Marching As to War: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (3 page)

“So was I,” Mrs. Baker said.

I had heard the story many times. When I was seven, I
memorized that verse from Nehemiah to recite in front of my church. But I had
never heard the story from folks who were there.

“Mr. Baker,” I said. “I always wanted to know. Why did
Reverend Winslow have everyone pull on those ropes by hand? I mean, I saw a
hanging once, and that wasn’t the way it was done.”

Mr. Baker nodded and said, “Winslow told us we had to do it
with our own hands, and we had to do it together. And . . .” Then he stopped
talking, his lower lip trembling. He was staring behind us.

We all turned and saw a little girl shuffling across the
floor to Mrs. Baker. “Nana, I’m hungry,” said the little girl.

Mrs. Baker fell to her knees and wrapped the child in a
tight embrace. Weeping, she kissed the child.

Mr. Baker stumbled over to them and knelt down. “How?” he
said. “How’d this happen?
How?”

“It was her,” Mrs. Baker said, pointing at Jane. “She
prayed. She laid hands on Sally. Asked God’s blessing.
Healed
her.”

I looked at Jane. She was leaning forward, eyes closed
tight, whispering.
Praying.

After a moment, Mrs. Baker turned and embraced Jane. “Thank
you. Thank you. You healed her,” she said.

Jane let the woman embrace her for a bit and then she stood
up. She put her right hand on the old woman’s gray head and said, “Only God can
heal. Give the praise to God.”

Then Jane said, “Sally’s hungry. We best feed her.” She led
the weeping old couple and the confused child over to the kitchen.

It took a while for all the excitement to die down. Until it
did, I sat there and avoided looking at Riley. Finally, Mr. Baker took Riley
and me out to a shed to sleep. Jane would stay in the house.

After we had laid out our blankets, we sat and listened to
the night.

“So,” Riley said, “
whatcha
think?”

“I think Mr. Baker tells a good story.”

“Come on. What about Jane?”

“We just happened to be here when that little girl woke up.
She just got well.
Luck.
Coincidence.
That’s all.”

Riley snorted and said, “Just happened? Just happened to be
here? Jane just happened to pick this road. And then the little girl just
happened to wake up.”

“OK. Go ahead and believe Jane healed that little girl. But
you just remember she also says God told her to go to war, to save our people
from the Government.”

“Well, when you put it that way, it sounds crazy.”

“Damn right.”

“You believe the stories in the Bible, like all the
miracles, are true?”

“Yes, of course,” I said. “What’s that got to do with
anything?”

“Well, it seems to me some of those stories might sound
crazy . . . if you didn’t believe in the Bible.
Which, of
course, you do.”

“Riley, those things happened in the Holy Land
thousands of years ago. This is here. This is now.”

“True enough, but God’s still everywhere, ain’t He? And we
could sure use some miracles right here and right now.”

Damn
, I thought,
he had me.

Riley continued, “Maybe Jane can do miracles. Maybe she
can’t. I reckon we oughta wait and see.”

After that, Riley went to sleep. I lay awake in the dark
determined not to believe, yet wanting to believe.

In the morning, we had a hard time getting away from the
Bakers. They fed us a big breakfast, but Riley and I could have walked out in
the middle of the meal. I doubt the Bakers would have noticed. They just didn’t
want Jane to leave. They wanted to keep thanking her. Jane was nice enough
about it, but she just kept saying, “We have to go.”

When we left, the Bakers were standing in front of the
house, tears on their cheeks. The little girl stood to one side watching all
this, not crying, but just looking at Jane as though she were trying hard to
figure out something. Jane gave them one last wave from the road as we headed
out. Then she turned to me and said, “We have to hurry.”

This made me mad. She had taken this longer road. I almost
said something, but if she wanted to hurry, I would be done with her that much
sooner. Good riddance.

We walked up the road all day, occasionally passing a house.
Nobody paid much attention to us, but the dogs would bark at us until long
after we went out of sight.

Around
noon
, we
sat down for a rest and had some food and water. Jane didn’t want to stop. “We
have to hurry,” she said again.

I turned away, letting Riley explain.

“We ain’t gonna get there before dark, no matter,” he said.
“We’ll have to camp.”

I looked back to see her reaction. She seemed to start to
say something and then stopped. Sitting on a rock, she took out her water and
drank. Riley offered her some of the food the Bakers had given us, but she
refused.

Riley and I were quiet while we ate and drank. I wanted to
sleep. I had dreamt of the blue-eyed man the night before. It was always worse
when I woke up in some strange place, and harder to get back to sleep.

When he had finished eating, Riley said, “Hey Jane, how’d
you do that with the dog?”

“Dog?” she said.

“You know. The Baker’s dog was barking like crazy, and you
just settled him down.” He extended his arm with the palm down and lowered it
just the way she had.

“Oh that. Don’t know. Just did it.” Then she put away her
water and stood up, ready to go.

Late in the day, we got back to the trail. Just before
sunset, Riley and I picked out a campsite and started gathering wood and
settling in. Jane wanted to push on even if we arrived after dark.

“We ain’t gonna do that,” I said. I didn’t bother to keep
the anger out of my voice.

“Why not?” she said.
She was still
standing on the trail, still wanting to keep going.

“The boys on guard duty get a mite jumpy after dark,” he
said. “Apt to shoot at anything that moves.
So no need to
hurry up there and maybe get shot.
Best wait ‘til morning. Come on, we
need some wood.”

She looked up the trail. For a moment, I thought she might
head off on her own again. But she didn’t. Leaning her rifle against a tree,
she started gathering wood.

We had a big fire and ate the rest of the food the Bakers
had given us. Jane just sat, staring into the fire.

Two hours after full dark, we heard the patrol coming. The
first sound, a cracked twig, startled Jane, and she reached for her rifle.

“Be still,” I said.

Riley called out, “You boys from Central?”

A voice came out of the darkness, “Yeah. Who’re you?”

“Three of us,” Riley said. “We’re militia.”

I heard whispering out in the darkness, but I couldn’t make
out the words.

“Take it easy,” the voice said.
“Coming
in.”

“Come on then,” Riley said.

Four figures came out of the dark toward us. I could just
make out their faces when one of them said, “Hey Riley.”

“That you Frye?”
Riley said.

“Sure is.
You doing
okay?”

“Tolerable.
You?”

All four men squatted by the fire. Frye grinned at us, but
the others didn’t look friendly. One man, older than the rest, said, “What’s
your business here?”

I pulled out the written orders the Captain had given me.
The man was looking them over when Frye said, “I’ll be goddamned.
A girl.”

Jane said, "Don't curse."

The other three looked up and peered at Jane in surprise.
The older man said to her, “What you doing here, girl?”

She said, “My name is--”

I interrupted. “Like it says, she’s going to Central Camp.
The reason ain’t your concern.” I didn’t want her to start talking about God
and all her nonsense.

The older man handed the paper back and said, “Frye, take
them up to camp. They can sort it out.”

It took an hour or more for Frye to get us up to the camp
and through the front gate. Somebody else took us over to a shed to see the
officer on duty, a Lieutenant Gordon. He sat behind a table and looked sleepy
and annoyed. Unlike Riley and me, Gordon’s clothes and boots were clean. There
was no dirt under his fingernails, and his beard was neatly trimmed.

This one
, I
thought,
doesn’t go on patrols.

The three of us stood before the table. I gave him the
orders and the sealed letter. He only glanced at the orders. But as he went
through the letter, he smiled like something was very funny.

“So, little lady,” he said to Jane, “you talk to God.”

“I must see Charles Winslow,” she said.

“General Winslow is a busy man,” Gordon said. Riley and I
exchanged a glance. We had never heard Winslow called “General” before. His father
had never bothered with titles.

“I must see Winslow,” she said. “What I have to say cannot
wait.”

Gordon no longer looked amused. “Come back tomorrow,” he
said, “and we’ll see what we can do.” He called to a man outside the door and
told him to show us where we could camp.

Jane stomped out and Riley followed. But I stayed to tell
Gordon about the airplane. When, where, and all that. He said they had seen the
airplane too and told me to go.

“Sir,” I said. “We had to bring this girl here. Can we go
back to our unit in the morning?”

“I see why you want to be done with this . . . this
business.
But no.
If you go, someone else will have to
watch her and then take her back where she belongs. So I need you to stay with
her. She won’t be here long.”

“Yes, Sir,” I said.

When I caught up to Riley, he said, “What kept you?”

“Told him about the airplane . . . and I asked if we could
go home. He said we have to stay with her.”

“Good,” Riley said, “I want to be around if Jane shoots that
peckerwood Lieutenant.”

In the morning, Jane went back to see Lieutenant Gordon. A
man outside the shed told her Gordon was busy and couldn’t see her now. He said
she should come back later, maybe tomorrow. Instead of going away, Jane sat
outside the shed, beneath a nearby tree. Riley joined her. I decided to take
look around the camp. It was built on a hill and protected by a ten-foot high palisade.
The lower part of the camp, where we had slept the night before, was like all
the other militia camps: Lean-tos, ratty tents, sheds, cooking fires, and men
like Riley and me in rough beards and dirty clothes.

Up the hill, things were different. There were log and plank
cabins. Like Lieutenant Gordon, everyone up there had better clothes and boots,
and they trimmed their beards. Winslow’s house was at the top. It was a
two-level brick building with a porch and a big front entrance. I was surprised
to see the house was ringed with barbed wire and had guards all around it.

I stood just beyond the barbed wire, and I noticed the
guards were watching me real close. Maybe it was because they hadn’t seen me
around camp
before,
or maybe because I was so dirty. A
Lieutenant came over and stood in front of me on the other side of the wire. He
said, “What’s your business here?”

“No business, Sir. I’d just never seen this before.” I
gestured toward the house. I wanted to ask about all the barbed wire, but I
thought better of it.

“You’ve seen it now. Move along.”

The way he said it made me angry, angry enough to fight. But
he was an officer, and I would have to climb through barbed wire just to get to
him. So I said, “Yes, Sir,” and started down the hill. After a few steps, I
looked over my shoulder and saw he was still standing at the wire, watching me.
I went down the hill slow, trying not to let anger get the best of me.

Jane and Riley were still sitting where I had left them.

When I walked up, Riley said, “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said and noticed Jane didn’t even look at me. She
was watching for Gordon.

“Have a good look around?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, maybe I’ll take a look too. You gonna be here?” As he
said, “here,” he tilted his head toward Jane, who still seemed to be ignoring
us.

I just shrugged and sat down.

As Riley walked away, I said, “Watch you don’t get too close
to Winslow’s house.”

He stopped and gave me a puzzled look.

I felt like telling about how that Lieutenant had treated me
like dirt. But I just said, “Ain’t very friendly up there. You’ll see what I
mean.”

Riley nodded and walked away. I turned toward Jane and was
surprised to see her looking at me. After a moment, she turned back to watch
Gordon’s shed.

Jane remained silent and so did I. There was nothing to do
but watch the men coming and going from the shed. Some glanced her way and, for
a moment, saw nothing but a boy wearing his daddy’s big coat. Then they would
look back, amazed to see a girl. Walking away, they would whisper to one
another and look over their shoulders at her. One man was so busy
staring,
he tripped on a tree root and fell down. The men
with him laughed like it was the funniest damn thing ever seen. If Jane took
notice of the stares or the foolishness, she gave no sign. She sat silent and
still, like a hunter waiting for game.

Watching all this, I began to feel bad for her. She was all
alone, without kin or friend, the only girl in the whole camp. Of course, she
had aggravated me some, and I did think she was crazy. But I had seen no
weakness or complaint in her. And she seemed to mean every damn word she said,
even if she was talking nonsense.

It was about
noon
when Gordon came out of the shed. Jane stiffened, getting ready to be called
over, getting ready to go meet Charles Winslow. Gordon, however, didn’t look
toward Jane. He yawned and stretched before pulling a pipe and tobacco pouch
from a pocket. He carefully loaded the pipe and sent a guard to fetch a brand
from a nearby cooking fire. Gordon lit his pipe with it, took a few good puffs,
and exhaled looking up at the clouds. Only then, did he glance at Jane. Then he
turned to the man who had fetched the brand for him. Gordon said something to
him. They both laughed. Then Gordon went back in the shed.

Gordon hadn’t been laughing at me, but he reminded me of the
other Lieutenant up the hill and the way I’d been treated. That made me mad.
Before I hadn’t cared, but now I hoped she would get to see Winslow. She was
crazy, but I wanted her to have that much. Then Jane turned to me and she
nodded, nodded the way she had when I first saw her.

Aside from going off to fetch some food for us, I spent the
rest of the day sitting there with Jane, watching the comings and goings in
silence. We didn’t see Gordon again, and nobody spoke to us. Riley never came
back.

At sunset, Jane and I went to where we had camped. Riley was
there, just finishing building a lean-to for Jane. He even had an old blanket
to hang over the opening.

“It won’t keep out much rain,” he said, “but I reckon you
could use a little privacy.”

“Much obliged,” she said and sat down. Riley and I got a
fire going, and we ate a little. After a while, Riley wandered away to see if
he could find a friend he had run into earlier in the day.

Jane just sat looking into the fire. And I looked at Jane.

I reckoned she was about 17, the age when most of our young
women got married. Given what she was doing, I doubted Jane was promised to
anyone. Despite her chopped up hair, Jane had a pleasant enough face, but she
wasn’t what you would call pretty. Under all the men’s clothes, she probably
had a sturdy frame, and from what I could tell, her teeth were good. My mother
always said that was a sign of good health. I wondered what she would look like
if she dressed like other girls.

When I found myself thinking this, I felt guilty. Jesus
said, “Whosoever
looketh
on a woman to lust after her
hath committed adultery with her in his heart.” I was promised to Maggie, even
though she was pretty much a stranger. So I ought not to be thinking about any
other girl, and especially not one who believed God told her things. I was
still looking at her when she glanced up. I turned away. To hide my
embarrassment, I asked her where she was from.

She told me she was from a little town with just a few
families. Her father and mother had four acres and they raised chickens and
some pigs. She had an older sister, who had just been married, and a younger
brother “who can hardly wait,” she said with a laugh, “to be in the militia.” I
laughed too, remembering how impatient I had been to leave home when I was
younger.

I wanted to ask if she was promised to anyone up home, but I
thought better of it. Instead, I asked about the old man who had come with her
to the first camp.

“That’s my Uncle John. My parents didn’t believe in my
mission. Uncle John did. He helped me convince that captain to send me here.
Uncle John wanted to come, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t bear all the
walking. And besides, he’s a preacher with a congregation.”

“What kind of preacher?”

“
Church
of
God
.
We believe in all the gifts of the Holy Spirit. You know what that means?”