Righteous03 - The Wicked by Michael Wallace

dry wash cut a gash through the decades-old pavement. Another hour and it would have been too dark to see the clues, and she would have ignored the road and continued to follow the wash.
    But it was still light when she reached the spot where the wash bisected the road and Eliza was alert. Her water was gone and she faced the prospect of spending the night in the desert. The air would shed its heat and she’d shiver all night, only to wake up in the morning still in the middle of the wilderness. Why hadn’t she found them yet? Eliza was a strong girl, surely as physically strong as the Chosen Ones. She couldn’t believe they’d taken a multi-day journey through the desert on foot.
    And so she was in the perfect frame of mind when she reached the road. She noticed immediately the tire tracks cutting through the wash from one side to the other. And the footprints stopped.
    A new problem, then. They’d walked for hours, yes, but then someone had picked them up in a truck and followed an old road. None of that made sense. Why walk at all? Why not just drive in and out of Las Vegas?
    Eliza had to be close. If not, if she had made a bad assumption somewhere, she’d be in serious trouble. Unless she took the road back toward Las Vegas. She could follow it in the darkness and reach the city by morning. Water gone, dehydrated, but alive. For a moment, she hesitated and looked to the glowing city behind her.
    At last, she turned away from Las Vegas and followed the road deeper into the desert. Walking on the road was a relief to her aching calves after all day spent trudging through the sand. For a good hour there was nothing but the sound of footsteps, the wind, and the drone of cicadas in the scrub that lined the wash. The drone faded as the wash snaked away to her left. And then, a snatch of voices, carried on the wind. Her pulse quickened.
    She came upon an overturned motor boat, a hole punched through the fiberglass. A little farther, a rusting car, then two washing machines, open to the air as if waiting to be loaded. And then the garbage began in earnest: rusting cans, shoes, metal office furniture, a pile of televisions—the old kind with knobs—and later, a heap of printers, monitors, and other office equipment. A huge tire from a piece of construction equipment, almost as large as the front half of the VW bug that lay next to it. Ahead, she could see several mountains of tires.
    The voices picked up as she drew closer to the tires. A woman said something about Jesus, before the wind shifted and the voice died. Eliza slowed down, worked over her story. It was twilight, finally cooling.
    Eliza wanted to have a look around, wanted to explore the dump before she announced her presence. Maybe she could even come up to their campfire, or whatever it was, and watch them from the shadows to see if she could recognize Madeline. For a moment she entertained the fantasy of bumping into Madeline, explaining her purpose, and then escaping into the desert before anyone realized the girl was gone.
    But she had to accept that Madeline might not want to be rescued. Eliza had seen it a dozen times. A child bride, desperate not to get married, but refusing to testify against her family. Or what about Sister Miriam, an FBI agent who’d infiltrated the Church of the Last Days, then become indoctrinated enough in the cult that she’d never bothered to check back in? Even after the FBI tried to rescue her, Miriam had denounced her career and stayed in the Zarahemla compound.
    And what if someone heard Eliza snooping around? She’d blow her chances before she could introduce herself. Eliza dialed Jacob’s cell phone. He picked up on the first ring. “It’s me,” she said in a low voice.
    This far into the desert, she barely had a signal and couldn’t hear his answer. Rather than fumble through greetings and possibly lose the call, she said the agreed-upon words to indicate everything was okay. “Blessed are they whose feet stand upon