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Authors: J. A. Johnstone

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“She doesn’t have any brothers. Webster had only the one wife, Selena’s mother. Never wanted any others, or so he claimed. And after Selena was born . . . well, I guess her mother couldn’t have any more children or something. She was the only one. That made her pretty unusual.”

“I imagine.” Conrad knew Mormons were noted for their large families.

“Being unusual made Hissop want her even more, I think. He’s always regarded her as special, even when she was a child.”

They came to a stop behind the house. As Kingman had said, it was a typical, low-ceilinged, flat-roofed adobe ranch house. Thick beams known as vigas protruded along the upper edges of the walls. A shaded, arbor-like portal was set in the center of the building.

“The kitchen is inside that door,” Kingman whispered. “Selena’s room is to the right. Her father’s room is the other way, at the left front of the house.”

“Unless Webster’s changed things around in case somebody tries to sneak in and get her.”

Kingman grunted. “You’re giving the man credit for too much intelligence. Webster never had a thought in his head that Father Agony didn’t have first.” He started forward. “Come on.”

Conrad catfooted along behind Kingman. The young man had just reached the door and was about to pull the string that would open the latch when light suddenly blazed up all around them. Men with torches had lit them and stepped around both corners of the house, and the reddish glare washed over Conrad and Kingman, blinding them for a moment.

Conrad could hear just fine, though, so he had no trouble hearing the deadly
clack-clack
of Winchester levers being worked, followed by a honeyed purr of a voice declaring triumphantly, “See, brethren, how the Lord has delivered the evildoers right into our hands?”

Conrad knew without being told that the voice belonged to Elder Agonistes Hissop.

Father Agony.

Chapter 27

Despite the glaring torchlight, from the corner of his eye Conrad saw Kingman reach for a gun. His hand shot out and closed around Kingman’s wrist, stopping the draw before it could really begin. Half blind, surrounded by riflemen, slapping leather would only get them shot to pieces. That wouldn’t help save Selena or anybody else.

“Easy,” Conrad said. “They’ll kill you.”

“You’re blessed right we will,” a familiar voice rumbled. It belonged to Jackson Leatherwood, Conrad realized. The leader of the avenging angels was somewhere behind the light. “Sooner or later, we’ll kill you no matter what you do, you heathens, so you might as well go ahead and reach for your irons now and get it over with.”

“Now, now, Jackson,” another voice scolded. “There’s no need to gloat, simply because we have emerged triumphant from our travails with these young men. You gentlemen drop your weapons, please. Carefully. Use your left hands.” It was Hissop.

Kingman glanced at Conrad. A muscle jumped in his tightly clenched jaw.

“Better do what he says,” Conrad warned. “This isn’t over.”

Hissop chuckled. “Listen to your Gentile friend, Daniel, but be advised he’s wrong about one thing. This is most definitely over.”

Conrad reached with his left hand and slid the Colt out of its holster. He leaned over and placed the revolver on the ground. Beside him, Kingman sighed and followed suit. He dropped his knife on the ground next to the gun.

Once the two of them were disarmed, several men hurried forward. They wore the wide-brimmed hats and long coats of avenging angels, but Conrad didn’t recognize any of them. He figured the men would grab them and hustle them off to wherever Hissop intended to lock them up, but without warning, one of the men rammed a rifle barrel in his belly. Conrad doubled over in pain. Another man kicked his feet out from under him. The same thing happened to Kingman. As the avenging angels closed in around them, Conrad thought they intended to stomp the life out of him and Kingman.

Instead, the men stopped, then the circle parted. Conrad lifted his head. Jackson Leatherwood came through the gap first and looked down at the prisoners with a sneer on his ugly face, making it even uglier. Then Leatherwood stepped aside to allow the much smaller man to regard Conrad and Kingman with a solemn expression.

The man was in his late fifties or early sixties, with a slightly round face and wispy white hair. Unlike most of the Mormon elders, he was clean shaven. He wore a sober black suit and a string tie. His mild demeanor and small stature made him seem harmless at first glance, but Conrad saw the madness burning in his pale blue eyes.

“You men have caused me a great deal of trial and tribulation,” Hissop said. “I cannot tell you how much it saddens my heart to see that you still oppose the will of the Lord, Daniel.”

“It’s not the Lord’s will I oppose,” Kingman said through teeth gritted against the pain of getting hit in the stomach. “It’s yours!”

“I am the voice of heaven on earth,” Hissop replied calmly. “My will
is
the Lord’s will.” He looked at Conrad. “As for you, young man, I expect nothing but heresy and blasphemy from an unbeliever, and you have not disappointed me. Unlike some of my faith, I bear no ill will toward Gentiles, but I cannot allow your sins to go unpunished. You made a bad mistake when you cast your lot with this defiant young sinner.”

“I was just trying to help a young woman,” Conrad said.

“Help her to do what?” Hissop shot back. “To fly in the face of everything that is divine and holy? The will of the Lord will not be thwarted . . .
and neither will mine.”

“We’ll take them out and kill them, Elder,” Leatherwood said.

Hissop shook his head. “No! I will give this boy one more chance to repent of his sins.” Hissop hunkered on his heels next to Kingman. He took hold of Kingman’s chin and wrenched his head up. “You will attend my wedding to Selena Webster and witness her being joined to me by God. What happens after that will be up to you. You can renounce your sins by joining in the praise of this holy union, in which case you will save not only yourself but also those poor young men you deluded into following you. Or you can remain defiant, and I will have no choice but to order that all of you be put to death.”

“You’ll . . . save the others?”

“They will escape the fate that would be theirs otherwise, yes. You have my word on it.”

“And what about Browning?”

It surprised Conrad that Kingman would give him any thought.

“He is a Gentile,” Hissop said. “His sins go far beyond anything in my power to pardon. For the crime of killing our brethren, he must die. But I will see to it his death is quick and painless.”

Kingman looked over at Conrad and swallowed. “And all I have to do is . . . give my blessing to your marriage to Selena?”

“That is correct,” Hissop said.

“Elder . . .”

“Yes?” Hissop purred as he leaned closer to hear what the young man had to say.

Kingman spat in his face. “Burn in hell, you old toad!”

A split second later, the toe of Leatherwood’s boot smashed into Kingman’s side, half lifting him off the ground and making him groan in pain. While he lay there whimpering, Hissop straightened. Slowly and with great dignity, he drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the spittle from his face. He nodded to Leatherwood, who kicked Kingman again.

“You have sealed your fate,” Hissop intoned as he threw the handkerchief on the ground next to Kingman. “But before you die, you will watch the woman become my bride.” He jerked a hand toward Leatherwood. “Take them both and put them with the others.”

At least some of the other men had been captured, too, Conrad thought. That came as no surprise. Clearly, Hissop had been expecting them to show up and probably had set up traps at the homes of the other women. Conrad had known from the start that was a possibility, but he had hoped they could rescue the women before Hissop had a chance to put such a plan into action.

The avenging angels reached down, grabbed Conrad and Kingman by the arms, and hauled them to their feet, being none too gentle about it. They were marched toward Hissop’s house, then the group turned aside and shoved the prisoners toward a large barn. Torchlight revealed the barn was built of roughly sawn planks. More torches burned inside.

Ollie and two other men were next to a parked buckboard, tied to the thick posts that supported the roof. They were bruised and bloodied and their clothes were torn. Clearly, they had been ambushed and beaten, too. The fourth man wasn’t there. Conrad wondered if he had been killed during the struggle.

Ollie let out a groan when he saw Conrad and Kingman. “Aw, Dan, I was hopin’ you and Mr. Browning got away with Selena.”

Leatherwood smashed a fist across Ollie’s face. “Shut your heathen mouth,” he growled. “Don’t sully the name of Elder Hissop’s new bride.”

Riflemen surrounded them, so there was no chance to try anything as Conrad and Kingman were thrust up against posts and lashed into place. The men who tied the ropes made sure to jerk the knots cruelly tight. Conrad felt his hands go numb almost instantly.

When the avenging angels were satisfied the prisoners weren’t going anywhere, they stepped back. Hissop had followed them into the barn and he stood before the group of captives. “You other men should know you’ll be dying because of Daniel Kingman’s refusal to repent of his sins. It’s too late to save any of you.”

“It’s always been too late,” Kingman said as his head hung forward and he panted for breath. “From the first time any of us . . . dared to stand up to you . . . you made up your mind to kill all of us. It’s the only way you can . . . hang on to your power.”

“My power has been bestowed upon me by the Lord God Almighty and cannot be taken away by you or anyone else,” Hissop declared. “Just as Joseph Smith was visited by the angel Nephi, I, too, was visited by divine messengers who delivered unto me the knowledge and the strength to wrest this piece of heaven from a godforsaken wilderness!” He flung out his arms to indicate their surroundings in the basin. “You cannot oppose the will of God and His prophet without paying the ultimate price!” Hissop turned to Leatherwood and snapped, “Guard them closely. I don’t want anything happening before the wedding this afternoon.”

“I understand, Elder,” Leatherwood replied.

Hissop stalked out of the barn. Leatherwood picked out four of his men and told them to stand guard over the prisoners. Then he and the rest of the avenging angels left. Clearly, there were preparations to be made before Father Agony could take Selena as his latest bride.

“What happened to Thomas?” Kingman asked quietly when everyone was gone except the guards. “Is he dead?”

“I sorta wish he was, and I hate to say that,” Ollie replied. “The rest of us put up a fight when Leatherwood’s men jumped us, but Thomas surrendered and talked Elder Hissop into forgivin’ him.”

“How did he do that?” Kingman asked in obvious amazement.

“He promised to go with Leatherwood back to our valley, on the other side of the salt flats. Leatherwood’s gonna go over there and burn down all our cabins and kill anybody he finds still there.”

“Betrayed . . .” Kingman muttered. “It’s all gone now. Nothing left.”

But there was still one sliver of hope remaining, Conrad thought as he stood against the post where he was tied.

That hope’s name was Arturo Vincenzo.

Chapter 28

Conrad knew it was a crazy thought, but Arturo wasn’t with the prisoners, and no one had said anything about him, so it was possible he was still somewhere in the vicinity of Juniper Canyon, still free. If everything had gone as planned, Arturo would have waited where he was with the horses until Conrad and the others came back.

But things hadn’t gone as planned, and Arturo might have realized that. In which case, if he saw some of the avenging angels coming to look for the prisoners’ horses, he might have abandoned the animals and fled up the side of the canyon to go into hiding. That notion wasn’t so far-fetched.

The far-fetched part was hoping Arturo could do something on his own to save them.

Despite the times when he had risen to the occasion, Arturo wasn’t a fighting man. He never would be. It simply wasn’t his nature. Against a couple hundred enemies, he would stand no chance at all. He would be doing good merely to survive for a little while.

But where he couldn’t outfight the avenging angels, maybe he could outthink them. If Arturo could figure out where Conrad and the others were being held, and somehow free them, they might still be able to fight their way out of Juniper Canyon and make a run for the Valley of the Outcast Saints, where they would make their final stand against Father Agony and his followers.

If wishes were horses, Conrad thought bitterly. The odds against Arturo being able to pull off something like that were so small as to be practically nonexistent.

A dawn wind sprang up outside, gusting through the open doors of the barn and whipping up a swirl of dust that stung Conrad’s eyes and nose. It bothered the other prisoners as well, but tied up as they were, there was nothing they could do about it.

The guards pulled their bandannas up over their mouths and noses, protecting them from the dust, then moved farther into the shelter of the barn, but remaining close and alert.

Conrad watched the yellow light grow outside and knew the sun was coming up, shining through the pall of dust hanging in the air. He looked over at Kingman and asked quietly, “Do you get storms like this very often?”

“Windstorms, you mean?”

Conrad nodded.

“This isn’t a storm,” Kingman said. “This is just a little blow. Sometimes the wind howls for days on end, and the dust is so thick in the air you can barely see your hand in front of your face. This is nothing.”

Maybe so, Conrad thought, but it might be enough to come in handy by serving as a distraction for the avenging angels, just in case Arturo was skulking around somewhere. It was a faint hope, but Conrad was going to cling to whatever he could.

“Ollie,” he said, keeping his voice low enough the guards wouldn’t hear it over the wind. “Ollie, have you seen any sign of Arturo?”

“You mean the Italian fella?” Ollie shook his head. “Not since we left him earlier. You reckon they caught him?”

“If they had, chances are they would have put him with us. I think he might still be loose out there somewhere.”

Kingman looked and sounded skeptical. “Even if he is, what good can he do for us? He’s just one man, and not much of one, at that.”

“That’s what you think,” Conrad said.

“Don’t try to give these men hope when there isn’t any,” Kingman snapped. “It’s bad enough I’ve gotten you all killed. Don’t make it worse.”

“We’re not dead yet,” Conrad pointed out.

Time dragged. The heat in the barn rose as the day went on. Beads of sweat popped out on Conrad’s forehead and trickled into his eyes and over his cheeks. He blinked them away and forced himself to look around the barn, trying to figure out if there was anything that could be useful in case of a fight. He saw a couple pitchforks and knew their sharp tines made wicked weapons. Through an open door he spotted a pair of shovels and a hoe, along with some other tools like hammers and a keg of nails. A number of boards leaning against the wall in the storeroom were probably used to patch the barn where horses kicked holes in the walls.

Saddles and tack were stored behind another open door, and several ropes hung on nails near the door of the tack room. The barn had more than a dozen stalls, but only four of them held big, stolid-looking horses that probably formed the team for the buckboard.

A bit of a puzzlement was a large, folded piece of canvas that had been painted in bright blue and white stripes. “What’s that?” Conrad asked Ollie. “Looks like a piece of a circus tent.”

“That’s part of the old canopy that used to hang over the brush arbor for shade,” Ollie explained. “Elder Hissop replaced it a while back. He had it stored in here, and folks cut pieces off it now and then when they need some canvas. It’s a sin to be wasteful, the elder says.”

Kingman grunted. “Like that’s the only sin Father Agony has to worry about.”

He spoke too loudly. One of the guards heard him and came over wearing a scowl. “Don’t you disrespect the elder that way,” he ordered. “The things you young heathens have done already are bad enough.”

Kingman sneered at the man. “What are you going to do? Hissop wants me alive until after that fake wedding of his.”

“There’s nothing fake about the elder taking a new bride according to the teachings of the Lord. And as for what I can do—” The man slammed the butt of his rifle against Kingman’s ribs. “How’s that?”

Kingman jerked under the blow and turned pale. Conrad thought he heard a bone crack. The way Leatherwood had kicked Kingman earlier, it wouldn’t surprise him if Kingman already had some cracked ribs. Kingman sagged against the ropes holding him to the post and groaned.

The avenging angel grinned arrogantly and strode back to his companions.

The wind had died down and the dust began to settle. Bright afternoon sunshine spilled through the open doors. Conrad was intensely thirsty, and his empty belly told him it had been a long time since he’d eaten. The day was slipping away. How much time did they have left? When was the wedding going to take place?

Jackson Leatherwood stalked into the barn. He nodded to his men. “Have they given any trouble?”

“How can they?” one of the guards replied. “They can’t go anywhere or do anything.”

“Just the way I like them,” Leatherwood responded with a twisted smile.

He sauntered over to the prisoners. “Your time is just about up. The wedding procession will begin soon, and when it’s over, so will your sinful lives be.”

“What’s Hissop going to do?” Kingman demanded. “Have us killed right in front of Selena? I’m sure that’ll make her come to love him.”

“You let the elder worry about what his plans are. I’m sure whatever he does, it’s because God tells him to. And whatever I do, it’s because the elder tells me to. You see how it all works, Kingman? Nice and simple, just the way it’s supposed to be.”

“That would be fine if Hissop really talked to God. But he’s insane. He’s not interested in doing what’s right, he is only interested in his own power.”

“And just how do you know that, eh?” Leatherwood asked. “Maybe you think
you’re
a prophet. Maybe you think the angels come and speak to you.”

Kingman shook his head. “No. The angels don’t talk to me. I’m just a man, a man who’s made some terrible mistakes in his life.” He glanced at Conrad. “A man who wishes he could get a second chance, so maybe he could undo some things.” He sighed. “But there aren’t many second chances in life, are there?”

A harsh laugh came from Leatherwood. “A disbeliever like you doesn’t even deserve a first chance.” He turned and added over his shoulder, “Enjoy the time you’ve got left, Kingman. There won’t be much more of it.”

The wind had begun to blow again. Conrad noticed it whipping around the long tails of Leatherwood’s duster as the avenging angel left the barn. The light wasn’t as strong outside as it had been earlier and the air began to taste of grit.

“Where will they have that wedding?” he asked.

“In the arbor,” Ollie replied. “Or in Elder Hissop’s house.”

The arbor would be better, Conrad mused. Easier to get to. He hadn’t given up all hope of getting free somehow, although the chances were getting slimmer and slimmer. If the weather didn’t cooperate, the wedding would be moved indoors, which would make things a lot more difficult.

He was thinking about that when instinct made him glance up. He couldn’t see into the loft from where he was, but he could hear, and suddenly he heard a faint noise from up there. The scrape of a foot, maybe. It wouldn’t be unusual for someone to be up in the hayloft, but the ladder leading to it was only a few feet away from Conrad and he knew no one had gone up there all day.

Then what was it he’d heard? A rat? Sounded mighty heavy to be a rat, he thought.

Conrad tipped his head back and looked up again.

He saw an eye peering back at him through a knothole in one of the loft’s floorboards.

BOOK: The Loner: The Blood of Renegades

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