Blood of the Earth

  Getting there so early, before dawn devotions, meant there would be much less attention paid to arrivals. I was bunned-up and dressed like a churchwoman. A cursory search would be made by guards, who would glance inside the vehicle, probably nothing more, as church members who lived off church grounds traditionally drove in to join the daily morning and evening devotions and Sunday services. The guards were always men, and churchmen were naturally predisposed to think of women as no threat, so there was less of a chance that I’d be thoroughly searched than if I were a man.

  Nervous thoughts buzzing my head like bees, I drove down the mountain through the dark of predawn. Excitement began to build in my bloodstream. I was fighting back. Finally. I was fighting back.

  * * *

  The guards at the gate didn’t know me, and after a perfunctory look inside with a high-powered flashlight, they waved me through. I had turned off the cell phone and hidden it under the seat, but I broke out in a hot sweat, worrying that it would ring anyway and give me away. That was guilt thinking, accusing me for acting against the church and against PsyLED. My childhood training still held sway over logic and sense, and I had to wonder how much of my other thinking was tainted by a childhood where my mind had been molded by the strict confines of the . . . the cult . . . the cult, not the church.

  I was breathless when I was finally cleared to enter, and I motored slowly along the tree-lined drive to the compound, my headlights picking out tree trunks and brush and a new chain-link fence, twelve feet high and topped with barbed wire. Escape-proof, I thought. I drove into the compound with no impediments, directly up to Sister Erasmus’ house.

  The sister was married to Elder Aden, who acted as an arbiter and referee during church disputes. They would be either my best allies or my worst enemies in what I had come to do. There were lights on inside, indicating that the family was up, doing morning chores. Now or never.

  I turned the phone back on and dialed Rick’s number, which was programmed in, expecting to get voice mail, because the cell signal wouldn’t reach through my land. Instead, he answered, yelling, “Nell?” He sounded furious, the roar of a vehicle in the background. I figured my escape had been discovered and they were already on the way, after me. I said, “Ummm. I’m in the compound. I’m going to see Sister Erasmus. And find what Erasmus knows about Esther’s whereabouts. And if they know about the men PsyLED is after.” Against orders.

  Rick cursed. I wasn’t that familiar with cussing of any kind, but his sounded mighty inventive. Followed by a growling, “Do you want to tell me why?”

  “I’m a civilian informant. I got information that a girl was being . . .” I stopped, finding it hard to take a breath. “. . . was being brutalized. I’m going in to ask questions about her and about a faction of the church that might be working with HST. I can’t sit around no more, waiting for orders. And iffen you wanta back me up, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Keep the cell on and in your pocket,” he snarled. And he sounded just like a cat when he did.

  “I will,” I said. “And thank you.”

  Without listening to his reply, I placed the cell phone in my skirt pocket and stepped from the truck. Trepidation snaking through me, I walked to the Adens’ house and knocked on the door.

  Sister Erasmus’ sister-wife opened the door, still dressed in her nightgown, her back hunched and her shoulders rounded with age, blinking blearily into the dark. “Who is it?” Erasmus asked, appearing behind Elder Aden’s first wife, Mary. Erasmus was dressed, her hair braided and bunned-up. Early as it was, I had to wonder if she’d slept that way. “Forgive me the early visit, Sisters,” I said, “but I need to talk to you.”

  “Nell?” Erasmus said, sounding curious but not surprised. “It’s fine, Mama Mary. I’ll take care of her. You go back and get dressed for devotionals.” To me she said, “I just put coffee on. Come in outta the cold. Hospitality and safety while you’re here.”

  I entered and took the chair she indicated at the kitchen table. Over my head I heard the stamping of little feet and the sounds of children’s voices. I didn’t have to ask. Sister Erasmus said, “This old house was too big for TJ, Sister Mary, and me. My boy Douglas lives on the second floor with his wives, Mharvy and Lisa, and two little’uns. Mary’s newly married son, Larry, and his wife, Colleen, live on the third floor, and four of our unmarried girls stay on the top floor, helping with us elders and all the young’uns at the same time, Laurie, Joelle, Barbara, and Carol—good girls, but not of a mind to marry young. Independent. Like you,” she finished, and placed a mug of coffee in front of me. I sipped and put the mug on the table to cool as Erasmus settled across from me.

  “Thank you, Sister, for seeing me. I’m guessing you know I’m not here for me.” She inclined her head in acknowledgment. A visit to the church wouldn’t be for my own self. I lifted my laptop from my basket and opened the traffic camera photograph of Simon Dawson and the older man. I slid it across to her. “Are these two men the Dawsons? Father and son?”

  Sister Erasmus didn’t look at the laptop photos, blowing on her hot coffee. “Who’s asking?”

  “PsyLED and the FBI. Trying to find some kidnapped girls.”

  “I done told you they ain’t on church grounds.”

  “I know.” I indicated the laptop. “Please?”

  The sister leaned over and studied the photographs. “That’s them. Simon and his boy, the pervert and fornicator and blood drinker. That boy lay with vampires and fed them his blood. His father . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she didn’t finish her thought. “Both of them are backsliders. If they done wrong, it weren’t with the church.” Her dark eyes stabbed me. “You gonna cause this church trouble and pain?”

  “No, Sister. I’m trying to keep the church safe and turn the police attention to the backslider factions breaking the law.”

  “See that you do.”

  I punched a key and brought up the photograph of Boaz Jenkins in the hotel. “The only knot in my plans is this. I don’t know if Boaz is still in good standing with the church. Because if he is, the church needs to turn him over for shooting up a hotel and attempting to kill federal agents.”

  “Dear God in heaven,” she murmured, closing her eyes after a single glance at the screen.

  “I reckon that’s a yes. Is he still living on the compound?”

  “No. Him and his moved down the hill to Oliver Springs last winter. But he attends services time to time. Hunts with the men.”

  “Did you know that Jackie took Esther last night?”

  “I heard that someone did. I gave TJ the note Jackie left for you. He’s got men out, trying to find her, working with the deacons and the elders.”

  “Jackie took her. You know that. She needs to be rescued. Now. If she isn’t free by the end of devotionals, I’m going after her. After Jackie. Myself.”

  Sister Erasmus closed her eyes and finished her coffee in a single steaming gulp. “I’ll tell TJ. Now you git. I gotta dress and be ready for devotions. Do I need to bring a gun?”

  “I don’t know, Sister Erasmus,” I said, startled. “I purely don’t know.”

  Back in my truck I asked Rick, “Did you get all that?”

  “Every word.” He sounded less angry, which was a relief.

  I heard the ambient sounds of the van driving, and knew he was still on the move. “Are you coming to help me or to stop me?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he growled.

  “Good enough. My next stop is the Nicholson house.” He didn’t reply, and I drove through the dark gray of early dawn to the Nicholson house, the place where I had lived for the first twelve years of my life. Lights began appearing in homes in the compound as lanterns were lit and electric lights were turned on. I heard chickens clucking and roosters crowing from all over the compound as the world of God’s Cloud woke to greet the day. Everything looked just as I remembered it fro
m my childhood, except for a single glimpse of a dog and a man armed with a gun meant to kill people instead of deer.

  Yet, even with the newfangled gun as evidence of change, there was no way all of this would be so easy if the church proper was involved in the kidnappings. I’d have been stopped at the gate. The small, alert, PsyLED part of me began to relax. The larger, cult girl part me got more nervous because factions inside the church made all I thought I knew into different things entirely.

  I pulled into a parking spot beside a red truck. My father had always driven a red truck. My palms were sweaty, my skin was damp, and my breathing was too fast. I was going to knock on the door. I was going to see my . . . my family. My mother and maw-maw. My father. A man I never, ever thought about. The one person I had never forgiven because John had insinuated that Daddy had tried to sell me to the colonel as a minor wife when I was twelve. Which I now understood might have been a lie. I turned off the engine and pocketed the key. But Daddy was still the man who’d let Mama go to the punishment house. Unless I had that all wrong too. Was it possible? But no. I had a half brother from Mama and Brother Ephraim. That part was right. Had to be.

  Lantern light poured from the lower windows, flickering on the pathway, illumination so unlike electric lights. The house looked the same—four large front windows, four stories, one for each wife, one for the older kids, each floor with a bathroom, three or four bedrooms, and a tiny sitting area. Mama hadn’t been the first wife, and we had been forced to climb stairs constantly, our feet loud on the wood steps. The layout came to me clearly, the rag rugs and hand-finished wood furniture. The white walls hung with handmade quilts and shelves full of knickknacks made by children. The huge kitchen and wide living room with its big fireplace. Mama Carmel and Mama Grace bantering with my own Mama Cora. Maw-maw in the kitchen kneading dough. Micaiah Nicholson, my father, sitting at the head of the table, coffee cup in one hand at his side.

  “Okay,” I whispered to myself in the silence of the truck, absently using a word Rick so often employed. “I can do this.”

  I lifted the cell phone that Rick was taping from and pressed the OFF button. A moment later I heard the soft ding that told me he could no longer listen. I put that cell in my pocket, opened the truck door, and set my face.

  I took the basket in hand, made sure the gun was tucked beneath the laptop, and slid from the seat to the ground, closing the truck door. Silent, I climbed the short steps to the house, and crossed the porch, every step making me feel more vulnerable. I knocked on the door. It opened immediately and a small child looked out at me. He shouted, “Mama Grace! We’ns got company!”

  FOURTEEN

  The children raced in from everywhere, most of them young teenagers, but some much younger. Seemed Daddy had kept his wives busy. I had not put a foot in this house in over ten years, and I didn’t recognize anyone until Mama Grace came toward me with both arms out in welcome, her face lined with happiness and creased with sheet marks. Mama Grace’s hug was like being enveloped in a soft down pillow and cradled in love. “Welcome to our home. Hospitality and safety while you’re here.” When I didn’t respond, she pulled me tighter and said into my ear, her voice soft, “Baby girl. We missed you. Have you eaten? There’s oatmeal on the stove and biscuits in the oven.” She turned to the hovering, wide-eyed children, “This is your sister and half sister, Nell Nicholson.”

  “The one who ran away!” a small voice piped.

  “That’s not what happened,” another voice answered. “The womenfolk made an arrangement for her!”

  “My mama says—”

  “Who hit you? Did you get punished?”

  “Hush, all you’uns!” Mama Grace said. “Such awful manners shame this family. I’ll whop every one of you’uns, you don’t hush!”

  “Get outta my way!” Mindy—Mud—spun a little boy away, elbowed her way through the other kids, and grabbed my hand, pulling me into the house. With her free hand she slammed the door. “You came! I knew you’d come.”

  Judith was here in this mess of young’uns. And Mud, of course. And my half brother who wasn’t daddy’s. Zebulun, an innocent child, over twelve years old by now. Would I recognize him? Then the half sibs. So many of them, children everywhere.

  “Hush, all a you’uns,” Mama Grace said. “Martha, go tell Mama Cora, Nellie is here.

  “Lemme take your coat, child,” she said as Mud let go and took my basket. I shrugged out of the outer layer and took the basket back, not wanting Mud to have access to my gun. Mama Grace gripped my jaw as I turned. I hissed. I hadn’t thought much about my healing bruises until now.

  Mama Grace’s keen eyes scanned me as I handed her the coat, moving stiffly. “You need a doctor?” I shook my head no. “We thought Joshua was lying ’bout him hurting you. Priss said she seen you at market and you had a bruise on your face, but she didn’t say how bad it is. You got more injuries?” Mama Grace asked.

  “No. It just . . . hurts iffen I touch it.” I pulled the childhood vernacular around me and ducked my head like a penitent. And hated myself. I raised my head and put back my shoulders and met Mama Grace’s eyes like something other than a mouse. “I’m honored to accept your hospitality. I have things to say.”

  Mud pulled a rocking chair in front of the fireplace and fluffed an afghan across it. I took the seat and placed the breadbasket on the table beside me. I indicated the loaves. “For your hospitality, Mama Grace.”

  “Never mind your manners,” she said, taking the bread from the basket and pointing to another child, who raced up, grabbed the two loaves, and dodged between his sibs to the kitchen. The laptop shifted in the bottom of the basket, beneath the dish towel I had placed there, and clinked on the gun beneath. “Tell me what happened,” she demanded. “We know there was menfolk, heathen police officers, at your house. The new preacher told us.”

  Her voice was hard when she said the new preacher. I took a slow breath. “I’d rather just tell it once,” I said in city talk, “to you, my mama, and Mama Carmel, all together. And I need to know about Esther.”

  Mama Grace’s eyes went steely. “We’uns all got things to share, then. Your daddy needs to hear too, girl,” she said.

  I didn’t respond to that one. My daddy had let my mama go to the punishment house. He had let Esther go with Jackie.

  I hated Daddy.

  “Nell?” I swiveled in the chair and into my mama’s arms. She enfolded me, her body muscled and strong, even after ten years. “Oh, baby girl. Your poor face.”

  “We need to talk, Mama, but first we need to rescue Esther.”

  “The boys are looking for her. Sister Erasmus showed us the threatening note,” Mama said. “You think it was Jackie who wrote it? You think he took Esther?”

  “Nell?” It was Daddy’s voice, and I pulled away from Mama, turning his way. Daddy was coming out of his private bathroom, a minuscule closet of a room that he had carved out of the space behind the kitchen wall. He was older. His face lined, tanned, showing age spots. He was smaller than I remembered, but his hands, rolling up the sleeves of his plaid shirt, were still large and rough. Daddy liked working with wood and tools, making things. He made a good cash-money living out of it. His face hardened as he took in my bruises, and he frowned. “Tell me everything.”

  I thought about that carefully before saying, “I got some questions first. What’s being done to save Esther? Is something strange going on at the Stubbins farm? And did you know about the churchmen keeping watch on my house from a deer stand on the Vaughn farm?”

  Daddy held up a hand in a gesture I recognized as one I used all the time. I stopped talking. “You little’uns get on upstairs and get dressed for morning devotional. You older girls go help. This is for adults only.”

  “Us too, Daddy?” a deep voice asked.

  I followed the sound and saw three older boys—young men, rather, in their midtwenties, by the doo
r. They hadn’t been there when I entered and must have come in behind me. The one who had spoken was my brother, the one getting married. Amos and Rufus, half sibs, flanked him. Sam wasn’t the eldest, but there was something about my elder full brother that said he was the leader of the group. He was no longer a child, no longer the braggart and tease I had known. This was a man grown.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “No, sir. We’uns saw the truck and came to check it out. Whisnut’s still looking.”

  Whisnut was the family name of Esther’s intended, Jedidiah. Still looking meant—

  “Sam, you can stay. You others get to chores. Your mamas will be busy this morning and the chickens still need to be fed and eggs gathered. Wood needs to be cut. I don’t care how you split the tasks, but you do ’em. You. Not your sisters. They’re busy taking care of the little’uns. And there’ll be no discussion. Git.”

  Two of the boys left. Sam stared at me. I shifted my gaze away and firmed my mouth, feeling Mama’s expression form on my own face. So many of my gestures were Nicholson traits, and I didn’t know how I felt about that. Mama watched the exchange and her mouth hardened too.

  Daddy said, “Nell. You’un look like you might pass on out.” Daddy looked into the kitchen, which was suddenly empty and quiet. “Carmel? You brewing up something for Nell’s bruises? Good.” Daddy’s dark eyes met mine. “Tell me what happened, Nell.”

  I didn’t know where to start, but the words that came from my mouth were, “Did you know? About the watchers in the deer stand?”