The Last Pilgrims (21 page)

David watched as Piggy and the militia
soldier they called Longbow rode back towards camp. In what seemed
like only moments, he was alone.

Jonathan had never seen Bethany as busy as
it was this day, except maybe on the day before the battle, when
the town was the single escape route northward in front of the
Aztlani advance.

On this day, the general din from horses,
wagons, cattle and people gave the small town the feeling of a
mid-19
^th
century boomtown. Oxen laden with bags filled
with wheat jostled against mules pulling wagons full of watermelons
and cantaloupes.

All of the stores and shops were busy, even
Grayson the Smithy’s blacksmith shop. Grayson had returned to work
at the shop and the story of his removal from close fellowship in
the Vallensian Church was as popular as were the tales of his
heroics at the Pass. He was still their friend and their neighbor,
and was treated as such; but tension was almost palpable in the
whole community. Grayson and David Wall had been the first to step
away from the Vallensians’ long-held pacifistic views, but now
there were others considering it. Jonathan hoped the trickle would
not become a flood.

The endless clear, blue days—the signature
of summer in Central Texas—paraded onward, and the squirrels still
ran in and out of the park by the Livery. Vultures circled lazily
in the distant sky, as if nothing of importance had ever happened
there.

He was amazed at how quickly things had
returned to some semblance of
normalcy
, even with the solemn
news from the east that nearly 2,000 of the Vallenses had been
killed by the Aztlani army they had hoped to escape. Driven by
their fear, they kept moving eastward, hoping that they would be
safe… and now they were dead.

And he hadn’t stopped them. In fact, he
hadn’t even considered that Aztlan might attack from the east. No
one really had.

For Jonathan, there was no
normal
.
Not anymore. He felt the pain and personal responsibility for each
one of those deaths, just as if they had happened right here in
Bethany.

Some of those who died had been his friends,
his neighbors, his countrymen, and his parishioners. Even though
most of the dead had been those who lived out on the frontier to
the west and south of Bethany, he still felt the weight of their
deaths as one would feel the weight of stones in an avalanche.
The dead Vallenses won’t even receive a proper Christian
burial
, he thought,
the Aztlani commanders had seen to
that
. He had heard that the peaceful and plain farmers had been
stacked into huge funeral pyres and burned as heretics by the
officers of the Inquisition of New Rome who were always present
among large Aztlani armies.

In the Public House, there were the usual
sights and sounds of Vallensian activity. Bartering and trading
went on, and there was talk of harvest and of planting for the fall
crop. Still, the discussion inevitably turned to war and with the
implications of the Aztlani army remaining out to the east.
Everyone who came in and out of the Pub greeted him, and a few
stopped for a chat; still, most were busily trying to get their
business done, not knowing when they might have to flee again.

Jonathan had come to Bethany to meet with
David, but had just learned that his son was away on a training
mission, and that Phillip himself was to meet him within the
hour.

He sipped on a cold glass of
nopal
fruit juice sweetened with honey. The pinkish purple liquid was not
only delicious, it was alive with beneficial compounds and
enzymes.

The Wall family had stumbled onto the drink
when they first moved to Central Texas, but soon thereafter, they
learned that the juice derived from the ripe fruit of the
optunia
cactus had been harvested for jellies and jams for
centuries. The Comanche had used the fruit as a medicine to reduce
inflammation and as an ingredient in countless other natural
remedies. It turned out that the ubiquitous cactus fruit was both
healthy and delicious, and had thus become one of the most popular
and readily available beverages among the Vallenses. Some of the
oldlings
called the drink Cactus Cola.

Almost everyone made wine from the
nopal
fruit, especially when grapes were not available. Some
enterprising folks even made a pretty strong hard liquor, sold at
the Public House and the General Store.

His wife Elizabeth had been a big proponent
of the cactus juice as an overall health booster, and had
prescribed the drink for everything—from headaches to sore ankles
and knees to back aches. Between naturally bottle-fermented beer,
and
nopal
juice, pretty much every infirmity was treated
with some kind of beverage. The exception, of course, was garlic
that, in the Wall household, was another cure-all for everything,
especially any affliction or bacterial or viral infection.

Compared to how things were before the
collapse, the Vallenses were extremely healthy and vibrant people,
and most folks attributed this vibrancy to the Vallensian diet,
rich with lacto-fermented foods, such as pickled vegetables and
beans, sauerkraut, chutneys, sausages, and cheeses. Elizabeth had
focused intently on learning historic long-term food preservation
techniques that by-passed the old standards of pressure canning and
other methods that killed all of the good living organisms and
enzymes in the food.

Elizabeth had been dead now for thirteen
years. She had died from blunt trauma suffered after being thrown
from a horse only a year after Ruth was born. Before she died, in
her weakness and pain, she had joked that falling from a horse was
one of the few catastrophes in life that could not be fixed with
garlic or cactus juice. Jonathan could not drink the juice now
without thinking about her—which to him was not a bad thing.

It was not at all surprising to him to see
Prince Gareth come into the Pub. He had figured that the Aztlani
Prince would want to speak to him once it was known that he was in
town for the day. Gareth approached him with a friendly smile, and
asked if he could join him.

“I’ve come for some of the remedy,” Gareth
said rubbing the mostly healed knife wound he had suffered at the
hand of the spy Ronald Getz.

“This is the place to get it,” Jonathan
answered, “though the beer here is nowhere near as good as the
stuff we make at the ranch.”

“I concur completely,” the Prince replied as
Nick Brewer brought over his mug of beer.

Gareth bowed his head and paused for a
moment, “Please allow me to express my sincere and heartfelt
condolences for the needless and senseless murder of so many of
your people at the hands of my own.”

“You had nothing to do with it. I know that,
and so do all of the Vallenses; but I do appreciate your
condolences.”

“I know that you desperately desire to be
free of any more discussion on the matter, but I would be doing
myself—and all of the good Aztlani people that also live under
tyranny—a disservice if I did not encourage you to revenge this
dreadful wrong by helping the Ghost militia to destroy the Aztlani
army.”

Jonathan smiled at the Prince, but then
closed his eyes and shook his head. “Revenge is a motive that is
forbidden to my people, Gareth.”

“You can call it justice if you prefer.”

“Justice is also in the hands of God,” he
said softly, “rather than mine.”

“I do not mean to add to your burdens,
Jonathan, but please bear with me as I do my duty, even if you feel
that my effort would be futile.”

“I understand, Prince, and I sympathize. It
is not as if I do not understand the carnal and temporal
motivations that drive men to war. In fact… right now, I think that
I am in touch with them like no one else could be.”

“All carnal and temporal motivations are
not, by default, sinful, as you surely know,” Gareth interjected.
“Fear motivates us to avoid danger, hunger motivates us to eat; and
we drink to alleviate thirst.”

“Still, a hunger for anger and a thirst for
revenge ultimately drive men to steal and kill. Listen, Prince, I
am not judging you, Phillip, David or the militia. I understand
that people need to obey their conscience. I just cannot fathom why
I am constantly being pressured to disregard mine. Am I the only
one who is to ignore his conscience?"

“Unhappily, Jonathan, your conscience is
currently nothing but a stumbling stone to your people, many of
whom would like to fight, but still follow and obey you without
question.”

“I would hope that they are following their
convictions and the voice of wisdom embodied in our sincerely held
position on non-violence.”

“Ideally, yes—we would all hope that—but in
reality, I do not believe that this is the case. If you gave the
word, the Vallenses, and other similar groups throughout Texas,
could field an army of 10,000 men—enough to put an end to Aztlani
tyranny for good.”

“True, but that would create fear,
trepidation and jealousy in other Kingdoms across North America and
maybe even around the world. Or worse yet, we would become the
masters and civil magistrates and become tyrants ourselves.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

“Unless the hearts of men have changed, then
it does.”

The Prince sat back in his chair and gazed
out of the window as horse-drawn buggies navigated around carts
parked on the street in front of the Pub. “I have to believe that
you are wrong, and that righteousness can rule as easily as
malevolence and tyranny.”

“History says otherwise, Prince.”

The two men looked at one another for a
moment, before Gareth drained his beer and set the mug down firmly
on the table. “You do understand that I had to ask?” He stood up
and shook Jonathan’s hand with a firm and friendly grip.

“Let me leave you, Pastor Wall, with a bit
of a prophecy.” The Aztlani Prince stood up and reached into his
pocket. He withdrew two hand-cut iron nails—payment for the beer
(one of the many acceptable forms of ‘money’ used in Bethany)—which
he dropped on the table. “The Vallenses will fight… eventually.
Whether you or I are here to see the day, I cannot say. Still, the
Vallenses will fight, or… or they will cease to exist as a
people.”

“Perhaps,” Jonathan replied, thoughtfully,
“if God wills it; but if He does erase us from the earth as a
people, He will lift up the torch of the apostolic faith in some
other place… or He might just return and end all the
speculation.”

Gareth nodded briefly, thanked him for the
conversation, and left to join another table of Vallensian farmers
who were engrossed in an argument about which was the best method
of storing wheat.

After sitting and pondering for a while,
Jonathan paid for his own beverage with a small spool of hand-spun
thread that Ana had made and headed out of the Public House towards
the Cobbler’s shop.

As he walked the short distance to Mr.
Byler’s shop, he watched the people loading and unloading supplies.
He was grateful that Bethany had been spared the fate of San
Angelo. He felt no real conflict within himself and that surprised
him, but he knew that God had often, from unlikely sources, raised
up a defense for His people. It troubled him that David and Grayson
had been that source, but he could not question what he felt God
had done in preserving Bethany. He supposed that surrounding the
Vallenses with the militia couldn’t be much different from his own
hope that the King of the South States would send aid.

He thought about the letter he had sent via
the post-rider. Maybe his message would be read and heeded by that
distant King, or maybe help was already coming. Whatever its
source, he hoped that help was on the way.

Outside of the Cobbler shop, he ran into Mr.
Byler, who was securing a large load of pelts to the bench of a
Vallensian wagon. When the cobbler was done, the two men retired
into the shade provided by the overhang in front of the shop to
exchange usual pleasantries and affectionate greetings.

“I was wondering if you might have a need
for several large Longhorn hides that Ana is working on?” he asked
the cobbler.

“Of course. Of course. There are so many
people wanting to have new boots before…” Mr. Byler’s voice trailed
off.

“I understand,” Jonathan replied. “Since you
mention it—and without any desire to add to your burdens—I also
need another pair of heavy boots for Ruth. She goes through them so
fast, you know. But, whatever value you place on the hides—up and
above the price of the boots—I’d like you to keep on account for
the Johnsons. I’ve taken some sheep from them in trade.”

He paused for a moment, the reality and
weight of the issue impeding on his thoughts. “You know,” he said,
“with Jack gone, they can’t keep as many sheep. Things will be
tough for them for a time. We’re helping out as much as we are
able.”

“This is a sad, sad business, Jonathan. I
had hoped, at one time, that we were past all of this. But I don’t
suppose we’ll ever be beyond persecution and suffering.”

The two men stood in silence for a while,
before Jonathan finally spoke. “We’d also like to have you up for
supper soon. I know you are so busy, but Betsy and Ana would love
to see you, and they don’t get to town as often as they’d
like.”

“I’m afraid that, with current events being
what they are, I might be living up there before long, but that all
depends on what happens with the Aztlani army, doesn’t it?”

“It does.”

“Tell Ruthie that I’ll have her boots for
her in a week, and, Lord willing, I’ll bring them to her
myself.”

Jonathan smiled, and shook Mr. Byler’s hand.
“I’ll tell her, Mr. Byler. We’d all love to see you, and we look
forward to it.”