“We’re going to stay for his funeral?” I couldn’t believe this. My mom wanted me to go to the funeral of the corrupt sheriff, the man who had tried to kill me, the man whom I stabbed only hours earlier.
“Yes, that’s what I just said.”
“We can’t. I need to get back and get ready for school.”
“You will have plenty of time. It’s going to be on Saturday, in three days. Then we will go home.”
“Where’s it going to be, the Mormon church?”
“Yes, it will be at the LDS church downtown.”
“I don’t think you will be welcomed there, after all you left the church.”
My mom sighed. “I did not leave the church. I am an inactive member. Not an apostate. There is a big difference.”
I tried to think of another excuse. “But I don’t have any nice clothes. And you know I can’t go to a Mormon church in jeans. They will take that as a sign that I’m the Antichrist.” I was only partially joking.
“You can borrow one of Uncle Braxton’s suits.”
“He’s like 50 pounds heavier than me.”
“He wasn’t always. He still has his old suits, deep in the closet. Believes that one day he will get back to his old size,” my mom said, rolling her eyes. “Not sure when, but one day he will.”
“Look, when was the last time you saw him? If every one of his cousins came to his funeral, the temple in Salt Lake City couldn’t even hold them all.”
“I think it was at his brother Orson’s wedding. Or maybe it was Nephi’s. Actually, I think it was Teancum’s—”
“Teancum? That’s an actual name.”
“Yep, he is very quick to tell you that it is the name of a Nephite warrior. A very strong and masculine name according to him. But all that’s irrelevant. We are going to the service. End of discussion.”
I had a final card to play. “I wasn’t completely honest with you before,” I admitted. “The reason I was late getting back from the hike was because I stumbled on the cartel’s camp out in the woods. They saw me and chased me with knives. They want to kill me, and if I stay here, we are both in danger.”
My mom laughed. “This is ridiculous. You’re acting like a little child. I’m going to bed. Good night.”
Over the next few days, I tried to think of a plan, but not much came to me. I was broke. No money to get a taxi to make the three-hour trip to Salt Lake City, let alone funds for a flight home. I was going to have to stay. I tried to be as discreet as possible. I didn’t leave the house once during that period, turning down Uncle Braxton’s multiple offers to go fox squirrel hunting.The curtains in my first-floor bedroom always stayed shut.
I tried to reassure myself that they couldn’t trace me. Yes, they still had my knife and the wirecutters. Was pretty sure that there was only one store in town where they could be purchased from. And I had paid with a credit card. But they would need a warrant to get that info, right? And I didn’t think they would do that. I could only hope.
The day before the funeral, I got a haircut from my Aunt Zina. Typical missionary haircut, short on the sides, a little longer on the top.
“Should I call you elder now?” my sister joked when she saw me. But I did look different. Very different. My long, shaggy hair was gone. I could barely recognize myself. Hopefully no one else could recognize me either.
The morning of the funeral, I considered saying I felt sick, but I thought that I would be safer at the busy funeral than alone at home. I put on an old navy suit and white shirt of Braxton’s. Surprisingly, it fit me almost perfectly. I looked through his tie rack and selected a light blue one decorated with yellow sailboats. A little too bright for a funeral, but, after all, the man did try to kill me. I considered wearing a surgical mask, but, in rural Utah, I’d for sure be the only person in one. Would probably arouse suspicion.
“Could you have picked a more somber tie,” my mom asked when I went downstairs. “This is a funeral after all, not a wedding on the beach.”
I shrugged.
“Well, we don’t have time. Let’s get going.”
We drove downtown. The streets were full of people walking to the church, the flags at half-mast. Who did they think he was?
“Look here Jakey,” my sister said as we were walking to the service. She was standing at a streetlamp, where a poster was taped, reading “Wanted for Questioning-Armed Robbery.” The sketch wasn’t very good, thankfully, but I could tell it was me. “It sort of looks like you before you cut your hair, doesn’t it?” She asked, laughing.
I tried not to show any reaction. But the sheriff’s posse hadn’t decided to ignore it. They were looking for me.
The church was nearly full. We squeezed into a row near the back, next to three elderly, white-haired ladies who were talking incessantly.
“Did you hear the name of the murderer?” one of them asked. “I read it in the paper today. Humberto Enrique Villareal del Rio.”
“What a funny name,” said another.
“Did the paper mention if he was here legally?”
“It did not, do you know what that means?”
As they continued chatting, I wondered if the sheriff’s deputies had actually kidnapped and killed a man to frame for the sheriff’s murder. I truly hoped not. I turned my attention back to the women.
“It’s all such a shame,” said one of the women was saying. “Gideon was such a devoted sheriff.”
“Indeed”
“I remember when those women tried to slander him. Called him a predator.”
“Nothing but a bunch of Jezebels. Wicked women who tempted him when he was just a young man.”
“Wicked women indeed.”
“Despicable.”
“Harlots. That’s what they were.”
I looked at the crowd milling around the flag-draped coffin on the dais, trying to see if I could recognize any of the members of the sheriff’s posse. But the crowd was too thick. I turned my attention back to the women.
“I didn’t see him at church very often,” one said. “Did you?”
The other two women shook their heads.
“Probably because he was so busy,” one of them said. “A devoted public servant. No one could doubt his faith, his piety.”
The other two nodded.
“He did drink coffee,” said one of them. “That’s what my granddaughter McKenna said. She worked at a receptionist down at the station.”
The other two women gasped. “But the Words of Wisdom warns proscribes drinking hot beverages.”
Before the women could discuss Gideon’s grave sin, they were interrupted.
“Look,” my Uncle Braxton said loudly, pointing to a family of nine who had just walked in. They were dressed in muddy clothes that looked homespun. But that wasn’t the most distinctive part of their appearance. They were all very short, between three and five feet tall. Their heads were lemon-shaped, their skin almost pure white, their eyes bulging and set close together. “The Mole People!” Braxton exclaimed. “I told you they were real.”
“Please, Braxie,” my mom said. “It’s not polite to point.”
But the whole congregation had noticed.
“Look at those people,” one of the elderly ladies said. “Look what they’re wearing. No respect at all. Pure trash.”
“I think people like that should be sterilized,” another one said. “Their genes are obviously defective.”
“I don’t think sterilization is enough,” said the third. “We will still have to pay to support them in that case. Oh, hello Rachel,” she said, to my mom. “I just recognized you.”
“Hello,” my mom said, clearly not recognizing the three.
“It’s been a long time. A long, long time. You probably don’t remember us. We’re Brigham Miller’s sisters. I’m Sariah, and these are Dorothea, that’s the German form on Dorothy, and LaVonne.”
I had no idea who Brigham Miller was, and I wasn’t sure my mom did either.
“I heard you married a Catholic and moved to New Jersey,” one of them said.
“Yep.”
“And then divorced him,” she said.
She nodded. I wasn’t sure if that was considered good or not. But before the interrogation could continue, the organist started to play.
The service lasted three hours. The bishop droned on for over an hour, talking more about characters from the Book of Mormon, with names like Abinadi and Kumen and Helaman, than he did about the sheriff. Finally, it was time for the eulogies. My heart started pounding as the deputy approached the dais. I recognized him immediately as one of the posse members from Fish Hollow. In all over twenty people spoke. I recognized three of the men from the incident, all sheriff’s deputies.
Finally, it was over. As we were walking to our car, someone tapped me on my shoulder. I turned around and saw an old man who was glaring at me, a startled looking woman by his side.
“You!” he yelled. “I can’t believe you had the nerve to show up here after what you did to my brother.”
“I…I…I think you must be mistaken, sir.”
“Oh, I am not mistaken. I know exactly who you are. You broke his daughter’s heart. Cheated on her with a n—“
“Please Teancum,” said the woman. “You can’t say that word anymore. God changed his mine about them in 1978.”
“So they are no longer the cursed seed of Cain?”
“They are not.”
“Hmmph.”
“Sorry for that,” said the woman. “His mind is going a little.”
A crowd had gathered. I recognized one of them as a sheriff’s deputies who was at Fish Hollow, a rail-thin man who was staring directly at me.
“Let’s get out of here,” I whispered.
As we were making our way out of the crowded parking lot, my uncle stopped the car.
“Look,” he shouted. “It’s the Mole People!” The strange family was getting into an old pickup truck that looked like it was from the 80s, several of them sitting in the bed.
“Please just go, Braxie,” my mom said.
“Just a minute. I’m going to get a picture of their license plate. Going to finally learn the truth about them.”
My mom sighed.
That night, I was awoken by the shattering of glass. Two men, one fat, one skinny, dressed in tactical gear, burst through my bedroom windows. Adrenaline kicked in and I tried to run, but I was barely off the bed when one of them tasered me. I fell to the ground, where I was handcuffed and dragged outside, the shards of glass cutting my nearly-naked body.
Once outside, the two men picked me up and dumped me in the trunk of a black sedan. Before the lid shut, I saw my Uncle Braxton on the front porch, screaming, waving a rifle. The trunk shut and I heard several shots. A few seconds later, the engine started.
I looked for the emergency trunk release, but it must have been removed. I tried kicking it open, to no avail.
Twenty minutes later, the car stopped. The trunk open and the two deputies picked me up and threw me face down on the soggy ground. I was in the middle of a small glade, surrounded by spruce trees. While the fat deputy kneeled on my back, the skinny deputy removed a can of gasoline and a bundle of sticks from the car.
The skinny deputy pulled down my boxers. “Oh, we’re going to have lots of fun with you. Do you know who Abinadi is?”
I tried to think. The name sounded familiar. Another one of my mom’s cousins?
“He was a prophet from the Book of Mosiah,” the deputy said. “Some people got tired of him propheting, so they put him to death. Scourged by sticks. Now that’s a little confusing what it means. But we’re going to test out a theory today.”
He doused one of stick’s tip with gasoline and lit it ablaze. I cried out as he struck the back of my thigh with the flaming branch.
“Let it sit on the skin for a little longer,” the fat deputy said. “Let it burn a bit.”
He struck me again, but this time left the burning stick on my leg. I heard the skin sizzle and screamed.
“Cry out all you want,” said the fat deputy. “No one can hear you but us.”
“Damn,” said the skinny deputy a few seconds later. “Flame went out.”
“Try again.”
He lit another stick, but its flame also died after a few painful seconds on my skin.
“Don’t think this will work,” said the fat deputy. “Let’s roll him over. I have an idea on how to inflict maximum pain. We’ll burn one body part at a time.”
The two rolled me over, the skinny deputy kneeling on my neck. I tried to struggle, but it was no use. The fat deputy picked up the can of gasoline. “I bet you can guess what part of you I’m going to douse first,” he said, laughing. “Don’t want you to pass out before we can get to the good parts.”
I thrashed and kicked as he began pouring the gas. He laughed and kept laughing as an arrow pierced his neck. He staggered back a few steps before collapsing. The skinny deputy looked around wildly, before two arrows penetrated his chest. From the forest I saw three of the Mole People advancing, armed with crossbows. I was saved. Or so I thought.