by Peterson, Tracie; Davis, Mary; Hake, Kelly Eileen; Stengl, Jill; Warren, Susan May
Clive laughed at her. “Sure I am, honey. You work for the Torgesen T.” He leaned close, his unshaven chin scraping her cheek. “And that means you work for me.”
Lilly bit her lip. Her knees went weak. “Let me go, Clive.”
The smell of dust and sweat enclosed her, and dread pooled in Lilly’s throat. She felt a scream gathering, but for some reason couldn’t force it out.
Clive’s whiskey breath was in her ear. “You know, Lilly, your boy Reggie ain’t comin’ back. Those Germans are going to kill him like a dog in the dirt, and then you’ll need somebody to turn to.” He loosed a savage chuckle. “I’m here for you, darling.”
He raised his gloved hand, as if to stroke her cheek. Lilly glimpsed something odious prowling in his dark eyes. Fear shot through her; she lashed out, kicked him hard on the shin.
He swore, caught her other arm, and shook her. “Be nice!”
Lilly glanced over Clive’s shoulder. Please, God, anyone! But the shadows had widened, and darkness layered the rodeo grounds. Along the bluff, campfires teased her with their safe glow.
“I’m going to scream, Clive.”
“Go ahead, Lilly,” Clive mocked her. “Who’s gonna hear you?”
Lilly trembled as her courage fled. Tears blinded her.
“I will, Clive.”
The voice came out of the darkness, with just enough accent for Lilly to recognize it at once.
“Let her go.”
A smile curved up Clive’s cheek. His eyes narrowed. “I’ll be back,” he promised as he shoved Lilly against the fence. He whirled. “Get outta here. This ain’t none of your business.” The curse that followed made Lilly sick. She shrank back, rubbing her arms, poised to bolt as soon as Clive was out of reach.
“What’s wrong with you?” Heinrick’s disgust thickened his voice, even through the haze of a German accent.
He stepped up to Lilly and held out his hand. “C’mon, miss.” Clive slapped it down. “I said get outta here! Or you’ll spend two more years hauling manure on the Torgesen T!”
Heinrick’s voice was low, but Lilly detected a warning edge. “I paid you six months’ worth tonight, Clive. Christmas, then I’m free. No longer than Christmas.”
“We’ll see about that.” Clive shuffled closer and balled up his fist. The pungent odor of whiskey sauced the air.
Lilly knew she should run, but she couldn’t move past the fear that had her rooted.
Heinrick sucked a deep breath, and his voice escaped with a sigh. “You’re drunk, Clive. Go home.”
“I’m going to skin you like a piece of Missouri driftwood,” Clive sneered, undaunted.
A muscle tensed in Heinrick’s jaw, but he blinked not an eye as he batted away Clive’s fist. Clive roared and charged, throwing his arms around Heinrick’s waist. The German stepped back and easily tossed Clive to the ground. Clive wobbled to his knees and wheezed.
Lilly’s fingers bit into her arms as she waited for Heinrick to resign Clive, face-first, to the dirt. Instead, Heinrick swiped Clive’s fallen Stetson from the ground and held it out. “Go home, Mr. Torgesen. It’s late, and you’re tired.”
Clive cranked his head upward and glared at Heinrick, his brown hair matted, a line of drool dangling from his lips. He leaned back on his haunches and lunged for his hat, snaring, instead, Heinrick’s forearm. He yanked hard and landed a blow on the German’s cheek. It echoed like the snap of an old cottonwood.
Heinrick jerked back. He set his jaw, and his eyes hardened to ice. His fists balled, but he held them to his sides. “Okay, that’s enough. Go home, Boss.”
The exertion of that one punch had emptied Clive. He gaped at Heinrick, his mouth askew, confusion glazing his eyes.
Heinrick stepped toward Lilly and again extended his hand. She hesitated, then slid hers into it. His hand was warm and firm and held hers with gentleness. Lilly scooted around Clive like a jittery cat.
Lilly and Heinrick marched ten quick, solid paces before he released her hand. It continued to tingle, and she felt the absence well. Heinrick had saved her. The significance of that hit her hard, and she squinted at the man she’d considered her enemy.
“I never did get your name,” Heinrick said, his eyes ahead.
Lilly fought a war of emotions. He was still a foreigner, the enemy. But as she walked next to him, hearing only the crunch of prairie grass and the beating of her heart, she knew that wasn’t a fair assessment. He deserved courtesy, if not her friendship. “Lillian,” she whispered. “But my friends call me Lilly.”
“Lilly it is, then.” A smile tugged at his lips.
They walked through the velvet darkness, the field grass crunching under their steps, the crickets singing from the riverbed not far off, and a lazy ballad humming over the bluffs from distant campfires. The wind skimmed the aroma from a pot of stew and carried it across the prairie. Lilly’s stomach flopped, but not from hunger.
“I guess I owe you.” She peeked at Heinrick and saw his smile widen.
“How’s that?”
“You’re one up on me. You saved Frankie and now me.”
Heinrick chuckled, and Lilly was oddly delighted.
“Well, let me see. How can you save me?”
Lilly walked along and pondered that question, wondering what she could offer a man who seemed to carry the world in his wide palms, wondering even if she should. Curiosity swelled inside her. Who was this man, and why did he risk everything for the Torgesen T? The confusion stopped her short.
Heinrick walked out before her.
“Heinrick?”
He turned. “I haven’t heard anyone use my name for nearly five years. It sounds like a song coming from your lips.”
Lilly’s delight was like a strong gust of warm wind. She felt an impending blush and bit her lip. But the endearing twinkle in his eyes mustered her courage. “Why did you give Clive your prize money?”
His expression darkened.
“What is it?” Lilly’s heart fell, afraid she’d offended him after he’d been so kind to her. “I’m sorry.”
Heinrick held up a hand to stave off her apology. He gazed into the protective obscurity of night. “I gave Clive the money because”—he cleared his throat but couldn’t dislodge a distinct hoarseness—“they own me.”
“What? How can they own you?”
Heinrick freed a sigh of pure frustration. “It’s a long story, Lilly.”
She crossed her arms. “I like stories.”
Heinrick winced as if his words brought pain. “I don’t think that is a good idea.”
He turned away, running a hand through his thick, curly hair. “Don’t you remember? I’m the enemy. Your fiancé, Reggie, is being killed by my relatives.” He blew out another breath, then turned back to her. “I’m dangerous.”
A melancholy smile flickered over his face, but his eyes betrayed ache. “Or did you forget?”
Shame poured over Lilly. He was right, and the truth of it distanced them as if he was a coyote and she a long-eared jackrabbit. They were enemies.
Somehow, however, Lilly just couldn’t muster up the feelings of loathing one ought to feel for an enemy. Today had changed all that. He’d gone out of his way to save Frankie and had toed up to Clive for her. Heinrick was too kind, too forgiving, too, well, downright honorable to be the enemy. And therein lay the paradox. She didn’t want him to be an enemy. She wanted him to be Heinrick, her friend. It would mean nothing. Reggie was still her fiancé. She wasn’t stepping past the boundaries of their covenant.
Heinrick wasn’t part of the massacre. He was, in fact, a casualty himself, imprisoned and wounded by Clive and the Torgesen T. And he needed a friend. If Reggie were caught behind German lines, hurt and friendless, wouldn’t she want some kind German fraulein to watch over him? The answer sealed her decision.
“You’re not my enemy, Heinrick. I was wrong to call you that. Please forgive me.”
His radiant smile nearly knocked her off her feet. “You’re for
given.” His reply lit a glow of peace in Lilly’s heart.
“Please,” she said softly, “tell me your story.”
Heinrick’s eyes crinkled with delight. They turned and began to stroll across a prairie lit only by the windows of heaven and an unblemished full moon.
“Well, the Lord sure does bless a man when he is patient. To think my first friend in this new country is a pretty little lady named after a flower.”
Lilly caught her breath, ignored the trembling of her heart, and slowly relaxed into the gentle rhythm of his step.
Chapter 12
Heinrick unfurled his story as they strolled into the black expanse of prairie. With each step, Lilly sensed that the telling was a catharsis, a long healing sigh after years of silence. The soft strength of his voice soon erased her haunting encounter with Clive.
“I was born in Germany, but my mother, Anna, was Norwegian. She came to Germany to study and lived in Hullhorst. My father worked as a farm hand in Neidringhausen, a nearby village.” Heinrick swiped off his hat and rubbed the rim as he walked.
“As love stories go, Papa met her at a church social and they were married a few months later. My best memory of Mama is watching her roll out the kuchen in our tiny kitchen. She always gave me the first piece, sprinkled with sugar.” He hummed. “I love the taste of a freshly fried roll kuchen.” He paused, and she felt memory in his tone. “Mama was laughter and sunshine, sugar, kisses, and the smell of fresh bread.” He paused again, this time longer. “I was eight when she died of typhoid fever.”
Lilly bowed her head. “I’m sorry.”
“My father never recovered,” he said hoarsely. “To an eight-year-old, a father’s despair can be felt as your own. I suppose I was really a…what do you call a person without parents?”
“An orphan.”
“Ja, an orphan. My mother had family in Norway and distant cousins in America. They arranged passage when I was seventeen, five years ago. I’ve spent one year working for each family, paying off my passage.” Heinrick’s voice turned hard. “And then some.”
The wind fingered the disobedient strands of Lilly’s hair, tickling her neck. “So, the Torgesens do own you.”
Heinrick sighed. He stopped and turned, his face a defined shadow in the darkness. “No, I was wrong to say that. The Torgesens don’t own me. I came to America of my own will, and I chose to honor my promise, or rather my family’s promise, to them. Perhaps they consider me their servant, but I serve them because I serve my Lord.”
“Your Lord?”
“God Almighty, the Maker of the heavens and the earth.”
Lilly nodded. “Of course. I am a Christian.”
Joy glittered in Heinrick’s eyes. “So am I!”
Lilly frowned. “How can you be—?”
“Just because I am German doesn’t mean I don’t love and worship the same Jesus you do. Not all German Christians agree with Kaiser Bill. But we do agree the Lord Jesus is God and our hope for eternal life.”
Lilly frowned. She hadn’t considered that a foreigner, especially a German, would know the same God she did. She felt a strange kinship with this foreigner. “What will you do when your debt is paid?”
They began to walk again, bumping now and then when the prairie knocked them off balance.
“I don’t know. Whatever God tells me to do, I suppose.”
“Don’t you have a plan? A dream?”
The breeze juggled Heinrick’s laughter. “I have many dreams, Lilly. A family, a home, a good job, but most of all I dream of serving the Lord, wherever He desires to put me.”
“How will you know? Who will tell you where that is?”
“God will, of course.” Heinrick stopped, turned to her. “Doesn’t God tell you what He wants you to do?”
Lilly stared past him, out into the sky, into the eternity where her God lived. “He doesn’t have to. I already know.”
Heinrick arched his brows.
“I’m going to marry Reggie when he comes home and be a pastor’s wife. We have it all planned out.”
“Who has it planned?” Heinrick said softly.
Lilly shivered. He wasn’t just looking at her, he looked into her, examining her soul. The prairie was suddenly small, the night sky enclosing, the breeze cold, his presence invasive, and their walk, reckless.
The whinny of a horse shot through Lilly like an arrow. She whirled, squinted through the darkness, and recognized her father astride old Lucy. Frankie snoozed on Lucy’s neck.
“I have to go,” Lilly said quietly.
Heinrick nodded. He crossed his hands over his chest. Lilly stepped away, a tentative, grateful smile pushing at the corners of her mouth.
“Thank you for saving me, Heinrick.”
Something in his eyes made her hesitate and halt her dash to intercept Frankie and her father. Standing there, with his shoulders sagging and with the wind shifting his golden mass of hair, Heinrick appeared every inch the orphan he’d described earlier. His eyes reached out to her with an almost tangible longing.
“Lilly, wait.” Heinrick cupped a hand behind his neck and examined his scuffed boots. “You can save me back.”
Lilly’s eyes widened. “How?” She could hear Lucy scuffing closer.
“Teach me to read.”
“What?”
“Teach me to read English. I never learned, and I’d like to be able to read and write.”
Lilly glanced at her father. He hadn’t seen them yet. Teach Heinrick to read? That would mean spending time with him, getting to know him.
It was a bad idea. She knew it in her heart. Her father may have been friendly this morning, extending the hand of fellowship to Heinrick when he thought him a ranch hand and Frankie’s hero. But eventually he would find out he was German…then what? And what about Reggie? He could never know.
But Heinrick had called her a blessing. And he’d risked his freedom for her, standing up to Clive Torgesen. She owed him.
“Okay, one lesson, to teach you the alphabet. Agreed?”
He resembled a schoolboy with his churlish grin. “When?”
Her father was nearly within earshot. “Tomorrow, in the maple grove on the bluff near our property. Do you know where?”
Heinrick nodded.
“After church.”
“I’ll be there.”
Lilly slipped into the envelope of darkness, heading toward Frankie and her father. The wind stirred the prairie grass, and Lilly thought she heard Heinrick call after her, “Auf Wiedersehen, Lilly.”
Chapter 13
The condemnation that simmered in her chest during the morning worship service, under the glare of Reverand Larsen’s stern sermon, threatened to turn her away from her promise. Then her mother had to ask her where she was off to when she breezed past her on the way to the maple glen.
“Going down to the river,” Lilly answered, but shame settled upon her and deceit felt like a scarlet letter around her neck, even if based on the best of intentions. If Reggie found out, he would be cut to the core. At best, it would be hard to explain. At worst, he would leave her at the altar, resigning her to spinsterhood. She could be annihilating her dreams by this one simple meeting.
But the mystery of her German friend was just too puzzling to ignore. Since the day his mustang had almost plowed over her, Heinrick had been chipping his way into her thoughts. Her mind kept returning to a moon-basked prairie and the memory of a tall, muscled German disappearing into the folds of darkness. Heinrick’s low, gentle voice, the syllables of foreign words, and his heart-filling laughter dulled her pangs of guilt. Moreover, Heinrick was a walking contradiction. There was something about him that seemed peaceful, unencumbered, even free. Yet he wasn’t free. He was, for all practical purposes, an indentured servant, paying off a bill that seemed way too high. And he counted it as serving the Lord. He seemed even joyous about the task, and Lilly couldn’t unravel the paradox in that. Bondage was not joyous. It was suffocating.
In the en
d, this riddle drove her to the river.
The maple glade had skimmed an adequate supply of cool air from the morning, and gooseflesh rose on Lilly’s arms as she entered the shaded glen. A ripe river scent, rich in catfish and mud, rode in on the breeze and threaded through the trees. Lilly shoved a few rebellious, damp strands of hair under her hat, rubbed her arms, and hunted for her pupil.
He wasn’t there. Lilly listened to the wind hiss through the leaves, feeling uneasy. Maybe it was for the best. She half-turned, poised to fly back to the farm and blot Heinrick from her memory, when he emerged from the shadows.
He peered at her with curious eyes and a crooked smile. “Guten tag.”
He’d dressed for the occasion: a clean pair of black trousers, polished ebony cowboy boots, a fire-red cotton shirt, and a buckskin vest. His blond hair may have been neatly combed, but the wind had laughed at his efforts and mussed it into wild curls. A hint of blond stubble peeked from tanned cheeks.
“You’re here.” Lilly gulped.
“Of course,” he said. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Ready for school?” Lilly’s voice sounded steadier than she felt. She shuffled toward him, dead leaves crunching beneath her boots.
He cocked his head, and a hint of mischief glinted in his blue eyes. “I’m not a very good student.”
Nervousness rippled up Lilly’s spine and spread out in a tingle over her body. Then Heinrick grinned wide and white, and his smile encircled her like an embrace. She had to admit he was just plain charming. She bit her lip and looked away, lest he see something he ought not to in her eyes.
His smile dimmed. “What is it, Lilly? Do you still think I’m the enemy?”
Lilly hid her eyes, staring at her shoes. “No, it’s not that.” Her mind raced. “I just don’t know if I can help you….”
Heinrick slid a hand under her elbow, and Lilly almost flew out of her skin. “I think you can help me more than you know.”
The soft tone of his voice brought her gaze to his face. His eyes pleaded with her, and the longing in them took her breath away. “Please?” he whispered.