Free Blood of the Faithful by Michael Wallace Page A

Miriam.
    “I don’t like it at all. Feeding the squatters is the dumbest thing we could do. I don’t think we should attack them, necessarily, but for now I say ignore them, keep them from the valley.”
    “What about getting to Panguitch?” Smoot asked.
    “That makes more sense to me. Jacob is hoping he can get medicine, but even more, that he can find some sort of community on the outside. A partner to start rebuilding. I understand why. I happen to think it’s a fool’s errand is all.”
    “We’re all agreed on that,” Rebecca said. “The Second Coming is nigh. There will be no rebuilding. Jacob can try, but it’s a waste of energy better spent preparing Blister Creek.”
    “True enough,” Stephen Paul said.
    “Same opinion here,” Ezekiel said. “But the other thing that sticks in my craw is this business with the gentiles. The ones in the valley, I mean.”
    “Steve Krantz is one of us now,” Miriam said.
    Ezekiel shrugged. “So you say.”
    “He was baptized, he married Eliza in the temple.”
    “He’s still an outsider.”
    “I was an outsider once too. And Rebecca lived for years outside of the church before she came back.”
    “It’s not about you, or Steve, or Rebecca,” Elder Smoot said. “There’s Of ficer Trost’s daughter. She doesn’t belong here. She doesn’t even pretend to believe.”
    “She keeps to herself, grows ninety percent of her own food. She’s harmless.”
    “Unless the question is purity of the community,” Smoot said. “Then she is not harmless at all.”
    “And then there’s Larry Chambers,” Ezekiel said. “As if we need yet another former FBI agent in our midst. Those guys were our enemies for a long time.”
    Miriam wasn’t going to argue that point. It was too tricky to answer. And she wasn’t too keen on having Chambers around, to be honest. They should have left him in Las Vegas and let him take his chances there. The way Chambers acted, it was clear he didn’t want to be here either. But she didn’t think the man was dangerous.
    “Now that the gentiles are here, we can hardly kick them out again,” Miriam said. “That’s a death sentence.”
    Stephen Paul rose to his feet and tramped down from the porch. The others fell silent. Miriam thought for a moment that he’d grown disgusted and was going to ride off and catch up with his wife. But a moment later he came back up. He was holding a small notebook.
    “Jacob and I rode around the valley this afternoon to survey the silos and check the grain levels.”
    “I was wondering what you meant by surveying,” Miriam said.
    “I would have told you if you’d asked. I needed to tell someone. ”
    “I had other worries on my mind.” She nodded at the notebook. “I take it you found something.”
    “It’s what we didn’t find.” He flipped it open. “We’re missing several hundred tons of beans, wheat, and milled flour from communal food stores. Jacob thinks someone has been stealing it and giving it to the squatters.”
    “What?” Smoot said. “Who?”
    “The missing food came from your silos, Elder Smoot. The ones at the back of your ranch.”
    “Are you kidding?” Elder Smoot exploded, springing from his chair. “Let’s go. Get your guns, we’ll put an end to it.”
    Ezekiel grabbed his father’s sleeve. “Sit down, we’re not going to ride out right now. We don’t even know who.”
    “I don’t care. I’ll put an end to it, whoever it is.”
    “Let Brother Stephen Paul explain, Father.” Ezekiel pulled on the older man’s arm until Smoot finally sat down again, grumbling.
    “Why didn’t you say so right away?” Smoot asked Stephen Paul. “Instead, you let us go around with all this chitchat.”
    “Because it was on your land,” Stephen Paul said, “and I needed to think it over. Make sure you weren’t stealing it to undermine Jacob.”
    “Of course not! I’d never do that. Anyway, the fence was intact last time I was out there, and the chain and padlock