The Women of Jacob’s Mountain Boxed Set

by Hining, Deborah;

  Lilly dropped her jaw and she stared at Sally Beth. “You’re…” she began, then closed her mouth and shrugged. “If you can fly as good as you can drive, I reckon we’ll survive. Take us to the war!”

  Sally Beth was nervous, terrified, really, but she remembered almost everything John had told her, and with just a little coaching, she made it off the ground without embarrassing herself or scaring anyone other than herself. Lilly and John were both asleep by the time they had reached optimum altitude, and Phil seemed unconcerned, probably because he didn’t know this was only her third time flying and her first takeoff. She wiped her sweating palms on her jeans, said a prayer of thanksgiving, and turned the nose of the plane to 281 degrees northwest.

  Fifteen minutes later, she buzzed the meadow by the church when her nerve failed at her first landing attempt. Neither Lilly nor John woke up until her second try, when she landed roughly, bouncing four times before the wheels finally made steady contact with the ground. Phil said nothing, Lilly startled once, then said, “Huh?” John roused himself enough to mutter, “Good job.”

  October 21, 1978

  The next morning, Lilly was still sleeping in Sally Beth’s cot as Sally Beth crept around the room, getting dressed in the early morning dark. She was at her post later, irrigating a wound in a young man’s arm while Falla worked with a woman with an ugly burn on her back and Jenna, the cook, rolled bandages, when Lilly strolled into the clinic.

  “Hey, Sally Beth.” Lilly still looked tired and pale without any makeup. Her closely-cropped hair had not been combed, and she was wearing the strangest outfit Sally Beth had ever seen: khaki pants and a vest festooned with at least a dozen pockets in which Lilly had stuffed all manner of items, from film to camera lenses to candy bars. Lawrence’s camera was slung around her neck and hung down the front. Another one hung across her body and dangled at her side.

  Sally Beth turned back to the young man. “Does that hurt?” she asked him, touching the ragged edges of flesh lightly as she squirted water into it. “There’s some porridge on that hot plate there,” she said over her shoulder. “And coffee, or tea if you want it, and a pot of yams. And there’s plenty of fruit. Help yourself.” She turned her attention back to her patient. “I’m just going to put some salve on this and bandage it up. I don’t think you need stitches, but you need to keep this clean. Okay?”

  The young man nodded. His eyes looked frightened, but he sat up straight as she wrapped the bandage around his thin arm. Finally, he stood, nodded his thanks, and walked out the door.

  Lilly ladled out a bowl of porridge, sliced off some bread, and stood against the wall as she ate. “I’m starving,” she said, spooning the porridge into her mouth. “Let me eat this, then I’ll help. You seen Phil?”

  “Yes, he’s over by the wall, helping to shore up a few places in case any of the fighting moves down here. We’re not too worried, but—” Sally Beth was interrupted by someone shouting, and suddenly more people filed into the small room. One of them was the young woman, Alice, whom she had met over lunch a few Sundays ago. She staggered in with the support of the young man, Francis, who had been by her side on the day they had met. The back of her blouse hung in bloody shreds, and under that, her back was lacerated with stripes. Sally Beth gasped when she realized she had been brutally whipped with a lash.

  “Alice!” she exclaimed. “What happened to you?”

  Alice moaned, sinking to her knees. Francis knelt beside her. He looked at Sally Beth with great sorrow.

  “The Lakwena demanded it. She ordered the men to battle before they were purified.”

  “The Lakwena? Who is that?” She gingerly cut off the back of Alice’s blouse. Lilly had exchanged her bowl of porridge for a camera. From against the wall, she stepped sideways, keeping her distance, and discreetly began snapping. Sally Beth stopped to frown at her, but Lilly shook her head slightly. “I have to do this,” she said quietly.

  Francis answered her. “He is the spirit who guides us. Alice saw an opportunity, and she ordered our men to battle before they were purified.” He looked at his friend with compassion, taking her hand and speaking softly. “You braved it with great courage. The Lakwena will be proud of you.”

  Alice suddenly looked up, then before Sally Beth could begin sponging off her back, she staggered to her feet, and eyes staring vacantly out the window, spoke in a strangely hard, low, guttural monotone, “God forgives Alice. She has borne her punishment and He knows her regret. Tell the woman to wash her stripes with water and honey, but do not put anything else except the kitungulu on them. God will heal His servant Alice in three days.”

  Sally Beth stepped back, startled. The voice had definitely come from Alice: she had seen her breathe and speak, but it did not sound as if it came from her. It seemed to echo off the walls and come at her from behind, and it definitely was not the voice of the young woman she had met a month before.

  Francis looked at her sternly. “You heard the Lakwena. Wash her stripes with water and honey. I will find the kitungulu for her healing.”

  “Kitungulu? What is that?”

  He paused, struggling to translate. “It is the young wild allium, like an onion. It is one of the cures that has been purchased, and we have been given permission to take it. The salves you use are forbidden.”

  Alice suddenly slumped again, moaning, her head on her hands, resting on the floor. Lilly inched closer, her camera clicking and whirring as she focused on the young woman’s face, her back, her bowed-over posture. No one seemed to notice her as she took frame after frame, moving through the light like a pale shadow, crouching, circling Alice as she focused and clicked, focused and clicked.

  Sally Beth glanced at Falla and Jenna. Falla was with another patient, but had stopped to gaze at Alice. The wounded and sick sitting against the wall or standing in the doorway stared silently while Alice moaned, and Lilly danced through the light, all her energies zeroed in on the woman with the hollow face and voice. Sally Beth felt her knees begin to quiver. She wanted to tell Lilly to stop taking pictures, she wanted Alice to look at her, and for all the others to look away, but she felt helpless, rooted in a circle of absurdity as she watched Alice’s vacant face and bloody back. Time froze, but after a few breathless seconds, she forced herself to stand straight as she said quietly to no one in particular. “Can someone get me some honey?”

  Jenna jumped up. “I’ll go,” she said, dropping her roll of bandages and passing quickly out of the door. Sally Beth retrieved a small basin, filling it with warm water, while all eyes except Lilly’s watched her. A few minutes later, Jenna returned with a small jar of honey.

  Sally Beth turned to Alice. “Do I mix the honey in the water?” she asked her, but the young woman looked blank, as if she had vacated her body and there was no one inside to respond. She tried again, turning to Francis. “Do I mix the honey in the water? Or wash her first, and then apply honey?”

  He looked at Alice. “Alice? Lakwena?” He asked her gently. “Does she mix the water in the honey?” Alice did not respond, but gazed steadily at the wall in front of her while Lilly eased closer, taking close-up photographs of her empty face. Francis turned to Sally Beth and shrugged. “I don’t know. Whatever you think.”

  She realized that Alice was in shock, and she suddenly felt a piercing terror for this young woman who knelt before her. She was carrying a burden that Sally Beth could not understand, a burden that was far greater than her slight shoulders should be holding, and there was nothing Sally Beth could do to give her ease. She had the nagging feeling that Alice would never be free of it, and that this beating was not the last she would take for the sake of her Holy Spirits.

  Sally Beth gave up trying to understand and instead did what she could to alleviate her physical suffering. She simply washed the bloody welts and lacerations with water with a soft sponge, then gently slathered honey on them before applying bandages.

  Afterward, she spoke to Francis. “I’ll leave it to you to find the o
nions, but I think she’d better stay here for a while. Seems to me she’s in shock. There are some cots out in the courtyard under the trees. Can you take her out there and let her rest? Keep her warm, and I’ll get one of the doctors to check on her.” She didn’t know what else to say. Alice was still staring vacantly at the window. Suddenly the light flickered behind her eyes and she turned to Sally Beth, smiling, her face alight with pleasure and recognition.

  “Sally Beth, my friend from America. How nice to see you again. Thank you for helping us. You have been very kind, and we hope to return the favor someday soon.” She stood, holding her shredded blouse up to cover her breasts, and slowly, but elegantly, made her way out the door, followed by Francis. Lilly slipped out the door behind her, but she whispered to Sally Beth as she left,

  “Sally Beth, please go and get Phil, and ask him to find us.”

  She could not leave, but she turned to Jenna. “Jenna, there’s a big, hairy white man out by the west wall. Would you please go ask him to go out to the courtyard and help Lilly and Alice?” Jenna nodded, leaving quickly, as Sally Beth sighed, washed her hands, and turned to the next person waiting in line. She felt like she was a hundred years old.

  Sally Beth did not see her sister again until late in the afternoon. She was trying to drink a cup of tea between tending to two young boys who had been in their house when a grenade landed on it, causing part of the roof to collapse. One boy was fine; the other had been hit in the head with the sharp edge of a tin roof and needed to see a doctor. She set him on a cot on the corner by the first examining room before looking up to see Lilly and Phil standing in the doorway.

  “I gotta go, Sally Beth. Alice is going back to her soldiers, and Phil and I are going with them. It’s amazing, what they are doing. I don’t have time to tell you everything, but Alice is a medium for a spirit, who is leading a whole army; they call themselves the Army of the Holy Spirits, and it’s a story you won’t believe. We’ve just got to cover it.”

  Sally Beth cried out, “No! Lilly, you can’t go. There is a real war out there. The people coming in here aren’t even in the fighting; they’ve just been hurt because they’re close. You can’t.”

  Lilly made an impatient gesture. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll stay well away from any battles. Alice has a whole flock of people with their army—women, children. They are a traveling town, they have church services and school, like a whole community. And they’re perfectly safe. They don’t get near the fighting, and they can move fast if they need to. We’ll try to be back in a couple of days, but don’t worry about us. We can’t pass this up.” Her eyes flashed with excitement, and Sally Beth knew it was useless to try to stop her. She had seen that look before.

  Phil spoke up, “I’ll make sure she’s safe, Sally Beth. But she’s right. We can’t pass this up. This could be the story of the war, and it looks like nobody is covering it.” Sally Beth felt her heart grow heavy, felt it sink like an anchor. She had lost her father and her mother. She had lost Holy Miracle, and now she would lose her sister, for no matter how hard she fought, Lilly would turn and walk out that door and across the threshold into hell.

  Lilly hugged Sally Beth tightly. “I love you, Sis. We’ll be fine.”

  Sally Beth clung to her even as she pulled away, giving Sally Beth a bright smile as she skipped out the door. Sally Beth started to follow, but a child sitting nearby let out a wail, pulling her thoughts back toward her duties. When she looked back, Lilly and Phil were nowhere in sight.

  Seventeen

  October 25, 1978

  Sally Beth had seen her mother die, and she had seen her best friend Holy Miracle Jones release his last breath into a vision of an Almighty God, and she had seen an elderly patient at the nursing home slip away into the darkness and the light of death, but she had never seen anyone die in agony. She had never seen anyone who was young, vital, and strong succumb to that seductive pull, the promise of liberation from pain. She had never seen anyone face death in terror, screaming about the claws of Satan, or anyone who whimpered and begged for his mother as the Great Shadow roved hungrily into his being.

  Until now, she had been an innocent, believing that death was a great adventure, the threshold across which one must pass as one steps into the Light, like going through a dim cave to get to the brilliant pool of sunshine on the other side. Now she saw the dark, angry, ugly side of death, where people did not simply shrug off their ailing flesh to leap into the arms of God, but where death came and clawed away at them until their bodies and their souls were shredded and bleeding, their humanity ripped away from them. She stopped breathing when the first one gripped her hand and, eyes wide with fear and pain, begged her for a drink of water as blood fountained from his severed legs. She held onto him, despite the blackness swimming before her own eyes, then felt her chest convulse in a burst of self-preservation when it finally realized she was not the one meant to die today.

  After that, she forced herself to breathe slowly and regularly through the mask of cool professionalism she put on to shield herself. It was nearly ripped away dozens of times, at first, when she saw the mangled and dismembered, and then again as war presented her with a whole new brand of horrors: raped, tortured, mutilated children.

  A little girl, not more than eight or nine was first, followed by so many she could not count them. Many were already dead when they arrived; most were dying, some died in her arms. By the end of the day, she had seen more of hell than she ever could imagine seeing in an eternity.

  It had started early in the morning. Ugandan forces, reinforced by thousands of troops from Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan army and Palestinian fighters, had suddenly surged to take the whole Kagera region. They flooded across the border, murdering, burning, plundering, and raping their way southward in a wide swath along the Ugandan Road. Tanzanian forces, overwhelmed, were pushed back well south of the river, but as they withdrew, they laid land mines and booby traps to try to deflect their enemies.

  Civilians, fleeing in terror from the monsters who pursued them, ran into these mines, and the bloody, unfathomable aftermath was laid at the doorstep of the mission. What had been a place of grace for people to rest or be treated for minor injuries and illnesses suddenly was overrun by the hell of war.

  She could hear the guns and grenades just outside the mission compound; she could smell the smoke from burning houses, and when the wind was right, the smell of blood and the first reek of flesh beginning to rot in the African sun. They had not had time to run; they had only seen the Tanzanian army fleeing, and then the sea of bleeding, dying, savaged civilians who came screaming or mute, alive and dead, terror-stricken, to the gates.

  There was nothing to do but rush out amid the ravaging death to try to help one or two at a time, to staunch a river of blood spurting from a woman’s armpit, to drag a dead mother off a baby suffocating underneath her, to hold a screaming, terrorized two-year-old who had been raped, then shot in the face. Sally Beth forced her own breath in and out, and with each exhale, she begged God for the life of her sister, for Phil’s life, for John’s life, for the life of the whimpering child she held in her arms. She had not seen Lilly or Phil for four days; she had not seen John since the night before that, but she knew he might be somewhere nearby, flying through bullets to ferry the seriously wounded to hospitals that might have enough room for them.

  Oh, God! Where are You? Surely, You can see this. And surely, it offends You so much You want to make it stop. Please, make it stop. Lilly! John! Oh, God! Where are they? Protect them, Lord. Save this child. Save us all.

  They had brought those they thought they could help back into the mission and had laid them on cots or blankets, or even on the grassy lawn. Still holding the child, she made her way back to the clinic, hoping against all reason to find a way to save her. The sun was setting. She had not eaten anything since early this morning, and she felt that she would sink to the floor, into the blood that rose up the soles of her shoes and be swallowed up in its ra
nk redness. She brushed the hair from her face and looked up to see Falla smiling at her and holding out a glass of water. In Falla’s face, she saw grace and beauty for the first time that day, but there was no pleasure in it, for it was laid against a backdrop of horror.

  “Drink, Sally Beth. And give some to the babe.” Falla leaned over to wash the little girl’s face with a tattered rag. The child calmed for a moment, but clung to Sally Beth. A bullet had left a hole in her cheekbone: the huge, bloody-black cavity glared at her like a malevolent eye. Sally Beth gave her a sip of water and tried to look at the other side of her face, still flawlessly plump, a baby’s face, but she could not manage a smile. All she could do was hold her tighter, close her eyes and cry out in silence.

  The little girl died late in the afternoon, still cradled in Sally Beth’s aching arms. Sally Beth could not even think clearly enough to lay her down; she merely stood mute and helpless while Dr. Sams gently lifted the cooling corpse from her. As night fell and the small bodies piled up outside the door, she finally crumbled, weeping and begging God to come into their midst, to lift the evil embedded in men’s hearts, to rip it out, even if it meant ripping out so much of their hearts they could not survive. But God did not come. He did not speak. He had fled this place. Even He could not face this much evil.

  Oh, Lord God. How can You stand us? Why have You not wiped humanity off the earth and started over?

  October 29, 1978

  The fighting had moved south, and for a few precious moments at a time, there was no one to care for, no dying hand to grasp, no ravaged and tortured woman or child to hold. The air still stank of burning houses, blood, and rotting flesh, but somehow, the mission had not been touched. The enemy soldiers had parted, like a school of sharks swimming around an island as they continued their way toward the heart of Tanzania.