"She said so, didn't she? Do it!"

Her frail body shuddered as Fagan turned the bucket. She was having some kind of fit, sputtering, gasping, choking. For a whole minute we both thought she was dying of the shock of all that water being poured over her poor old head. And then I realized she wasn't dying at all. She was cackling. No, not cackling,laughing!

"Well," she said when she could get her breath back.

"That woke me up."

Fagan and I hugged her as we all three laughed together, joyous in our newborn freedom. We had the feeling of wings and tongues of fire upon our heads.

Our souls sang with exultation.414All the while, outside, the darkness gathered.

We'd come down off Dead Man's Mountain to learn the truth, and we had. But just a part of it. We'd only just taken hold and pulled the tail of the beast.

And as the first thread in the tapestry loosened and came undone, the dragon awakened.

415.

Miz Elda stuffed the turkey with dried bread, crumbled herbs, and roasted chestnuts while I washed the floorwith the water puddled from her baptism - though most of it had seeped through the cracks, dripping down beneath her cabin. Fagan went outside to chop and tote firewood, stacking it on the porch next to the front door where it'd be easier for Miz Elda to fetch. I t was nightfall before we sat down together to give thanks to Jesus for seeing us through the day and giving us a fine turkey for supper. I t was a far sight from Miz Elda's usual repast of chicken soup and biscuits from Gervase Odara. "A pity she ain't come today,"

Miz Elda said. "She could join us. The last time I seen such a fine meal laid out was the day of Gorawen's funeral, and I had no stomach for it then."I lowered my head, feeling the grip of loss again and wondering about the fate of my poor Granny who'd neverheard the gospel.

Miz Elda leaned over and tipped my chin. "Don't ye go worrying yourself about her, chile." She brushed my cheek tenderly and 416patted my hand. She leaned back again, smiling.

"The last few years we was able to get together, yer granny and I talked about what might happen. Neither of us thought Sim Gillivray could do nothing to save our souls from our sins, no matter how willing the poor lad was."

"But she never heard the gospel." "Maybe not in so many words, but thinking on it now, I feel a peace about her. Gorawen said more than once she cudna see how a God who had created so much beauty could not offer us a way back to him no matter what we done. And he did, didn't he? Jesus is the way back. Y er granny sensed it, for she was one to sit on her porch and look out and see the wonder of it all, wasn't she? And she had a thankful heart."

I thought of Granny sending me off to find the wonderfor myself up on the outcropping of rocks overlooking the valley, in the fields of wildflowers, down by the river where the dogwoods bloomed. All through the years she'd appealed to what she called my questing spirit.

And I wondered now if she hadn't been sending me out to find the miracle of God's works round about me.

"Oh, will ye look at that, now?" she'd say, and I 'd look up to see the flocks of passenger pigeons like smoke on the horizon heading 417south. "Every year, they head south. Y e can set time by 'em. I wonder where God sends 'em?"

On a warm day when I 'd be bone-deep in my sorrows, she'd say, "I 'd love to have a few smooth stones from the riverbed. Y e think ye've got time to go for me since I can't make it myself these days?" And I 'd go - and I 'd watch the rainbow trout with their white fins and bright red-and-pink sides as they spawned in the tail of a pool and in the side riffles away from the current. Life, it was, being renewed year after year.

In spring, Granny would send me off to pick bluets, violets, and windflowers. As the weeks passed, she'd ask for yellow lady's slippers and bleeding hearts, thenroses and white rhododendron clusters that grew along the stream. She'd always seem to know the day when the mayflies danced and died. When I 'd come back from whatever venture she'd sent me on, she'd talk about how life was precious.

"Don't let a day go by without seeing some wonder in it, Cadi. Stop moping around the house wishing for things to change between ye and yer mama. Go out and see what's there for ye."

God was there.

God was everywhere.

418I t dawned on me then that that was why I could never find comfort from the sin eater. I t wasn't for him to give. The gift I needed had already been given; the evidence of it was all around me, everywhere I looked, even in the air I breathed. For hadn't it been God himself who had given me life and breath?

I kept thinking about Granny. I remembered how we'd sit on the porch, melting and waiting for the hot summer day to end in the relief of nightfall. In the thankful cool, we'd stare up into the infinite black sky with glitters twinkling while the lightning bugs sparkledlike fallen stars in the woods round about us.

In the fall, Granny'd send me off to capture one monarch butterfly from the thousands that migrated.

She'd hold the jar a long while just looking at the pretty thing. "From a worm this came. Don't that beat all?"

And then she'd take the top off the jar and watch it flutter away.

First frost had been an event to Granny Forbes, for with it came the high mountain gold and the soft winds that stirred up blizzards of red, pink, orange, and yellow leaves swirling. "The maple's always last to give up its color," she'd always say. The maple that grew near our cabin was like a red blaze 419against the encroaching winter gray skies, its leaves like crimson sparks on the dead brown ground.

Granny would sit by the window during winter and look out at the snow heaping or watch the icicles' slow growth from the eaves of the front porch. They'd catch the sunlight and cast a rainbow radiance. Granny was ever hoarding bread crumbs and sending me out to toss them about near the window so that she could watch the towhees, titmice, red cardinals, andmourning doves foraging for the bits of food in the vast white. During the ice storms and long bleak nights of winter, she'd tell me the mountains were like sleeping giants that'd come awake again soon. "God'll see to it."

And God did. Those mountains always did wake up, without fail. Y ear after year, the earth came back to life again with what Granny called "God-green." She always said no matter how much you watered, you couldn't get the same color that came with a single rain of the life-bearing water of heaven.

Now I knew why it happened that way, what Granny was trying to show me in words she didn't have. I t was no accident, no coincidence, that the seasons came round and round year after year. I t was the 420Lord speaking to us all and showing us over and over again the birth, life, death, and resurrection of his only begotten Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord. I t was like a best-loved story being told day after day with each sunrise and sunset, year after year with the seasons, down through the ages since time began.

I knew after hearing the word of the Lord, I 'd neverwalk anywhere again without seeing Jesus as a babe in the new-green of spring. I 'd never see a field in all its glory without thinking how he lived his life for us in the royal robes of every summer wildflower. I 'd ever see the greatness of his love in the beautiful sacrifice in the brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows of fall, and winter white would always speak to me of his death. And then spring again, his resurrection, life eternal.

Lo, I am w ith you alw ays.

Y ou are, Lord. Y ou are. The quickening in my soul told me so.

"She saw, Cadi," Miz Elda said. "I 'm going to believe that the Lord who can do anything he pleases opened her mind and heart and showed her the way home."

Peace filled me, a peace not coming from Miz Elda's consoling words or of my own feeble, childish reasonings, but a gift from 421God himself - God who is just, God who is merciful, God who can do the impossible. I just knew I didn't need to worry about Granny anymore. I t was all taken care of, whatever become of her. For the Lord isGod, and Jesus knew her heart. No, I didn't have to worry at all.

We finished our eating, cleaned up the dishes, and went to bed. Once or twice I awakened to the hoot owl outside and Miz Elda's snoring beside me. Fagan, who was sleeping on the floor, got up just before dawn and went outside to sit on the porch steps, his head in his hands.

Miz Elda roused when I got up. We didn't say much.

We was all heavy, thinking about what was ahead.

"We'd better be going back soon," Fagan said, but I could see something else was troubling him. I guessed I knew what it was and was proved right when he finally talked about it as we was eating porridge Miz Elda made us.

"Seems like some have the eyes to see while others are blind," Fagan said.

"Y our pa, ye mean," I said, seeing his hurt. I t's strange how a person can take such a beating from someone and still love him so much. Fagan hated what his father was, but he still loved him. I reckon that's the way422God is. Loving us enough to send Jesus, but hating the way we live. Hating the sin, not the sinner.

"Pa. And others. Why don't they wonder? Why can't they see it round about the way ol' Miz Forbes did?"

"Why couldn't ye?"

He turned and looked at his grandmother. "But I did!

"Aye, ye did, lad, but don't be too proud about it. I t weren't hunger and thirst that took ye down to the river.

Y e went because yer father told ye not to go, pure and simple." When he looked down and didn't answer, she looked at me. "And why'd ye go, Cadi?"

"I went 'cause Sim Gillivray made me promise. He said he wouldn't even try to take away my sins unless I gave my word first."

"So there ye have it, aye? I t weren't humble reasons that made either of ye go. I t wasn't 'cause either of you was any better than anyone else. Even later, aye?

Fagan, you wanted to be different from your father, and Cadi, you wanted to be relieved of your terrible guilt.""What was your reason?" Fagan said.

"I 'm facing death and don't want to burn in hell."

She gave a laugh. "Seems to me, it's 423pure selfishness that brings us within hearing distance of the truth, and then God has his way with us, don't he? He knows the ones already that'll come looking for him, and he even lights the way. I t all begins and ends with him. So I reckon God's going to get done with us whatever he wants done."

I felt the portent of her words. She'd been thinking a long time, and it all seemed clear and laid out straight ahead in her mind. But not in mine. "What do ye think God wants us to do?"

"Speak the truth, do what's right, and take what comes."

"We will," Fagan said. "Soon as my pa cools off, we'll come back down from Dead Man's Mountain and start telling people what the man by the river said."

Miz Elda shook her head. "Nope. That won't do.""What do ye mean?" he said. "We have to tell them."

"That ye do, but ye won't say nothing if ye go back on the mountain. Not now."

"I give ye my word."

"Y e already give yer word to God, boy. The minute ye went into the river with that man ye knew things would never be the same. Didn't ye? What'll happen if ye go back on that now?"

424"I ain't going back on it!"

"Not yet. But don't ye see? Just going back up on that mountain's breaking your word. Y e go back and the truth will end right here."

"How ye figure that?" he said, eyes hot. "Well, now, think about it some. Don't ye reckon it was God opened the way for ye to come down here to me in the first place? He led Cadi into that cave so she'd find the pictures telling of the blackest sin that's held this valley in darkness all these years. Why do ye think he did that?"

He looked away from her piercing stare. "We can'tdo anything now."

"Oh yes ye can! Y e've already started doing the Lord's work. And ye'll keep right on with it!"

Fagan turned, agitated. "We've got to wait awhile!

Pa's too riled. Ma says he ain't thinking straight. Y e can see what he did to me. What d'ya think'll happen to Cadi if she stands with me against him? One blow and she'd be dead."

"Maybe, but that don't matter."

I gulped, staying well out of it. I was hoping Fagan would win in this battle of wills and yet feared Miz Elda's words and reason would sway him.

"How can ye say that, Granny? Y e love 425her as much as I do."

My mouth fell open as I looked at him. Helovedme?

He lovedme?

"Listen to yer granny now, boy. Y er thinking's askewed. Y e ain't alone anymore, are ye? I t ain't ye against yer pa now, is it? I f God can raise Jesus, don'tye think he can look after ye and Cadi, too? Ain't he already looked after ye? Y e two have beenchosento be his witnesses, and this is the day the Lord made. Not tomorrow or the day after. Not next week or next month or next year. Now!"

Fagan was pale. "Maybe you're right, but Pa wouldn't give us time enough to tell more than a few."

I was learning to recognize when it was God speaking through someone. He repeats himself. He says it over and over because we're so stubborn and stupid and unwilling. And scared. Even when he tells us not to be afraid, we set our mind about it, worrying and fretting about every little thing. I was shaken by what God expected us to do.

"Cadi could tell her folks and Iwan," Miz Elda said.

She probably thought that would be easy, but I reckoned telling those I loved most about the Lord would be the hardest of all, especially considering they'd most 426likely thought I 'd been bad enough to be cast into hell. How were they going to understand the goodness and love of God from the likes of me? And if theyrefused to listen, what then? I t'd feel like I failed 'em again and sent 'em straight to hell. Because they'd know the truth and have no excuses.

"We've already told Bletsung and Ma." Clearly Fagan was thinking about it, just like I feared. I thought he'd give a bigger fight against Miz Elda's proclamation.

But no. He heard the Holy Spirit in what she said, and he was going forward no matter the cost to either of us.

And seeing how he said he loved me, I knew I 'd follow him to the death, if need be.

"One by one, we'll tell 'em," Miz Elda said. "I can start with Gervase Odara today. She's due to bring me some more medicine."

I sighed. "I wish there was a way to get 'em all together in one spot so's we could tell 'em all at once."

Miz Elda gave a soft gasp of surprise. "Why, of course!" She looked at me, her eyes bright. "Out of the mouths of babes." She laughed.

"What?" I wondered what trouble I 'd brought on myself now."We can get 'em all together in one spot."

427A broad grin filled her face, and her eyes were lit with excitement.

"Where?"

"Why, right here, child!" "How?" Fagan said.

She chortled. "That's the easiest part. All ye have to do is fetch the bell from my trunk and ring it eighty-five times."

"But they'll think ye've died!" I protested.

"She's right, Granny," Fagan said grimly, and then his eyes lit up as well. "Y es, they will. They'll think ye're dead!"

"Aye, and they'll come, won't they? Every last one of 'em in our valley. They'll lay down whatever they're doing and come right on up here to pay their last respects and lay me out for burial." She laughed again, enjoying the thought.

"Even my father," Fagan said slowly.

"Oh yes, him, too. Probably sooner than someothers. He's been waiting a mighty long time for me to pass on. I 'll bet it's been the one prayer he's said in all these years. And won't he be surprised!"

We never even thought about Sim Gillivray.

Or the trouble he might bring.

428.

My brother, Iwan, was the first to come at the ringing of the bell, Gervase Odara following soon afterward.

Uncle Robert came on horseback with Aunt Winnie riding behind him. The Connors, Humes, Byrneses, Sayres, Trents, and MacNamaras hurried up to Miz Elda's cabin. Soon to follow them was Pen Densham with his son Pete, whose broken leg still hadn't yet mended. The O'Sheas arrived, Jillian holding her new baby to her breast, and Aunt Cora and Uncle Deemis and their young'uns, who were tearing about the place like foxes after the chickens.

Sad to say, no one was too happy when they saw Miz Elda sitting hale and hearty on the front porch in her rocking chair. They was plumb mad about it. Not that it was anything against her. She was respected in our valley, if for no other reason than she'd lasted longest.They just didn't like being interrupted from whatever they'd been doing for no cause at all. So they thought, at least; so within minutes of arriving, they all started in shouting questions at Fagan, who 429was ringing that bell for the whole world to hear.

"What in Hades is going on here?" "Why're ye ringing the bell with the old woman sitting there in her rocker like always?"