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Jehovah’s Valley, Sunday, September 28, 2013
Today the gate to Jehovah’s Valley was open. Roberta Brooks drove through it and eased down the gravel lane. Cars were parked in front of the church. Neighbors, Mac guessed.
The church was a small wooden building with a large cross on top. It had been left its natural wood color, weathering to a light brownish-gray. The doors were wide open, and people gathered in front, talking, laughing. Children played tag on the lawn in front. A couple of teenagers were perched on the fender of a pickup talking to other teens. Men were dressed in suits and ties. Mac hoped his khakis and button-down shirt would be acceptable. The women wore dresses, some long and plain, others brighter, more stylish.
It was just shortly before 9 a.m. Church started early so farmers could return to their fields if need be, Roberta Brooks had explained the day before. They’d talked until late. He met her family, and turning down an invitation to stay the night, left the house. He was restless, irritable. He entertained the notion of driving back out to the Valley to see if that guard was still there. Going a round with him would release some of the frustration.
Janet had warned Mac that Union had no motels, so he would need to stay in La Grande. Mac had driven the 15 miles back to La Grande, found a Kentucky Fried Chicken—he wasn’t completely in the middle of nowhere, he conceded—and checked into a motel by the Interstate. Actually, he had a hard time finding a vacancy. What brought people here, he wondered as he signed in. He thought about exploring the nightlife or calling it a night with KFC and the television. Country western bar music? He winced.
Then on impulse he called Kate.
“Mac! I’m glad you called,” she exclaimed. “Mom wanted me to tell you that Tim is making his schedule at the Pregnancy Clinic, although he’s skipping lots of classes. So, he hasn’t dropped out of sight altogether.”
Mac leaned back on the bed in his hotel room and listened to her talk.
Feeling much better about life, he went out, found a bar with a good pool table and shot pool with a bunch of guys. Country western still didn’t make it as music in his book, but the guys could play pool when it counted. With his restlessness soothed by Kate’s voice and the rituals of shooting pool in a bar, he headed back to the motel to try to sleep on a less-than-perfect mattress.
Now in the parking lot of the small church, Mac searched the faces, looking for the two young men from Friday’s encounter. He spotted the slimmer of the two, but not the hostile one. The faces all looked related. Because they are, he thought with a grin, or close to it. An old joke about what you call a hillbilly girl who can run faster than her brothers flittered through his mind. He lost his humor. He’d thought the joke worth a chuckle once upon a time, but not today.
Everyone filtered into the church. The windows were open, and fans circulated the air, but it was still hot. An organ and a piano played hymns. At least Mac supposed they were hymns.
A frail elderly man sat at the podium in front. It took a minute for Mac to realize that he had to be the Rev. Isaiah Brandt. Kate had described him as a big man, like Sean Connery, he remembered. The Reverend wasn’t big anymore.
“Cancer?” he whispered to Roberta Brooks.
She sighed. “It would be my guess,” she said.
A small girl, four or five, ran up to the Reverend and hugged him. He hugged her back, listening to her talk excitedly. Mac watched.
A big man came up to the podium, placed a hymnal on the stand there, and walked over to where the Reverend sat. He gestured impatiently to the mother of the little girl to take her away. The Reverend frowned, said something and the man turned away.
“Who is that?” Mac asked, although he had a guess.
“John Welch.”
Welch was a big, barrel-chested man roughly 50 years old. His suit fit him well. His shirt was a bit fresher than the others. A man who took pride in his appearances, Mac thought. No harm in that, except it seemed different—more sophisticated than the rest of these pleasant people. But then, Mac would see the bad in the man if he walked on water right in front of him.
A row of teenagers filed in and took their places behind the men by the podium. The choir, Mac decided.
He looked back toward the Reverend to find him staring at him. Mac shifted uneasily, then met the man’s eyes. I know you, the Rev. Brandt seemed to be saying. I know who you are.
Could he? Mac wondered. Or was it a guilty conscience on his part to be here in disguise? Be news to most of his friends to find out that he had a conscience at all, he thought with a hidden smile. He met the old man’s eyes and nodded. Yes, you know me, he thought.
For the next 30 minutes, John Welch led the congregation. They sang, loudly if not necessarily well, although a couple of people had excellent voices. There was a duet from an older couple; then a trio of young girls performed a chorus of praise. Next, the choir sang two numbers.
“Amen,” shouted one person in the middle of a song, startling Mac, who had the urge to duck for cover. He saw Roberta Brooks hide a smile.
And they prayed. The congregation stood to pray, and they knelt to pray. Not on fancy benches or pads, but on the fucking floor, Mac thought as he leveraged himself between the pews.
One man read a passage of scripture from the Old Testament—Mac recognized it vaguely from his Biblical Lit class in college — another from the New Testament. A boy of about eight, with a missing front tooth, recited another passage. Lots of Amens and Praise the Lords for that.
It was 10 a.m. when John Welch turned to Rev. Brandt, and carefully offered him his arm to stand. Rev. Brandt took the outstretched arm, stood, and walked slowly to the pulpit.
“Friends, family, loved ones,” he began, his voice quavering slightly. “Today I want to talk to you about the Will of God.”
His voice strengthened, and Mac could see what he must have been like in times past, a strong, powerful man. Even now, he could command the attention of a hot, thirsty crowd who had already been in the service an hour.
“Abraham had been promised a son. But he was old, and his wife was old. When Isaac was born, Abraham thought him a miracle,” the old man began. He talked about the miracle all parents felt toward their children. “One day, it came time to sacrifice for the people. Abraham knew what he had to do, he had to sacrifice his son.”
Mac listened intently. The old man was speaking to him, about something, he thought. He knew the story of Abraham and Isaac. It had been much discussed in his college class as a seminal moment in the pivot from human sacrifice to symbolic sacrifice. Did it mean the same thing to these people?
The preacher described how Abraham built an altar, his heart breaking, but determined to follow God’s will. And then the ram appeared.
“What I ask you today: Was Abraham truly walking in the will of God when he planned that sacrifice? How can we ever know for sure, if it is God speaking to us, or our own minds struggling with the problems that face us? And if God’s plan was for Abraham to sacrifice his son, what does the ram mean? Did God change his mind? Was it truly a test of faith, as we are often taught? Does God break our hearts—as Abraham’s heart must have been breaking—just to see if we will have faith?”
Mac wondered how Isaac had felt. And then it clicked. Rev. Brandt was talking about himself. And Janet. His attention sharpened.
“Abraham’s sin of pride and arrogance almost cost him his son,” the preacher said slowly. “He thought he knew the will of God. He thought he knew what sacrifice the Lord demanded of him. He thought he knew.”
Brandt embroidered on that theme for a bit. “God’s will is made plain to us only upon much searching with a humble spirit. To arrogantly proclaim the will of God is to defy Him. To seek his Will is to serve Him, daily, prayerfully. Let us pray.”
Mac bowed his head with the others.
A teenager caught Roberta Brooks’ attention: “Preacher wants to meet your guest, Mrs. Brooks,” she said.
“Yes, dear,” Roberta said, smiling at her. “We’ll go that way.” As an aside to Mac, she said, “I assume that is what you want.”
Mac nodded, his gaze seeking out the old man in front. “That sermon,” he began, then stopped.
She nodded. “Yes, I thought so, too.”
Rev. Brandt took Roberta’s hand. “It’s been too long since you’ve joined us for a service, Roberta,” he said, smiling at her.
She smiled back, squeezed his hand. “This is Mac Davis,” she said. “A writer visiting us.”
“I know who he is,” Brandt said. He looked at Mac. “What did you think of the service, young man?”
“Interesting.”
Brandt nodded. “Stay for dinner, why don’t you? Then we can talk.”
Roberta said she needed to get home and fix dinner for her family. “But you can stay, Mac,” she suggested. “Someone can run you home before supper.”
“One of the teens will be glad for the excuse to drive,” Brandt said dryly. “We’ll have him down there by 6 p.m., Roberta.”
“And if you aren’t, I’ll send Bud up after you,” she whispered, as she turned to leave. Mac smiled gratefully.
“If you’ll give me your arm young man, we’ll head out to the dinner table. We still do a community dinner on Sundays, used to eat most meals this way. But we’ve gotten too big,” the preacher said as he leveraged himself up out of the seat. Mac offered him his arm.
Outside, women were bustling around setting out food. Men lounged around tables talking while the children ran and shrieked in games of tag. It was hot; the tables were set in the shade of the trees around the houses.
“Come, we’ll eat with my family,” the preacher said as he slowly guided Mac toward one group. “My sons and their wives. Their teenagers. A horde of people.”
“How many people in the Valley?”
“One hundred and 59,” he replied promptly. “Some of the original people who came here with me are still alive. Their children and their families. Now the third generation are beginning to find mates and start families.”
Mac eased him into a chair waiting at the table. He took a seat farther down; the preacher introduced him to the family as a writer “so be careful what you say to him,” and went around the table: Stephen and his wife Paula, Daniel and Sarah. After that Mac lost track of names and whose kids belonged to whom. The teens were discussing the afternoon softball game. The adults talked about crops and weather, and school starting. Mac was struck by the fact that no one talked about television shows or sports stars or music entertainers. No television, Roberta Brooks had said. It made a difference in a lot of things.
After the dinner—fried chicken, mashed potatoes, a green salad, corn on the cob—Rev. Brandt offered Mac some homemade apple cider. “We can sit on the porch, watch that softball game from the shade,” he said. Mac offered him his arm without being asked. The preacher barely came to his shoulder.
Paula served them cider and then bustled about doing dishes.
“So, you’re the reporter who broke the big story last year, works for my daughter,” the preacher said, settling into a rocking chair.
Mac nodded, took a sip of cider. “Others know?”
The preacher shook his head. “My daughter has been gone a long time,” he said. “But I keep track of her. Others would recognize your name if I mentioned the story. We keep current on politics out here; it’s part of our responsibility as citizens.”
He was silent for a bit. “Have you ever made a big mistake? One that there’s no going back and correcting?”
“I’ve made a few,” Mac said, non-committal. He thought of the two men who died during the story everyone praised. No going back and changing that.
“I made one of those mistakes, and I led my people out of the will of God in doing so. The story of Abraham? Do you ever wonder how different our world would be if Abraham hadn’t seen the ram in time? If he had continued in his arrogance and killed his son? No fixing that mistake.”
The preacher rocked for a moment. Mac said nothing. “My daughter had—has—her mother’s brains and my stubbornness. We locked horns from the day she was born. She should have been born a son. She has the gift of leadership, and she never could see that submissiveness was still required—no matter what the gift. God works in strange ways sometimes—why waste such a gift on a woman who couldn’t lead us?”
The question was rhetorical, but Mac answered anyway. “Maybe you should have let her lead. Some churches do.”
The old man shook his head. “It is clear in the Bible; women are to submit to their husbands. Men are to love their wives as Christ loves the church—willing to die for them. Look around you, young man. You see happy families. There is no divorce here. No violent marriages or child abuse. People know their roles and serve them gladly.”
Mac didn’t argue. Hell, he wasn’t sure what the argument would be. No divorce? No violence? If true... thinking of John Welch’s attack on Janet.
The preacher went on, not needing a response. “I was staring 60 in the face. I thought I was old. Now I know I was just at the beginning of my real adult life. But then I thought time was running out. I needed to prepare my successor.
“Not my sons. They are good men, love their families, have their own gifts. But people don’t instinctively follow them. They’d follow my daughter! Even when she was 10, she could inspire them.
“The obvious leader to succeed me was a man named John Welch. You saw him this morning. But he troubled me. He has this edge to him, a harshness. I, in my arrogance, saw God’s will. A marriage between John and my daughter—that she could soothe his rough edges the way my Mary had soothed mine. I was so certain that was God’s plan.
“And then I found out that Mary had been conspiring with her sister and with the teachers at the school to send Janet to the University of Washington. Where Mary went to school. I felt betrayed. Betrayed by my wife no less.”
“I could rage back then. Can’t do it now. Drop dead if I tried.” He laughed. “I raged. I knew if Janet went to the University she’d never come back. And the people needed her, needed her to be the wife of the next preacher, the next leader.”
He sighed. “I tried to force God’s will. Arrogance.”
He rocked for a while. “Twenty years have passed. The Valley has flourished. But I know... I know I sacrificed my child when I should have let God do His will. And now we have no leader for the next generation.”
Mac could see Rev. Brandt tremble; tears close to the surface. He said nothing.
“But you know what? God has given me a promise. He said raise up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not part from it. And I know that God will bring my child back.”
Mac started. “Bring Janet back here?” he asked. “To be the Valley’s next preacher?”
The preacher snorted. “Haven’t you been listening? She can’t be the preacher. But she will come back and marry the man who will lead.”
Not a snowball’s chance in hell, Mac thought. “Marry who?”
The man rocked. “I don’t know that, son,” he said. Mac didn’t bristle at the term as he usually did. “I don’t know. That was my pride the last time around. This time, I will let God work out the details. I just pray I live long enough to see the promise fulfilled.”
With no warning, Rev. Brandt closed his eyes and let his head rest against the back of the chair and fell asleep. Mac watched for a moment, not sure if he should be alarmed. Finally, he went and found Paula.
Paula pressed her fingers lightly against the Preacher’s neck. “Just sleeping,” she said reassuringly. “He usually naps about this time. Preaching takes a lot out of him. He shouldn’t really. But it is what he keeps going for, I think. The doctors...” she swallowed hard, “the doctors say there isn’t anything more they can do for him. The cancer is eating him up.”
She looked at the old man in the chair with real love. Mac shifted uncomfortably, and she looked at him. “Let me find Stephen. Preacher asked him to show you around.”
If he knew what he was looking for, it would be easier, Mac thought. But he didn’t. Gather the information, sort the story out later.
The Valley looked like a prosperous farm. Stephen talked about the crops, the fields, the cattle on the hills. Mac groped for the right questions—shit, any questions. Farming was not his area of expertise.
He asked to see the graveyard. Stephen looked at him peculiarly but led him up a small slope where a few white crosses decorated a small plot enclosed by a white picket fence. Mac glanced at Mary Brandt’s headstone—Beloved Wife it said. “People speak highly of her,” Mac said to her son. Stephen Brandt nodded.
Mac found the headstone he wanted: Elijah Andrews—he fought for his country. Well that much was true, he thought. Just the date of death was in error. They walked down the slope in silence.
“When I came up here Friday, there were two young men guarding the gate,” Mac said. “You need to do that?”
Stephen frowned. “Guarding? Oh, was that you? John Junior and my son said something about meeting a stranger. They were just out hunting.”
Hunting. Right, Mac thought. Hunting what he wondered?
Still, something had been nagging at him since he saw the two guards at the gate: they’d been dressed in jeans, T-shirts and good work boots, none of which came cheap. And the shotguns had been relatively new. “I don’t see how this place supports this many people,” he said slowly, as the two of them walked down toward the paddock where horses stood dozing in the shade of the barn.
Stephen smiled. “Our wants are few,” he said. “Although sometimes it does seem like the loaves and the fishes.”
Whatever that meant, Mac thought, but guessed it was some scriptural thing. He should have paid more attention in the Biblical Literature class.
“Still, you must need some cash money.”
Stephen nodded. “This last decade or so, we’ve started encouraging people to work outside the Valley. We’ve teachers and nurses, skilled mechanics and farm hands. Fifty percent of their income is given to the Valley corporation. And we encourage our neighbors to tithe at least 10 percent if they attend the church here regularly. But the land is paid for. We raise most of our own food. Life is pretty simple here.”
The warmth of the day on top of the hearty noon meal made Mac lethargic.
“You should not be here,” a strong male voice said behind him. Mac turned, balancing on his feet, sensing a threat.
John Welch stood there, his fists clenched, his face red with anger.
“John!” Stephen said sharply. “This is father’s guest.”
“You have no idea who he is,” John Welch roared. “I listened to their conversation. He’s a tool of the devil, I tell you!”
Welch walked up close. Mac stood his ground. “You will go from here,” he ordered. “And you won’t come back.”
Mac felt the lethargy leave, his mind cleared. Threats he understood. “I’ll go when I chose to,” he said, taking a step closer. “Rev. Brandt welcomed me here. You have no say over when I stay or go.”
“I am the leader of this valley!” Welch shouted. “Preacher should have stepped down years ago. I run this place. Not him. He’s old. Too old. And I say you will leave here now!”
Stephen intervened. “John, it’s OK,” he soothed. “Really. Mac is a writer, getting a tour of the Valley. It’s OK. You need to go back to the house and calm down. We’ll talk later.”
Mac stood almost chest to chest with the man. He met his eyes coldly. Come on, old man, he thought, letting the dare show in his eyes. Throw a punch. Let me have an excuse to beat you to a bloody pulp. He felt the adrenaline rush and smiled.
Welch glared at him. Not intimidated, but wary. He took a deep breath. Looked at Stephen. “Sorry,” he said in a tone that clearly said he didn’t mean the apology at all. “Things are tense right now with Preacher’s illness.”
He turned on his heel and walked away. Mac let out a breath slowly, then turned to look at Stephen Brandt.
“Is he always that way?”
Stephen Brandt shrugged. “He’s always had a bit of a temper,” he said. “Things are tense with Dad’s ill health. John does run a lot of the business side these days.” He shrugged again. “Come on let’s see the barns, and then I’ll have one of my sons drive you back to Mrs. Brooks.”
Mac worked the tension out of his shoulders and followed Stephen into the barn where the dairy cows were milked. “Will John Welch truly become the leader of this community?” Mac asked quietly. He focused on some kittens chasing dust in a beam of light. That about summed up what he was doing, Mac thought.
Stephen sighed. He looked away from Mac, saw the cats and smiled. “The others are willing to look to John,” he said slowly. “There’s no one else who can command that kind of loyalty.”
“So your father said. Maybe your father ought to ask where he’s leading you instead.”
Stephen snorted. “That’s a good question. Too bad it wasn’t asked decades ago. Too late now.” Stephen glanced around at Mac; his eyes widened. “John! What are you...”?
It was all the warning Mac got, when he felt the hot, burning sensation of being hit at the base of his scalp. Shit! He tried to roll with the blow but only partially succeeded.
He lay in the dusty hay chaff on the barn floor, fighting to not to lose consciousness. He was vaguely aware of the two men arguing above him. He tried to focus on what they were saying.
“...can’t have him snooping around here, poking his nose into things.” John Welch’s voice echoed.
“What are you planning to do now?” Stephen demanded. “I was handling his questions all right. You don’t think this will make him suspicious?”
“...bury him out in the hills, just like the last...”
Mac fought to stay conscious. Don’t fade now, he commanded himself.
“We can’t. He’s been too visible. It’s one thing for someone snooping around and trying to stay hidden himself to disappear in the hills. But this man’s been in church, he’s staying with Roberta Brooks, he’s been visiting with father. He can’t just disappear. People will ask questions. Too many people have seen him.”
The implied threats helped Mac to focus. He thought about launching himself at John Welch, beating him to the ground. Right, he jeered silently. And then stagger out, through all of his relatives, and ask for a ride home? He sure wasn’t walking to town.
“Then get rid of him,” Welch said coldly. “Get him off this property. Tell him not to come back.”
“Go on John, leave it to me.” Stephen’s voice was weary. “Find one of my sons and tell him to bring the van down, will you?”
Mac waited until he couldn’t hear footsteps any longer. He struggled to his knees. Groaned. Opened one eye. Saw a piece of firewood lying near him. He hit me with a piece of fucking firewood, he thought sourly.
“You OK?” Stephen bent over him anxiously and helped him to his feet.
“Just get me out of here,” Mac mumbled. He fought to control the rage bubbling up inside of him. Not even the wooziness stopped him. If he didn’t leave, he’d go after Welch, and worry about what to do next when he got there.
“I’ll take you to the Brooks’ house,” Stephen soothed. He walked Mac toward the barn door. “Just don’t pass out until I get you in the van, OK?”
“I’m not going to pass out.”
“Don’t come back here, Mac,” Stephen said, as he helped Mac into the van, closed the door. “John will kill you if he sees you again.”
“He’d best do it before I see him first,” Mac said, opening his eyes to look coldly at Stephen. Stephen looked away. He brushed off his son’s questions and got in behind the steering wheel. Mac leaned back and closed his eyes. I will not throw up, he thought, as the nausea from the blow to the head increased with each curve of the road. I will not throw up.
The van lurched to a stop. “Wait until I can help you,” Stephen Brandt said, the first words he’d uttered since starting the drive to town.
Mac waited until the car door opened. He eased himself out, shaking off Stephen’s helping hands and opened his eyes slowly.
“What happened?” Roberta Brooks demanded as she moved quickly from the porch to the car. She reached for him.
“He and John Welch got into a fight,” Stephen said remorsefully.
“He hit me with a piece of firewood,” Mac said, furious, although it came out more mumbled than he wanted. “From behind.”
Hands guided him into the house. “Get him some pain killers and water, Roberta,” Bud Brooks said. “And let’s get him to the bed in the spare room.”
Mac took the aspirin gratefully, drank the water. He lay back on the bed and let the world fade.
When Mac awakened, the house was quiet. He lay still, organizing his thoughts, remembering where he was and how he’d gotten there. His head throbbed, but his mind was clear. He looked at the clock... 2 a.m. He’d been asleep for nearly 10 hours. Slowly he sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. The room shook, then steadied. He stood up and walked across the room slowly. He was all right, he decided. A mild concussion, maybe, but he’d be fine. Quietly, he went out into the kitchen. A plate of food with a note sat on the table. He read the note, smiled and ate some of the food. His stomach accepted it; the nausea was gone.
Mac scribbled a thank you note and left it on the table. He found the aspirin and took several more.
For a moment, he was tempted to drive out to the Valley and pay a visit to John Welch. He snorted. There’d been a time in his life when he probably would have done that. He was more mature than that now, he told himself. He could be in Seattle by 10 a.m., if he left now. Go into work, just a bit late. It sounded good. Better head west before he changed his mind about going after Welch.