The Lincoln Myth (Cotton Malone 9)

No, there was not.

“There have been many instances, Josepe, where men have been righteously slain in order to atone for their sins. I have witnessed scores of people for whom there would have been a chance of exaltation if their lives had been taken, their blood spilled as a smoking incense to the Almighty. But they are now angels to the Devil.”

Unlike this emissary, who spoke the word of God.

“This is loving our neighbor as ourselves. If he needs help, help him. If he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood on the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it. If you have committed a sin requiring the shedding of blood, do not be satisfied nor rest until your blood should be spilled so that you might gain the salvation you desire. That is the way to love mankind.”

He stared away from the apparition and asked the prisoner, “Do you seek salvation?”

“Why do you care?”

“Your sins are great.”

“As are yours.”

But his were different. To lie in search of the truth was not a lie. To kill for another’s salvation was an act of love. He owed this sinner eternal peace, so he reached beneath his jacket and found the gun.

The prisoner’s eyes went wide. He tried to retreat, but there was nowhere to hide.

Killing him would be easy.

“Not yet,” the angel said.

He lowered the gun.

“We still have need of him.”

The apparition then ascended until his form disappeared into the ceiling, the cell left dull, as it had been before the light appeared.

A kindly smile played on his lips.

His eyes shone with a new light, which he attributed to heavenly gratitude for his obedience. He checked his watch and calculated back eight hours.

Noontime in Utah.

Elder Rowan must be informed.

THREE

SOUTHERN UTAH

12:02 P.M.

SENATOR THADDEUS ROWAN STEPPED FROM THE LAND ROVER and allowed the sun to soak him with a familiar warmth. He’d lived in Utah all of his life, now its senior U.S. senator, a position he’d held for thirty-three years. He was a man of power and influence—important enough that the secretary of the interior had personally flown out to escort him today.

“It’s a beautiful place,” the secretary said to him.

The southern half of Utah belonged to the federal government, places with names like Arches, Capitol Reef, and Bryce Canyon. Here, inside Zion National Park, 147,000 acres stretched from northwest to southeast between Interstate 15 and Highway 9. The Paiute once lived here but, starting in 1863, Latter-day Saints, moving south from Salt Lake, displaced them and gave the desolate locale a name—Zion. Isaac Behunin, the Saint who first settled here with his sons, reported that a man can worship God among these great cathedrals as well as in any man-made church. But after a visit in 1870, Brigham Young disagreed and dubbed the locale Not Zion, a nickname that stuck.

Rowan had flown the 250 miles south from Salt Lake by helicopter, landing inside the park with the secretary, the local superintendent waiting for them. Being chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations came with many perks. Not the least of which was the fact that not a dime of federal money was spent on anything, anywhere, unless he okayed it.

“It’s magnificent country,” he said to the secretary.

He’d many times hiked this red-rock desert filled with slot canyons so tight the sun never hit the bottom. Towns on the outskirts were populated with Saints, or Mormons as many people liked to call them. Some Saints, himself included, did not particularly care for the label. It came from the mid–19th century when prejudice and hate forced them to gradually flee west, until they found the isolated Salt Lake basin. His ancestors had been with the first wagons that entered on July 24, 1847. Nothing there then but green grass and, if legend was to be believed, a single tree.

A lonely splendor. That’s how one Saint had described it.

When their leader Brigham Young entered, ill with fever, lying in the bed of one of the wagons, he supposedly rose up and proclaimed, This is the place.

Tens of thousands more settlers followed, avoiding orthodox routes, making the trip along trails blazed by pioneering Saints, replanting crops along the way so later caravans would also have food. On that day, though, in the first wave—143 men, three women, two children, 70 wagons, one cannon, one boat, 93 horses, 52 mules, 66 oxen, 19 cows, 17 dogs, and some chickens—found a home.

“It’s just up this ridge,” the superintendent said, pointing ahead.

Only the three men had ridden from the helicopter in the Land Rover. Each wore ankle boots, jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a hat. At seventy-one years old his body remained strong—his legs ready for the forbidding landscape that spread in all directions.

“What are we,” he said, “forty miles inside the park?”

The superintendent nodded. “Closer to fifty. This area is highly restricted. We don’t allow hiking or camping here. The slot canyons are too dangerous.”

He knew the numbers. Three million people a year visited Zion, making it one of Utah’s most popular attractions. Permits were required to do anything and everything, so many that off-roaders, hunters, and anti-conservationists had called for an easing. Privately he agreed, but he’d stayed out of that fight.

The superintendent led the way into a sheer-walled canyon crowded with bigtooth maples. Wild mustard and sturdy creosote bush mixed with tufts of wiry grass. High overhead in the clear sky a soaring condor drifted in and out of view.

“It was because of trespassers,” the superintendent said, “that all this came to light. Three people illegally came into this portion of the park last week. One slipped and broke his leg and we had to med-evac him out. That’s when we noticed that.”

The superintendent pointed at a dark slit in the rock wall. Rowan knew that caves in the sandstone were common, thousands littered southern Utah.

“Back in August,” the secretary explained, “there was a flash flood in this area. A good soaking for three days. We think the opening was exposed then. Before that, it had remained sealed.”

He gazed at the bureaucrat. “And what is your interest here?”

“To ensure the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations is happy with the services of the Interior Department.”

He doubted that, since President Danny Daniels’ administration had, for the past seven years, cared little about what the senior senator from Utah thought. They were of different parties, his in control of Congress and Daniels’ holding the White House. Usually that kind of split encouraged cooperation and compromise. But lately any amicable spirit had ebbed. Gridlock was the popular term. Complicating matters was the fact that Daniels was entering the twilight of his two terms, and a successor was unclear.

Either party had a shot.

But elections did not interest him any longer. He had bigger plans.

They approached the opening and the superintendent dropped his backpack and found three flashlights.

“These’ll help.”

Rowan accepted the light. “Lead the way.”

They squeezed through, entering a spacious cavern, the ceiling twenty feet high. The beam of his light examined the entrance and he saw that it had formerly been much wider and taller.

“That was once a good-sized opening,” the superintendent said. “Like an oversized garage door. But it was deliberately covered over.”

“How do you know that?”

The man motioned ahead with his light. “I’ll show you. But be careful. This is a perfect place for snakes.”

That he’d already surmised. Sixty years of exploring rural Utah had taught him respect for both the land and its inhabitants.

Fifty feet farther inside forms rose from the shadows. He counted three wagons. Broad-wheeled. Maybe ten feet long, five wide. And tall, the bows and cylindrical canvas covers long gone. He stepped close and tested one. Solid wood, save for iron rims

on the wheels, encrusted with corrosion. Teams of four to six horses would have drawn them, or sometimes mules and oxen.

“Vintage 19th century,” the superintendent said. “I know something about them. The desert air, and being sealed inside here, helped with their preservation. They’re intact, which is rare.”

He approached and saw the beds were empty.

“They would have come in through the opening,” the superintendent said. “So it had to be much larger.”

“There’s more,” the secretary said.

He followed a beam of light into the darkness and spotted rubble. Pieces of more wagons, piled high.

“They destroyed them,” the superintendent said. “My guess is there were maybe twenty or more before they started hacking them up.”

Twenty-two, actually. But he said nothing. Instead, he followed the superintendent around the debris pile where their lights revealed skeletons. He approached, loose gravel crunching like dry snow beneath his boots, and counted three, noticing immediately how they died.

Bullet holes to the skull.

Scraps of their clothes remained, as did two leather hats.

The superintendent motioned with his light. “This one lived a little longer.”

He saw a fourth victim, lying against the cavern wall. No hole to the skull. Instead the rib cage was shattered.

“Shot to the chest,” the superintendent said. “But he lived long enough to write this.”

The light revealed writing on the wall, like petroglyphs he’d seen in caverns in other parts of Utah.

He bent down and read the broken script.

FJELDSTED HYDE WOODRUFF EGAN

DAMNATION TO THE PROPHET

FORGET US NOT

He instantly realized the significance of the surnames.

But only he, one of the twelve apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, would know their identity.

“It was the reference to the prophet that caused us to call you,” the secretary said.

He gathered himself and stood. “You’re right. These men were Saints.”

“That was our thought, too.”

Throughout human history God had always dealt with His children through prophets. Men like Noah, Abraham, and Moses. In 1830, Joseph Smith had been anointed by heaven as a latter-day prophet to restore a fullness of the gospel in preparation for the second coming of Christ. So Smith founded a new church. Seventeen men since then had each taken the title of prophet and president. Every one of those seventeen had risen from the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, which stood just below the prophet in the church hierarchy.