“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” the stout woman said. “Your friend would be better served if he were to realize that all things work to the glory of God.”
Nate couldn’t see how in this instance, but he held his tongue and said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll collect him and we’ll head back. If we push the wagons, Blunt can be here by tomorrow evening.”
“But you just got here,” Lexington said. “Why not rest a bit and I will give you a tour?”
“Pride, Brother,” the woman said.
“I know, Sister Amelia, but they are our first visitors. And who knows, Brother King, here, might take it into his head to become a member of Second Eden.”
“That’s what you call this place?”
“I picked the name myself,” Elder Lexington confirmed. “Frankly, I can’t think of a more fitting name.”
Nate gazed at the stark rocky ramparts speckled by the dark mouths of caves and the valley floor littered with gleaming skulls and dotted by bubbling hot springs, boiling mud pots, and hissing steam vents. “I can think of one.”
Arthur Lexington chuckled. “I can guess what it is, too. In a year, though, we will have transformed this valley into the Eden we would like it to be. You wait and see.”
“Amen,” Sister Amelia said. She turned to the younger woman. “You can go now, Sister Benedine. Pick a basketful of flowers and be back here within the hour.”
“I will, Sister,” Benedine said, and cheerfully headed back down the valley, swinging her basket and humming.
Alarm spiked Nate into saying. “Did I hear that right? She’s going out of the valley to get flowers?”
“There are none in Second Eden as yet, Brother King,” Lexington said. “That will change once we cultivate the soil.”
Nate was going to ask how they would go about cultivating rock since that was what most of the valley consisted of, but he had a weightier concern. “It’s not safe.”
“What isn’t?” Sister Amelia asked.
“Sending that girl out alone. She could run into hostiles or a mountain lion or you name it.”
“Pshaw,” Amelia scoffed. “She’ll be perfectly fine. The Lord will watch over her and protect her.”
Nate thought of Wendell and his family and what was left of them at the bottom of the basin. “Send someone with her. Someone with a gun.”
Elder Lexington and Sister Amelia looked at each other and then at Nate, and smiled those benign smiles.
“You must know very little about the Shakers, Brother King,” Lexington said. “We do not believe in violence. We do not believe in killing. There isn’t a single gun in this valley except for yours and Brother Maklin’s.”
“The Lord is our buckler and our shield,” Lexington intoned. “He safeguards us from harm.”
“Dear God.”
“I’ll thank you not to take the Lord’s name in vain, Brother King,” Sister Amelia said sternly.
“You don’t understand,” Nate said, bending down. “That girl could be killed. All of you could. That you made it this far and lasted this long is a miracle.”
“Exactly,” Lexington said, and beamed. “Added proof that the Almighty is indeed watching over us as He does the lowly sparrow.”
Nate glanced over his shoulder. Sister Benedine was past the corral. “Please. Send a man along.”
“Oh, that wouldn’t do,” Sister Amelia said. “That wouldn’t do at all.”
“I should say not,” Elder Lexington agreed. “You must be more observant, Brother King. “Or haven’t you noticed that the men and women in our colony do not work side by side?”
“We do not believe in mingling,” Amelia elaborated. “Males and females do not work together. They do not eat together. They certainly do not share the same sleeping quarters.”
“Why not?”
Lexington chuckled at Amelia. “He certainly doesn’t know anything about us, does he? Perhaps I should enlighten him.” He crooked a finger. “Come with us, Brother King, if you would.”
Nate dismounted and gazed after Sister Benedine, who was still skipping along. Frowning, he followed the leader of the colony and Sister Amelia over to the building under construction.
“You will note that only men do the building,” Elder Lexington pointed out. “The women are busy with washing clothes and sewing and preparing food.”
“Each gender has its own sphere,” Amelia said.
Nate shrugged. “That’s not much different from the outside world.” Not that he entirely approved. There were many things women could do as well as men but were looked down on if they did.
“True,” Lexington conceded. “But the Shakers take it a step further.” He paused and gave an odd sort of grin. “I trust you are familiar with our philosophy toward procreation?”
“What?” Nate had been looking down the valley again. Sister Benedine was almost out of sight.
“Our attitude toward having children, and toward—pardon me, Sister Amelia for being vulgar—the act that produces them.”
Nate kept quiet. He was fond of that act, himself.
“Shakers never, ever give sway to their carnal natures. We suppress them. We smother them. We eliminate them from our lives. We don’t give them a chance to enter our heads.”
Nate didn’t see how that was possible, but again he kept silent.
“In our communities east of the Mississippi,” Elder Lexington continued, “men and women are always separated. They sleep in separate rooms. They enter and leave buildings through separate doors. When they must meet for meals or what have you, they sit on opposite sides of the room.”
“Only when we worship do we mingle,” Sister Amelia declared. “For then the hand of the Lord is upon us.”
“Exactly,” Lexington agreed. “As you may see for yourself before your stay with us is concluded.” He pointed at the two long, low log structures. “Do you see those? We have taken the separation a step more. One of those buildings is for the men, the other for the women.”
“We believe in as near complete separation as possible,” Sister Amelia explained. “It is one of Elder Lexington’s views that caused us to break away from the main movement and start our own colony.”
Elder Lexington raised an ecstatic face to the heavens. “We must be pure for our Maker, Brother King. We must be ready at all times for the advent of the Second Coming.”
Nate finally had to say something. “But if you don’t have children, who will carry on after you’re gone?”
Lexington turned and put a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “We grow by converting others, Brother King.”
“Back in the States they also adopt children, but that is another thing Brother Lexington is against,” Sister Amelia revealed.
Lexington clucked like an irate hen. “Our brothers and sisters descend on orphanages and take away ten or twenty at a time. Their intentions are praiseworthy, but I think it wrong. Children are incapable of appreciating God to the fullest. They can’t enter heaven because they are flawed.”
Nate could only stare.
“Ah. I see that look,” Lexington said. “But I know whereof I speak. I have seen the truth in a vision.”
“A vision,” Sister Amelia echoed.
Nate gazed about him. The smiling faces, the singing, the hustle and bustle: he began to see them in a different light. “I could never be a Shaker.”
“Never say never,” Elder Lexington said with a smirk. “But why not, may I ask?”
Nate looked him in the eye. “I have a son and a daughter. I love them dearly. They’re not perfect. None of us are. But they aren’t flawed, either. Not in the way you mean.”
“Now, Brother King, don’t misconstrue. I’m not saying children are evil, although as the fruit of our loins they bear the taint of sin. I am merely saying they are incomplete. They can’t experience God to His fullness.”
“All Shakers think that?”
“Oh no, or else those back East wouldn’t adopt as they do. But it’s why we didn’t bring any children with us.”
