The Last Pilgrims (12 page)

“I hear in the winds that we are to have
some excitement, and I’m not talking about some little rainstorms,”
Mr. Byler said in a serious tone.

“Yes sir,” David replied, “things are
looking a bit scary at the moment. We really need you and everyone
else to evacuate Bethany as soon as possible—as early as tonight,
if the weather allows. You’ll find camps being set up near our
ranch, but we might have to keep moving north and east until we
find out what is going to happen.”

“
I was just closing up. I’ve
got your boots ready and I’ll pack them up on your horse for you,”
He paused for a moment, looking down. “I hope there will be a
Bethany here when we return.”

“God will provide, Mr. Byler,” David said,
maybe a bit unconvincingly. “We’ve made it through hard times
before.”

“Some folks are saying that there’ll be a
fight,” he lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “Are you going to
fight, young David?”

“I don’t know, sir. I just don’t know.”

The Public House was mostly quiet as
everyone filed in. David was not on the council, and was not an
Elder; still, as a part of Jonathan’s party and as one of the most
notable members of the group who wanted to fight, he was confident
that no one would object to his attendance. The mood of the room
was restrained and the hustle and bustle of evacuees, carts, and
buggies out in the street—as people prepared to make their way
north—further solemnized the atmosphere in the pub.

His father approached him as he entered and,
leading him by the elbow, guided him over to the counter.

“Several members of the council have asked
that you speak on their behalf.” His father looked him in the eye.
His manner was respectful, but David could tell that he was still
concerned. There was an unspoken declaration in his father’s look
that told him that though they were to be opponents on this issue,
it did not affect his father’s affection for him.

“Thank you, Father. I will not speak without
your permission.”

“You have my permission, David. I am not
surprised to see that so many in the council have respect for you
and your opinions. It is gratifying to an old man to see his son so
honored.” His father smiled at him, “I have an important
announcement to make, after which you may speak. Please, keep it
short because we all have work to do.”

“Yes sir,” was all he could manage.

His father brought the meeting to order, and
introduced the Elders who were present.

There was old Arness Barron, the man who had
organized the Vallenses to help the Walls after his mother died.
Standing almost at attention in the corner was Jeremy Saldano,
whose family built nearly all of the Vallenses’ carts, wagons, and
buggies. Seated by the window was Maurice Stannis, accompanied by
his older sons Lance and Walter.

Many of the men present had, years ago,
taken the family name of their trade. There was Grayson
Smith—usually called ‘Smithy’. There was Davidson Cooper who ran
the Cooper shop and made barrels. Standing by the door was Nicholas
Brewer, who not only was a brewer, but he owned and operated the
Public House; and standing next to him was Sheldon Wright, the
wheelwright in Bethany.

There were about 30 men present at the
council meeting, including the Elders, the four members of the
Ghost Militia, and David himself.

After introductions all around, his father
began.

“I want to thank everyone for being here. We
have urgent news from San Angelo, but before we start, we need to
pray, and then we’ll sing the 2
^nd
Psalm.”

With eyes closed, the gathered Vallenses and
the militiamen joined together in solemn and heartfelt prayer.
Throughout the singing of the Psalm, David could sense the passion
and sincerity in the voices of the men surrounding him. He was
moved as never before. Trying times have a way of focusing the mind
and the heart. How many times in history had the Psalms been sung
by groups like this who were suffering tribulation?

As the last note of the Psalm faded, David’s
father raised his hand, as did the men of old when indicating that
they would speak.

“When we arrived in Bethany not an hour ago,
we received word from a militia outrider concerning the situation
in San Angelo.” Looking around, David could see the tension in
men’s solemn faces, as young and old alike awaited their pastor’s
words with anticipation.

“The people of San Angelo, and many
Vallenses among them, took it upon themselves to burn the city as
the Aztlani host approached. The city is in flames. Several smaller
frontier towns were burned and pillaged by the heathen army as they
marched towards San Angelo. Thus, the people there decided to leave
nothing for the enemy, but scorched earth. A mass evacuation is
taking place, and most of those folks are heading here, burning
their own fields and any other structures or supplies on their way.
They hope to make it through the pass in front of the army.

“However painful, it is a wise plan. The
Aztlani army is, no doubt, forced to carry their material supplies
with them. No supply lines or resupply bases are available to them
as they move across the badlands and militia territory. They have
undoubtedly counted on pillaging and stealing what they need as
they travel. Resupply in a large frontier town like San Angelo
would have been a critical element in their plans. Like the
Russians before Napoleon, our brethren to the south are leaving the
invader with nothing to scavenge.”

David grinned for a moment before he fully
grasped the implications of such plan. Thousands of refugees would
be heading northward through the pass in the next twenty-four
hours.

“Maybe we should burn Bethany before Aztlan
does!” shouted Grayson the Smithy.

“We will be discussing our options in time,”
his father replied softly. The pastor of the Vallenses dropped his
head and stroked his beard for a moment. “We certainly have to
consider every option.”

There was a stony silence as each man in the
room considered what was coming. They pondered on the fact that
life—as they had known it up until now—had fundamentally
changed.

Whether they chose to fight or not, the
peaceful Vallenses of Central Texas were now at war.

Refugees had been arriving for over eight
hours, some joining the pilgrim tent camps that were rising
spontaneously throughout the area around the Wall ranch, others
stopping for water and a short break before continuing on to the
north and east. Those who continued on, generally the more
pessimistic ones, hoped to cross Jefford’s Creek at Blackmun’s
Crossing before either one or the other of the armies chose, for
strategic purposes, to destroy the bridge.

From horseback, Timothy, Ruth, and Jack
Johnson were supervising the arrival, giving instructions, and
watching diligently for Aztlani spies, or any unknown or unusual
people moving among the Vallenses.

The three were blessed that the moon was out
and that the storm had only lightly clipped them as it made its way
east. The ground was barely damp, and there was enough light to be
able to see what had once seemed to be an almost endless flow of
refugees coming up the road. Finally, in the last hour or so, the
flow had started to abate.

Tim handed Jack a metal cup, then poured in
some hot mesquite coffee from the insulated leather bag Ruth had
brought over from one of the camps. Jack Johnson was a close
neighbor to the Walls, and the two young men had become friends
over the past few weeks.

Jack, who was about his own age of 18 years,
had the given name of Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky. Tim had
learned Jack’s real name and its spelling during all the hours
spent with him and Ruth in the past several weeks. Andrei and his
father Nikolai, like many immigrants, used more Americanized names,
but strangely enough, neither had chosen the English language
equivalent of their Russian names. For some reason, unknown to
anyone but himself, the father had taken the name John. The son
took the name Jack, which—to make the issue even more
confusing—actually used to be a nickname for the name John. Since
Jack was John’s son, soon enough the Vallenses began to call the
young Bolkonsky by the name Jack John’s-son. From that, and
somewhat illogically, the father had come to be known as John
Johnson, even though Nikolai Bolkonsky’s own father had been named
Pyotr. To all of the Vallenses, the Russians were known as the
Johnsons.

Tim was learning that naming conventions
that had become so staid and stiff prior to the collapse, had, in
many cases, reverted to the more flexible form of earlier
centuries. Without computers, tracking IDs, microchips and
passports, people could pretty much be called whatever they
liked.

Identification was now solely based on who
knew you and for how long. Trust was not easily won, but meant
everything, and neither did a sordid past, long repented of, haunt
those who now chose to live rightly. The Vallenses never did trust
many words; thus, a person’s character, honor, integrity, and faith
was their only identification. Strangers realized that it was what
you did, and how you lived over a long period of time that would
make you accepted as part of the community, not paperwork,
government papers, empty words, or mere intentions.

According to many of the
oldlings
and
Elders that Tim had spoken to, it was actually harder to spy or get
away with a con or cheat today than it had been before the
collapse. People were more wary; strangers were watched more
closely. People were also more reliant on their intuition and
relied more on their natural senses. Nobody relied on inanimate
objects, or data divorced from context, to make decisions. It had
taken the spy Ronald Getz and others like him many, many years to
infiltrate the Vallenses to the point that one of them had an
opportunity to kill Gareth the assassin while in militia
custody.

He was beginning to see the multiple threads
of love, care, humanity, and community that bound the Vallenses
together like a tapestry—threads that, in the old world, had been
replaced by electronics, numbers, and a virtual life. In the times
before the collapse, people’s lives were governed by distant
strangers and tyrants no one knew—those with no accountability or
loyalty to the family of faith.

Ruth had told him that the Johnson family
(the wife had kept her Russian given name—Natasha), had been the
Wall’s neighbors to the south for almost 25 years. John Johnson and
Jonathan Wall had been close friends for all of those years, and
Jack and his father were the first ones to arrive to help organize
and situate the refugees arriving from Bethany, as well as from the
south and west.

Sipping his coffee, Tim watched as the
refugees passed the Walls’ main gate. Some turned in to join others
at the camp, whilst others continued their perilous journey into
the darkness.

Some families, Tim had heard, had already
crossed Jefford’s Creek and were heading for the intersection with
the Old Comanche Road as it moved northeastward. By continuing to
move northward and eastward, they hoped to find a place to wait out
the attack. It was generally accepted by the Vallenses that Aztlan
would be satisfied with burning and destroying Bethany. No one
believed that they would continue to follow the Vallenses further
north, because—by doing so—they would be moving farther away from
their own homes, with no bases and no means of re-supply. History
told them that even the greatest of armies had their limits—even
Napoleon had stopped at Moscow.

The general opinion of those Vallenses who
stopped near the Walls’ ranch was that the Aztlani army would
return home after burning Bethany. The destruction of San Angelo
before they could pillage it had likely robbed the foreign army of
their will-power and their desire to chase a rabbit they could not
hope to catch.

Sometime around midnight, Tim and Jack rode
over to a militia unit that was just arriving—it was one of the
units that had been stationed in the Thicket, east of Bethany.
Ruth, who had gone to get more coffee, caught up with them just as
the Ghost militia rider began to give his report to Timothy.

The debate was over… the Vallenses were not
going to fight.
I already knew that
, Tim thought.
Why did
anyone think that they would?
Both militia units that had been
stationed near Bethany, as well as the outriders that had been
tasked with pestering the invaders all along their advance from San
Angelo, were returning to the Wall ranch to protect the family.
Their only hope now was to guard as many of the Vallenses as
possible during their retreat, and to consider a possible defense
of the Wall ranch if the invaders decided to keep moving
northward.

There had been no way to plan a full-fledged
defense of the village. Phillip and the bulk of the Ghost militia
were still gone, and were probably unaware of what was going on in
Bethany. If, vastly outmanned and outgunned, the remaining units
had tried to mount a defense, and if they were defeated—which was
very likely—there would be no hope for the fleeing Vallenses. The
war would have been over before it started.

“So we are just going to give them Bethany?”
he asked. “Why didn’t the Vallenses just burn it down, like they
did San Angelo?”

The spokesman for this militia unit was an
impressive rider they all called Piggy. Tim had given him the name
a few years ago for his excellent and unique ability to take down a
wild boar by throwing a knife from horseback—a feat no one else
would even attempt, much less accomplish.

“It’s a very complicated situation,” Piggy
responded, leaning forward in his saddle. “I think everyone agreed
that Bethany should be burned before the Aztlanis could loot it.
But, no one wanted to burn it if there was still the slightest
possibility that the Aztlani army might give up on it.”