The Last Pilgrims

by Michael Bunker

  He also suspected that many of the Vallenses, although maybe not in Bethany or in this region, were surreptitiously giving direct aid to the militia. If discovered by Aztlan, this behavior would be considered an act of war.

  An act of war, Jonathan mused. Aztlan commits acts of war against us on a regular basis. But he still believed that pacifism was both the wise path, and the path of Christ. In this way of thinking, he had always been almost Tolstoyan. Leo Tolstoy—the famed author of War and Peace—had also been an extreme pacifist, and Jonathan had studied his arguments against violence for many years. In other ways, Tolstoy was unorthodox, and probably even a heretic, but his arguments against the use of violence were solid and well grounded.

  Jonathan had heard all of the arguments in favor of violence, and he understood his opponents on the subject very well. But history had shown that the pacifistic plain people had been preserved for over 700 years, while any militaristic group formed during that same period, including the empires of England, France, Japan, and the United States, had ceased to exist. Who knows, maybe the Swiss, up in their Alpine chalets, were still safe and sound with their guns and ammo; but if they were, they were the exception that proved the rule.

  Defensive violence was a valid philosophy in the short term, but in terms of long-term survival, eventually all violent nations or groups ceased to be. The Amish and the Vallenses still existed in what used to be America. In contrast, The Hell’s Angels and the U.S. Army no longer did—at least as far as he knew. Knowledge of the true nature of the outside world didn’t extend very far.

  Before he knew it, lost in his own thoughts, Jonathan found himself strolling in the orchard. The air was markedly cooler there—sometimes by as much as 20 degrees—than elsewhere on the ranch. Jonathan plucked a peach from one of the trees and examined it. Not quite fully ripe, but getting close. The Walls and all of their people would be swarming over the orchard soon, bringing in the harvest of peaches.

  He sat down in the shade of the trees, to enjoy the sweet fruit, wiping the juice from his mouth on his sleeve. His wife Elizabeth would have scolded him for that, but Winnie, his laundry maid, never said anything. Elizabeth hated to have to scrub the juice out of his shirts in summer.

  Jonathan’s thoughts rolled back through the years and he saw Elizabeth as a young woman, before they were married, hefting spade and pick and post-hole digger as dutifully as any man as they dug the holes for some of these very trees. Phillip had been there too, but that was before they had quarreled over her, and over Phillip’s mercenary activities, and over just about everything else that you can possibly imagine.

  Now Elizabeth was dead, but Phillip was back, and war was looming on the horizon. Everything he and Elizabeth had built was now in jeopardy.

  Phillip’s own family was now kidnapped. Their lives were in peril, and the Ghost had ridden off with most of the militia to try to find them and rescue them.

  God’s ways are mysterious, mused Jonathan. Still, we know that He is perfect and good, and that we can trust Him.

  In the distance, he could see Timothy riding towards the orchard at great speed. He stood up and walked out to meet him.

  Timothy quickly dismounted. The young militia soldier was strong and handsome, as well as humble and intelligent, Jonathan observed. He wondered what had happened to the boy’s parents and to the rest of his family. The pastor made a mental note to ask him sometime.

  In the weeks Timothy had been at the ranch, Jonathan had not learned much about him, except that he was diligent in his duty, and committed to keeping the Wall family safe.

  Under normal circumstances, Jonathan would not have allowed militia guards to watch over his family. However, Phillip had not only insisted on providing protection, but had made it known that the Walls were going to be guarded whether they liked it or not. At least, this way, Phillip reasoned, Jonathan and his family could have some communication and relationship with the men who guarded them. He had reluctantly agreed, so long as no Vallenses were to engage in violence. The young man had shown himself to be extraordinarily committed to the safety of the Wall family, Ruth in particular.

  Timothy and David had also grown close, which greatly troubled him. David already had the propensity to be inclined towards violence as a means, and he was worried that his son would now grow even more ‘militia minded’ than was good for any Vallensian. The two young men, along with another young ghost militiaman named Robin, who they all called ‘The Hood’, had been spending an inordinate amount of time together.

  He often wondered what it would be like to have been born and raised after the collapse, and to have never known hearth or kin. In many ways, even literally in most cases, the young men of the militia were orphans. They were a band of brothers, sworn to one another and to their cause. They were modern Cossacks or Spartans. They had no homes, no real property, and very little likelihood of ever finding love or marriage. He admired them, even as he pitied them. His son just simply admired them. Jonathan longed for a day when there would be no need for the militia; yet, he knew that that day wouldn’t come until the Lord returned.

  Timothy interrupted this solemn train of thought, “The Elders of your people have requested that Your Honor gather with them for a meeting in Bethany. We’ve just heard news via post rider from there.”

  “Stop calling me Your Honor, Timothy”

  “I’m sorry Your Honor, but we have to obey our code and rules, as created by Phillip. Hence, a request for you not be addressed formally would have to come directly from Phillip.”

  “What if I were to fight you over it?”

  “Some folks might find that rather refreshing.”

  “I understand,” Jonathan said, knowing he would get nowhere arguing with Ghost militia reasoning. “What news from the post rider? What is this all about?”

  “Well, Your Honor, that was the complete substance of the message to you. However, in questioning the rider, I learned that the Duke’s attack force is a day’s ride from San Angelo, and will be here in less than three. Their numbers are estimated at about five-hundred men.”

  “Five hundred men!” These days, forces that large were almost unheard of. Once upon a time, armies of thousands and tens of thousands had marched through Texas and the South; post-collapse, a force of even a few hundred men was difficult to mobilize and command.

  “Will you let them take and burn San Angelo? What is the militia going to do? We have to evacuate the frontier… but there isn’t time. Five hundred men? For what?” He was exasperated and angry, “Five hundred men to kill pacifists, farmers, and traders?”

  “The situation is not good. Phillip is out with a sizable force, attempting to rescue his wife and daughters. We were not expecting the Duke’s army for another couple of weeks or so…” Tim rubbed his youthful beard and began to fiddle with the grip of his sword. To Jonathan, he seemed almost ashamed that the Ghost militia was caught unprepared.

  “They must have marched by night or traveled on some course we did not expect them to take. Though even those options seem unlikely,” he paused for a moment. “In fact, Your Honor, I cannot say how the Duke’s army got here this fast without being noticed. But, that is all beside the point. I am confident that militia outriders and recon units will be sent along the path of the Aztlani army. They will harass them and thin their numbers some, but as things are now, no attempt will be made to defend San Angelo… it’s always been considered indefensible. Every trader and merchant there knows it.”

  Jonathan stared southward, pondering on the implications of these words. When he finally spoke, his voice was distant and cold, despite the heat of the day. “It’s the Winter Massacre all over again.”

  In his mind, he was back on the frozen rolling hills East of San Angelo, loading bodies of his own people—mostly women, children, and the elderly—onto a haycart, to take them to Bethany for burial.

  At that moment, his son David and two other militia riders approached in haste.

 
“We have to ride, Father. The Elders are gathering and there is no time to waste,” David urged.

  Timothy interjected, “Perhaps we can bring the Elders of the Vallenses here to the ranch? We have two small units in and around Bethany, and a more sizeable unit here. It’s likely that the Vallenses can pull back from the frontier in time, if we send word now. The Aztlani goal is to raze Bethany, and they will do it, without a doubt. This place, however, is defensible. It is built on high ground. Any way they try to approach this ranch, they must come uphill.”

  “This isn’t the Alamo, Timothy. It’s a farm.”

  As they spoke, Ruth rode up on Jonathan’s horse Laredo. Louise trotted along behind her obediently. Ruth had a large leather satchel that riders called a ‘wallet’, and after dismounting, she stowed it in the saddlebag. “There’s food and supplies here for several men for a few days.”

  Jonathan thanked Ruth, and kissed her on her forehead. “You take care of everyone here. I’ll be back sometime tomorrow… if the Lord wills.” Ruth just nodded in reply.

  “Please listen, Your Honor,” Tim spoke with a growing sense of urgency, “we can ride hard to Bethany and bring the Elders here. Our orders are to keep you and your family safe.”

  Jonathan shook his head. “According to Gareth, the Aztlanis have no desire or plans to harm me or my family.”

  “We still don’t know if Gareth is an Aztlani spy or not, but that is all the more reason for you and the Elders to meet here and not in Bethany.”

  “It’s out of the question,” Jonathan replied softly, “our colonies between here and San Angelo would be cut off; and, if we do not ride now, we’ll lose a whole day that might be used to get some of our people to safety.”

  “Father’s right, Tim, we have to ride to Bethany now,” David agreed.

  “Besides, this isn’t about me,” Jonathan added.

  “I’m sorry to disagree with you, Your Honor,” Tim said with his eyes down. “This has always been about you.”

  Chapter 7 - David

  The heat was oppressive again, but David could see that the white cumulonimbus clouds off to the South and West were beginning to conglomerate and build skyward, looking like a giant volcanic eruption towering to perhaps 40,000 feet—an ominous portent of possible severe weather. The clouds were forming a squall line, probably still several hours away off to the south and west towards San Angelo. Maybe those Aztlani soldiers will get an appropriate welcome to the tornado belt, he thought. David hoped some rain would cool things down, and maybe hinder the Aztlani advance. Weather in Texas is notoriously unpredictable, and quite often such storms just blow by without dropping any rain at all, or they simply disappear.

  His father had sent messengers to gather at Bethany as many Elders and members of the council as could be reached on short notice. Jonathan Wall was trusted to act on behalf of the community in case of emergency, but he felt strongly that the situation required some unanimity in opinion among the leadership. That would be hard, considering the current differences of opinion on the defense issue.

  As the Pastor’s party rode south, the dust from the road was so heavy and thick that everyone had bandanas or balaclavas pulled over their mouths and noses.

  They negotiated the county road at a pretty fast pace, considering the heat and season. Still, on occasion, they would have to detour, following wagon-rutted tracks behind cattle barns, around catchment tanks, or through fields of golden wheat. The locals knew where the county road had been blocked, cut, or otherwise made to be impassible. None of the old paved roads between the ranch and Bethany existed any longer.

  Almost immediately after the collapse, the paved roads had been blocked by trees and boulders, mostly by locals seeking to stem, or at least slow, any bandit traffic. Later, the pavement itself had been ripped up and used in dams and other infrastructure projects. The plain people had no use for paved roads, and saw them as a tangible evil—both a symptom and cause of everything that had gone wrong with the old society.

  “Paved roads allow you to move faster,” Father had said. “Moving faster leads to the sins of covetousness, impatience, over-specialization, and inevitably produces the idolatry of efficiency and utilitarianism. Eventually, these sins lead to the death of faith, family, and just about everything else. Paved roads shrink the world, but increase the real distance between parents and children, friends, and brethren. Everything you should hate is brought near, but everything you should love and cherish moves far away from you.” His father repeated this message many times, and the current state of the world after the collapse bore witness to his beliefs. “Everything man-made that shrinks the world,” his father would say, “is, at some level, an assault on God who made the world.”

  Great minds must think alike, because he couldn’t remember a paved road around here that was still intact. Many years ago, when he was still a boy, his father had taken him, and many of the men from the ranch, to the old city of Penateka, two long days by wagon eastward from Bethany. Penateka used to be the largest city in the area, and was a regular shopping destination for most of the Vallenses prior to the collapse.

  There was no city of Penateka, Texas any more. David had seen pictures of the city in old newspapers that his father kept, but within ten years of the collapse, the city was gone. It hadn’t been destroyed by bombs or fire. No one would have ever wasted an atomic bomb on the town. Nevertheless, in a decade, the city had been disassembled by hand. Penateka was destroyed as a result of covetousness and greed, but it had disappeared out of necessity. Piece by piece, the city, which had once been home to almost 30,000 souls, had been torn down and hauled off in wagons and carts by people who needed the materials for homes, barns, caskets, fires, or… whatever.

  A decade ago, there were still some passable roads in Penateka. There were no street signs or telephone poles, or abandoned buildings. There were many abandoned cars, or rather, frames of abandoned cars, but there were no houses, fences or gates. In many places, even the sewer and water pipes had been ripped out of the ground.

  David vividly remembered seeing a chunk of concrete jutting out of the ground, where someone had tried to drag it off by chaining horses or a team of oxen to it, but they obviously had given up. The chunk was probably too large or maybe the chain had broken. Father had said that it was a chunk of street curbing, but that it represented the old world. Around seven billion people had tried to drag it someplace God didn’t want it to go… so the chain broke. And the meek had inherited the earth. Well, the meek, along with a whole lot of covetous, militaristic scumbags like the King of Aztlan—who wanted to destroy the meek and steal the earth. Despite his militant tendencies, David resolutely believed that God had a plan for everyone, including the King of Aztlan and those like him.

  In every era of time, he thought, God had raised up a champion to defend His people and destroy His foes. Moses, Joshua, David. Now, the Vallenses had a champion in Phillip and the Ghost militia, even if Father couldn’t see it.

  On their way to Bethany the group stopped from time to time and he and his father would ride up to houses, barns or fields to inform the local Vallenses of what was happening. Father told them to pack up whatever food and supplies they could muster into wagons and head up to the Wall ranch. Many wouldn’t leave immediately because they were concerned about their animals, but they dutifully promised their pastor that they would get prepared and would come quickly whenever they determined that trouble was near. Some of the more creative ones had already devised a system during the construction and arrangement of their farms whereby they could leave their animals unattended for days, even weeks, and the animals could feed and water themselves.

  David knew that an exodus would soon begin and the road the men had just traveled would be jammed with horses, buggies and wagons heading northward. It was very likely that some of these people might never see their farms again. Father would say, “Fields can be replanted. Farms can be rebuilt. We have resources and man-power, but we cannot replac
e our lives.”

  David honored and respected his father, but he could not see how teaching his own people not to defend themselves, especially in such an extreme situation, could in any way be protecting their lives. The son had concluded that inordinate pacifism—pacifism in the face of inescapable aggression and annihilation—actually bred violence. All that he could think of was—we need to fight!

  The road began to rise as they approached the Bethany pass. The town was now situated only on this side of the pass, but before the collapse, another, smaller town had existed on the south side of the ‘mountains’ (as the locals had called them). The mountains were actually twin mesas that rose up about 300 feet above Bethany. The pass between the mesas was 100 yards wide but was made narrower by thickly growing mesquite and brush, along with large piles of rubble and boulders on both sides of the road.

  At one time, just after the Civil War, the southward path through the mesas had been a military road along which the Apache and Comanche tribes had been driven northward out of Texas. Before the collapse, the road had become a small and lightly traveled state highway. Now, the pass was a narrow wagon path between the twin mesas of Bethany.

  After the collapse, wiser minds among the Vallenses had determined to build a new trading village north of the mesas. In this way, in case of an attack, the pass could be shut down or blocked in order to give the town folk time to evacuate the village.