EIGHT
Katie pulled the door shut and paused with her hand on the latch while willing her pulse to slow. Jesse’s gaze had sent blood racing through her veins in an all-too-familiar rise of emotions. Not since before Samuel’s death had she felt the giddy lightness that came from the admiring attention of a handsome man.
An Englisch man, she reminded herself. Not Amish. And not for me.
Years ago she had given her life to the church. She’d knelt before the bishop in front of the whole Apple Grove district, repeated the Confession, and been anointed with the waters of baptism. She had not made that commitment lightly. She and Samuel had discussed their decision many times during their courtship. Never had there been the slightest doubt that they would both be baptized. It was the life she had been raised to, the only way she had ever known, and not once had she considered another. For all her life she would follow Christ in the way He had called her to follow Him, as an Amish woman.
Of course, she’d always imagined she would have Samuel by her side. They had knelt in baptism together as they intended to live—side by side, sharing every joy and every burden.
Tears threatened, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the sting. At moments like this she missed him with an intensity that threatened to pull her back into the dark cave of grief in which she’d lived during the months following his death. And yet…
She opened her eyes and noted the sunlight gleaming through the small window high in the door. What she missed most about Samuel was his friendship. They had been close friends from childhood, at play and at school and at Sunday night singings. But if she were honest with herself, never had his glance sent the blood racing through her veins like Jesse’s.
“Are you coming, Katie?”
Sarah’s call provided a welcome distraction from her thoughts. Katie left the door and entered the kitchen, where Maummi Switzer stood at the work surface arranging a mound of burned sweet cakes on a tray. The tight set of her lips spoke loudly of her opinion of the overcooked treats. Or perhaps her disapproving scowl was for Sarah. Draped over a chair at the table, Sarah sat with her legs spread wide beneath her dress and her arms dangling at her sides. Katie scanned her flushed face, concerned with the swelling she saw there.
“Honey, I don’t know how much longer I can keep this kid in.” Her lower lip protruded and she blew upward to sweep the loose strands of hair from her blues eyes. “I swear I feel that if I squatted down in the corner he’d slide right out.”
Maummi Switzer looked toward the corner where she pointed and then fixed a scandalized glare on her guest. “Ugly words soil a pretty mouth.”
Sarah shrank back. “You mean I shouldn’t a said that?” She looked at Katie for an answer.
Katie shook her head. “’Tis considered unbecoming to speak of the miracle of birth in such a manner.”
Confusion colored her face. “Even among women? I’d never talk like that in front of the men, a’course, but I figured I was safe here.” She cast a hurt glance toward the older woman, who had returned to her task.
Katie spared an understanding smile for her friend. Nearly a year ago Amos Beiler had fetched the woman he had fallen in love with from a saloon in Lawrence, Kansas, to be his wife and mother to his children, and to live a Plain life in Apple Grove. She’d embraced Amish customs with an enthusiasm that many girls born to the faith never exhibited, but her improper behavior was, at times, shocking. Katie had befriended her and undertaken the task of instructing her in acceptable Amish ways, but at times even Katie was surprised by the crass and unacceptable comments that came from Sarah’s mouth.
“Purity is not a garment we don to impress men or even other women,” she explained in a patient tone. “Purity is a way of life. An Amish woman’s mind must focus on Christlike thoughts and reject coarseness in any form.”
Sarah’s shoulders slumped. “I might as well give up, then. You’d be shocked at the thoughts that never make it outta my mouth. Some would probably curl your toes up right inside your shoes.”
Katie caught a flash of amusement on Maummi Switzer’s averted face.
“A good thing, then, that you have learned to control your tongue.” She tilted her head and studied Sarah through narrowed eyes. Her baby was still at least two months from birth, so the swelling of her fingers and ankles, and the puffy skin beneath her eyes, was faintly disturbing. “How do you feel? Are you drinking the raspberry leaf tea?”
“Every day, though I can’t abide the taste without adding a couple a dollops of honey. Amos says I drink more honey than tea.”
That might explain the puffiness. Perhaps it was not so much swelling as added weight, resulting from overindulgence in sweets. Still…
“Do not eat so much salt pork,” she advised. “Stick with fresh, and cook without seasonings for a week or two.”
Maummi Switzer nodded in agreement, and a satisfied feeling settled over Katie. Though the older woman was not a midwife, she’d done a lot of doctoring in her lifetime.
“Das gut.” The elderly woman set a platter piled with treats on the table between them.
“Why I swan, would you look at that?” Sarah eyed the platter with delight. “You made my burned-up sweet cakes look like a feast. That bread looks so fluffy and light, not like mine a’tall. But is that my apple butter in your pretty little dish?”
“Ja. The bread is fresh this morning and tasty with apple butter.” She glanced at the two wrapped bundles still on the work counter. “We will have those for our supper tonight. Danki for the bounteous gift.”
Sarah preened, obviously pleased with herself. Katie considered telling her that one or two offerings was considered sufficient when paying a social call, and in fact more made the visitor appear overeager for the host’s approval, but she didn’t have the heart to deflate the woman’s pleasure in her successful visit.
Maummi looked at Katie. “Reach down cups for the water, please.”
She left the table and crossed the room to the shelf where the cups lay in neat rows. Rising on her toes, she reached up and grasped the first two.
“Oh, look at you, so slender and pretty.” Sarah’s sigh held a note of longing. She spread her fingers and encompassed her huge round stomach like a cage. “I used to have a waist like yours. Someday I will again, the good Lord willin’.”
Though she knew Sarah’s words were kindly meant, the prickle of impending tears stung her eyes. For years she had longed for her flat belly to swell with a precious child, but it was not to be. For a reason unfathomable to her, the Lord had willed that his daughter, Katie Beachy Miller, was not to know the joy of motherhood. And because she could not inflict her barrenness on another, neither would she know again the joy of marriage. An image bloomed, of Jesse’s brown eyes admiring her across the porch. She thrust it away and quickly turned her back to the room, lest anyone see the tears that blurred her vision.
After the women disappeared into the house, Jesse saw the three Beiler children eyeing Butch. The younger girl looked to be around his age, though he was nearly as tall as the older one. But it was Amos’s boy, seven-year-old Karl, who took control of the situation.
“You got a creek around here?” he asked Butch.
With a quick glance toward the fence, Butch shook his head.
“How about chickens?”
Butch cocked his head. “Yeah, we got chickens.”
Mischief sparkled in the younger boy’s eyes. “Will you show me?”
“Karl.” Amos leveled a stern gaze on his son. “Do not chase Jonas Switzer’s chickens. If they stop laying eggs, as ours did, I will send you to peel a switch.”
“Ja, Fader.”
The boy’s shoulders slumped forward in submission, but from the angle of his rocking chair, Jesse saw the spark of mischief flare even brighter. He bit back a chuckle. A rascal like little Karl was exactly what Butch needed to stir up his boyish tendencies.
“I will watch him, Fader,” the older girl promised. No doubt the m
antle of responsibility fell on her shoulders quite often, with a brother like Karl and a mother like Sarah, who was just as likely to fall in with his lively ways as correct them.
“There are some kittens in the shed out behind the barn,” Butch offered. “The mother hid ’em, but I found ’em yesterday.”
The younger girl’s eyes lighted. “Will you show us?”
He nodded, and the children left the porch. The men watched until they disappeared into the barn. Jesse noted the faraway looks on his friends’ faces. No doubt they were remembering similar times from their own childhoods. He’d never had much of a boyhood himself. Pa died when he wasn’t too much older than Butch, and he joined his first cattle drive in order to send some money back home to Ma. Not much place for mischief-making on the trail.
“So, Jonas,” said Luke when the four men were alone, “I see the fence is still in place. You had any more trouble from Littlefield?”
Jonas shook his head, but Jesse noticed he avoided meeting anyone’s eye.
“No trouble?” Jesse twisted his lips. “Not unless you count those thugs of his riding along the other side of that fence every day, glaring this way and upsetting the women. Soon as I can get back up on my horse, I’ll show them an upsetting thing or two.”
Jonas turned an alarmed face his way. “And be shot again?” He shook his head so hard the round hat slipped down on his forehead. He resettled it. “Neh. Land is not worth the cost of a man’s life.” A teasing smile tweaked at his lips. “Even an Englisch man like you.”
Jesse ignored the jibe for what it was, an attempt to distract him. “But it’s your land. You can’t let Littlefield get away with stealing.”
Signs of an internal struggle played across Jonas’s face, but beside him Amos’s expression remained placid.
“You do not understand Amish ways.” Amos spoke not as one who sought to convince, but matter-of-factly, by way of explanation. “Peace is valued above all. Without peace, no amount of land matters.”
“I understand, truly I do.” Luke leaned against the porch railing, his long legs stretched out and his boots crossed at the ankle. “Living with Emma these six years past, I’ve started to understand a bit about the life here. But you’re not talking about fighting with a peaceful man, Jonas. Littlefield isn’t one of your Amish brothers.”
“All men are our brothers in Christ,” he replied instantly.
Jesse bit back a scowl. That sounded to him like a rote reply, something memorized from that Ordnung of theirs. And yet Jonas’s voice rang with conviction.
“Even a man who’d shoot a friend in the back?”
Troubled eyes fixed on him. Jonas nodded with obvious reluctance. “Even that man.”
“Well, I don’t understand that at all,” Jesse snapped.
Luke gave him a quick warning look, and he then spoke in a level, reasonable tone. “Look, do you think Littlefield will stop at stealing your land? If he gets away with this, he’ll move on to someone else.”
The conversation standing in front of the house stirred in Jesse’s memory. “Luke’s right. He’s already taken advantage of a pair of widows back East, using their names to secure more land than he’s allowed and no doubt cheating them out of what they’re due.”
“He won’t stop with them, either,” Luke said. “I’ve been doing some checking, and the word I got is he’s conniving and greedy. Once he beats you down he’ll move on to someone else, and he won’t stop until he can lay claim to every bit of land in this whole territory.”
“He’ll run you out of here, Jonas.” Jesse looked at Amos. “And you may be next.”
They wore twin troubled expressions at the idea, but neither of them looked convinced yet.
“I don’t know about you,” Jesse said, “but I for one am not letting Sawyer get away with shooting me in the back. If he’ll do it to me, he’ll do it to someone else.”
“That’s right,” agreed Luke. “And Littlefield’s the one who sent him after Jesse, you can count on that. If we don’t do something to stop him, we might as well be aiming the gun at another man and pulling the trigger ourselves.”
“How’d you like to have that on your conscience?” Jesse held first Jonas’s gaze and then Amos’s.
“I…” Jonas closed his mouth and then his eyes. Jesse had the impression he was praying, and when he opened them again, he saw resignation in the troubled depths. “What would you have me do?”
It was not agreement but an earnest question. He wanted to know what steps they were suggesting he take. Problem was, Jesse didn’t have a clear idea, and from the look his friend was giving him, neither did Luke.
“Not a thing,” Luke answered after a minute. “We respect your ways, and neither of us wants you to do anything contrary to your beliefs. Let us handle Littlefield. You carry on here like you have been.”
That seemed to relieve them both. Jonas nodded. “It is a matter for one Englisch man to discuss with another.”
The door opened just then, and Maummi Switzer’s head stuck out. “Jonas, fetch for us a table from the barn. It is a nice day to sit outside and enjoy the air with our treat.”
She disappeared back inside, and Jesse watched the three men start for the barn. He, of course, could only sit by helplessly and watch them do the work.
Jonas waved Luke back. “Stay and talk with your friend. We will get the table.”
Luke relaxed against the porch railing, watching their retreating backs.
“So what are we going to do next,” Jesse asked in a low voice when they had moved out of earshot.
Luke shrugged. “I’ll stop in Hays City on my way home and pay a visit to the sheriff there. Shooting a man in the back is a crime. If he arrests the one who did this to you, that’ll send the message to Littlefield that we don’t intend to back off.”
Though Jesse would prefer the message be clearer, preferably in the form of a show of force, he knew for now he’d have to settle for Luke’s plan. “It’s a start.”
Jonas entered the barn with Amos at his side. The children were not in sight, though he heard the distant sound of childish voices drifting through the open doorway at the back side of the barn. He nodded toward the side wall, where they kept the barrels and boards they used as tables when they had church meals at their house, and Amos moved toward the opposite end of the nearest board.
Before he grabbed hold, Jonas looked at him. “They are Englisch, but their words make sense, ja?”
Worried creases appeared above Amos’s close-set eyes. “It is not our way to resist evil done to us, and yet what they propose is not resistance.” The crease deepened. “At least, not by us.”
“Is it wrong to grant them permission to follow their own plans?” Though he was Amos’s elder by at least fifteen years, Jonas respected the wisdom the younger man had accumulated over the years and valued his opinion in matters of propriety and faith.
Amos shook his head. “As long as you do not lift a hand against another man, you are not guilty of wrong. Of that I am sure.”
Relief settled over Jonas, but doubt still nagged at a corner of his mind. “Bishop Miller advised gifting the property to the Englisch cow owner.”
“Advised?” Amos’s eyebrows arched high. “Or directed?”
Jonas thought back to the conversation a few days ago, when he’d taken his buggy to the Miller farm with the news that Jesse had been shot while acting on his behalf. The bishop’s exact words had been, “Much prayer is required in this matter. Perhaps it would be best to make the land a gift.” Jonas had been hard put to restrain signs of the anger and injustice that rose up in him at the words.
“Advised,” he replied firmly. If the bishop had directed him, he would have had no choice but to obey.
“Ah, then.”
Each man grasped the wide board and, with a silent signal, lifted in unison. They headed toward the opening with their burden between them, Amos walking backward in the lead.
When they arrived at the op
ening, Amos stopped. The look he gave Jonas was troubled, and he had difficulty maintaining a direct gaze. Instead, he fixed on the place where Jonas’s hands grasped the wood.
“Have you wondered lately if our bishop is…” He paused to swallow. “Distracted?”
Guilt flew at Jonas on powerful wings. The thought had occurred to him many times over the past months. Before the lot had fallen to him, John Miller had been a jovial man, full of humor and laughter. The role of bishop was one he had accepted with a sense of commitment that few displayed, and the Lord blessed his leadership of Apple Grove. His administration of the district was done with care and the same good-natured humor he had possessed since boyhood. But now the man never laughed. Jonas couldn’t remember a time when he’d so much as smiled recently. Instead, he went about with a perpetual scowl carving lines in his sagging cheeks.
But discussing a bishop in a negative light was serious business. Jonas chose his words carefully. “Samuel’s death haunts him still. Hard, it must be, to lose your only son.”
“Hard for Ella too,” Amos persisted, “yet her soul has once again embraced the peace of Christ.”
Though guilt buzzed inside his mind, the truth of Amos’s words resonated in a deeper place. “Ja.” He nodded. “The bishop seems to cling to grief with clenched hands.”
Amos raised his head then, and Jonas found himself caught in a wretched gaze. “A bitter heart leaves no room for compassion. And is not compassion necessary for leadership?”
Jonas considered Amos’s meaning, and to his sorrow found himself in agreement. They had all witnessed Bishop Miller’s harsh judgment in stopping the traditional youth singings because he claimed they led to “inappropriate fellowship” between young, unmarried men and women. The entire district knew, though no one said, that the true reason had lain in the fact that his daughter-in-law, Katie, had emerged from mourning and attended her first singing since Samuel’s death. And had Bishop Miller’s harsh judgment not threatened to infuriate Jonas not more than a week past?
A Cowboy at Heart Page 10