'I think there's only one possible thing we can do, given the urgency of your mission.'
'What?' Heather asked.
'We take a road trip.'
The noise that woke her was the smack of a stone on her window.
The rest of the night unravelled like a dream and then a nightmare . . .
It being the night before the wedding, she was granted the privilege of sleeping in a bed on her own rather than with her sisters. Not that she did anything other than stare at the ceiling. She would have preferred the tangle of limbs and snuffling breath of others to the sound of her own sobs. Yet she had dozed off momentarily when the small crack woke her.
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.
9
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
