by Misty Moncur
“Say you understand me,” I said as I let myself rediscover the small changes in his handsome features.
“It’s not possible,” he said, the hint of a sad smile touching his lips.
I searched his eyes. Familiar. Warm. Beloved. “Then say you still love me.”
His answer was a kiss, warm in the cool air of the forest and filled with all that was right between us.
Then he murmured, “Duty,” against my lips, as if the very idea that he kissed me out of duty was ridiculous. He eased me back against the tree and showed me that it was.
“I could not stop loving you if I tried,” he said when he pulled away. “And believe me, I’ve tried.”
Chapter 5
Helaman planned to take Manti without a battle.
“If possible,” he said, “we will enact a decoy similar to what we did at Antiparah. But this time, we will send men back to take the city in the army’s absence.”
After Shem had conducted the captains’ meeting and most of the captains had departed, Helaman laid out the particulars of his stratagem to the members of the council and detailed the parts each of us would play in it.
I would be among the men who took the city. Micah and Zeke would be part of the decoy—the bait for our trap. Darius and Jarom would be out with Kenai, acting as scouts for the first time.
“I don’t understand,” I said to Gideon as we left the large stone building with Seth and Eli. “You and Teomner are to march out unseen by the enemy? How is it to be done?”
“Maybe Kenai can give us some pointers.”
Gideon had to work with Kenai frequently, but I knew they weren’t on very friendly terms. Kenai was Zeke’s best friend, but since the day I had walked into Antiparah as a spy, Kenai had all but given me over to Gideon’s care. He had accepted what none of the rest of us had—what none of us could.
“I’ll take Seth and Enos and their hundreds. Teomner will lead two hundred of the Nephites.”
“Do you plan to take Manti with only four hundred men?”
“And one pretty girl.”
I blushed and pushed him playfully away.
Seth cleared his throat in an obvious attempt to put a stop to any flirting. “We can take Manti,” he said confidently.
Not if their entire army doesn’t leave, I thought wryly. But that wasn’t how I truly felt. I knew—because I could feel it—that God was with us. I knew that He would preserve us and make our arms strong. I knew that he could speak to His children through their hearts.
I wanted to tell Seth and Gideon, two of the men I admired most, that I was going home after the campaign for Manti. I wanted to try out the words, but I hesitated and after I had hesitated too long, the moment passed.
“How long will it take to get to Manti?” I asked instead.
“Weren’t you listening?” asked Seth.
Gideon laughed. “She only listens to things that are none of her business.”
“When she thinks no one will notice,” Seth added with a grin.
Eli, as usual, did not say anything, but he laughed with the others.
I would miss these men so much when I went home.
That wasn’t the first time I considered never seeing Gideon again after I went home, but it hit me hard that night. It didn’t make me feel better to realize his good mood that evening was because of the prospect of improving his military career. If the campaign against Manti was successful, his rank would rise again.
Gideon did not like to shed blood. I had come to know that he abhorred it. But he wanted liberty and the freedom to live safely and worship as one chose. He wanted to protect those freedoms for others, because he could—because God had made him strong where others were weak. It was a calling he felt in his soul and one he did not put off lightly.
Men like Zeke and Micah, Seth, Lib and all the others would go home and become fathers and protect their families. Men like Gideon would give their all to protecting the nation.
I slept little that night, and by the third watch I crawled out of my tent intending to sit with whoever guarded my door.
To my great surprise, Jarom sat quietly scanning the grounds.
Nearing sixteen, Zeke’s younger brother looked exactly like Zeke had at that age—tall and muscular in stature, with long dark hair, a prominent, hooked nose, and deep, soulful brown eyes.
Just then he wore one of Zeke’s expressions as he sensed my movements in the moonlight and let his eyes follow me while he stayed still as stone.
“I thought you were Zeke for a moment,” I said softly so as not to wake anyone.
He snorted. “Disappointed?” He scooted a little so I could sit near him on the log at his small fire, which was little more than coals.
“Of course not,” I said.
I liked Jarom a lot. In fact, the more time went on and the older he got, the more I liked him. Jarom was good-natured. He teased, but he was never annoying in it. He always knew when enough was enough. He was smart, intuitive, and compassionate. He was capable. Anything he didn’t know and had a need to know, he just learned. He was also very in tune with people and their feelings, though I would never have thought to describe him as sensitive.
“Quiet night?” I asked when I had been sitting near him for a few moments.
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t know you were part of this ridiculous watch on me,” I said, though I didn’t feel it was ridiculous anymore, not since the nightly raids during the siege on Cumeni.
“You’re my sister,” he said simply, surprising me because, though we had grown up practically as siblings, I was not his sister. “Which is unfortunate for me,” he went on. “I wish Zeke didn’t have a claim on you.”
I looked over sharply, catching his rueful gaze into the fire. Jarom could tease, yes, but this didn’t sound like teasing.
“Jarom?”
For long moments he didn’t reply, just stared into the coals trying to control his breathing. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he said at last.
“Did you mean it?” I asked, tentatively stepping into a topic I knew could be quite delicate and also volatile if not handled with great care.
He took a deep breath. “Yes, I meant it.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands between them. He looked back at me over his shoulder, which had become broad and strong. “You’ve no idea what effect you have on people, Ket—your laughter, your healing hands.” He shook his head and looked down at his own hands. “You don’t just heal physical wounds. You make every boy in this army feel like he’s important, like someone loves him and cares if he dies in this rotten war.”
“Jarom.”
“You do.”
“I can’t help the way others see me.”
He sat up. “So it’s just an act?”
“Of course not. I do love the warriors. All of them.”
“Do you love me?”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or smack him upside the head. “You know I do.”
“But not the way you love Zeke,” he insisted.
Scooting closer to him, I said gently, “I could not love anyone the way I love Zeke.”
“You can tell yourself that, Ket.” He leaned closer to murmur, “But I don’t believe you.”
His breath was warm on my neck, and even though the coals were barely lit, my face flamed. I was suddenly aware how alone we were and how close we were sitting to each other in the darkness, and how, despite what he had said when I sat down, he was not my brother.
I slid away from him. “I’m sorry Zeke is first in everything,” I said. “I never thought what it must mean to be a second son.”
But I thought of how Hemni, their father, had spoken with such admiration of Jarom’s skill at the hunt. I thought of how Mother loved him like her own son and how highly I esteemed him and his acuity. I thought of how Darius depended on his friendship, hardly able even to communicate if Jarom wasn’t completing his sentences for him, and I thought perhaps
Jarom had very little idea of the effect he himself had on people.
“Have you thought to talk to Kenai? I bet if anyone would understand, Kenai would.”
He shook his head. “Kenai is Zeke’s best friend.”
“He is also Micah’s younger brother,” I pointed out, and I wondered what Kenai might feel toward Micah if the kingdom still existed, if Micah had become a ruler over our people.
Jarom shrugged.
“Darius said Kenai has been training your unit to spy. Is it like hunting?”
I thought only to remind him that he was a better hunter than his older brother, but a darkness slid over his eyes and his breaths became deliberate.
“Sometimes,” he said, “it is very much like hunting.”
“Jar—”
“Zeke doesn’t deserve you.” He interrupted me. “He’s not even nice to you.”
“That’s because I cause him so much worry. I’m a great trial to his patience.”
“The person you love should not be a trial. She should not be someone you have to tolerate.”
He was right.
“That’s not love, Keturah.” He turned to look at me with a lidded gaze. “If I were in Zeke’s place, I would not treat you so callously. I would not raise my voice to you or ever cause you heartache.”
He sounded so much like Zeke had back in the village, when he had first decided we should become betrothed, so ardent and sincere, and he looked so much like him. I nearly laughed, but there was nothing funny in Jarom’s feelings or his conviction, and the similarities stopped at his expressions. He really wasn’t very much like Zeke at all.
“I know you wouldn’t,” I said, making sure my sincerity sounded in my voice. “You are too much like your father.”
“I wish I was older than Zeke.” His words vibrated with emotion, and he sounded almost angry.
Generally, when speaking of betrothals and marriage, a family would arrange a marriage for their eldest son first, and when that had been successfully done, they would seek marriages for the remaining children in descending order. Zeke’s marriage would come first, and if he chose me, Jarom would never have the chance to. But he was forgetting that I could refuse either one or both of them.
“Maybe Zeke won’t choose me,” I suggested, not that it would help. “Maybe he will find me too great of a trial and choose Eve of Judea instead.”
I could see my mistake because he seemed even more determined than before. “Refuse Zeke and wait for me,” he said softly. “I would always let you do what you want. My brother won’t.”
Maybe he was right, but choosing Jarom over Zeke would create problems of its own.
“I know you would, Jarom.”
I also knew that he did not love me enough to insist upon the rules that I now knew I must abide by. He would let me recklessly destroy myself.
At first I had resented Zeke’s worry for me. I had fought against all his fears for me. But over the years I had come to see that his fears were not unfounded, and he had foreseen so many things that I had not.
Lib’s constant guard had helped me recognize this. At first I had felt imprisoned by it, but gradually I had realized that the only real freedom I had was inside the circle of his protection because the snares outside of it were so much worse.
“Wait for me,” Jarom said. “Until I get older.”
I wondered if he realized he was actually asking me to marry him. I searched his face. He was sincere. He thought he loved me. But this was new, it had to be. I wondered what had happened, what had changed.
Nothing had changed for me. I still thought of him as a brother, though it was different from what I felt for Darius. I shouldn’t encourage his feelings, but there was no need to hurt him, either.
“I am not currently considering any offers of marriage,” I said, looking him in the eye. “That’s what you’re offering, right?”
He stared at me and his jaw tightened, and for some reason, that worked like a nod.
“When the time comes, I will consider your offer then,” I told him.
He had the same way of showing relief while still schooling the look on his face as Zeke did. He leaned toward me, and he looked as though he might seal our agreement with an unwise kiss.
I stopped him gently with a hand to his chest. “Only think what the next moment will mean if I choose your brother.”
I thought the hand on his chest would discourage him, but he covered it with one of his own and leaned in to place a soft kiss on my lips. His boldness startled me as much as his sweet kiss did. This was Jarom!
I expected awkwardness to follow. Jarom didn’t seem to feel it, but he should have. He should have felt the utter wrongness of it, like I did. There were no circumstances under which I could return his feelings.
“Does Darius know?” I asked him. “About this?”
“No one can know.”
I nodded slowly as I returned my gaze to the fire. Did he think we would marry in secret?
“If you’ll get this fire going, I’ll start the morning meal,” I said with a glance to the east where the sky was beginning to lighten.
Obediently, he knelt and blew softly on the glowing coals to coax a fire from them, and when the embers were swirling, he looked up at me.
I blushed as deep red as the coals and hurried away to wake Joshua so he could go with me to get the rations. But I wasn’t quick enough to miss Jarom’s smug, knowing smile.
We left Cumeni that morning. Having disassembled our entire camp, we each carried our own gear and divided between us the camp’s supplies.
As we marched through the city, I thought about the Lamanites we had half-starved there. I thought of the wives of the men I had killed on the Cumeni crossroad, the children I had deprived of a relationship with their father.
But for most of the morning, I thought of Jarom.
At times the terrain was very rocky and the hills were difficult to traverse. That was just through the morning. It got more difficult after midday when the road we traveled dwindled until it was barely discernible from the undergrowth. By mid-afternoon the column no longer existed and we traveled in pairs through an unbroken wilderness. Lib and I hiked together at the rear of our unit.
I marveled that Kenai and his men had run from Manti on the day of the battle at Cumeni, and I was sure they couldn’t have taken this route.
The sun was hot, so I braided my hair and twisted it up, securing it with a slender stick I broke from a tree as I trudged along beside Lib. We had long since stopped conversing when I tripped over a large root that stuck out in my path.
Lib caught my arm before I fell to the ground, but I knew immediately that my ankle was hurt badly. Lib scooped me up like a child and carried me a short distance to the side so the others could pass us.
He knelt before me and frowned as he examined the ankle I extended.
“I heard it snap,” he said grimly. “Is it broken?”
I wanted to say no, but I honestly wasn’t sure. “I don’t know,” I said. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes, not from the pain, though it was painful, but from fatigue and frustration. I wouldn’t be able to walk on it, and I knew we wouldn’t camp until nearly nightfall. The whole of the army could not stop for me.
Lib had done no more than give a deep thoughtful sigh when Zeke came up, followed a few moments later by Micah and three of his men.
After Lib explained how I had twisted my ankle, Zeke went to his heels next to me. “It could have happened to anyone.”
Most of Helaman’s command had passed us, and down the trail I could see Teomner’s men. Hundreds more soldiers would see me sitting idly on the side of the path before the day was out. I sighed and glared at the offending root.
Micah took charge. “Lib, you take her pack. Zeke, grab the rest of her gear.” Then he turned to me and put his hands on his hips. “There are a few ways we can carry you, but the simplest is for you to climb onto my back.”
“What? No! That’s so unladyl
ike.”
All three of them burst out laughing. Even Micah’s men chuckled.
Micah was already taking off his own pack. He passed it to one of his men who willingly took it and began to distribute some of the bigger items between the two other men.
“You’re no heavier than my pack.”
And I probably wasn’t. I looked around at the other men and sighed in resignation. There was no real choice. We had to continue on. I didn’t protest when Micah hauled me to my feet, hefted me onto his back, and began to walk.
Micah carried me for an hour or so and then passed me over to Lib. By the time Zeke was taking his turn, it was late afternoon.
We had fallen back a little behind Micah and Lib, and I took advantage of the privacy to ask something that had been on my mind all day.
“Zeke, how long has Jarom been taking the watch outside my tent?”
“I didn’t know he was,” he replied. “Though I think he sometimes sits up with Darius.”
“He took the third watch alone last night.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. He thinks of you as a sister.”
Like you think of me as a sister, I thought. I bit my lip and didn’t say any more about Jarom. I had to figure out what to do first.
The stripling army stopped to make camp near the headwaters of the Sidon River. Zeke told Lib to set up my tent, and as he carried me toward the river to soak my throbbing ankle, I wondered if he gave Lib instructions a lot. I wondered if they had established a hierarchy among themselves of who was more in charge of me than the others. Though I loved them all and had grown accustomed to their constant guard, the thought made my skin prickle with heat.
The sounds of the forest were familiar and the light was beginning to soften. The area around the river was green with lush vegetation. Zeke let me slip off his back, and then he lifted me into his arms the way Lib had and set me gently near the bank of the river.
“I can’t believe this happened,” I said as I slid my foot into the water. I hoped it would provide instant relief, but it didn’t.