White Wasteland, Jeff Kirkham [ebook reader with highlight function TXT] 📗

Jeff huffed and slumped in his chair. “We have five days until three thousand fanatics bum-rush our valley. We either stop them at the Point of the Mountain or we fight another battle at the gates of the Homestead three days later.”

Doc Erik shook his head. “War at the other end of the valley is a luxury right now,” he argued. “And, we’re fresh out of luxuries.”

Even his knock on the Mormon prophet’s door sounded like defeat to Jeff. President Thayer showed him in to his office.

“I’m not going to make it in time,” Jeff blurted out. “My work force ditched us because they’re non-Mormon locals and they aren’t happy with your church, to say the least.”

“Have a seat Brother Kirkham,” President Thayer indicated a chair. Then he sat down next to Jeff, rather than taking the seat across his desk. “I understand their feelings. We weren’t the best neighbors in some ways. Back in those days, we tended to stick to ourselves, and we definitely kept our own counsel.”

Jeff nodded. “I’m sorry, but I can’t provide the workforce to build the munitions we will need to defeat the fundamentalist—Burnham’s—army. I estimate they’ll be between two or three thousand fighting men and I can barely field a hundred and fifty from the Homestead. We have terrain to our advantage at the county line, but only if we hit them when they cross.” Jeff stood up and pointed to a spot on the pin-covered map on the wall. “We stop them there or we don’t stop them at all,” Jeff declared.

Thayer stood and looked at the map. He rubbed his chin. “When and where do you need help with munitions?”

“I need help right this minute, at the machine shop two blocks north of the Lower Barricade on State Street.”

“Give me two hours. I’ll meet you at the machine shop.” President Thayer stood up and ended the meeting.

Wilford’s Die and Tool

North Salt Lake City, Utah

The prophet’s work gloves made Jeff smile.

The Mormon President showed up at the machine shop two hours after Jeff visited him at home with work gloves and a hundred and fifty bright-faced, half-starved Mormons.

“Where’d you find the happy skeletons?” Jeff asked President Thayer.

The Mormon prophet laughed. “Most of us went on missions for our church. Knocking on doors is in our DNA.”

Jeff smiled. “There’s no time for jokes. I need them working right now. But not you. You need to get me two more shifts just like this one. Then you need to stop this war before it starts. In that order, if you please, sir.”

“Don’t handle this without full-body protection. Full PPE.” Jeff motioned to the two vats, sealed in multiple layers of plastic tarp. “Each claymore mine gets one cup, placed on top of the explosive with a layer of plastic wrap between the two. Does that make sense?” Jeff rubbed his eyes. If he didn’t sleep soon, he was going to pass out.

The kid in front of him was so thin, his head looked like a bowling ball balanced on a hockey stick. “Yessir, Brother Kirkham. One cup per mine. Don’t handle it without full protection. Put a layer of plastic wrap between the charge and the paste.”

“Exactly. You know…never mind. I’ll do the first batch. It’s gotta be right.”

“You look like you need sleep,” the young man said. “I got this. I can follow instructions.”

“I know you can, but let me help you with the first couple.” Jeff replied. “The claymores are too important for just one set of eyes.”

Schaffer House

Oakwood, Utah

Jacquelyn had taken her children with her into quarantine at the orphanage. They’d been exposed to Emily Ross the day she dropped with the flu. Only Jacquelyn’s oldest son, Tommy Junior, came down with symptoms, and he bounced back within a few days. They seemed like they’d be alright and all of the orphan babies had recovered too.

Still, Jacquelyn tormented herself with guilt over her actions, and fretted constantly about Emily Ross, fighting for her life in the infirmary. Jacquelyn had drawn away critical resources like herself, Jenna Ross and ten others; people who could’ve been helping with the war preparations.

And yet, she’d been saved; rescued from her impulsive choices by the last man she thought capable of mercy. She wondered if she knew Jeff Kirkham at all.

Jenna Ross was a woman hollowed out. Separated from her daughter and condemned by her husband, she wandered the halls of the orphanage, a ghost of her former self. She served the children and the other women to a degree that bordered on self-abuse. Jacquelyn attempted to talk Jenna through the loss and the grief, but unless Emily recovered from the flu, there would be no helping her. The facts were immutable: Jenna had lost several of her children, her husband had spurned her, and her last, beloved daughter lay on death’s door. It was as though Jenna Ross had gone to sleep one night in modern America and awoke the next morning in the Black Plague. No amount of therapy could mend a gutting like that.

Even so, not one woman in their quarantine regretted rescuing the orphans. How could they? They spent every day of exile holding and loving those precious ones. There was no question: these babies would be buried in mass graves if not for Emily’s courage and the Schaffer House miracle. The convicted women whispered endlessly about the moral battleground they had crossed, and not one of them could find peace. They had both saved children from starvation, and killed children with the flu. They had honored their God, and spurned their God. They had given their word, and broken their word in the same breath—a Gordian Knot of endless dimensions. There was no holy ground, but also nothing but holy ground. They were both saints and sinners in the highest and the blackest sense.

And Jeff Kirkham—“Mister Jeff” to virtually everyone now—had brought Solomon’s wisdom to their horizonless dilemma. This hardened,