by Adina Senft
For once, she had been the one to surprise Zeke King, and not the other way around. “Caleb said he was working on a dude ranch, but I couldn’t believe it was true.”
“It’s true. He and his buddy Joe are looking after the horses, from what I understand—and, I hope, keeping themselves as separate from bad influences as they can.”
“It’s big country out there,” said the stranger. “More country than people, I think. He’ll be all right.” He held out his hand. “My name is Silas Lapp.”
Zeke finally remembered his manners. “And this is Sarah Yoder, my cousin Corinne’s daughter-in-law. She was married to Corinne’s second boy, Michael, before the Lord took him.”
Sarah shook his hand. “Have you been to Colorado, Silas?”
“I have.”
Anxious to get everyone to the table, Sarah turned and chivvied them toward the house. They’d be the last ones seated at this rate. But at the same time, she was vitally interested in finding out even the smallest things about the state, which might as well be a foreign country, it was so unlikely she’d ever get the chance to visit.
“I hope you’ll tell me a little about it. I want to picture my boy somehow, and the only way I’ve been able to do it so far is to check books out of the library.”
“We’ll have to talk it over at dinner, then.”
And he was as good as his word—especially since the only two chairs left at the table when they finally got inside were right next to each other at the opposite end from where Sarah and Caleb usually sat on Friday nights.
After a silent grace, when plates and cups began to clatter, Silas passed the big bowl of potatoes to Sarah and said, “Where is the ranch your boy works on?”
“The postmark is Buena Vista, so that must be the nearest town with a post office, but he mentioned once that the ranch is in a place called Cottonwood Springs.”
Silas smiled, a look in his eyes as though he was appreciating a memory. “The closest Amish settlement would be in Monte Vista, then.”
“Is that close enough that a boy in Cottonwood Springs might have an opportunity to go to church?”
If so, she would write to Simon that very night and suggest it—even if they had to ride one of their trail horses to get there.
“No, I don’t think so. It’s a hundred miles or more—but there is a bus service.”
So far? Imagine living a hundred miles from church. Her mind could hardly take in a country so vast. “I could write and suggest that for his next weekend off. Denki.” And she smiled at him, determined to join him in looking on the bright side. Even if the boys were too far away to ride in one day, just knowing there were some of their own people only a couple of hours away on the bus was a gift. The knot of worry that had been plaguing her despite her confidence that God held Simon in His hand loosened just a little. The evil one took every opportunity he could to sow doubt, and now this good man had allowed himself to be used by God to sweep it away.
“Where have your travels taken you?” Amanda asked shyly, handing him the bowl of salad.
He picked up the tongs and was about to take a scoop of it as he answered her, when he stopped. “Is that a flower?” He laid it on his plate.
“It’s a nasturtium. I like them in the salad, so Sarah puts in a few for color.”
Sarah added, “There are tiny pansies and some marigold petals, too.”
“It has color, all right. Are you sure they’re safe to eat?”
“Oh, ja,” Sarah assured him. “And good for you.”
“Sarah is an herbalist.” Amanda took back the salad bowl to steal the last nasturtium and crown her little pile of greens with it.
“Herbalist-in-training, you mean,” Sarah said. “Jacob’s sister Ruth is the real Dokterfraa in this area.”
“Ruth Lehman in Whinburg?” Zeke asked. “Fannie, wife, we should go up there and pay them a visit while we’re here.”
“I can take you on Tuesday, if you like,” Sarah said. “I go for lessons with her every week.”
“That would save us hiring a driver.” Fannie helped herself to chicken and dumplings. “Denki, Sarah. Silas, why don’t you come with us? You’re always interested in new things. Maybe you could learn a thing or two.”
“I’m glad he takes an interest in what’s around him,” Sarah said with a smile. “He’s been telling me about Colorado, where my boy is working.”
“Better you should tell these girls about your farm, Si, and your plans for it,” Zeke said. “Did you know, Sarah, that the phone company wants to put up a repeater tower on his land? They’ll pay him a fortune and he doesn’t have to do one thing to earn it, just let them build it.”
What on earth was a repeater tower? “What do those do?”
“Pay money,” Zeke chortled.
“They pass on a signal to cell phones,” Silas said quietly. “And it’s not for sure. They came around many of the farms to ask permission from our men.”
“They wanted the same thing from Deacon Moses Yoder in Whinburg,” Jacob said. “I think he was wise to turn them down. What does it say of a man when he can work and doesn’t? Sitting back and watching a metal structure sending its signals doesn’t glorify God.”
“And it puts one whole field out of commission,” Silas agreed.
“I’d say you could plant beans or corn for six generations and not get the money for them that a tower could bring in six months,” Joshua put in.
“And there’s no sin in being clear of debt. ‘Owe no man anything, but to love one another,’” Zeke quoted.
“Maybe it does contribute to the use of cell phones,” Corinne said, “but at the same time, a fruitful field is a fruitful field, and if the phone company is willing to pay fairly for it, I don’t see any sin in it.”
“I have had this discussion with myself many times,” Silas told them. “And come to no better conclusion than we have right here.”
“What does your bishop say?” Sarah asked him. “You would be guided by his thoughts in any case.”
Silas nodded. “He is in favor of it.”
Jacob shook his head. “You’re lucky you don’t have a bishop like Daniel Lapp in Whinburg, then. He told Moses no, flat out. Of course, Deacon Moses had to be an example.”
“I am not a deacon,” Silas agreed. “But the Lord’s will could change at any time.”
Every man in an Amish community had to be prepared for that. When the lot fell upon you, there was no declining it, or putting it off, or asking someone else to take your place. A man simply submitted himself to God’s will and entered upon a life of service to church and community that would not end until his death.
The conversation turned to other things, and Sarah urged another helping of dumplings on Silas. “Tell me something else about Colorado. Since we have you here, I find myself thirsty for information like a hart for water brooks, knowing I may not get this chance again.”
“I’ll be here for a few days,” he said. “Perhaps we might go for a drive and I can tell you more.”
Sarah swallowed her surprise at his forwardness; he hadn’t seemed like that kind of man. But she could not react too strongly or Corinne would see it, and a little idea might grow in her mind that should not be there.
“You can tell me more now,” she said, with a smile to let him know she wasn’t offended. “Did you see the Rocky Mountains? What are they like?”
Again, his eyes took on the distant gaze of a good memory. “I did. Picture the earth flinging itself toward heaven and then being frozen there in the sky, thousands of feet high.”
“I can’t picture it—or I can, but only because of the photographs in the books I borrowed.”
“I had not been so smart before I left, so I was stunned by the mountains. You can see them for a hundred miles off, and they stay in the distance—until between one moment and the next, there you are in the midst of them, looking up and up until you get a crick in your neck.”
“That I can well believe.”
“But up until that point, you go through what they call the foothills. They aren’t like the hills here in Lancaster County.” He nodded in the direction of the window, which faced north toward a view of Battle Ridge. “They’re much higher and wider—almost mountains in themselves. I believe the ranch your boy works on must be in the foothills, if he is near the Cottonwood Valley.”
“If there are ranches, there must be water for the animals, too.”
“Ja, the rivers are precious, because the land is what they call high desert, covered with golden grass in the summer. But the rivers aren’t like the ones here. Instead of running deep and quiet, they fling themselves through granite canyons and off hundred-foot precipices. Even in the shallower grade of the foothills, they still roar among the rocks, as cold as the glaciers they spring from.”
She gazed at him, seeing the picture he painted in her mind’s eye as well as she could the sharp angles of his jaw and forehead. “You are a good storyteller. I can almost see the land.”
Beside her, Caleb was transfixed, too, and Sarah noticed out of the corner of her eye that Amanda was listening so intently that her supper was only half eaten, her fork lying limply in her fingers.
“I am not, not really,” Silas said with becoming modesty. “I am just describing the wonderful things God has made.”
“Do you think you’ll go back?” Amanda finally managed to ask. “You said there was a church established near there?”
“There are a few, but I don’t know what God has planned for me,” he said. “At the moment, I have a farm and enough work to keep two men busy, so another trip west is probably not going to happen for a few years yet.”
Caleb leaned over to see him better past Sarah’s shoulder. “When you get married and have a family, you could take them there on a holiday.”
Silas laughed. “I could, when God reveals the woman He has planned for me.”
For some reason, Amanda blushed, but since everyone was looking at Silas, Sarah was pretty sure no one noticed.
And then her boy put his foot in it for sure. “You could marry Mamm and then we could all go.”
“Caleb Yoder!” Sarah exclaimed, and dropped her fork. Creamy gravy spattered down the front of her cape.
While everyone got a good laugh out of it, Sarah dabbed at the fabric, thankful that it was a good, sturdy polyester crepe that repelled liquids and wiped off easily. She wished his words could be wiped away as easily. Honestly, the things he got into his head!
By the time she got her clothes looked after and was mopping up the last of her supper with a piece of Corinne’s homemade bread, the conversation had moved on to the likelihood of a thunderstorm and some rain to give the knee-high corn a boost.
When Sarah glanced at her mother-in-law to see if she wanted to begin clearing, there was a look on Corinne’s face that she had never seen before. She was gazing at Silas Lapp as though that new idea had occurred to her in the last minute or so.
Sarah did not want to know anything about it.
She stood and began to clear the dishes herself.
Chapter 5
In its niche next to the barn door, the telephone rang. Not for the first time, Henry was glad he spent most of his day in the barn, where he wouldn’t miss the calls that came more often now. Eventually he’d get around to letting the phone company know he wanted a jack in the house, but until then, it was working out not too badly, having the only phone on the place this close to where he worked.
“Henry, this is Dave Petersen at D.W. Frith. Is now a good time for a conversation?”
He wiped the grit off one hand on his jeans and switched the phone to the other ear. Petersen was the vice president of procurement, which sounded like too grand a title for a guy who spent his days scouting for things that people might like to buy. It must be important if he was calling at the tail end of the week instead of getting on the train to commute back to his home in Connecticut.
“Hi, Dave. Sure. I was just putting some green ware out to dry. That makes six batter bowls so far, out of the twenty-five you ordered for the initial launch.”
“Glad to hear it. Say, I just got out of a meeting and the marketing guys had some questions.”
Platters and batter bowls were pretty straightforward in Henry’s mind, but considering what they’d offered him for this commission, whatever the East Coast luxury housewares chain wanted, he’d provide. He made himself comfortable, leaning on the barn door. “Go ahead.”
“Well, it’s this whole Amish thing. The catalog girl figures she can get you a two-page spread in the fall book that goes to a million DM subscribers, and that automatically means a slide on the home page of our site.”
“That’s great news.” More than he’d ever expected, in fact. “What’s DM?” Definitely money?
“Direct mail. Glad to hear you’re pleased. They just need a short paragraph about you—not a bio exactly, but more like a two-liner on who you are. So I was working on it and thought I’d run it by you.”
“Better you than me. Marketing gives me hives. Shoot.”
“How’s this: ‘Amish potter Henry Byler creates his pieces in the barn that his ancestors built a hundred years ago, finding his inspiration in the flowers and fields his family has cultivated for generations.’ Huh? Sound good?”
Henry hesitated. “It sounds like marketing copy, all right. I like the flowers and fields part.” For some reason, that reminded him of Sarah Yoder.
“Great! That was easy. So we’ll run with it.”
How to put this in a way that a guy from New York City could understand? For once, Henry was glad to have had the experience with the reviewers in Denver, which had taught him all too well the power of the written word.
“Are you going for accuracy or for atmosphere?” he asked, hoping Petersen wasn’t about to hang up.
“Both,” Dave said promptly. “Did I get something wrong? Is it the farm? You told me when I was there that it had been in the family since the turn of the last century.”
“Well, it has—the extended family. My own family is out in Ohio.”
“Oh, well, family’s family. That all?”
“No. About the Amish part, Dave…”
“What about it? It’s an Amish farm, right? You grew up Amish?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then we’re good to go.”
“But I’m not Amish now. You can’t say ‘Amish potter Henry Byler’ when I’m not. Not since I was nineteen.”
A heavy sigh came down the line. “You’re splitting hairs here. It’s one word in one sentence in one catalog. Are you going to hold up production over that?”
“I don’t like misleading people.”
“Who’s misleading? You were once Amish. That’s good enough for me—and good enough for the customers who will be buying your bowls.”
“Just take out that one word. Maybe ‘Pennsylvania potter,’ or ‘Longtime potter,’ or—”
“But Amish sells. That’s the marketing hook, my modest friend. We’re trying to differentiate ourselves from the noise out there. I can tell you this, Pottery Barn and Pier One don’t have real Amish potters making their pieces.”
“Neither do you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t tell me you’re going to do something drastic, like pull out of the deal over an adjective?”
Henry’s stomach plunged, and he steadied himself with his back against the sturdy door. He could feel the warmth of the sun coming through the wood from the other side. “No, of course not. Not when I’ve already signed and sent back the contract and begun the order.”
“Good. That’s good. Because I’ve got this check ready to send out and I’d hate to think you’d changed your mind.”
Was Petersen threatening him? Who said anything about changing his mind? He needed that money to eat and buy clay.
“So we’re good to go on this copy, then? Amish and all? Because I need to get this in before close today i
f you’re going to get the spread. Those spots in the catalog book up months in advance, and I’d hate to see you lose it because we gummed up the works over wordsmithing.”
You say wordsmithing, I say truth.
But what did it matter whether it was the truth or not? How much advertising was actually truth? It was a fact that the reviews of his own work back in Denver hadn’t held any truth, and that hadn’t stopped them from being published—or people from believing what they said.
“Fine,” he said, pushing a hand through his hair and gazing at the green ware, which needed to be attended to. “Run with it, if you think it will do the job.”
“That’s the spirit, Henry. That’s all it is, right? Copy doing a job. My job is to sell your pieces so you have a job making them. And what’s it going to hurt? You were once Amish, and you live on an Amish farm. Close enough for government work, eh?”
“Sure,” he said.
“Great. I’ll get this check in the mail today. Nice talking to you. You take care now.” And Dave hung up before Henry could even say good-bye in return.
He pictured the other man in his suit and expensive tie, dashing off to take the check down to the mailroom himself, and then shook his head at the image. Pushing a shoulder off the door, he walked over to the drying boards and picked up where he’d left off, setting out today’s work so that the air could circulate around the pieces and dry them out.
There was probably as much truth in the existence of that check as there was in his currently being Amish. Maybe Dave had just been blowing smoke, holding payment over his head so he’d agree with whatever the marketing guys wanted.
Well, it wasn’t his catalog, and no one was going to drive out here to see if he was really Amish before they bought a batter bowl. Half those catalogs would probably go straight into the recycling bin anyhow.
Meanwhile, he still had some work to do on the final glaze design, which he kept playing with, dissatisfied. He didn’t really have six bowls ready to ship. They were still at the green ware stage, waiting for the first of their two firings, while sketches lay all over his kitchen table, and a few attempts at molding organic forms sat here on the workbench in various stages of completion.