Love Finds You in Nazareth, Pennsylvania

by Melanie Dobson

  Christian’s breath rushed out of him with relief at the chief’s offer to return, but not all the men in the circle were pleased with the invitation. Their eyes blazed at him like the fire.

  The chief pointed at the benches that surrounded the room, built against the log walls. “It is too dangerous for you to go back outside. You must sleep here for the night.”

  “We won’t be able to sleep in here,” Joseph said, and Christian agreed. Between the men raging outside and the council rustling within, they wouldn’t be able to rest. It would be better to camp outside the settlement, in the quiet of the trees.

  “If we leave—” Samuel’s words were quieter now, and they were his own. “Not even the chief can stop them if they decide they want to kill you.”

  Christian weaved his fingers through this hair as he met Joseph’s eyes. “We must stay.”

  A naked Indian raced by the doorway with a tomahawk in his hand, and when Joseph saw him, he concurred.

  Christian took a blanket from his pack, even though the air was warm, and he pulled the blanket over him on the hard bench. Somehow it offered him a bit of security in this unfamiliar world. Beside him, the council continued their discussion as if the white men had already left, in a language he wanted to understand.

  The words of Psalm 23 rolled through his mind. His life was not his own, even in the darkest of the valleys. Outside, the warriors continued to shriek and chant, but the chief remained in the room without a sip of the drink. Even more important than the protection of the chief, Christian knew his life was God’s, to take home when his death would serve God in more ways than his life. If necessary, he was willing to give up his life for the sake of the good news.

  As he closed his eyes, he thought of his wife back in Nazareth, grateful that she was sleeping in a safe place tonight. Catharine’s face flooded his mind, and he opened his eyes. As he watched the chief and the council pass the pipe around again, he prayed that God would take away the sin of his flesh.

  But even with his prayers, he dreamed of Catharine. He could fight the thoughts during the day, but in the darkness, in his time of rest, she tormented him.

  Hours later Samuel shook his arm, and Christian blinked at the faint strain of moonlight that crept through the doorway. The night was quiet—almost too quiet.

  “Christian,” Samuel whispered, “You must get up.”

  He looked toward the dark frame of the door. “What is it?”

  “They passed out after they finished the rum,” Samuel said. “But when they wake, they will be in a terrible mood.”

  “Now that the drink is gone,” Christian whispered, “perhaps we can share the Gospel with them.”

  Samuel shook his head. “They will be angry and looking for trouble.”

  A flame flickered in the doorway and Christian recognized the young woman who’d fed them the roasted corn the night before. She held a torch in one hand and a small burlap bag in the other. Her words were soft but sounded urgent.

  “She baked corn bread for our travels,” Samuel explained. “She says we must hurry.”

  Christian thanked her as he took the gift.

  As Samuel woke Joseph, Christian quickly rolled his blanket and tied it to his pack. The three men slipped out the door, into the dark village. The quiet village. Not even a dog barked as they crept past the huts and cabins and back into the forest.

  Christian imagined a host of angels silencing the dogs and deafening ears as the men moved toward the woods. It wasn’t until they were hidden in the trees that they heard the dogs bark.

  His legs shaking, he climbed into the canoe they’d hidden along the river and quietly began to paddle with the others toward their refuge on the Lehigh.

  Annabel bustled around the kitchen in the basement of the Sisters House, seemingly more concerned about her kettle of lamb stew than the presence of Indians around Nazareth. The floor was packed dirt and the benches and tables were crudely hewn from trees felled in the surrounding forest. An assortment of iron kettles, pails, and utensils hung on pegs around the fireplace and brick oven, and on the wall to the left of the fireplace was the door to a pantry stocked full for the winter.

  “Not long ago, this was Indian land,” Annabel explained to Susanna as she added fresh thyme and carrots to the stew. “They pass around our town every few weeks and sometimes through it as they travel between settlements.”

  Susanna rolled the dough on the table. Even as she listened to Annabel, something didn’t feel right. The men she’d seen hadn’t been passing through their settlement. They had stopped outside Nazareth and tried to intimidate her with their presence.

  She realized that there was nothing safe about living in the Colonies with so many dangers in the wilderness and people from around the world trying to abide together. Nor was there anything safe about going on a mission to the Indians. But she still wanted to be wise to the warnings inside her head.

  “They were so close to the Nursery.” The women and children who stayed there seemed very far away from the rest of their community.

  “I will speak to Elder Graff,” Annabel concurred.

  Susanna sighed as she shaped the dough, guilt escalating from her fears. She was here to befriend the Indians, not fan rumors about them.

  She sprinkled flour on a wooden peel and placed the dough on it, trying to chase away her fears by humming one of Lily’s songs. Her assignment changed almost daily, but the kitchen was one of her favorite places to work.

  She opened the metal door on the brick oven beside the fireplace and slid the peel inside. Shaking it gently, she left the bread to bake and began setting plates on the table.

  That evening, as Susanna sat beside Lily during supper, she told her friend about the two Indian men she had seen the day before. Lily’s eyes grew wide. “Were they dressed as English or as natives?’

  “As natives,” she replied. “Both of them had black hair as long as yours.”

  Lily set her spoon on the table. “Did one of them have a tattoo on his chest? A gray wolf with yellow eyes?”

  Susanna looked away, trying to hide her blush at the thought of looking at the man’s bare chest. “There was some sort of picture on his chest, but I don’t know if it was of a wolf.”

  Lily reached down and unwrapped her son from the cradleboard. He cooed softly as she rocked him in her arms. When she looked up at Susanna again, her eyes filled with trepidation. “You will tell me if you see them again?”

  “I will.”

  “Some Indians are good friends to us, but not all of them are friendly.” Lily spooned lamb stew into her mouth and swallowed. “They kill both the English and those Indians who befriend them.”

  “Why do they want to kill us?”

  “Some because white men stole from them and they think all white men are bad. Others because they want white men to leave this land.” Lily looked down at Nathan again. “We must hide if they return.”

  Susanna thought of the few buildings in Nazareth and the hundred and fifty brothers and sisters who lived inside them. There wouldn’t be many places for all of them to hide.

  Lily began to sing softly to Nathan, a song about a mother bear who loved her cub, loved him so much that she had to leave him to chase the hunter away.

  Chapter Twelve

  Catharine fanned herself on her straw mattress with the turkey feathers Elias had gathered on the outskirts of Gnadenhutten. In spite of the complaints about the chilly air, she’d opened the shutters in their second-story room because it was too hot for her to sleep. None of her roommates complained any longer. Rebecca and the others slept while Catharine continued to fan herself.

  Rebecca seemed to be satisfied with the sleeping arrangements in Gnadenhutten, but Catharine was not. Elias had promised her that they would stay together in a tent or a separate room on this mission. Some of the married Indians slept as families on a cliff above the main village, but after they’d arrived, Elias explained that he’d learned that, as messengers, t
hey didn’t want to separate themselves into a different house. They would live in community with their brothers and sisters as they had done in Nazareth.

  She’d traveled all this way to be with her husband, and she wanted to feel Elias’s arms around her at night, all night, like she had in their tent along the trail. Sometimes she even wanted him to sweep her all the way back to London, to the safety and comfort of the manor her father had abandoned when he joined the Brethren. They could live there together as husband and wife.

  Coming to the New World had been a mistake. She’d known it the moment they arrived in Nazareth, but she had hoped that as the days passed, as she stole time away with Elias, she would forget her days in London. But she hadn’t forgotten.

  She could dream about the possibilities, but the truth was, even if she traveled back to Europe, she couldn’t return to London. Her parents had sold the manor house along with most of their belongings so they could travel with the Count. Elias was her stability, her center, and she loved him with her entire being. She just didn’t love the wilds of Pennsylvania.

  Perhaps, if they couldn’t return to London, Elias would take her to Philadelphia. Or New York. With his many talents, he could easily acquire a position as an architect or a builder, and they could live as a married couple in one of those brownstone homes she’d seen during their journey. She could send their children to the Brethren’s school in Bethlehem, and she and Elias could attend the Lutheran church in the city.

  She twisted on her mattress, but she couldn’t rid herself of the aching in her lower back or her bladder. Her abdomen swelled, and she knew she had to use the privy yet again. The longer she waited, the less sleep she would get, and she refused to use that chamber pot they kept in the corner.

  Standing to her feet, she tied her bag of coins around the outside of her cotton shift and wrapped her cloak over her shoulders before she crept toward the door. A small room divided the loft into sleeping rooms for the men and women, and moonlight trailed shadows across the floor, cascading down the staircase in front of her.

  With a glance toward the closed door of the men’s room, she wished she could sneak inside and nudge Elias to join her. The thought made her smile in the light. She could imagine him following her outside into the cool autumn night.

  Of course, he would be mortified if the other men awoke and found her in their room. One day she would tell him what she suspected—that he would be a father in the spring—but she didn’t want him or anyone else to guess her condition yet. They would want her to return to Nazareth right away.

  Tiptoeing down the steps, she nudged open the front door and snuck out into the darkness. The privy wasn’t far from the lodge, close to the hillside that separated their home from a cluster of Indian huts on the other side.

  Before Samuel and the others left for their journey to Tanochtahe, she and Elias had met on the mossy bank of the river. Her pulse raced as she remembered the stolen moments they’d had in the starlight, hidden by the bramble. And in those moments together, she and Elias had made love. They’d made love and then they had fought.

  She hated to fight with him, hated that there was no time for them to resolve their differences. Back in Marienborn she’d vowed to cleave to her husband but, as she told him on the riverbank, the opportunity to do so was a rarity, whether it was back in that ridiculous chamber in Nazareth or here among the Indians.

  He’d chastised her for her selfishness, for her seemingly not caring whether the Indians heard the news about their Savior. She wanted the Brethren to share the good news with the Indians, but in her heart, she also wanted a home and a husband who could be with her every day. She wanted to bathe herself in the lights of the city and waltz across a dance floor.

  Her very life seemed to be shriveling out here, and some moments she felt as if she could hardly breathe, as if she were a mouse trapped in a hole collapsing around her. She wanted to embrace life like she once had instead of being smothered by the bitterness that seemed to steal joy. She didn’t have to live in a manor to do it, but she longed for privacy along with the companionship of the man she loved. She wanted to worship God every day, but she didn’t want it to be required of her.

  The next time she and Elias met, under the moonlight, perhaps, she wanted him to know how much she loved him. And she wanted to talk about their future. She needed to hear him say that they weren’t going to be trapped in Gnadenhutten or Nazareth forever.

  A pack of coyotes howled on the hill as she rushed toward the privy and then hurried back toward the lodge. Before she reached the door, though, something moved by the trees. Her heart lurched, not knowing if it was an animal or a person watching her.

  Christian felt foolish for being outside, for stalking Catharine from the shadows, and yet he wanted to speak with her. After all these months, he’d never had the opportunity to ask what happened to their promises, and it tormented him every time he was near her.

  Now that he was back from his travels and all the other Brethren were asleep, he could finally ask her about their past. And in their speaking, he hoped he could finally be relieved from the uncertainty of what had occurred between them. In her answers, he prayed he would find some relief.

  “Catharine,” he whispered as he stepped into the moonlight.

  She opened her mouth, and he knew what would follow.

  “Don’t scream,” he commanded, a little louder now, and he could see the powerful beauty of her eyes wavering between fear and relief. Her fear rapidly faded away as she pulled her cloak close to her chest.

  “What are you doing out here?” she hissed.

  “I heard someone on the steps,” he began, and then he felt ridiculous at the words.

  Initially he hadn’t known that the footsteps were hers, but he knew it was Catharine when she returned to the lodge. Instead of staying in the shadows where he should have, hidden until she was safely in the lodge again, he had made himself known.

  “So you followed me?”

  “It’s not safe for you to be out here alone.”

  She stepped away from him. “Elias would be furious if he found us out here together.”

  Her skin glowed in the moonlight, and in that moment, he wished he had never heard her steps, never followed her down the stairs.

  She picked up her skirt. “I’m going inside.”

  “Catharine—” If only he knew the truth of what had happened back in Marienborn, maybe he could stop the torment.

  When she scooted around him, he reached for her arm. “Please, wait.”

  She yanked it away. “Elias doesn’t know what happened between us, and he cannot find out.”

  “What did happen between us?” he demanded, still clutching her cloak. “I came to Marienborn to marry you, but you married another.”

  She stopped pulling away from him. “Why didn’t you ask for me at Marienborn?”

  “I did ask for you,” he said quietly. “The lot rejected my request.”

  “The lot was right.”

  Her response rattled him; he couldn’t seem to comprehend what she was saying. The lot wasn’t right. It had kept them apart when they were supposed to marry.

  “I couldn’t marry you, Christian.”

  Her words scalded him, and he could do nothing but listen to her explain.

  “I knew it the moment you were chosen to go on a mission to the Indians that we couldn’t marry.”

  “You would have rejected the will of the lot?” he asked slowly, not knowing what else to say. Better to have her reject the lot than to reject him.

  “I would have.”

  “You said you wanted to marry me.”

  Her voice softened. “I once cared for you, Christian, but I never loved you, not like I love Elias.”

  “You would have said no….” His voice trailed off in disbelief.

  He remembered well their days together in London, the day he proposed the idea of marrying Catharine to her father. Robert Weicht had already decided that they woul
d join the Unity of the Brethren, and he approved of their marriage. Christian and Catharine were walking in the gardens behind the Weicht home the afternoon he shared his heart with her, and she’d said she wanted to marry him as well.

  He relocated from London to Marienborn the moment the Count requested he come. He’d been passionate about receiving his assignment to the Colonies and even more passionate about his marriage to Catharine.

  “We never had an opportunity to speak at Marienborn,” Catharine said, her voice soft again. “I’m sorry if you thought I was waiting for you.”

  “Of course I thought you were waiting, Catharine. We talked of marriage.”

  “That was before you decided to go on a mission.”

  His hand swept in front of him. “And yet here you are, on a mission.”

  “It’s only temporary.”

  “The laboress in Marienborn…she said you would make a good companion for a missionary.”

  Catharine clucked her tongue as she took a step back toward him. “No woman wants to marry because she would make a good companion, Christian. She wants to marry because she believes in a man and his mission. She marries because she desires to love and respect him.”

  His mind flickered back to his talk with Susanna and how the light had faded from her face when he said he’d married her because it was required of him to marry. He shook his head in the darkness. He didn’t know anything about women, not about what they wanted or what they needed.

  He rubbed his hands together. “But you once desired to be with me—and I desired to be with you.”

  “Stop talking, Christian.”

  The sound of Elias’s harsh voice made him jump, and Christian turned, tasting the words that had just left his mouth. The words about desiring Elias’s wife.

  Elias was a steady calm, his eyes on his wife. “What are you doing?”