AS THE DAY TURNED to dusk and darkness, I spent some time sorting through my tools and preparing what I will need to bring to the Sorensons’ tomorrow. In one of the drawers of my workbench, as I was gathering up the nails I would need, I found myself for a moment contemplating my pistol. It sat there, black as night, in the drawer in my workroom where I keep it.
It is a Smith & Wesson revolver, an old Model 29 with a four-inch barrel, and a well-worn wood handle. I have had it for many years, a gift from my father. I took it out and I cleaned it, inspecting the action. I checked the boxes of ammunition, mostly .44 Magnum. It kicks like a mule, but the more powerful load makes it more useful. It is a simple thing, a simple tool, and I use it for slaughtering cattle. It is quick. It gets the job done. My father also had another gun, a rifle, which he used occasionally for slaughter, but mostly for hunting. In this settlement, they are a little less common, but most of the men I know own one. Isaak does not, and Deacon Sorenson does not, because they choose not to. But for many of us, particularly those with livestock, it was just something that we needed.
As I will need it, next week, for that steer, which is why it was good to check it now. I cleaned it, carefully, as I do regularly. Tools must be maintained.
I know that among the English, there are many guns. Like the guns that the soldiers carry, weapons kept in preparation for use against neighbors or strangers. They keep them in their drawers at their bedsides, or in cabinets, and the feel of their ownership of guns is very different. It is a feeling of pride. A feeling of power.
It seems to me that it is all based on a feeling of fear. To keep a gun because you are afraid of dying, and because you want to be ready to kill another human being, it just feels like such a strange thing. So filled with pride, and so dead to God. I do not understand it. Why would I fear dying, when we all die?
I do fear God, and God’s just judgment on sinners. Jesus taught us that we should never allow the world’s hate to move our hands against others among God’s children. I know these things as if they are written into me.
Holding it in my hands, feeling the heft and weight and purpose of that object, I found my mind turning to Tom and to that stranger whose body was abandoned by the side of the road. And to the men we now see, our English neighbors, carrying their guns openly by the roadside.
I think that is why Tom had so many guns, past any possible need. For some, I think, they are just toys, like some among the English collect cars or clothes. But for him, it was different. He lived in fear, fear of failing, fear of the world he was living in. And having those guns made him feel strong, and made him feel safe, even though those objects could not feed his children or make his heart less angry. Maybe it was like the alcohol that way.
I know that whoever killed that man left by the side of the road probably held their guns for the same reason. I wonder what they felt, as they killed him. Did they feel as I feel, when I put down a pig or a cow? That is easy to do, because I know why I must do it.
I do not hate a cow. It simply is, and I must kill it if I am to eat and feed my family. I take its life, but I am thankful for it. That animal is part of God’s Providence for me and my family, and I remember to be grateful, as I am grateful for the fields and the harvest.
When we kill another person, something must be broken in us. We have forgotten who they are, and have forgotten who we are. How could they see that person as a child of God, loved by God as they are loved?
I could not imagine it. It is the strangest thing about the English, the thing that is beyond me.
I set the gun away, and remembered that I would need to sharpen the blades, too, if I am going to slaughter the steer this week.
October 15
It has been a very busy few days, so much so that I did not have time to write.
Tuesday I went to the Sorensons’, and spent much of the day working on the damage to their roof. The storm had done far more damage than I would have thought. It had torn away shingles and a large section of subroofing near the front of the house, by winds that had been much stronger than the ones that we encountered. Just a few miles away.
But storms can be strange that way, leaving one house untouched and shattering another. It is just the way of Creation. And as the story of Job teaches us, it is not a sign that a man or a family is sinful or that they’ve turned from God. It is just that we are humble, small creatures, and the vastness of God’s creation can break us so easily.
And it breaks our houses. The work took much of the morning and early afternoon. I did not have a chance to bring anything by for the pickup of supplies at the Schrocks’ house, but I did see the trucks moving off. I wondered who went with them this time, then learned the next day when Young Jon came riding by that the mess in Lancaster was bad, because so many people had the lower levels of their houses flooded. This was especially true in a couple of new neighborhoods on the outer edge of town, where the big houses were all stacked up next to each other. Huge houses, they all were, with room enough for a family of seven or eight, but most with just two or three people in them.
I went inside one, once, a couple of years ago, to install some custom cabinetry. It was a project that Mike had helped set up. The house was immense, bigger than a barn, and decorated like a palace. The people who lived there were really nice people, a pleasant older couple who had moved to Lancaster to retire. But the house was so big for them. Downstairs, they had a theater and an exercise room and a study and a bar. I thought about the daadi haus, built for parents, which could have fit twice over on just one of their three levels.
So much more than needed, I thought. But I did not say it, because that would have been rude, and they were a kind couple.
Those big homes all had big basements, and now most were badly flooded.
Out front of many of the homes, there were now piles of sodden furniture and torn-out carpeting, stained with mud and clay. Those had joined with the piles of trash that had been accumulating for some time, as trash collection simply could not happen. Most of the trucks were not operating, and even if they had been, the military had requisitioned whatever fuel might be available.
Jon said that there were many, many more people at the market distribution site today. Even the well prepared, those who were ready with several weeks of emergency supplies, even they were beginning to run low.