Tomorrow's Treasure (9 page)

Junia stood looking down at Katie van Buren holding the sleeping baby in her arms. The woman was smiling, her eyes closed. Junia started when Katie spoke in those quiet tones.

“Thank you, Junia. They were right. You are a worthy woman.”

Junia frowned. What on earth? She shook her head, then left the hut and stepped outdoors. The afternoon sun was golden; a few fleecy clouds chased each other across the sky toward the distant hills. Jendaya had disappeared, and Clyde was standing alone some distance away by the river, hands in his pockets, staring off.

Something was wrong. She could sense it.

She came up quietly and tucked her arm through his. “So what is this mystery? You look worried, Husband.”

He sighed deeply, then looked down at her, a frown between his brows. His deep-set eyes were kind and sympathetic.

“Junia, my dear, you mean Katie has not told you yet?”

“Told me what?” Tension rose within her as she searched his sober face.

“Then she has not.” He rubbed his chin, watching her, his love—and his unhappiness—clear in his eyes. “I must say I am surprised by her actions and her silence. Jendaya says that Katie was very upset until she arrived here and saw you holding the baby. Then something came over her, and her emotions seemed to recede into a surprising calm.”

“I don't understand.” She searched his face for answers, growing more tense as she read his concern. “What's this all about?”

Clyde patted her hand between his, then clasped it tightly. “Katie van Buren is Sir Julien Bley's ward. She is Evy's mother. She's come to take Evy with her to America.”

A sword might just as well have pierced her heart. Junia sucked in her breath and gripped his hand tightly, as though she would sink to the ground. He watched her, a worried crease between his brows.

“I see.” She looked back toward the hut. “Yes, I see now. That explains her behavior.” Her heart thumped, causing an ache in her chest.
Take Evy to America?

“I do not see how we can turn her away. If she asks us for our help, we must try.”

Junia's throat constricted.
Am I so soon to lose this brief time of fulfillment?
Her first cry to God was one of bitter disappointment.
Why? Oh, Father, why? It is unfair!

“Junia?” he said in a ragged whisper, reaching a tender finger to brush against her cheek. “If she wants her baby …”

She tore her gaze from the hut and looked at her husband. His sympathy was so real, so visible, that his love for her warmed her heart and comforted her.

“Our faith is being tried.” After an awkward moment he shook his head. “We can only trust His wisdom, His mercy in bringing Katie here
to us. There must be a reason. If God gave us Evy for only a little while, then … though it hurts to release her—”

She had no answers, only questions that throbbed like festering wounds in her soul. Although she struggled for composure, all too soon the inevitable tears flooded her eyes. “Oh,
Clyde!
” She stepped toward him, and his arms wrapped about her and he buried his face against her hair.

“Darling Junia!”

She wept, trying to keep the sounds as quiet as possible, letting her sorrow flow, until her throat hurt. As all her happy dreams of having her own daughter ebbed away, she finally thought there were no more tears to flow. She looked up at her dear husband. “The L
ORD
gave, and the L
ORD
hath taken away; blessed be the name of the L
ORD
.”

“Now I know why God gave you to me, Junia.” Clyde's voice was hoarse, and his eyes now filled with tears. “There are few as brave and trusting as you. Few with such a lovely spirit of submission to the L
ORD
.” He reached over and brushed the windblown dark hair from her face.

She tried to smile. “I love you for saying that, but I feel neither brave nor trusting.” She only knew that she must choose to act upon what she knew of God's character. His good plans for them. Comforting words from Isaiah, chapter forty-three, breezed softly across her soul: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the L
ORD
thy God.”

Her sigh seemed to come from the depths of her soul. “I suppose there are reasons … I
know
there are reasons, though I cannot understand them.”

“The wounds are too raw, Junia, do not try to ignore the hurt. Wait. Time will prove our Savior can be trusted with pain. Perhaps there are reasons why God has brought us all here now. He knows the future, while we stumble along trying to understand.”

She was quiet, just holding him. The wind came up and blew dust and brush along the rocky slope by the river. Though words failed them, their quiet embrace spoke volumes.

“Do you want me to talk to Katie?” he asked after a long while.

“Not yet, Clyde. She is asleep. But perhaps this afternoon, or even tomorrow morning. I wonder if Sir Julien will come here?”

“I'm sure he will. We need to pray about all this before he arrives. We need God's intervention.”

Junia looked again toward the hut. Oh yes, they needed that. And His mercy. For without that, Junia feared she would not be able to endure what was coming.

Katie opened her eyes. Her mind and heart churned, and she looked around her. It must be early afternoon. Evy was still asleep in her arms. She held her little girl, running her palm along the baby's back. From outside she heard voices. Someone, most likely Dr. Varley, was reading from the Bible. She could hear his calm, kind voice carried on the wind.

“ ‘The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:

‘The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the L
ORD
bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.

‘The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.'

“This is a reading from Isaiah forty, verses six through eight.”

Katie closed her eyes and felt her tears run down her cheeks and onto a pillow.

There followed a hymn. Katie had never heard it before; it was unlike any she remembered singing as a little girl. Whether because of the words Dr. Varley had read from Scripture, or because of the sweet voices of the missionary doctor and his wife as they sang, Katie felt a strange yearning and tugging at her heart. And for the first time in years, she found her soul crying out.

Help me, God! Help my baby, help these good people—help me do what's right. What do You want of me, Jesus?

The missionaries' voices filled the warm air and drifted in to Katie on the cot, the hymn like balm on chafing wounds.

“Savior, like a shepherd lead us, much we need Thy tender care; in Thy pleasant pastures feed us, for our use Thy folds prepare; we are Thine, do Thou befriend us, be the Guardian of our way; keep Thy flock, from sin defend us, seek us when we go astray.”

From somewhere closer at hand another voice joined in, hesitant at first … a deeper voice struggling with the English language, yet resolutely humming the music. It was Jendaya, singing from where she sat on the hut floor: “Thou has promised to receive us, poor and sinful though we be; Thou hast mercy to relieve us, grace to cleanse, and power to free; early let us seek Thy favor; early let us do Thy will; blessed Lord and only Savior, with Thy love our bosoms fill;

“Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, Thou hast bought us, Thine we are; blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, Thou hast loved us, love us still.”

The baby stirred.

Katie looked at the sweet, innocent face.
Yes, early let us seek Thy favor; early let us do Thy will.

She touched the perfectly formed little head, the intricately shaped ear. “May you grow up to do God's will, sweeting,” she murmured, “may you learn early to do what is good and pure—”

She stopped abruptly, raising her head from the pillow to look at Jendaya. The Zulu woman had sprung to her strong legs like a lion and stood frozen, looking toward the hut door. She had heard something that brought her terror. Something in the far distance. Something far different than the music of the hymn.

This music did not bring peace.

Katie sat up, fear gnawing at her. She heard it now too. Humming. Humming from thousands of voices, like some great beehive on the move.

Katie struggled to get up, holding Evy to her breast. “Jendaya—? What—?”

“Night of the full moon. I forgot the full moon!”

“What?” Katie's teeth chattered.

Evy began to whimper as though hungry, and Katie tried to quiet her. “What do you mean, Jendaya?”

“Hide!”

“What?”

“Hide!
Hide!
”

“Jendaya!” From outside the distant hum grew still louder, and it seemed the ground shook from the pounding feet of a great and terrible army beating across the plain. Then there came a blood-chilling rattle, a sound Katie knew well. The Zulu Impi—the twenty-thousand strong army of bachelor warriors—were taking their short, wide-bladed spears and beating them against their shields.

Preparing for an attack.

The sounds grew deafening: the humming, the jogging feet, the rattle of blades—

“Oh, God in heaven!” Katie wailed. She ran to the hut door and stumbled out to where Dr. and Mrs. Varley stood shading their eyes with their hands, looking across the South African plain.

Katie looked too, and the sight nauseated her. A sea of black came rolling across the plain toward Rorke's Drift. The great Zulu Impi were trotting forward—thousands upon thousands of black and white cowhide shields. The warriors would charge forward like the buffalo to encircle their victims: They came with their assegais flashing in the sunlight, blinding her. The slow trot was more frightening than if they had been racing. They rattled their blades, humming steadily, coming in a human tidal wave.

The British soldiers were manning their guns, others were on horseback.

Katie screamed, and Junia came running toward her, her features pale but her expression unafraid. “The baby, Jendaya,” she ordered quickly, “perhaps you can save her. If God makes a way, bring her to Pietermaritzburg to Lady Brewster. Tell her to send Evy to my sister and her husband in England. Understand? Vicar Edmund Havering! Go
now! Take her!” Katie let the woman take Evy from her arms and hand her over to Jendaya.

The Zulu woman hesitated, looking from Junia to Katie, as though trying to think of a way to save them as well.

“If God wills, we will live.” Junia pushed Jendaya toward the back of the hut. “Now hide the baby's white skin. Hurry,
hurry.
”

Jendaya took the baby and pushed her down between her breasts, then wrapped herself in the Zulu cloth. She looked at Junia. “Thank you for Jesus, Daktari.” With that, she turned and was gone.

Junia threw her arms around Katie, then pulled her down to the hut floor where they knelt. “Pray. Pray to Jesus, our Savior.”

Jendaya knew what to do. In the diabolical mayhem, she crawled beneath the black and white cowhide shield of a dead Impi and lay there, hidden, the tiny baby still concealed inside her bosom and covered by her wrap. As death stalked all around her, Jendaya spoke to the God of all gods in the name of His Son Jesus. She spoke for the poor white skins, who had brought knowledge of the Great One to Africa. She asked for safety for the babe and knew that amid the noise its crying was not heard.