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Chapter Thirteen

Michael drove past the Udalls’ place to get to Davison Rock’s campsite. The Udall family was gone, perhaps on their way to Preacher Bill’s Saturday services. Or was he the Reverend Majestic?

“So, when you become a traveling preacher, how do you pick your name?” Michael asked.

Pap said nothing.

Michael pondered more. “I guess if I were preaching the Bible, I’d have to go by Michael Yazzie. Woolley is a terrible last name. It sounds so…animal. But extinct animal, like a woolly mammoth. Or do I go all in with Michael Yazzie Woolley? Like Williams Jennings Bryant?”

“I have no idea,” Hiram said.

They bounced over a rock, and the entire Double-A shuddered. Heat shimmered in waves off the dirt track winding like a rattler’s path over the rocks and across the sand.

“People would want me to have a more native name. Like Michael Yazzie Deerhoof or something. Michael Nightwolf. No, that would be my detective name. Preach the Bible by day. Solve crimes by night.”

“I think science by day will get you a more stable life,” Hiram suggested.

“Tent preaching by night? But when will I solve crimes?”

“On the weekends. Is it fun for you to taunt me like this?”

“Well, it’s more fun than talking about murder, ghosts, and what-not. I can’t believe Lloyd Preece is dead. It feels surreal.” Michael frowned, slowed, and had to adjust his wheels so they rode over another outcropping of rock. They went up a ridge, piled with stones, to get them onto a shelf of slickrock, which they traversed before bouncing down the other side, springs creaking. “You don’t think Lloyd was there, in Diana’s room, with us, do you? I swear, something moved in the crystal ball.”

“I’m not so sure,” Hiram said. “Loaning you the book was generous. And the silver cross might have helped me. I didn’t pass out. Now I’ve got the cross against my skin, and we’ll see about the tea.”

Michael winced at the heat and the sunshine blazing through their windshield. “If we were to use science, heaven forbid, to test the efficacy of the cross, you would track how you felt for a month without wearing it, and then wear it for a month, keeping a journal. Then we would know. We could do something similar for the séance. Have a séance, every day for a month, and then write down what we see, in a clinical environment.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Hiram said. “Sometimes, when you try to measure a thing, you lose its essence. Its power. And you must treat these things seriously, or they won’t work at all.”

“And this is the problem, Pap, with the whole system. If sometimes your spells work, and if sometimes they don’t, you can’t prove anything.” Michael didn’t want to attack his father’s beliefs, but he himself felt baffled. He’d seen the fly demon in the Kimball Mine. He’d felt the dowsing rod plunge in his hands. The magic wasn’t complete horse crap, and yet, it seemed to him that it must be. Why hadn’t his pap been protected against the murderer the night before? Why wasn’t the bloodstone telling him when people were lying? Those questions couldn’t be answered because magic was magic and not science.

“I don’t like the word ‘spells.’” His pap sighed. “If I were constant, my charms would work, powered by the Lord Divine, to help this troubled world.” He turned away. “God is constant. I am weak. My faith is weak. I’m sorry, Michael. Grandma Hettie would have been a better teacher. She was the most constant person I ever knew.”

Michael pulled up on the stretch of slickrock that descended to the prospector’s camp. “Pap, you’re not weak. I’ve seen you fight. And you made it through the Great War. Maybe God asks too much of you. Maybe He’s the problem.”

Hiram grinned. “He did a pretty good job with the world. And He did a fine job with you. That strengthens my faith more than anything.”

“Me?” Michael felt astounded. “I’m your loudmouth atheist son.”

“Agnostic,” his father said.

Michael didn’t argue. He pulled up alongside the prospector’s camp.

They parked beside the Ford Tudor and piled out of the truck. The camp had been cleaned and straightened. The large-nosed prospector himself stood under a tarpaulin, creating his own shade with collapsible metal poles. He’d set up a folding table—not wood, but metal, and it was covered with mineral specimens, a scale, and a complicated looking machine: a box, a long wand, a cloth cable. He held a magnifying glass up to his eye and examined a rock.

He set the glass down and surveyed Michael and his father. “Hello. Have we met? That truck looks familiar.” His accent sounded slightly English, but not quite.

Michael answered for them both. “We drove by here yesterday, but you seemed distracted. I think you were looking for something. I’m Michael and this is my father, Hiram.”

“Hello, Michael, Hiram. The name is Davison Rock.” The man paused and hooked his thumbs in his suspenders. He was in the same shirt that he’d worn the day before, the underarms stained, the sleeves rolled up. “I was looking for a hunk of pitchblende yesterday. I found it.” Davison winced and folded his lips together. “But how can I help you today?”

Michael saw he was ashamed. He’d known he’d been rip-roaring drunk, and yet, he wasn’t about to apologize or talk about it. Michael didn’t blame him.

Pap took over. “Lloyd Preece was murdered last night in his cabin down by the Colorado River.”

Davison furrowed his brow and shook he head. “Why, that’s a damn shame. Lloyd was a good man, and we were near a deal for the mineral rights to his land.”

“Near a deal?” Pap asked.

Davison saw where that line of thinking was leading. “Why, I didn’t kill him. I was asleep by sundown yesterday.”

Michael tried to soothe things over. “We don’t think you did, Mr. Rock. We’re just trying to help.”

“Because the sheriff is incompetent.” Davison nodded. “I knew that after I was in town ten minutes. But I won’t be grilled by you, or by anyone.”

“Actually, we came to talk to you about a ghost yesterday.” Michael made sure the prospector saw he was smiling. “See? We’re not police. And we’re harmless.”

“A ghost?” Davison shook his head, laughing a bit. “I’ve heard stories, but I’ve not seen a thing. I had a crazy night a few months ago, back in February, when I nearly got run over by a herd of deer one night. And I heard howling—might have been wolves.” Davison’s eyes went from Hiram to Michael. “Last night, in order to get to Lloyd’s cabin, I would have had to drive, or take the cable car, or swim. I was in no condition to do any of those things.”

February…might that have happened to Rock at the same time that Hiram and Michael were helping the miners of the Kimball Mine? Probably not. Probably it was just coincidence.

Michael felt bad for the guy. He wasn’t wrong. He’d barely been on his feet the day before. “Mr. Rock, I couldn’t help but notice the irony in your being named Rock. Which came first, your interest in geology or the name?”

Davison tilted his head. “I’ve loved rocks since I was a boy, but my interest couldn’t predate my birth.”

“I thought it might be a made-up name,” Michael said. “Like Harry Houdini.”

“The secrets of the universe are in the stones,” Hiram murmured.

“That’s right,” Davison smiled. “We’re standing in the middle of a million years of history, my friends. Do you realize human civilization is less than ten thousand years old? We’ve been here a miniscule amount of time. And yet, the rocks upon which we stand were once an ocean bed, three hundred million years ago. We would have been underwater here. Think of it, a world without people, populated by all manner of life, now extinct. The forces of pressure and time are staggering. Millions of years of history.”

Michael felt a thrill go through him. “Yes, this stone was once sand, but underneath the water, it was pressed into rock. That and time, buried deep below the crust of the earth.”

Davison took his right hand and put it on top of his left. He tilted his right upward. “And then, the land was lifted up by volcanic activity, where the wind and rain eroded the softer detritus away and eventually ate through the stone itself.”

Pap kept quiet. Of course, Pap thought it was all created by God in seven days, or some other old-timey notion.

Michael couldn’t help but think of the majesty of the land being carved by the eons and the weather. The geology around them had been crafted by a higher power, certainly, and it had nothing to do with the world of the spirit.

“So tell me about uranium,” Michael said. “I don’t know much. I know the mineral releases particles, alpha, or beta, I can’t remember, and that the rock itself degrades. You can detect that with the Geiger counter, can’t you?”

Davison again, smiled, showing fine white teeth. “Hans Geiger, German physicist, came up with the idea to detect radiation from unstable minerals in 1908. It wasn’t until 1928 that it was perfected by his student, Walther Müller, so men like me could buy it.” He patted the box with the long wand. “Do you know how the Geiger-Müller tube works?”

Michael couldn’t stop grinning. “You bet I do. Basically, the particles move through the tube, which contains an inert gas. Those particles conduct electricity, enough to make the speakers on the main unit crackle. We’re actually hearing the electrons.” Michael liked the way Davison was looking at him. “I read a lot of Popular Science, and basically any book I can get my hands on.” He thought of the astrological tome from Diana and felt a little silly. What would Davison think of him reading about how stellar activity ruled human lives, and how a person could summon down the power of the planet Jupiter through the constellation Aquarius?

Was this how Pap felt when Michael teased him about his charms?

“That’s right,” Davison said. “You have it exactly. To think, the stones themselves are a whirl of activity…as if they were alive. What we think is solid is actually atoms spinning around each other. It makes one question the solidity and the veracity of the seen world.”

Pap was listening closely. “So there is an unseen world?”

“Indeed.” Davison lifted a mottled stone of black, gray, blue, and copper colors. “You think this is solid, and so it would seem. But it is mostly space. In each atom there is a nucleus at the center, protons and electrons are spinning around the nucleus, and yet, the space between the particles is vast. This stone is mostly empty space.”

The grin Pap brought to his face was priceless. “And maybe God fills those cracks. Could there be room in your science for a bit of divinity?”

“It would be hubris to presume that we understand the mysteries of the universe.” Davison nodded. “I have no issue with religion until men use it to control and cheat other men. In fact, out here, on the stones of this long-dead ocean, I can’t argue there is a presence here, a force, that I cannot see or weight or taste. Perhaps one day we shall develop the technology to study it. For now, we may call it God.”

The uranium prospector flicked a switch on the box on his table. That box was mostly the power source and the speaker unit which powered the rod in the tube; the rod would be surrounded by an inert gas, neon, or helium, or argon. Davison swept the Geiger-Müller tube over mottled rock. The speakers on the box clicked away. “For all we know, God is a particle of energy filling the world.”

“And evil?” Pap asked.

Michael felt a bit embarrassed by the question.

Davison took it in stride. “Evil is far simpler. Men kill for love, for money, or out of drunken rage. Most of the time what we call evil is human stupidity, a willful ignorance, or desperation caused by circumstances. I do not understand God, Hiram. But I have at least seen evil.”

Michael clapped his hands. “Mr. Rock, I do believe that was one of the best speeches I’ve heard in a long, long time. And to see an actual Geiger-Müller tube working? This is amazing. And see, Pap, if his instrument is working correctly, he’ll get the same results, time and again.”

Pap nodded. “The problem isn’t God, Michael. It’s His instruments.”

That made Michael clap again. “A very fine argument, Pap. I applaud you.”

Hiram looked away.

Davison set the wand back on the table and turned off the unit.

“What do you do with the uranium?” Michael asked.

“Sell it,” Davison said. “Or try to. Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre, needed several tons of uranium ore to create even a few grams of radium, which has been shown to help cure some cancers. That ruled the market, for a time, but now the prices are dropping precipitously. Uranium can be used in some ceramics, and in other textiles, but that isn’t where the future lies. Physicists in Europe: Enrico Fermi, Otto Hahn, and others, are unlocking new secrets every day, using unstable elements like uranium. My plan is to find a large deposit of either pitchblende…” He raised the mottled rock. “Or carnotite.” He motioned to a powdery yellow stone. “And wait until the prices increase. Then, I can help provide the scientists with the fuel to power the future.”

“Or destroy it,” Michael said. “Isn’t there talk of using the particles as a weapon? And yes, I do read Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.”

“If we could unlock the power in the atoms,” Davison said, “that could be used to do any number of interesting things. But you’re right, such energy could be used to kill. And hence, we return to our discussion on human evil, which seems to be on the rise. If anything, European fascism and its attendant hatred and intolerance is truly of man, and nothing divine resides in it. And communism, for all its fair words of international brotherhood, peace, and sharing, seems to be little better with respect to practical outcomes.”

Michael thought any talk of human government should include some talk of the diabolical.

Pap didn’t take the political bait. “Mr. Rock, so if you did find a deposit, you wouldn’t sell it right away? Don’t you need the money?”

“I don’t,” Davison said. “Look, I know I must look odd out here, but I assure you, I have all the financing I need. I can prove it. Erasmus Green should be at the hotel later this evening. He runs the First National Bank of Moab. He can vouch for me, as can Howard Balsley, who knows as much as I do about geology, if not more.”

Pap nodded his head, his eyes downcast. “Mr. Rock, we’re not police. You’re not a suspect as far as I’m concerned.”

“But I know the sheriff doesn’t see me with such forgiving eyes,” Davison said. “I’ve had dealings with him.”

Michael remembered Sheriff Del Rose saying Davison had been locked up for public drunkenness. It was hard to believe that this scientist, this intelligent man, would ever spend a single night in jail. Michael thought of Pap’s comment on faulty instruments.

“Let’s do this,” Davison said. “I’ll meet you at the hotel at seven. I’ve had about all I can stand of my cooking out here. I’ll eat a meal, we’ll talk to Mr. Green and Mr. Balsley, and I can assure you, I had no dispute with Lloyd Preece, over money, or mineral rights, or anything else. Lloyd was a very wealthy man. And I…let’s just say I’m comfortable.”

Michael was thrilled to spend more time with Davison Rock. They had a literal world of things to talk about.

“We’ll meet you at the Maxwell at seven then,” Hiram said quietly.

On their way back to the truck, Michael went over the timeline of their evening: see the Reverend Majestic at four, meet with the scientist at seven, and then escort Adelaide to Provo at eleven. Quite the evening. He was glad that Diana had the chi-rho amulet—if it worked at all, that is, it was good that she would be the one carrying it. What other craft did she have to protect her and Adelaide’s family? He hoped it was enough. He found himself surprised by the idea, and oddly comforted. Having a cunning man, or a cunning woman in this case, seemed like a handy thing.

Michael drove them up and back around to the highway. From there, they continued on toward Frenchie’s Canyon on the south side of the Colorado. They’d show up a little late for the Reverend Majestic’s Saturday afternoon theatrics. Michael didn’t feel too bad. He didn’t expect to miss any important doctrine.

Pap touched his shoulder. “You liked the prospector, didn’t you?”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Of course, I did. He’s a scientist. I want to be a scientist. I don’t mind Lehi, most of the time, but Pap, it’s not exactly a hotbed of intellectualism. You’re right, I don’t want to fight crime. I’ll need to get to college before too long.”

“You do.” Pap sighed. “I’m curious to see what Earl Bill Clay can tell us. I smelled Davison Rock, and while he was a working man out in the sun, he wore a cologne. The man I fought last night stank and not just of booze. He smelled like carrion.”

“And no seer stones were involved.” Michael had wondered about that the day before. After talking with the prospector—geologist was probably a more accurate description—Davison wouldn’t go around looking for angels in hats.

“No, no seer stones,” Hiram said. “I think Mr. Rock is an innocent man.”

“Maybe a man didn’t kill Mr. Preece.” Michael’s mind had been opened by his time with the uranium prospector. If God filled the void in atoms, what else might they find there?


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