“I should be on my way.” Magdalena slung the bag over a shoulder.
The man turned and spoke over his shoulder to the others. “Bring the paper.”
A younger man—surely no older than fifteen, her brother Hansli’s age—picked up the paper they had huddled around. He took five uphill strides and was beside her.
“You will carry this for us.”
She met the first man’s gaze and fingered the strings of her kapp. “I am Amish.”
“I know. That’s why you are perfect.”
“I do not understand.”
He pointed. “On the far side of that ridge is a boulder. It looks a little like a bear cub from a distance.”
Magdalena stood still, anticipating. She knew the ridge well. Patriots had been gathering there for more than two years.
Now he folded the paper as he talked. “It’s a simple task.”
“I am Amish,” she repeated.
“No one will look in your bag.”
“You did,” Magdalena pointed out.
“But not because I suspected you. I saw an opportunity.”
“Amish do not take sides in a war.” Even as she spoke the words, her belief in them trembled.
“When you get to the rock, look to the south. You will see a small cabin.”
Nathan’s cabin. Magdalena exhaled and inhaled three times before speaking. “What will happen to the men on the ridge if I do this?”
“What will happen to you if you do not? The battles are spreading. Your General Washington is going to lose Philadelphia any day.”
“He is not my General Washington,” she said. “The Amish have no generals.”
“It will be better for you if you are on our side when Philadelphia falls. It won’t be long before the countryside is under British control once again. Your theory of neutrality will not hold up then.” Without asking permission, he took the bag from her shoulder and plunged his hand inside, pushing the letter to the middle. His fingers came out empty. “Inside the cabin you’ll see a shelf with jars of preserves on it.”
Mrs. Buerki’s jars of peaches and beans, long forgotten. Magdalena’s heart thundered as she realized the squatters in Nathan’s cabin were British sympathizers.
“Put the letter under the third jar from the left.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
She held his brown eyes as she raised her bag to her shoulder. “And if I should happen to pass this way again?”
“Then perhaps we will happen to talk again.”
“The Israelites could not make bricks without straw, and I cannot make gunpowder without saltpeter.” Jacob pulled his leather apron over his head and flung it against the stone wall of the tannery.
“The French are very close to having a fresh supply of powder at Washington’s disposal.” David sat hunched forward on a barrel, his hands tucked under his thighs.
“That’s not much help now.” Jacob pulled a forearm across the sweat on his forehead. “The British are marching toward Philadelphia, and they seem to be getting ample help from sympathizers in the countryside.”
“Our officers need harnesses and saddles as well as powder. You’re making those as fast as you can. It’s a great help, Jacob.”
Jacob exhaled and gazed at his youngest brother. “I couldn’t do it without you. But if we lose Philadelphia—”
“That won’t be the end of the war. We will keep fighting!”
“Sarah is in Philadelphia. She will refuse to leave, you know.”
“I know.” David put his hands behind his head and stretched his back.
“Joseph is going to enlist any day,” Jacob said.
“I know that, too.”
“This is hard on Mamm.”
“Did you ever tell her you saw Maria?”
Jacob shook his head. “I might have seen Maria. Why break Mamm’s heart all over again if I was wrong?”
“You’re right.” David raked his hands through his hair. “I’d better go. This time my wagon really is full of potatoes to feed hungry bellies.”
Magdalena slipped out the back door, her prayer kapp hanging loose around her neck and a shawl around her shoulders. The midnight sky was clear, the moon bright. This brought both comfort and anxiety. She could see her way, but she would have to remember to stay in the shadows. It would be easier once she was away from the clearing around the house and barn.
She had lain for hours in her bed, waiting for the settled sounds of sleep to come from every room. The new baby fussed himself and his mother into exhaustion, and Magdalena did not dare leave her room until the shuffling behind Babsi’s door stopped.
But she was out now, and she allowed herself one deep breath before turning her feet swiftly toward her goal. Twice before she had done this, her heart pounding as she flung herself through gradations of shadow in darkness. Instead of moving up the lane to the main road, Magdalena crept through the back garden and across one fallow field. Beyond it she found the cover that taller crops, though picked bare, would provide.
She never read the letters, although they were not sealed. She simply carried them from one destination to another according to Patrick’s instructions.
Patrick. She’d heard one of the men call out his name, unaware she was near. She had not yet spoken hers to him, and he had not asked.
Soon she was across the second field. Dry corn husks crunched under her feet. Every sound magnified, every step thudding, every sweep of her hemline crackling in the dirt.
She froze.
Her steps were not the only sounds she heard.
Magdalena ducked into what was left of the corn row and dropped flat to the ground. She turned her head toward the sound and saw a boot.
A brown boot. The sort Amish men favored. A second boot came into the frame of her vision. Both feet turned toward her and stopped.
“Magdalena, get up.”
She bolted upright. “Daed! What are you doing out here?”
“Magdalena, get up out of the dirt.”
She took her father’s outstretched hand and pulled herself to her feet.
“Maggie, what are you doing?”
“I was going for a walk.”
“Do you find the moonlight romantic?”
“No! If you think I’m meeting a man, please put your mind at ease. There is no one.”
“Let us walk together back to the house, then.”
“Did you follow me?” Magdalena’s fingers wrapped around the folded paper hidden under her shawl.
“Yes, I did.”
“But why?”
He puffed air softly. Magdalena knew that sound. Her father would not be distracted, not when he obviously found her actions suspicious.
“Magdalena,” he said, “would these midnight forays have anything to do with the British sympathizers?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“I would not be the first farmer to suspect they have been camping on my land. Please answer my question.”
Magdalena could not tell a full-blown lie to her father. “It is only a few letters. I do not even know what they say.”
She winced when her father took her elbow, not because it hurt but because she knew she had pushed his tolerance too far. When he turned her toward home, she did not resist.
“Maria, we are Amish.”
“Maria?” She blanched. Her daed never mixed up names. “I am Magdalena.”
“I’m sorry. Sometimes you remind me of my sister.” He relaxed his touch on her elbow. “We are Amish. We do not get involved in these affairs. Force is not our way.”
“I am not forcing anyone,” she said. “It is just letters.”
“And how do you know one of these letters will not change the war?”
The thought made her heart quicken. If she could in some small way contribute to bringing an end to the Patriot uprising, she would feel she had done well. She pushed regret for pride out of her mind.
They walked home
without talking. Magdalena gripped the letter, already scheming how she might break away in the morning while her father worked in the field they now traversed. He would watch her closely, but he could not keep her in sight every moment of the day and night.
Philadelphia fell before the end of the month. The day the news reached him, Jacob sat up alone in the middle of the night pondering its implications. British troops, with ample gunpowder, marched the streets where his parents had met and where his sister now lived.
Jacob tapped the table with one finger. He was not going to give up. He had what he needed for a small batch of powder in the iron kettle behind the tannery. In the morning he would carry coals from his own kitchen to light the fire and heat the saltpeter to crystals. He had plenty of lye for boiling the brimstone in linen rags, and red cedar was stacked up outside the tannery for burning. Pounding the mixture into dust would take days.
Jacob rubbed a thumb against the edge of the table, remembering the feel of the silky fine powder that would result from his labors. Perhaps he would use the saltpeter to make a smaller but more powerful batch. He might not have as much as he wished, but General Washington was welcome to whatever he did have. Jacob liked to imagine his gunpowder causing the explosion that would shoot off a cannon.
And he would have to get a message to Sarah and Emerson. David might have some ideas how. If he could get the message through, his sister would offer reliable details about events in Philadelphia.
Twenty-Five
Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Annie half listened to the traffic outside the shop the next morning hoping to hear Dolly’s clip-clop. Rufus worked more and more often doing custom work in the subdivision springing up north of town. He created cabinets in his workshop on the Beiler property, which meant he could go days—or even weeks—at a time without needing to come into town. Eventually he had to install his handiwork, though, and Annie liked to think he would look for a reason to meander down Main Street.
When the clip-clop came, however, it was not Dolly but Brownie, and the buggy carried not Rufus but Joel and the Stutzman brothers. From her position at the cash register, Annie saw all three teens drop from the buggy’s bench and walk around to the back to unload several crates.
“Did you tell Mrs. Stutzman you wanted more of her jams and handmade goods?” With no customers in the shop, Annie spoke freely to Mrs. Weichert.
“I don’t see any harm in keeping a few of her things. Franey Beiler doesn’t do blackberry jam, and it seems to be popular.”
“This looks like more than a few jars of jam.”
Joel held the shop door open now, while Mark and Luke carried crates. Mrs. Weichert’s eyes widened slightly and Annie stifled a smirk.
“Our mamm sent in a wide selection,” Mark said. “She said you may choose what you would like to keep and we will pick up the rest the next time we are in town.”
“My goodness, your mother has been busy. This is quite a bit more than I was expecting,” Mrs. Weichert said. Mark moved toward the counter with two crates. Luke had two more.
“We’ll get the rest, then,” Mark said.
“There’s more?”
Behind the crates, Annie snorted then generated a cover-up cough as the brothers stepped out to the buggy.
Mrs. Weichert brushed her thumbs across a quilted pillow sham. “Joel, perhaps you could help Annie take these to the back room. We’ll have more space there to go through everything.”
Annie was not so sure. The back room was strewn with assorted finds from three separate estate sales, all awaiting cleaning and pricing. But when Joel complied with Mrs. Weichert’s request, Annie did the same.
In the back room, Annie set down the crate she carried and slid it up against a wall. “I suppose Carter and Duncan are in school.”
“Yes, I suppose they are.” Joel nudged two more crates snug up against the first.
“Seems like the bunch of you have been spending a lot of time together.”
Joel met her gaze. “Not all that much.”
Annie peered at a wooden birdhouse with a single hole in the front. “I wonder if one of the boys made that.”
“Might have.”
“I guess everybody has heard about Karl Kramer.”
“I don’t pay much attention to him,” Joel said. “His fuse is too quick.”
Now why would Joel be talking about a fuse? Annie heard the bell on the door jangle and Mark’s soft voice, his words indistinguishable.
“I’ll get the rest,” Joel said.
As he turned away, Annie wondered how it was he had time for mundane errands for the Stutzmans when undoubtedly he had chores of his own. It was the middle of the morning, at the height of spring. On a farm. Annie found it hard to believe he did not have work waiting for him at his father’s side. Surely the Stutzman boys could have brought their own buggy into town.
Joel returned, his arms full.
Annie smiled, daring him to keep looking so glum. “I’ll make more room.” She pushed a mostly empty oversized box out of the way.
“This is the last of it.”
“I hope Mrs. Stutzman appreciates your help. I’m sure you have a lot of other things you could be doing.”
“My morning was fairly clear.” Joel brushed his palms against each other, spewing dust. “It is our way to be helpful.”
“Yes, of course. I of all people understand Beiler hospitality.”
He looked at her, and the corners of his mouth went up, but the gesture did not convince Annie.
“Is everything all right, Joel?” She spoke before she meant to, laying a hand on his forearm.
“Of course. Why should it not be?” He moved out of her touch.
Was that irritation in his tone? Defensiveness? Simple fatigue? Slow and subtle was not going to work. Annie changed tactics.
“What do you know about Karl Kramer’s missing fertilizer? Or what do your friends have to do with it?”
“I’d better go.”
Joel touched the brim of his hat in a way that made clear Annie would get no further reaction from him.
“Joel, if the boys are getting themselves into trouble—”
“Good-bye, Annalise.”
Rufus stood at the end of Annalise’s short front walk and tipped his head back far enough that even the brim of his hat did not filter the streaming sun. Annalise sat on her front stoop, her legs stretched out, eyes closed, face raised. Her hair, hanging loose today, draped her shoulders. He was certain that she had not cut it since the day he met her.
And the thought of what that meant made him smile.
She opened her eyes just then, and he saw the joy chase through them before she composed herself.
“I couldn’t remember if you were working only half a day,” he said.
“I’m off until Thursday. Where’s Dolly? I didn’t hear you coming.”
“I left her grazing. I’m working nearby.”
“Are you sure it’s safe to leave her unattended?”
“Karl Kramer and I have come to an understanding, if that’s what you mean,” Rufus said. “But my crew is there.”
“Just in case. Okay.” Annalise scooted to one side of the step and reached for a plastic container behind her. “I have sandwiches. Ham and cheese?”
Rufus lowered himself to the stoop beside her and accepted a hefty half sandwich. He could not ask for a much more public place than her front yard. Tongues might wag about how much time they spent together, but no one could accuse them of being secretive.
“Tom and I are going to Colorado Springs tomorrow.” Rufus rotated the sandwich in his hands, planning his assault on its girth. “I think you should come.”
“Really?”
Rufus nodded. “You should see your mother more often.”
“Oh.”
The sag of her shoulders told him he had said the wrong thing. “Annalise, she is still very anxious about what you are doing here. She needs to know you are not turning your back on her.�
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“Of course I’m not.” Annalise picked at the crust of her own sandwich, the other half of his. “I just don’t know what else I can say to explain things to her.”
“Just be with her. Let her see that she raised a wonderful, capable woman with strong values. That she isn’t losing you.”
He heard the edge of hesitation in her breath.
“I’m going to shop for tools, and Tom is going to visit his mother in the nursing home,” he said. “We would be back by suppertime.”
“How about seeing Ruth?”
“Your mother, Annalise. You need to see your mother. Call her from the shop.”
She took a big bite, purposely occupying her mouth, he thought. When she swallowed hard, he knew he had persuaded her.
Lauren was there on the sofa when Ruth entered the suite. Ruth dropped her backpack beside Lauren and plopped into the chair opposite the sofa.
“You should have let me pick you up from work.” Lauren peered over the top of her laptop and her glasses at Ruth.
“It seemed like a lot of trouble. You’re in the middle of a paper.”
Lauren scoffed. “I suspect my professor is a closet pacifist. No offense. I know you’re the real thing.”
“No offense taken.”
“My professor keeps making me tweak my subject, thesis, sources—the whole thing. He won’t admit he just doesn’t want to read a paper about incendiary devices and military munitions.”
Ruth laughed. “He doesn’t want to admit that you know more about it than he does.”
“You got that right.”
Ruth put her head back, closed her eyes, and breathed out her fatigue. Finding Lauren in the suite always heartened her. Their other suitemates, rarely there, kept to their own rooms. Without Lauren’s encouragement, Ruth would do the same. More than once, though, as she lay alone in her bed she grinned at the unlikely friendship between an Amish girl and a self-taught munitions specialist. Ruth understood most of what Lauren talked about now. An entire new vocabulary sorted itself out in Ruth’s mind, finding categories and relationships in a peculiar grammar. Weapon numbers and abbreviated names and schematics inserted themselves into conversations about study groups and coins for the laundry. Ruth still was reluctant to believe she would ever have much use for this particular set of words.
IN PLAIN View Page 16