In All Places (Stripling Warrior) (15 page)

“Kanina, why don’t you walk with Muloki to ask Kalem to dinner?
I will get it prepared.”

I knew s
he had already proposed the idea to Muloki because he was getting to his feet.

“But we can’t talk to each other,” I said.

“Go,” she persisted gently.

Muloki approached and held out a hand to help me to my feet.
I took it and thanked him.

I was not unhappy to see him.
I was intrigued and flattered that he had traveled such a great distance to find me. I wanted to ask him so many questions. He hadn’t expected that we would be unable to converse. Still despite the questions and unexpected obstacle in communication, the reason he had come was clear.

I went ahead
of him and led the way until the path widened as it neared Melek. After that we walked side by side. I stole secret glances at him, but he looked down at me openly, intending to catch my eye. I smiled but looked away each time. There was no reason for him not to be bold. Since he had already traveled many days from the Land of Nephi in search of me, boldly meeting my gaze was an understatement of his intentions.

A man with intentions.
That was the last thing I needed.

When we arrived at
Kalem’s, he was standing in his little courtyard, hands on hips, staring down at his fire.

“Hi, Kalem,” I called over the fence.

He turned as I came through the gate, already smiling.

I gestured Muloki through the gate.
“Meet Muloki,” I said to Kalem. Then I turned to Muloki and gestured toward Kalem. “Kalem,” I informed him.

While they clasped arms, I said, “Muloki is a Lamanite soldier.
I met him while we were stationed at Judea.”

Kalem gave a nod but thankfully did not ask
me any questions. He had spent his time in the army. He knew that when a soldier did not offer more information, it was not kind to ask. Likely, it would not be something you wanted to hear.

Kalem questioned Muloki in the language I did not understand and after both their glances landed on me and then
returned to each other, I stepped over to Kalem’s fire and examined the pot with nothing but tepid water in it. How had this man survived without me coming by to clean, grind maize, wash his clothes, and prepare his meals?

He
had come to our home at Mother’s invitation whenever possible, enduring my disdain for the taste of a good meal and a few welcoming smiles.

Sometimes I
was so ashamed of myself.

I turned to look at Kalem and Muloki, and the sound of their conversation made me think of Gideon
, the only person I had ever known who had the gift of tongues, with a pang of sudden and intense longing—and it was not for his interpreting abilities.

I broke
rudely into their conversation. “We’ve come to invite you to dinner.”

They both turned to
stare at me.

“Mother’s waiting,” I said and moved toward the gate after pouring
Kalem’s pitiful attempt at dinner on his fire.

Kalem, startled for a moment, chuckled, gestured to Muloki, and they both followed me back into the forest.

We traveled without talking. I hummed the rabbit princess lullaby to myself to keep my mind off of things I shouldn’t think about—the quiet guard tower on a gray day with a drizzle of rain in the corner, a copse of trees filled with moonflower blooms, a muddy training ground, the sound of one step before whirling to block the arc or a sword, a hand tilting my bow to adjust my aim, kneeling in the shade among shards of black obsidian, forest-filtered light on my hands.

I hummed louder.

Mother had dinner prepared, and despite not understanding anything that was said, I felt the Spirit in our home and my mood lifted. After eating, Kalem read to us from the words of Isaiah during which Muloki spotted my scabbard under my hammock in the corner and brushed my arm to get my attention, silently asking permission to retrieve it. I nodded and when he brought it to the table, Kalem said something, and Muloki unwrapped it from its leather sheathing.

“Kalem made it,” I said.
Mother translated and Muloki’s transfixed gaze flicked to Kalem.

Modestly
, Kalem began pointing out how he had weighted it and fit the grip to my hand. Muloki stepped back and cut it through the air and seemed so interested that I retrieved the rest of my weapons. Mother and Kalem kept their distance from them, but Muloki, much to my pleasure, devoured them with his eyes as he inspected them with his hands.

I watched him for a time, watched as his hands ran over the weapo
ns, his fingers over the blades. Before I realized what I was doing, I inspected the rough scar on his arm with my hands, running my fingers over it, thinking that Mother and I could have done a much better job with healing this wound.

The
silence in the room changed somehow, and I realized everyone was staring at me.

I knew
Muloki remembered that moment on the battlefield, saw Zeke in his mind as I did, the fierce enemy warrior ready to fight him to the death to keep him from me.

We locked gazes.

And Mother suggested Muloki stay at Kalem’s.

Muloki stayed at Kalem’s for a long time. Kalem said Muloki had no plans to go back to his homeland because he resented being made to fight for causes in which he did not believe. I didn’t blame him. It was hard enough to fight for causes in which you did believe.

To earn his way, Muloki helped Kalem with his business, often accompanying him in his travel and trade.
He seemed to enjoy the trade, but what he loved more was apprenticing as a weapon maker. Kalem truly was an artisan, and Muloki eagerly learned at his elbow, taking to it very quickly. Despite their difference in age, Kalem and Muloki became great friends, and it eased my mind that Kalem had company and was not so much alone.

When Muloki was not working for Kalem, he worked with Hemni in my family’s fields.
Once, he had tried to help at the tannery, but Isabel had resented the intrusion too much and run him away.

“What did you do to her?” I teased him.

“I took her father’s attention to myself,” he said haltingly, still unsure of his words.

He was
very astute, and he was right. Isabel worked hard and thrived on her father’s approval of her skills. And Hemni’s approval was well-deserved. Isabel made a fine, soft buck-skin that was in high demand throughout Melek.

Muloki and I were working side by side digging furrows that the heavy rains had washed out.
I had always disliked working the fields, but after the things I had experienced in the army, I found digging furrows preferable to digging trenches or graves.

“Yes, she does seem
to crave her father’s attention,” I said.

“She is like you.”

I straightened up to stretch my back, rested my shovel against my side, and ran the back of my arm across my forehead to wipe away the sweat. “What do you mean?”

Muloki didn’t always have the words
for what he meant, and over the months, I had become accustomed to asking him for more explanation.

He straightened too.
“She is like you.” He pointed upward. “She seeks much her father’s attention.”

“Oh.”
I smiled. “You mean prayer.”

“Yes, prayer.
To your father?”

“To my Heavenly
Father.”

“This is God.
”

“Yes.
But Isabel seeks her earth father’s attention.”

Muloki smiled at me and reached
out to brush at my cheek as if he were brushing away dirt. “But this is not so very different.”

I thought for a moment and then shook my head.
No, it wasn’t so very different.

I looked down the long row.
The air was warm, and it was humid there by the plants. I checked the position of the sun. It had scarcely moved since the last time I had checked it.

“I can finish,” Muloki said
, reading my expression. “You go home. Rest.”

“No.”
I grasped my shovel, and I began again to clean out the furrow.

It was so much smaller than the trench at Judea.
I thought of that first week in the trenches and of spilling dirt on Joshua’s head again and again. How he must have hated me! But he had barely said one word, just brushed the dirt out of his hair and carried on with the taxing work.

Later I had apologized, but he had
just shrugged it off.

“It’s not
as if the dirt could do anything to conceal your good looks,” I had said, thinking a compliment might smooth things over between us.

H
is eyes narrowed and he gave me a hard look. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Like what?”

“You must know what it’s like when people only like you for your looks.”

“I didn’t
mean—”

He cut me off.
“Nobody ever means it.”

I had pondered much on his words, and I had never commented on his looks again.

“You tire to dig the furrow,” Muloki said, breaking into my thoughts.

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed
as I realized I had stopped working entirely. “No, I was thinking of someone. Something that happened a long time ago.”

“Thinking of a man.”
He nodded. “This man,” he said and traced the scar on his arm with a dusty finger.

“Zeke? Oh, no.” My embarrassment deepened. I took a step back and tucked an errant lock of hair behind my ear.

“Zeke,” he repeated, trying out the new word.
It sounded harsh from his mouth.

“His name is Ezekiel.
Zeke. He is Hemni’s oldest son.”

His eyes widened slightly.
“Zeke is this man?” He indicated the scar again.

“Yes,” I said quietly.
I swallowed hard, and I couldn’t take my eyes from the scar.

“Zeke is your man.”

I nodded. Then I took a breath and looked up to meet his eye. He only looked curious. “Yes,” I said, afraid of hurting him, but wanting him to know my heart was given elsewhere.

He searched my eyes
as he stepped closer to me. “Zeke is not here.”

I shook my head,
all too aware that Zeke had not returned to the village and had yet made no plans to return. Dinah said his work was not done, but there were questions in her eyes I could not answer.

“I only am here.”
Muloki stepped even closer to me.

I laughed nervously
, but I was not afraid of Muloki. I was afraid of myself. I was lonely and vulnerable, and I knew it.

“No.
” I took a step back, then another. “You are there.” I pointed deliberately. “I only am here.”

He laughed too, throwing me the same irresistible smile he
had shown me outside the gate of Antiparah when his friends had teased him for detaining me so long with his flirting. He closed the distance between us before I could protest any more.

“We two are here
,” he said. His eyes widened innocently as if he were simply clarifying the definitions of here and there.

“Yes.”

He cupped the side of my neck with his hand, and threw a nod back over his shoulder. “Zeke is there.”

My eyes widened too, not in mock innocence but in confirmation of what I had long suspected.
He had come to Melek in search of me, I had known that, but months had passed since his arrival, and he had not tried to be more than my friend. He had not put his fingers into my hair and looked at me the way he was looking at me then.

Could I drop my shovel and run?
Could I hit him with it? A very disloyal part of me wanted to let it slip from my fingers and accept the invitation Muloki conveyed with so few words.

I considered the invitation for too long, I knew.
Muloki patiently let me.

I handed him my shovel.
“I think I will go rest,” I said, and I turned to leave.

“Keturah, I am here,” he said to my back, his voice gentle and quiet and promising.

I paused, nodded, and then continued out of the field. I didn’t go home to rest. I went to the falls to think. But when I got there, I pulled out my slingshot. I had told myself I carried it only for hunting, but I picked a tree in the distance and slung rock after rock at it until the bark chipped away and I was gasping for breath.

I was so much better at being a warrior than a woman.

That evening Mother and I went to Hemni and Dinah’s for the evening meal.
Muloki sat in the yard playing a kind of game with Sarai and Chloe. Or rather, they were playing a game with him. I watched as they showed him different objects and asked him for the words. They clapped when he got it right and giggled when he got it wrong. There was so much giggling that I began to pay closer attention and realized he was getting the words wrong on purpose. After a while, Muloki held up the objects and asked the girls for the word in his language. There was much less giggling, and he had the girls enthralled with his strange language.

After dinner, Cana invited Muloki to join
us on a walk through the woods. We showed him where the striplings had camped and trained before they got their orders. The field was planted now with squash and beans. It looked like nothing more than a farmer’s field, and I felt silly taking him there to show off a place that was so plain.

Muloki surveyed it with his hands on his hips.

“It is very humble,” he said.

“Well of course we didn’t have a large training ground in Melek,” I said defensively.
More than one person had explained to him that the people of Ammon did not fight, did not kill others, and depended on the Nephites for defense. There had been no need to train an army, and hence no need for a training ground.

Cana shot me a look and said more kindly, “What do you mean
, Muloki?”

He thought for a moment, walked out in front of us quietly
, careful not to trample the plants. “It is…the Spirit is here. Your Holy Ghost.” He turned back to us and placed his hand over his heart. “Humble, yes?”

“Yes,” Cana confirmed.

Feeling stupid, I stepped toward him and said, “When Helaman arrived on the field for the first time, every knee bowed with respect for him. The Spirit compelled us to do so. It has always been here, from the first moment.”

“I didn’t know you were here for that,” said Cana.
“Jarom and Zeke described it to us so vividly.”

I
shrugged sheepishly. “Sometimes when I stepped from the woods onto the field it appeared as though legions of angels trained here. And when I looked again, I saw only stripling youths.”

“Zeke trained with these angels?” asked Muloki.

I glanced at Cana. I could feel my cheeks burning when I said, “Yes. All the boys trained here.”

“And Keturah
, too. She had to fight her way in. She had to prove her abilities in front of everyone,” added Cana.

Muloki’s
eyebrows rose. “I have much wondered how a rabbit got into your army of boys.”

“A
girl
,” Cana corrected. “A
girl
got into the army.”

I smiled.
“He’s teasing me,” I told her. “Because my mother calls me rabbit.”

She giggled, understanding.
“Yes, well, rabbits are very quick,” she said.

Muloki caught my eye.
“They can steal past many guards.”

Cana looked to me
for an explanation.

“That’s how we met.”
I licked my lips. “I was completing a spy mission for Kenai. Muloki stood guard at the gate.”

Cana lost a little of her color.
“Kenai,” she said. “Have you heard from him?”

“
We’ve had a letter or two,” I admitted.

“Oh,” she said, her cheeks filling with color again.
“Of course you have. And he is well?”

“He
is fine,” I said. “He is a great captain. He leads many men and many successful and essential missions. His work is important.”

“Did he…did he ask about me?”

“No.” I wished Muloki wasn’t standing there with us, though he did not appear to be listening—he had turned to wander out through the field a little. He didn’t know the language well, but he was bright and quick and had obviously caught the turn in our conversation. “He said he was fine with the arrangements. I asked.”

“Fine?” she asked weakly.

I leaned toward her and lowered my voice. “Believe me, Cana. You don’t want them fighting over you. Not brothers. And I thought…” I lowered my voice even more. “I thought you liked Kenai.”

“I d
o,” she whispered back. “I did. I liked them both.”

I looked deeply into her eyes.
She was telling me the truth. And why wouldn’t she have liked Micah all this time? He was tall and handsome, smart, polite, and kind to her. She had grown up as close to him as she had to Kenai.

“
You’ll be happy with Micah,” I said firmly, assuring us both. “It will all be well.”

We
left the training field and Cana led us toward the falls, but she had become melancholy and her heart was no longer in it.

“Would you mind very much if I went home?” she asked
us.

“We’ll come with you,” I said. I
hadn’t been allowed to walk alone in the woods for four years. It felt wrong to let her go alone.

“No,” she said quickly.
She was already starting across the meadow. “I mean…” she hedged as she glanced between Muloki and me. “I’d like to be alone for a little while. I won’t have a chance when I get home.”

It was true.
There were too many people at her home. I spent so much time alone, it was hard to imagine Cana not having any time to herself. Though I was starting to hate my time alone, I realized that sometimes a person needed to be alone with their own thoughts, to feel of the Spirit and to pray.