October skies

He took a deep breath, aware that both his hands were shaking. Forgivable, given how long he had been searching for this place, given how many times he had tried to find it over the years, always praying for guidance that God would lead him here. He’d always known the probability of his finding it by chance was one in a million — the proverbial needle in a haystack. But he also knew that one day a group of beered-up hunters, a family on a hiking holiday, some teenagers goofing around, somebody, would eventually stumble upon it, find the decaying remnants of the camp, dig up some long-lost personal keepsake with a name still legible on it. And eventually somebody would end up typing Preston’s name into a search engine.

Shepherd smiled. ‘And here we are.’

His heart thudded at the thought of what lay within the metal trunk before him, and his mind momentarily dwelled on a folly he’d watched on FOX news before coming to meet with Cooke. He had listened to a Catholic priest and an amateur archaeologist discuss with light-headed exhilaration the spreading ripple of anticipation amongst theologians and archaeologists around the world at the promise of a technology that would finally allow the last few Dead Sea Scrolls to be read spectroscopically.

Shepherd smiled at the ridiculous interest those worthless rolls of papyrus attracted. They were nothing but the words of mere scribes, templemen, inconsequential Judaean politicians of the time authoring their manifestos, supposedly with the endorsement of a higher authority. Not the words of God.

Here, before me, however — his heart pounded in his chest — I have the real thing.

The holy spirit, the angel Nephi was here too, ready to read to him from the plates. He was almost certain now that the quiet whisper he’d heard in his mind was that of the angel.

Yes.

I can hear you.

Yes.

Shepherd felt a tear roll down his cheek.

You’re with me now?

Yes.

He realised he was soon going to bear witness to the original, undoctored, unchanged words of the Lord as the angel read to him; it would be almost like peering into the actual mind of God.

It’s going to be wonderful.

Open it.

He slid his fingers under the ridge of the lid and lifted it up. Rust flakes crackled and fell from all four sides as it creaked open, and a dry, stale, not unpleasant, musky odour welcomed him inside.

CHAPTER 78

2 November, 1856

Ben shivered beneath his thick woollen poncho, wrapped tightly around the three of them. There was a growing fug of body warmth in the small spaces between them, enough to keep at bay the worst of the early-morning chill.

He raised his face from the faint warmth inside to look up at the sky. A steely grey light was straining through the clouds.

‘The night’s nearly gone,’ he whispered.

The last faint glowing signs of pursuit had disappeared hours ago.

We’re safe from them now.

Mrs Zimmerman stirred and shuddered with the cold. ‘Thank goodness,’ she muttered, her trembling lips almost blue.

Ben turned to look down inside the poncho at Emily, nestled between them, her head resting on Mrs Zimmerman’s ample chest. Her small frame shivered in an inadequate cotton dress, her breath rattled and chattered, the occasional unintelligible murmur stealing past her lips. Her eyes were closed. She was sleeping.

‘The Devil came to our c-camp last night,’ said Mrs Zimmerman. ‘He came into our camp and turned people — people I’ve known for years — into demons.’

Ben shook his head. ‘It was fear that did that.’ He turned to look at her — a stocky, ruddy-faced woman of middle years, her skin chapped and sore with the cold. ‘That’s all. Fear of the unknown. ’

Ben looked out from the nook they’d found between two spurs of rock. The snow covered rocky, uneven ground that sloped downhill towards a tree-filled gulch. Beyond that, an uninterrupted carpet of woodland shrouded the way they had come during the night. From one small valley, they had stumbled into the next.

They were sheltered here from the sporadic gusts of ice-cold wind. That was good for now.

‘It was Preston,’ he whispered.

‘Preston?’

He nodded. ‘I saw his handiwork. He crafted some disguise out of animal bones and skulls. He wore this disguise and I’m almost certain it was he who killed Vander, Hearst, Sam and his mother.’

‘No.’

The voice came from inside the poncho.

Emily spoke.

‘Dear Lord… Emily?’ gasped Mrs Zimmerman. She pushed aside the woollen cover and looked down at the girl’s pale face, stroking her hair aside. ‘Emily?’ She turned to Ben. ‘God be praised, I thought she would never speak again.’

He hunched over to look closely at her. ‘Emily,’ he said. ‘It’s Benjamin here.’

The girl’s eyes remained closed and her breathing even. She seemed to be still asleep.

‘Emily? Can you hear me?’

Beneath her parchment-thin skin, her eyes moved back and forth, following the progress of some horrendous scene being played out again. Her dry lips twitched and parted. ‘Angel… an angel,’ she muttered sleepily.

‘Emily? It’s Ben. Can you hear me?’