The silence in the church was so thick I could have bounced on it like bouncing on a balloon. “Banishment?” Judah repeated. “But...”
“The scripture tells us to test the spirits,” Sam said, “and that means to test ourselves, our elders and deacons, each other, and our understanding of scripture all the time. You want to teach a sermon on an opposing viewpoint, feel free next time your name comes up in rotation.”
Sam took a step close to Judah and Gad, and the group of five moved back. Sam followed them and maneuvered his body between them and the rest of the Nicholsons. Without taking his gaze from the threats, he held out a hand, indicating that we should all go outside. I walked past, not making eye contact with the cadre of would-be attackers. At some point I might need to show some aggression, but not now while Sam’s wife was still waddling down the stairs and the littlest young’uns were still escaping out the back pews into the safety of the day.
•••
The adrenaline spike was long gone by the time the last of us got back to the Nicholson house. A teenaged boy was armed and watching out a front porch window, his face in shadow. The windows upstairs were open and I could see gun barrelsresting on the sills. Inside, the young’uns had been sent to the third floor to play under the care of two girl children with unbunned hair.
Sam helped SaraBell into a rocker and propped her feet up, looking her over top to toes for problems. “I’m okay,” she said softly, flapping a hand at him. “Go on. Take care a things.”
He asked the teen boy at the window by the door, “Zeke. Placement of shooters?”
“Me on the lower floor. Harry on the third floor at the front. Rudolph at the back of the house on the upper floor.”
“Barn?”
“Judith,” Zeke said, “positioned to see the greenhouses. Bernice just checked in; girl shooters are in place, one at your’n place and one walking home with Esther and Jed. Four girls are in the storage caves. All quiet.”
“Girl shooters?” I asked.
Daddy eased into his rocker with a breathy grunt. “You’un taught us our girls can fight. So Sam and the boys been teaching ’em to shoot. Mud too, if’n you’un approve.”
“Yes,” I said.Girl shooters? In the church?
Grimly, Sam said, “They wear handguns under their dresses at all times.” He stared hard at me. “Things’ve been hard around here, Nellie.”
“Anything I can bring charges against?”
“Nothing we can prove,” he said. “Petty vandalism in the greenhouses. Theft from the storage caves. Accusations with no evidence.”
I frowned. Theft and vandalism had never happened in all the years of the church. But Sam was preaching an end to polygamy, so... things were changing and there was always resistance to change. “You get witnesses or photos, you let me know.”
“So far nothing on the cameras,” he said, even more grimly. He led the way to the back of the house, to a closet once filled with baby clothes. The shelves had been cleaned off; instead of onesies, they now held a series of small computer screens and a piece of electronic equipment that handled all the camera input. There were twelve screens, each with multiple views showing from all the Nicholson clan houses, the storage caves where the church kept its supplies and seeds, the vampire tree,multiple views of the church and its parking area, the entrance, and the main roadways.
“Wow,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. While the church freely used solar and wind power, they had previously not allowed TVs, computers, e-readers, or anything else of a worldly personal electronic nature. Now they had a security system and my brother was running it. I had known about it, but seeing it was disconcerting.
From the front of the house Zeke shouted, “Ben’s here. So’s Caleb, Fredi, and Priscilla. And Caleb’s hurt.”
Caleb Campbell was half carried into the house by Ben Aden. Caleb had been beaten; he had a black eye and a broken nose and was holding his ribs. Fredi, Caleb’s senior wife, was big pregnant, maybe eight months along, with her third, and Priscilla, my eldest sister, was nursing her second. The three squalling toddlers were carried out of the big room by Mama Grace and my mama, and Priscilla threw herself into a chair. “This is your’n fault,” Priss said to me, stern as a frozen ax.
“Priss. No,” Caleb said softly. “Nell was a trigger, nothing else. The church has been heading down this path a long time.”
“I ain’t gonna let you divorce me,” Priscilla said, sounding stubborn, as if this had been often discussed and debated.
Fredi, Priss’ best friend, burst into tears. And that sparked SaraBell’s tears. Pregnant and nursing hormones and emotional triggers were not a good mix.
Thankfully, Sam’s cell phone rang. He spoke quietly for several minutes before saying into the phone, “Stand down. Everyone get home. We’re going Tomatoes.”
“Tomatoes?” I asked, confused.
“Today’s password for all is good and we can relax,” Zeke said. “I’ll make the calls and get the shooters back here.”
Just that fast, it was over. “Come on, Mud. We’re going home.”
Mama followed me to my truck and stood in the open truck door, blocking my exit, her face set and sad. “Mama?” I asked.
“You think I’m sinning being with your’n daddy.” It was a statement, not a question.
