“I am on the payroll, Pappy.”
The driver, a younger man, left the car and offered a set of keys.
“I thought, perhaps, Mr. Daniels could drive,” Snow said. “And you and I could sit back here, Mr. Malone.”
He knew both the name and the face, recognizing Snow as the current leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He climbed into the Navigator’s rear seat, Luke and Stephanie into the front.
“It’s important that I come with you,” Snow said. “My legs are weak, but they’ll have to work. I’ll make sure of it.”
He wanted to know, “Why is this so important?”
Snow nodded. “It is, for both my church and our country.”
“We’re going to Falta Nada?”
“That we are. Mr. Daniels, if you will engage the navigation, the route is already programmed. It’s about an hour’s drive.” Snow paused. “But in the old days it was a good two-day ride by horseback.”
Luke drove the car away, the navigation screen lit with a map, an arrow pointing the way.
“Ms. Nelle tells me you were once one of the government’s best agents,” Snow said.
“She’s been known to exaggerate.”
“President Daniels said the same thing.”
“He can tell a few whoppers himself.”
Snow chuckled. “He’s a tough man. My heart hurts for him. He may have some difficult choices to soon make.”
He thought he understood. “Salazar?”
Snow nodded. “Evil. But I’ve only learned the extent of how bad over the past two days. He killed one of your agents. I have prayed for that departed soul.”
“Not much consolation to his widow and children.”
The older man appraised him with a hard glare. “No. I imagine not.”
He understood about killing. Never a good thing. But there was a difference between the heat-of-battle self-defense, and in-cold-blood, one Josepe Salazar seemed to not care about.
“I need to know what Falta Nada is.”
He noticed that Stephanie had not turned back and joined the conversation. Instead she kept her gaze out the front windshield, her mouth closed.
“I never thought I would again travel to the high country,” Snow said. “You see, Mr. Malone, I’m dying. You can look at me and tell. But of late a new strength has found its way into me. Maybe it’s the last bit of life before death begins to take hold. I can only hope it lasts until we finish this.”
He knew enough about the situation to say, “This mess was sown a long time ago. You merely inherited it.”
“That’s true. But Thaddeus Rowan is my problem. The president and I tried to coerce his resignation, but he rejected that. I can’t challenge him publicly because of his standing and the overall sensitivity of this. Instead, we have to deal with him. Today.”
Only a few men rose to lead the world’s great religions. Catholic popes. Orthodox patriarchs. Protestant archbishops. Here was the prophet of the Saints. Malone sympathized with both the man’s health and his difficult situation, but they were headed into a perilous unknown.
And he had to prepare.
“Falta Nada,” he said. “Tell me about it.”
Utah was settled two years before the 1849 California gold rush. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opposed gold prospecting in all forms, since it distracted members from concentrating their labors on building Zion. In 1847, when the pioneers first arrived, most were penniless. Yet by 1850, Saints were minting gold coins and furbishing their new temple in gold leaf. Where had the wealth come from?
The Salt Lake basin had long been occupied by Utes. Surprisingly, these Natives welcomed the religious immigrants. Wakara, their chief, developed a close relationship with the newcomers, especially a Saint named Isaac Morley. Eventually Wakara admitted to Brother Isaac that years ago he’d received a vision from Towats, the Ute word for “God.” In that vision, the chief was told to give gold to “tall hats” who would one day come to his land. The Saints fit that description perfectly, so Wakara led Brother Isaac to Carre-Shinob, a sacred place supposedly build by the ancestors. There Morley collected 58 pounds of refined gold and sent it to Brigham Young in Salt Lake City. A deal was struck for more of the cache, which Wakara agreed to provide with two conditions. Only one man would know the mine’s location, and that man had to be equally trusted by both parties. Brother Isaac was chosen for the task, but eventually he became too old to make the yearly trip.
In 1852 a new man was selected.
Thomas Rhoades.
From his first journey to the secret mine, Rhoades returned with 62 pounds of gold. More trips were made in subsequent years. Wakara died in 1855 and his son, Arapeen, succeeded him as chief. At the same time Rhoades also became sick and could no longer make the annual trip into the mountains.
So Brigham Young had a problem.
He wasn’t even sure if the new chief would honor the agreement. If he did, Young needed Arapeen’s permission to allow Caleb Rhoades, Thomas Rhoades’ son, to take over the gold extractions. This was tentatively agreed to, provided that a Native escort Caleb on his visits. Eventually Caleb became trustworthy enough in Arapeen’s eyes to go alone and made many trips. Arapeen’s successor ended the deal, but Caleb Rhoades continued to make covert journeys. He even petitioned Congress for a land lease, but the petition was denied. The federal government eventually chartered other companies to survey and mine the area. Government-paid geologists came and scouted, but never found the fabled Rhoades Mine.
Brigham Young knew that if word got out that Utah possessed such a treasure, it would cause a gold rush bigger than the one in California. That was the last thing he wanted, as Saints had fled west to escape gentiles. So he forbid all talk of the mine. Any Saint who participated in prospecting would be excommunicated.
“The Rhoades Mine is one of our legends,” Snow said. “Few facts exist about it thanks to Young’s order of silence. Just a lot of wild stories. But it’s not all a lie.”
“Interesting to hear you admit that,” Malone said.
“Until now it was just a harmless legend. Now, though, things have changed.”
To say the least.
“Brigham Young had a difficult job,” Snow said. “He was nation building and faith building. His Saints were living in one of the harshest places imaginable. Money was nonexistent. So he did what had to be done.”
He was watching their route as Luke merged onto Interstate 15 north, leaving Salt Lake, heading toward Ogden. He also noticed the younger man’s eyes watching them in the rearview mirror.
Still only silence from Stephanie.
“There was refined gold in the sacred mine Wakara showed Isaac Morley,” Snow said. “Most likely brought north by Spaniards from Mexico centuries ago and secreted away. Bars, coins, nuggets, dust. The Utes discovered this, but gold was not precious to them. So Wakara made the deal thinking he was pleasing not only the newcomers, but his own God. Contrary to the legend it was Young, not the Utes, who insisted that only one person have access. For ten years he milked that cache, allowing that gold to slowly make its way into our economy. Coins were minted, wages paid with coin, goods bought with those wages. Nobody ever questioned the source. All just appreciated its presence. Remember, we were a closed society. That gold just moved about in circles, never leaving, always benefiting each person who held it. Then, in 1857, with the coming of war with the United States, the threat existed of losing that wealth. So Young ordered everyone to repatriate their gold. Everything was melted down, loaded onto wagons, and supposedly sent to California for safekeeping until the threat was over.”
Snow reached into his pocket and removed something, handing it over.
A gold coin.
On one side were clasped hands surrounded by capital letters G S L C P G and the value amount of five dollars. On the obverse was an all-seeing eye surrounded by HOLINESS TO THE LORD.
“Those letters stand for Greater Sa
lt Lake City Pure Gold. A bit of a misnomer as the coins were fashioned from bullion metal that contained silver and copper. It’s about 80% gold. That’s one of the coins minted by Brigham Young, included in a time capsule Young created inside a record stone at the Salt Lake temple. We opened it in 1993. The coins were all the same, only differing in value from $2.50 to $20. The so-called Mormon Money.”
“That’s part of what got him in trouble with the federal government,” Malone said. “The Constitution says only Congress can mint money.”
“Brigham Young tended to ignore those laws he did not agree with. But in his defense, we were a long way from the United States and had to survive. To do that we needed an economy we could control. So he created one.”
“Except those wagons never made it to California,” Luke said from the front seat. “In fact, they were just found a few days ago, in Zion National Park, hidden in a cave with four skeletons.”
“That’s right,” Snow said. “By 1857 the Utes’ sacred mine was tapped out. So Young made the decision to replenish his supply with the gold from the wagons. The same wealth, back where it started. But this time it wasn’t hidden in the sacred mine. Instead Young arranged for a private land grant from the territorial legislature and created a new place, his own, where he was in charge. Falta Nada.”
“Missing Nothing. A touch of irony?”
“I’ve always thought so. Slowly, over the next two decades that gold filtered its way back into our community.”
“But not to its rightful owners.”
Snow paused, then shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Another one of those difficult decisions by Young. But it turned out to be brilliant. Our economy flourished. We prospered greatly after the Civil War ended, and especially so as the 19th century gave way to the 20th.”
“Four men were dead in that cave with the wagons,” Luke said from the front seat.
“I know,” Snow said. “Fjeldsted. Hyde. Woodruff. Egan. Their names have been known to us for many years.”
“What did the message in the cave mean?” Luke asked. “Damnation to the prophet. Forget us not.”
No one had told Malone about any cave, but he let it pass.
“I’m afraid the implications are hard to ignore. Young was the prophet at the time, and they blamed him for their deaths.”
“It seems like they had good reason,” Luke said.
“What I’ve told you so far has been passed from prophet to prophet, for their ears only. But when those wagons were found, I learned a new aspect of the story. Four men murdered was never part of what was passed down.”
“Does Rowan know any of this?”
Snow shook his head. “He knows of the wagons, but I did not tell him any of these other details, and I will not.”
The car continued to speed down the interstate, the landscape becoming more rural and rugged.
“Falta Nada eventually became a place for prophets,” Snow said. “The gold was exhausted, its smelting furnace removed. So it evolved into a place of refuge in the wilderness.”
He did not like the continued silence from the front seat so he asked, “Stephanie, where are Salazar and Cassiopeia?”
“Ahead of us,” she said, her eyes still facing the windshield. “They should be at the site by now, with Rowan.”
He caught the deadpan tone. Troubling—on many levels. He knew enough about the situation to know that none of this information could ever see the light of day. Too explosive, the implications too profound. Not only for the Mormon Church but for the United States of America.
Salazar?
Rowan?
They were one thing.
But Cassiopeia.
She was quite another.
And this time she was in deep.
SIXTY-TWO
CASSIOPEIA STOOD BESIDE THE CAR. SHE AND JOSEPE HAD MADE the journey northeast from Salt Lake City in a little over an hour, and they’d been waiting in the morning mountain air for twenty minutes. The peaks surrounding her were not especially high, but glaciers had performed their sculpting, the evidence clear from deep scars and dark canyons. The two-lane highway east from the interstate had woven a path through a spectacular wilderness thick with poplar, birch, and spruce all dressed in autumn gold. Another two miles on a graveled lane led them to a clearing among the trees, where they parked. A posted sign proclaimed
PRIVATE PROPERTY
Do Not Trespass
Grounds Patrolled
Josepe had remained quiet both during the flight from Iowa and on the car ride north from the airport. She’d preferred the silence as her own rage was becoming increasingly hard to control. Somebody was funneling information to Thaddeus Rowan. Somebody who’d been provided that information by Cotton. How else would anyone know what had been inside that watch? Cotton had surely opened it and reported what he’d found to Stephanie. Then that had been passed to Rowan. She’d finally pressed Josepe, who’d called Rowan, and the senator revealed that he had a source inside the government, working as his ally.
But why trust such a source?
The answer was easy.
Rowan wanted to believe. So did Josepe. They’d lost all objectivity, willing to take chances that otherwise cautious souls would never risk. They were fools. But what was she? A liar? A cheat?
Worse?
She was angry at Cotton. She’d asked him to stay out of this, but he’d ignored her. He’d been ready and waiting in Des Moines, seemingly knowing her every move. But why wouldn’t he? They knew each other. Loved each other.
Or so she thought.
But she also had to tell herself that this involved his country, not hers. The threat was far more real and immediate for him. And that clearly made a difference, at least in his eyes.
“This is a beautiful place,” Josepe said.
She agreed. They’d risen in altitude, the brisk crystalline air refreshing, reminding her of Salzburg. Snow dotted the distant peaks, a high forested plateau stretching out before them for miles, the scars from past wildfires still visible. A morning sun shone across the surface of a nearby lake. The two Danites had traveled with them and kept close watch on their employer. She assumed both were armed. As was Josepe. She’d caught sight of a shoulder holster beneath his jacket.
Interesting that she’d not been offered a weapon.
SALAZAR HAD NEVER BEFORE VENTURED BEYOND SALT LAKE into the wilderness the pioneers had traversed. But here he was, among the trees and mountains of Deseret, where the first Saints had passed on their way to the promised land. Those early settlers were so different from other western immigrants. They employed no professional guides, preferring to find their own way. They also improved the route as they traveled, making it better for the next group. They were cohesive, moving as one, a culture, a faith, a people—modern pilgrims, routed from their homes by intolerance and persecution—intent on finding their salvation on earth.
It took two years for the first group to trek 1,300 miles from Illinois to the Great Basin. Eventually, 1,650 made it to the valley in 1847. That first year had been tough, but the next was tougher. Spring plantings had looked promising, but hordes of crickets soon invaded—three to four a leaf, as one Saint described—and began to devour the crops. They fought back with brooms, sticks, fire, and water. Anything and everything. Prayers, too. Which were finally answered by a sight from heaven. Seagulls. Which swooped in by the thousands and devoured the insects.
The Miracle of the Gulls.
Some say it was exaggerated. Others that it never happened. But he believed every word. Why wouldn’t he? God and the prophets always provided—so why would it be impossible that help would appear at just the right moment? The seagull remained Utah’s state bird, and he was sure that would be the case with the soon-to-be independent nation of Deseret.
He felt invigorated.
Soon, once again, all of this would be theirs.
“This is a special place,” he told Cassiopeia.
“There’s nothing here,” C
assiopeia said.
“We have to hike. Falta Nada is nearby.”
He heard the growl of an engine and turned to see a small red coupe approaching. The car stopped and Elder Rowan emerged, dressed in boots and jeans, ready for the wilderness.
They greeted each other with a handshake.
“It’s good to see you again, brother,” Rowan said. “This is a great day, equal to the moment when the pioneers first arrived. If we’re successful, everything will change.”
He, too, was energized by the possibilities.
Rowan noticed Cassiopeia. “And who is this?”
He introduced them. “She’s been invaluable the past few days. She’s the one who obtained the watch, only to have it stolen back.”
“You haven’t mentioned her,” Rowan said.
“I know. Her involvement came about quickly.”
He explained how he and Cassiopeia had known each other since childhood, how they’d once been close, drifted apart, and were now reuniting. Rowan seemed pleased with her reawakening, and the fact that her family were among the early European converts.
“I actually recall your father,” Rowan said. “In the 1970s I was working with the church in Europe. He headed the stake in Barcelona, if I recall. A truly spiritual and dedicated man.”
“Thank you for saying that. I always thought so, too.”
Where at first there’d been apprehension in the elder’s eyes at Cassiopeia’s presence, now there was calm. Perhaps from knowing that she was a Saint by birth?
“Cassiopeia is aware of what we’re doing. She also helped fend off the Americans in Salzburg. She and I are discussing a personal future together.”
He hoped he wasn’t being too presumptuous with the revelation.
“I’d like her to be a part of this,” he said.
“Then she shall,” Rowan said. “We’ve come a long way, brother. There were times when I doubted we’d make it this far. But we’re here. So let us all go and claim our prize.”
Salazar faced his two men. “Stay here and keep watch. We can contact each other by phone, if need be.”