The Winnowing Season

by Cindy Woodsmall

  “Gern gschehne.” Without another word, Phoebe ambled up the stairs.

  Rhoda hurried out the door and across the backyard.

  A pungent, smoky aroma clung to the crisp air. What kind of wood was burning to make that smell?

  She stopped and sniffed the air. It seemed to be coming from the greenhouses. Had she left a lamp burning? Were her plants on fire? As she went that way, shushed giggles exploded. Was that her imagination too? She hoped not. Oh, how she hoped. She tiptoed, easing toward the sound. It came from the far greenhouse, one of the two she hadn’t yet used. She opened the door. Smoke like twines of hazy rope rising from the ground circled between two tables.

  “Can you imagine?” a girl whispered amid her laughter.

  “I’d lie,”—a different girl’s voice filled the air with foul language—“devising story after story until they buried me.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” a third girl added. “Your mom is worse than a bloodhound, so you better be ready with a story.”

  “But isn’t this smoke worth it?” They chortled.

  “Well, I covered my tracks, so that investigation is over.”

  Rhoda followed the chorus of giggles. Her skin pricked. What if she got beyond the workbenches blocking her vision and no one was there? A moment later she spotted three girls in sleeping bags on top of a blue tarp. What appeared to be empty beer bottles were scattered around the sleeping bags. Rhoda’s nerves relaxed as the girls passed around a funny-looking cigarette.

  It made perfect sense. The farm had been abandoned for a while, and they were using the outbuildings as a place to hang out. But thoughts of Jacob’s troubles jabbed at Rhoda, and she knew she had to deal with these girls in a way that wasn’t likely to bring attention to the new Amish family in the area.

  “Excuse me.”

  The girls looked up from their sleeping bags.

  “Look!” One broke into laughter and cursed. “The Pilgrims have landed.” She guffawed, slapping the blue tarp over the ground. “A little early for Thanksgiving, but not by too much if you’re going to pluck those turkeys by hand.”

  One young lady with long, straight black hair and fair skin wobbled as she stood. “Hi.”

  “Hello.” Rhoda tried to smile, but she wasn’t sure one crossed her lips. “I’m Rhoda.”

  “Gretchen. We meant to be gone before anyone was up.”

  So they did know someone had moved in. Had they used the house as a hangout as well?

  “Maybe it’s a Halloween costume,” another girl said.

  “Shush.” But even as Gretchen corrected the girls, she giggled.

  Should Rhoda ask questions and try to take them under her wing the way she had done when she found Leah in her fruit garden in a similar condition? She had taken Leah into her home, fed her, and given her fresh clothes, and they had talked. A little later she had insisted Leah call home. But these girls hadn’t stumbled into a place and passed out. This was a planned and apparently recurring event. For Jacob’s sake it seemed that Rhoda should convince them to leave the property and not return. It wasn’t her place to try to sober up or reason with them, was it?

  Gretchen lost her balance, and Rhoda steadied her. “Where do your parents think you are?”

  “Here. Actually, they had a party of their own last night, and they don’t care what we do as long as we’re not seen doing it.”

  Was she telling the truth? If the parents didn’t mind, shouldn’t Rhoda leave well enough alone?

  “How did you get here?”

  “Walked. We live a road over.” She pointed. “Across that field and through the woods.”

  Rhoda nodded. They weren’t driving, and the walk home in this brisk air was sure to sober them.

  “Come on. Up. Up. Up. This place is no longer vacant, and that includes these greenhouses.”

  “Who bought it? The Puritans?”

  “Be quiet.” Gretchen spoke harshly and then nodded at Rhoda. “Okay. We’ll go. I’m sorry Savannah and Kristen are so rude. They aren’t usually.”

  Rhoda didn’t care whether they made fun of her or were superfriendly. She only wanted them gone.

  Gretchen brushed dirt off the back of her jeans. “We don’t want any trouble. But it seems that my friends need a little time to sober up, okay?”

  Rhoda nodded. “We will be holding church on this property today, and I want you gone long before it begins. That gives you about three hours. And, Gretchen,”—Rhoda caught her eye, wondering how much people remembered once they were sober—“families with children live and work here now. I trust you won’t trespass again. Do we understand each other?”

  “Yeah. It won’t happen again. We’ll be gone by sunrise.”

  Rhoda left and headed for the creek at the edge of the property. It seemed unusual that she would find wayward, drunken girls hiding on her property more than once in her life. But she supposed life was full of coincidences.

  When she’d found Leah, she had met Samuel King, who later introduced her to Jacob. Was that meant to be—something God had His hand on, connecting her with Kings’ Orchard and the handsome, good-natured Jacob King?

  God wasn’t surprised by Jacob’s confession. That comforted her somehow. Did He have a plan for this chaos Jacob had shared with her last night? Did His love cover Jacob’s … She didn’t know what to call it. Was it sin? ignorance? both? Her mind churned, trying to make sense of what Jacob had told her.

  Once out of sight of the home, she slowed, ambling through the orchard until she came to the creek that separated their property from the neighbors’. As she followed the creek, she could hear what she believed to be wolves much farther in the distance than the night they had moved in. The darkness cloaked her, feeling more like a friend than something to fear.

  She was glad the wolves or coyotes weren’t as close. Their howling rattled her, though she’d been told they were skittish around people. Livestock had to be protected from attack. Steven was in charge of taking care of the horses, and he made sure they were in the barn at night. But people were safe.

  She topped a knoll, spotted a rock that jutted out, and climbed it. Removing her backpack, she sat and closed her eyes. Her silent prayer turned to whispers, and before long she was talking as if sitting across the table from her Daed. Except loneliness tugged at her. She wasn’t sure why. It seemed Jacob’s secret left her feeling isolated. She tried to push past that emotion and continued to talk to God.

  Music vibrated softly, and she hushed. Was it real? She opened her eyes. Purples and pinks filled the sky as light overtook the dark. A scripture she’d memorized long ago came to her. “Praise the LORD, O my soul. While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.”

  Some of the hurt eased. Jacob couldn’t be as trustworthy as God. It wasn’t fair to expect that of him. And while that truth didn’t cover all the aspects of what he’d done wrong, it helped to lessen her disappointment.

  Now, she needed perspective on the actual wrongdoing. What did God think of it? What should Jacob do to make it right? If she knew those two things, peace would return to her, and she’d know how she should feel about it too.

  She drew a deep breath and realized the music had grown louder. She rose, angling her head and listening. The girls had been real earlier. Maybe this was too. She grabbed her backpack and started following the music.

  The sound vibrated clearer and then stopped. She continued on, and it started again. A small white home came into view. Was that a woman sitting in a chair? The trees blocked Rhoda’s view, so she kept going. When she came to a clearing, she saw a woman with gray shoulder-length hair holding an instrument between her legs and a bow in her hand. The woman’s eyes were closed as she played.

  Words from nowhere floated into Rhoda’s brain: Tell them. Just tell them, even if they don’t believe you. Tell them for me.

  It was a man’s voice, but
Rhoda knew it was inside her head. The words seemed to flow with the music. Chills ran over her skin. A child’s voice spoke: Tell them while I still have a home. Tell them.

  The woman looked up and stopped playing. Her green eyes were striking against her silver hair. She lowered her bow. “Hello.”

  Rhoda tried to speak, but no words came out.

  “Bob?” The woman looked toward the house. “Husbands.” She sighed. “Are you married?”

  Rhoda shook her head.

  “Bob!”

  A man opened a sliding glass door and stepped outside, looking at the woman. The woman nodded toward Rhoda. “We have a guest.” She smiled. “A shy one.”

  Tell them. A young man’s voice spoke loudly inside her head.

  Rhoda ignored it and stepped forward. “I heard the music.”

  Tell them. A little girl spoke, and the power of her words made it hard for Rhoda to keep her composure. She glanced behind her to see if there was a child. There wasn’t.

  The man moved forward. “I’m Bob Cranford. This is my wife, Camilla.”

  Grandmamma. The girl’s voice spoke clearly. Tell them. Tell them.

  Rhoda held out her hand. “I’m Rhoda.”

  “Our new neighbor?”

  She nodded. “One of several.” She pointed at the instrument. “What is that?”

  The woman admired it. “A cello.”

  “It makes the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard. I thought I was hearing things.”

  Camilla smiled. “If you heard anything off-key or out of rhythm, you were hearing things.”

  The husband and wife chuckled.

  Dumont.

  The word was a muffled echo inside her. Rhoda struggled to keep the tears at bay as a strange power surged through her. “I … I heard a child too.”

  Camilla used the bow to point at a chair. “Would you care to sit?”

  Rhoda shook her head. “A child?”

  “Not from around here. We’re it for acres and acres. Maybe from the other side.” He gestured toward the farm. “About two miles that way. They have children.”

  Rhoda nodded. “It sounds as if our farm is halfway between you and them. Maybe the music from your place mixed with the voices from their place.” She swallowed. “Or maybe children visit here sometimes.”

  Camilla exchanged looks with Bob. “No.” She brushed silvery hair from her face. “We don’t have …” She shook her head.

  Bob shifted. “There are no children.”

  Clearly Rhoda had upset both of them.

  Bob shifted. “We’d heard Amish had moved into the area.”

  Rhoda tried to shake free of the eerie feeling. “Ya, we’ve heard the same thing.”

  Bob and Camilla laughed.

  “Welcome,” Bob said.

  His wife nodded her head and lifted her bow. “Would you like to hear more of the song that drew you here?”

  “I should go.” Even as she said the words, Rhoda moved in closer.

  “Are you sure? A skilled musician never minds having an audience.” Bob touched a chair, inviting Rhoda to sit. “The song she keeps practicing night and day is called ‘Tell Them.’ ”

  Rhoda wondered if she had subconsciously recognized the song. Maybe one of her Morgansville neighbors had played it with the accompanying words. When she heard the melody, her mind filled in the words of the song. Maybe she had heard a child singing the song, and that’s why she heard a child’s voice saying, “Tell them.” When Rhoda worked long hours in her garden every day during spring and summer, her neighbors opened their windows and played music. It seemed like a reasonable explanation, although her physical reaction was unusual.

  Was God trying to tell her something? The word Dumont rolled through her mind. It had to be a last name.

  Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it in her ears. “The title is ‘Tell Them,’ but tell who what?”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Jacob moved from the window at the back of the house to one at the front. Again. Still nothing except clouds and trees on the horizon. He checked the grandfather clock in the living room. Maybe the move to Maine had affected the mechanism. Was that the right time? It had to be later than four o’clock.

  Where was she?

  Now that they were in Maine, he and Rhoda were supposed to enjoy their Sunday afternoons together. When she lived in Morgansville and was helping with Kings’ Orchard, she stayed in the summer kitchen throughout the week and went home to her family on Saturday evenings. They’d had precious little time together there. It was supposed to be different now.

  He let out a long sigh, fighting the urge to panic. He’d hoped that confessing everything to Rhoda would set him free. But he felt more trapped than ever, stuck between the man he was and the man he—and Rhoda—wished him to be.

  Jacob stepped onto the front porch and found Samuel reading his beloved newspaper.

  “She’s fine.” Samuel didn’t even look up. “Just clearing her head, like Steven said. I actually would feel sorry for any woodsy creature who thought she was prey.”

  Jacob didn’t reply. Was Samuel really that relaxed? Maybe so. It wasn’t his loved one who had been gone since before daylight. Or his girl who had been burdened with crushing news. Rhoda had been so shaken last night when they parted. Just how upset was she that she didn’t sleep and clearly didn’t want to see him this morning? Was she ready to end their relationship? If someone Samuel really cared about was a part of this group, he’d already have those walkie-talkies he’d said they would get once they arrived in Maine.

  “I was thinking.” Jacob wasn’t exactly certain where he would go from there. He had a lot of things on his mind, little of which was worthy of dumping on Samuel.

  “Ya? About what?” Samuel folded his paper and looked at him.

  Normally he and his brother talked easily about lots of things or nothing at all, in part because each respected the other’s privacy. Now their conversations felt strained.

  “We still don’t have any walkie-talkies. I thought you were going to pick up some.”

  “Oh.” Samuel shrugged, but his face grew taut. “I’ll get some this week, or you can ask Landon to pick some up next time he’s in town.”

  “We should have had them by now.” Jacob knew he was hinting that Samuel was lax in his duties, and that fact made Jacob’s face flush.

  Samuel raised an eyebrow. “Even if we had walkie-talkies, do you honestly believe she would have taken one with her?”

  Jacob said nothing. He knew the answer. What kept churning inside him was the lack of other answers. Concerning himself, his past, his future. He had always treated his years away from home like a separate piece of his life, free from the remainder of his life. He had done his best to keep the two apart, always denying that the Jacob of the Englisch was the same man as the Jacob of the Amish. But just like cream and coffee, once mixed, they were impossible to separate.

  Concern for all Rhoda was sorting through niggled at him, but she’d been clear. She wanted no one searching for her.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m going for a walk.”

  Rhoda could be anywhere on the farm or beyond. Even if he came across her, he had no idea what to say to her. Had he told her too much last night? Of course he had. She had skipped church to avoid seeing him.

  Screams echoed inside his head and visions of seeing the news the next day rattled him. A deck he had designed and helped build had been filled with people at a gathering—innocent families who were having an enjoyable time one moment and were plunged into a nightmare the next. Two people had died, a girl about Leah’s age and a single mom with a preschool daughter. A dozen were injured, some seriously. He hadn’t known the supplies were so low-grade they were unsafe. If he’d had more experience with that aspect of carpentry—with structural screws and securing decks—he would have realized the poor quality of the materials. But framing, roofing, and drying in homes had been his area of expertise.

  A
lthough he’d been on that job site when they started to anchor the deck, he’d been pulled from it to go to a different site. The carpenters left to do the job had put the bolts into the ledger plate from the outside of the deck into the home, but they hadn’t tightened them properly or gone into the home to secure the nuts and washers.

  Greed purchased inferior-grade products. Negligence allowed the decks to be improperly assembled and secured to the homes. But if Jacob had taken a stand when he had learned that his rerouting of funds from one site to pay for another was illegal, that deck would never have been erected by Jones’ Construction. Pure and simple. As much as he tried to convince himself it wasn’t his fault, he felt responsible for it.

  What would Rhoda think of him when she knew the rest of his secrets?

  He sighed, stopping beside an apple tree that had no fruit. Its branches were strong. Its structure was sturdy. But there wasn’t any fruit.

  There was a Bible story about Jesus approaching a fig tree, but when He found it had no fruit, He cursed the tree, and it withered and died.

  From a distance, had Jacob looked strong and healthy to Rhoda? Did she now see him as barren and worthless? Was everything that had happened the result of Jesus cursing him, allowing his life to wither and die like the fruit tree?

  Jacob pushed the dark thoughts aside and trudged on. He had to keep moving.

  From inside Camilla’s kitchen, Rhoda glanced out the window, realizing storm clouds had grown thick overhead. Rhoda had left Bob and Camilla within an hour of meeting them and had gone back to her rock to spend time reading her Bible and praying. Camilla and Bob had invited her to join them for lunch, and she was just as surprised as they were when she returned.

  There was something genuine about these two. They considered themselves former hippies. Rhoda wasn’t sure what that meant, but it seemed the now-retired couple felt it said plenty. All she knew for sure was she wanted their opinion about some of the things weighing on her. The people at the seminar had plenty of good, solid answers to her farming questions. Part of her hoped these people could help her in another area—confusion over Jacob’s past.