The Last Pilgrims

by Michael Bunker

  The town could still, albeit with some difficulty, be approached from the west. However, crossing Jefford’s Creek was no easy endeavor, making the western route far less appealing. Jefford’s Creek had once, indeed, been a creek, rather than the river it was now. Father told him that it had been dammed up by the WPA back in what they called ‘The Great Depression’, and that Jefford’s Creek Reservoir 30 miles to the west was once the water supply for most of the towns in the area. Once the dam was completed in the early 1940s, the creek had become nothing more than a seasonal overflow from the reservoir. Back then, it was only fed by the draws, run-offs, and creeks from there to here. By the early 21st century, it was at best a wide creek, but sometimes it was just a trickling stream.

  The reservoir had been gone now for almost twenty years, and there weren’t many people diverting water for agriculture anymore. For all intents and purposes, Jefford’s Creek had become a river again as it had been throughout most of history. From just west of Bethany, the river flowed serenely through the lowlands and valleys for awhile northward before making a giant bend only a few miles north and east of the Wall Ranch. From there, it flowed into Lake Penateka, a day’s ride to the east-northeast of the ranch. Lake Penateka was one of the only man-made reservoirs in the area that still held water.

  From the east, Bethany was virtually inapproachable north of the twin mesas. The mesquite brush, juniper bushes, and sharply undulating terrain made it almost impossible to traverse on horseback, or en masse, especially by anyone who didn’t know the area. The militiamen knew of paths and switchbacks, and they could, and did, successfully send outriders and recon units through the brush they referred to as ‘The Big Thicket’. Given that for any army, that approach was not practicable, the Aztlani troops—if they planned to destroy Bethany, which undoubtedly they did—would have to come through the narrow Bethany pass. Five hundred men was a formidable force, but David was of the opinion that Bethany could and should be defended.

  If Phillip were here, he thought, there would certainly be a fight, and perhaps, with God’s help, the resistance could even ruin the Duke’s plans. However, with the heart and soul of the Ghost militia away—and likely ignorant of the pending attack—and only a handful of the militia present, it was very unlikely that any attempt would be made to defend and protect Bethany. It would all burn.

  There was going to be a debate in the council. That much was sure. A relatively large number of the Vallenses believed that the time to fight had arrived. If only he would be allowed to speak maybe he could convince his father and the Elders to let each man act according to their consciences.

  If he would be allowed to speak.

  That was in no wise a certain thing. He was not old enough to speak freely during a debate because you had to be 30 years old to serve as an Elder; besides, his feelings were well known among the Vallenses. The division and disagreement that had come from his last speech in front of the Elders and the council had still not been resolved. The issue was boiling just under the surface. Now, it seemed to be coming to a head.

  As they approached Bethany, David looked up and saw his father’s eyes intently peering at him over a green-dyed cotton bandana. The eyes were the softest brown, flecked with gold, platinum and bronze; they had always struck him as being almost uniquely alive.

  As a boy, he had heard his father preach about the deadness of the world and of the carnal man, speaking of deadness in the eyes of ‘worldlings’. He used to say, “Those who are fully given over to the world and to their love of it have the eyes of the shark. They have doll’s eyes. There is a deep and pervading deadness in them like inky pools of hopelessness.” His father was not talking about any particular eye color. He was talking about a lack of life behind those eyes. In contrast, David had always—from his earliest memories—noted a particular and sparkling glow of life in the eyes of his father; and it was this life that was looking at him now. He could not see if his father was smiling or frowning, but he knew that he was studying him. His father’s lively eyes missed nothing.

  The group rode into the town and agreed to meet at the Public House in half an hour. His father sent messengers throughout the village, alerting the inhabitants of the imminent danger, urging them to pack up and head northward as soon as possible. Two militia men were sent to find and alert the Ghost units that were supposed to be in the area.

  David dismounted in front of the Cobbler Shop and unlashed a large Longhorn hide from behind his saddle. Ana the Tanner had asked him to deliver the hide to Mr. Byler the Cobbler in exchange for some boots for herself and the Wall family. If things were coming down for good in Bethany, the Walls would need those extra boots.

  The first cool breeze flowing from the distant squall line pushed through town, as David removed his straw hat and entered the cobbler shop. The old cobbler stood up slowly from his work and approached the large oak counter to meet him.

  Mr. Byler was probably only in his 70s, but as an oldling he was quite rare. To the ‘younglings’—those who had been born just before or immediately after the crash—anyone who had been a full adult at the time of the collapse was called an ‘oldling’.

  Because of the nature of the crash, there were a few peculiar demographical anomalies in the world, or at least in the world that David knew. Human society was now stratified very clearly between oldlings and younglings, even if only the young folk used those terms. There was a noticeable lack of any substantial intermediate generation (the middlings), as well as an absence of many people who were very old. Basically, there was a stratum or age group which was mostly missing.

  The missing generation consisted of those aged 18 to 35. Very few people in that age group had survived—David himself was one of them, and so was his sister Betsy—maybe only a few hundred of them existed among all of the Vallenses.

  Many of those who were small children or babies at the time of the crash had died not too long after. It was a tough time, and high infant and youth mortality rates arrived with the perils of the times. Among the Vallenses, this loss was stayed within a few years, as relative stability returned to the Vallensian region, but the noticeable lack of many twenty-somethings was a reality of David’s world.

  Likewise, it was pretty rare to find oldlings who were much more than about 65 years of age, as so many of what were then known as ‘senior citizens’ had also died. Thus, Mr. Byler was quite a rarity. He was one of the oldest of the Vallenses living in the area. He had served his time as an elder, and though he still offered his council and advice freely, he no longer attended council meetings. He found them to be tiring affairs.

  “I hear in the winds that we are to have some excitement, and I’m not talking about some little rainstorms,” Mr. Byler said in a serious tone.

  “Yes sir,” David replied, “things are looking a bit scary at the moment. We really need you and everyone else to evacuate Bethany as soon as possible—as early as tonight, if the weather allows. You’ll find camps being set up near our ranch, but we might have to keep moving north and east until we find out what is going to happen.”

  “I was just closing up. I’ve got your boots ready and I’ll pack them up on your horse for you,” He paused for a moment, looking down. “I hope there will be a Bethany here when we return.”

  “God will provide, Mr. Byler,” David said, maybe a bit unconvincingly. “We’ve made it through hard times before.”

  “Some folks are saying that there’ll be a fight,” he lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “Are you going to fight, young David?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I just don’t know.”

  The Public House was mostly quiet as everyone filed in. David was not on the council, and was not an Elder; still, as a part of Jonathan’s party and as one of the most notable members of the group who wanted to fight, he was confident that no one would object to his attendance. The mood of the room was restrained and the hustle and bustle of evacuees, carts, and buggies out in the street—as people prepared to mak
e their way north—further solemnized the atmosphere in the pub.

  His father approached him as he entered and, leading him by the elbow, guided him over to the counter.

  “Several members of the council have asked that you speak on their behalf.” His father looked him in the eye. His manner was respectful, but David could tell that he was still concerned. There was an unspoken declaration in his father’s look that told him that though they were to be opponents on this issue, it did not affect his father’s affection for him.

  “Thank you, Father. I will not speak without your permission.”

  “You have my permission, David. I am not surprised to see that so many in the council have respect for you and your opinions. It is gratifying to an old man to see his son so honored.” His father smiled at him, “I have an important announcement to make, after which you may speak. Please, keep it short because we all have work to do.”

  “Yes sir,” was all he could manage.

  His father brought the meeting to order, and introduced the Elders who were present.

  There was old Arness Barron, the man who had organized the Vallenses to help the Walls after his mother died. Standing almost at attention in the corner was Jeremy Saldano, whose family built nearly all of the Vallenses’ carts, wagons, and buggies. Seated by the window was Maurice Stannis, accompanied by his older sons Lance and Walter.

  Many of the men present had, years ago, taken the family name of their trade. There was Grayson Smith—usually called ‘Smithy’. There was Davidson Cooper who ran the Cooper shop and made barrels. Standing by the door was Nicholas Brewer, who not only was a brewer, but he owned and operated the Public House; and standing next to him was Sheldon Wright, the wheelwright in Bethany.

  There were about 30 men present at the council meeting, including the Elders, the four members of the Ghost Militia, and David himself.

  After introductions all around, his father began.

  “I want to thank everyone for being here. We have urgent news from San Angelo, but before we start, we need to pray, and then we’ll sing the 2nd Psalm.”

  With eyes closed, the gathered Vallenses and the militiamen joined together in solemn and heartfelt prayer. Throughout the singing of the Psalm, David could sense the passion and sincerity in the voices of the men surrounding him. He was moved as never before. Trying times have a way of focusing the mind and the heart. How many times in history had the Psalms been sung by groups like this who were suffering tribulation?

  As the last note of the Psalm faded, David’s father raised his hand, as did the men of old when indicating that they would speak.

  “When we arrived in Bethany not an hour ago, we received word from a militia outrider concerning the situation in San Angelo.” Looking around, David could see the tension in men’s solemn faces, as young and old alike awaited their pastor’s words with anticipation.

  “The people of San Angelo, and many Vallenses among them, took it upon themselves to burn the city as the Aztlani host approached. The city is in flames. Several smaller frontier towns were burned and pillaged by the heathen army as they marched towards San Angelo. Thus, the people there decided to leave nothing for the enemy, but scorched earth. A mass evacuation is taking place, and most of those folks are heading here, burning their own fields and any other structures or supplies on their way. They hope to make it through the pass in front of the army.

  “However painful, it is a wise plan. The Aztlani army is, no doubt, forced to carry their material supplies with them. No supply lines or resupply bases are available to them as they move across the badlands and militia territory. They have undoubtedly counted on pillaging and stealing what they need as they travel. Resupply in a large frontier town like San Angelo would have been a critical element in their plans. Like the Russians before Napoleon, our brethren to the south are leaving the invader with nothing to scavenge.”

  David grinned for a moment before he fully grasped the implications of such plan. Thousands of refugees would be heading northward through the pass in the next twenty-four hours.

  “Maybe we should burn Bethany before Aztlan does!” shouted Grayson the Smithy.

  “We will be discussing our options in time,” his father replied softly. The pastor of the Vallenses dropped his head and stroked his beard for a moment. “We certainly have to consider every option.”

  There was a stony silence as each man in the room considered what was coming. They pondered on the fact that life—as they had known it up until now—had fundamentally changed.

  Whether they chose to fight or not, the peaceful Vallenses of Central Texas were now at war.

  Chapter 8 - Timothy

  Refugees had been arriving for over eight hours, some joining the pilgrim tent camps that were rising spontaneously throughout the area around the Wall ranch, others stopping for water and a short break before continuing on to the north and east. Those who continued on, generally the more pessimistic ones, hoped to cross Jefford’s Creek at Blackmun’s Crossing before either one or the other of the armies chose, for strategic purposes, to destroy the bridge.

  From horseback, Timothy, Ruth, and Jack Johnson were supervising the arrival, giving instructions, and watching diligently for Aztlani spies, or any unknown or unusual people moving among the Vallenses.

  The three were blessed that the moon was out and that the storm had only lightly clipped them as it made its way east. The ground was barely damp, and there was enough light to be able to see what had once seemed to be an almost endless flow of refugees coming up the road. Finally, in the last hour or so, the flow had started to abate.

  Tim handed Jack a metal cup, then poured in some hot mesquite coffee from the insulated leather bag Ruth had brought over from one of the camps. Jack Johnson was a close neighbor to the Walls, and the two young men had become friends over the past few weeks.

  Jack, who was about his own age of 18 years, had the given name of Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky. Tim had learned Jack’s real name and its spelling during all the hours spent with him and Ruth in the past several weeks. Andrei and his father Nikolai, like many immigrants, used more Americanized names, but strangely enough, neither had chosen the English language equivalent of their Russian names. For some reason, unknown to anyone but himself, the father had taken the name John. The son took the name Jack, which—to make the issue even more confusing—actually used to be a nickname for the name John. Since Jack was John’s son, soon enough the Vallenses began to call the young Bolkonsky by the name Jack John’s-son. From that, and somewhat illogically, the father had come to be known as John Johnson, even though Nikolai Bolkonsky’s own father had been named Pyotr. To all of the Vallenses, the Russians were known as the Johnsons.

  Tim was learning that naming conventions that had become so staid and stiff prior to the collapse, had, in many cases, reverted to the more flexible form of earlier centuries. Without computers, tracking IDs, microchips and passports, people could pretty much be called whatever they liked.

  Identification was now solely based on who knew you and for how long. Trust was not easily won, but meant everything, and neither did a sordid past, long repented of, haunt those who now chose to live rightly. The Vallenses never did trust many words; thus, a person’s character, honor, integrity, and faith was their only identification. Strangers realized that it was what you did, and how you lived over a long period of time that would make you accepted as part of the community, not paperwork, government papers, empty words, or mere intentions.

  According to many of the oldlings and Elders that Tim had spoken to, it was actually harder to spy or get away with a con or cheat today than it had been before the collapse. People were more wary; strangers were watched more closely. People were also more reliant on their intuition and relied more on their natural senses. Nobody relied on inanimate objects, or data divorced from context, to make decisions. It had taken the spy Ronald Getz and others like him many, many years to infiltrate the Vallenses to the point that one of th
em had an opportunity to kill Gareth the assassin while in militia custody.

  He was beginning to see the multiple threads of love, care, humanity, and community that bound the Vallenses together like a tapestry—threads that, in the old world, had been replaced by electronics, numbers, and a virtual life. In the times before the collapse, people’s lives were governed by distant strangers and tyrants no one knew—those with no accountability or loyalty to the family of faith.

  Ruth had told him that the Johnson family (the wife had kept her Russian given name—Natasha), had been the Wall’s neighbors to the south for almost 25 years. John Johnson and Jonathan Wall had been close friends for all of those years, and Jack and his father were the first ones to arrive to help organize and situate the refugees arriving from Bethany, as well as from the south and west.

  Sipping his coffee, Tim watched as the refugees passed the Walls’ main gate. Some turned in to join others at the camp, whilst others continued their perilous journey into the darkness.

  Some families, Tim had heard, had already crossed Jefford’s Creek and were heading for the intersection with the Old Comanche Road as it moved northeastward. By continuing to move northward and eastward, they hoped to find a place to wait out the attack. It was generally accepted by the Vallenses that Aztlan would be satisfied with burning and destroying Bethany. No one believed that they would continue to follow the Vallenses further north, because—by doing so—they would be moving farther away from their own homes, with no bases and no means of re-supply. History told them that even the greatest of armies had their limits—even Napoleon had stopped at Moscow.

  The general opinion of those Vallenses who stopped near the Walls’ ranch was that the Aztlani army would return home after burning Bethany. The destruction of San Angelo before they could pillage it had likely robbed the foreign army of their will-power and their desire to chase a rabbit they could not hope to catch.