TCA

A0

Muskets fell like two waves of dominoes atop stone walls on the blue and gray sides of the quiet creek. When the rifled barrels reached the horizontal they fired, burning eyes with the pungent smoke of spent powder. The walls became the rails of a stone bridge. Union and rebel soldiers converged on foot, shouting as they merged. The fighting deteriorated to bayonet thrusts and even fisticuffs. The federals had the greater initial momentum and nearly reached the other side of the bridge before a rebel rally bounced them back. 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. A few of the fallen had survived the battle of Shiloh where the war attained a high but stable plateau of savagery. A tube loaded with canister shot was 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 the fallen boys in gray had survived the artillery hell at Malvern Hill during the Seven Days.

Two guns were set up on the Confederate side of the creek upstream. One fired bursting shells that maimed the Union gunners and another fired several rounds of solid shot. The Union gun became a pile of splinters and dented steel. Then followed another Rebel attack. 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 apparent divine sanction the colonel led yet another attack. But the only effect was to make the hill of twisting bodies on the bridge that much higher. Men standing on the pile swapped empty muskets for loaded ones handed up to them like water in a fire bucket brigade.

But inevitably the Confederates ran low on gunpowder. They saw the bridge was lost, so they switched to saving their two pieces of artillery, with fresh troops firing in a rearguard action to cover the retreat. The federal general commanding the attack on the bridge saw the retreating gray backs and ordered a lieutenant to report to McClellan that the bridgehead had been secured. But the junior officer saw the bridge was stacked with bodies and refused to desecrate the dead. Instead the messenger dropped to the creek bed and splashed across 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 River with only one safe crossing point. All that night and all the next day McClellan watched from the long slope rising north of the river and refused to advance, 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 Brethren had been pressed into service as a field hospital for the Union army. Dried blood stained the interior walls, only to be overlaid with sprays of new blood. One doctor sedated men with chloroform while another doctor sawed off their limbs and threw them into a pile. A messenger arrived by horse and ordered the doctors to get the wounded out by wagon. The pile of amputated limbs was set ablaze. Horse-drawn ambulances carted the wounded away with every bump in the road eliciting 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 Brethren did.

A1

Three days prior, when they first heard the sound of artillery on South Mountain the Brethren had thought it prudent to move their work horses by circuitous routes to a place far away from the men of either army who might like to "borrow" them. Upon their poor leftover mules they rode out, when it seemed safe, to bury the dead. For this task the United States paid a dollar for every man they laid to rest. There was heard a rumor that one fellow, who was not of the Brethren, took the money and dropped sixty dead men into a dry well.

Many hundreds of bodies lay near the house of prayer of the Brethren. They found their labors to be a hateful thing that, after an eerie repetition in Pennsylvania, led to the Final Rites that marked the Church of Green Dome quite apart from all other faith assemblies. But most bitter of all was seeing their beloved meetinghouse riddled with holes made by bullets and even solid cannon shot, and how the interior had come to resemble a slaughterhouse. The structure was still sound, but some prayed for it to collapse, deeming that to be a mercy. The Long Table was covered with blood, and both the east door, where the menfolk entered, and the south door, where the womenfolk entered, had been removed from the hinges and converted into operating tables. The large and expensive Bible gifted to the congregation by Daniel Miller was missing.

Chief elder David Long, forty-two years of age, inspected the meetinghouse thoroughly and said, "Do not grieve overmuch, my friends. We shall bury the dead and make our meetinghouse like new. If God is willing, soon all this will be but an unhappy memory."

To this Deacon Lange objected, saying, "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. This is an easy spot for the rebel army to get across the water. We should build anew at my uncle's farm north in Pennsylvania. 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. And there is no prayer better than work.”

After the Brethren finished burying the dead soldiers where they fell it grew apparent the flock was divided on the issue of whether to move. Elder Long insisted he would stay, as did the Sherrich family. Also Samuel Mumma, the farmer who had donated the land on which to build the meetinghouse, was intent on staying behind to restore his farm the 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 really just a battlefield cemetery. In all, eleven families joined Mark Lange in seeking a quiet new life far from the threat of war, in Pennsylvania.

Before the battle in Maryland the horses of the Brethren had been taken there 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. But he persistently had four-legged competition. On the way north when the weather turned bad Joanna let her horse have the tent while she slept outside. Joanna spent more time cleaning her horse than helping her mother clean the house. Mark thought the house was a pigsty but the barn was as neat as a pin. Her mother said Joanna needed a male A2

companion to quiet some of the rumors going around, so she got a stallion. Joanna's father looked askance when Mark began courting her, but his wife was overjoyed at Joanna's new interest in something other than equines. One time I 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.

The following summer the Army of Northern Virginia rolled the dice and moved North once again, bringing on the biggest battle of the war. 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. He turned to go outside and bumped into Mark, which prompted him to angry demand who he was. Mark told him he was the pastor of that church. General Meade replied, "The hell you say, sir! Church? This is the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac! Now get out of my sight, parson, or I'll put a musket in your hand and stand you up on yonder stone--"

The general 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. 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. Your will was that we move west, not north!"

Two shells from the main battery of the Army of Northern Virginia burst just over the roof of the church. It was dark and Mark felt enormous pain wracking his  entire body. A male voice said, "Take great care, Anael. There is a man alive in this pile of wood and he is injured." A higher-pitched 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 i it weighed 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 the green  light  filtering  through trees that surrounded him.

He said, "Do not be afraid, Mark Lange.  A large splinter of wood has pierced your kidney." All Mark could manage to utter in reply was a grunt of pain. He went on to say, "You also have a broken leg you cannot feel because wood is pinching  it. We must lift the beam, and you will most certainly feel that, but we can do nothing else." Mark could  only manage to gasp for help. The short  man told  Anael to lift the beam. To Mark, everything seemed to turn  red when  he  did that. His face was frozen in astonishment at the  pain, greater  than any he had ever felt, and he fainted from the  overbrimming flow of it.

For a time after that Mark lay in a bed cared for by  attendants  who bade  him to remain in repose long after he felt sufficiently  revived to  stand once more. At length a young man who introduced himself as Jashen invited him to call upon the one who had healed him. Jashen had the appearance of the people who preceded the Europeans to North America. Mark saw the short man who helped him when he was injured. He was seated outdoors near a small table on a deck of dark wood near a pool of water. Sitting with him was a woman even taller than Anael had been. As he drew near Mark felt only a very small residue of pain in his back and his leg, and he was entirely able to walk. The short man invited Mark and Jashen to be seated. Jashen sat close to a woman who was even more tall than Anael. Mark immediately recognized their body language, which was clearly that of newlyweds. The short man greeted Mark and told him, “This is Leliel, wife of Jashen. But Mark Lange, whom say ye that I am?'

Lange recognized the question from scripture and he said in reply, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." Then he stood up because it didn't  seem  fitting to recline in the presence of his Lord,  but  he gestured for Mark to be seated once more. He looked over at Jashen and Leliel, who both assured Chief Yeshua they had not identified him to Mark.

The Lord turned back to Mark and said, "You do well to say so, Mark, on so few cues. There was a Pope who foisted upon the faithful the face of his bastard son as me, and ever since then most people expect to see a taller Italian fellow with a beard and long hair."

Mark said in  reply, "Your Father emphatically told us not to create such images, but we never seem to obey, though we dare to call him our God."

He said, "Some do still obey God, Mark. A small remnant are faithful, both  here  in Heaven and on Earth. It is enough. You spoke truth in your prayer when you understood I wanted your flock to go west. Indeed, as  far as you can go by river or rail, and even farther on foot." Mark followed Yeshua's finger as he traced out a course on a map down the Ohio  River to lands in the west. The map appeared as one  might expect  one to be made in heaven, with no political boundaries, only cities and rivers and uplands. His finger stopped at one  mountain. Mark saw that the feature was marked with words he could read:  Green   Dome. Yeshua said, "Here is the home of Jashen's people. I would have you travel to this place, Mark, with your own wife and all others from your congregation who would freely choose to go. You will take with you this map and also a book copied by Jashen from Leliel’s White Scroll."

Then Leliel set upon the map an oven-fired clay pot. From within she removed a green codex and opened it to show how it was written in the tongue of Mark Lange.

“Mark, this book will argue against your Bible on many points. You will find it difficult to accept, even after being brought up here. Some of the families in your flock will think it to be blasphemous and have nothing further to do with you. I cast you  in the role of Yohanan the baptizer who  prepared  my  way, though he himself did not live to see it come to pass."

Mark said, "The Lord must know my flock has already  been  up  rooted once   before, less than a year ago, and most of us are worse than destitute.  We've gone into debt to pay for homes we  built on land we  don't  even own. None of us have the means to leave  again."

Yeshua said, "It will be burden enough to believe the White Scroll and to have the courage to make your flight west. Do you think I, intending  to  build this tower, have not first counted   the   cost?" Mark watched Jashen line the heart of the clay pot with  much  money. The greenbacks lined  the interior and formed a  cushion   for   the  green book when Jashen put it back in its place. The Lord said, "Be a good steward of this currency, Mark, for there are some among the Brethren  who  would  only feign to follow you for the love of money." A4

Mark said, "I beg the Lord to choose more worthy people to make his  will  come to pass!"

"Not so, Mark, for  I  deem  the   German  Brethren to be  most  like  those who first loved and followed me when I  was   in the world. Have no  fear! This money will be sufficient to take you and  the  families who   are willing to follow west to the place where  the  rail   ends.  There  some of my other students  shall do much to prepare your  flock to continue, as your journey will then be only half complete."

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 Jesus Christ, as he solemnly claimed to have done. 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 had been none.

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 at least, if not for the loss of much of their farm land to many hundreds of burial plots.

The following Sunday when the Brethren met in a tent on the grounds of their ruined meetinghouse Mark read aloud from the book he called the Printer’s Manuscript. The Sunkel, Clark, and Martin families decided he was trying create new scripture from his own mind, a mind damaged, perhaps, in the blast that destroyed their church. 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.

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 provision 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.

Mark Lange took his flock first to the state capital in Harrisburg, and thence by a hodgepodge of lines across the Appalachian Mountains all the way to Pittsburgh. These railroads were laid of wrought iron, and the maximum speed permitted was a mere twenty-five miles per hour, lest they wore out in 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. From Harrisburg it took most of the night and the better part of the next morning to cross the state.

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 segregated to the stern. Lange's group was not so destitute as to be relegated to A5

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. 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.

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

Mark said, "Very well indeed, Anael. Imagine my immense relief to find you already 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. 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 Azrael," Anael said to Lange. "He is here to help you with the animals.”

Lange greeted Azrael with the mutual forearm grip that he knew was the custom in Heaven. 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."

"The journey you just made was the test of your faith," Azrael said, "and that you are here, all of you, says everything. But the simple truth is this: 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?"

Anael nodded. "Just we two. 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."

A6

The lower valley of the Blue River, where it dumped into the Missouri River, divided Kansas City from the town of Independence. Anael and Azrael 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. Anael said she herself had assembled the twelve foot high walls, and it 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.

Led by Azrael, 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. 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."

Following Azrael 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.

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 such stubbornness was really a good thing if it was desired to move toward a single goal A7

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.

It was a Sunday when the Sticknecks spent their last full day with Azrael 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 resembled 'services' the Lord Yeshua ever conducted with his disciples."

At the end of the worship service Azrael 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."

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.

Every day when the wagon train came to a halt it was the responsibility for the man of each family to raise his wagon with a jack, remove one wheel, and have his eldest son 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 Azrael. 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.

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. Still, everyone remained in good spirits. No one was much fatigued. 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.

They reached the eastern edge of the regions crossed by migrating bison. Ida Porter, Roy A8

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. 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.

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." The braves 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. 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.

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. After passing the future location of Kenesaw, the trail bent due west to draw 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.

At length the Stiffnecks reached Fort Kearney, the last outpost of civilization they would find until they built their own settlement. From the fort 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. 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. Here Mark Lange led the wagon train off the Oregon Trail entirely. They struck north, overland, to reach a vast wilderness called the Nebraska Sandhills. This is a sea of ancient sand dunes anchored by grass and dotted with innumerable small freshwater lakes. A9

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. The way twisted through the low gullies 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 intractable 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. It seemed they had entered a timeless purgatory and only Mark Lange's strict routine to keep a diary prevented them from losing track of the passing 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.

When Fort Price was overrun by the Kuwapi it was witnessed only by passing pronghorns and badgers and coyotes and prairie dogs jumping up to check out the cacophony of hoofbeats. But while the freed native women were being set upon their horses the chief’s son, 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.

"It's not a respectable wilderness anymore!" his 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 Chief Yeshua foretold." And the settlers were as entirely thrilled by his words here as they were when two of the B'nei Elohim met them in Missouri. They saw both he and a woman standing nearby bore the same white horns as Anael and Azrael. Mark had already explained that from his readings out of the Printer’s Manuscript, which had been written by the woman now standing before them.

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

"That's what white trappers call it,” she said. “But we call it the Island in the Sky."

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

"Amen, Pastor Mark Lange! But this has been a full day. The United States Army came hunting the hunters of the People. The hunters became the hunted and now we no longer fear the men of this fort, but during the tussle we became separated from Jashen’s father and the rest of our people. We now must make haste to return and see if they are well, and God willing they are. I bid you to continue upstream until the very slopes of Green Dome lie before you, and there when we meet again we shall make you more than welcome."