Arms of Love (33 page)

T
he following Monday afternoon, Adam decided to test the bounds of his cautious new feeling of friendship toward his brother. He realized that it had been his father’s encouragement of a feeling of jealousy between the two of them that had kept him from ever looking to Isaac for support or companionship. But today, after a hesitant request to exercise two horses, Isaac had responded with surprising alacrity, spilling his books in the process. It was enough to humble Adam’s heart.

They set out on two fine bays, crossing the meadow at a pace fit for conversation, and Adam cast about for something to say. He need not have worried; Isaac was an engaging companion when he wanted, and Adam wondered how life might have been different if he had known this about his brother sooner.

“I say, Adam, I wish we had taken rides like this together when we were younger.”

Adam looked over as Isaac echoed his thoughts. “Me too. Tell me, Isaac, what is it like to know you are called for a purpose in life, that Gott cares for what you become . . . like a bishop?”

Isaac shrugged. “I have never known things to be otherwise. I have always been drawn to books—I love the way they smell and the weight of them in my hands. I suppose I sound a bit mad.”

“Only a bit.” Adam grinned.

Isaac laughed out loud. “As for being a bishop . . . I do not really know how Gott will work all of that out for me. I simply trust that if He desires it, then it will be so.”

Adam shook his head. “You yield your life so easily.” It was not an accusation, but a statement of wonder.

“Nee, that is not the truth, Adam. I could let you think that it was so, but that would be being my usual pious self, and I would like things to be more real between us if we are truly to be friends.”

“So what is the truth?” Adam asked, surprised at this startling bit of self-revelation from his brother. He wondered if he would be willing to bare his own faults so readily.

“The truth is that I am angry much of the time. I judge people— for their actions, their looks. I do not yield easily, but care too much about what others think to show otherwise.”

Adam was silent for a moment, absorbing the weight of the words.

Then he cleared his throat.

“I am about as jealous as a trout over you and Lena. It burns within me. I—I do not think that I can stay once you are married.”
There. That was a fine dose of truth
.

Isaac nodded, then his horse shied. He kept an excellent seat, and Adam scanned the ground as his own mount began to prance nervously. “It’s a deer carcass. Only half gone.” He gestured to the ground nearby.

“Then why the anxiousness of the horse?” Isaac asked, regaining control.

“Look at the mud by the deer. Those are fresh panther tracks. Big ones. A cat gave me a scare awhile back, in daylight too. We need to take a hunting party out to find this animal before somebody gets hurt.”

Isaac shrugged. “I suppose. Likely it’ll range off, though.”

“
Nee
,” Adam said. “Too much game here . . . too many people, which make for easy prey.”

They led the horses around the carcass, and after a moment Isaac spoke.

“So where will you go if you leave? What has the Lord called you to?”

“I have no idea. The war, I suppose. Survival in the face of the odds . . . all those things.”

“She loves you, you know.”

“What?”

“Lena. It’s you that she loves.”

Adam felt at a loss. “Then why would you marry her?”

“Because I am willing to settle for the opportunity for
Gott
to grow a love between us over time.”

The answer cut to Adam’s core. Could it be that the Lord would grow such a love between them? If it were so, then he must leave forever, for he did not think he could bear to see love shine in the turquoise blue depths that he longed to be his own personal sea.

After a bit, Isaac drew rein. “I must go back, Adam, and fetch Lena and her family in the wagon. They are to come over to discuss wedding plans.”

Adam nodded, starting to turn his horse when Isaac extended his hand.

“
Danki
, Adam—for the truth of the ride.”

“
Ya
,” Adam agreed quietly. “For the truth.”

They rode home in silence, the only sound their horses’ hooves on the grass beneath, marking the passage of time.

Ruth climbed the steps of the farmhouse to the second floor. As a rule, she ignored the simply carved balustrade, coming up only to do dusting or to change linens. She had felt that the second floor was John’s domain, and she did not want to intrude or push in on the boy. But, she told herself, if she were to be mistress of the fine home, then she should feel a part of it, on all levels. And she knew that John had gone outside somewhere, so her walking about upstairs would not bother him.

She felt the floorboards creak beneath her weight as she crept down the hallway, feeling a bit spooked, like a little girl on a hunt for a mystery. When she passed John’s room she noticed that the window was open to the sunny but breezy day, and that papers were strewn about his desk and floor from the air blowing. She bit her lip, then ventured inside, wanting to straighten things up.

She tiptoed and caught up the paper nearest her and then the next. She tried not to look, but the bold black ink drawings drew her eye. She stood amazed at the pictures the boy had drawn—a rabbit poised in perfect, natural posture, its very nose seeming to have movement against a backdrop of tall grasses; the farmhouse in stark relief, down to the detail of the last stone in the foundation; the forest, deep and darkly mysterious with the trunks of trees done to twisted familiarity. Then she lifted another sheet from the floor, and her eyes filled with tears.

It was a very definitive battle scene . . . two opposing sides caught up in a heated fight, weapons poised and ready.

“What are you doing in here?”

Ruth turned, the page in her hand, startled for a moment by the angry thread in John’s voice, but then she looked at his flushed face.

She saw the vulnerability there as well as the anger.

“I’m sorry, John. I wasn’t trying to hurt you and didn’t mean to be searching your things. The wind blew the papers off the desk.” She slowly extended the drawing of the war toward him. “The war troubles you greatly, don’t it?”

He snatched the drawing from her. “What of it?”

“I don’t know much about pictures and the like, but that one is special. They all are, but the one of men fighting . . . I understand. The war between life and death . . . My Henry could be one of them men.”

John snatched up the other drawings from the floor and brushed past her, turning his back to her and standing taut at his desk. Ruth was glad he had not yet thrown her out completely.

“It’s not only about the war,” he explained. “It’s about this country— the country and the way my people are treated.”

“I didn’t see it that way.” Ruth nodded. “I am not so good at art and such. But I wonder—are you in that drawing?”

John drew a deep breath, then turned to face her. “I’m in the middle . . . can’t pick a side between the British and my family.”

“The British?” Ruth asked, surprised, as she now noticed the small, lone figure of a gunless boy standing in the background of the battlefield.

“Yes,” he snapped, suddenly fierce. “The Brits do not persecute us, us Amish anyway.” He lowered his head. “I know your husband died fighting. I do not mean to offend you.”

Ruth could have sobbed for joy at this kindness from the lad.

And she began to understand his way of thinking. “So you think the Patriots war in vain?”

He shrugged. “Of course not. But why do they not leave us alone in the process? To not fight with them is not to fight
against
them.”

“Isn’t it? I mean, from their view? The Brits have an army a mile wide, and they’ll take a lad as young as ten. At least the test laws leave the colonists’ boys alone until they’re fifteen. But we . . . the Patriots . . . need every man who can fire a rifle if we’re going to win.”

“But why do we have to win?” John asked. “William Penn’s experiment in providing a place for us to worship freely was working. Sort of.”

“Your sister read me something from the Bible, John. It said that

‘God is for us.’ I asked her then, kind of like you, what that could possibly mean in a war? How could He be for both sides? Or any side for that matter, but what I figure is that He is for you and me and everyone as a person, a believer in Him. He works things out in our lives—not like we’re part of a side, or standing alone and lost, but He works with us each one. Maybe you should let Him work with you.”

John shrugged. “What would He do with me?”

“Look what He does with you,” Ruth exclaimed, indicating the drawings. “You can do things with your mind and hands that I have never seen the likes of before. You are wise and deep beyond your years. And I—I like you, John. Not because I ever want to take the place of your ma, but because I want us to someday have something special together . . . some kind of together-like way, if you see what I mean,” she finished lamely, unsure if her impassioned speech would even touch the boy.

The world stood still as the wind lifted another paper from the desk. John caught it with a deft hand, then gestured with his chin to a shelf behind her. Ruth turned to look at glass jars filled with vibrant colors.

“See there. That’s all paint that my
mamm
got me. We were supposed to do a floor painting when she—when she felt well after Faith was born.”

Ruth did not stop herself. She went to him and embraced him in a brief but heartfelt hug, and he didn’t pull away. “I am truly sorry, John.

I wish I might have known your mother.” She stepped away from him and noticed a blush on his cheeks. “Tell me about this floor painting.

Did you already draw it out?”

“
Ya
.” He turned for a paper, then showed her a design of simple but beautiful detail—flowers, scrolls, and stark but striking lines.

“We will do this, John. We’ll do it on Thursday, this week, while the bishop is here, and we’ll make a real party of it! We’ll invite the Wyse family too.”

John shook his head. “The bishop is likely to say it’s not plain enough to suit.”

Ruth laughed. “Not if he’s half the man I think him to be. Come, let’s show him this—together.”

She felt like she moved on feet of air when the boy took up a stride beside her, and she knew she would now always be welcomed on the second floor of the home.