Murder in Moab

By Jon R Horton

Thompson’s fall from grace is precipitated by his investigation when a Mormon polygamist is murdered in an elk-hunting camp near Jackson Hole. As fate would have it, the dead man is a first cousin to Tom's ex-wife and their son is a witness to the hideous murder. Tom’s investigation takes him to Moab, Utah where he finds himself neck-deep in a slough of fundamentalist religionists, a Mormon militia, militant lesbians, and others who teach him a new definition of the word “weird”. And in the middle of all the craziness, his nemesis appears in the form of a billionaire intent on seducing his new wife.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon R Horton
• Release date: Apr 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9780964397859

Jon R Horton

Jon R Horton aka J Royal Horton was one of those kids who read by flashlight and dreamed of becoming a writer. He attended the U of Wyoming for a year before joining the US Air Force where he served as a Russian Linguist and Intelligence Analyst while stationed in Germany. After his discharge he attended California State University at Northridge and received a B.A. in Russian Language and Literature. After making a run at Hollywood he attended Idaho State University where he finished the coursework for an M.A. in English. However, the academic gender wars of the 70s inspired a shift to a long career in international oil exploration.

Book preview

Prologue

It was a snowy November morning during the special hunt in the Grand Teton National Park of northwestern Wyoming. But Tom Thompson, detective of the Teton County Sheriff's Office, had Africa on his mind. He was in the middle of the biggest elk migration route in the world, and it reminded him of a TV program he had watched the night before.

This is our Serengeti, he mused.

Using binoculars, he scanned the wintry sagebrush flats and the Hayfields north of Jackson Hole as he tried to think about something other than the minor manhunt he was on.

He had learned that the Serengeti plains were the range of vast migrations of animals, and on these migrations the herds are ambushed by animal predators that depend on this semi-annual event for most of their food. But here, north of Jackson's big elk feed ground, wait the predators of the American Serengeti: fluorescent-clad hunters laired up with baloney sandwiches and thermoses. They wait for elk that migrate from summer pastures in Yellowstone through this bottleneck, known locally as The Firing Line.

The animals are warily running the gauntlet as they try to reach the winter pasture on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's feed grounds just north of the town. While Ma Nature depends on lions, crocodiles, leopards, and other predators to thin the herds of the Maasai Steppe, the government uses a special hunt on the otherwise sacrosanct national park.

However, Tom thought, the main difference between these hunters and Africa's is that too few of these guys use the meat for food. They’re only after the horns.

Tom came from a line of subsistence hunters who killed, prepared, and ate all the animals they brought down. They held in contempt the trophy hunters who killed the best bulls and removed them from the gene pool—an utter act of waste, as fare as he was concerned. Driving up and down the road, hunting from a pickup, wasn't what fell under Tom's personal definition of sport. The herd once numbered some 11,000 animals before the re-introduction of the wolf to Yellowstone Park. Then, as hoped, a pack of the acme predators had followed their prey south, reduced the herd, and one of the local spectacles is to watch the local pack hunt.

One of the pack’s methods is to for a couple of them to hide in the cattails and willows that spot the pastures, then the rest of them run a few elk by the waiting wolves. Once ambushed, the targeted elk disappear in a flurry of hair and pink snow. Then the pack gathers to feed on the bloody table spread on the white snow. It was all so efficient, so intelligent, and so timeless. More echoes of Africa.

Did you hear about Brent Vasye's wife and one of them budgie humpers up at the Science School? asked Woody, breaking Tom's musings.

You mean bungee jumpers.

No, budgie humpers . . . needle-dick bird lovers. You know.

His partner for the day was Deputy Woodrow Hoopes, and the man didn't need fluorescent garb because his neck was bright red enough to satisfy the law's requirement for minimum hunting vestment. Tom kept his eyes on the snowy expanse in front of him, knowing that Woody was going to tell the story, no matter what.

Woody was stocky and small enough to be able to cross his legs in the cab of the truck, and he did so to get comfortable. His bright blue eyes twinkled, as he pushed his departmental bill cap back on his head, licked his sandy mustache, and began his story.

"Ol' Shar' draws a moose permit and her and Brent are driving up Ditch Creek, scouting. Well, lo and behold, there's a big bull moose standing in the willows about a hundred yards past the park boundary, on the forest. They pull over and Sharon gets out, leans across the hood, and boom—one expired moose. It was a real good one, forty-three inches and some.

Well, wouldn't you know, here comes this guy from the Teton Science School on his mountain bike just about the time Sharon lowers the boom on Bullwinkle. So he screeches to a halt and lays into Sharon for killing the moose. He's carrying on, cussin', giving Sharon a real hard time. Brent’s getting ready to climb out of the truck and slap this guy pizzle-end upwards when Shar' looks at the kid and says, ‘How'd you like me to pull down them purple panties of yours and spank your butt with that stupid-looking thing on your head? That's what I'd do to my kid if he used that kind of potty language. Shame on you!’

Woody snickered. I guess the guy hopped on his bike and took off. Brent said he was wishing the guy would open his yap one more time and got a lesson in minding his own business from that big ol' freckle-face gal.

He shook his head in admiration. But she's got a mouth on her when it comes to Brent, too. She gives him pure hell, sometimes.

Woody thought for a second, then added, But that's the way it goes—if it's got tits or tires, you're gonna have trouble with it eventually.

Tom smiled. Woody, I hate to illusion you, versus disillusion you, but when Polly came back into my life everything changed for the better. I’ve never had one minute’s grief with her. She's as close to perfect as they get.

Woody looked into his coffee cup for a moment then glanced sideways at his partner. If your marriage is perfect, it’s the first one I’ve heard reported. Congratulations.

Wait a sec', I didn't say my marriage was perfect, I said that Polly was perfect. There's a big difference.

You look like the cat who got the cream, all right. Woody raised his cup and took a big slurp. But if your wife's perfect and the marriage ain't, you better get your act together. Id'n that right?

Tom shifted uncomfortably. I'm not perfect, God knows. The problem is her money and my job—and this is just between you and me, okay?

Yep. Go on.

I don't want to go into it, but she came into a ton of money when she was born and then married a lot more. . . .

And you're a cop who'd have to borrow money for the remodel in order to have a window to toss the proverbial piss pot out of.

Tom shook his head. Woody, you have a way of putting things, I'll say that much for you.

Tom raised his binoculars. After a moment, he said, What kind of horse did they say O’Donnell was riding?

White-on-black reticulated Paint. He’s got red hair and the horse has fancy tooled saddlebags.

Then I think that's our man who just dropped down off the bench and is heading this way.

Tom and Woody were on a stakeout for a suspect who, after fleeing Wyoming for eight years, drew an elk permit in Teton County and was foolish enough to think that he'd been forgotten. But computers lose their memories only when lightning strikes them.

Looks pretty prosperous for a man who can't afford to pay forty thousand dollars in back-child support, Woody said, looking through his own binoculars at the approaching horseman. Don't he look . . . picturesque?

Tom agreed. Yeah, with all that snow and the Tetons raring up in back with his picturesque horse prancing and blowing picturesque steam as he nears that expensive horse trailer behind that expensive—

—and picturesque . . . Woody interjected.

. . . and picturesque red Ford F-350 with the chrome accessories all over it and an Alaskan camper on the back.

Yeah, but that truck probably belongs to a corporation and couldn’t be touched for child support. Woody clicked his teeth in disgust and said sarcastically, Surely, he wouldn’t put all his worldly belongings in some anonymous corporate hidey hole so his ex-wife has to work two jobs to feed his boys.

Surely not.

Have you seen that ratty trailer that his wife and kids live in, over on Simon Street?

Yup. With grass up to the butt on a giraffe and the kids parked in front of the TV eating Cheerios for supper. The usual. We'll be seeing them in juvenile court.

Let's go drop a little doo doo in his day.

Good idea Mr. Hoopes. Let's give him a minute to let the horse cool down.

Nah, let's do it right now. I been sitting in this damn truck for four hours and that's enough. Woody opened his door and said, I've got the warrant. Let me break the news to him.

You got it.

Tom opened his door and stepped out. You drop the warrant on him, I'm going to drop some coffee. I'll be right there.

Detective Thompson was six feet tall and broad shouldered. Like most natives of Wyoming he wore a cowboy hat and other western clothing, including jeans and cowboy boots. But, unlike the common run of them in Jackson, he had actually won his trophy belt buckle.

When he glanced up to check the leaden sky his striking aquamarine eyes shone from under the brim of the fawn-colored hat. The winter light glittered on the silvering mustache. It complemented the strands of grey hairs that were beginning to appear in the longish black hair that fell down over the blue silk bandanna around his throat.

Woody stepped onto the snow-packed road and waited on the shoulder of the road for a pickup full of hunters to pass before starting toward Irish Jake O’Donnell, who had just gotten down from his horse and was taking his rifle from its scabbard.

Tom opened his fly, dug through his winter clothes, and then drained what had been the contents of a quart thermos of coffee. He finished and was putting himself back into order when he was surprised by the discharge of a big-bore hunting rifle behind him. Tom reached under his coat and pulled his pistol as he spun around.

Woody had grasped the barrel of O’Donnell’s rifle with both hands and was holding on with all his strength. His face red and his eyes wild, O’Donnell howled with rage as he yanked his rifle from Woody's grip. The deputy grasped the hunter by the legs and the two men fell to the snowy ground but the hunter quickly regained his feet. O’Donnell was trying to dislodge Woody long enough to crank another bullet into the chamber of his rifle.

His walleyed horse jerked at the lead rope fastened to the trailer, and it whanged as the side panels were yanked.

Tom ran across the road and heard Woody and O’Donnell grunting and swearing as each tried to gain control of the rifle. As he arrived he saw the man close the chamber on the rifle, seating a bullet into place.

O’Donnell! he screamed, Stop or I'll shoot!

He saw the muzzle of the rifle now pointed at his partner's midsection in spite of Woody's best efforts to push it away.

The wiry man looked up at Tom with crazed blue eyes. Snot bubbled from his nostrils and his mouth under his reddish beard was contorted. He jerked his wild gaze back at Woody, then the rifle exploded directly into Woody's coat, setting the fabric on fire!

In the instant that Tom saw Woody recoil from the gunshot and scream in agony, he pulled the trigger of his pistol and saw O’Donnell flinch. Then the red-bearded man dropped the rifle and grasped his chest as his screams joined Woody's groans and he fell back onto the snowy ground.

Tom jumped on O’Donnell with both knees as he holstered his pistol, then rolled the man he’d shot onto his face. He placed one knee solidly on the man's neck and another on his back then removed his handcuffs from their case. As he jerked O’Donnell's hands together and shackled them he shouted at Woody, who was sobbing and trying to crawl away, Hang tough, Woody, hang tough.

O’Donnell flailed and screamed as he freed his face from the foot-deep snow. For the love of God help me! I'm shot!

I know, you fucker, I'm the one who shot you, Tom panted.

He jumped up from the secured man's back and scurried to Woody's side. His partner now lay on his back, looking at the sky with a gaze that reflected the wan winter clouds overhead. He was going into deep shock.

Tom glanced down and saw a pool of blood melting the snow as it ran from under him.

Oh Jesus, help me, Tom whispered, and then stood up to run toward his Sheriff Department's truck. A tall man in hunter's clothes was already leaning into the truck and had the radio mike in his hand. He waved a badge at Tom, shouting, Santa Monica, California P.D.!

Tom raised his hand in acknowledgment then knelt to unbutton Woody's coat. Once the coat was open he rolled his friend onto his side and stripped the inner clothing away. Instead of the gaping wound he feared, he saw a channel of raw flesh where the bullet had burned through, parallel to the rib cage. The wound was ugly but it wasn’t fatal in itself. However Woody was in shock and falling away fast.

The California officer who radioed Dispatch joined Tom. What do we have? he asked.

He's not badly wounded but he's going into shock. There's a bunch of stuff in the back of our truck, blankets and all that. Go get it. I'm going to take a look at the shooter, I put a round in his chest.

Right. The tall man jumped to his feet and ran across the road.

Tom returned to O’Donnell and saw that he was going into shock too. For a moment he felt nothing for the man and his condition. Then he came to his senses and realized he had shot a human being in the civilian world, one of his nightmares finally come true.

He saw where O’Donnell coughed onto the snow and it was flecked with red. Tom knelt quickly and picked up the man's chin. Frothy blood was coursing from the side of his mouth flecked with crimson clots—lung shot.

Dammit! Don't you dare die on me, Tom muttered angrily as he began to expose the wound. Today’s my effing birthday.

Chapter One

Big Sam Harlan, Sheriff of Teton County, looked tired. Come in Tom. Sit down. He gestured to the small couch in his office. That was a good sign. The hard, wooden chair directly in front of his desk was the hot seat, and when you were due for a butt chewing that was where the sheriff wanted the butt situated. The couch was neutral ground—the DMZ.

Sheriff Harlan leaned back, straining the chair under his large, imposing frame, and stretched his arms over his head. The man was five inches over six feet and weighed over two-sixty. His white hair and mustache gave him an additional air of gravitas that made him a natural candidate for the U.S. Marshal of the state, a position he’d had his eye on for a while.

You know, I lose more sleep over you than I do all my other people put together. I don't understand it, because you're the best man I have. He put his arms down and leaned them on his desk.

Maybe it's just lack of imagination on their part. Or maybe they don't know how to get thirty days of administrative leave with pay.

He shook his head. That dumb shit O’Donnell turned a few days in jail into a minimum of twelve and a half years. Shooting a cop and assaulting another is going to get him twenty-five to life, maybe more if Judge Ranck is as mad as I think he’ll be.

Tom nodded tiredly. I went over to see Woody’s place this morning. He's still pretty shook. How’s O’Donnell doing?

I phoned the hospital and they said he was doing okay. The bullet nicked the lower lobe of the lung—entry and exit were clean. Most of the sputum blood was from bruising; you made as clean a shot as could be made for a chest wound. Didn't even break a rib.

Tom twisted his neck, trying to relieve some of the tension. I didn't sleep at all, I don't think.

Sam looked at Tom carefully. Is it bringing back old memories?

Yup. And Polly keeps at me to talk to her—but you know how that is.

Well, if you need someone else to talk to, let me know.

You mean a professional?

Nope. Come over to the house and Queen Eleanor the Second will make us a pot of coffee. Maybe make us some cookies, too. Hell, it's no fun counseling you ex-drunks. If it was anyone else we could go get a few beers, a bushel of peanuts, and talk it out.

Tom smiled. Maybe we should drive over to Big Piney and get it out of our systems at the Silver Spur. Unless Ross pulls the blinds and turns off the lights when he sees you.

Sam grinned. Tom was referring to a night the sheriff spent in jail in that small town, when he went there to work something out of his craw.

Let's pick on another town. I think I wore out my welcome in Piney.

Tom stood up. I appreciate it, Sam, but I'm going to take advantage of this administrative leave and get out of town for a while. I'm gonna take Polly some place where we can get away from the phone.

Do you know where you're going? Sam stood up and walked from behind his desk to put a hand on Tom's shoulder.

We thought about a snow coach ride into Yellowstone but there are too many damn snow machines and jolly drunks up there. Maybe we'll go over to Lava Hot Springs and soak for a couple days, eat a steak, and drink some sody pop.

Sam opened the door. Well, if you change your mind about that talk, let me know.

I'll do that, Sam. Thanks.

Tell Polly ‘Hi’ and have a good time. Get a good, hard massage while you're there. And by the way, don’t worry about the investigation. With Woody and Smith as witnesses, you’ll probably end up with another commendation instead of a letter. You’re going to come out of it smelling like a rose, as usual. He stood. Oh, and Happy Birthday.

MiM

Sam said I'd come out of this smelling like a rose, but I’m sure it smells like doo doo to you, huh Pol’?

Polly looked out the window and the snowy hills passing by as they drove over Tin cup Pass, crossed the state line, and dropped down into Idaho. It doesn't smell like roses to me, you’re right.

Do you want to talk this out?

His wife sighed wearily. I've said all I'm going to say about this death wish of yours.

The spin she put on the shooting exasperated Tom, but he forced his voice to be polite.

Tom sighed. Having some nut lose his mind over having to pay eight years' worth of child support has nothing to do with this death wish that you’ve hung on me. I get paid to do this sort of thing. It isn't supposed to turn into a shooting. I had no choice in the matter. He started it when he shot Woody.

Polly's silence etched at the clear, bright morning like acid on glass. In an otherwise perfect relationship, the risks associated with Tom's job reared up like the Grand Teton, heaving its icy mass into the middle of their marriage.

His wife came from a very well to do family then married a very successful businessman. They joined her inherited money with his real estate development business to make millions in California commercial properties. Polly never knew an insecure day in her life. She always had choices, which was not the case with Tom.

The son of a ranch hand turned oil patch worker, Tom’s father was killed in an accident and he never had much of a choice when it came to life, being raised by a single mom with two kids to feed and clothe. He had saved enough money to go to the University of Wyoming for three semesters and loved it. But when that money ran out, he joined the Army then volunteered for Viet Nam. That was the beginning of the present rub with Polly—his supposed death wish.

The two of them were lovers one summer, more than twenty years before, and he had been deeply in love. He asked her to marry him but she just turned her face toward Jenny Lake, which was bobbing a pale full moon, and said nothing. It broke his heart. Then she put her head on his lap with runnels of moonlight coursing her perfect face and falling into her silver hair.

He asked, What’s the matter with me? and she said quietly, Nothing. I love you. I do.

She returned to California to go to college, so she said. He returned to the University of Wyoming for one semester then joined the Army. He had only recently found out that she was carrying his child at the moment he proposed.

Tom's tour in Viet Nam was served in the cities of Saigon and Danang, in counterintelligence rather than combat. He returned safely but to Polly's mind he had joined because she refused to marry him. She was convinced he wanted to put himself in harm's way for not being good enough to be accepted as a husband by her. She blamed both him and herself. She had no idea of the limited choices that young, working-class Wyoming men had in those times, and even now. In fact, he joined because he needed the GI Bill to finish his education—something she had no way of understanding.

When Tom returned from the war, he needed to get some crap out of his system, so he spent a season on the rodeo circuit, and then tried college again. There he met his first wife, Beth Snow, through the University's rodeo club, and they were married the following summer. At that time Tom felt a great hunger to settle down, build a home, and feel safe so when Sam Harlan offered Tom a job that was it. He and Beth worked until they saved enough to buy a house in Jackson's first real subdivision. Then Beth got pregnant. They’d planned to have two children but complications forced Beth to get a hysterectomy, so they only had one child, a son they named Jackie.

Polly tapped her fingernail on the window and said, Look, a coyote.

One of God's Dogs was trotting across frozen Gray's lake—nose down as he navigated through rushes trapped in the ice, looking to flush rodents, rabbits, or wintering birds.

Tom nodded at the winter landscape. This is the Gray's Lake bird refuge. It's where they saved the whooping crane from extinction by putting eggs in the nests of sandhill cranes. In the spring, there are a zillion Sandhills in this valley. It's the eastern arm of the Bear River flyway.

A zillion seems like a lot, Thomas.

Well, the coyotes eat so many of them that there's only a few dozen that survive each summer—just barely enough to keep the species afloat.

Your neck is glowing. You’re fibbing.

Guilty. He pointed at the frozen lake. Actually, Gray's Lake was named after a half breed Iroquois mountain man. In addition to this lake, Gray's River and John Day, Oregon, are named for him, too. It was near Alpine, at the mouth of Gray's river, that he cut up Bad Hand Fitzpatrick and almost killed him for messing with John's daughter. In those days, Fitzpatrick was famous for killing grizzly bears with a knife, so John Gray must have been a real horse.

Polly appraised her husband. You know a lot about this part of the country. You could be a teacher, if you wanted to be. And you'd be very good at it.

Tom frowned. I don't think I could be inside all the time.

And there’d be no danger to court, would there?

He knew what she was suggesting. Pol, I'm too old to start over. Besides, I like my job. It's interesting a good bit of the time, and there's a lot of variety.

They drove along in frosty silence, over the broad landscape hemmed by rounded hills and windswept furrows furred with barley stubble grasped in the iron fingers of winter.

He turned to his wife to comment on their passage but saw she had pillowed her face on a jacket she placed against the cold side window, and her face was composed for a nap.

An hour later they dropped down from the long mountain pass between Soda Springs and Lava Hot Springs. He saw the green, sinuous green Portneuf River below, pillows of icy snow gliding along on its surface. He glanced saw Polly was still asleep so he waited until they parked in front of the old hotel next to the river before he gently shook her out of her nap.

MiM

ElRay Burton, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the state of Utah, knelt in prayer beside his desk. His lips moved but his secretary, Miriam, who stood a pace behind him with her head bowed, couldn’t hear the words. She knew he was praying for guidance, as usual.

In any state but Utah this sort of behavior would have been unusual, if not downright illegal. But when a member of the Mormon Church's Quorum of the Seventy is moved to go to his knees in prayer, very few in the state would object.

When he finished his prayer and rose to his feet, she handed him a file. Brother Burton sat down, opened it, and thumbed through until he came to what he was looking for.

"Omni 1:2 was the basis for the last password Jensen used for his polluted bulletin board. It was changed to 1OMN2, but no doubt, he’s using some other book and chapter/verse for his new key. But I’m afraid he’s going to get more cryptic now that he suspects that he is being monitored. We need someone with special skills."

Hmmm. Miriam pursed her lips in thought.

Yes?

Do you have someone to suggest?

We have some of the best computer people in the world in Provo.

Burton looked blank for a moment then he understood. XeXen. They sell the encryption software that big corporations use to keep secrets from the government. There’s been a big stink about that in Washington. Do you know someone there?

My nephew. He was in the Air Force after ROTC at the U. He worked with the NSA when he was on active duty, then at their headquarters in Maryland. Now he’s writing security software for XeXen. It's a very good job.

He went to school at the U?

Miriam understood instantly the implicit thrust of the question. The U stands for the University of Utah. The Y stands for Brigham Young University. Orthodox Latter-Day Saints go to the latter, the gentiles and suspect Mormons go to the former while liberals and others surely bound for hell go to Utah State in Logan.

Very well. Can you get him to come up here discreetly?

Yes, of course.

Bishop Burton nodded his head and grimly said, I’ve been talking to the Lord regularly and he hates the stench of this thing more than anything else on this earth! This man and his spawn are not beyond redemption for there are ways of handling it, but the seed of Israel is not in them. Phone your nephew and tell him he’s been called by both the state and the church.

MiM

A band of winter sunlight on the red rock east of Moab narrowed as the pink light of dusk intensified. Then the chilly evening fell into desert darkness as the day failed.

Rabbi Schneur ben Yusip always drew strange looks as he walked the sidewalks of this small town in southeastern Utah. His customary black duster, black sateen cowboy shirt with silver piping, and silver-dressed cowboy boots contrasted sharply with his sparse beard, side ringlets. His clothing was a very odd innovation on the normal dress of conservative Hassidic Jews.

But at the moment, it was the grim mouth, the militant stride, and fanatical gleam in the Baltic blue eyes below the black hat as he strode along that made him remarkable.

That flat-brimmed Spanish-style hat marked him as a descendent of the Sephardic Jews expelled by Queen Isabella in the 15th century. Some of those Jews had gone east to places like the city of Satmar in Romania, so it was very much at home on the Rebbe’s head here in Moab.

Most of eastern Utah knew the Rabbi as the man who bought thousands of acres of what had been nominal ranch lands then introduced Israeli farming methods that required a minimum of water. The revived soil was then used to grow abundant crops the locals had never heard of.

The Rabbi's mouth relaxed only a bit when he entered Back of Beyond Books and saw the manager—the only resident of the town he considered worthy of any intellectual intercourse.

The manager looked up and said, "Shalom, Rabbi. How are you today?"

"Shalom. I’m here for my books, José."

They're in the back. Let me get them for you.

The Rabbi looked about the store and was relieved that there were no customers at the moment. He wandered back to the table that held the discounted books. He seldom bought anything from it, but he enjoyed seeing which titles the locals had chosen to ignore. Usually it held some of the best authors in the English language, yet there was rarely a book on mountain biking or environmentalism that went unsold. It confirmed what he believed since he brought his people here: the inhabitants of Moab were bourgeois philistines through and through. They were the unchosen followers of the false Jew who claimed to be the son of YWHW. He, the blood kin of the prophet Joseph, would see them all buried beneath the ash when he called the angels down and spread wide the boundaries of Zion. As the genuine Messiah, he was here in Moab to prepare a sanctuary for righteous Jews who now groaned beneath the godless U.S. and Israeli governments.

He had bought 1500 acres south of Moab and started a kibbutz. His specialties were organic and kosher foods, exotic vegetables, and rare mushrooms. He had greenhouses and a lab in nearby Castle Valley for genetic experimentation in varietals of all sorts.

He also constructed a large kosher slaughterhouse for the animals they raised, but he was proudest of buying two decommissioned missile silos near Cheyenne, Wyoming and setting up a settlement of whose business was a place named the Red Heifer Ranch. The satellite community in Wyoming was doing so well that he ordered twenty trailer homes—items no more remarkable to eastern Wyoming than stands of sagebrush.

All he needed now were more settlers from Israel to staff them. Here in America the door had been wide open, as millions of Mexican immigrants had proven. But now the borders were being closed tighter and tighter by Homeland Security, but there were other, albeit expensive, ways.

And as for Israel, the End Times were immanent. Then the Satmar Jews could return to Palestine with a flaming sword that would reestablish Israel in the covenant time and in the name of Joseph the Prophet. Rabbi Yusip's followers were all dedicated to preparing the way for himself, the Messiah of the House of Joseph.

And interestingly enough, this new Zion in Utah was brought into being by another prophet named Joseph. He had been the subject of a lot of the Rabbi’s recent research—this mysterious Joseph Smith whose secret temple rites, rituals of their priesthoods, and much of its theology were grounded on the Jews’ own mystical Kabbalah and Zohar. In fact, Smith had been studying those mystical subjects with an apostate Jew when he was martyred by a mob in Carthage, Illinois.

But the hideous libels he had suffered from the blasphemous local King Jensen had finally soured him on the Mormon religion. Frivolous lawsuits had been painful enough because his lawyers had easily fended them off. However, the man had finally descended to attacks on the Jewish religion that could no longer be tolerated. They had fallen to the level of blood libel and there had to be a final remedy for it under the religious laws of the Jews.

The bookstore manager came out of the back room with an armload of books and carried them to the front of the store. Hebrew? he asked as he set the books down.

Commentaries on Hebrew law. The Rabbi laid down a worn Diner's Club card. Warrants, he added. "You would be familiar with them as what the Arabs call fatwahs. I need to know how the law reads on warrants for prosecution, capital offenses, summary judgment."

That's covered in religious law?

Everything is covered in the religious laws of the Chosen. I like to think of the Torah itself as a wonderful bumblebee caught in amber—small, perfect, and unchangeable until the drone of the shofar shakes the universe. Only then will there be additions to the work. Until then, the vast body of song, poetry, wisdom, speculation, and commentary that the Pentateuch is the fount of much of the world’s wisdom.

Well, this stack is an armload in itself. Want me to help you?

No, my man is waiting.

The Rabbi went to the window of the store and waved his hand peremptorily. A James Dean look-alike pushed himself away from one of the temple's black Yukons and strode across the sidewalk. When he came in, he nodded to the bookstore manager and said, José.

Rains, José said in frosty acknowledgment.

I don't remember shittin' on your birthday cake, Rains said, his voice edgy, aggressive.

José put on a fake smile and mockingly said, Hi, Rains, it's real good to see you again. Have yourself a nice day.

That's more like it, Rains said, you pompous prick, and took the books from the counter.

José walked to the window and watched the two get into the big black vehicle. He muttered, Rains Lee is back in the country. Huh. The news that the sheriff’s prodigal son was back in town, and working for the temple, meant that he must be hooked up with Raz Lewis. And that wasn’t good.

He turned the bolt lock on the door and flipped the cardboard sign to read Back Soon. He wanted a beer, and some gossip.

MiM

Tom laid on his back in the dark, caught up in a frantic old dream. He tried to wake himself but he was trapped like a fly in a sticky web—and he was in mortal danger.

In his night terror, he was lying in a flimsy nylon tent as a black leopard approached, intent on dragging him from his inadequate shelter to kill him, as he lay paralyzed and unable to defend himself. And that was what was so terrifying—the helplessness, the inability to even try to save himself.

He needed help. He needed someone to rescue him by waking him