I drawl, “Guess I’ll just wait here then, until somebody gives y’all permission to kick me out.” I slide down against the base of the logs. It’s awkward to sit with a twenty-five-pound, military-issue monstrosity attached to my back. I have to lean forward, my knees almost touching my chest. Looking out at the community, I find it ironic that I am the one who thought up this gate, and now it’s the very thing keeping me from getting out.
I wait for what feels like forever—and am about to ask one of the workers to boost me to my feet, so I can at least help with the fortification while I’m waiting to be exiled—when Jabil Snyder comes striding up, interlocking his fingers to push his work gloves back on. “Heard you need to talk to me?”
I stare up at him a second, still crunched in that position that’s giving me a crick in my neck, trying to figure out what he’s trying to pull. I’m not stupid. I know he turned me in to the bishop and deacons and whatever kind of crazy hierarchy they’ve got going on in this place.
Jabil doesn’t blink as I keep looking at him. Then he sighs and offers me one work-gloved hand, pulling me to my feet. “There’s been a change,” he says. “You can stay.”
I stop dusting off the seat of my jeans and look him full in the face, making sure my eyes can confirm what I heard. But Jabil doesn’t say anything else, seems to regret what he’s said already, so I know it’s true. I can feel my temper rising at being led here and there, like I am nothing but a stray dog on a very short leash.
Then it comes together: Jabil watching me and Leora last night as we journeyed through town—his eyes observing everything in the darkness, his big hands holding tight to the reins.
“You never told them, did you?” I ask. “The bishop and the deacons, they don’t know. You never even told me you had told them. You just implied that they wanted me to go because someone had turned me in—and like a fool, I believed every word you said.”
Jabil doesn’t confirm or deny any of it. But he doesn’t have to. I feel like decking him for being such a punk—and yet, why would an upstanding guy like him lie to get me to leave? I think of Leora’s insecure smile, and how she stares at people so hard behind her glasses, as if the clear lenses can somehow hide the direction of her eyes. Jabil looks at me like Leora did, with that same unwavering intensity.
I ask, “You must really love her, huh? If you’d go to all this trouble to get rid of me?”
For a second, I think Jabil’s going to attack me. And then all the fight seems to leave him. His hands relax. He stares at his feet and says, “Don’t make me regret changing my mind.”
“But why’d you change it?”
He looks down the lane, his forehead ridged with furrows as deep as those marking the field. “Because the community needs you more than I need you to stay away from Leora.”
Adjusting the strap of my backpack, I reach out and clap my right hand to Jabil’s left shoulder. His muscles contract beneath my fingers, the strap of the suspender like a cable about to snap loose. “Brother,” I say, staring hard into his eyes, “I am no competition. Just a drifter . . . passing through. As soon as we can figure out this new world of ours, I’m gone.”
Jabil nods, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. Which part? I wonder. The part about not being his competition, or the part about just passing through?
I grin at him and clap him once more on the shoulder before letting go. “And I wouldn’t give up on Leora just yet, Romeo. Star-crossed lovers are birthed through times like these.”
He keeps looking right at me as he says, “I know. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
I squint against the noonday sun and break another top off a glass bottle with a hammer. I hear Charlie call out, “Here we go.” Curious, I look up at the scaffolding to see that he’s stopped embedding glass into the sharpened points of the perimeter and is peering over the other side.
I say, “What is it?”
“Some girl with a baby.” Charlie mops his face with a bandanna and looks back at the line of men, who’ve all stopped working as well. “Y’all think I should let her in, don’t ya?”
Jabil blows sawdust from the porthole he’s hand-drilling into the perimeter. Looking out through it, he says, “Doesn’t matter how much food we hoard. If our community doesn’t care for the widows and the fatherless like Scripture instructs, we will not be blessed.”
Unmoved, Charlie doesn’t open the gate. “This is just the first one,” he says. “How many more times am I gonna have to let people in? We agreed that we’d give them water. We never said we’d let them walk right in ’cause they knocked.” He makes no effort to lower his voice, which I am sure carries over the gate. This is probably his goal.
“Charlie, shut up,” I call. “Open the gate.”
He stares down at me, his eyes glittering like the bottle-blue and green shards. Then, to my surprise, he jerks up the giant bolt that works kind of like a sliding lock. With a push, the left half of the tin-covered doors creaks open wide enough for one person to get through. This is smart of him, in case vagrants are hiding on the other side of the road, waiting to breach the gate, but at what point are we really going to start turning people away? Right now, in spite of Charlie’s complaining, food is not a problem. We have an abundance of dry goods through Field to Table and canned goods stored in the families’ cold cellars. But even abundance has its end.
The men silently watch the woman and child come through the gate, and I’m sure their wielded hammers, handsaws, and drills make a violent first impression. I recognize the woman right away, mostly because she’s wearing the same clothing she was wearing when we met her in town. She is smaller than I remember, her spine weighted with a cheap backpack that is so stuffed, the zipper will not fully close. She glances around at the men, hugging the baby tighter, fear in her eyes. I can tell she wonders if she fled town only to find refuge in a place that is no refuge at all.
I break away from the workers in an attempt to assure her we’re not as dangerous as we look. “Hey,” I say, smiling. “I’m Moses. The women are all working over at Field to Table.” I point to the long log cabin within walking distance of the gate. “You can go up there if you want; they’ll help with whatever you need.”
The woman is quiet for so long, I would begin to doubt she knows English if I hadn’t heard her speak to Leora the other night. Then she says, so abruptly that it catches me off guard, “On my way here, I saw a group making an assembly line down at the river. They were using buckets. But they don’t know if the water’s clean.” She pauses. “Do they?”
“If it was clean,” Charlie calls, eavesdropping from above, “it’s probably not now.”
Giving Charlie a look, which he returns with venom, I touch the woman lightly on the sleeve. She flinches, drawing her arm against her body as if it’s hurt.
“I was just on my way to Field to Table,” I say, acting like her behavior’s normal. “Would you like me to introduce you to the women of the community?”
She nods, cupping the child’s head to her chest. He’s in a sling that looks like it was made from a bedsheet. As we walk past the gate, there is only the sound of construction and our shoes crunching over gravel. “What’s your name?” I ask.
“Sal.” She adjusts the sling, pulling a knit hat over the child’s ears, though it’s warm outside.
“What’s his name?”
“Colton.”
She’s sure not one for small talk, so I say nothing else as we draw closer to Field to Table. The bustling women in their somber dresses and filmy, winged kapps remind me of worker bees eager to gather every ounce of sustenance before the window of time runs out. The glass doors of the building are propped open with fifty-pound sacks of rice. I wonder how long until rice—the most consumed and plentiful provision in the world—becomes priceless. A few weeks? A few months? Everything’s going to get harder, too, as we draw closer to winter, and the land isn’t able to compensate for the stores’ lack.
“Do people know t
he community’s out here?” I ask.
Sal studies me from the corner of her eye. “Yeah.”
“Then why haven’t they come, begging for food or trying to steal it?”
“Far as the begging goes,” she says, staring down at the sacks of rice, “guess they have more pride than I do. As for the stealing . . . I’d say it’s only a matter of time.”
Stepping to the side, I let Sal move past me into the dry goods store. So many women are coming in and out that, at first, our entrance doesn’t draw any attention. But then I see Leora. She’s sitting on an overturned crate next to a large plastic bucket, holding the bucket’s foil liner by the edges, while her younger sister, Anna, fills it with rice from a sack. Anna is concentrating on every scoop, her tongue clenched between small white teeth. Colton whimpers in Sal’s sling, and Leora lifts her head, scanning the aisles for the child like a mother would. Her eyes land on me. The bag quivers in her hand, spilling irreplaceable pellets of rice across the floor, reminding me of the weddings I have attended where—out of ignorance or apathy—they tossed rice at the bride and groom instead of birdseed. One of the countless wasteful traditions that makes no sense after the EMP.
“What is this place?” Sal asks. “A grocery store?”
Breaking our stare, Leora looks down again, her ears bright against her kapp. I can’t tell if she is pleased or irritated by my reappearance. “Kind of,” I tell Sal absently. I glance around. Rows of shelves are faced with canned goods like lima beans, black beans, mixed vegetables, potatoes, diced tomatoes, and condensed milk. Each item is priced with an orange sticker, and some of the cans are dented around the rim. There is even a freezer and refrigerator section, both of which have already been cleared out. There is a produce section, also emptied. A shelf full of colorful glass jars is beside another shelf with nuts, dried fruit, and old-fashioned ribbon and horehound candy wrapped in bags and secured with twist ties.
In the back of the store is a grouping of two-seater tables covered with gingham tablecloths. There is a dispenser of K-Cups of coffee and tea and a blackboard featuring—in different colors of chalk—the menu from ten days ago: a roast beef, horseradish, and cheese sandwich on homemade bread with a baked good, pickle, and a hot or cold drink for $5.99. I imagine commuters stopping by to fill up on fresh-from-the-oven baked goods and mediocre coffee. Will they remember this place? All of the meats, cheeses, produce, and canned goods? Will they try to make it back here and see if anything’s left? One thing’s for certain: only time will tell.
“Hold on a sec,” I tell her. “I’ve got to speak to someone.”
Leora says as I approach, “Thought you’d be gone by now.”
I say, simply, “Me too.”
“Is that the woman from town?”
I nod. “Her name’s Sal. She and her little boy just came through the gate.”
“Charlie let her in?”
“Yeah. But not because he wanted to.”
Leora checks that all the grains of rice are tucked inside the foil bag lining the bucket, drops an oxygen-absorber packet on top of them, takes a rubber mallet, and pounds the lid closed. She walks around the canned goods aisle over to where Sal stands.
“Hi there,” Leora says. She strokes the sole of the baby’s socked foot dangling from the sling. Feeling my gaze, she glances over. I don’t know what thoughts are taking place behind those glasses, and she doesn’t say anything to reveal them. Someone calls my name. Leora turns from me, and Jabil is standing there, his broad shoulders filling up the doorway and casting a shadow across the floor.
“Moses,” he repeats. “We need you at the gate.”
Sal says, “Are people coming?”
I turn from Jabil and see her ruddy skin tone has blanched to a flat white.
“It’s not your fault,” I tell her. “We’ve been expecting them for days.”
Jabil says to me, “You ready?”
I clear my throat. “I am.” Which is a lie. I haven’t been ready for something like this since our recon mission in the desert, after which they shipped me home with PTSD.
Leora
THOUGH SHE IS INSIDE THE GATES, the Englischers still consider Sal an outsider—a person who, ironically, is one of their own. Therefore, she is required to go to the dawdi haus that has been converted into a hospital, where she will be asked a series of questions by Deacon Good. I don’t care for this method of sorting out those who are an asset to the community from those who shouldn’t be allowed to stay. I understand we have a limited food supply, and each person should have to work for whatever rations he gets. But I’m unsure which category, in the eyes of the Englischers, Sal and her son belong to.
Inside the Beilers’ cramped dawdi haus, the dark wood and blackout curtains—so patients will be able to rest during the brightest hours of the day—make it appear more like an old-world tavern than my memories of the hospital where Anna spent so many months with occupational therapists.
Sal and I approach Deacon Good’s desk. She doesn’t flinch when he looks up from his paperwork and begins asking her a series of questions, to all of which she has ready answers.
“Full name?”
“Sally Jean Ramirez.”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Previous place of residence?”
She just looks at him, eyes sparking. “Montana.”
“Yes. Of course.” He jots something down. “Any relatives living in the area?”
“My uncle and grandmother. They’re the only ones I’ve got left . . . besides my son.”
“Their names, please?”
“Mike and Papina Ramirez.”
I can feel Sal watching me, but when I glance over, her eyes are downcast, her teeth worrying a flake of dead skin on her bottom lip.
“And what was your occupation before . . .?” Deacon Good lets the words hang.
“A . . . healer.”
The hesitation is long enough to raise my suspicions. When I look up at Deacon Good—his pen paused, mid-transcription—I can tell that he is studying her face to judge if she is lying as well. “What kind of healer?”
“My grandmother’s Kutenai. She taught me which herbs to gather for poultices and tonics and dyes. She was a midwife and told fortunes—”
Deacon Good holds up his hand, but smiles. “We won’t be needing that kind of assistance.” Despite his gold-rimmed glasses and penchant for learning, his fingers are stained and blistered from where he’s been working side by side with the men.
Sal’s baby writhes, discontent with being lodged so tightly against her chest. She adjusts him and looks up again, first over at me and then at Deacon Good. “I promise you—my grandmother taught me everything she knew. She raised me. I know these woods behind your property like the back of my hand.” Sal continues when Deacon Good doesn’t respond, her words propelled by her desperation. “I heard people in town talking about coming out here and doing drives to push out the game in your woods to armed standers.”
“It hasn’t even been two weeks,” I interject. “Surely they’re not desperate enough to start poaching and killing for food.”
Sal shrugs. “Food’s running out, and it doesn’t look like Walmart’s going to be restocking anytime soon.”
“What about that large beef farm over on Willow?” asks Deacon Good.
Sal nods. “Mayor Ramsey tried asking if they’d sell a few head of cattle to the town—had money and everything—but they wouldn’t take it. Said money was of no use to anyone. That they needed to come with stuff to barter. But I think they really know they’ll be sitting pretty if they wait ’til we’re desperate enough to give them anything they want.” Sal stops, holds her child’s dimpled fingers like she’s drawing comfort from him rather than supplying it. “Mayor Ramsey finally went and used the money to buy grain off the feed supply; the price was jacked up, but the owners believe that the ‘lights’ or whatever are gonna come back on and money’s still gonna have its use. Ramsey sa
id if things get bad enough, grain is grain . . . even if it was supposed to be used for cattle.”
I look at the child, beginning to nod off in Sal’s arms. His cheeks are full, his arms and legs plump. Yet I am sure his mother envisions him three months from now—emaciated and too succumbed to perpetual hunger to put up a cry. For his sake, she set her pride aside, accepted my invitation, and came here to us . . . only to find she has to jump through numerous hoops in order to stay. “That’s horrific that the beef farmers won’t sell,” I murmur. “To have the power to help someone and not do it—”
Deacon Good interrupts, “Even here, Leora, in our community, we’re finding that we’re at war with our own flesh. We want to help people by providing good nutrition and medical care. But on the other hand, we also want to preserve ourselves.”
“So . . . I can stay?” Sal asks. “Since I can help with medical care?”
“For the time being,” Deacon Good says. “But at this point, I can’t promise how long.”
Our community desperately needs someone who understands the conundrum of the body better than most of us do; therefore Sal’s occupation as healer could not be more fitting if she were responding to a Help Wanted advertisement. That being said, I can tell Deacon Good is unsure of what kind of “healing” Sal can provide. Our heritage is all too familiar with the German powwow doctors, whom Mennonites and Amish sometimes called into sick rooms, knowing such dark practices went against their religious beliefs, but when faith and traditional medicine failed them, they were simply too desperate to care. Does Sal’s Kutenai heritage rely on the same chants and archaic fallacies in order to bring healing? If so, I know her already-perilous position will not be held in our community for long.
Deacon Good marks one of the small, spiral-bound notebooks I’ve seen at Field to Table with a check stamper, also from Field to Table: the place where, before Vadder left, I used to work in the summers, and after, I used to go with Anna to help break up our days. The notebook and stamp have clearly become the community’s passport and seal. When was this decided? And does Jabil know? I understand that unprecedented events are taking place, and so the Mt. Hebron leadership is being forced to make unprecedented decisions. But without our leadership being accountable to the spiritual hierarchy back in Lancaster—for how can they be, without a telephone or the postal service to help them communicate?—I fear that we will be subjected to whatever governing whims the bishop and deacons believe necessary. Even if they’re not.
The Alliance Page 10
