Chapter Four
Could ghosts really exist?
Michael wanted so much to doubt even the possibility. He did doubt the possibility. From all the science he had ever learned, it seemed to him impossible that ghosts could exist. Heaven and hell…okay, maybe. But ghosts? No way.
And yet the flame had moved.
The image of that flame leaping sideways at his pap’s questions was the first thing on Michael’s mind when he had awoken. He couldn’t quite shake the thought that there was an enormous world beyond his grasp, a world of which he was only just beginning to learn the rules, a world whose very existence made him uncomfortable. Part of him wanted to retreat, pull back from that larger universe.
But there was also power in that world. Power that could bring down fire from heaven, and see through lies, and stop bullets. And Michael had his pap for a guide.
And that was why he was still going along with his pap. To the ghost wash last night, and now to see the widow Artemis. He was undecided what to think about her, too, but she seemed to be part of this large, untamed new world, so maybe she could help his pap. On the other hand, the name Diana Artemis was simply ridiculous. If she’d come in on a circus train, it would make sense. As it was, the name just didn’t fit a widow living in the dusty end of a Utah desert town, five hundred miles away from anything interesting.
Diana and Artemis were both the same goddess, weren’t they? The Roman and the Greek versions of the goddess of the hunt?
If it wasn’t a fake name, the widow Artemis’s mother had played a cruel joke on her.
They hiked away from the Schoolmarm’s Bloomers and made their way down the wash. They knocked on the dugout’s leather-hinged door, but unlike the previous night, nobody was home. Towels and dishcloths, long dried, flapped on the line.
The campsite beside the road was similarly deserted.
Michael had a brief vision of himself and his pap with the lantern out, trying to talk to more ghosts at the campsite and at the dugout. He shivered, despite the heat, and hoped the inhabitants were simply away from home. One ghost—if there were such things—was enough.
They reached the cable car at midday, finding it still wedged into place with the bit of juniper. They climbed in, gasping as the bucket swung wildly with each new addition of weight, and then Pap yanked the brake out and they began to roll.
Riding down wasn’t as thrilling as Michael had expected. He’d expected a chute-the-chute experience, like he’d had at the county fair up in Lehi. Instead, the wheels squealed as they slowly slid over the brown waters of the river below.
Back at their camp proper, they were eating cold biscuits when the bishop’s blue-green Series 40 pulled up. He slowed down as he approached, and parked a short distance from their camp; it was a polite way to drive up, that didn’t throw dust over Michael and his pap.
Gudmundson got out and approached on foot. He wore a dirty work shirt and blue jeans, and had grease on his knuckles.
“One thing I will say about you Mormons,” Michael said. “You have the most unbishoply bishops imaginable.”
Gudmundson grinned. “‘You Mormons’? You’re not a Mormon yourself, then?”
“Formally, I suppose,” Michael conceded, “but I’m more of a free thinker.”
“Then I’ll take your observation on bishops as a compliment.”
Michael nodded solemnly. “That’s how it was intended.”
“I’m a free thinker myself,” Gudmundson added.
“You look like you’ve come from work,” Hiram said, swallowing the last of his biscuit.
Gudmundson laughed, holding up his hands to show dirty fingernails. “I only ever really have time to clean them on Sunday mornings. But yes, I was out working this morning. I got a call that Ernie Smothers needs help moving.”
“Moving house?” Hiram asked. “What happened?”
“Tree fell over and crushed the roof,” the bishop said. “Thank God no one was hurt. But Ernie’s wife Bobette tracked me down and I found a few rooms they can rent, so I’m going over to help them move their beds and dressers now. My Buick’s pretty good for carrying around people, but not as good as a truck for hauling furniture.”
“We’re happy to help,” Hiram said. “Why don’t you drive and we’ll follow?”
“Pap,” Michael said as they reached the road behind the bishop’s blue-green car, “remind me. In the Bible, was it Moab that had all the fleshpots?” He wasn’t really sure what fleshpots were, but it sure sounded decadent.
“Egypt,” his pap said.
“Nuts.”
It was hot, even with the windows rolled down, and Michael felt sweat slip down the side of his face. They left the greenery and murky, fertile scents of the Colorado River behind. He and his pap puttered through the odor of hot sandstone behind Bishop Gudmundson for what seemed like hours, finally passing a sign that said simply MOAB, and then immediately hitting the town’s main road. Michael turned left.
A mile further on, they drove into Moab’s downtown. It was a short downtown, with brick buildings and whitewashed wood along the main street. Like most towns in Utah, Moab was laid out in a grid system, blocks counted north, south, east, west, from a central point, which in this case was Main Street and Center. Beyond the stores, sheltered by sparse trees, Michael glimpsed adobe houses. Sunshine flashed off windshields of only a handful of parked cars. There were nearly as many horses, mules, and wagons as automobiles in sight.
Friday at noon, Moab wasn’t exactly hopping.
Could its Friday nights be much better?
The town’s main street was made of packed red dirt with irrigation ditches dug on either side. A wooden walkway lined the street along the storefronts, and hitching posts still stood in front of some of the buildings. Michael shifted down and the Double-A muttered in protest. “Well, Pap, you’re certainly showing me the grand metropolises of the world. First Helper, and now Moab. Eventually, I figure we’ll just camp out in a ghost town. Oh, wait, is Moab a ghost town already?”
“That might be a little harsh.”
“Are you worried I’m going to hurt Moab’s feelings?” Michael sighed. “All I’m saying is, next time, let’s get invited to a big city to dig a well. To Salt Lake, at least.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“The streets are so wide,” Michael said. “I bet it was to allow for the big horse teams, so you could park your wagons here, hitch up your horses, and go get a beer. Or buy hardtack and coffee from the Moab Co-Op, or maybe from the Banjo & Sons Mercantile back a ways. We should probably go to the co-op. The place looks like it’s on its last legs, unlike the mercantile.”
Pap made a sound of agreement in the back of his throat.
“Moab.” Michael felt the word in his mouth. “It’s not fleshpots, but it is biblical, right?”
“Ruth came from Moab,” Hiram said. “And the Moabites worshipped idols.”
“Ruth…the widow?” Michael pressed.
Hiram said nothing.
“Mr. Preece and Mr. Gudmundson are nice,” Michael continued. “And hey, Bishop Gudmundson helps the needy, right? People with their roofs smashed in? Guys who need jobs? He’s like us. And Preece practically leaks twenty-dollar bills on the poor. So maybe a little idol worship isn’t so bad for the soul.”
That brought sighs out of his father.
“So, I saw a movie theatre, the Ides, and a couple of dance halls, Woodmen of the West and the Star, but no brothels. Come on, Pap, where are the brothels?”
But his pap had stopped sighing and his mouth was getting small, his brow furrowed.
Michael decided to let up. “Okay, okay, if we need food, I bet the Williams Drugstore would have a soda fountain. Or we passed that hotel Mr. Preece and the bishop both mentioned, the Maxwell House Hotel, on 100 North, and that’ll definitely have a kitchen. And beds. We could stay there, because however much I like sleeping on dirt, I’d much rather have a bed. And I like hotels.”
“You’ll want to take this next left.” Pap pointed.
Michael didn’t hide his annoyance. “Yeah, the old pioneers didn’t take too many risks with their addresses. I could find 160 East 300 South Street with my eyes closed. Thank you, Nauvoo, Illinois. Did Mormons really try out this grid system there first?”
“First in the world? I doubt it.” Pap rested his arm on the window ledge and ran his fingers through his hair. “But Joseph laid out his city on a grid in the 1840s, so that must have been pretty early for planned American cities, at least. You think of us as old-fashioned, but in some ways our church was pretty progressive.”
“Your church.”
“Yes.” His pap nodded slowly. “You’re very kind to attend services with me.”
Michael regretted his immediate response, and found he wasn’t sure what to say to make it better. He said nothing.
They parked behind the bishop in front of a wrecked house. An old cottonwood, hoary and enormous, half its limbs leafless despite the surrounding green of summer, had toppled over and fallen into the building. The house was a one-story wooden structure, and the tree was heavy enough that it had crashed straight through the roof and hit the floor without slowing down. Women swarmed the ruins, piling the small household objects—clothing and dishes and pictures and books and toys—into a row of boxes alongside the street.
“The Relief Society sure jumped in with both feet,” Michael said. “I guess the Elders Quorum would be here too, but it’s Friday and they’re probably at work.”
“See?” Hiram opened the door and climbed out. “We’re good at some things.”
A woman with abundant curly brown hair and a tearful smile was thanking Bishop Gudmundson profusely as Michael caught up to his father and the bishop. She must be Bobette Smothers. She was much better-looking than her husband.
“Show us all the heavy furniture, Bobette,” Gudmundson said. To Pap, he said, “You got ties?”
“I have plenty of rope,” Hiram told him.
Michael helped the two older men haul out two dressers, a wardrobe, and five beds. He was reminded that his father—former soldier and a man who worked the land—was surprisingly strong, but Gudmund Gudmundson was even stronger. When Michael’s grip on the wardrobe slipped, coming down off the brick porch, the bishop was underneath. He didn’t even grunt as he caught the entire weight of the heavy oak wardrobe himself and held it until Michael and Hiram could get into place again.
When the furniture was all tied to the truck, one of the women—not Bobette Smothers, but an older woman with silver hair and two moles like a pair of extra nostrils in the center of her forehead—gave Hiram and Michael two sandwiches wrapped in wax paper and two cold grape Nehis.
“Thank you,” Hiram said.
The new rented house was only four blocks away. By the time the three men had unloaded the furniture, Bobette Smothers was there to direct them where to put it. On the porch, she thanked Gudmundson again and wrung Hiram’s hand, but Pap demurred.
“When you buy a truck,” he said, “I figure you take on a responsibility to use it properly.”
Gudmundson walked Hiram and Michael back to the Double-A. The bishop took off his hat to wipe the sweat from his forehead before replacing it. He spoke to Michael and his pap through the window. “Thanks. I could have waited until this evening, and a bunch of men would have been able to help. Only I figured you’d be willing, and Bobette would get a roof over her head sooner. Seemed like the right thing.”
Hiram nodded and shook the bishop’s hand through the window of the Double-A. “Can you give us directions to where Diana Artemis lives?”
Michael had to shake his head again at that name.
Gudmundson nodded. “She doesn’t come to church, but it’s a small town.” He pointed. “Three blocks that way. She’s in the little house behind the house with a vegetable patch in front.”