by Leslie Gould
He was staying in Lancaster County.
Once we reached the main trail, we continued up instead of heading back to camp. I asked Leon about his sisters. “Hannah’s family definitely reminds me of mine,” he said. “Except in mine the only boy—me—is the oldest, and in hers the only boy is the youngest.”
“Jah,” I said. “So in reverse.”
“Exactly.” He paused for a minute and then said, “I compared one of my sisters to Beatrice, but worse.”
I nodded. I remembered.
“But I think she’s more like Hannah.”
“How’s that?”
“Oh.” It seemed he was looking for the right word. “Unstable.”
“Hannah’s much better than she used to be.”
“Jah,” he said. “That’s what she told me.”
For a moment, I wondered how much they’d talked. It seemed like more than I’d thought.
“I worry about her,” Leon said. “She seems so taken with Mervin. It’s miserable to love someone who doesn’t love you back.”
I wondered how much Hannah had told Leon about my experience with Phillip. She’d blurted out before the singing that he’d dumped me, but had she told Leon more?
A wild flower ahead caught Leon’s attention. Orange and yellow, the bloom hung upside down. “Amazing,” he said.
“It’s columbine,” I responded. “But it’s late for it to be blooming.”
“It’s been fairly cool,” Leon answered.
I bent down next to the flower, taking hold of the stem. I’d never seen an orange one before.
“I brought my pastels.” Leon stood over me. “If I have time, I’ll draw a picture.”
“I’d like that,” I said, straightening up.
We continued on.
“I’d like to see your art,” I said.
“I’ll show you, when we get back to camp.”
I sighed. “I wish I had some sort of talent like that.” It was a new wish. I’d never appreciated Beatrice’s writing, but now I could see the value of expressing myself. Maybe I hadn’t had anything worth expressing until now.
“Ach, Molly, you have all kinds of talent.”
“I wasn’t fishing for a compliment, really,” I explained, embarrassed that what I’d said had probably sounded prideful. “But since you brought it up, what exactly are my talents?”
He laughed. “Well, you’re a go-getter. And full of ideas. You take charge—a true leader. You’re going to make a great wife—and mother.”
I smiled and then said, as if it were a joke, “You haven’t seen me with kids yet.”
“How about today, with Robbie?” But then he cocked his head. “Actually, I don’t think I did see you with—”
I interrupted him, plain and simple, keeping my voice light. “I am good with flowers though. They’re much more predictable than children.” Lightning nudged me for the . . . Actually I’d lost track of how many times she’d nudged me. “And horses.”
“Except for drought, diseases, and storms.”
“Well, sure. But it’s not like a flower decides to bolt or throw their food across the table.”
He laughed and then said, “I’m just teasing.” He reached for my hand. We walked along in silence until we crested a hill. Ahead was a meadow, much brighter in the evening light than the forest had been. The horses slowed.
Ahead I saw a purple flower, actually several blossoms on a club-like shape atop a stem. I hurried my pace. “Do you know what this is?” I asked.
Leon shook his head.
“It looks like nettle,” I said.
“It’s similar, but I remember what nettle looks like”—he grimaced as if remembering the plant’s sting—“really well.”
“My Dat would have known.” I’d left his book at home.
“I’ll draw it too,” Leon said. “Then we can find out.”
“Denki.” I knew far more about cultivated flowers than wild ones.
The horses stopped. Leon tugged on them. Their ears twitched and they wouldn’t budge. He murmured, “Come on.” They took a couple of steps and stopped again.
“What is it?” I asked, looking around the meadow.
“I don’t know,” Leon said. “Maybe a deer. They’re so skittish, it could even be the scent of something else on the trail earlier in the day.”
“What happened to make them so afraid?”
“I don’t know. Owen bought them at auction in the spring. That’s why he hired me, to train them—and another one he hopes to buy later in the summer.”
He pulled again, leading the horses into the meadow, where we sat on a big rock. He took his cowboy hat from his head and placed it, gently, on top of my Kapp, grinning as he did.
Then he dropped the horses’ leads on the ground and said, “There’s no rushing when it comes to horses. If you’re patient and win their trust, they’ll eventually do what you ask them to.”
Once we were headed back down the trail, Leon handed Storm’s lead to me. I balked. “Give it a try,” he said.
Reluctantly, I cooperated. Then Leon took my other hand. The feel of his calluses against my skin comforted me. We followed the trail as it wound down through the trees. He liked that I was a take-charge person. He appreciated it. We complemented each other that way. I was good with people—he was good with horses, a true leader in his own way.
“Where did you get your hat?” I asked, looking up at the brim.
“The old cowboy I worked for back home.” He grinned at me again. “I only wear it for special occasions—and I only let very special people wear it.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
“He was one of my best friends ever. He was a crusty old geezer, but his mama had been a pioneer woman who loved the Lord. He cussed when riled, but he could recite Bible verses just as well. And he sent half his money to an Indian mission in North Dakota. And if anyone in the community had a need, he’d see to it—anonymously, of course. By the time he died—”
I gasped. “He died.”
“Jah.” Leon swallowed hard. “In March.”
Just before Dat.
“Anyway, he had cancer. I stayed with him until the end. It was okay because he was so ready to see the Lord. That’s all he talked about. I learned a lot about faith and love from him—not how to talk about it but how to live it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Leon smiled, sadly. “He—Hank—paid my sister’s hospital bills. There were some who didn’t think the treatment she got was . . . right. He did.”
“Wow.”
Leon squeezed my hand. “Tell me about your Dat. Hannah said he was a good man.”
“Jah.” I swallowed hard, fighting the tears. “He was.” Leon squeezed my hand again, and I could feel a current of understanding pass through me. “He would have liked you.”
Leon’s voice was tender. “More than your Mamm?”
“She’ll like you, soon enough. I promise. Once my plan works.”
He leaned toward me. “What exactly is your plan?”
My face warmed. I hesitated for a moment but then said, “When Dat died, my brother—half brother . . .”
Leon nodded. Hannah had probably told him about Ivan too.
“Anyway, he said it was God’s will. Everyone who came to help in the days before his funeral said that too.”
“Jah, that’s what my parents said when Hank passed.”
“I know, ultimately, it was,” I said.
Leon’s head bobbed.
“I just wasn’t ready. . . .”
“Of course not.” Leon let go of my hand, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and drawing me close.
“I have a lot of regrets when it comes to my Dat,” I said. “I wish I would have stuck around home more. I wish I would have told him I loved him more. I wish I would have called 9-1-1 sooner.” I shuddered. “I did the best I could—but it wasn’t good enough.”
Leon drew me even closer. “None of us is perfect.”
“But that’s why I don’t want to put too much stress on Mamm.”
“She’ll be okay,” Leon said.
There was no way he could know for sure, but his words comforted me.
“It makes our . . . relationship—yours and mine—complicated.”
He looked off into the distance and then said, “So what is your plan?”
I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it, because I can’t really do anything—not until we know what’s wrong with my Mamm.”
“I see.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied.
“It’s all right.” He tipped the cowboy hat back farther on my head. “I expect ruts in the road on the way to true love.” He grinned, but not because he was teasing.
I exhaled slowly, appreciating his words. I pulled away and took his hat from my head, holding it up. “So what other special people—girls—have worn this?”
“Not many.”
“How many?” I put the hat back on my head, and Leon reached for my hand again.
“Just one.”
“Do tell.” I nudged his bicep with my shoulder.
“Just a girl back home . . .”
“What happened?” I asked.
He paused a moment. “I guess you could say she dumped me.”
I stopped in the middle of the trail. Why would anyone dump Leon? “I don’t believe it,” I said, mock horror in my voice. “Whyever for?”
Leon grinned. “Hard to believe, I know. Let’s see. She said I didn’t talk enough. I didn’t express my feelings.”
“Goodness.” I gazed into his eyes. “But look at how you just opened up to me.”
He smiled. “It was a conscious effort.”
I smiled back, and then at a ridiculous attempt at humor, I asked, “But did she like horses?”
“Yep,” he answered. “A lot.”
I changed the subject, pointing to the wild phlox growing along the trail. “We grow phlox,” I said.
“The tame kind,” Leon joked.
“Jah, I train it,” I answered, pleased that the mood had become more lighthearted.
The daylight was nearly gone, but I didn’t want our time to end. Ahead was a log, covered with moss. I nodded toward it. “Just for a minute?” I asked.
Leon staked the horses beside the log and we sat. To our left was the spur we’d taken to the waterfall, and we listened to the water crashing and the other sounds—crickets, an owl hooting in the distance, a creature in the tree behind us.
A flickering out of the corner of my eye caught my attention.
Leon gasped.
I giggled.
Another firefly appeared.
“We don’t have those back home.” His voice was full of awe.
I stood and stepped toward them. “Will the horses be okay?”
He nodded. I took his hand and we started after the flickering lights, toward the waterfall. By the time we reached it, the forest was full of fireflies, dazzling us with their beauty against the dark green hues of the trees and the canopy of the almost-night sky.
My very being danced with their movement, as if Leon and I flew with them, our hearts as in sync as the light show before us. The sight was more beautiful than Englisch Christmas lights, snow falling in winter, and even shooting stars. I slipped off the cowboy hat and held it in my hand.
Enchanted, I took all of it in as a sign of a new start. True, my heart still weighed heavy with worry and grief, but I’d honestly never been happier in all my life.
Leon loved me. I loved him. Thank goodness I’d met him before I’d agreed to marry Mervin.
Chapter
13
As we rounded the curve in the road, laughter rang out from our camp. Above, the stars were brighter and thicker even than back home, flooding the sky. When we reached the horse trailer, I took off the cowboy hat and handed it to Leon.
“Keep it,” he said. “It looks better on you.” I appreciated the small consolation to my dread of joining the others. I only wanted to be with Leon. But all good things, including walks in the forest, had to come to an end.
Leon led Lightning into the pen and then took Storm’s lead from me and led him in too. Then he stepped into the trailer, going to the very back. A moment later he returned with his leather book and pencil box in his hands.
“What about your sleeping bag?” I shone the flashlight at his feet. “Don’t you want to take it to your tent?”
“I’ll sleep here,” he said. “Close to the horses.”
I stepped closer to the trailer. “In there?”
“Jah,” he answered.
“But the floor is hard—and cold.”
“I’ll be fine.”
I looked from Lightning to Storm, wishing there was another option.
“But you’ll come up to the campfire now?”
“Jah,” he said. “Of course.”
Mervin was sitting by himself, with a hurt look on his face, while Ben and Martin talked about a softball game they’d played in the week before. Hannah and Beatrice listened. There wasn’t enough light by the fire to see Leon’s work, so we headed toward the table where Pete and Cate hovered over something, the lantern a few feet away. As I started to sit at the other end, I realized they had one of the plastic kitchen boxes on the table. I stopped. Robbie was sitting in the box, splashing around in the water.
Cate poured water over his curly hair, and the little boy giggled in delight.
“Grab the towel,” Cate said to Pete.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Bath time.” Cate had a smile on her face. “Doesn’t it look like fun?”
“But that’s the kitchen box . . .” I turned toward the other table. The matches, the bowls, a few plates we hadn’t used at dinner, a pan—all of it had been taken out of the box. That’s when I noticed the dinner dishes hadn’t been washed.
“Hannah!” I spun around toward the fire. “You and Mervin didn’t do the dishes.”
“We’re waiting until Robbie has his bath,” she answered. “Right, Mervin?”
He nodded, staring straight at me.
“We had to heat more water,” Cate said as she lifted the little boy out of the box and into the towel Pete held. Pete wrapped the baby up tight, cradling him sweetly.
Leon stepped over and tickled Robbie’s chin. The little boy shrieked. Hannah hurried from the fire and cooed over him too. Alarm filled me as Leon watched her, a look of admiration on his face.
Robbie shot me another impish grin.
Mervin, Martin, and Ben gathered around too.
“Don’t get him all worked up,” I said.
“You’re the only one getting worked up.” Beatrice was behind me, retrieving the bag of marshmallows from the end of the table.
I ignored her and turned the burner down under the kettle that had begun to whistle, and under the pan on the back burner too. Then I retrieved the pan from the table, filled it halfway at the water jug, and marched back to the stove.
Pete slipped Robbie into Cate’s arms, and she headed to the tent with him—it seemed awfully late for such a little guy to be up—while Pete carried the box of water toward the waste area, dumping it with a swishing noise. Then he ran water from the jug into the box, swirled it around, and then dumped it again.
When he returned he dried it out with a hand towel.
Leon joined the others by the fire, taking a marshmallow from Beatrice and putting it on a stick.
I set up the drying rack, retrieved the dish soap and towels from the other table, and then poured the hot water, adding a little bleach to the rinse water. I doubted if Hannah would have thought to do that.
Mervin joined me. “I’ll help you,” he said.
“Denki,” I said. Hannah needed to help too. Instead she was roasting a marshmallow, holding it awfully close to Leon’s. Beatrice stepped around on the other side of him.
I swirled my hand in the dishwater as I added the soap. When I glanced at
the fire again, Leon was eating his marshmallow. He held up the remaining half and called out, “I’ll make you one.”
“No thanks,” I answered.
When I glanced up again, he was walking toward the horse trailer, his book in his hands, the shadows of the night dancing in the flickering light around him.
Finally Hannah came to help with the dishes, ignoring both Mervin and me.
I slept fitfully. On one side, Hannah snored softly. On the other side, Beatrice kicked sharply.
A couple of times, an owl hooted. Several times one of the horses neighed, probably spooked by the owl. One time, I thought I heard Robbie cry—or perhaps that was a mountain lion after the horses. I thought of Leon unprotected in the trailer. What would he do?
After that there were no more hoots or cries, just Beatrice kicking me and Hannah drooling on her pillow. I drifted back to sleep, only to have Robbie wake me again—this time with laughter.
It was five o’clock, definitely time to get up at home, but maybe not on vacation. . . . I rolled over but couldn’t get back to sleep. Hannah and Beatrice continued to sleep heavily, even when I crawled out of my sleeping bag and dressed, slipped on my jacket, unzipped the tent, and stepped out into the cold, overcast morning.
The fire was going, and so was the stove. Coffee was boiling on the back burner, sending a delicious smell my way. Pete was sitting in a lawn chair with Robbie on his lap, sharing a banana with the little boy.
“Good morning,” I whispered, stopping to warm my hands by the fire.
Robbie squealed with delight, probably at seeing another person awake—certainly not at seeing me in particular. But then he reached out for me, and once again I responded, only to have him shrink back and shriek again.
“Ach, he’s teasing,” Pete said.
I forced a smile. Robbie didn’t act that way with anyone but me. Maybe he could tell deep down I wasn’t that crazy about children.
I headed to the chart, even though I had it memorized. I’d scheduled Cate and Pete to make breakfast and Leon and me to clean up. I turned toward the trailer. Robbie squealed again, probably thinking I was looking at him. I did give him a smile and a wave, then looked intently at the area around the trailer. The horses stood over a pile of hay that hadn’t been there the night before. Leon was awake.