The First Love Of Alipang Havens

Chapter 58: Not Everyone Is From Boston

In Casper, on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, the pastor of The Church of the Faithful received a phone call from Sarbar Pitafi at the Federal Merchandise Center. As a result of this call, he in turn called up two of his choir members--the young women who had formerly played the trombone and clarinet for worship music at church. His call, more precisely, was to their place of employment: the city sewage-treatment plant, where between them the two women handled all office work (though the nominal manager of the site was a bland fellow from the government-owned enterprise, associated with the Department of Sustainable Energy, which controlled all the sewage treatment sites). When Abraham Zondei told them that the Pitafis had a surprise for them, they arranged to meet him at the catalogue store on their lunch break.

When lunch hour came, they rode the light rail, mainly to save time--though as for that, being Southern girls, they were just as glad to avoid walking outdoors in this weather when possible. And of course, they could gobble down their bag lunches while riding the local train. Pastor Zondei was there ahead of them, but Mr. Pitafi would not reveal the surprise until the young musicians arrived. When everyone was present, Mr. Pitafi sprang the surprise:

"You all know about that boy Daffodil Ford, who was in the Churchbusters dramatization." The storekeeper carefully avoided saying what a stupid show that had been, even though Trip Conklin had left the Enclave by now. "The surprise really is his doing. You're going to like this."

"What can that weird kid do for us?" asked the clarinet player.

"Especially since he went up to Sussex with Alipang," added the trombone player.

Sarbar Pitafi's smile grew larger. "You're forgetting that this kid, weird or not, is connected; he can make _outside_ calls at will; and he has discretionary income, that is, an allowance, from a mother who is in the elite. He found out from somebody about the loss of your instruments...and at his own expense, he has ordered _replacements_ for them." He saw the young women slowly absorbing the announcement, so he reinforced its impact: "The new instruments are due to arrive here no later than a week from now."

The trombone player's eyes widened. "Are you sure this isn't some rumor, or a mistake?"

"No mistake; it's all been verified. I even asked the sector captain of Overseers about it, and she said it was all right. So you _will_ be getting new instruments."

The reality finally sinking in, the two lady musicians whooped happily, hugged each other, then hugged Mr. Pitafi, adding hugs for Mrs. Pitafi as soon as she came in reach. "I'm starting to like that kid!" exclaimed the clarinet player.

"The whole congregation is going to be grateful to young Mr. Ford," interjected Pastor Zondei. "And among those, I know who needs a morale boost most of all right now."

"You mean Cecilia Havens?" asked Mrs. Pitafi.

"That's right. Poor lady, Eric says she hovered in anticipation while Frodo Von Spock was reading each of those science-fiction novels in turn, including extra copies of novels she had already heard him read. Alipang gave his own copies to be read, to give his mother the maximum chance. But the chemical reaction of a potential winner never did turn up. So now Sister Cecilia is in the dumps again. That's why Kim didn't go back to Sussex at the same time as her husband and children; she's still here, helping to keep her mother-in-law from falling over the edge emotionally."

Mr. Pitafi sighed. "God willing, when Cecilia finds we have our music back, she'll realize that God was planning _other_ good things to result from that boy's visit, even if it _didn't_ give her that holophone call with her daughters on the outside."

Abraham Zondei also sighed. "I hope that will be good enough."
 
During the Monday train ride north to Sussex, Alipang (with his children and several nearby passengers raptly listening) had kept up a lengthy discussion with Daffodil of the content of the Churchbusters novels. In particular, they had dwelt upon the instances (at least one in each novel) of stupid Christian characters hating knowledge and viewing science as witchcraft. As if by chance, Alipang had peppered his remarks with numerous throw-away references to his own knowledge of science--which immensely surpassed Daffodil's knowledge. Yet even before being put in his place academically, Daffodil had been clearly trying not to be offensive to his host; so Alipang had made sure never to sound as if he blamed the boy personally for the falseness of Trip Conklin's portrayal of believers.

And before the end of the ride, Alipang had felt he could give Daffodil a concrete historical example: he told this guest a story that Wilson, Esperanza and Brendan already knew, the biography of 19th-century scientist Michael Faraday. Born in 1791--thus, in a period whose every bit of intellectual progress the Fairness Party wanted to credit to atheists--Faraday had been the first scientist to explain fully the phenomenon of electromagnetic induction, without which electric motors, dynamos and transformers could never have been invented. He had also been an accomplished chemist; all this talent most emphatically put to use in the real world. And Faraday had been a devoted Christian all his days.

This, of course, had flown in the face of everything Daffodil had been programmed to believe; but the fair-haired boy had found it practically impossible not to accept as fact what the black-bearded man told him.

Ransom and Lydia, with Sylvia Lathrop's aid, had welcomed the returning party to an immaculate house, with a fine supper all ready to eat. At this meal, Daffodil had been persuaded to try just a little animal protein in the form of a modest wedge of cheese; this had stayed down without mishap. Along with the food, the new acquaintances had made an impression on the diplomat's son: Sylvia by being so lively despite admitting to an age well beyond seventy, and Ransom and Lydia by their unconcealed affection for each other--without any sign that the Amish girl felt harassed or exploited by her boyfriend.

Since Daffodil was paying money to stay at the Alipang Havens residence, and since the kind of housework done here was alien to him anyway, he was not expected to do any work. Thus he was allowed to sleep in on Tuesday morning, not opening his eyes until almost nine o'clock.

And now, here he sat in the kitchen, the only person eating at this time; Alipang was already seeing a dental patient in his separate dental-office trailer. But Sylvia kept him company for awhile, answering miscellaneous questions about Wyoming Sector, and about the Amish exiles--for Daffodil had never before seen a girl or woman clothed in the deliberately drab style affected by Lydia Reinhart.

"Citizen Lathrop--"

"Easy, son, I told you to call me Sylvia."

"Citizen Sylvia, I understand by now that males my age in the Enclave are not told that they're horrid if they take an interest in girls. And I like the idea, even if my first taste of it didn't turn out as well as I would have preferred. But if you DO allow boys to have girlfriends, then why doesn't a girl like this Lydia TRY harder to attract boys? I mean, that outfit of hers isn't sexy OR elegant."

"The Amish, the kind of Christians that Lydia is one of, are stricter than they need to be; they think it's morally bad for a girl to try to be attractive, EVEN in a sexually modest way. Alipang never bought that approach, I can tell you. But even for the rest of us here, who DON'T go into a panic if a girl's knees are visible, it still counts much more what's inside the heart of a potential mate. A handsome boy or a pretty girl could be disfigured in an accident; but what's in your heart belongs to you."

Daffodil swallowed some apple cider before saying, "At the risk of stating the obvious, I still have a lot to learn."

"Don't feel bad, son; ALL of us have a lot to learn, as long as we live."
 
This being a weekday, exiles' homes all had electricity again; so Sylvia presently walked back to her house, taking Lydia with her. Wilson, Esperanza and Brendan were occupied with their homeschool studies, and Alipang was still at his dentristy, which left Ransom the only person in the house with whom Daffodil could attempt conversation. Ransom was gluing loose legs and back-bars in place on two old wooden chairs, but this was nothing so intricate as to preclude his talking with the guest, the more so since there were so few boys in Sussex who were close to Ransom's age.

"I understand that you're not a genetic relative to Alipang and Kim," Daffodil began, "and that your caregiver has entered into a new partnering relationship with a powerplant technician who is not strictly speaking an exile. So this means that your people do have some flexibility in relationships, right? I never quite believed that you were as fanatical as they say on television."

"Depends on what you mean by fanatical," replied Ransom. "We do hold by the traditional standard of marriage, one man to one woman. My mother didn't _abandon_ a previous husband to marry Bill Shao, nor had she _been_ abandoned; rather, she was free to marry again because my father died about three years ago. Same time as my elder brother. Now, if no calamity parts them, Mother and Bill will remain together till one of them dies, and more power to them. Bill's a good man."

Naive though he was in many respects, Daffodil had learned enough about picking up non-verbal clues, that now he could tell that Ransom was holding back something further that he would have liked to say. Most likely, something about his father and brother dying. Daffodil judged that it was much too early in the acquaintance for him to press Ransom to say more; so he changed the subject just a little.

"Do you expect to be partnering Lydia?"

"Let's keep our language clear. From all I hear, the way the word 'partner' is used outside the fence these days, it can mean anything more intense than a handshake. The operative word here is 'marriage.' I don't know if Lydia and I will get married; we both feel that we love each other, but it's too soon to be certain. I'm still a minor, not even as old yet as Alipang was when he and Kim got serious back in their highschool days."

"And her Amish customs prevent you and her from trying--er, never mind."

Ransom aimed a solemn gaze at Daffodil. "That was a well-chosen 'Never mind.' The Amish aren't the only ones who believe that full physical union belongs only inside marriage. And please _don't_ tell me how low the age of consent has dropped outside the fence, I don't think I want to know."

"I understand; or maybe I don't, but I _want_ to understand. If you have no option of prior erotic tryouts, how do you determine who suits you for one of these permanent bondings? Do you have a religious oracle that you depend on to tell you?"

Ransom paused to finish fitting a chair leg in place, then answered: "It's no mystery; it's a matter of _personalities_ fitting together. With all the talk you outside people talk about oneness and harmony and the collective, you _must_ have your own understanding of personalities fitting together. So how about you tell me what your Tolerance House in Boston was like? Wilson told me that you said that was where you had been living. It must have helped form your own views on relationships; so describe it. Please."

"All right, I'll give it a try."
 
Last edited:
Copperfox said:
So how about you tell me what your Tolerance House in Boston was like? Wilson told me that you said that was where you had been living. It must have helped form your own views on relationships; so describe it. Please."

"All right, I'll give it a try."
Click to expand...

This should be interesting.
 
"First, let's go upstairs," muttered Ransom. "I can finish the last bit on these chairs afterwards, and I don't want us to be in earshot of Esperanza and Brendan, in case the talk runs to adult subjects."

When they were upstairs and behind a closed door, Daffodil began:

"The Tolerance Houses, in their present form anyway, were only created after the Fairness Revolution. Their purpose is to cure young citizens of Oppositional Defiant Disorder, racial and gender bigotry, and un-mutual paradigms in general. They haven't even existed long enough to have completed the reprogramming of the most obstinate non-collectivist thinkers placed in them; but I'm told that with the more teachable personalities, the successful graduation rate is most impressive. I myself, however, was not sent to my own city's Tolerance House because of any un-mutual deviations on my part. I was sent there in order to combine the continuation of my general academic schooling with practical experience in the indoctrination of unenlightened children. My caregiver has a high standing in the Party; and my own appointment as adjunct faculty, at an unusually early age for that responsibility, was facilitated both by the mere fact of her prestige, and by her verifiable success in molding me to conform to the oneness.

"For I was already well aligned with the collective spirit even before the Nazi capitalist Chri-- before the old order in America was abolished. You've only been an exile for what, three years? So you were around to witness much of what happened as prelude to the founding of the D.S.A."

Ransom nodded. "Yes, I'm aware that the Fairness Party existed for years before the Chinese handed it the opportunity to assume power. It was created by people who insisted that the Democrats and the Greens hadn't moved nearly far _enough_ to the left."

"We would say, not far enough to the _center;_ but yes, the Party was there. And my caregiver was an early member--although, between you and me, she first joined it simply to look for new lovers. Nonetheless, she was quick to fit in, quick to see that this was the wave of the future....and quick to start conditioning me in the Party's ways of thinking. Let's see, what would be a good illustration?...Yes, here's one. You probably were aware of the fad that started among single mothers in 2016, to make their male bioproducts wear lipstick? As a measure against barbaric masculine savagery?"

Ransom winced. "Yes, I remember. My parents didn't go along with it."

"But my mother not only went along with it; she was the one who first _proposed_ it, at a Party conference in 2015. That was one reason why she was admitted into the diplomatic service later. And yes, she made me one of the first boys in America to wear lipstick to school. I thought it looked silly, but at least it protected my lips from chapping in winter."

"Glitches on a trunkline, did you get beaten up at school?"

"No, because cultural tolerance was already far enough advanced by then that my diversity would not evoke such a crude reaction."

Ransom snorted. "I'm glad you didn't get assaulted; but I can imagine wanting to beat up someone _other_ than the little boys who were made up that way. That was how my Dad and Quinn felt about it, too. Didn't you feel even a _little_ bit as if you were being used?"

Daffodil's voice dropped in volume. "Yes, I felt that way for awhile; but my mother got me started regularly drinking Joy Nectar as soon as it went on the market. Eventually I understood the bigger picture of the need to eliminate prejudice and hate from society, and from then on I progressed rapidly."

"Into the Tolerance House."

"Yes, but again, as faculty rather than as an inmate. I even got to be an athletic coach."

"For those new non-competitive sports?"

"Exactly, my main thing being Equalityball."

"I've heard of that," said Ransom, "but never seen it. If you're still with us after the winter ends, or maybe on a later visit, you could show us how it works. Just learning a sporting activity surely won't set off our terrifying Nazi caveman aggressions."

"Why, yes," Daffodil agreed. "A painless bit of cultural bridging. I'd like that."
 
Alipang's last patient before he broke for lunch was Veronique Rochefort, the school-age daughter of Raoul and Annette Rochefort. She needed two cavities filled--small, simple cavities, easy to deal with, or else Alipang would have hesitated to proceed, with Kim not being here to perform pain-blocking acupuncture. Discomfort to the child was minimal, and the dental epoxy would harden very quickly.

"Veronique, did your mother tell you that we would be keeping you here with us till suppertime?"

"Yeh, hir." Per the dentist's instructions, the girl was keeping her upper teeth out of contact with her lower teeth for the first few minutes. "Wi' Paba an' my bro'erzh all away on 'at harm reppeh job, I'll be gla' to be here and pway wi' Ebberanzha."

"And she'll be glad to play with you. But before we go in the house, I have to tell you about our new lodger."

"Mama shed you ha' som'un fum ou'side'a fensh here. Younger'n da man fum Aushalia."

"Yes, he's barely sixteen. But he's a boy who has always been around the kind of people who put us in the Enclave. He isn't evil, but he IS used to thinking whatever those people tell him to think; and he is allowed to carry a cellphone, with which he can call the Overseers anytime he wants. So when you see him, be careful what you say. He might get angry if we say anything that sounds like we're angry at the Party."

"Ogay, I'll jus' pway, not mush talk."

"Smart girl. But you're also allowed to eat. Lydia knew I would be filling your cavities today, so she cooked up some neckbone broth. With that and milk and applesauce for lunch, you won't have to do any chewing."

When Alipang and Veronique entered the house through the rear mudroom, Ransom was inspecting his completed work on the chairs. "Daffy's in the living room, listening to Esperanza reciting poems by Keats. He never even _heard_ of Keats before."

Alipang smiled. "Literary tastes vary. I never looked at a Trip Conklin book until recently."

Daffodil and Veronique had a most cordial introduction. And when the black girl's fillings were sufficiently cured in place for her to have lunch, Daffodil found that the residual "white guilt" passed to him from his mother's generation was giving him the motivation to try something risky and foreign, rather than create any perception of bigotry by seeming to repudiate any taste or habit on Veronique's part. That is, when Veronique drank the broth made by boiling turkey and pork neckbones...Daffodil drank some of it also. Thus, his third taste of animal protein since entering this alien world.

He felt some queasiness after the broth went down, but it soon faded.

Veronique, meanwhile, had no inkling that the strange white boy was going through any drama.
 
Last edited:
After lunch, while Alipang got back to his dental office, Ransom headed up to his room. Daffodil, following in curiosity, saw the other boy settling into the midst of a nest made of books and reams of paper, sharpening pencils with a pocketknife.

"What's this?" the guest asked. "Are you writing something for the Wyoming Observer?" While still in Casper, Daffodil had read every edition of the exile newspaper he could get his hands on, as part of learning what manner of society he had invaded; thus he knew that occasional portions of that paper were photocopied from handwritten original text.

"No, this is a history report. If we ever have a regular school system in the Enclave--preferably a self-governing system--a lot of us will have a whole backlog of independent study projects to show them, in effect an improvised proficiency test, to establish academic achievement levels for ourselves."

"Have a system--? But I saw a school in Rapid City..."

"That school was only for the children of Party members. They have no more space to accommodate us exiles, than we have inclination to attend their school. But it's one of the biggest areas of uncertainty that we have in the Enclave, not knowing what's going to become of persons my age and younger, when it comes to education and careers." Ransom gazed at the other boy more intently. "I don't suppose, in your association with outside education bureaucrats, that you ever heard anything about government plans to allow for accredited schooling in here?"

"I'm afraid not." Inwardly, Daffodil reflected on how much time his own mother, supposedly an important diplomat, spent on frivolous entertainments. "I don't think it's because of any concerted _plan_ to keep you Biblicals paralyzed; I think it's.... Are we really listened to all the time here?"

"The mirror-men have the _means_ to spy on any of us anytime they want," replied Ransom. "But there only are so many of them to _process_ any information; the personalities of the Havens household are no secret to them; and you yourself are in favor with the establishment. So I'd say the odds favor your getting away with anything you feel like saying."

"Then what I think," Daffodil whispered, "is that the current government simply is not yet _organized_ enough to _have_ any plans formed for schooling in the Enclave. The system is still so new.... Do you exiles ever hear about 'kinetic negotiations'?"

"Um, I never have, anyway."

"The labor unions: with what's left of America's industrial base placed under their control, practically overnight, they've had jurisdictional disputes ever since the Fairness Revolution. Most of the time, the court system arbitrates these conflicts; maybe you heard that nearly half of all the Pinkshirts are former lawyers and legal clerks?"

"Yes, that I have heard."

"With jury trials abolished, inter-union arbitration gives them work to do. But sometimes, the unions get impatient...and start fighting."

Ransom was startled. "What, you mean _literally_ fighting?"

"I'm afraid so. I never witnessed a kinetic negotiation; but I'm told that the Marshals' Service has to devote nearly half of its personpower to containing these incidents."

"And this proves the loving oneness of the collective, how?"

"More like it proves human nature, I guess," Daffodil sighed. "But we hope to remedy such things. Meanwhile, what's your history report about?"

"It's about the first fifty years of the existence of the United States Navy: a subject of special personal interest to me. Happily, during the setup of the Enclave, some Wyoming residents who were staying on as exiles, were able to salvage large quantities of books from libraries that were being closed down or changed to Campaign Against Hate facilities. So it's possible for me, even without the use of a computer, to read accounts of the early Navy that say something _besides_ how capitalistic and fascist and religiously intolerant it supposedly was."

"All right. I suppose I should leave you to it."

"For now, yes, please. But we'll have plenty of other talks."
 
Last edited:
Chapter 59: Vision Quest As Rehab


John and Lynne Wisebadger, as well as Jay and Gloria Spafford, were satisfied by the Thursday after Thanksgiving that Henry was back to normal physically, or very nearly so. He could run three kilometers through snow without tiring, and could do forty chin-ups without pausing. But as had been the case for both Henry and Alipang after their misadventure of last July Fourth, Henry had lost something of his mental edge.

Or perhaps, lost something of his faith.

Which was why, on that Thursday, he rode his horse Cochise down to the Grange Hall in his area, the same one where he had eaten Thanksgiving dinner. Manning the building today was a middle-aged lady named Soledad, one of the agricultural advisors for the Grange Association.

"Henry! It's good to see you! Don't tell me you're up to making a wolf patrol already?"

"If you mean to say someone is urgently needed for that, I'll do it, if there's a bow here I can borrow. My broken one hasn't been replaced yet. But I'm still a few percentage points short of Geronimo, and if you can spare me, there's something I need to do for myself before I'll be in top form again."

"It's all right, Henry. Ruby Vincent is leading the rest of our female hunters on a sweep now; they'll manage fine. What exactly is it that you need to do for yourself? Can I help?"

"Yes, you can, by letting me board Cochise in the stable here for a few days. I need to do an Indian kind of thing, which I'll be doing on foot."

"In this weather?"

Henry shrugged. "It's the weather we've got just now, though I would have preferred a hot Arizona summer. But as for that, have you got any clean scraps of paper I could take?"

"I'm sure I can find you a few. Does the size matter?"

"Not much. I just want them as reserve tinder for my campfires, in case all the pine needles and suchlike are wet. I'm carrying matches, too; not planning to overdo the Apache austerity. Oh, and I'll want to make a withdrawal." By the last phrase, Henry was referring to the fact that each Grange Hall kept a wall of lockboxes, which served as a sort of bank for the volunteers. Exiles were not allowed to start a bank in the regular sense, but it was a courtesy to the Grange volunteers to let them have a safe place to stash valuables, even though theft was nearly nonexistent in the Enclave.

Facing the wall of lockboxes, Henry dialled the combination on his own box, and removed some cash which he had left here more than two months ago. It was the money he had been paid by a man buying deerhides from him, the transaction having occurred right here at the Grange Hall. "I may not need money," he remarked to Soledad, "but I want to have it just in case I need to go into a town for something."

The woman touched her young friend's shoulder. "So you don't have a planned itinerary or schedule?"

"Nope. Only the need to find my center, or something like that."

"Why, Henry, do you mean you're starting a vision quest?"

"Yeah. My version of it, anyway. A Christian version, so no pantheistic oneness-of-everything stuff. I'm not about to exalt the creation above the Creator. But I am very seriously hoping that the Creator will answer a few questions for me."

"You mean, about why you had to go through all that abuse last month?"

"Pretty much along those lines. Not that I mean to drown in self-pity; I know that plenty of people have suffered worse than I did at the hands of Overseers. I can even see potential good coming for all of us on the reservation, in the aftermath of my being rescued. But, well, I don't know, I guess I still need to make sense of it. I did NOT enjoy being a laboratory rat in that Overseer infirmary."
 
Henry left his deposit box open without thinking about it. There was nothing else in it after taking out his eighty-one pesos; and anyway, Agriculture Department officials had access to all the boxes at Grange Halls, much like the Overseers being authorized to do their "lock checks" on the homes of exiles. Soledad went outside with him, led Cochise to a stall in the adjoining stable, and helped Henry to put away the saddle and tack. Then they went back into the Grange office.

"Can I offer you some hot herbal tea before you disappear into the countryside?"

"Yes, thanks. No need to start out already freezing. But I won't necessarily vanish. Now, a classic Apache vision quest would have me sit inside a mystic circle for four days and four nights, waiting to hear from spirits of nature; but my faith is in the _Maker_ of nature, and I know that He can speak to us through other human beings. Therefore, I don't rule out speaking with people during my quest."

Soledad poured the tea for him. "What exactly are you trying to find out?"

After his first swallow from the cup, Henry answered, "No huge cosmic predictions. About a hundred years ago, the Apache medicine man Stalking Wolf was credited with some Nostradamus-type visions. His later fans even claimed that he had predicted the AIDS epidemic. But as for me, I'll simply be practicing my wilderness skills, and asking God to tell me what's next for me.

"You know about Odette Galloway, the woman I saved from that bear. At the time I saved her, when the rush of action was over, I began to think that the narrow escape from death might make her open to receiving Jesus as her Lord. But she was whisked away, and I never got the chance to lead her to faith."

"Are you sure you weren't really hoping to lead her to something else?"

"Quite sure. I did not, and do not, have any romantic desire for Miss Galloway. If I had wanted her that way, I could have had her long before the day of that bear encounter. But I do wish for lost souls to find God's grace. Later, when Alipang saved me from getting shot, I thought maybe I would have a chance to lead one or more of my captors to salvation. But no. I did get to witness to one of the Pinkshirt medics when she showed up here for Thanksgiving dinner, but any progress the Holy Spirit may have made with her has been outside my knowledge."

"You do know about casting your bread on the waters, don't you?"

"Yes, I do; but let's say I want to talk to God about just _which_ waters I cast my bread on, and whether I'll see any results before I run out of bread."

"Then I wish you success; and I'll pray with you before you take off. But first, tell me what you've got for gear; maybe I can supplement it with something from the hunting supplies."

"I've got the outdoor clothes you see me wearing; my knife, hand axe, and mess kit; two blankets, one wool and one synthetic, with a waterproof groundcloth which can also be rigged as a canopy. Some first-aid items stashed in various pockets, now to be joined by the money. In my backpack I have my matches, ten meters of utility cord, some jerky, hard biscuit and dried apples, plus a thermos jug for water. Water in a belt canteen would likely freeze. Also in the backpack are an extra shirt, and two changes of socks and long underwear; in case of getting wet, I'll need to get something dry next to my skin as soon as possible."

Soledad brightened up. "Now, there's something I can do for you! Just before you came in, I finished darning a pair of socks for my husband. He won't mind if I lend them to you, just in case your feet get wet three times."

Henry smiled back at her. "Bless you, sister, and bless your husband! God really does send some of His encouragement through other people."
 
Soledad handed over the socks: the first pair of Argyle socks the young Apache had ever seen, let alone worn. Then they did pray together for the success of the vision quest, after which Henry suddenly remembered something.

"Oh, I need to stick a note into one of the saddlebags in Cochise's rig. My Dad will be coming here to retrieve Cochise on Sunday afternoon if I'm not home in time for church that day, and I wrote down some things to ask him and Mom to do with one of my unfinished workshop projects." Thus the Grange huntsman went out again to the stable, which had heaters powered by solar panels to give the animals some warmth. Soledad threw on her coat and went with him, chatting about this and that morsel of news other volunteers had brought lately. So it was that the older lady was with Henry in the tackroom when, having placed the note for his father to find, he glanced at the floor and did a double-take. "What's this?"--and he stooped to pick up a metallic object shaped somewhat like a knife.

"Oh, that's one half of an old broken pair of heavy hedge-and-garden shears. Not something you're likely ever to have used, but like a big pair of scissors."

"Okay, now I see. That's why it's sharpened along the straight edge, not the convex edge. Here's the hole where the pivot bolt would have been. And whatever it had for a handle, also broke away from the tang of the metal blade."

"The what of the blade?"

"The tang: it's the part that goes inside the handle on a knife or sword."

"Oh. Nobody ever got around to fixing the shears. Not a high priority; we weren't even sure whom they originally belonged to."

"Hmmm... Soledad, if no one needs this piece, do you suppose I could have it? With this eyehole to pass part of the binding through, and some tang below the blade, I could anchor your half-of-the-scissors into the cleft end of a wooden shaft, bind it securely, and have a workable spear. Next best thing to a bow!"

"I see. But you'll want to sharpen the point and outer edge."

"May I borrow a file from the toolroom? And a bit of sturdy wire?"

Soledad laughed. "Anyone from _outside_ the Enclave would assume you wanted a _computer_ file! Yes, of course you can borrow a file; only, won't that take away from your vision quest?"

"No, I can be praying while I sharpen my spearhead."

"Of course. And who knows, maybe this is a sign for you already. Your distant ancestors--mine too, for that matter--would have had spears before they had bows and arrows. Maybe your finding something you could use to make a spear, at a time when you're lacking a bow, is a symbolic event. Maybe it's telling you that you're going back to basics, back to the beginning."

It was not every day that an agricultural advisor, who was also a grandmother, found herself being exuberantly hugged by an Apache brave.

"Yo! Soledad, you're a visionary! That gives me something to go on! And one more request to make. I didn't bring a Bible from home, because we only have two Bibles for the whole family. Anyway, they're the shortened versions, all we could get. I know that some complete Bibles have survived in Grange hands. May I borrow one from the book-exchange cabinet?"

"Naturally. Let's see, we've got a King James and a Revised Standard."

"I'll take the Revised Standard, thanks. And going back to the beginning is my theme; so, during whatever share of this time I devote to reading Scripture, I'll study Genesis!"
 
Last edited:
With almost three hours of daylight left, Henry Spafford's non-pantheistic vision quest was well and truly underway. His plan for starters was to walk alongside the North Branch of the Powder River, which ran to the southeast from the Crazy Woman Creek area, going in the general direction of Sussex. He would not come within sight of Sussex before nightfall; but he wasn't even intending to go to Sussex on this walkabout, unless he was directed thither by some new omen. Alipang Havens was bound to have his hands full catching up with patients after being away to Casper for Thanksgiving, so the warrior-dentist would be too busy to offer assistance with a spiritual search.

For tonight, Henry planned to stop at an old, empty stone barn-foundation he knew of, where he would set up his tarp as a canopy in one of the corners, and sleep with his fire between himself and any ill-mannered beasts. There were some complete buildings and sheds standing empty here and there along the way; but he would not sleep where there were likely to be rats, as he considered them even more ill-mannered. Along his route tomorrow, he would come upon one of the old bridges formerly used by automobiles; he would use this to cross from the northeast bank of the river to the southwest bank. (There were places where the Powder River, and its tributary branches, could easily be forded at times other than spring flooding; but Henry didn't especially want to get wet needlessly so early in his quest.) Then he would wander at random, sticking to unused land as much as possible, so as not to disturb anyone's property.

During this first stretch, he kept his eyes open for any sapling tree which might serve as the shaft of his new spear; but no really suitable young tree presented itself. No matter, he would put in some time tonight sharpening the hedge-trimmer blade. Meanwhile, though the Bible Soledad had lent him was riding inside his waterproof backpack, the very fact of _having_ a Bible with him set his mind to reviewing the Book of Genesis, upon which he had resolved to meditate as part of his vision quest.

The Garden of Eden came to mind, of course; and it wasn't a hard mental stretch to figure that if the Fairness Party had existed then, it would have told Adam and Eve they were _entitled_ to the forbidden fruit. Cain and Abel? The Fairness Party would have absolved Cain of all guilt for murdering his brother, because Abel was guilty of the "hate crime" of sincerely worshipping God. Noah and the Flood? The Fairness Party would have told Noah to let all the world's animals drown, because it was better for them to die than to suffer the indignity of being _owned_ by the human beings on the Ark. Abraham? In Abraham's case, Henry imagined Party officials not _being_ there in the past with the great patriarch, but rewriting the narrative of his life. Where the actual Abraham had departed from an idol-worshipping pagan society to follow and serve only one God, the revisionists would say that exactly the opposite had happened: Abraham escaped from the bondage of monotheism, to find freedom in polytheistic fantasies.

The near-sacrifice of Isaac? Today's regime was _delighted_ to kill children, and the elderly, and whoever was inconvenient. Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt? A present-day Oneness Chaplain would probably say that she had achieved union with Mother Earth. And what about the betrothal of Rebekah to Isaac--?

That last part stood out in Henry's mind. Apart from the brief account of how delighted Adam was when he first saw Eve, the story of Rebekah being found as a bride for Isaac was the first _romance_ in the Bible. The Apache Christian looked at the shears blade he was carrying. This was _half_ of a complete object. Not counting the special improvised use Henry had in mind for it, this piece of steel was _useless_ for its original purpose unless it had its other half attached. The analogy to marriage was obvious enough. So did this mean that the vision quest would lead Henry Spafford to meet, or in some way find out about, the woman he would one day marry? It was possible, and Henry was all for marriage and family; but--still too soon to tell.

The program for this evening would be largely practical, and focussed on short-term goals: refreshing his proficiency in cold-weather camping, and starting to put an edge on his new spearhead. Tomorrow, then--what next?

For being an enclosed reservation, the Western Enclave was mighty big; more so if you were on foot. Many surprises were possible in so much territory, and God's true leading could prove to be any of a score of things.

But Henry was gaining confidence that the Lord would reveal something specific.
 
Chapter 60: Bad News and Good News for the Family

Thursday evening, over in the Mid-Atlantic Federal District, Evan Rand felt bad about missing church in the one weekly time slot when Christians outside the Enclave were permitted to hold worship in Oneness Temples. He had already grown fond of Pastor Schell; but as Dobie Marsalis had informed him, the Secondary Healthcare Workers' Union was holding a motivational meeting here in Georgetown tonight, and Evan's tenuous union standing could not afford a non-attendance this early in his membership.

He had yet to be assigned any jobs, but as with other new members, the union itself was paying him a tiny stipend. Paying union dues, at least, was a thing of the past; ever since the "Fairness Revolution," it had been the unions which handled the pay of their workers, so they simply withheld as much as they saw fit before the worker saw a centavo.

Evan had barely gone out the door, when a phone call cancelled church for everyone in the house named Salisbury as well. It was from Wilma Culligan, Tommy Salisbury's teacher at Fidel Castro Elementary School. She explained that she had to come over and meet with Dan and Chilena, who had both just gotten back from a videocording session this morning. Chilena hustled Summer and her children out, so they at least could attend worship tonight; but it would be too much to ask of Summer that she singlehandedly shepherd any more children besides her own. So Cecilia and Irene Salisbury stayed home--along with their brother Tommy, the only child whom the authorities were actually _requiring_ to be present in the house.

When Ms. Culligan appeared at the door, she was accompanied by a male Pinkshirt, though as far as could be seen, he was armed only with a recording dataphone.

"This is Mr. Corbett," the teacher told Dan and Chilena. "He's here simply as a witness."

Corbett nodded to the parents. "No charges are pending against anyone, but the Campaign Against Hate always tries to be proactive about heading off un-mutual manifestations, and so does the school board. Citizen Culligan, proceed as you planned." He remained standing, at a good vantage point for his audiovisual recording; but Ms. Culligan sat down and beckoned to her pupil.

"Tommy, sit near me, please." When the boy did so, she continued: "Young citizen, I can truly say that this is not about you being bad; it is exactly about how _good_ you are."

"That is," Corbett interjected, "we're here to _verify_ how good he is."

A light bulb went on for Chilena. "Oh! This is about his writing, isn't it?"

"That's correct," said the teacher. "After New Year, Tommy will no longer be my student, he'll be moving up a grade; and Ms. Yintavong wants to be sure what she's getting in her class. What I mean is, well...citizens, I don't see any _adults_ anymore who have such a gift for verse as Tommy has..."

"Or _seems_ to have," snapped Corbett.

"...and so, the authorities just need to make _certain_ that there is no falsification of his performance going on. I can't imagine what the motive could be for it if there _were_ some fraud; but we have to investigate. Irregularities are not in the spirit of diversity."

It took all the willpower Dan possessed to _restrain_ himself from pointing out what a grand self-contradiction the teacher's last sentence was.

"With the approval of the Pinkshirts," Ms. Culligan went on, "I have devised a perfectly painless test, which ought to settle the question this very evening. I voluntarily underwent brainwave scanning for my truthfulness about my plans. But you, Tommy, won't have to be hooked up to any sensors; all you have to do is...improvise."
 
Last edited:
I'm not sure whether to feel happy for Tommy or worried about him. The days when your work's attracting your teacher's attention was a good thing seem to be over.
 
"Do you mean make up a new poem all at once?" Tommy asked.

"The boy catches on fast," said Corbett, seemingly as commentary for his recording. "It would make a person wonder about prior collusion, except that records and my own testimony confirm that Citizen Culligan passed the brainwave test, and is telling the truth about her whole plan. Proceed, Ms. Culligan."

"Thank you." The teacher did not allow the compact video camera to see the expression on her face at the multiple interruptions. "Now, Tommy, here is the WAY that you and I will prove that your talent is all your own. I have compiled a selection of words, and you have no way of knowing what the words are until I tell you. Once I do tell you the words, I will ask you, as quickly as possible, to make up a poem which makes some kind of sense, using all of the listed words in rhymes."

"Do I get to pr--" Tommy came within an angstrom of saying "pray;" but he was the son of actors, and he smoothly made it "prepare first?"

"I'm sorry, Tommy, but the whole point is to be totally extemporatious."

"Ms. Culligan, you mean to say extemporaneous."

The teacher gave her first real smile of this interview. "I meant for you to catch that, young citizen. You're sharp. You can do this; trust yourself."

"Can he at least have a sheet of paper to jot down his ideas once he HAS heard the words?" Dan asked.

"That's permissible," declared Corbett. So a sheet of paper and a pencil were brought to the boy. Of course, any suggestion of using a data device would have been begging for an accusation of cheating.

Tommy drew himself up. "All right, Ms. Culligan, I'm ready for the words."

"Here they are, in alphabetical order; but you don't have to use them in the order I'm saying them, just so each one is used in a rhyme. The words are: AXIS as in rotation, CEILING as in the top of the room, GANGRENOUS, and SOLSTICE. Begin composing."

Tommy wrote the assigned words in a line across the top of his paper, then began writing possible rhymes under each word. His first potential rhyme for "axis" was "phototaxis;" for "ceiling," "feeling;" for "gangrenous," "Venus;" and for "solstice," "notice." He tried a few possible couplets using these rhymes, then crossed all of them out and thought of new rhyming words. He requested, and was given, a new sheet of paper for when he commenced writing in earnest. Twelve minutes after he had begun, he stood up and displayed his final product in front of Mr. Corbett's phone-camera; then he turned his writing back toward himself and read it aloud:

"The coming of the Solstice--I say this just between us--
Provides our wounds a poultice, lest they become gangrenous.
As Gaia tilts her axis beneath a starry ceiling,
We get a year to practice the work of mutual healing."

The Pinkshirt looked impressed against his will.

The teacher hugged Tommy, exclaiming, "That was fabulous! After this, no one will be able to say there was any faking! Now all you need..." She took a deep breath. "All you need now is a sense of discretion. When you first join Ms. Yintavong's class, you'll need to think about fitting in with the group. You're coming close to the age for joining the Pioneers." She looked at Tommy's elder sister Cecilia, at whom Dan and Chilena also looked reflexively. "And if even ONE bioproduct of this partnering does well in the Pioneers, that is sure to reflect well on the entire household collective. Once you're IN the Pioneers, they'll be ecstatic to have your talents harnessed in the service of the Party. So plan ahead: keep in line for now, be like the other young citizens, and you'll pave your own way to future success. Whether it's in creative writing, or other academic disciplines, don't stand out too soon or too much. You have impressive skills; you just need more skill at being average. Remember what President Trevette said, the first time she visited a school after becoming President: march in step now, so you can dance later."

Mr. Corbett shut off his phone-camera and shook hands with the boy. "We have high hopes for you, Citizen Salisbury." As if it were a splendid joke, he amended this: "Or should I say, average hopes?"

"Thank you, sir." Tommy maintained an admirable poker face. "I hope to give the Party all the service it deserves."
 
Did the founders of the Pioneer youth organization take its name from that of the Young Pioneers in the Soviet Union?
 
Back
Top