A Quilt for Jenna

by Patrick E. Craig

  “What was that?” Mark asked as he gingerly rubbed a bruised knee. He grabbed the flashlight and took a closer look. Smitty was whining frantically and digging at something under the snow. Mark hobbled over and started brushing the snow away as Smitty pawed at the heap. In a few seconds he realized what he had tripped over. Lying in the snow faceup with a bloody gash on the side of his head was a young man.

  The little girl pushed deeper into the pile of clothing and the seat cushion. She slipped in and out of consciousness, now dreaming of angels. She had never seen an angel, but her mama had told her about them. They had wings and were very kind and helped people who were in trouble. As she lay on the ceiling of the upside-down car, the fierce wind continued to blow, and the car slipped a few more inches down the bank onto the frozen pond. The ice groaned and crackled, and beneath the front of the car, the crack in the ice widened.

  Mark Knepp brushed the snow off the unconscious young man’s face and then gasped.

  “Henry Lowenstein! What in the world are you doing out here, boy?”

  No answer.

  “Henry, can you hear me? Wake up, Henry!”

  Mark shook Henry, but he didn’t stir.

  “Gotta get him inside,” the old man said as Smitty whined and pawed at the lad. The old man reached under Henry’s arms, took hold, and began to drag him slowly toward the house. He managed to get him up on the porch and then kicked the door open and dragged Henry inside, pulling him over by the stove. The lad’s lips were blue, and his face was pale white. Mark checked for a pulse. There! Henry was alive but in bad shape. The old man wrestled off the boy’s coat and gloves and pulled off his boots and frozen pants.

  He went into the back room and pulled some blankets and pillows from the old cedar chest. He folded up a couple of blankets and laid them beside Henry. Then he rolled the boy over onto them and got him adjusted. He slipped a pillow under Henry’s head and covered him with several more blankets and a thick down comforter. Once he got Henry bundled up, he went to the phone. He picked up the receiver but heard nothing. The line was dead.

  “Well, that’s not good,” the old man said to himself. “I’ll have to take care of him here tonight and then try to get into town in the morning.”

  He went back to the boy and washed off the blood with a warm wet cloth. The boy groaned and stirred but didn’t wake up.

  “Hang in there, Henry,” said Mark softly. “Just hang in there, boy.”

  Jerusha, wrapped in the blanket, trembled on the backseat. She had screamed out her rage and fear, and now she was exhausted and numb inside. The night closed in on her, and the wind howled like a fierce beast. The cold crept into the car like a starving animal, gnawing at her weakening resolve. She was lost in her memories, lost in her heart, lost in the storm, and lost to her God.

  The Third Day

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1950

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Missing

  EARLY FRIDAY MORNING, the day after Thanksgiving, Bobby Halverson drove his tractor down Dalton’s main street, clearing out a lane of traffic. He was heading for Highway 30 to make a run down to Apple Creek Road and from there into Apple Creek. There weren’t any cars parked along the street, so he was able to push the snow off onto the sidewalk as he plowed. Dutch’s tune-up on the engine made a big difference, and the tractor was running smoothly in spite of the fierce weather.

  Bobby had been up since before dawn. He had already made one run up to Dalton from his folks’ place in Apple Creek and was on the return leg, clearing the opposite side of the road.

  Bobby was bundled up against the cold, but even with the heater going full blast the cab was icy. On his way out of Dalton he took a detour by Henry Lowenstein’s grandparents’ house. He drove by slowly, looking for Henry’s old Buick, but it wasn’t parked in front. Puzzled, he pulled the tractor over and left it running while he ran up to the Lowensteins’ door and knocked. In a few seconds, Henry’s grandmother opened the door and peered through the screen, still dressed in a bathrobe and with curlers in her hair.

  “Why, Bobby Halverson, what are you doing up so early?” she asked. “Come on in here before you freeze to death.”

  She opened the screen door, and Bobby stepped inside.

  “I can only stay a minute, Betty,” he said. “I’ve got the tractor running outside, and I don’t want her to stall. Has Henry left for home already?”

  “Why, Henry never showed up,” she answered. “We waited until four thirty yesterday to eat, but Henry never came. My turkey had to be reheated, and the biscuits were cold. I figured it was the weather, but even so, you’d think he would have at least called.”

  “He couldn’t. The lines are down between here and Apple Creek,” Bobby said. “My guess is that Henry turned around before he got here, and then he couldn’t call. I’ll stop by his dad’s place to see if he’s there. He had Jerusha Springer with him, so I’ll stop at her place too.”

  “How about a cup of coffee and a hot cinnamon roll before you go? It’ll help keep you warm out there. It must be freezing in that cab.”

  “Well, that would be nice, but I need to get going pretty quick,” said Bobby.

  “I just took the rolls out of the oven, and the coffee’s hot. I’ll pour it into a thermos, and you can bring it back later.”

  While Betty bustled about in the kitchen, Bobby wondered about Henry and Jerusha. He had last seen them on Carr Road below Highway 188.

  They could have gone up Carr to 30 and then turned right and headed into Dalton. Or they could have turned right on 188 and come into Dalton from the south...

  Henry’s grandmother returned with two hot buttered cinnamon rolls in a paper bag and a cup of coffee in a thermos.

  “You don’t think anything happened to Henry, do you, Bobby?” Betty asked.

  “I wouldn’t worry. Henry’s a smart boy, and if the road got bad he would have gone home,” Bobby said. “It was really starting to snow when I saw him, and the roads were slick. Even though it’s only ten miles over to Apple Creek, it can be rough going in the snow, and Henry’s tires aren’t the best. It was already about five inches deep when I plowed through there yesterday. I’ll check on him when I get to the village.”

  “Thanks, Bobby. But how will I know if you find him?”

  “Hopefully they’ll get the lines back up and I can call. But in the worst case, I’ll be making another run back up here this afternoon, so I’ll stop by and tell you what I know.”

  Bobby went back out in the cold. He saw Henry’s grandmother looking out the window as he climbed into the cab. He pulled off one of his gloves, opened the lid on the thermos, and took a gulp of the hot coffee.

  The straightest route from Apple Creek to Dalton is up Carr Road to Highway 30 and then east into town...

  Bobby throttled up the plow, turned back onto Main Street, and headed out toward Highway 30, plowing the wet, heavy snow as he went. Along the road the wind had pushed up drifts, some of them almost ten feet high. The tractor chugged along, the plow pushing the snow off to the side of the road where it piled the drifts even higher. He passed Township Highway 97 and drove on toward the junction where Lincoln Way came in from the south. This part of the county was mostly rural, and once he got out of town there wasn’t much to see, especially with the snow coming down. Bobby pulled his yellow snow goggles off the visor and put them on so he could see through the white snow.

  If it snows any harder it will be almost impossible to see out here. If Henry went off the road, his car is probably buried by now.

  Bobby could only travel about five miles an hour, so it took him forty-five minutes to reach Carr Road. He turned south and plowed toward County Highway 188. The sun was coming up, but the storm clouds and the falling snow still made everything dark and dreary. As he drove along he saw someone standing by the road waving his arms. It was Abel Waxman, a farmer who had a place along Carr Road. Bobby pulled over and opened the window in his cab.

  “Hey, Bobby, am I g
lad to see you,” shouted Abel. “I need to get my boy over to the hospital in Wooster. He slipped on the ice this morning, and I think he broke his arm. My driveway’s full of snow and I can’t get out. Can you plow it for me?”

  Bobby hesitated for just a minute and then shouted back. “Okay, Abel, I’ll clear the road down to your house and then you can get out. Drive back up Carr and then take Highway 30. It should be clear into Wooster. I think the county boys plowed through there this morning.”

  “Thanks, Bobby,” shouted Abel over the wind. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  Bobby turned into Abel’s driveway and started plowing. It was almost four hundred yards to the house, and the snow was piled high. The plow bucked and bumped along the road, and it took Bobby almost half an hour to force his way through. Abel went ahead and ran back into the house to get his boy. The lad came out with his arm in a crude splint and a pained look on his face. Abel and his son climbed into their truck while Bobby turned around, and they followed him out to the road. Abel honked as he turned north and headed toward Wooster.

  Bobby pushed on through the drifts toward Apple Creek. As he did he remembered the last time he had been up to the hospital in Wooster.

  It had been a terrible day. Nothing he had experienced in the war, not even the Battle of the Ridge, had affected him as much as what he saw that day at the hospital. Somehow even in the trenches of war he had found a way to believe God would help him in time of need. But that day at the hospital, he decided there was no help to be found in God.

  Lost in his thoughts, Bobby turned off Carr onto the lane leading to the Lowensteins’ place. The Lowenstein property was across the creek from Joshua Hershberger’s farm, between Carr and High Street on Dover Road. The Hershbergers had been there since the late 1800s. Bobby pulled into the farmyard at the Lowensteins’ and looked for Henry’s car, but he didn’t see it anywhere. Leaving the tractor running, he climbed out and walked across the creek and through the trees to the Springer house. He had been here many times in the happy days when Reuben and Jenna had still been here. As Bobby walked through the cold wind and snow, he felt the dull ache in his hip.

  That old piece of shrapnel doesn’t like the cold. If it hadn’t been for Reuben, though, I would have had more than a grenade fragment in me.

  Bobby walked up the familiar path to the front door. The place was dark, and there were no signs of life.

  Reuben built this place for Jerusha with his own hands when he came back to Apple Creek after the war. We had some good times here. Even though Reuben went back to the church, he never forgot our friendship. I guess when men go through what we did, they stay buddies forever.

  Bobby stepped up on the porch and knocked on the door. He remembered happier days when Jerusha would open the door with a smile and Reuben would be standing behind her, holding little Jenna in his arms.

  He was a handsome guy, and she looked like a movie star. Even with their simple clothes they were a good-lookin’ couple. And that little girl! What a beauty. Her daddy’s eyes and her mama’s face. She would have been a real looker...if she had lived.

  Bobby reined in his thoughts. That was a place in his memories he didn’t want to visit. Little Jenna had captured his heart from the day she was born. He loved her like a daughter, and because of her and the happiness that Reuben and Jerusha shared, he had revisited his dream of becoming Amish and joining their church. But that was all water under the bridge. Jenna was gone, Reuben had disappeared, and in her continuing grief, Jerusha was drying up like summer grass without any rain. And besides, Bobby wasn’t so sure about a God who would let such terrible things happen to such a lovely family.

  He knocked again, but no one answered. Jerusha was not there. The house stood empty, cold, and dark. The unmarked snow was piled on the porch and it was obvious that nobody had been there for a couple of days. Bobby turned and headed over the bridge to the Lowenstein place and knocked on their door. Hank Lowenstein opened the door.

  “Hey, Bobby, what are you doing here?” Hank asked. “Come on in before you freeze your tail off.”

  “I’m looking for Henry,” said Bobby. “Is he here?”

  Hank looked puzzled. “No, he’s over at his grandmother’s in Dalton. He went up there to have Thanksgiving.”

  “I was by there this morning. Betty said he never showed up. I thought he might have turned around and headed home when the storm got so bad.”

  “Well, that’s not good,” said Hank. “I haven’t seen him since he left here yesterday morning. What should we do?”

  “Not much you can do except wait here and see if he comes home,” said Bobby. “I’m going to head up the highway to Kidron and see if he went in the back way to Dalton. If they’re off the road up there, I’ll find them—don’t you worry.”

  Bobby went back to the plow and headed toward Dalton. When he got to Highway 188 he turned east and headed toward Kidron Road. It took him almost an hour, but he finally saw the road sign through the blowing snow. By now the wind was really strong, and visibility was about twenty yards. He turned north on Kidron and headed toward Nussbaum, the back way into Dalton. About three hundred yards up the road, he spotted something on the right in the ditch. He had to look really hard to see what it was. When he came up on it he saw that it was a dead cow, laying on its back, its legs sticking up, frozen solid.

  Gonna be a lot of dead livestock after this storm. It’s gonna look like Mother Nature’s deep freeze out here.

  He turned right on Nussbaum and headed on into Dalton, keeping his eyes peeled for Henry’s car. By the time he got to Dalton he was shaking from the cold. He drove over to Betty Lowenstein’s house, got out and rang the doorbell. Betty came to the door and started in right away. “They found Henry. Mark Knepp heard a tree crashing down on his property. He went out to see if anything was damaged, and he tripped right over Henry. The boy had been knocked cold by a falling limb. Mark dragged him inside and got him warmed up, but he’s still unconscious. He took care of him until he could get into town and bring the doctor back to his place to treat him. Henry’s alive, but he got a nasty knock on his head, and the doctor says it’s still touch and go.”

  “What about Jerusha?” Bobby asked.

  “No sign of her or of Henry’s car...”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Trouble with Reuben

  BOBBY HALVERSON SAT DOWN in Betty’s living room and put his head in his hands. It was midmorning on Friday. He had been up since before dawn, and he was exhausted. “No sign of Jerusha?” he asked.

  “No, Mark didn’t find Jerusha,” Betty answered. “But of course he couldn’t have known she was with Henry, and when I told him, he went right out to see if he could find her.”

  “I’ll help him, but I don’t know where to begin,” said Bobby. “It looks like Henry broke down somewhere and was trying to get help. He could have wandered over to Mark’s place from any direction in this whiteout. Didn’t Henry say anything?”

  “No,” Betty answered. “He’s not awake yet. He’s still in danger. He’s been moved over to Dr. Samuels’ office on Buckeye Street. Doc said he would send someone over as soon as Henry wakes up.”

  “What am I going to do, Betty? Jerusha is out in this storm, and she could be anywhere between Apple Creek and the Knepp place.”

  “Bobby, you can’t go out now. You’re exhausted. Why don’t you stay here and rest. When Henry regains consciousness, he can tell us where the car is.”

  “But that could be too late. Jerusha’s in danger in this weather. It might be too late already.”

  “Tell you what. Just lie down on the sofa and rest for an hour. I’ll wake you up in plenty of time to make another pass down to Apple Creek. Obviously Henry came up the back way into town, or he wouldn’t have showed up on Knepp Lane. That should narrow down your search area.”

  Bobby let out a deep breath and thought for a moment. “Okay, I’ll rest for a while, but I’m too wound up to sleep. I sure could use something to eat
though.”

  “You’re in the right place. I’ve got Henry’s share of the turkey left over, plenty of gravy, and some of my famous biscuits. I’ll brew you up a gallon of coffee.”

  “Mind if I pull the tractor into your shed and plug in the battery charger so I can get the glow plugs juiced up?” Bobby asked. “I can’t just let it sit there idling or I’ll run out of diesel.”

  “Sure thing, Bobby. You go ahead and I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  Bobby trudged out to the tractor, climbed in, drove it around back to the Lowensteins’ big shed, and shut it down. Then he pulled the battery charger out of the toolbox, plugged it in, and clamped the wires on the battery posts. He made his way back to the house through the howling wind and stepped into the kitchen.

  “Sit down, Bobby,” Betty said. “I got a plate all hot for you.”

  As he ate, Bobby thought about the years he had known Reuben and everything they had been through together. For a moment a scene captured his thoughts like an awful nightmare. Men were fighting like animals in the mud, shooting and stabbing each other and screaming insanely. Bullets whistled by, and every few seconds he heard the sickening splat as one struck human flesh. And in the forefront of the battle was Reuben Springer, wounded but still fighting like a berserker to defend his fellow Marines against the attack. Bobby shook his head and tried to shake off the vision.

  What a mess! It’s like all the messes you and I have gotten into. I guess we were made for trouble, buddy. Since that first day we met it’s been nothin’ but trouble...

  The first time Bobby met Reuben, there was definitely trouble. Bobby had been drinking in his favorite bar in Wooster. It was November of 1941. Bobby usually drank alone. He liked sitting at a small table in the back of the room where it was dark and he could nurse a brew while he watched the goings-on without having to put up with some stupid drunk trying to make conversation with him. At a table near the bar a bunch of construction workers had been going hot and heavy for some time and were getting noisier and more obnoxious with each pitcher of beer. One of the men, a big red-faced loudmouth named Clancy, was doing the lion’s share of the talking.