Disclaimer: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor John Watson and all associated characters belong to the late, great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his estate, various studios and other companies. This pastiche is completely non-profit, and only for enjoyment and entertainment.
Warnings: Dark & Adult Themes, off-scene, non-graphic mentions of illegal acts
Authors Notes: I'm sorry, I had to do it! Yes, Isis the Sphinx, we have Hope's back story in all it's Holmesless and Watsonless glory; if you can call it that. But I bow to the creator and I respect my source material, especially when I'm trying to pay homage to it, so in the narrative break stays. In my defence, I did boil it down from the nearly half-book five-chapter literary detour into a slightly more palatable three thousand word sketch, leaving nothing but the bare bones. Never fear, there are some prime Holmes & Watson cuts in the next chapters. Read this anyway; I added a hopefully interesting twist!
Please, read & review – and enjoy!
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Chapter Twelve – The Country of the Saints
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John Ferrier knew that life could take you strange places, stranger than ever could be imagined. It had taken him as far as two wars, fought for his country diligently but snuffing ties as quickly as a bullet in most cases. By the time he returned to the homeland he was an orphan in every sense and decided he preferred it that way. He worked solitary jobs in the wildernesses of his land; rangers, trackers, remote farmhands, trappers, anywhere and everywhere he could work in his solitude. He roamed all over the country, almost always on his own two feet.
He set out on one of his long sojourns across the Mojave from Hurricane when misfortune struck. His supplies were lost to him when, after avoiding a rattlesnake at one of the high boulders, his pack was knocked into a gap between two slabs and was lost to a place he could not reach or climb to. With no other recourse, John Ferrier attempted to head back the way he had come; but with seven days between him and any civilisation he already knew his chances were not good. He still knew it two days later, so parched he could barely swallow. He accepted the reality of it stoically though. It was not as if he'd ever attached any importance to his life.
That's when he found her. Wandering the barren land like a sprite, kicking stones and poking everything curiously, dressed in a vividly bright dress and showing such an irrepressible sparkle that for a moment John Ferrier was sure she was merely some sort of mirage.
But as he approached he realised she was real enough – real and sunburnt and lost and glad to see him. It had been so many years since that had happened.
She chattered brightly to him. She said she had woken on the strange beach that had these little plants but no water, and she couldn't find mama or papa anywhere, so she had gone to look for them. Aside from a shadowy bruise on her temple, she was perfectly healthy.
It was easy enough to backtrack the child's footsteps. That's when he found the car – bright cherry red, just like the girl's dress. It had come off the road, flipped and come to rest some distance from the grey asphalt ribbon cutting the desert in two. John Ferrier asked her to sit behind the dune where she couldn't see and checked the car, but even before he got close he sensed it was far too late. The girl had been lucky; she had been thrown from the car through one window and had walked away with scarcely a scratch.
John Ferrier explained this to the girl tentatively and timidly, but to his relief she didn't seem to really understand what had happened. She just accepted that her parents were 'elsewhere', and she would see them again someday.
That day would be all too soon John Ferrier realized a night and day later, as he and the little one followed the road slowly. There had been no water in the car, and the girl was diabetic. John Ferrier hadn't thought to ask and the child had not thought to tell; it was too late to backtrack to the car for medicines – with no water they would be dead before they could get there. John Ferrier did what he could with cacti, but there were no springs and no creeks in this area. The road surely would lead somewhere, but John Ferrier hadn't been in good shape even before he found the girl, and she was visibly wilting like a bright red flower under the sun and her sickness. John Ferrier, the determinedly solitary man, did all but pluck the sun from the sky to keep the little girl happy, and laughing, and curious. Deep in his bones he knew this was important.
Eventually there was nothing else to do but curl in the pitiful shade offered by a low hill by the road. The girl was speech slurred and listless and John Ferrier's legs would not take him a step further. The child began reciting a prayer she'd been taught to say before she went to sleep, explaining how tired she was and she needed to sleep. John Ferrier had never felt more helpless, more enraged by fate than he did when she said that. He'd have carved his heart from his chest in that moment, if it would have sustained her and kept her alive.
The next thing he was aware of was cool, delicious water pouring down his throat. He awoke to a train of caravans and motor homes in one long stream along the road, holding a variety of people of all descriptions. They nursed and cared for the child while John Ferrier was revived and taken to meet four men – Brigham Young, Josiah Drebber, Paul Strangerson and Nathanial Keller.
Elders, they explained. They explained about the church, about how they were leaving Salt Lake City for a self-sustained commune life where they could practice their faith in God without being persecuted by outside forces. They explained how John Ferrier and the girl had been found. They asked John Ferrier about his life, about the child in his care.
The only thing every part of John Ferrier's body and soul would allow him to say was; she's mine.
They stayed with the Church; the Church of the Shining Glory. The girl, Lucy, recovered as children do from the loss of her family and was irrevocably attached to John Ferrier now; she would not hear of it any other way, despite the families that offered to adopt her.
John Ferrier stayed – partly out of gratitude but mostly because he was deathly afraid the moment he look Lucy into civilisation, social workers or some distant relative would snatch her from his grasp. Something had happened in those days, keeping that little, precious child alive. John Ferrier had a reason to live, and it was her.
He made himself absolutely useful. As a Jack of all trades, he could handle carpentry, electrics and plumbing. He could fish, he could hunt, he could farm and forage; something not many in the Church, city dwellers to a person, had any experience in. His diligent efforts in building and assembling the life of the commune stood him in such good stead that he was given his own partition of land, second in size only to the four Elders.
John Ferrier worked it – he worked it day and night to make a good home for his daughter, and quickly became the most wealthy landowner in the community. He raised cattle and horses, he had some business and trading sense that the others did not apply as forcefully as he did, though Young himself – the leader of the Church - was a charismatic and able administrator.
One day John Ferrier had woken up, and realized almost twenty years had passed him by. He knew this because Lucy Ferrier had blossomed into an excellent and lovely young woman; somehow without him ever noticing it.
He noticed it now because Jefferson Hope was coming around, awkwardly asking if he could date the scarlet beauty that was Lucy. Jefferson Hope was one of a group of farmhands that had been hired from outside the community – an act which was frowned upon by some, but the Church had gained great wealth from their efforts, converts appeared daily and their lands were expanding. Also, more and more fervour was being expected in the Church, to the point where entire households were completely focused on their path to Heaven and not on the everyday, practical affairs. Outside help was required.
Now, John Ferrier liked Jefferson Hope. He had always liked the fit, rustic, clever young man with such a talent for quick thinking and grace under fire; to the point where he'd been trusted as the senior handler and manager of all the livestock on the farm. John Ferrier had liked him from the day he'd met him, when he'd saved Lucy from being trampled stampede. And Lucy, spirited, witty and kind hearted Lucy, clearly thought a great deal of him too. Jefferson Hope was, for better or worse, a part of the family fold, privy to it's intimate ways and secrets before too long.
But that's when things got sticky. The multiple wives policy of the Church had always been a bone of contention between John Ferrier and the Church, as well as his decision to home school Lucy. They attended Church and recognized the holy days sincerely enough, but naysayers whispered that they were not true believers, that they were blasphemous chasers of the wealth and luxury that the Church had afforded them. It was said with an edge of resentment and envy at John Ferrier's obvious success despite the rejection on a key tenant in the Church.
John Ferrier, whatever his opinions of this new, different interpretation of mainstream Mormon beliefs, knew that he could not take a wife, or wives. He simply could not accept that as a path to God, though he never put voice to the belief. And he had been determined that Lucy would not be shaped by those preachings either, which caused no end of protests when little Lucy Ferrier was excused from religious studies. At the time the Elders had needed John Ferrier and his skills, so they granted the Ferrier family a small amount of leeway.
When John Ferrier realized that his daughter was in love, he also knew that there would be huge obstacles to overcome. The Church had been going rotten for the last few years. People gave up day-to-day maintenance of farms to pray and fast and give themselves to God, which caused shortages in the community. New, fervent converts, sons of the Elders, had begun taking over the religious teaching under the benediction of the Elders, and came down hard on what they perceived at dissidence. What was once a place of faith and religious debate became a rigid and unyielding law, and woe betides any man who let even the slightest protest out into the air. Proximity to heaven was measured by loyalty to the Church and it's teachings. Neighbours turned on neighbours, people were reported like the Salem witch trials to the High Council. People climbed the ranks of the temple over the backs and downfalls of others. People threw themselves upon the Elders, who were seen as almost living saints, who spoke of prophecies and paradises, passing collection plates and getting richer, and richer, and richer. People gave their possessions, their land, everything into the hands of the Elders.
Recently it had gotten much worse, if that were possible. The fanatical teachers were a source of terror wherever they went, taking people into custody and handling the cruellest punishments. The dissident among the community began to disappear, leaving their lands, families and wives all in the hands of the Elders. No one spoke out. No one was brave enough to try.
And there were not enough women for the men; even though the highest ranking in the Church all had a veritable harem. Polygamy was a useless doctrine if there weren't enough women to supply the demand. That's when the new women began showing up – mostly young teenagers, who were frightened and grief stricken, who were punished – usually in private chambers by the Elders or their heirs themselves – for trying to escape the town.
No one talked about it. No one talked at all, unless it was Church sanctioned.
But Jefferson Hope and Lucy were already in love and it was far too late to turn that tide. Lucy was utterly set on marrying the young outsider who had won her heart, in youth's scornful defiance of any authority if need be.
John Ferrier knew he was in trouble when the Elders came to him, claiming it was time that Lucy Ferrier was married. They did promise the young flower would not be tied to old men, but she must choose between the sons of Drebber and Strangerson, both of whom had petitioned a claim. They had added, darkly, they had heard rumours of her seen with an outsider whose close acquaintance was strictly forbidden. They were adamant she marry within thirty days. The Elders reminded John Ferrier of how the Church had helped him, all they had provided. John Ferrier must demonstrate he is of the true faith and the underlying threat was abundantly clear. Many had already vanished.
John Ferrier and Lucy sat silently together in the house after they had gone. Through one silent look, they knew they had to escape this place. But Jefferson had gone on the cattle drive to Salt Lake City's areas, and was out of reach. If he came back after they escaped, the church would swallow him up into it's filthy underbelly.
John Ferrier went to great lengths to track down the last remaining outsider farmhand not driven out by the bigoted isolationist doctrines of the Elders, and sent him to follow the cattle drive at all speed, and get a message to Jefferson Hope. All they could do was wait.
They tried to make plans to escape, but the community streets were suddenly paved with dangers. Guards and lookouts hovered around the property, taking note of everything that was done. Once friendly neighbours were stuck with terror silence or preaching loyalty to the church. Communication with the police force was unwise – the Elders were rich and the police presences in towns nearby were firmly under their command. Suddenly everything that was once shared by all was owned by a few. All the channels of communication dried up and vanished or were under the thumb of the Elders. All possibility of help was beyond reach. The Church was not a community, it was a prison. No one had realized it was happening. No one had noticed how everything had gradually moved towards the near omnipotent level of power the Elders now had. The trap had closed around them; it had snapped shut years ago. And no one even noticed.
When John Ferrier wasn't playing the role of respectable Church member for the eyes now tracking their every move, he was consoling Lucy who, while strong willed and courageous as they came, was deeply upset by the thought of being auctioned off like a breeding heifer.
It didn't help that the Elder's sons, Enoch Drebber and Joseph Strangerson, each ten years older than their prospective bride, had shown up to bargain prices with John Ferrier; completely ignoring Lucy whose regard they should, in theory, have been trying to win. They were raised in households where the women were not expected or allowed to have thoughts or opinions.
After a long, heated debate that raged back and forth between the egotistic young swine about who had more esteem, who had more wealth, who could control their wives better, who had higher standing in the council, John Ferrier lost his temper and gave them two choices of exit; the door or the window. The two men were incensed and insulted at what they thought was the unfathomable reaction to a great honour.
Time was running out and resentment and suspicions began to fall on the Ferrier's after that. They were told they were not even allowed to leave their home until the bride had chosen a groom.
Then one night, in a violent brawl of fists in the dark with the guards, Jefferson Hope returned. There was no time to prepare. The three fled into the mountains with nothing but the clothes on their back and whatever came to hand on the way out the door. They were ill-prepared and desperate.
They barely made it as far as the mountains when they were caught. Jefferson Hope had returned from hunting food to the cavern where they had set up camp to find, to his great horror, John Ferrier dying and Lucy gone; John Ferrier gasped out the details – Drebber and Strangerson had been the culprits, as he breathed his last.
Jefferson Hope swore oaths to John Ferrier as he died that the men responsible for this would pay dearly, and left him in an unmarked grave in the mountains.
He followed the tracks back to the Church lands, but the pursuers had sparked a landslide across one passage, forcing Jefferson Hope to make a lengthy trip around. By the time he made it back, it was too late.
Watching her father murdered almost in front of her and then taken by the vile brute Drebber as a wife broke Lucy Ferrier's spirit, especially after she was told Jefferson Hope had also been hunted down and killed. She gave up on tortured mortal life, and stopped taking her insulin. It hadn't taken long for her to slip into a coma and die.
Jefferson Hope, in a rage, broke into the mourning chamber, where Drebber's other, vapid, listless wives all sat in vigil over Lucy's body. He broke down at the sight of his beloved, still and sunken in death. He raged that his Lucy wasn't Drebber's chattel in life or death. He tore the ring from her finger just as the police charged in. Strangerson had called them in with false allegations of assault and kidnapping, and the death of John Ferrier who was exhumed in the mountains.
He was tried and convicted. He didn't fight it. What was the point? Even if he'd had the will to fight it left in his broken soul, the Church could line up the whole community as witnesses and pull them all like strings on puppets. There was nothing to strive for, and nothing to gain. His beloved was gone, his father in all but blood was gone.
He had failed. He had nothing left. Nothing left, except a promise to a dying man.
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End Chapter Twelve