“Yes, ’m, she Amish, I black, you white and English. S’ far as de Lawd go, we look zactly alike.” Royal was in no mood to take any airs from her mistress, who had puffed up like Bappie’s hens, ready to strike out.
“Well, I beg your pardon, but I don’t believe an Amish girl … woman will have enough knowledge to know what to do with these children being ill all at once.”
The piteous sound of gagging and retching, the high, thin wail of a terrified child, and Royal moved out of the room like a large ship, her skirts riding the floorboards efficiently.
Hester was left facing the taut face of the older woman. Up went the chin, the nostrils dilated, the lids of the eyes slid lower. She crossed her arms at the waist, drew a deep breath, and spoke, the words like scalding steam. “I would ask you to leave. No Amish is going to minister to my grandchildren. Your people have no idea about sickness or health. No schooling, no knowledge. You are a fraud. Do you hear me? A fraud.”
The last sentence was spat in Hester’s face.
“You will not enter my son’s house again. Leave. Now.”
Hester drew up her chin, bent to pick up her black bag, and spoke slowly, “As you wish, ma’am.” She let herself out, walked up the street heavily, the weight in her legs from exhaustion, but also from defeat. So be it. Perhaps she was a fraud.
Hot tears welled up in her eyes as she walked past the Lewises, past houses where others would become sick, or were already gripped by the stomach pain and nausea. She went past the round, brick well in the small courtyard without seeing any children pulling up buckets of tainted water.
What had the Indian woman said? If the spring runoff produces an ill stomach, it must be boiled to sweeten it. Now the illness was called dysentery.
Well, it was up to the doctors to figure it out. She would go home to Bappie, get some much needed rest, and see what occurred in the following days.
She stumbled into the house, her face pinched and drawn, slammed her black bag against the wall in the hallway, and grumbled to herself, ill humor escaping her mouth.
“Bappie!”
“What?”
“Can’t you ever get this rug straight inside the door? I always stumble over it when I use the door from the street.”
When there was no answer, she walked into the kitchen. Noah was seated at the table, watching her face with his blue eyes squinting in delight. Hester did not see him at first, her vision clouded with the mist of exhaustion, her temper short because of it.
When she looked up, her eyes widened. She became flustered, but desperate to hide the mixture of feelings, she hung up her shawl, straightened her windblown cap, and tucked an imaginary stray hair behind her ear.
“Hello, Hester.”
She nodded, short and curt, without meeting Noah’s eyes. Still, his eyes twinkled with good humor and something more. “Rough night? Bappie tells me you think there might be an outbreak of dysentery.”
Whirling, her fists clenched, Hester faced him, her eyes like polished black stones. “Bappie has no right to tell you anything. I don’t know what’s wrong with the people who have been taken ill.”
She turned, yanked open the narrow door that led to the small, twisted stairway, and disappeared, her feet sounding dully on the stairs, the floorboards creaking in her room.
Bappie watched, raised her eyebrows, and pursed her lips. “Whatever brought that on?”
Noah shook his head, the light of humor replaced by a dark brooding, an unfathomable shadow in the depth of his eyes.
“It’s all right, Bappie. You forget I spent my childhood in her company. I know her much better than you have any idea. She’ll tell you what’s bothering her, then you can let me know. I have a hunch she was put down pretty badly by someone.”
Bappie looked up, puzzled. “You think?”
He nodded, then got up to leave. “I’ll be back.”
Before Bappie could protest, he had slipped silently out the door, leaving her shaking her head. Like a puzzle with most of the pieces missing, those two.
Noah had collected his pay from Bappie, although he cut the amount to less than half. He smiled at her announcement that she would not rebuild, a very good move, as he had seen Levi Buehler and figured there would be a public announcement when the time was right.
The storm had been an act of God, yes. There was a time when he wasn’t sure he believed in God, and certainly had no faith at all in the goodness of the Christian faith when it was carried in a pious manner behind a veil of deception that hid a hornet’s nest of sins. It had shaken him to the core when he discovered that folks around him were not always what they professed, but he learned to shrug his shoulders and judge no one unduly, knowing it was a part of life.
When Hester left, disappearing into the forest one golden evening, every suspicion he had tried to dispel came roaring back, setting him back on his heels. He had helplessly watched Hans thrash through the surrounding woods in a fever of agitation, driven by a passion he could not understand. At first.
He had been forced to search for her with Isaac and his father, torn by the wild hope that she would escape the cruelty that dogged her life—Annie’s jealousy of her a rampant misery—and the unbearable fear that he would never see her again.
He had lived the ensuing weeks in bouts of utter emptiness. Joining the cavalry became a way to escape the loss of his faith—not only in God, but in his father and his stepmother, Annie, too, whose wrongs multiplied by the hour. But he had come to realize that he, too, had chosen to betray her. By trying to keep the peace, he had ignored the depth of Annie’s cruelty to Hester.
Yet he carried an all-consuming love for Hester like a torch held aloft, the flame burning with an endless supply of oil like the vessel in the Bible. Hidden away in his heart, it burned steadily.
Riding with the men of war astride a powerful horse, he cared nothing for his life. Like a rotting log, his life was crumbling and bitter, without foundation, his hatred of his father corrupting his own soul. He rode into battle recklessly and without fear, not caring whether he lived or died. He forgot Kate, his gentle mother, along with her love and her upbringing, his mind clouded with the untrustworthy deeds of his father.
The only thing he knew for sure was the torch he carried for Hester. Images of her put him to sleep on cold, rocky stretches of earth. She walked softly through his dreams and was there in his thoughts when he awoke. He wasn’t sure if it was real love, or if he had an obsession with the child of his boyhood. He just knew she was the only thing that mattered, and since she left and he would never see her again, he saw no use in living without her.
And so he rode, shot his rifle, marched along, steadily losing sight of the person he had been. Isaac, his brother, followed him, as devoted as he was when they were children. They had two years of being in the war, two years of unbelievable sights and sounds, experiences they would never fully forget.
Then Isaac was killed. Hans and Annie gave him a decent burial at home in the graveyard among the pines. That loss broke Hans completely, aging him in years as well as wisdom. He believed it must have been his own personal atonement, a payment to God for his wrong fascination with his adopted daughter, Hester, his downfall. In spiritual sackcloth and ashes, he sat for days as tears of remorse cleaned his soul, washing away the dust and the dirt he had been unable to overcome by himself.
Hans wept unashamedly over Isaac’s coffin, gathered his children round and loved them, making amends for the past. He had come to love Annie, whose palsied hands worsened. Tenderly, he cared for her, helping her with household chores. He kissed her cheek and squeezed her shoulder affectionately when yet another pitcher or serving bowl crashed to the floor, her poor afflicted hands shaking and fluttering.
And then Noah decided to go home.
Slowly, his faith was being restored. God came to him in a dream one dark and weary night when his body and soul knew no rest. He blamed himself for Isaac’s death. Isaac had been the younger brother, follow
ing his older brother’s footsteps straight into the devastation of war, and he could not forgive himself.
He dreamed the sun rose, blackened by sin, and made an arc across a blood red sky, all the way to the western horizon where it hung without sinking. There was no power in him to change this, and he knew he was doomed. Then God spoke and reminded him that though his sins were dark and heavy, God’s mercy is as sure and present as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Noah saw the red sky change with a swipe of a dazzling white hand, bigger than he would be able to grasp and larger than the universe, and wash the landscape clean. Whiter than snow, as pure as the angels.
He awoke, sobbing, flattened into his bed by the force of God’s love. He was nothing, an empty shell, and only God could give him life. His faith was restored, his soul fed by the knowledge of God’s mercy and the sacrifice of Jesus for him, for his sinful, empty soul.
When word came from Bucks County about the chance to make quick and plentiful wages as a builder in and around the town of Lancaster, he left almost immediately, thinking of the money he would need to buy his own acreage.
While there, he heard of the Indian woman named Hester, plunging him back into the world of his first love. Despite all he had known and experienced, had he ever really lost that love?
Wryly, he shook his head as he rode home from Bappie’s house. He was sure he’d made some progress with Hester, but about the time he thought she would speak to him, and resume a childhood friendship at the least, she became abrupt, aloof, and so alien she may as well have not even been an acquaintance. It was like trying to tame a deer.
He knew she had been with sick people, and of her ability to heal with the plants she bottled and dried. He believed in her talent, but she could get herself into situations where holding those unconventional truths about healing would be risky. Hester hated being put down. It stemmed from her own low account of herself, being an Indian in a white Amish world.
Teased mercilessly in school, she had never joined the group of youth during the time of rumspringa—for hymn singings, for buggy rides home through the darkened forests, furtively holding hands, or going for dates during weekends.
Noah winced, the pain in his back irritated by his horse’s movement. He thanked God for sparing his life through the storm. He dared to hope he was here for a purpose—mostly being Hester’s husband—a thought that brought a wide grin to his face as he lifted his hat and whistled back at the crazy mockingbird on Levi Stoltzfus’s fencepost.
Hester slept till the sun cast a wide band of light across her face, then got up, dressed, and went downstairs. She washed her face at the dry sink, combed her hair, pinned on her muslin cap, and marched resolutely to the black bag she had dumped in the hallway. She grabbed it, took it outside to the outhouse, and began uncorking bottles as fast as she could.
With the bottles lined up on the wooden seat, she grabbed them, one by one, and emptied them down the hole, the glugging and splashing satisfying. No more of this. She replaced the corks, pitched all the bottles into the bag, then walked back to the house, her mouth set in a stubborn slash across her face.
She emptied the tea kettle of hot water into the dishpan, added a generous sliver of lye soap, swished her hand back and forth till the suds appeared, and began to wash the offending glass bottles, now emptied of her failure.
Fraud, the woman had said. Fraud meant a deceiver, a cheat, a fake. Well, that was one thing she would never be. Hans was a fraud. But she was not. So there, you English lady, you just get the doctor to fix your problem. I will not spend one minute of time wasting these herbs on people who think I’m a liar.
Her anger was like brute strength, and a sharp pain shot through her thumb. Quickly she lifted her hand from the water, already dripping with blood, the gash deep but clean.
Hester snorted with frustration. Now who would wash the bottles? Where was Bappie? Annoyed, she tore clean muslin into strips and went to the cupboard for dried comfrey. Without thinking, she laid the leaf in a small bowl of hot water, then lifted it, patted it dry and draped it across her thumb, winding strips of cloth around it. She’d keep some comfrey for cuts.
She was sweeping bottles of tinctures off the shelf when Bappie returned from Walter Trout’s house, where she had gone to borrow a cup of rye flour.
She stopped inside the back door, watching Hester with suspicious, dark eyes, her eyebrows lowered. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?”
“You’re not emptying those bottles, are you?”
“I sure am.”
Two giant steps of her large, bare feet, and Bappie thrust her outraged face into Hester’s surprised one. “You’re not getting away with this. Whatever are you thinking?” Bappie spread her hands, palms up. “You can’t let those sick people fall like flies down there on Water Street. I’m sure you’re right, that it’s the well water.”
In answer, Hester swooped all the remaining bottles of medicine up in her arms and carried them to the sink. “The doctors can figure it out.” Then she pulled the cork from one bottle and upended it above a wooden bucket. Bappie grabbed her hand, shouting at her to stop this silliness. “What in the world has crawled over you?”
Hester drew back, the backs of her hands on her hips, her fingers curled into fists. “She said I was a fraud, Bappie. That’s one thing I will never be.”
CHAPTER 11
HESTER DISPOSED OF ALL THE MEDICINAL HERBS, EVERY TINCTURE, salve, dried leaf, and root. She washed the bottles, rinsed and dried them, put them in the darkest corner of the large, oak kitchen cupboard, and never looked back.
Not once did she inquire about the well-being of the people who lived on Water Street. If there was a funeral, she did not know it, figuring the doctors could decide what to do. If the well water was unclean, so be it. For the last time, she had been called a liar.
Bappie shook her head, paid the rent, and prepared for her upcoming nuptials. She suggested many different types of employment to Hester, even buying swatches of muslin and embroidery thread, putting down a pattern and tracing an intricate design for Hester to work, but she would have none of it.
Hester cleaned the house, did the washing, tended the small garden in the backyard, and avoided Noah and Levi Buehler—and every other man—going about her days in silence, an injured ghost.
Bappie shrugged her shoulders, made small talk, and ate the meals Hester cooked. But she spent most of her time out at Levi’s farm, cleaning, washing the walls, the floors, the blankets and quilts, avoiding the hounds as best she could, tagging after Levi, and making bold statements where the management of the farm was concerned.
Levi indulged the peppery Bappie with slow humor. Ripples of laughter rumbled deep in his chest, but Bappie never heard them as she spread her thin arms, gesturing to make a point. Levi nodded, his eyes twinkling and dancing with unaccustomed amusement, so gratified was he by the spirited woman who had promised to become his wife.
It was the evening he asked her to go coon hunting with him, that he kissed her—a slow, gentle expression of his love, his admiration, and the wish that she should know this. Bappie was taken completely by surprise, the gentle kiss knocking all the speech out of her as thoroughly as a faint. She put two fingers to her lips and would not look at Levi the remainder of the evening. She went home with a silent demeanor and an unusually humble, “Gute Nacht.”
She sat at the breakfast table with Hester the following morning, her brown eyes large and limpid, saying nothing, eating very little. Hester eyed her friend discreetly, finally asking what was wrong, she was so silent.
Bappie lifted shamed eyes to Hester. “Levi kissed my mouth. Now I’ll have to make my socha in church.” Hester looked at Bappie and her shoulders began to shake. She laughed clear, delicious merriment that welled up from her stomach, worked its way through her chest, and was finally thrown into the air like visible music notes, bouncing and jostling against the ceiling where they sparked the day with
pleasure.
“Ach, Bappie, no. No. It’s very much a part of his love for you. I’m surprised he waited this long.”
Bappie’s eyes turned from dark suspicion to shame to acceptance to ribald humor, flavored with relief and capped by gratitude. “You mean, it’s not wrong?”
“For some, maybe, but it’s up to you.”
Bappie clasped her hands reverently just beneath her chin, let her eyelids fall as demurely as a blushing bride, and sighed with pure contentment. “I’m glad I’m getting married,” she whispered.
They went coon hunting. It was a warm evening when the sky was moonless, and only a scattering of stars, like pinpricks in the dark sky, was barely visible through the thick canopy of trees.
Bappie was prepared, wearing sturdy, black, leather shoes. Hester wore only the soft moccasins she used around the house.
They drove to the farm with Walter Trout’s horse, the brown mare they borrowed frequently after Silver had died in the storm.
Hester was alarmed, then dismayed, to find Noah standing in the barnyard, the coonhounds roiling around him and Levi like a current of dogs. Her breath quickened and her head spun with dizziness, as she clutched the handle of the buggy with whitened knuckles to lower herself to the ground. Angry at the rush of anxiety that sped up her senses, she helped Bappie unhitch the brown mare without glancing at either man, who walked over to offer assistance.
Bappie blushed furiously but met Levi Buehler’s gaze with open appreciation, the twilight a kindness to her reddened complexion.
Hester stayed behind the horse, her head bent, unclasping the britching as slowly as possible. She felt exposed when the brown mare was led out of the shafts of the buggy and taken away by Levi, with Bappie walking beside him to put the horse in the barn.
Noah stood on one side of the shafts, Hester on the other. If the twilight was kind to Bappie, it made Hester look enchanting. Like a vision, she stood, her head bent, her eyes lowered.
Hester Takes Charge Page 11