by Tami Hoag
“Yessir,” Trace whispered. He turned away to slink upstairs like the dog he was, dismal and disconsolate. The way he saw it, if he ever grew up to be the kind of real man Dane Jantzen was, it was going to be a pure damn miracle.
SIXTEEN
THE STRAINS OF A CENTURIES-OLD HYMN ROSE INTO the rafters of the Hauer barn to mingle with the chirping of the sparrows and pigeons that looked down on the proceedings with bright, curious eyes. The song was “Dos Lob Lied,” a song of praise, a song from the Ausbund, the Amish hymnal, a book of songs that dated back to the times of the Anabaptist martyrs of sixteenth-century Switzerland. The melody was sung in unison, with no accompaniment, and it bore no resemblance to the songs being sung at that same hour in Our Savior's Lutheran Church or any other church in Still Creek. The verses droned on, medieval in tone and tempo, testaments to faith and suffering in the name of Jesus Christ, sung in the old German dialect.
The floor of the hay loft had been swept clean. Rows of plain wooden benches lined the space. On the right sat the women, young and old, many holding babies on their laps, others holding hands with toddlers that were already squirming in their seats in anticipated boredom of the hours-long service that was to come. The women's dresses, dark blue, dark green, black, fell in graceful folds to their ankles. Over the dresses each wore a long, gauzy white apron that covered the chest and was belted at the waist. They wore no makeup, no jewelry, no elaborate hats. Their hairstyles were identical—parted in the middle, smoothed into coiled braids, and tucked beneath fine mesh prayer kapps that tied loosely beneath their chins.
The men occupied the benches on the left, with some of the young boys taking seats on the straw that had been swept to the side and back. Some of the teenage boys stood in the back near the walk-out door, handy to slip out to check on the horses that had been unhitched and tied in the stalls below or put in the dry lot beside the building. Broad-brimmed hats lined the floor beneath the benches. Like the women, the men were in nearly identical dress, only hair color and length of beard giving individuality. Some wore traditional black coats. Others had opted for a Sunday vest only, due to the warm June morning.
Aaron stood near the open door, ready in his role as host to assist any latecomers with their horses. It looked to him that most everyone had arrived. Cyrus Yoder was not in evidence, but Aaron did not expect him. The oldest of Milo Yoder's boys, Cyrus had broken the Ordnung in as many ways as he could. The elders had been in conference over it this last week, and it was expected that Cyrus would be expelled, the Meidung ordered. He would be shunned as all who left the fold were shunned.
Aaron's gaze fell on old Milo, who had tears streaming into his beard as he strained to sing the old hymn of faith. He could find no compassion in him for the old man. Those who were strong in the Unserem Weg raised children who were strong in the Unserem Weg. To Aaron's way of thinking, Cyrus deserved to be cast out and a close eye kept on Milo and the rest of his offspring for weakness of spirit.
Weakness of spirit.
Lead me not into temptation.
Guilt stabbed him like a knife in the chest as he thought of his own weakness. Elizabeth Stuart. He had thought of her in ways that were not Christian, but carnal. An English woman. She was a danger to him, to his faith. A test. A test from God. God had brought their lives together to try his strength and conviction.
And he was failing.
He would have to try harder, pray harder for guidance. If he was to be a true instrument of the Lord, then he would have to purge from himself this desire for a woman who was so foreign to all he believed in.
He clasped his hands before him and sang a little louder as the congregation segued into another hymn. “. . . and to God's will commend my life, a tool for thy Lord's justice . . .”
The bishop entered the barn then, followed by two preachers and the deacon. They made their way to the front of the congregation, shaking hands with those they passed along the way. Aaron stayed to the side, not feeling worthy of shaking hands with them this day. This would be his day for prayer and meditation. When the meeting was over and all had gone home, he would go down to the creek, down to his Siri, and remain there in meditation until God provided him with an answer to this turmoil of feelings inside him.
Amos Schrock, small and withered, his graying beard hanging from his chin like Spanish moss from a gnarled oak tree, stepped to the front of the gathering of the Gemei and began to preach in his warm, soft voice. “All those who thirst for righteousness shall see the Lord Jesus when he comes, not in the flesh but in the spirit.”
He stood before no altar, no effigy of Christ. He wore no elaborate vestments and held only a well-used German Bible for a prop. No stained glass windows spilled color across the heads of those who had gathered to hear his words. Sunlight beamed a shaft of gold from the window in the peak of the loft, falling like a dusty spotlight from heaven on Amos and the chaff-flecked barn wall that served as a simple backdrop.
At the end of the first sermon, all but the most feeble knelt on the barn floor to pray. The straw rustled as the younger boys rolled over onto their bellies and bowed their heads. In the beat of silence that followed, a horse nickered and stamped below; above, a pigeon cooed. Aaron bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut. Father in heaven—
A sound like a hammer on wood cut through his thoughts, an insistent pounding from some distance that throbbed and reverberated inside his head like the pain of a toothache. He tried to begin his prayer anew, but the pounding only grew louder, then another hammer joined in, and another. The high-pitched whine of a power saw pierced the still Sunday morning air.
Aaron lifted his head and glanced out through the open barn door. Across the road, across from his parents' farm, where the faithful of their district had lined their black buggies along the drive and gathered in their makeshift church to observe the Sabbath, an array of automobiles and pickup trucks were parked. Even from this distance Aaron could see the men working on the resort, swarming over the construction site, a crew of a dozen or more.
The bishop began to read from the New Testament, raising his voice in an attempt to drown out the racket of the English world. The congregation got to their feet. Several heads turned in the direction of the door, faces set in grim scowls. Two of the older boys slipped outside past Aaron. He went after them and caught them gawking at the goings-on across the road.
“See to your chores,” he snapped, fury simmering inside him.
The boys ducked their heads and scrambled down the hill and around the corner of the barn to check horses that doubtless needed no checking. Aaron scowled darkly as he stood with his hands on his hips and stared across the road.
They had no respect for nothing, these English. Not their fellow man, not God or the Sabbath. One of their own was not yet even cold in the ground and they worked at his business on a Sunday. It was heresy, a blatant sin, a slap in the face of all those who kept the commandments. Six days thou shalt labor and do all thy work, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not work.
“Come inside now, Aaron,” Samuel Hauer murmured.
Aaron jerked his head around. His father stood beside him, looking weary and old. Aaron towered over him—had since his teens—but his father had always seemed a pillar of strength to him, physically and spiritually. Samuel was seventy, and the fire within the old man had begun to dim, and the boundless energy that had charged his sturdy frame had been spent, left in the fields over years of hard labor. The righteousness that had once flamed in his blue eyes had softened to a kind of weary wisdom. He offered a gentle smile with it now as he rested his hand on Aaron's rigid forearm.
“Come inside and listen,” he said.
Aaron turned back toward Still Waters. “Nothing but the pounding of hammers am I hearing. The godless pounding nails on Sunday.”
“Judge not, Aaron,” Samuel chastened gently. “They are not of our beliefs.”
“They believe in nothing but themselves.”
“And so they are for God to save and us to pray for.”
Aaron couldn't help the bitterness that soured his tone. He didn't bother to try to hold it back. “They take away our own and yet you pray for them? They take my Siri—”
“God took Siri, Aaron,” Samuel said, his blue eyes faded and sad. “Es waar Gotters Wille.”
God's will. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Aaron let out a carefully measured breath. He knew too much about God's will. More than most here, he thought. It didn't make him any more tolerant.
He gave his father a hard look. “The Meidung is issued on Cyrus Yoder for going out among them.”
Samuel shook his head. His bushy, steel-wool brows pulled together in consternation. “We cannot shun the English, Aaron. You know that. Only ours who break with the Church. You do now work yourself for the English. Are you a hypocrite?”
Aaron's jaw tightened at the reminder of Elizabeth. He wanted to tell his father that was different, that there was a higher purpose in it, that it was a test from God, but he kept his own council. He wanted to say that Elizabeth was different, that he felt a kinship with her, but in his heart he didn't feel that kinship was right and so he said nothing.
He stared across the field for a long moment, listening to the syncopated beat of the hammers as the bishop's voice rose and fell inside the barn. Out on the road a car slowed and pulled over, and a fat woman in a bright green dress got out and aimed a camera at him. At that moment he felt the world closing in on him, squeezing in on his way of life until he felt like a bug under glass, a specimen to be stared at and marveled over by people who understood nothing of his faith. His jaw tightened and he turned his back on the fat woman and her camera.
“You pray for them then, Pop,” he said, walking away. “I cannot. Ich kann net.”
ELIZABETH WOKE ALONE. THE SUN WAS STREAMING IN THE window. Birds were singing. She sat up in bed, blinking and confused, and wondered if the night had been a dream. Then she tried to stretch and pain bit into her shoulder and the fog cleared. Aside from her shoulder, she ached in places she'd forgotten could hurt. The scent of man and sex lingered among the tangled sheets. The attack in the shed had been real. Dane Jantzen in her bed had been real. What had passed between them had been . . . beyond words. She would have been blissful about that if she hadn't been so damned scared.
He was no man for her to fall in love with. He was ornery and mule-headed and cynical toward the fair sex in general and toward her in particular. That wasn't what she needed. But as she thought of the time they had spent together in this bed, she couldn't think of a single need he hadn't met. He had offered her more than his body. He had offered tenderness, comfort, his strength.
And now he was gone, and she thought of the one thing he hadn't offered—his heart.
“Just as well he's gone, sugar,” she mumbled, combing a hand back through her tangled hair. “Before you get used to him.”
She pulled on a robe, gathered some clothes together, and dragged herself downstairs to greet the day. Trace was sitting at the kitchen table as she shuffled in to start the coffeepot. Elizabeth jumped back with a yelp and a hand to her heart as her pulse bolted off like a Kentucky Derby hopeful.
“Oh, my Lord!” she gasped, backing into the counter. “Trace! Honey, you'd like to have given me a heart attack!”
Trace shot up from his chair, concern pulling his brows together above the rims of his Buddy Holly glasses. “Are you all right?” he demanded. “Sheriff Jantzen said somebody attacked you last night.”
Elizabeth wrapped her aching left arm against her stomach and pressed her right hand to her lips as she nodded and tried to compose herself. She couldn't remember the last time Trace had expressed any interest in her well-being. He was at an age when self-absorption was a chronic state, one that had been magnified and intensified in Trace by other problems—his lack of a father, his lack of friends, the move to what was proving to be a hostile environment. But now, suddenly, he stood before her, looking very much the young man ready to avenge his family.
“I'll be fine,” she murmured, dragging a long breath into her lungs. “Somebody was looking for something. I got in the way and got myself trampled is all. Scared me more than anything.”
Trace swore softly and looked away, rubbing the fingers of his left hand through his short dark hair in a gesture he had inherited from Elizabeth. His stomach was churning, partly from the Mountain Dew he was drinking for breakfast, mostly from the stress of the past few days. He still hadn't quite gotten over the shock of coming home and finding the sheriff in his living room. He couldn't believe he hadn't dropped dead on the spot.
“We don't belong here,” he said miserably.
Elizabeth reached out and took hold of his hand. For once he didn't pull back from her. His hand made hers look tiny by comparison. He really was getting to be a man, but when she looked up into his eyes there were still signs of the boy there—uncertainty, a need for reassurance, a need for comfort. The sad joke was, she was feeling all the same things and she was supposed to be the grown-up.
“People get attacked everywhere, Trace,” she said. “Sad to say, but the world is a violent place.”
“It's not just that,” he insisted. “Nobody wants us here. We don't fit in. You said things would be better after we left Atlanta, but they're not. They're worse.”
“Yeah.” Elizabeth sighed, wishing she could refute his statement. She couldn't. “We're in some kind of mess right now, aren't we?”
Trace gave a hoarse, humorless laugh, looking up at the bullet hole in the ceiling. God, he wanted to cry. His mother didn't have any idea what kind of mess he was in. He didn't want to be around when she found out. He wanted to be about a million miles away. In the Brazilian rain forest or on the first manned mission to Mars. Anywhere but within shouting distance of Still Creek, Minnesota. As confused as he was about a lot of things, that was one thing he knew for sure—he wanted out of this place.
“You know, honey,” his mother said softly, “I think we're finding out we can't just run away from trouble. There isn't any magic place where nobody has a past and everybody just loves everybody else. Not on this earth, there isn't. This is the spot we've ended up in. All we can do is dig in our heels and make a place for ourselves.” She looked up at him, her pretty eyes so tired and sad, Trace just about couldn't stand it. “I've spent my whole life not belonging anywhere, Trace,” she said, her voice ragged with a pain that reached out and squeezed Trace's heart. “I'm tired of it. I'm tired of looking for a place that doesn't exist.”
Trace had to choke back a lump in his throat that was about the size of a baseball. Shoot, what kind of a man was he? This move hadn't been easy for his mother. He knew what she had gone through in Atlanta with Butthead Brock and his dirty lies, and the trouble Trace had given her himself with the drugs and all. He knew the kind of mean, spiteful things people said about her around Still Creek, and he knew the long hours she was working trying to make something of the Clarion. Now someone had wrecked the office and attacked her. God knew she had problems of her own. She sure as hell didn't need him whining like some stupid snot-nosed little kid who couldn't tie his own shoes.
“I'm sorry, Mom,” he whispered, blinking furiously at the moisture that was gathering in his eyes. A man didn't cry at a time like this. Especially not in front of his mother.
Elizabeth looked up at him, her heart aching for him. She couldn't think of a time when Trace hadn't tried to act more grown-up and self-reliant than he really was. She could still see him in her mind's eye, looking up at her, those big glasses perched on his little nose, telling her not to worry about him walking to kindergarten by himself. There was so much she wanted to say to him—that she loved him, that she was sorry, too, for the childhood he'd never really had. But the words all stuck in her throat.
They'd never been good at talking to each other. She could shoot her mouth off to everyone else in the world, but when it came to Trace, everyt
hing she felt went so much deeper, she just couldn't dig the words out. She slipped her arms around him instead, and gave him a hug, taking advantage as long as he was being tolerant of having her near him for a change.
When she pulled back, she drew in a big breath and tried to muster a motherly smile. “You look tired,” she said, rubbing a thumb against the corner of his mouth, trying to erase the line of worry the way she had done when he'd been a toddler. “You were out late, I guess.”
“Yeah.”
“Doing what?”
He looked away. “Nothing.”
That fast the emotional drawbridge went up before Elizabeth could do more than get a hold with her fingers. She heaved a sigh and let it go, telling herself she should be glad for the moment they'd had. It was more than he'd given her in months.
She went into the bathroom and drained the water heater in a futile attempt to steam away some of the aches in her body. When she finally emerged, Trace was gone. Dane sat in his place at the kitchen table, drinking a Coke and looking too damn tempting. He was in jeans and boots again, his long legs stretched out in front of him. The sleeves of his faded denim work shirt had been rolled neatly to the elbow.
“Taking the day off from crime busting?” she asked.
“No. I've got to meet Yeager in an hour.”
His gaze caught hers as he rose lazily from the chair. She stood her ground as he stepped too close and slid his hand under her hair to rub his thumb against the nape of her neck, a gesture that seemed strangely, overwhelmingly possessive.
“Are you all right?” he asked quietly.
Stupid question, Elizabeth thought as she managed to nod. There wasn't anything all right about this. She was finding herself drawn to a man she shouldn't want, wanting things she couldn't have, while the whole world went crazy around her. What was right about any of that?
This, she thought as Dane bent his head and kissed her. The kiss wasn't long or deep, but there was a quality of intimacy about it that was almost shocking. She felt breathless and feverish when he stepped back.