Blood of the Earth

by Faith Hunter

  Daddy dropped his chin in an abbreviated nod. “I always had one man in the crew, Everett Lisby, who reported back to me. He kept the others from trying anything. But . . . earlier this week, things changed. Jackie sent the men home and by the time Everett found me and told me what happened, Jackie was back at the compound and Joshua was telling about a demon you called up.

  “Just so we’re clear, I don’t believe you called up a demon. Priss said you threw a cat at him. He’s got scratches and cuts that support that claim.” Daddy’s mouth turned up and he lifted a hand as if he might touch my face, but I flinched, just a hint, a micromovement of current pain and remembered whippings as a child. He halted and his fingers curled under. He dropped the hand. Being in this house, seeing my family, heated my blood with old anger, old fear, old pain, and new confusion; some of my anger was deserved, but just maybe, some wasn’t.

  Inside me, there was a new loneliness, an awareness of isolation because of what John and Leah had done . . . I believed it. I believed that John and Leah had lied to me, to keep me away from my family. And I didn’t know how to move past all that. It was a barrier big as a mountain.

  I looked into the eyes of my father and spoke without the patois of my youth. “Yes. The day the regular spies were sent home by Jackie, three men came onto my property. Jackie, Joshua Purdy, and Brother Ephraim.” Daddy’s eyes tightened, little wrinkles radiating out from the corners as he listened, his expression intent and focused. “When they got close, they fired a few shots to draw me out. Blew out four of my windows. Damaged the house. I fired a few shotgun blasts back.” I looked at Mama. “We all missed, but the gunfire messed up my garden something awful and killed some tomatoes, beans, and impatiens. Made me mad.” Mama shook her head, knowing how I felt about my plants. I looked back at Daddy and held him with my eyes, “Then Joshua snuck up on me and coldcocked me.” I touched the bruise on my jaw. “When I woke up, he had dragged me into the woods. He hit me some more. He cut my clothes.”

  Daddy’s face went rigid, as unyielding as stone. So did Sam’s. The two men looked at each other and Sam gave a tiny, stiff nod, his fists clenching. “Did he do you wrong?” Daddy asked me.

  “He didn’t rape me. A police officer heard the shots and came before he could. They’d been close by because of a heathen group called the Human Speakers of Truth. When the firing started, the police raced in and the churchmen ran off, all except Joshua, who got knocked around some and scraped up by a black cat. Not a demon. They had him, but they let Joshua go because I said I wasn’t pressing charges.”

  Daddy was quiet for a moment, thinking it all through, watching me, studying my bruises. “Why not press charges?” Daddy seemed honestly curious at why I chose not to involve the law in my disputes. “You left the church and the protection it offered you. Why not call the law?”

  I shrugged. “Fight the church? What good would it do me? Get Joshua locked up, have to go to court, see him get twenty days in jail and then be free to hurt me again? Maybe file a restraining order against him?” My voice got louder as I laid out my options. “A piece of paper between him and his guns? To then have him show up with his shotgun and more than two friends to help him? I am not interested in gang rape, Deacon Nicholson, or in having my house burned down, or in being burned at the stake.” My daddy flinched when I called him by his honorific, and the sight of his discomfort made some heated, scorched, childhood part of me rise up in glee. “If the feds hadn’t been there to help me, that might have been what happened. And no one in God’s Cloud of Glory Church would have stood up for me when they brought me back for punishment. Just like Mama. Just like Esther.”

  A pained silence filled the big room and Mama looked down at her lap, at her white-knuckled, fisted hands. Mama, who had been to the punishment house with Brother Ephraim, whom I had killed. Vengeance satisfied. I kept that off my face only with effort, but had a feeling Daddy had seen something of it in my eyes.

  Daddy looked down at his big hands too, his fingers interlaced in his lap, deceptively relaxed, but with a strange tension running beneath his skin like a creek at bankfull. “Sam?” he asked.

  “Joshua said he had his way with Nell. Said she liked it.” My head whipped around to meet my brother’s eyes. He was staring at me with an intensity I had never seen before. “I beat his ass,” Sam said fiercely.

  “Sam!” Daddy said, at the language.

  Sam ignored him, his eyes on me, and went on. “Me and the boys,” he said, pointing to the outside door, referring to his—our—half brothers, the ones who had left the room. “We beat his ass and he admitted that he had lied about taking you. We beat his ass just like we did the time he laid hands on you, after you went to live with Ingram.”

  My mouth opened in surprise and confusion, and Sam nodded as if my reaction was something he’d expected. “According to Ingram, Jackie and Josh and some others tried to hurt you, tried to have their way with you when you went to the ladies’ room one Sunday. Ingram said he got to you in time, that he laid on some fists in the right places, but we wanted them boys to know it was hands offa our sisters. We made it plain, and they stayed away, except for spying at the deer stand.” Sam inclined his head to Daddy. “And like Daddy said, we made sure one of ours was always there.

  “This time, me and my brothers made sure Joshua Purdy took a particular hurtin’.” My brother’s face softened with what might have been amusement at whatever expression was on my own. I closed my mouth and shook my head. Tears sparked hotly under my lids. More gently, Sam said, “What? John di’n’ tell you we’uns beat Joshua and Jackie and them others up?”

  I ducked my head and shook it no. I’d had no idea. John Ingram, the man who had saved me from the colonel’s hands, had acted in cahoots with my family, and to keep me from my family, from the beginning and for years after. And he had never once told me about their efforts and actions on my behalf. He had taken credit not his own. He had implied that, except for him, I was alone in the world, that my family had disowned me for refusing the colonel. No matter the cause, it had been a deliberate cruelty on his part. John had helped me achieve independence, but he had also pushed me to become a hermit, and it hadn’t been necessary. The silence stretched between us as I found a place inside me for the new truths, a dark and barren place that felt like broken rock and scorched stumps instead of my woods. But it was what I had and so I left it there, knowing that at some point, I would have to mourn for years and relationships lost. I raised my head and stared Daddy down again, blinking away the moisture in my eyes.

  Sam added, “We jist come back from the Purdy place. Joshua ain’t there. Don’t know where he is. Esther ain’t been there. The huntin’ dogs didn’t get a scent of her. But they got all squirrelly and we had to pen ’em.”

  Squirrelly. That word again.

  “You got more to ask?” Daddy asked me, his tone kind and patient, things I hadn’t known he could be. “More to say?”

  “Anything going on at the Stubbins farm? Strangers visiting?”

  “Not that I know. Sam?” My brother shook his head. So maybe I was wrong.

  “Did you know, ahead of time, about John and Leah’s proposal to me?” I asked. “To marry him and take care of her?”

  Daddy nodded slowly. “After you caused that scene in the church, refusing the colonel.” His expression lightened at the memory, but I was remembering the whipping Daddy had given me after that scene. The whipping had been a large part of why I’d left home with John and Leah. “The womenfolk and me talked it over,” he said, “and we had to act fast. Seemed a wise decision to get you off compound property, and that left us with very few options. John was a good man, never beat his women. It was a painful choice, with him being unable to father little’uns, and the hardship that would pose to you, but it was the safest route. The women handle such things, and they dealt with the Ingrams.”

  Daddy cocked his head and the lanter
n light caught the gray in his hair, shining silver at his temples. His hair had been dark, with no gray, the last time I talked to him. But his eyes had been just as intense and shrewd. “Sister Erasmus tells me that John kept the truth from you. That he didn’t inform you your family were partners in the decision.”

  I shook my head and blew out a slow breath, the sound suspiciously like tears. Bless Sister Erasmus for her gossiping ways.

  “He always was a secretive old coot,” Daddy said, his voice holding no judgment, but no forgiveness either.

  Mama Carmel placed a cup of warm herbal tea in my hands. I could smell mint and burdock root, and the taste suggested bilberry and pineapple, the color turmeric. I drained half the cup of tea, which was sweet with honey and gave me an energy boost I needed.

  “Esther?” I asked. “Did Jackie take her?”

  “Jackie took her,” Mud stated, sticking her head from behind a chair. “We’uns all know it.”

  “We don’t know who took her,” Daddy said. “We got no evidence. The boys have been searching all night. And that note you gave Sister Erasmus wasn’t signed.”

  To Daddy, I said, “I came here for other reasons than just personal and family. If you heard the local and state news, you know that there have been kidnappings of four townie girls. The police who saved me from Joshua asked me if the church was responsible.” Daddy reared back in affront. I ignored the insulted response. “They asked me if a homegrown terrorist group called the Human Speakers of Truth was using church land to regroup after the police raided them. He wondered if the church had fallen under even more evil since the colonel disappeared.” Daddy started to interrupt, and I knew what he was going to say, so I talked louder, the way that Unit Eighteen did things, not the respectful way I was brought up. “I agree that the police hate the church and all it stands for because it doesn’t fit with their religious and political belief systems, and are apt to accuse first and look for evidence later. I also agree that their feelings have some merit.” Daddy opened his mouth to debate that too, and I shouted, “I won’t argue that, Daddy!” He shut his mouth, surprised. “That’s a discussion for another time. But the police are interested in the HST and the women they kidnapped.

  “They have proof that two men, backsliders, were on church grounds just a few days ago, the same two who participated in a planned assassination attempt of PsyLED agents, them and Boaz Jenkins.” I pulled out the laptop again and showed them the photographs. “These two and Boaz helped to shoot up a hotel room the police were using. I know all that because Sister Erasmus saw the men here, and I saw security video of them making a getaway from the shooting. And I was in the hotel room when they shot it up.”

  Daddy’s eyes went wide with scandal. The mamas gasped.

  “Working, Daddy. I was working. I have a job now. With the police. So I know that the police are seeing the church in a bad light. As people who are harboring criminals.”

  “This church was not involved with kidnapping,” he said firmly. “No criminals stayed here.”

  I believed that he believed that, and looked from Sam to the womenfolk. “If the police find kidnapped women here, on church land, or even with a church family off the compound, at the Vaughns’, or the Peays’,” I added carefully, “or the Stubbinses’, the legal problems will be even worse than when child protective services came here. There will be police all over. For weeks. Maybe months. Some agency will find a legal way to deprive the church of its tax status. Some other agency will start an audit of all possible cash sales that didn’t result in sales tax paid or income tax claimed. Another agency will accuse the church of breaking child labor laws. Things you’uns been expecting for decades. This time the church will be broken up and people will be jailed. It won’t matter that the Nicholsons didn’t have anything to do with the kidnappings. If there’s anything going on, any hint of wrongdoing, the family may suffer anyway. If there’s anything I should know, tell me, Daddy. I’ll take it back to the police to protect you all.”

  Daddy was looking at his palms again, and without looking up, he said, “I know in my heart that no one has girls here, but I also know how far Jackie has strayed from the blood of his salvation . . .”

  He sighed and turned his hands over, assessing the backs as if they belonged to someone else. “This has been a long time coming.” He looked up. “Sam. When the church bell rings and the compound is mostly empty, can you and the boys get a look inside Jackson’s new punishment room, like we talked about, and rescue Esther, if she’s there?”

  Like we talked about, I thought, an ancient anger easing its way from my heart.

  “You’ll have to do it alone,” Daddy added. “I’ll be keeping everyone busy in the church.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Make it fast and clean. No bloodshed if you can help it.”

  Sam nodded, his jaw tight.

  “When you finish with Jackie’s, go inside the new guest quarters. Make sure Nell’s kidnapped girls aren’t there. Without getting hurt. Without being seen or causing a hullabaloo.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ll go straight into the Jackson house first. Then we’ll check the old punishment house through the trapdoor.” Sam said to me, “Daddy and me cut a trapdoor into the punishment house when Brother Ephraim took our mama.”

  My gaze jerked to Mama. She was looking at her hands still, a mimicry of Daddy. Her face was tight and pained and shamed. I kept my eyes on her as I asked, “Why did you let Mama go to the punishment house, Daddy?”

  “That was my choice,” Mama said, her voice so soft I might have missed her words if I hadn’t been watching her so closely. “It was me or Phoebe. And I couldn’t let her be hurt.”

  I shook my head in confusion. Phoebe was Mama’s baby sister. “I don’t understand.”

  Daddy said, “Phoebe was staying with us because she refused to marry Ephraim.” He smiled, but his humor was thin. “Not quite as dramatically as you did, but she caused a ruckus. Dramatics run in your mama’s family.” Mama smiled at her lap, and Daddy continued his story. “Ephraim come to the house, demanding Phoebe for punishment. I was gone, buying wood to make some cabinets for a townie contractor. None of the boys was old enough or trained to defend the place. That’s been rectified now,” he said with a satisfaction that sounded like bones grinding. “All my boys know to defend against churchmen who come to take our women. But back then I wasn’t prepared. The leadership of the church was changing, taking us into new and wicked directions, to mistreat our women, in direct contradiction of Scripture.” He shook his head again and looked at Mama.

  “Your mama is a brave woman,” he said, his voice full of pride and pain both. “She hid Phoebe and sent Sam to find me. She told Ephraim it was her decision to refuse Phoebe to be his wife. Before I got back, he done dragged Cora off. The men with him wouldn’t let me take her back. I appealed the punishment, but the colonel said she had acted with false pride and defiance and he upheld the ruling.”

  I felt as if the ground had opened up and swallowed me whole. “Where was I,” I demanded, “when this happened?”

  The look Sam gave me was surly. “You were with Mary, a girl who married Boaz Jenkins. You’d stolen my bubble gum and took off. Missed chores. Stayed gone all day. I spanked your bottom for that.” I remembered the spanking. But I didn’t remember anything of the rest of this tale.

  “You were too young to be told,” Mama said. “If things had been different we would a shared with you the family histories and stories when you became affianced. That didn’t work out so good. You accepted John and Leah and took off. We never had the chance to share with you. Not a single thing.”

  Daddy said, “That night, a couple of the Campbell boys took the guards some drink and kept ’em busy while Sam and me cut a hole in the floor and rescued your mama. We was too late to save her from being hurt.” He looked at his wife, love and tenderness in his eyes. “Your mama,�
� he repeated with pride, “is a brave woman.”

  “Why do you stay here?” I asked. “I could give you land on my wood—”

  The front door slammed open, banging on the wall, an icy draft blowing through, and I clamped down on my words. A man stood there, underdressed for the cold in a flannel shirt and jeans, a pump-action shotgun in his hands, held across his body. At his feet was a dog, a bluetick hound . . . acting squirrelly, his tail flashing, feet dancing, whining, a strange light in his eyes.

  “Bascomb got a scent,” the man said, gesturing to the dog with the stock of his shotgun. “He led me toward the new preacher’s house.” He stepped inside. “You gonna help me rescue my Esther or not?”

  I figured the man was Jedidiah Whisnut, but the sound of the church bell ringing cut him off. A couple dozen pairs of feet banged down the stairs and a gaggle of young’uns and little’uns raced down and into the front room, which was suddenly filled with family.

  Daddy said, “We’re helping. Close the door, Jedidiah.” To Sam he said, softly enough that Jedidiah couldn’t have heard, “Change of plans, and you won’t have much time. Keep Whisnut close. Tie him down if you have to. I don’t want him doing something heroic and stupid and ruining things.” Louder, he said, “Sam, Jackie’ll be leaving his house in a few minutes. Skip what chores ain’t done. Take charge of your brothers. Send Rethel and Narvin to the Campbells’ and tell their boys we might need help. Send Rudolph to get the Vaughn boys to take security down just like we planned. Send Zeke and Harry to get the compound’s dogs secured. You, Amos, Rufus, and Jedidiah follow Bascomb’s nose. Find out if Esther is in Jackie’s house or the old punishment house. Get her safe. And if there’s signs of Jackie’s own women being mistreated, take photos and bring ’em to me at the church. Looks like our plans are getting moved up a mite.”

  I didn’t know what plans he was talking about, but it sounded like the Nicholsons, the Vaughns, and the Campbells had formed a faction and were going to cause a ruckus. In the compound and in the church itself. A small sinful part of me felt proud that I had shown them the way, but then maybe Mama’s dramatic family had done that a long time ago. I reached into my pocket, took out the cell phone that had been given to me, and turned it on. I pulled up the last contact and dialed Rick.