Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

Mud grinned and leaned in closer, whispering. “I’m gonna cut my hair someday. ‘When the hurly-burly’s done, / When the battle’s lost and won.’ I read some a your’n Shakespeare while you’un was a tree. He talks pretty and he’s right smart.”

Tears, totally unexpected, burned under my lids. “Yes. He was. And now we need to eat. Then I need to talk to Daddy and the mamas and Sam about a variety of things.”

? ? ?

The meal was noisy and hot and I had no chance for a private conversation with anyone. When the family left for church, Mud and me in with a group of womenfolk, Mama looked at me askance, me still wearing jeans and work shoes. I hadn’t kept a skirt at HQ. We filed into the Nicholson benches and I sat. This was the first time I’d been in the church since it had been shot up and Daddy and I had been mortally injured. I was a little uneasy being there, and found myself studying the wood pews for signs of bullet damage. I was glad that I had kept my weapon on me.

The song leader led three hymns. There was prayer and the Lord’s supper. And then came time for the sermon. To my surprise, Sam stood up to speak. I had intended to zone out and not listen, but with Sam preaching that went out the window. My brother had a gift for talking, for leading a crowd through the scriptures, and today’s scripture verses were based primarily on First Timothy, and he spent an hour suggesting, hinting, and implying that polygamy was not the Christian way.

I was delighted, though not everyone in the congregation was so impressed with the direction of the sermon. There were a number of men scowling, and an even greater number of women with their heads down. Being told the men were sinful for abusing women had to make the men mad. Being told that they were being treated like pieces of meat who had been forced into a sinful lifestyle couldn’t be easy on the women. My brother never said any of that, of course, but the implication and the inferences were there.

I was proud of my brother. Prouder than I could say. Finally the ninety-minute service was over and I stood and moved to the back of the church, a hand on Mud’s shoulder. Until the movement of the line stopped. Three men stood blocking the Nicholsons’ way. Blocking the mamas. Blocking Daddy, who was still using a cane. Blocking Sam. And mostly, I feared, blocking me.

I recognized Judah and Daniel Jackson, the younger sons of Preacher Ernest Jackson. Jackson and his eldest son were men I had helped kill, if only indirectly. If I hadn’t let Ming’s scions and Jane Yellowrock cross my land to search for a missing vampire, the old man and Jackson Jr. might still be alive. Maybe. Or not. Either way, I had a feeling Jackson’s younger sons were no better than their daddy or Jackie Jr.

Meshack Lambert was with Judah and Daniel, carrying a shotgun. Gad and Esau McCormick were carrying cudgels. Five against Sam and me. I slid my hand under my jacket to the holster.

Judah stuck out his chin and said to Sam, “You’un got no cause to impugn our way of life.”

“You’un got no right to call our women harlots,” Gad said.

“You’un got no right to bring your witchy sister here among God-fearing people,” Esau said. “A witch dressed in pants like the whore of Babylon.”

Anger flushed through me, but I kept my voice calm. “You need to learn your scripture. The whore of Babylon wore scarlet and purple. Not pants. And I’m not a witch.” I chuckled low and added a social media quote that would go over their heads. “Mama had me tested.”

“I will not speak to this whore and witch,” Esau said, his face turned away from me. “I will not be led into temptation.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Daddy assist SaraBell and the mamas between two pews toward a different exit.

“She should be burned,” Gad muttered of me. He slapped his truncheon into his palm with a soft smack. “Burned at the stake.”

I was turned at slight angle from them, behind Sam, and I eased my weapon free. Dropped my hand, the Glock GDP-20 at my thigh, my hand comfortable on the grip, trigger finger on the slide. There was no round in the chamber. I needed to remedy that, except that would be obvious and right now we were teetering on the sharp edge of violence. Racking the slide might push us over into bloodshed.

Daniel, who bore a strong resemblance to his daddy, stepped closer to me. Unlike his brothers, he had no trouble looking me over. “There might not be a punishment house anymore,” hemuttered, “but I’m inventive. I’ll take care of the whore.”

Mama Grace and Mama Carmel shoved the young’uns down, where they crawled under the seats toward the door. The Nicholsons always had an exit plan.

“And then she’ll be burned. Her and all her ilk,” Judah said. “Her sisters and—”

I raised my weapon.

“That’s enough, boys,” Brother Aden said, stopping me before I fired. “There will be no talk of taking the law into our own hands. Vigilantism is outlawed by church charter.”

Not to mention murder. But I didn’t say it.

“Your’n son is in jail because of this whore!” Gad said.

“Larry is in jail because he kidnapped an officer of the law. I love my son, but he has shamed himself, his family, and this church.” Brother Aden shook his head. “I brought my sons up to know better. To do better. I have offered up my son to the elders of the church for banishment.”

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 barrels resting 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.