Although Dirker very much wanted only a sanitized version of events of what had occurred up at Sunrise to circulate through Whisper Lake, the miner who had discovered the slaughter beat him to it. By the time Dirker and the others made it back to town, the story was out. It was out and people were crawling up the sheriff’s ass like mites.
Over at the Callister Brother’s Mortuary, Caleb Callister and three other men-James Horner, Philip Caslow, and Luke Windows-were gathered in the upstairs rooms, speaking in soft, careful tones. The rooms had once been used by Hiram Callister, but were now a sort of meeting place for Caleb and his friends.
“ It’s worse than anything thus far,” Caleb said to them. “An out and out slaughter and I think we all know who’s responsible.”
“ Scalped, too, you say?” Caslow asked.
“ Yes.”
Horner looked angry. “I’m not surprised. Them goddamn Mormons think this is their place, that the whole of Utah Territory belongs to them. They’ll do anything to push real Christians out.”
Windows lit a cigarette. He was a blacksmith and his hands were huge, callused. “See? What they got in mind is for us to blame injuns. That’s what they want. But we ain’t rising to that bait. We got us a pack of them Danites, them Destroying Angels hiding over in Redemption or maybe Deliverance.”
“ Exactly,” Caslow said. “It’s only a matter of deciding which snake pit we root out first.”
“ Redemption,” Caleb said to them.
He knew if he suggested Deliverance, he’d get no takers. No man in his right mind wanted to ride up to Deliverance, not with what was said about that place. Maybe all of it wasn’t true, but if some of it was, then it was enough. Besides, even the Mormons shunned the place.
“ Tonight then,” he said. “Tonight we sack that heathen nest and burn it to the ground.”
No one disagreed with that.