A Deadly Shaker Spring

by Deborah Woodworth

  A shadow passed over Hugo’s face. Rose became aware of the silence.

  “There was one,” Hugo said. “My memory isn’t what it was. I don’t recall his name, but he signed the covenant. He worked awhile for the Cincinnati Enquirer after he left us, or so I heard.”

  “When was this?”

  “Must have been twenty, twenty-five years ago now. Yea, it would have been at least twenty-five because it was before I stopped traveling so much to gather souls and took over the Carpenters’ Shop. So I didn’t really know him, you see. I knew little about what went on then; I was away so much of the time. But Samuel would know about him. They were friends, good friends, as I remember.” Hugo pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and began to clean his spectacles. “But you’d best ask Samuel about all that.”

  SEVEN

  “MIND TELLING ME WHERE YA GOT THE MONEY FOR this?” The beefy clerk behind the counter at Languor Liquors kept a firm grip on the neck of the bottle of Jack Daniels.

  Caleb Cox shifted from one foot to the other and winced at the pain behind his eyes as he stared at the bottle. His threadbare jacket hung on his bony shoulders, and he was uncomfortably aware that neither he nor the jacket had bathed recently.

  Caleb’s confidence was low, but his need was great. He ran his tongue over his cracked lips. He couldn’t figure out if he had to answer the guy’s question to get his hands on that whiskey. He’d seen the clerk dozens of times, hell, maybe hundreds, he had better things to do than keep count. Did that give the guy the right to ask a question like that? It should be enough that he could pay for it, never mind how he got the money. None of the guy’s business.

  Did they know each other outside of this podunk little liquor store? Caleb’s eyes drifted to the man’s face. A closed, stern face. Nope, not a drinking buddy. Caleb didn’t always remember his drinking buddies, but he was sure he wouldn’t drink with someone so suspicious.

  “I sold you a lot of bottles, Caleb,” the clerk said, “but never nothing like this. This here’s our best whiskey. Not many folks buy it excepting maybe Mr. Worthington, and he can afford it. So what I’m wondering is, how come you can afford it all of a sudden?”

  Caleb breathed in deep and let the air whistle out through the gap where he’d lost a front tooth in a barroom brawl. Or maybe it was back in the war he’d lost that tooth. Yeah, that sounded better, lost his tooth in the Big One.

  The clerk’s eyes narrowed. It was no use. Caleb knew he’d have to concentrate, come up with some explanation for how he had this money in his hand, enough to buy really good whiskey for a change, stuff that maybe wouldn’t rot his stomach out so fast. Truth was, he wasn’t sure himself why he was buying Jack Daniels instead of his usual cheap brand. He’d just felt different ever since that day he’d met Sarah in town, while she was shopping for fabric. He’d told her how he’d been a Shaker, too. They’d got to talking. Something about Sarah made him want the best for a change. Prove he was worth her, maybe.

  “Won it in a poker game,” Caleb said, grinning with pride at his quickness of mind. Not so boozed up as everybody thought, was he? Could still think on his feet when he had to. And he had to get that bottle.

  “You telling me you stayed sober long enough to win that much off somebody? You telling me somebody with that kind of money would even play poker with the likes of you?”

  Caleb sagged. Two questions this time, and they were getting harder.

  “Well, yeah, that’s what I’m sayin’,” he finally managed, not sure which question he might be answering, if either.

  The clerk eyed him a few more moments, then shrugged. Caleb relaxed, knowing he’d won. It was closing time, and the man was tired.

  “Hell, it don’t make me no never mind,” the clerk said. “Money’s money.” He slipped the bills out of Caleb’s shaking hand and replaced them with the whiskey bottle.

  Caleb clutched the bottle by the neck and headed for the door before the clerk could hand him his change.

  “Keep it,” Caleb tossed over his shoulder as he pulled the shop’s screen door carefully toward him to demonstrate his dignity and stone-cold sobriety. The effect was spoiled somewhat when he let go of the door too soon and it whacked him on the rear. Caleb didn’t mind too much. He had himself a bottle of real Jack Daniels, and he’d earned it. He was helping Sarah, too. It all made him feel good, like he really deserved a reward.

  Caleb sat cross-legged on his army cot, winded from climbing the three floors to his boardinghouse room. Despite the whiskey bottle in his hand, his buoyant mood was fading. There was a time, before Sarah came into his life, when he’d have had that bottle half drunk by now. He took a swig, let it trickle down his throat, savored the burning sensation. He felt it reach his stomach and explode through his veins. Best stuff he’d ever tasted. He raised the bottle to his lips again, hesitated, and lowered it slowly. Sarah. He would see her today, and he’d made her a solemn promise to cut back on the booze. She’d said her uncle had been a boozer, and it made her sad to watch.

  Caleb leaned across the cot and plunked the bottle on the upended orange crate that served as his nightstand. Trouble was, life drunk was plain easier for Caleb. His nightmares struck as the alcohol wore off—the shelling that still blasted his brain every night, though the war had been over for nearly twenty years. Then there was his wasted life, filled only with empty bottles. Sarah was the only happiness he’d known in the past twenty years. Too bad she was a Shaker, but he’d change all that. He’d get her away from that place. He couldn’t remember why exactly, but he knew it was their fault his life had gone so bad. Yeah, he’d save Sarah from those people, and then they’d be together, and he wouldn’t have nightmares or need to drink anymore.

  Content again, Caleb grabbed the bottle and took another swallow. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. He settled on the cot with his thin legs crossed underneath him. He was to deliver the page to Sarah when he saw her next. He knew it was a page torn from a journal, and it held information Sarah wanted, stuff about her mother and who her father was. He knew, too, how she’d react—excited and scared at the same time. Steadying the whiskey bottle against his thigh, he unfolded the paper and read it through. It began in the middle of a sentence.

  . . . my sister is Faithfull, and yet she is not, not to me, neither to her vows. But I cannot blame her. My own heart betrayed me, and I have paid with my soul. Indeed, I gave all for a touch of her wheat-brown hair, not knowing that there would never be a second touch. Not after she turned her eyes back to him. I hate even his name and will not grant it substance by writing it. I know that he has been with her. I see every flick of her eyes, every tiny gesture. When she is out of my sight, I dream every movement and each sleeping breath she takes. Nay, I cannot blame her. I see the purity of her soul through her clear eyes, blue as a lake in the sun, and as deep. The fault is with him, Brother Satan, Satan himself. He seduced her innocent heart, and Mother Ann is a witness. There will be a reckoning. God grant that I may be His instrument.

  EIGHT

  ROSE WAS STILL LEARNING TO BE A SPIRITUAL leader for her people, but she knew that her way was not Wilhelm’s, nor was it Agatha’s. Wilhelm was a visionary, whose eyes saw only what had once been. He was a powerful force, though, as she’d found out more than once. Agatha was contemplative, closely linked to the realm of spirit, increasingly so as she grew older and more feeble.

  Though drawn to spiritual concerns, Rose’s practical nature fit perfectly with the world of business: herb sales, real estate purchases, new economic ventures. Once the nation’s economy improved, and their own debts lightened, she hoped to dabble again in investments to provide monetary security for the Society. For now, she kept in daily contact with her people, eating with them when she could avoid Wilhelm’s demands that she eat at the Ministry House, helping with the ironing on hot afternoons, watching for signs of unhappiness. She prayed, of course, and derived great comfort from that. But if she saw a problem, she want
ed to solve it.

  Now she had several problems. She extracted a sheet of paper and a pen from her desk drawer and began a list. A familiar relief settled in as she organized her thoughts and plans on paper. Under “episodes,” she listed:

  1.Stolen jars of raspberry preserves

  2.Broken fence—and Freddie drugged

  3.Sister Sarah injured (attacked?) in the Sisters’ Shop

  4.Rats released in the schoolroom—and Amanda bitten

  5.Anti-Shaker literature left in the Trustees’ Office and Ministry House, for me and for Wilhelm to find

  Rose leaned against her chair back and studied the list. All the incidents had occurred in the space of a week, most within the last few days. Seen individually, they were disturbing, though surely no worse than Believers had experienced since Mother Ann suffered at the hands of an angry mob. Taken together, a pattern formed. The episodes had grown increasingly threatening, beginning with an ordinary theft and proceeding, so far, to attacks on Believers and children and a call for the eradication of the Society. What would be next?

  Hugo had suggested she ask Samuel for his memories of apostates, but he was busy planting and would probably remain in the fields until late in the day. She would try to catch him after worship the next morning.

  In the meantime, Wilhelm’s accusation that she was not watching over Sister Sarah Baker stung, and she could not put it out of her mind. It was time to have a chat with Sarah, who was recovering well from her injury and had insisted on going back to work in the sewing room.

  The Sisters’ Shop was a two-story white clapboard building set back from the path that cut through the village center. The shop ran so smoothly that Rose rarely visited, but she always enjoyed doing so. Though not herself skilled in the weaving arts, Rose loved to watch the patterns take shape on the looms. She paused on the first floor to chat with the sisters who were dyeing woolen yarns to earthy golds and browns, then made her way to the second floor sewing room. The plain wooden staircase was well swept and dusted, she was pleased to see.

  As she approached the top of the stairs, she heard a subdued voice, undoubtedly Sarah’s. The words were unclear, but the voice that responded to them was unmistakable. Rose recognized the familiar grating tone of Sister Elsa Pike. She had momentarily forgotten that she had reassigned Elsa to the sewing room.

  Rose tried to be even-handed toward all Believers, but she had to admit that Elsa was not one of her favorite sisters. Elsa came from poor hill-country stock and had left her husband and grown sons less than two years earlier to join the Shakers. None of this disturbed Rose. The Society welcomed anyone who wished to become a Believer—whether rich or poor, learned or unschooled. Elsa, though, was inclined to hubris and unseemly ambition, and no amount of confession or correction seemed to cure her of these sins.

  “Well, a person’s gotta wonder, that’s all. Leavin’ thy work like that, a person’s gonna wonder,” Elsa said.

  The softer voice rose in tone, but the words were still indistinct.

  “Nay, I ain’t sayin’ I spread rumors around, but bein’ a Believer and all, I know my duty.”

  Rose decided to make her presence known, though her enthusiasm for the visit had dimmed considerably.

  Sarah and Elsa raised their heads and grew silent as Rose entered the room. Each was hunched over her own sewing desk at opposite corners of the large room, as far away as they could get from one another.

  “Good day, Sisters,” Rose said. “I knew many of the sewing sisters would be helping with the planting today, so I’ve come to help you, if I can.”

  Elsa responded with a grunt and a nod of her head.

  “So kind of you, Eldress,” Sarah said. Her skin was pallid, and she wore a bandage around her head.

  Needles, a pin cushion, and embroidery floss lay on Sarah’s sewing desk. The warm patina of the desk’s aged pine surface glowed in the sunlight from the east window. Sarah herself was plain, but an exquisite seamstress, creating beauty with every stitch. When she spoke, her lithe fingers barely slowed as they guided her embroidery needle in and out of the fabric with sureness.

  Elsa’s stitchery, on the other hand, was effective but graceless. Her desk held messy piles of fabric scraps and sewing implements. Her round, flat-featured face registered boredom. She shot a malevolent glance over at Sarah before bending again to the work dress she was mending.

  The room was brightly lit by the large, clean windows lining the walls. Between the windows, pine strips studded with shiny maple pegs circled the entire room. Nearly every peg held some object, from chairs and a flatbroom to partially finished garments on hangers. Several empty sewing desks had been pushed against the walls until they were called for again, probably after planting season, when more sisters would be free. In the center of the room stood a large cutting table covered with a length of fine, dark blue wool. Tissue pattern pieces were pinned along the fabric, their edges touching so as not to waste any of the precious wool.

  Since neither Sarah nor Elsa offered her a task to do, Rose wandered over to the table. She picked up a pair of shears that lay on the corner.

  “Shall I cut this pattern for you, Sarah?” she asked.

  Sarah’s head bobbed up, her brown eyes protruding even more than usual. “Oh nay, that’s all right, you needn’t bother. You don’t usually . . . I mean, I’ll be getting to it just as soon as I’ve finished putting these initials in Brother Hugo’s new shirt.” She lowered her eyes again to her needlework.

  Rose hesitated, the shears already open. “I don’t mind at all,” she said. “I know I haven’t helped out in the sewing room as often as some other places, but you’ve only the two of you until planting is done, so I’d truly like to pitch in. If you’ll let me.” She knew it would be a mistake to sound as if she were challenging Sarah’s oversight of the sewing. She closed the shears and waited.

  Sarah looked up again, this time with a frown. Rose glanced over at Elsa just in time to see the last of a crooked grin directed at Sarah. Rose permitted herself a quiet sigh. This conversation would be tougher than she’d anticipated. The two women were clearly battling, an unfortunate consequence of having Elsa in a room with any other sister.

  “All right, then, Eldress,” Sarah said. “You can cut if you really want to. I appreciate the help.” Her voice always sounded as if it should belong to a more delicate woman.

  “Just call me Rose, please, Sarah,” Rose said, laughing. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to ‘eldress,’ it makes me feel as if I’ll take off my cap and find nothing but wisps of white hair.”

  This drew a timid grin from Sarah and a snicker from Elsa.

  Rose felt the sharp shears slice through the soft wool and let the silence grow in the room. She knew so little about Sarah. The sister was in her early thirties, but her painful history gave her an older look. She had lived among them as a child. Rose remembered her as a timid little girl with whom she had had little contact. As Rose recalled hearing from other Believers, Sarah’s mother had sent for her, when she was still quite young, and raised her to adulthood. She had come back to North Homage about two years ago, reporting that her mother had died. Sarah had a sadness about her but kept the reasons to herself. Her confessions were earnest but along the lines of “gazing out the window instead of working,” or “showing a hint of temper.”

  Rose glanced up to catch Elsa watching Sarah instead of mending. When Elsa realized she’d been caught, Rose said, “Elsa, you seem tired of mending. The kitchen sisters are short-handed, so go ahead to the kitchen and help with the noon meal. They’ll appreciate it. Go on, just leave the mending, it’ll keep.”

  Elsa’s face moved swiftly from relief to suspicion. But she put down her mending.

  “I thank thee,” she said and clumped out on sturdy legs.

  Rose went back to her pattern cutting until Elsa’s footsteps receded down the staircase. She put down her shears and picked up Elsa’s unfinished mending.

  “I’ll just fini
sh this, shall I?” She took down a ladder-back chair from its wall peg, and placed it next to Sarah’s sewing desk.

  Sarah shifted in her own chair and chewed on her lower lip.

  “You do enjoy fine needlework, don’t you, Sarah?”

  This earned a shy nod.

  “Your work is excellent, you know, and well appreciated, I assure you.”

  A quick, tiny smile.

  “Did you learn it here in the village as a child, or did your mother teach you?”

  Sarah’s needle hesitated. “Here, at first,” she said. “I learned from Sister Ariel. I loved to watch her stitch, and she gave me special lessons, even though I was so young. I kept it up afterwards. Sewing gave me comfort.”

  “Of course, Sister Ariel. She was a wonderful seamstress, and such a kind person.”

  “I loved her,” Sarah said. “I was so sad to hear that she died while I was with my . . . while I was away.”

  “We were all sad to lose her, but I’m sure she is happy to be where she is, Sarah. You will see her again, you know.”

  Sarah’s head bobbed in a quick nod as she made a finishing knot in her embroidery floss and snipped the end with a small pair of scissors. Placing the garment in a nearly full basket next to her chair, she reached for another from a second basket.

  “Tell me, are you happy with us, Sarah?”

  The needle paused in mid-stitch. “Yea, of course, Eldress, I’ve said so many times.”

  “I know you have, but I just wondered: Do you ever miss your own mother, your family?”

  Sarah cut and separated a length of yellow embroidery floss. She picked up the garment, a deep-brown work dress, and began embroidering initials inside the collar.

  “The Society is my family,” she said, without lifting her eyes. “In a way, I guess they always have been. My mother is here.” She flashed an unreadable glance at Rose. “Sister Ariel was as much my mother as anybody, and Sister Josie, and Eldress Agatha. I am happy here and I never want to leave.”