Love Finds You in Amana Iowa (19 page)

There were still two treasured pieces of stationery in Friedrich’s bag along with an envelope. He took out the two sheets of stationery and moved toward the man, holding out one of them. “Could I trade you a piece of paper for use of your ink?”

Benjamin glanced up at him. “It’s almost dry.”

He might be telling the truth or perhaps he wanted to save the ink. Friedrich lowered the paper. “I have nothing else to offer you.”

“Are you writing your mother or your girl?” Benjamin asked.

“My girl,” he said, though he felt funny using the world. Amalie wouldn’t like to be called anyone’s girl. He corrected himself. “The woman I’m planning to marry.”

The soldier’s eyes narrowed. “You still think you’re getting married?”

“Of course.”

The soldier took the outstretched piece of paper and slowly handed him the well of ink and his quill pen.

Friedrich thanked him and then set the remaining piece of paper on his book. He didn’t want to scare Amalie by talking about their battle, but he wanted to tell her a small bit of what was in his heart.

He turned the paper diagonal and at the left corner he began to write Amalie, telling her about their long train ride to Nashville and then their march south. He wrote about how much he missed the beauty of Amana and the food and most of all, how much he missed her.

Then he turned the paper and continued writing diagonally from the right side, the sentences crossing over each other. The blended writing wasn’t easy to read, but it was good enough. With this trick, he could pour out much more of himself onto the paper. Much more for them to share.

Halfway through the second side, he told her that the skirmish had frightened him yesterday, but he was safe. He didn’t tell her about the man he killed. He wanted to be honest with her, but Amalie hadn’t made the choice to come to war. She shouldn’t have to carry this burden with him.

He turned his back to the fellow soldiers around him. He couldn’t write about death in his letter. One night, while they were resting in each other’s arms as husband and wife, he might tell Amalie about the men who’d fallen around him. And maybe he would even tell her that he took another man’s life. Together they could decide if he’d made the right decision. If she would forgive him, perhaps he could begin to forgive himself.

Folding the letter, he slid it into his envelope. As soon as he received his wages, he would buy a stamp and mail it.

He rubbed his hand over her name and address. Even though he didn’t know when he could mail his words, it comforted him to know that one day she would read them.

He heard heavy footsteps in the trees, and he leapt to his feet along with the other men. Slipping the envelope inside his haversack, he pushed the bag over his shoulder and reached for the gun behind him. Ducking behind a tree, he waited to see who was marching toward them.

There were too few of them left to fight the enemy, and those who’d fled with him were all weary. But if they had to run again, they would run. He only hoped they wouldn’t be running farther into enemy territory.

The face of the Confederate soldier flashed into his mind one more time. He didn’t know what the future held for him, but he didn’t think he could kill someone again—not even to save the life of another soldier. Or to save his own life.

Perhaps he could wound his enemy without killing again.

Leaves rustled in front of them, like the front winds of a tornado about to plow through a crop. He tore open a cartridge and poured gunpowder down the barrel. After he rammed the bullet down the muzzle, he pointed the gun in front of him, his finger trembling on the trigger from the adrenaline that coursed through his veins.

He’d aim for the soldiers’ legs. He’d aim to stop them from fighting, not to end lives.

In the branches, he saw the lines of a face and he pointed his gun toward the man, his finger trembling against the trigger. In the next instant, he saw the familiar blue hat on the man’s head and dropped his gun with relief.

“Don’t shoot,” he shouted to the men behind him. “They’re Yankees.”

Fragments of Iowa’s 28th Infantry marched toward them and a small group of other men he didn’t recognize. Any joy at being reunited with their men, though, was swallowed by the sadness of losing so many of their comrades.

Friedrich set down his gun as the battle-worn men sank to their knees by the river and gulped the water. Friedrich watched them, unsure what to do. Were the other men unsure as well?

Two of the soldiers carried a stretcher made of canvas and branches. When they laid it down to rush to the river’s edge, Friedrich saw a man lying on it.

“Thirsty,” the man rasped with a shaky voice.

Friedrich took the canteen out of his sack, full of cold creek water, and handed it to the injured man to drink.

As Friedrich drew closer, he recognized the injured man as the soldier who’d been shot in the eye yesterday. Half of his head was wrapped in cloth, stained with blood, and Friedrich could see the veins weave through the pale skin of his face, but the relief that surged through him was immeasurable. He didn’t know what happened to Jonah, but at least this man had been rescued from the massacre.

The injured soldier gulped down the water from the canteen, and when he handed it back to Friedrich, he cringed in pain. Friedrich waited until the pain seemed to subside.

“Can I get you anything else?” he asked, reaching for the haversack on his chest. “Some hardtack?”

“You can get me the head of the man who saved me.” The bitterness seethed out of the injured man. “I’d like to kill him myself.”

Friedrich stepped back. He hadn’t rescued the man to be thanked, but he thought—

Perhaps that was why the man was sitting up in the midst of all the soldiers instead of playing dead. Maybe he had wanted the Confederates to end his pain. Water splashed from the canteen in his hand, another thought slamming him. Was it more cruel for him to wound the enemy than kill him? Like this man, they might be wounded for life or die a slow death out here in these trees, alone.

He shook his head, trying to clear the confusion. At least, in the midst of his pain, a soldier would have an opportunity to make his peace with God before he left this earth. Unlike the Confederate soldier whose life was blown away like a vapor, no time to reconcile with His Maker.

“What is your name?” Friedrich asked the wounded man, but the man passed out on the stretcher before he answered. Friedrich turned toward the two men who’d carried him this far. The taller one was an officer, a sergeant from another company.

“Where are you taking him?” Friedrich asked when the men returned from the river.

“To the Union hospital in Chattanooga,” the officer said, looking at the trees around them. “If we can ever find our way out of these woods.”

Friedrich stepped forward. “Let me carry him with you.”

The sergeant glanced down at Friedrich’s torn uniform, as if he could determine the remnants of Friedrich’s strength by the state of his attire. “You wouldn’t make it all the way to Chattanooga.”

“I can make it,” he protested. He might not look as strong as some of the soldiers, but long days of working in the fields had strengthened him. He’d gotten the man out of the battlefield; he needed to help take him to the hospital as well.

The officer picked up one end of the stretcher and motioned with his head for Friedrich to take the other. “You best keep up the pace.”

Friedrich’s legs ached from running and his mind swirled from exhaustion and all that had happened back on the Georgia hills. But, God help him, he would carry this man back to Chattanooga, no matter how far away it was.

* * * * *

Sweat clung to Amalie’s forehead as she tried to sleep. Her windows open, she could hear the cows bellowing in the fields and the cicadas serenading her from the grass. She wondered if Friedrich could hear cicadas tonight wherever he slept, or if the sweet sounds of nature were overpowered by the thunder of war.

She sat up in bed and lit her lantern. The flame might make the night watchman pause for a moment, but he would move on. She certainly couldn’t lie here in the darkness for hours, doing nothing. She might lose her mind, thinking about what could be happening to Friedrich on the battlefield. How much longer would she have to wonder at how he was? Or where he was.

She couldn’t imagine being apart from him for another three years, especially when she spent every night worried about whether he was still alive or if he had gone home to heaven.

Even though it was September now, it was still hot in Iowa. Rain would be a welcome relief from the heat tonight, along with some sort of breeze. Anything to help her cool off and sleep. In the dark hours, sleep was the only thing she could do to escape the reality of what could happen to Friedrich.

What if he left her alone for the rest of her life? No matter what he said, fighting this war was more important to him than marrying her. In her heart, she tried to understand why he needed to go and to respect him for his decision, but it was so very hard.

Opening the drawer of her nightstand, she slipped out the little walnut box that he’d given to her and brushed her fingers over the smooth wood, thinking about the hours he must have spent carving it. Friedrich gave the box to her the morning he asked if she would marry him. The morning he had left for Amana.

They were alone for a few stolen moments as the others prepared to leave. She had wanted to go with them as his wife, but Friedrich was a year away from turning twenty-four. The elders would require a year of separation anyway before they married. Better to separate now, Friedrich had said, when they weren’t old enough to marry, than wait until they were.

At the time, she’d expected that she would leave a year later for Amana, but her father convinced the other elders that she needed to stay and cook for the community in Ebenezer. She didn’t know why he wanted her there—she rarely saw her parents outside of the quiet meals and meetings. But her father’s influence prevailed, and so she stayed and helped cook in the kitchen.

But she never forgot Friedrich. And no matter what Matthias accused her of, she had never been unfaithful. She had only been teasing Mr. Faust on their walk into town, like he had teased her. She wished she could tease Matthias like she had been able to do when they were children, but he would no longer think she was funny.

Friedrich’s box represented so much to her. His love, that took the time to carve a work of beauty just for her. His determination to wait for her. She never expected to wait for three years before she saw him again in Amana, nor did she know how long she would have to wait now, but she would be faithful.

She set the box on the pillow beside her so she could see it when she awoke.

She took
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
out of her nightstand. Turning to the page she’d marked, the chapter where Tom was being sold to a new master, she slid the book closer to the flame so she could read the words and began to immerse herself in the story.

Understanding was what she sought as she combed through the pages, understanding as to why Friedrich had felt so compelled to leave her and their community, and why he and other men risked their lives to free slaves instead of letting them work to free themselves.

An hour later her clock chimed and she looked up. It was midnight, and she had to be up again in less than five hours. She didn’t want to stop reading but her eyes began to droop. Maybe she could actually sleep.

Turning off the flame, she rolled onto her back.

Were there really slaves out there like Tom? Slaves who were selfless in their care for humanity? Slaves who knew God?

The Spirit stirred inside her as she reflected on the story. Sometimes God required His people to wait and sometimes He required His people to act. Friedrich had been called on to act on behalf of those like the character of Tom who couldn’t free themselves.

Her heart swelled with her love for him, and as she closed her eyes, she prayed that God would use Friedrich to break the chains of oppression, both the physical ones that bound the slaves and the mental ones that bound their minds and the minds of their owners.

This time she didn’t pray that God would bring Friedrich back safely for her sake. She prayed that God would do His perfect will—in both Friedrich’s life and hers.

Oh, make in me a heart not free
But filled with wistful need for Thee.
Johann Adam Gruber

A row of shanties was hidden under knots of overgrown vines and poplar leaves, ramshackle huts not fit to be called homes. Each roof was thatched with weathered fronds, and there were cracks in the brown clay chinked between the logs. Dark faces peeked out of the windows at Friedrich and Sergeant Mitchell as they slowly walked the stretcher up the dilapidated trail of logs and vines. Friedrich could see the terror in the eyes of the former slaves, eyes that had probably seen the war firsthand.

The sergeant had sent most of the soldiers ahead of them to find camp, but four Union soldiers accompanied them still, standing now in the small field across from the slave dwellings. Many of the plantation trees were lying toppled onto each other beyond the field, like someone had tried to play a giant game of pick-up sticks. Except the soldiers who had chopped them down hadn’t left anyone behind to pick up the pieces.