Eden West (14 page)

“As you can see, he is busy,” Samuel says. “Have you no chores of your own?”

“I do. My apologies, Brother.” Tobias leaves the infirmary, head down.

“I wonder at that one,” says Brother Samuel, looking after him.

The day of the visitation, I am put to work in the garage helping Brother Taylor clean and ready our two Jeeps and the ATV, as Brother Peter plans to take our visitors on a tour of our outer fields and pastures and wants nothing to go wrong. Brother Samuel has fashioned a new brace for my ankle, and I am able to hobble about using only a cane.

Brother Taylor is one of my favorite people to work with. He says little, but he is always friendly, knowledgeable, and patient. He puts me to work cleaning the interiors of the Jeeps. I am running a damp cloth over the dashboard of the green Jeep when Taylor says, “I was coming up the North Road a few days back when I saw what was either the biggest coyote ever, or a wolf. Might have been the same one you spotted last winter.”

I am surprised and glad to hear that someone else had spotted the wolf in Nodd. I had begun to think that I had imagined it.

“I saw it too, also along the North Road,” I say. “The beast paced me as I walked along the road the night I was injured.”

“It was not aggressive?”

“It seemed more curious than anything.”

“Wolves are smart,” Taylor says. “Smarter than people in some ways.”

“How do you know about wolves?” I ask.

“I know dogs, and a dog is but a wolf with some of the wild taken out. Back in the before days, I had a kennel. Wish we had a few dogs here, but Father Grace, he don’t like them. Never understood why. Onan, he’d do better if he had a dog.”

Onan is Taylor’s seven-year-old son, a shy boy who takes more than his share of teasing from the other children. Taylor often lets his son help him in the garage. He is as patient and kind with Onan as he is with me. I have envied the boy at times.

“I had a dog,” I say.

“Did you? What was its name?”

“Spots.” I haven’t thought about Spots in a long time.

“That’s a good dog name. I suppose you had to give him away when you and your folks moved here.”

“I suppose so,” I say. “I don’t remember.”

“That is harsh. A boy should not have to give up his dog.”

It sounds perfectly natural and innocent, what Brother Taylor is saying, but as always it is unsettling to hear Father Grace’s judgment questioned.

I do not reply. Taylor goes silently about his work, as do I. Minutes later, we hear the sound of an approaching vehicle. Taylor and I step outside the garage to watch as a shiny silver SUV comes into view.

“That’s a Cadillac Escalade,” Taylor says. He knows the names of many cars.

Elder Abraham, Brother Enos, and my father have gathered before the Hall of Enoch to greet our visitors. Three men and a woman step out of the SUV. The men are wearing dark suits. The woman is wearing a blue dress with a matching jacket.

I immediately identify the tallest man as Congressman Raney. He wears his gray hair like a helmet and stands with his chest thrust out and his bright-white teeth bared, looking over his surroundings as if surveying his own personal domain. Already I do not like him.

Three more vehicles are coming up the road: two SUVs and a pickup truck.

“Jacob,” Taylor says, “finish your task. There will be time to gawk later.”

Reluctantly I limp back into the garage and continue wiping down the Jeeps.

I finish quickly. By the time I get back outside, our visitors are being guided into the Hall of Enoch. I see a man whose collar identifies him as the priest, and a man wearing a two-tone brown uniform and a handgun at his hip. He must be the sheriff. The others are dressed in various combinations of colorful clothing. I catch a glimpse of a light-haired young woman wearing a denim jacket. I only see her from the back as she enters the hall, but her hair is exactly the right color. My pulse begins to pound in my throat.

“Brother Jacob!” It is Sister Naomi, coming around from the back of the hall. “When you are finished here, Sister Dalva requests your help with the food service.”

I look at Taylor, who quickly inspects my work and pronounces it good.

“Go,” he says.

Eagerly, I comply.

I enter the Hall of Enoch through the back. Several women are bustling about, setting out stacks of plates and bowls on the serving tables. Dalva looks askance at my cane.

“With that leg, you will be of little use,” she says.

“He needs no leg to fill bowls,” Naomi says.

I glance out through the archway into the hall proper, where the chairs have been arranged around several long tables. Our visitors are seated, along with the Elders, the Archcherubim, and most of the Higher Cherubim. Several of the married Sisters are there as well. All together there are about forty people seated at four long tables, men and women mixed haphazardly. Beryl and Angela are moving along the tables offering herbal tea and water. I can’t see everybody from where I’m standing. I move closer to the archway. The rest of the hall comes into view, and I see Lynna seated beside a ruddy, large-featured man with a clay-colored felt hat tipped back on his head. Facing him is a black-haired man wearing a similar hat, but his is set level on his head, and it has a band of polished silver disks. I cannot see his face.

“Well, Brother?” Naomi says. “Can you help ladle soup, or would you rather stand and gawk?”

“I can ladle,” I say. She sets me up at one of the serving tables with stacks of shallow bowls and a steel kettle filled with thick corn-and-leek chowder.

As I fill the bowls, they are whisked away by the Sisters and carried out into the hall. The smell of the chowder should be making me hungry, but my stomach is unsettled. As I fill each bowl, I wonder if it will go to Lynna.

Sisters Louise and Rebecca show up carrying between them a kettle of lamb stew so enormous that I am certain it contains an entire sheep. More bowls are filled; the stew is presented with small loaves of seed bread. The service goes quickly. Although I cannot hear what they are talking about in the hall, I sense that it is both formal and awkward. The Worldly folk are here to learn about us, to judge us. Father Grace says that they fear us and would destroy us, but what I feel most is their curiosity.

When the stew is eaten, our guests are presented with trays of pastries and sweet huckleberry tea. The women must have used every dried huckleberry in our larders to make so much tea. Naomi has run out of things for me to do, so I find a place to stand where I am out of the way but can see into the hall.

I am certain the man sitting to Lynna’s right is Max Evert, her father. His features are large and coarsened by a lifetime of sun and wind, but he has her eyes. He has the same way of holding his head. He says something to the black-haired man sitting across from him. The man laughs and turns his head slightly so that I can see his face, and I realize with a start that he is one of the dark-skinned Lamanites from the Fort Landreau Indian Reservation.

My father and Brother Enos are moving through the hall, stopping at each table to visit. My father’s face is contorted into a smile, an expression wholly unnatural on him. Father Grace has not yet made an appearance. Nor has Tobias.

Tobias’s mother and sister are sitting with a heavyset, pink-faced man with sandy, reddish hair. He is wearing a dark-blue jacket over a shirt that is the same color as his face. I’m guessing he is Tobias’s uncle. I wonder whether Tobias will be allowed to speak to him.

Congressman Raney and his group are seated at the center table with Elder Seth. Enos approaches them and exchanges a few words with the congressman, then moves to the table where Lynna is sitting.

I fear that he might ask her about the note she left on the fence, but Enos ignores Lynna and speaks to her father and to the Lamanite. While they are talking, Lynna sees me and she waves. To my considerable relief, Enos does not notice, but Lynna’s father looks sharply in my direction. I step back out of their view.

Soon the meal is over and people are rising from their chairs. Brother Peter has arranged to take our visitors on a tour of the High Meadow, though I do not know why these Worldly folk would want to look at sheep and grasses.

Congressman Raney and his companions remain seated. They are joined by Enos and my father, one sitting to either side of the congressman. The rest of the visitors, including Lynna and her father, file out of the hall. When they have left, Enos draws a manila envelope from within his robe and places it on the table. The congressman glances at it, then turns away from Enos and engages my father in conversation. One of the congressman’s aides slides the envelope off the table and slips it into his small leather briefcase. The moment the envelope is out of sight, the congressman turns back to Enos and smiles.

I sense that something significant has just occurred, but I am not sure what.

Behind me, the women fall silent. I turn to see Father Grace coming in through the back entrance. I go rigid with astonishment. He is not wearing his usual robe but rather a Worldly suit of smooth beige fabric. His beard has been neatly trimmed, his hair is tied back, and he has covered his blasted eye with a patch the same color as his suit. This must be the face he shows to the World, the Father Grace that Tobias met in Colorado Springs.

With him is his eldest wife, Marianne, who is dressed normally. I look past them expecting to see the other wives, but it is only the two of them. They enter the front of the hall, and Father Grace greets the congressman as an old friend, clasping his hand with both hands and smiling a broad smile such as I have never seen on him. The congressman returns the smile and introduces him to his aides. Father Grace introduces Marianne. I feel light-headed to see so much smiling. Even my father and Enos are showing their teeth.

“Brother, you are in the way.” Sister Naomi, carrying an armload of dishes, is glaring at me.

“Apologies, Sister.” I take the opportunity to slip out through the back entrance. I follow the walkway along the outside of the Hall of Enoch, leaning hard on my cane. My ankle is throbbing after standing for so long. The visitors who left the hall are climbing into the Jeeps, one of the SUVs, and Peter’s ATV. I do not see Lynna.

As the vehicles pull out and head north along the High Meadow Road, I hear laughter coming from around the corner. It sounds like Lynna. I move forward and peer past the buttress. Lynna is standing in the shadow of the hedge, near the east entrance to the Sacred Heart. Tobias stands before her, hip cocked, holding a bucket in one hand, grinning. He says something in a low voice. Lynna laughs and pushes her hair behind her ear. I feel myself growing angry.

Tobias says something else, serious now. Lynna’s eyes widen and she leans toward him. Tobias points toward the Tower. Lynna shakes her head and replies. I think she is saying “No way!”

He points at the bag she is carrying over her shoulder. Lynna opens the bag, comes out with a pack of cigarettes, and shakes one out. Tobias sets the bucket at his feet and takes a cigarette. Lynna then takes one for herself and lights them both.

I step out from behind the buttress. Lynna sees me and waves. Tobias looks over. His face freezes. I limp toward them.

“Jacob!” Lynna calls out.

I stare at her stupidly. She is wearing jeans that are tight around the hips but loose in the legs, a pair of pointy boots, and an open denim jacket over a black shirt with red printing across the front. I can’t see all of the letters because her jacket covers part of them.

Tobias gives me a bland look. “Brother Jacob,” he says. He takes a puff from his cigarette.

I stare back at him, furious. This is the old Tobias. He has been acting this whole time. Lying to me. I believed that he had repented, and now I feel foolish.

“So you guys know each other?” Tobias says.

“Sure,” Lynna says. “Me and Jacob are old buds.” She puffs self-consciously on her cigarette.

I still do not trust myself to speak. A tendril of smoke from Tobias’s cigarette snakes toward me. I slash through the smoke with my cane.

Tobias flinches. “Whoa!” he says. “You’re dangerous with that thing.”

I glare at him.

“What happened to you?” Lynna asks, looking at my ankle brace.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Doesn’t look like nothing. Seriously, did you break something?”

“I fractured my ankle.” We look at each other for what feels like a long time, but it can only be seconds. “What are you doing here?”

“My dad wanted to come to see the cult.” She laughs. “I mean, since we’re neighbors. You know?”

“Of course I know!”

She gives me a puzzled look. “It’s just an expression. Anyway, I asked him if I could come. Because you didn’t show up Tuesday like you said.” She points with her cigarette at my ankle. “I guess you got an excuse.”

Tobias, looking back and forth between Lynna and me, says, “So that’s what you do when you’re supposed to be patrolling the fence? You guys hook up?”

I don’t know what he means by “hook up.”

“Tobias was just telling me he’s being held prisoner here,” Lynna says.