A Stranger's Gift (Women of Pinecraft)

by Anna Schmidt

  He watched Hester as she moved among the crowds of people driven from their homes by the flooding creek, now waiting for permission to take one of the cots that had been brought to the church in case of an overflow at the shelters. She offered them a kind of quiet comfort that she rarely displayed when she was handing out assignments in her volunteer role. She cradled a baby and placed a caressing palm on the tangled hair of a toddler crying over some missing toy. And all the while she knelt next to a woman who looked ready to pass out from fear and exhaustion.

  “She’s a wonder—our Hester,” a woman’s voice commented from behind him. When he turned, the young woman he’d seen in church and around Pinecraft was passing out bottles of drinking water. She thrust a bottle of water into his hand. “Here, you look like you could use some.” She wore a captivating smile, a white prayer covering gone limp in the rain and humidity, and the unmistakable scars of having been badly burned in a fire.

  She pulled an overturned milk crate next to him and plopped down as she opened a second bottle of water and took a long drink. “Hester was the first person I saw after the fire,” she continued as if she and Samuel had been engaged in conversation for hours. She absently fingered the purplish stains on her neck. He saw that they also covered her forearms, the backs of her hands, and what he could see of her ankles. “She was the one who had to tell me my parents and siblings had all died, and that I was the only survivor.”

  It occurred to him that she had simply assumed, perhaps from long experience, that his first questions would be about the burns. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he murmured, then quickly corrected himself, “Losses.”

  The young woman glanced down. “God’s will. Hester says there’s a lesson to be learned from whatever happens, and just because we can’t figure it out right away doesn’t mean there’s no good reason.”

  She turned to face him squarely and smiled. That smile in combination with the deep violet of her eyes took his breath away. “I’m Rosalyn, by the way. Can I get you something to eat?”

  Samuel shook his head, still dumbfounded by the unexpected beauty of her smile. “Samuel Brubaker,” he said, “from Pennsylvania.”

  She laughed and the sound was like music. “Well, Samuel Brubaker from Pennsylvania, glad to make your acquaintance.” She pushed herself to her feet. “How about giving me a hand over here? We’ve got about a bazillion cans of tuna we need to open and pass out to people—before they pass out from hunger,” she added and laughed again. “Get it? Pass out before they pass out?”

  Hester heard Rosalyn’s laughter and glanced up. Her friend was talking to Samuel, and he was grinning down at her, his eyes fairly dancing with interest, even attraction. Hester wondered at her own lack of jealousy. After all, in the weeks since Samuel’s decision to stay on in Pinecraft, they had spent many evenings together in the company of her father or her grandmother. The four of them had played board games and worked in her mother’s garden. And more often than not, Samuel came by to share breakfast with Hester and Arlen each morning before the two men headed off to Arlen’s furniture store and workshop. Yes, over the short time he’d been in Pinecraft, Samuel had become like a member of the family, and yet …

  He was handsome in a perennially boyish way, and he was kind and had a wonderful sense of humor. He complimented her cooking and admired her needlework even though Hester was well aware that in that arena she was not as gifted as most despite her mother’s and grandmother’s efforts to teach her. Surely when she saw him talking to another woman—flirting with her even—Hester should feel some twinge of alarm. Wasn’t it normal to become somewhat territorial under such circumstances? So how come all she felt when she glanced up at the sound of Rosalyn’s merry laughter was pleasure at seeing her friend so obviously enjoying herself?

  “It’s too soon,” she muttered. “Feelings will grow…in time.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Hester turned to find John Steiner standing across the table that was loaded with cases of canned tuna. He was scowling at her, which seemed to be his usual demeanor. She couldn’t help but pity the poor woman who would one day end up married to this cantankerous, not to mention irritating, man.

  “Herr Steiner,” she began.

  “John,” he corrected automatically. “Look, what do you know about this Zeke character?”

  Okay, she hadn’t seen that coming. “Zeke? He’s …” She narrowed her eyes and studied John. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you want to know my opinion of Zeke Shepherd?”

  “All I want to know is whether or not I can trust the guy or if he’s all talk.”

  “Why?” she repeated, refusing to back down.

  John let out a sigh of frustration. “It’s a simple question, Hester. Can I trust the guy or not?”

  Hester looked over to where Zeke had just made his way through the throngs of people and was now sitting cross-legged on the ground strumming his guitar and singing to a group of toddlers. “You tell me,” she said, nodding toward the scene.

  She didn’t miss the surprise in John’s expression. “I thought he was still …” he muttered, then shook his head and turned his attention back to Hester. “Looks can be deceiving. Anyone can pull off an act when they’ve got kids around.”

  “Even you, John Steiner?” She couldn’t help it. There was something about the man that brought out a disturbing streak of impishness in her.

  He frowned down at her. “Okay, so he’s one of the good guys. Thanks.” He started toward Zeke, then turned back to her. “When do you think this rain might let up?”

  “It’s not raining at the moment,” Hester said.

  “You know what I mean—clear skies?”

  She shrugged. “Only God can answer that.”

  “Best guess?”

  Hester stepped out from under the arbor that protected a portion of the courtyard and scanned the sky. “There’s some clearing there to the west. That’s a good sign. Probably by morning we’ll start to see the waters recede and the skies clear.” She let him take two steps before adding, “Why?”

  “Just curious,” he said, his voice far too casual. After all, in the short time she’d known the man, he’d done little other than bark out demands or object to the instructions of others. This was not a man who casually asked about anything. He had a plan, and Hester was going to figure it out before he placed himself—and possibly Zeke—in more danger.

  “We could use a hand passing out this food,” she called as he walked quickly away.

  “Can’t,” was his curt reply.

  “Can’t or won’t?” Hester seethed through gritted teeth as she watched him disappear into the crowd.

  By late the following day, the rain had stopped, and the skies had indeed started to clear. True to his word, Zeke managed to get a small fishing boat and meet John at the city’s main marina. He fired up the motor, and the two men headed south through the mostly deserted waters of Sarasota Bay.

  “I bunked on that boat for a while before I got set up in my place near the bridge,” Zeke said, nodding toward a battered old sailboat that was listing badly and had been marked with a neon orange tag warning the owners to move it or lose it. “Does no good to tag these things,” Zeke added. “They’ve been abandoned. Folks think having a boat is romantic. It’s work is what it is, a lot of work.”

  John let the man continue his monologue without comment. He was thinking about his property, about the last view he’d had of it from the air. Was it really as bad as it had seemed? Maybe not, given the scenery they were passing. The botanical gardens, for example, seemed to be in pretty good shape. Some wind damage to the structures and greenhouses plus flooding near the bay, but overall, the gardens looked to be reasonably intact. He allowed himself to hope.

  Zeke guided the boat around a rookery where pelicans roosted by the dozen as if trying—like John—to decide their next move. Zeke steered on past the mouth of Philippi Creek. “Tricky here,”
he muttered as he maneuvered the boat carefully around trees that had fallen into the water where the rush of water had eroded the shoreline. “You got a pier?”

  “I had one, until a couple days ago,” John replied, remembering now how Hester and the others had had to wade in to shore that first day after the hurricane hit.

  “No worries.” Zeke guided the boat toward a fallen tree and expertly looped the rope around a branch stripped bare of its foliage.

  Awkwardly John climbed out using his good arm for leverage and reminding himself that his ability to do anything useful in the next six weeks was limited. Not only had an X-ray taken at the hospital that morning confirmed that his wrist was broken, but it was his left wrist, and he was left-handed. Daily activities he had taken for granted had become all-consuming. Already he’d had to teach himself the rudiments of eating and brushing his teeth again. Wielding a hammer, never mind a saw or screwdriver, would be monumental.

  “Geezle Pete,” Zeke said. The expression came out like a long-drawn-out whisper. He had made it up the bank and over the fallen pine trees and was staring at his surroundings.

  John picked his way carefully over the rubble of the trees until he was standing next to Zeke. Speechless, he forced himself to scan the land. His memory of how it had looked when he’d left didn’t do the scene justice. He jumped slightly when Zeke clutched his shoulder and squeezed it. Anything Zeke might have said was expressed in that single gesture of sympathy. Grateful for the man’s instinct to stay silent, John did not shrug away from the contact. Instead, he drew strength from this stranger’s gift of understanding. He was very glad that he had not come here alone.

  “Thanks for bringing me here,” he muttered and reached down to unearth a dented teakettle that had found its resting place some fifty yards from the main house.

  Zeke took a couple of tentative steps toward the house and almost tripped over a kitchen chair buried under a pile of broken palm fronds. He dug it out and examined its metal legs and vinyl seat before setting it next to the kettle that John had carefully placed on a patch of reasonably dry ground.

  John watched as Zeke tested the chair for sturdiness, and again he felt a surge of gratitude toward the man. Zeke continued to prowl through the debris for other salvageable pieces to add to the chair and teakettle. “What’s your plan?” Zeke asked.

  “Not sure,” John replied.

  That was the last the two men spoke for the next hour as they wandered the property. Collecting the bits and pieces that had once been the makings of John’s life seemed as good a first step as any.

  Only when they heard the rumble of heavy equipment and the whine of gas-powered saws in the distance did the two men look up from their scavenging. The noise was coming toward them from the overgrown and now completely impassable lane that led from John’s house out to the main road.

  “Company,” Zeke shouted above the din and added a plastic dish rack filled with a couple of unbroken glasses and cups and one plate to the growing pile of goods.

  John finished digging out a No TRESPASSING sign, grasped it with his good arm, and stood at the end of the lane waiting. He couldn’t help noticing that Zeke took this opportunity to roost on top of what was left of one wall of the packinghouse as if settling in to watch a baseball game.

  The din of the heavy road equipment roared ever closer, although the foliage was so thick that John could not yet see the actual vehicles. He heard the whine of the saw and then the crackle of breaking wood, punctuated by a heavy thud as a large tree branch hit the ground. John tightened his grip on the sign and waited. Zeke leaned back on one elbow and watched.

  When the bulldozer broke through the last tangle of pepper vines, scrub oak, and royal palms that had fallen like dominoes during the hurricane, the driver set the engine on idle and stared at John through mirrored sunglasses. Then he glanced back as if looking for reinforcements.

  “You’re on private property,” John yelled.

  The bulldozer driver held up one finger and continued to look behind him.

  A battered four-wheel-drive open-air Jeep rumbled over broken branches and sand dunes until it came to a stop next to the bulldozer. A man John recognized as Grady Forrest emerged from the passenger side, and then Arlen Detlef and Samuel Brubaker climbed out of the backseat. The Jeep’s driver cut the engine and waited.

  While Grady consulted with the bulldozer driver, Arlen and Samuel started toward John. Arlen was smiling broadly as if he had simply stopped by for a visit.

  “John! Wie geht’s?” he shouted above the low sustained drumbeat of the motorized vehicles lining the lane now.

  “Pastor Detlef,” John replied respectfully, but he did not lower the sign. “Samuel.”

  Undaunted, the two men continued walking toward him. “I see Zeke was able to borrow a boat so you could get here,” Arlen continued, glancing at Zeke, who raised two fingers in the peace sign but made no move to leave his position. “We looked for you at the church, but …”

  John ignored this observation. “What do you want?” he asked. “More to the point, what do they want?” He jerked his arm toward the entourage of men wearing bright yellow hard hats now gathering around the bulldozer.

  “Now, John, I explained all this. Samuel and I are with the Mennonite Disaster Service. Those men are with the local utility company, and Grady there is with the county. It is our job to—”

  “I know who everybody is. I don’t want you here.”

  “We only wish to help,” Samuel said. His voice was soft, conciliatory, but his stance was every bit as unyielding as John’s.

  “I see you have been able to rescue several items from your home,” Arlen observed, moving closer to the pile that Zeke and John had created over the last hour. He held up a ceramic mug. “Not so much as a chip,” he observed. “And yet it flew from all the way over there.”

  “Mr. Steiner?” Grady and the man who’d been driving the Jeep were picking their way across the rubble. “Do you have a few minutes?”

  Perhaps because he had been expecting the county’s man to dish out orders instead of asking permission, John nodded and relaxed his grip on the sign slightly.

  “Great.” Grady waved a clipboard in the air. “This is Dennis Jenkins. He’s an engineer with the county. I thought maybe we could make a survey of your property and see what might be the best plan for going forward.”

  “What’s your plan?” Zeke had asked, and after over an hour of digging through rubble to salvage bits and pieces of his life, John had to admit to himself that he didn’t have one. Surveying the damage made sense. Grady was now close enough that John could see that the paper on the clipboard was a sort of checklist. It couldn’t hurt to let the engineer have a look around.

  “I thought you were bringing in a team of volunteers, an RV team,” John said to Arlen.

  “Ja, well, we could hardly drive RVs in here with the lane impassable,” Arlen reasoned. “Let the engineer do his job, John.”

  “Very well,” John said, “but those guys stay put. And cut off those motors,” he added, glaring at the cluster of workers in hard hats.

  “Done.” Grady gave a signal, and the rumble of machinery wheezed to silence.

  As he walked the property with Grady and the engineer, John noticed that Arlen and Samuel followed along. Every once in a while Arlen would murmur something to Samuel, and the younger man would nod and make a notation on a folded sheet of paper with a stub of a pencil. In spite of his fluency in the German dialect common to both the Amish and Mennonite faiths, John could not decipher these exchanges, but he could certainly appreciate that it was far more important to give his full attention to Grady and the engineer. For in the midst of what appeared to be casual and sympathetic comments about the outbuildings, the house and the plantings, Grady was eliciting other information.

  “Do you have insurance?” he asked.

  The question stopped John cold in his tracks. Of course he didn’t have insurance. In his world, neighbors t
ook care of neighbors. There was a fund within the church congregation for helping people in his situation. But he was no longer part of that community, the one that had rebuilt his neighbor’s house after a fire. The one that had provided a young mother and her seven children with the funds to keep going after her husband was badly injured in a farming accident.

  “I have money,” he growled even as he mentally calculated just how little money was left from the sale of his farm after he had paid for the property, the renovations, and the plants he’d had to buy here in Florida. Even before the hurricane, he’d been grudgingly considering the prospect that he would need to find ways to supplement his meager funds by fall. “I have tools,” he added. “I can rebuild.”

  “In time perhaps,” Grady said with a barely concealed glance at John’s injured arm. “Why don’t you wait here while we poke around the foundation of the house?”

  The suggestion didn’t deserve an answer, and John doggedly followed Grady and the engineer over a mound of wet sand and rubble to what had been the front door of his house.