Kamiskwa laughed. “You are too much a civilized man to say they scare me. They do. I have heard stories since I was a child. An adult may try to pretend those stories no longer have power, but they do. And they do terrify me.”
“Then why be the one to make the run?”
“Owen, you have learned much in your time here. You have learned things of my people, but there are some lessons you do not understand.” The warrior smiled. “Norillians and Ryngians all treat fear as if it is a shameful thing. It is not. Succumbing to it might be. But fear is just telling you that you face great danger. It tells you that you must take extreme caution. Those who ignore such warnings are foolhardy and die. Those who cannot see past them are cowards. But I am a warrior. If I do not honor fear, if I fail to face it with intelligence and courage, I am nothing.”
He looked back toward the high mountain peak. “Did I run from that thing as swiftly as I could? Yes, but I did not give in to terror. I showed it I was indeed the most fleet of us. If I was wrong, if it caught me, all I would have lost is a race. I would not have lost what it is to be a man.”
“Then it was the creature that yelped.”
“No, that was me.” The Altashee laughed. “If you have Nathaniel Magehawk pointing a rifle at you and shooting, you will yelp, too.”
“I would at that.” Owen patted him on the shoulder. “Sleep well.”
The night passed without any oddness. In the morning they scouted around for signs of anything that might be following them, but found nothing. Though they did not relax their guard as they moved further from the ruins, they saw no sign of pursuit. Were they not carrying the golden tablets and demon broth-not to mention claw marks and bites-they’d have had no evidence that anything out of the ordinary had taken place.
And then, at the end of the first week of June, they returned to Plentiful. As they’d gotten close they saw ample signs of the flood that had raced down the Snake River. Riverbanks had been undermined and trees had fallen. Large rocks stood in the channel hundreds of yards from where they had been previously, or had been left high and dry on the flood plain thirty and forty yards from the river itself. Yet even these displays of the river’s titanic power did not prepare them for what they found at the settlement.
The flood had poured through the valley deep and fast. Owen imagined that Arise Faith and his people, if they had any warning at all, assumed they had angered God in some incredible way. They would have seen it as the Scriptural Deluge come again.
A tumble of trees and splintered logs lay strewn over the valley floor. Green fields had been washed away, along with most all the buildings. Three houses on the southwest hillside had been preserved, though the hillside had been nibbled away right up to the doorstep of the lowest. The only attempts at clean up, it appeared, had been half-hearted harvesting of firewood from the wooden tangle that had once been Plentiful.
They worked their way along the valley edge, approaching the houses in the open. They stood off and announced their presence.
A ragged group of people, heads hung in shame, slowly poured out of the buildings. Owen didn’t see Arise Faith among them. Half of them were children, two were old women, and the rest adults young enough to be unmarried and uncertain of what they should be doing.
Nathaniel immediately set down his pack and opened it. He pulled out a small bag of flour from Happy Valley. “Looks like you could be using this.”
One of the young men stepped forward. “We don’t want no charity nor no trouble.”
“Ain’t charity, boy, just common sense. I am plumb tired of carrying this weight. It would be a sin just to throw it away.” Nathaniel advanced a few steps, set the bag down, then retreated. “We would trouble you for word of friends who passed through-Count von Metternin and Hodge Dunsby. Prolly came through two-three weeks ago.”
One of the women came forward. “They did, and they were most generous. They said they would send help.”
“And I am sure they will. We is in from the west, so we don’t got much to share, but we’ll share it all.”
The rest of the expedition offered their supplies, too, which amounted to a pound and a half of flour and two of beans. It wasn’t much, but the old woman found scales and weighed it all. She made Owen write down an account of what they’d been given. She solemnly promised that it would be repaid a hundred fold when Plentiful got back up and going.
Owen made her a copy of the bill of lading, then signed it. “You’re going to stay here and rebuild?”
“Don’t really have a choice.” She folded the paper with skeletal hands. “When God scoured the earth with a flood, He did it so mankind could rebuild. His message for us can be no clearer. Look.”
Owen followed her quivering finger as she pointed to the survivors. It took him a moment to recognize it, then he understood. “Two by two.”
“That’s right, seven men, seven women. Most are too young yet, but they will grow into God’s plan.” She slipped the bill inside her apron. “Suffering is a terrible thing, but knowing we are doing God’s work is a comfort.”
She walked away and Owen closed his journal. He went to return it to his pack and found Ezekiel Fire standing off and alone. “Something the matter, Steward?”
“Every so often, when new people found us, they would have a letter or two for me from Arise Faith. I never met the man, but he offered me the blessings of holy fellowship-then proceeded to tell me why my followers and I were damned.” The small man stared down into the ruined valley. “My people succumbed to the whispers of an idol and were rightly consigned to Perdition. But these people, they did nothing, and the flood wiped them out-the flood that revealed the ruin that poisoned my people. The citizens of Plentiful believe they are part of God’s plan. I believe I am as well. I daresay we would be judged to hold our beliefs with equal strength, yet one of us is wrong.”
“Didn’t you suggest the mind of God is unknowable?”
He turned back toward Owen. “True. Mr. Woods objected. I find it easy to see why now.” He looked at his empty hands, then shook his head. “Do you wish to know the worst of it, Captain Strake?”
“Sure.”
Fire’s eyes blazed with an intensity Owen hadn’t seen before. “With what God has showed me, I know I could clear this valley with the wave of a hand. I could raise crops-not the false manna you saw conjured through demonic instruments, but food that would sustain both mind and soul. I could ease their pain and make life easier for them. I could grant them the prosperity that their agony has certainly entitled them to.”
Owen folded his arms across his chest. “Why don’t you?”
“Because He has not given me leave to do so.” Fire glanced at the ground again. “I do not know if it is to punish me by having me know that were I a better person He would allow me to relieve their suffering, or if it is because He has need for my gifts to be used elsewhere, to greater effect. In Scripture, the Good Lord blessed those who believed without ever seeing a miracle. Is it thus that these people who so need a miracle will be blessed? My failure to please Him pains my soul. If you will excuse me, I must pray.”
Owen nodded and left Fire in peace. He worked his way higher up the hill and found Nathaniel standing with Kamiskwa, overlooking the valley. “I can’t begin to imagine how much help these people need.”
“A fair bit of it. Our supplies won’t go far, I’m afraid, but they will do until help gets here.”
“How long do you think that will be?”
Nathaniel shrugged. “I reckon Hodge and the Count done made it back to Temperance a week ago. If Hodge got together some help and started back fast, they could be here in another week or so, ten days at the outside.”
Makepeace came trudging up the hill and slung his pack at their feet. “I reckon I’m going to stay here, help out a bit. I feel the calling to do it. Onliest things left in there is the tablets, demon broth, and the wolf pelts. Sell mine, send supplies: seed, nails.”