“Anyway, we had to follow all the rules. You have to eat certain things and be kind and loving, honest—you know, what you would expect from churchy people. But there are a lot more rules, and even then, it’s not easy to be chosen for battle. Alice goes into a trance every day or maybe twice a day, and the Spirits speak through her. So far, we’ve heard only two of their voices, but they tell us there are several besides Lakwena. They give very explicit orders about who can go to combat.
“We got lucky. Before one of the battles, Lakwena said Phil and I should go to record the miracles that happened. They wanted others to know, I guess.” She took another swallow of water. “But we had to go through an extra purification ritual, take an oath of chastity, and a bunch of stuff, which ended in us spitting into a live chicken’s mouth.” She laughed. “I know, it sounds crazy! Poor Phil had to prove he had two testicles—no more, no less—is what the rulebook says, before he was declared worthy. But I gotta tell you, we’ve seen some miracles. They threw stones—regular rocks that glowed when they picked them up and exploded like grenades when the soldiers threw them, people getting shot at and not getting killed. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh, Lilly! You went into a battle?” Sally Beth felt her heart break.
“Really,” spoke up Phil. “We felt perfectly safe. We were off to the side, well away from any danger, standing up on a hill where we could see everything. Mostly we just saw Alice’s army advancing, singing, and then when they stopped singing—you’re not going to believe this—yelling ‘James Bond!’ at the top of their lungs, shooting randomly, and the Ugandans just broke and ran. Most of them threw down their guns, terrified the minute they saw them coming. It was incredible. Seasoned soldiers, throwing down their weapons and running over each other getting away.”
“‘James Bond’?” asked Red.
“Yeah. The chief technician, that’s the guy who is the ritual expert, who makes sure everybody is properly purified and armed, so to speak, is named James, and he calls himself ‘James Bond.’ Everybody yells his name over and over at the top of their lungs as they are marching. It’s the most surreal thing imaginable. You have to be there to believe it.
“By the way, we’ve written an article, and whoever is leaving out of here, will you send it to this address? And these rolls of film? Our professor is waiting for all this. He’s going to submit the story to the AP wire and see what comes of it.” Phil’s eyes glittered with excitement. “This could make our careers. We could even get an award for covering this.”
“Why don’t you deliver it yourselves? We’ve all got to get out of here today or tomorrow. The Ugandans could decide to take this place out any day now.” Now that Lilly was safe, Sally Beth was anxious to get away to safety.
Lilly paused, grimacing as she turned to her sister. Putting her hand on her shoulder and looking directly into her eyes, she pleaded. “Sally Beth, I’m so sorry. We’re going back. This is just too big for us. Too important. We have to see this story through. Please understand!” She brushed back Sally Beth’s hair with a tender gesture. “We just came back today to let you know we were safe and to ask you to deliver the film and the manuscript. We can’t leave now.”
Sally Beth felt the floor fall way from underneath her. She grabbed the edge of the table and jumped up. “Lilly! You can’t go back into that. I have been in hell, waiting here for you, terrified about what was happening to you, and Priscilla won’t go without me, and if something happens to her, it will be on my head, and I couldn’t stand it if you were killed, or even hurt. I can’t stand it not knowing where you are. Please! Don’t do this; come home with me—” Her voice broke with a sob.
Lilly stood as well, taking Sally Beth into her arms. She seemed gentler, older, as she very quietly cupped her hands around Sally Beth’s cheeks and looked closely at her. “Darling, I know you are afraid for me, for us. But we probably are safer than you are. I know we are safer than you are if you stay here.” She hesitated, blinking back tears before she continued, “You have to understand that I have found my purpose in life,” and Sally Beth could feel and hear the certain resolve in her voice. “I have somehow become the person I was meant to be, the person I never could be before now. You can’t ask me to not be that person. Do you really want me to go back to being that silly, lazy, materialistic girl who always gave you such a hard time? Please don’t ask me to do that. Let me be who I need to be. Somebody you can be proud of. Somebody I can be proud of.” Tears shimmered in her eyes, then made their way slowly down her face.
Sally Beth flung herself into Lilly’s arms, sobbing into her shoulder. She felt her whole world collapsing around her as she realized Lilly’s resolve would not be shaken, no matter what she said or did. Did God hate her? Why else would He take everything she loved away from her and then go away Himself and refuse to give her anything in return? She sat down, put her head in her arms, and wept as if her heart would never mend.
Lilly and Phil left immediately after lunch. “Don’t worry about us!” they insisted. “And leave! Get out of here before the Ugandans decide to take this place. Please. Go home, or at least go to Kenya with John.” They moved to the jeep and waved as Samuel started it and roared out of the compound. “We’ll get in touch when we leave, and it won’t be long. Maybe a couple more weeks. We have to finish this.”
Sally Beth stood looking after them, and although the others gathered around her, holding her, murmuring soft words, she felt entirely abandoned, especially when John cleared his throat and said softly, “We have to go now, if I’m to get any more people out today…” Sally Beth nodded, held up her head, and smiled through her tears.
“Of course.” She walked slowly to the meadow with everyone to bid farewell to John and three refugees from nearby villages.
Before John climbed into the plane, he pulled her aside and murmured to her, “If you still want this, I will meet you at Alethia’s house tonight.”
Sally Beth looked at him, her eyes filled with anguish, and yet, somehow, hope. It pierced him with dread and sorrow and an ache that took over his whole being. Did she have any idea what she was asking of him? She needed him to be an impossible thing: a man who would prove to her that men could be good, that there were some she could trust to keep her safe, even as he lied to her with his body. And yet, she knew he would be lying. She had said it herself: he would be pretending to love her for one night only. What would become of her after that? Who would she hate more, he wondered—herself or him? He tried not to flinch at the hope in her eyes.
“I’ll have time for a couple more trips after this one to get six more people out, and then I’ll tell everyone that I’ll stay in Bukoba tonight, and I’ll come to you. If you can, try to find a way to camouflage the plane. Paint or something, anything so that it will be hard to notice if somebody flies over in a chopper.”
She nodded. “Yes. Trust me.” She looked deep into his eyes, and as if she were reading his mind, she smiled softly and touched his face. “I know how hard this is for you. I don’t expect anything except a little comfort. I need something I can hold onto, just in case things don’t go well from here on out.”
He wondered if he should kiss her, but he decided not to. The others were waiting for him, expectant, and the sun would not be still.
Nineteen
Falla, I’m going to run over to Alethia’s house for a little while. It’s still standing, but it probably won’t last the war. I’m going to get some things that are precious to her—pictures and so forth. I don’t want Priscilla to come with me; it might be dangerous. Would you stay with her? Tell her I’m sad about my sister and I want to be alone the rest of today and tonight. I’ll be back in the morning. I don’t want to chance coming back after dark.”
Falla looked at her with concern. “Nothing is as precious to Alethia as you, Sally Beth. It is foolhardy to go.”
“Maybe, but I really do want to be alone tonight. Please. I promise to be careful. Just do this for
me, okay?”
Falla nodded. Sally Beth hated to tell the half-lie, but her life had turned into a lie of sorts anyway. Everything that she had learned her whole life—that life was good, that people were good, that God protects and guides—all those were lies to her. What was one more little lie now so she could find a moment of comfort and pleasure in John’s arms? She packed a bag, fumbled around for the keys to Alethia’s van, and left without another word.
It was hard going. There was almost nothing left of the road, and Sally Beth was glad she would not have to go over the river, for the bridge was precarious, although still standing. She made her way slowly around the holes, the abandoned, burned-out vehicles, and, to her horror, the decaying bodies of animals and humans scattered across the landscape. She knew she was looking at the aftermath of evil, at the very thing hell was made of and almost chuckled to herself as she remembered thinking that the desert outside Las Vegas was what hell was like. She would have given her hands to be in that desert with Lilly right now.
She drove on resolutely, meeting no one, listening to the sound of the rain on the roof, the windshield wipers swishing. The radio offered nothing but static. The world was on hold while evil roved the land. Only the rain offered a small piece of grace to her troubled soul.
The clouds cleared away as she drove through the red mud up to Alethia’s house; it stood, untouched in a bright shaft of afternoon sunlight, a beacon of homeliness adrift in a sea of horror. Sally Beth parked the van close to the porch, mounted the stairs, and unlocked the front door, walking into the same sweet, cluttered room strewn with toys and bright clothing that she had left just a couple of weeks ago. The treadle sewing machine still sat on the dining table. A little blue and white dress lay draped over a chair, waiting to be hemmed.
There was no electricity, so she set about looking for candles and lanterns, and after she found them, she took a flashlight and went down to the basement, where she found the stash of fabric that matched the flowered curtains, slipcovers, and dresses upstairs. Alethia had not been exaggerating; there were at least a thousand yards wound onto scores of bolts. She took several of them up the stairs, found the scissors and thread, and sat down at the table.
Taking two bolts of cloth, she unwound them, then set to work sewing them together. When she had run a seam about fifty feet long, she cut the fabric, and then, starting at the top, began another seam parallel to the other. She did not stop after she had sewn up a fifty-foot square blanket, but went to work on another, smaller one. Finally, after an hour of sewing, she clipped the thread, took the smaller blanket outside and draped it over the van. From where she stood, it looked just like what it was, a big swath of colored fabric draped over a vehicle, but she hoped that in the dark, it would simply look like trees or bushes bedecked with blue, red, and yellow flowers.
Next, she went around back, slipped through the weedy garden, and retrieved tomatoes, cucumbers, and yams. Mangoes from the tree in the side yard were plentiful and ripe. Back inside, she rummaged through the pantry, whipped up a simple cake to put in the gas oven, and put beans on to cook.
Finally, she ran water in the bathtub, grateful for the gas water heater, then sank into the tub and waited until the sun began to settle in the west.
This would be something of a wedding night. She realized how pitifully adolescent the thought was. John did not love her, although she was certain she loved him. She was not naïve enough to believe that somehow he would be so smitten with her feminine wiles that he would fall madly in love with her. No, she knew that her plea for him to make love to her was the pathetic begging of a desperately lonely woman who could not see beyond the pain she had been facing for the last—how many days? It seemed like years. It seemed that the peace and love she had known as a child was only a vague, pleasant dream of the past. Now she knew that reality was brutal, and if she wanted any joy, she would have to grab it whenever she found the opportunity, even if it meant finding a man who could only pretend to care for her, and even then, reluctantly. She didn’t care. Her love for John was the only light she had right now, and she needed him to show her that beauty was possible, even in the midst of horror.
She shaved her legs, washed, and dragged herself out of the tub wearily, then dressed in a clean summer dress, not bothering with underwear. She went downstairs to wait for the man who could, for a moment perhaps, make her forget about what life had become.
John arrived just before dusk, at that time of day photographers call the “magic hour,” when light becomes alive, delightedly exploring secret corners, mischievously dashing away shadows that had tucked themselves away. Sally Beth put on her shoes, and out of habit, her pink princess cowboy hat, and went out to meet him, her arms full of the cheerful meadow she had stitched together earlier.
He was filled with dread as he approached the field beside Alethia’s house, but when he saw her waiting for him draped in what looked like a huge colorful tent, he found himself forgetting his own fear, and instead felt a rush of delight. As usual, Sally Beth managed to look both beautiful and absurd, her arms full of fabric that not only mounded up to her head, but also dragged in a long trail behind her. Above that was her lovely face, her gleaming hair spread out over her shoulders, and topping that, the ridiculous pink hat, the rhinestone princess crown winking in the sun. He felt little bubbles of happiness float through his being, battling their way through the trepidation that had lived there all day.
“I made a present for your plane,” she said, hefting the enormous bundle into his arms. “I think it’s big enough to cover it, and we can weigh the edges down with rocks.” He took the weight of it, and then felt a little shock going through him when he saw what she was wearing. A thin pink linen dress clung to her, and the sunlight streamed straight through it so that she seemed to be clothed in nothing but a pale pink glow. He averted his eyes, looking closely at what she had given him.
“Ah, it’s a camouflage tent!” he exclaimed. “Brilliant, Sally Beth. Let’s get this over her and see how she looks.”
Together, they managed to drape the huge blanket over the plane, and when they stepped back, they both laughed at how silly it looked—like a giant child hiding under a blanket, pretending to be invisible. But when he squinted, he could see that from a distance, or at night, it just might work. Once the light failed, it very well could look like a flowery meadow or a forest of blooming trees. He shrugged. “Better than I could have done.” Then he took her hand and walked back toward the house.
“I have a little supper,” she said cautiously, then glanced down at herself and blushed violently. She had not realized how thin the dress was, or how the brightness of the sun would reduce it to merely a mist over her nakedness. As quickly as she could, she went to Alethia’s closet and pulled out a drab robe. John pretended not to notice, but fumbled into the kitchen, saying, “My, this smells good. Did you bake a cake?”
“Yes. Dinner will be ready in five or ten minutes, just as soon as this cornbread is done.”
“Good. I’m starved. Could I take a shower before dinner? I’m filthy.”
“Of course.” She blushed again and looked away.
He showered quickly, dressed himself in the clean clothes he had brought with him, and returned to find the table set with candles and a vase of flowers. “Beautiful,” he said, meaning the flowers, but looking at her, and then the conversation faltered. They tried starting it up again several times over supper, but it was fraught with false starts and awkward stammerings, followed by long periods of silence while they toyed with their food.
Dusk settled gently around them, as softly as their silence, and they both fought with the apprehensions fluttering through the shadows of their souls. At last he stood. “Let’s go see how the disguise looks.”
Together they walked to the porch. To their surprise, the plane had seemed to disappear, melding into the shadows as completely as a mist flitting among the trees. “Sally Beth, you are a genius,” he chuckled, and she laughed,
too. In her laughter, he could hear the echoes of happiness. Only the echoes, but even so, the sound of it lightened his heart. He took her shoulders and turned her to him.
“Sally Beth, we don’t have to do this. I can just hold you tonight like I did last night. I don’t want you to do anything you might regret.”
In response, she moved closer to him, put her arms around him, and kissed him with all the love she had to offer.
Her mouth tasted like honey and mangoes, and her touch sent tendrils of fire flashing throughout his whole being. He had prepared himself to be completely in control, to be the best lover he could be for her, but this kiss and his sudden desire sent him spiraling along a path he had not anticipated, a delicious, beckoning path that made him want to fling aside all his constraints and go running down it. Sliding his hands down her back and resting them at the base of her spine, he felt how small her waist was, how her flesh swelled out behind and to the sides in such firm plumpness that he wanted to rub the curves and marvel at their smoothness.
He remembered his task. This was about her. “Does Alethia have any records or music tapes or anything?” He laughed nervously. “Something other than church music, I hope.”
Sally Beth broke from him, went inside, and returned with a battery-powered boom box, in which she had already placed a tape of The Righteous Brothers, and started the music. Then she fell into his arms, and together they moved to the music of “Unchained Melody.”
The Women of Jacob’s Mountain Boxed Set Page 71
