Elias Pryor's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

At dawn Elias returned to the tree with his ledger and a hanging lamp. He wanted to see his flock kneel again. Instead he heard whispering. One family stayed on their feet near the roots. The father spoke low to his wife. Elias caught two words: "still sick." He stopped and set the lamp on a low branch. Its warm flame swayed. The father turned. He was a farmer with dirt-cracked hands, the man who had knelt first two nights ago. Now doubt bent his face. "You said the ground was clean," the farmer said. "But my boy heard scratching under here last night. If the sickness stayed, we cannot stay." Other families slowed on the path. They watched. Elias felt the whole flock tilt on one man's fear. If the farmer walked, others would follow, and his pledge would break apart by noon. Elias smiled wide. He did not argue. "Then let us look together," he said. "Fear grows in the dark. Bring the light close." He lifted the lamp and carried it to the fresh burrow. His heart pounded. He knew what lived down there. Small tufts of gray fur still clung to the dark mouth of the hole. He shifted his body to block the farmer's view and pressed his boot over the fur, grinding it into the dirt. "Nothing," he said. "Empty ground." But the scratching came again, faint, from below. The farmer heard it. His eyes went hard. "There," he said. "You hear it too." Elias could not deny sound. So he chose another lie. He walked to the wire fence at the edge of the ground and took down the axe that leaned against a post. Its blade still held dark stains from splitting wood. He carried it back and raised it high. "The tree keeps its own," he said. "When the unclean stirs, we answer it." He drove the axe into the burrow. Dirt sprayed. He struck again and again until the scratching stopped and the hole caved in. He was not sure he hit anything. It did not matter. The flock saw a man who acted, not a man who cowered. Elias stood and wiped his brow. "The wild cleansed us once. Now we cleanse ourselves. This is the covenant." The farmer stared at the collapsed hole. Slowly he knelt. His wife pulled the children down. One by one the watching families lowered themselves again. The doubt broke. Elias had held them. He opened his ledger and marked the dawn. When the families walked home, a pale, thin horse stood beyond the wire fence, watching with white eyes. Elias barely saw it. His mind was on the axe in his hand. He had promised to strike the sickness whenever it stirred. Now he would have to keep striking, again and again, or the whole flock would learn what he buried.