The Ballad of Ami Miles

by Kristy Dallas Alley

  But it was maybe worst of all for the girls who could have babies, because by then, things were so desperate that the government said they could no longer leave the future of America to chance. Those babies were taken to be raised in nurseries so the mothers would be freed up to make more. At first, this wasn’t full-time, but pretty soon the “visits” were said to upset everyone too much, and the people in charge put a stop to them. This started happening in some other countries first, and back then there was TV and the internet so everybody knew what was happening everywhere every minute. Of course our government said this was just awful and not the American way, right up until they started doing it themselves. I had heard Papa preach on this too. The Evils of the Government is one of his favorite subjects. It runs in the family, since hatred of the government was what drove his grandpa to create the compound in the first place.

  But for all that talk about the natural way and how people had defied it and how the government had twisted it for their own purpose, I still didn’t have a real clear understanding of what that meant. I knew the mechanics from that embarrassing talk I’d had with Ruth around the time of my first moon cycle, but that was just a small part of it all, wasn’t it? I thought the natural way meant courting and falling in love with the person God had chosen for you. But then if there were so few people left in the world, how could that happen? Was that why Ruth and Papa Solomon had brought that man into our home, even though it didn’t feel too natural to me at all? Weren’t they interfering the same way the government had done? I knew they probably didn’t think so, but that was how it felt to me. There has to be a better way, I thought. I just needed to find my mama so she could help me figure it out.

  I wandered the streets of that empty town, trying to imagine the people who’d lived there and understand how it all went so wrong, until I was too spooked to stand it anymore. My shoulders were just about up around my ears, and then a loud crashing noise sent me running back toward the hi-way. It came from far away, at least a few streets over. Maybe that same sound in the woods would’ve just put me on alert for some kind of animal, but this was unfamiliar territory and I didn’t wait around to find out who or what could have made it. I’d been so sure the whole place was empty, but how did I know that? If my family could survive at Heavenly Shepherd all this time, maybe there were survivors here too. And they might not take too kindly to strangers. Besides, the sun was getting ready to set, and I didn’t want to be caught in that haunted place after dark. I scrambled back up the embankment and across the hi-way into the familiar shelter of the woods before I finally slowed down and caught my breath. I gave myself a few minutes to drink some water and get my bearings, then set off walking again.

  I tripped over a tangle of ground vine just after dark and cut my legs up pretty good, but none of the cuts was deep and I made myself keep moving even though I felt like sitting down to pout about it. I’d wasted time in the town when I should’ve been moving forward, and I wanted to put as much distance between me and Heavenly Shepherd as I could before the next morning, when they would surely start looking, even though part of me still wanted to turn right around and go home. At times, I almost convinced myself that I should do it, turn around and beg Papa and Ruth for forgiveness, but then I thought about Zeke Johnson’s hands on me and kept going. Sometimes I sang songs and sometimes I talked to myself. I cried hot tears full of shame, then cold, angry tears full of resentment. I said a prayer for the lost men and women and children of that town, and I prayed that I would find something different at Lake Point. Let there be hope, please God, I prayed, and I didn’t just mean hope for me. It felt like I had been walking through the empty world for a hundred years, though it had only been a night and a day. I guess I didn’t know how much I needed to believe there were more people, good people, at Lake Point until I saw what it might be like if there weren’t.

  Six

  Even after sleeping so late that first day, all the walking got me ready to sleep a little earlier each night, so I gradually worked my way back to a more normal wake-up time. I was surprised how good it felt to get up early out in the woods, with the air still a little cool and the sounds of birds in the trees all around me. The outdoors had always been my place. Whenever I couldn’t stand another minute of being cooped up with all those grown-ups hovering and fussing around me, I’d run outside, where I could breathe. By the time I was five years old, I was allowed to help take care of the chickens and collect their eggs. I could weed and water the garden and collect the ripe strawberries and tomatoes and cucumbers in a little basket I had. I liked how keeping my hands busy with those simple tasks gave my mind time to wander.

  It was my uncle Jacob who taught me the woods. Ruth fussed a little about it being no place for a girl, but by the time I was eight years old, I knew how to set a snare for rabbits and how to skin and gut what I caught. Jacob showed me how to spot the tender shoots of greenbrier and snap off the ends for a snack, and he taught me which plants would give me an itchy rash so I could keep away from them. When I was ten, he showed me how to load and shoot the hunting rifles we had, but I didn’t take to it. I told him it was the noise and kick that bothered me, but truth was, I couldn’t bear the thought of shooting a deer or anything else. Snaring rabbits wasn’t so bad because they were dead when I found them, curled up like they were just sleeping. I didn’t love dressing them once they were caught, but I knew it would be wasteful not to. And I knew that a deer gave us meat, and we never killed more than we needed to eat, but I still didn’t want to be the one to bring it down.

  As I walked, hidden in the trees but always keeping the southbound path of the road to my left, I started to notice a sound coming from deeper in the woods, to my right. It sounded like a low roar. The longer I walked, the closer it got. I wondered if I should be afraid, but it didn’t sound like an animal or person; it was too steady. Finally, my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to find out what it was. Carefully I made my way through the trees and undergrowth. All along the road, mimosa trees were bloomed out with their little feathery pink fans. They crowded together, almost like they wanted anyone coming down that hi-way to see their show. But farther in were all kinds of trees. Some stretches along the road, all you saw were tall, skinny pines. But here the trees were all shapes and sizes, growing wild and leafy and lush. The light shining down through all those leaves glowed green like jewels, and the air underneath them felt cool and soft, even in the heat of the day.

  The sound got closer and closer, and then suddenly I stepped out of the trees and saw that it was water I heard. This was the Chattahoochee that made the border between Alabama and Georgia on the old maps I had seen. It rushed along over rocks like another road, but wide and muddy and alive. Of course! There was a small creek not far from the compound where I liked to go sometimes, but it just bubbled up from the ground and ran on a ways before it made a little pool surrounded by rocks and ferns and moss. The sound it made was like the tiny echo of this river. Jacob had even taken me out to our fish camp a couple of times, but then he said he couldn’t anymore, and I got the feeling that Papa had made him quit. But that was years ago, and I’d forgotten the rushing sound of the water. I realized this must be the same river, only closer to the road down here where I was. For a minute, I felt afraid. They kept some little fishing boats at the river camp. How much faster could those boats move than I could walk? They could be here in a flash, couldn’t they?

  Picturing Papa tearing down that river to get me was terrifying, and I had to stop myself from running back into the trees to hide. Amber said she and the others would try to steer Papa to believing I’d gone north toward the cities, and they might not know the river came close to the road here even if they did follow me southward. It made more sense that they would travel the way I traveled if they wanted to catch my trail. I told myself that over and over, but part of me stayed scared. I sat down on the grassy riverbank and let the rushing sound and the sparkle of sun on water calm my mind. They wouldn�
�t follow me down the river, I thought. They would stick to the road. I wished he wouldn’t follow me at all, but I knew he would never let me go that easily. He would hunt me down and punish me, and I would be even worse off than before I left.

  The water looked cool and inviting, and I wanted nothing more than to jump in and rinse off, hot and dirty and scratched up as I was. But the banks were rocky and steep, and the current was swift. I decided it was safer to stay put on the wide, flat shelf of rocks that overlooked it. I could see a long way upstream, too, so I knew I’d have time to run and hide at the first sign of a boat. I noticed a long, thin branch on the ground not far from where I sat, so I dug around in Amber’s pack, and sure enough, I found a roll of fishing line with a couple of hooks wrapped in a little square of paper. My food was already running thin, and I thought if I could catch a fish or two, I’d be in better shape to keep going. I tied some of the line to the end of the branch and tied a hook onto the loose end, then walked around a little until I found a flat rock near the tree line that was small and loose enough for me to pry it up and see the beetles and crickets scrambling away from the light. I caught a cricket and threaded it onto the hook, and I was ready to fish.

  I knew I should keep moving. I had to be getting close to Eufaula now, maybe a day’s walk or so to go. I should have been in a rush to get there, but here I was, hanging back. What did I know about this place or what I would find there? If my mama really was at Lake Point, then she wouldn’t be alone. How many people were there, and why? What kind of life had she been living all these years without me? Was she happy? And how did I feel about that if she was?

  I needed to believe that if there were people surviving and building a life together at Lake Point, that was a sign that God was ready to let the world heal. It might not matter so much then that I had run away from my place in the family. If everything was God’s plan, did it even matter what I did? Wouldn’t that mean my running away was also His plan? I had heard Papa Solomon talk again and again about free will, but it was still confusing. What if the virus hadn’t happened and the world was still full to bursting with people and babies and children? Would I matter less? Was I more important to God now that there were so few of us left? Did I matter more than others because I might be able to have a baby? Did God care less about Billie and Rachel and Amber than he did about my mother because they couldn’t have children? I didn’t like to think so. But how could I know the mind of God?

  It wasn’t too late, I knew. I’d been gone for four days, long enough that they’d be angry but short enough that things could still go back to normal. I could always turn around and go home. But even as I thought so, I knew that I couldn’t really. Or wouldn’t. All my life, I’d been taught to submit to His will, but I couldn’t submit to this. I could not give myself over to that man to be touched in that way, no matter what the rewards might be. There had to be another way. And then I had a thought that made me jump up and laugh. Of course! I might be one of the only fertile females left in the world, but Zeke Johnson wasn’t the only fertile man. And if there were other people at Lake Point with my mother, surely some of them were men, maybe even boys my own age. I could go there and make my own choice. This was the answer, I just knew it.

  Didn’t Papa always say that the Lord moves in mysterious ways? Surely when I came home with a real husband, he and Ruth would see that this was all God’s plan the whole time. They would take me back with open arms, and I would have a whole passel of babies, and everything would be right again.

  Just then I felt a tug on my line. I’d forgotten I was even holding my makeshift fishing pole. The tug turned into serious pulling pretty fast, and it was hard to lift up and bring in my catch without a reel. I did it, though, and it was a big one! I saw this as a sign that I was on the right path with my new idea. God knew my heart, after all. He could hear my thoughts. He was showing me that He approved by sending me this fish. Wasn’t He? Maybe the fish wouldn’t agree, I thought as it struggled and flopped in my grip. I needed to keep him in the water while I built a cook fire, so I cut the line to just a few feet and tied it to a little sapling right on the bank. Poor little fish. He was back in the river, but he was still caught.

  I pulled the knife from my pack and found a flat rock to use as a table. I never did like cleaning fish, but I loved eating them. As I scaled and then gutted my catch, I realized I didn’t have any kind of skillet. There was a folded square of foil in the pack that I opened to find was really several sheets stacked together. Thank you, Amber, I thought. She had thought of everything I would need. When I saw her again, I would tell her that she was a blessing. I used one of the sheets to make a little envelope around the cleaned fish, then laid it right at the edge of the fire, where it would cook without burning to a crisp. It only took a few minutes. Before I opened the foil, I bowed my head to pray. For some reason, I felt like I wanted to speak out loud, even though I usually didn’t.

  “Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for this food. Thank you for sending me this fish, and please let me be right that it was a sign from You. I’m sorry I ran away, Lord. I know that You know my heart and You know my fears. Please help me to trust You and carry out Your plan. I believe that You have someone for me. Please help me to know him when I meet him. Help me to feel the way I’m supposed to feel so I can do Your will. In Jesus’s name I pray, amen.”

  I wolfed down my delicious catch and felt full of new energy and purpose. I wouldn’t delay any longer; it was time to get where I was going. Whatever awaited in Eufaula and whatever was happening at Lake Point, I knew it was time to find out.

  Seven

  Since the river seemed to run mostly parallel to the road now, I stayed by its side as I walked. The sound and sight of the water was a comfort to me. I daydreamed about building myself a little raft out of branches and letting the current carry me all the way to the Gulf. For some reason, being by myself on a raft didn’t sound as lonely as you would think. I could see little tree-covered islands here and there out in the middle of the river, and I imagined pulling up to one or another of them and making camp for a night or two. It seemed like time would stop for me if I could make that journey. No one would miss me or want anything from me as long as I stayed off the mainland. I would never get any older either.

  I guessed that eventually I would wish for someone else to talk to, though. I’d start to miss my family. Maybe if I had someone with me, that wouldn’t happen. It was hard for me to imagine spending that much time with one person, always together, with no end in sight. How would I know if I had chosen the right person until it was maybe too late? In the Little House books, Laura fell in love with Almanzo Wilder when she was only fifteen, but it took time for her to grow up and for him to take her seriously. Later on, when Laura finished school, she moved to a nearby town and became a teacher. That was when Almanzo started courting her. He would pick her up in his sleigh and wrap her with furs to keep her warm. I tried to think what would be the equal of that in my world, but nothing came to mind except my imaginary raft. Maybe my Almanzo would be a river man, and he would take me for boat rides to court me. I tried to picture his face, but I couldn’t. Then I imagined Zeke Johnson coming for me, riding swift down the river like he knew right where I would be, and my heart started pounding. I knew I would have to learn to separate the idea of love from the fear that I felt.

  I decided to change the subject with myself, so I pulled out the Lake Point brochure that Amber had given me. On the back was a map that showed the Chattahoochee flowing right into Lake Eufaula and then back out the other end. Lake Point was right on the lake, but it was up and over on the other side from where I’d end up if I kept following the river. I decided it was time to get back to the road, where there might still be signs that would tell me where to turn off. I had never seen a lake, so it was hard for me to imagine how it would be. I thought again of my little stream near the compound and how it pooled up among the rocks at its end. Although the stream flowed in a way that I co
uld see, the pool seemed still and quiet. Just like the river was really only a bigger version of that stream, would the lake be a bigger version of the little pool? I still couldn’t picture it.

  For four days I’d heard nothing but birds, water, and the sound of my own voice singing and thinking out loud, but when I heard the new sound, it barely registered at first. It was far off, just barely a hum, but then I realized it was getting louder and closer every second—a boat. I had been walking along between the riverbank and the tree line, right out in the open, so I scrambled back into the trees and jumped behind a huge live oak that was deep enough in the woods not to stand out but close enough to the bank for me to have a clear view of the river. I wished I could look back in the direction they were coming from, but the trees were so thick I could only see the section of the water that was right in front of me. Who was on that boat? Was it Papa Solomon? Had he seen me?

  My heart was pounding so hard I thought I might faint. Please, God, I thought, but then I stopped. How could I ask God to hide me from Papa when I was being so disobedient? How could God be on my side when I was breaking every rule and commandment I’d ever been taught? I might still belong to God, but right then I felt like He did not belong to me. Not anymore. I had to lean against the tree to hold myself up. Was this how it felt to be godless, cut off and alone? I felt terrified, but then I felt something else creeping in—anger. How could God belong to Papa and not me when I was trying so hard to find my way? Well, if I couldn’t talk to Him, I could still talk to myself.