The Watchers

by Mark Andrew Olsen

  Dylan inwardly gave thanks for every yard of waterline that slipped by, taking them out of sight by the thinnest margin of safety.

  He continued to shake his head, with the relief turning to amazement as he considered it. Abby’s God pulls through again, but He sure has a perverse affection for close calls. . . .

  He glanced ahead and almost laughed. Here came a large tributary from a steep channel on the right, so ample that it instantly doubled their channel’s width. A minute passed like an hour. The threat was swallowed up in jungle and then faded away. Like a promise of easier days, the dawn started up in earnest, inflaming the sky to their left in a dozen shades of orange and turquoise.

  “Will the three other women be around to get caught?” he asked Sister Okoye in a still-cautious whisper.

  “No, they left in the opposite direction right after we did,” she answered. “They’re on foot, but they’re local women and they will be hard to catch. Besides, they will try and create a diversion. God willing, our pursuers will never even think to look south along our route.”

  The next few hours would prove to be among the most beautiful and memorable Abby would ever spend. The stream broadened into a river whose path through the rain forest was a never-ending display of wonders and rare snapshots of natural life. By trip’s end, she had spotted a python slung ponderously over a tree branch, a leopard and her pup drinking at a small pool of still water, a small crocodile weaving across the waterline, and more birds of every iridescent color and exotic shape than she even knew existed. An unlikely cool breeze, heralding the rainy season to come, even lifted itself across the path for their comfort.

  The fact that she was encountering these sights as spontaneous and natural accidents, not from the pixels of a television screen or even the deck of a tourist boat, but here in the middle of a legitimate adventure, one that had nearly cost her life, made the apparitions that much more thrilling. After all, she told herself, the formaldehyde smell of the hospital had hardly faded from her, and here she was in a canoe, holding her breath against being discovered by assassins and jungle beasts alike.

  You’ve come a long way, baby . . .

  At some point, Sister Okoye asked Abby whether her Sight was showing her many disturbing apparitions.

  “No,” Abby said. “Actually, I just realized I’ve hardly seen any spirit life all day. Just fleeting shadows. Runners, I’ve gotten to calling them. But that’s all. It’s quite a relief.”

  “That is because nature is generally free of demonic concentrations or strongholds, unless you happen on a spot where something truly evil or provocative has happened. You may catch a glimpse, as you mentioned, of individual sprites on their way here and there. But those are usually in a weakened, famished state, anyway. Not much of a threat.”

  Her peace momentarily disrupted by the exchange, Abby was only glad to let the conversation lapse and the river’s beauty return to settle back over them.

  Some of that peace admittedly dissipated for good when, halfway through the trip, Sister Okoye, true to her word, started in on Dylan and his reeducation.

  “So you are a great warrior, it seems,” she began.

  “I wouldn’t presume to put a label on it, Sister. But I have done a great deal of fighting. Much of it solo work. By myself.”

  “I know what solo means, Dylan. You are proud of this work?”

  “Much of it was in direct service to my country, to what I would consider the cause of freedom. So yes, I am proud of what I’ve done. It’s not easy, and it’s not for the faint of heart, as we like to say. Sometimes that makes me even prouder still.”

  “Have you killed many men, Dylan?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “How many?”

  “To be honest, I try not to keep count. It’s not exactly the part of my job I like to think about the most.”

  “But . . .”

  “I don’t know, maybe three dozen. Maybe as many as fifty.”

  Even though she was quite gratefully staying out of the conversation, Abby visibly stiffened at that response.

  “What is your view of spiritual things, Dylan?”

  “What do you mean? Whether I believe them or not? What kind of spiritual construct I subscribe to?”

  “Let’s start with whether you believe in a Creator God.”

  Instead of the rapid response, which so far had characterized the exchange, this time the question was greeted with deep silence. Finally he answered just as Sister Okoye was about to take a new tack in her questions.

  “I would usually say no, and I always have,” he answered in a suddenly mild voice. “Only today, I just now realized. Right this second, my answer is yes. I do believe in a Creator.”

  “Of course, what kind of fool would you be, here, in this place, to look around you and not believe.”

  “It seems that way, yes,” he answered in a reflective tone.

  “And yet, Dylan, believing in a Creator alone distinguishes you from almost no one. Even the animists out east of here believe in a Creator. So does Satanism. So does witchcraft. So does Islam.”

  “I suppose you’re right. Yet so far I haven’t signed up for any of those, have I?”

  She paused while pushing the pole backward, something she needed to do less and less with the strengthening current. “But, Dylan, you should remember that in the last twenty-four hours you’ve been a witness to more signs and wonders of the Christian faith than just about anyone ever has without throwing himself to the ground and begging to be received into His kingdom. You’ve seen angels. You’ve seen a terminally ill woman be healed of her illness. You’ve seen the power of an actual miracle. Most people could hardly ask for more proof than that.”

  Another pause. If the other two had been sitting close enough to see his face, they would have seen his jaw muscles churning as Dylan brooded.

  “Do you need to see more?” Okoye asked.

  “Not really,” he replied lamely. “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t mean to push, and you don’t have to decide right this second, even though there are hundreds of men hunting for you in order to kill you, and this may be the last calm moment you have before meeting Him face-to-face. Other than that . . .”

  She broke into a soft laughter, and so did Abby and even Dylan.

  “But I do know this,” she continued. “Even though all of this business pales in comparison with the importance of knowing Christ and finding your name written in His Book of Life, I can also tell you this: I can teach you nearly everything there is to know about becoming a true warrior. Not some caricature of manhood running around half drunk on rage and revenge, but a warrior far more valuable to his King than anything you’ve even heard or read about.”

  “And how do you know all this?”

  “Because I am a proud warrior in His service. And while I don’t have the power of a young man, or even of a young woman for that matter, I know about spiritual power. And I’ll venture to say, Dylan, that it is exactly the opposite of everything you’ve been taught.”

  “Well, it sounds fascinating. I’d like to learn, if you’d care to teach me.”

  “Unfortunately,” she snapped like the closing of a trap, “it is of no use to someone who does not know Christ and follow Him.”

  “All right. I’ve probably heard a hundred different twists on this through my life. So what, once and for all, does it mean?”

  “Can I answer this?” Abby broke in.

  Sister Okoye nodded with a smile.

  “Dylan, it’s simpler than you could ever imagine. And also harder, I suppose. God says that He just wants us to walk humbly with Him. To abide with Him, which basically means to hang out with Him—emotionally, spiritually. To spend time the way we would with a perfect father, if we could. Talk to Him, read His letters to us, tell Him how much we love Him through something called praise and worship.”

  “What about the big, all-important prayer at the finish line?”

  “You mean the
altar? Yeah, I think sometimes we make too big a deal of that. A lot of people respond to what’s called an altar call and get the impression that if they just say this bunch of words their whole eternal destiny’s taken care of. I think that’s hogwash. Sure, it’s a good beginning. It all starts with a prayer, but then it grows and ends with prayer as well.”

  “That’s enough for now,” said Sister Okoye. “I don’t want Dylan to think he is being sold a cow. Son, when the time comes where in your heart you want to pray that prayer, just ask one of us to pray it with you and start your journey. That is all.”

  “You promise?” he asked, laughing.

  “I always tell the truth,” she said, then stopped speaking, for just at that moment a midmorning rain shower grayed over the sun and began pelting them with large, warm drops.

  The rainy season had just arrived.

  CHAPTER

  _ 39

  Drenched to their skin by the prodigious downpour, the fugitive threesome floated from the confines of the river, which had swept them thus far down into a broad grove of swamps and marshes. Even with a cool wind whipping against her soaked clothes and chilling her to the bone, Abby found the experience refreshing, even exhilarating. She lifted her head into the torrent, flung her hair back behind her, and abandoned herself to the sensation of gliding through an unending lukewarm shower.

  Just a few feet ahead of her, Dylan glanced back and felt himself pierced by the beauty of a young woman in the grip of such freedom. Was that how it felt, he wondered, to just surrender yourself to the will of a sovereign, loving God?

  He could hardly imagine how it would be, after having lived for so long according to the highly strung confines of his own abilities. Self-reliance had been his life, his credo, indeed his very survival. A tightly strung dependence on his own instincts, his own wisdom, his own gifts. Right now, however, none of it seemed as fulfilling as this young beauty’s blissful abandon.

  Without even making a conscious decision, he found himself leaning his head forward and speaking inwardly.

  God, if you’re really there, I guess I would like to start—

  A sharp bump jolted him from the awkwardness of his prayer— the side of their canoe striking the hard bank of their apparent destination. Sister Okoye now stood and was prodding the nearby soil with the rod.

  It struck Dylan at once that what he had started to pray was far more important than exiting the boat at that moment. So even when the boat lightened with the departures of Sister Okoye and Abby a few seconds later, he remained seated and lowered his head again.

  “Dylan . . .” Abby called out impulsively. But Sister Okoye, who had sensed what he was doing, stopped Abby by placing a hand on her arm.

  . . . God, I really don’t know how to do this. But for some reason I find myself totally believing in you. In your existence, in your love for me, in your love for this messed-up world. I know this involves Jesus somehow, and what He did on the cross . . . that He died for me. I get that now. He died for me so that you and I could . . . what’s the word, abide in each other? Abide. I like that word. God, I’d very much like to abide in you, forever. Will you forgive me for being such a moron and take me in?

  He opened his eyes and turned to the sight of two women standing motionless in the middle of a driving rainstorm, yet weeping so hard that even with a wall of water falling across their faces, he could make out tears streaming from their eyes.

  He stepped from the boat and felt the pair converge on him at once. Sister Okoye’s arms were short but strong and threatened to squeeze the air from his lungs. She spoke as she wept, using words no English-speaking person—perhaps no one but the angels and God himself—would understand.

  Abby, for her part, knew how to hug like a good American girl. He could feel her tears fall into the crook of his neck, warmer than the surrounding raindrops.

  “Oh, Dylan,” she cried, “you should see them! They’re surrounding you!”

  He knew precisely what she was speaking of, and the thought of it sent a shudder of wonder down his spine. He pulled his head back and glanced around him to see if he now had the ability to see them. Both women took his tiny release as a cue to withdraw, and suddenly he was standing alone in the downpour. And amazingly, the clouds over the sun thinned all of a sudden, casting a bright pale backlight onto the sheets of falling water. The effect was both dazzling and profoundly affecting. Dylan blinked again. Had he seen something, someone, in the wet radiance of the light burst?

  Maybe so. But for now he was content not to look too closely, because the outward picture could hardly match what was happening inside of him. For the instant that he’d lifted up his prayer, he’d felt a proverbial weight lift from his shoulders—from his heart, and most of all his mind. The sensation had been so specific and vivid, he could still hardly believe it. It felt like someone had just sprung loose a ratchet that had been pulled tight for years, against every muscle in his body.

  Then, at once, he knew what it was.

  It was the tension of self-reliance, of feeling every second of every day that he had to be perfect, the by-the-numbers solo performer.

  Although the old tightness was such a familiar old companion that he almost felt a twinge of sadness at feeling it melt away, the new reality of walking freely was so breathtaking that he could not bring himself to mourn the old.

  He looked up. Sister Okoye was shoving their canoe off into the current. Even though he knew she was just wisely ridding them of a dead giveaway, it struck him in a rush of coincidence that her act was the perfect mirror image of what he was feeling. To cast off the old into the current and let it float off into oblivion. Amazing.

  How thankful he felt, all at once, for the arrival of this monsoon! It was perfect, because just then he truly felt washed clean, immersed in something cool and pure. Feeling stupid and bold all at once, he felt his arms rise into the air and his fingers point up into the rain.

  Thank you, God. Thank you for making yourself so clear to a confused and dense fool like me.

  He felt someone else’s soft fingers strain to wrap themselves around the digits of his right hand and pull them downward. Looking down, he saw Abby moving to tug him away from the swamp’s edge. In the distance, Sister Okoye was already a wet smudge against a drenched backdrop of stone, beckoning for them to follow.

  He did not feel the need to release her hand as they ran after their mentor, through a foot-soaking morass of mud and matted grass. When they caught up with her, she was hurrying down into an oddly formed passage between suddenly towering walls.

  “This is our stronghold,” she announced proudly, pointing up. “The Iya Agba heartland. Sungbo’s Eredo.”

  “What is it?” asked Abby as she craned her neck in every direction.

  “Is this man-made?” asked Dylan, trailing his hand across the wall’s weathered surface.

  “Exactly,” said Sister Okoye with a smile of a schoolteacher receiving an unexpectedly correct reply. “This is the least known yet most important historical relic in all of Nigeria. It is a wall over one thousand years old, over one hundred miles long and seventy feet high. It is the outer rampart of a kingdom largely forgotten by history. But not the lore of the Iya Agba. Abby, this is why we came here. Here we will find the next stage of your search. Come, follow me and I will tell you more.”

  Energized by their arrival, not to mention the relief of not having to sit in a narrow canoe, she bolted forward and began to run along the rampart’s edge. It proved tough going, for veils of rainwater ceaselessly poured from its flat expanse, directly over their path. Twice Abby slipped in the mud and fell hard against the wall, stopping herself just in time with an outstretched hand.

  They turned a corner and saw that, indeed, the wall continued just as straight and as tall for a great distance. The depression at its foot deepened into an overgrown channel. “That’s the moat!” Sister Okoye called back, playing the enthusiastic tour guide.

  They continued on for over an
hour, feeling their awe at the massive construction deepen by the minute. And just as they began to weary of its unceasing height, Okoye leaned sideways into its slope, stepped upward, and began somehow to scale its face. Abby and Dylan peered, and finally saw that she was climbing with the aid of cunningly positioned natural protrusions in the earth.

  “Iya Agba created these patterns in the wall long ago,” she called down. “We memorize them, for they seem invisible to all others. And they are the only way to safely reach the top.”

  Glad to be moving somewhere different and decisive, Abby planted her foot into the first indentation and forged ahead. The way up proved surprisingly easy, although the constant rain was beginning to wear on her. She looked ahead and saw that Sister Okoye was almost three-quarters of the way to the rampart’s top, scurrying like a Sherpa. Well, she’d just have to catch up . . .

  . . . with a horrified rush of blood to her head, she felt her foot slip into free air, her body slide sideways. Her perch alongside a veritable mountainside sheared off into nothing.

  She felt the scream of the doomed begin to gather air within her. Her will rebelled, her sense of destiny recoiled at the fate of such a capricious ending to her life. After all those close scrapes, only to perish now in a fall off an archaeological relic? No, it couldn’t end this way, it just couldn’t!

  The reply came courtesy of a painful grip on her right hand. The hand forming this grip belonged to Dylan, who forcefully yanked her back up to the stepped path. Her legs flailing, her feet kicking the air in their desperate bid for purchase, she finally felt one foot nick a step’s base and burrow in.

  “Thank you!” she gushed while pressing her side against the comfort of solid flatness.

  He smiled, not trusting himself to utter a word. Again, her hand sought his. He reasoned that given her near fall, there was every innocent reason for the clasp to take place. Yet as he stepped up the wall’s side, hurrying to match her enthusiastic ascent, he couldn’t help but thrill at the touch.