Through A Glass, Darkly (The Assassins of Youth MC #1)(34)
“But Allred let you bring me back here?” More and more questions were popping up. “Where’s Dingo?”
Mahalia sighed. The wide smile never left her face. “Okay. Let me explain…”
MAHALIA
We thought we lost him.
I ranted and raved against God. Why was he putting me through this? What was the purpose? If it meant I’d become a better, more experienced and wise person in the afterlife, then f*ck it! I would rather writhe around in the murky pits of hell than go through what this month had brought me.
My daughter being shuttled off to some old pervert’s house. The man I loved, shot in the f*cking gut trying to protect me.
Yes, I realized I loved him. How was that possible when we’d known each other only a short amount of time? But it was a true, deep, and honest love. Yes, I lusted after his sinewy, tight body. Every time he turned his torso, I snuck a peek at his hardened nipple poking the ribbed cotton of his nearly-transparent T-shirt. Every time he looked over his shoulder, I reveled in the sight of his packed crotch, the forbidden pole and full testicles nestled there against his thigh. A few times, it’d even seemed as though he’d caught me looking.
It ran deeper than that. Gideon was an old soul, and he’d taken up his earthly home in the exactly right place—next to me. His birth certificate indicated he’d been born in the exactly right place at the exactly right time, all the planets perfectly in alignment, so he could make his destined way to me. He existed before his birth, as he existed now, though his body was sleeping.
Then there was hope. Drakelle put an antibiotic IV into his arm and told me he was stable. Allred allowed me to put him in the guest house. The more we told him that Gideon had taken a bullet for him, the more Allred puffed up with pride. Of course his life was so valuable someone else would risk theirs for him. How could he not install Gideon into this cottage? It spoke to Allred’s fame that he’d house the man who gave his life for his exalted existence. He knew people would whisper, ask who was in the cottage, remark upon how generous Allred was for allowing me to nurse this outsider.
Being born is just a way of going to sleep, forgetting all that went before. I was convinced that as Gideon lay there, his spirit was back in the arms of heaven. I could tell by the slight smile at the corners of his mouth. I washed his face and chest, his arms with a cool, wet washcloth. There was no air conditioning in the cottage, so I kept his hands cool with cloths filled with ice. Watching him sleep, I longed for my true, old home. He was there now, I told myself and others who came by to see him. Knowing he could hear me, I started telling him stories, reading him poems.
Dingo came by, using that old Reed Smoot password at the gate. I told him Reed Smoot had been murdered and placed into a mass grave over at the Altar of Sacrifice Mine. My husband Field wasn’t there because they’d made his death look like a construction accident, so he was buried in a regular grave in Provo. But every time a man rose to power inside Cornucopia’s gates, he seemed to vanish, to “go to Texas,” as the saying had come to be known. I had concluded what I’d long suspected when recently Decken Sudweeks, a high priest who was a definite rising star, was said to “be transferred to Texas.” I heard Parley and Allred in his office talking about “interring Sudweeks in the Streaked Wall out at the mine.”
“Oh, yes, that’s one of the walls on one of the benches,” said Dingo. “Sometimes I hang out with Gideon in the trailer at the mine. It’s fascinating.”
“Well,” I said skeptically, “don’t be surprised if you’re given Decken Sudweeks’ name to use as a password soon. Has Gideon done any digging there?”
“No mining there at all. It is said to be played out.”
“Well.” I was of the belief that even unconscious people can hear what’s going on around them, so I said, “Don’t be surprised if Gideon digs there and finds a buttload of skeletons.” I’d been swearing more lately. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter anymore.
“Oh, yes,” said Dingo, almost cheerful, “I have known about these disappeared men for years, even before I was driven out and dumped by the side of the road. In fact, I often wonder if that’s why I was driven out and dumped. I knew too much.”
I left this part out as I talked to the freshly awakened Gideon. My heart overflowed with bliss to see him talking again, and none the worse for wear. I immediately texted Drakelle to come running to check him out. I wanted to leap on him, to literally throw myself on him, but all I could do was hold his hand and wring it like a sponge. For once, my prayers had been answered, and inwardly I apologized to God for the names I’d called him. Was it wrong of me to hope his recovery was, well, a bit on the slow side?
I asked Gideon if he knew a guy named, improbably, Dust Bunny.
He frowned. “Dust Bunny…Yes. I do. He’s an old associate of another associate of mine, Sax Saxonberg. What about him?”
“Well, apparently he’s a geologist or something?”
“Yes. Well, I don’t know if he’s got a degree, but he works with Sax running his gem and mineral shop in Pure and Easy in Arizona.”
“Oh. Apparently Allred approved him to run the mine in your absence. He’s come over a few times, waiting for you to wake. Obviously, he has a few questions.”
“Tell him to come over any ti—” Gideon winced, and his hand went to his side. He was smart enough not to touch the wound, but it was time to change his dressing.