Deseret (12 page)

“Very good.”
 
The Madman quivered with excitement.
 
“Do you have them here?”

Poe nodded.
 
“Do
you want them now?”
 
What had the
Boatman brought, or what was he supposed to bring—were there more
mysterious canopic jars out there?

“Yes!
 
Give them
to me.”
 
Pratt held out his hands,
which trembled as if he were a drunkard with a bad case of the shakes.
 

“And now,” George Cannon finished, “I will turn the time
over to better speakers than I am.
 
Most of you, I suppose, know Brother John Lee, especially those of you
from the southern valleys.
 
I know
that all of you know who he is.”

Poe shrugged out of his heavy coat and handed it over to
Orson Pratt.
 
The Apostle grinned
to feel the weight in his hands and positively danced into the garment, smiling
from ear to ear.
 
“Thank you,” he
said, patting down the bulky pockets and visibly counting them
one-two-three-four
.
 
“Thanks to your Mr. Jefferson Davis, to whatever extent he knows what is
going on, and to your Mr. Robert Lee, Colonel Lee, that is, and especially to
your Mr. Horace Hunley and his mechanicks!”

Oh, Robert, Poe thought.
 
What insanity have you gotten me involved in?
 
Who is this Madman Pratt, and what is
he up to?

And what infernal devices did Whitney’s boys build for him?

“You will not have forgotten that you owe me some papers as
well,” he reminded Pratt.

“Schematics!” snapped the Apostle.
 
“Of course I haven’t forgotten.”
 
He looked around him as if suspecting eavesdroppers, then
leaned in close to whisper into Poe’s ear.
 
“Tomorrow morning at eight,” he said.
 
“Come to the north entrance to this
building.
 
You’ll get what’s coming
to you then.”

He turned to go and Poe grabbed his lapel.
 
“You’ll understand, sir, that this
makes me nervous.
 
I expected you
to give me the documents
today
.”

“And
I
expected
you
,” Pratt grunted fiercely, “at the
water
station!
 
It’s late, do you understand?
 
I am out of time, I could not possibly have gotten these any
later!
 
Do you imagine that I carry
around air-ship plans in my pockets at all times, waiting for tardy secret
agents, dressed all to catch the eye like Harlequin in some Italian
comedy?
 
Ha!”
 
He snorted like a horse, shook himself
free of Poe’s grasp, and shuffled away, back down the hallway and out of the
Tabernacle.

Poe leaned against the cool plascrete wall, wondering what
was next.

Could Sam Clemens be the Boatman? he wondered.
 
His craft, the
Jim Smiley
, was amphibious, as he had neatly demonstrated at
the crossing of the Bear River.
 
And
if he was the Boatman, had he traded with Pratt for the same schematics Poe
sought?
 
What had he offered in
trade?

Had Sam Clemens shot Brigham Young in exchange for air-ship
schematics?
 

But how would that make any sense?
 
Was it worth deliberately getting the Kingdom of Deseret
into the war on the side of the seceding states, just to be able to have the
schematics of weapons now in the hands of one’s enemies?
 
It didn’t hold together.

But Cannon had said something about the leadership
succession.
 
What had it been?
 
He had said that the Quorum of the
Twelve Apostles would meet to decide who the next President would be.

Could that be it?
 
Clemens had killed Young to clear the way so that Orson Pratt could
become President of the Kingdom of Deseret.
 
In which case, maybe the Boatman’s trade was entirely
different from Poe’s.
 
Maybe
Clemens wasn’t going to get the schematics; maybe what he got in trade was the
promise of the new President to enter the war on the side of the Union and the
north.

And then what?
 
Clemens gets executed, a sacrificed pawn?
 
He’s pardoned, or surreptitiously freed and allowed to
escape in the night by the new President?

Poe shook his head.
 
Not enough information.
 

“You all likely know that Brother Lee is one of the
chieftains among our Danite brothers,” the speaker at the pulpit went on.
 
“What you may not realize is that he is
also the adopted son of President Young.”
 
Cannon paused and looked down, as if struggling with emotion.
 
“At his request, Brother Lee will now
say a few words to the congregation about his father.”

George Cannon stepped back and took a seat.
 
He sat behind the row of Apostles, Poe
noticed, but three of them immediately turned back and held a brief, whispered
conversation with the man.

Have we played into their hands? Poe wondered.
 
Perhaps Whitney’s boys had devised some
terrible weapon, and he, Poe, had just delivered it to the Madman, who as the
Kingdom’s next President would turn that same weapon against the defenseless
troops of Virginia, Alabama and South Carolina.

Perhaps if he showed up at eight o’clock the next morning,
Pratt would have him killed.
 
Perhaps Clemens would pull the trigger himself as his last act before he
fled the Kingdom.
 
Clemens or his
Irish thug with the Henry rifle.

Another man took the pulpit.
 
He had a weary smile between protruding jug ears and hadn’t
shaved for a day or two.
 
He wore a
long brown coat, yellow waistcoat and a red bowtie.
 
Compared to all the long beards behind him and in the
stands, he looked like an eastern dandy, but he had an animal air about him,
something in his step that gave him away to Poe as a fighter and a man of
action.
 

Poe had already seen the man; Lee and his scraggly,
whiny-voiced henchman Bill Hickman had found Poe in the Shoshone stockade only the
night before and had threatened him before being faced down by a combination of
various men, including the two Englishmen and the Yankee Sam Clemens.

Lee gripped the edges of the podium firmly, like he or it or
both might collapse without the mutual support, the he opened his mouth and
spoke in a pleasant, tired baritone.

“Brothers and Sisters, everything is going to be all right.”

There was a collective sigh in the gigantic building, and
then the hum of murmured conversation, as if tens of thousands of bees had been
holding their breaths and now, at the signal of their queen, they could again
begin to buzz.

The doors through which Orson Pratt had exited kicked open,
and in walked a handful of soldiers.
 
They wore the hats, insignia and pistols of Virginia cavalrymen, and at
their head strode a paunchy man with gnarled and ludicrously overgrown
reddish-brown hair climbing both jaws but stopping short of his chin and upper
lip.
 
He wore a Captain’s star and
brass scales on both shoulders, and as he walked his hand rode on the hilt of a
long cavalry saber swinging from his belt.

Poe hesitated.
 
The soldier was a Virginian, and for a moment Poe wrestled with an
impulse to approach the man, reveal his own rank and demand to know what the
Captain’s instructions were.

But of course that was silly.

Poe looked down deferentially, scraped backwards and got out
of the soldiers’ path.

“Brothers and sisters,” the man Lee said again, “I do not
know why the United States government decided it had to murder my father…
our
father… our
prophet
.”

Poe crept out of the hallway and looked around at the filled
seats.
 
His audience hung on Lee’s
every word.

“But I know this.”
 
He raised a warning, instructive finger, his face was stern and
impassioned and patriotic.
 
“They
shall not get away with this foul crime.
 
I will not permit it.
 
We
will not permit it.”

The soldiers marched up the stairs and onto the platform.

“
Our friends
will not
permit it.”

He fell silent and let the import of his words sink in.
 
The murmurs rose to a high pitch and he
waited for them to fade.

The soldiers came to attention in front of the seated
Apostles.
 
Poe looked at the faces
of the Kingdoms’ leaders.
 
Some of
them looked stricken, some fearful, some resolute.
 
None of them seemed surprised by the presence of the
soldiers.

“Brothers and sisters,” John Lee continued.
 
“Allow me to introduce one of our
friends.
 
This is Captain Everett
Morgan of the Third Virginia Cavalry, and some of his men.
 
Captain Morgan will be assisting us to
maintain order in this confusing time.”

Lee stepped slightly to one side and Morgan joined him,
pulling up a speaking tube and talking into it.
 
“Good people of the Kingdom of Deseret,” he said gruffly,
“the great State of Virginia greets you.
 
At the request of your leadership, the men of my unit will be deployed
in the Great Salt Lake City to keep the peace.”

Robert, Poe thought, is this your doing?
 
Plots within plots.
 
Is this a countermove to the Union plot
of which I am unaware?
 
Did Robert
learn of Clemens’s mission after he had sent me, and send in the cavalry to
assist?
 
Would Everett Morgan and
his men arrest Orson Pratt along with the Union soldiers?

Or is there some other game going on here?

Not enough, not enough information.
 
Poe banged one fist into the cup of his
other hand in frustration.

“In addition,” the cavalryman continued, “please be aware
that there is a regiment of Massachusetts infantry at large in the city.
 
If you see them, please do not render
them any assistance, and inform your leaders of their location.
 
You are likely to see gunfire this
afternoon and maybe tonight between us and the men of Massachusetts.
 
Whatever you see, or think you see, I
ask that you remain indoors.
 
Defend yourself against Massachusetts men if you are compelled, but do
not attempt to render assistance to the Third Virginia or otherwise become
involved in any way.
 
Thank you.”

The Captain handed the speaking tube back to Lee and stepped
away again.
 
Murmurs rose again.

Poe wondered who could give him more information.
 
Clemens, if he could find the man, but
he must certainly be in custody.
 
Or if not, if Cannon was lying about that, then the Union man would be
in hiding.

“In order to avoid confusion,” Lee added, “immediately
following this meeting, I will ensure that Captain Morgan and his men are
dressed in
gray
uniforms.
 
If you see men in blue military
uniforms, you should assume that they are soldiers of the United States
military, and you should report them to your Elders or High Priests as soon as
possible.
 
I must add my voice to
the urging of Captain Morgan.
 
Brothers and sisters, I am sorry to say it, but there will be shooting
tonight on the streets of the Great Salt Lake City.
 
I must insist that you protect yourselves and your young
ones.
 
If possible, if you do not need
to be in town for tomorrow morning’s meetings, I suggest that you go out to
your farms, or visit family in Ogden or Provo, if you must.”

Poe left the hallway and started back the way he had
come.
 
The Danish guard didn’t even
notice as he passed, too intent on watching what was happening on the stage.

“Brothers and sisters,” Lee finished, “for now, please go
back to your homes and your shops.
 
Pack some necessaries to get out of Salt Lake for a day or two, collect
your children.
 
Pray for President
Young’s soul, and for the Twelve and the Seventy, but please don’t be
worried.
 
The situation is entirely
under our control.”

Burton, Poe decided.
 
Surely the Englishman must be an ally, and maybe he would even be a
source of information.

Chapter Nine

“I gather at least some of you gentlemen know each other,”
Sam said dryly.
 

He would have liked a lit Cohiba between his teeth, but his
hands were tied behind him, there was a burlap sack over his head and his body
bounced along in the cargo space of a steam-truck that, he thought, could only
be generating that many bumps by driving over a mountain-sized pile of
armadillos.
 

First things first.

He felt a wall against the small of his back and he began
inching his way up it into sitting position.

“The sons of bitches’re probably listenin’, so be careful,
but hell, yeah, I know President Young.”
 
It was Rockwell’s voice, hard and twangy like dried gut, but
muffled.
 
Sam guessed he was
hearing it not only through the sack over his own head, but probably through a
sack covering Rockwell’s head, too.
 
“I thought he knew me, too, but I guess he must a figured old Bill
Hickman and John Lee were more trustworthy.
 
Was it the saloon, Brigham?
 
Was that what turned you against me?”

“Peace, Brother Porter.”
 
Remarkably, Sam thought, Young’s voice did sound peaceful,
though moments earlier Sam would have been unsurprised to see the man rip off
human heads with his bare hands.
 
Peaceful, with a little truck-caused vibrato.
 
“I see that I’ve made a mistake.”

Sam was sitting up now, and turned his attention to his
hood.
 
He shook his head
vigorously—the sack was loose, and he thought it might come off easily,
but for his own thick, curly hair, which caught at it and held it in place.

“I ain’t worried about
me
, Brother Brigham, I’m worried about
you
.
 
Cut
not thy hair
, Brother Joseph told me,
and
no bullet or blade can harm thee
.
 
I ain’t scared of dying.”

“I do not wish to quibble,” Ambassador Armstrong intoned in
his deep voice, “but I saw joo take a bullet only a few minutes ago.”

“I’m
shot
,” Rockwell
admitted sullenly.
 
“I ain’t
harmed
.”

Sam kept shaking his head.
 
His nostrils were full of the smell of apples, and started
to tickle.

“There’s no reason to fear dying, regardless,” Young said,
and now something of the gruff tone returned.
 
“God’s great work will roll on, His mighty machine will
continue to pump and churn and perform its great and mysterious marvels.
 
If four little, nondescript cogs such
as the four of us are taken from one slot and put into another to perform a different
task for awhile, it matters not at all in the eternal scheme of things.”

“Achoo!” Sam sneezed on a downward shake of his head and the
sacking flew off, hitting the truck floor in a cloud of dust.
 

“Salud,” the Ambassador offered.

Sam looked around.
 
The back of the steam-truck was just a big empty box, dimly illuminated
by slices of daylight cutting around the back door that doubled as a
gangplank.
 
The other three men had
all also managed to struggle into sitting position, Sam now saw.
 
Their captors might be sitting up
front, but wherever they were, Sam couldn’t see them.
 

“Thank you,” Sam said.

Rockwell’s head snapped up.
 
“I can hear you better now, Clemens.
 
Someone take the sack off your face?”

Sam laughed.
 
“I
sneezed it off.
 
Just an everyday
marvel performed by one of God’s nondescript little cogs.”

“Can joo see the men?
 
Are they watching us?”

“No,” Sam told them.
 
“We’re alone in some kind of cargo space.
 
I assume you all can smell the stink of apples just as well
as I can.
 
Our captor-cogs must be
performing
their
share of the Lord’s
marvels by driving the truck.”

“Fools mock, but they shall mourn,” Brigham Young said
grimly.

“I don’t recognize the reference,” Sam admitted, “and I
thought I was familiar with the Bible.”
 
He looked at Rockwell.
 
The
man’s buckskin shirt was soaked in blood, but the floor wasn’t.
 
He seemed to have bled for a while and
then stopped.
 
“For a man that’s
been shot, Mr. Rockwell, you look like you’re doing alright to me.”

“No bullet or blade,” Rockwell repeated, nodding his
sack-shrouded head.

“It’s from the Book of Ether,” Young sniffed, as if he was
repeating something that every idiot knew.

“Ether.”
 
Sam
didn’t recognize the name.
 
“Is
that the stuff in outer space or the stuff that puts you to sleep?”

“Both!” Rockwell guffawed.
 

“Porter!”

Rockwell hung his head.
 
“Sorry, Brother Brigham.”

“It is good that joo mock, a little,” Ambassador Armstrong
offered.
 
Sam almost laughed.
 
The combination of the Ambassador’s
accent and the sight of three men with sacks over their heads made him feel
like he was in some sort of comic medicine show.
 
“Mockery is the health of a democracy.
 
But joo must not mock too much, and joo
must not mock to hurt.
 
Joo mock to
tell the truth.”

“I don’t intend to hurt, Mr. Ambassador,” Sam deferred to
the other man.
 
“I just don’t
understand.
 
I don’t see how it is
that Mr. Young can know that he’s a cog in God’s great machine, and that if he
dies, God will just move him somewhere else and give him another job.
 
I can’t even imagine what that would
be.
 
Personally, if this little
jaunt ends in my death, I hope the good Lord reassigns me to the haunting of
Mr. Hickman.
 
But how does Mr.
Young know, one way or the other?
 
It’s the certainty that I feel I have to mock.
 
I poke fun at it in order to deflate it.”

“The question you want to ask me isn’t
how does Mr. Young
know
,” Young asserted.
 
He had an almost-angry edge to his
voice and a disturbing amount of dignity, for a man with an apple sack over his
head.

“No?” Sam asked.
 
He hadn’t really thought that he was asking any question at all.

“The question you want to ask me is
how can Mr.
Clemens
know
.”

Sam had no answer to that, and they bounced along a while in
silence.

*
  
*
  
*

Burton nodded to the gypsy Egyptianeer Archibald on the way
down.
 
The purveyor of circus-ring
Egyptology raised a finger like he wanted to get Burton’s attention, but Burton
had no time for the man and kept walking.
 
If he waited, he’d lose his opportunity.

A big man stood at the bottom of the stairs like a sentinel,
but he was distracted, staring up at the pulpit over his head with tears in his
blue eyes.
 
Burton pushed past him
and aimed for the small knot of military men crossing the plascrete well of the
Tabernacle, heading for a discreet exit.

“Captain Everett Morgan!” he called out, straightening his
own back and shoulders to a self-consciously military bearing.
 
“Sir!”

Morgan turned.
 
Close up, his facial hair made him look bellicose and dangerous.
 
Burton smiled at the man, grateful that
his own scars gave him a certain ugly masculine charisma as a
counterpoise.
 

“Yes, suh,” Morgan said.
 
His voice was heavy with a sort of sardonic skepticism.

“I am Captain Richard Burton,” Burton identified himself,
extending a hand, “Special Envoy of Her Britannic Majesty, Queen Victoria.”

“You hear that, boys?” Morgan drawled over his
shoulder.
 
“Even the Queen is
taking an interest.”
 
He didn’t
take Burton’s hand.

“Yes,” Burton snapped sternly.
 
“Yes, by Indra’s thundering chariots, she is!
 
What kind of military officer are you,
that so cavalierly dismisses the envoy of a valued and valuable ally, and that
on the brink of war!”

“Brink?” Morgan asked, slyly.
 
“I’m afraid I must correct you, suh.
 
The brink, exciting as it was, was
yesterday.
 
Today is rather more
hum-drum and ordinary.
 
Today is
merely another day of war.”

“All the more reason!” Burton snarled through grinding
teeth.

“As for alliances, suh, do you imagine that a mere officer
in the field makes decisions as to what nations are and are not his allies?”

“No sir, I do not!” Burton raged.
 
“I also do not imagine that such a man, if he wishes to
remain in the field and an officer, may with impunity ignore the decisions of
his government as to who his allies are!”

One of the cavalrymen surged forward like he wanted to punch
Burton.
 
Burton welcomed the
attack, longed for a chance to prove himself to these men, but Captain Morgan
held his soldier back with a half-raised fist.
 
He met Burton’s fierce gaze with a sly look and seemed to
think for a moment.
 

“Tell me then, suh,” Morgan finally said.
 
“Your Queen.
 
Whose ally is she?
 
Is she the ally of the United States?
 
Or is she the ally of some other party?”

Burton had no patience for this fiddle-faddle, and for a
moment he almost wished Fearnley-Standish were here.
 
Just for a moment, though.
 
He bit back the bitter thought and organized some careful
words, words such as he thought a true diplomat might conjure with.
 
“Her Majesty is a friend of the
American people,” he said, “and their various governments, and a friend of
peace.
 
I am her Special Envoy with
a mission to the Kingdom of Deseret—”

“Yes, suh!” Morgan clapped as if applauding some point he
himself had won.
 
“And I am a
humble officer of the Third Virginia Cavalry.
 
If you wish to discuss the affairs of the Kingdom of
Deseret—” he pointed up at the stage, at John Lee, “you should talk to
that man.”

“I have a mission,” Burton ground out each word slowly and
distinctly, “and I had hoped to be able to discuss it with my ally.
 
Perhaps I have mistaken you.”

“Perhaps you have,” the Captain agreed lightly.
 
“Perhaps, if you find yourself at such
a loss, it means that your mission, as you refer to it, is finished.
 
I certainly have no instructions for
you, no instructions regarding you, and no interest in further conversation.
 
I have my own orders, my own men to
take care of, enemies to pursue and reinforcements for whose arrival I must
prepare.
 
Good day, suh.”

Captain Morgan tipped his hat sarcastically and disappeared
into the exit.

Burton was so mad he almost spit on the floor.

*
  
*
  
*

“Hell and begorra!”

Tam’s head hurt for want of a drink.
 
It had been hours, and Mother
O’Shaughnessy had never let him go that long without at least a nip, even as a
boy.

The midget disappeared, out through the gates of the train
station and into the Great Salt Lake City.
 
He still carried the
machine-gun
case like he was a dance hall fiddler, and the pack
full of ammunition and loaded extra drums slung over one shoulder.
 
Even heavily laden as he was, he was
hard to keep eyes on in the crowd.

It hadn’t been easy following him with the little kid in
tow.
 
Tam had switched his hat and
coat for a big, dirty duster and a broad-brimmed cattleman’s hat he’d found in
Browning’s shop, and he’d made the boy wear his own porkpie.
 
He’d put on a kerchief and tucked his
long scarf in his pocket and wished he had a pair of dark glasses.

“Keep your eyes down and your mouth shut, boy,” he’d warned
the kid, “or I’ll by Brigit shoot you and leave you for the buzzards.”

“I ain’t afraid of you,” the boy John Moses had said at
once, but then he’d shut up and done as he’d been told.
 
Tam had kept a hand on the grip of one
of his Hushers the entire time, but he hadn’t had to draw the gun.

The midget was a suspicious little bastard, though, always
looking around him and sometimes doubling back on his own tracks.
 
Tam wondered what he was afraid of
(though in this fallen world, wasn’t it the honest and prudent man who was
always afraid of everything, and always looking out for his own interests?),
and stayed on his toes so the little man never got a good look at his face.

Was it the Pinkertons he feared?
 
It might be.
 
There’d been two at the Great Salt Lake City train station, on the very
platform, when Tam had disembarked, poking around with their calotypes and
asking questions.
 
Tam had
tightened his grip on the boy’s hand, but the Pinkertons hadn’t approached him
and there hadn’t been any trouble.
 
Lucky for him, the Mormons didn’t seem all that interested in being
forthcoming with the Pinkertons.
 
The cold shoulder he saw them giving the lawmen was almost enough to
endear the Kingdom of Deseret to him forever.
 
Coltrane had gone one way, right in front of one of the
detectives, so cool butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, and Tam had dragged the
boy with him in the other direction.
 
They’d crossed over the tracks below on parallel catwalks, Tam careful
not to overtake the smaller man with his longer steps.