Ingathering - The Complete People Stories

by Zenna Henderson

  “Yes, but—” he turned hopelessly to Papa and then to Eliada.

  “He will hurt when he wakens.” Eliada sighed without opening her eyes. “While he is not awake—”

  Nathan stumbled over to the clutter of tools under the near tree. He brought back the shovel and the crowbar. Sweat streaked his face, and dust streaked the sweat as Nathan labored. He hacked away at the bank under Papa with the bar, scrabbled at it with his bare hands, and whacked with the edge of the shovel.

  Slowly, slowly, the bank crumbled. And Nathan stubbornly refused to look up at Papa, wondering why he believed Eliada could “hold” Papa, but believing desperately.

  He had stopped to drag his muddy sleeve across his face again, when Papa cried out and moved, sending dirt cascading down on Nathan.

  “Don’t move!” Nathan cried. “Papa, don’t move! I’m getting you out. Stay still!”

  Desperately, he pried at the rounded rock that stuck out of the bank. With a sudden jolt, the rock came loose—and Nathan barely stumbled out of the way of the smothery cascade of the dissolving bank.

  The dust cleared slowly and Nathan looked up. There, above him, pressed still up against the splintered tree, lay Papa. Up there! In the air! With nothing between him and Nathan except—nothing! And Papa’s terrified face peered down at Nathan.

  Then Papa screamed hoarsely and, with one hand, groped blindly at the emptiness under and around him. Then both hands waved frantically. They found the splintery tree above him and clung to it with desperate strength.

  “I cannot move him,” said Eliada past the still circling of her arms. “He is holding so strong. If I move him, the tree will go with him.”

  “Papa!” yelled Nathan. “Let go! Let go!”

  But Papa paid no attention, only fumbled with one foot, trying to find a holding place with it.

  “I cannot sleep him,” said Eliada, her voice unsteady. “I am not strong enough to do it all at the same time. And, until his hands open—”

  Nathan stood, fists clenched at his ribs, staring up at Papa. Then he wet his lips with his tongue. “When I holler,” he said, “let him fall—a little ways. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” said Eliada. “When you holler—a little fall—”

  “Papa!” yelled Nathan. “The tree’s going! You’re falling! You’re falling!”

  And Papa fell about a foot. He screamed once before his eyes rolled and his hands relaxed to let his arms dangle below him.

  There was an ominous splinter above him and the tree began to sag. Eliada cried out, “Back, Nathan! Quick!” And Nathan, stumbling backward, caught his feet on the rough ground and fell heavily, feeling the scrunching under his doubled knees. He heard a cry from Eliada and twisted, to see Papa jerking away from the falling tree. For a moment Papa hovered in the dusty air above the up-puff from the broken wood landing. Then, as Nathan watched, Papa drifted over Nathan’s head. A something hit Nathan’s hand, and his other hand smeared it to a wet, red streak as Papa slanted slowly down to the uneven floor of the gully.

  Nathan scrambled on hands and knees over to him. “He’s bleeding somewhere,” he said, glancing up at Eliada.

  And she wasn’t there.

  Nathan never could remember how he got up out of the gully and to Eliada. She was lying quietly, her face turned to the sky, her eyes closed, her mouth a little open, and blood running darkly down from her forehead where a flying stub of a branch had hit her.

  Nathan afterwards remembered that day as something that had no meaning in his ordinary life. And yet, in itself, that day was a whole lifetime that fitted together like a jeweled watch. All those impossibilities fitting so neatly together to make the only possible possibility.

  Eliada was unconscious only briefly. Then she cried out, her hand going to her head. She lifted dizzily on her elbow and peered about in the bright sunlight. “Lytha? ‘Chell? Oh, Simon, look again! Did we come this far to be Called?” The desolation in her voice called Nathan from halfway back down the gully back up to her in a hurried scramble.

  “I had to go see. It’s a big cut on Papa’s leg,” he said. “I tore his shirt and wrapped it up, but something white—” He reached out a startled hand and touched Eliada’s forehead. “Oh, Eliada!”

  Her wide, blind-looking eyes turned to him, then she surged across the space between them. She clung to him so tightly that he had no breath. “Oh, David, David! I thought you crashed! Oh, David!”

  “I’m Nathan,” he said, prying her fingers gently loose so she could lie down again. “You’re hurt—your head—He touched it again, his eyes anxious on her face.

  Eliada’s eyes slowly cleared and focused on Nathan. The patient sorrow that resolutely came back over her face made Nathan want to cry.

  “Yes,” said Eliada, touching her head, then looking at her fingers. She closed her eyes for a moment, then she sat up, leaned forward, and wiped her forehead with the under part of the hem of her skirt. “But it is not bleeding now. Your Papa—”

  Weakly, as though from far off, he heard Papa’s voice.

  “Nathan! You all right? Nathan!”

  Nathan turned from Eliada and scrambled down the unsure footing of the slope of the gully.

  “Papa! You all right?” and dropped to his knees by him.

  “Don’t know,” said Papa. “Help me up.”

  And Nathan sagged under the weight of Papa’s hands as he pulled himself to a sitting position. Papa got his arm around Nathan’s shoulder and the two of them strained to lift him to his feet. They had only started upward when Papa cried out and slid down Nathan to the ground again. Nathan straightened him out, moving the rocks that kept him from lying flat, then he looked up at Eliada, who was drifting down the slope.

  “What are we going to do?” he asked hopelessly. “Papa’s hurt.”

  “I have a need for water,” said Eliada. “And perhaps your Papa has, too. Is there water?”

  Nathan hurried over to where they had put their water pail and the tools. He lifted the lard bucket that sloshed heavily with water and looked back toward where Papa and Eliada were.

  Maybe he ought to go get Mama. Maybe somebody else could help them better. Maybe if he just left—he grinned unhappily. With Mama in the family way? And who else to help? Just to walk off from Papa and Eliada? That was kid thinking. I can’t ever be a kid again! Nathan swung the pail and hurried back.

  “It is good.” Eliada’s eyes were large and luminous on Nathan. Then she smiled a small smile. “Always you are feeding the hungry and giving the cup of water.” The smile faded and the eyes closed. “And always, I receive. It is hard always to receive.”

  “You saved Papa,” said Nathan, uneasily looking up the slope.

  “For you to hate—” Eliada’s eyes opened again.

  “I don’t hate him,” said Nathan, startled that it was so. “Not any more. He is—is Papa.” He moved over to look at his father. Papa opened his eyes briefly to dull slits and closed them again as if forever. “Papa?”

  “We must move him,” said Eliada, wearily, drifting up to her feet, leaning for a moment on some unseen support. “I cannot lift him. I am not now strong enough. But I can make him less heavy for you. Lift him.”

  Nathan knelt on one knee and slid his hands under Papa, lifting him at knees and shoulders. For a moment, the sheer size of Papa made it awkward; then he had stumbled to his feet and was walking slowly toward the house, leaning back from the less-heavy load. It suddenly seemed as if he were carrying Lucas, for under the whiskered, grown-up face, he could trace in the features—as of Lucas—the other long-ago boy who became Papa. Who maybe was as unhappy and hurting now as Lucas had been—a tenderness welled up inside him and he felt his eyes get wet.

  “Na—than! Din—ner!” Nathan’s head jerked up at the far, thin cry “Na—than!” Adina’s voice came across the scarred wreckage of the field in the long, familiar calling chant. “Din—ner!”

  “It’s Adina,” said Nathan. “Time to eat. Are you com
ing? Can you come?”

  “Yes,” said Eliada. “I can come. If I may hold—” She reached out and took Papa’s hand where it drooped down, and Nathan started on, carrying the too-light Papa. Feeling a tug, he looked back to see Eliada, trailing like a limp scarf after him, holding fast to Papa’s hand.

  Adina came running to meet them.

  “Is that Eliada? Oh, Eliada!” Then they got close enough for her to see, and her happy call fell silent and her two hands clasped over her open mouth. Her eyes looked again at Nathan, sagging to a stop under the bulk of Papa. And Papa, white and dead-looking, with blood dripping down over one shoe. And Eliada, a pool of limpness at Nathan’s feet. And her eyes filled with frightened tears.

  “Oh, Nathan! What’s the matter with Papa? And Eliada? There’s just us kids, because Mama can’t— Oh, Nathan! What are we going to do? What are we going to do?”

  ~ * ~

  Papa was lying on the bed, damply clean, his cream-colored night shirt pulled smoothly and decently down to the folded-back quilt covering him to the waist. His eyes were open and wary, watching as Eliada’s hair shook itself in a swirly cloud until it was dry and smoothed itself decorously down against her head, only to lift again into exuberant curls and waves.

  “Oh, it is good to be clean again,” she said. “Pain is twice as much when there is dirt and confusion—and blood!” Her finger touched her head where the flesh had closed itself to a thin, red line.

  “You sure get well fast,” said Adina, engrossed in curling a strand of Eliada’s hair around her hand and letting it spring free.

  “It was small,” said Eliada, smiling at her. Then she went over to the bed and melted down upon herself until she was eye to level eye with Papa, straight across.

  “But yours is not small,” she said. “Your bone is broken. And there is a—a—the flesh is torn to show the bone. It will be long for it to get well after it is put right again. Do you have those whose gift is to put right?”

  Papa looked at her for a long moment, then he said, “Doctors. None closer than the county seat. Six days’ horseback.”

  “Then—” Eliada’s face pinked a little. “Then will you let us help you? My People? We can make your leg more right so it will get well and be straight, but I cannot do it alone. Will you let us?”

  “Evil,” said Papa, but slowly, not so quickly sure any more.

  “Evil,” said Eliada, thoughtfully, twisting her hand in her hair. “I am not sure I know this evil you know so well—”

  “Badness,” said Nathan. “Disobeying God. Sometimes it seems good, but only to lead you astray. Thou shalt not—”

  “Oh,” said Eliada after searching somewhere inside herself. “Separation. Oh, but we would do nothing to separate anyone from the Presence!” She was astonished. “We want to help you, but not if you feel it would separate—”

  Papa looked at Eliada for a sharp, short moment. Then he turned his face away. “No,” he said. “Get thee behind me, Satan.”

  Eliada toiled to her feet wearily, her face drawn and unhappy, one foot caught in her skirt. Adina, with a sharp little cry, rushed to hinder by trying to help. Nathan lifted Eliada free of her skirts’ tangle and of Adina.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Papa sees so much evil—

  “It’s because Lucas is dead,” said Mama. “That’s why he won’t let you help. He was so sure that Lucas died because of—of you, that he can’t let you help him now, because, if he gets well— And Lucas is dead.”

  Eliada’s head turned alertly. “Roth is here,” she said, moving to the door. “We had hoped—”

  The tall man who had skated so happily with the small child on his shoulders—so long, oh, so long ago—moved into sight at the door.

  “But you said he was blind,” said Nathan.

  “Yes,” said Eliada. “But he has learned to move freely in many places. And there is Moorma—”

  A shy, smiling face peered from behind Roth’s right leg. Then dodged away, only to peek again from behind his left leg. Nathan felt a smile crack through his tired face, and looked at Eliada. She was smiling, too, as Moorma disappeared again. Adina’s giggle was smothered behind quick hands and even Mama’s face lightened.

  “Moorma is like that,” said Eliada. “Smiles come with her always, but she is shy with new people. She sees for Roth, when Roth requires it.” She went to the door and put her hand into Roth’s reaching hand.

  “We will help—when you will accept it,” she said. “Take comfort in the Presence.” And the three of them were gone.

  Adina ran out of the door after them crying, “Goodbye! Goodbye!”

  She came back into the cabin with a happy little skip. “They’re flying,” she said. “I knew they would! And Moorma—Moorma’s doing it best—holding onto Roth!”

  ~ * ~

  Nathan straightened his weary back by the bed, which had been pulled to the middle of the room, and looked across it at Mama. Mama, her hand holding the wet, folded cloth on Papa’s briefly quiet forehead, looked across it at Nathan. Adina wept quietly in the far corner in her shadowy refuge behind hanging clothes.

  “He isn’t getting better,” said Nathan.

  “No,” said Mama. “He is getting worse. The poultice isn’t doing any good at all. The infection is spreading. And we can’t keep the splint straight, the way he tosses—”

  Papa jerked away from Mama’s hand. “Hell’s fires! Hot! Warm warm warm warm—Lucas—!”

  Then his eyes opened to look into Nathan’s, too close for comfort at the edge of the bed. “It hurts!” His voice was thin and young and painfully surprised. The shadowy little boy again looked through the thicket of pain and whiskers and age. Then his eyes closed and his body twisted as he cried out in a ragged shaken voice.

  And Adina wailed from her corner.

  Mama straightened up, her hand pressing the swell of her side. She smoothed her hair back with both hands, her eyes shut, her chin tightly lifted. Then she shrugged herself wearily, twisting to ease her own aching.

  “Go get them,” she said. “He can die if he wants to, but not like this. Not to kill us all with him. Go get Eliada and that man—”

  “And Moorma!” Adina was prancing at Mama’s elbow. “Get Moorma!”

  “Get them all,” said Mama. “He can talk about evil, but by their fruits ye shall know them—”

  Nathan heard the last words fade as he pounded across the front yard. Why, it’s daylight, he thought, astonished. The sun is shining!

  Halfway across the ruined field, he faltered and stumbled. They were coming! All of them! Fast! Don’t ask how they come. Don’t think of how they come! A band of angels, coming—

  Three grown-ups and Eliada and the little girl and a cradle—the cradle—tell me a story—

  “We have waited,” said Eliada, taking Nathan’s hand to hurry him back to the cabin. “Each day we have been renewing our strength through the Power, and we have waited. We can help! Oh, truly, Nathan, we can help!”

  ~ * ~

  Mama and Nathan hunched under the tree across the flat from the cabin. Adina had slipped sideways across Mama’s lap, and slept, her hands still tightly interlaced under her chin.

  Eliada had told them when they were banished from the cabin: “If you have a way of coming into the Presence—to speak the Name—”

  “We can pray,” he told her.

  “Pray,” she said. “Help us with your prayers.”

  And the family had prayed—aloud and silently—until the words blurred and Adina could only remember Now I lay me. Now Mama’s head was leaning back against the tree trunk, her eyes closed, her breath coming quietly.

  Nathan looked around. It is a good country, he thought. Everything about it is good—now. If only we could—could be more like the country. Open—busy—growing— His head drooped with his heavy eyes. With singing and wings and how big the snowflakes are—the stars—and he slept.

  He woke, too warm in the late afternoon sun, his neck aching,
his mouth dry. He straightened his neck cautiously with the pressure of one hand—and his whole body throbbed with alarm before he knew it was Eliada. She was sitting quietly in the pool of her skirts, her hands loosely clasped in her lap.

  She smiled and said quietly, “He is sleeping.”

  Mama woke to the strange voice.

  “We have done what we could—the Power helping,” said Eliada. “His leg—” she faltered. “It was bad. We got it straight again, and secured, and have started it back from the—the—”