Gone to Glory Page 21

  “If that’s the case, it’s perfectly safe to tell me all about it.”

  “You said you had a question.”

  “You first, Willis. Maybe you’ll answer it for me, and that will be the end of it.”

  “I’ve talked to the district attorney. He’s satisfied that Hap committed both murders. The case is closed.”

  “Without a formal investigation?”

  “That’s right. That leaves Pepper Dalton in the clear. He’s got an apology for being locked up and has agreed not to sue for false arrest. And we’ve got our deal with him, signed and sealed. Glory and its mine belong to us now.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s our investment in the future. The prophet himself believes a day will come when our survival will depend on having independent resources. There’s enough coal in Glory to see the faithful through many a winter. It will be used to secure the faith when Gentile civilization has come to an end. Look to The Book of Mormon, my friend. Two Nephi. ‘Wherefore, he that fighteth against Zion, both Jew and Gentile, both bond and free, both male and female, shall perish; for they are they who are the whore of all the earth, for they who are not for me are against me, saith our God.’ You’ll be interested to know that strip-mining starts next month, but only enough to put out the fires.”

  “Are you saying it was Elton Woolley’s idea?”

  “God speaks through our prophet. That was one of the first things they taught you in Primary. In any case, I told you early on that he was interested in Glory.”

  “I don’t think you did, Willis.”

  “Well, I meant to. When you asked me about Deseret Coal and Gas I started looking into the situation. But when I reported it to the prophet, he knew everything in advance. He always does.”

  “How much money did Dalton get?”

  “That’s not for me to say. But when the check clears there will be more than enough to buy his baseball team, if that’s what you’re asking. By the way, a special game has been arranged tomorrow, weather permitting. We’re all invited to be there to see him throw out the first ball. Your tickets will be at the will-call window.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the prophet doesn’t like to lose, does he?”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “I’ve got Zeke Eldredge’s marriage certificate in my pocket.”

  “It’s a forgery.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “It doesn’t prove a thing.”

  “You could be right. But once a document like that gets into court, who knows what can happen? Appeals, that kind of thing. Do you really want to take a chance?”

  “I hear you now. You have something in mind. You’re giving us a way out, is that right?”

  “I want justice,” Traveler said, and went on to explain Pepper Dalton’s role as provocateur in the killings.

  “Talk about losing battles in court. You’ll never be able to prove anything like that against him.”

  “That’s why I’ve come to you.”

  “So what do you want from me, Mo, a miracle?”

  “Now that you ask, Willis, that’s exactly what I have in mind.”

  41

  The weather began clearing, perhaps in anticipation of tomorrow’s big game, as Traveler drove home. He was thinking of a hot bath and a drink when he stepped through the door and into Claire’s arms. She immediately snuggled her head against his chest and locked her hands behind his back.

  “Women are fickle,” Martin said from the comfort of his favorite reclining chair. Lipstick smudged his lips and one cheek.

  Balancing on Traveler’s shoes, Claire loosened her hold enough to go on tiptoe to kiss him. She tasted of beer and tobacco and the muskiness of sex.

  Gently but resolutely, he broke out of her grasp. She seemed unchanged, her pregnancy hidden beneath a loose flowing smock.

  “I waited for you at my old place out on New York Drive,” she said.

  “Some clues should never be followed up.”

  “I know you love me,” she said, following him to the fireplace where he leaned against the mantel. “There’s no use trying to hide it.”

  “You said the same thing to me before he got here,”

  Martin complained.

  “My baby needs a father,” she answered.

  “May I remind you that I’m the one you’re suing,” Martin said. “A paternity suit makes a man my age feel young again.”

  Traveler stared at his father. “Dad, I need a drink.”

  “Are you trying to get me out of the room?” Martin asked.

  “He wants to be alone with me, Dad,” Claire said.

  “Jesus Christ.” Martin kicked his chair into a sitting position and stood up. “I know when I’m not wanted.”

  Claire moved over to give him a hug. “You can bring me another beer, Dad.”

  “Too much alcohol isn’t good for expectant mothers.”

  Traveler stepped to Claire’s side and eased her onto the vacated recliner. “Dad and I will get you something. You just stay here and rest.”

  She smiled and leaned back against the cushion. “That’s what I like, men waiting on me.”

  As soon as they were in the kitchen Martin filled two shot glasses with whiskey. “To Moroni Traveler the third,” he said, raising his glass.

  Traveler swallowed the whiskey in one gulp. “I just made a deal with Willis. I had to back him into a corner to do it, so there’s always the chance he could turn dangerous.”

  Martin sipped his drink. “Tell me about it.”

  Traveler had gotten as far as the next day’s baseball game when Claire joined them.

  “‘You’re taking too long in here,” she complained.

  “We’re having a bachelor party,” Martin said, refilling the shot glasses.

  “Whose?” She peered from one to the other.

  Martin winked at his son. “Tell the truth, Moroni, are you the father of this woman’s child?”

  “You know the old saying. Like father like son.”

  “You read my mind,” Martin said. “Like I’ve told you so many times, it doesn’t matter who the father is. Genes don’t count. The only things that do are love and upbringing.”

  “I know that,” Traveler said. “I’ve known it ever since I was a kid.”

  “Well, I don’t,” Claire said, jamming her hands against her hips.

  “He said we’re both the father,” Traveler translated.

  “I can’t marry the two of you.”

  “Who said anything about marriage?” Martin added. “We’ve decided to adopt the child and raise him ourselves. So you’re off the hook. We’ll even pay your medical bills.”

  She grasped her stomach. “You don’t expect me to go through this for nothing, do you? You’ll have to pay for the child too.”

  “How much?” Martin asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Traveler said. “You know that.”

  Claire smiled, either with triumph or derision. Traveler couldn’t tell which.

  42

  The peaks of the Wasatch caught fire from the setting sun. Their glow reminded Traveler of Glory and its blazing fissures. The memory steeped his resolution, causing him to smile around clenched teeth just as a recorded bugle call, loud enough to make him wince, thundered over the loudspeakers at Derks Field. The scattered crowd responded with a ragged cheer. In the outfield, pigeons, dislodged from their perches by the coming ball game, strutted gallantly.

  “Ladies and gentlemen …” the stadium announcer said, pausing until the crowd quieted, “… we have a special pregame ceremony tonight. It’s my great pleasure to introduce and ask you to welcome Mr. Pepper Dalton.”

  All the banks of stadium lights came on at once, turning th
e cloudless sky from blue to black.

  Pepper, wearing a uniform top tucked into the waist of his street pants, climbed out of the dugout and waved at the crowd before lumbering toward home plate. He drew token applause.

  A brief, bugled fanfare set up the announcer. “Pepper played shortstop in the old Pioneer League, folks, back in the days when our Saints were known as the Bees. He’s back with us tonight, along with some guests, to make a special announcement.”

  The guests in question, Traveler and Willis Tanner, were occupying box seats directly behind home plate.

  The seating arrangement had been at Traveler’s suggestion and Tanner’s insistence.

  “But then he’ll tell you about that himself right after he honors us by throwing out the first ball.”

  On cue, the Saints catcher came out of the dugout and trotted to home plate, where he shook hands with Pepper. A photographer emerged from the visitors’ dugout to snap their picture. Once that was accomplished, Pepper jogged out to the pitcher’s mound, holding on to his stomach to keep it from bouncing. By the time the once-lean shortstop stepped onto the pitching rubber, his chest was heaving. Meager strands of gray hair had come unstuck from his scalp and were hanging limply over his eye:s.

  The catcher went into his squat. Pepper took a deep breath and threw the ball. It bounced twice before the catcher could trap it.

  While Pepper walked back to home plate, Traveler nudged Willis Tanner.

  “Everything’s taken care of,” Tanner responded. “Do you have the document with you?”

  “We’ve already gone through that. You get it when our deal is done.”

  Tanner sighed. “You can’t blame me for trying.”

  Traveler smiled and leaned back in the uncomfortable metal chair. As a boy sitting in the grandstand with his father he’d always coveted such box seats. He was sorry now that his father wasn’t with him to see what high prices did for you. But Martin had decided that his presence might be one witness too many for what Traveler had in mind.

  The Saints’ batboy strung a hand-held microphone out to home plate and handed it to Pepper. Pepper blew into it once to see that it was working.

  “Even as I speak to you, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, still breathing heavily, “final papers are being signed in the clubhouse. The Saints will soon belong to me. And as their new owner my first official act is to rename them the Bees.”

  The crowd responded with a mixture of applause and catcalls.

  Pepper waited them out before adding, “I intend to give Salt Lake a winning team.”

  Traveler whistled and stamped his feet, crunching peanut shells underfoot.

  “Now let’s play ball,” Pepper said.

  “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” boomed over the loudspeakers. The crowd sang along halfheartedly.

  The Saints, as home team, ran onto the field. Pepper waved to the players before disappearing into the dugout. A couple of minutes later he was back in the box, sitting between Traveler and Willis Tanner.

  “God damn.” Pepper clenched his fists and gleefully pounded both knees. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this moment.”

  Traveler licked his lips, tasting the residue from an earlier hot dog. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the time you spent in jail. I tried to get in to see you, did you know that?”

  “Hap told me.”

  “If I had, things might have been different.”

  “Could be,” Dalton said. “But what would I have told you, anyway?”

  That you were obsessed, Traveler answered to himself. That Hap wanted to be a coach so badly he was willing to kill for it. For you.

  Out loud Traveler said, “I might have been able to save your fiancée, for one thing.”

  Pepper shook his head. “It won’t do any good to blame ourselves now.”

  “It’s you I’m blaming.”

  “Hap told me about you. That’s when I decided to tell my jailers about my chest pains. Terrible they were too. The jailers didn’t have any choice. They sent me to the hospital, where nobody could talk to me.”

  His smile made Traveler sit on his hands. It was either that or violence.

  Pepper threw back his head and showed his teeth, like a man laughing. But only words came out. “The doctor said it was either indigestion or psychosomatic. What do you think?”

  On the field the Saints pitcher hit the first batter for Great Falls. Traveler waited until the man reached first base before asking, “Why is it so important to you to bring back the Bees?”

  “Because that was the best time of my life. Can you understand that? Can you understand what it’s like to be a professional ballplayer?”

  Traveler could, but kept quiet about it.

  “It’s like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. My God. Imagine getting paid for doing something you love, that you’d do for nothing. Oh, I know I had trouble hitting. But I would have gotten better. I knew that, and Hap did too. But the goddamned front office wouldn’t listen. ‘I’m the best fucking shortstop you’ve got in the farm system,’ I told them on that day they let me go. ‘You don’t throw a Hall of Fame glove away like that,’ I told them. But all they said was, ‘No hit, no play.’ That’s when I told them I’d be back someday and make them eat those words.”

  “Those people are long gone. Hap included.”

  “You’re missing the point. I’m a man who knows how to win. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

  “You’re here because Hap isn’t.”

  Pepper snorted. “He’s better off not knowing the truth. That you can’t win in this game with old men.”

  “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?”

  “So I’m no kid anymore.” He tapped the side of his head. “But I’ve got it up here. All I need is a couple of young coaches to do my legwork.”

  “You destroyed Hap on purpose,” Traveler said. “Mary Cook too.”

  “Prove it.” He turned so that his back was to Willis Tanner. His voice dropped. “That’s why I’m going to be such a great manager. Because I know how to manipulate people. How to make them love me. How to get them to do exactly what I want.”

  Now was the moment, Traveler thought, struggling to keep his emotions from showing. “Is the money that important to you? That you’d destroy people to get it?”

  “I don’t give a good goddamn about money. It’s only a means to get what I want.”

  The crack of a bat distracted him. The number-two batter for Great Falls flied out to right field.

  “Where was I?” Pepper asked, going on before Traveler had time to tell him. “There’s only one thing I’ve ever really wanted in my life—and that’s this baseball team.”

  “You could always buy something else,” Traveler said.

  “You still don’t understand. It has to be this team. Or nothing.”

  “That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear.”

  Pepper’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t try playing games with me, Traveler. I’m out of your league.”

  The next batter hit a routine grounder, a sure doubleplay ball, to the Saints shortstop. The man bobbled it momentarily and was forced to settle for the out at second base.

  “He’s no Pepper Dalton, that’s for sure,” Traveler said.

  “I’ll work with him. He’ll get better.”

  Traveler smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  Pepper started to get out of his seat but Traveler restrained him. “You can’t leave yet. Willis Tanner has something to say to you.”

  “Goddamn you,” Pepper said, but turned toward Tanner just the same. “What is it?”

  Applause, triggered by the third out of the inning, overrode Tanner’s reply. Tanner repeated himself in a loud voice. “You’re not a member of the church, are you?”

  Pepper’s eyes widened. �
�I can join. The fact is, I was planning to do just that.”

  “We Saints never take the Lord’s name in vain,” Tanner said.

  “‘I’m sorry. I apologize.”

  “Did you know that it was Brigham Young who first started calling the faithful Saints?”

  Pepper swallowed nervously.

  “We still do for that matter,” Tanner said. “So you can understand why we’re protective of the name.”

  Pepper’s head twitched.

  “If there are to be Saints in this valley,” Tanner went on, “they must belong to us.”

  Air wheezed through Pepper’s nostrils. His mouth snapped open to suck in more oxygen.

  “That’s why we purchased the ball team.”

  He gasped. “But I have a commitment. A sale.”

  Traveler pounded Pepper on the back. “You ought to know better than that. In this valley, the church gets what it wants.”

  The Saints lead-off hitter stepped to the plate. The accompanying bugle call charge almost drowned out Pepper’s anguished cry.

  The sound drove Traveler out of the box seats and up the grandstand stairs toward the broadcast booth. Halfway there, he thought he heard the radio announcer calling the game. “That ball’s really hit. It’s going … going … it’s gone to glory.”