Selection Event (36 page)

Isha barked twice and galloped around the house with Martin and Catrin following. With definite purpose, she led them down the lane to the street, away from town several blocks, and then up a dirt road, stopping and nervously waiting for Martin and Catrin to catch up.

“Does she know what we want?” Catrin asked through her panting.

“This dog's a genius.”

They followed her further, off the road now and into the trees a hundred yards, down a leaf-packed gully, up the far side, another hundred yards further on, and then Isha suddenly stopped and lowered her head.

Through the trees Martin could see a clearing, and sitting around were fifteen or twenty people. With them were Xeng and Solomon, and one of their sheet-robed women held Missa in her lap. Paul and Leona were there, and Paul was speaking quietly to Xeng, but Xeng shook his head no repeatedly and waved his hands back and forth in front of his face. One of the people was offering Xeng a cup of something.

“Joshua's people,” Catrin whispered.

“Stay here with Isha.”

Martin pushed his way through the thick undergrowth and stepped into the clearing. All eyes turned in his direction and Xeng stood up and quickly came over to him.

“Very strange people,” he said softly. “They try to get us to drink blood.”

Solomon bolted over to him shouting, “Daddy!” and grabbed him around the legs. Martin hoisted him up and kissed him and then put him down and went over and picked Missa up out of the woman's lap. She snuggled her face into his neck.

“Xeng, did you bring Missa with you?”

“No. I came here with Solomon to fix this lady's ankle. That man—” He pointed to one of Joshua's followers. “—brought Missa later.”

Martin put the girl down and went over to the one Xeng had pointed out. He was taller than Martin, thinner, had shoulder-length hair and spiderweb tattoo that radiated from his elbow to the front of his arm.

“Good afternoon, brother. My name is Aaron, and I was a sinner.”

“Aaron,” Martin said, “you took my daughter from my house. If I see you near my children again, I'll kill you. Do you understand what I'm telling you?”

“My life is not my own, brother,” Aaron said. “It belongs to the Lord, so I fear not your threats.”

“I didn't ask if you were afraid. I asked if you understood. That's a yes or no question.”

“Yes, brother, I understand your threat,” Aaron said evenly with a pleasant smile, “and I'll pray for your redemption.”

Martin understood Winch's desire to simplify the situation. He backed away to where Xeng waited with the children, but before he turned his eyes from Joshua's people, he realized that they were all smiling, Paul and Leona also, her smile as vacuous as it was eerie, all of them as unmoved by Martin's threat as they were by Aaron's abducting Missa.

Martin wondered how many more times he was going to surprise himself.

Chapter 67

In the evening, Martin, Winch, Catrin, Xeng, Jan-Louise, and Solomon, the members of the original group, sat in the living room of Martin's house. Missa and Land slept on the floor next to Mona, who was stretched out in the shape of a black crescent. A small fire burned in the fireplace, and on the coffee table, a candle in a glass chimney burned brightly. The room smelled faintly of woodsmoke, and Martin thought how peaceful and comforting it could have been — but it wasn't.

The talk had been sporadic, but Jan-Louise, sitting with Winch's arm around her, had said nothing at all.

“I can see how you didn't know what to do with them,” Martin said.

“It's like they invaded us,” Catrin said. “Even coming in our homes when we didn't want them to. But they were so god damned
pleasant
about it I guess we didn't know how to say no. I never thought one of them would come and take Missa.”

“What do these people want?” Xeng asked. “Us to join them?”

“Joshua never mentioned that,” Catrin said.

“He just said he wanted to help us,” Jan-Louise said.

“He helped you to hate yourself,” Winch said.

“I'm an awful person,” she said, on the verge of breaking down. “I don't know how any of you can have any respect for me after what I was.”

“All our pasts began after the catastrophe,” Martin said. “We're not interested in what you were. What happened before belongs to the old times. The world was different then — I sure as hell was different then. We all were.”

“You helped me deliver Land,” Catrin said quietly to her. “I can never thank you enough for that.”

“But I was full of poison. I still am. I can't even keep my eye on Missa for half an hour.”

“Because you were being harassed and badgered,” Winch said.

Xeng was nodding. “That woman with the broken ankle, the ankle was not broken. More bullshit.”

“It wasn't swollen or bruised,” Solomon added.

“They wanted me there to say I am bad person also, to have me drink blood and eat uncooked meat with them. Very strange people. I have not seen many people do these crazy things,” he said meditatively.

“Missa drank some,” Solomon said.

“I did not know this,” Xeng said, his eyes widening and looking across at the girl.

“We need to get 'em the hell away from us,” Winch said. “They're dangerous. We were all right till they came, and now everything's turned to shit. They kidnap Missa and make her drink something that could make her sick, they go after Jan-Louise and make her think—”

“I'm a whore,” Jan-Louise said. “That's what I am.”

Xeng said softly to her, “Do not say untrue things about the woman I love.” She pushed her face against his chest, weeping. He whispered to her.

“I think we should drive them out,” Winch said.

“We don't want them to start thinking about revenge or retaliation. We have homes, children. We have a lot to lose now.”

Winch nodded, grimly. “We'd have to be looking over our shoulders all the time. Unless we killed them all. I'd vote for that.”

“Could we play it by ear for a few days?” Martin said. “Find out who they are, if they'll go away, whatever we can. They probably outnumber us, you know.”

Winch's face was tight. Martin had never seen him this angry and was afraid he wouldn't agree. A split in their group was not what they needed now.

“I can wait,” he finally said, “but not for long. Martin, if it comes down to it, can I have Joshua?”

Martin nodded.

“He hurt what I love most, and he did it to make himself feel good.”

After a silence, Catrin asked, “What about our new people? What do we tell them?”

“That we were doing fine till Joshua and his fanatics came along,” Winch said.

“I guess all we can do is tell them that we're worried and why.”

They sat in silence in the dying light of the fireplace. Mona roused, stretched, looked around at the silent humans, padded over to where Isha had lain quietly through the evening and snuggled against her, asleep again in a minute. Martin envied them.

....

The next morning, early, the sun not yet over the mountain tops, Martin and Winch went up the road to the big house where the new people were already stirring. Smoke drifted from the chimney. But when they got to the front step, they recognized Joshua's voice before they knocked on the door.

“Why,” Joshua was asking quietly, persuasively, “why do you think you were allowed to live when all your friends, parents, and children died in horrible anguish? Do you not suppose there was a purpose to this? Can you guess what this purpose is?”

Winch knocked loudly on the door frame and then stepped inside. Martin followed.

“Pardon us for interrupting,” Winch said, “but we're going to interrupt.”

Most of the newcomers were sitting around the livingroom listening attentively, several of them eating from plates they held on their knees. The house smelled of hot bread. Joshua smiled pleasantly.

Martin watched Winch carefully. “One of his people,” Winch said, “a guy named Aaron, took our little girl yesterday without telling anyone, took her up to their camp and gave her blood to drink.”

Those of the newcomers who were eating now stopped and their eyes were wide.

“One of our rituals," Joshua said. “The Follower will be rebuked for his enthusiasm.”

“Rebuked for his enthusiasm or rebuked for being caught?” Winch asked bitterly.

“A hardened heart can never recognize truth.”

“And a hardened head can still get a hole through it,” Winch said. “And this time, you only get told once: leave. Thirty seconds.”

“I believe I'm these people's guest. Not yours.”

Winch unsnapped the strap over his revolver and pulled it out. “Twenty seconds.”

“He kidnapped a little girl?” Roy said.

“You got her back, didn't you?” August said.

Winch turned on August, his face an image of amazed hatred. August quickly turned his attention to the piece of toast he held in his hand.

“I did not come to sow dissent,” Joshua said. “I came—”

Winch sighted down the revolver at the side of Joshua's neatly barbered head.

The room went silent and still.

Joshua slowly turned his head to look directly into the barrel of Winch's gun. “I will leave now because I choose to continue my mission in this earthly body, not because I am afraid.” He smiled grandly. “Because I am not afraid of pain or death, Winchell. I am not afraid of you or anything you can do to me.”

“I don't care what you're afraid of,” Winch said. “I care about getting you out of my life.”

“Poor man,” Joshua said as he headed for the door. “Goodbye, my friends. I will see you again soon.” He closed the door quietly behind him and was gone.

Winch holstered his gun and turned and slumped into a chair. “I'm sorry, people.” He rubbed his face. “When we came back yesterday, he was telling my wife what a hopeless slut she was. I was up most of the night with her... so I don't have a lot of good feelings about the man.”

“Does all this mean we have to do what you say?” August asked. “I was under the impression that people weren't going to be walking into my house and tell me who I could have as a guest and who I couldn't.”

“Our house,” Rusty said. “And I didn't much like the guy.”

“He seemed like a nice man,” Dora, Rusty's older wife, said officiously. “A religious man.”

“Among our people,” Martin said to Dora, “we have a situation much like you have with Rusty and Christie. Winch and our doctor live with the same woman. You may think Joshua's a nice man, but when he finds out you're sharing Rusty with another woman, he isn't going to have much good to say to you either.”

She looked away and her face burned red.

“I know it may seem like we're getting you here and then telling you what to do,” Martin said, “but this is something we never expected.” He paused and in the back of his mind, he was thinking how just a year and a half ago he was a person upon whom nothing depended. And now, what he said in the next few seconds could determine the survival or disintegration of this group, these people, all his friends, with whom he had so much of his life invested. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and looked up from the floor at the waiting expressions of the people around him.

“Before the disaster,” he said, “I wasn't somebody anyone paid any attention to. And I really didn't mind. Because if anyone took me seriously, I'd be held accountable for what I did, or said.” His heart pounded hard in his chest. “After the disaster, all I wanted was to live quietly, with a few decent people. I didn't want to be the one to tell people what to do and I wanted others to return the favor. But telling you what to think and do is just exactly what Joshua has planned. His purpose in life is to get others to see things the way he does.”

There was a short silence. Then, “Why can't we invite him in to find out what it is he stands for?” August asked.

“You can do that,” Martin said. “And he'll be glad to tell you what he believes. He'll ask if right now you're completely happy. You aren't? Well, don't you want to be happy? He'll tell you how you're going to suffer if you continue in your ways and how happy you'll be if you buy his package. Now, August, tell me, when did he stop telling you what he believes and when did he start telling you what to do? People like Joshua aren't happy just answering your questions. They need to destroy any confidence you have in how you're living now so you'll believe what he believes.”

He stared at Martin a moment. “I can take care of myself. I was a lawyer. I know how people do these things.”

“Then pay attention when you deal with him. Joshua doesn't have a corner on truth, although he'll claim that he does, and he may be very persuasive. We're not telling Joshua to move out, but we have told him to leave my and Winch's families alone. We're only going to ask you that you not invite Joshua or his people to live among us. Otherwise, what you do is your business, but be cautious.” He stood up. “Winch and I haven't seen our families in quite a while and want to get back to them. There are houses along this road you might want to look at. Why don't all of you come to my house just before sundown for dinner and meet the rest of us.”