The Believer (19 page)

"I fear you too were on the edge of danger, Brother Ethan. That you teeter there even yet" Brother Martin's eyes bored into Ethan. "This woman has a troubling spirit" He spoke the word "woman" as some might say "harlot"

Ethan felt the color rising in his face, but he dared not look away from Brother Martin's eyes. "Sister Elizabeth didn't go into the woods to seek me nor did I go to seek her. It was merely chance that led me to the spring for water at the same time she was searching for a way down to the pool"

"So you say." Brother Martin tapped his spectacles against the table.

"I have spoken true words:' When Brother Martin continued to stare at him without speaking for a long moment, Ethan went on. "Do you not believe me?"

Again Brother Martin tapped his spectacles against the table. In the silent room the tapping seemed loud. At last he said, "It isn't that I think you don't speak the truth. It's more that I sense something hidden, something that's pulling you from the true way."

"I do not want it to be so' Ethan lowered his eyes. He had no answers for the older brother or for himself. He stared down at his hands gripping his thighs. Strong hands. Hands he had always put to work for God and for the good of his brethren and sisters.

Was Brother Martin right? Was the new sister pulling him away from the beliefs he'd promised to be true to? He couldn't deny she disturbed his inner peace. He'd confessed that to Brother Martin, but Ethan hadn't spoken of his desire to touch her lips with his. He hadn't told him of the abandon with which he had jumped into the pool of water with the two sisters. The sound of their reckless laughter echoed in his mind and smote him with guilt. Even so, he didn't seem able to put such sins into words for Brother Martin to hear. Not and risk the loss of his trust. Yet with unconfessed sin in his heart, he surely risked much worse.

After the silence dragged on for what seemed like an hour, Brother Martin sighed. "Wrong thoughts can lead you into sin, Brother Ethan, and sin can bring you low. Nay, not only can. Will. Sin will bring you low. Purity in mind and body are required for the salvation of your soul. `Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God: That's what we want. To live such a life here in our village that we are pure of heart and purpose. That we bring heaven down to us. That is what you want, is it not, my brother?"

"You know it is. I am a Believer," Ethan answered. He had no doubts of that. "I will pray for an increase in the purity of my mind and body."

"Yea, that will be well:" Brother Martin pushed out another long breath of air and then propped his spectacles back on his nose. "Brother Issachar has requested you be allowed to accompany him downriver to help with the selling of our products."

Ethan looked up quickly. He had long wanted to go on such a trip, but only days ago Brother Martin had seemed reluctant to give his approval. Other young brothers under Brother Martin's charge had been sent out to the world on trading trips, even to colleges to learn special skills, but for some reason, Brother Martin had always kept Ethan close to the village. Perhaps he sensed hidden seeds of sin inside Ethan. Perhaps Brother Issachar had told him of the father Ethan had never confessed knowing to Brother Martin.

"A trading trip?" Ethan asked.

"Yea, I don't mind telling you that in the past I have had doubts of the wisdom of such a trip for you, but now I am inclined to agree with Brother Issachar that in order to become a stronger, more committed Believer, you must be allowed to experience some troubles of the world. After all, Mother Ann said, `Souls in order to insure the right temper are heated in the furnace of affliction and plunged in cold waters of tribulation; some come out of the trial pure, elastic, and bright, ready for the highest service. Others come out brittle and ill-tempered, full of flaws and spots of rust

Brother Martin's eyes settled on Ethan with a good measure of kindness now mixed in with the worry. "I will pray for no spots of rust on you, Brother Ethan, when you return from the trip with Brother Issachar and that you will steadily climb the path to that higher service for which you were given to us:"

"I will have the same prayer every day when I wake up and before I lay my head down at night while I am away from the village. When will we go?" Ethan tried to keep the eagerness out of his voice, but he feared Brother Martin heard it anyway.

'A steamship should be coming in to our landing any day now. When it does, you must be ready."

The steamship had come that very evening. Ethan had heard the sound of its horn from up in the village, and it had sent a shock through him. He was glad he hadn't had to be in the same room with Elizabeth before he left. He was thankful he hadn't had to stand in front of the assembly and confess his wrong behavior to the whole Society. That would prove how low temptation had sunk him.

The horn had sounded a second time and pushed some of Ethan's worries right out of his head. He could hardly wait to step on the steamship and start down the river. He hoped the water flowing under his feet would make him forget the sight of Elizabeth's eyes looking at him, seeming to understand more about him than he understood himself.

But now as he stood on deck and watched the Mississippi River water sliding past the boat, he realized that he'd brought the thought of Elizabeth's eyes and touch with him. He tried not to think of her, but she kept slipping past his guard. He dreamed of her. How could a man control the images of his dreams? She was in the mist rising off the river when he first woke in the mornings and stumbled out on deck to face the day. She was in the reflection of the setting sun on the water as evening came. He looked at the stars in the dark of the night and saw the sparkle of her eyes. He knew not how or why, but he couldn't deny he carried a part of her with him.

And he wondered about her back at Harmony Hill. He wondered if the elders and eldresses had condemned her for disregarding the rules and causing a disturbance in the village. He wondered what she had confessed to her appointed confessor. He didn't only wonder about that, but at times felt an almost overpowering worry since he hadn't been as truthful in his own confession as he should have been. What if their stories were compared? Would he be asked to depart from his family of Believers if the Ministry learned of those sins he had not confessed to Brother Martin? Was he being tempered in the fire of temptation? Ethan stared down at the muddy river water and felt way too brittle with the corrosion of sin eating at his spirit.

"The river water rolling by can be a balm to a troubled spirit:" Brother Issachar joined him at the rail. He didn't look at Ethan, but kept his eyes on the water churning up behind the boat's big wheel.

"Yea," Ethan agreed. He longed to talk to Brother Issachar about his troubled thoughts, but at the same time he was reluctant to speak the words. They had actually done very little talking other than about matters of business. At each landing they carried some of their products off the boats and set them out for sale. Many who came to buy from them called Brother Issachar by name and greeted him with a smile and an eagerness for the Shaker products. Others looked upon them with suspicion, but even they often as not bought something after examining the workmanship of the brooms or hats or reading the labels on the potions. Nearly every buyer asked for seeds and took away a packet of cucumber or bean seed to save for the coming year even though Brother Issachar promised he or another brother would be back in the spring.

Brother Issachar leaned his arms down on the railing. After a long silence, he said, "A man can feel the loss of his roots when he's on the river."

Ethan stared down at the water. "The river pulls at me,' he admitted.

"The river pulls at many men when they are within its sight and sound. The water forever rushing on with few restraints:"

"The banks hold it in:" Ethan looked to the thick growths of trees alongside the river. Here and there the trees gave way to a few houses or shacks.

"But with more water, the banks are forgotten. At times the water does what it wills:" Brother Issachar waved away a fly that buzzed his face. "They say the water of the Mississippi flowed backwards during the great earthquake in'12 and that the river heaved up high above the banks taking the boats with it. Those who lived through it couldn't stop talking of the wonder of it:"

"You sound as if you might want to see such:" Ethan looked at Brother Issachar.

"Yea, I am wont to search after new sights at times," Brother Issachar said. Then he smiled. "But upheavals of the earth might be something I might prefer to witness from a safe perch somewhere:"

"It wouldn't be the same watching as experiencing it"

"Nay, nothing is, but oft it is the safer road to travel:" Brother Issachar's smile disappeared as he stared down at the water again. "Especially out here among those of the world:"

"That's why we shut away the world from our villages, is it not? To keep temptations at bay."

"Yea, temptations are generally easier to avoid than to conquer once we have invited such into our thoughts. A true Believer aims to live a perfect life of service and worship. To do good to all without falling into sin. To know peace:'

"Do you know that peace?" Ethan felt a yearning inside him for the peace of living in harmony with the Lord and his brethren. Peace he'd once thought he had, but he'd surely been wrong. He couldn't have lost it so easily if it had been the true peace of a Believer.

"I do. Such peace is a gift:" Brother Issachar turned his eyes to study Ethan's face. "But I see that it's not peace you are feeling at this time. Perhaps that's why the river pulls at you:"

"I have many questions;" Ethan admitted.

"There's no sin in questions:"

"I'm not sure Brother Martin would tell me the same. He says a Believer has the true answers before questions are asked. Answers from the Bible and from the writings of Mother Ann. That a true Believer only has the need to be obedient"

Brother Issachar smiled and shook his head a little before he turned his eyes to the distant shore as if looking for answers there among the trees. "I wouldn't fain to argue spiritual answers with our Brother Martin. He has more of a gift for study of those truths than I. I can only know what I have in my own heart and mind:"

"But isn't that the same as what every Believer would have? Don't we all sign the same Covenant of Belief?"

"Yea, so we do. But even as man is the same in many ways, in many other ways he is different. Think of the disparate gifts we are given. Gifts of spirit. Gifts of labor. Gifts of invention and design. Too many types of gifts to name but all can be useful. It brings to my mind the Bible teachings where the apostle Paul says a hand cannot do the job of an eye nor an eye the job of the hand. Each part is necessary for the whole'

"That it is among the Believers," Ethan said. "Each person necessary to work. Each doing his part to make the whole better"

"Yea. It's not a bad way." Brother Issachar put his hand on Ethan's shoulder. "But it's not one the world understands. There will be those who ridicule us and attempt to cause us trouble when we get to New Orleans:" He frowned a little. "You'll see things you cannot imagine. Women with no proper modesty calling out to you with wrong motives. Men ready to kill you for the money they think you carry. You must stay alert and cautious"

"My father would be such a man. Do you think he might still be alive?"

"What's it been?" Brother Issachar looked to be figuring a problem in his head. "Fifteen, sixteen years since you came to us? That isn't so long in the lifetime of a man, but a man such as you say he was could have lost his life in any number of ways since then:" The lines around Brother Issachar's eyes deepened with concern. "Is he what troubles you?"

"Nay, not so much. I suppose the river brought him to mind. He boasted to the men with him that he would turn me into a river man like him:" Ethan hadn't thought much about that night on the raft floating downriver with his father for a long time, but here on the river the memory was as clear as if it had happened yesterday.

"Do you remember how he looked?"

"Yea. I remember." Ethan's hands tightened on the railing at the thought of his father's eyes on him.

Brother Issachar's voice was mild. "Then it could be you might recognize him in the unlikely event we run into him, but I can almost assure you, he would never recognize you:' Brother Issachar stared at Ethan a moment. "Even if there should happen to be some resemblance in your looks. First, he will have thought you dead these many years, swallowed up by the river. Second, even if he imagined you could have made it to shore, he'd never imagine you a Shaker." Brother Issachar squeezed Ethan's shoulder and smiled at him. "I've been with you to see you through the years, and I can barely put the half-drowned, frightened boy I found on the river bank with the strong young man standing before me today. I'm proud of the man you've become"

Brother Issachar held up his hand to stop Ethan's next question before he could put it into words and added, `And it is not being prideful to think such about you. The Eternal Father told Jesus the same after he received John the Baptist's baptism:'

"But his peace was never so disturbed by questions;' Ethan said.

"There you are surely wrong, my brother. Think of his prayer in the garden"

"Yea, I remember the Scripture. He prayed until his beads of sweat turned to blood. Like our own Mother Ann when she was praying on the ship coming over to America"

"Yea, so it is said"

"And the Eternal Father sent them answers;' Ethan said. "I pray but I find no answers and no peace from the questions"

"It will not always be thus. Trust me:" Brother Issachar smiled again. "You will find answers. The right answers for you.

"But how will I know if they are true answers?"

"For the kinds of questions you are asking, the true answers are the only ones you can live with" He turned to walk away, but then he turned back to Ethan. "Of one thing you can be sure, I'll always be proud of you no matter what path your feet decide to walk"