In All Places (Stripling Warrior) (4 page)

He and Ethanim walked with me to a part of the city that was still deserted. We climbed to the top terrace where the more dilapidated homes sat. There was no poor class of people now. We were all poor, and
the army stayed in the areas closer to the city center.

I chose an area behind a
humble, abandoned hut. As Lib and Ethanim checked the yard for any hidden dangers, I stood at the edge, overlooking a very small stream that ran through an overrun garden that hadn’t seen tending in a good while.

I had my tent for privacy, something I always appreciated, but I seldom had enough privacy to speak aloud to God.

I was so worried and so troubled and confused, I just had to speak with Him.

Ethanim began to walk away, but Lib lingered. He
touched my cheek with the back of his fingers and looked into my eyes. “I hope you find what you seek,” he said. And then, surprising me, he bent and kissed my temple.

I wanted to throw my arms around him and hug him tight to me, but not more than I wanted to hug Ethanim. I cherished them both. They had been so diligent for these three years
, shielding, protecting, warning, and comforting me. How could I ever thank them for doing this? How could I ever let them know that I appreciated their efforts? I knew it had not always been easy or fun for them.

“You know I can offer you only friendship,” I said through a tightness in my throat, feeling that I had somehow misled him. We had never spoken of his feelings for me, though we had both been aware of them for a long time.

“I know,” he said. “I only want you to be happy. I hope you can find the peace you need.”

He looked at me for a moment more, then let his hand drop and followed his best friend away from me. When they were gone, I turned and walked slowly into the overgrown yard. I wondered who had lived in the tiny hut that sat
there. A war widow? A mother with children? An old man? Everyone had a story, a life, and everyone’s life came with problems and worries, joys and love.

I knelt in the dirt among the plants and flowers. God watered these flowers and gave them nourishment from the earth, and He would provide nourishment for me. I bowed my head, as the flowers did each night, and I began to speak the worries of my heart. I began to pour out my soul in my prayer to God.

I had always thought I had faith. Could I have gone into battle, a weak little girl, if I had no faith? This problem, however, was so much bigger than my faith. In battle I could rely on my training and even my experience. I could sling my stones, brandish my knife, and wield my sword. I could act. But in this problem I could see no path forward. I did not know what actions to take.

I explained this to God, and I did not ask him for anything save peace to my soul. There was so little food in Cumeni, but in truth, I wasn’t sure there was an answer to that problem, at least not one that was in my power to fix. It was not my responsibility to fix it all. The answer to that would come through the proper channel, which was
Captain Helaman. When I realized this, I felt calmer. The burden I felt lifted from my shoulders when I recognized it was not mine to carry.

I already knelt motionless in the soil while the plants and long grasses swayed in the soft breeze around me, but I stilled inside and listened for the promptings and instructions and peace of the Spirit. When I felt
a calmness that edged out my fears, I knew that God would provide for us and determined to spend no more of my energy on worry.

I moved on to the subject that had been perplexing me since the da
y I had stumbled upon the obsidian in Melek, the day God had placed Gideon in my path.

In my mind, I could see Gideon standing there as he had that first day
, sword in hand, his complete attention on me. He had teased me, something I had since come to know was not typical for him. I saw every feature, every expression of his that I had memorized since then. Why did I have such feelings for him when I was supposed to love Zeke?

Zeke was the eldest son of my mother’s best and dearest friend. They
had looked forward to my marriage to him from the moment I was born. I thought of Hemni and my brothers and Zeke’s family. I was betraying them all, and I could not stop it.

I thought of that moment after the
Lamanites had retreated when Gideon had pulled me roughly to him, of the sheer relief that we had both survived such a terrible battle, and for the briefest of seconds I let myself wish again what I had wished in the next moment—that Zeke had not been there.

I wept for that. I choked on my traitorous feelings. I said I was sorry, but I received no response. I did not even receive a peaceful feeling. My mind was not at ease and was still churning with questions. Finally
, disappointed, I ceased my prayer and bent forward until my head touched the ground. I had wanted and expected a distinctive answer, and I had received none.

As I lay there in the stillness
, I noticed the sound of the little stream. I sniffed and turned my ear to hear it better.

The scriptures compared God’s love to water, his word to food. I let my mind wander through those thoughts until I found myself thinking that after we took Manti, I wanted to go home. And though I did not see my path laid out before me as I wanted to, I felt hope that I would see it when the time was right. The war was not over, but for me, the fighting was done.

I couldn’t fight my feelings for Gideon, but I wouldn’t dishonor Zeke or my family.

“Keturah.” His voice was gentle and so familiar, and somehow it belonged
there in that garden with me.

I uncurled and looked up
to see Gideon. At the sight of his face, my mind calmed, my heart unclenched, and I felt traitorous all the more for it.

He went to his heels beside me and brushed some dirt from my forehead. Then he wiped the lone tear from my cheek. Answering the question in my eyes, he said, “I felt
like I should come find you.”

A bird took flight, and my eyes tracked it upward. The sky was still brilliant blue.

Gideon touched my arm, and I looked back down at him.

“Did you get any answers?”

I shook my head.

“You will. I’m waiting on mine too.” After a moment he said, “Do you want to pray together?”

Yes!
I wanted our combined faith to carry mine. I wanted to lean on Gideon’s strength. Instead, I just shook my head. I could not think of a worse betrayal of Zeke than to pray with another man about our future.

He seemed to understand. He rose and helped me to my feet, and after he held me for a long, long time, he walked me back to camp
where I collected my weapons before we started toward the training ground.

I would not let an empty stomach keep me from doing what I knew to be right.
I would deliver my countrymen from the hands of the Lamanites. And God would deliver me.

“Heads up, Ket.”

We were halfway to the training ground.
Hunger clawed at my stomach, my head ached from crying, and Gideon tossed a ball up between us. He wanted me to hit it back, but I snatched it from the air.

“I don’t feel like it,” I told him.

“Come on, Ket.”

I
hadn’t even known he carried a ball like the other boys did. He never refused to play when someone else brought out a ball, but he never initiated a game either.

He
took the ball from my hand and tossed it into the air again. After he hit it a few times with his knees and feet and elbows, he knocked it back in my direction.

“What’s the point?” I snatched it from the air again.

When he tried to take it back, I held it out of his reach— as far out of his reach as I could.

“
Life is not meant to be a drudgery, even during hardship. Men are that they might have joy, Keturah.”

I stopped walking and put my hands on my hips. “And what about women?”

He made a grab for the ball again, but I quickly put it behind my back. In a playful attempt to get it back that was completely out of character for him, he snaked an arm around my waist and pried the ball from my fingers. But he didn’t let go of my hands.

“Women are that men might have joy
, too,” he said.

A little gasp came from my throat, and I did something I hadn’t done in a long time, maybe since I had been at home with Cana. I giggled. I tried not to. I ducked my head so Gideon wouldn’t see my smile. He was so close, with his arm still around me, that my forehead rested on his chest, and I could feel his low chuckle.

It was entirely too wonderful.

“Let me go,” I said as I tried to wriggle away.

“I don’t want to,” he said, and he had no trouble holding me in place—maybe because he was strong, maybe because I wasn’t trying very hard to get away.

We were both laughing when I noticed Seth and some of his men coming up the path.

“Really, let me go,” I said. “They will see.”

“I don’t care who sees,” Gideon said, but he gave my hands a final squeeze and let me go.

In a moment, Seth and the others had stopped before us and we all stood awkwardly staring at each other. I sent a look to Gideon, a reprimand for embarrassing me. Gideon tried to wipe the grin off his face, he really did, but he just couldn’t. He raised his brows at me, and I covered my mouth to keep from laughing.

“Are you two going to the training ground?” Seth asked, looking between us.

I nodded and pulled my bow more securely onto my shoulder.

Gideon glanced at the sun. “Actually, no. I have to return to Captain Helaman at the government building.” He turned to me. “Have fun,” he said. Then he leaned close to my ear and whispered, “That’s an order.”

He tossed the ball up and caught it as he left.

Seth’s kohl-lined eyes were watching me closely.

“You all go ahead,” he said to his men.

None of them argued, and they moved away quickly, passing me without a word.

Seth and I stared at each other until the sounds of the men faded.

“You’re mad at me,” I said.

He sighed and slowly shook his head. “I’m not mad.” He stepped closer. “Gid’s different than the rest of us.”

“I know.”

“He could be Chief Captain over the entire Nephite army,” he said emphatically.

“So you’
ve told me before.”

“If you love him, don’t jeopardize it for him.”

“What do you care?”

“Obviously more than you do.”

I stared at him again, and then turned on my heel and followed the others toward the training ground. It was only a moment before I heard Seth hustling to catch up.

“Ket, wait.”

When he was at my side, I said, “I didn’t provoke that.” I waved behind us. “Back there.”

“You provoke it just by being you.
You still have no idea what you do to men.”

I gave him the dirtiest look I could find, reaching deep inside myself for a scowl that would make him back off.
Gideon had been trying to comfort me. He had made a deliberate effort to remind me of the sweetness in life. I wouldn’t let Seth make it into something it wasn’t, something ugly and common. I didn’t know what I did to men?

“I guess you would know.”

It was a cruel thing to say. His shoulders stiffened, and I knew it had been too cruel. I wasn’t unaware that he himself had feelings for me, nor was I without feelings for him.

“I’m sorry.
Seth, forgive me.”

He swallowed.
“Not necessary. I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have given Gid the credit to make his own decisions, and I should have had more faith in you.”

I bumped his shoulder with mine.
“I think it was the hunger talking, for both of us.”

We entered the training ground.
As strange as I knew it was, the familiar sounds of swords and spears and boys yelling were comforting to me.

“Let’s put our aggression to good use,” Seth said, and he led me across the field.

It had been quite a while since Micah had returned from his embassy to the governor when I saw a group of Kenai’s men hurrying through the city toward the command station, which was now housed in one of Cumeni’s government buildings.

I recognized them all but only knew one of them.
I groaned, but approached them anyway. I hated any interaction with Mahonri. When I fell in alongside him, he glanced at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He was as ornery and difficult to communicate with as Lamech, except Lamech had the forgivable excuse of being young.

“Where’s Kenai?
” I asked, not really sure what information I wanted from him. I just knew he had some information, important information from the looks of it, and I wanted it.

“How should I know?
Kenai doesn’t report to me.”

“Hmm…” I said.
I would have to try a different tack. “Where are you going?”

He didn’t answer.
The men he was with looked between us with varying degrees of amusement. They had obviously been putting up with him for a while and were probably wondering why the stubborn Mahonri was the one I had chosen to speak to.

“Look,” I told him.
“The faster you tell me what news you have, the faster I’ll leave you alone.”

“Or you could just leave me alone
right now.”

He was such an irritating person.

“You will find out soon enough,” he added, giving me a dismissing once-over that clearly implied he did not think I was anything special. He wasn’t going to tell me just because I was pretty.

Instead of being insulted, I felt a respect for him blossom inside me.
Still, I was about to argue when my eyes flicked to movement beyond Mahonri. One of the other boys appeared to be pantomiming the eating of food, bringing his fingers to his open mouth. Another boy pushed him playfully, and someone else laughed.

When Mahonri turned to see who dared to laugh in his presence, I inserted a note of dejection into my voice and said,
“Nevermind. I will go find Kenai myself.”

Could it be true?
Provisions were on the way?

I went to Kenai’s camp.
He took one look at my face and said, “How do you hear these things?”

“So it’s true?” I exclaimed, already planning my first meal.

“Who told you?”

“Nobody
told me.”

He groaned. “Well, thanks to your wiles, I’m going to have to reprimand a unit of men.”

“Nobody told me.”

“Listen, Ket, if word gets out prematurely, it could cause problems.”
He made sure to catch my eye. “We’ve got to get everything in and secured and organized for distribution.”

“Nobody told me,” I repeated, but I had trouble keeping a sly smile from my lips.

He glanced heavenward and then gave me a stern look. “Just when I thought you had grown up. Don’t breathe a word of the news yet.”

I thought it would be the kind of news they
would want to shout from the highest tower, but when the first of the provisions were distributed in the still small rations, I could see what Kenai had meant.

Everyone was in a panic for more food
—it was all I could think about too—but the rations were still very small.

“We wouldn’t be able to hold
it down if we gorged ourselves on food,” Lib informed me as we fixed our meal together.

“And besides that, there are now two thousand extra men to share th
e provisions with,” Ethanim pointed out.

That was true.
I had only thought of the troops who had guarded the provisions to us as a blessing, not a liability.

“Remember how we put the Lamanite prisoners on a small ration?”
Lib went on.

“I thought that was because we don’t like Lamanite
dogs,” said Reb.

“It was because their stomachs
weren’t prepared to process food again,” said Lib.

“And because we didn’t want them at their full strength,” added
Gideon.

I thought about this as I portioned out the meal to my unit brothers
, about sharing food even with those we didn’t like, about not being ready to receive it, about needing it in order to be at full strength.

“
Let’s pray,” said Lib, and we all knelt while Corban offered up a grateful prayer.

And then, on Lib’s advice, we tried to eat slowly.

With time, our rations increased little by little as we became ready.

A few days before we
planned to march on Manti, Zeke came to my camp to take me for a walk. He had long since stopped asking me to walk with him, and he just waited patiently while I got ready. I had been sitting with the others checking over all our weapons, and I thanked heaven I was sitting between Lib and Ethanim and not next to Gideon.

The day was warm, though the breeze was cool and carried with it the first hint of the change of seasons.

“What are you thinking about?” Zeke asked me as we left the camps and walked out onto the terrace.

He probably
assumed my mind was on the upcoming campaign, the march on Manti. We still did not talk much when we walked together. Talking gave us too much opportunity to disagree.

“I was thinking about the word of God.”

“What about it?” he asked.

“Well,” I began, a l
ittle uncomfortably. “When the provisions were low I asked Lib to take me to a private place so I could pray.”

Zeke remained
silent, listening.

“
I wanted so much to find strength in my hunger, to find the meaning in it all.”

“And did you?”

He asked this so casually.
I had nearly forgotten how comfortable he was talking about the things of God, and I remembered how knowledgeable he was too. Perhaps if I had approached him earlier, he could have helped me to see my way.

I took a breath.
“I had this impression about the living waters. You know? How they are a representation of the love of God. And I remembered how Nephi said to feast upon the word of Christ, as if it were food, or sustenance. I guess my mind was really on food.”

His brows knit together as he
considered it too. “But that was meant to describe the way we must approach the scriptures—feasting, eating heavily from many courses and varieties, taking it into ourselves and making it a part of us.”

“I know.”
I shrugged. “It was only that if water is the love of God and food is the word of God, wouldn’t His love and His word sustain us in difficult times?”

He searched my face as if he were looking for something familiar in it
.

“What?” I said a little defensively.

He only shook his head. “I’m glad you received an answer to your questions.”

I thought of the
other questions I had asked that day and tried to keep the heat from rising in my cheeks.

We had entered the woods, and I loved the familiarity of it—the smell of the pine, the shadows, the softness of spongy ground.
It was almost as if we were back home together in Melek.

In the coolness of the trees,
I searched Zeke’s face. He was my oldest friend. Trustworthy in every way. Deserving of the truth.

I licked my lips.
“There is something else. When I was praying, there in the garden, I wanted very much to know how to stop hurting you.”

“Is it so hard to figure out?” he asked quietly.
“I wonder that you had need to ask the Almighty.”