The Outsider (25 page)

At the end of the second day or what Brice thought was the second day, darkness caught him unprepared. He hadn’t scouted out a good spot to make camp or even gathered any wood for a fire. Brice sank down in the snow and leaned back against a tree. He ordered himself to get up and cut pine limbs for a bed, but his body didn’t respond.

It was so cold and so dark. Not just in the woods around him but inside him too. The pain from his shoulder penetrated every inch of his body and used up his last bit of strength. Brice wondered if Lone Hawk had made it to his village or if he too was sitting in the dark waiting for death.

Brice had seen many people die. Too many. But he’d never thought about his own breath stopping. A sharp sorrow pierced his heart as he thought about never seeing Gabrielle again. Was she praying for him now? Did she really love him or had he only imagined that? He wanted to call up her image, to have her there in his mind while he was breathing his last, but he could not. She was just a shadowy image far from him, away through the trees. It didn’t seem right that she wouldn’t come close to him in his dying moments.

He shut his eyes, but then pushed them back open. If he went to sleep, he’d surely freeze. Then he wasn’t sure whether he was asleep or awake as he stared out through the trees to see another shadow drift up beside Gabrielle. Hallucinations. He’d known many patients to have them when death lingered around them.

He shook his head and Gabrielle disappeared, but the other shadow stayed and came closer. Brice leaned forward. It was Bates or maybe Kerns and he was beckoning to him. But they were both dead. His mind was still clear enough to remember that. Maybe that was it. One of them had come to guide him over to the land of the dead with them.

Brice rose to follow the boy. Bates, he thought one minute, and Kerns, the next. He wasn’t sure if his whole body followed or if only his spirit struggled up off the ground. But when he looked over his shoulder, there was nothing by the tree and the pain stayed with him. If he had died, wouldn’t the pain be gone?

He followed the shadow in front of him. It seemed important to catch up with Nathan. He was pretty sure it was Nathan this time. He tried to walk faster and ran into a limb. The shadow stopped and waited until Brice started walking again before it drifted on ahead of him.

All at once the shadowy figure of the boy was gone. Brice stood very still and searched for some sight of the boy, but there was nothing but trees and snow. But not as many trees. Moonlight drifted down into the woods and pushed back the darkness. It was a moment before Brice realized what the bulky dark shape in front of him was. Even after he recognized the outline of a cabin, he wondered if it too was a hallucination like the boy. Any second he’d awaken and be leaning against the tree in the woods waiting for death’s dark horse to come for him.

Until then he’d stay in the dream. He climbed the steps and pushed open the cabin door. The cabin smelled of wild animals. Brice’s toe hit something soft in the darkness and the musty odor of pine needles rose up to his nose. He eased himself down on the bed. Just before he lost consciousness, he wondered if he’d wake up in paradise.

Mice running across his feet woke him the next morning. Slowly Brice pulled himself up to a sitting position, and the mice scattered and disappeared through the holes in the chinks of the logs. He was in a cabin, so what had happened the night before hadn’t been all a hallucination. The cabin was real.

The cabin showed no sign that anybody had been there for a good while, maybe even before winter set in. Dirt lay thick in the cabin, and vines, now dead and frozen, had crept into the cabin from the outside to grow over a stack of wood by the fireplace. A small sack hung from one of the rafters in the middle of the room.

Brice stood up, took down the sack, and opened it. Then just to prove to himself it was real, he stuck his hand into the ground corn and let it fall off his fingers. No man would go off and leave a sack of corn meal. Not unless he died.

Brice put the sack on the floor and built a fire. Whatever had happened to the other man didn’t matter now. Brice had been given a chance to live. It didn’t even matter if his dream last night had been real or if he’d just stumbled on the cabin by blind luck. He was here. He had a sack of meal, and he was going to live.

He melted snow and made a thin gruel in the dusty pot that hung beside the fireplace. He ate slowly and let his body draw strength from the warmth of the food. Then he pulled the bandage away from his wound. It was bad. He’d cut off men’s arms with wounds no worse.

He looked at it a long time before he laid the blade of Lone Hawk’s scalping knife in the fire. He hung the sack of meal back up before going outside to break up some limbs for the fire and bring in more snow for the pot. Once he was ready, he barred the door. Then he sat down in front of the fire and waited.

When the knife blade was white hot, he carefully picked the knife out of the coals with his good hand and lay down on the floor. With no hesitation, he placed the flat side of the blade on his wound and held it there until everything went black.

28

As winter slowly passed at the Shaker village, the vision stayed with Gabrielle, always the same. Men dying in the snow. A few times late at night when it would give her no peace, she tried to step further into the vision to know more, but the gift of knowing could not be forced.

She never doubted what she saw had happened. Nathan was dead, and she remembered the boy she’d known and loved. Her sadness at the thought of him being gone forevermore was deepened by the knowledge that the last time she’d seen him, she’d hurt him by refusing his love. If only he could have loved her like a sister.

If only she could love Brice Scott like a brother. But his face was burned into her mind and her heart ran after him. Now she couldn’t be sure if he lived or not. She might never know. They had parted, gone their separate paths as she had insisted they must.

She yearned for the gift of knowing to reveal what had happened to the man she loved, while at the same time she held it away, not sure she could bear the truth. Sometimes she thought she might step into insanity like poor Sister Wilma, who wandered about the village, her kerchief askew, talking to herself.

At times Gabrielle thought her heart might burst if she didn’t talk to someone about the pain growing there, but there was no one. She sometimes even considered walking with Sister Wilma and talking to her just so she could have the words out in the air, but there were too many eyes still spying on Gabrielle, waiting for her to make another misstep.

Gabrielle found it hard to even speak of everyday matters with any of the sisters. She did her duties and taught the little girls their lessons. She ate what was put on her plate with no interest in what that might be and took part in the meetings as expected, but her voice no longer sang out joyfully as it once had.

She had been drawn into a vision of death. It darkened everything about her.

When the shadows under Gabrielle’s eyes deepened, Sister Mercy took her aside. They sat in the same room where Gabrielle had so often sought Sister Mercy’s counsel, and where Sister Mercy had pulled away from her when Gabrielle had admitted to her worldly thoughts about the doctor. At the time, Gabrielle had believed her thoughts were wrong. Now she was no longer sure.

“Sit down, Sister Gabrielle,” Sister Mercy said.

There was none of the closeness that had once been between the two of them. Gabrielle had missed it when she’d first been put under constant supervision. She’d chafed against Sister Helen’s presence at her side every moment, and ached for the reassurance of one of Sister Mercy’s smiles. But the smile hadn’t come. Nor had the forgiveness. Her disappointment in Gabrielle had been too great.

Now it was as if they were no longer the same two people who’d once closeted themselves in this room. The winds of the world had blown on Gabrielle and soiled her spirit in the eyes of Sister Mercy.

Gabrielle sat down obediently.

Sister Mercy studied her for a long moment before she said, “You do not look well, Sister Gabrielle, and I have been told you move about at night when you should be sleeping. Do you have a need to talk about something bothering you?”

“Yea, it is true I have not been sleeping as I should, Sister Mercy,” Gabrielle said quietly. She had no intention of making any sort of confession of her thoughts. Not and chance Sister Helen’s constant presence by her side once more. “It is nothing to be concerned about.”

“It is my duty to concern myself with the welfare of all the sisters under my watch.” Sister Mercy tapped her fingers on the table for a moment. “You seem to be weighted down by some burden, Sister Gabrielle.”

Gabrielle kept her head bowed. Her eyes settled on the scar on her hand from the burn the doctor had treated. His hands had been so gentle.

When Gabrielle didn’t speak, Sister Mercy went on. “Perhaps it is guilt over an unconfessed sin. You need only tell me your problem to take the weight of it away from your spirit.”

Again Gabrielle did not answer or look up.

Sister Mercy sighed. “You have changed, Sister Gabrielle. I worry that ye have lost sight of the truth.”

“Nay, it is rather that I know too much of the truth.” Gabrielle regretted her words at once. She had no desire to share her vision with Sister Mercy.

“What do you mean?” Sister Mercy asked sharply. When Gabrielle didn’t respond at once, she demanded, “Look at me.”

Gabrielle raised her head and looked at Sister Mercy’s mouth but not her eyes. Sister Mercy said, “You have seen a vision.”

“Yea,” Gabrielle admitted. “A vision of death.”

“For one of our society?” Sister Mercy asked with a touch of dread in her voice.

“Nay. For the army that went to the North against the British.”

Sister Mercy let out a breath of relief. “You know we have nothing to do with wars and battles of the world. Ye need not worry yourself over such a vision. Men of the world always die in wars.”

“Should we not have compassion?”

“Of course,” Sister Mercy said quickly. “But we must continue with the duties Mother Ann has assigned us. Those of the world have chosen their paths, and we have chosen ours.”

“Nathan is dead.” The words slipped out of Gabrielle’s mouth. She had not intended to say them aloud.

Sister Mercy frowned and shut her eyes for a moment before she said, “He too chose his path, Sister Gabrielle. He could have stayed here and had many happy years of service to the Lord. Perhaps it was the Eternal Father’s punishment of his sins that doomed him to die while yet so young.”

Gabrielle wanted to bend her head again and look at the scar on her hand in her lap, but instead she shifted her eyes to a spot on the wall over Sister Mercy’s left shoulder.

After a long moment, Sister Mercy said, “It is surely a blessing from Mother Ann this gift of knowing you possess, Sister Gabrielle. But so too are the gifts to be simple and free from worry. The gift to trust in the goodness of the Lord and his sure providence. Those were gifts ye possessed in abundance only a short while ago, and yet now ye seem to have quenched the spirit that brought you those gifts.”

The silence in the room between them was so complete that Gabrielle heard the soft rustle of a sister’s skirt as she passed in the hall outside the closed door. Once Gabrielle would have promised to bend her spirit to the way Sister Mercy said was right. Once she would have promised to try to capture the simple freedom the Believers sought in their songs and prayers. But now she wasn’t sure if any Believer ever knew freedom.

At last Sister Mercy cleared her throat and said, “Have you prayed for Mother Ann’s love and blessings?”

“I have prayed,” Gabrielle answered.

“Then you must pray more. Mother Ann has blessed you with many gifts. Perhaps this time of spiritual darkness is her way of strengthening you for some struggle you may face in the future. We cannot know. We can only accept the trials that come our way and strive to maintain our peace and faith. I too will pray for you, Sister Gabrielle.”

“I need your prayers,” Gabrielle whispered. She needed someone’s prayers because her own seemed so empty lately.

Sister Mercy’s voice softened. “Perhaps the vision is a false one, my child.”

“I pray it so, but I fear that is a prayer that will not be answered. It is real. The gift does not lie.”

It was near March before proof of the truth of her vision came to their village. Gabrielle was in the hallway when Sister Helen brought the news to Sister Mercy. She’d heard it from a visitor from the town.

Sister Mercy called to Gabrielle. “Sister Gabrielle, you may be interested in Sister Helen’s news. The army that went to the North from here was defeated just as your vision revealed to you.”

“Are there survivors?” Gabrielle’s heart almost stopped beating as she waited for the answer.

“Some were taken prisoner,” Sister Helen said, eager to be the one to tell. “But very few among the wounded at a place called the River Raisen. Those of the world are calling it a massacre.”

“Such things have little to do with us,” Sister Mercy said. “We have chosen to live in peace with our fellow man as all should do. Then there would not be such horrors.”

Gabrielle bowed her head and turned away.

“It’s almost time for meeting,” Sister Helen called after her.

Gabrielle longed to be by herself, but as she turned to beg Sister Mercy’s permission to miss meeting, she met Sister Helen’s eyes. There was triumph there. Gabrielle’s back stiffened, and when the bell started tolling, she followed the older sisters out to begin the walk to the meetinghouse.

As she moved her mouth in the shape of the words of the gathering song, she saw Brice’s face before her as it had looked in the vision. Then suddenly the vision was shifting. The bodies in the snow were gone and only Brice remained. Still his face was the same as though nothing could ever take the cruel look from his eyes again.

He was alive. If he had died, she would have known just as she knew Nathan was dead. He had to be alive. Maybe he was even now on his way back to his cabin. She wanted to drop out of the line of sisters and seek her quiet place in the woods to pray for him.

But even as she had the thought, Sister Helen stepped over closer to Gabrielle as they entered the meetinghouse. Gabrielle tried to ease away from her, but Sister Helen stayed by her side through their silent prayer and opening song.

Gabrielle looked straight ahead and pretended she wasn’t there. The meeting wouldn’t last forever. She could surely endure Sister Helen’s presence that long after all the months she’d had to abide her presence at her side.

When Elder Caleb was through speaking and it was time to labor the songs, Gabrielle found a bench in the corner. She had no strength for the exercises.

Sister Helen followed her and sat down beside her. “Why are you not joining in the song, Sister Gabrielle?”

“I do not feel well this evening,” Gabrielle said.

“That’s too bad,” Sister Helen said with a smile that belied her words of sympathy. “Perhaps I should make you a tonic.”

Gabrielle bent her head. “A tonic might help.”

“I’ll work on it tomorrow,” Sister Helen said, then paused a moment before going on. “Ye haven’t had a gift of song for many months, Sister Gabrielle. Not since last summer if I recall correctly. Isn’t that right?”

“I don’t remember. I suppose it is if ye say it is.”

“Why do ye think that is? Ye who have been so blessed with so many gifts of the spirit.”

Suddenly Gabrielle was wary. Sister Helen was leading up to something, ready to catch Gabrielle in some wrong. She said quietly, “One can’t force gifts of the spirit, Sister Helen.”

“Ye speak the truth. Especially if the spirit has deserted one.”

Gabrielle turned her head to look at Sister Helen. Were the woman’s words true? Gabrielle had been in a dark valley for a long time, and she could see no paths that led out. Yet in spite of the darkness that kept her from praying and singing as she once had, she’d thought it was her face, her spirit that had gotten hidden in the fog of her troubles. She had never doubted the Lord’s spirit was there as strong as ever if only she could reach out in the right direction. She’d been sure he would help her find the way out of the valley into the sunshine of his love once more and that love would scatter her darkness.

Again there was triumph in Sister Helen’s eyes. It gave her pleasure to see Gabrielle brought low. Gabrielle knew she should stay silent and not answer meanness with more meanness. Yet she said, “Ye have not had a gift of song for even longer, Sister Helen.”

Sister Helen’s eyes narrowed, and her mouth tightened into a hard line. “Mother Ann has given us different gifts,” she said.

“Yea,” Gabrielle answered softly.

Sister Helen spoke sharply. “At least I have never gone to the woods to meet a man.”

Gabrielle turned her eyes back to her hands in her lap. “I have paid my penance.”

“Outwardly, perhaps,” Sister Helen said. “But inside ye mourn for him.”

Gabrielle started to speak, but Sister Helen stopped her. “Don’t try to fool me with your lies the way you do Sister Mercy. I’ve seen enough of the world to know worldly thoughts.”

“Ye cannot read my thoughts.”

“But I can read your eyes, Sister Gabrielle. You know Dr. Scott went to the North with the army and that is why you don’t feel like singing this night. Will ye add to your sin by denying that?”

“Nay, I deny nothing. My heart is burdened for all who died.”

Sister Helen smiled again. “Thy compassion is touching, Sister Gabrielle, but I think it is the passion ye feel for the man of the world that is causing ye the most pain.”

Gabrielle said nothing, and Sister Helen went on. “Why do you not answer me? Is it because ye know I speak the truth?”

“I wouldn’t wish to have words of conflict disturb the peace of the meeting.”

“If ye cared about the meeting, ye would be singing.”

“Then I will sing.” Singing would be easier than listening to Sister Helen. Gabrielle started to stand up, but Sister Helen reached out and held her arm.

“Just one more thing, Sister Gabrielle,” she said. “If the spirit has left ye, maybe you should leave the Believers. It is harmful for those who doubt our truths to be among us.”