Footsteps

By Robert R. Irvine

Every parent's nightmare comes true for Debra Patterson, whose children disappear from the entrance to a Houston mall when she dashes into the pouring rain to get their car. When Debra learns that her husband is also missing, apparently having taken the children with him, she feels her whole world is collapsing. Suddenly out from under her husband's iron fist, but very much alone, she must find new strength . . . and the path that will bring her children back to her arms. Author DiAnn Mills's chilling story follows Debra's downward spiral and ultimate reliance on God for support.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
• Release date: Mar 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781482102062

Robert R. Irvine

R. R. Irvine is the author of the Moroni Traveler and Robert Christopher series, among others. He studied anthropology and archaeology at the University of California at Berkeley and now lives in Northern California.

Book preview

Epilogue

Prologue

THE THING stirred, coming awake after so long. In darkness it had been waiting, darkness so absolute that nothing existed but touch.

Occasionally it stretched.

How long had it waited? Long enough for its special kind of hunger to grow until its very presence filled the thing’s brain. It sensed, it knew, that soon it would be free again, free to feed its vengeance.

It reached out, its mind probing the limits of its prison. Time and again it had searched that perimeter, each time like the first, filled with the expectation of escape. Yet for all these years it had been frustrated.

But now it was different. The first tentative touch of freedom had come, like a probe to test the creature’s lust.

And it was ready. Soon it would begin.

The thing seethed. It lashed out at the darkness. Then, as its hunger reached a new dimension, a rage overtook it, a rage that grew until the thing seemed paralyzed by it, becalmed. But the calm was a deceit. The calm was the thing’s way of gathering its strength. The calm was that of patient waiting. Waiting to kill . . .

1

I KNOW now that we have not found the cities of Cibola. No gold, only death. But that which must come to us all should contain within it the seed of hope, the expectation of eternal salvation. Yet for those of us here in this barren land there is no such hope. Our mortal souls are forfeit. Balam, Astoreth, Mulicber . . . the fiends of hell, in the end He calls their names and they must obey. But we have unleashed that which has no name.

Kevin Manwill’s yawning jaw snapped shut. The stretch he’d been about to execute died a sudden death. His muddled brain cleared and his pale blue eyes, which had been watering at the sight of yet another bequest of boring pioneer documents, blinked repeatedly.

As junior man in the University of Utah’s Department of Anthropology, he had been stuck with the donkey-work of sorting through all such bequests. It was surprising how many people thought old documents and letters had real historic value. Mostly they were plain dull. But that hadn’t stopped Manwill, who’d been plowing through a mountainous backlog for months now.

He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, then reread the paragraph. True, he hadn’t had the occasion to use his Spanish in some time, but he still felt certain enough of his translation to wonder if someone wasn’t playing an elaborate joke on the new boy in the department.

His eyes left the ornate script to study the parchment itself, which was yellowed and brittle and obviously ancient. But the legend of the Seven Cities of Cibola, the fabled cities of gold that had tantalized early Spanish explorers, went all the way back to the sixteenth century. Could this document be that old? Possibly, he decided. But unlikely. Still, he would need to consult an expert to be certain.

Manwill was about to continue reading when a Charley horse made him jump. He banged his knee on the metal lip of the desk, then had to hop around trying to massage both knee and cramped thigh muscle at the same time.

When the pain subsided, he glared at the offending desk before looking around the anthropology library for a more inviting seat. But none of the other desks was any better; none was designed to handle the bulk of an ex-linebacker.

He smiled crookedly. The joke was on him. At 225 pounds, down 15 from his playing weight, he didn’t look the part of a scholar. He never had. That was one of his problems.

Another was that he must be losing touch with reality. Because what kind of archeologist would take something like Cibola seriously? He might as well go looking for the Emerald City of Oz and be done with it. Oz, if he remembered correctly, was a mere tornado ride from Kansas. Cibola, on the other hand, was thought to have been a Zuni Indian stronghold somewhere in western New Mexico. Then again, who’s to say the Zuni couldn’t have made it all the way into what was now Mormon country.

Manwill snorted at the thought. A scientist ought to deal in facts, not speculation. But then, Kevin Manwill always had been a romantic, so he went back to the manuscript with enthusiasm.

I, father Tomás de Orante, subject of Charles, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, representative of Francisco Vásquez Coronado, take full responsibility for what has happened to those men’s souls placed in my charge. The guilt is mine. A man of God should know better than to be led by greed.

Yet, though it was my duty to temper the men, I was as eager as any for riches.

Of course I cannot blame my companions for their avarice. Our journey has been long, with many weeks of suffering. We have crossed land as inhospitable as any man can imagine. Only hell could be worse. (Or do I blaspheme already?) We have marched over desert wastes where nothing grew but small cactus, too small and too thorny to nourish us. We have climbed unnatural mountains without so much as a trace of river or stream. What animal life we have seen is small, rodents for the most part, and the only birds in the sky are those waiting to pick our bones.

At times it has been all I could do to keep the men from deserting. Only my presence served as a reminder of our pledge to our commander, Coronado, that we would carry out his orders. But where do orders end?

I too must confess that my resolve weakened many times. On more than one occasion I was ready to turn back, away from this dreadful land. Only our guide, an Indian we call John because none of us can pronounce his heathen name, kept our hopes alive. The signs were right, he said day after day, recounting landmarks his father had described years ago when, dying, he had returned from the great cities of Cibola.

We had all begun to question John’s mind, or maybe his motives, when our first goal finally came into sight. And that’s when John saw the ancient heathen drawings and tried to warn us. But no one would listen. By then our greed was like a great thirst. We had to drink even though it cost us our lives.

Manwill double-checked his translation; it seemed right enough. So if this was some kind of joke, then it was the most sophisticated one he’d ever encountered. He doubted if anyone in the department had such a complex sense of humor.

Besides, how could anyone know he’d fall for such an outlandish tale. Lost cities of gold, indeed. The archeology of the Southwest wasn’t even his field. That area of expertise belonged to Klaus Gottfred, chairman emeritus of the department, who’d hired Manwill just prior to retiring. Though Gottfred no longer taught at the university, he had stayed in touch. But the old boy had no sense of humor, not when it came to the love of his life, the great Southwest.

There was another possibility, of course. The entire bequest could be a phony, some screwball’s idea of fun.

Mindful of his tender knee, Manwill eased away from the Lilliputian desk and limped over to the filing cabinets that held the department’s records. The bequest was duly registered under the name of Rawlins, Melba. It was not a death inheritance, which made him even more suspicious. Miss Rawlins, still alive and kicking according to the file card, had donated the manuscript and a number of letters six months ago. They had been found among her mother’s effects in the town of Genesis, which was entirely unknown to Manwill. The atlas told him it was a ghost town in southern Utah between Mount Carmel and Kanab.

Kanab was also Melba Rawlins’s address. To Manwill, it seemed unlikely that anyone in such a remote, small town would go to the trouble of hoaxing the university’s Department of Anthropology. Unless, of course, Melba was a good Mormon who felt it her duty to discredit those who fostered such blasphemies as evolution.

Manwill returned the file card to its proper place, then paused to stare out of one of the half-open windows that overlooked the campus. A few students still walked the well-lighted paths. Normally the campus would have been deserted by this time of night. But it was the first week of June, finals week, and students were frantically cramming their brains with knowledge.

Manwill decided to do a little cramming of his own, returning to the desk on which he’d spread Melba Rawlins’s bequest.

Our first sight of the narrow canyon came at midday. It was imposing, like a vertical mouth into which we must thrust ourselves. Truly the redness of the stone walls are the color of the wanton’s lips. Some of the men joked about the jagged outcroppings of rock looking like teeth. They, like I, are trying to hide their fears. So I have called a halt, time to write this down. Also a meal, however meager, will help raise our spirits. But as I study the narrow gorge, with its steep walls of bright rock rising hundreds of feet above the canyon floor, I fear an ambush. But John insists the Indians abandoned this place when they lost their war with us. If he is wrong, or lying . . .

John says this canyon is the gateway to the gold of Cibola, which he claims to be less than a days march away. Indeed, the brightness of the midday sun has turned the rock the color of gold. John calls it only a taste of the riches that are to come. In his excitement he seems to have forgotten the heathen warnings inscribed on the canyons entrance.

Despite my own unvoiced misgivings, we are moving into what we have named Cañón de Oro, canyon of gold. By pushing ourselves to the limit, we hope to escape these towering walls by nightfall . . .

As I continue this journal, we are camped within the gorge. The men don’t like it. Neither do I. The vastness of the canyon is a constant reminder of our own frailties.

With the setting of the sun, I realize we have misnamed this place. As light fails, the gold fades from the rock. The canyon walls darken. I will not speak of it to the others, but now I see it as the Cañón de Sangre, canyon of blood.

Manwill shivered despite the warm night. Goose pimples covered his bare arms. Even the scar over his left eye began acting up, something it rarely did anymore. When he rubbed the offending tissue, it felt swollen and inflamed.

Quickly he went over the other items in the bequest. In addition to a packet of three letters, there were several old photographs. From them, dour faces stared out at him, men and women dressed austerely in their black Sunday best. Only the children looked at ease, though there were few of them.

He found nothing to authenticate the priest’s story.

Our journey has ended at the base of a great tower of blood-red rock. It looms out of the surrounding desert like an inflamed boil. This, according to our Indian guide, is Cibola. It is exactly as his father described it with his dying breath. And dying men, even heathens, don’t lie—unless they’re mad.

That this land is heathen I have no doubt. God may have created it, but surely He could have had no hand in what it had become. Or are these the fears of a man grown too old for the hardships of exploration? Certainly the men don’t share my concern. They are in high spirits, infected by John’s enthusiasm. In that way our guide is like a child. One moment he is happy, the next fearful. I wonder if truth shifts with his moods.

Whatever the case, he has led us to the mouth of a great cave, an entrance into the tower of stone. But the cave has been sealed with a mixture of rock and adobe, the work of skilled craftsmen, who also inscribed their work with carvings and symbols the likes of which I have never seen.

Upon seeing these strange signs, John fell to his knees as if in prayer. He trembled, but not in thanksgiving. His fear was awesome. The carvings are ancient, he told us, from another time. He cannot read them all, but a few are yet known to his people. They are a warning, he says. The seal must not be broken. The cave must not be entered.

At first, the men shared John’s fear. But as they studied the carvings they saw pictures of great treasures. When they questioned John about this, he agreed that indeed great riches lay beyond the seal. But there is something else too, he told us. The ancients set a guardian to watch over the treasure of Cibola. Break the seal and the guardian will reap vengeance.

But after so many months of hardship, my companions have no use for John’s warnings. Their curiosity can no longer be contained. They have come in search of gold.

I have agreed with them and told John so. I thought he understood my reasons, but when we began digging into the adobe seal, a fit came upon him. He shouted that I was responsible and attacked me. My life was saved only at the cost of his. It is a heavy burden that I must carry.

I said a prayer over John’s grave and after that another prayer as we stood before the ancient wall.

May God sanctify our work and protect us in our mission.

We began digging then. I admit my part in it. The seal was thick, built to withstand the ages, and thus it took us until sundown before entrance was gained. On so doing, we heard a sigh emanate from the mountain. With it came a foul stink, no trick of nature, but the wakening of a beast. Evil. We have sinned. Our greed has condemned us.

What little knowledge I possess has failed me. Neither sacraments nor prayer have freed us from this thing which we have unleashed. In the name of God we have called upon it, but to no avail. Even the fiends of hell respond when their names are called, for they are subject to God’s will. But that which we have loosed has no name—except death.

Manwill left the desk again to lean his head against the window to cool his scar. By contrast the pane felt icy.

As he peered outside, he realized the campus was now deserted, its lighted pathways empty of everything but shadows. He pulled away from the glass, but that didn’t do anything to stop the chill that was seeping into him. He closed the library windows but that didn’t help either. He knew the only way he was going to warm up was to get out of that room and away from the ramblings of Father Tomás de Orante.

But Manwill made no such move. Instead, he went back to work.

When he reached for the parchment, his hand twitched as his scar blazed with sudden pain. The last time that had happened was in Vietnam, just before a terrorist bomb exploded in front of Manwill’s R and R hotel. After that, there’d been no rest and recreation, only the haunting thought that he might be losing his mind. Because who was going to believe that he had his own built-in radar, a kind of sixth sense that warned him when danger was near?

Right after he’d been wounded, he’d tried to tell the army doctor how it had saved him from the rocket while all around him friends died. The man’s Oh, yes carried with it the promise of straitjackets. So Manwill had dropped the whole thing.

So why now? Why here in the cloistered anthro library, on a sedate campus where the only rebellion was occasional outbursts against the church? Why was his scar sending out messages now?

To hell with it! he mumbled to himself.

The past couldn’t hurt anymore.

Gingerly, he reached up to touch his scar. At the contact, the pain subsided.

That’s right, he breathed. There’s no danger.

Even so, he got up from the desk, hurried to the door, and locked it. But the sound of the bolt going home didn’t reassure him; it merely made him feel foolish for giving in to his fears. Returning to the desk, he forced a smile onto his face. But it wouldn’t stay in place. There was no doubt about it: Father Tomás de Orante had spooked him. Even so, he began translating the final, shakily penned page of the journal.

I alone remain alive. The Angel of Death has taken my companions, dragging them screaming into the pits of hell, while I have been condemned to watch, helpless. We are all damned. Of that I am certain. I have no doubt that my turn will come, that I will end as the others, stripped of everything but abject terror.

During my lifetime I have seen many men die, in battle as well as in bed. It is seldom easy. But here, in this Godforsaken land, death is an abomination. It reduces men to something less than human. I have seen it happen to my companions, screaming their lives away while their eyes bulge from their heads, filled with what terrors I dare not contemplate.

Yet I, a man whose life has been dedicated to the service of God, should be free of fear. Death should offer salvation. But I know now I am no different than the others. I will no longer be a man when it comes for me. My God forgive me.

I cry like a child afraid of the dark. Tears blind me.

At this point the writing became barely legible, made harder to read by Manwill’s trembling hands.

I hear it coming for me. The sound of its eager breathing grows louder. In some ways it is a relief to know the waiting is over.

From where I sit, I can see much of the countryside. In the distance, the setting sun is turning the canyon of gold the color of blood.

My back is to the great tower of stone. I pray that I wont have to look upon what comes for me. I will hide this document now, in the hope that someday it will be found and serve as a warning to others.

Oh, Lord, I feel its breath upon me.

Manwill heard something in the hall outside the library door. Instinctively his hand went to his scar. But now it was as cold as the rest of him.

The doorknob turned.

Manwill found himself holding his breath.

Someone knocked. I have to lock up the building now.

It was Lewis, the night watchman.

Feeling sheepish for giving into the past, Manwill called, I’ll be right there, and then got up to unlock the door.

Sorry to disturb you, professor, Lewis said as soon as he saw who it was, but I’ve got my rounds to make.

It’s all right.

Manwill put the manuscript and letters into a manila folder and slid it into his briefcase. Then he walked out of the building with the watchman, glad to have the company.

I wish I were going home now, Lewis said by way of good night when they parted.

But that was one place Manwill wasn’t going at the moment. He didn’t want to read those letters in an empty house.

2

CONSIDERING PROXIMITY and the time of night, Manwill had a choice of a Dee’s hamburger stand, Salt Lake City’s predecessor to MacDonalds, or the Wasatch Chalet, the beer bar nearest the campus. He knew the bartender at the Chalet, and also knew that he’d have a hard time getting any reading done there. So Dee’s it was, where he ordered a burger, fries, and a large coffee over which he could dawdle.

Once the greasy sandwich was out of the way, he wiped his hands carefully before removing the letters from his briefcase. There was no sign of postmark or stamp. They were addressed to Melba Rawlins from her mother, Dora. Judging by the date at the top of the earliest letter, March, 1892, Melba had to be nearly a hundred years old by now.

March, 1892

To my dearest daughter Melba,

You are too young to understand any of this. That’s why I am putting it down so that someday you will be able to remember what you once witnessed here. Years from now you will know how much you meant to me, and how we struggled to create a new life for us all.

It’s easy to write this now that Genesis has begun to thrive. Of course many of us thought we were not going to make it through that first winter, which was a severe test of our faith. Many died and there was talk, though not out in the open, that the harsh winter was an omen from God.

I try not to blame the others for losing faith. I think most of us harbored secret doubts about our break with the church in Salt Lake City. But with the coming of spring we can see now that this land is not as desolate as we feared. There are signs of new growth everywhere. Still, I’m sure life here will never be easy. The land is hard and unforgiving. Yet that is why we came, because no one else wanted it. If we had not chosen this place, we would have been forced to flee the state of Utah altogether in order to practice the true spirit of our faith. Someday, my daughter, when Genesis is a real town, this will be our record, yours and mine, of what we suffered for the sake of God. But the good times cannot be far away now. There are plans to build a decent road to connect us with Kanab. Even a small hotel is planned.

Now I must tell you about a strange thing. Your father and I were out looking for strays when we came upon a small band of Indians, the first we’d seen anywhere near Genesis. Although Lukas said they were Utes, that they were peaceful, I was frightened nevertheless. But my fears were groundless. They shared their meal with us. We, in turn, invited them to our town, but they refused. When we were about to leave, one of the heathens gave me a small