Cathy said, softly: “Bobby Martineau.”
Jane nodded at the Harley. “Based on what we’ve found here, I don’t think we can trust anything Martineau said. Someone’s been paying him off. Someone who has plenty of money to do it.”
Neither one of them had to say the name aloud. Jeremiah Goode.
“Let’s pay a visit to Kingdom Come,” said Jane. “I’d like to find out what we’re not supposed to see.”
THROUGH THE CAR WINDOW, JANE SPOTTED BROWN HUMPS DOTTING a vast field of white. They were bison, huddled together against the wind, their great shaggy coats dusted with snow. Wild animals, belonging to no one. That was a novelty for a girl from the big city, where all pets were leashed and tagged and registered. But pets were fed and sheltered, not left to fend for themselves in the brutal elements. Here is the consequence of freedom, she thought, staring at the bison, a consequence that Julian Perkins had accepted when he fled his foster home with only a backpack of food. How could a sixteen-year-old boy survive in that unforgiving world?
How could Maura?
As if reading her thoughts, Cathy said: “If anyone can keep her alive out there, it’d be Julian. He grew up with a grandfather who knew every trick of living off the land. Absolem Perkins is a legend around here. Built his own cabin by hand, up in the Bridger-Teton Mountains.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s that mountain range over there.” Cathy pointed.
Through the swirling dust of snow kicked up by the tires, Jane saw impossibly rugged peaks. “That’s where Julian grew up?”
“It’s national forest now. But if you go hiking up there, you’ll come across a few old homesteads just like Absolem’s. Most of them are down to nothing but foundations, but they remind you how hard it was just to stay alive back then. I can’t imagine going a day without flush toilets and a hot shower.”
“Hell. I can’t imagine a day without cable.”
They were climbing into foothills now, through terrain where the trees grew thicker and buildings vanished. They passed Grubb’s General Store, and Jane spotted the ominous sign: LAST CHANCE FOR FUEL. She couldn’t help an anxious glance at Cathy’s fuel gauge, and was relieved to see that they had three-quarters of a tank.
It was almost a mile farther down the road before that name suddenly struck her as familiar. Grubb’s General Store. She remembered what Queenan had told her about the many sightings of Maura. That people had reported seeing her all over the state, at the Dinosaur Museum in Thermopolis, in the Irma Hotel in Cody. And at Grubb’s General Store in Sublette County.
She pulled out her cell phone to call Queenan. Zero bars, no reception. She put her phone back in her purse.
“Well, this is interesting,” Cathy said as they turned off the highway onto a much narrower road.
“What?”
“It’s been plowed.”
“Is this the road to Kingdom Come?”
“Yes. If Bobby told the truth, and the valley’s deserted, why would anyone bother to clear the road?”
“Have you been up this way before?”
“The one time I drove up here was last summer,” said Cathy as she steered around a hairpin turn that made Jane instinctively reach for the armrest. “I’d just become Julian’s caseworker. The police caught him in Pinedale, where he’d broken into someone’s house and was raiding the kitchen for food.”
“After he got kicked out of The Gathering?”
Cathy nodded. “Another one of their Lost Boys. I drove up here, hoping to interview his mother. And I was worried about his sister, Carrie. Julian told me she was only fourteen, and I know that’s the age when the men begin to …” Cathy paused and took a deep breath. “Anyway, I never made it to Kingdom Come.”
“What happened?”
“I turned onto their private road and was just heading down into the valley when a truck came roaring up and intercepted me. They must have some sort of warning system that tells them when someone’s entered their property. Two men with walkie-talkies demanded to know the purpose of my visit. As soon as they found out I was a social worker, they ordered me to leave and never return. I got only a glimpse of the settlement from the road. They’d built ten houses, and there were two more under construction, with bulldozers and tractors rumbling around. Obviously, they’ve got plans to expand. This is going to be their next Plain of Angels.”
“So you never spoke to Julian’s mother.”
“No. And she never once tried to contact anyone about his welfare.” She shook her head in disgust. “How’s that for parental love? You’re given the choice between your cult and your own child, and you toss out the child. I don’t get it, do you?”
Jane thought of her own daughter, thought of what she would sacrifice to keep Regina safe. I’d die for her, and I wouldn’t think twice about it. “No, I don’t get it, either.”
“Imagine what it was like for poor Julian. Knowing his mom thinks he’s disposable. Knowing that she just looked the other way when the men dragged him out of the house.”
“My God, is that how it happened?”
“That’s how Julian described it. He was sobbing and screaming. His sister was screaming. And their mother let it all happen, without a peep of protest.”
“What a worthless piece of shit.”
“But remember, she’s a victim, too.”
“That’s no excuse. A mother fights for her kids.”
“In The Gathering, mothers never do. In Plain of Angels, dozens of mothers willingly surrendered their sons, letting them be dragged off and dumped in the nearest town. The boys end up so broken, so damaged, that a lot of them turn to drugs. Or they’re exploited by predators. They’re desperate for someone, anyone, to love them.”
“How did Julian cope?”
“He just wanted to go back to his family. He’s like some beaten dog, trying to return to his abusive master. Last July, he stole a car and actually made it all the way back to the valley to see his sister. Managed to hide out in the area for three weeks before The Gathering caught him and dumped him back in Pinedale.”
“So he might head back there this time as well.” She looked at Cathy. “How far are we from Doyle Mountain? Where Martineau was shot?”
“As the crow flies, it’s not far. It’s right on the other side of those hills. A lot farther if you go by road.”
“So he could hike it.”
“If he really wanted to.”
“He just killed a deputy. He’s scared and he’s on the run. He might seek shelter in Kingdom Come.”
Cathy thought about it, her frown deepening. “If he’s there now …”
“He’s armed.”
“He wouldn’t hurt me. He knows me.”
“I’m just saying, we have to be cautious. We can’t predict what he’ll do next.” And he has Maura.
They had been steadily ascending for nearly an hour, and had seen no other vehicles, no buildings, no evidence at all that anyone resided on this mountain. Only as Cathy slowed to a stop did Jane spot the sign, its post half buried in deep snow.
PRIVATE ROAD
RESIDENTS ONLY
AREA PATROLLED
“Makes you feel welcome, doesn’t it?” said Cathy.
“It also makes me wonder why they’re so afraid of visitors.”
“Interesting. The chain’s down, and this road’s been plowed as well.”
They started down the private road, Cathy’s SUV rolling slowly over pavement coated with an inch of recent snow. The pines were thick here, casting the road in claustrophobic gloom, and Jane could see little beyond the evergreen curtain. She stared ahead, muscles tensed, not certain what to expect. A hostile interception by The Gathering? A burst of gunfire from a frightened boy? Suddenly the trees parted and she blinked at the view of open sky, cold and bright.
Cathy pulled onto an overlook and braked to a stop. Both women stared down in shock at what was once the settlement of Kingdom Come.
“Dear God,” Cathy
whispered. “What happened here?”
Black ruins dotted the valley. Charred foundations marked where houses had once stood, the two rows forming a strangely orderly record of destruction. Among the ruins, something was moving, something that trotted arrogantly between the burned-out houses, as though this valley now belonged to him and he was merely surveying his domain.
“Coyote,” said Cathy.
“This doesn’t look like an accident,” said Jane. “I think someone came in and torched those buildings.” She paused, struck by the obvious. “Julian.”
“Why would he?”
“Rage against The Gathering? Revenge for throwing him out?”
“You’re pretty quick to blame him for everything, aren’t you?” said Cathy.
“He wouldn’t be the first kid who’s torched a house.”
“And destroy his only available shelter for miles?” Cathy heaved out an agitated breath and shoved the gearshift back into drive. “Let’s get closer.”
They started down the valley road, and through intermittent stands of pine, Jane caught other views of the settlement, the destruction more appalling with every new glimpse. By now the sound of their vehicle had filtered down the slope, and the lone coyote fled toward the surrounding woods. As their SUV drew closer, Jane spotted dark lumps scattered across the nearby field of snow, and she realized that they, too, were coyotes. But they were lying motionless.
“Jesus, it looks like the whole pack was slaughtered,” said Jane.
“Hunters.”
“Why?”
“Coyotes aren’t real popular in ranching country.” Cathy pulled to a stop beside the first burned foundation, and they both stared across the field of dead animals. At the edge of the woods, the lone surviving coyote stood watching them, as though he, too, wanted answers.
“This is weird,” murmured Jane. “I don’t see blood anywhere. I’m not sure those animals were shot.”
“Then how’d they die?”
Jane stepped out of the SUV and almost slipped on ice. Snowmelt from the fire had flash-frozen into a hard glaze that was now dusted with an inch of white powder. Everywhere she looked, she saw scavenger prints on that fine layer of snow. The destruction stunned her. She heard Cathy’s boots crunch away across the ice, but Jane remained beside the vehicle, staring at the jumble of charred wood and metal, here and there spotting a recognizable object in the ruins. A shattered mirror, a scorched doorknob. A ceramic sink, filled with a miniature ice rink of frozen water. An entire village reduced to rubble and ashes.
The scream was piercing, every echo flying back from the mountains like shards of glass. Jane bolted straight in alarm and saw Cathy standing at the far edge of the ruins. Her gaze was fixed to the ground, her gloved hand clapped over her mouth. In jerky robotic steps she began to back away.
Jane started toward her. “What is it? Cathy?”
The other woman did not answer. She was still staring downward, still in a stumbling retreat. As Jane drew closer, she spied bits of color on the ground. A scrap of blue here, a fleck of pink there. Fragments of cloth, she realized, the edges shredded. As she moved beyond the last burned foundation, the snow became deep and more riddled with scavenger tracks. The prints were everywhere, as if coyotes had staged a hoedown.
“Cathy?”
At last the woman turned to her, and her face was drained of color. Unable to speak, all she could do was point to the ground, at one of the dead coyotes.
Only then did Jane realize that Cathy was not pointing at the animal, but at a pair of bones poking up like slender white stalks from the snow. They might have been the remains of wild animal prey, ripped apart and gnawed on by predators, except for one small detail. Encircling those bones was something that did not belong to any animal.
Jane crouched down and stared at the pink and purple beads strung on a loop of elastic. A child’s bracelet.
Her heart was pounding as she rose back to her feet. She looked across the snowy expanse that stretched toward the trees, and saw craters in the snow where the coyotes had been digging for treasure, fresh meat on which they had begun to feast.
“They’re still here,” Cathy said softly. “The families, the children. The people in Kingdom Come never left.” She stared down at the ground, as if seeing some new horror at her feet. “They’re right here.”
BY NIGHTFALL, THE CORONER’S RECOVERY TEAM HAD EXTRACTED the fifteenth body from the frozen ground. It had lain entangled with the other corpses, buried together in one communal pit, limbs mingled in a grotesque group hug. The grave had been shallow, covered with only a thin layer of soil, so thin that even through a foot and a half of snow scavengers had detected the trove of meat. Like the fourteen bodies before it, this corpse emerged from the pit with limbs frozen and rigid, eyelashes encrusted with ice. It was only an infant, about six months old, dressed in a long-sleeved cotton sleeper decorated with tiny airplanes. An indoor outfit. Like the other bodies, this one bore no marks of violence. Except for postmortem damage by carnivores, the cadavers were strangely, disturbingly perfect.
This baby was the most perfect of all, eyes closed as if in sleep, its skin as smooth and milky white as porcelain. Just a doll was what Jane had first thought when she’d glimpsed the tiny corpse in the pit. It’s what she’d wanted to believe. But soon the truth was apparent as the coroner’s team, biohazard garb covering their heavy winter clothes, gingerly freed the body from its grave.
Jane had watched the steady succession of cadavers emerge, and the infant was what upset her most, because it made her think of her own daughter. She tried to block out the image, but it had already sprung into her head: Regina’s lifeless face, the skin feathered with frost.
Abruptly she turned away from the pit and walked back to where the vehicles were parked. Cathy was still huddled inside her SUV. Jane climbed in beside her and swung the door shut. The vehicle stank of smoke, and Jane saw that the ashtray was full. Hands shaking, Cathy lit yet another cigarette and took a trembling puff. The two women sat for a moment without speaking. Through the windshield, they watched a member of the recovery team place the pitifully small bundle inside the morgue vehicle and swing the door shut. There was too little daylight left. Tomorrow the digging would resume, and they would certainly find more bodies. At the bottom of the pit, workers had already glimpsed an adult’s rigid limb.
“No knife wounds. No bullet holes,” said Jane as she watched the morgue vehicle drive away. “They look like they just fell asleep. And died.”
“Jonestown,” murmured Cathy. “You remember that, don’t you? The Reverend Jim Jones. He brought nearly a thousand followers from California to Guyana. Established his own colony. When US authorities came to investigate, he ordered his followers to commit suicide. More than nine hundred people died.”
“You think this was a mass suicide, too?”
“What else would it be?” Cathy stared out the window at the burial pit. “In Jonestown, they made the children drink first. Gave them cyanide mixed in sweet punch. Flavor Aid. Imagine doing that. Filling a bottle with poison. Picking up your own baby. Slipping the nipple in its mouth. Imagine watching him drink, knowing that it’s the last time he’ll ever look up at you and smile.”
“No, I can’t imagine that.”
“But in Jonestown, they did it. They killed their own children, and then they killed themselves. All because some so-called prophet told them to.” Cathy turned to her with a haunted face. The deepening shadows of the vehicle emphasized the hollows of her eyes. “Jeremiah Goode has the power to command them. He can make you surrender your possessions and turn your back on the world. He can make you give up your daughter and cast out your son. He can hand you a cup of poison, tell you to drink it, and you’d do it. You’d do it with a smile, because there’s nothing as important as pleasing him.”
“I asked you this question before. I think I know the answer. This is personal for you, isn’t it?”
Jane’s words, spoken so softly, seemed
to stun Cathy. She went very still as her cigarette slowly burned down to ash. Abruptly she stubbed it out and met Jane’s gaze. “You better believe this is fucking personal,” she said.
Jane asked no questions, made no comments. She was wise enough to give her the time and space to say more when she was ready.
Cathy broke off eye contact and stared out at the fading light. “Sixteen years ago,” she said, “I lost my best friend to The Gathering. She and I were as close as sisters—even closer. Katie Sheldon lived next door to us, and I’d known her since we were two years old. Her father was a carpenter, unemployed a lot of the time. A nasty little man who lorded it over his family like a two-bit emperor. Her mother was a housewife. Such a blank personality, I hardly remember her. They were just the kind of family The Gathering seems to attract. People who have no other connections, who need a reason for existence in their purposeless lives. And Katie’s father, he probably liked the idea of any religion that gave him full rein to lord it over his family. Not to mention the young girls he’d get to screw. Multiple wives, Armageddon, the end times—he happily embraced it all. All of Jeremiah’s bullshit. So the family moved away from our neighborhood. To Plain of Angels.
“Katie and I promised to write each other. And I did. I wrote letter after letter, and never got anything back. But I never stopped thinking about her, wondering what became of her. Years later, I found out.”
As Cathy took a calming breath, Jane remained silent, waiting to hear what by then she knew would be a tragic conclusion.
“I finished college,” Cathy continued. “Got a job as a social worker in a hospital in Idaho Falls. One day, an emergency obstetrical case came in through the ER. A young woman who was hemorrhaging after giving birth in Plain of Angels. It was my friend Katie. She was only twenty-two when she died. Her mother was with her, and she happened to let slip the fact that Katie had five other children at home.” Cathy’s jaw tightened. “You do the math.”
“The authorities must have been notified.”