The Alliance (9 page)

“I’m just asking a question.”

His doggedness is infuriating. Having nothing to lose, because he’s leaving anyway, I snap, “If I’m defensive, it’s because I have to prove my self-worth.”

“Prove to whom?”

“‘Prove to whom’?” I laugh. “To myself, the community, strangers on the street. It doesn’t matter
who
it is. I feel like someone’s always judging me . . . about to take away everything I have left.”

“Why would they do that, when you’ve done nothing wrong?”

“But I
have
, Moses. I was supposed to be watching Anna that day she fell in the barn, and she almost died because of me.” I stop, hungry for absolution.

He says nothing. Reaching beneath the table, Moses brings up his revolver. He sets it on the table with a
thunk
that causes me to step back, as if the impact might cause
the gunpowder to explode. “You weren’t punished or a punisher, Leora. Pain happens. It’s a fact of life.”

He stands to holster the revolver. Then he stops—still holding the gun—and walks around the kitchen table, actually two tables turned lengthwise and pushed together so that all eight family members can sit in between the kitchen and the dining room during meals. He stands directly before me. A ray from the early morning light falls upon his head, igniting the blond hair with a tongue of fire. He holds the gun out in his cupped palms, an offering of reassurance, but it feels more like the apple Eve offered to Adam before the two of them fell.

“Think how you could protect your family,” he says, “when these locusts come, or whoever comes bent on hurting you.”

I don’t look at him as I take the revolver and readjust my grip to accommodate the odd dimensions and weight. The metal is cool to the touch. I run one finger along the sleek bottom of the barrel until I come upon the trigger. I shudder, envisioning the sleek bullet, the catalyst that would launch from its chamber if I switched off the safety and pressed down. A curve of metal that possesses the power to extinguish a life. I look up at Moses and am unable to tell if he is evil or good. Perhaps he is neither; perhaps—like my
vadder
, like all of us—he is a mixture of both. I say, “God will protect us.”

Moses takes the revolver from me, sliding it down into his holster and snapping the top. His impatience is evident as he asks, “What about King David? Wasn’t he considered a man after God’s own heart, even though there was blood on his hands?”

Once again, I am surprised by Moses’s familiarity with the Bible, since that first day we spoke on the playground, he told me he was not a man of faith. Perhaps he has head knowledge, just not heart knowledge. But am
I
not the same? My pacifist viewpoints were solid only because they had never been rocked by real-world events. Now I have desecrated their foundation by taking a revolver in my hands. And yet, my Anabaptist ancestors were driven from their homeland without protest. They were burned alive without protest, some even singing as they walked toward the stake. How were they able to move knowledge from their heads to their hearts? Or did this conviction come only after they saw their companions’ devotion and then felt the scorching heat of their own flames?

I stare into the middle distance over Moses’s shoulder, envisioning every trial that has yet to take place. Eventually, thwarting the quiet, I reply to his comment about King David. “We’re not living in Old Testament times. There’s no more need for that kind of violence.”

“So tell me,” Moses says, leaning closer, his breath evocative of coffee and mint. “What would
you
do if someone came up that lane wanting to murder your family?”

His words, though gentle, hit me like a blow from the hand. I stare at Moses Hughes, again trying to discern whether God sent him here to keep us safe, or whether he is being used by a malevolent force determined to destroy our community from the inside out. And yet . . . how would it feel to be able to protect my family in the way I have always longed to? Just because I harbored a weapon, it wouldn’t mean that I would have to inflict violence. . . .

I can feel Moses watching me, searching my face for a sign of what I am about to say. But even
I
do not know what I’m about to say. I just know I cannot imagine taking another’s life, even to preserve the lives of my family.

“I don’t think I could do it, Moses.” I swallow a sudden welling of tears for the second time today. “If someone came up that lane intending to harm my family, I would first invite them into our home and I would prepare a meal for them. We would sit around the table, give thanks, and talk. If, afterward, they wanted to take my life,
our
lives, even after we’ve been so kind to them, then—I guess—so be it.”

Moses peruses me, aghast, and then he looks down at the scarred hardwood floor. “Well—I would say you’re a far better person than I am. But I’m not sure whether allowing someone to come into your home and destroy your family is wisdom or foolishness.”

Moses picks up his backpack and slips his arms through the straps.

“You are going to leave?” I ask. “Just like that?”

“The Snyders said good-bye this morning, before they left for work at Field to Table.” As if I am not worthy of a good-bye at all.

He moves into the foyer and opens the front door. I gaze at him and at his backpack, edged by the frame. For an instant, I contemplate leaving with Moses, knowing my future is insecure whether I go or stay. But I know it would be selfish to leave. My family needs me.

Moses steps onto the porch. I come outside. The screen door taps shut. It is strange to stand on the front porch of the house Jabil would have me occupy, and instead stand by someone I know he does not like, mostly because he perceives Moses as a threat against him. Against
us
.

Moses and I peer out at the community, our thoughts muddled by everything that has—and hasn’t—been said. I wonder if his knowledge of the EMP has him envisioning where we will all be in a year: Malnourished? Displaced? Scraping by on the remnants of what we harvested this year? It’s hard to foresee where Mt. Hebron will be by then; it’s scary to wonder who will compromise their ethics in order to remain.

At the entrance of the community, the Mennonite men are working side by side with the
Englischers
whom we did not know nine days ago. And, honestly, whom we do not know now. From this vantage point, you cannot see any
nuances in their appearances, only their joint zeal to fortify the perimeter by nailing coils of old barbed wire along the top—knowing that wire alone cannot stop intruders but will at least slow them down.

The Mennonites are going against the bishop by not leaving the construction project to the
Englisch
. But this is no rebellion. My Mennonite neighbors began working on the perimeter yesterday when, according to Moses’s timeline, they realized we are soon going to need protection from the locusts who are rumored to be coming.

Moses adjusts his pack and begins descending the steps. He turns and raises his hand to shield his vision. Through the lattice of his fingers and the shadows they create, I can see the brilliant hue of his eyes. “Thanks for everything.”

I nod, powerless to speak. The pilot nods as well and begins walking up the lane. His stride is made uneven by a limp, though his ankle is almost healed, so I surmise it must come from some previous injury. I watch him traverse a few more yards—my own eyes shaded from the sun—and conclude that Moses Hughes is carrying far more baggage than what is visible on his back. In this, our unseen scars, he and I are the same. I look to my right, at my patch of land, where Jabil is cutting down the grass that would’ve soon withered in the field.

Our eyes meet. The scythe flashes in his hand.

Moses

Holstering his hammer in his tool belt, Christian strides across the scaffolding. “Hey, Charlie,” he calls. “You heard anything about letting the pilot past the perimeter?”

Charlie adjusts his grip on the rusty twist of barbed wire and looks down from the scaffolding, narrowing his eyes. “Haven’t heard a thing.”

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.