Read Online Blood of the Faithful by Michael Wallace - Free Book Online

sizes. One double silo held barley on one side and wheat on the other. A third, smaller silo held feed corn. These he used for his own family and livestock, but he was required to report their levels to the church. These checked out, and while Jacob supposed that Elder Smoot or his sons might have been falsely underreporting their harvest, he didn’t think so. The yield per acre had been typical, given the climate issues.
    Smoot’s final three silos lay down a dirt road another quarter mile. These stored communal supplies: wheat, milled flour, and dried beans.
    Elder Smoot often relied on his own counsel, and Jacob didn’t entirely trust him. Early in the crisis, he’d even suspected that Smoot was preparing to sell a large quantity of the valley’s hoarded grain to keep it out of the government’s hands. After that incident, Jacob had erected a ten-foot chain-link fence around Smoot’s silos and topped it with razor wire. All deposits and withdrawals happened under the watchful eye of the bishop’s storehouse.
    The padlocks on the gate were closed, the chains intact. And the fence and razor wire looked undisturbed. After a long, tiring afternoon of taking survey, Jacob was only half paying attention when he put the key into the padlock. It didn’t fit.
    He glanced at the key fob, frowning. “What number key did you say again?”
    Stephen Paul flipped open the notebook. “Fifteen.”
    “This is fifteen.” Jacob tried again. “I must have written it down wrong. Let me see that.”
    The notebook looked correct, and the fob definitely said fifteen on it. Had the fob been changed out? He tried again, thinking maybe that in his exhaustion he’d inserted the key upside down or something. No, that wasn’t it. One by one, he went through the other keys. None of them worked.
    “I don’t get it,” Stephen Paul said. “Did we change out the lock and forget about it? When was the last time we checked these silos?”
    Jacob looked at the notebook. “Not since last July, when Smoot rotated the flour. It was all good, then, assuming he reported correctly.”
    “Could be Smoot accidentally broke the key and swapped in a different padlock.”
    Jacob and Stephen Paul circled the perimeter. Everything looked good from the exterior. No cuts in the fence, no evidence someone had been messing around getting over the razor wire. The three silos sat silently, nothing seeming to be amiss.
    But Jacob’s suspicions were growing. He went back to the horse and removed the bolt cutters from his saddlebags. When he returned, he cut the chain. It clanked as he dragged it out of the gate.
    He climbed the feed bin ladder up the wheat silo, and Stephen Paul climbed the one containing beans. By now it was almost too dark to get a good reading, and when Jacob cupped his hand over the glass port to shield it against the setting sun, he doubted at first what he was seeing.
    “One ninety-two,” he called over. “The notebook said four hundred something, right?”
    Stephen Paul had reached the top gauge of his own silo, and now climbed back down the ladder. He stopped at the lowest checkpoint. “This one’s worse. Whatever the beans are at, it’s below the lowest gauge.”
    He tapped the side of the steel silo, which gave off a hollow boom, then descended the ladder, testing the level until he found it. Almost to the bottom.
    The third silo—the flour—was more full, but still contained only half what the notebook claimed it should. Jacob turned to catch the dying sun against his notebook and scratched a few numbers. He let out a low whistle.
    “How bad?” Stephen Paul asked.
    “Roughly, I figure there’s enough missing to feed two thousand people for six months. Or nine months on short rations.” Jacob flipped the notebook closed. “This is it. This is how the refugees are staying fed up there.”
    “Why would Smoot do that? He has no love for those people. He wanted to finish the job. He still wants us to drive them out or kill