Drew moved around to Morgan’s side of the fire and leaned against him, tucked under a fatherly arm. He instantly forgave Morgan everything. It would be better to leave with his father too; that was far less frightening than his plan to walk out alone. He loved Morgan still, even if Morgan loved God too much. The arm tightened around him. Morgan was crying; Drew joined him. They had enough water in them now for tears.
Food and water came by night for two nights, their deliverer silent, unseen. “We are blessed,” said Morgan. Drew said nothing.
Sylvie was buried, the grave dug with wagon strakes, the mound piled with rocks to keep off coyotes and cougars. Morgan spent an entire day scratching her name and the dates of her birth and death onto one of the digging boards, then set it up as a grave marker. He preferred to do this unassisted. Drew was inclined to let him, having no knack for woodworking, but it disturbed him to hear Morgan holding a conversation while he worked.
He thought at first his father was talking with Sylvie, addressing her spirit or some such, but the tone of the conversation lacked the sense of intimacy Drew had grown used to between Morgan and his wife. The man was talking to someone else entirely. Realizing this, Drew became scared, and his fear assumed the shape of bad temper.
“Who are you talking to!”
Morgan turned to him, a slightly dazed look on his face.
“Talking?”
“You’re talking all the time. Whisper, whisper …”
“With God.”
“You’re not!”
“Why do you not believe?”
“You’re not talking to God! Stop it!”
“I talk with the one who has saved us both.”
“He never did! It was someone else!”
“Calm yourself. I know now where the desert place is. Have you forgotten our purpose?”
“Where is it?”
“Here. This is the desert place, where I have buried my wife. This is the place because she is here, and we are here.”
“That’s … stupid!”
Morgan smiled tolerantly. “There is much I don’t understand. He speaks in riddles. Something is being revealed to me, some vast thing. I’ll share it with you when I can.”
In the following days Morgan showed no inclination to leave the wagon and grave site. His conversations with God continued; he did more listening now than talking, it seemed to Drew.
“Aren’t we going to leave here?”
“When the time comes. We have suffered terribly just finding the desert place, and we’ll remain until I’m told we may leave.”
“Did you ask God what we need to wait for?”
“One does not question; one listens.”
“So we’re staying here.”
“For the time being, yes. The angel brings us all we need. Why are you not satisfied?”
“It’s not an angel; it’s an old man. I think he’s an Indian. I saw him last night, sneaking away. He’s got a bag over his hand.”
“A bag?”
“Like a big glove with no fingers. He’s got long white hair. He left that pile of firewood over there.”
“You’re mistaken, Drew. That was an angel of God. It’s possible that such beings appear in different guise to different people, so as not to frighten them. You expect to see an Indian in this region, so an Indian is what you see.”
“He is an Indian.”
“Why would anyone, even an Indian, wear a bag over his hand?”
“Maybe he uses it to bring water, and tips it into the bag that’s always here.”
“That is ridiculous.”
Drew could only frown angrily. His father wasn’t the same man he’d been back in Illinois. Drew thought maybe the sun was cooking Morgan’s brain, even if he always kept his hat on. Morgan didn’t even go near Sylvie’s grave anymore, too busy listening to the whisperings of God.
Drew seldom approached Sylvie himself. The last time he sat by the marker he found himself talking out loud to his mother, complaining about how Morgan was turning into a crazy man for sure; if he hadn’t been when he led his family into the Jemez Mountains, he was now, with his muttering and head-nodding whenever God made a point that Morgan agreed with. Drew didn’t want to be a talker with invisible presences, and so avoided the grave.
He revived his plans for escape. The ravine was becoming a prison without walls. Morgan’s behavior continued to deteriorate. One night by the fire he ordered Drew to recite in order the books of the Bible. Drew began stumbling badly after Ecclesiastes. When his guesses ran down to a sullen silence, Morgan leaned over and slapped him hard across the face. “You, sir,” he said, “do not deserve a savior!” He shoved his Bible into Drew’s hands. “Study it! That is the book of all things!”
Drew flung it into the fire. Morgan roared and thrust his hand among the flames to retrieve it, was burned along the wrist and jerked back. He used a stick of firewood to flip his Bible out onto the ground. Drew moved away while Morgan did this. They glared at each other across the fire. Morgan’s face twisted lopsidedly with pain as he clutched his wrist. “Unbeliever …,” he growled.
Drew almost felt guilty. He’d thrown his father’s Bible into the fire, the very book Morgan and Sylvie had entered his name in on the births-and-deaths endpaper, to show they considered him a true member of the family. He could see naked loathing in Morgan’s eyes. With firelight illuminating him from below, the man looked like a demon. Walking backward, Drew took himself away into darkness to avoid him.
For several hours afterward, as Drew hid among shadows, he could hear Morgan moaning, whether from the pain of his burn or from some particularly intense dialogue with God, Drew couldn’t tell. He was determined to stay awake that night for two reasons, the first being a genuine fear of being found and murdered by Morgan, the second being a wish to catch the old Indian in the act of bringing them what they needed. Why would an Indian be doing this? It was almost as worrisome as Morgan’s escalating madness.
His vigil faltered through drowsiness. When Drew woke after dawn, he rose and came closer to the fire. Morgan was still asleep, the charred Bible in his hands. Drew saw a freshly skinned jackrabbit by the embers. Drew preferred rabbit to the strange long-legged bird their benefactor had twice left them; he always skinned the rabbits, but apparently couldn’t be bothered plucking the birds. The water bag had also been replenished. Drew decided today was the day he must escape. He would leave the jackrabbit, but take the water bag. It was a fair division of resources.
“Good morning, son.”
Morgan was awake, smiling at him. He looked like the old Morgan, kindly and sane. He stood and stretched himself, but made no move toward Drew.
“I know now what must be done here,” he said. “The answer has been given to me. When we accomplish what must be done, there will be no need to linger.”
“What is it?” Drew asked, his expression guarded.
“We must build a fire.”
“A fire?”
“In the wagon; pile it high with brushwood.”
“Why?”
“Because that is the wish of our God. I ask you to believe me. Will you help?”
He sounded like the old Morgan, quietly explaining himself.
“All right.”
A fire in the wagon seemed foolish to Drew, but if Morgan was prepared to leave that awful place afterward, then he would help build a fire Morgan could be proud of. Despite everything, it would be better to walk out of the desert with his father, instead of alone. Maybe Morgan’s crazy talk would pass with time, as his grief over Sylvie’s death eased. They would build a fire (for Drew, it would be lit in Sylvie’s honor, not God’s), then leave, to be father and son again.
“Do we start now?”
“Gather every stick, every twig, but don’t wander far in case you become lost.”
The gathering lasted several hours, and resulted in a pile of dead sagebrush. It came nowhere near to filling the wagon as Morgan had specified. Drew thought it would p
robably all burn away in just a few minutes, too quickly to set the wood beneath and the wagon itself ablaze, if that was what Morgan wanted. He didn’t ask. Asking questions might cause his father to begin spouting nonsense again. This way the fire would be over and done with that much faster, and they could be on their way.
“Enough,” said Morgan. “Rest.”
He drank, then passed Drew the water bag. They inspected their work, the wagon’s insubstantial load. Morgan seemed content. “Do you have faith in me?” he asked, turning to Drew.
“Yes,” Drew said, not wishing to provoke him.
“That is good. That is as it should be. The severest test will be mine, but yours is no easy task, I admit. Your trust in me is natural, since I am your father, but the trust I must place in the father of us all is a true act of faith. Fetch me a rock, one that will fit in my hand. The choice shall be yours.”
“A rock?”
“A rock, a rock, an everyday rock! Don’t waste time!”
Drew searched a short distance along the ravine and returned with what he thought would be acceptable.
“Perfect! Into the wagon with you. Hurry now.”
Drew climbed onto the seat, worrying a little by then; why get in the wagon when the mules were no longer there to pull it?
“Among the brush, if you please.”
“What for?”
“That is where the sacrificial fire will be lit. Place yourself in the middle. Did not Abraham prepare such a fire for his son Isaac? Did he not prepare to sacrifice his child for the glory of God when called upon to do so? Did not God stay Abraham’s knife a breath away from spilling blood on the sacrificial pyre? All this will be done as it was in ancient times.
“I see alarm in your face. Did not Isaac trust his father, as you trust me? This rock found by your own hand will be my knife. I know in my heart as I raise it high, our father will command me to halt. You need fear nothing. Share my faith. What has happened before will happen again. We, you and I, have been chosen … and Sylvie will be returned to us as our reward: I have the promise of God himself, if we only show to him our faith.… Stay there!”
Drew had vaulted from the wagon seat and was running for the water bag. He snatched it up without pause and ran on. Morgan’s outraged screeching followed him along the ravine. Drew scrambled up the nearest bank and dashed among the rocks, seeking cover. He fell, panting with fright, and listened for Morgan.
There was no sound other than himself. He should have grabbed the jackrabbit too. Morgan was crazy after all, but not so crazy he didn’t get Drew to help build his own funeral pyre, and even go pick out a rock to crush his skull! The deceit behind Morgan’s behavior upset Drew even more than the pathetic madness directing Morgan to do it.
When he was certain he had not been followed, Drew stood and began walking. He chose a direction he believed led directly away from the wagon, and as he walked, he wept for what had happened. Now he was without a mother and father for the second time, and he wondered if this was maybe the natural order of things, the way it was intended by God that his life should be. But what did God have to do with it? Wasn’t it God who had brought them to this place? And now Sylvie was dead, Morgan insane, and Drew an orphan again, even if Morgan still lived; Drew wasn’t having any crazy man for a father.
He was alone, would probably die himself when his water ran out; dead like poor Sylvie. At least he wouldn’t go mad like Morgan, who had listened to and believed what God told him. God had never talked with Drew, and he suspected Sylvie had also been ignored by the heavenly presence. That was all right with Drew; any being that caused the catastrophe he had witnessed was someone he had no use for. He’d never really liked church anyway; the only good thing about Sundays in the white clapboard box in Dinnsville had been the chance it afforded to look at Betty Pulvermiller in her best dress and bonnet, just the prettiest girl in town. Of course, she always stuck her tongue out at him whenever she noticed him looking, which was discouraging, but Drew figured that with time and patience he could have married her someday. Between them, Morgan and God had ruined that plan too.
Doubts about God had surfaced in Drew’s mind a long time ago, when he tried many times through prayer to alert Clay and Zoe of his desire to see them both again. Neither of them ever came, so it looked as though God had ignored his prayers. It was another good reason not to believe in or need such a thing as God. It was all hooey. There probably wasn’t even a heaven. If he was wrong about that, he hoped Sylvie was there already, sipping cool sweet water from a little pool all her own. Morgan could go to hell.
Walking on, Drew wondered if Clay and Zoe were still alive. They were too young to be dead, surely, unless they got very sick and gave up the ghost, but it would be very unfair if that happened before he got the opportunity to see them again. Prayer hadn’t worked, hadn’t summoned them to Dinnsville, so now he’d go find them, his brother and sister, so they could be their own family, without grownups. It made him slightly sick to think they might be perfectly happy with the families they’d found after stepping down from the orphan train. That would fix his plan all right, having Clay and Zoe wanting to stay right where they were, wherever that might be, so happy there they never once thought about coming to find him all these years later. Clay said he would, but it was pretty clear Clay had forgotten his promise.
Well, if Clay wouldn’t come to Drew, Drew would go to Clay, and Zoe too. He’d find them both, without using a single prayer. He’d just search and search until he found them, and after he told them both off (especially Clay) for not coming to fetch him, they’d all laugh and cry and be happy together, the Dugans again.
He stopped to drink, and while water trickled like life itself down into him, he saw the Indian, and dropped the bag in surprise. Drew snatched it up again before more than a mouthful had belched from the spout, then looked hard at the Indian to make sure he was not imagining him. The Indian was even older than Drew had guessed by moonlight, old and cracked in the face like sun-dried mud. He wore a loose store-bought shirt made for a larger man, and deerhide moccasins; his skinny legs were bare. And he wore a bag over his right hand, just as Drew had told Morgan.
He gestured for Drew to come closer, and when Drew did so, the Indian turned and began walking. Drew followed, his trust in the old man immediate. He stumbled in the wake of the Indian—a man of considerable sprightliness despite his years and stooped spine—having no knowledge of their direction or purpose; it was enough to be with another human being. Drew was allowed to catch up with his guide at the top of a low rise. The Indian held a finger to his lips, then beckoned Drew forward until they lay side by side. The Indian slid forward on his belly, and Drew followed.
They were overlooking the ravine where Sylvie lay buried. Drew realized then how utterly lost he must have been when the Indian found him. He saw Morgan stride from behind the wagon, buttoning his pants. It was fascinating to observe, unseen, the man who had intended killing him for God. Morgan picked up his Bible from the wagon seat and began declaiming to the sky.
Drew recognized passages from Deuteronomy, but couldn’t understand their significance in these surroundings. Maybe to Morgan’s crazy mind the words he spoke made sense. Morgan began to walk as he read, following a wide circle around the wagon, his voice rising and falling, sometimes failing altogether; without the water bag Morgan’s throat must be awfully dry, Drew thought, but he had no intention of returning it.
He looked sideways at the Indian, who happened to be looking at him. “He’s crazy,” whispered Drew. The Indian said nothing. Drew’s eyes went to the leather bag covering the Indian’s right hand, and stayed there. The bag was more interesting than Morgan’s madness; Drew really wanted to know why it was there, and the Indian understood his curiosity. He began unpicking the rawhide knot at his wrist that held the bag in place, then slid the bag free.
Drew stared. The Indian’s hand was held in a closed fist, and had been held that way for many years, because the fingernails
had grown clear through the palm and out the back of his hand, long gray nails that curled like streamers of pointed ribbon frozen in the air. The thumbnail had grown in a wide, looping curve around knuckles that stood up like a row of burial mounds. The Indian was smiling, proud of his hand. Drew couldn’t see why; it was the ugliest, most awful thing he’d ever seen in his life.
The proximity of that pierced hand to the ranting madman just over the rise produced in Drew a sense of disbelief. The things that his eyes and ears told him were real could not be. The world was a colossal joke of some kind, an unreal place. Everything the Kindreds had ever taught him about God’s place in the affairs of men was nonsense, a trick. The smiling Indian, himself unreal, was revealing to him another way of seeing. Drew felt he had stepped off a cliff and was tumbling in the air, unsure even if he was falling. Even Clay and Zoe were robbed of meaning, of reality; they belonged to another time, another place, another life. The world was being made over in seconds as Drew stared at the cruel hand. The boy called Drew was becoming someone else, someone without identifiable features, an entity Drew might not even recognize when next he looked into a mirror. Drew knew it, and Smart Crow Making Mischief knew it too.
Dazed, Drew allowed himself to be led away from the ravine to a place nearby where two familiar mules grazed, one with a rawhide halter and reins, the other without. Drew was ordered with a gesture to mount the first, while Smart Crow sprang onto the broad back of the other and grabbed a handful of mane. Drew hadn’t known it was possible to ride like that, and found himself even more impressed once he learned how difficult it was to stay aboard his mule without benefit of a saddle. He mastered the technique soon enough, and was well pleased; it was one more new thing in this new world he found himself living in. Nothing was the way Drew had always held it to be, and realization of his error made him light as air.
They rode toward the mission at San Bartolomeo. Smart Crow had been headed there to see his grandsons when he was diverted by the antics of the madman and his family. The delay had been worth it; he would use the white boy to persuade Bleeding Heart of Jesus and Nail in His Feet to abandon the appalling religion of the Dead Man Flying on Wood and return with him to the true life for which they had been born.
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