They’re the lucky ones. But Pa did, and Hostetter did, and now it is my time. The battle of decision, the time of choice.
I made a decision in Piper’s Run. It was a child’s decision, based on a child’s dreams. I made a decision in Bartorstown, and it was still a childish decision, based on emotion. Now I am finished with dreams. I am finished with emotions. I have fasted my forty days in the wilderness and I am through with penance. I stand stripped and naked, but I stand as a man. What decision I make I will make as a man, and there will be no turning back from it after it is made.
Three days, to tear away the last sweet sunlit hopes.
I will not go back to Piper’s Run. Whichever way I go, it will not be there. Piper’s Run is a memory of childhood, and I am finished with memories, too. That door is closed behind me, long ago. Piper’s Run was a memory of peace, but no matter which way I go I know now that I will never have peace.
For peace is certainty, and there is no certainty but death.
Four days, to set the stubborn feet firmly on the ground, teaching them not to run.
Because I am finished with running. Now I will stop and choose my way.
Sooner or later a man has to stop and choose his way, not out of the ways he would like there to be, or the ways there ought to be, but out of the ways there are.
Five days, in which to choose.
There were people in the town. It was the time of the fall trading, the hot dead time when the shinnery stands gray and stiff and the bear grass rustles in the wind and every plank of wood is as dry as a cracked bone. They came in from the outlying ranches to barter for their winter supplies, and the traders’ wagons were lined up in a row at the end of the one short, dusty street.
All over the land, he thought, it is the time of the fall trading. All over the land there are fairs, and the wagons are pulled up, and the men trade cattle and the women chaffer over cloth and sugar. All over the land it is the same, unchanging. And after the trading and the fair there is the preaching, the fall revival to stock the soul against the winter too. This is life. This is the way it is.
He walked the street restlessly, up and down. He stood by the traders’ wagons, looking into the faces of the people, listening to their talk.
They have found their truth. The New Ishmaelites have found theirs, and the New Mennonites, and the men of Bartorstown.
Now I must find mine.
Joan watched him from under the corners of her eyelids and was afraid to speak.
On the fifth night the trading was all done. Torches were set up around a platform in the trampled space at the end of the street. The stars blazed bright in the sky and the wind turned cool and the baked earth breathed out its heat. The people gathered.
Len sat on the crushed dry shinnery, holding Joan’s hand. He did not notice after all when the wagon rolled in quietly at the other side of the crowd. But after a while he turned, and Hostetter was sitting there beside him.
30
The voice of the preacher rang out strong and strident. “A thousand years, my brethren. A thousand years. That’s what we was promised. And I tell you we are already in that blessed time, a-heading toward the Glory that was planned for them that keeps the way of righteousness. I tell you—”
Hostetter looked at Len in the flickering light of the wind-blown torches, and Len looked at him, but neither of them spoke.
Joan whispered something that might have been Hostetter’s name. She pulled her hand away from Len’s and started to scramble around behind him as though she wanted to get to Hostetter. Len caught her and pulled her down.
“Stay by me.”
“Let me go. Len—”
“Stay by me.”
She whimpered and was still. Her eyes sought Hostetter’s.
Len said to both of them, “Be quiet. I want to listen.”
“—and except you go as little children, the Book says, you won’t never get in. Because Heaven wasn’t made for the unrighteous. It wasn’t made for the scoffer and the unbeliever. No sir, my brothers and sisters! And you ain’t in the clear yet. Just because the Lord has chose to save you out from the Destruction, don’t you think for a minute—”
It was on another night, at another preaching, that I set my foot upon the path.
A man died that night. His name was Soames. He had a red beard, and they stoned him to death because he was from Bartorstown.
Let me listen. Let me think.
“—a thousand years!” cried the preacher, thumping on his dusty Book, stamping his boots on the dusty planks. “But you got to work for it! You can’t just set down and pay no heed! You can’t shirk your bounden duty to the Lord!”
Let it blow through me like a great wind. Let the words sound in my ears like trumpets.
I can speak. A power has been given me. I can kill another man as that boy killed Soames, and free myself.
I can speak again, and lead the way to Bartorstown as Burdette led his men to Refuge. Many will die, just as Dulinsky died. But Moloch will be thrown down.
Joan sits rigid beside me. The tears run on her cheeks. Hostetter sits on the other side. He must know what I am thinking. But he waits.
He was part of that other night. Part of Refuge. Part of Piper’s Run and Bartorstown, the one end and the other and in the middle.
Can I wipe it all away with his blood?
Hallelujah!
Confess your sins! Let your soul be cleansed of its burden of black guilt, so the Lord won’t burn you again with fire! Hallelujah!
“Well, Len?” said Hostetter.
They are screaming as they screamed that night. And what if I rise and confess my sin, offering this man as a sacrifice? I will not be cleansed of knowledge. Knowledge is not like sin. There is no mystical escape from it
And what if I throw down Moloch, with the bowels of fire and the head of brass?
The knowledge will still exist. Somewhere. In some book, some human brain, under some other mountain. What men have found once they will find again. Hostetter is rising to his feet. “You’re forgetting something I told you. You’re forgetting we’re fanatics too. You’re forgetting I can’t let you run loose.”
“Go ahead,” said Len. He stood up, too, dragging Joan with him by the hand. “Go ahead if you can.”
They looked at each other in the torchlight, while the crowd stamped and raised the dust and shouted hallelujah.
I have let it blow through me, and it is just a wind. I have let the words sound in my ears, and they are nothing but words, spoken by an ignorant man with a dusty beard. They do not stir me, they do not touch me. I am done with them, too.
I know now what lies across the land, the slow and heavy weight. They call it faith, but it is not faith. It is fear. The people have clapped a shelter over their heads, a necessity of ignorance, a passion of retreat, and they have called it God, and worshiped it. And it is as false as any Moloch. So false that men like Soames, men like Dulinsky, men like Esau and myself will overthrow it. And it will betray its worshipers, leaving them defenseless in the face of a tomorrow that will surely come. It may be a slow coming, and a long one, but come it will, and all their desperation will not stop it. Nothing will stop it.
