by Pete Hautman
“How did you happen to have a knife?” Enos asks.
“I always have a knife,” she says.
“What did you do next?” Enos asks.
“I didn’t know what to do. There was blood everywhere. My dad was gone. Chico was out in the bunkhouse. He was probably drunk, too — him and Cal are tight. So I came here.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
“Jacob told me that you offer sanctuary to all.”
Enos sighs and moves his eyes from Lynna to me. “You two know each other well, I take it?”
“Not really,” I say.
Lynna looks at me as if I have stabbed her, and I realize there can be no more deception, no more lies.
“We are friends,” I add quickly. “I visited the Rocking K twice. She told me about her uncle. I met him. He was a wicked man.”
“All men are wicked.”
Startled, I turn to see Father Grace standing in the shadowy corner of the office. Has he been there all along? He steps forward into the light.
“How many years have you, girl?” he asks.
“Do you mean how old am I? Seventeen.”
“Seventeen, and already a killer of men,” Father Grace says, shaking his head.
“I’m not a killer,” Lynna says.
“You killed, therefore you are a killer. According to the laws of the World, you are a murderer, and a minor. Permitting you to stay here would bring the wrath of the World down upon us. Brother Enos, your sat phone.”
Enos opens a desk drawer and takes out his satellite phone.
“Who are you going to call?” Lynna asks.
“Your father.” Father Grace takes the phone from Enos.
“My dad’s not home, I told you.”
“Do you think I do not have his mobile number, girl? We are not so backward as you think us.”
Lynna closes her eyes, miserable and defeated, and sags in her chair.
“Why did you not call your father?” Enos asks softly.
“Cal was my dad’s brother,” Lynna says into her lap. “I could never tell him.”
“I will tell him for you,” Father Grace says. “Brother Jacob, please take the girl and wait outside.” He punches a number into the phone as Lynna and I leave the office and close the door.
We stand in the hallway, neither of us speaking. Lynna’s face is pale and tight. She looks scared. I am equally frightened, while at the same time filled with rage at Cal. I want to kill him myself, but he is already dead. Lynna will not look at me. She is staring at the floor, her shoulders slumped, visibly trembling. I reach out and touch her shoulder, and suddenly she is in my arms, her face pressed to my chest, shaking and crying. I hold her tight, our bodies pressed together, but unlike before, I feel no arousal, no animal urges, only our shared sorrows and pain.
“I’m sorry,” she sobs. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, stroking her back.
“I never thought he’d actually do anything.”
“It will be okay.” I say it again, but I don’t believe it. I have seen the bodies of the sheep; there is no bringing back the dead.
Several minutes have passed when Enos opens the door and looks out at us. I don’t care that he sees us pressed together. He motions us into his office. Lynna follows him in as if she is walking to her death. We sit in the chairs facing Enos, and he takes his place behind his desk. Father Grace is gone.
“Your uncle is not dead,” Enos says.
Lynna’s face, already pale, grows even more ashen.
“You injured him badly, but he is alive. Your hired man found him in your room. They are at the medical center in West Fork.”
Lynna looks down at her lap, her shoulders sagging. Is she relieved her uncle is alive? I am not certain.
After several seconds have ticked by, Enos says, “Your father is on his way back from Billings. He will be here in the morning to take you home.”
“I can’t go back,” Lynna says. “You have to give me sanctuary. Jacob told me you would turn no one away.” She looks at me. “That’s what you told me.”
“Brother Jacob was misinformed,” Enos says. “You are not of age, according to Worldly laws. Jacob will now deliver you to Womenshome, where you will remain until your father arrives. Jacob?” He looks at me with his most stern expression. “You will return here directly.”
“Yes, Brother,” I say. I touch her arm and lead her outside.
“This is good news,” I say, trying to make her feel better. “You have killed no one.”
Lynna does not reply. She looks empty and frail. I take her arm, and we slowly make our way through the Village and past the Sacred Heart to Womenshome. Sisters Dalva and Olivia are waiting at the entrance. Dalva is wearing her usual flat, disapproving frown, but Olivia welcomes Lynna as if she has found a long-lost sister. After Lynna disappears behind the closed door, I stand alone on the walkway and try to think of things I might have said.
I have no words. I am numb in all my parts.
Enos, knocking the ash from his pipe, nods slightly as I step into his office.
“This has been an eventful night, Brother Jacob.” Enos sets his pipe aside and fastens his hawklike eyes upon me. “You have transgressed and brought discord within our walls. Have you considered what might be your penance?”
“I have,” I say.
The Praying Pit is cold, and silent, and dark, the only heat a trickle of air slipping under the door from the catacombs, the only light a rectangle of lesser blackness from the high window. I see the ghost of my own face looking down into the murk, handing Tobias his pack of cigarettes. At least I am not being forced to listen to recordings of Scripture.
Huddled miserably on the hard pallet, my legs drawn up to my chest, chin tucked, the sleeves of my robe pulled down over my hands, I imagine Lynna, in Womenshome, less than two hundred cubits distant. Together, we are alone in the dark with our thoughts. Does she think of me as well?
I wake up shivering. The window is pale gray with dawn. I stand on the pallet to look out, but see only a clouded sky and part of the roof of Elderlodge. Faintly I hear the sound of a vehicle, followed by voices. It is Lynna’s father, come to take her. I hear the vehicle leave. What waits for her at home? I imagine Cal, with a bandaged neck. I try to pray for her, but I sense that no one is listening, and I am soon curled like a fetus on the pallet, refusing every thought that threatens to form.
Brother John brings food. Boiled wheat, dried apples, a pitcher of water, and a strip of dried venison. He places the tray wordlessly on the small wooden table by the door and withdraws. I should be grateful for the food, but it might as well be pine bark and gristle. I eat, because I have been taught that food should not go to waste.
It is difficult to describe what it is like to not think. My thoughts are flecks of foam on the Pison, leaves blowing across a field, raindrops striking water. Several times it occurs to me to pray, but as I clasp my hands, the words flit away like gnats and I am left with nothing. I am almost glad when John returns to tell me that I have been summoned by Father Grace.
John leads me through the catacombs and up a stairway into a small alcove at the back of Gracehome. Father Grace’s eldest wife, Marianne, is waiting.
“He is in the garden,” she says, offering me a coat.
I don the coat and step out the doorway. Behind Gracehome is a walled garden, a small version of the Sacred Heart, but with no Tree. The garden is covered with snow except for one patch of cleared ground about eight cubits on a side. Father Grace stands motionless at its center, his back to me, looking down at the three headstones jutting from the frozen earth before him.
“Father,” I say.
He motions with his hand for me to stand beside him. I do so. With his head bowed, his long hair falls past his face, and I can see only the tip of his nose. I read the names carved into the stones: Salah Grace, Adam Grace, Von Grace. We stand without speaking for a time.
“It h
as been a long winter,” he says at last.
“Yes,” I say. There is no denying it.
“The End Times are near. Can you feel it coming?”
I feel the end is near for me, but I do not know what form it will take.
“Each of us must have his Faith tested. Von failed. The boy Tobias failed, as did his sister, and Sister Mara. There are others among us whose Faith trembles and wavers. Even I, at times, have experienced faint glimmerings of doubt.” He turns his head and fixes me with his clear eye. “Does that shock you?”
“Yes,” I say, for it does. Father Grace is the very personification of Faith.
“I perceive that you have been tested most severely of late.”
“And I have failed,” I say.
“You are a man. To be a man is to fail again and again, as Cal Evert failed. He gave in to the temptations of his niece, the girl who came to Nodd with blood on her hands. He has paid a price and lies now in a hospital room. He will escape with his life, but his reputation will be forever ruined. It is fortunate for all of us that the Lord’s capacity for forgiveness is infinite.” His hand falls upon my shoulder, so heavy it is all I can do to remain standing.
“Speak to me now as a man, Jacob. Have you been with this girl as her uncle wished to be? As a man is with his wife?”
“No!”
“But that is what you desire?”
“No! I would not . . . I like her, is all. She’s nice.”
Father Grace steps in front of me and cups each of my shoulders in his hands and stares hard into my face. I feel my knees becoming liquid, my heart beating against my rib cage like a trapped bird. I can see nothing but those two eyes, so different, one dark and bright, piercing my flesh, the other milky and cocked toward Heaven.
He releases his hold on me and laughs. It begins deep in his chest, then spills out of him, flowing down his beard and filling the air, echoing off the garden walls and rising up like a pillar of fire. I lean back to give his laughter room, and this makes him laugh harder. He swings his arm and claps me on the shoulder, almost knocking me over.
“Young Jacob,” he says, wiping his good eye with the back of his hand, “fear not. Your sins are the sins of all men. So long as we occupy this mortal coil we are at the mercy of our loins. I will tell you this: the girl cannot be yours. She is an outsider, and among her people she is considered yet a child. Were we to take her in, her people would rise up like a horde of demons from Hell. Is one girl worth risking the destruction of all we hold dear? I think not.”
He grasps my shoulders again. “The Lord built these vessels we occupy, Jacob. We can fight the waves or ride them high. Some men are meant to take what they want; others are meant to follow.” He draws me closer, so that our faces are only a few inches apart. “Are you a follower or a taker?”
His breath washes over me, and it is foul, as if his teeth are rotting in his head. If Father Grace is the voice of the Lord, then why would the Lord give him rancid breath?
“You cannot have all you desire, but do not lose heart. I understand the urges and needs of a young man such as yourself.” He pulls me closer yet, so that his beard almost brushes my chin. “I give you my daughter Sister Beryl.”
“Beryl?” I croak, nauseated both by his breath and by what he is saying. “Beryl has but fourteen years!”
“I first had Fara, who has borne me three daughters, when she was but thirteen.”
I stare at him, hardly able to bear what he is telling me. From the time I was small, I have been taught that to be chaste and abstemious is to be close to Heaven, and who is closer to Heaven than Father Grace?
Breathing shallowly, I reply, “I do not want Beryl.”
“Ha!” He pushes me away. “So you say now, but let your loins starve a bit longer and you might settle for Sister Dalva.”
Sister Dalva is older than my mother.
“I wanted Sister Ruth, but you took her,” I say, stunned by my own boldness.
Father Grace is taken aback for an instant, but he quickly recovers.
“I had wondered,” he says slowly. “Ruth is a lovely child. Was this the reason you sought out the Worldly girl?”
I stare back at him. I know the answer to his question, but I am loath to share it with him. If he wants to think himself responsible for driving me to Lynna, then so be it.
“Speak, Jacob.”
“I cannot,” I say.
“I see.” He turns to face the graves of his children. “Let me tell you how it is. The Worldly girl has been returned to her home, where she will stay. You will put her out of your mind. In the spring, when the Tree blossoms, you will wed Sister Beryl. Your transgressions are forgiven. Put the Worldly girl out of your mind. There is much work to be done. Return to Menshome.” He looks at me. One eye is hard and dry, the other a moist wound. “You have my trust, Jacob. Do not disappoint me.”
I am watched.
Father Grace has told me I have his trust, but they are watching me: John, Enos, Samuel, all of them. No one speaks of Lynna’s visit to Nodd. Even Will does not ask me about her. Yet I feel their eyes on me, judging my every move.
I think about what Father Grace believes, that his marriage to Ruth drove me to seek out a Worldly girl, and I smile to myself, for I know it is not true. My feelings for Ruth were of Nodd; my feelings for Lynna reach beyond our borders and into the World. It is the difference between a leaf and a tree. I think of her constantly, in that pink house. What is she thinking? Does she hate me for failing to protect her? Is she thinking about me at all?
One day when no one is watching me I will go to the Rocking K, and I will know. Father Grace says that I am being tested. He says that the Lord has an infinite capacity for forgiveness. Can that be true? I will test His clemency with my sins. This is a concept so blasphemous, so brimming with hubris that it sends shivers through my body, but I know I must do it.
But when second Landay arrives, it is not I who is sent to walk the fence: it is Will. He tells me this as he arranges his pack. “Enos wanted to send Jerome, but I told him I was able. It has been many months since I have performed my duty.”
“What about your knee?” I ask him.
“It is much better,” he says, but I can see that he is favoring it.
“The Mire will be treacherous,” I tell him.
“I have walked the Mire many times,” he says.
I wish him well.
That night, Will returns late to the Village, dragging one mud-coated leg as if he would as soon leave it behind. He began his walk at the southern edge of the Mire, where he sank up to his waist in a bog hole. It took him an hour to free himself, and the rest of the day to make his way out of the Mire and back to the Village. His knee has swollen to the size of a melon. Brother Samuel prescribes ice and rest. It is clear that Will cannot walk the fence again.
The following Landay, Enos once again overlooks me. He assigns Aaron to the task. I am not trusted. If I am to visit the Rocking K, I must simply slip out of Menshome at night and leave Nodd. But what do I do when I get to Lynna’s house? They will all be sleeping, and I won’t know which room is Lynna’s. I am more likely to awaken her father. Still, I am willing to take the chance.
On the day I plan to go, I am delivering wheat flour from the mill to the kitchen when my mother opens the door.
“Jacob,” she says. “It is good to see you. Are you well?”
“Yes, thank you,” I say.
She gives me the look of a mother who sees past the lie and into the soul of her child. Even though it is cold and she has no coat, she steps outside.
“Jacob?” she says, leaving my name hanging in a way that demands a response.
“I am all right,” I say. “Father Grace has forgiven me.”
“Father Grace.” She sniffs. “It is not he whose forgiveness you need.”
I am surprised by this, and she sees it in my face.
“Tell me of your feelings for this Worldly girl,” she says.
“
I met her at the fence and we talked. Her name is Lynna.” I’m not sure what else to say. My feelings? I have no words. “She has blond hair,” I say stupidly.
My mother laughs. “I met her at the visitation,” she says. “She is very pretty.”
“Oh.” I am embarrassed. My mother always seems to know more than I think she knows. “I am worried for her,” I say.
She nods, serious now. “Lynna is safe, Jacob. Your father and Brother Enos went with the Everts to West Fork to make sure the girl was treated fairly.”
“They did?”
“Yes. Your father feared that her story would not be believed.”
“He did?” I am amazed by this. Why should my father care about Lynna?
“They also wanted to let Max Evert know that his daughter is welcome here in Nodd.”
My heart lurches. “Lynna is coming to Nodd?”
“I did not say that. Only that, should her situation require it, she would be welcome here as a guest. But Max Evert has sent his daughter to stay with relatives in Arizona.”
“Is she coming back?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
This news opens a chasm inside of me.
“Jacob? Are you certain you are all right?”
I am not all right. I say, in a shaky voice, “Father Grace says I am to take a wife.”
My mother inhales sharply. “Who?”
“Sister Beryl.”
“Beryl? She is barely fourteen!”
“He says we are to wed in the spring, when the Tree is in bloom.”
She considers this, her lips pressed tightly together, then asks, “Do you have feelings for Beryl?”
“I do not know her.”
She nods. “Jacob, have I ever told you how your father and I met?”
I shake my head.
“We were in college. He was in law school; I was studying literature. He was one of the few Jewish boys on campus; I was raised in a Christian home.”
I knew that my father was once a Jew. The same could be said of Enoch, and of the prophet Jesus.
