Ted Jernigan had a problem with the mandate. While Russ and the other alumni adviser, Craig Dilkes, were inventorying the ramp-building supplies, which had been dumped in an otherwise empty classroom, Ted remarked that the money might better have been spent on central heating.
“Government money comes with mandates,” Russ said.
“And I’m saying it’s an idiotic mandate.”
Testosterone stirred in Russ. “I’ll remind you,” he said, “that we’re mainly here for ourselves. The point is personal growth, individually and as a group. If the Navajos want handicapped ramps, that’s good enough for me.”
“How does a kid in a wheelchair get up that road? How does he get across the ditch? Are they planning on landing him in a helicopter?”
“You can lead the bookcase-building crew. Would that meet your high standard of utility?”
The sarcasm drew a frown from Ted. “I don’t get you.”
“What don’t you get?”
“That was quite the welcoming committee last night. We might as well be under siege—I don’t get why you’re so hell-bent on staying.”
“I just explained the point of it.”
“But a place where the kids can’t even take a shower? When we’re obviously not wanted?”
“If you don’t like it here, I can find you a ride back to Many Farms.”
“You’re telling me you don’t think this is dangerous.”
“Kitsillie can be rough,” Craig Dilkes interposed. He’d been a sophomore on the fellowship’s first trip to Arizona. “It’s the roughness that really pulls the group together—people taking care of each other.”
“Maybe,” Ted said. “Provided no one gets hurt. If someone gets hurt, in a place we should know better than to be, the buck stops with the leader.”
He left the room, and Craig raised his eyebrows. They were blonder than his mop of red hair. “I’m not liking the vibe here.”
With Craig, Russ could be honest. “I agree,” he said. “Keith warned me about it.”
“There’s that, but I meant Ted.”
In the evening, the group gathered around a single flame in their dark room. The “candle” began with the singing of two songs and the giving of what Ambrose called strokes—a stroke to someone for having a great sense of humor, a stroke for trading potatoes for nasty turnips, a stroke for taking a risk in a new relationship, a stroke for being smart, a stroke for letting go of being smart and speaking from the heart, a stroke for sharing a candy bar, a stroke for teaching someone how to tie a bandanna. Frances herself spoke up and stroked the group for welcoming a middle-aged housewife. Kim Perkins, whom Russ had so far left alone, owing to his troubles with her sister, surprised him with a stroke for his courage in handling the four angry Navajos. His heart swelled with the contrast to the last Arizona candle he’d led. Here, unpoisoned by Laura Dobrinsky and Sally Perkins, were forty good kids in thick socks and thermal underwear, with sleeping bags draped over their shoulders, and his beloved boy-haired woman on the far side of the circle, holding the hands of two girls she’d only just met. How much better his life was now! How nearly joyful again!
And then Ted Jernigan raised the issue of security. “I don’t know about the rest of you,” he said, “but I don’t enjoy feeling threatened every time I step out for a meal. Do you mind if we have a show of hands? Does anyone else think we’d be better off closer to civilization?”
The memory of Russ’s expulsion three years earlier, the traumatic call for a show of hands, triggered a fight-or-flight response in him.
“Ted,” he said hormonally, “if you have an issue with my leadership, you should direct it to me personally.”
“I already did that,” Ted said. “What I’m looking for now is a sense of the group. Is anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?”
He raised his hand and looked around the circle. Russ glanced at Frances and found her smiling at him, perhaps conveying her opinion of Ted, her hand unraised. Among the kids, only Gerri Kohl, she of “velly stlange,” raised a hand. Russ, sensing victory, was all over it.
“Gerri, thank you for your honesty,” he said, sounding like Ambrose. “That is a brave thing to admit. That took real guts.”
Gerri lowered her hand. “It’s just one vote,” she said. “I can go with the flow.”
Though Russ felt bad for her, knowing she wasn’t well liked, her unpopularity was an advantage to be pressed. “Ted is right,” he said. “The energy up here is somewhat negative. I intend to find out why and see what we can do to repair it. But if anyone else feels the same way Gerri does, now is the time to say so. If you’d rather go back to Many Farms, we can still be together as a group there.”