Annalise and Ruth stayed to eat, with the promise that someone would drive them home. Ruth had seemed relieved that Bryan Nichols declined Franey’s invitation to stay as well. Bryan said he wanted to go to the fire station and see for himself what evidence might have been collected from the scene. Ruth, Rufus thought, was simply not ready to mix her family with an English young man. And perhaps to his credit, Bryan understood that now.
“We don’t know how the fire started,” Rufus said in answer to his brother’s question. “Sometimes an event happens and we never know why.”
“Gottes wille?” Jacob asked.
“I suppose so.”
“There was nothing in that shed but a rake and a hoe,” Joel insisted. “Maybe a couple of muddy rags. There was no lightning, there was no anything. Do you believe it was God’s will for someone to set a fire?”
“But if it happens, then it’s God’s will, right?” Jacob said.
“Not this time,” Joel muttered.
“Joel.” Eli’s calm demeanor nevertheless intoned severe caution.
Joel slumped back and pressed his lips together.
Not until the dishes had been cleared and Jacob tucked in bed did the family gather in one room again, this time in the comfort of the living room. Annalise sat on the floor between Lydia and Sophie with her knees neatly tucked to one side. She looked tired to Rufus, but he supposed all of them appeared beleaguered under the circumstances.
“I’m so glad to be home,” Rufus said.
“If only you could stay more than a day this time.” Seated on the couch, Franey put her tired feet on a cushion on the floor.
“As God would have it, I can,” Rufus said. “We have an unexpected break in the schedule.”
“That’s good news.” Franey reached over to an end table and picked up an envelope. “You got a letter from David’s shop in Colorado Springs. Perhaps he has some orders for you.”
Rufus slit the envelope and glanced through the letter. “Several customers have been in asking about my pieces. He may have some special orders after all.”
“That’s great news,” Annalise said from across the room.
“I don’t know if the time is right,” Rufus said.
Joel cleared his throat. “You took the job with the English because you were concerned your business was dropping off. Why would you not jump at the opportunity to go back to your craft?”
Rufus glanced at Annalise, seeing the same question in her eyes.
“I’ve made a commitment to Jeff. He is expecting me to be available all winter.”
Joel waved a hand. “Things change. For instance, today I lost my livelihood for the season. You could send me to fulfill your obligation.”
“It is more difficult to live away from our people than you might realize.” Rufus looked again at Annalise. Her eyes pleaded with him to stay home.
Franey shuffled her feet on the cushion. “Joel, I don’t think that it is wise for you to think this way. As Rufus said, it would be difficult.”
“Do you think I do not have the strength of faith that Rufus has?”
“I did not say that.”
“Joel,” Eli said, “are you sure you would want to do this?”
“I am probably more sure than Rufus was when he left the first time.”
“And Rufus,” Eli said, “do you believe it would be possible to offer a substitute for your labor?”
Rufus met his brother’s eyes and let out his breath. “If I assure Jeff that Joel is capable, then, yes. I believe it is possible.”
“Then I think you should stay home and Joel should go.”
On Sunday morning, Ruth drove Annalise to church in the car. This time, though, she let Annalise sit forward in the congregation with the Beiler women, and Ruth dawdled in the back, near the door, and finally took a seat when she could see the men were lining up outside to process in. Daed was shoulder to shoulder with Ike Stutzman among the bearded married men, while Rufus and Joel marched farther back with the smooth-shaven unmarried men. Walking with the men, Jacob grinned from ear to ear. Rufus leaned over and whispered to Jacob, and the boy straightened his shoulders but maintained his exuberance.
Ruth smiled. Rufus was old enough to be Jacob’s father, and it seemed to please him to act in fatherly ways. If he did not propose to Annalise of his own accord soon, Ruth might just take it upon herself to prod her eldest brother into action. Rufus and Annalise could have their own kinner soon enough. Mamm would love having boppli in Colorado when she was so far from the grandchildren in Pennsylvania.
Ruth lost her place in the first hymn, stabbed with wondering how Mamm might receive Ruth’s children someday. They would not be Amish boppli.
She shook off the thought. She had no aspiration to marry anytime soon, and why should she borrow worry from the future?
As the congregation assembled that morning, news of Joel’s fire, as it was already deemed, dispersed through one conversation after another. Now, during the sermons, the ministers chosen to preach both focused on forgiveness and God’s will. Ruth tried to concentrate and fleetingly wondered if Annalise’s German had improved enough that she understood sermons without Sophie leaning in to whisper translation.
Forgiveness.
An easy enough idea to talk about, especially when it was not your friend who was kicked in the chest and not your brother whose field had burned.
Ruth could forgive. Just not yet.
During the final low, slow hymn, she slipped out of the barn housing the congregation that morning. Rufus would look after Annalise, and Ruth did not feel like facing a boisterous potluck meal or answering a barrage of questions or hearing anyone say Gottes wille. Instead, she walked to her car and started it, grateful for its quiet engine.
She drove to the place she always wanted to be when she was most confused, to the trail the community had created in the summer and to the monument of a rock just beyond the boundary of Beiler land. Ruth took her purse with her because it contained an item that was the main reason for her lack of concentration this morning.
It niggled at her.
Thinking that she might never get used to approaching the rock from a parking lot rather than cutting through her family’s land, Ruth found the old familiar footholds. At the top, with her legs stretched out in front of her beneath her long skirt, she pulled the strap of her purse off her shoulder and opened the thrift store imitation leather brown bag.
And from its shallows she pulled a black strap to run through her fingers again.
As her stunned family made their way from the field to the house the previous evening, Ruth had idly picked up the strap. She supposed it had belonged to one of the firefighters, though what it had secured she could not surmise. It did not strike her as particularly heavy duty.
The strap was less than an inch wide, with a thin blue stripe zigzagging down the center. At one end was a broken carabiner latch.
“Ruth!”
She looked over the edge of the rock to see Elijah standing below her.
“Elijah! Are you all right?” Ruth scrambled to her feet.
“I’m fine. I’m coming up.”
“No sir, you most definitely are not climbing up here today.”
Confident that even six days after his fall she could move more quickly than Elijah, Ruth snatched up her purse. In a matter of seconds, she had descended and circled the rock and stood on the ground facing Elijah.
“I didn’t know if you would come to church,” she said.
“I thought you might be there. But if I had gone, it would give my mamm false hope, and I do not want to hurt her any more than I have.”
Ruth looked toward the parking lot. “I see you got your buggy back. Are you sure you ought to be out by yourself yet?”
“I’m not by myself. I’m with you.”
She smiled. “Technically. But you didn’t know that when you came.”
“I never give up hoping to find you here, in our place.”
Hi
s sentimentality sluiced through her. “Elijah, I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“Yes you are.”
She met his eyes then looked away. He was right. She knew what he wanted to hear, but she could not say it.
“What do you have there?” Elijah asked.
Ruth spread the strap between her hands. “I suppose you heard about the fire yesterday.”
He nodded. “These days the whole town gets jumpy when we hear a siren.”
“I found this.”
He shrugged. “It’s just a water bottle strap. The English use them all the time.”
Ruth inhaled and took a long time to exhale.
“Ruth? What’s the matter?”
“I’ve seen this strap before. And it doesn’t belong to anyone who was at the fire yesterday.”
Thirty-Five
June 1892
Joseph removed his hat long enough to drag a sleeve across his forehead and down one side of his face. A streak of gray resulted on his shirt, new dirt, as opposed to the sweat and dust of the last two days that may have permanently discolored the soft white cotton garment.
For the third time in ten days, he had ridden out with a posse chasing a fresh rumor. He doubted Deputy Combs would organize another ride. The claims people made to have seen Roper lacked substance. Some even insisted they had seen his hat, which Combs still kept locked up in the sheriff’s office and for which Old Man Twigg harangued the officer on a daily basis.
Combs would surrender the hat soon. The men riding in posses would decide they could no longer afford to be away from their own shops and ranches. And the citizens of Baxter County would choose a new sheriff. Finding Jesse Roper was likely the deputy’s last hope of being elected sheriff.
Joseph hung back from the posse riders who would disburse to their properties. He tugged the reins to take his horse to the edge of town. To the livery. To Zeke and Stephen and their concerned scowls and news of their own scouting jaunt. When he reached the stables, he stilled his mount and assessed the scene. The small building closest to the road looked as tidy as it always did. The owner’s wife made sure the business presented well. Set back from the road, the stable’s doors were open wide and Joseph could see straight through the building. Two stable boys were mucking and another was bringing fresh hay. In the yard beyond the far end, two men brushed burrs from their horses’ manes. Joseph slid off his horse and led the animal around the structures.
In the rear yard, Zeke stopped brushing. “Joseph. You’ve come back.”
“I never said I would not.” Joseph straightened his hat with both hands. “And your journey? When did you return?”
“Yesterday.”
“And have you found God’s will for the new settlement?”
“We’re going home,” Stephen said. “We will give our report there.”
“You must come with us,” Zeke urged.
“I pray you are taking a favorable report.” Joseph ignored Zeke’s admonition. “The land of Baxter County has much to commend itself. Wide open acres for farming. The river nearby. A town on the railroad route.”
Zeke shook his head. “You speak rightly of the virtues of the county. But this is a place of strife. Even beyond Mountain Home and Gassville, the feud between the Dentons and the Twiggs is a subject of conversation and speculation. Other families are quarreling as well. I cannot recommend to the bishop that we bring our people of peace to this region.”
“Perhaps we can be an influence of peace,” Joseph said.
“We seek a place to live apart,” Zeke said, “not to resolve the English mistreatment of their own.”
“The horses are nearly fully rested,” Stephen said. “We will leave at first light.”
Joseph held silent.
Belle Mooney covered her eyes with her hands and leaned her back on the door. On the other side, Maura Woodley pounded.
Belle breathed in and out with deliberation, lodging her weight against the door lest Maura should manage to turn the feeble lock and try to enter.
“Belle, I miss you!” Maura pleaded. “We have been friends too long for this to stand between us.”
Belle moved her hands to cover her ears and began to hum the tune of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Never in their entire lives had she gone ten days without sharing at least a few minutes with Maura. Their mothers had been friends before their daughters were born, and it was a daily ritual for one of them to walk to the other’s home on any pretense or none at all, children in tow. Maura and Belle had sustained the tradition after they came of age and after their mothers passed on.
But that was over. Maura had never understood about John. She had taken the Dentons’ side.
She would leave town, Belle decided. Her mother had passed on years ago. John was gone. Her father hated the family of the man she loved. Her best friend refused to understand. She would go somewhere else, another county, even another state. Schools were everywhere. She would find a position and leave Gassville. It did not matter that she would be an old maid schoolteacher. In a new place, she could remember John in peace.
“Belle, please,” Maura said, loudly now since Belle had begun to sing the hymn with full voice. “Can’t we talk?”
“No!”
“I do not accept that circumstances have come to this.”
“You don’t accept a lot of things.” Belle turned and faced the door, her open palms pressed against it now. “That’s what gets you into so much trouble. I’m finished with that. I’m finished with you.”
“You cannot mean that.”
“Don’t tell me what I mean. All my life you’ve been doing that.”
“Belle! What has gotten into you?”
“Go away, Maura Woodley. Leave me be.”
Belle exhaled at the silence that came from the outside. She heard the rustle of Maura’s skirt and knew she was wearing the new petticoat they had worked on together.
“Belle Agnes Mooney,” Maura said. “I will be your friend forever. That is all there is to it. I am leaving your porch, but I am not leaving you.”
Silence.
“You know where to find me when you’re ready.”
“I will never be ready!” Belle pounded the inside of the door with one fist.
Finally she heard Maura’s shoes hitting the porch steps one at a time in careful rhythm. Belle moved to a front window, stood to the side where she could not be seen from the outside, and watched the truest friend she had ever known—other than John—walk away. When Maura turned for a moment to glance at the house, Belle glided into the interior hall without looking back.
Maura did not for one minute believe what Belle said. Joseph was right. Belle needed time. She would come to her senses once her heart began to mend.
Still, Belle’s words stung. Instead of turning toward home, or even toward Main Street, she let her feet carry her out of town. She walked so far she began to wonder if she should have brought the cart. No, it was better to be alone, unencumbered even by a horse that never hesitated to serve her well. At least she was wearing practical shoes, and pinched toes would not distract her from what weighed on her mind. Miles passed beneath determined steps. The closer she got to the White River, the more strongly she felt she wanted to sit on its bluff and let her heart soak in its beauty while the wind whipped cool dampness and deposited it on her clothing. Across the open ranch land, an occasional darting rabbit, cattle with fly-swatting tails, and the swarming flies of summer were the only moving beings she saw.
She cut through the woods along the inland edge of the Denton ranch, staying under the canopy of shade as much as she could. Humidity weighed down with its outrageous magnification of the heat to the point that Maura wondered if anyone would care if she meandered down the sloped side of the bluff and waded away from the river’s edge. Despite her anticipation of standing in awe of the river, her heart collapsed in on itself as she moved through the Denton land and the woods thinned until she could hardly find a tree for a pass
ing moment of shade. With horror, she realized that Ing and Lee had ravaged their own land beyond recognition. In the name of honest work, men like Ezekiel Berkey and Joseph Beiler and a dozen others from Gassville had labored to deprive the land of its enchantment.
Finally she reached the crown of the bluff and felt the movement of air swirling up from the path the river carved. Northeastern Arkansas was hardly the frontier. It had not been for some time. Trim little towns like Gassville dotted the landscape, and travelers could begin journeys in any direction in the relative comfort of a railroad car—even sleeping Pullman compartments.
Maura heard footsteps crunching behind her and spun around. “Joseph.”
“It’s a beautiful spot, is it not?” He tilted his hat toward the rushing water.
Maura spread her arms. “It was more beautiful before…how could Lee and Ing take out so many trees?”
“At first it was just going to be a few, so they could see the river from the house.” Joseph moved to stand beside Maura. “Then it was a few more, and a few more.”
“It’s awful.” She shook her head. “It’s just awful. There’s nothing else to say. But why should the riverfront be pretty when the county is one big gunslinging pile of hate?”
He had no response.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to accuse you. If you hadn’t wanted the work, they would have found someone else.”
“True enough. But now that I see what it must look like through the eyes of someone who grew up here, perhaps I was overeager.”
She sucked in her bottom lip and let it out. “I’m sure if the posse had turned up something I would have heard the news.”
“Nothing,” he said. “I don’t believe they will ride again.”
“If anyone can talk sense into them, it would be you.”
“You flatter me. But my people are not given to pride, so I will only humbly respond that the men want to get back to their own businesses. Catching Mr. Roper will be up to whatever system you English have for such matters once a man has disappeared as undeniably as he has.”
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