The Widow's Son (16 page)

Independence, Missouri, is surrounded by the megalopolis of Kansas City, but its historical significance is just as great as the larger city's. In the late 1840s the settlement teemed with migrants escaping foreclosures and lost opportunities in the Eastern cities. But for these intrepid dreamers it was only a way station, a starting point where they hitched their dreams and sole possessions to oxen, horses, and mules for the great treks to California, Santa Fe, and Oregon.

Then came 1849 and the forges, stables, and taverns went into double duty servicing a different clientele, for this was the beginning of the Gold Rush. The apron-skirted mothers, penniless farmers, and bawling children mixed with raffish Europeans, Indian traders, buckskinned mountain men, Indian scouts and squaws, Mexican mule drivers, and fancy ladies—a gathering of sinners and saints of all races, all hopes. For all their differences, they were united in one respect: the desire to find fortune on the other side of the continent. It was nothing less than the incubator of the American West.

Before that, however, another group of pioneers had determined the place to be something far greater. In 1830 a hundred steady, hardworking, and devout pioneers came to the gentle woodland hills and meadows for the purpose of founding a New Jerusalem. There is no direct evidence that Joseph Smith, Jr., officially declared the area to be the site of the Garden of Eden, but Brigham Young said he had and later LDS leaders agreed. What is certain is that in 1831 Joseph Smith, having received a revelation from an angel, purchased several acres to be the center of the “City of Zion.”

At first their industriousness and piety appealed to the locals, but, as had happened in New York, Ohio, and Illinois, it soon became apparent that the Mormons were not about to coexist with those not of their faith. Before a temple could be built they were forced to flee to Illinois. In the interim Joseph Smith was killed, but some of his flock, led by his first wife, Emma, and his son, Joseph Smith III, returned. They established a church separate from what became the “desert Mormons” led by Brigham Young.

I'm not sure what Josie and I expected to find as we drove the ten miles to Temple Lot in Independence. All we knew was that Mormons still believed it to be the epicenter of the Garden of Eden, and we might find some hint as where Natalie and Claire had been taken. What we found on South River Boulevard was not a garden, but a simple stone church on one side of open green space. Opposite it was the magnificent three-hundred-foot stainless steel spire of the Church of Christ Temple and its massive auditorium.

It was getting near dusk, but hundreds of people milled about the grounds, moving in and out of the churches and the other buildings.

“Whoever has Natalie wouldn't risk harming her here,” Josie said after we had traversed the seventy-acre perimeter. “It's too open, too busy.”

“I agree. But we're not going to get anything else out of Porter. Let's check on Emery.”

The receptionist at the desk wasn't going to let us see Emery until Arihi Tuitama showed up to vouch for us.

“He's progressed well, but he's not able to communicate,” the nurse said as she led us down the hall to his room. “Please don't stay more than ten minutes.”

Emery sat upright in the bed by the window. His eyes brightened and the corners of his mouth arched upward as we entered the room.

“It's good to see you, Emery,” I said, pulling up a chair next to him.

Josie kissed him on his forehead then hopped onto a counter next to a washbasin. Arihi began to adjust his intravenous tube.

“We need your help,” I told him. “Natalie's gone missing.”

Emery's eyes widened. The eighth-inch smile dissolved.

“Claire is gone, too. Someone, we don't know who, intends to fulfill the oath. We thought you might have an idea as to where. Maybe someplace sacred to the
Book of Mormon
? We've been to the area surrounding the Temple Lot, but it doesn't seem possible there. Can you suggest anywhere else?”

The light from the fading sun painted his skin even more ashen. He squinted his eyes and the muscles in his face strained as he tried to move his lips. His jaw dropped an inch and he uttered something that made no sense. He tried again.

“Ah…on…di…”

His head fell back onto the pillow. A tear formed in the corner of his right eye.

“Try again, Emery. I know it's difficult. Even if the words come out scrambled we can piece something together. You've got to do this. We need the name of a place near here where the atonement might occur. A holy spot.”

“Ah…on…di…mehhh…”

Having finished replacing the saline solution in the intravenous tube, Arihi leaned over my shoulder and whispered, “Perhaps I can help.”

I suddenly recalled that she, like her father and hundreds of other Pacific Islanders in the area, was a Mormon.

“Go ahead,” Josie urged.

I let Arihi have my chair.

“Brother Emery,” she began, “I am Arihi Tuitama, a sister Saint. Tell us again what you know. Let the spirit of the Prophet guide and strengthen you.”

Again he raised his head with difficulty. He opened his mouth, took in a great breath, and exhaled. He sagged back into the pillows. Nothing was said. Arihi and I helped him to sit up again. His eyes widened with effort. They were clear and intensely determined.

“Ahhdaaammmm…on…”

“Adam,” Josie said, unable to hide her disappointment. “We're back to the Garden of Eden.”

“Ahhdamm,” he insisted, his eyes locked on Arihi. “…Ond…”

“Let's go,” I whispered to Josie. “You're right. We're wasting our time.”

Obviously, the trauma that had affected his speech hadn't diminished his hearing. He glared at us as he repeated, “Ahhdamm…ondi…”

“That's it!” exclaimed Arihi. “
Adam-ondi-Ahman
—meaning the land of God where Adam dwelt in the ancient language. I should have realized it. Adam and Eve journeyed there after being cast from the Garden of Eden. It's a sacred place where Adam, the father of us all, was baptized by the spirit of the Lord and where he received the Holy Ghost and the temple ordinances. After fulfilling the dictates of the Lord, Eve bore Adam's children and they sacrificed the first of their flocks.”

“Sacrificed?”

“There were two altars used by Adam there: the altar of prayer, and the altar of sacrifice where the lamb shall be offered for the sins of the world.”

She pulled from her vest pocket a small, heavily thumbed book and read: “Three Nephi, chapter 27, verse 19:
‘And no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom; therefore nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my blood, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end…
' 
”

She hesitated.

“Three years before Father Adam died he met in that valley with his righteous posterity—Seth, Enos, Methuselah, Daniel, and a thousand other high priests—and bestowed upon them his last blessing. When it was over, the Lord appeared and declared him prince, and the others thereafter addressed Adam as the archangel Michael.”

“How appropriate,” Josie said, glancing at me. “Please tell us this place is within driving distance.”

Arihi nodded. “It's up around Gallatin, Missouri, an hour and a half from here. And there's something else…”

“Yes?” I asked, eager to get on my way.

“It may not be important, but tomorrow is June twenty-seventh.”

“Meaning?”

“It's the day Governor Ford's militia murdered the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr.”

When I looked at Emery he was softly pounding his chest with his fist.

It was five-thirty by the time we got through rush hour traffic and headed up I-35. According to our map, Adam-ondi-Ahman was seventy miles north of Kansas City, just past the Daviess County seat of Gallatin, Missouri.

This section of Northwest Missouri is a great place—if you're a watermelon. Blessed by fertile bottomland, it is peopled by sturdy conformists who can make Bulgarian undertakers seem like the Merry Pranksters.

As we edged past the city limits, Josie pulled from her bag a pile of documents and books that she had checked out from the LDS Visitors' Center in Independence. The first was a handsome blue cloth-covered book three inches thick. Its gilt and blind-stamped title stated it was volume three of
The History of the Mormon Church
.

Turning to a section from Joseph Smith's diary, Josie read an excerpt dated May 19, 1838. It described how Smith and Sidney Rigdon crossed the Grand River and came to a hill at the base of which they believed to be an ancient Nephite altar of prayer and sacrifice.

“Rigdon!” I exclaimed. “He's the Danite who had inscribed the Book of Mormon to Alonzo Stagg.”

“Right,” Josie said. “Smith dubbed it Tower Hill and said it was where the Prophet Daniel predicted Adam would return to address his people at the day of reckoning. That same afternoon, Smith laid claim to the entire valley, declaring it to be the original site of Adam-ondi-Ahman.”

Josie flipped through a few more pages.

“Okay, listen to this,” she said excitedly. “The editors write in a footnote that a mound of rocks jutting from a spur at the base of Tower Hill may mark the spot of Adam's grave. They even mention a legend that on certain nights a light illuminates his spirit walking among the rocks.”

“Well, there it is,” I said, pressing down the accelerator. “We've got to find Tower Hill.”

Thirty seconds later the speedometer topped ninety miles per hour; at about the same time, I noticed the flashing blue and red lights in my rearview mirror.

“Ah, Jesus.”

“You can't very well tell him we're on a mission from God,” Josie exclaimed. “Floor it!”

“No, no, no, no, no.”

I pulled over.

Trooper Buzard reminded me of my old drill instructor—all chin and monosyllables to go with the Smokey the Bear hat.

“License and registration,” he demanded.

I found the latter buried under a pile of gas station receipts, a Michelin guide map, and a tire gauge in the glove compartment.

“Tax receipt.”

“Officer, I'm in something of a hurry.”

There might have been worse things to say, but I doubt it.

Trooper Buzard tapped his nightstick on my windshield.

“One moment, sir,” Josie said as she waded through my car document pack. She finally managed to find it wrapped around an ice scraper next to a deck of old CDs. Reaching across me to hand it to him, she not so gently smacked my privates as a subtle warning to cool it.

He took the documents and went back to his car. An ice age or two later he returned. The lights were still blazing.

“I clocked you at ninety-three miles per hour in a sixty-five zone.”

“If you say so, sir.”

“Say so? How fast d'ya think you were going?”

This riled my lawyerly instincts. He hadn't bothered to read me my rights against self-incrimination.

“I prefer not to answer that, sir.”

“Hokay.”

He pulled out his ticket calculator thing, took forever to punch in the time, the date, and my speed, and pulled out the automatic ticket telling me to appear at the Clay County courthouse on July seventh. Or I could pay a fine of nine hundred dollars, payable to the Clerk of the Court.

“Nine hundred dollars!”

It just blurted out.

“You were in a work zone. Fees double.”

Like hell I was.

Buzard—it was easy to drop the honorific—waited for me to say something. I would have, too, but Josie had resumed her grip on my yarbles.

I signed the glowing screen with my finger and handed it back to him.

“You're lucky I didn't haul you in.”

“Yes, I am
very
lucky. Thank you.”

Ah, sarcasm— language of the devil. You'd think I'd know better by now.

I started to turn the ignition, but his right hand shot in and pulled the key out.

“What the fu—”

“You one of those Mormons?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you have a home church, Mr. Bevan?”

“Excuse me?”

“A home church.”

“Uh, Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow and Agony.”

“Sounds Catholic.”

“It does, doesn't it?”

“Attend regularly?”

By now Josie saw where this was going. The newspaper had reported a rash of religious proselytizing by law enforcement officers in western Missouri lately; something to do with a wowser named Officer Billy Ray Schweiker who, when he wasn't issuing tickets or scraping victims off highways, hosted a radio show called
Policing for Our Lord
.

“Trooper Buzard,” she whispered loudly, “perhaps I can answer that.”

He stuck his head through my window. The mingled odor of Red Man chew and Old Spice filled the Jeep.

“Go right ahead, little lady.”

“You see, Trooper, Michael and I are engaged to be wed next month. And, well, I'm of the Baptist faith and he…he's a crappie crunch…uh…Michael was raised, through no fault of his own, in the Roman Church. We were on the way to Gallatin to get my pastor's blessing. It is my sincere hope that the Reverend Mott will convince Michael to accept the rightful Jesus Christ as his savior. But we
are
running late and the Reverend, being an impatient man…”

“Which way you leanin'?” he snarled at me.

I took Josie's hand from my crotch and pressed her fingers to my lips.

“I have seen the light, Trooper Buzard, and shall follow the righteous path forevermore.”

He took off his aviator sunglasses to better examine my soul.

I obliged with a look so contrite it would have made Mary Magdalene jealous.

“All right, then. Blessings to you both.” He handed me back the keys.

“And the ticket, Trooper?”

“Don't push your luck, asshole.”

We called Buford Higgins five times during the next twenty minutes, getting his voice mail every time.

An hour later I turned off the interstate onto a series of ever smaller rural byways bordered by ripening fields of soybeans where algae-choked ponds and crumbling barns dotted the landscape. Despite the traffic ticket, I set my cruise control a nickel over the speed limit, slowing only when approaching the ramshackle towns of single-pump gas stations, shade tree repair shops, and dilapidated shacks. Ten miles after passing through Altamont we came to the outskirts of Gallatin. Just past the town was a sign directing us to Highway 13, but I would have missed the turn to it had Josie not shouted for me to pull over.

The Jeep rattled over the shoulder rumble strips as I guided it to a full stop.

“There.” She pointed to a two-lane blacktop road on the other side of a short wood bridge spanning a shallow culvert. “See that?”

She was referring to a nondescript wooden marker that was nearly hidden by the state highway sign. It was no larger than two feet by three and there was nothing official about it. Pale yellow letters three inches high on a brown background declared Adam-ondi-Ahman to be in the vicinity. A thin arrow drawn next to the words hinted—but only just—that we should proceed north on the undulating lane that had no business being called a highway.

It was only after I backed up and entered the road that another modest sign, similar in color and size but declaring a distance of 3.8 miles, confirmed we were on the right path to where God had expelled the progenitors of all humanity.

The sun was beginning to dip below the tips of the forested hills when we came to our destination. The sign to the entrance declared
“Adam-Ondi-Ahman—Historic Site of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”
in eight-inch letters of bright Swedish blue and sunflower yellow. Not exactly a Vegas-style welcome, but far more definitive than the earlier enigmatic posts.

Our initial impression as we pulled left on gravelly Koala Road was surprise at the minimalist markings for a site that the Mormon texts declared to be of primary significance. After all, the Latter-day Saints, as evidenced by their grand marble temples scattered throughout the world from Samoa to South Africa, were not known for hiding their light under a bushel basket. Whether or not this was a pilgrimage site, I had the unmistakable feeling that visitors—Mormon and gentile alike—were welcome to drop in for a look but not to overstay the privilege.

The white-fenced acreage extending from the road up to the overlook was in a mostly natural state, devoid of buildings, signage, and trash. The gravel roads threading through the area were well maintained with none of the moon-crater-sized potholes that characterized Highway 13. The grass was freshly cut and the weeds bordering the fences were under control, but there was nothing to suggest the abundant, immaculately landscaped flower gardens one associates with the Mormons.

I didn't expect to find a Branson-style visitors' center where dazzled tourists could buy postcards depicting biblical scenes, posters of blond-bearded prophets, and paperweights in the shape of ancient stone altars. But the total lack of commercialism seemed to be a concentrated effort to downplay what some might consider embarrassing church doctrine. While Adam and Eve are inescapably real people in Mormon theology, Joseph Smith's decree that God banished them from paradise to rural Missouri is something that even literal-believing Saints have trouble wrapping their heads around. The site can't be ignored—although the more liberal-leaning Community of Christ pretty much has—but neither do the LDS leaders think it should be exposed to public scrutiny any more than is necessary.

Driving up the hill we came upon a young woman wearing a white blouse and blue ankle-length skirt. A red bandanna tied around her hair controlled all but a few wandering blond curls above the back of her sunburned neck. She carried an orange bag in which to put litter—something we had yet to observe since turning off the highway. When we offered her a lift, she declined, saying she was engaged in her mission work.

“What else do you do here?” Josie asked.

“Mostly this,” she answered. “I'm also in charge of the two public bathrooms. On weekends a handful of us try to control weeds on the surrounding farms. I know it sounds mundane, but I turned down a mission in Italy for this place. I think it's kind of cool.”

“How about a guided tour?”

She looked at me as if I'd asked her to strip. “Tower Hill is just over a mile from here,” she said after realizing I was serious. “It's where the Prophet meant to build the temple, and you can still see the rocks meant for the foundation. Below it, next to a dirt road, is Preacher Rock. Follow the signs and the white fence posts. You'll want to watch out for rattlers, chiggers, and ticks when you get there.”

“Anything else we should know about?” Josie asked.

She looked at us strangely. “Only that there will be a full moon tonight. You'd best not linger too long because the gate closes at dusk.”

With that, she nodded a brisk farewell and continued her futile search for candy wrappers.

A dusty mile and a half later I drove up a steep incline to park in a small visitors' lot surrounded by oak and thorny locust trees. We got out of the Jeep and walked along a dark, winding trail flanked by overgrown thickets until arriving at a triangular-shaped grove. A plaque confirmed it to be the top of Tower Hill, where in 1832 Joseph Smith urged his followers to build a temple. A dozen flat stones of varying bulk lay scattered as if dropped haphazardly by a giant. At the far end of the spot was a bluff above the verdant Grand River Valley.

With the last rays of the sun christening the clouds in pink and gold, I followed Josie to the overlook's edge. To say that either one of us was religious is like saying Porky Pig is articulate, but I can't deny being touched at that moment by something spiritual, something that felt immensely greater than either of us.

Even if the site didn't seem as plausible as somewhere along the Euphrates, I couldn't help but feel the presence of the father and mother of us all; those ancient stand-ins for all our sins and hopes who were cast from Eden into a dreary world of sorrow, pain, lust, hunger, and constant striving, only to have their miserable existence culminate in death.

The place certainly wasn't the supposed paradise from which they'd been driven, but it wasn't exactly Death Valley. On the edge of the mowed grass were thistles, thorn trees, dead and broken branches. Sweat bees swarmed around us. I pulled two ticks from Josie's neck and swatted at chiggers gnawing my ankles. Then I saw another path, this one leading down the bluff a hundred yards or so to a flat boulder, much larger than the stones behind us. Beyond it was a heavily rutted dirt service road, and a shallow meadow and the beginning of more forest. To the north lay a broad swath of cultivated bottomland.

We started down the trail in the increasing darkness, tripping over loose rocks and pushing aside brambles and low-hanging branches until we came to the oblong boulder that must have been what the Mormon girl called Preacher Rock. The thing looked as if it had broken off from a meteor. It was gray-black, fifteen feet long, ten feet wide at its center, and nearly three feet thick. Flat as an aircraft carrier, it lay perfectly balanced upon another slightly less massive white stone.

The velvet night had descended upon us, cloaking us in its cold arms, making our surroundings seem haunted and desolate.

Josie ran her hands along the side of the stone. She looked over her shoulder at me. “If I didn't know better, I'd say this really was once an altar.”