Karly’s Testimony

His hands shook from the icy wind whipping off the Wasatch as he fumbled with the key to his work-shed. In the summer, the wind from the Wasatch mountains provided blessed relief from the summer heat, but wintertime reminded one that the Salt Lake Rim was home for the mule deer and their brothers, the wolves while bears just slept it off, waiting for warmer days.

 

It was early. On his ranch, just north of Caldern Hale, Raymond had been using dynamite to blow out stumps and clear more for more beets. Beets and salt production had provided industry to the Mormons during the development of what would become the state of Utah, leading to the ammunition production during World War Two and the worldwide proliferation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Did Joseph Smith have any idea of what would become of his vision of Moroni that night on Hill Cumorah so long ago? Raymond was not thinking about this as he mixed the dynamite and ammonium nitrate fertilizer to blow the stumps out of the ground. Today would be like any other. The land would soon be ready for spring planting.

 

Raymond didn’t think he was a bad man. He’d agreed that he had made mistakes, but by and large he’d reconciled them with his God, and tried to put it all behind him as he raised his two teenage daughters in full compliance with the church. And while his conscience was mostly clear there was one incident that he knew would require a bit more work.  Why has he done it? It was so out of character for him. Yet he had acted in accordance with The Principle. The idea that a man’s duty was to bring as many spirit children down from heaven so serve their earthly duty and hopefully become gods themselves to receive their own planet and populate it with good Mormons. Did he actually believe that? It didn’t matter. It eased his conscience the night he had penetrated Karly and achieved every man’s fantasy of holding a teenage girl with no retribution! As he fumbled with the key, he looked across to his house in the distance where his daughters, and his wife lay sleeping.

 

He remembered Karly. She was young. Like his girls. Too young and inexperienced to be at a party in City Park with older men. He’d been invited by friends to go with them there. He drank. He never drank! Two girls were there. Sitting on a sofa. One was drinking orange juice, rattling on about her mission. Mission! She was Temple. Bright blue eyes and a glass of vodka she drank foolishly. For Mormon parents a child going on their mission for the church was a crowning achievement of raising a child. Proof that they had been raised correctly. When things got out of control Raymond should have left right then, but there was something. Forbidden fruit that he had desired but had never reached for. Luring innocence as she continued talking about her upcoming mission. Then she agreed to go to a bedroom with a boy a little older than she was. They sat on a bed and kissed. The boy played with her leg and then stroking her calf, he discovered a knife snuggled in her boot. He tried to pull it out and she grabbed his hand. A scuffle ensued. While the young man meant her no harm, he still wanted to see the knife. Then, for an instant she gained control of the weapon. She stabbed him in the hand, but she wasn’t done. She drew the knife back for an offhand slice at him and that’s when Raymond slapped the knife from her hand. The future missionary’s eyes had become blood red, and she lunged at Raymond as the young man shook his hand and picked the knife up from the floor. Raymond was grabbing her hands, trying to calm her but she screamed, “Pay Lay Ale!” And he forced her down to the bed instead.  As he lay on top of her she stared into his eyes and became suddenly submissive, whispering, “Just do it!”

 

Raymond’s blood boiled and he reached beneath her dress to discover she was wearing a Temple garment. He pulled the bottom part to her knees and mounted her. She received him willingly and it was over in one minute. Was it even rape? Was it the vodka? Or maybe the “good girl” had yielded to her own desire. Maybe that’s what she’d come to the RV in the park for all along. One night before eighteen months of preaching to nonbelievers. A mission!

 

She was excited about it! Although she was a girl, she wanted to serve in a distant land. South Africa, South America, anywhere that she could spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And she knew that Jesus would protect her. But where was Jesus when Raymond spread her legs? And as Raymond dismounted her, he noticed her tattoo. Now he was afraid. Before, she had just stabbed someone. Whatever Raymond did to her was easily ignored by this. And she drew the knife back for a kill. That hadn’t made any sense but the tattoo of the flaming sword of Saint Michael explained it. Danite! And despite her innocent blue eyes she was versed in the use of that knife and went immediately in for the kill when she perceived an attack.

 

 

She was now laying on the bed, partially clothed, unarmed. The room was filled with drunk men. Tesla’s grandfather closed the door, as the young man stood up, shaking his hand and holding Karly’s knife.

 

“Grab her!” the grandfather shouted to the high school principal now standing at the end of the bed. Teslas grandfather got on top of Karly but she kicked him and he rolled onto the floor. Accordingly, the principal took her by the ankles and the young man reached down and pulled her dress up exposing her thigh. He pricked her leg with the knife yelling, “How do you like it?” as he stuck her three more times. Karly did not scream, only glaring at him. The young man then penetrated her as the principal held her legs. She tried to keep her legs together, but the principal held them apart.

 

“Oh!” She moaned which the young man took as excitement. Not fully aware of the knife fight and Karly’s motions Tesla thought Karly had gotten excited. “Do it! Make it good for him!” she encouraged, and Karly’s increased angry resistance came off as cooperating. The young man finished and the man with the boots took his turn. She found new strength and fought him, but he flipped her onto her stomach to dodge her blows. As he sodomized her, he slapped her butt asking her if she liked it. The drunk was next, but he couldn’t complete the act then the high school principal pulled off her blouse and the upper part of her garment but upon seeing her tattoo stopped and pulled out.

 

Then a hanger on stumbled into the room. Boots, so named for his ostrich hide boots. Living in the park, the homeless man had often dropped by for free drinks. Tonight, there was bonus entertainment, and he grabbed Karly by her ears.

 

 Why hadn’t he stopped it? Raymond knew this was wrong! But the devil entered his heart, and he felt a warm flush as he looked upon God’s perfection. Three men saw her tattoo that night and knew what it was and what it meant. But she had squeezed him with her legs. Why?

 

In the final analysis Karly was still a sixteen-year-old girl weighing less than one hundred pounds who had just been violently raped by several men and she fainted.

 

“We gotta get her out of here!” the grandfather said.

 

“What the hell you gonna do?” the principle asked.

 

“Just pick her up. Put her in the back of my truck. Frank! You come with me.”

 

“What you gonna do?” the drunk asked.

 

“Don’t worry about that. And get that Temple shit.”

 

At that time Tesla began to realize what had happened and began to protest but her grandfather slapped her. “Shut up. You brought that crazy bitch here. Get her things and get in my truck!”

 

The three of them got into the truck and headed out. “What we gonna do?” the old drunk asked.

 

“What you think we gonna do? Drop her off a cliff up on the Wasatch.”

 

Frank began to protest but Tesla’s grandfather cut him off. “Them other two girls didn’t bother you a bit. You catch religion? Now you just grab her legs when we get up there!”

 

“Man, she’s Temple. She’s got the mark.”

 

At that moment Tesla too began to cry. “Papa! She’s my best friend.”

 

Frank added, “Look she stabbed Paul. What can she say?”

 

Against his better judgement the driver agreed to dump Karly on her mother’s front lawn. Tesla laid her garment on her to keep her warm, cried over her friend and the three drove away.

 

From that moment on, each time Raymond looked at his daughters, Karly looked back. After that night he never went to Temple! And inside he knew he would see her again. The group he was with that night began to fall, one by one. The police in the bedroom community had no clues, no closure but the talk among those who were privy told of bloody vengeance prowling Caldern Hale at night, and Raymond counted his days. She had a little list, and there’d none of them be missed! They were all gone now. It was his turn!

 

These thoughts flooded his head as he opened the door to his shed that morning to the cracking sound of the ice around the edges falling free. As he found the light switch and turned it on there she was. He didn’t even have to ask. He knew. Now it was his turn. All his friends were dead, and she had come for him! His appointment with a vengeful God!

 

 

Raymond moved a chair and set it before her and just sat there. “I knew you would come!”  It was a resignation. A fact that he’d acknowledged in that RV at the park that night when she looked into his eyes as he dismounted her.

 

“Yes,” Karly said. “You know what time it is, don’t you Raymond?”

 

Hanging his head he just nodded. Then, raising his eyes to meet hers he said, “Please don’t hate me.”

 

Her expression softened. Empathy flowed from her eyes as tears began to form. “I don’t hate you, Raymond. But you know your sin was not our consummation, it was when you let those men do to me. You slapped my knife out of my hand. If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here now. You know that don’t you Raymond?”

 

“Consummation?”

 

“Yes, our Consummation!”

 

He nodded his head. Looking up at her he said, “Blood atonement! Lest my blood touches the ground my sins will follow me, and I shall not be allowed into the celestial kingdom.”

 

“But why should you die?”

 

“Because I’m a murderer! Why do you think I was even there Raymond?  Every time I killed one of your friends, I recited the Danite absolution. Just as my father had taught me. ‘If you ask Heavenly Father for forgiveness, I will let you go.’ But I had no intention of letting them go because I no longer believed. These men killed two little girls, and I came to serve justice. I sent each one to hell before their next breath. All but Tesla.” Karly looked away for a moment. “She mumbled some nonsense before I cut her throat. And she is why I must die. But you were different from the other men. There is hope for you, Raymond,” she patted the box on her lap, “with this!”

 

“A wedding cake?”

 

“Yes.” She stroked the box on her lap. “I have made it for us. You and me!” She tapped the cake box on her lap. “Our wedding cake. Two sticks of your dynamite on a nice bed of your fertilizer. Thank you for that. If I push this button well, you know.

 

 

His faith wavered. The stark reality of his death shook him. “Why?”

 

“Because you chose me, Raymond. As you took me in your arms that night, I remembered you from our pre-existence. And as we looked into each other’s eyes I knew that I was one of your wives. That’s why I saved you for last. Look at me!” At that she pulled her hood down revealing her face. Her eyes were black. White lines ran down her cheeks to the corners of her mouth. Her forehead covered with red ochre powder. “You destroyed my legacy. The only thing I could give to your Heavenly Father. My fertility! But now I can’t give Him any children here. Only in the kingdom.  We’re the ones sent to bring God’s judgement to the world. We are what Joseph really saw that night on Cumorah. He did not see God. No man can see God and live. He saw God Damn!  Michael, Raphael, Gabriel and Uriel! And we are who he saw in the Carthage Jail when God sent us to take the blessing from him and give it to Brigham Young who brought us all here to wait for his return.

 

“And we both die.”

 

“No! We live! In the Celestial Kingdom. And there we can make spirit children. Raymond, do you believe?”

 

Raymond had a moment of clarity. He believed, but not enough to die and he had to buy time. As he looked into the eyes of the Danite every moment now became precious as she caressed the button on top of the box on her lap that could send them both to the Celestial Kingdom over the rainbow.

 

“Yes. I understand. But is there no other way? My girls! They’re innocent.”

 

“Are they Raymond? So was I. I was preparing for my mission when you crawled up on me. A few drinks made you do that? Rape a sixteen-year-old girl. And you were Temple Worthy, Raymond. Are they innocent? You out here in the desert with a couple home schooled little Mormon girls. Kinda like Lot’s daughters, huh Raymond?”

 

Her eyes condemned him. He fell silent as the truth in her steel grey eyes convicted him. All his breath left him, and he stood before God! And no amount of Temple work was going to hide his nakedness now.

 

“You believe in the church so there must be blood atonement for your sin. You know that. Either you,” she turned her eyes toward his house, “or them. The debt remains. And make no mistake about it. I’m gonna collect!”

 

“Now, give me your hand” she said, and as he extended his arm, she produced her Loki, quickly slicing his palm, then hers, and squeezing his hand in hers, allowed the blood to drip on the floor. “Blood of my blood, bone of my bone. Now I am your primary wife!” A radiance seemed to come to her face, and she smiled.

 

With her finger still positioned over the button, as she grasped his hand, Raymond looked one last time in the direction of his house where his family slept, blissfully ignorant of what was about to happen, and by the grace of God, his sin! The sin of his flesh and of his heart for the demons that pushed him onto Karly that night had never left. The next day the police would theorize that the explosives simply got away from him. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and accepting his fate as their blood dripped on the floor.

 

Then Karly seemed to relent. “I’m not going to kill you, Raymond. Not right now. But, if you tell anyone about this night and what I said then I will kill you. Now, I want you to go to your house. And I want you to forget that you ever saw me tonight. Don’t call the cops, don’t tell your bishop, he knows who I am, and try to not molest your girls as much this month. Kinda like a twelve-step program because if you start talking then I will be back. And I will kill you and your whole fucking family! Now go!”

 

As Raymond went to his house a shadowy figure slipped over the hill behind his farm for the long walk back to Caldern Hale. And they say she walks there still!

 

I am my father’s savage daughter

The one who walks barefoot cursing sharp stones

I am my father’s savage daughter

I will not cut my hair

I will not lower my voice.