In All Places (Stripling Warrior) (21 page)

I glanced at Muloki and lowered my voice.
“And God can change the hearts of those who will let Him.”

Kenai made no reply.

Instead, he reached into his satchel and withdrew some coins. “Get me the barbed one,” he said and dropped the coins into my hand. He left before I could say anything, and I watched as he shouldered his way through the crowds.

I made the purchase and tucked
the arrowhead into my own satchel. As I walked along with Muloki and Melia and pretended to admire her new bracelet, I thought about my brother and how he was aching and broken.

I wished I could help him, but I knew that I couldn’t. I prayed that God would send him someone who could.

When I returned home from the market, I found Kenai in his hammock staring at the thatched roof of the
dim hut.

“Here,” I said and handed over the arrowhead I
had purchased for him, very aware that the reason he hadn’t made the purchase himself was because he didn’t want to talk to Pontus. He didn’t want to talk to anyone anymore.

“Thanks,” he said, taking it from me
without looking at me or the arrowhead.

“I’m going to the falls.
Do you want to go?”

“No thanks,” he replied
blandly.

“We could go hunting instead.”

“No.”

“Kenai, I really think…”

He looked at me then, and it was worse than when he hadn’t looked at me.

“Okay,” I acquiesced, and I left him alone.

As I ran through the forest dodging limbs and branches, I wondered how long I could keep going out to work with my weapons. Surely soon Micah would tell me he had made arrangements with Hemni, and when Zeke came home, I would have neither the time nor the freedom to practice.

But Micah hadn’t said anything.
I seldom saw him, and when I did see him, he looked like he might approach me with news, but he always turned and walked away instead.

When I came into the meadow, I was surprised to see Muloki sitting on the log above the falls
, because I had left him with Melia in the market just an hour before. I smiled and waved to him. He motioned me up, but I laughed and shook my head.

“No!” I called.
I wasn’t falling for that again.

“I won’t push you in!” he called back down to me.

I hesitated, but after dropping my gear on the bank of the river, I climbed up and balanced along the log to sit next to him. I gave him a warning glance.

“I promise,” he repeated
, his accent melting my heart and sealing the deal.

When I was settled, he handed me a wrapped package.

“What’s this?” I asked.

He might have turned a little red. “I bought them for you a while back and never had the right moment to give them to you. And then I met Melia.” He paused uncomfortably. “And, well, I wanted you to have them anyway.” He gestured to the package. “Open it.”

I untied the twine that bound the little bundle and pulled back the cloth wrapping.

Obsidian arrowheads.

I sold them to an overconfident, swaggering young man who said he needed them to shoot rabbits.

“Leah said you gave most of your arrows away, and she knows you’ve been using the few you have. I’ll attach them to shafts for you.”

I could do that, but not as well as he could.
I nodded, my eyes still on the beautiful arrowheads, my thoughts on all they might have meant.

If you let your shield down, something like this might happen.

“Thank you,” I said. “I love them.”

“I knew you would.”

The gift was not a beautiful bracelet like Melia’s, but it meant so much more because it wasn’t. I wrapped the arrowheads back up.

“Where
is Melia?” I asked him.

“
She has gone to weave with the women. She makes friends easily.” The note of pride in his voice made me smile.

“One of her many talents,” I agreed.
“She made friends with me, and I was a soldier of the conquering army.”

“Could it be that you make friends easily too?” he asked.

“More like push friends away.”

He frowned.
“You are still too much alone.”

Being alone was not my problem.
Loneliness was my problem, and I didn’t want to talk to Muloki about how lonely I was. I waved his comment off.

“It’s better that way.
I make people uncomfortable. They think I’m strange, which I am. They don’t know what to say to me, and we always end up having miscommunications. It’s just better when I keep to myself.”

“Is there no one you can talk to?”

“Is that why you’re here? To talk about my lack of friends?”

He crossed his arms. “Yes.
”

My eyes met his, but I shook my head again slowly.
“Let’s not talk about that. Tell me, what is this I hear about your betrothal? When will it become official?”

I could see he did not want to change the subject, but he said, “We will have the ceremony next month when the weather is
better. We did not want to encroach upon Kalem and Leah’s enjoyment of their own marriage.”

I nodded.
“How long will your betrothal last?”

“We are determined to wait the full year,” he said.

“Mother and Kalem
did not wait half that long.”

“No.
But they both have homes and property, household possessions. They didn’t need time to acquire these things.”

The conversation trailed off.
It was funny but when Muloki was not flirting with me, it seemed we didn’t have much to say to each other.

“Keturah, I’m worried about you,” Muloki said after a long silence.

“Me? But I’m fine, Muloki.”

He shook his head.
“You should be betrothed. It is your brother’s responsibility to see that this happens for you. I do not think he is fulfilling his duty to you.”

“Oh, Muloki, that’s sweet, but I’m sure Micah is having a difficult time finding someone who—
”

“Do not speak that way about yourself!”

I felt my eyes widen at the harshness in his voice. “I only meant that Micah—”

“And do not make excuses for your brother.”

“I don’t even want to marry, Muloki. I’ll be so bad at it. I don’t think I could ever be happy keeping a home for some man.”

He turned to me in surprise.
“Some man? Your husband will not be just some man. And even if Micah married you to someone you didn’t love, you would come to love him in time. You will keep a home for a man you love. It is a way you will show him that you love him, and your distaste for it will make that much stronger the testament of your love for him.”

He bent a little to catch my eye.
“Hmm?” he asked.

“I guess so.
” Why did he have to learn Nephite so well?

“It’s like with fighting,” he continued.
“Those men who hate fighting must give so much more of themselves in war than those who enjoy it. Take Kenai.”

“Kenai—
”

“Hates fighting.
He has given so much of himself away, he has lost himself.”

“And that’s just the problem!” I exclaimed.
“I will lose myself if I—”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
He shook his head. “Those who lose their lives for God’s sake will find their lives.”

“But it wouldn’t be for God’s sake.
It would be for Micah’s, and Zeke’s, and everybody’s but my own.”

His eyes narrowed.
“Is there no honor then in raising up a righteous family?”

“Well, yes, but—
”

“Raising a righteous family is not done for God’s sake?”

He had me there. I twisted my lips into a frown.

“What man could you do this for?”

“Excuse me?”

“Whose home could you keep with your love?
Who do you love enough? Zeke?”

I looked away
again.

“Not Zeke then.”
I could hear a smile in his voice. “Hmm. Not Jarom.”

I couldn’t help
a smile at his gentle teasing, but only because I was sure he wouldn’t see it with my face turned.

“Leah told me of your true love.”

I slowly turned toward him. What had Mother said to him?

His smile sparkled in his eyes.
“Ah, I see she was right. You have given your heart, but not to your Ezekiel.”

Melia must have been talking
about it too. She was the only one who called Zeke my Ezekiel.

“Is everyone talking about me like this?” I complained.

“Everyone but the two men who should be.”

“He’s gone.” That was the first time in the year I had been home that I had admitted there was someone besides Zeke in my heart. Though, apparently, everyone knew it anyway.

“I will go get him for you
. Kenai says he is in Judea now.”

Even Kenai?

I laughed nervously.
“No. Don’t do that.”

If anyone went for him, it should be me.

“It will be easy. I will bring him here so we can settle it.”

“It’s not your job to settle it,” I pointed out.

“But Kalem
has married your mother, and when I marry Kalem’s daughter, I will be your brother. So you see, it is my job to settle it.”

I laughed.
“Well, it would not be easy. He wants to be in the army. He doesn’t want to come here, and he obviously doesn’t want me. You’d have to fight him.”

He grinned.
“I would gladly fight him for you.”

I shrugged.
“You’d lose.”

Whether it was more absurd to think that Muloki would fight Gideon and drag him here for me
, or that he would lose to Gideon, I wasn’t sure, but we both burst into laughter, and in the next instant I noticed someone standing on the bank.

“Hello, Ket.”

It didn’t matter that I grimaced at how our conversation must have sounded. When I looked up at him, he wasn’t even looking at me.

He was
exchanging a look with Muloki as if he was trying to place where he had seen him before, and a big part of me hoped he didn’t figure it out.

He
was the only other person who would possibly recognize Muloki from the battle of Cumeni.

“Zeke!” I exclaimed.

He turned his attention to me and smiled.

“When did you get back?”

“This morning. Midday.” He couldn’t contain another suspicious glance at Muloki. “Have you been here all day?”

“No.
Sit,” I invited. As he stepped out onto the log, I said, “I was shopping in the market with my friend Melia, Muloki’s betrothed.” I gestured to Muloki by way of informal introduction.

Zeke relaxed a little, but I could see he was still uneasy about
Muloki’s presence. He was obviously Lamanite—the age of a soldier. I could see his mind piecing the clues together.

“
You remember Melia from Manti. She is Kalem’s daughter.”

“Oh, yes, I heard about that.
Congratulations,” he said to Muloki.

Muloki nodded as he got up to leave.

“You don’t have to—”

“Yes,” he said simply.
“You have much to discuss with your Ezekiel.”

Zeke watched him go, and before Muloki was even out of sight through the thick trees, Zeke asked
with steady calm, “Keturah, do you know who that is?”

“Yes,” I said.
“But no one else does. Only the three of us know.”

He took that in for a moment.
“What is he doing here?” he asked. “And why are you friends with him?”

Zeke knew I had breached the gate of
Antiparah, but I told him everything again, even adding how Muloki had flirted with me at the gate and come to Melek to court me.

He
was mad at Kenai all over again for asking me to walk into the enemy stronghold, but I held firm that it had been an honor.

“Don’t give Kenai trouble about it.
He is…” How to put it? “Not the same. And besides, it was a long time ago. It was a decision he made—had to make—and it was not the wrong one.”

“Yeah, I’ve talked to him.
He’s different.”

Kenai had
known Zeke was back in the village and hadn’t told me?

“You’re not going to get mad?
You’re not going to lecture me for walking into Antiparah or reprimand me for befriending the enemy?”

He looked at me with
a kindness in his eyes I remembered from long ago. Despite my suspicion that Micah had sent for him, it was good to see him.

“It reflects poorly on me that you think a
ny of those things might happen,” he said.

“I didn’t mean, I just meant…
It’s been that way for a while, between us…”

“Since I started courting you
and pursuing something you were not comfortable with.”

Oh, how I wished I was comfortable with it.
I looked at my old friend, his hair the color of black ash and his eyes dark, warm, and familiar. I looked at his strong shoulders and the new lines around his lips. I looked at him with all my regret in my eyes.

He
got to his feet, balancing easily on the log over the water. “Come on,” he said with a sad smile. “Walk with me.”

I hated that I was the cause of the sadness in his smile, but I got to my feet and followed him away from the river.
We walked through the meadow silently side by side as we had many times before, but we didn’t talk or accomplish any of the things that needed to be said. After a while, Zeke bent and picked a pink flower for me, which I took and thanked him.

He cleared his throat and said, “In Manti
, when I told you Micah and Cana were to be married, you were so upset. Remember?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“You cried.”

I hummed softly. It was true.

“And I said you could talk to me about the reason why
, even if you thought it would hurt me.”

“Yes, Zeke, but I didn’t know what you meant.”

“Do you know now?”

“Oh, Zeke,” I protested.

“You cried because you thought…”

“Zeke.”

“You thought…”

I sighed and closed my eyes.
“I thought Cana was marrying someone she didn’t love.”

“Because?”

“Because she thought she had to, because she thought her family wanted it, because Micah asked her first, and because she didn’t know if Kenai would,” I finally blurted out.

“Thank you,” Zeke said.

“For?”

“For being honest with me.
For always being honest with me. You’ve always known, and I never listened to you.”

“Zeke, what are you talking about?”

He took a deep breath and turned to face me, drawing me to a stop. “You and I, mostly I, have been trying to make this work for a long time now.”

“Zeke, you’re scaring me.
What are you saying?”

“What you’
ve been saying all along.”

I searched his face.

“There was a time when you lied to yourself about your feelings for me,” he went on. “And heaven help me, I let you.”

“But I’ve never lied to you.”
I grimaced and qualified that statement. “Except about coming here sometimes. But I’ve never lied about how I felt for you.”

“Of course you haven’t, Ket.
You’ve always done your best, and I’ve made it so hard for you. You were right. Love is not jealous, as I have been. If I had truly loved you, I’d have been as noble as Seth and Lib and half the stripling army, and I wouldn’t have allowed my jealousy to affect your life and your decisions, to dampen your spirit, or make you sad for one single moment.”

“But you were just protecting me.
You had an understanding with Micah and my family, and with me, and you had every right—even a responsibility—to tell me how to act.”

He laughed a little.
“Neither of us would ever rationalize lying to another, but we are both good at lying to ourselves.”

Suddenly, I laughed a little too.

Soon we had
circled the meadow. I checked the sky. It would be time to start toward home soon. Dinah probably had a feast prepared for the return of her eldest son.

“Should we start back home?” I asked.

Zeke checked the sky too and rubbed the back of his neck. “Not just yet. I want to be very clear.”

“
Clear about what?”

“About you and me
, Ket.” He paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and went on. “When I saw how it hurt you to think of Cana marrying someone she did not love—just the thought of it—all I could think was how it would break your heart if it were
you
who married without love. I couldn’t do that to you.”

I frowned.
“But I do love you, Zeke.”

“You wouldn’t be marrying me because of love,” he said as his sad eyes gazed
stoically into the distance. He smiled a little, though. “I know you love me. It makes it so much harder, doesn’t it?” His voice was gentle and held a note of finality.

“To let it go, you mean?” I asked with my heart in my throat.

He cupped my cheek with his hand and swept my hair back with his long fingers. “To let it go,” he affirmed. “I should have come here and said this long before now.”

“Why didn’t you?” I had been lonely and confused for a long time. I could have used his help to sort it all out, but I hadn’t been ready for it, and I knew it.

Zeke shrugged. “I thought with Gid gone, you might come to your senses, realize you loved me or something.”

I took a breath.

Then my heart started to pound.

“What about our families?
What about—”

He shook his head.
“No,” he said softly. “We will not marry for them. There has never been anything official between us, not even a promise. And we are lucky.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“We both have loving and understanding families.”

“That’s true,” I said
, wondering exactly what Micah had told him to bring him here. He had come to the village to end this. That was clear.

“I will
tell everyone tonight so there will be no false hopes or vain expectations. I have already spoken with Micah.”

The words were hard for him to say, but he meant them, a
nd I thought I loved him more in that moment when he was letting me go than I had loved him in all the past years.

“Will you…go to Eve?” I asked.
I didn’t want him to, but that was unfair. I wanted him to deny that he had even thought of it.

He let out a breath and ran a big hand through his
long, loose hair. “I saw her on market days,” he admitted. “But I didn’t really care for her that way. Her father suggested a union once, but I declined.”

“Oh,” I said.
“You should introduce her to Jarom.”

He burst into laughter.
“I did once! “It was a disaster.” His voice softened. “I think he really liked her.”

“Ah,” I said.
“And he thought you liked her.”

“Something like that.
”

“Are you here to stay?
Are you going back to Judea?”

He slowly shook his head.
“I will not be going back to Judea, but I have made other commitments with the army.”

“You have?”
My surprise showed. Zeke had served in Helaman’s army out of duty, not desire. The fact that he would willingly continue now that the striplings had been disbanded really caught me off guard.

“
Keturah, when I marry, I want to be in love.” He caught my eye. “And I want my wife to be in love with me, really in love with no reservations. I haven’t found that woman yet. I just can’t see it any other way. My parents are in love, and that’s what I’ve always expected for myself.”

I thought of Dinah, how she had been so unsure of her feelings when she married Zeke’s father.

“I
do love you, Zeke,” I said, dratted tears brimming at my eyes.

“But not enough,” he said quietly.
He took me into his arms. They had become hard and strong during the war but they enveloped me so gently. “And you know I love you,” he whispered into my hair. When he pulled away he bent to kiss me.

I was old enough
by then and had been kissed enough times that kissing was no longer something to be experienced, but something to be shared. And though I loved Zeke, he was not the man I wanted to share my kisses with.

But in the same moment I turned my
face away from him, Zeke stopped himself. After a pause, he placed his kiss on my forehead like Micah always did.

He turned toward the village.
“Walk with me?” he asked, his hand outstretched.

I looked at his hand
and slowly shook my head. “No.”

He
held my gaze for a moment. Then he gave a quick nod and left, his long strides putting the distance between us.

I stood for a time
watching him until he disappeared into the trees. I was experiencing so many emotions I wasn’t sure what to feel first. Relief won out, and I fell to my knees and thanked my Lord in a brief but heartfelt prayer. I stayed on my knees until the tears were dried from my face.

“
That from Zeke?”

I looked up from the flower in my hand.
Why hadn’t I heard him? I looked around, suddenly aware that a great deal of time had passed. Evening was falling fast.

He
was the third man I had met in the meadow that day, none of them the one I wanted most to see.

“You missed the celebration meal,” he said, taking a knee beside me.
“For my amazing elder brother.”

I ignored the slight contempt in his voice.
“I lost track of time.”

“I see that.”

“What are you doing here?” I had never been here with Jarom, even in the company of our siblings.

“Everyone was worried.”

“Don’t you mean disappointed?”

He laughed.

“So you heard.”

“Why do you think I came?”

I rolled my eyes.

“I told them I’d come find you, save you from the deep, dark forest.”

“It’s going to be
very dark if we don’t get moving. Let me just get my gear.”

I hadn’t even used it.

I made my way to where I had dropped my weapons on the bank of the river that afternoon before climbing up to talk with Muloki. I knelt and strapped everything on, ready to carry, ready to fight. When I rose, Jarom was standing much too close to me.