The Face of Heaven

by Murray Pura

  Nathaniel shrugged. “I don’t have an opinion on the South. They live what they live and we live what we live.”

  Lyndel turned from closing the stable gate. “And what if others can’t live, Nathaniel King? What is your opinion on that?”

  The firm tone of her voice made Levi and Nathaniel stare at her.

  “What do you mean?” Nathaniel finally responded, wiping his hands on a large blue rag.

  “Would you favor slavery for yourself or your family?”

  Nathaniel met her gaze. “No. I would not. I’ve read about these things and thought deeply about them. That is why I am still Amish and still a Northerner.”

  “How is it you have been coming to our house for years to visit my brother but I’ve never heard you express these thoughts?”

  “Why, the occasion for it has never occurred in your presence.”

  She kept her eyes on him, turning over what he said. Ever since she had seen Nathaniel in the stable she had been debating with herself about what to do—should she tell him about the men in the barn or not? Now she made up her mind to find out what sort of person he really was behind his soft brown hair and shining green eyes. Besides, the two men in the barn were hungry and scared. She wouldn’t keep them waiting longer.

  “I need your help, both of you,” she said. “Two men are in the barn. They have run away from a plantation in Virginia. One of them is wounded. I’m afraid to tell the elders. I don’t want them to go to the law.”

  “Slaves?” asked Levi in shock.

  “They don’t like to be called that.”

  “What are they then?”

  “What you are. What Nathaniel is. Men who are hungry and thirsty.”

  Nathaniel kept his eyes on her. She wondered if he was looking at her red hair and blue eyes or waiting to hear what she had to say. For a brief moment she realized she hoped it was both. Then her thoughts returned to the crisis at hand.

  “Levi, can you get a sausage from the smokehouse? I don’t dare go into the house for bread. Mama will ask what I’m doing.”

  “Why can’t we tell her?” Levi asked.

  “Because then everyone will find out and someone will speak with the sheriff. And if slave hunters come, the sheriff will tell them two men are in the Keim barn.”

  “Are they headed for Canada?” Nathaniel spoke up.

  “I didn’t ask,” Lyndel replied, “but that would only make sense.”

  “All right.” Nathaniel reached for a bottle on a shelf. “You said they had wounds? This alcohol will help with that. Can I draw some water from the well for you while Levi gets the sausage?”

  She gave him a small smile, wanting to make up for some of her harshness. “That would help.” Then she glanced around her. “My problem is bandages. I can’t go into the house. And I already gave the man who is wounded my apron to stanch the blood.”

  Nathaniel nodded. “I have a clean shirt in my wagon to change into after helping your brother. It’s just under the driver’s seat.”

  She didn’t mean to give him her full smile but it opened upon her face before she could stop it. “Thank you so much, Nathaniel.”

  “My pleasure. And an honor.” He gave her a slight bow of the head and then walked out of the stable in the direction of the well.

  Lyndel went out to Nathaniel’s wagon parked near the house and was surprised to see that the porch was now empty and all the visitors’ buggies gone. She patted Nathaniel’s bay, Good Boy, who stood patiently in the shade of a crab-apple tree, and reached under the seat for the shirt. It was wrapped in a thin blanket to keep it clean. She ran her hand over it a moment and thought of Nathaniel wearing it, a young man so tall, so strong. Then she tucked the white shirt and blanket under her arm and walked toward the barn doors where Nathaniel and her brother were already waiting for her. They entered the barn together.

  As soon as he saw them Moses said to Lyndel, “There are three of you.”

  “Yes, Moses. This is my brother Levi. He’s brought you meat from our smokehouse. And this is his friend Nathaniel who has brought you a pail of water.”

  Moses stared at Nathaniel. “Can we trust him?”

  Lyndel knelt and began to rip Nathaniel’s good cotton shirt. “Well, he gave me this for Charlie’s bandages. Let us give him an opportunity to prove himself, ja?”

  Nathaniel set down his bucket. “I have some well water. And a tin cup. Can I give your friend a drink?”

  “Give me the cup,” growled Moses. “I’ll give Charlie the drink.”

  Lyndel dipped a square of Nathaniel’s shirt in the water and mopped Charlie’s forehead and face. “How is he?”

  “Now and then he starts to shake. The blood seems to have stopped coming out of his wound though.” Moses put the tin cup to Charlie’s lips. “Come on now. You got to take some of it in.”

  Lyndel gently lifted the folded apron from Charlie’s side. It was thick with blood. She reached her hand toward Nathaniel. “May I have that bottle of alcohol now?” He tugged out the stopper and gave it to her. She poured some onto another cloth and pulled Charlie’s shirt back from his wound. She began to clean the gash, and the sting made him cry out once and then clench his teeth. Sweat covered his forehead again.

  “Levi?” Lyndel asked her brother. “Could you take another piece of Nathaniel’s shirt and wipe Charlie’s face?”

  Levi had been standing there taking it all in. He squatted down and, not knowing where to put the two large rings of sausage, placed them on Charlie’s lap. “Are you hungry? It’s very good sausage. My mother’s recipe and her mother’s also.” Then he splashed water over a cloth and patted Charlie’s face and neck. “How is that? Is that all right for you?”

  “Perhaps I should go back to my house,” said Nathaniel, “and get some blankets and pillows. We need to make them comfortable here. They will need a few nights of rest before they move on.”

  Lyndel glanced up at him. “That sounds like a good idea.”

  Moses shook his head. “No. They’re on our trail. The reason we jumped from the train was we could see a whole gang of them waiting on the station platform a quarter mile ahead of us—bloodhounds, rifles, and rope.”

  “But we have to get Charlie’s wound closed up first,” protested Lyndel. “He’ll bleed to death if you run too soon.”

  “They’ll hang him from the tallest tree on your farm if we run too late.” Moses looked around at their faces. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do. I’d heard there were good people hereabouts, good Christian people.” He tightened his grip as Charlie let out a moan. “But they’re going to hunt until they find us. One more night here and then we have to get up to New York and Ontario. I tell you, we’ve got to move on no matter how bad Charlie is.”

  Nathaniel nodded. “In that case we have to make sure you have a restful night. I’ll fetch bed linen for you and Charlie from my home. And a poultice recipe of my mother’s she swears can close any wound.”

  “No need to go all the way back to your home when there’s a spare room here.”

  Lyndel jumped to her feet. Her father was standing behind them. His eyes cut dark and sharp right into her.

  “You should have told me, daughter,” he said. “You should have trusted me.”

  2

  Moses and Charlie were lying in separate beds in the spare room of the Keim house. It was on the third floor and the window offered a long view of the hay fields just starting to sprout from the ground in the spring warmth. The sun was setting and an oil lamp was burning on a small table between the two men.

  Lyndel finished the reading from the Bible with the words, “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.” She looked up and smiled at Moses and Charlie. “Psalm 91. One of my favorite chapters in the holy
Scriptures.”

  “Amen,” grunted Moses.

  Charlie smiled. He was only able to speak in a whisper. “Thank you, Miss Lyndel. I do enjoy hearing the Bible read to me and you have such a fine voice.”

  She stood up. “Why, thank you yourself, Charlie Preston. Now let’s take a look at that cut of yours.”

  She pulled back the quilt and sheets from Charlie’s left side and slowly untied the string fastening a thick square of cloth tightly to his body. Then she gently peeled back the poultice of Canada wild ginger. The angry red was gone from the lips of the wound and the skin seemed to be starting to bind together.

  “Well?” asked Moses from the other bed, lifting himself up on his elbow.

  Lyndel removed the old leaves of ginger and applied some fresh ones from a small bowl. She shook drops of water off before placing the heart-shaped green leaves in the poultice. “He is doing very well, Mr. Gunnison. You may thank God for that. But I wouldn’t advise rushing out the door at midnight as if the hounds of the devil were after you.”

  Moses sank his head back on the pillow. “The hounds of the devil are after us. But I’m mighty weary myself and, devil or not, I need a powerful lot of sleep before I can lift another foot.” He turned his head and looked at her, the slow smile completely altering his stern face. “I’m much obliged to your mother for all that good soup. I’m afraid that between Charlie and me we emptied a pot as large as your barn.”

  Lyndel laughed. “That’s what food is for, Mr. Gunnison. And guests were made by God to be fed. And you, Charlie Preston,” turning to the other man, “why, I’m proud of you. What a fighter you are! I suppose you’re just about ready to outrun Moses all the way to the border.”

  He smiled and whispered. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Now I’ll leave you alone and let you get that sleep you need so badly.”

  “Miss Lyndel. Would you read a bit more of the Scriptures to us?”

  Lyndel looked at Charlie in surprise. “Why, Mr. Preston, you can hardly keep your eyes open. You need to rest.”

  “I will. I’ll drift off as you’re reading. I swear I will.”

  She glanced over at Moses. He had his eyes closed. “It’s no never mind to me, Miss Lyndel. I can sleep in the middle of a thunderstorm and your voice isn’t anything worse than a summer breeze.”

  She sat back down in her chair and picked up the big black Bible. “Well, all right. But this was your idea, Charlie Preston, so you have to tell me what you would like to hear.”

  “Read to us about Jesus. He gives me peace.”

  So she began to read from the Gospel of John. By the time she had reached the fourth chapter the snoring from Moses’ bed made her pause and look at both of them. Ten minutes earlier Charlie’s eyes had been locked onto her when she glanced up. Now they were shut and his head was turned to the side. She closed the Bible and prayed a silent prayer over them.

  The jingle of harness made her go to the window. A carriage was pulling into their yard. It was Pastor Yoder. All three ministers would be coming to the house this evening to discuss what was to be done about Moses and Charlie. Levi and Nathaniel were required to join them. As another buggy rattled up the drive she quietly shut the window. Then she went to the table between the two beds and turned the knob on the lamp until the flame was gone. Returning to her seat she sat in the dark with her hands folded in her lap.

  The men would be meeting in the kitchen. Mama would leave them with a large pot of coffee and a plate of fresh buttermilk biscuits. After prayer Levi and Nathaniel would be taken to task for not telling her father, the bishop, that two runaway slaves were hiding out on his property. Her hands twisted about one another—it was her fault they were going to be castigated. The fact that her father had spent a full hour reprimanding her earlier in the afternoon did nothing to assuage her guilt over being the cause of her brother’s and Nathaniel’s trouble. The small comfort she clung to was that the leadership of the church couldn’t spend a long time raking the young men over the coals. The main point of the meeting was Charlie and Moses, and they would have to get to that sooner rather than later.

  A half hour went by as she waited and thought and prayed. Then the door opened silently and her mother appeared, a candle lighting up her face. She smiled at her daughter, crossed to the beds, examined the two men, nodded, then came and stood by Lyndel.

  “How long have they been asleep?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Perhaps as much as an hour,” Lyndel whispered back.

  “And you’ve just been sitting here alone in the dark?”

  “Not alone.”

  Her mother patted her shoulder. “There’s no need for you to hide away. Your father has forgiven you. And he understands your concern for the men here. No one wants to see them return to a life of slavery. The sheriff has not been made aware of their presence on our farm.”

  “He soon will be.”

  “Not tonight, at any rate. By the time the meeting is over it will be too late for that. It will have to wait for the morning.”

  Lyndel looked up at her. “What time in the morning?”

  “Not before lunch, my dear. So your father assured me.”

  Lyndel smiled and her eyebrows lifted. “Truly?”

  “Yes.” She placed a hand on her daughter’s kapp. “Now if you’re upset about getting your brother and Nathaniel in trouble I can tell you the tongue-lashing didn’t last nearly so long as your own. The discussion has already begun. I thought you might wish to listen in.”

  “May I?” Then Lyndel frowned. “But I will not be permitted to sit in the kitchen.”

  “Go to the second-floor landing. You can hear them from there. Just make sure they don’t notice you.”

  “What about the girls?”

  “Long in bed.”

  Lyndel got to her feet. “And where will you be?”

  Her mother promptly sat down in the empty chair. “Where you were. Thank you for keeping the seat warm.”

  “I don’t wish to take your candle.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself. You won’t be taking it. The light would be far too noticeable to anyone glancing up at the staircase. You have the blue eyes of a Siamese cat, don’t you? So your little sisters say. Make your way in the dark.”

  Lyndel bent down to kiss her mother on the cheek.

  “Cat or no cat,” her mother said, smiling, “mind you don’t go tumbling down the stairs.”

  Lyndel used the banister to navigate the staircase from the third floor to the second. At that point, the light from below was sufficient for her to see where she was going. The men’s voices were clear and she sat down on the landing where she couldn’t be seen.

  “There was slavery in our Lord’s day,” she heard one of the ministers argue. “He did nothing about it. Neither did Paul. We have verse after verse where Paul tells slaves to behave, to obey their masters, not to cause trouble, and by so doing set a good example as followers of Christ.”

  “True.” It was her father’s voice. “But Paul also said if a slave could obtain his freedom he should do so. Clearly he didn’t consider slavery to be an ideal state for a human being.”

  “Nevertheless, he didn’t tell Christians to go to war over it.”

  “Oh,” her father said sharply, “who is talking about going to war, Samuel? We’re discussing how we should help these two men.”

  So, Lyndel realized, the one arguing with her father was Samuel Eby. Samuel spoke up again. “You have fed them and bandaged their wounds. You have given them a room at the inn, so to speak. Fine. Now it’s time to drive into Elizabethtown and tell Sheriff Jackson.”

  “Why is it time?” She recognized the voice of one of the other ministers, Abraham Yoder, whose carriage she had watched pull into their yard. “What’s the hurry? We’ve scarcely begun to discuss this issue. Why is there a fire in your britches, Samuel?”

  “I don’t want the sheriff to think we’ve been keeping something like this from him. After all, t
hese men are breaking the law—they belong to the owners of a plantation in Virginia. And they’re breaking the Word of God as well—they are to be good slaves and carry out their duties in obedience to their masters. Not to engage in this act of rebellion.”

  “So you would like to be a slave, Samuel?” asked Pastor Yoder.

  “No, I should not like to be a slave. But if I were a slave, I would carry out my duties with reverence and respect to my God and those he had placed in authority over me.”

  “If you feel that way perhaps you could trade places with them.”

  “Vas?”

  “Sure. You go to the sheriff and tell him that when the slave hunters show up from Virginia you are substituting yourself for them. They wish to be free and that will secure their freedom. Meanwhile you can show us what a good slave looks like in the eyes of God.”

  “Do not talk such nonsense, Abraham,” Lyndel heard Samuel fume. “God did not make me a slave. He made me Amish.”

  “He made you a man.” Lyndel sat up. It was Nathaniel’s voice, calm and clear. “He made these others men as well. Human beings fashioned in his image. It is for freedom Christ has set us free. How can you place them back in the yoke of slavery, Pastor Eby?”

  “Paul is talking about spiritual freedom,” came a new voice that Lyndel recognized as Solomon Miller’s. “There is no talk in any of his letters about striving for physical freedom for slaves. It’s their hearts that are to be free in Christ. Not their bodies.”

  “No talk in any of his letters?” Lyndel detected a slight rise in Nathaniel’s voice. “So when was it you last read Philemon, Pastor?”

  “Gently, Mr. King,” interjected Lyndel’s father.

  “I have read Philemon,” retorted Solomon Miller. “I read the Bible through twice every year.”

  “Gut. Then you will recall that Paul sent the slave back to Philemon a brother in Christ. And by so doing sent back a man who was his equal.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Samuel Eby spoke up again. “Still, Paul sent him back a slave.”