Winter

Azrael 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.

Anael said, "Azrael 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."

Hearing this Mark said something that Azrael already knew, even if most of Lange's parishioners did not. "The Lord himself gave me much money to make this pilgrimage possible, and half of it yet remains. Did he, perhaps, give us too much?"

"Not at all," Azrael 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."

And to himself Azrael 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, including herself, "Stiffnecks" and it quickly caught on.

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.