A Whisper of Peace

by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  Something flashed in her eyes. Regret. Perhaps a longing. But she lowered her gaze, and when she raised her head again she held the unemotional expression that was far too familiar. “I don’t want to say you aren’t welcome, but it might be best . . . for the children’s sake.”

  Clay suspected her real reason for asking him to stay away was to avoid hearing any more of his talk about God. Clamping his teeth together in frustration, he looked across the yard, where Etu and Naibi had collapsed and lay on their sides, chins propped on elbows, examining something in the grass. His heart flooded with affection for the pair. As difficult as it would be to stay away, perhaps Lizzie’s suggestion was wise.

  “All right.” He rose, his legs resisting the movement. “I’ll spend some time with them, then explain why I won’t be back for a while. Do you . . .” He didn’t attempt to hide his sadness as he gazed at her. “Have need of anything before I go? Wood chopped . . . snares checked . . . anything?” He supposed he should be ashamed of his blatant attempt to prolong his leave-taking. But he wasn’t.

  “We’ll be fine.” Lizzie stood, smoothing out her skirt. Her gaze skittered everywhere but directly at him. “I’ve survived just fine on my own for these many years.”

  And that was the problem, Clay finally realized. She’d survived so well, she didn’t believe she had need of anyone or anything, including a Savior. Lord, help her realize her need of You, however that may be. And act swiftly.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Clay did his best to fill his days with frenetic activity. Taking time off only to attend the funeral ceremonies for those who died, he utilized nearly every moment of light to work, work, work. With the arrival of July, the sun lit the sky almost the entire day, with a few hours of dark between midnight and four in the morning. The long days led to exhaustion, but overwhelming tiredness was better than the pressing ache of loneliness.

  He split logs to make benches for the main room and used saplings and rope to build makeshift bed frames for the sleeping rooms, topping the beds with simple mattresses of thick wool blankets folded around piles of pine needles and dried leaves. Using packing crates and strips of bark removed from the huts he and Vivian had used as shelters, he built shelves for the children and him to store their belongings in the sleeping rooms.

  After completing the loft, he neatly stored all their food supplies, marveling at how much larger the main room felt without the clutter of boxes, barrels, and burlap sacks. Then, to give himself extra work space for studying or meal preparation, he added a long narrow counter along the wall where he’d attached the table. For good measure, he built shelves underneath it to hold dishes, pots, pans, and other kitchen utensils. The shelves put all items within easy reach of even little Naibi.

  Six days after telling Lizzie he would stay away until the sickness left the village for good, he hammered the final window casing into place on the mission school and stepped back to admire the completed building. Grayish chinking filled the gaps between the rough log walls, well-oiled paper served as windows, and a sturdy planked door stood open, inviting people to cross the smooth rock stoop and enter the mission. He walked a slow circle around the structure, examining every inch from the rock foundation supporting the logs to the grass- and daisy-strewn roof protecting the insides from rain.

  He berated himself for failing to add a second door on the back side of the building for the sake of ventilation and to be used as an escape should the need ever arise. “I can always chop another one out later,” he muttered to a ground squirrel that popped from its hole and seemed to give the log building a perusal. He smacked the solid wall with his open palm, scaring the little striped creature into scrambling for cover, and assured himself that for now the single door facing the village would serve him fine.

  With long strides he rounded the building and stepped through the doorway, pausing just over the threshold. He crossed to the front and stood between the two doors leading to the sleeping rooms. Satisfaction filled him as his gaze roved across the rows of rough-hewn benches. He imagined a host of Gwich’in villagers seated, attentive, absorbing the message he shared from God’s holy word. A lump filled his throat.

  Clay dropped to his knees on the hard-packed dirt floor and folded his hands. His heart sang in praise. Thank You, Lord, that the building is complete. Now my ministry can finally begin. His prayer continued, branching from gratitude to pleas for an end to the sickness and for protection for Vivian as she traveled, and ended with a heartfelt request. Give me the words, dear Father, to reach the Gwich’in people with Your love and grace. And please, please, soften Lizzie’s heart that she might embrace You.

  He rose and rubbed his aching knees. His stomach rumbled, reminding him he’d gone the entire day without eating. Again. Vivian would be appalled. Recalling her frequent reprimand—“Clay, you cannot work on an empty stomach. You’ll make yourself sick. So sit down and eat!”—he smiled. She’d turned out to be a decent cook between the iron cookstove and Lizzie’s lessons.

  As always, thoughts of Lizzie made his chest ache. While he sat at the table by himself and ate a simple meal of dried salmon, a thank-you gift from Taima’s family for his visits after the man’s death, he allowed himself to visit Lizzie in his mind. When would this sickness finally depart so he could go to her, check on the children, talk with her again? Each sunrise drew them closer to the day she would pack her belongings and leave. He didn’t have time to waste.

  He’d finished the salmon and rose, intending to fetch water to wash his plate, when a shadow fell across the floor. Clay jumped, nearly dropping the plate. He looked into Shruh’s drawn face. The long days of caring for Co’Ozhii had aged the older man. Shruh cleared his throat. “Clay Selby? I would speak with you.”

  Clay set the plate aside and crossed quickly to Shruh. “What is it?”

  The man sent a glance around the room, his brow furrowed. Without a word, he plodded to the first sleeping room and opened the door. After a look inside, he moved to the second door and repeated the inspection. Clay, puzzled, waited for him to share his concern. Shruh returned to Clay and folded his arms over his chest.

  “Two tribesmen, Da’ago and Kiona, visited my cabin earlier today with a strange tale.”

  Shruh’s condemning tone held Clay captive. His chest tightened in trepidation. “A-about me?”

  “About you, the boy child Etu, and the girl child Naibi. They say you took the children into the woods several days ago, but when you returned they were not with you. They have watched each day for the children’s return. But no children have come from the woods.” Shruh’s scowl deepened. “I put the children in your care, trusting you to provide well for them, but now I wonder if my trust was misplaced.” He looked around again, holding his hands wide. “Where are the children?”

  Clay’s mouth went dry. He’d enjoyed his reprieve from Shruh’s fierce insistence that he abandon his relationship with Lizzie. Admitting he’d allowed the children to stay with her would no doubt raise another round of disapproval and could very well result in his expulsion from the village just when he’d finally completed the mission and could begin teaching and preaching. He struggled to find a way to tell the truth without inciting Shruh’s ire. Father, help me.

  “Where are the children?” Shruh’s voice thundered, a command Clay could not ignore.

  “With Lu’qul Gitth’ighi.”

  “What?” After his deep-throated, demanding query, the simple one-word question emerged as soft as a bird feather drifting from overhead.

  But Clay wasn’t deceived by the calm tone. Shruh’s eyes sparked with fury, and his quivering muscles communicated his tenuous hold on his temper. He faced Shruh squarely and responded in a strong, unrepentant-yet-respectful voice. “With the illness spreading through the village, I worried for their safety. I placed them with Lizzie—with Lu’qul Gitth’ighi—so the sickness wouldn’t be able to reach them.”

  “With a banished woman.”

  With your grand
daughter, you stubborn old coot. “Yes.”

  Shruh paced away, his gait stiff. He stopped on the opposite side of the room and stood with his back to Clay, yet his voice carried clearly across the expanse of benches. “Again and again you choose to ignore the edicts of our tribe. You seem to be a good man—an honorable man, seeking to care for orphaned children and offering comfort to those whose hearts are broken by loss.” A note of confusion crept into the man’s tone. “Yet you cannot abide by rules.”

  He spun to face Clay, his lined face wreathed with a mixture of anger and remorse. “If I allow you to stay, my people will not respect me. They will say Shruh does not honor his own tribe’s council.”

  Clay scurried between two rows of benches to stand before Shruh. “I know I acted against tribal dictates by seeing a woman who’d been excommunicated.” A picture of Lizzie formed in his mind, making his heart swell with the desire to go to her again. “But I did it out of concern for Etu and Naibi.” Lord, pave the way to reconciliation. “If I address the council members and assure them of my reasons for going against your law, might they choose to let me stay? Then the fault will not fall on you. It will be their decision.”

  Shruh stared into Clay’s face, his mouth pinched into a tight line of uncertainty. “You speak to them. But first, you bring the children back to the village. They belong here, not in the home of a woman who is not of our tribe. Bring them here, and then come see me. I will arrange the meeting between you and the council. We will decide what to do with you.”

  Lizzie snapped the final ear of corn from the stalk and dropped it into the woven basket at her feet. The children worked together in the next row, picking the corn and filling their own basket. So many ears—an abundant harvest. Lizzie’s heart filled with gratitude for nature’s favor, even while she ached at the realization that with harvest nearly complete, she would say good-bye to Etu, Naibi, and—she pressed her palm to her traitorous heart—Clay.

  Etu peeked between the long, crackling leaves of the shoulder-high stalks. “Missus Lizzie, you roast corn for lunch today?”

  Lizzie had intended to send the children to the cabin for leftover corn muffins and dried caribou for lunch so she could continue working, but how could she deny Etu’s hopeful request? Especially since her time with the children neared its end. “Of course. It always tastes best when fresh-picked.”

  Naibi’s happy squeal rang, earning a few barks of surprise from the penned dogs.

  With her basket full, it seemed a good time to take a break and prepare several ears for roasting. She dragged the basket to the waiting travois and slid it onto the willow cross branches. Then she grasped the poles and toted the basket to the side of the house, where a hollow clay mound served as her roasting pit.

  Naibi skipped from the vegetable patch to observe Lizzie. With her hands behind her back, her chin tucked low, and her little mouth puckered, she resembled a wise old owl. A wise old owl in a beflowered dress. Lizzie stifled an amused chuckle as she removed several ears from the basket and lined them up side by side inside the pit.

  The child pointed. “Do you soak them? Vitse soaked ears in water first.”

  “These are fresh ears,” Lizzie explained, “still holding moisture from their time on the stalk. We don’t need to soak them unless they dry out.”

  “Ohhh.”

  The single-word response ran up a scale and down, reminding Lizzie of the notes Clay played on his music box. She pushed aside thoughts of Clay and returned to her task. The pit held up to a dozen ears, but she chose to roast eight. Surely two or three ears apiece would satisfy the children’s healthy appetites.

  Just as she layered in the kindling to start the fire, the dogs began to whine, alerting her to someone’s presence. She jerked to her feet, ready to dash for the rifle that waited at the edge of the vegetable patch, but her heart leapt in joy when she spotted Clay stepping from the trees.

  He’d come! She hadn’t realized the depth of her longing for him until the moment she saw him again. She took two stumbling steps in his direction, a laugh of pure delight forming in her throat. But then she met his solemn gaze, and trepidation stilled the sound.

  Naibi turned and looked across the yard. She let out a little squeal of delight and started to run to Clay. Lizzie captured her arm and drew her to a halt. “Go back and help your brother.”

  Naibi flung her hand toward Clay. “But—”

  “Later,” Lizzie said, and the child huffed. With one more pleading look toward Clay, she turned and scuffed back to the garden. Lizzie hurried across the ground to meet Clay. “What is wrong? More deaths?” Her heart panged at his sadness. Although she didn’t understand his deep caring for the people of Gwichyaa Saa, she admired it. It hurt her to see his sorrow.

  He hung his head. “No, praise God, no others have died, but . . .” He sighed, meeting her gaze. With stilted, apologetic words, he shared the villagers’ concerns and his need to take the children back to the village with him. As he spoke, Lizzie’s ire stirred.

  “They would put the children in harm’s way rather than allow them to be with me?”

  “I’m sorry, Lizzie. I tried to convince him to leave them here, but—”

  “Him.” Lizzie nearly spat the word. She crossed her arms over her chest. “My grandfather, yes? Is it the village’s concern or merely Vitsiy’s concern?”

  “He came to me with the concern, but villagers had gone to him.”

  Lizzie searched Clay’s face. Would he lie to protect her feelings?

  “They saw me take the children into the woods and return without them.” Clay chuckled softly, rubbing his finger beneath his nose in a gesture that spoke of his embarrassment. “I guess they thought I left them alone somewhere . . . or disposed of them.”

  “My grandfather would have found that preferable to leaving them with me.” Lizzie made no attempt to hide her bitterness.

  Clay’s expression softened, compassion glowing in his brown-flecked eyes of grayish green. “Your grandfather was more upset with me—for ignoring the village edict of excommunication. I knew when I brought the children here I was going against tribal law. But I hoped . . .”

  He didn’t complete the sentence, but Lizzie filled it in for him. “They would change their minds?”

  Clay nodded.

  Lizzie spun and charged toward the roasting pit, aware of Clay following on her heels. “They will never change their minds about me. I am tainted by my great-great-grandfather’s and my mother’s sins.” She waved her hand in the direction of Denali, drawing on scorn to hold the deep pain of rejection at bay. “Every day of my mother’s life, she prayed for reconciliation between herself, her parents, and Dine’e. But the High One never listened. She is gone now, and her requests lie dead, as well.”

  She whirled to face him again, blinking away the hot tears that gathered in her eyes. Without conscious thought, she slipped into Athabascan. “It is pointless to hope, Clay Selby. They will never change. They will make me carry the disgrace of my white blood to my own grave.” Raising her chin, she gulped back the painful sting of the village-imposed disdain. “But I will have the victory.” Resolve stiffened her spine. “I will find the strength to live happily far from here. In my father’s house, I will find a place of acceptance. And those who have rejected me from the days of my birth will no longer be remembered in my heart.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Clay propped open the mission building’s door with a round rock and stood on the stoop. The service wasn’t scheduled for another hour, but nervousness combined with anticipation had awakened him early. He’d enjoy the crisp scent of morning and count down the minutes until the villagers began ambling toward the mission.

  He slipped his trembling hands in the pockets of his black wool suit jacket and gazed toward the center of the village. How many would come? He’d gone from cabin to cabin yesterday evening, informing each family of his intention to hold the first church service this morning. Although he didn’t expec
t everyone to attend—many were still in bed with the fever that passed from one person to another and seemed to make circles around the village—he hoped for a good attendance.

  Of course, some might stay away for reasons other than sickness. Not everyone in the village approved of the council’s decision to allow Clay to remain in Gwichyaa Saa. The leaders had cast their votes for and against his removal. The narrow margin—four to three—still made his stomach queasy. His past kindnesses had swayed some in his favor, but they’d taken Etu and Naibi from him, placing the children with an elderly cousin of their grandmother. The old man didn’t seem capable of caring for himself, let alone two active children, but Clay didn’t dare argue. One more breach of their trust, and they’d disregard whatever good he’d done and toss him out.

  When he’d visited the man’s cabin last night, saving it for last so he could spend a little time visiting with the children, he’d reminded them they could come to the school each morning for lessons. It wasn’t the same as caring for them every day, all day, but at least he would be able to make sure they were fed and that they bathed regularly.

  A bird perched in a nearby tree, pouring forth a bright morning song. Clay smiled in reply, the last stanza of “Awake, My Soul, and With the Sun” filling his heart. He sang out loud and strong, “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow. Praise Him all creatures here below . . .” Several other birds joined the first one’s chorus, finishing the verse with Clay, and he laughed, unable to squelch a rush of happiness.

  This first service had been so long in coming, so earnestly prayed over, his stomach trembled in eagerness. He’d prepared his first sermon from the second book of Acts, relying heavily on Peter’s words on the day of Pentecost. Many had accepted the truth of salvation on that day, and he hoped for the same awakening in the village of Gwichyaa Saa.