Eden West (18 page)

One chilly Greenday morning, as I perform my morning ablutions, I notice that his cries have stopped, and we hear from Brother Von no more.

The absence of Von’s cries is almost worse than their presence. No one speaks of it, but we are all affected. Father Grace has cloistered himself in Gracehome. He has not shown him self since he told us of his child to come. Even the younger children seem subdued, their usual laughter and shouting muted and forced.

I thank the Lord for the plentiful work we have to occupy us: feeding and guarding our remaining livestock, cutting and hauling wood for the furnaces, repairing the many leaking roofs, and rebuilding the south barn, which collapsed under the weight of the snow. My ankle is completely healed, and I immerse myself in my labors. I force my thoughts to the task at hand, and work to exhaustion every day, and pray with the intensity of Samson, and sleep the sleep of the dead. The storm, the wolf, the injuries, and the betrayals within our world have consumed us, and I have hardly let my thoughts stray beyond the borders of Nodd.

Enos declares that our edge patrols must resume, and I walk the fence for the first time in months. The snow has receded, but it is still deep in places, and the border is long.

There was a time when walking the fence brought with it feelings of peace. A time when it brought the glory of Heaven into my heart, and soothed my doubts and fears, knowing that this was our land, a holy land blessed by the Lord and protected by Zerachiel, and knowing that the Ark would come for us and take us to a place even greater than that which we have built for ourselves here on earth.

Those days are gone. Now, as I trudge through the snow, I think of Brother Von, and Tobias, and Lynna, and Sister Mara, and the child growing in Ruth’s womb, and the dead child born to Sister Kari, and the wolf that may be watching me from the shadows even now. I try to understand how all this has come to be, and I find myself growing angry with the Lord Himself, and this sends sickening waves of guilt coursing through my veins.

When dusk arrives, I have walked only half the fence. I trudge back to the Village through the south meadow, in the dark, avoiding the place where our sheep were slaughtered. I report to Enos in his office.

“You have missed both supper and Babel Hour,” Enos says, looking up from a ledger he is studying. His face has a hollowness I have not seen before. This winter has been hard on all. “I feared we would have to go looking for you again.”

I do not remind him that the last time I failed to return from my patrol, no one came looking for me at all.

“The snow is still deep in the woods and the low-lying areas,” I tell him. “I was able to walk only from the gate to the southwest corner.” I tell him of two breaches where trees had fallen on the fence.

“Tomorrow I will send Jerome to make repairs, and you will complete your patrol,” Enos says. “Did you see any wolf sign?”

“No. I came upon a deer carcass, but saw only coyote and bobcat tracks.”

“Let us hope it has left us,” Enos says wearily. “Yvonne is still in the kitchen. Ask her to prepare a plate for you.”

I do not go to the kitchen. Instead, I go straight to the Sacred Heart to ask the Lord to calm the storm of thoughts in my head, but kneeling on the icy earth before the Tree is not enough to distract me.

Tired to the bone, I retire without eating.

In the morning, I awaken clearheaded and famished. Brother Will remarks upon my appetite.

“You eat like the wolf,” he says.

I have seen how the wolf eats, so I ignore him and finish my second plate of bread and beans, eating more slowly. I wish there could be eggs, but I have not seen an egg in two months.

Will says, “You are walking again today?”

“So Brother Enos has commanded,” I say.

“I would take your place, but for the injury Tobias visited upon me. Samuel says I may never have the full use of my knee.” It has been a full season since the day Tobias and Will fought. I suspect he exaggerates his discomfort.

I am not looking forward to this second day of walking. Although my ankle has grown strong, it is sore after yesterday’s long trek. I make my preparations slowly and do not leave the Village until an hour after dawn. It is a beautiful day, cloudless and crystal clear, with the temperature promising to rise well above freezing. I decide to begin my walk at the northeast corner, where the walking will be easier. If all goes well, I will reach the Pison by midday, and return by the High Meadow Road. I decide ahead of time not to walk the river. The trail though the Mire would be nearly impassable.

Once again as I plod along, small twinges from my ankle promising to become a throbbing ache, my thoughts go to dark places. I wonder why no one talks about Brother Von. Has he died? I imagine him hollow eyed and gibbering in the catacombs beneath the Tower. Or spirited away to someplace outside of Nodd, confined in a Worldly asylum, sedated by drugs.

By the time I reach the gate, my thoughts have moved from Von to Tobias, and his sister Kari, and Sister Mara, all of whom left Nodd of their own will, apostates doomed to an eternity of torment for their sins.

I pause and look through the gate that leads out of Nodd. The road is an easement that passes through the Rocking K Ranch for half a mile, then curves east to West Fork and the World. The Rocking K cattle have trampled a trail on the other side, while virgin snow heaps up on our side. It would be much easier to walk the fence on the Rocking K side, I realize. I think of the long miles ahead. What difference can it make if I walk on one side of the fence rather than the other? None at all, I decide. I can cross back into Nodd over where the fence meets the Pison.

I unlatch the gate and let myself through. The trail is so well trodden that I do not need my snowshoes; I take them off and strap them to my backpack. Without the snowshoes, walking is much easier. I have gone only a few hundred paces when an ATV track joins the cattle trail. My thoughts turn to Lynna, who now seems like a half-forgotten dream. Was she the one riding the ATV? The tracks are iced over, and there are cattle tracks punching through them, so the ATV must have passed this way a day ago or longer. I wonder if she still thinks of me.

The ATV tracks stay with the fence line. I pass the spot where Lynna and I had our picnic. The repair we made to the fence is invisible beneath the snow, but I know the place from the roll of the land. I shrug off my pack and open it. I have packed biscuits, and a few strips of dried mutton. I sit on my pack with my back to the fence, and chew on dried mutton and gaze off to the north and wonder what Lynna’s house looks like. I imagine a sprawling residence filled with modern appliances: computers, radios, televisions, all the things we do not have in Nodd. The things Tobias spoke of with such longing. I hope he has found a life he likes better. It would be sad to burn in Hell for nothing.

The tallowy mutton leaves an unpleasant coating on my tongue. I break a chunk of crust from the snow and chew it. The crunching fills my ears. When I have swallowed the last bits of melting ice, I am struck by how quiet this place is. The light breeze has died away completely, and the only sound left is my breathing. I feel small. I am the only living thing in sight. There is not even a bird in the sky. All around me is whiteness, and the fence at my back. I climb to my feet, don my pack, and continue walking. The sound of my boots on the hard-packed snow and ice drowns out the sound of my breathing.

A few hundred cubits later, the cattle trail and the ATV tracks veer away from the fence and head north. An enormous drift has come up against the fence, reaching nearly to the top. I strap on my snowshoes and leave the cattle trail, making my way around the drift, then returning to the fence. As I near the Pison, the land becomes a series of shallow arroyos filled with snow. In places, the top of the fence disappears beneath the snow. I hesitate to proceed. The river is less than a half mile away, but circumventing the arroyos will require more than a mile of detours. I decide to turn back.

By the time I rejoin the cattle trail, I am thinking that I will be back in the Village in little more than an hour. Enos might question how I could have completed my walk so quickly. I slow my pace, then stop completely as a new thought arrives. I could follow the cattle trail where it curves away from the fence, just far enough to get a look at what Lynna’s home looks like. I know it is a foolish idea, and that Enos would not approve, but the more I think about it, the more curious I become. A mile is not so far, and I only want to get close enough to see it.

My body makes the decision for me, and soon I have left the fence behind. The land rises, a gentle slope leading up over a ridge. From the top of the ridge, I look down into a shallow valley. On the far side is a cluster of trees. I see the roof of a barn, and a windmill, and beyond that a series of corrals crowded with cattle. I can see the steam rising off their brown backs.

A thin stream of smoke coils from within the trees, but the house itself is not visible. The cattle trail forks twice as I descend into the valley. I stay with the ATV tracks, and after a few more minutes of walking, the house comes into view.

Lynna’s house is very different from our buildings in Nodd. It is long and low, it has many windows, and it is painted an astonishing bright pink. Several vehicles are parked nearby. I can see a small pickup, two ATVs, and a tractor. I imagine myself walking up to the house and knocking on the door. The thought fills me with excitement and fear. I stand watching, hoping to catch a glimpse of Lynna, but there is no movement. After a time, I turn away and trudge back toward the ridge. I am almost to the top when I hear the buzz of an engine. I look back and see a helmeted rider on an ATV bouncing up the trail, coming directly toward me.

My first impulse is to run, but I know that I cannot outpace the machine, so I wait, praying that it is Lynna, and not her father or her uncle. As the ATV draws closer, I see strands of blond hair fluttering from beneath the helmet and I know that my prayers have been answered.

Lynna skids to a halt. She pulls off her helmet and shakes her hair free.

“Jacob!” She is smiling. Her cheeks are red; the rest of her face is winter pale. “What are you doing here?”

I feel myself smiling back at her. “Nothing,” I say.

She laughs. “You must be doing something! How is your leg? All better?”

“It is healed,” I say, though in fact it is rather sore. “How are you?”

“Me? You know, same old, same old. Bored out of my mind. What are you
doing
here?” she asks again.

“I followed the cattle trail,” I say, gesturing at the path I am standing upon. “I was just wondering where you lived. Why is your house pink?”

Even though the sky is clear and the sun is shining upon us, a shadow passes across her face.

“That was my mom,” she says. “She painted lots of stuff pink after she got her cancer.”

“Oh,” I say, even though it makes no sense to me.

Lynna laughs at nothing and says, “This is so cool, you coming here! Are you hungry?”

“I should get back,” I say, looking over my shoulder toward Nodd.

“Come on, just stay for a few minutes. My dad’s in Billings all day, and Cal’s off in West Fork for a few hours, so we’ve got the place to ourselves. I’ll make you a quesadilla. Do you like quesadillas?”

“What’s a quesadilla?”

“Oh my God, you never had a quesadilla? Do you like Mexican food?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Okay, that’s it. You’ve got to try my quesadillas. They’re the best. Get on.”

Unable to resist her enthusiasm, I climb onto the machine, backpack and all, and a moment later we are bouncing down the trail toward the pink house.

A quesadilla is two disks of unleavened bread called tortillas, with cheese and other ingredients pressed between them. I sit in the kitchen looking with wonder at all the unfamiliar appliances and decorations as Lynna cooks the quesadilla in a heavy cast-iron frying pan exactly like the ones the women use in Nodd.

“What is that?” I ask, pointing at a white metal box on the counter.

“Bread machine,” Lynna says.

“You make bread in a machine?”

“Yeah, you just pour flour and yeast in, and it kneads the dough and bakes it automatically.”

I think of the hours the Sisters spend kneading dough by hand. I ask her about another object on the counter.

“That’s a food processor for, like, chopping vegetables and stuff. My mom was a great cook. I don’t use it much.”

“What are all these pink ribbon things?” The ribbons were on display everywhere: refrigerator magnets, a calendar, even a cookie jar with a pink ribbon for a handle.

“That’s my dad. He sends money for breast cancer research, and they keep sending us ribbon stuff.” She flips the quesadilla. “I hope I didn’t make this too spicy. I can’t believe you never had a quesadilla.”

I hope it is as good as the fried chicken and orange soda we had at our picnic by the fence.

“So what have you been up to all winter?” she asks. “Did that big storm hit you as hard as it did us? We lost thirteen head on the west range.”