Blood Atonement

Donna ignored her, concentrated on the man in the suit. 'Todd.'

'Donna.' The look of panic spread.

'These people are our guests here. They've come a long way. They're working on important business, like the lady told you. Cut them a break, huh?'

He shrugged. 'Donna, I don't make the rules. They need a temple recommend.'

'I have one,' she said. 'I'm working for these guys. Ain't that right?'

'It sure is,' Heather said, nodding.

'So move along and get this information ready for these good people to take a look at.'

'OK,' he said and trudged away.

'Thanks for that,' Heather said, and Nigel could tell she truly meant it.

'Not a problem. I have a fifteen-year-old daughter. I wouldn't want any petty religious bureaucracy getting in the way of anyone finding her. Plus, I'm intrigued. Just what the hell has all this to do with the Mormon Church?'

Heather leaned against a table. 'When you said back then that the Mormon Church had enough blood on its hands, what did you mean?'

Donna smiled. 'My Church was established in frontier land America. It was a bloody, lawless place and the founders did what they could to survive and prosper. Not all of it good. Not that the current Church leaders would care to admit it. I'm different. I'm a genealogist like Nigel here. I embrace the past and all its imperfections rather than seeking to airbrush it. My guess is that the newspaper reports you're seeking don't paint the Church in a particularly flattering light, so someone is making it as difficult as possible for anyone to find them.'

Todd returned, not without trepidation. He had a moustache that even appeared to droop apologetically.

He clapped his hands together softly and took a deep breath. 'There's a problem.'

'Why doesn't that surprise me?' drawled Donna.

'What is it?' Heather asked, attempting to cloak her impatience, unsuccessfully.

'The material you require isn't held at the library'

There was a pause as they digested this information.

Heather spoke. 'Where is it then?'

'It exists only as an original copy'

'It's never been microfilmed?' Donna asked.

Todd shook his head.

'So it's not even at the granite mountain vault?'

Again Todd shook his head.

'But we were told the LDS Church had the material,'

Heather said, nonplussed. 'That's why we're here.'

'I believe the Church does have copies,' Todd said.

'Where are they then?'

'I'm afraid that information is classified.'

Nigel could contain his anger no longer. 'A newspaper is a matter of public record,' he spat out. 'You can't confiscate it, change history, not unless you're a bloody Stalinist.'

Todd looked at him impassively, soaking it up like a human sponge.

It merely served to further enrage Nigel. 'This is censorship, pure and unadorned. I thought this was supposed to be the Land of the Free? Or does that not apply to the Mormon Church?'

Todd looked at Nigel, waiting for him to finish. There was an awkward silence. He drew himself up taller. 'I'm sorry, but any complaints you have must be taken up with the Church authorities.'

He turned on his heels and scurried away to his office hideout.

They sat in silence at a cafe two blocks from the library.

All of a sudden Nigel was feeling the effects of missing a night's sleep, as if he was wearing a hat of lead. He hoped the coffee would help. He could see Heather was seething.

A girl was missing, and they had flown halfway across the world to obtain a lead that might help find her, yet they had been thwarted by the clandestine practices of the Church of Latter-day Saints. Donna appeared to sense their resentment.

'My Church has got a lousy sense of what constitutes good PR,' she drawled, ruby-red lips blowing gently on her decaff latte, creating a rippling effect across its foamy top. 'It's an endless source of frustration to those of us who believe in openness and honesty. But the hierarchy has a somewhat paranoiac view of our Church's past.'

'Why?' Nigel asked. He couldn't see what could be served by squirrelling away documents that were part of the public record.

'We're a modern religion. The Mormon Church was founded at the start of the era of civil registration, which means there's a host of documents that people can look at, some of which can be used to question Church orthodox history. Then you have newspapers that print inconvenient things. I don't recall Jesus or Mohammed having to deal with the press. Things you didn't know about can turn up and cause people to dispute the accepted view of events. And, rather than saying, "Shit, do your worst -- we believe it, we think this is a religion worth following and so do ten million new folks every year across the globe,"

the culture is to hush things up, get your mitts on anything remotely critical of the Church, or which presents an unkind view, and hide it away from prying eyes. It's self defeating, because most of these documents and records appear in one form or another. Nigel and I know you can't sit on the past. It has a way of leaking out, like blood through sand.'

'Amen to that,' Nigel said. 'The past cannot be denied.'

"In which case,' Heather said, perking up, 'there must be somewhere where these newspaper reports still exist.'

'I'm sure they do,' Donna said. 'But y'all don't have the time. Unless.'

'Unless what?'

'I think there's only one possible thing we can do, given the urgency of your mission.'

'What?' Heather asked.

'We take a road trip.'

The noise that woke her was the smack of a stone on her window.

The rest of the night unravelled like a dream and then a nightmare . . .

It being the night before the wedding, she was granted the privilege of sleeping in a bed on her own rather than with her sisters. Not that she did anything other than stare at the ceiling. She would have preferred the tangle of limbs and snuffling breath of others to the sound of her own sobs. Yet she had dozed off momentarily when the small crack woke her.

She knew instantly it was him. Her heartbeat, pounding from fear, now began to beat with excitement.

She went to the window. A. gibbous moon sweated in the sky.

She cursed the night for being so clear. There was no sign of him on the ground. As always, he must be hidden behind the barn. She climbed into a dress, grabbed a bag she had packed in anticipation of his coming, with a family portrait of herself, her mother and siblings and a few items she thought she may need, and laced her boots. She opened the window and cast an eye around the room, trying not to think of the times she had shared here with the girls, before slipping out and shimmying down the front of the house as she always did.

He was there behind the barn, his jaw set and determined, eyes burning into her.

'Thank the Lord you came,' he said.

'Didyou ever think I wouldn't?'

He shrugged. 'I did not know. I wasn't sure you could ever face leaving your people behind.'

'There was never any doubt,' she replied. He grabbed her and wrapped her up tightly. They held each other close for an age.

'Where are we going?' she whispered when they came apart.

'Somewhere far away from here. I have a horse tethered by the wood. We will ride as far as we can. To the east, to the coast. Then we will leave this benighted place because I swear your father and your brothers will come and they will try to find us.'

'Leave? For where?'

'England. There is money to be made there for those willing to work hard. Come on.' He grabbed his bagfrom the floor, shouldered it, and then took her hand.

England? she thought. It was half a world away. All the people she had ever met from there were those that left after hearing the Gospel. They barely had a good word to say about the place, though she suspected they ran it down in such a way to justify their decision to leave. Still, if it be his will. . .