Another ten days brought them to where Nate felt they could come on the valley at any time. As he told Jeremiah Blunt, he’d never been there, but based on what Shakespeare had told him and other accounts, the landmarks were right. It should be near.
As added proof, the country changed. The mountain slopes were not as thickly forested. Lower down, where vegetation usually thrived, the little that grew was stunted and withered, as if the plants were being poisoned by the ground. Deer became scarce. There was no bear sign. Eagles and hawks disappeared from the sky. Ravens were never seen. Nor squirrels or rabbits or any of the small game formerly so abundant. The birds fell silent. Not a single, solitary note broke the disquieting stillness.
Nate could understand why it gave people the jitters. The silence, the twisted shapes of the rocks, the absence of life, gnawed at the nerves. Bad medicine the Indians called it, and they were right.
He roved on ahead of the wagons to try and locate the valley. As usual, the Texan accompanied him. The shod hooves of their mounts sounded like hammers on the rock.
A reek filled the air, a foul stench explained when they came on a pool of bubbling water no bigger around than a washtub.
The Texan coughed and said, “So this is what hell smells like?”
They rode on. It was a maze, this country, and Nate began to think he had been overconfident and the Valley of Skulls would be a lot harder to find than he imagined when they came on ruts. Wagons, a lot of wagons, had come in from the east. It had to be the Shakers, Nate reckoned. No other wagon train that he knew of had ever penetrated this far.
“These people must be crazy,” Maklin remarked.
Nate wondered, too.
The tracks led to the northwest along a ribbon of a stream that had no name. It had another quality, which Nate discovered by accident when he dipped his hand in the water to drink. “It’s warm.”
“What?” Maklin said.
“This water. It’s warm enough to use for bathwater.”
The Texan climbed down to see for himself. “I’ll be damned. Is it safe to drink, you reckon?”
Nate dared a sip. Save for a slight metallic taste, the sip produced no ill effects.
“I wouldn’t want to drink this regular,” was Maklin’s assessment.
Neither would Nate. They climbed back on their mounts. The wagon tracks hugged the stream and they did the same until along about the middle of the afternoon when it brought them to a narrow cleft dark with shadow. There was barely enough room for a wagon to pass through.
Nate entered the cleft. He didn’t like being hemmed by rock and was glad when after only thirty feet they emerged to have a valley floor spread out before them. Not a valley of grass and flowers but a valley of rock and boulders. Grotesque stone shapes testified to a geologic upheaval in the remote past that had bent and twisted the foundations of the earth.
Both abruptly drew rein.
“Is that singing?” Maklin asked in amazement.
Nate heard it, too, wafting from deeper in the valley, around a bend that hid what lay beyond. “They don’t even post a guard,” he noted. Then again, what need did they have of a sentry when the Indians wouldn’t come anywhere near the place?
They rode around the bend and again drew rein.
“Pinch me so I know I’m not dreaming,” Maklin said.
The valley broadened. To the north and south it was rimmed by high ramparts pockmarked with the dark openings to caves. The ground was rock, dark rock dotted with pale patches, broken here and there by pools that bubbled and hissed and gave off steam. Ahead, perhaps half a mile, grew an area of green, and there, parked in rows, were Conestogas. A corral held horses and mules. Two buildings had been built, long and low and made of logs, and a third was being erected. Around and among the buildings and wagons moved dozens of people, many singing as they worked.
“We should introduce ourselves and tell them their supplies will be here soon,” Nate proposed. He raised his reins and was about to move on when his gaze alighted on what he had taken for pale rock.
“A skull!” Maklin exclaimed.
That it was, far bigger than the skull of any grizzly or buffalo. Others were scattered here and there, along with giant spine bones and legs bones and even rib bones. But the skulls far outnumbered the rest. Strange skulls. Unnatural skulls. Skulls of creatures from another time.
Nate passed one with three horns, two of which were broken. Another skull was ringed by teeth as long as his fingers.
“What monsters were these?” the Texan marveled.
Then, around a boulder, skipped a young woman in her twenties wearing a pretty yellow dress. Around her throat was a neckerchief and on her head she wore a small cap. She was carrying a basket, and on seeing them she flashed a friendly smile. “How do you do, kind sirs? On behalf of my brethren, I bid you welcome to Second Eden.”
Chapter Eight
The Shakers were well dressed, the women in bright dresses and all wearing neckerchiefs and the same type of cap. The men wore jackets and trousers and short-brimmed hats. Oddly, all the men wore their hair the same way: long at the back, cut in bangs at the front. They constantly smiled and many sang hymns of praise as they bustled about. The arrival of Nate and Maklin barely caused a stir. Curious glances were thrown their way, but no one stopped his or her work to come over and ask who they were and what they were doing there.
The young woman with the basket ushered them past the wagons and the corral and the two completed log buildings to where a third structure was being erected. The men did the actual building. The women were involved with other tasks.
Nate noticed that they were equally divided between the sexes. All were grown men and grown women. There wasn’t a child to be seen. That struck him as peculiar. So did the fact that while the Shakers smiled and sang as they worked, none stood around talking. He nodded at a gray-haired woman who smiled at him and again at a man who had paused in sawing a log to mop his sweaty brow.
“They remind me of a bunch of bees,” Maklin said.
The young woman overheard. “I thank you for the compliment. Elder Lexington says we must keep as busy as bees if we are to have our buildings done and our provisions stocked for the coming winter.”
“At least they have the brains to do that,” Maklin said to Nate.
Most people would be offended by the comment but not the young woman. She laughed and said, “Oh yes, sir. Elder Lexington is very smart. He’s the smartest man I know. Why, he can quote the entire Bible by heart. And look, here he is now.”
From around the nearest log building came a middle-aged man on the portly side with a middle-aged woman of the same stout build. They gazed about—as might overseers on a plantation, only overseers with benign smiles and the serene air of earthbound angels. The young woman beckoned and the pair walked over.
“Who have you here, Sister Benedine?” the man asked.
“Outsiders, Elder Lexington. They say they are with the man you hired to bring our supplies.” The young woman pointed. “This is Brother King and Brother Maklin.”
The Texan said gruffly, “I’m not your brother, girl, or anyone else’s.”
“But that you are,” Lexington said. “Surely you have heard that in the eyes of the Lord we are all brothers and sisters, and he who loveth God must love his brother also?”
“Where was this God of yours when my Na-lin was being gutted like a fish?” Maklin snapped.
“I beg your pardon?”
Maklin turned to Nate. “They raise my hackles. I’ll be over by that pool yonder if you need me.” So saying, he gigged his mount toward the stream.
“My word,” Lexington said. “I didn’t mean to upset him so. Whatever is the matter?”
“Don’t fret yourself, Brother,” said the stout woman beside him. “He is an outsider. Outsiders have no true conception.”
Lexington looked up at Nate. “How about you, Brother King? Do we raise your hackles as well?”
Nate did fe
el uncomfortable, but he couldn’t explain why. “You have to excuse him. His wife was butchered by the Comanches.”
“Ah, well,” Lexington said sympathetically.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” the stout woman said. “Your friend would be better served if he were to realize that all things work to the glory of God.”
Nate couldn’t see how in this instance, but he held his tongue and said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll collect him and we’ll head back. If we push the wagons, Blunt can be here by tomorrow evening.”
“But you just got here,” Lexington said. “Why not rest a bit and I will give you a tour?”
“Pride, Brother,” the woman said.
“I know, Sister Amelia, but they are our first visitors. And who knows, Brother King, here, might take it into his head to become a member of Second Eden.”
“That’s what you call this place?”
“I picked the name myself,” Elder Lexington confirmed. “Frankly, I can’t think of a more fitting name.”
Nate gazed at the stark rocky ramparts speckled by the dark mouths of caves and the valley floor littered with gleaming skulls and dotted by bubbling hot springs, boiling mud pots, and hissing steam vents. “I can think of one.”
Arthur Lexington chuckled. “I can guess what it is, too. In a year, though, we will have transformed this valley into the Eden we would like it to be. You wait and see.”
“Amen,” Sister Amelia said. She turned to the younger woman. “You can go now, Sister Benedine. Pick a basketful of flowers and be back here within the hour.”
“I will, Sister,” Benedine said, and cheerfully headed back down the valley, swinging her basket and humming.
Alarm spiked Nate into saying. “Did I hear that right? She’s going out of the valley to get flowers?”
“There are none in Second Eden as yet, Brother King,” Lexington said. “That will change once we cultivate the soil.”
Nate was going to ask how they would go about cultivating rock since that was what most of the valley consisted of, but he had a weightier concern. “It’s not safe.”
“What isn’t?” Sister Amelia asked.
“Sending that girl out alone. She could run into hostiles or a mountain lion or you name it.”
“Pshaw,” Amelia scoffed. “She’ll be perfectly fine. The Lord will watch over her and protect her.”
Nate thought of Wendell and his family and what was left of them at the bottom of the basin. “Send someone with her. Someone with a gun.”
Elder Lexington and Sister Amelia looked at each other and then at Nate, and smiled those benign smiles.
“You must know very little about the Shakers, Brother King,” Lexington said. “We do not believe in violence. We do not believe in killing. There isn’t a single gun in this valley except for yours and Brother Maklin’s.”
“What?” Nate was shocked to his core. “You came all this way, clear across the prairie and into these mountains, without any way to protect yourselves?”
“The Lord is our buckler and our shield,” Lexington intoned. “He safeguards us from harm.”
“Dear God.”
“I’ll thank you not to take the Lord’s name in vain, Brother King,” Sister Amelia said sternly.
“You don’t understand,” Nate said, bending down. “That girl could be killed. All of you could. That you made it this far and lasted this long is a miracle.”
“Exactly,” Lexington said, and beamed. “Added proof that the Almighty is indeed watching over us as He does the lowly sparrow.”
Nate glanced over his shoulder. Sister Benedine was past the corral. “Please. Send a man along.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t do,” Sister Amelia said. “That wouldn’t do at all.”
“I should say not,” Elder Lexington agreed. “You must be more observant, Brother King. “Or haven’t you noticed that the men and women in our colony do not work side by side?”
“We do not believe in mingling,” Amelia elaborated. “Males and females do not work together. They do not eat together. They certainly do not share the same sleeping quarters.”
“Why not?”
Lexington chuckled at Amelia. “He certainly doesn’t know anything about us, does he? Perhaps I should enlighten him.” He crooked a finger. “Come with us, Brother King, if you would.”
Nate dismounted and gazed after Sister Benedine, who was still skipping along. Frowning, he followed the leader of the colony and Sister Amelia over to the building under construction.
“You will note that only men do the building,” Elder Lexington pointed out. “The women are busy with washing clothes and sewing and preparing food.”
“Each gender has its own sphere,” Amelia said.
Nate shrugged. “That’s not much different from the outside world.” Not that he entirely approved. There were many things women could do as well as men but were looked down on if they did.
“True,” Lexington conceded. “But the Shakers take it a step further.” He paused and gave an odd sort of grin. “I trust you are familiar with our philosophy toward procreation?”
“What?” Nate had been looking down the valley again. Sister Benedine was almost out of sight.
“Our attitude toward having children, and toward—pardon me, Sister Amelia for being vulgar—the act that produces them.”
Nate kept quiet. He was fond of that act, himself.
“Shakers never, ever give sway to their carnal natures. We suppress them. We smother them. We eliminate them from our lives. We don’t give them a chance to enter our heads.”
Nate didn’t see how that was possible, but again he kept silent.
“In our communities east of the Mississippi,” Elder Lexington continued, “men and women are always separated. They sleep in separate rooms. They enter and leave buildings through separate doors. When they must meet for meals or what have you, they sit on opposite sides of the room.”
“Only when we worship do we mingle,” Sister Amelia declared. “For then the hand of the Lord is upon us.”
“Exactly,” Lexington agreed. “As you may see for yourself before your stay with us is concluded.” He pointed at the two long, low log structures. “Do you see those? We have taken the separation a step more. One of those buildings is for the men, the other for the women.”
“We believe in as near complete separation as possible,” Sister Amelia explained. “It is one of Elder Lexington’s views that caused us to break away from the main movement and start our own colony.”
Elder Lexington raised an ecstatic face to the heavens. “We must be pure for our Maker, Brother King. We must be ready at all times for the advent of the Second Coming.”
Nate finally had to say something. “But if you don’t have children, who will carry on after you’re gone?”
Lexington turned and put a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “We grow by converting others, Brother King.”
“Back in the States they also adopt children, but that is another thing Brother Lexington is against,” Sister Amelia revealed.
Lexington clucked like an irate hen. “Our brothers and sisters descend on orphanages and take away ten or twenty at a time. Their intentions are praiseworthy, but I think it wrong. Children are incapable of appreciating God to the fullest. They can’t enter heaven because they are flawed.”
Nate could only stare.
“Ah. I see that look,” Lexington said. “But I know whereof I speak. I have seen the truth in a vision.”
“A vision,” Sister Amelia echoed.
Nate gazed about him. The smiling faces, the singing, the hustle and bustle: he began to see them in a different light. “I could never be a Shaker.”
“Never say never,” Elder Lexington said with a smirk. “But why not, may I ask?”
Nate looked him in the eye. “I have a son and a daughter. I love them dearly. They’re not perfect. None of us are. But they aren’t flawed, either. Not in the way you mean.”
“Now, Brot
her King, don’t misconstrue. I’m not saying children are evil, although as the fruit of our loins they bear the taint of sin. I am merely saying they are incomplete. They can’t experience God to His fullness.”
“All Shakers think that?”
“Oh no, or else those back East wouldn’t adopt as they do. But it’s why we didn’t bring any children with us.”
Nate gazed about him again at the dark cave mouths and the mostly rock valley floor and the bubbling cauldrons, and was glad they hadn’t. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Anything, Brother, anything at all.”
“Why did you come here of all places? Why come to this godforsaken valley when there are so many better spots?”
“Better?” Elder Lexington said, and chuckled. “You will understand better when—” He suddenly stopped and glanced down. “Do you feel it?” he asked excitedly. “Do you feel the power of the Lord?”
What Nate felt was a slight shaking under his feet. The very ground was trembling, as a man might when he was cold. It lasted only a few seconds and stopped.
Clasping his hands, Arthur Lexington cried to the sky in rapture, “Thank you, Lord, for that sign! Thank for you answering Brother King and showing him the truth.”
“You think God caused that?” Nate asked in amazement.
“Of course. God causes all.” Lexington closed his eyes and his smile widened. “When I first heard of this place, I knew it was a sign. I prayed and I prayed and I had a vision. In it I saw a new colony. More than a colony, really. I saw a new city, a great shining city of brethren in the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing. Thousands of us, many thousands, living as beacons to the rest of the world.”
“Praise you, Elder Lexington,” Sister Amelia said.
“Can you imagine, Brother King? The clean of heart, the very purest of the pure, letting their light so shine that God will look down from on high and be greatly pleased.”
Nate was about to ask how Lexington could speak for the Almighty when from down the valley, faint but unmistakable, came a piercing scream.
Chapter Nine
The Tears of God Page 6