by B. J. Hoff
He had the sense that Susan Kanagy was holding herself together only by the most rigid effort. But hold together she did. A strong woman, that one. There was no missing the iron in her spine.
He stayed behind, leaning on his cane, and watched Rachel, her family, and Malachi Esch disappear down the hallway and into a bedroom. Then he turned and pulled up a chair close to the potbellied stove, needing badly to take the weight off his leg. The pain, arrowing up all the way to his thigh, was excruciating, though he was sure it was nothing compared to the pain he’d seen in Rachel, her mother, and young Gideon. At this moment he would have given anything to have the right to take Rachel in his arms, to somehow absorb her pain into himself and comfort her.
Instead he could only sit here in the front room like a great dolt, feeling altogether useless and ineffective. He supposed he shouldn’t even have come. But in truth he didn’t think he could not have come—not only because of Rachel, but just as much because of Fannie herself.
He’d grown that fond of the girl in the weeks he’d been confined to Rachel’s house. It seemed that to Fannie he hadn’t been so much a stranger as a new friend. Whereas everyone else had eyed him with suspicion, if not outright distrust, Fannie had simply warmed to him and accepted him. She was that kind of child.
A summer child. Warmhearted, light-spirited, sunny-natured.
How could this have happened?
Guilt set in then. From what Gideon had told him, the lass had been on her way to ask him to Christmas dinner. The very idea made him feel more special than he could remember feeling in a long, long time. Even though the thought doubtlessly had been triggered by sympathy—pity for the lonely stranger, he expected—he still felt less an outsider for it.
He even let himself wonder whose idea it had been. Susan Kanagy’s? Fannie’s? Surely not Rachel’s, though he couldn’t help but wish it had been Rachel’s. Whoever had initiated the idea, no doubt she was regretting it now. If Fannie hadn’t left the house to invite him to dinner, she’d be enjoying her Christmas Day with the rest of her family, not lying unconscious in bed.
He glanced around, aware only in the vaguest sense of the house. It was a lot like Rachel’s. Plain, simply furnished, wooden floors with a rag rug here and there. The good smells of food baking and roasting hovered and clung. No real adornments, nothing frilly or fancy or expensive.
Yet it was a home. A warm, sheltering kind of place where comfort and peace seemed to be part of the furnishings.
At least until today, when tragedy came calling.
At the sound of footsteps on the wide-planked floor, he looked up to see Malachi Esch. He started to get up, but a sharp blast of pain pinned him to the chair again. “How is she? Has she come to yet?”
“No.” Malachi shook his head. “She looks to be in a bad way. She must have taken a terrible hard fall. Could sure use Doc right now, we could.”
Gant nodded. He’d already thought the same thing. As it was he could only hope the snow wouldn’t delay the doctor’s return the next day.
“I must be getting home,” Malachi said. “Phoebe will be worried, her not knowing where I am. And I need to tell her about Fannie. And you need dry clothes, man. Do you want me to drop you back to Doc’s place, then?”
Gant thought about it but shook his head. “I’ll stay here for now.”
“Well, you can send word by Gideon when you want to leave. We’ll get you home whenever need be.”
After Malachi left Gant sat wondering about the “terrible hard fall.” In truth it would have to be a hard fall indeed, to knock the lass out entirely as it had.
Something stirred inside of him, an uneasiness, a sense that something didn’t seem quite right, that things were not as they seemed to be or as they ought to be. And he knew in that moment that the feeling was going to eat at him and dog him until he could get at the truth, whatever it was. In any case Fannie would be able to fill them in on what had happened, once she regained consciousness.
Please, Lord, let that be soon…
25
AN INNER CIRCLE
For where two or three are gathered together
in my name,
there am I in the midst of them.
MATTHEW 18:20
Susan Kanagy could think of other times over the past few years when she had urgently wished for the presence of David Sebastian. But never with the same intense desperation as today.
Sitting at the bedside of her youngest daughter, holding Fannie’s small hand as she watched her child’s silent, motionless wandering in the unknown place to which her mind had taken her, Susan knew a helpless fear that ripped at her heart of hearts. She had done all she could think to do, all she knew to do—plumped hot water bottles all around Fannie’s slender form, had Gideon bring in more wood and punch up the fire in the front room and kitchen, bathed the child in warm water, and put warm stones wrapped in towels at her feet.
And still her daughter remained unmoving, silent, her lips tinged with blue, her skin so pale it was nearly translucent.
Across from her, on the other side of the bed, Rachel sat holding her sister’s other hand, watching Fannie as closely as if she were trying to memorize every feature, every breath. “Oh, I wish Dr. Sebastian were here!” Rachel murmured, echoing Susan’s thoughts. “He’d know exactly what to do.”
Susan nodded but said nothing, lest she say too much. So great was her desire for David’s quiet strength, his steady hands, the confident gentleness and care with which he went about treating a patient, that she feared it might be a palpable thing, that others could not help but sense her terror and her need.
Gideon stood at the foot of the bed, his eyes locked on his little sister, his gaze burning and searching as if he could drag her back to consciousness by the sheer strength of his will.
If only David were here…
Susan squeezed her eyes shut for an instant, shaken by the realization that, for too long a time now, she had placed far too much faith in a man. Had she angered the Lord God by this misplaced trust? Her faith—all faith—should rest in God. All healing power was in His hands and not in a mere man’s, no matter how excellent a physician that man might be. It pierced her spirit to think that she might be in danger of crediting David with a power that belonged to the Lord God and to Him alone. And David himself would no doubt be the first to remind her of that treachery.
“Gott, forgive me,” she whispered in her spirit. She prayed then, softly to herself, the ancient prayer that was one of the bulwarks of her faith—in truth, a vital key to the faith of all the Amish people. It was the first prayer she had learned as a child and the first prayer she had taught her own children when they were ever so small. And those children, now adults, heard her murmurings and began to pray with her…
“Our Father, which art in heaven…”
It seemed an age before Rachel came down the hall and stood in front of him. The afternoon had worn on, casting a melancholy pall over the front room and the deepening day outside the window.
Gant watched her face, quickly saw that there was no news.
“She’s still…sleeping,” Rachel said. “But she feels warm now, not so cold. Here, I brought you some dry clothing.”
She handed him a folded bundle of clothes. “They’re Gideon’s. They’ll be too small, of course, but perhaps they’ll work until I can get your own things dry. I’ll hang yours in the kitchen, beside the stove.”
A faint blush crept up her face. “The trousers will be much too short, I know, but at least they’re dry.” She paused. “Mamma wanted me to come and thank you—from all of us—for what you did. And she thought that after you change, you might like to come and sit with us, to be closer to Fannie.”
“I did nothing. If only I could have done more. If Gideon and Malachi hadn’t come along when they did—”
“No…Jeremiah.”
His name on her lips shook him like a wind roaring down from the mountains. And to think he’d never held with his
name, never felt that he should wear it, never felt as if it quite belonged to him, not at all.
“If you hadn’t seen her,” Rachel went on quietly, “if you hadn’t gone out to the road and tried to help her…I can’t bear to think what might have happened. I believe we owe Fannie’s life, if the Lord God sees fit to spare her life, to you and your courage. You could have been badly hurt yourself.”
Again Gant shook his head, humbled and uncomfortable with her gratitude. “I’ve been sitting here wishing Doc hadn’t gone to Maryland.”
“Oh, I think we’ve all been wishing that! We can only pray he’ll be back tomorrow, but what with the snow and all—” She broke off, as if unwilling to voice the rest of her thought.
“Your mother—how is she?”
“Frightened. Very frightened. But Mamma is strong.”
He nodded, searching her face. “And you, Rachel,” he said softly, “how are you?”
She glanced away. “This is…so hard.”
When she turned back to him, on impulse Gant took her hand. “Of course it is. She’s your sister.”
When she made no move to free her hand from his, he tightened his clasp a little. But that slight movement seemed to awaken her awareness of his touch, and she quickly slipped her hand from his.
“I wish I knew what happened to her,” she said softly. “If we knew that, perhaps then we’d know better how to care for her.”
Gant nodded. “When she wakes up, then we’ll know.”
“If she wakes up…”
“Don’t think that way, Rachel. She will wake up.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“Somehow I am, though.”
And he was. In some inexplicable, even irrational, way, he firmly believed that Fannie would be all right. In truth, he had to believe it, not simply for Fannie herself but for Rachel. There was something in all this that had gripped his senses, his heart, his every instinct, telling him that for Rachel’s sake, as much as for Fannie’s, she had to wake up. She had to be all right.
What accounted for this strange, incomprehensible certainty, he couldn’t say. He knew only that it would be as much Rachel’s tragedy as her sister’s if Fannie didn’t revive.
“I should go back,” Rachel said. “Please—come join us after you change. Don’t sit out here alone.”
“You’re sure it’s all right?”
She nodded. “Yes. It’s what we want, Jeremiah.”
Inordinately pleased to be asked, Gant hauled himself up from the chair and, with the cane thumping a muffled tattoo on the wooden floor, went to the kitchen to change his clothes.
Late into the night, Rachel realized what an extraordinary thing this was, what with Jeremiah Gant being an auslander— an outsider who had become more a friend— sitting among them, bowing his head and praying with them as they prayed, waiting with them, watching and caring.
And Mamma and Gideon not being uncomfortable with his presence, in fact wanting his presence. Even Gideon seemed to warm to the idea of Jeremiah being among them. Every now and then, Rachel would see her brother steal a glance at him, and there was no mistaking the respect in his eyes, albeit a respect mixed with curiosity.
She hoped that somehow Fannie knew “Captain Gant” was here, watching over her. Her little sister had come to like him a lot, had missed him when he moved out to Doc’s place—which, no doubt, had prompted her desire to have him over for Christmas dinner.
Now, unless she was badly mistaken, Rachel sensed that he was feeling guilty for that very reason. But Fannie wouldn’t want that. Why, if she could, Fannie would be the first to dismiss any feelings of guilt on his part. Fannie always wanted good things for others, especially those she—
Suddenly a small gasp from her mother jerked her out of her thoughts. At the same time, Jeremiah lumbered to his feet, and Gideon moved closer toward the head of the bed to stand beside Mamma. As Rachel watched, Fannie’s long eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks, her mouth opened slightly, and she drew in a long, ragged breath, much like a drowsy sigh.
“Mamma?”
The next hour was a flurry of excitement and guarded relief. Fannie seemed to revive quickly, but she was fevered, her breathing sounded harsh and heavy, and every few minutes she would burst into tears.
Gant wondered about the tears—he had a strong suspicion the girl had been badly frightened—but clearly she wasn’t up to talking much yet. His heart did a turn, though, when she saw him standing at the foot of her bed and said in a thin, wavering voice, “Captain Gant! You came for Christmas dinner anyway…and I didn’t even have to ask.”
Encouraged by her alertness and warmed by her words, Gant moved around to the side of the bed where Rachel stood, holding the child’s hand. “Why, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, Miss Fannie.”
“Captain Gant is the one who found you, Fannie,” Gideon put in. “Do you remember falling in the snow?”
Fannie looked at her brother, a questioning look replacing the smile she’d given Gant. Then she shuddered, a movement that seemed to run the full length of her small body under the bedclothes.
Slowly Fannie looked around the room, her gaze traveling to each one of them, meeting their eyes, but finally returning to Gideon and then Gant.
“I didn’t fall,” she said, an angry flush of red deepening still more the stain of fever on her face.
“Whatever do you mean, Fannie?” said Susan Kanagy. “You fell so hard it knocked the wind right out of you. You’ve been sleeping for hours.”
Fannie studied her mother for a long moment and then turned to Rachel. It seemed to Gant that the child’s eyes had taken on an old sorrow, a hurt that went beyond the farthest reaches of childhood.
“Please, Rachel,” she said, her voice so soft Gant could scarcely make out her words. Yet he did make them out, and he saw that Gideon did also.
“Rachel,” Fannie said again. “I need to talk to you and Mamma alone.”
26
THE BEST OF INTENTIONS
Broken at last, I bowed my head,
Forgetting all myself, and said,
“Whatever comes, His will be done,”
And in that moment peace was won.
HENRY VAN DYKE
It must have been another thirty to forty minutes before Rachel walked into the kitchen. Her mother wasn’t with her.
In the meantime Gant and Gideon had helped themselves to a slice of apple pie and were just finishing up. Even in the dim light from the kerosene lamp on the table, Gant could immediately see that she was shaken. Her skin was ashen, her dark eyes enormous and shadowed.
Gideon, too, was watching her. “So—what was all that about?” he said. “Why did Fannie want to talk with you and Mamm alone?”
She looked from him to Gant and then came to stand at the table, her hands on the back of a chair as if she were bracing herself. “Some boys—Englisch—boys cornered her on her way to your house,” she said, looking at Gant. Her words came slowly and with obvious difficulty. “They—”
“What?” Gideon shot up from his chair, nearly knocking it over. His hand hit his coffee cup, spilling what was left on the table.
Rachel put a finger to her lips. “Hush, Gideon! She’s fallen asleep again, just—a normal sleep this time. She needs to rest.”
Gideon pulled out a chair and motioned for her to take it. “And so do you. You look like you’re about to fall over. Sit down and tell us what happened.”
Something about the stunned look in her eyes, the pain etched in her features, made Gant think of a child who’d been beaten and then sickened from the abuse. He had to squeeze his own hand to keep from taking hers.
“Rachel?” Gideon prompted.
She kept her head down, her gaze fixed on the table in front of her as she spoke. “They teased her. They said—awful things to her, and when she tried to stand up to them, they began to shove her. They kept pushing her and shoving her, and then one of them—kicked her. That’s how she fell
.” She stopped, made a sobbing sound in her throat. “Someone kicked her in the back and also the head. That’s all she remembers. Mamma checked. She has a bad bruise on her back.”
Gideon’s face had turned crimson. Still standing, his hands were knotted into fists. He looked like a thundercloud about to explode.
Gant did everything he could do not to roar with his own rage. He virtually ached to get his hands on those foolish, ignorant boys and do some shoving himself. “Did she know any of them, Rachel?” he asked tightly.
She looked up for the first time since she’d started speaking. “No. She said she’d never seen them before. She thinks they were younger than Gideon, but a few years older than she is.”
“Whether she recognized them or not, I’ll find them,” Gideon ground out. “They’re going to pay for this!”
“Gideon—”
“Don’t, Rachel! Don’t you dare say a word to me about it not being our way. I know it all—I’ve heard it all before! I heard it when Eli was killed and you—” He stopped, shaking his head so hard his hair flew in front of his face. “I let you and Mamma talk me out of doing anything then—but you won’t stop me this time! This time I’m going after them!”
“You will do no such thing, Gideon Kanagy.” Susan Kanagy walked into the room at that moment, snapping out the words to her son as if he were nine years old rather than nineteen. Her eyes blazed, her face was lined with exhaustion and gray with sadness, but there was no question as to whether she was completely and fully in control. “What you will do is lower your voice right now before you wake your sister.
“Sit down, Gideon,” she said, coming to stand at the table.
“No, Mamm. Don’t you start with me. I listened to you before, but I was a boy then. I’m a man now.”
“Then act like one,” she said, her tone sharp, but her voice firm. “A man controls his anger. He doesn’t rave and carry on like a child having a temper tantrum.” She paused. “Sit down, son.”