In All Places (Stripling Warrior) Page 3

  I was tired of this war, and I was hungry. How I wished for the corn in my satchel each morning, but it never came. Why, I wondered, did God withhold it? We hadn’t needed it on the march to Judea, not nearly so much as we needed it then.

  But I had learned to trust in God, for He knew all things, and I most assuredly did not. I resolved to leave it up to Him when to distribute His food to the hungry and when to try their faith.

  Chapter 3

  I was pondering on my hunger one afternoon when Zeke walked slowly into camp.

  Delighted to see him up and walking, I went to him, meeting him halfway. But I had hesitated for just a moment, thinking his pride might demand that he walk the full way to me on his own power. His eyes were fixed on me, so of course he noticed the falter in my step, and disappointment showed in his face.

  I thought I might insult him by not allowing him to walk to me, by diminishing his achievement, but I had managed to insult him anyway.

  Still I knew my delight shone in my eyes. If he couldn’t read it there, then he was blind.

  “Come for a walk with me?” His voice was deep and familiar. His dark hair was tied back, and he looked so good—clean, strong, flushed with life—that I felt butterflies in my stomach where moments ago I had been wishing there was food.

  “I would like that,” I said firmly. I thought to suggest we could sit and give his leg a rest, but I had no sooner thought it than discarded the idea. I would let Zeke do and say what he thought was best without second guessing him. He was capable of making his own decisions. He led fifty men! And I led none.

  Our wounds were similar, and I had been traipsing all over the wilderness to hunt game and gather herbs and roots. Zeke was strong and resilient. He would recover. I was feeling overprotective of a man who had proved he could protect both himself and me. But was it so wrong to want him to be safe? I needed him to be safe.

  Was this the way he worried about me? Tainted with dilemma and selfishness? Constant wavering between caring too much and feeling unable to care at all? I swallowed hard and tried to think of something else, something that wouldn’t cause my heart to race or helplessness to rise in my chest.

  It was a perfect, beautiful day. The air smelled clean. Fluffy, white clouds drifted in a blue sky. Birds sang in the trees.

  Birds sang in the trees.

  My hand went to my sling, and I fit a stone into it. Without a word, Zeke placed his hand over mine.

  He was right, of course. I was not on a hunting detail.

  “Remember when we used to hunt together at home?” I asked, tucking the sling back into my belt.

  He winced at the pain in his leg as he swung it over a branch in the path. “Of course I do.”

  How I hated to see him suffer!

  “And you and Kenai would wait to the sides of a path,” I hurried on, “while I lured something into your trap.”

  “You made beautiful bait.”

  It was a compliment I was accustomed to, but I blushed when he offered it so genuinely.

  “We caught a lot of things that way,” I remembered with a reminiscent smile.

  “Between two men,” Zeke said quietly.

  For a long time I didn’t respond, and his words hung in the air between us. I wanted to ignore them, to just let it go, but I kept thinking about them as we walked on. They wouldn’t go away.

  We hadn’t yet talked of Gideon or of what Zeke had seen just before he had slipped into unconsciousness on the battlefield. It wasn’t just that my captain had embraced me. It was the clear show of passion that had accompanied it, and not just on Gideon’s part. It was the way he had grasped me tight to him, the way he had kissed my brow as if it was his to kiss and the way he had looked into my eyes.

  We hadn’t yet talked of my feelings for Gideon or of Zeke’s. How could we? It was impossible.

  “Don’t start that, Zeke,” I said at last, trying to keep my voice even. “I don’t want to fight.”

  “Don’t start what?”

  I bristled at the challenge in his voice. “Don’t you think you’re taking this jealousy thing a little far?”

  He threw me a glare, a look he seldom let me see, and we both stopped walking.

  “No. I think I’ve been tolerant of the time you spend with Gid.”

  I repeated the word slowly. “Tolerant? It’s not as if there is much of a choice. He’s my captain. He’s in my unit. He—”

  “As a captain, he could have chosen any unit,” he interrupted.

  “But I couldn’t. Why do you blame me?”

  “You spend a disproportionate amount of time—”

  “I do not! I spend equal amounts of time with all the men in my unit. You,” I jabbed at his chest much the same as I had with Lamech. “You choose not to see that. You see what you want.”

  “You think I want to see you with him?”

  I stared into his cocoa-colored eyes. So familiar. Warm, even in his pain. Beloved. I willed my anger to fall away. He was not the one I was mad at.

  “No.” I gave him the courtesy of an answer.

  “Micah said you sought forgiveness, but he was wrong. You only seek justification.”

  That stung. “Can’t you see I’m trying to love you? You’re poisoning it with this bitterness and this jealousy.”

  “I don’t want a girl who has to try to love me.”

  The words, flung like a stone, hit their mark.

  “You don’t love me,” he pressed on with insistence. “And you,” he poked me in the chest. “You are the one who has poisoned it.”

  I stared down at my chest where his finger had struck. It hurt, and I covered it with my hand. The sting of betrayal welled in my eyes when I looked back up at him. This was not the Zeke I knew.

  “Gideon doesn’t want—”

  “I don’t care what Gid wants!” His voice was higher than normal and raw with honesty. He took a breath. “Gid’s feelings are not the ones that make me jealous, Keturah.”

  I glanced around. We had made our way to the edge of the terrace where the army was camped, but we weren’t yet in the main part of the city where the buildings would provide us more privacy. A lot of people could see us.

  I closed my eyes and remembered Zeke’s blood seeping into the soil at my feet. I thought of what my mother had said. I am not the one who needs to hear that.

  I lowered my voice and said, “I love you, Zeke.” And I really thought I meant it. If I hadn’t learned what love was by then, it couldn’t be learned. “How can you doubt it? My friendship with Gideon or anyone else does not change how I feel about you. It has no bearing. I promised I would tell you if my feelings changed, and they haven’t.”

  I put my hand over my heart because it felt like it was breaking.

  “I keep my promises,” I finished.

  Zeke squinted into the distance as if he didn’t like what he saw there. “Maybe your feelings for me haven’t changed,” he allowed. “But your feelings for him have. Give me some credit. I’ve seen the way you look at each other, Ket. I saw you melt into his arms.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice cracked. “And not as if it were the first time. It is not just friendship, and I don’t know why you claim that it is. You lie to yourself and to me.” He took another deep breath and let it out. “And probably to him.”

  I was not a liar. I was not a liar!

  “You think fighting about this is going to endear you to me?”

  Zeke turned on me, and I caught my breath when I saw the fire in his eyes. “Shall I stand down and do nothing? I will fight for you, Keturah!”

  “You’re not fighting for me, you’re fighting with me!” How I wished we weren’t saying these things to each other. “I don’t know what you want me to do!”

  “What do you want to do?” he demanded.

  I couldn’t hold his gaze when it turned from angry to pained.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked more quietly.

  Unable to answer, I turned toward the precipi
ce near which we stood and looked out over the grand square and the homes which were now occupied by families. Behind me stood the army, their tents and their weapons, the young warriors who were probably even now staring at us and hearing every word we yelled at each other. The afternoon winds had kicked up and strands of my long hair swirled around me.

  “I have poisoned it,” I said at last, resigned, but my voice was carried away on the wind.

  Unable to bear the thoughts that were racing through my mind, I turned and started to run away, but even on his injured leg, Zeke was quick.

  He grabbed my arm, but not with the gentleness he had always used in the past, not with the gentleness I had become accustomed to.

  I looked back at him. He looked like he might apologize, and I was prepared to insist that everything was my fault, because it was. He was right—I should acknowledge it so we could both move on.

  But he didn’t apologize, and I couldn’t acknowledge it.

  “Walk with me,” he said, his eyes burning into mine.

  Zeke and I limped side by side, but we didn’t touch and we didn’t talk, and that was the last time we spoke of Gideon for a long time.

  He came by my camp often and we walked together. “Walk with me,” he would say. We didn’t fight, which was good, but we didn’t talk either. We didn’t talk about Gideon, or the fact that I was a soldier, or the problems my selfishness had caused. Our opinions on these things differed so greatly that any talk seemed to end in a quarrel that boiled down to my feelings for Gideon.

  But how could I not love Gideon, who understood what was inside me, what drove me? He had a way of making me feel comfortable in my own skin. He never made me feel shame for choosing to be a soldier. I never felt small or incapable in his presence. I could try to explain it, try to rationalize it, but I knew that my feelings for Gideon were more than could be added up on any list of qualities. So very much more.

  And yet, Zeke’s love for me was rooted deeply in our past. It was thorough and unconditional. Even when we disagreed. Even when I hurt him. He viewed my desire to be a soldier as a flaw, and he loved me anyway. Zeke knew every mistake I had made since I was born, and still he wanted me. To be loved like that—it was more than I deserved.

  Gideon loved me because of who I was, and Zeke loved me despite of it. And I had come to know that God loved me in both ways.

  The worst part was that I didn’t even care anymore whether or not Zeke understood me. He did support me, and a part of me had always known it. Before the war, I had thought being in love meant we had to understand each other completely and perfectly. But that wasn’t it at all. Love was an entirely different feeling than I had thought, because it was so much more complex than just a feeling.

  Slowly, as Zeke and I walked together, we healed. Our strength increased, and our friendship, though guarded and different, grew too. He was my best and oldest friend. Our friendship had been tried, but I very deliberately rebuilt it, and I made sure everyone saw. Zeke had nearly given his life for me. I would give mine over to him in return.

  When nearly everyone was healed enough to march, Helaman commanded us to prepare to march on the city of Manti.

  On the way back to our tents from the council meeting that night, I asked my captains, “Wouldn’t it be better to wait until we have provisions? How far can we march with no food for strength?”

  “Manti’s got provisions,” Seth pointed out. “When we take it, we will have its provisions. And we can hunt on the march.”

  “And if Helaman has no hope of receiving assistance from the government, he has to take action of his own,” added Gideon.

  The next day, I looked around at all the troops. They all showed signs of hunger—sallow cheeks, dull eyes and hair, sedentary when they were not on assignment. I was becoming worried. Not for myself, but for my brothers in arms. They needed much more food than I did to maintain their strength, and the rations now were even too scant for me. Their wounds were healing, but they needed nourishment to heal fully.

  I had chosen life in the army and all that came with it. I was willing to suffer through this grim time myself, but it was very difficult to watch those I loved suffer, even with the faith I had in God. As I watched the men suffer, I understood more fully the anger our prisoners had felt toward us for the unforgivable act of starving their families.

  After our meager morning meal, I looked into the azure sky and knew I needed to make peace with the horrible conditions here in the camps. I looked back down and met Gideon’s eye as he passed a water skin to Zachariah, and I knew I needed to make peace with my feelings for him too.

  I approached Lib, and when I told him what I wanted to do, he placed his hand on my shoulder and agreed to take me. He had a couple conditions, but they were acceptable to me and even welcome by then.

  He and Ethanim walked with me to a part of the city that was still deserted. We climbed to the top terrace where the more dilapidated homes sat. There was no poor class of people now. We were all poor, and the army stayed in the areas closer to the city center.

  I chose an area behind a humble, abandoned hut. As Lib and Ethanim checked the yard for any hidden dangers, I stood at the edge, overlooking a very small stream that ran through an overrun garden that hadn’t seen tending in a good while.

  I had my tent for privacy, something I always appreciated, but I seldom had enough privacy to speak aloud to God.

  I was so worried and so troubled and confused, I just had to speak with Him.

  Ethanim began to walk away, but Lib lingered. He touched my cheek with the back of his fingers and looked into my eyes. “I hope you find what you seek,” he said. And then, surprising me, he bent and kissed my temple.

  I wanted to throw my arms around him and hug him tight to me, but not more than I wanted to hug Ethanim. I cherished them both. They had been so diligent for these three years, shielding, protecting, warning, and comforting me. How could I ever thank them for doing this? How could I ever let them know that I appreciated their efforts? I knew it had not always been easy or fun for them.

  “You know I can offer you only friendship,” I said through a tightness in my throat, feeling that I had somehow misled him. We had never spoken of his feelings for me, though we had both been aware of them for a long time.

  “I know,” he said. “I only want you to be happy. I hope you can find the peace you need.”

  He looked at me for a moment more, then let his hand drop and followed his best friend away from me. When they were gone, I turned and walked slowly into the overgrown yard. I wondered who had lived in the tiny hut that sat there. A war widow? A mother with children? An old man? Everyone had a story, a life, and everyone’s life came with problems and worries, joys and love.

  I knelt in the dirt among the plants and flowers. God watered these flowers and gave them nourishment from the earth, and He would provide nourishment for me. I bowed my head, as the flowers did each night, and I began to speak the worries of my heart. I began to pour out my soul in my prayer to God.

  I had always thought I had faith. Could I have gone into battle, a weak little girl, if I had no faith? This problem, however, was so much bigger than my faith. In battle I could rely on my training and even my experience. I could sling my stones, brandish my knife, and wield my sword. I could act. But in this problem I could see no path forward. I did not know what actions to take.

  I explained this to God, and I did not ask him for anything save peace to my soul. There was so little food in Cumeni, but in truth, I wasn’t sure there was an answer to that problem, at least not one that was in my power to fix. It was not my responsibility to fix it all. The answer to that would come through the proper channel, which was Captain Helaman. When I realized this, I felt calmer. The burden I felt lifted from my shoulders when I recognized it was not mine to carry.

  I already knelt motionless in the soil while the plants and long grasses swayed in the soft breeze around me, but I stilled inside and listened for the prompt
ings and instructions and peace of the Spirit. When I felt a calmness that edged out my fears, I knew that God would provide for us and determined to spend no more of my energy on worry.

  I moved on to the subject that had been perplexing me since the day I had stumbled upon the obsidian in Melek, the day God had placed Gideon in my path.

  In my mind, I could see Gideon standing there as he had that first day, sword in hand, his complete attention on me. He had teased me, something I had since come to know was not typical for him. I saw every feature, every expression of his that I had memorized since then. Why did I have such feelings for him when I was supposed to love Zeke?

  Zeke was the eldest son of my mother’s best and dearest friend. They had looked forward to my marriage to him from the moment I was born. I thought of Hemni and my brothers and Zeke’s family. I was betraying them all, and I could not stop it.

  I thought of that moment after the Lamanites had retreated when Gideon had pulled me roughly to him, of the sheer relief that we had both survived such a terrible battle, and for the briefest of seconds I let myself wish again what I had wished in the next moment—that Zeke had not been there.

  I wept for that. I choked on my traitorous feelings. I said I was sorry, but I received no response. I did not even receive a peaceful feeling. My mind was not at ease and was still churning with questions. Finally, disappointed, I ceased my prayer and bent forward until my head touched the ground. I had wanted and expected a distinctive answer, and I had received none.

  As I lay there in the stillness, I noticed the sound of the little stream. I sniffed and turned my ear to hear it better.

  The scriptures compared God’s love to water, his word to food. I let my mind wander through those thoughts until I found myself thinking that after we took Manti, I wanted to go home. And though I did not see my path laid out before me as I wanted to, I felt hope that I would see it when the time was right. The war was not over, but for me, the fighting was done.