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

Jason had lunged for something, like a straight razor falling. Instead of letting it fall—letting it hit the ground razor up or razor down—Jason had lunged for the blade. He grabbed when he should’ve bowed.

He would bury his beloved, doe-eyed daughter today. And, he would bury his marriage too.

Every cell in his body longed to go to Jenna. She stood across the grave from him in snow boots, a gray velvet dress, a fur-collared coat; the hood over her head. She was alone in her grief. Jenna wept under the hood, and not even her solitary grief would dissolve the distance between them.

Awakened too late, he yearned to protect Jenna, to shield her from the bringer of destruction. But he had become it.

As he beheld her courtliness and grace, across the grave of their daughter, the bloom of grief livid on her shadowed face, Jason knew the full depth of his regret. He would never again be her protector. Other men would stand with her and face the consequence hanging in the stars. He would stand apart, an antagonist in his own home.

The pastor, Jacquelyn Reynolds, began the memorial. She seemed nearly overwhelmed with grief. All the death of the horrific season compounded in this one burial. The Homestead from before, with all the furrows that had been clawed from it, was being buried alongside a twenty-five year old medical student. The pastor said words, dreadful and beautiful. Then the moment came to lower Emily into the ugly hole in the frozen earth.

Jason couldn’t weep. From his gut to his throat, his muscles choked, and air barely escaped. Tears found no passage.

Gabriel Peña, Jeff Kirkham, Donald Ross and Burke Ross lowered Emily into the ground while Jason smothered.

When she was finally laid to rest, Gabriel stood by Jason’s side. Pastor Jacquelyn began again with her thick, wistful words. Gabriel held Jason’s wrist, mindful of his ruined hands.

The concrete in Jason’s lungs expelled in a gushing sob. He heaved and wept. He fell to the ground. Gabriel knelt down beside him, weeping too.

Long after everyone had gone, Jason cried beside the grave of his beloved daughter.

Ross Homestead

Oakwood, Utah

The fresh inch of snow on the deck of the pool gardens sparkled in the sunlight. Just five minutes before, the clouds had become uncertain and disbanded their dreary tribe. The sun broke through and the world shimmered.

The cream sandstone columns and the naked, reaching wisteria bracketed the small gathering. It felt like Greek gods and forest fairies stood guard over Evan and Tanya’s little wedding.

Still broken from Emily Ross’ funeral, Jacquelyn was primed to cry, and cry she did as the beautiful bride, Tanya Ralda—soon to be Hafer—walked down the balustrade toward Evan’s waiting hand.

She wore Jenna Ross’ wedding dress, the same one Jenna had worn when she married Jason twenty-five years before. Tanya stood a foot shorter than Jenna, so the dress swept the snowy ground as she descended the stone stairway.

Jacquelyn considered the wedding dress. Rather than an omen, it felt like a renewal—the victory of magic over the depredations of man.

Tanya reached Evan and slipped her hand under his arm. He looked into her eyes and smiled, the muscles in his face loosening, maybe for the first time in his adult life.

Tanya turned to Jacquelyn, nodded, and the wedding began.

Epilogue

Shortwave Radio 7150kHz 4:00pm

“Not to brag, fellow Drinkin’ Bros, but you’re listening to the first guy ever to win an air-to-air helicopter battle in a civilian chopper. When you imagine me, just think of a taller and beefier Tom Cruise in Top Gun, flying an AStar instead of an F-14. I’m going to sign off presently to bang Kelly McGillis in the front seat of her Porsche. She’s probably over sixty now, but it’s my fantasy. Screw you if you can’t hang. Sixty-year-olds can be bomber-liscious, I know from personal experience, but that’s a story too long for shortwave.

Seriously, I shot down a helo with my helo. That part’s no bullshit.

In other, less-important news, the Marines of Camp Lejeune launched an expeditionary force to reconnoiter the east coast. They’ve survived all this time by fishing from their LCU landing craft. Now they’re out looking for trouble—searching for whatever remains of the United States government. If you know where they can find the President, lemme know and I’ll relay the message.”

Salt Lake Assembly Hall

Temple Square

Salt Lake City, Utah

Even in the little tabernacle that hadn’t been used for a Mormon conference in fifty years, they scarcely managed to fill the room. Many saints were dead and many were too weak to make the trip to Temple Square. Even so, almost three hundred from the fundamentalist south trekked across the fifty-mile length of Salt Lake Valley to attend.

Those three hundred came as honored guests, and not only because they brought wagon-loads of food and hay.

Just a month before, they’d been a defeated army and, but they came as emissaries of unity and faith.

Mid-February had never been the traditional time for General Conference, the name of the semi-annual gathering of Mormons. But, a new tradition emerged from the civil war, to heal the rends in the church. Mid-February would be the new conference time, and perhaps would remain so.

With the prayer and singing complete, President Richard D. Thayer rose to the podium.

“Brothers and sisters, welcome. Especially those who join us from Utah Valley. We thank you for making the journey.

“Shortly, we will address the question of my calling as the president of the Church. Before Elder Mitchell Clawson of the Quorum of the Twelve calls for your sustaining vote, I ask for a moment to confess my sin.”

The audience whispered, then hushed. Never before had a Mormon prophet said words like these in General Conference. Richard Thayer was painfully aware of his inadequacy and the mistakes he had made. Even so, the church was bigger than one man and his pride.

“Before the collapse, myself and the fourteen brethren of the Quorum