October skies

CHAPTER 36

Tuesday

Shepherd’s Bush, London

‘So,’ said Sean Holmwood, tucking a fork into his pasta carbonara, ‘that sounds like an intriguing find.’

Julian returned a wry smile. Sean always calmly understated things. That was probably what made him such a good commissioning editor — he never gushed praise or approval; instead, he exuded it cautiously behind a poker face.

Julian nodded. ‘It’s not just the story of a bunch of settlers caught out by a particularly bad winter either, Sean. There’s a lot more to this.’

Sean’s fork stopped midway from his plate. ‘Oh?’

Julian leaned forward and lowered his voice. The corner of the bistro in which they were sitting was far enough away from the other patrons that it was an unnecessary precaution, but nonetheless he felt the need to keep it down.

‘This guy leading the larger of the two parties,’ he said in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘Preston… he’s like, I don’t know, like some sort of a David Koresh figure.’

‘Koresh? Koresh… I know the name.’

‘The Waco siege.’

Sean rolled his eyes. ‘Of course, yes.’

‘This guy, Preston, he seemed to have a hold on these people; a really unhealthy hold over them. Lambert — the guy whose journal I have — has written an incredibly detailed account of what happened up in those mountains. And I’m telling you, Sean, it’s really good stuff.’

Julian took a sip of wine.

Sean nodded. ‘Go on, Jules, you’ve got me interested.’

‘This Preston bloke appears to have led his congregation into the wilds with the intention of setting up his own small community, with their very own version of Mormonism. Do you know much about the Mormons — the Church of Latter Day Saints, Sean?’

Sean frowned. ‘Aren’t they like the Amish or something? Wear funny hats and beards?’

‘Uhh, no… they’re not really anything like the Amish.’

‘Maybe I’m thinking of Quakers.’

Julian shook his head. ‘Nope, not even close.’

Sean shrugged. ‘Well, which Christian sect are they then?’

‘I’ll be honest with you, Sean, I’m not even sure they’re Christian.’

Sean looked confused. ‘Not Christian? What the hell are they?’

‘They’re one of a kind. I suppose you could think of them as nineteenth-century scientologists.’

‘A cult.’

Julian nodded. ‘I don’t know where you draw the line between a cult and a religion. But, yes, I suppose back then it was more like a cult. Their religious texts are really quite incredible.’

‘Not the Bible then?’

Julian laughed. ‘Nothing like the Bible. Hang on,’ he said, opening his satchel and pulling out a wad of foolscap, covered with his handwritten notes. ‘Let me read you a little on the founding of Mormonism. It’s great stuff.’

He flicked through the pages. ‘Ah, here we are. Okay… so yeah, the whole thing was founded by a guy called Joseph Smith in the 1830s.’ He looked up at Sean and grinned. ‘You simply couldn’t make this stuff up. This guy, Smith, wasn’t anyone special: son of a local farming family with acres and acres of grazing land in some rural area just outside of New York. Anyway, there was a craze going round at that time for treasure hunting. Apparently everyone suddenly suspected their small-holding might contain ancient Native American treasure hordes. Well, this Joseph Smith got bitten by the treasure bug, and really got into it, digging little holes all over his family’s land. Then all of a sudden, he announces the find of all finds.’

Julian paused, teasing Sean into splaying his hands impatiently. ‘And?’

‘Smith claimed he had found the word of God.’

‘What do you mean word of God? Are we talking stone tablets?’

‘No, Smith wanted to go one better than that. Not stone… gold. He claimed he’d found the word of God on several golden scrolls.’

‘Just like that, eh? Started digging and found these scrolls?’

‘Oh no, it gets better. He claimed it wasn’t just blind luck. He added to his story by claiming he was guided to a remote hillock on his family’s farm by an angel that came to him at night, and spoke inside his head, giving him directions to this place.’

‘Ah, yes… the classic prophet story.’

‘Well, yes, it is. Arguably it’s no more credible — or incredible — than all the others. But this one gets crazier and crazier. Smith claims he was guided to this remote place, dug up an ancient stone box containing these golden scrolls, the remains of the guiding angel, and some things called seer stones. From this point on, the story reads a bit like David Icke on a bad day.’

‘Go on.’

‘At about this time, like I say, 1820s, early 1830s, another craze doing the rounds in England and America was a fascination with Ancient Egypt. There were a lot of fanciful theories going around amongst hobbyist historians. One, for example, being that the Native Americans were descendants of the Pharaohs. So guess what?’

Sean shrugged in response.

‘Making his magical find sound even sexier, he announced it was written in a holy language of the angels, otherwise known as Reformed Egyptian.’

‘Reformed Egyptian?’

‘Sounds vaguely legitimate, though, doesn’t it? It certainly helped to sex his story up back then. Smith claimed the angel was resurrected with an elaborate ritual and made flesh so that he could help him translate the scrolls. And so, the story goes, night after night, he spent time out on this hill, alone with this angel, translating the scrolls, which were meant to be the actual spoken words of God. The angel also told him the complete correct history of man, from the Egyptians onwards.’

Sean smiled wryly. ‘The correct history?’

‘The angel told Smith his name was Nephi, or Moroni, depending on varying early accounts by Smith and his first followers. He explained to Smith that several ancient tribes sailed for the Americas a couple of thousand years before Christ came along, back around the time of the Tower of Babel. These people sailed for the Americas, settled there and built themselves a huge, advanced civilisation — which perhaps might be a nod to Atlantis, who knows. Anyway, this civilisation did very well for itself for several hundred years until a war amongst them destroyed everything.’

‘Leaving absolutely no archaeological traces behind it.’

Julian smiled. ‘Yup, leaving no traces because, according to Nephi, it was a ferocious war. There were two groups, Nephites and Lamanites. Only one of these people survived this war: Nephi — this angel. With God’s help, he transcribed the history of his people and the new commandments of God on these golden scrolls writing in his language — this Reformed Egyptian — and then buried these scrolls in a hill.’

Julian forked up a mouthful of his cooling dinner. ‘Which, many centuries later, would end up being a hill in the middle of Mr Smith’s farm.’

‘Wow.’

‘And this history, this story I’ve just told you, is pretty much what the original Book of Mormon contains. Smith wrote it all down, published it and began selling copies. He revised the book over the ensuing years, adding to it from further sections of the scrolls that he claimed he’d yet to translate fully.’

‘With this Nephi guy?’

‘No, not after the initial translation. The angel was never seen by anyone. After his initial moonlit sessions on the hill, Smith claimed that he no longer required Nephi’s assistance, as the angel had taught him how to use the Seer Stones to translate the Reformed Egyptian. So now he could do it all by himself, the angel Nephi presumably became dusty bones once again, and vanished in a puff of make-believe.’

‘So, did anyone ever see these scrolls?’

‘There were written testimonies by his first followers that they had seen the scrolls first-hand, albeit briefly. But Smith was always careful to guard them closely, allowing his early followers to see them only for a moment, and from afar.’

‘So, these scrolls — where are they now?’

‘No one knows. Smith claimed that when he’d finished transcribing the symbols on them, the angel returned and he handed them back, and they, and the angel, all vanished.’

‘Convenient.’

‘Well, there were rumours that he buried the scrolls back where he found them beneath a hill on his family’s farm, rumours that they and some of the other relics were stolen from him, possibly by a follower, or someone out to discredit him. But they never did resurface, so it makes sense that he just folded that into his story — that the scrolls were returned to God, the angel returned whence it came… and voila, we have the origins of the Book of Mormon.’ Julian sipped some of his wine. ‘Well? What do you think?’

Sean nodded. ‘It’s wacky.’

‘And here’s the thing, Sean. There’s thirteen million people in the States who are Mormon, who actually believe in this stuff as an article of faith.’

‘So this Preston bloke was a Mormon, then?’

Julian shook his head. ‘Once, perhaps. The church went through a schism after Joseph Smith was killed, something of a power struggle. I suppose it’s not unlike the Shi’a-Sunni split over who should rightfully succeed Mohammed. The Latter Day Saints splintered into several groups with different ministers claiming authority. Brigham Young was the name of the guy who wrested control of the mainstream Mormon faith. But amongst all this unrest and confusion, Preston emerged, and won over a small flock of devout followers. He must have had something — a compelling manner, a unique message — enough that the mainstream Mormons turned angrily on him, and he and his congregation had to quickly leave Iowa for the west. That’s how the poor buggers ended up in the Sierra Nevadas.’

‘Did any of these Preston people survive?’

‘Well, here’s the thing. There’s no knowledge of it. I mean, literally nothing. Nada. No one at the time noticed they’d vanished. So I can only guess they all died up there, because there were no newspaper articles, no eye-witness accounts.’

‘Perhaps it wasn’t newsworthy. I’d imagine quite a few of those wagon trains came unstuck, went missing somewhere across America.’

‘Not really. I mean every group lost some people to sickness or malnutrition, but the only other group that actually went missing was the Donner Party. That event happened a few years earlier, about a hundred miles further south of where we found Preston’s party. But you see, the Donner Party made news back then, simply because there were a few survivors who could talk about it. I mean, it became a story written about in every paper of the time all over the States.’

‘Donner Party… I’ve heard of that. There was cannibalism, right?’

Julian nodded. ‘That’s probably one of the main reasons it became such a huge story. But it probably would never have been a story at all if there’d been no one who survived. Now, this Preston party… absolutely nothing, not a single thing about it. So that’s what makes me think absolutely no one walked out.’

Except that one… very odd web page, Julian reminded himself. Someone else knows about it.

Sean nodded, his pasta forgotten for now. ‘So any ideas how it all ended?’

‘I’m working on it. I’m still trying to make sense of this journal. They may have just starved, might have been attacked by Indians… I mean, there’s a mention of an encounter with Indians called Paiute. Or who knows, it might have ended up as some bizarre cult suicide thing — you know, another Jonestown.’

Sean’s eyes widened. ‘That would be quite a horrendous tale.’

Julian nodded. ‘I’m heading back out there at the end of the week. We have a small window of time to scoop what we can, then this site has to be called in. At which point, I’d imagine various American heritage agencies will boot us off.’

Sean smiled cautiously, chewing on his food in thought.

Julian reached for his wine and sipped. ‘What we have here is an interesting relationship between a charismatic cult leader and his ultimately doomed followers. It’s a strong angle to play on. The danger a religion can pose when it’s twisted, radicalised. That’s a very relevant theme to discuss these days, isn’t it?’

Sean hummed in agreement. He pulled out a pad and began scribbling some thoughts, whilst Julian finished his dinner in silence.

‘And you’ve read through all of this journal?’

‘It’s quite a thing to translate.’

‘Why, is it written in code or something?’

‘No, just a combination of things. The handwriting’s hard work and gets a little more wobbly on each successive page. The ink fades towards the end, which makes me think the author was watering it down to make it last. It gets almost illegible in places.’

‘Was the author… do you think this Lambert started losing it?’

Julian looked out of the window at the bustling foot traffic passing the bistro’s fogged window. ‘No, I don’t think so, Sean. No, I don’t think he’s losing it.’

‘Well then, let me ask you this. Do you think the author is reliable?’

Julian had considered that possibility. ‘You can never know for sure. But I’ll say this: he comes across as very level-headed. I know it sounds like an odd thing for a researcher to say, but I think I trust him.’

Sean picked up his fork and started tucking into his pasta once more.

Julian watched him in silence. ‘Anyway, have I snagged your interest?’

Sean placed his fork down and clasped his hands thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I think I might be interested,’ he replied softly. ‘It might be an idea to keep it to yourself for now, though. I’ll consider putting this on a fast-track footing within our editorial group, assuming of course it’s us you want to deal with?’

‘Well, Rose and I want to deal with you, Sean. We worked well together on Uncommon People. There’s no reason to think we wouldn’t work well together again.’

Sean looked up and smiled. ‘Yes, we did, didn’t we? It was fun.’ He gazed out of the window at a passing bus. ‘Look, I’ll make some discreet calls tomorrow, and maybe we’ll meet again later in the week?’

‘Sounds good to me. I’m flying back at the weekend. So if you want to meet again before I go… well, you’ve got three more days.’