Paradise Valley

by Dale Cramer

  Rachel pondered this for a moment. Sooner or later it had to be said.

  “But you can only hide from people. Gott still knows, Emma, and sin sometimes casts a long shadow.”

  Emma nodded, and met her eyes. “Jah, that may be, sister, but Gott is more forgiving than men. Does not our Lord say that there is no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend? Levi has never known real love until now. How is it wrong, now that he has found it, for my Levi to love so deeply that he would risk everything to protect the one he loves?”

  Chapter 10

  At Caleb Bender’s age, starting over again would be very difficult, but he didn’t mind hard work. Life had always been hard; this was the price of Adam’s fall, that man should toil for his daily bread. But now that he was committed to uprooting his family and moving to Mexico, he was filled with regret.

  His goodbyes to his land came upon him unannounced in odd moments of startling remembrance, each one stealing away a little piece of his heart. His fingers ran down the barbed wire stretched tight between a row of fence posts and he saw his long-dead father’s face, focused intently on his work while he cut and split chestnut logs to make the posts. When he stroked the bristly forehead of a Guernsey cow it brought to mind the day his grandmother taught him to milk – the three-legged stool and oak bucket, the warm smile, the smell of the barn, the sense of accomplishment and belonging. In the misty gray dawn he gazed long across his quiet fields remembering the rattle of the traces and the lurch of the plow, and he knew in his bones that he did not really own the land, nor did the land own him. They were just old friends. The land accepted him as a friend because it had known his father and his grandfather. Their faithfulness and kindness to the land had built, season by season, year by year, a mutual respect into which Caleb had grown naturally and always believed he would enjoy for the rest of his days. Until now. Now life was forcing him to part company with the very earth from which he was made, and into which he had always assumed he would one day be planted.

  He sold his farm to his son-in-law Andy Shetler, husband of his daughter Lizzie. So far, Lizzie and Andy had three children; the Bender farm would give them room to grow.

  His daughter Mary would be coming with him to Mexico, along with her husband and their two small boys, hoping to make a new start. Emma and Levi Mullet, after they were married, would round out a total of fourteen people – at least that was the plan in the beginning.

  Ada, the eldest daughter, was to remain behind with the farm, and Lizzie would look after her. Ada was twenty-seven, and simpleminded. She was very sweet most of the time, but she had never been right in the head. Mamm said she had the mind of a small child. A large girl, Ada cried often, spoke little, and moved with a ponderous clumsiness.

  Much as she hated to leave her eldest daughter behind, Mamm said it was for the best. As difficult as everyday life was for Ada, her routine was extremely important to her. Mamm said it would help a great deal if she could continue to live in the same house and sleep in the same bed every night. Although the departure of her mother and sisters would undoubtedly cause problems for Ada, Mamm felt they would be nothing compared with loading her on a train and hauling her off to Mexico.

  But as it turned out, it was her mother and sisters who defined “home” for Ada, not the house. When Mamm and Emma were finally able to get through to her and explain what was about to happen in a way that Ada could understand, she went wild-eyed and wailed off and on for the better part of two days, most of the time sitting on the floor in a corner of the living room, rocking back and forth, her kapped head banging against the wall. Afraid for her daughter’s life, Mamm finally pinned her down, wrapping arms and legs about her while she cooed and whispered in Ada’s ear that she could go to Mexico after all, that her mamm would never, ever, abandon her. Only after an hour of this did Ada’s struggling cease.

  Mamm held on, in the end whispering over and over again, “Shhhh, little one. Gott knows. Shhhh.” Finally, still snuffling, Ada laid her head on her mamm’s shoulder and fell fast asleep.

  Ada’s inclusion would bring the number of the Bender party to fifteen.

  After the youth singing the next Sunday evening Jake and Rachel were able to slip away and talk for a bit.

  “Good news about Emma and Levi, jah?” Jake said. Emma’s engagement had been “published” that morning at the service.

  “Wonderful news. I’m so happy for her. And Dat will be glad to have another man along, I expect.” Rachel guarded her words, her thoughts. Already it seemed like a thousand times she’d been forced to watch what she said.

  “In Mexico, you mean.”

  Rachel nodded. “There will be so much work to do. . . .”

  Jake sighed, staring off into the darkness. “I wish we could go, too,” he said.

  “Why don’t you? Your brother William has three whole years of school yet, so it looks like your dat would want to go with us right away. Can’t you talk him into it?”

  “Well, he does want to go, just not now. He needs more time to find someone to buy our farm and to put another crop in the barn. Anyway, he said he’s not in any big hurry to die in Mexico.”

  Jake recoiled as soon as he realized what he’d just said, but it was too late.

  She tried to see his eyes in the near darkness.

  “He thinks we’re going to die in Mexico?”

  Jake shook his head and tried to backtrack. “Well, no, I think he probably meant, you know, it’ll be hard going for a while, and people have accidents all the time on the farm. Why, just last week little Abe Petersheim stood up on the seat at the wrong time, the horse lurched, and he fell back into the manure spreader. Broke his leg all up and laid his jaw open before his big brother could get it stopped. Dat says there probably wouldn’t be any doctor in the middle of the mountains.”

  Rachel didn’t believe that was what Jonas Weaver meant at all, so she pressed her point. “Tell me the truth, Jake. Does your dat think it will be dangerous in Mexico?”

  He thought for a long moment before he answered. When he raised his eyes to hers he nodded and said, “Well, he’s afraid it might be. There’s a lot of talk about the revolution – soldiers and bandits and such. He won’t take his family down there until he sees what things are really like. It’s the same with most of the men. But it’s all just talk, Rachel. They’ll listen to your dat. After you’ve been there for a year, if he says it’s okay, then everybody else will come.”

  She was near tears.

  “Jake, what if he doesn’t change his mind? What if your dat decides never to move down there?”

  “Ach, that won’t happen. We’ll be down next year, you’ll see.”

  “But what if you don’t come?”

  He took a deep breath and thought for a minute, then shook his head. “I don’t know, Rachel. I don’t know what I’ll do, but I have faith it’ll work out. Things always work out.”

  “Well, it doesn’t sound that way to me,” she said softly, her gaze dropping away from his face. “It sounds like your dat might not ever move to Mexico. It sounds like maybe you should find another girl.”

  She didn’t really mean it. What she wanted was an argument. She wanted for him to say no, that he would never be happy with anyone else, that she was the only one and that he would wait as long as it took, that he would wait his whole life for her if necessary. But he didn’t say that. What he did say made perfect sense, but somehow it wasn’t very satisfying.

  “Well,” he said, “we can write letters, and we’ll come down before you know it. You’ll see.”

  “But what if you don’t?”

  Jake took her hands in his and held them lightly, his thumbs stroking the backs of her fingers. “Then we’ll have to decide what to do about it, but we don’t have to decide right now. In time, we’ll see a way.”

  Rachel had always known that Jake’s greatest strength was his level-headedness. Now she was discovering that his greatest weakness was that sometimes he could
be so maddeningly level-headed.

  As if the Benders weren’t busy enough with preparations for the wedding and the move, winter was nearing its end so that every week there were more things to do.

  Rachel went to the Weaver farm every day after school to help make syrup. Syrup making always began with the first sign of spring thaw. Every year, the smoke from the stovepipe on the Weavers’ sugar shack on the hill in back of the barn signaled the coming of spring.

  Nearby families always pitched in and fanned out through the woods to tap all the maple trees. The older Bender kids spent mornings gathering sap from their own trees and took what they’d collected down to the Weavers’ on the hack after lunch. Rachel and her younger sisters raced Jake’s brother home from school every afternoon to help the women strain, boil down and bottle the sap.

  There was also the off chance that she might get to see Jake – maybe even talk to him for a minute or two.

  It was a lot of work. The sugar shack had to be wiped down frequently to remove the sticky layer built up from the cooking process, the floors scrubbed clean of the inevitable spills. It took forty gallons of sap to make just one gallon of syrup, but for Rachel it was worth the mess and bother. She loved the whole process – working together with lots of people in the warm sugar shack, the talk and laughter that went around, and especially the smells. Some of the women didn’t care for the sweet smell of syrup cooking down, but Rachel loved it. Syrup making, for her, with all its smells and mess, was the ritual that marked the end of winter and the beginning of a new year.

  It was going to be a very interesting year.

  “So how long have Emma and Levi been planning their wedding?” one of Jake’s older sisters, Laura, asked. She had just put a fresh pan on the stove and was pouring sap into it from a bucket.

  Rachel stood by one of the tables helping with the bottling. “They haven’t,” she said, flipping the laces from her kapp back over her shoulders to keep them from dangling in the syrup. “Dat’s Mexico plans came about so suddenly they haven’t had time to do anything. They wanted to get married in the fall like everybody else, but now we’re leaving and they wouldn’t be able.” Carefully measured words, at least half true.

  “They haven’t done anything? My word, they’ve missed all the fun!”

  It was a tradition. A couple’s engagement was kept secret until it was published in the church by the bishop, one month prior to the wedding. Couples would spend months secretly preparing to set up housekeeping, so a quick, unplanned wedding left a young couple without many of the things they would need. To a girl, the loss of that wonderful romantic time of secret anticipation and cooperative effort was an even greater penalty.

  “Jah, that’s a shame for sure,” Rachel said, “but it couldn’t be helped. They never knew we would be moving to Mexico.”

  “Well, I guess if you have to marry quickly, you must take what comes,” Laura said. She glanced over her shoulder at Rachel as she said this, and there was a hint of a sarcastic smile on her face. Laura was one who had always loved a juicy bit of gossip, and she clearly remained unconvinced of the reason for the hasty wedding.

  Rachel set down the bucket she was holding and fixed Laura with an iron stare.

  “There is more than one reason to marry out of season,” Rachel said as calmly as she could. “And we must all take what comes. None of us knows what Gott has in store for us.”

  Chapter 11

  The week before the wedding was a wild, happy, busy time. The men moved all the furniture out while the women scrubbed the house from top to bottom, for tables would have to be set up in every room for the reception.

  Rachel was washing walls one afternoon when Emma rushed in, grabbed her by the arm and said in an excited whisper, “Rachel, come with me! We have to go borrow dishes, and I have a surprise for you!”

  She was positively giddy, but before Rachel could ask a single question, she flitted back outside. Rachel dried her hands, grabbed a coat and went out to find Emma already waiting in the buggy, reins in hand, waving impatiently. Borrowing dishes from neighbors and trying to match place settings was a fun part of a wedding, but hardly reason for this level of excitement. This had to be something big.

  As soon as they were out on the road breezing toward the Hochstetters’, Emma leaned close – as if anyone could hear – and said, “Can you keep a secret?”

  Rachel raised an eyebrow. “I’m already keeping a secret,” she said dryly.

  “No, but this is a good one!” Emma was beaming.

  Rachel nodded, a little suspiciously. “Okay. What is it?”

  “You and Miriam are going to be my navahuckers!”

  Rachel gasped and sat back hard against the seat, staring straight ahead with a world of conflicting emotions rushing through her. The bride was allowed to pick two unmarried couples to be her navahuckers – her attendants for the wedding – and they would be together all day, as couples, greeting guests as they arrived and sitting on either side of the bride and groom at the reception. It was the bride’s right to pick them, and the names were held in strictest secrecy right up until the wedding.

  “But I’m too young,” Rachel muttered, still in shock.

  “You’ll be sixteen before the wedding, Rachel, and anyway I just spoke with Dat about it. He gave his approval.”

  Now she understood Emma’s excitement. It was a great honor, not to mention that Emma was her best friend in the whole world. Still, this was a complete surprise and it left her with a burning question.

  “Who will be my escort for the day?” she asked timidly, unable to prevent a slight wince from flashing across her face. There was only one name she wanted to hear, and she dared not hope.

  “Well, Dat and I talked about that,” Emma said pensively. “There are lots of boys I could ask. I thought about Yost Schlabach, but he’s too old for you – I’m thinking I’ll give him to Miriam. That blond-headed Miller boy is your age, but he’s too tall.”

  “And dull,” Rachel added.

  “Dat said maybe Eli Stutzman, but he smells funny.”

  Rachel giggled at this. There were stories.

  “Anyway, we went through a whole list and none of them seemed right for you, so I told Dat I guess we’d just have to settle for that little neighbor boy, Jake Weaver.”

  Rachel’s jaw dropped, and tears came into her eyes.

  “And Dat said okay to this?”

  Emma nodded, grinning from ear to ear. She knew. Emma knew everything, except perhaps how to keep a buggy straight in the road when her younger sister suddenly leaped upon her in a wild joyful hug.

  On the morning of Emma’s wedding the entire family rose at four, rushed through the day’s chores, ate a quick breakfast and dove headlong into cooking for the wedding feast. Even the men helped in the kitchen – something that only happened, ever, on a wedding day. Rachel teased Harvey about doing women’s work, but he just rolled his dark eyes and smiled. He would get even.

  Emma slipped away to the privy several times that morning, and Mamm noticed. “Is Emma feeling all right?” she asked Rachel.

  “Butterflies,” Rachel said. “She’s very nervous.”

  Mamm nodded. “Jah, I was the same on my wedding day.”

  The wedding service was to begin at eight thirty in the barn. It was a “banked” barn, meaning it had been built into a hillside, giving the cows and horses who lived on the ground level extra protection from wind and weather while simultaneously allowing drive-in access to the second level from the driveway. The heavy oak floor of the second level had been scrubbed and scoured for the occasion until the grain of the wood stood out, and church benches had been set up on both sides of the wide central aisle.

  At seven thirty the bridal party would take up positions beside the barn door and begin greeting guests, so at six thirty the girls slipped away to change. A new navy blue dress awaited Emma upstairs, with a fresh white cape and apron. She had sewn it herself in the last two weeks, along with the dress
es of both her attendants, but apart from being new, and perhaps made with a little extra attention to detail, the dress was not noticeably different from her usual Sunday attire. In fact, after the wedding the same dress would become her Sunday dress for as long as she lived. When she was done – Amish shorthand for “done with this life” – the dress would be used for her funeral.

  As Emma’s attendants, Rachel and Miriam got new dresses, too. When Emma was washed and dressed and ready she took a twirl in front of her sisters.

  “Well, do you think I’m a suitable bride?”

  Rachel smiled, even as her eyes pooled – it was going to be an emotional day. “You, sister, are surely the prettiest bride I have ever seen.”

  Miriam gave Rachel a cautionary sideways glance, eyebrows raised. “Best not let Dat hear you talk like that,” she warned. “That’s just vanity. Pure vanity.” Then her dark eyes crinkled with mischief as she leaned close to Emma and whispered, “Easily. By far, the prettiest bride ever.”

  Emma beamed, the flush in her cheeks and the excitement in her eyes putting the finishing touches on a naturally radiant face.

  At seven thirty, in their new dresses and spotless white capes and aprons, the three sisters went downstairs to meet the rest of the bridal party.

  Jake was there, strikingly handsome in his Sunday clothes. His eyes lit up when he saw Rachel. He shook her hand with proper reserve, then leaned close when no one was watching and whispered, “You look wonderful. I’ve been looking forward to this.”

  Miriam’s escort, Yost Schlabach, looked good too, though Miriam seemed to be keeping her customary distance. He was nice enough, but Miriam had already confided to Rachel that she didn’t think he was terribly bright. Sometimes it seemed to Rachel that, for someone with no prospects, her sister was awfully choosy.