The Divide

by Jolina Petersheim

  “Seth,” I say. “I’ll do my best by her. I swear, buddy, I will. But she knows the risks. That’s one of the reasons she didn’t wait to marry me.”

  Nodding, he wipes his eyes and looks over. “It’s not just Leora I’m worried about,” he admits, “if something should happen. You’re my brother now. I don’t want to lose you either.”

  I bite my tongue throughout the meeting at the Kalispell Airport, but my anger rises with the militia’s every lame excuse: It’s not our problem; you should have listened to us in the first place; we have nothing to gain; the ARC is larger than us; if we defend the community against them, we could very well have no militia left. I have to fight the inclination to close my hands around Charlie’s neck, seeing if a little oxygen deprivation might help change his mind.

  “Men, I am beseeching your humanity,” Luke, my father-in-law, says with an eloquence that confounds me. “Your soul. Not your will to survive, but your ability to do the right thing.”

  It’s so quiet, I can hear Josh flipping the stems of his sunglasses in and out. I glance over at him, standing at the entrance of the parking garage, a black silhouette against the backdrop of light. The other men turn toward our leader. He looks coolly back at them and says, “I’ve lost sight of what we’re doing here, guys. There’s no purpose to this if we’re not willing to help. So take this as my resignation if something doesn’t change.”

  Seth clears his throat before asking, “So . . . how do we do that? Help.”

  Josh smiles. “Good question.” He turns to me. “Any ideas?”

  I shrug. “Not really. But I think the most important thing is to guard the highway leading to the community. If we could ambush the ARC, it would at least give them a fighting chance.”

  Seth says, “But the community won’t fight.”

  Charlie groans. “Like filling a bucket full of holes.”

  “I’d sure appreciate you keeping your comments to yourself.”

  Charlie spits and looks over at me. “Leora’s already changed you, Moses.”

  I think of her, my beautiful wife, and the night the two of us swam in a reflection of stars. “Yes, no doubt,” I reply. “She’s made me a better man.”

  Leora

  I walk around the rudimentary schoolhouse, with its scabs of bark clinging to uneven planes of wood, and stand on the back porch. The gap in the perimeter allows me to see down the mountain. The forest, like everything else, is visibly altered, but its stark beauty is accentuated by our community’s logging, allowing natural light to polish where there once stood trees.

  My vision latches onto the slightest quiver of movement. Large and small game have become equally scarce. Therefore, I nearly bolt to ask if any of the community members still have bullets for their guns. And then I see that it’s not an animal. A small boy, dressed in gray, with light-brown skin and closely cropped hair, is walking this direction. I step off the porch and walk toward him. It’s imprudent, but I am beyond conventional wisdom. The boy sees me, standing here, for he stands stock-still, as if he can blend with the few trees ringing the clearing, and then he begins to run toward me. I hold my ground, for death is not as terrifying when so often brushed. But the boy stretches out his arms, and that gesture transforms my perception, allowing me to see that this boy is no boy, but Angel, the orphaned child we found in the cave.

  I cross the distance in no time. “Angel!” I call as we meet, and I see that she is crying. Her narrow face is chapped with long-standing tears. “What is it?” I push her back by the shoulders. The child is gasping now in a desperate effort to swallow her sobs. “It’s all right,” I soothe. “It’s all right.” I press her thin frame against me. I can feel her small bones protruding through the dense sweatshirt. The child reeks of night soil and sweat.

  “Sal,” she chokes out, and her sobs—sensing their opening—escape.

  I grasp her shoulders again. It takes all my self-restraint not to shake the syllables out of her. “What is it, Angel?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm.

  “Sal’s dead.”

  My body flinches with the news, as if somehow apart from me. “No,” I whisper. Looking down, I see silver lice tracing the black whorls of Angel’s hair. “When did it happen?”

  She looks up. “Yesterday,” she says. “I was there, with her. She drank poison.”

  I close my eyes, remembering the bracelet her grandmother, Papina, insisted I take. Why didn’t I understand what was inside? “Why did she do it?” I ask.

  Angel shrugs her impossibly small shoulders, which carried the weight of this news the whole way up here. “I don’t know. She made me come tell you that the guards are coming.”

  “The—the guards? From the camp? They’re coming for us?”

  She nods against my chest. Neither of us having strength for words, I hold her tighter.

  Heads turn as we pass the cabins. For months, we have seen only each other, and the novelty of another face makes it difficult not to stare. I understand, as does Angel, that the loss of weight and hair causes nobody to recognize her from before. This must be a small mercy, considering her father is the one who shot and killed Bishop Lowell. But Angel keeps glancing behind her as we approach the Snyders’ cabin. I’m confused as to why until I realize she is searching the perimeter for a gate. “It’s all right,” I say. “You can come and go here as you please.” She nods but stares at the ground, as if ashamed of her instinctual search for an exit.

  The Snyders’ front door is open. The children are gathered around the table, eating a stir fry that smells heavily of garlic. Mrs. Snyder is sitting in between the table and the hearth, stuffing chunks of purple cabbage in a crock, which she will salt and allow to ferment for weeks.

  Jabil looks in my direction without looking directly at me. His sister Priscilla, whose extroversion is a genetic anomaly, says, “What’s your name?”

  Angel runs a self-conscious hand across her scalp. “Elyse.” Confused, I look over. She shrugs one shoulder and whispers, “That’s my real name.”

  I smile at her and address Mrs. Snyder. “Could Elyse stay with you while I talk to Jabil?”

  Her eyes lift to mine and then drop back to her task. The intensity of her movements takes my breath. She is angry, I realize, with me. “Don’t be long,” she warns.

  Jabil pushes back from the table and thanks his mamm for the meal. Even when we leave the cabin, he continues to stare straight ahead. “Did Angel escape the camp?” he asks.

  “Yes. Sal told her to warn us that the ARC is coming.” I proceed to quickly sketch out the details, including Sal’s death. Jabil’s face grows whiter with every fact.

  “Who told them we are here?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. But we are only fifteen miles from Liberty. It’s not like we can hide.”

  Turning, Jabil studies the breach in the wall. “We cannot abandon everything again, and yet we have no time to rebuild.”

  I step forward, beseeching him like a brother. “We will trust God to protect us.”

  “We have to.” He looks at me. His voice shakes as he adds, “We have no other choice.”

  Moses

  “Here,” Charlie says. “Some makeup to help you look pretty.”

  I turn in time to catch what he’s throwing at my cot. The outside resembles a tin of shoe polish, and when I crack the lid, the inside resembles it too. “You want me to shine my face?”

  “Greasepaint,” Charlie explains. “I made it myself.”

  I take a whiff. My nasal cavity will be clear for weeks. “Scared to ask with what.”

  “Hey,” he says. “Your skin might feel like sandpaper in a few days, but at least it’ll blend in with the trees while you’re fighting.” He points to a little square in the circle that looks more virulent than the rest. “See? I even put some green in there to bring out your eyes.”

  “I’m surprised CoverGirl hasn’t contacted you for the patent.”

  “I’ve already applied for a patent.”
/>   “I’m sure my wife will appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

  “Well,” Charlie drawls, “it was sure a hit with your mom.”

  Working to keep a straight face, I snap the lid on the tin and toss it into my backpack. Brian and Nehemiah are sleeping on cots a few rows over from mine. I know better than to wake a man who’s sleeping off a night shift. I gesture. “Tell the guys good-bye for me, will ya?”

  Charlie says, “Sure thing, old man. You want me to throw in a kiss as well as a hug?”

  “A handshake will do just fine.”

  Shouldering my backpack, I move toward the door. Charlie shuffles up behind me. As always, his footsteps are as graceful as a gamboling bear’s. He says, “Don’t I get a hug?”

  I turn with a smile, thinking he’s jeering at me like he always does, but his bearded face is completely somber. “’Course you do,” I say, recovering myself.

  I reach out to clap him on the back, and Charlie scoops me up with both furry arms. I hear my spine crack and realign as he squeezes me tight. My boots are all but swinging off the floor. Forget greasepaint and ammunition, his body odor alone could keep the entire ARC at bay.

  “You take care of yourself,” he says. “I wanna visit you and your wifey sometime on the mountain and see a whole bunch of little four-eyed towheads runnin’ underfoot.”

  He sets me down, and I look up at him—this cantankerous behemoth with a heart as soft as canned bread. “I’d love that, Charlie,” I say, and for once, I too am completely somber.

  Seth asks, “What’s taking them so long?”

  I shrug. “Who knows? Maybe they’re waiting for dark. Or maybe they’re not even coming this way, and we’re all just overreacting.” A fly buzzes near my ear, its sea-green casing shimmering in the afternoon sun. I bat it away, and it goes over to Josh.

  “Thanks for that,” he says dryly and claps the fly between his hands, smearing the remains on his pants. “This is ridiculous. We’re just wasting time.”

  The four of us—Josh, Luke, Seth, and I—are sitting against a large rock above a place where the road narrows and a coarse escarpment rises on both sides. We chose this spot because it’s a natural choke point that doesn’t leave much room for the convoy to get away when, or if, it all goes down. The highway is visible for a mile or so, appearing to grow wider with every couple hundred yards before it reaches this location—giving us a heads-up if the ARC is nearing our ambush. The plan is to take positions apart from each other. The man who is farthest in will open fire when the lead vehicle reaches him. Then the rest of us will follow suit, hopefully taking out the front and back vehicles, and as many personnel as we can, before retreating over the ridge, out of their sight and range. It is textbook guerrilla warfare, but the odds of our success are not that good. But then, odds like this have become the norm since the EMP.

  Sweat drips down our faces, smearing the greasepaint Charlie insisted we wear if we were going to be foolish enough to go through with the mission. It’s seeming more foolish by the minute. I ask Josh, “What do you think we should do?”

  Clambering away from the rock, he slides down the escarpment and looks up and down the road. He comes back and stares first at me, and then at Seth and Luke. For once, he’s not wearing aviators, and his pale eyes are startling against the contrast of paint. “We need to go back to the airport and take the Cessna up for a flyover,” he says. “To see if they’re coming.”

  I ask, “Do we have enough fuel?”

  He shrugs. “All your joyriding burned most of what we had in storage, but I reckon we still have enough to go up a few times.”

  “So you probably shouldn’t be up there longer than you need to.”

  He grins. “Who says it’s gonna be me?”

  Leora

  I grip Anna’s soft hand and Elyse’s calloused one tighter, as if the mere presence of them—positioned on either side—can tie me to the earth. In front of us, on the platform, Jabil’s preparing to speak. I cannot look away from him, but it’s terrible to see how unsettled he is.

  “We—we are all refugees,” he haltingly begins. “This is something I want you to remember, regardless of what happens today. The guards of this work camp, though they may not have been forced out of their homes or taken from their families, they are spiritual refugees, who are hungry for truth. And we, my people, we have the bread.”

  He takes a moment to gather himself by pinching the bridge of his nose. “I will not fight the guards, but neither will I judge anyone who does. Each man do what is right according to his convictions.” He catches my eye. “And each woman do what is right according to hers.”

  Benuel Martin calls out, “Should we at least hide the women and children in the woods?”

  Esther, stepping closer to her husband, wraps her hand around his arm and pulls him in. “If they take you,” she says, “I want to go with.”

  One by one, the other women—Olga Beiler, Elizabeth Risser, Judith Zimmerman . . . the names are endless—nod that they feel the same way. My palms go damp as, in the field next to the garden, we can hear the symphonic squeals of the children playing kick the can.

  Sensing this anxiety, Anna squeezes my hand three times: I. Love. You. My eyes burn as I squeeze her hand in reply: I. Love. You. Too.

  Taking a breath, I call out, “You do understand that this work camp seems to be, like, a holding pen, right? That husbands and wives and children could all be separated in the end?”

  Esther says in a clear voice, “Yes. But I still want to go wherever my husband goes.”

  Again, one by one, the other women nod. Jabil’s smile is countered with sadness. “Well.” He steps down from the platform and addresses his brother. “Can you lead us in a song?”

  Malachi nods and walks toward the Snyders’ cabin. He soon returns with Bishop Lowell’s tattered Ausbund. He flips the book open and carefully turns the stained pages, and then he begins to lead us in song 31:4-5, written by Leonhard Schiemer during the persecution and execution of thousands of German, Swiss, Austrian, and other European Anabaptists. Schiemer himself died as a martyr—beheaded after extensive torture in the winter of 1528—but the executioners could not touch his last testament of faith, which is very applicable to us here:

  We are counted like sheep for slaughter. They call us heretics and deceivers.

  O Lord, no tribulation is so great that it can draw us away from you.

  Glory, triumph and honor are yours from now into eternity.

  Your righteousness is always blessed by the people who gather in your name.

  Many of the community members begin to weep as we sing, but their countenances are joyous, and I know they are experiencing the supernatural peace that comes when all you have left is him. The same peace, no doubt, our ancestors felt when they walked toward the stakes.

  I close my eyes, willing myself to trust my future and that of my family to a God whose existence I sometimes questioned—or at least questioned if he would intervene on our behalf. But in this moment, he is all I have left. Meet us here. You must meet us here. Over and over, I pray this until I am flooded with a divine awareness that God has led me through every trial pervading my twenty years so that I would eventually have the strength to stand when the time came. Around me, the community stops singing. Even the birds have grown quiet, their subdued nature foretelling a storm. My eyes fling open. I glance through the breach in the wall, toward the forest, and can see the approaching group of people, all dressed in black.

  Jabil lifts a hand. “Everyone stay calm,” he says. “I’ll go talk to them.”

  Letting go of my sister and Elyse, I follow Jabil toward the gap in the wall.

  “Jabil,” I cry. “Please. Wait.”

  He turns to face me. His eyes are dark, his shoulders slumped with resignation, and I realize he does not need my warning. “I have to do this, Leora.”

  “I understand. I do, but—” I stop and swallow hard, quelling my emotion—“I want you to know I think you’re a
n incredibly honorable man. You have led our community in the ways of Gott, just as your uncle did before you.” Looking at the ground, I see grass pushing up through the soil where the perimeter used to be. “He would be proud. He is proud.”

  Jabil’s smile is a default, an expression I sense he is putting in place to keep from breaking down. “I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

  My tears spill. I wipe them away and say through gritted teeth, “Don’t say that.”

  “Leora . . .” He glances out through the gap. The incoming guards have passed the place where I always stood, peering down through the forest for Moses. “I wouldn’t change anything.”

  Standing next to the schoolhouse, I watch Jabil close the distance between himself and the guards. He meets them in the small glade that has been cleared by the men harvesting the forest trees over the past few months. They are still too far away for me to recognize if any of them are Liberty citizens turned rogue. A man toward the back is built like Sal’s uncle, whom I met that night his gang intercepted our wagon in town. Surely he couldn’t be so cruel as to lead them here when I did everything I could to help his niece. But he did. I already know.

  A smaller guard, a woman, steps forward to talk to Jabil. He extends his hands toward her as he begins to speak. She gestures toward the community. He turns, looks over his shoulder, and shakes his head. Her gestures become more emphatic. Behind her, the guards stand like soulless automatons, awaiting their orders. Jabil again shakes his head. I watch her level a pistol right above his ear. Anna suddenly runs up to me, flushed and breathless. Her eyes are animal-wild when she sees the woman and the gun, and I understand that watching Charlie shoot her tomcat last summer has caused her damaged mind to correlate weapons with death. Together, we watch Jabil shake his head one last time. Anna cries out one of the few words in her lexicon, “No!”