Gone to Glory Read online

  “Are they going to arrest Eldredge then?”

  “I told you that in the first place. There’s no one else it could be.”

  “I’d still like to talk to Pepper myself,” Traveler said. Kilgore rubbed his bald head before taking hold of Mary’s hand again. Their fingers intertwined. “I don’t know where he is right now. The fact is, he said he’d be unavailable for the next couple of days. I guess he needs time to get over being locked up.”

  “When did you talk to him?”

  “Not more than an hour ago.” Kilgore leaned down to kiss the top of Mary’s head. “I guess you know what Pepper being out of jail means? That the Saints will soon be his. As soon as we heard that, Mary put me on a diet.” He rubbed his stomach with his free hand. “I don’t want to look like some of these old farts who waddle up and down the coach’s box with their stomachs hanging out. No, sir. By the time Pepper names me his third-base coach, I’ll look the way I used to. A coach has got to be fast on his feet. Otherwise, he could get himself killed by a foul ball.”

  Kilgore sucked in his stomach, but had to let it out again as soon as he went back to breathing.

  “If you had to make a guess,” Traveler said, “where would you look for Pepper?”

  “The only thing else he said was that he had an eviction order against Zeke Eldredge.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pepper’s lawyer got to a Mormon judge. You know the kind. They like nothing better than sticking it to polygamists, so they can show the world that the church no longer sanctions such hanky-panky.”

  “Now, Hap,” Mary said. “Just be thankful that everything’s going to be all right.”

  The porch light came on.

  “That’s the signal for dinner,” Mary announced. “Would you care to join us, Mr. Traveler?”

  Kilgore made a face. “All I get is vegetables and salad until I lose this stomach.”

  “It’s for your own good,” Mary said, then turned her eyes on Traveler. “You could stand to lose a few pounds too, young man.”

  “I don’t think of myself as young.”

  “It’s a matter of perspective,” she said to him, though she was smiling at Kilgore.

  “Why don’t I skip dinner altogether,” Kilgore said, “and go to the ball game? Maybe Mo will drive me.”

  Mary shook a finger at Kilgore. “I don’t want you eating hot dogs or drinking beer. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He hung his head for an instant before grabbing hold and hugging her.

  “You’ll muss my hair,” she said with a smile.

  He kissed her on the nose.

  “I’m counting on you to look after him, Mr. Traveler,” she said before retreating inside.

  Kilgore didn’t speak again until they were in the car. “I should have met her forty years ago. If I had …” His head shook. “…who knows what might have happened?”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, there’s no game tonight.”

  Grinning, Kilgore pulled his Bees cap from a back pocket and adjusted it on his head. “Hal, the groundskeeper at Derks, is a friend of mine. He’s meeting me there so we can do some work on the third base coach’s box. It needs manicuring around the edges.”

  33

  Derks Field was dark except for half a dozen low-watt night-lights burning over the ticket windows. Under Kilgore’s direction, Traveler maneuvered the car over the curb and along a blacktopped parking area. When he finally came to a stop, the car’s headlights were focused on a roll-away metal door that stood between the left field bleachers and the grandstand. There were no other cars parked in the area, no sign of life at all.

  “Hal usually leaves it open a crack for me,” Kilgore explained.

  Traveler saw only a solid wall.

  “Could be he’s being careful tonight and only left the lock off the hook.” Kilgore nodded to himself and got out of the car.

  After killing the engine but not the lights, Traveler joined him on the asphalt. Their shadows reached the metal barrier long before they did.

  When Kilgore saw that the padlock was fastened, his shoulders sagged. The breath went out of him. His right hand, shaking noticeably, grabbed at his chin, then worked its way up his face and onto his head, dislodging his Bees cap.

  “Maybe we’re early,” he said, though without any hope at all.

  As Traveler stooped to recover the cap, he saw the corner of an envelope tucked beneath the door. It started to tear when he pulled on it.

  “Be careful, for Christ’s sake,” Kilgore said, dropping to one knee. “Here, let me do that.”

  Traveler stood to one side while Kilgore struggled to free the envelope. In the end, it took both of them—Traveler wedging a jack handle under the metal door while Kilgore kept up a gentle pressure on the envelope—to liberate the message.

  Kilgore read it once to himself and then out loud to Traveler. “Sorry about standing you up tonight, but Pepper called and told me you weren’t to do anything at the park until he’s spoken to you personally. There’s been a change in plans, he said, and he wants you to get in touch with him immediately. In the meantime, don’t do anything. Your fan, Hal.”

  “Goddammit.” Kilgore’s face looked dead white in the headlight beams. “There must be some mistake. If something had come up, Pepper would have told me so on the phone.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on here, Hap. Your groundskeeper friend works for the Saints. So why would he be taking orders from Pepper?”

  “Maybe the sale has gone through already.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “Christ. I don’t know what to think anymore. But Hal’s a Bees fan from way back. He wants to see Pepper running things as much as I do.”

  “Maybe. But he’s putting his job on the line in the meantime.”

  “I’ve got to talk to Pepper,” Kilgore said.

  “That makes two of us.”

  34

  On the way back to the Phoebe Clinton Home, Kilgore asked to be dropped off at the mint, a bar on Second South. Instead, Traveler persuaded him to come home with him and have dinner first. But there was no food on the table, only an old Monopoly game that Martin had dug out of the basement.

  As soon as the three of them were seated around the Monopoly board—with an old coffee can at Kilgore’s elbow to catch tobacco drippings—Martin explained the rules. Namely, that his prospective fatherhood depended on finding Claire, whose whereabouts revolved around the game in front of them.

  “This was her last communication,” Martin concluded, holding up the Community Chest card.

  As one, they leaned over the board to study the Community Chest square on the playing board. It was surrounded by property with yellow markings: St. James Place, Tennessee Avenue, and New York Avenue.

  Traveler recognized the clue immediately. “Before we moved in together,” he said, “Claire had a garage apartment out by the airport. On New York Avenue.” The city map made a liar of him. It was New York Drive, a block-long road between Bloomfield and Mandalay.

  “You’re both crazy,” Kilgore said. “Why would you want to find a woman who’s suing you?”

  Martin tapped the side of his head. “The question is, why would my son take up with such a woman in the first place?”

  Kilgore looked at Traveler as if expecting an answer. “I’ll tell you,” Martin went on. “Some women are like a disease that you catch. Only there’s no real cure. The symptoms go away from time to time, but they come back the moment you relax your guard. Isn’t that so, Moroni?”

  The ringing phone kept Traveler from admitting just how close his father was to the truth.

  “It’s me, Willis,” Tanner said. “I’m in Fillmore. And guess what? Pepper Dalton is here, too.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

 
“We’re about to take possession of Glory. We’ve got a court order and intend to serve it at first light in the morning.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “You asked for my help, didn’t you?”

  “I can tell from the sound of your voice that the church is involved.”

  Tanner cleared his throat. “I ought to tell you that Pepper’s changed. He’s not the way I remembered him at all. He’s … I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “More to the point,” Traveler said, “how are you going to get past Zeke Eldredge?”

  “The sheriff’s rounded up a small army of deputies.”

  “Is this a straight eviction, Willis, or are you looking to pin a killing on Zeke?”

  “We go in at dawn whether you’re here or not, Mo.”

  “Is that an invitation?”

  “I do God’s work. That’s all.”

  “To get there in time, I’ll have to fly in.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” Tanner said, and hung up.

  Traveler went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.

  “It will keep you up all night,” Martin said as soon as he and Kilgore were seated at the kitchen table.

  “That’s the point. I’m on my way to Glory.”

  Martin and Kilgore shook their heads at the same time. Martin said, “That’s a long way to drive in the dark. And on bad mountain roads.”

  “I was hoping you’d fly me.”

  “Who’s paying for the airplane?”

  Kilgore gestured surrender with his hands. “Don’t look at me.”

  “Willis Tanner is already in Fillmore,” Traveler said. “He and Pepper Dalton. They’re going to evict Zeke and his flock first thing in the morning.”

  Martin nodded. “That’s something I’d like to see.”

  “Me too,” Kilgore said, “if you have room for another passenger.”

  “Why not?” Martin went to phone the airport.

  35

  Willis Tanner had a car waiting for them at the airstrip just outside Fillmore. The car’s headlights, plus those of two other vehicles, were the only landing beacons. Tanner himself was behind the wheel.

  As Willis chauffeured them through the night, Traveler tried not to think about the road in front of them. But his memory refused to cooperate. It kept projecting images of the switchbacks, gully crossings, and precipices that had to be negotiated before they reached the top of the Pavant Plateau.

  No one spoke for a long time. The only sound inside the car was Kilgore’s nervous, open-mouthed gum chewing in the back seat. Finally Martin, who was sitting next to Kilgore, said, “Have you ever been to Glory before, Willis?”

  “Only when I read my scriptures.” Tanner snorted and raised his hands off the wheel as if seeking applause from heaven.

  Traveler braced himself in the passenger’s seat. “For Christ’s sake, be careful.”

  “There’s no need to blaspheme.” Tanner’s hands fell back onto the wheel and stayed there. “Actually, I visited Glory sometime back, before Zeke Eldredge and his bunch moved in. It’s been off-limits to us ever since.”

  “Who is us?” Kilgore wanted to know.

  “By my reckoning,” Tanner responded, ignoring the question, “we ought to reach Glory about daylight.”

  “What about Pepper?” Kilgore persisted. “You told Moroni that he was with you.”

  “Not exactly with me, only in the same town. By now he and the sheriff are well ahead of us.”

  Martin said, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Willis? I don’t like the idea of running into a man like Eldredge by mistake in the dark.”

  “Do you think he’s the killer, then?”

  “My son’s the expert. Ask him.”

  “Well?” Tanner said.

  “Somehow I don’t think so,” Traveler answered, the words expelled before he’d thought them through consciously. But now that they were out in the open, he realized that he believed them. At the gut level at least, the same locality that was beginning to tell him things he’d rather not hear.

  “If we haven’t come here to rid ourselves of a man like Eldredge,” Kilgore said, “then why the hell have we been traveling all night?”

  “To find out what the hell’s going on,” Traveler said. “Besides, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Zeke may be in need of some impartial witnesses.”

  “Don’t count on me for that,” Tanner said. “To my way of thinking the man already stands convicted of things worse than murder.”

  Traveler stared at Tanner, trying to read his expression in the glow of green light coming from the dashboard.

  “Why am I here, Willis? And why the red-carpet treatment?”

  “Like you said, Mo. It’s always good to have witnesses.”

  “You can do better than that.”

  “All right. You know how the church feels about polygamists and publicity. That’s why we want someone like yourself, an independent observer, here to see that everything is done in a lawful manner.”

  Knowing Tanner, the response was probably filled with half-truths. The problem was to sort them out.

  “I’ll say a prayer for you,” Tanner added.

  “Amen,” Kilgore said, and leaned forward to clutch the back of the seat. “Remember, Mo. I hired you to protect Pepper, not someone like Zeke Eldredge.”

  Before Traveler could answer, the car topped a steep rise. A mile or so ahead of them, a spurt of flame vented from the earth. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how far they had come. Traveler licked his lips and tasted the coal smoke that rose continually from the earth around Glory.

  36

  Sunrise revealed a smoke-filled sky and half a dozen sheriff’s units blocking the road to Glory. Willis Tanner parked behind the last vehicle in a line. The entrance to the main mine shaft, where Traveler had gone into the earth with Zeke Eldredge only two days before, lay a hundred yards up the dirt road.

  Emmett Culverwell detached himself from a group of three law officers at the head of the line of cars and came to greet them … I got your message, Mr. Tanner. It’s good to see you again. We’ve been waiting for you to get here.”

  “And Eldredge?” Tanner asked.

  “we’ve got him cornered.”

  Dawn light turned Tanner’s reaction into a malicious grin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand before asking Culverwell for a full report.

  “We tried to sneak in under the cover of darkness,” the sheriff began. “But they must have had a sentry posted somewhere. By the time we were in position, the whole bunch of them were holed up in the old shaft building up there. We don’t know if they’re armed or not.”

  Sheriff Culverwell, who had been wearing bib overalls the first time Traveler met him, was now in full uniform, which included a gun belt and a .357 magnum. He no longer wore his severe, no-nonsense glasses, though the indentations of their rims remained in the skin around his eyes.

  Traveler swallowed. His throat felt gritty from coal dust. “I didn’t see any guns when I was here.”

  “You were one man, so there was no need for firepower on their part.”

  “Are the women and children in there too?”

  The sheriff started back up the road, indicating that Tanner and Traveler were to follow him. Martin and Kilgore stayed put.

  “Everyone’s inside,” the sheriff said, moving slowly to make conversation easier. “Women, kids, cattle and sheep for all I know. They heard us coming and took cover.”

  “Even so, there’s no reason to think they’ll start shooting,” Traveler said.

  “These fundamentalists don’t think like we do,” Tanner put in.

  “That’s right,” the sheriff said. “They shed your blood and say it’s for your own good. That’s what they said
to you, wasn’t it? When they beat the shit out of you, Traveler? Blood atonement for your sins.”

  “You’ve got an army here,” Traveler said, pointing to the ring of officers, all armed with shotguns, surrounding the mine. As he did so, sunlight touched the building’s dilapidated clapboard siding, turning it to gold. The lettering, glory mine 1881, seemed to catch fire.

  “The timbers holding up that place were rotten a quarter of a century ago when I used to hike around here as a kid,” Sheriff Culverwell said. “God knows what they’re like now. The whole place should have been torn down years ago. That’s why I’ve told my deputies to hold their ground and stay put. They’re mostly part-timers anyway.” He pointed a finger at the pioneer cemetery on the hill. “And I don’t feel like delivering bad news to any new widows. That’s what I told the district attorney before I left Fillmore. That I would follow the law, not church commandments, on this one.”

  When they reached the lead car a civilian got out. Traveler assumed it was the district attorney in question, a balding man wearing an overlarge raincoat that failed to hide his potbelly. Thick-lensed, misty glasses masked his eyes. As he closed the car door, he stumbled in a deep rut and flailed his arms in hopes of catching hold of something to keep his balance. Traveler came to his aid. Once he’d steadied himself, the man scowled at Traveler, pushing him aside in order to confront Willis Tanner.

  “You should have been here earlier. They wouldn’t listen to me and use their guns. Now it’s too late. Or so says our sheriff. But what about you? Will the church overrule him?”

  “Who the hell are you?” Traveler said.

  “Pepper!” someone shouted.

  Traveler turned around to see Hap Kilgore lumbering foward, Martin right behind him.

  Kilgore bypassed Traveler to throw his arms around the man in the raincoat. They hugged and pounded each other on the back.

  Traveler felt his mouth hanging open. He snapped it shut and shook his head. Then he closed his eyes. But when he opened them a moment later nothing had changed. There was still no sign of the graceful shortstop he’d idolized as a boy. Number 22 on the old Bees, a blue-eyed, blond-haired all-American boy right off the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.