CHAPTER 21
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, MELISSA DROVE the rental car into the Medicine Wheel relay station. The afternoon sun stood high above the western horizon and at 10,000 feet elevation, the view from the relay station encompassed the valley of the Big Horn River. At 5:00 p.m., the valley was a hazy bowl, sixty miles wide and one 100 miles long. Bill Campbell was on the porch, nailing plywood across the porch rails. As Melissa pulled to a stop, Campbell stood up, looked through the windshield at her, and laid the nail gun down on the steps. Melissa stepped out of the car. She was wearing a print, short-sleeved blouse and white shorts. Her legs, unaccustomed to the sun, were white and smooth. She knew that Jan and John were watching her with binoculars from a crest less than 200 yards away. She assumed the sheriff was training a riflescope on Bill Campbell.
“Melissa!” Campbell said, wiping his hands on his jeans, “Where have you been? I have been very worried about you. I heard you had left the compound. Ronald has been worried too…My God! What happened to you? You have bruises all over your arms!”
“Hi, Bill. Good to see you. I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Come in, come in.”
Melissa followed him into the cabin without looking back or hesitating. Inside, Campbell pulled a chair out from the table and said, “Coffee?”
“No thanks, Bill. I was hoping for something a little stronger. But that can wait. I’m really glad to see you.”
“And I’m glad to see you, Melissa. Honestly, I have been worried about you.”
“Well, Bill, I’m so glad to know you don’t know what happened to me. That’s important to me.”
“I have no idea. All I know is that Ronald said you had left in the dead of night.”
“That’s not completely accurate. I left in the dead of night, all right, but not by choice. Ronald probably thought I was dead. He had tried to kill me. Or, rather, he had others try to kill me.”
“Melissa! I can’t believe that. Ronald loves you.”
“I guess you don’t know Ronald as well as you think you do.”
Melissa watched Campbell for any sign that might indicate he thought she was lying. “I was dragged from my room at the compound, taken into the hills, raped, and left for dead.”
Campbell shook his head. He said nothing.
“I was asleep when they came for me. I awoke with a blanket over my head. They gagged me and covered my eyes with duct tape. I was tied in the blanket, and taken in a car. There were two of them. They never spoke. Then they beat me and raped me. They left me, as I said, for dead.”
Campbell spoke. “Are you absolutely positive you have no idea who abducted you?”
“Well, I assume it was one of the Prophet’s most trusted. To tell you the truth, Bill, I thought it might even be you. But then I just knew you couldn’t do anything like that to me. And now, I know I was right because I can tell this is all news to you.”
Campbell nodded.
“In fact, Bill, that is why I came to see you. To find that out, and then to ask for your help.”
“My help?”
“I’m not sure exactly what I want.” She lowered her head, let a small sob escape, and wiped her eyes. Then she looked at Campbell. She thought he believed her story.
“Sure you don’t want a cup of coffee?” the Danite asked.
“You know what? I have a box of groceries in the trunk. And I have a bottle of wine. I thought if you don’t mind, I’d fix you dinner.”
Campbell raised one eyebrow and looked long at her. A small smile pinched at his lips. “Mind? Of course I don’t mind. I would love to have dinner with you.”
“Come help me get the groceries. Then I’ll tell you everything.”
***
Jan and Monster watched Melissa and Campbell come out of the cabin and go to the trunk of the car and get the box of groceries.
“Thank God!” Monster said.
“Looks like things are going OK so far,” Jan said.
“I still hate this whole thing.”
“So do I, John, but we’re committed now.”
“That don’t make me like it.”
“Nope.”
“Jan, do you really think this cockamamie scheme will work? I mean the digital eavesdropping?”
“I don’t know, John. All I know is that information is power. If we can actually tap into Hansen’s information flow, we’ll learn a lot. I want to get to him. I want to destroy him.”
“You want to kill him.”
“I guess I do.”
“Did you ever think, before Emma’s death, you could even consider something like that?”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, Jan. I hope you are listening, because I need to tell you something.”
Jan turned to Monster and looked at him. The big man was staring intently at him. Monster held up a finger and waved it.
“Jan, fact is, I’m afraid you couldn’t kill Hansen.”
Jan eyed him coldly. “What do you mean?”
“Killing isn’t so easy. Most people can’t do it. Especially a guy like you who is all wound up in moral introspection. I’m not trying to be unkind, Jan. I’m trying to save your life.”
“I say again, what do you mean?”
Monster looked at Jan for a few seconds. “When the moment of truth comes,” he finally said, “a guy like you has too many conflicting thoughts. Men like Hansen—men like Campbell—they don’t have those problems. Hansen knows God is on his side. He is the moral law. And Campbell? Well, Campbell has killed so many men, and probably women, that it is no longer problematic. But you, my friend, by the time you work through all the issues, you’ll be the one who is dead. Campbell draws down on you and you are doing some kind of internal Socratic questioning and he blows your heart out.”
Jan stared at him for several seconds. Then he dropped his eyes.
“See, hombre? You are no killer.”
“People do what they have to do.”
“Yes, that’s true. And you may be able to do it, but you have to ‘get there’ in your head first. You have to come to an intellectual conclusion that Hansen needs to be removed from the earth, not simply an emotional conclusion. And then you have to decide that you’re the one to do it. You have to get to the place where you know you will do it. You need to go over it in your head. You have to see him as a snake coiled to strike you, and you have to move instinctively. Or he will bite you, my friend. He definitely will bite you.”
“Well, isn’t there any conflict in your own mind on this?”
“Jan. He killed your wife, he has tried to kill you, and we know he has killed a score of others who have crossed him. No, I’m sorry, I’m as prepared to execute him as I would be if I held a Writ of Execution signed by Governor Hinton.”
***
Melissa swirled the glass of White Zinfandel. Campbell had poured himself a shot of Jim Beam and had a tumbler of water on the small table. The cabin had two rooms. The main area was twenty feet square, with a bed, a combination cook/heating stove, and some storage shelves. A long wooden bar provided a place to hang clothes. A separate room housed electronic equipment and a desk.
“Bill,” Melissa, said, “you once told me you cared deeply for me. Do you still?”
Campbell nodded.
“I need help.”
“I guess I’d do just about anything for you, Melissa.”
“That covers a lot of ground.”
“You are very important to me.”
“Why?”
“Don’t make me tell you that, Melissa. I have wanted you from the day I laid eyes on you.”
“Wanted me?”
“Yes.”
“Well.” She smiled. “I think I like that.”
Campbell sipped the drink, but made no move.
“Tell me what happened to you, Melissa.”
“I told you about the…the abduction. And the rape.” She stopped and looked at Campbell. Nothing in his eyes betrayed what she knew to be true—that he was the one who had raped her. But she wanted to see if he believed her. If he thought she knew he was the rapist, he would never allow her to leave alive. On the other hand, if he believed her and felt safe from entrapment, she thought his lust would make him vulnerable.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I woke up in a ditch behind the compound. I suppose someone was going to come to bury me or something the next day. But I walked three miles to the highway and hitched a ride into Greybull. I was taken to the hospital, and after a few days I was released.”
“Who talked to you in the hospital?”
“Sheriff Broadbeck.”
“That snake.”
“Yes, he really is creepy. He thinks he’s a ladies’ man or something. Nevertheless, he was nice enough to me. He asked me a lot of questions about the compound.”
“What did you tell him?”
“As little as possible. I don’t trust him.”
“That’s smart.”
“Of course I don’t trust Ronald either. I’m sure he ordered me killed.”
“Come on, Melissa. I have my problems with Ronald, but really…after all he is the Prophet.”
“Do you believe that, Bill? Be honest with me.”
Campbell looked down at the table. “I used to believe it.”
“So did I.”
“So what are your plans, Melissa?”
“I don’t know yet, Bill. I guess that’s why I’m here. The first thing I need to do is take care of me. I really don’t know how to go about that. But I think I need a strong man in my life. And you are about the strongest man I know.”
“Melissa, where have you been staying for the past few days?”
This was the question she had been waiting for. She had rehearsed her answer over and over. She knew that Campbell knew very well where she was staying. She knew Hansen’s people were watching the house. She couldn’t afford to lie to him on this point.
“I have been staying with Ginny Hollingsworth, a waitress at the Basin Café.”
“Isn’t she a friend of Jan Kucera?”
“Well, she told me they had a thing once. And he is staying at her house, too. I guess he was a victim of an assault by Hansen as well.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was shot.”
“Who did it?”
“He doesn’t know. He assumes it was Hansen. Sheriff Broadbeck thinks you probably did it. I never talked to Jan Kucera in any depth. Mainly, I just stayed in my own room. I talked to Ginny a lot, though.”
Campbell stared at her. “And what about Broadbeck?”
She took a drink of wine.
“What about him?”
“Have you talked to him in any detail?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
Campbell continued to look at her with dead eyes. Melissa stifled a shudder. She had the eerie feeling she was looking into the eyes of a reptile. There seemed to be no life in them at all.
Finally, Campbell broke the gaze. He poured another drink and said, smiling, “Did you say something about dinner?”