The Women of Jacob’s Mountain Boxed Set

by Hining, Deborah;

  She could not remember when she had last eaten or bathed. She had seen Alethia’s girls only once since the carnage began, and then Lyla had taken them and several other children of the village to her home in the mountains west of Kyaka for safety. She had not had the chance to inform Alethia about this, for telephone lines had been down for four days, although they had managed intermittent radio contact. She hoped that Lyla had gotten through to her in Bukoba.

  Sally Beth was sick with heartbreak and fatigue; she had managed to snatch only moments of sleep at a time amid the terror and the violence. Now, even though quiet settled in, she could not bring herself to close her eyes; every time she did, she saw horror and death lunging, and she found herself cowering against the evil gnashing its teeth just outside the boundaries of her sight.

  While bandaging a boy’s mangled foot, she saw a movement across the room, and her eyes fell on a woman who suddenly smiled at her, then lifted herself from her chair and knelt onto the floor, singing. Her voice rose, rich and joyful, above the stench of the blood on the floor, the pile of bloody bandages on the table, above the basin of bloody water, and other voices joined hers. Sally Beth did not understand the words; they were sung in one of the dialects of the region. Falla leaned toward her and whispered the words to her in English:

  Oh my Almighty God!

  You are the Father who loves us, the Father who gave us life, who gives us every breath.

  You are the Almighty One who conquers death, even as Death revels in triumph

  But Death is only a shadow that flees before the Light

  You are the Father, the Father who is the Light, who is Love, who is Breath

  Sally Beth knelt as well, sitting on her shins as the sounds and her own tears washed over her like a warm balm. For days, she had searched for God without glimpsing Him, without the whisper of His voice to comfort her, but now she felt the strength of the faith of those around her seeping into her soul, even as her own faith faltered. When she rose again, she felt a kind of power in the air, surging like a windless storm, and she grasped at it.

  Lord, we have nothing, only You, but surely You, even in the midst of all this, should be enough. Let me see the Enough, Lord. Let me see it through Your eyes. I am too blind to see it through my own.

  Late in the day, when Sally Beth felt that she could not stand under the weight of one more blow, she looked up to see Alethia’s girls rushing toward her, and then she looked past them to see Lyla, ragged, dirty, and ashen, staring at her out of the face of a ghoul. When she saw Sally Beth, she cried out, running to her, arms outstretched, and buried her face in her hair, weeping as if she had no hope for life.

  “What is it, Lyla? Why are you here?”

  Lyla lifted her head, and through her tears, managed to stammer out, “They destroyed my home. My mother, my father—they are dead. And the workers who stayed to help. They held them off with rifles until I could escape into the forest with the children, but then the soldiers shelled the house and set it on fire. And then they set the orchard afire. There is nothing there but ruins, and I have been hiding and walking with the children for three days.”

  She stopped, gave a brief sob, but then, amazingly, smiled at Sally Beth. “But praise be to God. We have made it here, and you are safe! This place is standing.” She gave Sally Beth a tight hug. “Is there food? And water? We are so thirsty. We have been living on fruit we found along the way, but there hasn’t been much. The army has ravaged the countryside.”

  Sally Beth was too numb to be astonished, but as the girls gathered around her, hugging her, weeping, but praising God, she began to feel their warmth and their joy. Their clothes were filthy and in tatters; they were scratched and some were bleeding from small wounds, but to Sally Beth, they were beautiful. Lyla was beautiful. She pulled them into her arms, but only for a moment before she ran to find them water.

  Later, after she had fed the children and put them to bed, after she had seen Lyla cradled in the arms of Pastor Umbatu, she heard the miraculous sound of John’s Cessna engine coming from the east. She was outside and standing at the edge of the meadow when he landed, and he did not have a moment to think about it before she was in his arms, shaking and weeping, covering him with kisses. He kissed her back without thinking about it, for thought had vanished the moment he felt her arms around him. She was filthy, smeared with blood, her hair hung in pale, limp strands around her ghostly face, and her eyes were hollow and red, but still, there was an aliveness about her in her quivering flesh and in the gasps that accompanied her sobs, and the reality of her pressing herself into him felt perfectly right.

  “I thought you were dead. I haven’t seen Lilly for days. How did you get here? The Ugandans are everywhere!”

  “They aren’t around here right now. This is the first time I have been able to get through, and I’ve been worried sick about you. I’ve come to get you out of here. Has anybody tried to get out?”

  “No. The roads are mined, and soldiers are everywhere south of here. Oh, John, it’s been awful! So many people killed; so much horror. I’m so scared!”

  “I know, darling,” he soothed. “Now, let’s get out of here. I’ll take you to Bukoba, and get out as many of the others as I can, then I’ll take you to Kenya.”

  She shook her head. “Not me. Take the children. Lyla took Alethia’s girls home with her, but it’s been destroyed, and her parents are dead. They walked three days to get here. You have to take them.”

  John rested his chin on her head and breathed in the scent of her. Of course Sally Beth would not flee to safety as long as children were in danger. He wondered how many times he would have to fly through treacherous skies full of flying lead before he would be able to take her away from all this.

  “Okay, Sally Beth. You go get the girls. I’ll fuel up and maybe get some coffee. Is there anything to eat? I couldn’t bring any supplies—they’re desperate for whole blood at every hospital I’ve been to, and everything else is running out. If casualties have stopped up here, they’ve asked if we will send whatever blood and plasma we have where it will do some good. I’ll radio ahead and see if I can get Alethia to meet me at the airport to pick up her girls.”

  Sally Beth ran back inside the mission to wake Lyla and Alethia’s girls. “Hurry,” she urged. “John is here. He’s going to take you to your mama.” They woke immediately and trailed after Sally Beth as she made her way back to the landing field. Red and Pastor Umbatu walked out with them.

  “You’ll have to sit on each other’s laps. Prissy, you get in the front and hold Lizzy. Charlotte and Charlene, you sit in the back and hold Jayella and Becky. That’s it, scoot over, and maybe Becky can squeeze in between you.” She opened the front passenger door. Prissy, in here, sweetheart.” But Priscilla stepped back, shaking her head.

  “I’m not leaving you, Miss Sally Beth. Or Miss Lyla. You need someone here who loves you, to take care of you. I’ll go when you do.”

  “Prissy! You have to go. I’ll be fine here, I promise. And your mama is worried about you. Now, get in here.”

  But Priscilla refused to budge. “I have seen war, and I am not afraid of it. I can see you are afraid. I will stay here with you.” She took another step back. Sally Beth and John looked at each other.

  “I can be back in an hour,” ventured John.

  “Yes, it’s crowded anyway,” said Lyla. “We’ll take care of Priscilla until you get back.” She placed her hand on Priscilla’s head. “My love, will you go on the next trip?”

  “Yes, if you and Miss Sally Beth come, too.”

  John jumped in the front seat and leaned out toward Sally Beth. He wanted to say goodbye, but he suddenly felt awkward. He had kissed her as if he meant it half an hour earlier, and now he both regretted it and wanted to kiss her again. Geneva still nestled heavily in his heart. Even now, he could see her image, the memory of her laughing in the sunshine, and he knew he was not ready to give his love to anyone else. Yet, Sally Beth looked at him so hopeful
ly, her eyes wide with unfulfilled promise, blood-smeared and filthy, and still beautiful, still innocent after all the horrors she had seen. He hesitated, then reached out and brushed away a lock of hair that had blown across her cheek. She lowered her lids and nodded. She knew what he was thinking, and she did not want him to see the disappointment in her eyes.

  He delivered the girls to Alethia without mishap. She met him on the tarmac, clawing at the doors of the plane until she held her children in her arms, weeping with gratitude and thanking John in incoherent gasps. Then she flung her arms around him and kissed him without reservation. When she stepped back to look at him with shining eyes, he couldn’t help but think, War. It hands out kisses as well as bullets.

  “I’ll be back with Priscilla as soon as I can,” he said, as he grasped her shoulder. Then he got back into the plane and turned the nose northwest.

  He was not able to go directly back to the mission. Enroute, he received a call from his station at Kigemba, telling him that soldiers had descended on the ranch and had stolen nearly all the cattle and set the place on fire. All the buildings were burning, half his staff was dead, and the cattle were gone. He groaned as he turned toward the ranch, for even as he lowered altitude to settle on the lake, he could see smoke billowing from the barns. Four men dead. He shut his eyes against the smoke as he landed.

  October 30, 1978

  John had not returned. Sally Beth, Priscilla, and Lyla sat at her desk in the empty room, waiting for something they could not name. They hoped for peace, but dared not expect it. They could not anticipate what the day held, but their hearts held fear and trepidation.

  The Ugandan army was gone, spread out southward across the region in pursuit of the fleeing Tanzanians. The civilians also were gone, fled to the mountains or the cities in fear for their lives. Still, dread echoed throughout the mission.

  Dr. Sams and Dr. Price came out of the examining rooms. The nurses Francine and Janie joined them soon afterward.

  “Looks like business is slow today,” said Dr. Price with a wry smile. “Guess the customers didn’t like our service.”

  No one laughed. Lyla got up to make more tea. “I have oranges. The tree in the courtyard is loaded with them. Sally Beth and I like to chop them up and put the rinds and all in the tea.”

  “I’ll take some,” said Janie wearily. “I think we ran out of sugar yesterday.”

  “Me, too,” said the others. Dr. Sams picked up a scalpel and carefully sliced open an orange.

  “I guess we’d better think about how we’re going to get out of here,” he said. “The Embassy knows we are here, and they have made it clear to the Ugandans that the U.S. won’t tolerate any harm to us, but I don’t think they are willing to send anybody here to get us, at the moment, anyway. If they send in a plane, it could be an excuse to accuse America of interfering in a local conflict. The Ugandans obviously are reluctant to attack this place because they know we are here, but I don’t think it’s safe to travel on the road. There are enough renegades out there who might try to kidnap us for ransom, and besides, I’m sure there are still mines out there. We’re just as good as under siege.

  Dr. Price spoke up. “But they seem to be okay with John coming and going. They must know he’s American because nobody has shot at him yet. If he makes it back, we can get out with him.”

  “Yes, but it’s going to take some time to clear this place out, and if we’re going to abandon it, we need to pack as much as we can in the way of supplies for him to take to the hospitals where they can do some good. We’ve got a little plasma and IV supplies. But I hear they really need whole blood. Who hasn’t given blood this month?”

  “I haven’t,” said Sally Beth. In fact, she had not given blood at all since she had been here. Dr. Sams had insisted she was too small to donate.

  “Nor I,” said Janie. “Well, I’m just a few days away from it being a month. I feel strong, though, so it’ll be okay for me to give some more now.”

  “I’m good to go,” spoke up Dr. Price. “I’m AB positive.”

  “Sally Beth, you can’t. You never were big enough, and you’ve lost weight this week. Janie, you’re A negative, right?” Dr. Sam’s voice was abrupt.

  Sally Beth suddenly felt slighted, dismissed as worthless. “Look,” she said, bristling. “I weigh a hundred and twenty. You’ve just been too cautious.” This might not have been true. When she had arrived nearly two months ago, she had weighed a hundred twenty-one pounds. It was likely she had lost more than a few pounds during the past couple of weeks, but she felt an overwhelming need to give blood. “Maybe only a pound or two under. Go ahead. Somebody could really need this, and I’m as healthy as a mule. I’m O negative. If anybody needs blood, mine will be the most useful.” There was a silence as everyone regarded her. To everyone there, she looked pale and thin, but a fierceness in her eyes made Dr. Sams relent.

  “Okay, we’ll get a unit from each of you, and no doubt it will be needed.” He moved to one of the examining rooms to collect the equipment, returning a moment later. Sally Beth jumped up.

  “I’ll be first,” she said, her head up and chin out. Dr. Sams sighed as he wrapped the rubber strap around her arm.

  Sally Beth grasped Priscilla’s hand, chatting to her as she felt the blood drain out of her body. She downed a cup of tea and held out her cup for another. “Prissy, what is the first thing you are going to say to your mother when you see her again?”

  Prissy laughed. “I’ll tell her how beautiful she is.” Sally Beth forced laughter, drank more tea, and kept her head up. The blood draining from her arm seemed to be taking with it all the strength she had, but she steeled herself against the rising darkness. At last, Dr. Sams smiled at her.

  “I’m proud of you, Sally Beth. I knew you were strong, but you’ve got some real iron in there, haven’t you?”

  Dr. Price revived the earlier conversation. “How many children are there on campus right now?”

  “There are eight young ones, and another three teenagers,” replied Sally Beth. “That means John will have to make at least five or six more trips, if adults can carry children on their laps. He can carry only three adults at a time, and it wouldn’t be fair to hold you all up. You nurses and one of you docs go as soon as you can. I can’t leave until I know Lilly is safe, and I have to get Lyla and Priscilla out with me.”

  Lyla shook her head. “I’m not leaving without Pastor Umbatu, and I’m sure he’ll be the last to leave, so don’t worry about me.”

  “We’ll worry about that when and if John comes back,” said Dr. Price, “but I agree that Janie and Francine need to get out of here as soon as they can. Francine especially. Being black, you may not be recognized as American. The rest of us have the advantage of being the only whites in the area. They have to know who we are.”

  They all sank into silence. In the distance, they could hear the distinct Rat-tat-tat-tat! of guns and the Boom! of rockets reducing yet another village to rubble. Priscilla moved closer to Sally Beth and wrapped her arms around her. They were trapped in a quiet solitude within an outer shell of violence, the sad and desperate eye of a hurricane. None of them knew what to do. They held hands and prayed, but even as she tried to lift her heart toward God, Sally Beth felt it collapsing, folding inward and sinking back down, past her chest, past her feet even. Her prayers were useless, for God had either turned His back or had simply left altogether. She suddenly wondered why she bothered. Why pray to someone who did not care? She closed her eyes against the silence hammering her broken spirit.

  John wanted to make it back to the mission before dark. If he tried to fly in at night, the Ugandans might not recognize his plane and could shoot him down. His ranch had pretty much been reduced to cinders and the cattle were gone, so all he could do was bury the dead and tell his workers to go home, or someplace safe, until he got in touch with them. He seriously doubted that he would attempt to rebuild the Kigemba station for a long time, and he wondered how to get in touch with the
anonymous donor to let him know about the disaster that had befallen. But all that could wait. Now he needed to get to the mission to try to get Sally Beth and the others to safety.

  He landed late in the afternoon. There would be time for perhaps two more trips to Bukoba, if he hurried. The medical crew and several others met him at the landing strip.

  There was little time for conversation. They loaded what medical supplies could fit into the fuselage while Francine and Janie boarded the plane with children squirming on their laps.

  “Here, I’m putting this under the backseat,” said Dr. Price, shoving the cooler of whole blood they had just collected under the leather bench. “It’s not much, but I’m sure it will be helpful,” he added as he picked up a small child and put him on the lap of one of the older children.

  After squeezing children onto laps and on top of one another, John finally hoisted himself up into the pilot’s seat and looked out one last time before he started his pre-flight check.

  Sally Beth put her arm around Priscilla as they watched the Skylane lift into the clouds and wing its way eastward, away from the late afternoon sun. They were silent, listening only to their hearts crying out after it.

  An hour later, John landed again. His eyes were burning from the soot he had rubbed into them. He had not taken the time to even wash his face when he had left the smoldering ranch. He was sick. Sick of heart, sick of the smell of death, sick of the violence, of the evil that had descended on this peaceful place, but he pushed on, ignoring his fatigue and his nausea.

  Dr. Price and Dr. Sams tried to persuade Sally Beth to get on the plane, but she shook her head. “Lilly is somewhere around here. I can’t leave without her. Don’t worry. Just go. Maybe she will come back tonight.”

  With all of her heart, she hoped that was true, that her sister would return to her and that together they would fly to safety with John, but no matter how much she listened for the Voice to tell her that Lilly would return to her unharmed, it remained silent. She did not know why God had abandoned her, only that He had. She shuddered and clung to Prissy’s hand.