Love Finds You in Amana Iowa (32 page)

Matthias stowed the money inside his coat. He’d never used money in his life, and wasn’t sure exactly how to exchange it, but that was one of the reasons why Faust joined him on his journey. In spite of his rugged appearance, the elders trusted the man to help Matthias make wise decisions.

He urged the horses ahead on the snowy road. In the back of the wagon was the load of blankets and clothing to be delivered to Homestead, and the baskets filled with food were on the bench between them. Crates filled with the remaining supplies awaited them at the Homestead station, ready for the nine o’clock train heading east.

So much had changed since the last time he traveled through this forest, with Hilga at his side and Amalie trailing behind them. Hours before Colonel O’Neill came to the village and shattered their world.

Now his hope was being renewed. Their Savior had mercifully reached down to this world, into Matthias’s sinful heart, and was transforming it. Amalie gave him hope for his future on earth, but only God could make him whole.

Faust pulled his hat low over his face and leaned back on the bench. “Is it strange for you to leave?”

“Very,” he said slowly. “Friedrich was the one who longed for travel and adventure.”

“Surely you wanted to see other places besides Iowa.”

He shook his head. “I’m content in the Kolonie.”

“Your colony sounds a bit too much like jail to me.”

“There is much freedom in a community like ours.”

Faust laughed. “You say that because you were born into it.”

“No,” Matthias replied. A clump of snow fell on Matthias’s coat, and he brushed it off. “I was born a gypsy.”

Faust stopped laughing, his eyebrows raised as he turned toward Matthias. “A gypsy?”

“I spent most of my childhood sleeping in tents or under the stars.”

“It sounds like the perfect life for a boy.”

“It wasn’t.”

Faust paused. “I suppose you had enough traveling as a child then.”

Matthias nodded. “Why aren’t you already in Tennessee, fighting for the Union?”

Faust leaned back against the bench, his boot on his knee. “I’m a wanderer, not a warrior.”

“You never received a conscription letter?”

“I’m not an easy man to find.” Faust nudged back the brim of his hat when he glanced over. “Were you conscripted?”

Matthias thought about Jonah and the battle wound he sustained, an injury he never complained about. “The elders hired a warrior to take my place.”

The two men rode out of the white trees, toward the Homestead platform, and Matthias saw a man in full military attire standing by the depot. The buttons on his jacket gleamed in the light, and in his left hand he held a cane. Standing just as stolid beside him was a black man.

Matthias tied the horses to a post and walked toward Colonel O’Neill, but instead of speaking to the colonel, he acknowledged the man standing beside him.

“Are you Joseph?” he asked.

When the black man nodded his head, Matthias reached to shake his brother’s hand. He understood, if only a bit, the wounds Joseph must have experienced as a child. “It’s a pleasure.”

Joseph’s somber gaze dissolved into a smile. “Pleasure’s all mine.”

Matthias glanced between the men. “Are you planning to go to Tennessee?”

Colonel O’Neill lifted his cane and limped closer to him. “I’m not going and neither are you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Chattanooga is still under siege. The Rebels won’t even let Yankees deliver food into the city.”

“All the more reason to get these supplies down there.”

“There is no way into the town,” the colonel insisted. “Confederate troops are guarding the roadways and the river within sixty miles of it.”

Matthias glanced over at Faust and read the determination in his eyes. Then he scanned the dozens of crates the Homestead men were putting on the platform, ready to transfer to a boxcar. He couldn’t turn back now.

“With the Lord’s help,” he said, strength filling his voice. “We will get these supplies to the troops.”

“You don’t understand—” The colonel tried again.

“I have to try,” he said.

The colonel bowed his head for a moment as if he was asking for help from the Lord as well, but when he lifted his head, there was a slight smile on his gruff face. “Then you must go.”

The platform began to rattle under their feet.

“Take this.” Colonel O’Neill held out an envelope and hobbled forward to give it to Matthias. “When you get to Nashville, ask to speak with Major Oldham. He will help you.”

“Thank you.”

The freight train whistled, and seconds later the brakes squealed as it stopped next to them. The brothers from Homestead began to load the crates into an open boxcar.

“When we met before, I said some things I didn’t mean,” the colonel said.

“I’ve said things as of late that I didn’t mean either.”

“If you can get the supplies through the barricade…” He paused. “They will help sustain our troops.”

As Matthias stepped into the boxcar, he watched Joseph place his hand on the colonel’s shoulder. “I got to go with ’em, sir.”

“Oh, no,” Colonel O’Neill said. “There are still slave traders roaming the southern states.”

“I know the terrain,” Joseph insisted. “I can help ’em get to Chattanooga.”

The colonel shook his head, but as the train crept forward, he didn’t stop Joseph as he climbed into the boxcar beside Matthias and Faust.

Matthias lifted his hat to the man and then leaned back against a crate as Faust slid the door closed.

He didn’t know what lay ahead of them, but he was glad that both Joseph and Faust were with him to help guide his path through this strange world. And he was even more glad that Amalie was praying for him.

From morn till eve my theme shall be thy mercy’s wondrous measure;
To sacrifice myself for Thee shall be my aim and pleasure.
Paul Gerhardt

Amalie and Karoline draped pine boughs along the tables in the dining room and arranged pink and white cyclamen blooms to sprinkle color into the green foliage.

She didn’t know the couple being married very well, but as she and Karoline prepared their wedding luncheon, she tried hard to be happy for them.

These days it seemed like everyone in their village was scrutinizing her every emotion, trying to weigh if her love for Friedrich was true. She didn’t know exactly what to say about anything, nor did she know how she should feel.

When a man and woman in their society made a formal declaration to marry, it was after much deliberation. Even with a period of separation, they almost always went forward with their marriage. She didn’t know any women who had lost their betrothed before their marriage. Elderly men and women in Amana, and a few of younger people as well, understood the heartache of losing a spouse, but Amalie wasn’t a widow. She was a woman who’d lost the man she loved, a man she’d never married.

Karoline stepped away from the table and gave a clap. “It looks beautiful.”

Amalie surveyed the greenery and the assortment of nut and feather cakes stacked on a separate table at the side of the room. Hopefully the bride and groom would be pleased with the dining hall.

“One day I will prepare this room for you and your husband,” she told her friend.

“No, you won’t,” Karoline protested. “There’s no one in Amana for me to marry.”

Amalie pretended not to hear her words. “We’ll celebrate in the summer, though, so we can decorate this room with dahlias and phlox and dozens upon dozens of peonies.”

Karoline rolled her eyes as she turned back toward the kitchen. “You must be dreaming about your wedding.”

Instead of hurrying back with Karoline, Amalie lingered by the cake table. A wedding celebration was a rare holiday for their workers, and for a moment, she wondered what it would be like for Matthias to join them for the afternoon of singing and eating and celebrating the couple’s future as man and wife.

But he and Mr. Faust had been gone for a week now. The elders received a telegram from the men soon after they’d left, saying they and their crates had arrived in Nashville. They didn’t say how long it would take for them to travel to Chattanooga or when they would return.

Part of her didn’t want Matthias to think she cared for him, not any more than a sister in Christ would care for him. But her mind wandered back to Ebenezer, the strength in Matthias’s arms as he rescued her from the ice so long ago, and the fire of youth in his eyes. Then she thought about him as a man, in Amana. His determination to finish her kitchen and protect Friedrich’s honor.

But now—now Friedrich was gone. And he had been gone from her since she was twenty-one.

What if, one day, she did decide to marry?

She straightened the cakes as she tried to force that thought out of her mind. Matthias might not even come back from Tennessee. She could no longer allow herself to focus another moment on her hopes; she need only pray for his safety.

“They’re coming,” Karoline called from the kitchen.

Amalie glanced out the window and watched the smiles of the newly married couple as they hurried across the street with dozens of family members and friends trailing behind them.

God in His time would direct her, but for now she would guard the broken pieces of her heart.

* * * * *

Fog shrouded the river and the forest along the shoreline, so thick that Matthias couldn’t see the water over the side of their boat. It was the perfect covering for them to sneak across the enemy’s line.

They’d carried the supplies by wagon down the Sequatchie Valley since the railway had been destroyed, then over a mountain pass. The three wooden pontoons that Major Oldham promised them were waiting along the Tennessee River, the captain and his crew of freed Negro men having paddled up from Bridgeport, Alabama.

They’d emptied the crates of supplies into the boats and covered the clothing and food with canvas to keep out the rain, but nothing would save the supplies if Rebel soldiers sank the boats.

Four crewmen paddled each boat, and at the captain’s signal, they stopped paddling and listened. Behind the curtain of fog, soldiers marched near the shoreline. Matthias could hear the pings of musketry in the distance, and he prayed quietly for protection. None of them knew where the soldiers’ loyalties lay, but a Yankee would be just as likely to shoot at an unidentified boat as a Rebel would.

“Stay low,” Faust whispered from across the floor.

The man needn’t worry. Both Matthias and Joseph lay flat against the hull—Matthias hadn’t moved for a good hour. He wished he knew how to swim—in case the soldiers aimed their fire toward the boats—but he figured he could paddle to shore if he had to, preferably on the north side of the river.

When the soldiers’ footsteps quieted, the captain’s words slurred slightly as he commanded his men to continue paddling. Whiskey seemed to provide the man with the courage he needed to navigate through enemy territory. Matthias only hoped the captain could keep his wits about him while the enemy was so close. The captain said he didn’t sympathize with either side of the war, but he was glad to profit from the madness.

The Confederates still surrounded the town, but according to Major Oldham, they were also fighting against the Federals on Lookout Mountain. The fog was a blessed deterrent this early morning, and with God’s help, Matthias hoped they could maneuver around those left to guard Chattanooga.

The captain directed the boats around the river’s rocky crags. They were about ten miles from the town of Chattanooga now, and if they could keep up this pace, they should be there by nightfall.

Matthias’s fingers slipped into his pocket, the warmth long replaced with cold, and he felt the satchel inside that carried the key to the box he’d given Amalie. More than anything, he wanted to do this job well, and then he wanted to return to Amana, to open the box for her.

Shaking his head, he let go of the satchel and lifted himself up on the bench. Joseph quietly joined him, and together they looked out toward the fog. The trees and most of the cliffs were still obstructed from their view, but Matthias could see the ripples of dark water alongside their boat.

Faust pinched tobacco leaves out of a pouch and tucked them inside his cheek. Joseph took a pinch, but Faust didn’t ask Matthias if he wanted tobacco. “Are you afraid?” he asked instead.

“A little.”

“You know, I think a bit of that gypsy blood still runs through you. Most men would be terrified by now.”

Matthias leaned back against the canvas side, the cold air ruffling his hair and coat. Perhaps some good had come out of his childhood. He didn’t want to leave Amana, but when he did, he wasn’t nearly as afraid as he thought he would be.

“You are a lucky man to have a girl like Amalie waiting for you.”

His fingers brushed over his pocket again. “I hope she does wait for me.”

Matthias glanced to the bow as the captain shuffled back toward them.

“This is my last favor for the major,” the man slurred. He kept calling their trip a favor, but they were paying him handsomely for it.

“How long until we arrive in Chattanooga?” Matthias asked.