TCD

TDD00: Muskets fell like rows of dominoes atop stone walls built on the banks  of a  quiet creek. Reaching the horizontal they fired, burning eyes  with the  pungent smoke  of spent  powder. Downstream the walls became the rails of a  stone bridge. Union and Confederate soldiers  converged on  foot, shouting  as they merged. The fighting deteriorated  to bayonet thrusts  and even fisticuffs. The federals had greater momentum and nearly reached the other side  of the  bridge before  the rebels  bounced them back.

TDD01: The boys in blue trod in reverse over  a layer of bodies one deep. Some were dead, others writhed with broken  bones or lead  balls lodged  in their  innards. Some of the fallen  had survived the battle of Shiloh where the war attained the current level of savagery.

A tube loaded with canister shot  lined up on the  long axis of the bridge and mowed down  counterattacking rebels like grass to form a  second layer of  bodies. Some of these men in  gray had survived the artillery hell of Malvern Hill.

TDD02: Two guns on the rebel side of the  creek upstream maimed the Union gunners with bursting  shells and another  tube fired solid shot. The Union gun became a pile of splinters and dented steel. Then followed a Rebel counter-assault. Quickly the men in gray gained most of the bridge, which had become an abattoir.

A colonel on the Union side was shot, but to  the wonder of his men he stood up again with a lead ball lodged in his Bible. With this divine sanction the officer led yet another attack.

TDD03: Men standing on the mounting pile of bodies swapped empty muskets for loaded ones handed up to them like  water in a fire bucket brigade. In the end  the  rebel  infantry ran  low  on gunpowder and knew  the bridge was lost. They pulled back their two pieces of artillery with fresh troops firing in a rearguard action.

The federal general commanding the corps  assaulting the bridge saw retreating gray backs. He ordered a lieutenant to  ride to headquarters to report a bridgehead had been secured.

TDD04: But the junior officer tasked to be a  messenger saw how the bridge was stacked with bodies and refused to desecrate the dead of either side. Instead he dropped  to the creek  bed and splashed across the stream on foot, bypassing all the carnage on the bridge. In so doing the officer suffered  little hardship. After all, as the  local farmers  well knew,  the water  in the creek was only knee deep.

At the end of the day the Army of Northern Virginia was bottled up against a bend of the Potomac.

TDD05: All the next  day the federal  commander watched  from a long slope rising  north of the river and refused  to advance on Lee,  even  with  a  two-to-one numerical  advantage. Were the numbers ten-to-one he would yet wire Washington to say he didn't have enough men.

The meetinghouse  of  the  local German  Baptist  Brethren  was pressed into service as  a field hospital  for the  Union army. Dried blood and fresh blood stained the interior walls. Daylight intruded in beams through bullet holes in the walls.

TDD06: One doctor  sedated  men with  chloroform while  another sawed off their limbs and threw  them into a pile. A messenger arrived by horse with orders to get the wounded out. The pile of amputated limbs was set ablaze. as horse-drawn ambulances carted the wounded away. Every bump in the road elicited screams from the men inside. No one who witnessed the convoy of pain and the carnage that was left  behind would again  say they  craved the glories of war. Certainly none of the Christian Brethren did.

TDD07: Three days  prior, when  they first  heard the  sound of artillery on South Mountain, the  Brethren thought it prudent to move their work horses far from the men of either army who might want to "requisition" them. Now, upon their poor leftover mules, they rode out to bury the dead. For this task the United States government paid a dollar for every man they laid to rest. There was a rumor going around that one fellow, not  of the Brethren, dropped sixty dead men into a dry well and took the money.

TDD08: The German Brethren found  their labors to be  a hateful thing, but more  bitter was  seeing their  beloved meetinghouse turned into a bullet-riddled slaughterhouse. Hundreds of bodies lay near their house of prayer. The Long Table was covered with blood. The east door, where the menfolk entered,  and the south door, where the womenfolk  entered, had  been removed  from the hinges and used as operating tables. And naturally the expensive Bible gifted to the congregation by Daniel Miller was missing.

TDD09: Chief  elder  David   Long  inspected  the  meetinghouse thoroughly and said, "Do  not grieve  overmuch, my  friends. We shall bury the  dead and make our meetinghouse like  new. If the Brethren  have willing  hands,  soon  all this  will  be but  an unhappy memory."

Deacon Mark Lange  remained unmoved  by Elder  Long's words  of hope. He said, "Nothing will stop the same thing from happening once more, Brother  David. Virginia lies just  over yonder river and last month there was a second battle of Manassas."

TDD09:  "I  can   do   nothing  to   remedy  that   unfortunate circumstance, Brother  Mark. This  shore happens  to be  an easy place to get across the Potomac."

"We should build anew at my  uncle's farm to the  north. By his leave our horses have already  been moved there to guard against thieves."

Elder Jacob Reichard said,  "For a decision  of this  import we must let  the Lord make  his will known. So  let us pray  on it, each one of us.

Long said, "Amen Brother Jacob!  And there is no  prayer better than work."

TDD10: After the  Brethren finished  burying the  dead soldiers Elder Long declared  he would  stay in  Maryland, as  would the Sherrich family. Also Samuel Mumma, the man who had donated the land for their meetinghouse, was intent on restoring the family farm the  two  armies  had demolished. The deacons  who  were originally deeded the plot for the Mumma meetinghouse also chose to stay.

But Daniel Miller sold his corn field for pennies on the dollar, as it was now little more than a battlefield cemetery.

TDD11: Miller and ten other families joined Lange  in seeking a quiet new life far from the threat of war, or so they hoped.

Before the battle  the horses  of the  Brethren had  been taken north by five male cousins  from Lange's father's side. As the families prepared to  move  the horses  were  returned. It was Mark's cousin Joanna who brought them all back, and this she did entirely by herself.

Joanna's own horse was  groomed better than  she was,  yet Mark fell stone in love with her at first sight.

TDD12: On the road up north when the weather  turned bad Joanna let her horse have the tent while she slept outside. At home in Pennsylvania she spent more time cleaning her horse than helping her mother clean the house. Mark thought the house was a pigsty but the barn was neat as a pin.

TDD13: When her mother said  Joanna needed a male  companion to quiet  some of  the  rumors  going around  she  got a  stallion. Joanna's father looked askance when Mark began courting her but her mother was clearly overjoyed.

TDD14: One time he grew jealous at finding a strange hair on her coat but Joanna was easily able to produce the  horse to match. At her bridal shower Joanna  received a large number  of gifts. Most of these were actual  bridles. When the happy day finally arrived and it was time to show up for  her wedding Joanna came in late because  she took  too long  cleaning the  stalls. Mark married her anyway.

TDD15: The  following  summer  the Army  of  Northern  Virginia crossed the Potomac River once  more, but federal  movements in response  forced the  Confederate commander  to concentrate  his forces at  Gettysburg, which  was  a  dense  node in  the  road network, and this brought on the biggest battle of the war.

TDD16: On the third day of the conflagration  Mark Lange walked to the meetinghouse and found  all the pews  scattered outside. Union officers were seated  upon them  idly smoking  cigars and playing tic tac  toe on  them  with pocket  knives. Inside the meetinghouse the Army  of the  Potomac's commander  poured over maps laid on the Long Table and concluded the  next hammer blow would land on the center. The short-tempered commanding general angrily demanded who he was. Mark said, "I'm the the pastor of this church!"

TDD17: The general replied, "The hell you say, sir! This is the headquarters of  the Army! Now get  out of my sight,  parson, or I'll  put a  musket in  your  hand and  stand you  up on  yonder stone--"

His tirade was  interrupted by  a  crash as  the church  filled with flying wood  splinters. Confederate artillery had  opened a furious  barrage. He ran  out  of the  meetinghouse  picking splinters out of his skin  and barking orders. His officers on the pews began to scatter as shells burst nearby.

TDD18: Union artillery was brought up to answer Confederate guns but Lange remained inside. Perhaps he thought his presence would move God to spare the building, but solid shot made gaping holes in the walls. Mark clasped his hands and prayed, "Lord, forgive your stiff-necked servant. Now I know your will was that we move west, not north!"

Two shells from the rebel's main battery burst over the roof of the church. It was dark and Mark felt enormous pain wracking his entire body. He heard a male voice say, "Take great care, Anael. There is a man alive in this pile of wood and he is injured."

TDD19: Another voice acknowledged him. With each painful motion of debris the light seemed to  increase. A last huge pine beam was removed and Mark saw this Anael was not a woman as he first thought from the sound of  the voice,  but perhaps a  very tall boy. Anael moved the wood as though it weighed very little.

Then Mark saw who was speaking in the more  masculine voice. He was much shorter than Anael, with a face filled with compassion and dark eyes that glittered  in light filtering  through trees that surrounded him.

TDD20: No one among the Brethren disputed the house of prayer of the Five Corners Free Congregation was demolished by two shells that burst overhead while Mark Lange huddled  within. But after he crawled out from  the pile  of timber  unharmed it  became a matter of faith that he had literally met the Lord Jesus Christ, as he solemnly claimed to have done.

TDD21" Lange told  his  fellow parishioners  his  leg had  been broken by falling timber and a large splinter of wood had become lodged in his kidney, but he  was healed by Christ himself. This claim Joanna readily  believed, not merely because  she knew her husband was not  a liar, but she  saw a new scar  in Mark's back where previously  there was  none. Still,  some of  the Brethren thought  some of  the timber  in their  ruined Meetinghouse  had perhaps fallen on Elder Lange's head.

TDD22: Lange did say Christ had commanded him to lead his flock away to settle  far in  the west. But for the time  being the matter was set aside. The Brethren were preoccupied with burying the fallen soldiers of both armies, as they had done once before in Maryland. They were  adequately compensated  by the  United States for their labor, if  not for the  loss of much  of their farm land to many hundreds of burial plots.

TDD23: The following Sunday when the Brethren met in  a tent on the grounds of their ruined  meetinghouse Mark read aloud from a book he  called the Printer's  Manuscript, which he  had written during that missing year. The Sunkel, Clark, and Martin families decided he was trying create new scripture from his own mind. A new bible was  something they  simply could  not accept. These three families returned  to  Sharpsburg,  Maryland where  Elder David Long welcomed them home as prodigal sons and daughters.

TDD24: After the work  of burying the  fallen soldiers  of both sides had been completed the nine families who  remained in the congregation made preparations  to sojourn  west. Some of them sold their homes outright, while others deeded them  to kin who would remain behind. It took until the end of the  war for the Porters, Bergins, Henrys,  Zinters,  Hillings,  and Krauses  to rovision themselves for the pilgrimage. But the Savitts and the Brannens dwindled  in their  ardor. After Atlanta fell,  just before the presidential election, they deemed it safe to return to Maryland, and this they promptly did.

TDD25: Mark Lange took his flock first to the  state capital in Harrisburg, a little to the northeat, and thence by a hodgepodge of rail lines across the  Appalachian Mountains all the  way to Pittsburgh. These railroads were laid of wrought  iron, and the maximum speed permitted on them was a mere twenty-five miles per hour, lest they wore out in just one year  rather than ten. And setting aside the fact the mountains were a barrier to east-west travel in general, there were many stops along the way. It took most of the night and  the better part  of the next  morning to cross Pennsylvania.

TDD26: At Pittsburgh  the  congregation switched  from rail  to steamboat, which, despite moving with the current down the upper reaches of the Ohio River, made no better speed than a sustained brisk walk. But unlike  the train,  there  were staterooms  to occupy  on the  upper deck. The ladies were segregated  to the stern. Lange's group was not so destitute as to be relegated to sleeping on  the first deck amid  the bales of cotton  and other cargo, as many of the walk-ons did while the steamboat made its way downriver.

TDD27: From their rooms the members of Lange's flock looked out with contentment upon the ever-changing scene along the river as it sliced through  the forested  hills. They spent three  days steaming first north, then south and west, stopping at times to board and  disembark passengers or  to take on firewood  for the boiler that churned, ever so  precariously, it seemed  to them, under the very flammable decks.

TDD28: At Cincinnati  Mark Lange's  group disembarked  from the steamboat and again took to rail, as they had come to the end of the mountains and  had  passed  through an  odd  corner of  the country where terrain and circumstance had not yet conspired to make  the railroad  network  complete. But again,  at East  St. Louis, after crossing the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, they briefly took to the water once more. At that time the only bridge lay far to the north in Davenport, Iowa.

TDD29: Once the travelers and their luggage were  safely on the western shore of the Mississippi River they resumed riding rail once more. The track in Missouri was  laid of  Bessemer steel, permitting travel at  a  breakneck forty-five  miles per  hour. The line going  west  came to  an  end just  a  few miles  past Independence, Missouri.

TDD30: And Mark Lange, glancing  at the train platform  even as they were rolling  to a stop, saw someone  he recognized waiting for them, the extraordinary tall Anael, who was standing next to someone he didn't know who was even taller. He raced up to greet them as soon as he disembarked.

"We meet again, Mark Lange," Anael said, "and this time in much better circumstances than the first! I trust your journey has so far gone well?"

TDD31: Mark said, "Very well indeed, Anael.  Imagine my immense relief to find you waiting for us here."

By this time  some  of Mark's  followers  had gathered  around, marveling that at least one of the strangers knew their pastor. These were the nucleus of hardcore believers  who never wavered in their faith, yet it  was comforting to hear  confirmation of what Lange had  frequently told them. Still, they were dismayed to find  the strangers  were  rather  swart,  and each  wore  a decorative headdress with white horns.

TDD32: The one who was taller than Anael said to Mark, "Did you fear you would reach the end  of the line and find yourselves to be castaways?"

"This is Oriel," Anael said to  Lange. "He is here to help you with the animals." Lange greeted Oriel with the mutual forearm grip that he knew was the custom in Kemen. Mark said, "I dreaded the hard looks  and harder  questions from  my flock  should we arrive here with  no one to greet us. Perhaps  I feared it would be a sore test of their faith, and mine."

TDD33: "The journey you just made was the test  of your faith," Oriel said, "and that you are here, all of you, says everything. But the simple truth is that Anael and I have been working since dawn bringing all  these mud-wagons  here, and  riding back  by turns to bring more."

"Are there, then, only two of you?"

TDD34: Anael nodded. "Just we two. And I hope these seven wagons will suffice, Mark, for you and all your people,  and of course your luggage.  Come, ride with me  in the lead coach,  Mark, you and your wife, and  I will speak of the place  that will be your home for this fall and winter."

TDD35: The lower valley of the Blue River, where it dumped into the Missouri  River,  divided  Kansas City  from  the  town  of Independence. Anael and Oriel led Mark Lang and his flock seven miles from the train station up the Blue River valley, past many small farms, crossing the river now and again,  until they were come to a large structure snuggled hard against the west side of the valley. The building was  a  single-story pile  of  large interlocking limestone brick, built  without the  necessity for mortar.

TDD36: Anael said che hemself had assembled the twelve foot high walls and Lange did not doubt hem for an  instant. The building did look sound, with a good roof, but Lange thought it could do with a  coat of whitewash. It lay inside a larger  fenced area with a small herd of oxen. The animals had grazed the grass to nubbins and now subsisted on bales of hay.

TDD37: Led by Oriel, and assisted  by Joanna Lange and  the men and older boys, the fourteen horses that had been used to drive the pilgrims to this place were unharnessed from the mud-wagons and led into  this area  to mingle  with the  oxen and  feed on alfalfa, which was  spread out just for the  steeds. The animals considered it to be candy.

TDD38: Anael gestured at the oxen and said, "Here are the beasts that will pull your  wagons, Mark.  At least  for part  of your journey. Alas for  them, they will go no farther  west than Fort Kearny.  After  that the  poor  worn-out  things will  head  for somebody's dinner table."

TDD39: Following Oriel the thirty-six pilgrims  stepped through the double doors to look inside the structure. They saw a large bay with ten prairie  schooners under  assembly. The hoops for their bonnets reached nearly to the ceiling. At one end of the bay was a common dining area. Along the walls were set private rooms of diverse sizes for each of the seven families.

TDD40: Oriel said, "I welcome  every one  of you to  this place which has been prepared to carry out the will of our Lord. There is much yet to  do, and much for you to learn  to do, before you will be ready to finish your journey.  But by then it will be, I think,  too  late  in  the  year  for  you  to  arrive  at  your destination with time to make ready before winter sets in.

TDD41: Anael said, "Oriel and I have been granted the privilege and the honor  to help you make all  the necessary preparations. Take no thought of money! This room and board, these animals and the wagons  they will pull  are all  gifts of the  B'nei Elohim, freely given."

"The Lord himself gave  me much money  to make  this pilgrimage possible,"  said Lang,  "and half  of  it yet  remains. Did  he, perhaps, give us too much?"

TDD42: "Not at all," Oriel  said. "The oxen you saw  will only take you for half of your trek,  and then you will have to trade them for fresh  ones. The money you were given  will make up the difference. Also, if I am not mistaken, your followers have only brought such clothing and family heirlooms you could not bear to leave behind. You will, over  the next several months, make many overnight trips to Kansas City  to purchase whatsoever new items you may need."

TDD43 And to himself Oriel thought  the people who had  come to that place  needed a less awkward  name to know them  by than to just call them "Lange's followers". In the weeks to come a child among them named Linda Bergin  would learn that some  oxen were not easily turned  by the  touch of  a pole. They were called "stiff of neck" and this was the source for  many references in the  Bible  which  referred  to  the children  of  Israel  as  a stiff-necked people. But Anael said such stubbornness was really a good thing if  it was  desired to move  toward a  single goal without turning to one side or the other. Linda took to calling all the pilgrims "Stiffnecks" and it quickly caught on.

TDD44: The  flock  led  by   Mark  Lange  grew  larger  by  two individuals while they wintered over near Westport. The first to arrive was baby Megan, born to Gary and Marge Bergin in the fall of 1865. The second was Miss Tamara Brannen, who arrived by rail from Maryland to be wed to Lee Henry in the twilight days of the same year. But it wasn't until the following  spring before the roads, knee-high in mud, had  become solid enough to  begin the pilgrimage west.

TDD45: It was a Sunday when the Sticknecks spent their last full day with Oriel and Anael, and for the final  time the two B'nei Elohim worshiped with them, though they both found the practice to be odd and had frequently commented to that  effect. Some of the Stiffnecks  remarked in  turn  how  this made  them  appear heathenish. But Anael said to  them, "Have  we not  shared our meals  together three  times each  day, and  offered praise  and thanksgiving  to God?  The  Banquet  of God  is  the only  thing resembling 'services'  the Lord  Yeshua ever conducted  with his disciples."

TDD46: At the end of the worship service Oriel rose to say a few words from his heart to the people he had  lived with an served for nearly a year. "Have no illusions. This will the  the most difficult thing  you have ever done.  But do not be  afraid! The Lord Yeshua came to teach men  to live together in peace, and in the beginning it was so. With God willing, your labors will make the Lord's aspiration present in the world once more."

TDD47: It took all the next  morning for the oxen  to toil just three miles up a ravine feeding the Blue River to intersect the infant Oregon Trail running south from Raytown. There the twenty oxen pulling the wagons were  released from their  burdens, and the twenty beasts that made  a leisurely  walk out of  the Blue River valley were put under harness. After another eight miles the Oregon Trail bent sharply to the west, and  in another half mile they stopped.

TDD48: Whenever the wagon train stopped for the  evening it was the responsibility of the head of each family to raise his wagon with a jack, remove one wheel, and paint the hub  with a mix of pine tar  and tallow  carried in  a bucket  slung from  the rear axle, as they were solemnly instructed by Oriel. This they were to do as though it were  a ritual, before they  even took their evening meal, on a revolving basis, one wheel per night.

TDD49: When they crossed into the state of Kansas the Stiffnecks dipped into the stash of salt pork stored under a false floor in their wagons, and ate them with dried peaches.

To cross rivers the bottoms of the wagons were painted with tar to make them waterproof and they were floated  across after the animals were  safely  on  the other  side. But sometimes  the pilgrims were brought to a halt by a severe afternoon rainstorm and had to huddle inside their wagons.

TDD50: Still, everyone remained  in good  spirits. Most of the younger children  had ridden  by  pairs  on  the backs  of  the fourteen horses, while the  adults and older  children switched between riding in the wagons or walking on foot beside the oxen pulling them to lead them along the track at a stately two miles per hour. Breakfast frequently  featured  eggs  laid  by  the chickens the people had brought  along, but on Sundays  some of these chickens were slaughtered and roasted for a midday feast.

TDD51: They reached the eastern edge of the  regions crossed by migrating  bison. Ida Porter,  Roy Hilling,  and Robert  Krause began collecting buffalo chips to use as cooking fuel, and they made it seem so fun  the other  children pitched in. When they reached streams or  rivers  Alfred Porter  and  his son  George angled for catfish  and caught  enough for  everyone to  have a baked fish for lunch the next day.

TDD52: A family living in a farmhouse sold the  pilgrims a meal of boiled beans and chipped  beef, served with fresh  bread and topped off with oven baked pies. But on most days the pilgrims had begun open their cans of cheese and  sardines, and consumed these with hardtack bread  and tea. But when they  reached the Hollenberg farm  there  were  nine  boarding  rooms  available. The men among  the Stiffnecks  were  glad for  the change  from sleeping outdoors on the ground. Breakfast was bacon, eggs, and gooseberry cobbler.

TDD53: A war party of some two hundred Pawnees crossed the trail from the south, passing Lange's group quite by  chance. Most of the plains Indians knew settlers on the Oregon  Trail were just passing through and in the main they did not go out of their way to antagonize them, lest  it brought down  unwanted retaliation from the United States Army.

"Make no threatening  moves,"  Lange  cautioned his  followers. "Touch no rifle. Trust the Lord to protect us."

TDD54: The Pawnees  swarmed  around their  wagons  out of  pure curiosity, inspecting the hatchets and mallets they found within and took turns to lie on the feather-bed mattresses one-by-one. They took no food or tobacco, and eyed the weapons stored inside but let them be. Some of them took a very  close look  at the women, perhaps the first white females they had  ever seen, but they kept their hands to themselves. If such were the orders of their chief they  were a  very  disciplined force  at the  very least.

TDD55: When they had mounted  their horses once more  the chief scanned the whole  scene, drew  himself up  in his  full battle regalia, crinkled his face, and plugged his nose. All the braves broke into laughter, then they all rode away. When it was clear they would not return, Lange led his congregation in a prayer of thanksgiving to God.

TDD56: When there was no local water for the oxen and horse the pilgrims watered the animals from cisterns in the wagon. One of the oxen in the  trailing wagon  had thrown a  shoe and  no one could guess how far back  along the  trail it might  be. Joanna Lange applied to the  ox's injured hoof. He was released from pulling the wagon and two of the horses were set in his place.

TDD57: After passing the future location of  Kenesaw, the trail drew near to the Platte River in another seven  miles, with the smell of cottonwood trees in the air. The water was silty, but let still in a bucket for an hour it grew  clear. The oxen were less discerning.

TDD58: At length the Stiffnecks reached Fort  Kearney, the last outpost of civilization they would find until  they built their own settlement. They telegraphed messages to family members left behind in Gettysburg and traded their worn-out  oxen for rested ones. At the general store they obtained more chickens and many of the sundries they had consumed on the trek,  but prices were dear.

TDD59: Two days  were spent  at  the fort. Taking their rest, they witnessed  several  other wagon  trails  passing  through. Blacksmiths willing to labor on Sunday put new iron shoes on the horses and oxen. Lange's money was depleted that much more.

During the following week  the Stiffnecks  passed south  of the future townsite of North Platte. Had they left Gettysburg only two years after they did North Platte would be the western rail terminus and they could have  begun their pilgrimage  that much closer to their final destination.

TDD60: Mark Lange  led the  wagon  train off  the Oregon  Trail entirely. They struck north,  cross-country, to  reach a  vast wilderness called the Nebraska Sandhills. This is a sea of sand dunes anchored  by  grass  and dotted  with  innumerable  small freshwater lakes. There was plenty  of  green stuff  for  the animals to graze, but the going was slow. No sooner did someone wonder, aloud,  where  the  water  came  from  than  they  were inundated by the first of frequent rainstorms that slowed their passage even more.

TDD61: The way twisted between the hills but  sometimes a ridge twenty miles long and two hundred feet high lay directly across their path and they were compelled  to go over it. Other times they would reach brush in draws which had to  be cleared by men using axes and scythes. The Stiffnecks were to spend  as many days traveling off the Oregon Trail as they had spent traveling on it.

TDD62: It seemed  they had  entered a  purgatory and  only Mark Lange's diary entries prevented them  from losing track  of the days. But at last they reached what Mark Lange  hoped to be the Squaw River and the pilgrims turned west to follow it toward its source.

TDD63: When  Fort  Price  was  overrun by  the  Kuwapi  it  was witnessed only by pronghorns, badgers, coyotes and prairie dogs jumping up to check out the cacophony of  hoofbeats. Ten Kuwapi women had been used as sex slaves at the fort. While were being set upon horses Jashen began to smell something strange, as did his wife Leliel who walked beside him.

After that he grew filled with wonder when he saw the ten wagons of the pilgrims of the Five Corners  Free Congregation plodding west along the north  bank of  the Squaw  River. But they were still too far away to identify.

TDD64: "It's not  a respectable  wilderness anymore!" Jashen's wife muttered to herself in the language and idiom of the whites when she saw how exasperated her husband was over what seemed to be a  sudden  infestation  of  white  soldiers  and  now  white settlers.

The Stiffnecks saw the  Kuwapi approach  and pointed  rifles at them,  but Jashen  saw the  lead wagon  was driven  by a  man he recognized  from his  vision quest  several years  prior. Jashen smiled, dismounted, took off his headdress and he was recognized in turn. "We meet again, Pastor Mark Lange," he  said, "just as The Teacher foretold."

TDD65: And the settlers  were entirely  thrilled by  his words, even as they had been when  two other B'nei Elohim  met them in Missouri.

"Jashen! Leliel!" Mark brought his  own  wagon to  a halt  and jumped down to embrace the young man. The rifles among the wagon train were all lowered and put out of sight.

Jashen voiced well-wishes  to  Mark and  his fellow  travelers. Lange pointed to the prominent butte a few miles upriver to the west and asked her, "Is that Green Dome?"

TDD66: "Yes," he said, "but my father calls it the Island in the Sky."

"Then we have reached our destination!" Lange said triumphantly. He gave thanks to God not a single member of his flock had been. lost to disease or misadventure.

Jashen said, "The army of the whites have taken  to hunting the People,  but now  the hunters  have  become the  hunted. I  must hasten to see  if my father is  well, but I bid  you to continue upstream until Green Dome lies at your feet. When we meet again, Mark Lange, we shall make you more than welcome."

TDD67: The pilgrims  of  Five Corners  Free Congregation  first arrived at the lower slopes of  Green Dome at dusk  on the last day of August in 1866. There, with their journey finally at an end, they  saw four  fallen warriors of  the People,  Left Hand, Half Yellow Face, Kill Eagle, and Hairy Moccasin lying on a bier of branches taken from woody shrubs. And it was on this solemn occasion when the Kuwapi People and the settlers of Mark Lange's group were first gathered all together.

TDD68: In full  view of  everyone Chief  Wanica, with  words of reverence for Wakan  Tanka, struck off the Golden  Gift and made the bodies of his  dead men disappear. The Whites were struck speechless. Coming as they did from a religious background, such a display could be  nothing other  than the  power of  God made manifest.

"This is a sign!" Mark exclaimed. He recognized the Golden Gift from the translation of the White  Scroll he had made  with the help of Leliel and Jashen. It was the same weapon  wielded by rince Melchizedek when he  first encountered father Abraham. Not merely the same kind, but literally the same artifact.

TDD69: "God has brought us all together," Lange declared, "White man and Red man alike,  in this  land of His  choosing, flowing with milk  and honey." At Lange's words all the  people looked around in the  fading  light  and took  in  the barren,  mostly treeless grasslands. Lange cleared his throat. "Here at Green Dome we all shall remain, and prosper with God's blessings!"

TDD70: Lange couldn't just take the weapon outright,  as it was holy, a divine gift made by Bat-El himself, so it could never be defiled by base theft. Obviously the People led by  Wanica and the remnant of the Five Corners Free Congregation would have to be  ermanent and  equal  (but separate)  partners. The Church's doctrine of mandatory cousin-marriage  would salve the settlers' horror at any race-mixing.

TDD71: After the  funeral there  followed a  good old-fashioned mass conversion of the entire Kuwapi people,  followed by their assembly-line baptism in the  cold waters  of the  Squaw River. They were each plunged into the stream three  times using total immersion, since Lange was at  heart still  a Dunker. So a new congregation was born, the Church  of Green Dome, with  a White Wing and a Red Wing, "Two  lungs by which the  united people of the Creator draw new breath," Lange declared.

TDD72: That night Wanica's people returned  to their encampment at the 4,650 foot level of Green  Dome, on a wide  bench on the eastern side of the hill. In the morning, aided by the Whites, they began to turn it into a permanent village.

Gary Bergin and his wife Marge chose the valley  of Squaw River due south of Green  Dome and  begin pulling  up dead  stumps of burnt trees to  establish a farm, aided by  their children Dale, Owen, Linda, Grace. Baby Megan was still far too young.

TDD73: Alfred  Porter,  his  wife  Caroline,  and  their  three children George, Ida, and Rachel established their farm a little to the north  of the  river  ford. Water was plentiful  there, diverted by a ditch from higher  up the slope, and  they grew a wide  variety of  green stuff  as  though they  had an  extended backyard garden.

Thomas Henry, his wife Melanie, and their four younger children Kenneth, Jane,  Faith,  and  Susan  choose  a  spot  for  their homestead at elevation 4,400 feet, a little below the village of the People. At first they grew oxen, taken from the animals that accompanied them on the pilgrimage, but they  also planted rows of apple and pear trees.

TDD74: Their eldest son Lee Henry, together with  his new bride Tamara, raised a  few sheep,  purchased from  another drive  of livestock that used the ford  soon after the Stiffnecks arrived. The following summer a cattle drive also used the  ford and the Henrys bought dairy cows. Their animals grazed in the shade of their family's fruit trees.

David and Ann Krause, with their crowd of children Edwin, Linda, Gail, Robert, Carl, Helen, and Tom settled to the  south of the river ford took to raising horses, having received back most of the horses they loaned to make the pilgrimage.

TDD75: The 6th Cavalry Regiment came up from  Texas looking for the bloodthirsty warriors who wiped out a whole company of their men and  found  only  a  docile  tribe  of  newly-Christianized converts helping white settlers grow some  crops. When pressed, the farmers said they knew there was an empty  fort nearby, but did not know  how it  came to  be abandoned,  and there  was no evidence to give  lie to their testimony. The bodies of the men and horses which fell along the river were now totally gone. So the Army broke up the  fort and  left, marking the  whole thing down as one of the spookier mysteries of the high plains.

TDD76: The white settlers who did not take up  the plow instead platted out the town of  Headwater on  both sides of  the river crossing. In the beginning these were Harry  and Hester Hilling with their four children, Brandon,  Oscar, Roy, and  Nancy, who built and ran a general store. Ivar and Anna Zinter operated a blacksmith  shop. Like the  Zinters, Mark  Lange  and his  wife Joanna were childless, but not for much longer. In a few years a boy named Clark  was born  to the  Langes, closely  followed by David, who was born to the Zinters.

TDD77: The Green Dome Tabernacle, built at the  place where the Squaw River emerged from the base  of Green Dome hill,  was the gathering place for all the eople, Red and White, every Sunday. With each homily Prophet Lang and Apostle Wanica established the wall of Church doctrine steadily, like laying bricks. One of the doctrines, which was really a concession to  the Kuwapi people, was that everyone, both male  and female, must wear  their hair long and tied into a ony tail.

TDD78: After a time, the members of the Green  Dome Church were called Ponies by outsiders, and later even the Stiffnecks called themselves that. The Kuwapi were also introduced to the Western concept of surnames. Jashen remembered his original given name of Shy Bear and chose the last name of Shybear.