CHAPTER 22

Aaron Roberts stood next to Jasper Sewell on the roof of one of their buses looking out across the wide grassy common area of an abandoned Katrina evacuation village, one of many of FEMA’s day-late-and-a-dollar-short approaches to disaster management. There were people everywhere, at least a thousand, possibly more. They had come here, to this vast collection of small, unpainted wood-framed houses, many of them by accident, and found themselves trapped. At least, that had been the case before Jasper saw the confusion from the bus and ordered his driver to pull into the parking lot. Now things were running smoothly.

The first thing he did was to tell Aaron and his other lieutenants to go forth into the mass of people and organize them into stations. Several members of the Family had medical training, and they set up a mobile hospital. The crowd was marched through and inspected for signs of the infection. Once they were cleared, they were asked about their medical needs by several of the registered nurses who were members of the Family. Those with special conditions, such as a need for insulin or antibiotics, were taken care of from the Family’s medical stores. All others were moved forward to the next station, where their names were taken down and any special skills they had, like carpentry or plumbing, were recorded.

Aaron was stunned at how easy Jasper made it look.

The greatest moment of the day had come just an hour earlier. Aaron and a few of the other lieutenants had gone to Jasper and asked if he didn’t think it was time for them to leave. There was not enough food to feed all these people, they said.

“How much do we have?” Jasper asked Aaron.

“Just what we brought with us,” he said. “Five crates of military MREs and two crates of bread. There’s barely enough for the Family, much less all these people.”

Jasper studied the crowd, his eyes lost behind the dark, rounded lenses of his sunglasses. His broad, strong jawline was beaming with a gracious, easy confidence.

“They are all my family, Aaron,” he said. “We are going to provide for them.”

And with that, Jasper had taken his cell phone from his pocket and placed a call. Aaron listened to Jasper talking, and he heard the man making arrangements, but he didn’t understand what it meant. He felt confused. Jasper was a great man, a good man, and it was in his nature to help anyone he could. He used his pulpit to talk about corruption in politics, about racial injustice, about the homeless, about children dying of hunger right here in Jackson. If there was an issue that needed to be brought to the public’s attention, be it something as big as racism in the criminal courts or as small as a school board trying to drop the free breakfast program in an underprivileged elementary school, Jasper would bring five hundred members of his church and pack the meeting hall, every member demanding to be heard. That was the kind of socially conscious message that had attracted Aaron and Kate to the New Life Bible Church in the first place. Jasper was a powerful voice for change in Jackson politics, but did he really believe he could feed a thousand hungry people with five crates of military rations and two crates of bread?

“Where are you?” Jasper said into the phone. He waited. “That close?” Jasper nodded to himself, sunlight flashing off the lenses of his sunglasses. “Fantastic, Mr. Porter. Yes. Okay. We’ll see you soon.”

He pocketed the phone and put a hand on Aaron’s shoulder.

Speaking so that the other lieutenants could hear, he said, “My friends, you are about to witness something wonderful. A miracle. Go through the crowd. Tell them to sit down on the ground and wait, for they shall be fed, each and every one of them.”

Aaron wrinkled his brow at Jasper. “But Jasper—”

Jasper held up a slender finger and wagged it in the air. “No questions, my friend. Just do as I ask. Go now. Tell the people they shall be fed.”

Aaron and the other lieutenants did as Jasper asked. Using the loudspeakers and their own voices, shouting themselves hoarse, they managed to get the crowd assembled on the ground near the buses.

Within minutes, Jasper appeared before the crowd, and speaking over a bullhorn, said a prayer for them. And as he spoke, reciting from memory Psalm 130, a caravan of mismatched eighteen-wheelers pulled into the lot behind him, each one laden with food collected from the city’s grocery stores.

Aaron, with his arm around Kate, had laughed in triumph.

Jasper turned to Aaron and said, “I don’t intend for us to stay here.”

“But where will we go?”

“North. A long ways.”

Aaron nodded.

Jasper said, “I’ve spent the last thirty minutes in meditation, Aaron, thinking on a place I went to as a boy. Tell me, have you ever been to North Dakota?”

“Jasper, I ain’t never left Mississippi.”

Jasper smiled at that. “North Dakota’s a beautiful place. My parents took me there one summer when I was twelve. I remember we made our campsite in the Cedar River National Grasslands, on the bank of a river. I can still picture it, Aaron. I climbed out of the backseat of my parent’s car and I saw grass stretching off into the distance in every direction. The sky was like the color of an old weathered photograph. You know how they get all yellow?”

“It sounds beautiful, Jasper.”

“Oh, it was. Very. It was the first place I ever truly felt the presence of God. It changed me.”

Jasper paused there, his gaze directed far away, beyond the crowd and the rows of unpainted houses. The sky was still overcast and gray. It hadn’t rained at all, though it had certainly seemed like it would. Off in the distance, they could see a few tall columns of black smoke.

Jasper went on. “I knew that one day I would return to that place. God talked to me there for a reason. Now, he’s calling me back there. That’s where we’re going to go, Aaron, the Grasslands.”

“Will all these people come with us?” Aaron asked.

Jasper turned his sunglasses on Aaron and regarded him for a long while before answering.

“Would you have us leave them?”

“No, of course not. I just…I don’t see…”

“What?”

“Jasper, I don’t see how we’re going to transport them all. We have only three buses.”

A lemony glare flashed on the lenses of Jasper’s sunglasses. His lips pulled down at the corners into a solemn, sad expression.

“Aaron,” he said. “You are my most resourceful lieutenant, and yet you have doubted me twice today. Why is that?”

“I…I’m sorry, Jasper.”

“Haven’t you seen what I did for them? Didn’t we feed them all, every single one?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And have food left over?”

Aaron nodded.

“Then why do you still wonder if it’s possible to take these people with us?”

“Jasper,” Aaron said. But he faltered and broke off.

“Why do you suppose I brought you up here?”

“I…I don’t know, Jasper.”

“I wanted you to see the people, Aaron. Our Family.” He motioned to the crowds below them. “And I wanted you to see where we are going. But most of all, I wanted you to be the first to see that.”

He pointed over Aaron’s left shoulder.

Aaron turned, and right away he saw the surprise Jasper had coming for them. It was a line of yellow school buses, at least sixty of them, maybe more.

“Oh, my,” Aaron said. “How did you…”

“Some miracles you create for yourself,” Jasper said. “Now, I want to leave here by nightfall. Go down into the crowds and tell them to gather themselves together. Anybody who wishes to join us can come along. All are welcome.”

Aaron nodded.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” he said. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”

Jasper smiled. “I believe you, Aaron. Go now, tell the people to get ready. Spread the word.”