot. Van Slooten lay facedown and naked on his bedding, even his undergarments tossed to one side now. The empty bottle lay next to his hand. Good Lord, had he drunk the whole thing? He let out a low, rumbling snore. Sweat beaded along his back and dampened his sideburns. The stench of body odor and whiskey filled my mouth and nostrils, and my stomach heaved.
“Mr. van Slooten?”
No answer. He was well and truly gone now, but I didn’t want to take chances, so I said his name twice more, each time a little louder. I shook his shoulder. He groaned but didn’t wake. I set down the plate with the bowl and the bread, then crept to the corner of the tent where he’d set his saddlebags, extra blankets, and provisions and clothing. There was his rifle, propped against the saddlebags, but it wasn’t loaded. While searching for the ammunition, I found his holster and pistol instead. I took out the gun. It was a Colt .45. The gun still smelled of powder from his recent shooting in the desert.
A hand closed around my ankle. I screamed and whirled around. Van Slooten had risen to his knees and now looked up at me with a grin. “Now there’s a good girl,” he said. “Come to rob me. Or cut my throat in my sleep. Just like a Mormon.” His eyes looked at me, blurry and unfocused. That I held his Colt in my hand didn’t seem to penetrate his stupor.
I pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell. It wasn’t loaded.
Van Slooten roared with anger as he spotted the weapon. He yanked on my ankle and I fell to the ground. He crawled on top of me, and even though he was stinking drunk and could barely control his limbs, he was too big and strong and heavy to shake loose.
“Help me! Someone!”
He grabbed my throat and squeezed. I brought my knee up into his groin, but he barely flinched. Sweat dripped from his face onto mine. His eyes bugged, and that same maddening smile crawled across his face.
“Bloody Mormon. Cut Huff’s throat like a pig at the slaughter. What’s your name—Cowley, ain’t it? You know the man’s name? Hyrum Cowley. That’s your man. I knew it from the first.”
Hyrum.
His first wife was still in Salt Lake, suffering from tuberculosis. His second had run off—that must be the woman who had been trying to escape to Fort Laramie. Hyrum would have been in his early twenties at the time. It could have been my husband. It must have been.
“That’s right,” van Slooten said. “I knew. Why do you think I’m here? Why do you think I joined the marshals in the first place? I’m waiting for your man. And when he sees I’ve raped and murdered his wives, he’ll go mad. And only then will I kill him.”
My lungs burned. I tried to cry out, but the grip on my throat was as unrelenting as the grave.
Light flared at van Slooten’s back as someone opened the tent flap. He turned, eyes still unfocused. His grip loosened, and I drew in a ragged breath. It was Laura. She threw herself on the man, but he tossed her aside.
Van Slooten scrambled toward his saddlebags. Another gun? A hunting knife?
But the man was drunk, and as he made his way for the saddlebags his right hand hit the soup where I’d set it on the tent floor. He flipped the bowl, and a spray of scalding liquid flew into his face. Van Slooten screamed and pawed at his eyes. I was thinking more clearly now. I grabbed the empty Colt and swung it at the man’s head. It caught him a glancing blow across the temple.
“Shoot him!” Laura screamed.
“No bullets! Get the whiskey bottle!”
She snatched it up and smashed it over his skull just as I hit him with the gun again. Van Slooten crawled away from our blows. He crashed into the side of the tent and it partially collapsed. He made for the entrance.
The battle continued as van Slooten escaped from the tent. He bled from a cut above his eye, and one of my blows had crunched against his mouth. But he was about to get to his feet and get away. And then Annabelle stepped up and hit him across the face with the soup ladle. Maude had a stick of firewood and started in on him. He screamed and flailed as we attacked him with a soup ladle, an empty pistol, a broken whiskey bottle, and a stick of firewood. It wasn’t enough. We couldn’t finish the job.