The Shepherd's Bride

by Patricia Davids

  He rose from the bed and got a glass of water. Walking to the door, he looked out at the star-strewn sky and wondered how much more he had to endure.

  The events of that terrifying day were as clear to him as the water glass in his hand. He had gone to Africa to be with his sister, Sophia, on her wedding day.

  Born with a burning desire to share God’s salvation with the world, Sophia chose not to join the Amish faith of her parents, but to become a Mennonite and go out into the world to spread God’s word.

  His family, like all the Amish, did not believe in seeking converts, but they supported missions of mercy. Sophia’s first mission trip took her to Africa. She fell in love with the land and the people, and eventually, with another young missionary. They chose to marry in the village they called home. Sophia wrote and begged that at least one member of her family come to attend her wedding. Carl, being the oldest and unmarried, chose to go.

  Although the land and the people were strange, Carl quickly saw why his sister loved the place. He soon became a favorite with some of the village children, particularly a young girl named Christina.

  She called him Kondoo Mtu, a name that meant “sheep man” or “shepherd” in her native tongue. His sister told him it was because ja, his word for yes, sounded like the noise the sheep and goats made. He sometimes wondered if that was why he had decided to stay on Joe’s farm and become a true shepherd instead of a carpenter like his father.

  The day before Sophia’s wedding, Carl had gone out to help Christina find her lost goat when he heard the first gunfire. There had been talk of a civil war, but no one believed it would happen. The frightened child raced back to the camp. Sophia’s home was on the edge of the village. Carl caught up with Christina and took her there. When he opened the door, he saw a dozen women from the village huddled together with his sister. The fear in their eyes was terrible to see.

  Christina’s mother stood up. “Run, Carl. Take my daughter and run away.”

  Christina began screaming, “Where’s Daddy?” She bolted toward the fighting. Carl raced after her. He saw a dozen villagers lying dead in the street. Christina found the body of her father among them. She sobbed over him and begged him to get up.

  As if in slow-motion, Carl saw it all again. A soldier came around the corner and spotted her. He raised his gun. Christina’s father’s rifle was lying in the dirt at Carl’s feet. Carl had grown up hunting. He knew how to use a gun. With barely a thought, he snatched it up and fired.

  A second later, he watched the surprise on the soldier’s face fade away. The light went out of his eyes as he fell dead.

  Carl couldn’t get that picture out of his head.

  He had killed a man.

  Nonviolence was a pillar of the Amish faith. For centuries, they suffered persecution without reprisal as the Bible commanded.

  But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

  It was a creed Carl believed in with all his heart, but his faith hadn’t been strong enough. He did not face the death of that child, nor his own certain death, as he should have. God was the giver and taker of life, the judge of men, not Carl King.

  He threw down the gun, grabbed Christina and hid as more soldiers scoured the area for him. He managed to make his way back to his sister’s home, but he was too late. The women had been found by the soldiers looking for him.

  He lived while everyone else died. He should have been brave enough to face his own death as his sister had done, with her Bible in her hands and peace in her soul. Instead, he’d broken a most sacred law: “Thou shalt not kill.”

  Each morning, he prayed for forgiveness. On those nights when his nightmare didn’t come, he began to hope that God had taken pity on him.

  But always, like tonight, the nightmare came back. He was forced to watch a man die by his hand over and over again and to know that his actions had cost his sister her life, too.

  No, he had not been forgiven.

  * * *

  Later the next morning, Carl loaded his equipment in the back of the wagon and waited for Lizzie. He didn’t have to wait long. She came rushing out of the house, still drying her hands on her apron.

  She was out of breath by the time she reached him. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting. I had to get the breakfast dishes done and then I had to get something started for Grandfather’s lunch. I pray that God wants Clara to work for Faith Lapp. I really do.”

  Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes sparkled with excitement. How could someone who had been up before dawn and hard at work for hours look so fresh and adorable?

  He dismissed the thought as unworthy the moment it occurred. He had no right to look upon an Amish maid with such delight. He laid the reins on the bench seat and scooted over.

  Lizzie climbed aboard and picked them up. “You will have to tell me the way.”

  “Go past the school and turn right at the next road. Then it’s about a mile.”

  “I’m excited to see an alpaca up close. Do they really spit at you? How far can they spit?” She was like a kid on her way to the county fair.

  “I have no idea.”

  “My sister Greta would love to visit a farm with such exotic creatures. She loves animals. She has a special way with them, even the stubborn and mean ones.”

  “You should write and tell her all about it.”

  “That is exactly what I will do.”

  She grew silent and some of the happiness faded from her face.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I miss them. I’ve never been away from them before.”

  “You will see them again soon enough.” He wanted to offer more comfort, a shoulder to cry on if she needed one, but he held himself rigid beside her.

  “If I fail to get a job, then I must return home on the bus tomorrow afternoon. As much as I miss them, I don’t want to go back and face them having accomplished nothing, for I know my leaving has caused great heartache.”

  “But it was a brave thing, nonetheless.”

  * * *

  Lizzie thought Carl looked tired and sad this morning. She wondered why, but didn’t wish to pry. She sensed that he needed comforting. After riding a while in silence, she glanced at him. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I didn’t sleep well, that’s all.”

  He just needed cheering up. “I find a cup of herbal tea in the evenings helps me sleep like a babe. I haven’t seen any in Grandfather’s cupboards, but I’m sure you can buy some in town. I will write down the name for you, if you’d like.”

  “Thanks.”

  “If my constant chatter gets on your nerves, just shush me. I can take a hint.”

  He closed his eyes and rubbed his brow. “A little peace would be nice this morning.”

  “Absolutely. I understand completely. I often find I’m not at my best until almost noon. Isn’t it a nice morning? March is such a funny month. A person would think winter is over when we have such a pretty day, but then, bang, the cold weather comes back.”

  “Lizzie.”

  “What, Carl?”

  “Shush.”

  “Oh. Shush as in stop talking?”

  “Is there another kind of shush?”

  She opened her mouth, but he held up one hand. “No, don’t explain. Shush as in stop talking.”

  She managed to be quiet for the rest of the trip, but it was hard. How could she cheer him up if she couldn’t speak to him?

  When they reached the Lapp farm, she met Adrian and Faith’s son, Kyle. A nine-year-old boy with bright red hair, freckles and an outgoing personality, he was happy to share his knowledge of shearing alpacas with everyone. Lizzie could have spent all day just gazing at the beautiful, graceful creatures. An adorable b
aby alpaca, which she learned from Kyle was called a cria, bounced around on stiff legs and darted under the adults standing in a small herd.

  Inside the barn where the men were getting ready to work, Kyle indicated a number of bags stacked on nearby hay bales. “These bags are for the fleece. Alpacas have three kinds of fleece. There’s prime—that’s the best fiber. It’s from their back and ribs. The fleece that we get off their thighs, neck and the legs is called seconds. The rest is called thirds and it isn’t used by spinners. It’s trash, but we keep some for batting inside the cria blankets if the babies are born during cold weather. Our little ones, the ones less than one year old, have prime all over because they’ve never been shorn.”

  “Is he bending your ear?” Faith asked as she entered the barn. She walked with a slight limp and wore a metal brace on her lower leg. Adrian came in with her, leading a white alpaca with a brown-and-white baby trotting at her heels.

  “Not at all,” Lizzie said with a smile for the boy. “I’m enjoying learning all about your beautiful animals.”

  The baby came to investigate the hem of Lizzie’s dress. She had never seen a more adorable creature. She looked at Faith. “Is it all right if I pet him?”

  “Of course. We like to keep the ones we have as tame as possible so that they get used to handling. It makes working with them so much easier. The important thing to remember is that they need to respect humans. We don’t make pets of them. An alpaca that is spoiled with a lot of petting and treats can become aggressive when they are grown, especially the males. Once they have lost respect for a human, they can’t be trusted.”

  “It’s the same with sheep,” Carl said. “It’s often the bottle-fed lambs that become the most aggressive ones.”

  Kyle knelt and gathered the baby in his arms. “This is Jasper.”

  Lizzie stroked his velvety head. The mother watched them intently and made soft humming sounds to her baby. “I’m afraid I could not raise them. I would constantly want to hug them. They are so soft and they have the most beautiful eyes.”

  Carl walked around the mother. “If she was a sheep, I’d pick her up and set her on her rump to shear her. With those long legs, that looks a little tricky.”

  Adrian laughed. “I tried that the first time I attempted to shear Myrtle. She jumped straight up in the air a good four feet off the ground and sent me tumbling backward. Then she spit on me. Don’t worry. We have a sock we use for a muzzle now. You’ll be safe.”

  “I have it right here,” Faith said and came up to put it on.

  Carl tipped his cowboy hat back with one finger. “So how do we do this?”

  Adrian led Myrtle forward until she was standing on a large rubber mat. “It’s a three-person job. Someone needs to hold her head. That will be me. We put ropes around her legs and just stretch her out until she is flat on the ground. It looks a little awkward, but it doesn’t hurt them. I will warn you, some of them really hate this, and they will scream. Others simply lie still until it’s all over and never make a sound. Once we have this girl down on the ground, I’ll tell you how we need the fleece to be cut. Kyle will gather the blanket as it comes off and put it in the bags. Are you ready to start?”

  “As ready as I can get,” Carl said with a lack of certainty.

  Lizzie watched as Faith wrapped loops around each of Myrtle’s legs, then she and Kyle pulled on the ropes until Myrtle was lying on her belly. Several of the other alpacas wandered over to watch what was happening. Having them and her baby nearby kept Myrtle quiet.

  Carl followed Adrian’s instructions and quickly learned the best way to shear the animal. In a matter of a few minutes, Myrtle was released and scrambled to her feet.

  Lizzie giggled. “She looks positively ridiculous.”

  Myrtle’s big woolly body was now skinny and scrawny except for the thick fleece that had been left around her head and a pom-pom at the end of her tail.

  Kyle grabbed the rest of the fleece from the floor around Myrtle’s feet. “They always looked shocked. Like, what just happened to me?”

  Lizzie met Carl’s gaze, and they both chuckled. He said, “She looks like that is exactly what she’s thinking.”

  “Are you from Texas?” Kyle asked.

  Lizzie perked up. Perhaps she would learn something about Carl’s past today.

  Carl frowned. “What makes you think that?”

  Kyle pointed to his head. “Your cowboy hat. I’m from Texas. Lots of people wear hats like yours out there.”

  Kyle was from Texas? Lizzie glanced at his parents. Faith smiled and said, “Ja, our boy is a Texan. Confusing, isn’t it? Tell them how you came to live in Ohio, Kyle.”

  The little boy grew solemn and crossed his arms over his chest. “It went like this. My dad, my first dad, was my aunt Faith’s brother. He moved away from his Amish family and married my first mom. I was born in Texas. Are you with me? Then they died in a car accident. After that, I was really scared and sad. I lived in this home with other kids without parents.

  “I didn’t like it much, but I did like my foster mom. Her name was Becky. Anyway, a social-worker lady brought me here to Ohio to live with my aunt Faith. Then we met Adrian. He had the farm next to our house. Only, it’s our farm now, and someone else lives in my aunt’s house. A nice fellow named Gideon Troyer and his wife, Rebecca. He used to be a pilot.

  “Anyway, Adrian became my new dad because he fell in love with my aunt and married her and they adopted me, so now they are my new mamm and daed. And that’s how I got to be Amish.

  “I do miss having a TV, but I like having alpacas a lot. I have one named Shadow. He’s black as coal, and I get to keep all the money from his fleece when we sell it.” Kyle’s solemn expression dissolved into a wide grin.

  Lizzie struggled to take in all of the information he had dished out so quickly. Faith laughed. “Did you get that?”

  “I think so. Kyle is from Texas.”

  Adrian handed the lead rope to the boy. “Take Myrtle back to the pen and bring one of the others.”

  Kyle rushed to do as he had been asked. He was a charming child, but Lizzie was disappointed that she hadn’t learned anything about where Carl was from.

  Would she ever?

  Chapter Six

  Carl soon relaxed and grew more confident with each animal he sheared. As Adrian had said, some of the animals screamed in protest, but most lay quietly and allowed him to do his job without worrying about injuring them. He was spit at once but managed to jump aside, and only his boot took a direct hit. After that, Faith put muzzles on every animal.

  Lizzie, of course, dissolved into laughter as he scraped his boot clean on a nearby hay bale. Each time she caught him looking at her after that, she pinched her nose and made a face.

  He tried to keep his attention strictly on the task at hand, but having Lizzie working beside him made that difficult.

  Her good humor never lagged as she pitched in to help without being asked. She was soon tying up alpacas as if she’d been doing it for years. When one was a particularly bad squirmer, Lizzie lay down on the ground beside him to help hold the animal still.

  When she wasn’t needed to help control the animals, she was helping to sort and bag the fleece. The whole time, she was smiling and cheerful, chuckling at the antics of the alpacas and making the morning one of the most pleasant he’d had in a long time.

  When noon rolled around, Faith brought a picnic hamper down from the house. Lizzie followed with a large quilt over her arm and a pitcher of lemonade in her hand.

  “Lizzie suggested we eat out here. I think a picnic is a wonderful idea. It’s the first one of the year,” Faith said as Adrian took the hamper from her.

  Lizzie glanced at Carl and then looked away. “It’s such a beautiful spring day that I thought it would be a shame to spend it eating at the t
able inside.”

  “Adrian, would you spread the quilt in a sunny place for us?” Faith indicated the spot she wanted and her husband quickly did as she asked.

  Within a few minutes, they were all settled on the quilt except for Carl. He carried a bale of hay out and put it where he could sit and lean against the trunk of an apple tree.

  Faith withdrew a plate full of ham sandwiches made with thick slices of homemade bread from the hamper. They all helped themselves as Lizzie poured glasses of fresh lemonade. She handed them out to everyone except Carl. When she approached, he was busy wiping his hands with a wet towel. “Just set it on the ground. I’ll get it in a minute.”

  She caught his glance and nodded. It was acceptable.

  “When do you plan to start shearing Joe’s sheep?” Adrian asked.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “How many sheep does Joe have?” Kyle asked as he examined the large clippers Carl had laid aside.

  “He has four rams and about two hundred ewes.”

  Kyle’s eyes widened. “And I thought shearing ten alpacas was a lot of work. How long will it take you?”

  “If the weather holds and nothing goes wrong, we’ll be done in three or four days.”

  Kyle was holding Carl’s shears trying to squeeze the big scissor-like blades together. “Doesn’t your hand get tired?”

  Carl almost choked on his lemonade. “It does. By the end of the week, my hand is very tired. I’ll show you how to use those. A good shearer can earn a tidy sum of cash in the spring.”

  Kyle handed them back. “No, thanks. I’m gonna farm with my dad and grow peaches. How did you learn? Did your dad shear sheep?”

  “Nee, my father is a carpenter.” A sharp stab of regret hit Carl. He hadn’t seen his father since he left home when he was twenty-four years old. He would be twenty-nine this fall. Five years was a long time. When would he be able to go home? When would God grant him the forgiveness he craved?

  “Where does he work?” Lizzie asked softly.