Darkness upon the Land

Alexia awakened in a bed she didn’t recognize. As she lay on her right side and stared at the foreign wall across from her, she struggled to remember what had happened to put her here. A memory of Reuben and Father Nick pouncing upon a gunman flashed through her mind, and she abruptly tried to sit up.

Her head immediately swam, and as she collapsed back to the pillows she heard Reuben’s voice behind her.

“Whoa, Alex, not so fast.”

She rolled over and immediately spied him as he leaned toward her from the chair he was sitting in.

Her mouth was dry. “Where…?”

“We’re in the rectory.” He nodded toward the foot of her bed. “Father Nick sat up with me.”

“How are you feeling?” She heard the priest’s voice from that direction.

“Lousy.” Her headache was gone, but that general malaise she was well acquainted with continued to linger.

“Sit up and drink this water.” Reuben grasped her by the upper arm and helped to tug her into a sitting position as he pulled the two pillows together. “And I’ve got a double batch of pemmican for you.”

She gladly accepted the water, but as she drank from the glass it seemed to have an almost rancid flavor. Then she realized that was because of her own mouth. Hold on … that’s right, she had an MSG reaction and would have needed to vomit. Eeyew, she had worse than morning breath. She hoped the water would at least help to rinse her mouth.

“Thank you.” She took a bag of pemmican from Reuben. “Did anybody get hurt last night?”

“Thankfully, no.” Father Nick had gotten to his feet. “Once we got the gun away from him, so many people jumped into the fray to restrain him that he couldn’t move against anybody else.”

“What happened to him? He looked drugged up.”

“Actually I think it was just the opposite – he’d been off his meds for too long. He was taken to what remains of the jail, which unfortunately may be where he has to stay since there’s probably no more medication available.”

Alexia pondered his words. There were probably a lot of people who out of medicine they needed to maintain their quality of life or even to stay alive. The aftershocks of this solar outburst were going to be felt for a long time.

“I’ll leave you to finish eating and freshen up.” The priest stepped toward the doorway. “If you need anything, I’ll just be downstairs.”

“Thank you, Father.” Once he left the room, her gaze shot to Reuben and she asked in a hushed voice, “How did you explain this collapse to him?”

He hesitated for a couple of seconds before replying. “He knows.”

Her heart skipped a beat and an unsettling tingle washed through her. “He knows how much?”

“Most of it. I sorta owed him an explanation, and he was starting to figure it out anyway. When other people questioned my story that you threw a book, he jumped right in there with Of course she threw a book even though he had no idea why I would make that up.”

Good Lord, there had to be some kind of special penalty awaiting her in Purgatory for dragging a priest into her mess.

“So did anybody else figure out what happened?”

“No. He’s the only one any the wiser. There’s nothing to worry about. If anybody can keep a secret, it’s him.”

“Well … he is the one least likely to send Mѐre into orbit. Did he wait up all night with you?”

“We both dozed off eventually, but yeah, he hung around. We had a very stimulating conversation and I think both of us were reluctant to end it.”

“Stimulating about what?”

“What else do you expect with a priest? Although I suspect he was trying to worm in some evangelizing, we mostly stuck to what we have in common. I’ve been denied my theological studies ever since the sunburst, so it was refreshing to delve into spiritual matters with someone as passionate as he is.”

“I never thought of you getting so involved with a priest.”

“He’s a man of God. Father Nick doesn’t just know the Word with his mind, it’s also in his heart. I figured that out while talking with him last night. Have you ever heard how he came about deciding to become a priest?”

“Don’t think so.”

“His grandparents brought him up, which is why you always hear him talk about them instead of his parents. His so-called mother dumped him off with them when he was two years old because the guy she wanted to marry next wasn’t interested in some other man’s kid. By the way, these are my words, not his. He was much more diplomatic. She never took him back, even after that marriage ended. Even though his grandparents were always after her to take him back.”

She frowned. “Gee, that sounds like something that could make a kid feel unwanted.”

“His grandpa was a fisherman, so he was always helping him out in the boat. One day when he was seventeen, a fierce storm blew in. They worked desperately to keep the boat from capsizing, and Father Nick said he prayed more in that one hour than in his whole life up to then. He finally threw in that if the Lord would spare them, he’d become a priest. Well, as storms will sometimes do, no sooner did he make that bargain than the winds died down and the clouds parted.

“Right after he thought yipee, he then thought gulp. He immediately started backpedaling on that promise and was satisfied he’d come up with all the good reasons to renege by the time they got back to dock. Then he found out that another boat out there didn’t make it, and a schoolmate of his who was out on it got killed.

“This kid was a year younger than him, and he considered this guy to be more priestly material than he was. It got him really thinking about why he was spared when a more deserving person died, and that God had never been fooled by his promise to begin with. It made his faith become something more than a building his grandparents dragged him to on Sundays. So he decided to check out this priest thing, after all. And the rest is history.”

“He became a fisher of men,” Alexia murmured.

“We also talked about the upcoming salt expedition.”

“The what?”

“There was talk about it last night. Did you hear anything about some of the townspeople organizing a trading party to go the salt mine east of here?”

“That’s about as much as I heard.”

“I went ahead and put my name in the hat to go. They’re leaving Monday morning. By being part of the team I’ll be able to keep several pounds of salt. That way I can be sure to get enough for you and Liana, and also take a good quantity back home with me.”

She stopped in mid-pinch on the pemmican. “When are you going home?”

“As soon as possible. I know your mom still needs a couple of weeks or so to heal some more, and I’d rather get this Brent Rayburn business settled. But once my obligations are out of the way, I need to head back.”

There was nothing new about his statement, but it still caused a sinking feeling in her stomach. Reuben had been with them for so long now, and had done so much, she had sort of allowed herself to forget that he was still planning to leave eventually. The disappointment that stirred inside her dredged up another memory from last night, and that spark of annoyance returned with it.

“Is Myra Hoffman also going on this salt expedition?”

“I seriously doubt it. I think it would be too much dirt for her.”

She couldn’t resist smirking. “Then what were you two carrying on so much about last night?”

“Mostly stuff about her. I mean, at the time it was interesting to learn about her, but once we were through I realized she was her own favorite topic.”

Something about his word choice tickled her attention. “Through with what?”

“Through with the socializing. When she made me an offer that was hard to refuse, I knew I needed to find stimulating conversation somewhere else.”

Again his word choice rattled around in her mind, and the interpretation she came up with was a bit unbelievable on one hand but entirely possible on the other.

“You mean to tell me she propositioned you at a church function?”

“Yeah, I definitely wasn’t expecting that.”

“Well, I presume you were appropriately offended.”

He frowned slightly. “That’s just it. That sort of thing doesn’t offend a guy, which was why I needed to divert my attention elsewhere. The part where I got offended was when she nearly got my head blown off.”

His understated revelation caught her by surprise. In all the time she’d known him, Reuben was always a gentleman who’d made it clear he believed that the “marital embrace” should be reserved for marriage. Because of that, she had always assumed he was somehow immune to temptations of the flesh. The revelation that he really was susceptible made her think she actually didn’t know him that well. And suddenly that night they kept each other warm in the logging truck felt a little weird to her.

She decided to change the topic. “Did you also partake of the beer?”

He smirked. “Somebody offered it to me and I figured it was more calories. I nursed that one bottle all night long. Beer is an acquired taste, which I don’t have yet. What else did I get myself into trouble for?”

“Okay, since you asked – why did you tell people you’re from Mississippi?”

This time his brow furrowed. Then he shrugged and replied, “I guess that’s just more proof how you can’t take me anywhere.”

Liana was calm but concerned about Alexia’s welfare when they got back to the house later that morning. Reuben noticed she quizzed her daughter about her current condition, gave her the appropriate tea to drink, and convinced her to lie down again for a while before returning to any of the day’s duties. The girl was probably agreeable to the last suggestion because she did have to stop and rest a couple of times during their bike ride back.

With Alexia out of the mix where she could influence her mother’s responses, he decided it was time to sift through the woman’s head again. He had a pretty firm belief about what she would say when he informed her of the salt expedition, and the matter needed to be settled between the two of them.

He assisted her in the kitchen as they finished preparation for dinner. She had already been informed about Father Nick’s discovery, and as they both suspected she thought about it for a few seconds and then responded, “At least he can be trusted.”

“I got some interesting news last night,” he commented as he washed some new potatoes. “That salt mine east of here is open for trade. Shortly after the solar burst some hooligans took it over and sort of held it for ransom to do unfair bartering, but before the battle at Esperanza the locals around there staged their own revolution. A group from here is going to head out there and negotiate to haul back a load.”

“Good idea.” Liana nodded as she chopped some hard-boiled eggs. “We need salt to preserve as much food as we can. And we can certainly contribute to the bartering pool to help increase the return.”

He prepared for her response to what he would say next. “Of course the people who actually go along on the foray will get to keep a substantial amount as payment for their time and effort to obtain it. They figure it will take about three days – one to get there, one to hash it out and load it up, and one to get back. I volunteered to go along.”

She hesitated for a few seconds and seemed to study the wall before resuming her work. “I think that would be the best thing for you to do.” And then she stated what he was waiting for. “It’d be good for Alexia to go with you.”

“How do you figure that?”

“She can be of great help to you.”

“She can be of great help to you here. You know she’s not gonna leave you alone for three days while you’re still gimping around.”

“When are you heading out?”

“Monday morning.”

“We can make sufficient preparation around here for me to get by on before then.”

“Liana.” He ceased washing and leveled his gaze on her. “I’m not playing this game anymore. What’s going on? Why do you keep sending Alex away from here at every opportunity that pops up? Like you said, whether she’s here or whether she’s there is pretty much the same risk.”

She stared at the wall again and drew a measured sigh before replying. “Not when she’s with you. I’ve come to accept the reality that when she’s alone with you she’s safer than when she’s alone with me. I can shoot, but I can’t run and climb and scramble like you can. No, she’s safer with you while this world is in the state of chaos that it is.”

So that explained it. He now knew what angle to approach her from in order to make the point that needed to be made.

“You still say that after what happened at the church last night? You know, when she and I first got here after the outage, the roles got switched on the two of you. She became your caretaker. And as you’ve been recovering you’ve been reassuming that role, but she hasn’t let it go. She will not leave you for three whole days for the very reason you want to send her off with me at every opportunity. And I agree with her. This time you need to let her stay with you.”

“Her safety is more important than mine. She’s only a child.”

“She will always be your child. But she’s also become a resourceful young woman. She almost lost you once, Liana, and she would never forgive herself if she lost you forever because she followed me on one of my silly errands. Don’t put her through that.”

She stared at the wall again for a few seconds before replying. “You’re telling me not to put her through what I went through when I lost Renee. But this is different. She’d be with you because I sent her, not because she’d run off in order to satisfy her own selfish goals.”

“Even if we finally come to a head with this Brent Rayburn business, will you be satisfied that the world has become safe enough for her?” He shook his head. “What if you never fully recover? I can’t stay here forever. At some point you’re gonna have to trust that Alex can take care of herself.”

“You’re stuck here for a while yet. You can’t head off cross-country by yourself.”

He leveled his gaze with hers. “I can run and climb and scramble. And I won’t be totally alone. I only stayed here this long because of you.”

“It’s too risky to travel all alone like that. Some bandit could sneak up on you while you’re sleeping. There, we’re even. Neither of us should be alone.”

“I’m not heading home just because I want to go home.” This was too much like trying to explain why he started telling people he was from Mississippi, but under the circumstances he had to try this time. “Believe me, I’ve given staying here serious consideration. But when I imagine myself doing that, I get all tight.” He clenched his fist in front of his abdomen. “Right here. When I think about going home, though, I do have concerns about who or what I’ll meet between here and there, but … it feels right. Do you know what I mean?”

She stolidly returned his gaze. “I bet if we could ask your mother, she’d agree you should stay here.”

“That would be her first impulse. But once she heard me out, she’d agree with me. My goal is to take part of that salt with me when I go home. My family will need it as well, and that’s a resource we can’t get as easily in the Ozarks. When I go to collect that salt, you need to let Alex stay with you. You need her help more than I do. And it will be a good practice run for when I finally do leave.”

“You’re a stiff-necked young man.” She sighed and looked down at the knife in her hands. “All right, this time she stays. It seems the two of you have started to gang up on me, but I suppose I’m the one who set it up that way.”