'Around twenty or so. They sent out a search party to find the girl and the boy. But they never found them.
Lucky for them. They'd have tore them limb from limb.'
It all tallied with what Nigel had found on the census.
'That picture was found in the grave of Sarah Rowley, nee Walker,' Nigel told him.
Pettibone stared at him as if it was some kind of practical joke. 'You been digging up the grave of Sarah Walker?'
he said with disbelief.
'They fled to England. Changed their names and set up a whole new life,' Nigel said.
'But now someone's coming back to get their descendants.
We think they're seeking revenge for what happened in 1890. For the fire,' Heather added.
'So they finally found them,' Pettibone said. 'And they're finally getting what they wanted after all this time.' He sipped his beer.
What's that?' Nigel asked.
'Blood atonement.'
10
Over more drinks, his face lit up by barlight and beer, Pettibone explained. Blood atonement was an old Mormon belief the Church had backed away from in its search for mainstream acceptance. It decreed that some sins were so awful, so unforgivable, that the atonement of Christ was not enough to provide salvation, and that the sinner could only atone by the act of spilling blood on to the soil in death. Murder was one such sin.
Heather expressed surprise about the Church's violent beginnings. Pettibone merely raised a sardonic eyebrow.
'Blood is woven into the warp and weft of Mormon history,' he said dryly.
'But the Church no longer believes it?' Heather asked.
'No longer believes it,' Donna said with incredulity.
'They claim it has never been practised by the Church at any time.'
'Bullshit, of course,' Pettibone said, wiping his mouth.
'And where I come from, it still goes on.'
Where do you come from?' Heather asked.
He smiled. 'A little place a few hundred miles due northwest of here, named Liberty City. Don't let the name fool you.'
Donna almost gasped. 'You're a member of the TCF?'
Was a member,' Pettibone corrected. 'Ain't been anywhere near for twenty-three years or more, and I ain't planning on ever going back.'
'Just who exactly are the TCF?' Heather asked.
Pettibone looked at Donna. 'You go first, sweet cheeks,'
he said. 'I wanna hear this.'
Donna smiled a half-smile. 'The True Church of Freedom. It's a Mormon fundamentalist group. One of many that has split away from the Church because of a disagreement over core beliefs. Not one of the bigger ones. But one of the most secretive. That's about all I know. Over to you.'
Pettibone cleared his throat. 'It was founded in 1891 by Orson Walker junior. He claimed Orson to be the prophet, and legitimacy for the Church, on the basis that Orson senior -- who died shortly after the fire, too -- had received the Gospel directly from the Lord, that the mainstream Church were apostates, and that he and his kin should form a Church according to the revelations and teachings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor and no one else.'
'So every Church President up until Woodruff, who brought in the manifesto banning plural marriage?' Donna said wryly.
'You got it. My folks are fond of plural marriage.' He took a hit of beer. 'Orson junior blamed the fire on God, said it was His wrath at his father's failure to break away and form his own Church. So the Walker clan, or what was left of it, the Pettibones, and a few families headed for the hills and the Utah--Idaho border, away from the prying eyes of the Church and the state, where they've lived ever since.
'They practise polygamy?' Nigel asked.
'Hell, yeah,' he said. 'It's old school up there.'
'But why haven't they been arrested or broken up?'
Pettibone shook his head. 'Little matter of Waco put paid to that kind of stuff. You go in there all guns blazing and people will do some crazy things. I think the authorities don't really care. The community up there is a thousand or so strong, pretty self-sufficient, they don't bother folks outside much. Not till now, anyway. It was the people unfortunate enough to be born and raised there who faced all the trouble.'
'You left?' Donna asked.
'You could say that,' he said with a chuckle. 'Or you could say I was asked to leave. I'm what you might call a 'lost boy'.'
What do you mean?' Heather reached for her notebook and began taking down some of what Pettibone said.
Well, you were a teenager once. Let me ask you: if you had a choice between being with someone around your own age, or being the sixth wife of a fifty-seven-year-old man, which would you choose?'
'Are you kidding me?' Heather spluttered.
'Exactly. Unfortunately, the views of fifty-seven-year old men hold greater sway than those of fifteen-year-old boys and girls. My crime was listening to rock music' His fingers painted quote marks in the air as he said the word 'crime'. 'But the real reason was that I took a walk with a fourteenyear-old girl who was earmarked to be the bride of someone older and more powerful than me. They don't want you getting your hands on what is rightfully theirs. I was told to pack my bags and get out of town as quickly as possible. Or else.'
'Or else what?' Nigel asked.
'I didn't stay to find out. To be honest, I couldn't get out of that fucking place soon enough. Sure I miss my family, even though some of them were crazy as hell.
That's what happens when the gene pool is kinda limited.
But I don't miss much else.'
'It must have been difficult to adjust to life here after being in such a close-knit community,' Nigel said.
He shrugged. 'Llewellyn is hardly New York City There were some pretty hard times. But I found my niche. This bar, a job, a few friends, and no God of any kind. If your Mormon friend here will forgive me, I think religion ain't worth shit.'
Donna shrugged. 'Go right ahead. Don't mind me.'
'You said a fourteenyear-old girl was earmarked to be a bride,' Heather said.
'I did. That's when the menfolk of Liberty deem them ripe for picking and marrying.'
We're looking for a girl who was kidnapped on her fourteenth birthday, and her mother murdered. She was killed inside but her body dragged out the back of the house and her throat cut.'
'Sounds like blood atonement to me. You gonna tell me they're both descendants of Sarah Walker and Horton Taylor?'
We are.'
He went silent. 'Jesus,' he said.
You've heard of them?' Heather asked.
'Heard of them. In Liberty, those two are just about on a par with the Devil. Their heinous sin was drummed into the hearts and minds of every living person in Liberty.
The first revelation Orson junior received from God, so the story goes, was to turn the oath of vengeance from part of the temple endowment ceremony into a piece of scripture, calling for the deaths of his father and family to be avenged and for this to be passed down the generations.'
