Ingathering

by Zenna Henderson

“Our world!” cried Adina, softly. “Our world!”

  “Our world,” said Eliada. “All clouds and blue and wonderful! We sang! Oh, how we sang for journey’s end and the loveliness offered us—” Her voice broke abruptly.

  “But you had forgotten—” reminded Nathan.

  “We had forgotten,” sighed Eliada. “For so many years there had been no need to know how to move the ships, or take them into other atmospheres; so we had forgotten. During all the journey, the Motivers had sought back through all of us and our memories of our Befores, to find the skills they needed, but they were not wise enough. They knew too little. They could do so few of the things that should have been done. Our ship was alone now. All the others had other parts of the sky to search. They were too far for us to work together to get the knowledge we needed before—”

  “Before the air—” prompted Adina.

  “Before the air,” said Eliada. “Like a finger of flame pulled along our ship. By then we were all in our life slips—each all alone—to leave the craft before we died of the heating. Then we moved our slips—or our parents moved us, if we were not of an age to have the skill. And, out there all alone in the empty dark, I saw the ship glow brighter and brighter and—and flow apart and drip down and down—” A sob broke the story.

  “Don’t tell any more,” said Nathan, groping through the multitude of new pictures tonight’s story fanned out in his mind. “We shouldn’t ask you. It makes you—”

  “But telling it helps to end the pain,” said Eliada. “I cannot change what happened, but I can change the way I remember it.

  “I saw the life slips around me dart down through the air like needles of light, and I got caught up in trying to remember how to move mine—how to bring mine down safely—”

  Silence filled the loft, and the wind spoke softly to one corner of the cabin.

  “It was so wonderful to find we could breathe unshielded right from the beginning. And that there was land and trees, and the food and water were friendly to us. And some of us had landed dose together—”

  “We put into the new soil the cast-asides of those who were Called by the time we landed. My brother. Moorma’s parents. Roth’s wife and little boy. But not—” hope glowed. “Not my parents. Not Roth’s daughter. Not Moorma’s older brother. So perhaps somewhere, they are still alive—maybe half the world away—wondering if we are still alive. But maybe—”

  In the silence, the even breathing from Adina’s corner told that she and Moorma were sleeping.

  Eliada lifted onto one elbow and spoke to the darkness where Nathan was. “That’s where they have gone, Roth, Marilla, and Dor. Roth thinks he has been hearing the Questing of the People. Somewhere, not too far away. If they can find—maybe it will be—”

  She lay back with a sigh. “It is hard to wait. But—weeping endureth for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. That was in the book we read to comfort the one who lived in our cabin before he was Called from his broken body. To find a book that has the thoughts—the words—and even—” her voice was hardly a whisper—“even our Brother—Truly, though I take the wings of the morning—”

  The wind spoke softly again. Moorma murmured in her corner. And the quiet breathing of sleep was the only sound in the loft.

  “Tell us a story, Daddy,” said Little Lucas. “Tell about those People and the happy field.”

  “Isn’t very happy now,” said Nat, roughly, pretending disinterest. “ ’s where the lumber yard is.”

  “Lumber yards are happy!” Dena protested. “They smell of forest and they build houses—”

  “When it was the happy field,” said Nathan, leaning back in Papa’s big old chair, about the only thing left from the old cabin. “Ours was the only cabin for ten miles or so, except where—those People lived.”

  “That’s where the school is now!” cried Dena, perching on one of the rockers, dinging to Nathan’s arm. “At the end of Koomatka road.”

  “Koomatka!” scoffed Nat. “Crazy Indian names!”

  “It isn’t Indian,” said Nathan automatically, his eyes far and seeking. “On their Home, the People had a fruit called koomatka. It tasted like music sounds and was for special holidays—They sang—they had songs for every—”

  “Tasted like music—” The children snuggled down into themselves on the floor with quick, happy looks at each other. It had worked! Daddy was started on a People story!

  “—and they came back the next day, so happy they could hardly land in our front yard. And they had brought three more of the People with them—starving—broken—raggedy. They had never found a settling place since their Landing. And Mama cried while she helped Marilla bathe and care for them. They had come to our place because two of the new People were Eliada’s parents. They had to let her know—and Mama could help. Eliada couldn’t help. All she could do was hover—half the time above the bed—so dose they had to keep pushing her out of the way. Finally they told me to take her out under the big tree across the yard. So I did. And I held onto her there until she suddenly—like fainting—was asleep across my lap.

  “The other one they found was Moorma’s brother—Perez. He had cared for the others and defended them and starved so they could eat and was strong until they got him to our place, and then he collapsed—”

  “But they got well!” Little Lucas was anxious—as always—clambering up to lean hard against Nathan’s arm.

  “They got well.” Nathan nodded, his arm tight about Little Lucas’ fragile shoulders, wondering that Lucas was in the face of his child as he had been in Papa’s face—Papa—

  “Papa was pleased at how well the field did,” said Nathan. “He even thanked the People for helping him.” The children settled back around him, used to sudden changes in Daddy’s stories, after Daddy thought.

  “Besides the field, we had our kitchen garden, and it grew more than enough to feed us—and them too, if they had needed it. But—”

  The long, old sorrow was as piercing as when it was new. No, it couldn’t be—or how could you live?

  “But they went away,” prompted Dena.

  “They went away,” said Nathan. “Perez—his gift was communications—had spent an hour every day, sending out their Questing call. He changed the hour every day in case someone was listening at a different time. And he finally got an answer.

  “A group!’ Perez could hardly speak. ‘A lot of families! So many! So many of our old Group! And they’re coming! They have a craft!’ he laughed, half crying. ‘A little cobbled-together, busted-up thing!’ they said. ‘But they’re coming as soon as the dark of the moon, so no one—’ ”

  “And they went away—” Little Lucas’ voice was sad.

  “In an airship!” cried Nat, his eyes big with his crowding dreams.

  “And left the cradle for when Gramma’s little baby came.” Dena looked at the cradle by the fireplace, with Adina’s play-person, tattered and fragile, still in it. “And the baby was my Uncle Luke!” she said triumphantly.

  “And mine, too!” hastened Little Lucas. “And I’m named after him!”

  “Daddy.” Dena leaned against his knees, her eyes intent on his face. “Were you sorry when they went?”

  “Sorry—” Even this long after, he hadn’t been able to change much the way he “remembered it.” He could never forget the quick smother of Eliada’s embrace. And his stiffness that could not relax quickly enough to close his arms around her. There had been a quick, smooth swirl of her hair across his face. And she was gone. Up into the dark yawning of that door that waited, treetop high above the yard. Then the whisperings came—but not through his ears. All the thankings and rememberings and then the final—Rest secure in the Presence through the Name and the Power.

  And they were gone—somewhere far. Somewhere west. But—scant comfort—still in this world.

  “Don’t cry, Daddy,” said Dena, patting his cheek.

  “Men don’t cry!” scoffed Nat.

  No, men don’t cry—but bo
ys do. Face-down in the darkness in the grass behind the big tree, wetting huddling sleeves through with hot tears—crying for a magic that was gone and could never come again.

  “Yes, I was very sorry,” said Nathan. But—

  Nathan looked around the good room, felt the blessed warmth of Miriam, busy in the kitchen, and the wholeness of his life. The tightness inside him began to loosen, as it always finally did.

  “We’ll hug you happy,” said Dena. And the three children clustered and climbed on the chair and on his lap—even Nat, who sometimes now was too old to hug people happy.

  So—life widens. All kinds of loves come. Others come into the circle to complete it. And someday—maybe Otherside—but someday Eliada would be there again, sitting in the pool of her skirts, her hands lightly folded in her lap, her luminous eyes smiling, and her soft voice saying:

  “Tell us a story, Nathan. Tell us all the wonderful story of after we left—”

  That Boy

  There was an evil in the land. Maybe we should have known it, but at first it was sort of like an iceberg, just points and ripples. There was nothing big—nothing to put a name to or to struggle against. Just things like ten-year-old Jareb, rising from baptismal waters with a lie on his tongue. The very first words he spoke, even as he spluttered the creek water from his mouth and nose and shook it off his hair, were a lie. Instead of saying “Hallelujah, amen!” as he had been instructed, he gasped, There’s a boy down there! He smiled at me!”

  Well, Sister Gail, his mother, just plain cried, right there in front of everyone. She had wrestled so long and so hard with the stubborn spirit of untruth that seemed to possess Jareb, and he had promised solemnly that after he was cleansed of his sins in the waters, he’d never lie again, plain or fancy. Jareb sloshed up out of the water and ran to her, all dripping as he was, with the hem of his holy garment trailing in the sand and dust so that it wiped mud against his ankles as he went. “Honest, Mammal It’s true! There’s a boy down there!”

  “Oh, Jareb, Jareb!” Sister Gail hugged him to her, paying no mind to how wet he got her Sunday clothes. She hid her face against his hair so no one could see her tears.

  Brother Helon waded out of the pool in the creek. He took hold of Jareb’s shoulders and turned him away from Sister Gail. “Those who mock the Lord shall feel the weight of his mighty wrath!” His voice was like an organ rolling heavy darkness against the granite boulders that backed the pool.

  “I’m not mocking the Lord!” Jareb’s eyes were big and shocked. “It’s true! Just think! A boy down there! I didn’t know you could smile under water! Where did—”

  “Jareb.” Sister Gail gathered his hand into hers. Her eyes were dry again and her emotions decently tucked away. “Come change your clothes.” They started toward the wagons. She looked back over her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Brother Helon. I thought we had prayed the spirit of untruth from him.”

  When they were gone, the rest of us looked uneasily at each other, the solemn joy of Baptism Day sullied by Jareb’s behavior. Then Sister Ruth started the hymn Bringing in the Sheaves, and by the time we got to “—home we come rejoicing—” we were rejoicing and looking forward to the big noontime feed that waited in bulging baskets in the back of the wagons. We were plenty ready for food. We fast on Baptism Day until after the services.

  Jareb looked so little and lonesome sitting on a log all by himself, clutching the chunk of corn bread that was all Sister Gail would let him have in the midst of fried chicken and cake, that I stopped by him on my way down to the creek to get the watermelons that had been cooling in the shallows of the creek since the night before.

  “Want to come help?” I asked him. He looked up, resigned. “Mamma said to stay here,” he said. I caught Sister Gail’s eye and jerked my thumb over my shoulder. She hesitated, then nodded. She thinks I’m good for the boy, his dad being dead. She doesn’t want him to get too miss-ish.

  “She says it’s all right,” I told him. He put the corn bread down carefully on his log and followed me out of the shadows of the huge cottonwood trees into the blaze of sun.

  “Do you think I’m lying, Mr. Lambert?” asked Jareb as he trotted along with me. For some reason, everyone Misters me while they Brother and Sister everyone else in the Conclave.

  “Well,” I said, “if there’s a boy down there, he sure goes a long time without breathing.”

  “Yeah,” said Jareb thoughtfully. “Maybe he doesn’t have to come up—like a frog. Or maybe he went back the other way.”

  “Back where?” I asked, scanning the bare hills and the clustered river willows and cottonwoods along the creek.

  “To wherever he came from,” said Jareb. “We didn’t see him get in—”

  “We didn’t see him at all,” I reminded him.

  Silently we went on down the slope to the creek edge. I fished the watermelons out of the water, spanking them with satisfaction as I handled them. Fine melons! As soon as we got settled down, we’d raise just as good or better. Then there’d be no need to cart all our kitchen truck fifteen miles over the hills from Everly, our closest neighboring settlement.

  Jareb spanked the melons too, his head bent to hear the hollow, ripe echoes.

  “Listen, Jareb,” I said. “Folks are going to expect you to be different, now that you’ve been baptized. I don’t think you’d better go on with this story about a boy. It just makes your mother feel bad and gets you corn bread instead of fried chicken.” He opened his mouth to protest. “Wait,” I said. “If you think you’ll bust if you don’t finish talking it out of you, come to the shop and talk to me. I’ve got big ears.” I grinned at him. After a frowning moment, he grinned too.

  We both started back, a melon under each arm. Halfway up the slope, I paused to get a better grip on one of the melons and looked back. “—Four, five, and two’s seven,” I counted to myself. “Hmm. Someone got hungry. I brought eight.” Then I shrugged and followed Jareb up the slope.

  That shrieking kid, Jobie, met us halfway, skidding excitedly down the gravel slope. “Hurry up!” he yelled. “Ever-body’s waiting.”

  “Don’t yell,” I told him automatically. “We’re coming. You go on down and get a couple more. Save us a trip.”

  “Mom dint tell me to work!” yelled Jobie. “She owny told me to tell you—”

  “I’m telling you,” I said. “Stop yelling and go get a couple more melons. There are a couple about your size down there.”

  He glared at me and opened his mouth. I looked at him. He shut his mouth and skidded on down toward the creek. Jareb juggled his melons for a minute and followed me back to the flat. Jobie was as fast as he was loud, and as we laid the melons in the middle of the crowd, Jobie elbowed importantly through with his load. Jareb watched me cut the first one—so crisply ripe that it split ahead of the knife all the way across. The insides glowed as red as campfire coals, and that smell of watermelon—like nothing else on earth!—made us all breathe deeper. Jareb, gulping down his mouth-water, resolutely turned away.

  “I’ll go get the other one,” he said. He didn’t whine, not even with his eyes. Punishment was punishment and he accepted it.

  A while later he came back, a melon under each arm. “Two?” I asked. “I thought there was only one left.” His mouth opened but he reddened and closed it again. He went back to his log and his chunk of corn bread that by this time was swarming with ants. I glanced at him several times while the rest of us ate the melons, but he seemed absorbed in watching what was going on with his bread.

  It was time to pack up for home after we finished the melons; so while the women were clearing the tarps we had eaten on and the men were getting the horses, I strolled over to Jareb and his log.

  “What happened down at the creek?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, reddening again.

  “Come on. Out with it.” I sat down far enough from the corn bread not to get me any ants. “There was just one melon left.”

  “There’s still a
melon left,” he said.

  “Can’t be,” I said, tallying again in my head. “I only got eight from Everly.”

  “There’s still one,” he persisted. “The—” he paused, gulped, and went on. “That boy just brought back two because last night he took one of ours and he figgered that wasn’t very fair so he brought one back and an extra one to make up for it.” Jareb’s eyes were pleading. “You said—” He gulped again. “You said talk to you—” His eyes dropped and he clasped his hands between his pressing knees. “You said—” His shoulders sagged.

  My besetting sin flared up in me, shaking my insides. I can be patient without end with dumb brutes that you can’t reason with. I handle plenty in my smithy, but human beings who are given the power of reasoning and won’t use it—When I felt that I could control my voice, I said, “You’re right. I told you to talk to me, but that doesn’t mean I intend to countenance your lying—”

  “I’m not lying.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “I thought you believed me.” He flipped the ant-crowded corn bread to the ground and left me sitting alone.

  I looked after him—wondering, with one corner of my mind, how long it’d be before I got over wanting to reach for my pipe at times like this. I gave it up along with strong drink when I joined the Conclave. I shook my head and stood up. Then, feeling foolish, instead of going to help with the hitching-up, I went back down to the creek.

  There was another watermelon, wavering wet-green under the quiet waters of the creek. The ninth melon.

  As our short line of wagons curled around the foothills back to the settlement, I wondered again about the wisdom of our choosing this place. It was just another of those points of uneasiness that plagued me. True, there was the year ‘round creek. Maybe that was it. There was the creek. After the endless dusty miles with the sun glaring in our eyes and heavy on our laps until the days spun around us in a never-ending glare of weight and heat, the sight of the flowing waters had been like sighting the gates of the Eternal City. So we chose to accept this second of the three places recommended by the scouts the Conclave sent out when we all voted to move West to free ourselves of a world that grinned or frowned or sneered when the Conclavers were mentioned. You can’t serve God with one eye on the world and a shoulder always hunched against the next attack. At least so most of the Conclavers thought.