His words brought the warmth of the fire to me. Our paces still matched, but we walked slower now, our feet strolling through his story.
“It was just cheese,” I said, tasting its sweet bitterness.
“But to a hungry people, it’s life.”
“And there wasn’t much. Just one wheel.”
“Our brother once fed many more with far less.”
My mind turned for a moment. “You mean Jesus? with the loaves and the fishes?”
“You know the story!” He spoke with the fun, false enthusiasm a teacher has for a child who has just come upon the most obvious conclusion. I knew that voice, and I hated it. It was the voice that followed utterance after utterance of veiled impatience. I’d heard it all my life.
“Don’t talk to me like that. I’m not stupid. He is our Lord.”
“And our brother.”
His response turned my mind once again. God is my Father in heaven. Jesus is his Son. I’d never thought of Jesus as a brother before, only as a Savior. But I’d always wanted a brother—someone to share the chores with—and the thought of having a brother like Jesus made me smile.
That’s when I noticed we’d stopped walking. Without the sound of our feet scuffing against the occasional pebble, the world turned silent. It was another damp morning, and I could feel my nose about to run. Faced with the two unladylike options of a sniff or a swipe with my sleeve, I chose the sniff, turning my head away and being as mousy quiet as I could.
“Here.” He held out a folded white square when I turned back around. “Take it. Don’t worry; it’s clean.”
I wondered for just a minute what Mama would have me do. Didn’t seem right, somehow, to have such an intimacy with a boy I barely knew, but I couldn’t very well stand there with a runny nose. Truth be told, Mama hadn’t told me much about boys at all. Papa, either. Until yesterday none had ever even talked to me, save for Michael Bostwick. And all he ever cared about was borrowing my history book because his parents were too poor to buy him his own. So I took that handkerchief and brought it up to my nose. It was warm from his pocket and smelled like strong, clean soap. To that, at least, Mama could not object.
“Thank you.”
“You’re getting a cold. Should you go back home?”
“No,” I said, my voice muffled against the white cloth. “It’s just a sniffle.” I finished wiping and refolded the square, uncertain.
“Keep it. In case you sniffle again.”
Nodding, I slid it into my own pocket and took the first new step toward school. His step joined mine, and we walked for just a little while in silence before I found my courage. “I have a question to ask you.”
“Are you sure you should? I thought you weren’t supposed to talk to me.”
“Did you dig up the onion patch?”
“I wondered when you were going to get around to that.”
“My father was furious.”
“That seems an odd reaction to an act of kindness.”
“I think he sees it more as trespassing. How did you even know?”
The warm smile was back. “We’re neighbors, remember?”
I could tell he believed that answered my question, so I believed it too.
“My father wanted to go into your camp, you know. To find out who was responsible . . .” I didn’t allow myself to speak all the accusations he had.
“Why didn’t he?”
“Mama stopped him. She said that we weren’t going to do anything with those onions except chop them up for mulch. Said you’d done us a good turn by digging them up for us.” Again, I left so much unsaid. How she called Nathan’s people a tribe of thieving, godless savages. And I knew at the heart of my parents’ anger was fear. If only they could join me on this path, stand right here with me in the damp cool of the morning, hear this gentle voice surrounded by the calls of the morning birds, what would they possibly have to fear? “So I guess, in a way, she was glad to be rid of them.”
“Like the town will be glad to be rid of us?”
“I suppose.” Such an honest question deserved an honest answer.
“What about you?”
I shrugged. “I never much thought about it.” Which was true. I hadn’t. All winter and spring they’d been encamped next to us, my life was just one chore after another. School and home. Until yesterday. “I guess I never really understood what everyone’s so upset about.”
“God’s people have always been persecuted. Surely you know that. The Israelites were enslaved. Early Christians sacrificed to the savages of Rome. Shouldn’t be any surprise that the followers of a new prophet would face the same trials. But we can only follow Heavenly Father’s plan.”
“And what is this plan?” Something stirred within me, even then. I don’t know if it was the anticipation of having inside information, something I could share with Papa at the dinner table, where I usually sat in obedient silence, or the first stirring of revelation, or the simple beauty of this beautiful golden boy beside me.
“Zion.” One word, and it felt like I was hearing it for the first time. His voice lifted it out of the pages of the Psalms. I looked up, and his face was poised in a crescent smile, his eyes fixed above him, envisioning this place. A place he knew was real. “When we get word from those who went before us that the journey is safe, we’ll pull up stakes and join our brothers and sisters.”
“And where, exactly, are you going?”
“Utah.”
Zion.
“Imagine it, Camilla. Building a new city on a new hill. Or in our case, a valley. I’ve heard them speak of it. Majestic mountains and fields ready for harvest. Like a piece of creation Heavenly Father reserved specially for us. And we’ll be able to worship freely. Raise our children . . .” He stopped, and to my amazement, he blushed. Bright red splotches on his cheeks, and while he had been speaking to the treetops, he looked now right at me. “That is, of course, if we are lucky enough to have children.”
The call of the mourning dove tempered the silence that followed, and though he did not touch me, something reached inside and nearly scooped my heart right out of me. My feet continued to propel me on the familiar path to school, and I suppose the rest of me followed, though I don’t know how. Sure as on the day I was born when I could only lay helpless in my mother’s arms, that moment a few steps back when Nathan Fox looked into my very soul marked the first breath of a new life, and I wanted to linger in it. His eyes held the very image of Zion, and his step matched to mine seemed a promise to take me there. I didn’t hear another word he said that morning, and if I replied, those words are lost to me too. I know he brought me to the edge of the empty school yard, and I know he touched me. Just one trace of a finger along my cheek before turning away. I remember watching him. The breadth of his shoulders in the already-familiar shirt. The hand that had just touched me tucked into his pocket. The steadiness of his pace now that we were no longer walking together. How quickly he moved. How soon he was out of my sight. The few breaths it took for him to round a corner in the path and disappear. And how I never, ever wanted to step foot inside Mr. Teague’s schoolroom again. How could I, being so newly born?
* * *
Later that morning I knew Nathan Fox had been right about one thing. I was catching a cold. By the time Mr. Teague rang the first bell calling us into class, I had a tiny tickle at the top of my throat, and when the younger children were dismissed for their first recess, it had grown to a licking flame. I could not concentrate on the letters of Thomas Jefferson, and while Michael Bostwick stood at the front of the classroom giving his impassioned recitation, I could do little more than rest my fevered brow on my hands and quietly wish to die.
At noon, I begged Mr. Teague to dismiss me to go home. He touched his own fat hand to my face and, satisfied with its temperature, released me with instructions to read the next twenty pages in our history text. I didn’t even bring the book home. Instead, I launched myself down the path, my lunch pail dangling from li
stless fingers. Befuddled as my mind was, I couldn’t help but hear Nathan’s words with every step. This is where he talked about children. This is where he spoke of persecution. And of a prophet. A new prophet.
Seemed we had new preachers in our church all the time. Men in the midst of a journey, stopping for a week or so to thunder out the promise of a fiery eternity in hell for the condemned. But there was no such fire in Nathan’s voice. Only warmth. Nothing called down from heaven, but some kind of inner ember. I touched my cheek where he’d touched me, fascinated by the heat there. But of course, that was due to my cold. At least partly.
Soon I was at the place where he met me. I lingered there, wondering if, by some chance, he might return. Might be waiting for me, even. But of course he wasn’t. I staggered onto our property and braced myself against the stones of my father’s wall as a wave of dizziness caught me. For a moment, everything was lost. Twirled around and ripped away. I could only hear my mother’s voice coming closer, shaking with the impact of her running footfalls. Then she was here, one arm wrapped around my waist. Her cool palm on my forehead.
“Oh, Mama. I’m sick.”
And safely home, I closed my eyes.
Chapter 4
I slept the rest of that day and through the night, my dreams peppered with images of Nathan Fox, my body trembling with unrelenting chills. The next morning I made a halfhearted attempt to rouse myself for school, but Mama would have none of it.
“You’re still burning with fever.” Her soft voice seemed to come from far away as she touched a cool rag to my face.
My throat felt too swollen and sore to reply. The simple nodding of my head proved painful. Nestling deep into the mattress, I pulled the blanket up to my nose and closed my eyes. No doubt Mama thought I was sleeping. She said a few soothing words before going downstairs to make me a cup of tea. Listless and lethargic as I felt, though, sleep would not come. My wakefulness allowed me to craft new dreams of Nathan. When I slept, he was always just out of reach. I’d see him on the path, but every step I took drove him one more step away. But in these waking hours, I could control him—make him stop and wait. Turn to me and reach out. I could intertwine my fingers in his, have him pull me close. My visions were clear, if fevered, but incomplete. I didn’t know what a boy would do once a girl was in his arms. And Nathan was more than a boy. He was a man. I knew even less of that.
It was quite early in the morning. My father’s voice still rumbled in the kitchen. If I were going to school, it would be at least an hour before that appointed time. I heard the kettle rattle on the stove and imagined Nathan sitting next to a nearby fire. My own stomach growled for lack of food, and I wondered if he had eaten yet. My mind etched his face, down to the crease at the corner of his mouth when he smiled, and I burned to see it again in flesh before me. Would he be waiting again at the path? Would he worry when I didn’t arrive? The thought of it made me want to swing my feet over the side of the bed. Put on my dress and shoes and somehow find the strength to leave this house. But my body groaned at the slightest stirring, and my mother’s appearance at the door bearing a tray of steaming grits and weak tea stifled the very notion.
* * *
I awoke later to a broken fever and a high noon sun. Like someone washed up by some sort of tide, I was soaked clear through, as was my blanket. Determined now, I climbed out of bed and shivered at the coolness of the wet nightclothes against my skin. My mother hummed from somewhere downstairs, but my cocked ear caught no sign of anyone else.
“Mama?” My dry throat cracked with the weak effort, but there was no pain in speaking. I licked my lips and called again.
The humming stopped and steady steps brought her into my room, wiping her hands on her apron.
“My fever broke.”
“So I see.” It occurred to me that I must not have been nearly as sick as I imagined, because there was no hint of blessed relief in her voice. I had clear snatches in waking memory of her sitting at my bedside, clutching my hand, whispering prayers. But she now seemed so removed from a woman given to vigil that I felt a little silly for having called her.
“My, um, gown is wet?”
“Let’s get you into another.” She went to her knees by the trunk at the foot of my bed and opened it. After some rummaging around, she came up with a fresh, if wrinkled, gown and another sheet and blanket. I changed while she stripped the bed.
“Why don’t you go down to the kitchen,” Mama said. “Do you some good to get out of this room. Let the mattress air out.”
“Is Papa downstairs?” I didn’t want him to see me in my gown.
“He’s out with the cows. Takin’ them down by the meadow.”
“Fine.” I crossed over to my bureau, but froze as a movement outside the window caught my eye. Not believing, I leaned closer, resting my head against the glass. There he was, Nathan Fox, leaning against my father’s makeshift stone wall, twirling his hat in his hands. Just then he looked up. Toward the house, but not at me. Not yet.
“That’s a good idea,” Mama said, busy with the ticking. “Why don’t you open the window a bit. Let in some of that fresh breeze.”
“All right.”
He didn’t notice me until I’d slid the window up nearly halfway. And when he did, he slammed his hat on his head and took two running steps toward the house.
“No!” It was out of my mouth before I could think. Certainly not loud enough for him to hear me clear across the yard, yet somehow he knew to stop. But he didn’t back away. He just stood there, staring. An expression on his face I couldn’t read.
“What was that?” Mama stretched her small frame across the bed, attempting to fit the clean muslin sheet over the far corner of the mattress. I left the window and went to help her, smoothing the cool material at the opposite corner and tucking it under the foot of the ticking.
“I—I was just surprised to see how much of the day has passed. I can’t believe I slept so late into the afternoon.”
“It’s the best medicine.” She stood back to admire her work before unfurling a fresh, clean quilt over the sheet. “But let’s see if we can keep you up for a while. You didn’t get a chance to read your Scripture last night. How about we do that now? Your father will be so pleased to see you keep up. Even in times of illness. Scripture can be such a comfort.”
“My head hurts, Mama.” Which it did. “I don’t think I could concentrate on reading right now.” Inching steps took me back to the window. He was gone, and it felt like I was taking the first clear breath since seeing him.
“Oh.” She smoothed one hand over and over a corner, and I felt a new weakness, an overwhelming need of her. My head and heart had been spinning for days, and I longed to pour both out to her. I couldn’t, of course. Not everything. Nothing about Nathan Fox and our walks to school and the way he touched my face and the hope I had when I saw him standing at the wall. But she was, after all, a woman. And so, apparently, was I.
“But maybe you could read it to me?” I offered. “We could sit together, in the parlor.”
“Well, I don’t know ’bout that.” Mama stooped and gathered the soiled linens into one big armful. “There’s so much to be done yet. I haven’t even started supper.”
“Just one chapter.” Still unused to talking, I had to cough before I could continue. “We could have tea and biscuits in the parlor. Like a regular social.”
“I suppose there’s time before your father gets back,” she said, standing. “I’ll drop these on the back porch and get the water on.”
Alone again, I went to the window and leaned clear out, craning my neck to see if I could get even a glimpse. Nothing. But even his absence held a hint of promise.
* * *
“Well, aren’t we a couple of fine ladies in the middle of the afternoon?” Mama sipped her tea, eyebrows arched high over the steam.
“I suppose we are.” My own tea was cooler, tempered with milk.
“Now,” Mama said, setting her cup on the small
table beside her and lifting our Bible into her lap, “do you remember where you were?”
I nodded. “First Samuel. Chapter 3.”
Mama turned to the page and started to read, but I had to stop her after the first verse.
“What does he mean by ‘there was no open vision’?”
She thought for a moment before answering. “It says the word of the Lord was ‘precious,’ so I suppose it means that not everybody could understand it. Or hear it. God was only speaking to a certain few.”
Satisfied, I sipped my drink as she continued to read. After the first verse, it became a familiar story, that of young Samuel being called from his bed by the Lord. Only Samuel didn’t know it was the Lord at first and thought it was the old priest Eli. Mama read it like it was a story, not the Bible, and I wished for a minute that I could do all of my Bible readings this way. Or even just sit and let her tell me the stories without reading at all. Surely she knew them all by heart. Since I didn’t have the page in front of me, I couldn’t count down to the end of the chapter, and I was somewhat startled when her voice silenced.
“That’s it?”
“One chapter at a time, Camilla.”
I knew it was time for me to answer the question of what this chapter teaches about being a better Christian. But I wasn’t ready to think about that just yet. Instead, I wondered about what Nathan said about following a new prophet. Samuel was a prophet because the Lord spoke right to him.
“How come in the Bible God is always talking to people, but now he never does?”
Mama thought for a minute, her eyes turned up to the ceiling, her hand running softly over the open page. “It was an older time, I guess. Closer to Creation. Maybe he was nearer. Maybe people needed to hear him because they didn’t have the Bible to read.”
“Has he ever spoken like that to you, Mama? right out loud?”
“No, darling. Not like that. Not right out loud.”
For Time and Eternity Page 3