Love Finds You in Nazareth, Pennsylvania

by Melanie Dobson

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “For taking such good care of him.”

  He stopped paddling as she continued. “Thank you for caring for Nathan and Timothy and all the children back in Nazareth.”

  His voice filled with concern as he dipped his paddle into the water again. “Before we left Nazareth, Timothy asked me to be his papa.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That he already had a papa.”

  Her heart felt sad for the child. He had a papa, a papa he never saw. “Was he upset?”

  “A little, until I told him I could be his uncle instead.”

  “Oh, that’s perfect.”

  “He said you’ve been visiting him at the Nursery.” He spoke slowly as he paddled, as if every word was weighted.

  “Brother David said he would like it if I kept watch over him.”

  “You have a good heart, Susanna,” he said, and her skin warmed at his words. “You will be a good mother.”

  The warmth stole up her cheeks, and she was grateful he was sitting behind her. “And you will make a good father.”

  Hours passed and then she saw red markings on the trees in front of them, pictures of birds and bear and deer. Christian directed their canoe to the landing underneath. Together they worked to lift the sleeping child from his bed, and when they did, he awoke with another cry for his mama. Susanna pulled Nathan to her chest, humming one of Lily’s songs to him, but this time the song wouldn’t console him.

  Christian lifted the large pack from the canoe and looped it through his arms, around his back.

  “How far is it?” she asked over Nathan’s cries.

  He pointed at a narrow path leading away from the river. “Just up this hill.”

  As darkness rained down on them, she began singing again, but not a song of the Delaware language like she did when they were alone. Instead, she sang a hymn about the Savior’s light in a dark world. Nathan settled into her shoulder and fell back asleep.

  Through all the months of travel earlier in the year, Christian had never enjoyed himself more than he had today. With the beauty of Susanna’s voice trailing him, the picture of her carrying the boy in her arms, something was happening inside him. He’d known for a long time that he and Catharine would never have made good partners on the mission field, but perhaps he and Susanna could be good partners. Perhaps they could even be good parents together.

  Perhaps he’d been missing the truth all along.

  As they hiked up the hill, a harsh voice called out to them from the trees. Guttural words of the Delaware, but he didn’t understand them. He flung out his arm to stop Susanna’s walk.

  “Who is there?” he called as Nathan cried out behind him. Susanna hushed the boy to no avail.

  When there was no response from the woods, he reached for the ax strung alongside his pack. He hoped the man who called was from Langoma’s clan, but he had no way of knowing if he was a friend or a foe.

  “Auweeni,” he said to the darkness, hoping the man would understand the Delaware greeting Samuel had taught him.

  The voice responded this time, but Christian struggled to understand his words.

  Then he felt the gentle pressure of Susanna’s fingers on his arms. But instead of speaking to him, she called out to the voice over Nathan’s cries, speaking the Delaware language like it was her own.

  He looked over at her, stunned. When did his wife learn the language of the Indians?

  The man spoke again, and Christian heard the rustling of leaves. Even as he clutched the ax in his hands, he prayed. He didn’t want any of them to get hurt.

  “Put the ax away,” Susanna told him.

  “Are you certain?”

  “He said he comes as a friend, as one of Chief Langoma’s men.”

  He slowly slid the ax back into its hold as he waited for the man to appear, and when he saw the man’s face, he remembered him as one he had baptized in the river. A young Indian named Moenach.

  He embraced the man.

  Moenach turned to speak with Susanna, and Nathan stopped crying when he saw the Indian. Christian watched in awe as Susanna responded to the man’s words, conversing easily with him while he himself struggled to understand the basic words. Not only had Susanna befriended an Indian woman and cared for her baby, but she had also learned to talk with the Indians. She didn’t need him to go on a mission—she could deliver the message of salvation alone.

  Moenach reached forward, seeming to offer Susanna relief from her load. She shook her head, telling him something that made him smile, and then he escorted them up to the village. When they walked between the huts and up to the lodge, Christian felt like he had come home.

  The two Indians inside greeted Christian when they walked through the door, and then they scooted back as he and Susanna walked toward the fireplace.

  A woman dipped a wooden ladle into a kettle hanging over the fire and offered it to Susanna with a slight bow of her head. Gripping the ladle in her fingers, Susanna sniffed the drink. The Indians made powerful teas of herbs and roots to heal, but there were also poisonous herbs and roots that held the power to steal away a life instead.

  Susanna glanced over at him, questioning him with her gaze. He nodded at her, and she thanked the woman before she took a sip of the tea. Then she yawned.

  The Indian woman, seemingly pleased by the effects of her tea, led Susanna and Nathan to the animal furs in front of the fire. Nathan cuddled close, dozing back to sleep in her arms. More men entered the lodge, and Christian shook their hands until Chief Langoma entered the room.

  The chief extended both arms, shaking Christian’s hand as he spoke in English. “It is good to see you again, my friend.”

  “Are you well?”

  The chief nodded. “Our faith is still strong.”

  “Faith will keep you well.”

  Chief Langoma’s gaze wandered to Susanna and Nathan on the bear rug. “You brought guests with you.”

  Susanna looked up at the man with her warm smile and spoke to him in the Delaware language. The chief’s eyes widened in surprise as he spoke with her.

  Then the chief turned to him. “This is your wife?”

  “Indeed.”

  “She speaks our language much better than you do.”

  “I am a blessed man.”

  The chief looked at the boy in the dim light, his eyes squinting. “We didn’t know you had a son.”

  “He is not mine.” He paused, not knowing exactly how to introduce Nathan to him. “But I believe—I think he might be your grandson.”

  No one spoke as the chief took another step closer. Nathan was asleep now, resting on Susanna’s skirt, and the chief studied his face. “Who is his mother?”

  Susanna wiped her hand across her eyes before she spoke in words that Christian understood. “I knew her as Lily, but you would know her as Wingan.”

  “Wingan.” The chief whispered the name, his gaze locked on the child. Then he looked back at Susanna. “Where is my daughter?”

  “Samuel brought her to the settlement at Nazareth before Nathan was born, and she lived among us for almost two years.”

  “She is still in this Nazareth?”

  Susanna shook her head. “She left with a man known as Howling Wolf.”

  The chief clutched his hand to his chest, like the pain was too much for him to bear. “There is no good in this Howling Wolf.”

  There was no good found in any of them, not without the Savior, but Christian didn’t say the words. It would only discount the man’s pain, and he would never discount a father’s sorrow at the loss of his daughter.

  The chief began to speak rapidly in the Delaware language, and Susanna began to translate his words.

  “Wingan’s mother and I—we were already old when we had her. My other daughters were all grown and had children of their own, and when my wife died, I didn’t know what to do with our youngest one. She was supposed to marry the son of a friendly tribe, but she met Howling Wolf
instead—

  “When I discovered she was with child, I was very angry and she ran away. Howling Wolf came here after she left, but when he couldn’t find her, he killed one of my granddaughters for revenge. I thought he would kill Wingan as well when he found her.”

  Susanna spoke in English for him and then in Delaware for the Indians. “Wingan asked us to protect Nathan, but we are afraid that he won’t be safe in Nazareth, not with Howling Wolf searching for him.”

  “Howling Wolf is not a man easily deterred.”

  “Maybe he will marry her?”

  The chief shook his head. “He already has three wives.”

  A gasp escaped from Susanna’s lips, and Christian put his arm around her shoulders. Perhaps Lily’s eyes would open; perhaps the truth she’d learned in Nazareth would penetrate her actions. Perhaps she would still come for her son before she became the fourth wife or not a wife at all.

  “Will you keep Nathan here,” he asked, “until Wingan returns for him?”

  “She will not return,” he said sadly. “Howling Wolf doesn’t love my daughter, but she still runs back to him whenever he asks.”

  One of the women offered them a platter filled with roasted meat and boiled corn, and both Christian and Susanna ate so quickly that he didn’t stop to wonder what type of meat they’d eaten. Then the woman handed the chief a ladle filled with the tea. He sniffed it before he took a long sip. “Wingan is like a child herself. She doesn’t think about how her actions impact those around her. She brought destruction on our village, and now she brings it to you as well.”

  “She hasn’t brought destruction on us.”

  The sadness in his eyes deepened. “It will come.”

  Christian shook off the ominous words. The Lord would keep watch over them—they didn’t need to be afraid.

  The chief took another long sip of the drink. “I will continue to pray that the Christ Child will protect her and her baby.”

  “God can’t protect someone who doesn’t obey Him, and sometimes, for reasons we don’t always understand, He doesn’t protect those who do love and obey Him.” Susanna held the baby out to Langoma. “But He did protect Nathan.”

  Langoma eyed the baby for a moment, this son of Howling Wolf and his daughter. “Howling Wolf won’t stop searching until he finds him.”

  Christian nodded. He didn’t know this warrior, but he remembered well the fear on Samuel’s face at the sight of him, the fear that laced his friend’s words. Howling Wolf’s search would inevitably lead him to Chief Langoma and his people.

  “Perhaps we can still take him back with us.” Susanna looked at Christian, hope cresting in her gaze. “We could go to a faraway place, like Mariana’s St. Thomas.”

  “He will only be safe among his people.”

  But even as Christian said it, he realized that the chief hadn’t offered to allow Nathan to stay with the clan. Perhaps he feared that Howling Wolf would kill another member of his family if the child remained among them.

  The boy stirred, and as he sat up on Susanna’s lap, his gaze roamed around the room, searching the strange faces, perhaps looking for his mother. Then his eyes rested on the chief.

  At first Christian thought the boy might cry again, afraid of the weathered face. But he seemed to study the wrinkles on the man’s face instead. And then he smiled.

  They stared at each other for a moment, grandfather and child, the fire flickering behind them.

  And then the chief reached out his hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Nathan rested against Susanna’s side by the fire while the chamomile tea warmed her insides. And then her eyelids began to droop. Christian picked up Nathan and held him in his arms while the chief offered his hand to her. His skin was rough, yet the hands were strong as they helped her stand. Several of the Indian men reached for the visitors’ packs, and then the chief guided her and Christian and Nathan outside the lodge to a small hut next door.

  The chief must have known that love for Nathan entangled her heart, that it would be hard for her to part from him so soon. But just as the chief seemed to understand the bond that had formed between her and this child, she understood that she must leave him here for his protection as well as the protection of their community in Nazareth. But it didn’t mean the leaving would be easy.

  With Nathan in her arms, she stepped into the mud-and-bark hut, and the chief hung a lantern on the wall. There was no bureau or even a bed, only straw mats on the floor covered with deerskins and a bench along the wall. Rows of dried herbs hung on strings across the ceiling, like a canopy of leaves from the forest.

  Christian set his pack along the wall and then pulled a curtain made of animal skin over the doorway and secured it. He helped her lay Nathan on one of the mats, but she stood frozen by the worn curtain, her eyes taking in the surroundings. They were far from the bedchamber in Nazareth and the pressure that came with it, but she didn’t know exactly how to prepare for bed with her husband in the room.

  Her fingers brushed over the ribbons laced across her bodice. She couldn’t sleep in her dress and yet she couldn’t disrobe in front of this man, even if he was her husband. She stared at him, not knowing what to do. He must have seen the distress in her gaze, because he turned to dig in his backpack. Then he tossed a blanket onto the mattress beside her.

  “I meant to ask the chief one more question,” he said as he moved toward the curtain. “Do you mind if I step out for a few minutes?”

  She shook her head. “Please don’t feel like you must rush.”

  He flashed her an awkward grin. “I won’t.” Then he left her.

  She tucked a blanket around Nathan and undressed as quickly as she could, hanging her dress and cape on a hook. She wrapped another blanket over her shoulders, covering her shift, and lay down on the mattress away from the light of the candle and the curtain. She closed her eyes.

  Nathan scooted to her side, and she sighed. The room smelled sweet, the aroma of savory and thyme, and she thought back to the women who’d served her tea and roasted veal so graciously, and of the chief who was wounded by the choices of his daughter. She thought of the closeness of their community in the lodge, the informality of their welcome and their evening prayer together before they retired to their huts. And she loved it all.

  Nathan’s little hand reached out for her, circling her arm, and she squeezed it.

  Chief Langoma and the others would do all they could to keep Nathan safe from Howling Wolf, but even so, as she lay on the mat, she prayed that God would blind Howling Wolf’s eyes from the truth. She prayed that no matter where Howling Wolf searched, he wouldn’t be able to find the child.

  Christian stood outside the hut until he no longer heard Susanna moving. When he slipped back through the curtain, his gaze rested on Susanna’s back. Nathan snuggled close to her. Sitting on the bench, he removed his boots as he watched her, wondering if she really slept or if she were pretending.

  When had his wife learned the language of the Delaware? How did she care so much for these people she hardly knew? There were so many questions he longed to ask her.

  Contentment flooded his soul as he leaned against the bench. Even as he’d begun to appreciate Susanna during the past year, he hadn’t loved her as he should have. He was cold, abrasive even, and so focused on his tasks that he often wounded those around him.

  There was no doubt that if Susanna could forgive him his past, she would love him well as his wife. But could he figure out how to love her?

  He rubbed his hands together, admiring the curve of her back in the lantern light. He longed to take Susanna in his arms—a woman he barely knew but someone he admired beyond words. He longed to hold her as only a husband holds his wife. The lot had given her to him as a gift, and he’d failed her.

  He blew out the candle and lay down on the bench. Perhaps his deception had cost him Susanna’s love, but still, he wanted to try to learn how to love her well.

  Catharine heard the savage
Indians long before she saw them. They shrieked outside the door of the Gemeinhaus, the sound snaking through her skin and shaking her core. She squeezed her eyes closed and blocked her ears like it would make the sound disappear. Sisters abandoned their beds around her, fleeing down the steps as they shouted instructions to bar the doors and windows.

  Catharine picked up the bag of gold and belted it around her shift. Then she pulled her hooded cloak over her nightdress. Elias met her at the top of the stairs as the screams outside turned into chanting. She didn’t know how many Indians surrounded them, but in the darkness, it sounded like a legion.

  He kissed her and then prodded her down the steps. “We have to be ready to run, Catharine.”

  There would be no running from these savages and they both knew it, but she nodded her head, trying to be strong.

  Something pounded against the door below, and the sisters rushed up toward them. Several men stayed downstairs, and she could see a solitary musket pointed at the cabinet that blocked the front door. A pile of chairs and the table had been stacked around the cabinet as a fortress against their enemy, and she prayed it would hold.

  “Hurry,” Elias said, leading her back up into the dormitory for the brothers. He opened the shutters, and below them, she could see the Indians circling the house, their war paint glowing in the light of their torches. Like the eyes from her nightmare.

  There would be no escape through the window either.

  She fell to her knees, begging God for help, and Elias prayed beside her. At first they prayed that God’s angels would rally around them, protecting their house from the evil one, but then she smelled smoke below. It was too late. Instead of rescuing them, God seemed to be calling them home. They would suffer, and they would probably die. And perhaps, like the Count had told them, they would even be forgotten.

  She prayed that God wouldn’t forget them.

  A woman screamed, and then she pushed Catharine aside as she flung herself out the window, jumping into the arms of their enemy. Catharine refused to look below.