Righteous03 - The Wicked Read Free

me now or I really am calling 911.”
    Eliza forced herself to sound calm. “Really, I’m okay now. They left as soon as I got on the phone. I was afraid, but they’re gone, I swear.”
    It took a few more minutes before she convinced Fernie that it was nothing, just a couple of random guys giving her a hard time. She didn’t mention the polygamist connection.
    Fernie let out a sigh on the other end. “I had an impression I should call you just now when I was working on the tomatoes. Thank heavens I listened to the spirit.”
    “Where are you? Does Zarahemla have telephones now?”
    “No, Jacob got me a cell phone. I hate the thing, can never remember to turn it on and then there are messages and I don’t know how to get them. I don’t want to find out.”
    Eliza knew the feeling. Even carrying a phone felt like an affectation and in most cases, the person calling wasn’t someone she wanted to talk to: the restaurant, asking her to pick up another shift, her visiting teaching companion from church, wanting to set up appointments. Some newspaper reporter had got hold of her cell number and kept leaving messages wanting to interview her about the Blister Creek polygamists. No, thanks.
    It wasn’t that Eliza wanted to turn Amish, get a horse and buggy and give up electricity. Not even her father was like that; Blister Creek finally had reliable cell coverage. But Eliza couldn’t see the point of some of the technological geegaws that people in Salt Lake wore attached to their heads or glued to their hands. Half the kids on TRAX spent their commute hunched over glowing screens, thumbs twitching away, barely aware of the real world.
    “I appreciate the call,” Eliza said, “but I’m fine, really. I’m still planning to come down to Zarahemla on Monday to see everyone. We can talk face-to-face. And I miss those kids.” While she spoke, she walked down the bend in the trail and confirmed that the two men had left. She picked up the piece of paper the taller man had dropped.
    “Nieces and nephews will have to wait,” Fernie said. “We found David.”
    Eliza had started to unfold the paper with her free hand, but now stopped. “Really? That’s wonderful news.”
    “You won’t think it’s wonderful when I tell you where we found him, or what he said over the phone when Jacob called.”
    Her heart sank. “You’d better tell me everything.”
    The sick feeling only spread as Fernie told her about David. Jacob’s contact hadn’t softened David’s heart, it had turned him mean and dangerous, both to himself and to others.
    Maybe he’d listen to me, she thought. Or is he so far gone that he wouldn’t even care?
    After she hung up, Eliza thought about the two men. She opened the paper the taller man had dropped. If there was any doubt that it was a message for her, it disappeared. Cursive lettering spidered across the page:
    Give honor unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
    She frowned. What was that supposed to be, his way of courting her? An invitation to marriage?
    Eliza thought about Fernie’s invitation. Maybe the timing was right for a road trip.
    #

    Two days later, Eliza walked into a bar for the first time in her life. She was three hours by car southeast of the polygamist enclave of Blister Creek, across the border into Nevada. The atmosphere assaulted her: throbbing music, lights, the nauseating smell of sweat and smoke and perfume and beer, all mixed together.
    She showed her ID and pushed past the bouncers at the door. She couldn’t shake the feeling of shame, that someone would see her, report back to her father, or to the bishop. Maybe she should have brought Fernie, although that might have been worse. They’d have clung together and clenched their eyes shut like two girls being scared by a campfire ghost story.
    It got worse. As she made her way in, she realized it wasn’t just a bar, it was a certain