The first place was out in the middle of the prairies and fair to see for all its wide miles and farmable land. We could have pastures aplenty for the herds we hoped to build to begin us on our cheese-making, which was to be our special ministry to the world. But there were no hills—or trees—or flowing water, except during rainstorms. And because of where we came from, we all felt we’d rather lift up our eyes unto the hills—
We were all fixed to call this green and wet and tall country Gates Ajar. Or Edenside. Or Maketh Glad. Then we found in the land office that it was already named Hellesgate, and no matter what we chose to call it, the red tape was too tangled for them ever to change it. Even finding that it was named for Omer Hellesgate, because he mapped it first, didn’t cleanse it in our minds. Some wanted to move on, but already we had started putting down roots. And besides, we were so tired—so absolutely worn out. So we stayed. And now I half wondered if the name of the place had anything to do with Jareb’s rising from baptism with a lie on his lips—and his persisting in his error. But then—there was the ninth melon. Even a half lie couldn’t account for a melon.
My smithy was the first thing finished in the settlement. It wasn’t much more than a lean-to. I had the big idea of digging out a room in the hillside and then having a shed out front, but after I saw how the point of the pick merely whitened a pockmark on the hard surface and scaled off only a pinch of a dust, I gave up. Four notched tree trunks help up my roof of branches and brushwood. The open-faced lean-to that protected the forge was made of the branches lopped from the four trees, the chinks mud-filled. Before I became a Condaver, I wouldn’t have been caught dead in such a shop, but I left my worldly pride behind—far behind—on the other side of my baptismal waters. If only I had been cleansed also of my besetting sin! But hearing the ring of the anvil again and having the echo of my hammering coming back to me multiplied from the red and grey mountain walls of Hellesgate, made the thin-with-strangeness country around me begin to fatten up into familiarity. Home was beginning.
Well, the other kids wouldn’t let Jareb forget his baptismal day. When there weren’t any adults dose enough to interfere, they called him Ananias. He mostly shrugged and took it. But one day I had to pull him out from under a whole pile of flailing younguns. I set them skittering with a backhand whack or two and set about sorting Jareb out. He was intact, though considerably roughed up.
“What happened?” I asked him.
“They called her Sapphira,” he explained. “They can call me Ananias all they want to, but they can’t get away with calling Mamma Sapphira. Why’d you chase them off? I was beating up on them!”
“Are you sure they knew that?” I asked, whacking the seat of his overalls to jar the dirt off. “I think they thought they were beating up on you!”
“Jobie knows!” said Jareb, spitting blood from a split lip. “He started it. I knocked his teeth out for him!” He caught my skeptical eye. “Well, one tooth. It was loose already.”
I took him back to the smithy to wash off the worst of his battle.
“Hey!” he said past his shirttail he was using for a towel. “That boy—”
“What boy?” I asked, setting to work shearing nails from the slender rod of iron.
“That watermelon boy,” he offered.
“I thought we’d decided you’d give up your lying—” I paused in my work.
“I’m not lying!” he protested.
“Well, making up tales, then,” I said. “If that suits you better.”
“I’m not making it up neither! I went back there that night to see about that watermelon, and so did he. And we decided since my mamma told me not to eat any, he wouldn’t either. So we buried it under a tree.” I searched his troubled face for a moment. It was plainly real to him, whatever it was. I sighed. Well, so long as it did no evil—
“That boy—” I left the sentence open for him.
“He doesn’t have to stay in the water.” Jareb’s words poured out happily. “ ’Member, I thought maybe he was like a fish, but he ain’t—isn’t. N’en I thought maybe he was like a frog-you know, living in the water and out, but he ai—isn’t. He’s just a boy.”
“Just a boy!” I said. “Down in a pond and never coming up for air—or have you changed that?”
“Oh, but he does come up,” protested Jareb. “I asked him. Every half hour, he says, but when he gets big, it will be only every hour. It takes time to learn. Like lifting does. He sure likes to lift.”
“Mountains, of course!” I grinned, hard-pressed to keep my patience with his fancy tales. “Or maybe he lifts the pond like a pitcher and pours the water on his garden. Wonderful! Saves ditch-digging.”
“No,” said Jareb thoughtfully. “Not mountains. I asked him, on account of faith doing it, you know. But that’s for grownups and they haven’t done any of that since they got here. They’re scared to. No, he lifts himself.”
“Himself? Well, well!” my voice jeered. “Like a bird, I suppose. Flip-flap she flied, huh?”
“No,” said Jareb. “He doesn’t have to flap to fly. He just—” he waved his hand, “lifts off the ground and goes along. It sure looks fun.” He was wistful. “I wish I could.”
“Now, listen, Jareb,” I said, waiting to catch his eye to make sure I had his whole attention. “You can’t go on making things up like this. The more you do, the more likely you are to forget and start one of your tales around some of the others. You’ve got enough to live down now. Better you and your mother concentrate on truth a little more and grammar a little less. Better pray out this spirit of untruth before it becomes a devouring monster in you.”
“A devouring monster!” Jareb was visibly savoring the phrase. “But there’s nothing to pray out!” he protested. “You can’t pray out the truth, can you?” His eyes were very wide and blue as he looked at me.
“Well,” I said slowly. “It has been done—so they tell me.”
“And you know,” Jareb went on, shrugging off all my earnest words, “that boy talks twice.”
“Talks twice?” I let myself be drawn back into his story again.
“Yes,” said Jareb. “Not as much now as he did at first. He talks something I don’t know, then he looks at me and waits, then he talks what I know.” He stopped and frowned. “I mean he talks words I know, but he doesn’t always make sense.”
“Like attracts like,” I muttered into his cascade of words.
“Like he said this is an ungood place.”
“Ungood?” I glanced up. “You mean evil?”
“No, I asked him if he meant bad. He waited a long time, then he said no, not bad, but good isn’t here.” Jareb frowned. “Does that make sense?”
“Not to me,” I admitted, but the sun wasn’t quite so bright on the dirt floor at my feet and my shoulders wanted to shiver.
“He said they tried it first but went away. Then other people came, they went away, too, because good wasn’t here.”
“Couple of groups have camped here a spell,” I mused. “And some fields were cleared once—the creek—”
“Oh, that boy’s people make the creek. I mean, make it to run all the time. Before, it only had water once in a while.”
“Make the—!” I swallowed hard at my anger. “What about his folks? He has folks, I suppose.”
“Sure. He’s got lots of them.” Jareb smiled. “At the other end of the water.”
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Jareb admitted. “But that’s where they live—the other end of the water. That’s where they found a place with good. He showed me some—like dusty salt.”
“Now, Jareb,” I said, “that’s enough. Now you’ve overreached yourself. You’d better scoot on. I’ve got work to do. My listener is fresh worn out. Scoot!”
He scooted, heading not home, but toward Benson’s. He’d taken quite a shine to their little girl, Tally, a tiny mite about three or four. He asked me once what made dimples work. Tally Benson’s got two o
f the deepest when she smiles, and she’s a smiling child.
I glanced across the clearing. He was disappearing into the shade on the far side. I felt vaguely troubled, remembering his words. Others had been here before us. Why had they left? Shallow water, flowing creek—They made the creek? Neighbors only fifteen miles away. Land easy to plow. Timber for the cutting. A green and pleasant land. What good could there be that was missing here? And yet—the others had gone.
Well, a year went by, and we were starting another. I could hardly stand to think back over the evil time—because there was an evil in the land. Slowly but steadily our brotherly love drained away. The Conclave seemed to be fighting for its very life. We were still bound together, but mostly by the miles of wilderness about us and the fact that no one dared pack up and leave for fear of making real the vague uneasiness we all felt. No one wants to pull out the first brick to bring the house down.
It had been a gradual thing, this weakening of common ties, and it had kept pace, step by step, with the gradual worsening of our physical well-being. It made you wonder if brother-love depends on how well you happen to be feeling. The very food we ate seemed to have paled and lost flavor. Speaking for myself, the only times I felt like my old self was when I went to Everly for what food supplies we still couldn’t produce for ourselves. Seemed to me that everything about the world brightened up when I left the Conclave.
It was after the beginning of the second year, when I was working my stint on building the meeting house fence with Jonadab and Darius, that things really began to come apart.
I stopped my post-hole digging to catch my breath. I shook my head as I wiped the sweat from my forehead—winded by a little digging! I wasn’t that old! I wasn’t even old at all! I drew a quavery breath and went back to my digging.
“This is an evil place,” said Jonadab, flatly, grunting as he helped Darius lift the post and slide it into the hole. Helped Darius! When we started this fence, Darius wrastled the posts around like stove wood. “Our stock’s poorer now than when we got here. Nobody can get milk enough from their cows for their own family. I thought we were supposed to turn into a cheese-producing colony with all our dairy cattle we were to grow and Brother Helon knowing all the ways from the old country—”
“Cheese—” Jonadab tamped the dirt into the post hole with his shovel handle. “We haven’t had butter for a week. Milk looks like old Bess separated it before we ever got a chance at it.”
“Our hens are laying like molting season,” said Darius. “C’n put a thumb through the egg shells too. ’S a wonder the hens get them laid whole.”
“Benson’s youngun’s going into a decline,” I said, staggering off-balance because my pick hit hard rock where we’d planned another posthole. “She didn’t even have a smile for me this morning when they brought Blinky in to be shod. Looks like you could blow through her without puckering up, even.”
“Maybe we should move on—” Dab straightened his back in sections, his hand pressing the hurt. “There was another place—”
“Pull up stakes again?” Darius shifted his thin shoulders under his overall straps. “The wife had her heart half pulled out her, leaving the home place. She’d never pack up again, even for the Conclave. Awful hard on her, this whole thing. Aged something awful of late. Starting to lose her teeth—’Sides, all the crops are in again. This year’s gotta be better. Dunno though. Creek’s been pretty much come and go lately—slacking off, then coming again. If it doesn’t come back some time—”
The sound of hooves shifted our attention to the trail that was slowly becoming a road. “There’s a horse that’s not failing.” Dab’s voice was unduly sharp.
“Hi yuh!” called Jareb as he trotted up on Prince. His legs were hardly long enough to curve the horse’s fat sides. He had a basket clutched in front of him. “Mamma wonders can you come up, Mr. Lambert. She’s kinda wincy about being alone there with Bessie having her calf. She’s big enough it might be twins.”
“All right, Jareb,” I said, dropping my pick and reaching for my coat. “Didn’t realize her time was close. You go on back. I’ll be there.”
“Gotta take these eggs to Mrs. Benson first,” he said. “They’re for Tally.” He trotted off.
I shrugged and headed for my shop.
“Eggs to spare.” Dab’s voice followed me. “That kid’s not wasting away neither!” Venom tipped his tongue. I turned and walked back slowly. I stood and looked at Dab a moment.
“You make it sound like it’s wrong for a kid and his horse to be healthy. And for a neighbor to oblige another neighbor with foodstuff.”
Dab colored, but he looked me right back. “You’re naming it wrong,” he said. “But so’re some others. Abigail Curtis is a woman alone. There are them that say she shouldn’ta come along with us—especially after she wouldn’t take—” He stopped and wet his dry lips with a slow tongue.
“Wouldn’t take you,” I said.
“Wouldn’t take a husband,” said Dab. “Like she doesn’t need a man around. And that farm of hers, up there on that flat by itself, looking like—like ours oughta look. She hasn’t had any more help from us than any other of us—but look! Hand of righteousness isn’t the only hand that can help this world. And she ain’t losing no teeth. She ain’t got a child going into a decline. She ain’t got stock wasting away. She ain’t got hens not laying.”
“One thing she has got,” Darius interrupted. “She’s got a son that rises from the waters of baptism with lies on his tongue and deceit in his mouth—”
“The wicked flourish like a green bay tree,” said Dab solemnly.
“If you think evil is among us,” I reminded him, “it is your duty to go to Brother Helon and warn him so he can warn the Conclave and prepare us to be purged of all unrighteousness!”
Dab stepped back from me though I had kept my voice soft to hold bound the leaping demon within me.
“If I don’t, someone else will,” he said stoutly. “The sinner shall not sit in the congregation—”
“Let’s get this straight,” I said, squaring my sagging shoulders with an effort. “You’re saying Sister Gail is flourishing because she is evil? And she’s evil because she keeps herself to herself—”
“As far as we know,” said Dab stubbornly. “How do we know she’s keeping herself to herself?” His arm flew up defensively when he caught sight of my face. “It’s been known!” he cried, his voice shriller and shriller. “Women giving themselves to the Devil! All I know is she is prospering and the rest of us are failing. Why? Are we evil? Have we sinned in the sight of God? And she hasn’t? Are we evil or is she?”
I swallowed a wild shout of laughter at the idea of Abigail Curtis giving herself to the Devil for the gift of eggs and productive cows! Then as quickly, I remembered how very small the mess of pottage is that lots of people sell their birthrights for. I swallowed hard, groping for grace to make a right answer.
“Is it necessary for either to be evil?” I asked. “Couldn’t it be—”
“Couldn’t it be what?” asked Darius heavily.
“I don’t know,” I said helplessly. “I don’t know. Maybe that this is an ungood place—”
Jareb came back just then, shifting easily with Prince’s long, slow stride. Jareb was frowning. “Tally sure looks bad. Her mother says she won’t eat nothin’—anything—any more. What’s wrong with her, Mr. Lambert?”
“Don’t know,” I said shortly. “Come on. Prince’ll carry double as far as my place.” I bellied across Prince behind Jareb and straightened up, straddling the horse, steadying Jareb and me as Prince danced sideways under my added weight.
“I’m going to tell mamma about Tally,” Jareb said. “She looks real bad.”
It was twins. Two wobbly-legged heifer calves. I leaned on the rail fence and looked at Bessie, who had serenely and competently gone about the business of birthing the young as though twins were commonplace. Sister Gail came to the corral and leaned her arms on the top ra
il with me.
“Twins!” she was pleased. “And both heifers! Surely Providence has smiled on us!”
“Truly,” I said solemnly. “In the last two months, three cows have aborted and two newborn calves barely breathed before they died.”
Her smile died slowly. “So I heard,” she said. “A heavy loss to the settlement. Then surely this is a blessing to be shared. Praise to our Father.”
“Amen,” I said, suddenly startled as I realized how separate Sister Gail had become of late. Was the Conclave shouldering her out? Or was she withdrawing because of—of what? I watched a wisp of her hair blow across her cheek as she looked again at the livestock. Not evil! I swore to myself. Not evil!
I was so sick from thinking about what Dab had said about Sister Gail and with my own physical coming-apart that I wasn’t fit to be lived with for the next couple of weeks. I went to Brother Helon about Dab. He looked at me with a half smile, hampered by his strained breathing.
“Brother Jonadab came to me about the matter also,” he said. “We all have our burdens to be borne patiently. Yours is Brother Jonadab. Brother Jonadab’s is his unbridled imagination. In all forbearance—” His words were broken by the strangling tightening of his breath. When he could speak again he said, “Would God felt me worthy of the gift of health such as he has given to Sister Gail—”
I hadn’t seen Jareb for quite a while, and it had to be the day my demon took possession of me and led me to shout and curse at Jonadab over some trifle connected with a saddle—I couldn’t even remember what I was yelling about after I cooled down—that Jareb chose to arrive again. I was in the smithy pumping the bellows, watching the iron bar I held in the heat of the forge turning slowly from red to white-hot, wondering if it was any hotter than the rage that had sucked and torn shapelessly at my insides—and still threatened to blaze again. I grunted when Jareb came in and, carrying the bar to the anvil, began shaping it, the white heat shimmering up against my face. But the shaping was more work than pleasure, as all effort was of late. My muscles were protesting the effort already.
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