Ishmael saw a wide knoll covered in green grass and lighted from above by moon and starshine. The thick night that surrounded him in the pasture did not seem to reign here. A softer darkness covered the knoll, a darkness of rest and safety rather than of fear and threat.
“This is where the angels came.” said the old man. “Damndest thing I ever saw.”

Ishmael stood at the foot of the knoll as if afraid to step within its circle for fear of breaking the spell. All around him the women began to move within it. As they entered, the tears on their faces turned to diamonds, dropped to their feet, and disappeared into the soft grass. Their moans of sorrow became murmurs of joy and the woe that covered them all like funeral shrouds melted away and left them glowing as if they too were angels.

One of the women, as she stepped from behind to enter the circle, placed her hand on Ishmael’s back, and gently pushed him in.

Instantly, the weight of the world fell away.

He looked up into the sky, a sky that had seemed dead to him, and saw the shining face of the night, black and beautiful and bejeweled like the face of Sheba encrusted with gems.

“They appeared to them here.” said one of the women as she pointed to the highest spot on the knoll. “Walt was with them.”

“The men have brought me here before to tend the sheep when I have passed through. We join ‘the ancient order of the fire gigglers’. We stare into the flames and pass around the wineskin, and sing, and laugh. But I have no doubt that on that night I saw what I saw.”

“And we know what our men told us.” said the woman who had pushed Ishmael within the circle.

Ishmael turned to her.
“Tell me.”

“The sky cracked open and the angels spilled out.”

“Spilled out?”

“That’s how my man put it.”

“Alma’s husband likes a nice turn of phrase.” said Walt. “But his words probably describe it more truly than would a more factual account.”

He pointed towards the black sky that gleamed above them as it fell towards eternity.
“It cracked open! Just like Lew said, it cracked open and there they were! It was like every beautiful voice on earth had been brought together at once to sing the greatest aria ever written! I was blinded and deafened and struck dumb! As you might have guessed, I rarely find myself with a useless tongue, but it happened to me then. I thought I was dying.”

Ishmael looked up and believed. He had no choice. Standing there, in that place, surrounded by Walt and the women, he did not possess the ability to doubt.
“What did the angels say?” he asked.

“They told us to go see Joe.” Walt replied.

“Joe?”

“Maria’s husband. I mentioned him to you before. He’s not from here.”

“Why were you supposed to go see Joe?”

“Because of the baby.”

“Joe and Maria’s?”

“Maria’s. Not Joe’s. He’s her husband, but he’s not the father.”

“Who is?”

“Who knows?”

“Maria would.”

“Well, her story seemed not to be believed.”

Ishmael looked quizzically at the old man. He scanned the crowd of smiling women’s faces that surrounded him.

“Maria was a virgin,” said one of the women.

“And still is.” Said another.

Ishmael turned to this other voice and saw an old woman gazing at him. The joy that filled her on Shepherd’s Knoll did not hide the life of toil that was etched upon her face. He saw honesty in her eyes, a forthrightness. It was as if her years had made her aware that she had no time for foolishness.

“I examined her myself,” She said. “and then I believed her story.”

“You are her cousin, Martha.” Said Walt. “You have to believe your own flesh and blood.”

Martha shook her head. “No. That’s not why. I believed her because of what I saw myself, and because of what happened to me. I believed her for the same reason that Joe believed her. He knew she was pure.”

Martha turned to Walt. “And now you believe her too because of what you and the men saw here, that night. That’s why you did as the angels commanded.”

“What did you do?” asked Ishmael.

“We went to Joe’s, where Martha and some of the other women had helped that tiny little girl give birth to her son, and we worshipped. You’ve been there. It was the trailer you stayed in last night.”

Ishmael cast his mind back to the battered, corroded hovel. He remembered the pool of blood and the skull shaped dent in the refrigerator door.
“So the men with badges got them?” he asked in a hushed voice.

Walt shook his head. “No. When the riders came in a few of the men ran to the trailer to warn Joe. But he must have heard in time because he, Maria, and the baby were already gone. They must have left at the last second. That blood belonged to Hernando. It was his head that they used to bash in the refrigerator door.”

“Is he…”

“Oh, no!” said a woman. “My Nando is too tough from a couple of gabachos to put him in the ground. He is with the others now, tracking down the three.”

“The three.” Said Ishmael. “You mentioned them before. Who are they?”

“We don’t know.” Said Walt. “They showed up that same night, walking in from the East. They said they had come to worship too. In the morning they left. A couple of nights later we had the raid.”

“And so the men blame them.”

“Who else? There is something special about that child. That’s who the raiders were after. When they couldn’t find him, they took all the others.”

“The children.” Said Ishmael.

“Every damn one.”

*********************************************************************
“We’ve got to find the children. Are you coming with me?”

Ishmael and the old man stood together by the railroad tracks. Walt gripped a thick staff of mulberry wood and gazed East. The line of telephone poles seemed to run off forever, strung with corroding copper wire as far as the eye could see.

“Our best bet” Walt replied “is to find the men before they hang those three strangers. I don’t think they turned in the settlement. But I’ll bet they know where the children were taken. They might even know what happened to Joe, Maria, and the baby.”

Ishmael knew that he had to start walking. It was the only way to beat the pain, pain which had returned the moment he had stepped beyond the circle of Shepherds’ Knoll, the pain he had known his own life: the pain of doubt. The only cure, he knew, was to keep searching. And so he struck out with all his worldly possessions tied in a bundle on his back and an old man walking by his side singing to himself, always singing.