The Kissing Bridge

by Tricia Goyer

  “But even if they get carried away, they can still land somewhere good, right? Just because they don’t feel in control doesn’t mean the potential isn’t still there.”

  She glanced over at him. “Do you really believe that?”

  He removed his hat and scratched, letting the sun warm the top of his head. “I’ve never really thought of that before, but I suppose I do.”

  “That’s good, because I’ve never felt so out of control in all my life as I do on this trip. I can’t help but be worried that you’re going to do something crazy or that Marianna is going to have a problem with her pregnancy. At first it was exciting being out so far in the wilderness, but I’m ready to get back to civilization where things are safe.”

  He chuckled. “It’s not like we’re completely in the wilderness. There are roads here, Rebecca. It’s not like we’re off where no man has ever been before. And if Marianna needs help, it’s only thirty minutes to Eureka, if you hurry.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “You’re not helping things.”

  “We should probably get going, then, get to the next campsite—closer to civilization. We have a lot to set up before the others join us.”

  They made their way back to the wagon and started out again. Within a few minutes they’d both settled in to the gentle rocking of the wagon as it moved back and forth.

  “You know, I goof around, but I’m not going to put myself and others in harm’s way. Contrary to popular opinion, I like living.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  The breeze picked up, and it brushed against his face. To him, being in nature was better than being in a safe place. When people tried to order their world, that’s what worried him. With order came rules and expectations—both of which he seemed to fail at repeatedly.

  “I don’t think you should worry about the trip,” he said again. “It’s something you’ll never get to experience again. Relax, enjoy it.”

  “But what if something bad happens?” She bit her lower lip.

  “Then we’ll deal with it then. My opa used to tell me not to worry about thunderstorms and miss out on a sunny day.”

  “Funny, because my oma’s motto was to try to always be prepared.”

  He shrugged. “Then maybe—for the rest of the journey—we can find a happy medium between the two?”

  Rebecca nodded. “Ja, I’d like that.”

  They journeyed on for another hour before they came to the campsite that Ike had described. It was a flat area before a tall rise. On one side there was a creek, and on the other side a large meadow perfect for grazing horses. The only thing that troubled him was the steep incline of the road. Ike had scoped the roads on horseback. Had he taken into account how hard it would be for the horses to pull a loaded wagon bed up to the top of the hill?

  “What do you think? Should I try to park it up on the top or down here?”

  A little smile brightened her face. “You’re asking me? This is the first time in years that I’ve been away from cell phone service. I’m not really an outdoor person, and if I were to ever look for a campsite, I’d look for one with a bakery nearby.” Rebecca chuckled and tapped her chin with her finger. “But . . . if you park at the top of the hill, we have a head start tomorrow. Also, it’ll leave room for the other two wagons down here.”

  “Great idea. Pray, pray hard that we can make it to the top of that rise without any trouble.”

  The horses eased onto the sloping trail, pulling slow but steady. The wagon canted slightly.

  Caleb glanced over at her, smirking. “This is steeper than it looks.”

  Just then the wagon jolted as the wheel hit a rock. Caleb’s smile faded as he heard the splinter of overweighted spokes. The wagon dropped like a stone in a pond.

  “No, no!”

  A haunted look came into Rebecca’s eyes, and she leaned toward him to keep from tumbling out.

  “Climb over me and jump down, Rebecca!” Caleb said in her ear. “I don’t think it’s going to tip, but I don’t want you to be in the way if it does!”

  Rebecca didn’t have to be told twice. She scrambled over him and jumped to the ground.

  “Unhitch the horses!” he called to her before he followed, also jumping down to the ground.

  Rebecca understood. If the wagon continued to tip, both the double tree and the shaft would be broken.

  Instead of running up to the front of the wagon to help her, Caleb ran to the back and began unloading the bins and barrels. He worked as one man, but did the job of two with speed and efficiency. Rebecca unhitched the horses and led them back down the hill toward the pasture area. They seemed surprised, but happy that they were free to graze.

  She returned back up the hill and found that the back of the wagon was unloaded. Not only that, but Caleb had already stabilized the wagon with a log and removed the wheel.

  Sweat beaded his brow, and she quickly hurried to the tote with the bottled water and pulled one out. She handed it to him. “This isn’t cold, but it should help.”

  Caleb glanced up, surprised. “Danki. I appreciate that, Rebecca.”

  “It’s just water.” She shrugged and sat down beside him. She pointed to the wheel. “Is it bad?”

  “The good news is that it’s just cracked. The bad news is that I don’t have any wood glue to fix it.” He leaned forward and studied the wheel closer. “I think the best thing would be to create a new spoke, but that’ll take some time . . . and skill.”

  “I think you can do it.” She tried to stay upbeat.

  He turned to her, and she focused on his eyes. “I mean, if you can build a house, you can make a spoke, right?”

  Caleb sucked in a deep breath, and his chest expanded. His eyes brightened, too, and she smiled. “What do you need? I can help.”

  He eyed the wagon wheel and then glanced back at her. “A solid piece of wood and the ax. Although I’m not sure I can engineer it good enough to fit right. People spend years studying the trade, and—”

  Rebecca held up a hand, halting his words. “You’ll never know until you try. And if you can jump off a huge cliff, you can do this, Caleb. I believe in you.”

  Caleb stood and straightened his shoulders. “Ja, I’ll try, Rebecca. For you I’ll try anything.”

  Rebecca stayed by Caleb’s side as he found a branch and began to shape it with the ax. It was slow work, and as time passed, her stomach began to rumble. What was taking the others so long? If she was hungry, Caleb had to be too.

  Without telling him what she was doing, Rebecca went down the hill and found a good spot for a campfire, and then gathered wood and got it started. It had helped that she’d watched the others over the last day. She then opened a few cans of beans and cut up some sausages. It wasn’t a fancy meal, but it smelled good. Unable to hide her smile, she took it up to Caleb.

  His eyes brightened as he spotted her. She looked and saw that he almost had the spoke done. Pride radiated from his face, and his mouth dropped open when he saw the plate she offered.

  “You made lunch?”

  “Vell, seeing that it’s almost suppertime, I’d call it dinner.” Rebecca smiled. “But it’s warm and smells gut.”

  “So you started a fire? Did you clear the area and—” He prepared to stand as if to check out her work, and she placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down. “Don’t you worry. I’m not going to be starting any forest fires, if you’re worried about that. I’ve been watching you and Ike and Amos. I did a good job, trust me.”

  He placed the spoke on the ground and then stretched a hand to her.

  She handed him the tin bowl filled with beans and sausages and a spoon and sat down on the stump closest to him. “And speaking of a good job, look at you! Why, it looks as if it’ll work.”

  “Looks can be deceiving.” Caleb shrugged. “But it’s a good attempt. I’m just hoping that Ike can help me the rest of the way.” He took a few more bites of his meal. “Wow, this is good.”

  �
�Glad you think so. I hope I didn’t mess up Annie’s menu too much. I—” It was then she noticed his pants—the tear near his calf and the blood. “Did you hurt yourself?” She placed her bowl on the stump and hurried over to him. Without asking if she could help, she lifted up his pant leg and eyed his wound.

  “Did the ax slip?” She knelt down next to him.

  “Ja. I learned right quick not to try to whittle down the wood by cutting toward me.”

  Rebecca studied the gash. It was at least four inches long, but she was thankful that it wasn’t as deep as expected. “Hold on.” She moved to her suitcase and pulled out her first-aid kit, then rushed back to him.

  “You . . . have a first-aid kit with you?”

  “This is no ordinary first-aid kit.” She pulled out some gauze strips, some rubbing alcohol, and bandages. “Can you hand me that?” She pointed to his water bottle.

  She rolled up his pant leg and then used the water in the bottle to clean the wound. She then got the alcohol and cleaned it again. Caleb winced slightly, but she paid him no mind. When everything looked clean, she placed gauze strips over the wound and then wrapped a bandage around it.

  It was only when she was done that she glanced up at Caleb.

  He seemed impressed. “Vell, I didn’t know we were bringing a nurse on this trip. How handy.”

  “I’m not a nurse.” Heat rose to her cheeks. “I—I just like to pretend.” She should say more, she should at least mention the EMT classes she’d attended, but the words wouldn’t form on her lips.

  What would Caleb think?

  She took a step back and then repacked her first-aid kit. She didn’t want Caleb to know. Her chest grew tight, and it hurt just thinking about the disappointment in Caleb’s gaze when he discovered her plans for her life didn’t line up with their Ordnung.

  Tell him, Rebecca. Tell him.

  She opened her mouth, but Caleb stood and pointed down the hill. “Look, here they come!”

  The two wagons pulled in and parked, and Ike hurried up the hill.

  “Is everything all right?” Ike asked.

  “It is now.” Caleb stood. “It’s steeper than it looks. I suppose I should have waited until you got here to help guide me up.”

  “You do have the heaviest wagon . . .” Ike eyed the pile of the wagon’s contents on the side of the road. “But it seems as if you have a plan for how to fix the wheel.” He looked at the spoke that Caleb had been working on.

  “A plan, and someone by my side who’s done a great job helping me.” Caleb glanced at Rebecca. “I couldn’t have done this without her.” He winked. “Let’s just say she passed with flying colors in my book.”

  CHAPTER

  16

  Annie was feeling better by the time they arrived. Rebecca watched her, wondering if she was still worried about her decision of whether or not to open her heart to Ike, but Annie went about preparing dinner for the rest of them as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  Rebecca approached her as she peeled potatoes, cutting the peels so they fell into a plastic bag.

  “I hope you don’t mind that we got into the food,” Rebecca said.

  “No, not at all. I was hoping you would. I’m sorry things took longer than we thought they would. I headed into the woods because I thought I was going to be sick, and Ike was worried. He followed me, and . . . well, we had a good chance to talk.”

  “You did? That’s wonderful. What did you decide?”

  “We decided that it was okay to stay friends. I love the store, and he is not ready to leave the Amish. There’s nothing wrong with just being friends, right?” Annie forced a smile, but Rebecca noted the pain in her eyes. Her cheerfulness was just a show. Rebecca guessed that deep down, Annie’s heart ached.

  “That’s unacceptable.” Rebecca crossed her arms over her chest. “Love matters more than those things. You do love Ike, don’t you, Annie?”

  Annie took in a large breath. Her eyes closed, then popped open again. “I suppose I do. But promise me . . .” She hurriedly continued, “Promise me that you’ll just allow things to happen as they should. Pushing for one’s way never works. I’ve lived enough days on earth to know that for certain.”

  Rebecca was thankful that Caleb had not shared about his wound or the fact that she’d bandaged him up. Maybe he was embarrassed. She guessed that to be true.

  With the help of Ike, they used Caleb’s handmade spoke to fix the wheel.

  “It’s not a long-term fix, but it should get us to Libby,” Ike commented. “I’m impressed, Caleb.” He patted Caleb’s shoulder. “You did some fine work here.”

  After dinner they set up their tents, and then they gathered around the fire pit. As soon as the fire was crackling, Millie cleared her throat. Rebecca could tell from the look in her eyes that she had a story.

  “We’re heading to Kootenai Falls, and this area—all that we’re passing through—used to be the home of the Kootenai tribe. They once lived east of the Rocky Mountains, over on the plains, but they moved here. Can you imagine living this way all the time? Feeling one with nature and living off the land?” Millie spoke with excitement, and her eyes widened as if she pictured herself there. Rebecca could picture it too. Millie would be the elder of the camp, passing down the history and stories from her people.

  “My mother grew up in Libby,” Millie continued. “One of my favorite places was the swinging bridge. In fact, it was on that bridge that Donald gave me my first kiss.” She blushed. “Mother also told me if you crossed over the river and waited until dark, you could hear the Native American ancestors whispering. I don’t know about that, but the falls were a holy place to them, and I get the same feeling. It’s as if God created a special place for us to go, to remind us that He is near. That He will do beautiful things in our times, just as He did in theirs.”

  Rebecca liked listening to Millie’s stories, and it made her think of what she and Caleb had talked about earlier. Did God have good plans—beautiful things—designed for each person even when one felt as if she was being carried away with life?

  The warmth of the fire and the peaceful night caused her to grow sleepy. She rose to say good night, but Amos motioned for her to sit. She sat back down.

  “Wait,” he said. “You can’t go anywhere yet. You don’t want to miss this.”

  He rose and hurried to their tent, then returned with something in his hand. With a flourish he opened his pack and presented something to Caleb.

  A small harmonica glimmered in the light of the campfire. Caleb took it. He shyly, briefly glanced over at Rebecca. “I don’t know how to play too many songs. I do have a few favorites.”

  “Play for us, please,” she said. “It seems like the perfect end to a wonderful day.”

  Caleb started with one of the hymns from the Ausbund that she knew well. The tune was slow, but there were strings of hope in the melody.

  While most Amish didn’t understand the words they sang in German, Rebecca’s oma had worked to write down the translations for her after each service. She’d often said there was no use singing words one couldn’t understand. As Caleb started a new chorus, Rebecca opened her mouth to sing along—not in German, but English.

  The one who is not faithful in the smallest thing, and who still seeks his own good which his heart desires—how can he be trusted with a charge over heavenly things?

  Let us keep our eyes on love!

  Rebecca looked to Annie as she sang those words, but Annie quickly looked away. Rebecca wanted to look to Caleb, to let him see the care in her gaze, but letting herself get caught up in that gave her the same uneasiness as when she tossed a pinecone into the stream. Instead she kicked her shoe in the dirt on the ground and looked at her feet. Who was she to trail after love when there were so many needs? No, she needed to focus on nursing school first.

  Their Amish ancestors had been imprisoned for their faith—for believing that one could have a personal relationship with God and could choose bapti
sm as a personal step of faith instead of simply accepting infant baptism. Many of the first believers died in the dungeons of Passau, Germany—as they had learned in school—but their beliefs had lived on. Butterflies danced in her stomach thinking about that.

  She considered how some losses actually fueled the desires and the beliefs in those left behind. Claudia’s death had done that for her. It was true she never wanted to be in that position of weakness again, but, equally as true, she wanted to make sure that when she left the earth, she had succeeded at living a life that mattered. And, to her, nursing—caring for people and tending to their wounds—symbolized that.

  When Caleb finished one song, he started in on another. Rebecca stared into the night sky, certain the stars had never been so bright or had appeared so close. She looked to Millie and understood even more how important it was to feel connected with the land one lived on. Rebecca hadn’t felt that in a while. Would she ever feel it again? But either way it was a problem. If she were to give in—to surrender to the feelings of her heart—it would ruin everything.

  Caleb’s face glowed as he played the harmonica. She couldn’t read his mind, but she could take a good guess at what he was thinking. He felt a part of these woods. He wasn’t one to live in a place like Portland that was filled with roads and cars and people who thought nature was the city park at the end of their subdivision. To open her heart to him would force him to choose. She couldn’t do that.

  Caleb played on, and one by one the others rose and went to bed. And in that moment she liked to think that this whole trip had just been about the two of them. And the songs he played now were for her.

  After another few hymns, Caleb put his harmonica on the log and turned to her. “I wanted to thank you again for all that you did to help me. To care for me.”

  Rebecca pulled Millie’s jacket tighter around her. “It wasn’t anything special. Everyone else here would have done the same.”

  “They might have tried, but you had all the supplies you needed. You had the skill.”

  She nodded. She was tired—her whole body seemed weary—but she’d never have been able to sleep knowing that Caleb was sitting less than ten feet beyond her tent. And even though she worried about the questions he would ask, she remained.