Naomi's Hope

by Jan Drexler

  “How do you know how many threads you need?” Naomi asked, watching Annalise finger the threads in groups of ten.

  Annalise stopped, her finger holding her place. “This cloth will be for dresses, so we’ll set the loom up with about ten threads per inch. Six hundred threads will give us a width of about fifty-five inches when it’s done.”

  As Annalise continued counting, whispering the numbers to herself, Naomi became aware of how quiet the house was.

  “Mamm, do you know where Davey is?”

  Mamm shrugged, her lips moving as she counted along with Annalise. Naomi stepped into the kitchen and listened again. No sounds of a boy playing. He must be outside.

  Pushing away a rising panic, Naomi walked across the front yard to where the children had been playing before dinner. Davey probably fell asleep in the little house he and Rachael had made. She stepped softly when she reached it, not wanting to wake him. But when she peered in between the branches, the little hut was empty.

  “Where could he be?”

  Naomi shaded her eyes and looked around the clearing. No one was in sight. Even Christian was away, plowing the field on the other side of the hill, Annalise had said. She had sent William there with Christian’s dinner in a pail. Could Davey have followed William?

  She went back into the house.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” Annalise said. She had a strip of soft cloth in her hand. “We’re ready to tie the warp together so we can remove it from the board.”

  “I’ll help in a moment.” Naomi took a deep breath. “I can’t find Davey. Do you think he might have followed William out to the fields?”

  “I saw him sitting on the porch after dinner,” Mamm said. “That was quite a while after William left.”

  “Did you check the barn?”

  A knot in Naomi’s stomach unwound. “I haven’t. I’ll go do that.”

  “And the henhouse too.”

  Naomi walked with long strides toward the henhouse. The chickens were drowsing in the afternoon sunlight. No seven-year-old boy had disturbed them. Her walk turned into a run across the grass toward the barn. Christian had replaced his log barn with a beam-and-board one last summer, with a lofty hay mow that enticed William and Davey to explore. Naomi stood in the middle of the barn floor, listening. No sound.

  “Davey!”

  He might be sleeping.

  She climbed the tall ladder and peered over the edge of the loft. The pile of last year’s hay had been reduced to a small mound in the center of the floor. Not enough for a boy to hide in. The knot in her stomach tightened again.

  “Davey?”

  Her knees were weak and watery and Naomi clung to the ladder. She always knew where Davey was, but now—

  Naomi climbed down the ladder. Her fingers, cold and clammy, barely gripped the rungs. She stumbled out of the barn and scanned the Yoders’ farm again. The stumps in the grass, the new apple trees in the orchard, the henhouse . . . There was no boy anywhere.

  Cap. Davey had wanted to go to Cap’s today. Would he have gone there alone?

  Naomi ran to the house. “I can’t find Davey anywhere. I’m going to see if he went to Cap’s.”

  She spun in the doorway before Mamm or Annalise could answer, but she heard Mamm’s voice floating behind her. “Wait, Naomi. Let us help you look.”

  She wouldn’t need anyone’s help to find her son. He was at Cap’s. He had to be.

  As she emerged from the woods, she scanned the small clearing. Cap stood at the top of his ladder, a hod full of mud in his hand and a line of round rocks on the roof at his elbow. Davey must be inside the house.

  “Cap! Is Davey here?”

  He settled a rock into the chimney. “I haven’t seen him today.”

  As she bit her bottom lip to keep the tears at bay, Cap let the hod fall to the ground and slid down the ladder.

  When he reached her side, he grasped her arms. “Steady there.”

  Gray clouds swirled as he helped her sit on a stump.

  “Put your head down, and breathe.”

  She hiccuped, but lowered her forehead to her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs.

  “I have to find Davey.” Her skirt muffled her voice.

  “When did you see him last?”

  She raised her head and her sight was clear. “After dinner. He was sitting on the porch at the Yoders’.”

  Naomi stood, but too quickly, and the ground tipped. Cap swung her into his arms and started down the trail toward home.

  “Let me down.” She struggled, but he kept walking. “I have to find Davey. Let me down.”

  He stopped and set her feet on the ground. “Are you all right?”

  “Ja, ja, ja.” She took a deep breath as the ground swayed a little. “I’m fine.” The knot in her stomach rose to her throat. “I . . . I don’t know where he is.” The next breath came in a hiccuping sob. “What will I do? How will I find him?” Her voice rose as she spoke and she closed her mouth before the threatening scream made itself heard.

  Cap took both of her arms in his hands and faced her toward him. “We’ll find him.” He shook her a little until she looked into his eyes. “We’ll find him. I’m going to take you home, and then I’ll get the Yoders and your family, and we’ll look for him.”

  The tears spilled out as he crushed her to his chest.

  “We’ll find him, Naomi. We will.”

  That evening, Naomi sat on the porch step. Mattie and Hannah sat on either side of her, holding her hands. Cap and the other men were still looking for Davey, but twilight crept toward the clearing from the overhanging branches of the forest. Her boy was in the woods, alone, in the dark.

  Henry had discovered that a fishing pole was missing. He and Cap had run down to the river where they had been fishing yesterday. The pole was there, but no Davey.

  Naomi shut away the voices clamoring that Davey had fallen in the river. He hadn’t. He couldn’t. He didn’t know how to swim. She wouldn’t believe it. Davey was lost in the woods. He would find his way home. He would be hungry—

  “I need to make supper for him.” She shrugged off the quilt Mamm had put around her shoulders and tried to stand.

  Mattie grasped her hand tighter and pulled her back down. “Annalise has supper ready for those who want it.”

  “Where is Cap?”

  Hannah put one arm around her shoulders as she replaced the quilt. “Cap went with the other men to search along the riverbanks. If he fell in the water—”

  Blackness spun in front of Naomi’s eyes. “He didn’t fall in. He couldn’t.”

  “He might have.” Hannah’s voice was strong. Reassuring. “If he fell in, the water would carry him downstream.”

  Naomi leaned her head on Hannah’s shoulder. Davey didn’t know how to swim. He was afraid of the water. She squeezed her eyes shut to block out the scene Hannah’s words had created. Davey wasn’t in the water. He wasn’t. Instead, she made herself remember him as he was when she put him to bed last night. Little-boy hair falling over his pillow, his ruddy cheeks glowing in the candlelight. His long eyelashes resting on those cheeks as his eyes closed in sleep.

  A sob escaped and Mattie squeezed her hand again.

  She couldn’t live if something happened to Davey. He was all she had.

  “They’re coming.”

  Mattie stood and pulled Naomi up with her. For sure, there were the men walking up the road in the twilight. Only the men. Naomi strained to see if any of them were carrying a boy, but they all walked as if they were weary, their arms hanging at their sides.

  No one said a word as they came into the yard. Mattie met Jacob before he reached the house, and they went on to their own farm. Hannah and Josef did the same after Hannah gathered up her little ones. Mamm met Daed while he was yet near the barn. Naomi could see them talking, Daed supporting Mamm with one arm around her waist.

  Only Cap walked all the way to the house, stopping when he reached her.

  “You did
n’t find him?”

  Cap shook his head. His face was etched in lines she had never seen before, his eyes dark hollows in the half-light. “We searched all along the riverbanks for a mile, until it started getting dark. We’ll look again in the morning.”

  Rage shot through Naomi like hot lightning. She launched herself at Cap and her fists were pounding, pounding on his chest. “You left him in the woods? You left my boy in the woods? How . . .”

  Her rage, gone as quickly as it had come, left her weak. Cap caught her as her legs collapsed and held her against him. Her fists still clenched between them.

  “How could you leave my little boy alone in the woods?”

  Her words sounded alien in her ears. A keening wail.

  “We’ll look again in the morning.” Cap held her closer as the sobbing gasps forced their way out. “I promise. I won’t stop until I find him.”

  7

  After the Schrock family had taken Naomi into the house, Cap started for home. He thrust his hands into the waistband of his trousers, hunched his shoulders against the chill wind that had risen, and put one foot in front of the other down the worn path between the Schrock farm and his clearing. The path worn smooth by Davey’s feet running down it almost daily.

  His feet stopped and a shudder ran through him. If he closed his eyes, the scene by the river that afternoon would haunt him. If he opened them, he saw Davey everywhere he looked. So instead, he stared straight up, into the sky blazing with white stars. He swallowed once. And then again.

  He could never tell Naomi what he saw. The fishing pole on the bank of the river, half in and half out of the water. The small footprints on the sandy edge of the water, leading in . . . but none leading out. He had led the search along the riverbanks. He had yelled Davey’s name over and over until he was hoarse. Jacob and Josef had pulled him away from the wooded banks when it became too dark to see, and he had only agreed to halt the search when they convinced him that if Davey had been able to climb out of the water, they would miss the signs.

  Cap’s body was as sore as if he had been carried down the rushing water himself, pummeled by the rocks under the surface, his lungs straining for a breath of air.

  Where was Davey? He grabbed his hat and ran desperate fingers through his hair. Why hadn’t they found him?

  The answers to those questions were too obvious, but he couldn’t face them. He couldn’t admit the possibility that Davey might never come home.

  He forced his feet to move once more, heading down the trail to his cabin. He needed food. Sleep, too, if he could. Step after step, he moved closer to his cabin and his bed. Finally, he reached the dark, cold house. No horses nickered their welcome, but he no longer cared. He made his way to the door of his cabin.

  Cap must have slept, because when he opened his eyes again, the gray light that preceded the dawn glowed through the window opening in the log wall.

  As quickly as he hurried to get down the trail to the Schrock farm, the yard between the house and the barn had already filled with people from the community. Lydia and Mattie passed out fried cakes and cups of hot coffee as Eli Schrock went from man to man, expressing his thanks for their willingness to help.

  Naomi wasn’t among the crowd, but Shem Fischer was. He circulated among the men much as Eli was doing. When he reached Cap, he smiled in the way ministers do at such occasions. But the smile didn’t extend past his mouth. His eyes narrowed as he gauged Cap’s mood.

  “Your presence here is appreciated by the family.” Shem’s voice was quiet, but Cap’s spine tingled.

  “Who are you to speak for them, Shem Fischer?” He took a step closer to the man, speaking through his clenched jaws. “Why are you even here?”

  Shem took a step back. “I’m only trying to help.” He held a hand out to Cap. “The community needs all of us to help find the boy.”

  Cap eyed him. His words didn’t match the smile on his face, but he wasn’t about to turn down another pair of feet and another set of eyes. “You’re right. We all need to help find Davey.”

  Mattie Yoder approached them with a plate of fried cakes.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Cap,” she said as he took one of the cakes. “Daed intends to start the search as soon as there is light enough to see.”

  Shem took two of the cakes before Mattie went on to her brother, Henry, and Josef Bender. He took a huge bite of the first one, watching the scene around them.

  “You don’t think we’ll find the boy too far away, do you? Someone said his fishing pole was found by the river, and you know what that means. We’ll probably find his body caught in some reeds along the bank and be back here by noon.”

  Cap had taken the first bite of his fried cake when Shem spoke, but the other man’s certainty turned the sweet pastry to sawdust in Cap’s mouth. He swallowed. “There’s no reason to believe the boy isn’t lost somewhere downstream. We’ll find him.”

  Shem shrugged. “You know as well as I do that Naomi’s son is ripe for judgment. His mother’s sin will be atoned for in the boy’s death. It’s probably best that it happened this way, before the sin could go any farther.”

  Cap stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  “The boy. The result of his mother’s sin.” He spread his hands as if to show the written proof of his words. “The same as when David sinned with Bathsheba. The child of that unholy union had to die to atone for their sin.”

  “You have twisted the story. That isn’t what the Good Book teaches.” Cap took a deep breath. “And that isn’t what our church teaches. Where did you get such an idea?”

  Shem laughed, the sound plunging the somber mood of the morning into a well of icy water. The men around them looked in their direction. Cap’s frown matched the expression on Josef Bender’s face.

  “I was just testing you, Caspie. You take things too seriously.”

  Cap bristled at the sound of the old nickname. Minister or not, Shem Fischer spread poison at every turn.

  “It’s time to go!” Eli called from near the barn.

  Cap left Shem behind and walked quickly, passing neighbors and strangers in his hurry to reach the river first. He glanced once more toward the house and saw Naomi. She stood on the covered porch, in the spot where he had seen Davey only a few days ago. As she watched the crowd of searchers leave, she seemed to shrink. Small, vulnerable, and frightened in her pale gray shawl.

  “They will find him.” Mattie had come to stand next to her on the porch as the men left. She put her arm around Naomi’s shoulders. “They will.”

  Naomi’s eyes burned, dry and sandy after a sleepless night. Her Davey was still out there in the woods, and she could do nothing. Nothing but wait. She couldn’t even hope. He was gone. Gone.

  “Come sit down, liebchen,” Mamm said, bringing a kitchen chair out to the porch. “There is nothing to do now but to wait and pray.”

  Hannah brought a cup of coffee, but Naomi turned away from it. The smell caused the knot in her stomach to shift.

  The women sat, silently praying as they waited. Annalise and Magdalena Hertzler had taken the children to the Yoders’ house for the day, and the farm was unnaturally still, as if death had already settled here.

  Naomi couldn’t pray. What would she say that she hadn’t already said? To keep Davey safe. To bring him back to her. To protect him from the dangers of the forest. To lead him in the paths that would bring him home. Everything she had prayed for through the night.

  “I’m glad so many men are searching.” Naomi’s voice sounded hollow in her own ears. “They will be able to cover more ground that way. They will find Davey.”

  “Do you trust in men?” The woman speaking was Nancy Troyer, Preacher Abraham’s wife. They lived north of the Schrocks, near Shipshewana Lake in Newbury Township. “The Good Book tells us to trust in God alone.”

  Mamm reached out a hand to grasp Naomi’s folded ones. “We trust in God, and we also trust in the ways he provides for his will to be done. More men means
that they will be able to go farther in their search.”

  The morning passed. Naomi’s head ached with the constant pain of a grinding millstone. The aroma of stew cooking in the kitchen drifted out the open door, but Naomi refused the plate Mattie brought to her at noon. The other women talked together, but the words of their murmured conversation made no sense to Naomi’s aching head. She kept her gaze on the place past the barn where Cap had disappeared so long ago and waited. As the afternoon wore on, some of the gathered women went home to tend to their chores. Still Naomi waited.

  The sun had set and the twilight was growing purple when the men returned, trudging up the road. Cap walked straight to Naomi just as he had the day before. Once again the searchers went home. Mamm went into the house with Henry, and Daed followed, stopping only to lay his hand on Naomi’s head. His gentle touch brought dampness to her eyes, but she refused to cry. Crying meant giving in to the fear that she would never see her son again.

  Cap stepped up onto the porch. He sat in Mamm’s chair, next to her, and took her hands in his. “I’m not going to give up, Naomi.”

  “The rest are, though. I heard them talking.”

  He was silent for a long moment. He laced her fingers through his. “They have chores to do. It’s planting time.”

  “You found nothing? No sign?”

  He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, but didn’t answer her question. “He’s out there somewhere.” His voice was rough, strained. “He didn’t just disappear.”

  The tears threatened again. “He can’t be . . . gone. What will I do without him?”

  Cap slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. “What did you do before he came?”

  Naomi sniffed. “I was so lonely. Mattie and Jacob . . . you don’t know how hard it is to watch your younger sister fall in love. When Davey came, when he needed me so much, I knew he was a gift from God.”

  “Why would a beautiful woman like you be lonely?”