by Anna Schmidt
“It’s just…”
“I know,” she replied. “I can see.”
“See what?” he asked brusquely, but his heartbeat quickened like a kid caught sneaking under the circus tent without paying.
“You love her.” She gave his cheek one final gentle pat and returned to the sleeping car, letting the door to the platform shut behind her.
Chapter Twelve
Love? Impossible.
Infatuation maybe. But love? What did he know of love? Vague memories of his parents’ deep affection for each other flashed across his mind. He had never really understood how a man and woman could risk such intense feelings. What if one of them died?
What if they both did?
Levi had not been able to get Lily’s comment out of his head ever since returning to his car and trying to concentrate on work instead of Hannah. She would be fine. She was being well cared for and tomorrow, as soon as the train rolled into the last town on the tour, he would make sure she was seen by the local doctor. In the meantime, he had to try and make sense of the bank statement before him.
I am not in love with her.
And even if I were…
As dawn approached, he pushed himself away from his desk and walked out to the observation platform—the very last piece of the long train chugging its way through the night. He caught the scent of freshly plowed fields after a May rain. He saw cows heading out to pasture and farmers driving their tractors along narrow country roads.
The sun wouldn’t be up for hours yet but these men had fields to be planted and cows to be milked. The train entered a tunnel and the blackness engulfed Levi, the cold dampness of the rock walls sending a shiver through him. And when the train emerged at the far end of the tunnel, he saw in the distance the signature silhouette of an Amish buggy leaving a large white farm house surrounded by large willow trees. So many years had passed, but a memory jolted him, the memory of riding just such a buggy on just such a morning as this, and his father passing him the reins. “Take over, son.”
He watched that buggy until it disappeared from sight. And only when he tasted the salt of his tears did Levi realize that he was crying.
Hannah’s head hurt but the very idea of spending the day in bed was so foreign to her that it made her feel anxious. “Surely I could work,” she told the doctor who had arrived shortly after the train pulled into their last stop before reaching Baraboo. “All I do is sit at a desk and post numbers in a ledger and file…”
The doctor frowned as he put away his stethoscope. “I suppose you could go in for an hour or so. But I am warning you, young lady, this injury is not to be trifled with. At the first sign of dizziness or blurred vision I want you back in bed and someone sent to get me.”
“Yes, sir.” Hannah thought she would have agreed to just about anything he asked so thrilled was she to think that soon she could be out of the close quarters of the sleeping car. And most of all she wanted to see Levi.
“I’ll help you get dressed,” Pleasant said when the doctor had left, giving Gunther a prescription for headache powders and promising to stop by later to see that she was doing all right.
“I’m fine, really.” Pleasant had been hovering over her ever since she’d cracked her head. “It wasn’t your fault,” Hannah added.
Pleasant burst into tears. “Please don’t say anything to Father about what I said that made you sit up so suddenly and…”
So that was it. Pleasant was afraid that Hannah might mention her comment about possibly staying in Wisconsin. “Oh, Pleasant,” she said, wrapping her arms around her sister-in-law. “Why didn’t you say that you were worried about that? Of course I won’t mention it.”
Pleasant sniffed back tears and studied Hannah’s face seeking assurance that she could be trusted. “You do understand,” she said softly, and then as if a match had suddenly flamed to life, she smiled. “You understand because of Levi.”
Hannah stiffened. “I don’t get your meaning.”
Pleasant picked up Hannah’s hairbrush from the pile of belongings Lily had brought and began brushing her sister-in-law’s hair. “Yes, you do. Everyone is talking about it—the way he watches you and looks at you when you’re together. In the costume shop, there’s even speculation that he might propose, but I told them such a thing could never happen. We are Amish. I reminded them that he is not and besides, he is engaged in a profession that…”
Pleasant continued to chatter on while Hannah’s mind froze on the words “might propose.” Of course, such a thing was unthinkable on every possible level. They barely knew one another for starters.
And yet you kissed him.
She could not deny the facts. Theirs was no stolen peck on the lips that he had trapped her into giving. Theirs was a shared kiss laden with all of the questions and curiosities that two adults who are attracted to each other can not resist exploring.
“…And so the point is…” Pleasant rambled on as she wound Hannah’s hair into a tight bun and anchored it firmly with hairpins she pulled one by one from her mouth even as she continued talking.
The point is, Hannah thought, that this must stop… today. And she made up her mind to go and find Levi as soon as she was free to leave the sleeping car. On the other hand, if anyone saw them talking…
I’ll write him a letter.
Chester Tuck was at his desk when Hannah got to the payroll car. She had met him only once before when Jake had introduced them as Chester was on his way to the next stop on the tour. The man was thin and stooped and nervous, always fidgeting with his hat and always seeming to be about to run away.
“It’s what makes him a good twenty-four-hour man,” Jake told her. “He likes to keep things moving.”
And true to his nature, the minute he saw Hannah, Chester started moving papers around on his desk, shoveling them into a top drawer as he stood and grabbed his hat from the brass hat rack on the wall. “Morning, Mrs. Goodloe,” he muttered without looking at her directly.
“Good morning. I hope I won’t disturb you if I take care of some filing?”
“No, ma’am. Just on my way out.” He edged toward the door and then stopped. “No need to file those things there,” he said with an off-handed wave toward the wire basket on his desk. “I’ll take care of those when I get back later.”
“I’d be more than happy to…”
“No.” The single word carried a hint of panic, but then he smiled. “I need to clear something up with one of the suppliers before we file those,” he explained. “I’ll take care of it. You have a good day now.”
Hannah finished the day’s filing—minus the papers on Chester’s desk—within the hour. In that time she had heard Levi’s laughter and the low rumble of his voice giving instructions, or engaged in conversation, but he had not come to the payroll car. Jake had been in and out several times, muttering something about suppliers not living up to their end of things and asking if she’d seen the invoice for the feed store delivery.
“No. It might be there,” she said, pointing to the stack of papers on Chester’s desk. “I offered to file them, but Chester said something about a supplier…”
Jake grabbed the stack of papers and scanned them, his usually easygoing nature tense and confused. “I don’t get it,” he muttered. “Okay,” he said, putting the papers down, “if Chester comes back, tell him I need to see him right away.”
He started out the door, then turned and smiled apologetically. “Sorry, Hannah. How are you feeling? You aren’t overdoing, are you?”
“I’m fine,” she assured him.
“Good. I’ll let Levi know. The man’s been jumpy as a frog all morning.”
And with a wave he was gone, leaving Hannah standing at the door and thinking, If Levi is so concerned then why not stop by to see for himself that I’m better?
But that would indicate that he had feelings for her and she didn’t want that…did she? She couldn’t want that.
“This has to end now,” she mutter
ed aloud as she sat down at her desk—Ida’s desk—and pulled out a piece of paper.
Levi was not having a good day. He was worried about Hannah but had determined not to try and see her, and instead had relied on others to provide information. Lily had taken it upon herself to give him a running commentary of how Hannah had done overnight.
“Slept some but restless, you know? I expect she was in considerable pain and she has quite a bruise on her forehead. I offered to cover the worst of it with makeup but then I was forgetting myself. She and Pleasant have become so much a part of the company that sometimes…”
“She’s fine then? The doctor saw her?”
Lily eyed him curiously. “You know he did. I saw you grilling the man not two minutes after he left from examining her.”
Levi had ended the conversation by insisting the need to find Jake. It was in the course of that conversation that he learned that Hannah was at work. He had taken three strides toward the payroll car before he caught himself. “Make sure she doesn’t overdo,” he told Jake and turned his attention to a new employee who was mishandling the unloading of a wagon.
He kept himself occupied through the matinee and the evening performance and only headed back to his car when he saw that the payroll car was dark. That’s when he found the envelope with his name on it propped against the inkwell on his desk.
Her handwriting, like the woman herself, was simple yet elegant. Block printing with each letter evenly spaced and every word perfectly aligned on the single sheet of unlined paper.
Levi,
As we near the end of our journey, I wanted to take this opportunity to say how very grateful I am for the generosity and kindness you have shown to my son, our family and to me. We could not have been more blessed. Thanks to you we are soon to be reunited with Caleb and whatever comes next for our family, we will never forget the compassion you have shown us these past weeks. May God bless you.
Hannah
It was a letter of farewell.
He read it again to be sure, then crumpled it into a ball, but could not bring himself to throw it away. Instead, he did what Levi always did when faced with a situation he could not control—he acted on instinct and headed for the women’s sleeping car.
But on the way he found himself surrounded by the sounds of the traveling community he had built. A lone elephant trumpeted a late night howl, horses whinnied and stamped their feet as they jostled one another for more space. Several members of the company had gathered outside the dining tent where Fred was strumming a ukulele, and others were singing along as they sat by a campfire.
They had performed their last show of the tour and for once there was no rush to move on to the next town. The next stop would be Baraboo where they would set up for the summer, offering shows eight times a week. Some of the cast and crew would leave the show there to take other jobs. Others would supplement their incomes by offering training in acrobatics or clowning. Levi and Jake would stay for a month or so and then set out to audition new acts they might add to the show the coming season. He had always liked this last night on the road. The company of performers and crew never felt more like family than they did on this particular night.
He glanced over at the sleeping car and saw that most of the windows were open and he could hear laughter and conversation drifting out.
It would do no good to cause a scene, he decided. He and Hannah were already the subject of gossip throughout the company. He would talk to her tomorrow. He would send Hans for her and meet with her in the privacy of his sitting room. And he would tell her…
What?
It occurred to Hannah that neither she nor Pleasant were immune to the nostalgia that had spread through the company like a terrible cold. Emotions seemed to run the gamut from lethargy to relief and back again to outright depression. And the onset had been so sudden. Almost in concert with the sounding of the band’s final notes, the performers and crew had slumped into their malaise. The women’s sleeping car that was usually noisy and even boisterous as the women came back after a show was strangely subdued. And outside, instead of the usual rumble of wagons being loaded onto flatcars that had become the lullaby by which she’d learned to fall asleep, she heard the soft music of Fred’s ukulele in tandem with a chorus of male voices as they gathered round a campfire.
Tomorrow.
The word had become her constant thought. Tomorrow they would leave this last town on the tour. Tomorrow they would arrive in Baraboo. Tomorrow she would see Caleb.
And the day after that she would say goodbye to Levi.
Sleep was impossible even after everyone had settled down for the night. Hannah had finally been able to persuade Pleasant that there was no need to keep watch and she had gone to sleep in her own berth. Fortunately, she had not been able to persuade Lily to return to her private room and so no one was around to see Hannah leave.
The night air was crisp and the skies were laden with stars. Under other circumstances Hannah might simply have gone for a walk, but she saw a light in the payroll car and that brought back the memory of something she had noticed the night she and Levi had kissed. It had nothing to do with the kiss. In fact, it was the kiss that had completely put the worrisome thing out of her mind.
Hoping that it was Levi working late, she headed across the compound. But when she opened the door she came face-to-face with Jake who was clearly taken aback to see her.
“Hannah? Something wrong?”
She thought about telling Jake exactly what had brought her there at such an hour, but decided to wait. After all, it might be nothing. “I couldn’t sleep and the other day I didn’t finish the filing. When we reach Baraboo I don’t want Ida to have to do work I should already have done.”
Jake frowned briefly. “Well, I suppose. But lock the door while you’re in there, okay? And don’t stay too long.”
“I will,” she said. “Lock the door,” she added, “and I won’t be long.”
“Because Levi would have my head if anything happened to you and you just never know. Seems like a nice enough town but you just never know.”
Hannah was touched by Jake’s concern. “I’ll be fine,” she assured him.
As soon as Jake left—she waited to hear the click of the lock—Hannah hurried to the filing cabinet that held the paid bills. She pulled out the most recent folder and spread the contents on her desk. She took the invoice she recalled questioning and studied it. It was from a dry goods store and the total amount of the bill was for several hundred dollars. It was stamped “Paid in Cash” and when she retrieved the ledger from Jake’s desk and checked the entry, she saw that the two documents matched. But she remembered that earlier on that day, Pleasant had gone to town with the head seamstress to find fabric that might match a ripped costume. Her sister-in-law had talked at supper about the proprietress at Danvers Dry Goods. The two of them had become fast friends, sharing stories of serving customers and handling a business. Pleasant had been fairly glowing with the experience.
The problem was that this was a bill paid to General Dry Goods—not Danvers—and the order was for the same date. And had Danvers been paid? And if so, then what was this other store?
She paced the office and as she passed Chester’s desk a sliver of white paper peeped out from his desk drawer. She recalled how he’d shoved the papers insideearlier that day. What was he hiding?
She pulled open the drawer but found only blank paper. The papers he’d put away were gone. She tried closing the drawer but it stuck. Not wanting to have Chester know she’d been snooping, she bent to clear the path for the drawer and found that a rumpled invoice was the cause of the problem. She pulled it free and closed the drawer. Then she flattened the paper out and read, “Danvers Dry Goods.” The date was the same. As was the list of items purchased. But the amount was half what had been paid to the other store.
Why would Chester pass up the opportunity to buy goods at half the cost? Perhaps it was because Danvers was owned by a woman. A wi
dow like Hannah. Yes, she could see Chester not liking doing business with a woman. But to spend twice as much? There had to be some explanation.
Unaware of the passing of time, Hannah pulled out one file and then another as the trail that might lead to some logical explanation became more convoluted. She found a stream of invoices going back ten years or more paid to a “General Dry Goods” in a variety of towns up and down the East Coast and across mid-America. She found similar invoices paid to a feed company with the name “American Feed & Grain,” again in a variety of towns and states.
Perhaps these were chain stores, she thought. She had heard of such businesses opening in small towns, but was the chain giving Levi the best price or was this just a convenience for Chester? He didn’t seem the lazy type, but on the other hand, he did often seem harried and rushed so perhaps saving time was more important to him than saving money.
She stretched her aching back and rubbed her temples as she tried to make sense of the piles of papers she had pulled and reorganized by vendor—papers she would now need to refile. This was really none of her business after all. She had been given the task of filing but she could not help but recall comments Levi had made to Gunther when the two men sat discussing business at dinner. There had been no doubt that Levi was worried about the drop in attendance and the rising costs of goods to keep the circus on tour.
I should tell someone about this, she thought.
She could ask Chester. He probably had a perfectly logical explanation. But Jake had told her that Chester had gone on ahead to Baraboo and that she should file whatever was left on his desk.
Then she would show her findings to Jake. After all, he was the accountant and business manager for the company. Jake would know what to do.
She laid her head on her forearm, intending to give herself just enough time to rest her eyes before tackling the job of putting everything back in its place, and fell fast asleep.