Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

in through the stained-glass windows. The newel post and bannister glowed as if from within. With his right foot raised to the first step, his left hand on the bannister, Mickelsson stopped. He turned, and Lawler looked at him, fat rolls forming on his neck as he leaned his head. The cat moved up three steps.

Mickelsson’s fist tightened on the wreckingbar and pick. Lawler was maybe four feet away, within easy reach if Mickelsson were to raise the tools and strike; his left hand, on the bannister, would give him leverage. Lawler gestured with the gun. Light flashed on the lenses of his glasses.

“I won’t do it,” Mickelsson said. Though he spoke with seeming conviction, the hand holding the tools did not move, still calculating on its own. The swing was too awkward; he should drop the pick, use just the bar. That instant the hallway rang out with a terrific explosion that made his heart leap, his knees turn to water, his vision go dim. Lawler had outthought him. The cat lay dead on the steps—still jerking but dead, the side of its head blown off, and Mickelsson’s muscles were so weak he could hardly hold on to the tools and railing.

“Up,” Lawler said.

After a moment, with one brief glance at the cat, Mickelsson turned, a taste of vomit in his mouth, and continued up the steps.

“We’ll begin,” Lawler said calmly, “by tearing off the mopboards, then we’ll move to where the lath butts up against the doors and windows. If one wishes to hide things, those are the easiest places to open up and then put back as they were.”

“Yes,” Mickelsson said.

He swung the wreckingbar hard, cutting deep, as if by proving himself a willing worker he might escape being shot. Nietzsche’s “slave” in bold cartoon. He knew the hope was futile, in fact moronic, and knew, too, that if he worked this way for very long in his present condition, he’d be too weak to do what was demanded of him. Nevertheless he swung hard a second time, then pried away an eight-foot length of moleboard—“mop-board,” Lawler had called it. For some reason the difference between their languages was chilling. There was nothing behind it, whatever it was called, but broken bits of plaster. He stabbed in behind a second length of moleboard. Moles, he thought, and again felt cold along his spine. He calmed himself. Lawler seated himself on the bed, the gun still on Mickelsson.

“What’s all this really about, Edward?” Mickelsson asked as the second length creaked out a ways, then cracked. “There are no Sons of Dan. You know that.”

“Don’t be stupid!” He scowled, barely containing his disgust at such ignorance.

Mickelsson swung again, then pried. “I’ve seen these Mormons,” he said, already breathing heavily. “One may not like them much, but any fool can see they’re a gentle people. Docile as cows. If there really were this assassin squad you claim to be part of, people like that would get out of the Mormon Church so fast you’d think you’d walked in on a stampede.”

“You’re mistaken.” Lawler had to raise his voice to be heard above the wreckingbar. He seemed glad to do it. “First, of course, most of them don’t know about us—at least not for sure. Nearly all of them, I imagine, have heard about the massacre at Mountain Meadows, back in the early days, and most of them have heard enough rumors of things more recent to keep them uneasy, when they think about it, which for the most part they don’t do.” He tapped his forehead, tilting his head forward and rolling his eyes up like a medieval saint in a painting. “Most of them have heard how the Angels of Death”—he modestly closed his eyes—“the Danites, Sons of Dan—how we shot Governor Boggs of Missouri as he sat at his window.” Lawler watched Mickelsson sadly from under half-closed eyelids, as if to admit the assassination attempt had been perhaps a little stupid. “These gentle Saints you speak about would never admit to an outsider, I imagine, how much they suspect or, in some cases, know. But take my word for it, they’re not altogether unaware of our existence.”

“Mountain Meadows?” Mickelsson asked, and kept working. It was not Mountain Meadows he cared about, of course. Nobody’s “early days” were all that glorious.

Lawler’s voice, behind him now, had a kind of shrug in it, but no real apology. Maybe, in fact, he was enjoying himself. “Rich wagon-train from Arkansas, back in 1857, passing through Utah on its way West. At the time we were in undeclared war with the United States government. It’s a long story, but briefly, this: some Ute Indians—or mostly Ute Indians; they may have been supported by white men in Indian dress—swept down on the wagon-train. The train formed a defensive circle, and fought back. As the attackers soon learned, the train had sharp-shooters—the best Indian-fighters money could buy—so the ‘Indians’ were ineffective. That, however, was not the end. The Saints arrived and persuaded the train to surrender into Mormon protection. This the train did, giving up its weapons, and the Mormons systematically shot every man, woman, and child above the age of eight. Interesting? Hey? Think what discipline it took! How many people do you know capable of shooting unarmed women and children? Children under the age of eight, I should mention, were loaded into wagons and carried away to be adopted into Mormon families. This is the touching part: while they were leaving in the wagons, riding up the trail out of Mountain Meadows, the young children saw the whole thing. Most of them didn’t remember it in later years, of course.”

Mickelsson turned briefly to glance at him. Lawler was neither smiling nor frowning. He sat motionless, the bed sagging under his weight, the pistol still trained on Mickelsson. “And you’re telling me the Danites did this? Your people? And the heads of the church knew it? Ordered it?”

“Come, come,” Lawler said, giving him a