The Last Handful of Clover - Book 3: The Stone in the Stream

3.53 The Stone in the Stream

June 16, 8:15 pm

The desert was infused with the rich, amber light of the setting sun.

Those who have hiked in the desert know how still it can become, especially during the hours approaching sunset. The birds have all roosted for the evening and the insects have paused their buzzing, as if they are waiting for dusk to begin their endless mating dances. The sky has deepened into a richer shade of blue, impatient for the sun to finally sink over the horizon and for the stars to pierce the firmament. The stillness of an early evening in the desert can be filled with peace and harmony—a sense that the planet is pleased to have completed another cycle in its endless journey through space and time.

When Richard and Billy arrived on the outskirts of Dugway, the first thing they saw was Carla's police cruiser, its lights rotating silently in the center of the road. Next to it was a large vehicle that looked like some kind of tank or heavy transport. Further down the road a green Ford Escort reflected the light from the squad car in its windshield, as if it was catching the bloom of fireworks in the sky.

Richard skidded to a halt next to the police car, and only then did he see the bodies. Billy gasped, a tiny "oh" of surprise, breaking the surrounding silence.

"Keith!" Richard gasped, diving toward the open rear doors of the police cruiser. Before he had even glanced inside, he knew he wouldn't find his husband there. But he hadn't been able to suppress a sliver of hope, or prevent the stab of desperation that cut through him when he saw the car was empty.

The passenger window was cracked and bloody—bowed out slightly, as if it had been battered from the inside.

Pil, Richard thought.

"Richard, look," Billy said, pointing in the driver's side door. Richard rushed around to look over the boy's shoulder. There, on the floor of the passenger side, was the tire iron that Howard had given Pil when they had left the house earlier that afternoon. It was bloody, but its very presence confirmed that Keith and Pil had, indeed, been in this car.

Whirling around, Richard scanned the scene. There were bodies ahead, near the still smoldering guard house. They all appeared to be soldiers dressed in combat fatigues. Most of them were a hundred feet down the road, near the burning guard shack, but there was one body much closer. It was less than a dozen feet away, and he rushed to it. Looking down, he saw that beads of blood were still oozing from a wound in the man's head, and that although the pools on the ground were no longer expanding, the blood was still rich and red. It looked like smooth enamel paint on the roadway.

"They were here!" Richard cried. "And not that long ago. We've almost caught up to them. Where did they go?"

He asked, but he saw instantly that Billy already knew. He looked at the boy, who was staring almost directly south, past the empty parking lot of the Mormon ward house they had passed just before the scene of this massacre.

"Do you sense her?" Richard asked, grabbing the boy by both shoulders. "Billy, do you sense Mattie? Where is she?"

Growing more pale, the boy didn't answer. But he lifted his finger and pointed out into the endless desert.

"Lead me!" Richard said. But Billy turned toward him and there was such dread in his eyes that he was afraid the boy wasn't even hearing his voice.

Richard squeezed Billy's shoulders and then shook him, hard. "Billy! Snap out of it! You've got to take me to Keith! We've got to follow them!"

To his relief, Billy shook off the state of shock he was falling into. "This way," the boy said. "But be careful. She's not alone. I can tell. She's... she's with God now. She's practically vibrating with the thrill of it. I've never sensed her like this before. She's... like a bomb waiting to go off. Richard, Mattie has never scared me before. But she scares me now."