“That’s foolish talk. We have.”
“Will they be real Indians?” Drew asked. The native Americans he’d seen in Santa Fe seemed as sleepy as himself, their long hair like coarse wigs. He wanted Indians on horseback, feathers streaming in the desert wind. “Let us hope not,” said his mother. Drew was quiet after that. He was aware Sylvie didn’t see things in the same light as himself and his father; she had done nothing but carp and snap at them both for weeks, ever since Morgan heard God.
Drew believed in God because Morgan did. Anything Morgan did was acceptable to Drew. His father had always been kind, even though he was often distracted by the workings of his own mind. Drew respected Morgan’s ability to sit and think, doing nothing outwardly, yet living an entirely private life behind his eyes. Drew had this ability also, but only in limited bursts of introspection; the physical world was so distracting, so richly furnished with interesting objects and situations to be experienced by the senses. Drew had never known a moment’s boredom, but the events he was now taking part in were of an altogether superior kind; it promised to be an actual adventure, and Morgan had made it possible, with some help from friendly old God. It was a shame about not having a gun, though. Clay had always wanted a gun. It was one of the few things Drew remembered about his brother.
They ate from cans around a cheery campfire. The road they had followed until dusk had become little more than a set of ruts meandering west among sage and cactus. Morgan prepared and served the food. The air had become surprisingly cool.
Even when the tent was properly raised and pegged, Sylvie wouldn’t set foot inside it. “I’ll sleep in the wagon,” she said. “Hostiles will go directly to the tent and take your hair, while I have a chance to make my escape. It’ll be your fault, Morgan. They’ll take the boy and raise him a heathen. They do that all the time. No scalp for you, and no salvation for Drew. Is it worth such risks?”
“Why, yes,” was all Morgan could say in reply to such bitterness.
He found there was little room inside the tent for himself and Drew, despite the absence of his wife. He should have bought a larger size; if Sylvie changed her mind there wouldn’t be room enough for them all in anything resembling comfort.
Next day, the road simply disappeared beneath them. The mules continued plodding toward the Jemez Mountains, unconcerned. “Have we arrived at the chosen place?” Sylvie asked.
“Not yet.”
“Are we perhaps nearby?”
“I can’t be sure. I’ll know when we arrive.”
“Oh, good.”
Drew couldn’t understand Sylvie’s bad humor. Losing the road was the most exciting development so far in what was turning out to be a fairly uncomfortable expedition. The air was much hotter than he’d been expecting, and Morgan sometimes refused him water from the barrel. “We must think of the animals too,” his father said. “They have their needs, just as we do, and they have to pull us all along. Wait until you truly need to drink.”
Drew felt the need constantly, but forced himself to deny his thirst for the sake of his father’s wishes. He developed a severe headache. The lurching of the wagon suddenly became intolerable, and he began to cry.
“Stop!” commanded Sylvie. “Stop this instant!”
Morgan hauled on the reins.
Sylvie turned to her husband. “Turn around.”
“We’ve come so far.…”
“Turn around and go back.”
“Do you doubt what has been revealed to me?”
“Look at our son, already sick with heat. I feel it myself. Take us back.”
Morgan shook his head, genuinely regretful. “I cannot.”
“You can, and will.”
“No,” he said, barely whispering, and Sylvie saw he meant it. There was nothing in his voice or posture suggestive of strength, yet he would have his way. It was foolishness, the entire venture. Sylvie had never thought it would go this far. She got down from the wagon seat.
“I begin walking from here, back to town.”
“No, Sylvie …”
“Yes, and Drew will come with me.”
“He couldn’t possibly walk the distance, nor you. This is not sensible talk. We may be closer than you think. Today may be the day our desert place is shown to us. It may be among the hills you see as we speak.”
“Then give him water when he wants it. I won’t have him suffer because of your … dream.”
This last word truly offended Morgan. Had his wife always felt this way about his revelation, and kept her thoughts to herself? She had been reluctant to sell the store, but he forgave her, attributing her mood to the natural caution of women regarding their home; but she had not until now disparaged outright the quest God had directed him to follow. He cared greatly for her good opinion of him, and it hurt Morgan deeply to hear her speak her mind.
Using Drew’s discomfort to make Morgan feel worse was another low blow. Not for the world would Morgan have his boy suffer needlessly; it was just that the storekeeper in Santa Fe had advised him to go easy with the water barrel. The storekeeper had in fact advised him against going to the mountains with a woman and a child, had been almost abusive in his comments, but of course, the man could have no conception of the special business Morgan was about, else he would never have called his customer a fool to his face. It was fortunate that Sylvie and Drew had been nowhere near at the time, or such talk might have discouraged them.
“The place is before us, near or far. That is where I go, and I beg you to stay by me. The place is there.”
Sylvie turned away from him. She had always believed that God had spoken to individuals in the Bible lands all those thousands of years ago, and wondered now if their spouses doubted them as she doubted Morgan. Was God alive and in charge of the universe even in these modern times, as she had been brought up to believe? If he was not, was it because people like herself doubted the visions of people like her husband? Was Sylvie contributing to the death of God by not believing?
Theology had not concerned her overmuch till Morgan claimed God had directed him to place the Kindreds in Drew’s path, intercepting him as the orphan train moved west. He was a wonderful son, and she could fully accept that he was sent by God to fill her need, and Morgan’s. Did she doubt the truth of Morgan’s second communication because it caused physical discomfort? Because it required actions that seemed to fly in the face of common sense? These objections could be overcome by Christian will. It was a simple enough choice—to believe, or not believe. She need only set her mind to it, and the thing might well come to pass as Morgan predicted. She must allow him his chance. God’s presence on the earth should not be whittled away by human doubt, certainly not that of Sylvie Kindred.
She climbed back onto the wagon. “We will continue, but we will drink whenever we please. God will provide.”
“He will,” Morgan assured her, and himself. He flicked the reins, and his family moved deeper into the barren, broken land ahead.
On the third day they drank the last of their water. Unused to animal husbandry, conscious of his responsibility to God’s dumb creatures, Morgan had allowed the mules far more water than was necessary for their continued health. They were in prime condition, while the Kindreds were already suffering the onset of dehydration. All had thudding headaches, and found the simple business of staying on the wagon increasingly difficult.
Morgan guided his team along the path of least resistance, followed winding gulches to their confluence with weather-eroded ravines, turning back often when his chosen route terminated in a box canyon or impassable crevasse. This was a wilderness of suitably biblical harshness, unrelenting in its heat, its aridity, unforgiving of foolishness. Morgan had bought no maps, no compass; he relied solely on God’s favor in completing the enterprise begun in Dinnsville. They must persevere until the designated place, that unique spot in the midst of nothingness, was chanced upon. It could be over the next rise, around the bend of a narrow dry wash, or days distant, somewhere in the shimmerin
g air ahead, or behind, or to the left or right. It made little difference; all places were under God, all equally accessible to the faithful.
Morgan saw now what he should have seen much earlier. The first communication from God—the instruction to select Drew from among the orphans—had been easy to follow, but this search for a particular location in the desert was a task of far greater consequence, hence it could be achieved only after much suffering had been endured by the Kindreds. Morgan had been chosen as conduit between heaven and earth, but his family would pay a stiff price for the privilege.
It saddened Morgan that they must feel the pain that should be his alone. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought them along, but the thought of journeying to find the desert place on his own simply had not occurred to him; Morgan wanted his loved ones to share the joy of discovery. He suspected also that Drew, having been delivered into his hands by God, had some crucial role to play, once the place was found. Morgan’s instincts told him there was ethereal linkage involved, its significance as yet beyond his understanding.
And so they kept on, Morgan encouraging his wife and son with campfire readings from the book of Exodus. On the fifth day he released the mules from their harness, determined not to further their suffering. The mules made use of their freedom to follow their noses; less than an hour’s amble from the Kindreds they located a trickling spring and drank deeply, then began to nibble at the ground-hugging succulents round about.
Sylvie collapsed not far from the useless wagon. “Now we die,” she announced through cracked lips, her throat a tube of dust. Her hair hung in limp horsetails from her bonnet; her hands were coarsened by the sun, the nails packed with fine desert grime.
“No …,” Morgan croaked.
“Drew will die first,” insisted Sylvie. “The young have less resistance.”
“We are almost there. I would not have released the mules …”
“Almost dead, yes.”
Drew leaned against his mother and passed out, as if to prove her correct. Morgan nudged at his son, and Sylvie pushed him away. “Leave him! Let him pass away in peace.”
“No one will pass away. God will not allow it.…”
“Don’t you see? Are you blind to what has happened? You have killed us.”
Morgan shook his head, too dispirited to argue. The place was near, he knew. The lord of all creation would not permit his servant to come so close, only to let him die. This was the ultimate test of strength, of belief. Morgan was determined to reject all sense of personal misery in order that he might acquit himself in a worthy manner. God would forgive Sylvie’s capitulation to despair if only Morgan stood firm, even as he faced death.
The Kindreds had fallen in the shadow of an earthen wall, the southern side of a small ravine that bore the signs of once having channeled running water between its crumbling banks. Morgan imagined a sudden return of that blessed moisture, an opening of the ravine floor, a great spewing forth of water, a rushing torrent to ease their agony. If God could create a dry pathway through the Red Sea, then could he not, for the sake of His emissary and his family, produce at least a rivulet of life-giving liquid?
For the first time, a sliver of doubt entered his thoughts. Could Sylvie be right? Was he guilty of leading two precious people on a fool’s errand? He dismissed the temptation to think that way. Satan was whispering in his ear, dribbling his filthy skepticism into Morgan’s brain. Suffering was his righteous lot for the moment; there might even be worse to come; the test of his endurance most likely would be bottomless, from Morgan’s purely human perspective. He might even have to face losing his wife and child to prove himself. That would be the harshest test of all, but he would confront it if need be. To be resolute at such a time was difficult, but to his own surprise, Morgan achieved it.
The sixth day passed in hellish torment. Morgan watched his family dying. He expected Sylvie would be proved right; Drew would be the first to go. They were still within sight of the wagon, hadn’t even attempted to continue on foot. Morgan supposed they must all be weaklings, but he couldn’t have reached the wagon without assistance, let alone walked in search of civilization. There were no buzzards overhead, to his disappointment; the creatures were an integral part of death in the wilderness, according to the illustrated periodicals.
Where was God? Where was the desert place? He lacked the strength even to crawl on hands and knees over the next hill. It might be waiting there, resplendently empty, a hallowed spot where the spirit of God met rude earth, but Morgan wouldn’t see it now. Keeping his eyelids raised was more than he could accomplish. He slept.
In the evening an angel came. Morgan saw it standing above him on the far rim of the ravine. The angel’s hair was long and white, its clothing loose, stirring slightly in a rare breeze. A peculiar package was cradled in its right hand. The light of the setting sun was behind the angel, preventing a more detailed inspection of its face and form. It was enough for Morgan to know that mercy had arrived.
He watched the angel disappear from view, then suddenly materialize at his side. Morgan felt water pass between his parched lips. The angel was older than expected, an ancient soul with wisdom in its eyes, but where were its wings? He asked the angel to give water to his wife and son. No words passed from Morgan’s mouth, but the angel understood, and moved across the intervening ground in a distinctly earth-bound lope to administer life from what appeared to be a leather bag. Morgan had been anticipating a silver flask, but was in no condition to voice a complaint.
The water, far from reviving him, sent Morgan into a deep sleep from which he did not awaken until the morning of the seventh day. Where was the long-haired angel? He turned to his wife, and was devastated to find her dead. Scrambling to Drew’s side, he saw the boy’s eyes open. If Morgan and Drew had survived, why had Sylvie been taken from them? His conscious mind would not admit it, but he hated God at that moment, hated with a passion so intense he swooned and fell back once again to the dust.
Drew knew his mother was dead, just by looking at her. His father was still alive, but with eyes closed in the painful half-sleep Drew had just woken from. His first thoughts, knowing Sylvie was gone, were of sadness for himself; without her he couldn’t possibly be happy anymore. For his father, Drew felt a kind of bafflement that almost turned to anger. He recognized that Sylvie’s death was Morgan’s fault, for having led them into the desert, but Morgan was a good and loving man, so Drew could not allow himself the easy pleasure of hating him for what he had done.
There had to be another culprit, someone equally culpable. The only suitable individual was God. It was God’s fault. Drew opened himself fully to hatred of the Almighty, and his anger thrust him up from the ground, onto his feet. He took several steps in search of God, and tripped over a leather water bag. The sloshing of its contents erased all notions of revenge; Drew fell to his knees and pulled at the crude wooden stopper, tipped the bag and inundated his burning throat with tepid water, choked, drank more and fell back beside his father, carefully holding the bag upright to avoid spilling a drop. Where had it come from, this miraculous thing?
He shook Morgan to consciousness and pressed the water bag to his lips. Morgan drank deeply, coughed some of it back up again, then passed out anew.
Drew continued sipping from the bag. He looked again at Sylvie, then away. She hadn’t been his real mother, he told himself, so it was all right not to cry; he doubted his dried-out body could make tears anyway. If he kept telling himself she wasn’t his mother, then this thing that had happened to her could be lived with. Drew wanted above all else to continue living, and he reasoned, bit by bit, that living was best accomplished while a person wasn’t crippled up with sadness. So she was not his mother. And the man lying with mouth open a short distance away was not his father.
Moments before, Drew had wanted to blame God for everything, but staring at Morgan rekindled his original anger, the anger he had stifled. No gun, no compass, no map or guide, and not enough water. The man w
as a fool. And yet Drew loved him. He tried again to summon hatred for God, but God seemed less substantial than the afternoon heat waves dancing over the wagon, and so Drew was left with nothing but despair and a great hunger to live, even if living meant being aware at all times of this same unresolvable despair.
His head hurt even more now, from the effort of thinking. He turned from his parents, and decided to walk away from this place on his own if Morgan didn’t agree to give up the search for whatever it was he thought was out there. Drew decided also he would take the water bag with him when he went; if Morgan didn’t quit searching, he was crazy, and Drew wasn’t about to let a crazy man drink his water.
It was night again when Drew next opened his eyes. A campfire was burning close by, Morgan hunched over it, turning a rabbit carcass on a stick. Drew reached for the water bag, and in lifting it discovered the impossible—it was heavier than it had been earlier. He decided he must be wrong about that.
Morgan was smiling at him as he drank. “It’ll be ready soon. Are you hungry?”
Drew nodded, and came closer to the fire.
“How’d you catch it?”
“I didn’t. The Lord provided, or should I say, His angel.”
“Angel?”
“I saw him once. He was old, not like you’d expect from pictures. He must have made the fire as well. It was already burning when I woke up, and the rabbit was on the stick.”
“An angel did it?”
“Without doubt.”
Drew did not accept this. He would eat the rabbit, enjoy the fire’s warmth and light, and drink from the water bag, but he would do so without believing these things came from God. There had to be another answer.
“We need to bury your mother. We’ll do that directly after we have partaken of the manna.”
“It isn’t manna; it’s a rabbit.”
“Its purpose is the same, to sustain us in pursuit of our goal.”
“It’s a rabbit!”
“Please don’t upset yourself. We’re both too weak for argument. We have only each other. Come to me.”