Chapter Eighteen
Hiram and Michael pulled back into Moab mid-afternoon on Sunday. Hiram’s throat was dry from singing hymns for most of the drive, trying to compensate, if only a little bit, for missing church.
They drove toward Diana Artemis’s house so that Hiram could confront her, but they found her before they got there.
The streets were mostly empty, but there, walking, was Diana, an open parasol slung over her shoulder to keep off the sun. She wore a form-fitting dress, this one of navy blue, with small white and yellow daisies stitched onto the sleeves and collar. Her white stockings matched the daisies. She didn’t limp so much as favor her false leg; she covered up her defect well.
What else was she covering up?
How much of her craft was mumbo jumbo? The fact that her Uranus cross—which Hiram had not yet had the heart to remove—was pure fiction didn’t mean that the other things she did, or claimed to know, were false. But it suggested that they might be.
Hiram thought of the strange way Preacher Bill had moved. Could the preacher and the widow somehow be connected? But no, that was madness—what would that suggest, a conspiracy of the lame?
Diana’s offending hat was tilted on her head, showing her dark hair.
“Pull over,” Hiram said abruptly. “I want to talk with her, alone. You bring the truck around back, maybe park it in behind Banjo & Sons. After last night, we’re marked. And be careful.”
Michael pulled over and slipped his chi-rho amulet out of his shirt so it lay above the fabric. “I will, Pap. And…I hope there was a run of women’s hats at the mercantile and this is all just a terrible misunderstanding.”
“So do I, son. So do I.”
“Maybe I’ll do some scouting.”
“Don’t,” Hiram said.
Hiram thought of the gossip he’d heard at the hotel concerning Diana.
“Make sure all your theories are backed up by evidence, Pap.”
Hiram nodded. He was going to do just that.
He got out, the sun muted by the incoming clouds. The heat was swirling up the heavens, bringing in a storm. The desert brought out the worst in the weather, courting violent tempests that caused flashfloods and pounded the dry earth, maybe as punishment for being dry. Too little water, or too much, deserts were harsh places. Cottonwood fluff was swept along on the growing breeze.
Michael drove off and Hiram approached Diana. “Good afternoon.”
“Why, Mr. Woolley, you’re back from Salt Lake City already?” She gave him a half-grin. Her green eyes were a bit subdued.
“Provo, actually, or…Lehi, rather.” He found himself stumbling. Damn, this woman had him in her grip. “Can we talk for a bit?”
“Certainly.” She motioned to a little park, a bench, circling a cottonwood in a patch of beleaguered grass down a side street.
He walked with her, and there they sat, facing the empty street. The town was busy worshipping God or mourning the loss of Lloyd Preece or recovering from a Saturday drunk, or perhaps all three, and it left them alone.
Hiram didn’t know where to start. Her perfume and his fatigue made thinking hard. “Thank you for yesterday and helping me keep an eye on Adelaide. I got her and her family away safely.”
“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Woolley.” She collapsed her parasol and turned her shoulders squarely toward him.
Her body…he was so aware of it, every movement, every curve. He pushed into the pocket of his pants, feeling the hard lump of his heliotropius. He closed his eyes, gathered his nerve, and opened them, staring into her face. “How well did you know Lloyd Preece? You’d never met his daughter, is that right?”
“I knew her only casually, but it’s a small town. She’s lovely. She’s had so much misfortune, what with the accident that hurt her husband and then her father dying.” Diana paused. “And yet, the stars have brightened her life in other ways. I would imagine Mercury was strong in the eighth house when she was born. That is money accumulated through partnership or marriage. In this case, she was born to the richest man in town. Few are so lucky, with respect to money.”
Hiram’s bloodstone didn’t pinch him. She seemed to be telling the truth, assuming his mind was sufficiently sober and chaste to permit his craft to work.
“Money,” he mumbled. “Satan’s best lie.”
“Pardon me?” She seemed startled.
“Satan,” Hiram said again. “The best lie he tells people is that they can get everything in this world for money.”
“But Hiram,” she said softly. “That isn’t a lie at all. That’s simply the truth. Education, food, shelter, safety, healthcare, influence, power, travel, beauty…you can buy everything in this world for money.”
“Yes,” Hiram agreed, “that’s what makes it his best lie, and his damnedest, because it’s only a lie by omission. It’s only a lie in that it leaves out the fact that the best things you can possibly have cannot be purchased with money.”
Diana Artemis frowned. “And what are those things, then?”
“Love,” Hiram said bitterly. “The grace of God. Forgiveness. Peace. The things that a sane person should want most. And the things that are precisely not of this world.”
Diana leaned back and was silent for a moment. “This conversation has taken a decidedly spiritual turn.”
Hiram took a deep breath. Across the red-packed road, a jack rabbit crept between two bungalows, nervously eyeing the windows.
“Did you ever make it out to Lloyd Preece’s old cabin out on the Colorado?” he asked. “Before going out yesterday with Adelaide, I mean?”
Diana harrumphed, only it came out as a chuckle. “I have to be very careful, Mr. Woolley, about where I go and whom I see. Already, people will talk about me, sitting with you, under this old tree. No, I had driven by his cabin. I’d never stopped inside.”
The heliotropius didn’t react to her words. Hiram, though, was sure she was lying. He felt crippled and blind, abandoned and alone.
And it was his own fault.
She touched his shoulder. “You can’t believe I had anything to do with the murder.”
He found himself leaning into the touch, and it felt good. Soft, yet firm. “I don’t believe it. But I saw a hat in his cabin the night of the murder. It’s the same hat you’re wearing this moment.” He’d find succor in the truth. He’d trust that the Lord Divine would bless him for his honesty.
And if he was not to have love, then maybe he could have peace, and grace, and forgiveness.
She moved her hand to his neck. Hiram stiffened, facing forward. His heart thumped in his chest, and felt as if his blood had become motor oil.
“I took the hat from Lloyd’s cabin.” She withdrew her hand. “But it wasn’t my hat. Adelaide said I could have it. This chapeau is not exactly unique, you know. If you come to my home, I can show you the page of the Sears, Roebuck catalog from which any one of perhaps ten thousand women bought the same exact hat. Hiram, it hurts to think you might doubt me. Heaven knows, most everyone in this town has had their misgivings in my regard. That’s the curse of beauty and widowhood. My sex has a bad reputation for gossip, but I have reason to know that men talk as well.”
“They do,” Hiram’s eyes dropped to her legs, the real one and the wooden one. Did the smell of corruption that followed Preacher Bill around have something to do with his foot? Hiram didn’t know what to say next. He wished Michael was with him. His son would know what to say.
“You’ve not talked about your wife, Mr. Woolley. You lost her, didn’t you?”
“Cancer,” Hiram murmured. “When the stock market went, so did she. It was bad stars back then, though I’m no expert.”
“You know how lonely the nights can be, then. You’ve known love.” She exhaled. “I came to Moab to find a place where I could rebuild myself. Henri is irreplaceable. I lost him in Baltimore, through violence. He was a banker, like our esteemed Erasmus Green. There was a robbery, and he was killed. His death slew a part of me as well.”
“You’re French,” Hiram said. The way she pronounced her late husband’s name confirmed it.
“I’m French,” she said. “I try not to give myself away.”
“I’ve known French women.” Hiram blushed. “Not like…that. I fought in the Great War. I’ve seen Paris.”
“Then you know the grandeur, the beauty, of that wonderful city.” Another sigh. “After Henri was killed, I felt that I had no control over my own life. I was subject to the pressures of society, beseeching me to replace him with someone else. I had always been interested in astrology, but it wasn’t until that tragedy that my studies grew intense. I wanted control, and if I could understand the movements of the universe, I thought I could gain mastery. It’s laughable to say out loud, but that was my thinking.”
“Why Moab?” Hiram asked.
She laughed sadly. “The American West, it is a place of new beginnings. I knew that in a small town, I could control the story, I knew what people would think, and I liked the idea I could write my narrative and make people believe it. I’m the fortune-teller, the beautiful widow in need, and still seductive and mysterious. I’m an outsider, and I play the outsider, which is why I’ve never remarried and never flirted with any kind of courtship.”
Was she telling the truth? Her story seemed plausible. He brought to mind several Bible verses on lust, and he recited them silently while they sat. Matthew, fifth chapter, But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And then, the solution, Timothy, chapter two, Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
He took a deep breath and felt at peace.
“So it wasn’t your hat,” Hiram said.
“No, I didn’t leave the hat at Lloyd’s cabin.”
The bloodstone pinched him.
Hiram felt joy—his craft was not entirely wrecked. At the same moment, he felt sorrow—the widow Artemis was lying to him. It was her hat he had seen at Lloyd’s. Lloyd. She referred to the dead man as Lloyd, not Mr. Preece. He thought back to dowsing for the well. Lloyd had referred to her as Diana, not the widow Artemis.
Hiram recognized the truth and the truth hurt.
But that didn’t necessarily mean she had killed Lloyd Preece.
“I’m the opposite of you,” Hiram said after a bit.
“How so?” Diana asked.
She put her hand on his leg, patted it, and then reached down to ease a line in her stocking.
“I struggle to let go of control,” Hiram said. “I long to be God’s instrument in this world. I go where He wills, and I do what He wishes me to do. If at any given moment I don’t feel Him talking to me, then I do my best to follow the written instructions He left. I pray to always have a servant’s heart.” His own honesty surprised him. He hadn’t planned on saying any of that.
“You’re a man,” Diana laughter was gentle and understanding. “It’s easier to give up control when you’ve had it. I had love in Paris and Baltimore, but I never had control until I had my heart broken and I came to this empty land. Even here, I struggle against elements that are greater than me at every turn: I’ve danced when I was forced to dance, and I’ve sung beautifully when bidden. And yes, what I have had from money in this world is freedom, the freedom to say no to men and to choose my own life, so yes, I seek money and the things it can give me. Yes, we are opposites…and in the same breath, you and I are exactly the same.”
Gus Dollar had said something similar to Hiram. It put a bad feeling in his belly. He didn’t think it was true…and he didn’t want to argue, either.
“I’m on your side, Hiram. I hope you believe that.”
He wasn’t sure what he believed. Her lingering touches, her delicate perfume, weren’t helping him any.
He did know he’d vowed to keep Adelaide and her family safe, and that meant unraveling the mysteries in Moab as soon as possible. It was the only way to ensure the woman’s future and to fulfill his oath.
Michael would have chuckled at him and his sense of duty.
* * *
Michael parked the Double-A. He wished he had his guitar, but it was back at their camp near Lloyd Preece’s cabin. He’d devoured the widow’s astrology book, and then the book from Mahonri Young, which had far more information, and not a few actual incantations. Spells. He was basically perusing a spell book.
And he was anxious to try one of them out.
He needed to stretch his legs; they’d driven from Provo with only one stop, at Green River to get gasoline. Michael climbed out of the truck. He’d parked in weeds behind Banjo & Sons, a big brick building in front of him. The Maxwell House Hotel was to his right across more dirt. The scent of a coming storm was heavy in the air. It wasn’t humid, however, not like how it would be in Lehi, with the marshes and the lake.
Part of Michael had wanted to talk with Diana again, or at least look at her, but another part was glad his pap had decided to talk to her on his own. Something wasn’t right there, and it would hurt him to think the widow Artemis might have something to do with the general chaos besieging Moab.
Low voices leaked out of the back of Banjo & Sons. He recognized a voice, Erasmus Green’s, hitting the breeze.
Maybe he’d just do a little scouting, anyway.
Michael stepped quietly to the back of the building, avoiding any stick or cluster of weeds that might give him away.
He leaned up against the brick and listened. The men must be in the back room.
Banjo’s husky voice said in a low voice. “Tonight is going to be tricky.”
Leon couldn’t keep his booming voice quiet. He’d be holding the Peteys, a habit which now seemed more sinister than it had before. “Dammit all, we have to go. Last night cost me. I was glad to do it, on account of Lloyd and all, but free drinks and food don’t help my bottom line any.”
Green’s sigh came to Michael. “I can’t believe he came back. I thought he and his Injun son would be long gone, after last night.”
Injun. Michael ground his teeth. A mistake of geography made insulting by two hundred years of dispossession and a pronunciation habit that made any man sound like an imbecile. Maybe Michael could move to Palestine and say he was an Arab. That would change things, certainly. He would be a sheikh and ride a camel and no one would ever again ask him which reservation he came from.
“Do you think Addy told him anything?” Banjo asked.
“Lloyd said he raised her not knowing,” Green replied.
“Bullshit,” Leon cursed. “Lloyd knew the power in it.”
From Green: “But he had a girl. Girls are different. There would be no reason for her to know. And you know how children are, they don’t question where the money comes from.”
“You have a point there,” Banjo agreed. “Guy never knew. Old Tunstall didn’t want him to know.”
Michael didn’t move, but he readied himself to run. If the men thought he might be listening, he’d have to sprint to the truck, before they grabbed him. But would they grab him as men or as huge creatures with antlers sprouting from their heads?
“Addy is gone, and I don’t expect she’ll return,” Green said. “You know we have to run it tonight. It’s a powerful time, Jupiter crossing into the third decan, and there’s the eclipse to think on. I can feel the power, and I know you boys do too.”
Decan. Michael knew the word.
“The third face,” Leon said in tones of awe.
“He’ll be powerful, too,” Banjo said. “And hankering for the power he’ll gain. The odds are against us.”
Michael wondered who “he” was.
From Leon: “Lloyd wouldn’t care. He’d run it. He never cared what the odds were. That’s why he was so rich. He’d take any chance.”
“Lloyd loved the hunt, though,” Green countered. “He was the best of us. It makes me sick to think he’s gone. You know, things can’t continue as they are. We’ll have to do something eventually.”
The men fell quiet.
Michael wasn’t sure what he was hearing, but he was storing all the information away in his head. Thank God for his memory. Yes, thank you, God. It was an honest prayer of gratitude.
He had evidence now, of the occult, one more bit of proof, and yes, Davison might have doubts, but now Michael was hearing them talk. Whatever Michael thought, these men clearly believed in magic…of some strange kind that involved a hunt, and the moon, and the decans. They had to get one of the men alone, compromised, and learn more of what was going on in Moab.
Could this hunt also have to do with Jimmy Udall’s death? It seemed likely.
Yet they weren’t closer to finding Lloyd Preece’s murderer. The three men inside didn’t appear to have anything to do with it.
Green was bringing the conversation to a close. “So, tonight, at the Monument, we’ll run. We’ll be fleet, we’ll be smart, and come tomorrow, the Tithe will bless us.”
Michael heard the word Tithe with a capital T.
“You’ll eat at the hotel beforehand?” Leon asked. He then mimicked the Peteys. “Bark, bark, bark.”
“We’ll all be there,” Banjo said. “Better make the ribs good, Leon. If it’s to be my final meal, I want it to be a good one. To the Tithe!”
“To the Tithe!”
Michael could imagine them lifting glasses in the toast.
The Tithe. Michael had heard one of the men mention a tithe at some point. He thought hard. It was Erasmus Green, during his story about the 1923 robbery. The insurance money helped him recoup his losses, but he’d also mentioned a tithe.
Michael moved away from the building, got into the Double-A, and drove off. He didn’t want those men to know he’d eavesdropped. He and his pap had a deadline now. The men feared they might die, and they hoped they would get rich—rich like Lloyd Preece. Tonight, there would be some kind of hunt, a Tithe.
But was it a tithe of money…or of blood?