by Jan Drexler
He stopped, waiting to see if anyone saw him, but nothing had changed. No one was there. No one could see him. He walked toward the road, turning around once to look at the cabin and the barn. Ma and Pa were gone, but Memmi wasn’t. Even if she thought he wasn’t coming home, she would be glad to see him. She loved him. He started down the sandy road toward the west.
Shem leaned back in the kitchen chair, his feet crossed on the table. Cutting a slice of apple, he popped it into his mouth and sighed. With Priscilla off to a work frolic at the Gingeriches’, he could relax for once.
At least Priscilla was happy. The church division had come about so smoothly that she purred every time she brought it up in conversation.
“It’s a good thing I came west,” she had told him just that morning. She smiled at him as he poured her coffee. “We now have a church we can be proud of. And you know what Mary told me . . .” She leaned closer to him as he took his seat at the table, speaking in a conspiratorial tone even though no one else was around. “She said that Tall Peter said that the men had decided to ordain you as preacher at the next meeting instead of waiting for fall.”
Shem cut another slice of apple. When Priscilla was happy, he was happy. Ja, for sure, everything was working out fine.
He had even managed to ignore Susan’s attempts to talk to him alone at the church meeting on Sunday. That was too bad, but it couldn’t be helped. Now that Priscilla was here, he knew better than to give any attention to the lovely girl.
Popping another apple slice into his mouth, he sighed again. He would miss Susan, but he had a church to run. As much as he hated to admit it, Priscilla was right. The two of them together worked much better than he had managed by himself.
“Shem!”
The screeching call from outside startled him so much his chair tipped over backward and he crashed to the floor with it. He picked himself up and straightened the chair, ignoring his sore elbow and the bump on the back of his head. Priscilla was home, and she sounded angry.
Shem scurried to the front door and opened it just as Priscilla reached the porch. She glared at him as she stomped past him and into the parlor. His stomach turned to jelly. She wasn’t happy anymore.
“Is something wrong?”
Priscilla dropped to the sofa, fanning her face with one hand. “Is something wrong? Of course there is something wrong. What did you tell those LaGrange County folks when you went over there on Sunday?”
Shem tried to remember, but he couldn’t think with Priscilla staring at him. “I . . . I said we would welcome any of them to come here and join our church.”
“Anything else?”
Shem felt his face heat as he thought of the exchange with Cap. But no one would know about that. Word couldn’t have gotten back to Priscilla.
She pointed to the chair across the rug from the sofa and he perched on the edge of the cushion. Sweat trickled down his back.
“What else would I have said?”
“There’s a rumor that you made sure that little boy would leave the community.”
Shem swallowed.
“And it’s said that you did it because of your feud with Cap Stoltzfus.”
“But you told me to do something to hurt him.” Shem shifted forward. “Remember? We agreed that I needed to do something to get Cap out of the way.” He grinned as he remembered how broken Cap had looked. “And it worked. Your plan worked. Finding someone to take that boy away was perfect.”
He waited for Priscilla’s self-satisfied smile, but she only glared harder, her eyebrows pointed down in a dark V.
“You fool. I didn’t tell you to brag about it.”
“But I didn’t—” Shem stopped as details of his conversation with Cap on Sunday afternoon came back to him. “How did someone find out about that? Cap wouldn’t have told anyone.”
“He must have, because now everyone has heard the rumor.”
Shem slid back in his chair, trying to look nonchalant. “No one will believe a story like that.”
“At least one person does, and she sounded pretty convincing.” Priscilla rose from her seat and headed toward her bedroom. “Pack our things, Shem. We need to leave.”
“What?” Shem scrambled after her, stumbling over the sofa. “Leave? Where are we going?”
Priscilla stopped in the doorway, her eyes sharp as knives. “It doesn’t matter where we go as long as we leave here before the damage spreads any further. I have a reputation to keep up and you are ruining it with every word you speak.”
Shem shrank away from the hatred in her eyes.
“I’m giving you one more chance, Shem Fischer. The Iowa settlement is far enough that perhaps the rumors won’t follow us there. If you don’t make a success of yourself there, then I’m leaving you.”
His mouth dry, Shem sank to his knees. What would happen to him without Priscilla? She was the smart one, not him. She was the one who planned ahead. He had been fooling himself when he thought he had done well without her. He couldn’t let her leave.
She tapped her foot, still holding the door half open. “Well?”
“I understand.”
“Good. Pack everything into my trunks and load them into the wagon.”
“Everything? Now?”
“Everything. We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”
“But we need to sell the farm . . . the furniture . . . we can’t just leave it all behind.”
She started closing the door. “We can and we will. We have to get as far away as we can before anyone decides they need to question you about those rumors.”
The door closed with a firm snap of the door latch, with Shem still on the floor. Shut out again.
He shuddered as he remembered that Priscilla had closed herself in the room with everything that she wanted him to pack in the trunks. When he brought the unwieldy things down from the spare room upstairs, he would have to—
He swallowed. He would have to knock on that door and face her again.
Rising to his feet as quietly as he could, Shem headed toward the kitchen and the back door. He would hitch the horse to the spring wagon. At least that would give him a few minutes’ respite before enduring her displeasure again.
Shem caught himself at the back door and clung to the doorframe. Iowa was far away, and he would travel every foot of it in the buggy seat next to his wife. How many miles would they have to travel before she stopped taking out this disaster on him?
Burying his face in the crook of his elbow as he leaned against the wooden frame, Shem groaned. There had to be a way out of this. There had to be.
“Shem! Where are those trunks?”
Shem straightened and headed back into the house to the stairs. “I’m getting them now, dear. I’ll be right in with them.”
Pounding up the steps, he knew the truth. He was stuck with Priscilla all the way to Iowa, and then wherever she wanted to go after that. For the rest of his life.
24
On Wednesday, Jacob hammered the last nail into the boards on the roof of the low shelter. “That should be sturdy enough. And once you put shingles over the top, it will be a dry shelter for your ram.”
Cap looked up from the willow fence he was weaving. The strong fence posts combined with the interlaced willow branches would give Jethro a safe pen.
“That looks fine, Jacob. Denki.”
While Cap finished the fence, Jacob gathered his tools in his bag. Cap wove the last end into the weaving and joined him at the well.
“Those boards we used for the shelter were easier to work with than trying to build with logs.”
Cap took a drink of the cold water from the bucket Jacob had brought up from the depths of the well. “I had them cut at the mill in Goshen earlier this summer.” He ran his thumb along the edge of the dipper. “I had planned to build a loft in the cabin, but now that will wait until Davey comes home.”
Jacob took the dipper and got himself some water from the bucket. “Plans don’t always work out
.” He tapped the empty dipper against one leg, his face blank as he stared at the ground. Jacob knew about plans not working out.
Cap rubbed at a sore place in his elbow. “We leave them in God’s hands.”
Drawing a deep breath, Jacob straightened and thrust the dipper back into the bucket. “Ja, in God’s hands.”
“How is Mattie doing?”
“She will be all right. The days are hard, though.” Jacob ran a hand over his face, wiping at the sweat that beaded on his nose. “I find her at the window often, looking out at the grave.”
Cap nodded. “Ja. I did that too.”
Jacob looked at him. “Does it ever get better?”
“Not better, but easier. The pain fades, but you never forget. And then things happen to stir up the grief all over again.”
“You miss Davey, don’t you?”
“Ach, ja. Like my arm has been cut off.”
Jacob grasped his shoulder. “He’ll be all right.”
“I just wish I knew for sure.” Naomi had told her parents about Shem’s confession, but he hadn’t told anyone else. Without proof, and without a witness, it would serve no purpose. “I have this feeling that something is wrong. That he is in danger.”
“The Hinklemanns will take good care of him, won’t they?”
“If I thought they wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have let him go with them.” Cap shook his head. “I shouldn’t have let him go, anyway.”
“Like you said, we leave him in God’s hands.” Jacob leaned down to pick up his tool bag. “We will continue to pray for him, though.” He hefted the leather bag in his hand. “Daed wants to go talk to Yost this afternoon. We want to see what he has to say about this division in the church. Would you want to come with us?”
Cap looked around the neat farmyard. Everything was ready for his departure in the morning. “Ja, for sure. I’ve been wondering how things are going under Shem’s leadership. I’m going over to the Schrocks’ after dinner, so I’ll meet you there.”
As Jacob headed down the road toward his farm, Cap got the bar of soap from the cabin and a towel. While he washed up, questions about Shem kept pestering him. He splashed the cold water over his face and hair to rinse off the soap and grabbed the towel. Never mind. He had to leave Shem in God’s hands. If only it was that easy to turn his worries about Davey over to God.
After dinner, he walked through the woods to the Schrocks. Eli was just coming out of the house, heading toward the barn. There were lines in his face that hadn’t been there a week ago, and he walked with a shuffle that Cap had never seen before.
The older man looked up when Cap met him on the path near the chicken coop. “Cap. It’s good to see you.” He smiled as he took Cap’s hand and shook it.
“Good to see you too. How are you doing?”
Eli ran his thumbs along his suspenders. “Truth to tell, we’ve done better.” He shook his head. “I never thought I’d miss that boy so much. It’s like all the life is gone from our home.”
Cap gripped Eli’s shoulder. “Ja, I know. I keep expecting Davey to come bursting out of the woods. He almost always came over around midmorning to help with chores.”
He fell silent, remembering the first time Davey had emerged from the forest into his clearing.
Cap mentally shook himself. “Jacob is taking Christian over to Clinton Township to visit Yost. Christian has been wondering what is going on in the church over there since we haven’t heard anything. I’m going with them, and I thought you would like to come too.”
Eli’s eyes took on a spark of interest. “Ja, for sure. Yost can tell us what folks are saying over there. I would still like to see this breach closed, if possible.”
“I want to say hello to Naomi before we go.”
“Ja, do that. She looks forward to your visits.” Eli patted his arm, then continued toward the barn.
As he walked toward the house, Naomi stepped out the door, the rag rugs from the kitchen in her hands. She smiled at him as she shook one, then the other. She finished by the time he reached the porch and hung the rugs over the porch rail.
“It’s good to see you.”
He scanned her face. She didn’t look as pale today. “How are you? Did you sleep better last night?”
“I did.” She sat on the top step and he joined her. “I had a talk with Mamm yesterday about forgiveness and new sleeves.”
Cap felt his eyebrows rise. “New sleeves?”
She laced her fingers in his. “New hearts, actually. How God takes away our old hearts that are stained with sin and gives us new hearts.”
Cap cleared a tickle from his throat. He knew what that felt like, that surrender to God’s work. “And your heart?”
She gave his hand a squeeze. “I finally understood what Mamm meant last night, after you went home. I have never felt so much at peace. Even though I miss my boy.” Tears filled her eyes.
Cap put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Even though we miss Davey, there is a joy also, ja?”
Naomi nodded, smiling even though tears trickled down her cheeks. “Joy in knowing that God is watching over him and keeping him safe.”
Cap’s stomach clenched. God was watching over Davey, but he still had a feeling that their boy was in danger. He pushed the worry away and tried to replace it with the peace Naomi felt. “I’m going to try my best to find him.”
Naomi nodded. “But even if you don’t, God is still good.”
He pressed his cheek against her kapp, then turned and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek as he heard the Yoders’ spring wagon coming down the road. “Your daed and I are going over to the Clinton district with Jacob and Christian this afternoon.”
She stiffened. “You will see Shem?”
“I don’t know. We want to talk to Yost.”
She turned to him. “If you do see him, tell him that I forgive him.”
Cap’s clenched stomach released. “Ja, ja, ja. I will.”
Naomi wasn’t the only one who needed to forgive the man. As he walked to where Jacob was waiting for him, the conviction that he had never forgiven Shem washed over him. Through all the years, ever since he was a boy, he had considered Shem his enemy. But now? Now when Shem had done his worst, Cap needed to forgive him. He gave Naomi one last look before he climbed into the wagon. If she could forgive Shem, then he could too. And now, before another minute passed, was the time to do it.
Cap stepped out of the spring wagon as Jacob stopped by Yost Bontrager’s farm, then turned to help Christian down from his seat. Yost waved to them as he came out of his barn.
“This is a welcome visit, brothers.” He stopped in front of them and ran his thumbs up and down his suspenders. “Turn your horse out with the others, Jacob, and let’s go up to the house. Mary fixed some cold sassafras tea at dinnertime, and I’m sure there is enough for everyone.”
Cap helped Jacob unhitch the horse while the older men went ahead of them to the house. “Yost looks like he’s in a good mood.”
Jacob grinned. “That’s one thing about Yost. His house could be falling down around him, and he’d still have a smile on his face. His son, Daniel, is a lot like him. Always pleasant to be around.”
Once the horse was settled, Cap and Jacob joined the others at the house. Cap took the glass of tea Mary had poured for him and drank half of it without stopping. It tasted good in the hot afternoon.
Eli turned to Jacob. “Yost says that Shem is gone.”
Cap swallowed his tea. “Gone? Does anyone know where he is? Could he be hurt or something?” The memory of the look on the faces of the Smith gang gave him an uneasy feeling.
“No one knows where he went,” Yost said, “and no one I’ve talked to really cares. Our Sunday meeting with the church divided unsettled a lot of people, and most of the folks who Shem had talked into it weren’t so happy about it anymore.”
“Do you think he might have gone back to Canada?” Jacob asked.
“He might have. But a fe
w weeks back he was asking me a lot of questions about the Iowa settlement. Since Daniel moved his family out there a couple years ago, he thought I might have some recent news.”
“Iowa?” Eli pulled at his beard. “That would be a new area for him. No one would know about the shenanigans he pulled around here.”
Yost grinned. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve already written a letter to Daniel. Besides, from what Daniel says, the Iowa settlement is even more conservative than we are. If so, they won’t listen to Shem.”
“So do you think we’ll worship together again this coming Sunday? The meeting was to be here at your farm,” Christian said. He still used a cane to support himself when he walked, but most of the other effects of his apoplexy had slowly fallen away, and he looked comfortable sitting in the chair on Yost’s porch.
“Could be,” Yost said, his long beard waggling as he nodded. “Could be. I’ll talk to my neighbors, and we’ll make sure most of us are here. Do you think the folks from your end of the district will make the trip?”
Eli nodded. “The congregation was grieved the week we were parted. I know everyone will be glad to come.”
The three older men changed the subject to talk of the weather and the condition of their crops, but the discussion about the temporary church split had ended on a note of hope. Perhaps the whole episode was finally over.
They visited with Yost for a couple hours. Eli and Christian were in no hurry to leave, but when the sun passed midafternoon, they slowly got to their feet.
“It’s been a good visit, Yost,” Eli said.
Christian nodded, using his cane to help him navigate the two steps from the porch to the ground. “It certainly has been. There’s nothing like brothers who are in agreement, taking counsel together.”
Cap and Jacob made short work of hitching up the wagon and they were soon on their way home. The drive was quiet, each man tired from the afternoon and lost in his own thoughts.