The Righteous by Michael Wallace

Author:Michael Wallace [Wallace, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781612182186
Publisher: Balsalom Publishing
Published: 2011-01-31T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen:

Eliza had remained at the Stephen Paul Young house on Thursday morning and happened to be looking out the window when Manuel and Eduardo pulled up in their Ford F-150.

The house sat on a swelling of sandstone in the midst of the wilderness, and she could see for miles from her second story room. A furnace-red landscape stretched beyond, with buttes rising above the desert floor, framed by a blue sky without a single cloud.

The entirety of the Colorado Plateau, an area roughly the size of Maine, had a population of about thirty thousand people, and the bulk of them clustered in towns on the region’s periphery. There was no better place for God’s chosen people to gather and build His kingdom than its desolate center.

Eliza had not been happy to remain at the Young house. She wrestled with an unexpected feeling of humiliation. Stephen Paul had rejected her. Affection, or lack thereof aside, he had been her salvation from the other two suitors. Make that one, now that Elder Johnson was out of the picture.

It was Eliza’s duty to pitch in with the chores, but she otherwise avoided Carol and Sarah. Instead she retreated to the guest room on the top floor to stare out the window. If her goal had been to gain the Young women as allies, she had no doubt failed.

The truck looked like a dust devil approaching across the desert floor as it followed the road snaking its way toward the house. The road followed dry washes and skirted eroded sandstone bluffs. She only recognized the truck when it was within a hundred yards of the house.

What would draw the Mexicans so far from town? A little side work for the Youngs?

A spur led from the road to the house, and then to a poured concrete slab of a driveway just below Eliza’s window. The truck pulled up and stopped. A haze of dust hung in the air around the truck and all the way down the road for miles. The doors opened. Two men stepped out.

Eduardo and Manuel. They were dressed like Mexican laborers, in long sleeves now to protect against the sun, and with hats to shield their faces. Shovels, toolboxes, and other tools sat in the back of the truck and the two men had gloves tucked into their front breast pockets.

And yet there was something about the way that they held themselves that wasn’t right. They had a certain confidence and certainty of purpose. They did not carry themselves like illegal aliens.

They spoke to each other as they approached the door, which was right under her window. She flipped the latch on the window. She eased it open, wincing at the squeak.

To her further surprise, Eduardo and Manuel spoke in English, even though they were by themselves. “So this guy is good?” Eduardo asked.

“Depends on what you mean by good. I wouldn’t trust any of them. However, given the circumstances—”

The front door opened and Manuel stopped mid-sentence. She couldn’t see Stephen Paul, standing as he was inside the threshold, but heard him say, “Good morning.

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