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Chapter Twenty-One

The sun had set but the sky glowed red by the time they had returned to their camp, close to the river. Hiram lit their kerosene lantern to keep the coming gloom at bay.

“You guys are idiots,” Erasmus Green called from the back of the Double-A. The banker flailed around, pulling at the ropes with which Hiram had tied him down. “Seriously. What do you think is going to happen next? You’re going to solve the murder of Lloyd Preece and be heroes? What, you think there’s some kind of reward for doing the sheriff’s job? Ha!”

Hiram and Michael leaned closed together.

“The problem is this,” Hiram said. “The stone I carry in my pocket?”

“The bloodstone.”

Hiram nodded. “I don’t think it’s working. Yes and no, hit and miss, but not consistently. And it’s a bigger problem; my craft has become unreliable for me.”

A look washed across Michael’s face and disappeared. It flashed for only a brief moment, but that was enough for Hiram to recognize it and be wounded; it was an expression that was part disappointment, part glee at being proven right, and part pity. The pity wounded Hiram the most.

But the expression passed, and Michael regained control of his face. “That’s why I had to take over with the dried frog’s tongue. Okay, so your magic isn’t working?”

“I don’t love the word magic, son.”

Michael looked at him as if he were avoiding the question. “It doesn’t work.”

“It does work,” Hiram said. “It’s just not working for me right now.”

Michael frowned. Hiram knew what he was thinking.

“The bloodstone works,” Hiram said. The stone worked. It had worked for Hiram innumerable times, except which it was interfered with by the working of other influences, or when Hiram himself was not a worthy instrument. “Listen, you know what I tell you about the state of mind you need to have to be able to work any of Grandma Hettie’s lore.”

“No cussing.”

“No, not that. I mean yes that, but, more basically…”

Michael nodded. “A chaste and sober mind.”

Hiram breathed a sigh of relief. “That.”

Michael stared blankly for a moment. “Wait, are you saying…Pap?”

“Yes.” Hiram hung his head.

“Who…? It’s Diana Artemis, isn’t it? Ho ho ho, Pap, what did you do?”

“No, nothing. I—look, you don’t have to do anything. Jesus says in Matthew 5 that if you look upon a woman with lust in your heart, you’ve already committed adultery.”

“That’s a pretty high bar, Pap.”

“It’s the highest bar, son.” Hiram felt his cheeks coloring. “It’s the judgment bar.”

“So you’re telling me,” Michael said slowly, “that you didn’t do anything with Diana Artemis. Didn’t kiss, snuggle, hold hands, touch, say naughty words.”

“Nothing.”

“And yet you feel like an adulterer.”

“No!” What Hiram felt was mortification. “Look, all I’m saying is, I don’t have the kind of concentration to be able to make the charms work for me right now. I’m pretty sure that’s why the heliotropius has been…somewhat not working.”

“Look, Pap, this is totally normal, I promise you. As a fellow who has felt lust in his heart while looking upon a girl or two in his own time, I can assure you that the feelings are thoroughly natural. And if you didn’t do anything to act on those feelings, Pap, really, that’s the best you can do. I promise. Mom couldn’t ask anything more from you. You can’t ask anything more from yourself.”

“I’m going to ask something from you.”

Michael stopped his rapid-fire reassurances. “Sure, Pap. What do you need?”

“I want you to try another charm. I know this is three in a row—the sleeping table, the frog’s tongue, and now this—and I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’m not very…cunning…right know.”

Michael’s face froze, then shifted into a slightly uncomfortable grin. “I’m not so sure I have a chaste and sober mind. I mean, a couple of hours ago I said I did, but now that I’ve heard your standards…”

“I think you have what it takes, son. In any case, I know that I do not.”

Michael took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Give me the bloodstone.”

Hiram handed the stone over to his son. They turned back to face Green.

“What’s the charm?” Michael asked.

“I have a divination in mind,” Hiram said. “I think we’ve got all we could get out of Erasmus Green, but at least he’s given us a list of suspects. And with that, we can begin to test.” He grinned a crooked grin. “Science, you know.”

“Which one?” Michael’s face lit up. “I mean yes, of course, but which one? Sheep’s entrails?”

“That’s old Greek stuff,” Hiram told him. “You know I don’t do that.”

“Divining rod? Sieve and shears?”

“I was thinking clay balls,” Hiram said. “And we do it in front his Mr. Green here.”

“Because sometimes a guilty man will reveal himself, independently of the magic?”

“The charm. Yes. There’s clay down on the riverbank we can use.”

“I’ll fetch some clay,” Michael said. “You can show me what to do.”

Michael took the tin bowl from his mess kit and headed down to the water. Hiram grabbed his toolbox from the back of the truck. Erasmus Green craned his neck to see what Hiram was doing, but finally grumbled, “Torture won’t get you anything.”

“Agreed,” Hiram said.

On the end of the truck bed, Hiram spread out what Michael would need: virgin paper, the finest ink Hiram could buy, Hiram’s ritual knife, the big tin bucket in which he washed dishes, now full of clean water.

Michael returned with a heaping pile of thick brown clay in his bowl, and, at Hiram’s directions, washed his hands.

“First,” Hiram said, “take this pen and ink and write out on this virgin sheet of paper the names of our murder suspects. Each name on a separate line. As you write, keep a prayer in your heart.”

“How do I keep a prayer in my heart?”

Hiram considered. “Try remembering the pity you have for Lloyd Preece, and think the words please, Lord, as you work.”

Michael nodded. “Who are our suspects?”

Hiram sighed. “Diana Artemis.”

Erasmus Green cackled.

Michael wrote the name.

“Davison Rock. Earl Bill Clay.” Hiram looked up at Mr. Green. “Erasmus Green.”

Michael wrote out the names. Green laughed, snorted, and spit.

“You know you’re going to go to prison for this,” Green said meanly. “That’s what you call irony. You all think you’re hunting down a criminal, but the criminals are you. Kidnapping! That’s a trip to Sugar House for both of you!”

Hiram fixed Erasmus Green with a steady eye, looking for any signs of flinching in the man. He saw none. There was manic energy there, and conviction, and anger, but no uncertainty or hesitation.

He was certain Green had attacked him on the road to Provo, in the form of the deer-beast with the skin affliction. Was it possible that wasn’t connected to the murder of Lloyd Price, who had been a member—the head—of Green’s were-deer herd?

Was this just about the money after all?

“Anyone else, Pap?” Michael asked.

“Adelaide Tunstall,” Hiram suggested. “She knew there was money. We have no reason to think it was her, but let’s see what the clay says. Jack Del Rose.”

“He’s certainly been useless enough in the investigation.” Michael wrote the two names.

“Any others you can think of?” Hiram asked.

Michael shook his head.

“Okay, son, take the ritual knife and cut those names from the virgin sheet in long strips, from one side of the paper to the other.” Hiram indicated what he meant with a finger. “Make the strips equal in size.”

“Ritual knife?” Michael asked.

“It’s a knife I use for no other purposes,” Hiram said. “And it’s been blessed to the purpose.”

Michael looked as if he wanted to say something, but then shook off the thought to focus on the matter at hand. He cut the names off in careful strips.

“Now roll those strips up as tight as you can,” Hiram said. “Keep the prayer in your heart and be sure not to play favorites. Roll them equally tightly.”

Green chuckled. “This is rich, watching you magicians. Under other circumstances, we could charge a nickel for such a show.”

While his son worked, Hiram put away the paper and his knife.

“Now roll each piece of paper into a clay ball,” Hiram continued, when Michael was ready. “Make the balls equal in size. Keep praying.”

Michael wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. The night was cool—Michael was concentrating so hard, it was making him sweat.

He would make a good scientist. He was methodical and precise, and he was the smartest person Hiram had ever known. Hiram resolved to tell Michael all those things, at a moment when the information would be less distracting.

“Now what, Pap?” Michael asked.

The neat stack of brown clay balls sat beside the basin of still water.

“You think this is going to be admissible in court, do you?” Erasmus Green howled. “Hell, I might even wish we still lived in a world where you could tell a judge you wrote the names of suspects on sheets of paper and a bowl of water told you which one was guilty, but we don’t, and you know it!”

“In a moment,” Hiram told his son, “you’re going to place all the balls into the water. Once they’re all in, there’s a charm that you’re going to pronounce. I don’t have it written down, so I will whisper the words into your ear. At various points, while you are reciting, you must cross yourself. Do you know how to make the sign of the cross?”

Michael crossed himself, sloppily.

Hiram nodded to encourage him. “Forehead, chest, left shoulder, right shoulder. Make the movements slowly and deliberately, at a consistent speed. Touch your head or your chest with two fingers at each of the four spots.”

“Even if you do find out I’m guilty,” Erasmus Green shouted, “all you can do with that information is kill me! Are you prepared to do that, Woolley?”

Hiram stood beside Michael, placing his left hand on Michael’s left shoulder. “Place the clay into the water. One ball at a time, careful not to damage them. Set them in a ring around the bottom of the bucket, equidistant from each other.”

Michael followed his instructions.

“I will say the charm now,” Hiram said. “Repeat it after me, and every time I squeeze your shoulder, make a good, slow, deliberate cross. I’ll cross myself, too, if you want to follow my timing.” He smiled. “I’ve done this before. And keep a prayer in your heart.”

Michael smiled. It was the gentlest smile Hiram could ever remember seeing on his face.

“I conjure thou earth and clay,” Hiram began, with Michael following, and both of them making the multiple crosses required by the charm. “By the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen, and by all the holy names of God: Messias, Soter, Emanuel, Sabaoth, Adonay, Panthon, Kraton, Anefeto, Theos, Otheas, Eley, Eloy. And by all the names of God, by heaven and earth and by the sea and all that be in them and by our blessed virgin Mary, the mother of our savior Jesus Christ, and by his humility, and by the holy company of heaven, and by all that God created in heaven, in earth, and in the sea or other places, and by the virtues and merits of all the saints, that amongst those names hidden within the clay, his name or her name which hath murdered Lloyd Preece may be known by him who liveth and reigneth, world without end, amen.”

The words left Hiram deep in thought. Sabaoth, Grandma Hettie had once told him, was the host of heaven, which meant the stars. She had wanted Hiram to read the almanac as she did, and know the stars, but he had fallen far short. Perhaps Michael would now master that lore that Hiram hadn’t been able to. Was the holy company of heaven also the stars? The stars tonight were scuffed by a web of clouds, but still mostly visible. Standing beneath a moonless sky dominated by Hercules and the Summer Triangle, with the reigning star Jupiter in Scorpio low on the southern horizon, it felt to Hiram that it was. His craft seemed, for a moment, of a piece with Lloyd Preece’s and Grandma Hettie’s and Michael’s.

And what were the “other places” in which God might have created things, that were not in earth, heaven, or the sea? In outer space? Even Michael’s hero Buck Rogers seemed to be part of the field of energy in which Hiram felt himself floating.

Erasmus Green snorted. “Horseshit.”

Michael hissed out a breath. “Kind of a silly answer, from a man who takes his clothes off and turns into a deer for fun.”

“Not for fun, son. Never for mere fun.”

“Now what?” Michael asked.

“We stay here and watch.” Hiram clapped him on the shoulder. “You did well. If the divination works, the name of the guilty party will unfold first.”

“If?”

“You have a chaste and sober mind. It’ll work.”

“Pap, you’re the best man I know.”

Michael’s words took Hiram by surprise, and he found he had to clear his throat. “You’re a better man than I am, son. Smarter and braver, and you have a lion’s heart.”

“Dad, you help the poor. You’re like the Shadow, only not creepy, and you hate to hurt people, even bad guys.”

“Son…”

“No, listen. I have a hard time believing the charms wouldn’t work for you just because you have completely ordinary feelings of attraction for a woman. I mean, if you were a liar, or a violent man, or greedy, and you said those reasons stopped the craft from working, I’d understand, but…finding a girl attractive? Man, we all fail that test.”

Green was silent, sitting tied in the bed of the truck. He’d stopped his jeers, and Hiram felt relief.

Hiram’s eyes stung slightly. He pointed at the water, where the first of the clay balls was just beginning to open.

“Are you rooting for anyone?” Michael asked.

“I’m rooting for God to do justice,” Hiram said, “and for us to receive mercy.”

Michael threw an arm around Hiram’s shoulders and squeezed him in a sideways hug. “That’s my Pap.”

The first of the names was free of the clay and unrolling. It was considerably in advance of the other names.

“As soon as you can read it, do so,” Hiram said.

Michael leaned in. “Diana Artemis.”

Hiram felt as if he had been clubbed in the head.

Erasmus Green exhaled loudly. “Well, hell, I told you so.” His whole demeanor had changed.

“It was the money,” Michael said. “All this weirdness going on, and in the end, he was just killed for the money.”

Hiram closed his eyes, a bit of his heart broken. “Love of money is the root of all evil, Paul says.”

Bang! A loud shot echoed through the wide river canyon. Boots crunched in the dirt. Sheriff Jack Del Rose’s voice called out, “Nobody move! You’re under arrest!”

Hiram charged forward and kicked the lantern across the dirt, snuffing out the light. “Michael, run!”


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