The Remnant (32 page)

"Hey, Softie," said Trace, recognizing the
man.

"You should have died quietly in New York as
my father wished," said Orrin.

Trace frowned. "You’re Ashley’s brother?"

"Half-brother."

"How could you do something like this to your
own sister?"

Orrin spat on the ground.

"She’s a shame and a disgrace upon my family
and before God."

"You are one sick puppy," muttered Trace.

"You’re the disgrace," said Marie, glaring at
the Angel and surprising Trace by the power he sensed in her voice.
"God does not know you."

Orrin winced as though he’d been slapped.

"Step away," he commanded, only this time his
tone was less certain.

"If you’re here to kill us then do it and get
it over with," said Marie.

"I’m not here to hurt you," said Orrin.
"You’re coming with me."

"But you mean to kill Trace."

The Angel made no reply, but that was answer
enough.

"Don’t you want to see what’s in the Casket?"
asked Trace.

"It is not for such as me to look upon."

"Really," said Trace. "Brigham Young wrote
the note inside for just such a one as you, I suspect."

Orrin glared, his face coloring. "You dared
desecrate the Casket?"

"The Casket is a form of desecration itself.
Look! Before you commit another murder you’d better. Your immortal
soul depends upon it."

The glare darkened. "You dare much discussing
an Angel’s soul."

Trace sighed. "I wonder if you have one. All
you have to do is look inside before you kill me. You have the gun.
If I’m wrong you wasted a moment. Can you spare that before one
last murder? Or does human life mean so little to you?"

"The enemies of God mean little to me."

"I know God better than you," muttered
Trace.

"So you say."

Trace shrugged, shoving Marie out of his arms
and baring his chest. "Do it, then. But what will you do if what
you find inside after you kill me causes you to reconsider? Raise
me from the dead? Have a posthumous Mormon baptism?"

Orrin’s finger twitched on the trigger. "Do
not hasten your fate with blasphemy."

Trace waited.

Finally Orrin signaled his indecision with a
twitch of his jaw.

"Step over there," he said, waving the gun
toward the far edge of the cliff, away from the Casket.

When Trace and Marie neared the trees the
Angel nodded. "Far enough. Do not try to escape. I can cut you down
in the blink of an eye."

He knelt beside the casket, staring at it for
a moment as though it might self destruct. Finally he opened it as
gently as a man lifting the blanket from the face of his first
born. He picked up the flashlight and examined the contents,
carefully inspecting the plates, finally resting them atop the open
lid. Then he removed the hand written document, reading
deliberately but still glancing repeatedly at Trace and Marie to
assure they had not strayed. But the further he read the more
distracted he became.

"Lies," he spat. "You did this."

"Me?" said Trace, frowning. "I didn’t even
know the damned Casket existed until I got here. You think I jumped
over the cliff there, found a cave, wrote that parchment... Don’t
be ridiculous."

Orrin shook his head. "Prophet Young would
never have written such blasphemy. Why would he?"

"The document is self explanatory."

But Trace could tell their last chance was
slipping away. He could see it in the hardening of the man’s
features again.

"You’re a Mormon," he said. "What does your
faith teach you to do when presented with a revelation?"

The Angel’s eyebrows rose. "Pray."

"So pray."

They glared at each other for what seemed an
eternity, but finally Orrin nodded slowly, rested his rifle on the
ground, and took up the parchment in one hand and the plates in the
other. He stared at Trace for one more long moment, then bowed his
head and knelt.

Trace leaned close to Marie’s ear and
whispered. "Start edging into the woods. Be quiet."

But Marie wasn’t listening. She was staring
at the Angel. Trace nudged her, but she barely moved. He glanced
back at the kneeling man.

The Angel was shaking, and as Trace continued
to watch he broke down in bitter sobs, dropping both the note and
then the plates onto the ground. Finally he leaned forward to rest
on both fists, quivering, tears pouring down his cheeks. Trace
slipped closer, but Orrin paid no attention even when Trace leaned
to snatch the rifle and cover the man with it.

Finally the Angel rose slowly to his feet,
ignoring the gun as though it were not between them. His eyes were
swollen, and he breathed loudly across gritted teeth.

"You have nothing more to fear from me," he
said, turning to stride past Trace.

As he neared Marie, Trace sighted the gun
between the man’s broad shoulders, but the Angel merely stopped and
whispered to her before disappearing into the forest.

"What did he say?" asked Trace, when Marie
sidled over to him.

She frowned, staring past him at the flames
below.

"He said he was sorry," she whispered.

The smell of wood smoke was overpowering as
they approached Marie and Ashley’s house. Trace stalked beside the
horse on the narrow trail, bumping into the girl’s dangling legs
and dodging a hobbling, battle-scarred Maxie at the same time.
Marie balanced the Casket in front of her on Sparkie’s broad
back.

"Maybe you should wait here," said Trace, as
they neared the forest edge.

"No," said Marie, sadly. "It’s all right. The
Angels are all gone now."

The girl’s vision made sense. It had taken
him and Marie over two hours to creep back down the trail, and
during that time everything below had remained silent. Still it had
been silent to begin with. He took the Casket from Marie and set it
on the ground beneath some alder branches, and they eased out into
the open beside Sparkie’s corral.

The house was a glowing mass of embers too
hot to approach, but Ashley’s old station wagon sat in the
driveway. Trace ran to it, discovering the keys inside. He started
it up and backed it across the lawn to get it away from the heat,
then returned to Marie’s side.

"You’re going to have to leave him," he said,
stroking the horse’s neck.

She nodded. "I know."

She slid down and opened the gate. The horse
followed her inside, and she dumped some feed for him in his bin
then stopped, staring into the open metal storage tub filled with
oats and barley.

"What’s the matter?" asked Trace.

"I forgot," she said, picking up the metal
scoop again and shoveling the grain to one side. Before she reached
the bottom Trace spotted the small metal lock box. She handed it to
him, reaching into her shirt and producing a key on a chain.

"Ashley always told me if anything happened
to take the box."

"What’s inside?"

She shrugged.

Trace unlocked and opened the lid, staring in
disbelief at the stacks of bank-wrapped hundred-dollar bills.

Marie nodded."That’s what I figured," she
said. "Most of the Brethren don’t believe in banks."

She glanced past Trace at the burning beams
and walls.

"Didn’t," she corrected herself.

"Come on," said Trace, shoving the box under
his arm and resting his hand on her shoulder.

They left the gate open behind them for
Sparkie.

"He’ll be all right," she said, sadly. "He’s
gotten out before and wandered for days."

"There’s lots of grass around here," agreed
Trace. "And someone will find him and take care of him. We have to
go."

He had to get on the road and get moving, and
he had to find something to do with Marie, and the faster they both
got out of the valley the better. He handed Marie the box and ran
back to the trees to recover the casket. By the time he returned
the girl was in the front seat, the rifle leaning beside her, the
box on the floor between her feet. Maxie had taken over the back
seat. The dog was Marie’s last connection to this valley, to her
past, to Ashley, and it dawned on Trace that Marie and Maxie were
his
last connections to her as well. He climbed into the
seat, closed the door, and started up the car again.

"Where are we going?" asked Marie.

Trace glanced at her, wondering how grown up
she looked in the moonlight now.

"West," he said.

An hour before dawn there were no other cars
in the convenience store parking lot, but the kid at the counter
was so immersed in his tablet that he’d barely bothered to accept
Trace’s money, much less pay attention to how Trace looked or the
medical procedure now taking place in the backseat of the station
wagon out front.

"That’s the best I can do for now," said
Trace, sticking the last of the surgical tape to itself behind
Maxie’s head. The leg was wrapped tightly as was the dog’s side,
and the damaged ear was salved with antiseptics and Cortisone.
Trace had tried to set that bandage so the ear might reattach, but
he was no vet, and they had no time to stop for one, now. Maxie
shook his head and twisted his jaw in a canine attempt at disgust,
but the dressing seemed secure. Trace gave one last look at Marie’s
bandaged palm, but she didn’t seem to be in pain, and the cut was
clean and not nearly so deep as it had at first appeared.

"Don’t scratch," said Trace, giving the dog a
firm look until Maxie stopped and lay down on the seat.

"Where are we going now?" asked Marie. "After
Ashley, right?"

"I am," said Trace, nodding. "Not you. I have
to find some safe place to leave you."

Marie shook her head. "I’m going, too."

"No, you’re not. I don’t even know what I’m
going to do yet. But whatever it is, it’s going to be dangerous,
and you’re no part of it."

The girl turned to stare through the
windshield as Trace pulled back onto the highway.

"I’m more a part of it than you are," she
muttered.

Trace sighed. "I know how you feel, but you
have to understand what kind of people we’re dealing with."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth he
realized how stupid they sounded. Who in the world would know
better what kind of people the Angels were than one of the two last
survivors of both of their massacres? Who would know better than a
young girl with one hand on a rifle and her feet resting on all
that was left of her world?

"I’m sorry," said Trace. "That was a dumb
thing to say."

Marie nodded. "I have to be there."

"I can’t get on a plane with you," argued
Trace. "You don’t have any ID."

"Why can’t we just drive?"

"That will take too long."

Every minute ticking past seemed a lifetime
as it was. Rendt wasn’t going to drive across the country. He was
going to fly. For all Trace knew he might be approaching California
City with Ashley in tow already, but Trace could see wheels turning
in the girl’s head.

"That will give us time to plan."

"Plan what?"

She shrugged. "Plan
something!
We
can’t just drive in there and ask them for Ashley."

She was right about that. In his frustration
and rage he might have done something just that stupid. Only he
wasn’t planning on asking
.
At least it wouldn’t hurt to
drive a few more miles and try to get his brain working. They
weren’t anywhere near a major airport yet, anyway.

He couldn’t just roll into a town of three
thousand people-all devoted to Rendt-and expect help or even a fair
trade for the Casket. What he could expect was to be taken into
some cellar somewhere and to disappear. That wasn’t going to help
Ashley. He stared at the Casket, and finally a dim light of
inspiration blinked on.

Marie frowned. "What?" she said.

"I need to pick up a phone at the next town,"
said Trace.

Ashley was surprised by how little California
City had changed over the years. There were a few new homes, all
expansive, of course, to accommodate large families. There were
also a couple of stores she didn’t recognize downtown. But the
meeting house was the same, all the lawns in front of the homes
verdant and manicured in the hot Arizona sun. She even noticed a
few people she thought she recognized on the sidewalks, although
they made no eye contact with her.

When the limousine pulled into the familiar
wide driveway her heart sank. She had escaped this place-not once
but twice-and now, to be brought back here, to the horrors of that
long ago existence felt like the worst failing a human being could
ever endure.

Not even the butler was inside when Rendt
dragged her through the door. She expected to be shoved up the
stairs to be locked in one of the rooms there. Instead her father
jerked her into his oak lined study where he opened a panel leading
onto a narrow stair.

Ashley had known for years about the temple
in the basement, of course, but none of the women, and certainly no
children, had ever been allowed to venture there. She was surprised
to find, after being dragged down a long stone corridor, that there
was a steel doored cell within the temple itself. Regardless of
what he said, apparently her father understood that holding her in
the house above might not be as simple as locking a door. She
wondered what others had shared this dungeonlike area. The smell of
disinfectant told her that someone certainly had. At least the
sheets on the metal bunk looked clean. She wondered if the butler
changed them.

"You won’t have to stay here long," promised
Rendt, leaning on the edge of the open door.

Ashley refused to answer.

"Just until the women get home. They went out
for the day. The weather was nice. They took a walk."