The Alliance Read online

  Sean, the Englischer, says, “Tried ten times. My cell wouldn’t work.”

  I dare a glance over my shoulder, being careful not to look at the table where the pilot lies. “Did you try the phone in the shop?”

  Malachi says, “We tried that, before we came here to help. It didn’t work either. Electricity’s all messed up. Our equipment shut down too.”

  There’s the clunk of soft-soled shoes dropping to the hardwood floor.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Jabil says.

  Willing myself to maintain a clinical eye, I turn yet again and walk to the end of the table. The ball of the pilot’s right ankle is distended. I cradle the pilot’s foot in my hand and gently rotate it to see if the ankle is broken or just strained from the men wrenching him from the plane. The pilot’s eyes fly open, and he yells, the force of it whiplashing throughout his body. The cords of his neck stand out as he bites down. Concerned that—in his panicked state—he is going to hurt himself, I do not let go, but keep the ankle braced between my hands.

  “It’s all right,” I soothe. “You’re safe.”

  The pilot’s eyes meet mine. They are the color of Flathead Lake in summer, the clarity only slightly muddied by the haze of his pain. Then he closes them again and the foot in my hand relaxes. I hear the back door open. My thirteen-year-old brother, Seth, strides across the kitchen. He takes off his straw hat and wipes the sweat from his hairline with his forearm.

  Leaning over the table, he peers down at the pilot’s head wound. “Was he trying to land?” Seth turns toward Jabil. “Did you see anything?”

  “No, just the crash.”

  I look down at the pilot’s right foot, feel the knot of his stockinged heel cupped in my palm, and for some unknown reason it brings me comfort. “We need to get him to the hospital,” I say. “We have no idea what injuries he has.”

  “I don’t know how we can get him to the hospital.” Seth straightens and looks at me. “The electricity at Field to Table shut down and none of the customers’ cars will start. And with him being in this shape, it’s too far to take him to Liberty by buggy.”

  The logging crew stops speaking among themselves. The silence draws attention to the dripping faucet and rhythmic snoring of Grossmammi Eunice, napping in the living room.

  I ask Seth, “Why won’t the cars start?”

  “No clue. The Englischers are trying to figure out how to get home, but they can’t get ahold of anyone because their cell phones won’t work. Bishop Lowell and the deacons are asking everyone to meet at the schoolhouse so we can come up with a plan.”

  I glance down at the table, where the bleeding stranger lies. The pilot’s in no condition to be moved, because we don’t know what is broken. But neither can he just stay here in our house unsupervised. “You all go ahead,” I say. “Take Anna. I’ll stay here with him and Grossmammi.” I look over and see that Jabil’s eyes are trained on the gun, glinting on the table. The smooth, polished weapon appears so out of place—almost vulgar—among our rustic, handcrafted things. “And take that with you.”

  “You’re sure?” Jabil asks me again, motioning toward the pilot. And I cannot tell if he’s asking if I’m sure that I want to remain behind, or if I’m sure that I want him to take the gun.

  “I’ll be fine,” I say. “Just leave me here.”

  The strident tone of my request rings in the uneasy quiet. Without a word, Jabil turns and leaves through the back door.

  Hearing the tapping cane behind me, I turn from the sink and see Grossmammi Eunice. She must be having a good day. She has taken time to put her dentures in, which she keeps in a jelly jar beside her recliner, and to tidy her hair beneath her kapp. Her sparse eyebrows are also jauntily cocked behind her pince-nez glasses, which serve as little purpose as mine, since she’s legally blind but still too stubborn to admit it.

  “Have a good nap?” I ask, drying my hands. “You look rested.”

  Grossmammi harrumphs and moves into the kitchen, using her cane like an extension of her arm. Her eyesight is so poor, she doesn’t notice the shirtless male lying on the table beneath a sheet. She pulls out the chair and sits across from him, waiting to be served her tea. I stand frozen in the kitchen—bucket and rag in hand—not sure how to tell her about all that’s happened during her nap without causing my grandmother to drop dead from fright.

  “Ginger and rose-hip blend?” I ask, buying myself some time.

  Grossmammi nods. “Jah, and some brot, if you have it.”

  Setting the bucket down, I splash hot water from the cast-iron kettle into a mug and fill the strainer with a scoop of Grossmammi Eunice’s favorite tea blend, which I set in the liquid to steep. I pray she keeps her doll-sized hands in her lap rather than on the table, where she would inadvertently touch warm flesh.

  “Would you like your tea in the living room?” I ask. “You might be more comfortable there.” She harrumphs again. “It’s just that—” I rack my brain for a valid-sounding excuse—“I’m about to mop the floor, and I know you don’t care for the Pine-Sol fumes.”

  She pushes up from the chair. “Why didn’t you do it while I napped?”

  “I should’ve; you’re right.” I would agree with about anything, just to get her out of here before she discovers the pilot, or—worse—he pops up from beneath the sheet like a jack-in-the-box. I hurriedly slice off a heel of bread and slide it on a tray, along with a knife and two small pots containing butter and jam. I stride across the floor with the tray, trying to herd my cantankerous, eighty-pound grandmother back into the living room.

  She shifts her whole body to glower at me, though her milky eyes are missing their mark, scorching the wall over my shoulder. She takes the tray from my hands and backs into the living room. Setting it on the coffee table, she pulls the door closed between us with something akin to a slam. My whole body deflates with relief. All in all, I got off easy.

  Carrying the bucket back to the table, I prepare to clean the pilot’s head wound, like I’d planned before my grandmother’s interruption. My hands shake as I dab the hair matted with so much blood, it appears ruddy. But once the water’s tinted copper, the hair reveals its hue: pale blond, like Silver Queen corn in summer. The strands are also just as fine as corn silk. I watch the pilot’s eyes skitter back and forth beneath the pale lids. His jaw is coated with beard, but his upper cheeks and nose are speckled with freckles that make him appear boyish, despite the tattoo on his chest and another on his bicep, though I cannot decipher the latter’s design.

  In our community—which adheres to a strict set of rules resembling a hybrid between Mennonite and the more conservative Amish—the pilot’s beard would be a symbol that he’s married. But he would have to remove the mustache, which Amish leaders deemed too militaristic back during the Civil War, when full facial hair became a symbol of combat and control. Therefore, Amish men were forced to shave their mustaches in order to set themselves apart as pacifists who would never raise arms against another man.

  I’m continuing to inspect the pilot when the sheet covering him flutters at the movements of his bare chest. I scrape my chair back across the floor, my own breath short. I look toward the living room door and wait. I hear only the tinkling of china as my grandmother enjoys her tea. Before the loggers and Seth left, we debated moving the pilot to the couch in the living room, where he would be more comfortable. But we did not know if that was wise. We have no way to gauge whether his neck and spinal cord have suffered injuries as well, which could have been exacerbated by the force the loggers used to free him from the cockpit. Plus, I imagined that if Grossmammi Eunice awoke to the presence of a half-naked man asleep in our living room, she might have a heart attack and fall into her cross-stitch pattern. I never anticipated the fact that she’d wake up before he did.

  My stomach taut with anxiety, I place two fingers against the side of the pilot’s jaw to check his heart rate. The hairs of his beard are rough against my fingertips, and the throb of his blood beneath the
pad of my index finger makes my own pulse speed up. I have almost counted to a minute when the pilot comes to and bolts upright, clenching my hand. Choking on a scream, I struggle to free myself, but the pilot won’t let go. He draws me in closer, his strong hand still clamping mine. I can smell the tang of his sweat mixed with the residual blood from his head wound as he rasps in my face, his blue eyes blazing with terror, “Where am I?”

  My throat goes dry; my head swims. Swallowing, I command with far more authority than I possess, “Release me first.”

  The pilot looks down at my hand, as if surprised to see he’s holding it. He lets go and reclines on the table. His face whitens, and I can almost see the wave of adrenaline receding.

  “Your plane crashed in our field.” I point to the door, which Jabil left open, as if that would encourage propriety between me and an unknown Englischer pilot who sports tattoos and a gun. “The logging crew got you out and brought you here.”

  The pilot tries to get up again.

  “Don’t!” I force his shoulders down to the table. I step back, mortified by my impulsive behavior, but the pilot obeys. He keeps lying there with his hands shuttered over his eyes. “You want some water?”

  “Please.”

  I go over to the sideboard and pour water from the metal pitcher. I carry the glass over to the pilot, but he makes no effort to sit up. “Are you going to be sick?”

  He shakes his head. “I’ll try drinking in a little while.”

  “No. Here. I’ll help you.” Skirting around the kitchen chair, I place one hand on the pilot’s upper back and bring the glass to his lips. He drinks greedily, the water trickling down his chin, catching in the strands of his beard. My hand burns where it touches his skin.

  The pilot pushes the half-emptied glass away. “Thanks. Can you help me off the table?”

  His left pupil looks more dilated than the right—the blue iris a thin Saturn ring orbiting the black—and his breathing is heavy. Possible signs of a concussion? But I don’t have the right or the power to restrain a grown man. I step closer to the table and wait as the pilot puts an arm around my shoulders so that he can use my body like a crutch.

  He must be around five-ten or -eleven, since he’s only a few inches taller than I am. But I can feel his sinewy power through his arm alone. The pilot winces at the pressure on his hurt ankle and curls the foot up again, balancing on me and on the table in front of him. He seems to think nothing of our proximity; I can think of nothing else.

  “Can you tell me where I am?” he asks.

  “An Old Order Mennonite community called Mt. Hebron.”

  “But what state?”

  “Northern Montana, near Glacier Falls. Not far from the Canadian border.”

  “That close.”

  “You were going to Canada?”

  He doesn’t say yes or no or offer any more explanation, so I gesture toward the open door and the pilot nods. We hobble together for a few labored steps. Then he leans against the jamb to catch his breath, eyes glimmering. “What’s your name?”

  “Leora Ebersole.” I pause. “And yours?”

  He looks at me with those odd, concussed eyes. “Moses. Moses Hughes.”

  “Moses,” I repeat. “Don’t know many Englischers with that name.”

  The pilot stumbles and his injured foot touches down, a knee-jerk reaction for stability. He curses, and my eyes grow wide. “I’ve never known anyone with your name,” he says. Removing his arm from around my shoulders, he touches the railing and hops over to the edge of the porch. He stares out over the meadow—at his plane that looks like the smoking carcass of an enormous yellow bird—and sighs.

  “Where are you from?” I ask.

  “What’s that?”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Kentucky,” he says, looking ahead, “but I’ve moved around so much these past few years, I can barely remember where all I’ve been.”

  I gesture to his plane. “Looks like you’re going to be here awhile. The community’s having a meeting at the schoolhouse because the electricity shut down at Field to Table, the community’s bulk food store. My brother also said that the Englischers’ cars won’t start. Nobody can go home or even call out on their cell phones. It’s like someone—” I snap my fingers—“flipped a switch.”

  The pilot turns from the porch post and looks at me. I had tried to keep my manner light, but his expression is now so grave that a wave of panic courses throughout my body, raising the fine hair on my arms. “The deacons and bishop are trying to figure out what to do because the Englischers want to go home but have no way to get there.”

  Moses faces the woods again, holding the porch railing. “When did this happen?”

  “About two hours ago, I guess. Seth, my brother, wanted to get up here to help right after your accident, but there was such chaos at the store, he couldn’t get away.”

  “And when did my plane crash?”

  “Around the same time.” I stare at Moses’s bare back. Freckles, the color of those on his face, dot his shoulders like paint chips. “Why? Do you think they’re connected somehow?”

  The pilot sinks one fist into the pocket of his jeans and turns to face me while being careful not to put more weight on his injured foot. My eyes are drawn like lodestones to the cross tattoo on his chest. My face grows hot. I look away from him, but I feel his gaze on me until I am forced to look back. “There’s no way to know for sure just yet,” he says. “but I think it could’ve been an EMP.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “An electromagnetic pulse. A special warhead, probably set off hundreds of miles above the earth, gives off this huge electromagnetic pulse that wipes out technology because of how the pulse reacts with the earth’s magnetic field. It’s harmless to humans and animals, but it can take out the power grid and everything that relies on a computer, throwing civilization back a couple hundred years. I’ve heard it can be over a few states, or—” he glances out at the land—“it could knock out half of our hemisphere.”

  “How . . . how do you know about this?”

  He shrugs. “I probably read more than I should.”

  I glance away from him and stare at the field, where his ruined plane is backdropped by the chiseled mountain peaks, piercing through the sea of softwoods as if from a volcanic eruption. “You think this—this bomb is why you crashed?”

  “We can’t really call it a bomb, because there’s no obvious detonation. But, yeah—that’s a pretty likely explanation, if everything else is off the grid too.”

  “How do we fix it?” I ask. “How do we get it all back?”

  He turns and I glimpse his eyes again—a brilliant hue that seems to mirror the entire spectrum of the wide Montana sky. “That’s the thing. If I’m right, then . . . we don’t.”

  Moses

  WE CREST THE BEND and the log schoolhouse comes into view. Buggies identical to Leora’s are tied to posts in the front yard, but the horses are all different shades of brown, white, and black, which seems about the only way to tell the buggies apart. An unpainted wooden swing set and teeter-totter are the only recreational items on the playground. There is no flagpole with stars and stripes snapping in the wind. From what I’ve read (or absorbed through reality TV), this is an intentional omission. Mennonites, Amish, and Quakers aren’t very patriotic, since they don’t believe in war. Kind of funny that I landed here, considering I’m a third-generation son of war.

  I look over at Leora. “Will you have to introduce me?”

  “Think you introduced yourself just fine when your plane crashed in our field.”

  “I guess I made quite the entrance.”

  “You could say that.” She meets my eyes but doesn’t return my smile.

  “How old are you?”

  She grips the reins. “Nineteen.”

  “Most Mennonite girls married by your age?”

  “No. Least not the smart ones.”

  Her voice is flat and hard. If I was hop
ing to see her stammer and blush again, like she did when I cussed, that won’t happen. I admit I’m flirting, but I’m not trying to come on to her. I haven’t had time for such things in a year. Or even the desire to pursue. All that I left behind before Aaron and I deployed.

  Leora suddenly leans forward, her profile blocking the sun like an eclipse. Her eyes are squinted, as if her glasses aren’t thick enough or maybe there’s just too much light to take it all in. I don’t want her to see my face until I’ve distanced myself from that day in the desert, so I take careful breaths and look out the buggy’s window at the long lane fenced in with this slew of cookie-cutter log cabins, except that some are two-story and others—like Leora’s—only one.

  There are no attached garages, of course, because nobody has cars around here. But each cabin has a barn and chicken coop made from wood treated to match the houses. An immaculate garden also seems part of the communal package—acorn and butternut squash vines spreading across the ground, the fruit’s thick rinds ripening to orange; cornstalks decorated with thick, tasseled ears—along with an adobe-style greenhouse that must be used to preserve some of the more sensitive vegetables from the impending frost that my Idahoan grandfather complains can assault this region well before fall begins.

  Just before the schoolhouse, on the other side of the lane, a pavilion with a cement base looks big enough to hold a small concert or a roller-skating party. Inside the pavilion, stacked like a giant’s Lincoln Logs set, are timbers so massive, a forklift would have to be used to move them. A tangle of power tools—their neon extension cords snaking back to a large generator—are laid out, along with some hard hats and goggles. Beside this, there’s what looks like a warehouse. I sit up higher on the bench seat, trying to get a better view of this bulk food store Leora mentioned earlier, which could be so crucial for the community’s survival. But I can only catch a glimpse of a tin roof and an assortment of cars and trucks that look out of place, compared to all this treated wood and black canvas.