TCB

Muskets fell like two 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. Here 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 on the Confederate  side of the creek  upstream maimed the Union gunners with bursting shells 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. 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.

Inevitably the Confederate infantry 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 headquarters  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  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. All the next day the federal commander 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 local German Baptist  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 sawed off their limbs and threw them into a pile. Daylight intruded through stray bullet holes in the walls.

A messenger arrived  by horse  with orders  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 Christian Brethren did.

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, but more bitter 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 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 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."

Deacon Mark  Lange objected  to  Elder  Long's words  of  hope, saying, "Nothing will stop the  same thing from  happening once more, Brother  David. Virginia lies  over yonder river  and last month there  was a second  battle of  Manassas. This is  an easy spot 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 Elder Long insisted he  would stay  at  Sharpsburg,  as did  the  Sherrich family. Also Samuel Mumma, the farmer who had  donated the land on which to build the meetinghouse, was intent on restoring the farm the armies  had demolished. The men 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. Joining him, ten other families joined Mark Lange in seeking a quiet new life in Pennsylvania far from the threat of war, or so they hoped.

Before the battle the horses of the Brethren had  been taken to Gettysburg 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  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 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.

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.

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!"

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.

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."

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.

The Kuwapi people  were more  significant than  a mere  band of nomads scratching  out their  existence on  the Great  Plains of North America, yet  they did not have the numbers  nor the blood ties to mark them  as a  tribe or  even a  clan. They began as outcasts from among  the Oglala Sioux. In Lakhota, kuwapi means "they follow". To the north they were beset by  the Dakotas who held the entire  Black Hills  and the  plains around  them. The Kuwapi named them  the  northern raiders  and  if the  mainline Oglalas helped fend them off from  time to time it  was more to ensure their own food supply than to do the Kuwapi any favors.

In the richer grasslands eastward there were the fierce Pawnees to contend with. To the south along the Oregon Trail the Kuwapi were buffeted  by  the  Arapahoes  and also  ran  the  risk  of encountering white settlers  moving west and the  US Army troops who protected them. In the scrubby furrowed lands westward they had the Cheyennes to fear. The whole northwest was put  out of their  minds by  dread of  the Crow  and Blackfeet. But in the ever-moving sliver of meager grasslands left in the wake of the Oglala the Kuwapi wandered, and here their hunters rode.

Wanica led them downwind of a herd of bison drinking water at a ford in a  large creek named Squaw River by  the whites. When he signaled a halt, they  tied their  horses off  to the  roots of sun-bleached stumps  and crept unseen through  brush to approach the herd. Some of the animals grew nervous though they could not sense any of the men by sight nor sound nor smell.

Still, inexplicably,  the  bull  stopped  drinking  and  stared downstream, somehow sensing  danger. Judging the moment  to be right Wanica stood from behind a  shrub and loosed an arrow. The bolt struck a cow in a flank but it was not  a lethal shot. All the bison heard the  cry of  the victim  and panicked. A rapid series of shots were  made by  other hunters  but all  of their arrows either missed outright or made non-lethal wounds.

The herd of bison  fled to a  slope on the  north and  west and reached the cover of the low cloud bank, although they were too stupid to have planned such a move. Wanica led the hunters back to their horses so  they could  follow the  herd away  from the river. As they rose in  elevation the cloud bank  enveloped the hunters as a  thick fog. They kept their bows  at the  ready, turning left and right, but none  of the bison were  visible to the men  in the  complete whiteout. But further uphill  the fog cleared and patches of blue sky  were seen. Three of the bison were isolated and exposed. Arrows were loosed and struck home, dropping one of the animals. The two surviving bison ran back down off the hill into the fog, seeking the safety of numbers.

Wanica ordered his youngest braves to carve up the  body of the fallen animal. Meat was loaded on skids made of  wooden staves and animal skin to be  dragged away. Nothing of the bison was wasted. Satisfied with the  progress of  the young  men, Wanica turned away with the older hunters. They rode up the slope until they could go no higher.

The summit of the high  hill stood alone  over a sea  of clouds that reached the horizon. It was a rare and  beautiful moment. Wanica was deeply moved  by the  sight. He said, "I  name this place the Island in the Sky."

The herd of bison slowly wandered back out of  the fog, grazing warily on the mountaintop even with the hunters  close at hand. The animals sensed  that the  humans had  done their  worst and would leave the rest of them alone. But what followed scattered even the humans.

Something taller than a tree emerged from the sea  of clouds on six  pillars  of  flame. Only Wanica and  his  fearless  steed remained to watch it touch down  on the summit of  the hill. At first he thought it was  just white  men doing one  better than their smoking horse of iron. But the object grew much smaller in size and changed shape  to resemble a  faceless white  man. Not like a European, but  white as  snow, with  no eyes,  ears, nor mouth. It shifted postion on  the hilltop, and the  very ground thundered and shook under its feet.

Wanica nudged his horse a bit closer as the white man-shape sat on the ground. Its head opened in six petals to  reveal a gold object that rose as though it were being offered to Wanica.

He dismounted to  take  a closer  look,  approaching the  shape cautiously on foot. Tentatively, respectfully, he withdrew the golden object from  the splayed  head  while the  limbs of  the man-shape remained motionless at its side. The object fit neatly in Wanica's palm like the hilt of a knife. The head of the white man closed.

Wanica squeezed the gift to produce a hissing opaque black beam. When he swept the beam around  it carved trenches in  the stony ground of the hilltop entirely  without effort. He watched the white man change again to become  a dome on the  summit, like a smooth igloo.

Wanica discovered  that when  he  no  longer actively  squeezed the Golden  Gift  the  immaterial  black  shaft  retracted  and disappeared.

The curiosity of Wanica's companions overcame  their fear. They slowly returned to the summit, together with some of the bison. There the hunters saw the white dome on the  very summit of the hill, and they also  saw Wanica  standing next  to it  with his horse. Wanica lifted a  large stone  and set  it down  near the artifact. The companions of  Wanica joined him  stacking stones around the egg as though they were building a second dome out of rock. When the men finished they stood back to  look. The shape was concealed by a cairn.

By the time the People were feasting on bison the animal's horns had been fastened  to leather  thongs. One of Chief  Tatanka's women pinned the horns to his shoulder as though he had actually departed the tipi where he roiled in womanflesh  and killed the animal himself. Briefly Tatanka and Wanica eyed each other, but there was with no mutual respect whatsoever.

The chief said,  "There are  five stories  how this  animal was taken."

Wanica looked away and blew a ring of smoke.

"About the hunt, then. What say you, Squaw Who Hunts?"

Wanica's gaze returned to  the Chief sharply  as though  he had been slapped, but  he  controlled his  rage  and answered. "We followed the herd into a low  cloud. I could not  see the other hunters. Each man ascended alone. When the clouds parted we took the animal."

"And the Great Spirit appeared  out of  the cloud to  bless our hunt!" blurted Plenty Lice out of turn.

"You have taught  your  hunters  to lie  so  easily, Squaw  Who Hunts," said Tatanka. "I should give you another name."

Even Wanica was annoyed by the outburst of Plenty  Lice, but he said, "Wakan Tanka was white like snow. He sat on the top of the mountain. His head  and arms and legs shrank until  he became an egg.

The hunters who had  been with Wanica  nodded their  assent and grunted. Chief Tatanka refused to believe the  tale his hunters were telling. Staring at Wanica with  his perpetual  sneer, he demanded to know what they did after they saw the 'egg'.

"We built a lodge of stones  for the Great Spirit  to honor him for his blessing."

Tatanka pulled out his knife and drew near to Wanica. "You built a lodge of lies. There is no white egg!" He flicked just the tip of his blade across Wanica's face. Tatanka was satisfied to draw only a little blood. Maiming his best hunter wouldn't  do. He said, "I name you Hole In Cheek!"

Wanica put his hand  to his  face to  staunch the  bleeding and walked with dignity out of the range of the fire's light. Chief Tatanka laughed but nobody else did.

Wanica's wife Yuha left the circle of light as well and followed her man to their tipi.

While she dressed Wanica's wound his son Shy Bear said, "Father, did you truly see  the Great  Spirit, or did  you just  want to annoy Bad Heart Bull?"

Wanica shifted his eyes to the boy and appraised his son but did not answer until Yuha finished staunching the cut. At length he said, "Yuha, what we spoke about before, now it is time."

Yuha nodded that she understood and retrieved  a leather pouch. The pouch contained many pigments  and the implements  to apply them. Using what she  had stored  in the  pouch, Yuha  began to paint the face of Shy Bear.

For his part Wanica retrieved a ceremonial dress  made of bison skins and feathers and many beads.

Shy Bear turned his head to look at what his father held, which smeared some of the paint caused his mother to grow annoyed. She said, "Stand and be still, son."

Wanica laid the ceremonial dress on Shy Bear and fastened it as his wife  continued to work. he aid, "You will get  no answers from me." He put the boy's own bow in  his hands and  said, "I will give you no morsel of food."

Yuha finished painting her son's face and stood apart from him. His father said,  "To this  day I  only lent  you the  name Shy Bear." Wanica opened the  flap door. "Go now, into  the night, nameless  one. Kill  your  own  food, if  you  can.  And if  you cannot?" Wanica shrugged. "Perhaps in your hunger  Wakan Tanka will give you a vision."

Astonishment marked Shy  Bear's face  at all  these words. His glance traced along  his father's  arm to  the finger  pointing outdoors and he nodded, understanding at last.

Shy Bear also saw that his  mother did not understand  what was happening, not really. She was doing this under duress. This was a ritual, with a strict form. As was required of her, she said, "The boy will go out  from us. The  man will return." Shy Bear sincerely hoped the worry on his mother's face was not rooted in another one of her well-known premonitions.

He obeyed his father  and stepped  out into  the night. In the moonless dark Shy Bear  stumbled across  the prairie  until the fires of the Kuwapi people were like flickering orange stars far behind him. By midnight he  reached  the first  slopes of  the Island in the Sky and ascended slowly, reaching the summit just before sunrise. In the light of  dawn the boy  sat to  let his shadow fall  upon his  father's  stone  cairn. He watched  all morning until his shadow no longer touched the rocky mound.

By dusk he had  not received  a vision  from the  Great Spirit. There was a strong breeze. When the sun sank below the horizon the boy grew cold. He gathered brush growing on the summit and cut it with the edge of a flint scraper, which  he also used to spark a fire to burn them. But the flame and smoke kept changing direction. The boy took the changing winds to  be an invitation to spend the night with Wakan  Tanka within the lodge  that his father built. He removed stones from one side to create a door.

When he crawled inside he saw  the white egg that  Wanica spoke about to Bad Heart Bull. The boy was hungry but it was too dark to try to kill a hare. No heat came from his  fire outside but least he was shielded from the  wind. There was no room to lie down straight, but  he could  sleep on  his side  if he  curled around the white egg.

In the middle of the night Shy Bear was awakened by the smell of smoke. The boy stood up and went outside. Shy Bear saw that his fire had become glowing coals,  but that earlier the  wind must have carried embers halfway down the slope and  kindled a brush fire that threatened  to form  a  ring around  the whole  small mountain. He knew that if he stayed on the  summit he was dead. Small game was running up and over the summit  to flee the fire and the boy could  have shot  his dinner  then, but  with every wasted moment he risked being roasted himself.

Shy Bear moved toward the fire to have enough light to see, then moved west to get around the flames. But he could not go far. A chasm of the  Squaw  River lay  before him. He could hear  it flowing  over  rocks far  below  as  wrapped around  the  entire southern half of the mountain. He needed light to try to cross it. The fire spread to cut off any escape north.

Shy Bear looked down into the canyon of the Squaw River and saw a tiny light of purest  white, like  the brightest star  he had ever seen, bobbing  along  the  west slope  as  though it  were walking. Sometimes it would move north, then at times south, but it always rose higher. At length the light reached the rim on a level with the boy  and he saw it was actually  worn on the head of a human figure even taller than he. The prairie fire behind it outlined an hourglass shape.

A female voice speaking his tongue said, "Follow me and you will live." Sha turned and went back  the way sha came,  and the boy did follow, if anything to reach the creek where he could stand a chance of surviving when the wildfire reached the canyon.

The path was free  of obstructions,  but the  female frequently checked the progress of the  boy. When sha resumed walking the boy admired the patterned skintight  leather sha wore,  even in the dim light  of the fire, which  made har ass look  like a big ripe plum. But the sound of the water grew quieter  the closer they approached, which was strange.

By the time they reached the creek the water  wasn't flowing at all. It had become a wet staircase of puddles that  led up to a low cave entrance in a wall  of dark shale. The femaler crouched to splash har way inside the cave with har  tall boots, and the boy followed.

Inside the cave the boy saw a pool of water with a narrow stone ledge all around  it. The light from  the stranger's  headband filled the space and he  saw that she  looked very much  like a young Kuwapi woman  but much taller, and sha was  not much older than he. Sha laid har hand on har chest and said, "Leliel."

Sha expected him to give his own name and he did not want har to think him addled, so he said, "My father once named me Shy Bear, but now he has cast me out of his tipi with no name." He clearly saw that sha did not understand his words so he laid his hand on his own chest and said, simply, "Shy Bear."

The sound of that name  seemed to  please har. She removed her headband light and dropped it  into the  water. It faded as it sank. Shy Bear saw  the water  began to glow  with a  dim green light.

Leliel knew that  Shy Bear  could not  understand har  words as well,  but sha  tried to  make him  understand with  simple hand gestures to follow har. She made this imperative, as there was danger if he did not follow.

Leliel jumped into the cistern, turned  turtle, and disappeared from view. The boy waited for her to come back up for air as he knew she  must, but  she did  not. The water began to  stir and overflow its bounds. Shy Bear took a leap into the unknown and followed her.

When Shy Bear reached air again there was much  more light than the alcove at the source of the Squaw River. Many hands reached down offering to  pull him  from the  water, as  his ceremonial dress was soaked and weighted him down greatly. Two of the hands were those of Leliel.

Shy Bear saw that he was standing next to a large pool of water surrounded by a surface of polished planks of  wood, and beyond this, a circle of small hut, Behind the huts was a lush forest. Shy Bear could see the sky through branches in these trees, and it was purple. But it was also rather cool, and Shy Bear, being soaked, began to shudder with a chill. Leliel was just as wet as he was. Sha took his hand and  led him into one of  the huts on the perimeter of the pool.

Shutting the door, she disrobed both Shy Bear and harself. This sha did one garment at a time, first his,  then har own. Leliel opened the door once  to pass through  his ceremonial  dress to waiting hands. Shy Bear saw that har legs were sculpted far more than he would expect a woman's legs to be. She was obviously a runner.

Leliel in turn took in  the sight  of Jashen as  sha thoroughly dried both harself and him with linens. Sha held a ribbon with strange markings against  Jashen's body,  here and  there, then opened the door  to  speak  some words  to  those were  waiting outside. There were dry clothes  folded neatly inside  the hut, specked with green and dark purple, which Leliel donned.

By the time sha was fully dressed, the  servants outside passed another set of identical clothing through the door  of the hut, but they were cut  smaller, selected  to fit  Jashen perfectly. Taking mute encouragement from Leliel, he slipped  into the new clothing. And Shy Bear saw  there was  wisdom in the  color and pattern of the clothing. With face and hands painted, a warrior would be almost invisible in the forest. He wondered if women in this strange place were accepted as warriors.

Outside of the hut, seated near  the water, a man  said to hym, "Welcome, Shy Bear. I am called Teacher by some. Everything you see around you is  the lodge of my parent, who  is known to your people as Wakan Tanka."

The man fell silent and Shy Bear felt he  was invited to speak. He said, "Teacher, why am I come to this place?"

"I would ask you to teach Leliel to speak Lakota. You will find that she  can learn very  quickly. And I  would also ask  you to teach her and the Kuwapi the tongue of the whites. Soon you will come to know that tongue as though you were born as one of them, and then you will return home."

Shy Bear said, "But they will grow afraid, and  flog me, or try to put me to death, thinking I am Coyote come in a human shape."

Teacher replied, "Do  not  fear those  things,  Shy Bear.  Your father Wanica will protect you.  After you return he will become chief of the  People. A group of whites will  meet the People in three years. They will be led by  a man who will soon be brought here  even as  you  were.  Wakan Tanka  would  that these  white settlers and your people lived together in peace."

Already Shy Bear  had seen  wondrous things  beyond any  of his dreams, and he longed to stay in that place and experience even more wonders, and here he stole  a quick glance at  Leliel. But his desire to see his father Wanica and mother Yuha again proved the greater. Hy said, "I will return,  Teacher, and  teach the People the tongue of the Whites as you bid."

"I am very pleased," said Teacher with a smile. "No more shall you be called Shy Bear. Now you shall be called Jashen. When you go home Jashen shall be your name of manhood. Yet do not think I will send you home very soon, Jashen. The one  you have already met named Leliel  has written many words upon a  white scroll in the words of  har own tongue. I would have  you copy these words in the tongue of the whites."

"Are there many words on this scroll, Chief Yeshua?"

"A great number of them,  Jashen. It  will take perhaps  ten or twelve moons to complete this task."

"But soon my father and mother will think me to be dead."

"Take no thought of that, Jashen," said Yeshua. "No matter how long you remain here, when you return to the land of your people it will seem to Wanica and Yuha that you have been gone for less than a single moon. One day you will know how  this is not even magic."

"Such a thing would always be strong magic to me, Teacher."

Teacher said, "Others  have  been changed  like  you will  soon change, some  were Begotten, and  some were Made. When  I teach, great  magic becomes  small,  and small  magic  becomes a  known thing, not even magic at all."

Yet later Jashen was witness to something that would always seem to him to be  great magic. A great pile of fallen  timber had materialized next to the pool.

Teacher and one of his students named Anael came  to stand near the wood pile. Teacher said in a loud voice, "Do not be afraid, Mark Lange.  A large splinter  of wood has pierced  your kidney. You also  have a broken  leg you  cannot feel because  timber is pinching  it. But  we  must lift  the beam,  and  you will  most certainly feel that."

Mark could only manage to gasp for help. Teacher told Anael to lift the  beam, which che  could easily do. To Mark, everything seemed to turn red. 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.

After he was  healed  Mark Lange  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. But at length Jashen came to  him. Using the  English he  had  come  to  know,  he introduced himself and invited Mark to meet the Healer.

Mark thought Jashen had  the appearance of  the people  who had preceded the Europeans to North America. And Mark was glad to be permitted to move about at last, When again he saw the short man who helped him when he was injured the man  was seated outdoors near a pool of water. Sitting nearby also was Leliel, who even taller than Anael had been and more obviously female.

As he drew near Mark felt only a very small  residue of pain in his back and  his leg, but he was entirely  able to walk without aid. The short man invited both  Mark and Jashen to  be seated. Jashen sat next to the tall woman and took her hand in his.

Mark sat close to the  Healer, who  greeted Mark and  told him, “This is Leliel, who was once sent to Earth to bring Jashen to us here. But Mark Lange, whom say ye that I am?"

Lange recognized the question from sacred scripture and he said in reply, "You are the Christ, the son of  the living God." And he stood up because it  didn't seem  fitting to recline  in the presence of his Lord.

Teacher gestured for Mark to be seated once more. He looked over at Jashen and Leliel, and  Jashen assured Teacher,  in English, that he never identified him to Lange.

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

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

Teacher said, "Some do still obey God, Mark. A small remnant are faithful, both here in Kemen and  on Earth. It will  be enough. You spoke truth in your prayer when you understood I wanted your flock to go west. Indeed, to go as far as you can go by river or rail, and then even farther on foot."

Mark followed the Lord's finger as he traced out  a course on a map down  the Ohio River  to lands in the  west. The map had 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.

The Lord said, "Here is  the home  of Jashen's people.  I would have you  travel to  this place,  Mark, with  your wife  and any others from your congregation who would freely choose to go. You will take this  map and also a book you  will copy yourself from Leliel’s White Scroll. But the three of you must toil together to make it come to be. Jashen can understand Leliel's speech but he  cannot read  her  letters  nor your  own,  while Leliel  can understand your speech  poorly and your letters not  at all. And when you  return some of the  families in your flock  will think you to  be apostate by reason  of this book, and  they will have nothing further to do with you.  But others will believe. 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."

"I beg my Lord to choose servants more willing  and worthy 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! At  the place  where the rail  ends I  have other students  who shall  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 the Lord 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 was none. Still, some of the Brethren thought some of the  timber in  their ruined  Meetinghouse had  perhaps fallen on Elder Lange's head.

Lange never spoke of one peculiar thing, not even to Joanna. To Lange, it seemed he had been away  for at least a  year, yet he was deposited back in the ruins of the Meetinghouse just moments after it was struck by the two artillery shells.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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 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.

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. 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?"

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. 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 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."

"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 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?"

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."

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 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.

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."

"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?"

"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 "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 resembling '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.

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 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. 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 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 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.

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 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.

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. 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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

"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."

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?"

"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."