“I remember Hiram,” Samuel said stiffly.
“David doesn’t have business cards yet, but I’m sure he’ll be glad to talk to you, if you’re interested. Here, I can write down his address.”
Samuel shoved a notepad and pen at her, although he also said sourly, “I don’t know whether I want to waste more good money on that animal.”
She wrote down the number for the phone shared among the four households, including hers, as well as the address.
“Daad and Luke think highly of David,” she assured him. “He has a young horse there now that’s coming along well.”
“Well . . . denke,” he said stiffly. “It was good of you to let me know.”
She smiled at him. “I’ve never been in your store. I work at A Stitch in Time. You must know Ruth.”
“Ja, she’s a good woman.” He sounded begrudging, but maybe that was just his way. “Her displays during Mill Run Days always draw the tourists.”
She tried to remember if he bothered to participate except by hanging an Open sign on the door. “Quilts are something people who live a distance away can carry home. I’ll bet you sell plenty of hats to Englischers who don’t expect it to be so hot here.”
“I do.”
She smiled again and said, “Gute nammidaag,” and hustled out the door. No wish that she, in turn, would have a good afternoon followed her.
Ach, maybe David would be better to wait to deal with a more agreeable customer. Immediately ashamed of herself, she knew it was entirely possible that Samuel Ropp was usually a happy fellow who was simply having a bad day. Or maybe he didn’t feel well. Probably her daad’s age, he might have a chronic health problem. Anyway, it wasn’t as if he’d been rude, only gruff. And he hadn’t said, I’m not interested, so don’t bother giving me that fellow’s name.
Tomorrow she could let David know she’d kept her promise.
* * *
* * *
David walked to the Bowmans’ that Sunday, embarrassed not to be contributing to the meal, but also assuming Deborah and Miriam wouldn’t expect him to bring a dish. He’d mentioned the invitation early to his daad to be sure his mother didn’t plan anything big today. Jake and his family were certain to be at the family home, and David hoped they didn’t believe he was avoiding them.
David wasn’t ready to admit to anyone that when he had a chance to see Miriam, he seized it. The hour he’d spent with her Friday, lying on his side in the long grass as he watched Abby chasing and playing with Dandy and Susie, had been pure joy. He hadn’t let himself even think about how much he had to do; what did a man work for but the pleasure of making the people he loved happy?
Miriam wasn’t his wife, or Abby their daughter, but the Bowmans increasingly felt like family. Sitting beside him, teasing him, laughing at the antics of the puppies, she was free from any shadow on her mood, as he had been. Hope could be a painful emotion, but yesterday it hadn’t been.
If he was neglecting his own family, he was sorry for it—but not so sorry he’d been able to bring himself to send word to the Bowmans that he couldn’t come. Wincing, he feared his mother had wanted to host a big celebration today, now that he had returned, not just bodily, but also spiritually.
He stepped over the broken fence rail, knowing if it had been anywhere else on the property, he’d have rushed to replace it even if there were no animals in this field to contain. Building a gate would take more time than he could easily afford, and he liked thinking God had lowered this rail to facilitate his—and Miriam’s—passage between the two farms.
Sunlight glinted off metal in front of him as he strode out of the orchard. He had to blink, only then seeing that a black SUV was parked beside the large buggy David recognized as Luke’s. Julia’s brother was to be here, he remembered. The police chief. It was hard to imagine such a man in Deborah’s kitchen, but the Bowmans had clearly made adjustments. Adjustments that might have been inevitable, it occurred to him, after Luke returned to his Amish roots after thirteen years away and then married a newly converted Englisch woman.
David changed his course when he heard men’s voices coming from the direction of the barn. Four men were lined up along the pasture fence.
Luke saw him first and waved him over. “Just the man we need.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t hear that often.”
After answering, also in English, he realized why Luke was using the language. Along with Elam and Eli, the fourth man also turned to face him. A big Englischer, he had shoulders as bulky as any hardworking Amishman’s, but his face was impassive in a way rare among the Leit. This was a man who wouldn’t want anyone to know what he was thinking.
“David, meet Julia’s brother, Nick Durant. Nick, our neighbor and friend, David Miller.”
The police chief wasn’t wearing a uniform, but David felt the same edgy sensation he had ever since his arrest and incarceration whenever he saw a police officer.
He didn’t consciously summon the belief that steadied him, but the reassurance came anyway.
The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?
His reaction was only physical. With time, he’d get over it. That big mistake had been wiped out by the forgiveness given him by his sisters and brothers—and through them, God’s. And, ja, he had served the time in jail to earn forgiveness from the Englisch authorities. Even if Julia had told her brother David’s history, why would the local police chief be interested?
David nodded acknowledgment of the introduction. “Luke has mentioned you.”
Nick gave a sardonic look to the Amishman he probably blamed for his sister’s unusual decision to convert to a faith far more demanding than what she would have grown up with.
Luke pretended not to notice. He nodded toward the pasture. “Elam was eager to show off the new horse he bought. We’re telling him he may know how to grow organic peas, but needs lessons in choosing a horse.”
The humor in his voice told David this was only one brother giving the other a hard time. He stepped forward, though, and studied the one horse in the pasture he didn’t recognize. A handsome bay, he had to be a Standardbred like Luke’s horse. He might not have been fast enough to make it on the racetrack, but he was almost as large as Charlie, with the deep chest and fine conformation David would look for when he bought horses.
“Where did you buy him?” he asked, and they were immediately engaged in shoptalk that probably bored the Englischer, although he was polite enough to hide it if so.
Even Elam was more fluent in English than most Amish David knew, perhaps because he’d worked with Eli at the furniture store for a time. The Bowmans were an unusual family, all of them but Deborah having more to do with auslanders than was usual. Maybe, David thought, that was one reason why he felt more comfortable with them than he did among his own family.
Another buggy arrived, bringing a woman who looked vaguely familiar to David, a man he didn’t recognize at all, and several kinder.
Luke handled the introductions again, still in English. “My sister, Rose, her husband, Asa, and my Abby’s cousins, Gabriel, Deborah, and the baby is Adam. Abby can hardly wait to see him again. You all know Nick. This is David Miller from next door.”
The little girl must have been named for her grossmammi.
Luke switched to Deitsh and repeated some of that for the sake of the children, none old enough yet to have learned more than a few words of English.
While Elam helped Asa remove their horse’s harness and turn him out with the others, Rose eyed David with interest. “Ach, Miriam has talked about you.” Somewhat taller and considerably plumper, she had blue eyes and blond, curly hair like her sister.
Did he dare ask what Miriam had said about him?
But Abby darted out just then, and the two older kinder ran toward her
.
“She’s already lost her kapp,” Luke said resignedly, although amusement lurked in his eyes. “It’s all we can do to keep it on her on church Sundays.”
“Why doesn’t she like to wear it?” David asked.
“She doesn’t like hats. As far as she’s concerned, that’s what a kapp is. We still don’t know why, if there is a real reason. It drives Mamm crazy, because Abby hides the kapp. Always somewhere new. Last week, we found it in the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator.”
David wasn’t alone in laughing. Nick seemed to admire the tiny girl’s spirit, too.
Miriam appeared, hugged Gabriel and Deborah before shooing them into the house, and then embraced her sister, too. “Almost time to eat,” she told them all. “If you need to wash up . . .”
The men all obeyed the thinly disguised order before finding places around the lengthened table in the kitchen.
Just as he took his usual seat, Miriam gave him a smile that felt special, the kind that made his heart jump like a boy playing eckball, a favorite, if sometimes perilous, children’s game.
* * *
* * *
“Tourists.” Nick shook his head in disgust.
Miriam had gotten to know Julia’s brother well enough to be comfortable with him. He’d been wary at first, even verging on hostile to Luke, and Julia had admitted that he’d opposed her choice to convert to join the Amish. But once she had married Luke, and Nick had joined the family frequently enough to relax with them, his sense of humor and what Miriam could only call honor had shone through. Increasingly, she thought, he’d come to feel protective of the Amish people in his jurisdiction.
Most Amish lived outside the city limits, but not all. Those limits had been broadly drawn and encompassed farms. A few Amish businesspeople lived in town, too, some over their shops. Many of the local Amish worked in Tompkin’s Mill, and all shopped there.
Nick never talked about the shocking or horrifying types of crimes he dealt with, but sometimes told funny stories. With summer so close now, July only ten days away, he was getting frustrated with the influx of auslanders. Even he called them that sometimes, which she thought was funny.
He’d admitted when he first got to know the Bowmans that he hadn’t imagined tourists in any numbers coming to Tompkin’s Mill.
“This is pretty country,” he’d said, “but no prettier than the rest of Missouri. Same rolling land, same mixed agriculture and woods as in neighboring states, for that matter. We don’t have any limestone caverns advertised for miles around with giant billboards. Yeah, there’s the covered bridge, and a nineteenth-century gristmill within driving distance, but given how well known the Ozarks are, I’d expected people from out of state to head down there.” He’d looked exasperated enough to yank at his hair, if it had been long enough to get a grip on. “Turns out you folks are the attraction. With all the attention Jamesport has gotten, it’s spilled over to the surrounding counties that have Amish settlements. Which would be fine, if people had more sense.”
This afternoon, he grumbled about the number of speeding tickets his officers had recently needed to issue on narrow country roads marked by “Share the Road” signs featuring a horse and buggy.
“Gideon Lantz told me he moved here from upstate New York,” Miriam said. “Along with it being crowded there, he said there were tour buses creeping along the road so people could stare at a real Amish buggy or an Amishman plowing his field. Imagine that.”
“At least the bus drivers knew to keep the speed down,” the police chief muttered.
“About Gideon,” her mamm said brightly, “I heard something, uh-huh. Nancy told me he spoke to Amos. Wants to change to our church district, she says.”
Beside Miriam, David stiffened. Not so that anyone else noticed, as far as she could tell, but the muscles in the arm that brushed hers went rock hard. Gideon had seemed pleasant enough to her, but he definitely disturbed David in some way.
If she asked, would he tell her why he reacted that way?
“You know him best,” her father remarked to David.
“His two girls already go to school close to where he lives. My brother says he sees Gideon picking up the children because he worries about them walking alone.”
“Smart, if much of that walk is along the road,” Nick said.
“My parents and brother like him.” David almost sounded as if he didn’t want to speak well of Gideon, causing Miriam to wonder more. “He’s been a good neighbor to Esther Schwartz, too.”
She turned her head to see that Luke was watching David with an alert expression, as if he, too, had heard something surprising. Beside him, Julia grinned at her.
Rose murmured to her husband, who said, “We’ll miss him if he leaves our church district, but understand why he would.” Likely, he was speaking for Rose, whose English wasn’t good. She’d never held a job where she dealt with Englisch customers, and since marrying Asa and starting a family, had stayed home or among friends and family, and might not have spoken to an auslander in years except for Nick.
Not understanding the conversation at all, her kinder had been growing restless. The baby was beginning to fuss, too, and Rose finally stood and said in Deitsh, “I’ll just go to the living room. I’ll be back to help.”
“No need,” Mamm said firmly. “Not with Miriam and Julia both here. Maybe all the kinder would like to go with you.”
Even Abby scrambled from the bench to join the exodus.
Nick reached for a partial blueberry pie sitting in the middle of the table. “All the more for the rest of us.”
David laughed and said, “I wouldn’t object to a second helping.”
“I wouldn’t either,” both Luke and Asa said simultaneously.
Obviously pleased, Mamm said, “Eat yourself full. There’s plenty more where that came from. I like to see a good appetite.”
Elam excused himself and said he’d promised to stop by at the Esches’ house for dessert. His eagerness was understandable, and had nothing to do with his appetite. He and Anna Rose planned to marry in late July. Since he’d fallen hard for her last autumn, he’d hoped for spring but seemed relieved that a date had finally been set. Anna’s family could start making preparations.
Miriam didn’t have the slightest doubt that her brother could stuff in another piece of pie once he got to the Esches’. Especially if his Anna had baked it.
The women stood at the same time to begin cleaning up. Asa expressed an interest in seeing something in Daad’s workshop, so the two of them wandered out. She braced herself for David to excuse himself and leave for home, but instead, after a mild suggestion from Nick, the three remaining men went out to the front porch. Once they shut the door, she couldn’t hear them at all.
“I wonder what they’re talking about,” she said.
Julia set a pile of dirty plates beside the sink that Mamm was filling with soapy water. “I don’t know, but I’ve overheard Nick and Luke talking about more serious things. Luke was out in the world long enough to be as aware as Nick of the problems.”
“You must be, too.”
Julia wrinkled her nose. “Ja, but Nick is afraid of upsetting me. He’s always believed he should have been able to protect me, even though I was away at college when it happened. I think if a woman locally were attacked, Luke would try to be sure I didn’t hear about it.”
Miriam glanced toward the front of the house. “What if something like that happened?”
Julia shook her head. “I just think they’re being men.”
Miriam nodded. “David wouldn’t be bothered by that kind of conversation. He must have heard awful things when he was in jail.”
“Why are you talking about that?” her mother said briskly. “The Lord has forgiven him.”
Julia and Miriam exchanged a glance before Miriam gave her mother a quick hug. “You’re right,
Mamm.”
Wiping the table a minute later, Julia said, “I haven’t met this Gideon Lantz. I saw his little girl playing with the others last week, even taking time to be kind to the younger ones, but I missed seeing him.”
Miriam didn’t have a chance to draw breath before Mamm began to extol his virtues. He was a strong fellow, owning a fine farm he’d put in good shape. There couldn’t be a better father, and with him solid in his faith, he’d be a good husband. “Of course his kinder need a mother,” she assured them both. “Judith says right now he has Rebecca King coming five days a week to take care of the kinder, her probably hoping to make it permanent.”
Julia made an awful face behind Mamm’s back. When Miriam raised her eyebrows, she whispered, “Later.” Later wasn’t necessary, though, because Miriam remembered how actively Rebecca had pursued Luke when he first came back. Not quite to the point of anyone having to chastise her, but there’d been talk. Desperate for him to marry to cement his commitment to the faith, Mamm had encouraged Luke to consider her. He must have told Julia. Unless Rebecca had flirted with him even after his marriage?
No, Miriam didn’t believe that.
Come to think of it, hadn’t Rebecca laid a hand on David’s shoulder when she poured his coffee last Sunday? Two handsome, unmarried men old enough to seem more interesting than the boys Rebecca’s own age were suddenly available. She might be keeping her options open.
Not more than nineteen, she was too young for either Gideon or David, in Miriam’s opinion, but most Amish women did marry young. And Rebecca was very pretty.
Suddenly grouchy, Miriam wished she knew what the men were talking about—and whether David would bother coming back in to say goodbye before he left.
And why she was letting herself fuss over something she’d been so sure she could never have.
Chapter Seventeen
“I thought you should know, if you haven’t already heard,” Nick told Luke.
David had been stunned to hear about two armed robberies right here in Tompkin’s Creek.
Mending Hearts Page 18