all.”
“And what about Horner?” Windows wanted to know.
Callister sighed. “We have to get rid of the body.”
“Now wait one goddamn minute,” Windows said angrily. “He was my friend. I grew up with him, I-”
“We have to get rid of him,” Callister cut in. “You mark my words, the Mormons are going to come screaming to Dirker first light. If they saw him get shot, they’ll tell Dirker as much. If Dirker gets a look at Horner’s wound, well, that wily sonofabitch’ll put two and two together. He knows who Horner’s friends are, he’ll know who to roust.”
There was silence after that. A great deal of it. All you could hear was the wind outside and the ticking of a mantle clock inside. Callister told Windows and the others to take the body out into the hills, plant it in a shallow grave where it would never be found.
“Horner will have his day of reckoning…through us,” Callister promised them. “Maybe tomorrow night, maybe the night after, but he will certainly have it. The next time we ride on Redemption, we’ll be carrying more than guns and kerosene.”
“Like what?” Caslow asked.
“I was thinking about all that dynamite up at the mines,” Callister said.
The others began to grin.
12
The next morning dawned cool and overcast, a light rain drizzling over the San Francisco mountains and the towns and mining camps that had sprung up around them like weeds.
In Redemption, a group of men dressed entirely in black stood in a large barn. They stood staring down at the bodies laid over an expanse of hay bales. They were the bodies of men, women, and children killed by the vigilantes. They numbered nearly two dozen.
Though the men followed the teachings of Brigham Young and the path of righteousness set forth by the prophet Joseph Smith, they were not like other Mormons. These men carried Colt pistols and Greener shotguns, repeating rifles and army carbines. In a religion that espoused the gentle way of the lamb, these men were wolves, hunters and predators.
They were called Danites, though gentiles knew them as the “Destroying Angels”.
They were the ultra-secret, ultra-clannish enforcement wing of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints. Since before the days of the Mountain Meadows Massacre when as many as a 150 California-bound gentiles were slaughtered by Mormon militias and Indians under the direction of the Danites, they had been actively righting wrongs and settling scores for the Mormon populations of Utah Territory. And this under orders of Brigham Young, though he had denied the same again and again.
And now they were in Redemption.
A village elder was pacing before the bodies, openly weeping. “Only through the Holy Scriptures may we know of God’s plan, the beauty of God’s mind and will,” he was saying. “For we are all God’s children, are we not? Man, woman, and child? And are we not promised salvation for our toil and trouble and earthly torment?”
There was a chorus of “Amens”.
“Yes, brothers and sisters, we have been charged by the Lord Almighty to go amongst the nations and spread His word. We are empowered by Him to baptize the heathen into His Church. And this, oh yes, this is our task, nay, our divine right! Yet, there are those who would visit foul deeds upon us! Foul deeds perpetrated by foul minds and foul hearts! They spurn the word and the teachings of the Lord God of Hosts! Not only do they refuse to be saved, but they refuse the way of salvation and eternal life! They spit in the face of His Son Jesus Christ! And worse, yea, possibly worse, brothers, they would burn and murder us from the very lands promised to us by the Prophet Joseph Smith! And when they molest our children, are we not angered? When they spill the blood of our kin, are we not enraged? And when they murder our brethren, are we not moved to revenge?”
The “Amens” of those gathered in the barn were loud and resounding now. The elder was openly plagiarizing both the Book of Mormon and the works of William Shakespeare, but no one seemed to notice. The elder was known for his fiery sermons and no one was disappointed this morning as they looked upon the burned and bullet- ridden corpses before them.
“The Lord has told us to love Him, to love all His Children…but what of they who do not love us? That do not chose the way of salvation and peace? What then, you may well ask? Well, brothers, I will tell you! For as the Lord has said that vengeance is mine, so is it ours! Our blood-right to avenge the murder of our kin! And, brothers, so shall it be…”
The Danites stood there, neither smiling nor frowning, but knowing that a task had been handed them and that they would accomplish that task even at the cost of their own lives.
So it was.
13
Charles Graybrow tracked Orville DuChien down to a shack on the edge of the lake itself. It sat on a little hill crowded by trees that were all dead from the filth pouring down from the nearby refinery stacks. The air stank sharply of chemicals and industrial waste. The water washed in a slick of black foam. Orv was sitting on a rock, staring over the misty waters, mumbling something.
Graybrow came up behind him, making sure he made a lot of noise so Orv would know he was coming.
“They told me about it, yes sir, all about it,” Orv was saying. “Said this injun’s gonna come and gonna want to know things. Gonna have questions for you, they say, and when they say…sure, they’s always right, ain’t they? Well, ain’t they?” Orv rubbed his temples. “Sometimes…sometimes I talk crazy on account m’ head, it hurts, just plain hurts, what with them voices, blah, blah, blah!”
Graybrow nodded, figured it probably wasn’t easy. “Mind if I sit here by you?”
Orv scratched at his beard. “Injun, ain’t you? Don’t matter you being an injun, just saying it is all. I knew injuns back home, yessum, lots of injuns. Cherokee. Cherokee Nation, sure. Yes, you sit down there, Charlie…see, I remember you from way back.”
Graybrow had brought a bottle of whiskey with him. He took a slug and passed it to Orv.
“Right neighborly of you, Charlie. Yessum.” Orv took his drink and passed it back. “I try…I try to keep m’ head, but it don’t always work. I start talkin’ in circles and what not. But you…you understand me, don’t you? Some don’t, but you do…”
“Yes, I think I understand.”
Orv was gnashing his teeth. “Deliverance…the town the Devil built. Oh, think about it, Charlie! Them that don’t like the light, but the dark places! Them that lives in cellars and attics, them that don’t come out by daylight! Them that likes the meat and blood of men! Them with the Skin Medicine…oh, yessum, tattooed on their flesh!”
“Who are they?”
But Orv refused to answer. He just held himself until whatever it was drained out of him. “You…you remember Johnny Hollix?” Orv wanted to know. “He…he was the Indian Agent back home, gave them Cherokees a real bad time. Course, some of m’ kin did, too. Like Cousin Stookey…but he weren’t never worth a shit to no one. But I recall Johnny Hollix…he used to fish river cats with Grandpappy Jeremiah down on the south fork of the Suck River. Sometimes I went with ‘em and sometimes that Cherokee medicine man…you recall his name, Charlie?”
Graybrow just pulled off the bottle. “Afraid it escapes me.”
Orv began slapping his hands against his legs, shaking his head. “Yes, yes, yes, I remember! You don’t have to shout! Charlie! Tell ‘em not to shout!”
Graybrow went up behind him, feeling a great deal of pity for the man. He laid his hands on his shoulders, massaged the bunched muscles there the way his mother had once done for him. Gradually, gradually, Orv stopped
