Blood of the Faithful (25 page)

Eliza and Steve rolled up from the southern half of the valley, approaching the city itself at a creeping, unthreatening pace. Before leaving the Point of the Mountain, they’d stuck a pair of rifle butts out the gun ports on either side and tied a white sheet around either one. By the time they reached the 4500 South off-ramp, they were driving slowly enough that any watchers would have time to study the sheets and determine the vehicle didn’t pose a threat.

But that didn’t mean Eliza wasn’t bracing for attack. The world may have lost its governments, its farmland, its networks of trade, but it was awash in weapons and ammunition. Any survivors must by definition have enough firepower to defend themselves. With the National Guard armories in Salt Lake, plus Hill Air Force Base up in Ogden, the survivors would surely have heavy weaponry as well.

And the closer they got to the center of town, the more evidence they saw of a major battle: wrecked tanks, a downed helicopter, gutted Humvees, and armored personnel carriers. There were a few dead, withered bodies, and animal-gnawed bones jutting from khaki pants.

They stopped the vehicle at the 900 South off-ramp. The wind blew from the west, sending plastic bags and tumbleweeds across the roadbed. The off-ramp continued until the curve, where it had been torn up to prevent passage.

“We found them,” Steve said, his gravelly voice turning grim. “Look.”

What she’d taken for a series of bomb craters between the exit lane and the freeway were really foxholes. Camouflage netting covered a dug-in artillery piece, and the tips of two antitank guns jutted out from behind sandbags, aiming in their direction.

“I don’t see people, though,” she said. “You’re sure they’re manned?”

“I saw movement. Stay here.”

Steve opened the door and waved his arm before she could ask him what he meant. When that failed to draw a response, he emerged slowly from the truck, leaving the door open. He stepped back and grabbed the white sheet from the rifle butt on his side of the vehicle, then walked in front of the truck with the sheet outstretched.

“Hello? Is anyone there? We come in peace.”

This last bit sounded clichéd, but seemed to have the desired effect. Two men with assault rifles climbed out of one of the holes. They wore uniforms, which made Eliza nervous. The men approached warily, while behind them, one of the antitank guns moved back and forth, as if to inform the strangers that they were one ill-advised move from annihilation.

There was no way Eliza would leave Steve alone to face whatever awaited him, so she opened her door slowly and waved her hands before coming out. She put her hands on her head and waited for the men to approach. They crossed the stretch of broken-up pavement and stopped some twenty feet away.

“Who are you?” one of the men asked. “And what do you want?”

He had a Utah accent. Young guy, maybe twenty. Blond, wholesome look, like the families from old-time pioneer stock. The same pioneer stock that had sired Eliza. The other man was Hispanic, but he too, seemed like a young, frightened kid. She could imagine the horrors these two had seen.

When Eliza spotted the uniforms, she’d been afraid this was an army base. Fernie had come back from the Green River refugee camp to tell Eliza that Salt Lake was under partial Federal control. Maybe there was no one left up here but military.

But the appearance of these kids, plus the one boy’s Utah accent, gave her renewed hope. She decided to take a chance.

“We’re citizens of Utah,” Eliza said, “looking to make contact with the state government. Does it still exist?”

The young men looked back and forth between each other. The blond kid shrugged and his companion glanced back toward the foxhole, as if seeking instructions from a superior.

“Is there a government?” Eliza pressed. “Is there a mayor of Salt Lake? A city council? Who is in charge?”

“The governor runs things,” the blond kid said. “Jim McKay.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

The soldiers didn’t abuse the newcomers, but Eliza and Jim were treated like prisoners. After cuffing their hands behind their back, a pair of soldiers led them down the off-ramp and up to 900 South and the outer edge of the wall of rubble and dirt. Behind them, more men inspected the Methuselah tank.

Steve cast a worried glance over his shoulder at her. “Jim McKay,” he muttered to Eliza. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

The McKays were their old nemeses in the state government. The brothers were cousins of Eliza’s father, Abraham Christianson. When he was senator, Jim McKay had instructed his brother Parley, the attorney general, to go after the polygamists to demonstrate to the evangelicals in the Republican Party that he had severed all ties to his fundamentalist relatives. Later, as governor, Jim McKay had been involved in that business stealing Blister Creek’s grain to ship it to the Green River refugee camp.

Eliza had hoped to come into the city, tell the government about Blister Creek, report what they’d seen along the road from Southern Utah, and see if they could establish a connection between her hometown and the government. But McKay was their enemy. And he apparently ruled over a walled city like some sort of medieval fortress.

A few blocks later, the wall jogged across the street to enclose a squat brick building that still carried the sign of the credit union it had once housed. Men sat at machine guns on the roof, while others squatted in bunkers on either side of the front doors. There was some discussion between their guards and a uniformed woman who seemed to be in charge here, before the guards led Steve and Eliza into the credit union lobby and through the building.

Eliza blinked in surprise when they emerged on the inside of the city wall. Most of the buildings on the interior were gone: the chain restaurants, motels, condos, and working-class houses that had lined the streets on this side of town.

The ground had been meticulously cleared of rubble, the foundations filled in. In the place of buildings was what appeared to be the world’s largest community garden—raised beds and fields and even new vines and tiny fruit trees, crisscrossed by the gridded streets of pioneer-era Utah. Men, women, and children worked by hand weeding and pruning. Irrigation ditches passed through culverts beneath the streets to emerge in fields and gardens.

“Mormons,” Steve said, admiringly. “You’ve got to hand it to them. They know how to organize.”

Eliza felt a glow of pride at this, even though these people were mainstream LDS, who had been hostile to the polygamist sects for a hundred years now. But they were cousins of her church, born of the same heritage.

And it wasn’t just Mormons who had survived. Modern Salt Lake had been a large, diverse city, and she caught glimpses of people from different ethnicities: Hispanics, Asians, and even a few Polynesians and African Americans. Some of the workers wore tank tops and shorts, which meant they weren’t even LDS, since they couldn’t be wearing LDS undergarments beneath their clothes.

While most of the land had been cleared for gardens, many of the larger office buildings or apartments remained, and it was here that people lived. Clotheslines hung out laundry to dry, with large, multifamily outhouses out back, together with pens for pigs and chickens. No cattle that she could see, but they would be difficult to care for without fodder or grazing land.

“Where are we going, the Capitol Building?” Eliza asked the guards.

The blond kid gave her a look. “That was destroyed last year in an airstrike. The governor rules from Temple Square.”

“Sorry about the cuffs,” McKay said. “People these days can be . . .
zealous.
” He nodded at the two young men who’d brought in Eliza and Steve. “You can leave us.”

Eliza rubbed her wrists and watched the departing soldiers as they shut the door to the office behind them. The only light inside the office was sunlight streaming through the windows. McKay had a big map of Utah on one wall, marked with hundreds of pins of various colors. What they meant, she couldn’t guess.

McKay himself looked older, thinner, and more careworn than she remembered from seeing him on TV. His hair had gone gray, and worry lines spread from the corners of his mouth. But far from looking beaten down, there was something hard and determined in his expression.

“You know who we are, right?” Eliza asked, surprised that they’d been left alone with the governor.

“Of course,” McKay said. “You’re my first cousin, once removed. One of Abraham’s daughters. This is Steve . . . um, Kravitz? FBI.”

“Krantz,” Steve said.

“Right. How is your partner? I can’t remember her name, but she was LDS, I remember.”

“Agent Fayer died last year,” Steve said. “Picked up cholera in Las Vegas and we didn’t get her to Dr. Christianson in time.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. How is Dr. Christianson? And his wife, Fernie. How is she?”

Eliza frowned, her suspicion growing. McKay had seemed momentarily surprised when the guards appeared at his door with the prisoners, but had recovered quickly. Too quickly. He seemed pleased—no doubt he was delighted to have his old enemies fall into his hands.

Eliza had once served as a sister missionary in this very building during her ill-advised attempt to leave Blister Creek and join the mainstream church. All of the old missionary stuff was gone, and it seemed to serve as offices for what remained of the state government, the state itself now reduced to a few square miles and the survivors hiding within the city walls.

“They’re good,” she said cautiously.

“I’m glad to hear it. I want to thank Fernie someday.”

“Hmm.”

“I’ve been inside all morning,” the governor said. “Would you two come outside and walk around the square with me?”

Eliza glanced at Steve, who nodded. They followed the governor outside.

She was surprised at how little Temple Square had changed. The temple and its spires still dominated one end, with the rest of the block taken up by the turtle-shaped tabernacle, the visitors’ centers, and the outdoor gardens. Miraculously, gardeners were still caring for the flower beds. And there were still trees, their leafy branches spreading welcome shade. The entire scene provided a haven of unexpected and welcome beauty. With the walls of the square itself encircling the block, it was easy to pretend that nothing had changed.

McKay took a deep breath. He led the two newcomers toward the temple. It loomed cathedral-like over them, much larger than Blister Creek’s smaller temple. The three of them took a seat on a bench in the sunlight.

“What happened here, Mr. McKay?” Eliza asked. “Who attacked you?”

“Federal troops. The government declared Utah in a state of rebellion.”

After the Battle of Las Vegas, the governor explained, the army had withdrawn from Nevada. Technically, the Federal government had won the battle, having thrashed the rebellious Californians and driven them from Vegas. But the army had been unable to mount an offensive to reclaim the Pacific states. Stretched supply lines collapsed, leaving them without food. They’d rolled into northern Utah to scavenge. Civilians who had been living on their food storage found their pantries raided, their gardens picked over by thousands of troops.

People resisted. There were incidents. Martial law was declared. An army general hanged dozens, including mayors, Mormon bishops, and even the president of BYU when he refused to allow the military to turn the campus into a military encampment. Soon, the region was in full rebellion.

“We won,” McKay said grimly. “But only because we killed all of them and they only killed ninety percent of us.”

“Ninety percent.” Eliza couldn’t keep the horror out of her voice.

He told how the battle had progressed. The army had destroyed Utah County first, fought a battle with the Utahns at Point of the Mountain, then swept into the Salt Lake Valley. There, they wiped out one town after another until they were finally stopped at the hastily constructed city wall. And if the army hadn’t run low on food and ammo, they’d have overrun downtown, as well.

“Most of our people died from disease and starvation—that’s the way of a siege. Hunger weakens you, and disease finishes you off.”

“But still, ninety percent. So many.”

“Yes.”

“Two million people lived on the Wasatch Front,” Steve said, his brow furrowed. “That still leaves a couple hundred thousand people. Do you have that many living here?”

“Ninety percent of
what was left,
” McKay said. “We’d already suffered terribly when they came. The current population of Salt Lake is thirty-two thousand. That’s all that remains of the two million.” He looked at Eliza. “I imagine you’ve gone through much of the same in Blister Creek.”

She looked down at her hands, suddenly guilty that she’d suffered so little while the rest of the world had collapsed.

“No?” he said, a frown spreading.

“I’m sorry, we haven’t. We were attacked, and some people have died because of inadequate medical care. But—” She hesitated. If McKay were their enemy, he would show it now. “But there are more people in town than ever. New babies keep getting born.”

McKay stared at her. A deep pain flickered across his face, a hint of anger. Steve stiffened next to Eliza, as if prepared to fight if the governor turned violent.

Then McKay turned away with a groan. “I should have known. After what happened with Fernie Christianson, why would I be surprised?”

Eliza had heard of Fernie’s encounter with the governor at the Green River refugee camp two years earlier, near the beginning of the crisis. But Fernie had been reluctant to share details. Eliza was now curious.

“What do you mean?”

“Fernie saved my life, you know. The mob was going to tear me apart, and that woman in her wheelchair stood them off. Bravest thing I’ve ever seen. And the most righteous. She could have let me die, probably should have. She didn’t. It was like she had the hand of—well, I don’t want to get too mystic about it, but something changed in me that day.”

“I can see that, the way you’ve held this together.”

“I haven’t managed very well. Our food supplies are gone, and all we have left is what we can grow ourselves. It’s not enough. We need more farmland, for one, but there are hundreds, maybe thousands of lawless people out there. Bandits and murderers, rogue army units. Mostly men, mostly young. They’re desperate and violent. People venture out, they get killed.”

“I still don’t understand what you mean when you said you should have known,” Eliza said.

“I should have known that if anywhere would be safe and protected, it would be Blister Creek. You were organized. Prepared.” He sighed and looked down. “If only we’d pulled together sooner.”

“You pulled together better than Las Vegas,” Steve said. “That’s
completely
gone.”

“I know, I heard.”

“What else do you know?” Steve asked. “Is there anything left out there?”

It turned out that McKay had been in radio contact with a handful of other towns across the heartland of the continent: Boulder, Rexburg, Helena, Omaha, Duluth, Cardston, Lubbock, Lincoln. Through them, he’d received news from more distant places.

Most of what was left of the country was clinging to the coasts, with the center of the nation a vast, burned-over wasteland. Tens of millions had starved on the East Coast, but there were still a number of smaller towns and some sort of military regime centered in the New York area. But entire states had gone black. Canada and Mexico had fared similarly, with the northern neighbor freezing and the country to the south falling into drought and famine and disease.

Outside of North America, Europe had fared badly, the freezing weather devastating agriculture and leaving them in famine. The Middle East was in even worse shape, torn by conflict and heavily reliant on imported food. After the American war in the Gulf, Israel had expended its nuclear weapons as a last-ditch effort to keep out millions of starving, armed Arabs.

There had been fewer wars in Africa, but most of the continent had simply starved to death, except, people said, the least developed regions. The poor, rural villages had never been connected to the rest of the regional or global economy, and with their tropical climates had better weathered the volcanic winter. Or so it was speculated. Nobody knew for sure.

Nobody had any information about India or Pakistan since their nuclear war, but they were presumed gone. Another nuclear exchange had occurred in East Asia during the Sino-Japanese War. Hundreds of millions of Chinese had died of famine and disease, even though they had ultimately won the war. Nobody knew if Japan had been completely overrun by the Chinese or not.

Southeast Asia had lost its rice crop for two straight years and starved. Apparently Australia had been doing relatively well until a massive flotilla filled with millions of Asian refugees had overwhelmed the country. After that, the country had gone dark, but it was a big continent, with a vast interior. Who knew?

“What about New Zealand?” Steve said.

McKay shrugged. “No idea.”

“South America?” Steve asked.