“Dinner’s ready,” I said. “We can leave as soon as we’re finished.”
“Look what I found.” He handed me a smudged tatter of paper. “It was nailed to the door of the shed. The door didn’t burn.”
I held the paper gingerly and puzzled over it. The writing was almost illegible-Ex. 22:18.
“What is it?” I asked. “It doesn’t say anything.”
“Quotation,” said Nile. “That’s a quotation from the Bible.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yes. Let’s see. Exodus, Chapter 22, verse 18. Do you know it?”
“I’m not sure, but I have an idea. Can you get at the Bible? I’ll verify it.”
“It’s packed in one of my boxes at the bottom of the load.. Shall we-“
“Not now,” said Nils. “Tonight when we make camp.”
“What do you think it is?” I asked.
“I’d rather wait,” said Nils. “I hope I’m wrong.”
We ate. I tried to rouse the girl, but she turned away from me. I put half a slice of bread in her hand and closed her fingers over it and tucked it close to her mouth. Halfway through our silent meal, a movement caught my eye. The girl had turned to hunch herself over her two hands that now clasped the bread, tremblingly. She was chewing cautiously. She swallowed with an effort and stuffed her mouth again with bread, tears streaking down her face. She ate as one starved, and, when she had finished the bread, I brought her a cup of milk. I lifted her shoulders and held her as she drank. I took the empty cup and lowered her head to the quilt. For a moment my hand was caught under her head and I felt a brief deliberate pressure of her cheek against my wrist. Then she turned away.
Before we left the flat, we prayed over the single mound Nils had raised over the multiple grave. We had brought the girl over with us and she lay quietly, watching us. When we turned from our prayers, she held out in a shaking hand a white flower, so white that it almost seemed to cast a light across her face. I took it from her and put it gently on the mound. Then Nils lifted her and carried her to the wagon. I stayed a moment, not wanting to leave the grave lonely so soon. I shifted the white flower. In the sunlight its petals seemed to glow with an inner light, the golden center almost fluid. I wondered what kind of flower it could be. I lifted it and saw that it was just a daisy-looking flower after all, withering already in the heat of the day. I put it down again, gave a last pat to the mound, a last tag of prayer, and went back to the wagon.
By the time we made camp that night we were too exhausted from the forced miles and the heat and the events of the day to do anything but care for the animals and fall onto our pallets spread on the ground near the wagon. We had not made the next water hole because of the delay, but we carried enough water to tide us over. I was too tired to eat, but I roused enough to feed Nils on leftovers from dinner and to strain Molly’s milk into the milk crock. I gave the girl a cup of the fresh, warm milk and some more bread. She downed them both with a contained eagerness as though still starved. Looking at her slender shaking wrists and the dark hollows of her face, I wondered how long she had been so hungry.
We all slept heavily under the star-clustered sky, hut I was awakened somewhere in the shivery coolness of the night and reached to be sure the girl was covered. She was sitting up on the pallet, legs crossed tailor-fashion, looking up at the sky. I could see the turning of her head as she scanned the whole sky, back and forth, around and around, from zenith to horizon. Then she straightened slowly back down onto the quilt with an audible sigh.
I looked at the sky, too. It was spectacular with the stars of a moonless night here in the region of mountains and plains, but what had she been looking for? Perhaps she had just been enjoying being alive and able, still, to see the stars.
We started on again, very early, and made the next watering place while the shadows were still long with dawn.
“The wagons were here,” said Nils, “night before last, I guess.”
“What wagons?” I asked, pausing in my dipping of water.
“We’ve been in their tracks ever since the flat back there,” said Nils. “Two light wagons and several riders.”
“Probably old tracks-” I started. “Oh, but you said they were here night before last. Do you suppose they had anything to do with the fire back there?”
“No signs of them before we got to the flat,” said Nils.
“Two recent campfires here-as if they stayed the night here and made a special trip to the flat and back here again for the next night.”
“A special trip.” I shivered. “Surely you can’t think that civilized people in this nineteenth century could be so violent-so-so-I mean people just don’t-” My words died before the awful image in my mind.
“Don’t tie up other people and burn them?” Nils started shifting the water keg back toward the wagon. “Gail, our next camp is supposed to be at Grafton’s Vow. I think we’d better take time to dig out the Bible before we go on.”
So we did. And we looked at each other over Nils’s pointing finger and the flattened paper he had taken from the shed door.
“Oh, surely not!” I cried horrified. “It can’t be! Not in this day and age!”
“It can be,” said Nils. “In any age when people pervert goodness, love, and obedience and set up a god small enough to fit their shrunken souls.” And his finger traced again the brief lines: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
“Why did you want to check that quotation before we got to Grafton’s Vow?” I asked.
“Because it’s that kind of place,” said Nils. “They warned me at the county seat. In fact, some thought it might be wise to take the other trail-a day longer-one dry camp-but avoid Grafton’s Vow. There have been tales of stonings and-“
“What kind of place is it, anyway?” I asked.
