by Jan Drexler
“Ja, for sure.”
When he had gathered the horses and started back toward the wagon, Magdalena Hertzler stopped him. “Have you seen Johanna? She went to pick dandelion greens with the other girls after dinner, but they haven’t come back.”
“They probably lost track of time. I’ll go look for them while Daed hitches up the team.”
Telling Daed where he was going, he tried to keep from worrying. They couldn’t have gone far and nothing could happen to them in this settled part of the country. He hoped they had only gotten turned around in the woods. The look on Cole’s face as he had watched the Schrocks’ wagon cross the river came back to him, but the Bates brothers had lingered in the tavern until the Amish group had all crossed and gone on their way. They were probably still lounging there, waiting for their turn at the ferry.
Jacob started toward the spot where he had seen the girls go into the trees, and Andrew jogged after him.
“I heard that Mattie and the others haven’t come back yet. Do you want some help looking for them?”
He didn’t want Andrew coming with him to fetch Mattie, but he pushed down the bitterness that rose with the thought. Andrew had as much reason as he did to be concerned about them. “For sure. Two will be better than one.”
When they climbed past the thickets at the edge of the trees, the interior of the woods was shaded and cool. The trees were thick enough to keep the undergrowth from hindering their passage.
Andrew stopped to survey the quiet grove. “They wouldn’t find any greens here.”
“There’s a sunny patch up ahead. Let’s check there.”
As they drew closer, Jacob saw that the sunny patch was at the edge of a large meadow at the top of the bluff. On the far side the girls were gathered together talking with some men.
Jacob stopped Andrew. “Who are they talking with? No one from our group.”
“It’s the Bates brothers.” He walked faster and Jacob trotted after him. “I knew we needed to worry about them.”
By the time they finally found the meadow on top of the bluff that was dotted yellow with spring dandelions, Mattie was hot and thirsty. Johanna and Naomi didn’t seem to notice but sat in the grass and fell to picking as many of the soft greens as they could reach. This hadn’t turned out to be the adventure Mattie had hoped for when Johanna suggested it while they were washing dishes. She thought it would be a chance to see something new, but the trees were too thick to see beyond the meadow. Then she turned toward the river and was rewarded with the view she had been looking for. The water, brown with spring silt, flowed with a power that showed itself here and there where the silky surface was split by a rock or log snag. Beyond the river, farmlands interspersed with wood lots stretched into the distance.
Mattie stooped to pick the delicate leaves, searching among the long grass for the tenderest shoots. She pushed a strand of loose hair behind her ear and straightened her back. Her pail was half full. Johanna and Naomi chattered together as they filled their buckets, moving away from Mattie as they worked. Mattie went the other direction, to a part of the meadow they hadn’t reached yet, a shallow dish of green near the edge of the forest, full of dandelions. She bent to pick a handful, then took another step to grab some more of the choice leaves.
“Those will make a mighty fine mess of greens for your man.” The words were English, the voice warm and friendly.
Mattie hesitated, and then looked up. Cole Bates strolled toward her from a road that ran along the crest of the bluff. His brothers sat on their horses behind him, holding Cole’s bay gelding by the reins.
“Yes, they’re fine greens.” A thrill ran through her. Cole seemed handsome and friendly in the afternoon sunshine, and she felt nothing of the fright he had given her that night on the other side of the mountains. She glanced toward Naomi and Johanna, but they were around the bulge of some brambles, out of sight.
“Will you fix them with ham hocks?” Cole had reached her side. He bent down to pick a few of the leaves and dropped them into her pail, leaning close to her. His nearness, combined with the odor of stale beer and horse sweat, made her take a step back.
“Perhaps.”
He grinned at her. “And your man?”
She felt her face turn red-hot. He must have meant to ask if she had a husband. “I don’t have a . . . a man.”
He grinned again and moved to her other side, placing himself between her and the other girls. He picked another handful of greens and threw them into her pail. “Then maybe you could make that mess of greens for me.”
He winked and she turned her head away. She had been staring at him. He wore his hat at an angle that gave him a daring look, and his black hair, black mustache, and black eyes, with a neckerchief tied around his throat, completed the picture. His shirt collar was open, and he wore a patterned vest. Even his boots had fancy silver trim on the sides. Just like the other times she had seen him, she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
“What do you say?”
His grin was like a child’s, open and carefree. She couldn’t help it. She smiled back. “My daed wouldn’t like it.”
He leaned close to her with another wink. “Your dad needn’t know.”
“Mattie?” Naomi called to her. “Where are you?”
Cole put his finger to his lips, but Mattie shook her head. “I’m over here,” she answered in Deitsch.
“We need to start back to the camp. Johanna and I filled our—” Naomi stopped abruptly as she rounded the curve of a patch of berry brambles and saw her with Cole.
Cole never turned to look toward Naomi. Instead, something beyond Mattie’s shoulder had caught his attention. Mattie glanced back and saw his brothers coming up behind her. Turning back to Naomi, she saw Johanna step up next to her. Both of their faces were shocked and wary.
“Ja, Naomi, you’re right. We need to get back.”
She moved to step around Cole, but he grasped her arm. “You girls don’t need to talk that Dutch stuff. We’re just getting acquainted. There are three of us and three of you.” He pulled Mattie closer and leaned toward her ear. “And that seems just about right, doesn’t it?”
Mattie looked into his eyes. Sharp and black like obsidian, a person could lose herself in them. He smiled then, as if he was confident she would agree with him.
A shout from across the meadow drew their attention.
“Mattie, it’s time to go.” It was Andrew, and right behind him was Jacob.
What was she doing? She should never talk to an outsider like this. She pulled her arm from Cole’s grasp. “I need to go.”
His handsome face twisted for a second, then he smiled at her again. “Until another time, then.”
Cole joined his brothers as they made their way back to their horses. Mattie watched them until they mounted and rode off. Her insides quaked as she turned to her friends.
Andrew and Jacob had caught up with them. Andrew reached out one hand. “Come, Mattie. The noon stop is over and the wagons have started moving again. We need to catch up with them.”
“Ja, for sure.” Mattie smiled, keeping her voice bright. If it quavered a bit at the end of her words, no one seemed to notice.
Andrew took the lead, heading back toward the river and the camp between the river and the bluff. Johanna followed him, with Naomi right behind her. But Jacob stepped in front of Mattie.
“What did he want from you? That Bates fellow?”
Mattie looked at Jacob’s boots, grass stained from his walk through the meadow. Cole hadn’t said anything wrong, but the way he turned his words made his meaning mysterious.
She laughed as she met Jacob’s gaze. “He wanted me to make a dish for him from the greens.”
He held her gaze as he stepped aside to let her follow the others. “Some greens? That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“He’s a dangerous one, Mattie. He looks fair, but feels foul, if you know what I mean.”
Mattie looked into his eyes, c
omparing them to Cole’s. Brown, warm, and inviting. Hiding nothing. She passed him and ran to catch up with Naomi and Johanna. Jacob’s eyes held a promise of comfort and stability. But Cole? His eyes held adventure.
12
Jacob watched Mattie catch up to the other girls. Whatever she said, Cole’s interest in her couldn’t be as simple as asking her to cook him some food.
He let the others go on as he doubled back, following the Bateses’ trail through the long grass on the top of the bluff to the road they had come from. The narrow track clung to the edge of the ridge, offering an unobstructed view of the rolling farmland across the way, the river with its flatboats poling through the swift current, and the larger river road below. From this vantage point he could see Eli Schrock’s wagon leading their group, with the Yoders’ wagon close behind. The other wagons followed, then he saw Andrew and the girls come out from the trees below him and run to catch up with the group. Last of all came the little flock of sheep, with Peter walking in the lead with Bam. The ram, still damp from his adventure in the river, pranced and bucked next to Peter before snatching a bite from the grass along the road.
As quickly as the Bates brothers could travel on their horses, Cole Bates could have been watching them all the way from Pittsburgh and waited until he knew he could talk to the girls alone. Jacob cast a glance along the bluff top. Somewhere ahead of him on this trail, the Bates brothers could be watching Mattie even now.
Jacob forced his tight fists to relax. Even if he wanted to fight Cole, he would never come out of such an encounter as the winner. Cole was wise in the ways of the world and had surely been in his share of fights. Fighting wasn’t the way to prevent the Englisher from taking what he wanted.
He and Andrew, and the other men, too, could keep watch over the girls. But even that wouldn’t be enough against a determined foe. Cole would only wait until their guard was down. Was Mattie to be a prisoner forever, just because some Englisher had taken a fancy to her?
As Mattie and Naomi caught up to their family’s wagon, they hopped onto the lazy board, the seat running along the far side of the wagon, and disappeared from his view. He took one more look along the top of the bluff, but saw no one, then started down the steep hill toward the river. He hadn’t missed the interest showing in Mattie’s eyes when she was talking to Cole. He would never understand a girl’s mind. Never. There was nothing about that man to draw her, and yet she had spoken to him. Had let him take her arm. She couldn’t be interested in him. Not Mattie.
When he passed the place where he and Andrew had found the girls, Jacob stopped to get his breathing and his feelings under control. Not only would the sheep notice his agitation, but Peter and Margli would too. It wouldn’t do any good to worry them. He leaned over, resting his hands on his knees, taking a deep breath. He whooshed it out, then took another one. His eyes focused on the bent grass blades below his feet, and one stray dandelion leaf, already wilting. Mattie must have dropped it, possibly when Cole grasped her arm.
The memory made him straighten with a groan. If Mattie wanted to go with that man, to leave her family, there was nothing to hold her back. She hadn’t taken her baptism vows yet, so there was nothing to hold her to the church. Love of family and home hadn’t been enough to keep Liesbet from straying, and he couldn’t count on it being enough for Mattie, either.
And her longing to see beyond the land in front of her feet haunted him. He groaned again, pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes. If only he could rid himself of the memory of the look in her eyes when she spoke of seeing new lands. There was nothing he could do to keep her at home, not if she wanted the adventures Cole could promise her.
Adventures leading to her destruction.
As little as Jacob had seen of the world, he had recognized the look in Cole’s eyes when he held Mattie close to him. Mattie deserved a man who would love her and care for her. A man who would protect her. Cole had no thought beyond how he could use her. There had been no love in his expression.
An idea flitted through Jacob’s mind, leaving him cold. The one way he could ensure that Mattie wouldn’t willingly follow Cole Bates. He snatched off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. An idea so preposterous . . . but it might work. Mattie hadn’t yet taken her vows to God, to become a member of the church, but what if she gave her vow to him? If he could persuade Mattie to pledge her life to him, a promise of marriage, perhaps that would be strong enough to keep her from leaving her family—and him—and keep her from following Cole to disaster.
By the time the group stopped to make camp, they had gone fifteen miles from the ferry crossing of the Allegheny River, had forded countless streams flowing into the Ohio River, and passed through half a dozen small towns along the riverbank. Tomorrow, Yost Bontrager had said, they would reach the Indian trail that would take them west, away from the river and deep into Ohio, to the Amish settlement there.
Jacob could only feel relief at the thought of leaving the river behind. All afternoon he had kept scanning the bluffs above the river, watching for any sign of the Bates brothers. Not seeing them didn’t settle his mind at all. He’d rather know where they were lurking.
The night’s camping spot was a wide meadow filled with coarse swamp grasses. Earlier in the spring this would have been a swirling eddy in the flooded river, but as summer approached, the marshy ground was nearly dry. They halted the wagons back from the river, under the brow of the ever-present bluffs where the ground was higher, and picketed the horses in the lower meadow, where the coarse grass grew thick. Jacob settled the sheep near the wagons where they could browse on the brush growing on the side of the steep slope rising above them.
After the meal, when evening prayers had been said and the campsite cleaned up for the night, most of the travelers went to bed. Jacob joined Henry, Andrew, and the girls around the fire. This gathering time, while the parents settled their young children for the night and the older members of the group sought rest and quiet, had become a pleasant habit for the young people. Sometimes they sang together, soft hymns that lulled them all to a quiet night’s rest. Rarely, one of their fathers had to reprimand them for laughing too loudly at Andrew’s jokes.
Tonight Jacob took the spot on a log next to Mattie. Naomi and Henry sat on her other side, with Andrew and Johanna on their own log across the fire. Jacob rubbed his hands together to warm them against the chill air along the river. He wanted to spend time alone with Mattie, but how could he get the others to leave them alone by the fire?
His question was answered when Andrew gave a big yawn. He scooted closer to Johanna, and then leaned forward to stir the coals. “It’s been a long day. How about just one song, and then we call it a night.”
Naomi wrapped her shawl more tightly around her shoulders and leaned toward the dying fire. “That sounds good to me. I can hardly keep my eyes open.”
Andrew started singing a hymn, one of Jacob’s favorites. Their voices blended under the starry sky as Andrew led them through the verses.
When the song ended, he stood. “I’d volunteer for the first watch tonight, Jacob, but I’m afraid I’d fall asleep. Do you mind?”
“Not at all. I’ll wake you when it’s your turn.”
When Naomi started toward the wagon with Henry, she hesitated, looking at Mattie. When Jacob took Mattie’s hand in his, she said, “You go ahead, Naomi. I’ll be along soon.”
Johanna took Naomi’s arm and they giggled together before saying good night and separating to their own wagons.
Jacob didn’t release Mattie’s hand, even when they were alone, and she didn’t pull it away. He pushed all thoughts of Cole Bates out of his mind as he ran his thumb along her slender fingers. His Mattie.
“What did you want to talk about?” She didn’t look toward him as she spoke, but stared into the pulsing red coals.
His mouth went dry. All afternoon he had been rehearsing what he would say, the reasons he would give her, telling himself that securing her pledge w
as right and good. It was to keep her safe. But now that the time had come, the words stuck in his throat.
Mattie took a stick and poked at the dying fire. “Are you going to keep the fire going all night?”
He pushed off the log, releasing her hand. “Ja, ja, ja.” He put three small logs on the coals and dropped some kindling between them. He blew gently until the kindling caught, then fed the small fire with Mattie’s stick.
She leaned back with her fingers laced around one knee. “Do you remember the night before my family left the Conestoga? It was a night like this one.”
Jacob gazed at Mattie’s face in the firelight. “You were crying, and came to see me.”
“I didn’t want to leave you behind. I wanted to go west, but I wanted you to go with us.”
“That was a long time ago. You were just a little girl.”
She turned to him then, and he sat beside her on the log again. “I might have been a little girl, but I knew what I wanted.”
Jacob swallowed, his mouth full of cotton. “Do you know what you want now, Mattie?”
She looked into the fire again. “I think I do, then something happens, and I don’t know what to think.”
“You mean Cole Bates.”
Mattie nodded, and Jacob held back the words he wanted to say. Words that would tell her what a fool she was for even considering that man worth a moment of her time. Words that would berate her and condemn the man who held her thoughts.
He took her hand again and held it until she met his eyes. “Think back to when we were children. What did you want then?”
She laughed, hiding her mouth behind her hand. “I wanted you to be my brother, so we could live together forever. Isn’t that silly?”
Jacob’s breath caught at the simple beauty of her expression. His Mattie, pure and innocent. His breast burned with the need to protect her. “I don’t think it’s silly. I knew even then that we were meant to be together.”
“But no matter how hard I prayed, you never became my brother, and we moved away. I thought I’d never see you again.”