Righteous04 - The Blessed and the Damned by Michael Wallace Page B

at him without seeing the pathetic, groveling sinner. Kimball told himself he didn’t care.
    “I’ve never liked you,” Abraham said at last, his voice low and angry. He pulled free from Kimball’s grasp, then hoisted the smaller man to his feet and pulled him down the stairs, away from the women. Halfway to the car, he added, “I didn’t like you when we were boys and they gave you Charity. I knew you weren’t worthy of her. I used to dream that you’d be thrown by a horse, or bit by a rattlesnake somewhere in the backcountry. You should have been expelled from the community, would have been if Uncle Heber hadn’t been maneuvering against me. He was too weak to fight me alone, so he used you. But then he was gone and you were still there, like a rat in the pantry that you can’t trap. You corrupted Blister Creek, spent the last thirty years undermining Zion. You and those Sons of Perdition you have raised. Your son murdered my son. He disemboweled Enoch and defiled the temple. Three of your sons—three!—have tried to rape my daughter. And since your plan collapsed, hundreds of saints have fallen away from the church.”
    “I didn’t know, I wasn’t—”
    “Quiet!” Abraham roared.
    Kimball staggered backward. The muscles on Abraham’s jaw worked up and down, and he clenched his fists. And then, to Kimball’s horror, he raised his right arm to the square. “Taylor Kimball, I cast thee from Zion. Thou art a Son of Perdition, doomed to walk the earth in sorrow. Thy seed shall wither and die, thou shalt wander in the wilderness, blind and dumb, until the coming of the Son of Man. And then thou shalt join thy master in Outer Darkness for time and all eternity. Amen.”
    The rebuke was a knife in the gut. Kimball stumbled away, nearly falling, as he fled for the car.
No! He couldn’t, he wouldn’t.
    Kimball turned back, shaking. “You’re no prophet, Abraham Christianson! You’re nobody. You’re going to die, I swear it. I’ll kill you myself!”
    Kimball waited for Abraham to interrupt him, admit he’d made a mistake. No, that was too much to hope for, but let Abraham argue, make some prophetic claim, some additional threat or condemnation. Let the man bray, a donkey who thinks he’s a prophet.
    But Abraham denied him even that satisfaction. Instead, he returned to the house without another word. He didn’t even let the screen door bang shut. The women said nothing, just watched.
    Kimball spoke to the door, the one
he’d
painted, to the women in their chairs, on a porch built by
his
hands, where
his
wives and daughters had once sat. “He won’t keep me away. I know what I’ve been promised. I know what is mine.”
    * * *
     
    Back in the car, Elder Kimball retreated into the Ghost Cliffs, drove past the reservoir, and then followed Highway 12 east toward Escalante, driving for more than an hour until he had to stop and check his directions. It was getting dark and he had to turn on the light to read the printout from the prison computer. He had to be close.
    Boulders littered the ground on the left side of the road, like a giant’s marbles, spilled over the edge of the cliffs above. One of these boulders, maybe the size of a small house, hid Charity’s Winnebago. He drove past the same stretch of road three times before he saw the pair of Joshua trees that stood like sentinels in front of her hiding place, just as she’d said in her letter.
    Kimball pulled around the boulder and parked his car. The wind had driven sand halfway up the front two tires of the motor home. A dozen five-gallon water jugs lay stacked against the boulder, half-covered with a blue tarp that filled and deflated in the breeze.
    Charity sat on a plastic chair in front of a small campfire. She rose to greet him, but they didn’t hug, just shook hands like two old acquaintances.
    “I was expecting you earlier.” She sounded as rough as she looked, her voice dry and rattling. She’d cut her hair short, and instead of