by B. J. Hoff
Rachel hadn’t the heart to make the poor creature stay out in the cold wind and rain, but if that was its choice, all right then. She stood aside as the black man hesitated only a moment before tugging his sodden knit cap from his head and entering. Dragging the man at his side along with him, he followed Rachel as she led the way to one of the spare bedrooms.
When Eli had built their house, he’d insisted on at least three bedrooms. “Plenty of room for the boppli we’ll have some day,” he’d told her. But to Rachel’s wrenching regret, there had been no children.
“You haven’t told me your name,” Rachel said, glancing over her shoulder. “And you called him ‘Captain.’ What kind of captain is he?”
“Asa, missus. My name is Asa. And Captain Gant here is a river man. A riverboat captain.”
What an odd accent the man had! Rachel had never heard anyone talk the way he did. He sounded as if he must have come from one of those foreign countries across the ocean.
Quickly she turned down the bed coverings, but when she would have helped move the injured man onto the bed, his companion took over, lifting the other in his arms as if he were but a child—though he was actually quite a large man.
“You want to take the bed clothes off first, missus? The blood—it will ruin them.”
Rachel considered doing just that, but the wounded man was clearly in shock. He needed warmth and needed it right away. “No, it’s all right,” she told him. “He’s freezing.”
She watched as the black man carefully lay his “captain” on the bed.
The man’s face was gray, his lips blue, his eyes smudged so dark he looked to have been beaten. And his leg—it was twisted in the most terrible way! Ach, and the blood—his pants leg was soaked and glistening with blood.
“Is he…dying?” she whispered.
The black man straightened and turned toward her, not quite looking her in the eye. “I pray not, ma’am.”
Caution gave way to concern as Rachel saw how frail the wounded stranger’s hold on life seemed to be. “We’ll have to send for Dr. Sebastian. My brother will go for him as soon as he gets here.”
The man called Asa shot her a look of gratitude. “Thank you, ma’am. That is most kind of you.”
Rachel leaned over and put a hand to the injured man’s forehead, cringing at the heat that seared her skin. For a split second, his eyes snapped open, and Rachel caught a glimpse of the deepest blue eyes she had ever seen just before they lost focus and closed again.
“He’s burning up with fever,” she said, keeping her voice low. “What happened to him?”
The black man hesitated, glancing back at the stranger on the bed. “Captain Gant, he was shot, ma’am.”
2
RELUCTANT HELPERS
I was a stranger
and ye took me in.
MATTHEW 25:35
“Shot?” Rachel stared at the man. “With a gun?”
The man Asa darted a curious look at her, causing Rachel to realize how foolish she must have sounded.
At the same time, the bloodied stranger on her bed suddenly took on a different appearance. In only a moment, he changed from an injured man who needed help to an outsider who was suspect, perhaps even a threat.
Why had someone taken a gun to him? Was he a bad man—a criminal? Was he dangerous?
What had she done? How could she be so naïve, letting two strange men into her home when she knew nothing about them? Who were they? Where did they come from?
Despite the almost dizzying surge of fear, she couldn’t stop staring at the man’s blood-soaked pants leg. A bullet had done that to him. He could die because someone had aimed a gun at him and shot him.
It struck her like a fist that he very likely might die if she didn’t do something to prevent it.
But do what?
The stranger groaned and stirred. The sight of the black man whipping a kerchief from his pocket—a kerchief that looked none too clean—shocked Rachel into action. “No—wait. I’ll get something else.”
Hurrying to the kitchen, she grabbed a stack of freshly laundered dish towels and cleaning cloths from the sideboard near the sink. Scissors. She would need scissors to cut away the material from his trousers. And something to sterilize the wound. There was no alcohol in the house. The best she could do was boil water.
Back in the bedroom, she found the black man bending over his “captain,” using a knife to slice away the bloody pants leg. As soon as he saw Rachel, he stepped away, wiping the knife blade with his kerchief.
The sharp metallic smell of blood stunned her, and she gagged on the hot surge of bile that rose in her throat. She clenched her fists against the trembling of her hands as she eyed the ugly, gaping wound just below the wounded man’s knee. She managed to steady herself with the thought that the stranger on her bed was somebody’s son, perhaps somebody’s husband. If it were Eli, she would hope that another woman in her place would help him.
But there had been no one to help Eli…not until it was too late.
The stranger moaned, and she shot a quick look at his face. His skin was ashen. He was shaking so violently the bed quaked beneath him. His eyes were still closed, and Rachel was sure that he was now completely unconscious.
The black man crossed to the other side, bent low, and held the stranger in place while Rachel wrapped the dish towel above the wound and tied it. She placed another cloth over the wound itself and carefully applied pressure—enough, but not too much, she hoped.
“The bullet is still in the wound?” she asked. The man, Asa, nodded.
“This is all I can do, then. Dr. Sebastian will have to remove the bullet and do the rest.”
Relief swept through Rachel at the idea that she could do nothing more. Just as quickly she felt ashamed. Truth was, she didn’t want to do more. She didn’t want to touch this bloodied stranger who had breached the security of her home in the middle of the night. She was both afraid of him and repulsed by him. He was large and stunk of sickness and corruption. She hated the fear that gripped her, hated even more her aversion toward another human being, especially one in such obvious distress.
“It’s very kind of you to help us, missus.”
The black man’s low voice yanked her out of her churning thoughts.
She looked at him. “Where are you from? And why are you out on such a night?”
A sudden blast of wind shook the house as if to give weight to her questions.
Asa lifted his head slightly. “We came many miles, first on the water. Once we were in the water. After that we followed the river to get here.”
“Here? What do you mean, ‘here’?”
“We came to this place to find—”
He broke off, a shuttered look coming over his features.
Rachel studied him. “What happened to this man?” she said, inclining her head toward the wounded stranger. “Who did this to him?”
He hesitated. “In Virginia,” he said slowly, “we left the boat to get supplies. When we returned, men were waiting for us. They set the boat on fire and shot the captain.”
“Why?”
For the first time, the black man met her gaze. Rachel caught her breath at the simmering well of anger looking out at her. “The bullet was meant for me. The captain, he pushed me out of the way and took the shot himself.”
Rachel stared at him, her mind groping to take in his words. What kind of a man would place himself in harm’s way for another? And for a man of color at that.
She disliked herself for the thought that entered her mind, but there was no denying the contempt some white folks held for those who were…different. And the idea of dying for one of another race— small wonder that this man’s statement caught her by surprise.
“Are you a slave?” she blurted out.
His look remained steady. “No, missus. I am a free man. The captain, he paid for my papers. He gave me my freedom and a job on his boat.”
“Who are these men who shot—w
hat did you say your captain’s name is?”
“Gant, missus. Captain Jeremiah Gant.” He hesitated, obviously uncertain as to whether he should say more. Finally he added, “I think it would be best if Captain Gant explains everything when…he wakes up.”
The wounded man groaned. Rachel studied him a moment, faced Asa and gave a short nod, then turned to moisten a cloth in the washbowl.
She placed the cool cloth on the stranger’s forehead before turning back to Asa. “So, then,” she said, “how long have you been…free?”
“I think maybe three years by now, missus.”
Rachel thought about that. “If you’re a free man—and for so long a time—why would anyone want to hurt you? You said the shot was meant for you.”
Suddenly the man on the bed gave a jerk and cried out.
Rachel flinched but put a hand on his arm to calm him.
At the same moment, the front door swung open, and in seconds, Gideon appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. Rachel’s mother and Fannie were right behind him.
Her brother looked from Rachel to Asa and then to the unconscious stranger on the bed.
“What’s going on?” he said to Rachel.
As always his voice was deceptively calm, his words slow and easy. There was even a ghost of a smile touching his lips. But his eyes were everywhere and lit with fire as that quick mind of his took in the uncommon scene before him.
Rachel’s mother quickly banished Fannie to the kitchen before coming to stand beside Rachel. “Are you all right, daughter?”
“I’m fine, Mamma. You shouldn’t have come out in this weather.”
“Of course I should have come,” her mother said, touching Rachel’s hand. “What is all this?” She frowned at the man on the bed. “Who are these people?”
Rachel gave her a reassuring smile. As always, Susan Kanagy’s dark blonde hair was tucked neatly under her kapp and her bonnet, her brown eyes warm with concern for one of her children. Rachel knew that her long black coat covered her nightdress, but other than that, her mother appeared as alert and unruffled as if she’d been awake for hours. Always ready for anything, that was Mamma.
“Fannie told us you have an injured man here. We’ve sent Reuben Esch for Dr. Sebastian,” Mamma said, stepping toward the bedside to have a closer look at the unconscious stranger.
“I could just as well have gone myself,” offered Gideon. “No need running Reuben out in this weather.”
“You need to be here with your sister,” Mamma said in her nononsense tone. She bent over the wounded stranger, touched his forehead with the back of her hand, and frowned. “This man is burning up with fever! What happened to him?”
She looked across the bed at Asa, who dipped his head in a deferential nod but said nothing.
“He’s been shot, Mamma,” Rachel said. “He’s in a bad way.”
As if she’d done so dozens of times, her mother lifted the cloth from Gant’s leg and studied the wound.
After a moment she fixed a sharp eye on Asa. “What are you men doing here, on our land, in my daughter’s home?”
That was Mamma. No hesitating, no mincing words, no beating around the bush. If one needed to know, one simply asked.
If the big black man was taken aback by her bluntness, he made no show of it.
“This man’s name is Asa, Mamma,” Rachel put in. “The wounded man is his—employer. Captain Jeremiah Gant.”
“Captain Gant? What kind of ‘captain’ is he?”
“Captain is a river man, missus,” Asa replied. “A riverboat pilot.”
Gideon, standing at the foot of the bed with his arms crossed over his chest as he watched in silence, finally spoke. “What does a riverboat pilot do to get himself shot?”
Unlike their mother, Gideon’s tone was casual, his words almost a lazy drawl. But very much like their mother, his eyes probed the black man with a cutting intensity.
“That’s not important at the moment, Gideon,” Mamma said. “This house is cold. Go stoke the fire before Dr. Sebastian gets here. And, Rachel, put water on to boil.”
“I already did, Mamma.”
“Then see to Fannie. She needs to go to bed. She’s lost enough sleep as it is. But first take a towel to her hair and make sure she puts on dry night clothes.”
Guilt stabbed at Rachel when she saw the worry in her mother’s eyes. Fannie had ever been a fragile child, prone to chest colds and sore throats. She hadn’t wanted to send her sister out in the middle of a rainstorm, but what else could she have done?
No doubt Mamma would have an answer for that later, and it likely wouldn’t do a thing to ease Rachel’s guilt. She turned to go.
“And Rachel? Your hair. Where’s your kapp?”
Rachel lifted a hand to her hair, only then remembering that it was still unbound, in a heavy braid. She felt heat rise to her face. No man except her husband was ever to see a Plain woman’s hair unbound. “There wasn’t time before, Mamma. I’ll take care of it now.”
With a quick glance at the dark-clad stranger on the bed, Rachel left the room. She was calmer now, though not altogether pleased with the relief she’d felt when her mother arrived and took charge. She had been a married woman and taken care of a husband and a home. But ever since Eli’s death, she’d found herself shirking responsibility in difficult situations, content to let someone else deal with problems, even though she wasn’t without a sense of shame over her avoidance.
She had never been able to dismiss the conviction that she had somehow failed Eli. Always the wrenching question nagged at her: What else might she have done to prevent his death? Had she waited too long to react? Should she have ignored his plea to go for help and instead stayed with him, fought for him? Had she shirked taking action that night too?
It occasionally entered her mind that Eli would have admonished her for such feelings, that he would have pointed out, albeit in love, that self-denunciation and self-disgust were self-defeating and futile to the extreme. But Eli was no longer with her, and Rachel couldn’t seem to banish the nagging doubts that simply wouldn’t go away. Instead they continued to lurk beyond the fringes of her mind, creeping in to plague her when she least expected it.
Perhaps that was why she went about her daily tasks, even the most routine ones, feeling heavy with fatigue and bowed with uncertainty.
How then was she to deal with a situation like the one that had visited itself upon her tonight—yet another calamity that might mean a man’s life or death?
3
DR. SEBASTIAN
There was a man whom
Sorrow named his friend…
W.B. YEATS
Even before Dr. Sebastian arrived, Rachel’s mother brought order to the earlier confusion, and, in the process, taught Rachel a few things about the treatment and care of a wound.
“I daresay we might not need Dr. Sebastian now,” Rachel said. Clearly her mother’s efforts to tend to the stranger’s wound were much more thorough and expert than her own attempts
“Of course we need him,” Mamma said. “I’ve done everything I know to do. Apparently there’s still a bullet in this man’s leg, and he’s dangerously ill. Only Dr. Sebastian and the Lord God can help him now.”
“I think I hear Doc,” Gideon said, already on his way to the door.
“Missus?” The man Asa looked from Rachel to her mother. “I fear I have no money of my own—I lost everything in the river tonight. But I’m sure the captain has funds in his valise. I managed to hold onto it until we reached the riverbank. Its contents will be very wet, but I’m certain we can pay the doctor.”
“You needn’t concern yourself with that just now,” Mamma said. “Dr. Sebastian will understand if you can’t pay right away.”
“But we will pay. Captain Gant would not have it otherwise. You can trust him.” He stopped and then added, “You can trust us both.”
Rachel’s mother searched his face for a long moment and then gave a small nod. “Ja,” she said mat
ter-of-factly. “I expect I can.”
Dr. Sebastian entered the room in his usual reserved manner, his tall form slightly hunched, his eyes somewhat shadowed with fatigue. He gave a weary but warm smile to Mamma and Rachel. As always a shock of dark hair, fading to silver, fell over one eye.
“Susan. Rachel.” In one movement he settled his eyeglasses a little higher on the bridge of his nose and brushed the hair out of his eye. He glanced at Asa for only a second before transferring his attention to the unconscious stranger.
“Well,” he said and then again. “Well.”
With his eyes fixed on his patient, he took off his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves before opening his doctor case. His expression gave nothing away, but Rachel had known the physician for years, and she could sense his qualms for the wounded man on the bed.
David Sebastian was Englisch. And the irony was that the doctor was indeed English. He had come all the way across the ocean from the country of England many years ago with his wife—who passed on not long after they arrived in America—and his son. Over time he had become physician and friend to the entire Amish community of Riverhaven.
The early reservations of the People had gradually evolved to trust and then love for the quiet, unpretentious physician with the gentle ways and mild voice. There was no one outside the Amish settlement held in higher regard than Dr. Sebastian—“Doc” as he was known to most—and no one more dedicated to the well-being and safeguarding of the Amish families.
From time to time, Rachel wondered how such a highly educated man, rumored to be from an important and wealthy Englisch family, had ended up on a small farm near the Ohio River. Like the air of sadness that hovered about the doctor, mystery seemed to encircle him with a cloud of questions. Very little was known about him, other than that he was a good Christian man, a widower with a son who was now a doctor himself, and he was totally dedicated to his patients.
Rachel, however, knew one other thing about the kindly physician, something she was fairly certain no one else knew: Dr. David Sebastian was deeply in love with her mother.