She slowly followed the trail of the bike heading back toward base. “The tracks are wider and flatter, see? And look close on that side. Those are drops of blood, man. The bike goin’ back to base has two people on it, and one of ’em’s bleeding.”
“And the one heading back to town is looking for Doc,” Zeke said.
“Why didn’t they both go home, and one of ’em get a vehicle to go get Doc and more people?” Raoul said.
“Probably because whoever needs Doc can’t wait,” Pastor Bob said.
“Let’s get going,” Katashi said. “See if we can help, and make sure the compound hasn’t been compromised.”
“Wait!” Raoul said. “Someone’s coming!”
Zeke instinctively reached for his weapon just when he heard the high-pitched whine of a dirt bike. The five jumped and waved, and the rider, who turned out to be Doc—his majestic head crammed into Mahir’s iridescent purple helmet—raced up and skidded to a stop. “I’ve got to get going,” he said. “Cristelle’s been injured. Mahir’s taken over for me.”
“Take Pastor Bob with you,” Zeke said, “so he and Danley can come back and pick up the others and us.”
An hour later, Zeke sensed he was looking into the eyes of a somber, grateful, ravenous group who finally gathered again as one in their own underground compound. They crowded around Cristelle Muscadin’s bed in the infirmary down the opposite corridor from where Mahir and Zeke distilled salt water for drinking and experimented with various formulas to produce alternative fuels. Katashi beckoned him into the hall with a nod.
“You’ve seen Cristelle ride, right?” Katashi said.
“Sure, why?”
“She knows her way around a bike. She ought to be able to outmaneuver a tanker. Danley’s been looking daggers at Mahir ever since he got back here.”
“What’re you saying? Did he say anything?”
Katashi leaned closer. “Only thing Danley told me was that it sure took Doc a long time to get here. You don’t think Doc’s prejud—”
“C’mon, you know better’n that. For one thing, she’s almost as dark as he is. And when we saw Doc, he was hurrying.”
Katashi squinted. “Any reason Mahir would have been slow getting to Doc?”
“I can’t imagine. I’d better get back in there.”
Cristelle, at twenty-five, was a year older than her husband, Danley, who sat on the edge of her bed holding her hand. The young woman appeared barely able to keep her eyes open. Doc said he had sedated her and injected heavy painkillers into her right leg below the knee. He said it appeared the front tire of one of the trucks had crushed her shin and obliterated much of the flesh and calf muscle. She would be immobile and suffering for a long time.
Mahir said the Hydro Mongers had overtaken and harassed the three of them and, he was sure, intended to kill them.
“That makes no sense,” Zeke said. “They had you outnumbered, but you should have been more nimble.”
“They picked on our weakest link,” Mahir said. “Cristelle’s still pretty new on the bike.”
“She is not!” Danley said in his Haitian lilt. “I know you didn’t mean to, but you forced her right in front of that truck!”
“I was trying to distract the driver, Danley!”
“I want to kill that guy,” Danley said.
“I’m sure we all do,” Zeke said. “But we don’t need a war, and vengeance is not who we are. Those guys are part of a huge network. They’d just as soon rub us out as have us in the way. They think we’re competition.”
“They don’t need our business,” Katashi said. “They want our brain trust and our technology.”
“Well,” Alexis said, “that’s not for sale.”
Doc, who had been glowering since clarifying Cristelle’s injuries, held up a hand. “You realize how close we came to being fully exposed here, right? Today could’ve been the end of this place, and for all we know, they do know where we are. Some reason no one’s manning the periscopes, Zeke?”
“You handle your responsibilities and I’ll handle mine,” Zeke said. “We’ll scan the area in a few minutes. Nobody can get close before sundown without kicking up a lot of dust.”
“I don’t suppose this is a good time to be out hunting,” Doc said, “but we need to eat, and everybody needs to hydrate. I hope the ration everybody took with them this morning is long gone by now and you’re each able to get another gallon into you by dinnertime. Be smart.”
“Doc’s right about that, of course,” Zeke said. “Drink up, everybody.”
He led everyone out to the Commons and asked Elaine what food was available.
“You announced lunch on your own, remember? We were all going to get back together for dinner.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
“Just tell everybody I’m opening the pantry to tide them over till dinner. If it’s safe to eat out under the awning after sundown, Katashi and I can come up with a nice barbecue. I think we deserve it after today, don’t you?”
“Sounds perfect, Elaine. And are you still available?”
“Of course. Send Sasha my way in an hour, but an hour after that I’ll need to start working with Katashi on dinner.”
It was just as well Zeke, Mahir, and Doc had never devised a way to override the government’s scramble of the airwaves to get a TV picture into the compound. Audio was the best they could manage, and it was enough. Movies and TV shows might have been just enough diversion to lend some sanity to such an existence, but Zeke was certain the entertainment would have become an addiction that would have softened them all.
As it was he’d made an executive decision and restricted recreational listening to the audio feed of most of the drivel. News and documentaries and some movies were fine. People tired of most of it without being able to see the visuals, but he at least had to know what was going on in the world every day.
Though he was ravenous, he devoured twenty-five minutes of headline news before he, Alexis, and Sasha sat munching dried hollyleaf cherries and juniper berries along with salted strips of gecko jerky. Zeke felt edgy after such a harrowing day, but he tried to head off Alexis’s concern by saying how well he thought the memorial service had gone. She wasn’t biting.
“It was nice,” she said, “no thanks to you.”
“Mom!”
“I’m not scolding him, Sasha,” Alexis said. “I’m just saying he seemed less focused than I might have wished.”
“Yeah, Dad, what was up with that?”
“Katashi saw Mongers on his way in, that’s all. Put me on alert. But I thought you were great, hon. And Sash, that opening song—I gotta tell ya—how’d you come up with that anyway?”
“It just hit me that slow would be interesting. I didn’t expect it to come out so special.”
“It moved everybody,” he said. “Me especially. Hey, by the way, Mrs. Meeks would like you to drop by for an hour or so. Can you do that?”
Sasha squinted at him. “Really?”
“Yeah, that all right?”
“Sure, but that’s what she wants? It was her idea?”
“Well, I—uh, truth is . . .”
“Dad! You don’t have to make up stories to get rid of me.”
“No! I—”
“Just tell me. It’s okay.”
“Forgive me, sweetie. You’re right.”
“Right now?”
“Please. If you don’t mind.”
“On my way.”
“Thanks, and again, sorry.”
“It’s okay, Dad. I like when you owe me.”
She left with a smile, but Alexis looked bemused. “What is going on?” she said.
“We just have to talk, that’s all.”
“I had a feeling,” Alexis said.
7
THE TALK
THIS WAS WORSE than being sent to the principal’s office. And Zeke couldn’t understand why his mouth was so dry. Why should it be hard to share something personal, something meaningful, wi
th the person closest to him in life? If she couldn’t understand, couldn’t empathize, didn’t have counsel or input or advice, who would?
He would talk to Pastor Bob too, but this conversation with Alexis was the one that would make or break his future—confirm that something significant was going on or that he was simply off his nut.
Here sat the most beautiful person in the world to him, inside or out—clichéd as that might sound—all her depth and character and personality in one precious package. And she gazed at him with what appeared to be wonder, expectancy, trust, and yet also puzzlement and perhaps a hint of fear.
They had been through so much together. Alexis had stood by him, believed in him, supported him, and—especially over these last several years—proved the ferocity of her most sacred wedding vows by virtually and literally giving up everything to join him on the most radical mission a couple could undertake. And now he was going to tell her what?
“I know this is going to sound strange to you . . .”
She raised her brows. “That ship sailed a long time ago, love.”
“Yeah, but Lexi, you’re going to find this bizarre even for me.”
She grinned. “I can hardly wait.”
“I’m trying to be serious here.”
She reached across the table and took his hand in both of hers. “I see that, but I’ve had enough pathos for one day, don’t you think? I was filled to the brim with all the reminiscing about Junior. It was as if he was there. How special that Katashi, Raoul, Benita, and Elaine are all with us now because of him. Wait!” she said, dropping his hand, eyes dancing. “I know what it is! It’s you and the widow Meeks. She’s finally stolen you from me. She’s breaking it to Sasha now.”
Zeke sat back. “Yep, you guessed it. You stole my thunder. Don’t s’pose you want all the lurid details.”
“Oh, do tell! You couldn’t resist her charms!”
“’Course not. How could I? You had to know I’d grow bored with you eventually and look for an older woman.”
But Zeke’s chuckle quickly died and his smile faded. She fell silent too, and he felt her eyes bore into him. “You know this is how I deal with stress, Z. I could tell you were on edge, threatened by that WatDoc guy, believed the compound might have been compromised. But like everybody else here, I believe in you. I count on you to rise to every challenge. And you know I’m here when you need me. You can tell me anything. Nothing’s gonna be too strange or bizarre for me. If I wasn’t here for the long haul, I’d have been gone a long time ago. So I’m all ears. Spit it out, big guy.”
“You sure?”
“You kiddin’?” she said. “Don’t know where that speech came from, but it’s the best I’ve got.”
“Okay, here goes.” He sighed. “God’s been speaking to me.”
“Yeah? What’s He been saying?”
“Audibly.” He waited. “So, did you speak too soon when you said nothing could be too strange or bizarre for you?”
Alexis seemed to study him again. She hadn’t bolted, so that was in his favor. “Let’s back up,” she said, pressing both palms on the table. “You’re serious, right? You’re not pranking me, getting back at me for something I’ve forgotten about—anything like that?”
“I wouldn’t kid about something like this.”
“Just making sure. All right. Now that we know what we’re dealing with . . .” She stood, quiet again. He searched her eyes, but she wouldn’t look at him. Finally she said, “Tell me everything. When did this start? What form did it take? Exactly what did you hear, and what makes you think it was God?”
Alexis looked relieved when he told her it had started only that morning. He assumed she would say it was stress-related, perhaps water deprivation—or that maybe it had something to do with the anniversary of Junior’s death.
He tried to recount the first couple of incidents humorously, how at first he didn’t recognize the voice or the touch as God’s and thought a Monger had actually slipped in and gotten the drop on him. But that didn’t elicit so much as a smile from her. If he had hoped she would take this seriously, he got his wish. Alexis was clearly alarmed.
“Did you find it as bizarre as Doc did when Pastor Bob asked me to pray for Jennie and I wound up spouting a passage of Scripture?”
“Come to think of it, I did,” she said. “But I’d just learned of Jennie’s diagnosis, and then I was actually impressed by those verses. I didn’t know you had them memorized.”
“That’s just it, babe. I suppose I’ve heard them before, probably a couple of times, but I have never, ever tried to memorize them.”
“Then how—”
“I told you. God said He would give me utterance. He told me to just open my mouth and He would give me the words.”
“Ezekiel, please! That’s—”
“Say it, Lexi! I know you want to. It’s crazy, I know. So then explain it. How did I do that? And that Scripture had nothing to do with Jennie, did it?”
“Not really.”
“Then what is God doing? What’s He saying to me?”
Alexis looked seriously concerned. “Can you quote the passage now? For me?”
“Let me think—no. I can’t. I’m not even sure where it’s from. Clearly it’s Old Testament, but I couldn’t tell you the reference or the context. All I remember is that Bob asked me to pray—”
“For Jennie,” Alexis said.
“Right, and like you, I was shocked by what we had just been told about her. And so I prayed silently that the Lord would give me the words. He impressed on me that He had already told me that whatever He commanded me I should speak, and He said something about ‘Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.’”
“Oh, Zeke!”
“I know, right? What was I supposed to think? I just stood there waiting.”
“There was a long pause,” she said.
“That’s the thing—I was waiting for words from God, and He had told me to open my mouth. I remember Him sort of scolding me about having faith and that I should open my mouth. So I opened my mouth and that’s what came out.”
“You realize how that sounds?”
“Who are you telling? I told you this was gonna make me sound nuts.”
“I should’ve listened.”
Zeke snorted. “I knew I could count on you, Lexi. I wonder what the widow Meeks is doing tonight.”
Alexis roared. She rushed around the table and fell into Zeke’s arms, pulling his head down so they were nose to nose. “Nuts it is,” she said. “You’re certifiable. Crazy.” She affected an exaggerated Jimmy Stewart impression and quoted George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life: “‘You’re screwy, and you’re drivin’ me crazy too! I’m seein’ things.’ You’re a crazy holy man, Zeke. But you’re my crazy holy man.”
She kissed him, made him sit, then sat in his lap.
“Can I be serious again for a minute?” he said.
“I think you’d better.”
“I gotta tell ya, I’m scared.”
She pushed back and held his face in both hands. “You’re never scared of anything.”
“If you only knew, Lexi.”
“Tell me.”
“First, you know this isn’t us, either of us. God impresses stuff on us, sure. I mean, look where we are. The rest of the world had enough sense to get out of Dodge when the Drought Gang came ridin’ in, six guns blazing. But Pastor Bob preached his Marshal Dillon/Wyatt Earp/Gary Cooper/High Noon sermon one night, and that was all it took for us to leave caution to the wind. I didn’t know if I dared ask you to dive into this with me, but if you remember, you committed before I did. And you had our only daughter in your arms at the time.”
“That’s what I mean, Z. You’re fearless, and I’m with you. So what’s the problem?”
He drew her close and she laid her head on his chest. “It’s just that up to now, hard as this has been, up till today I’ve actually found it kind of fun. I’ve been in my sweet spot. God has used almost e
verything I’ve ever known or been taught. I’ve been stretched and challenged and used in ways I never could have dreamed.”
“And you’ve become a leader too.”
“I know, and I didn’t expect that either. But today, hearing God out loud . . . That’s not something I bargained for, not something I’m comfortable with.”
“You want to know what I think?”
He gave her a look. “What do you think I’m doing here?”
“Trying to break the news to me about you and the widow Meeks?”
“Hilarious.”
“Sorry. Let me ask you this: Do you feel like this is something new—well, obviously it’s new—but I mean a new normal?”
“That’s just it. I guess I’m hoping it’s not. I liked things the way they were.”
“Lots of people would give anything to hear directly from God, Zeke. They’d consider it a privilege. More than that. A sacred honor. A huge responsibility.”
“Would you?”
She paused. “Good question. I don’t know.”
“I already have a huge responsibility,” he said. “Do I really want more?”
“God wouldn’t choose you unless He thought you were up to it. And He certainly wouldn’t give you more than you could handle. Mostly He wouldn’t leave you alone, would He?”
They were quiet a moment. Finally, Zeke said, “My leg’s falling asleep.”
Alexis slipped off his lap and sat next to him. “It wouldn’t be like Him to force this on you if you’re unwilling. But you might find yourself miserable if you miss a calling.”
Zeke sniffed. “Funny, I’m just relieved you’re not packing a bag and trying to sneak Sasha out of here.”
Alexis chuckled. “Ezekiel, you’re stuck with me. You know what I’d leave you over, and this isn’t it. I’ve seen you in public and I’ve seen you in private. I’ve seen you at the height of success and I’ve seen you in the pit of despair. I know you’re the same man of God when people are watching and when they are not. If the Lord has something more for you, for whatever reason—whether I understand it or I’m comfortable with it or even whether you understand it or are comfortable with it—you have to know this: Not only will I not stand in the way of it, but I will stand with you in it to the end. Any questions?”
The Valley of Dry Bones Page 6
