Which Way Home?

by Linda Byler

  When they turned Silver into the uneven driveway that led to the Levi Buehler homestead, they had to duck their heads to avoid being smacked in the face by pine branches.

  “He needs to clip these off. I’m going to tell him,” Bappie said, swatting forcefully at the low-hanging branches. Hester had never seen a more beautiful pine forest. Thick and green and dotted with healthy brown pinecones, the evergreens were breathtaking. Redbirds flitted away from the women and horse with their saucy cries.

  Hester and Bappie came on to the set of buildings, all weathered and gray, but sturdy and not without charm. The house had a porch on two sides and dormers in the roof, which were quite ornate features for an Amish-designed house. The barn was built into the side of the hill, a sturdy bank barn made to accommodate wagonloads of hay and straw into the top bay. There was a neat henhouse, reliable-looking fences in good repair, and a corncrib with a mended roof, filled to the top.

  Silver flicked his ears and arched his neck when a sound, not unlike the baying of wolves, erupted from the barnyard. Immediately, a passel of skinny hounds came around the corner of the barn, their red tongues lolling, their eyes squinting from the effort of the incessant howling. They were so thin every one of their ribs could be counted beneath their scruffy hides.

  “Puh. Anyone that keeps those hideous-looking dogs can’t be too smart.” Bappie snorted her disapproval as her eyes made a sweeping survey, sizing up the management of the farm, or the lack of it.

  She reached under the seat, pulled out the sturdy whip, and flicked it in the hounds’ direction. “Go on! Shut up! Schtill!”

  Hester shrank back as the tall form of an Amish man came from the house, his gait easy and lanky, as if he had all day to meet them. He snapped his fingers at the hounds, and they slunk away, looking balefully back at the visitors.

  “What do you want with those ugly critters?” Bappie called. Only Bappie, Hester thought.

  Amazed, she watched the Amish man adjust his hat, shift his toothpick, and smile broadly, looking directly into Bappie’s eyes like a schoolboy, and every bit as guileless. “I make more money with them than I do with my cows,” he announced flatly in a deep, rumbling baritone.

  “Puh.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “How?”

  “Coonhounds. Good ones, too. I sell pounds of good-quality furs. They tree a coon, he ain’t gonna get away.”

  “Ain’t he?” Bappie said, punching Hester’s side with her elbow.

  “Nope.”

  Bappie changed the subject immediately. “We want your manure. The horse manure. We need it for the garden. You told me we could have it.”

  The toothpick changed directions again. “I did?”

  “Yes, you did. Remember? You were at market.”

  “Can’t recall.”

  Frustrated, Bappie said too loudly, “Yes, you can.”

  Still he had not noticed Hester, obviously enjoying Bappie’s tantrum. Hester was delighted by the unusual banter.

  Levi was of medium height and wide, with a good, solid look about him. In a crowd, he would not have stood out. His looks were not striking. His hair was the color of dry brown grass, his eyes clear, his skin medium brown and a bit freckled, his beard unkempt, the way most Amish men’s were in the middle of the week.

  “How’s Martha?”

  “The doctor’s been out.” A cloud passed over his face, turning the clear eyes a stormy gray.

  “And?”

  Out came the toothpick. He lowered his face, threw it on the ground, and rolled it with the sole of his shoe. “I’d rather not say.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Hester swallowed. She sat forward, eagerly. “May I visit her?”

  Finally, his attention shifted to Hester. His eyes appreciated her beauty in a friendly, offhand way, the way he’d view a pretty child or charming kitten. “You may.”

  “Hester, no. We have work to do.”

  Whistling, Levi led the way to the barn. He hitched up two brown mules, attached the flat-bed wagon, put Silver in a box stall, and fed him a generous amount of oats. Then he showed them the pitchforks. “Do what you can today. I’ll help you when I can. Martha needs me much of the time.”

  They pulled rubber boots over their shoes, rolled up their sleeves, and set to work, forking out the acrid, rotting manure, slapping it down on the sturdy, flat bed of the wagon. As soon as they had a load filled, Bappie hopped up on the wagon. Hester followed, standing beside her in the cold air as the mules lowered their heads and tugged dutifully at the wagon they were attached to. The gigantic ears flopped up and down as their heads bobbed. The traces jingled where the chains were attached to the singletree.

  Hester braced her legs, shifting her weight with the way of the wagon, breathed deeply of the cold, fresh air, and watched the flight pattern of a flock of snow buntings, flushed from the tall, brown briars.

  “What’s wrong with his wife? Why doesn’t he want to talk about it? Why did he say we’ll know soon enough?”

  Bappie shrugged. “She’s pretty sick. I think it was Enos Troyer’s wife, Salome, who said she heard she has cancer.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Incurable. Nothing you can do.” Bappie’s words were hard.

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, you can’t. I don’t want you to start with your potions and tinctures and herbs. All that craziness.”

  Startled, Hester’s eyes flew to Bappie’s face. She was alarmed to see an expression so painful it changed her features, twisting them into a caricature of Bappie’s normally plain, unflappable demeanor.

  As if to ease the pain, Hester tried to change the direction of her inquiries. “I don’t remember ever seeing Martha in church.”

  “That’s because she hasn’t been there.”

  Suddenly, Bappie turned to Hester. “He … he told me, she’s not going to make it. God only knows what that man has suffered. They had three babies. All of them died within two years from German measles. They say it got the best of Martha. She’s never been right since.” Bappie’s words were brittle, short, and thrown into the cold November day like rocks pelting against a tree, quickly, one by one.

  Ashamed then, Bappie turned her head to watch the brown grasses and the dead cornstalks trampled into the cold, brown earth. A corner of her black scarf flew up into her eyes. Bappie grabbed it, stuck it inside her shawl, coughed, and cleared her throat.

  “Looks like we have company,” Hester observed.

  Sure enough. In the grove of trees by the large garden stood a team of Belgians. The grinning Johnny sat on the oak boards of his wagon, swinging his legs, his hands tucked beneath him. “Well, well. Imagine meeting you young ladies out here.”

  Bappie leaned back, pulling the mules to a stop. “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t hear Bappie. His concentration centered completely on Hester, his brown eyes alive with interest, his teeth flashing white as he smiled broadly. “Hester! How are you?”

  “I’m fine.” Her words were clipped, firm, and without a trace of warmth. Bappie climbed down. Quickly Hester took up the reins, chirped to the mules, and moved off to the center of the garden where she stopped the horses. Then she proceeded to pitch the manure off, flinging it across the garden with monstrous strokes.

  Johnny shook his head. “She still doesn’t like me.”

  “Why should she?”

  Suspicious, Johnny turned his head and found Bappie’s eyes boring the truth from his own. So she knew. Cranky old maid. “It wasn’t my fault,” he muttered.

  Bappie’s snort was loud enough to startle the sleepy Belgians.

  Johnny sighed, gathered up the reins, and drove away without a backward glance, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

  Bappie marched over to Hester’s wagon, leaped aboard, and began heaving manure as if her life depended on it.

  The baying of the coonhounds heralded their return. Levi helped
them load another heaping wagonload. They moved off through the pine forest, back to the garden, bringing more of nature’s best fertilizer for next year’s vegetables. They worked steadily without speaking. Hester felt the beginning of a painful blister on her third finger, so she shifted the position of her hand and kept forking manure.

  A line of dark clouds was forming on the horizon where the setting sun should have been. Like a curtain, it hid the sun’s light. Hester shivered as the wind picked up, bending the grasses and rattling the dry branches overhead.

  “Too early for snow,” Hester observed.

  Bappie nodded.

  “You want to try for another load before dark?” Hester asked.

  “We could finish.”

  Together they increased their speed, cleaning all the manure from Levi’s horse stalls. He came out as they were spreading fresh straw. Hester led the horses back to their cozy pens, clean and sweet-smelling.

  Levi whistled his admiration in one long exclamation. “You did good!” he said simply.

  Bappie’s face was red, as was her hair, strewn about like flames of fire. Her black kerchief had slid off her head, so she let it lie around her neck. Hairpins straggled from the roll of hair on the back of her head. Pieces of straw were caught in the unruly curls that stuck out everywhere. Her breath was coming fast and she was laughing, obviously enjoying the challenge of getting the last load out. “Yes, well, Levi, we can’t visit. We have to go. Looks like a storm’s coming in the west.”

  Hester smiled at him, but he missed it completely. He was watching Bappie grab the leather reins and expertly maneuver the mules out of the barnyard, and at a competent pace down the rutted driveway, until they disappeared out of sight beneath the pines.

  He stuck his toothpick back in his mouth, called to the coonhounds, and went to the house to tend to his ailing wife before he began the evening’s milking.

  Bappie kept the mules at a quick trot, the traces bouncing up and down, the wagon lurching over the ruts in the road. Hester’s eyes scanned the low bank of black clouds, tumbling and tossing now, as they climbed higher into the sky.

  When they reached the garden, they shoved most of the manure off the side, then leaped off the wagon to scatter it efficiently. Overhead, the black clouds boiled and rolled. The first ping of ice hit Hester’s nose as she lifted her head to watch the approaching tempest.

  “We’re in for it!” she yelled, as the wind slammed against her back.

  “We’ll live!” Bappie yelled back. She lifted the reins, then brought them down on the mules’ rumps with a high “Yee-ha!”

  The mules lurched into a mad dash. Hester hung on to the makeshift boards that separated her from the mules’ pounding hooves, her eyes wide as she watched the fury overhead. Ice pounded the galloping mules, bounced off the wagon bed, pummeled the women’s heads, and pinged against their faces. Hester squeezed her eyes shut and held tight. She slanted a look at Bappie, astounded to see her standing upright, her eyes wide with delight, thrilled to be part of this dangerous adventure.

  “Ouch! Ow!” Bappie laughed as the ice hit her face, but she stayed on her feet, goading the mules over the rutted road.

  Hester was just about to warn Bappie about the steep incline when there was a cracking sound, as loud as the shot of a rifle. The mules were hurled to a standstill as the front axle broke, throwing both women from the bed of the wagon and into the wet, icy grass beside the road. Bappie screamed.

  Hester flew through the air, landed on her shoulder with a sickening crunch, rolled on her back, and lay in the cold, wet grass, the ice still pinging on her upturned face. Her shoulder felt as if fiery darts were being shot into it. She squeezed her eyes shut and trembled from the pain.

  Gently, she twisted her head, shocked to see the mules standing still, obedient, the only movement the quick flicking of their ears. The wagon was slanted to one side in front where the axle had broken, severing the wheel. It lay in a heap of metal, the ice making dull pinging sounds as it fell against it.

  Hester heard a cry. She turned her head farther to see Bappie hobbling toward her, alarm bleaching her face to a chalky white.

  “The mules, the stupid things. I never met a mule I liked. Hester, are you all right?”

  Hester sat up and gingerly moved her shoulders. She winced, then grinned up at Bappie. “I’m all in one piece.”

  “It’s these dumbkopf mules, that’s what,” Bappie spluttered.

  Hester pointed. “Look at them, Bappie. Just look. They’re standing there in the pounding ice, hitched to a broken wagon, dutifully waiting until we get ourselves together. You drove them too fast, Bappie. It was your reckless slapping that broke that axle.

  “Don’t you go on about stupid mules, either. You should have seen Hans when our wagon upset when I was little. The horses ran off for miles, with him floundering in deep snow after them. We walked all the way home without him. I still remember my mother dragging the blanket, with Noah and Isaac wrapped in it, while I watched the redbirds.”

  Bappie’s face changed color again, back to its normal deep pink. “Well, how are we going to get Levi’s mules back to him?”

  Hester was already walking calmly toward the mules. “Unhitch them and walk them home. The next time, I’m driving.” A gust of wind and ice tugged at her long, heavy skirt, but she kept on, resolutely unhitching the traces, remembering a time before when life held only the wonder of a redbird in the pure white snow.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE HAVEN OF THEIR HOMEY KITCHEN WAS BLISSful as the ice bounced off the windowpanes and water sluiced alongside, dripping from the eaves and running down the sides of the sturdy German siding.

  The fire leaped and crackled. Sparks exploded up the chimney each time they added a chunk of wood. The room was warm, enveloped in a yellow, fire-lit glow. Sputtering candles on the table enhanced the coziness of their domain.

  They had put up Silver first, bedding him comfortably with fresh straw and giving him a good feeding of oats and corn, then putting down a forkful of hay. They latched the barn door carefully before checking in on Walter, Emma, and the boys.

  They found them in good spirits, chortling over a game of marbles as chestnuts roasted on a pan in the oven, filling the house with the nutty aroma of fall.

  “Keschta!” Bappie had cried.

  “Oh, indeed, indeed. The finest nut of the forest. A delicacy!” Walter agreed happily, a tankard of warm ale at his elbow.

  The boys lifted their shining faces, elbows propped on the table, their shoulders hunched as they watched the game Emma and Walter were playing. With round cheeks, clean, smooth hair, and warm clothes, the boys were barely recognizable as the forlorn waifs who had appeared on their doorstep months before.

  Emma was as round as a pumpkin still. If anything, marriage only served to increase her enthusiastic appetite for good food, which was certainly not lost on her ample partner. Together they bestowed all their generosity of spirit on the two lonely orphans who seemed to blossom like well-tended flowers.

  Hester wanted to stay. Walter and Emma’s home never failed to fill a need, a certain yearning she had for the goodness of Hans’s and Kate’s home, and for her childhood, which they had supplied well with the nurturing that children require.

  But Bappie wanted to get home. She was cold and wet, with the same temperament as a hen in a similar situation. So Hester got up reluctantly and followed her back to their house.

  A hot, steaming bath, a pot of bubbling stew made of salt pork, potatoes, and dumplings, and the warm, cozy firelight, all made Hester sleepy. She was content, thankful for all God had given her.

  She looked at Bappie reading by the fireplace, the German Schrift opened on her lap, her eyes dark and brooding, her thoughts a galaxy away.

  Conversation was not necessary at this hour. They were at peace. The hard labor of shoveling natural fertilizer onto the large vegetable patch had been rewarding. It was good to know, when spring came, that the rich, brown loam
would be full of nutrients, enough to feed the tiny plants shooting from the dropped seeds into tall cornstalks, heavy cucumber vines, hardy tomato plants.

  “It’s not right!” Bappie’s pain-filled voice shattered the peaceful atmosphere, slicing it in two like the thrust of an axe.

  Hester lifted her face, her eyes wide with surprise. Warily, she watched as Bappie rose to her feet, her movements swift. She slammed the Bible onto the table with a resounding thump, then propped her open palms on top of it as if to derive strength from the bound volume of God’s Word.

  Hester opened her mouth to speak, but closed it when Bappie’s anguished voice rose as she talked. “He’s too proud. If he would only talk about her. I don’t see how he can keep his wits about him. That’s so often the way of our people.

  “As long as he can make things appear normal from the outside, no one is going to inquire. I can’t understand where his relatives are. He’s so alone, looking after that farm and caring for her. I don’t know if the doctor has ever been to see her.”

  “Who?”

  “Levi.”

  “Oh, you mean Levi’s wife.”

  “Yes.”

  A silence fell, with only the tiny hiss of a flaming candle to break it.

  “Should I go see her sometime?” Hester asked finally.

  “Of course not. It’s not that she has cancer, which your greenery couldn’t heal anyway. It’s that her mind is … Well, she’s like a child. Her good fashtant is gone. He has to feed her and dress her as if she were a child. I don’t think very many people know how bad it is.

  “She hasn’t been to church for years. Hardly anyone goes to visit them. Now he has those coonhounds slinking around his buildings. I’m just afraid he’s slowly going, as well.”

  Hester winced at Bappie’s mocking word, “greenery.” Quickly then, she shook it off, knowing it was only her forthright manner. “Could we go visit, do you think?”

  Bappie shrugged her shoulders, her eyes dark, hooded. “I’m afraid to,” she said, soft and low.

  “Why?”