Love Finds You in Amana Iowa (6 page)

Amalie wasn’t silly like Sophia or some of the other young women who giggled around the men. She was serious and determined and dedicated to their community. There was no finer single woman among the Inspirationists than Amalie, and she was going to be his wife.

But tonight, instead of excitement about her arrival and their subsequent marriage, an eerie sense of dread settled over Friedrich’s heart. In weeks, he would become one of the married men the colonel talked about, and in a year’s time, he could be a father as well.

He wanted to marry Amalie, and he especially wanted to have children, two or maybe even three. But how could he live with himself, knowing he didn’t fight for his brother? His children would never respect him, not if he didn’t respect himself. And how could he, if he knew people were suffering in their country, and he covered his ears and his eyes to their pain?

Maybe the timing wasn’t right to marry Amalie or begin a family. Maybe he should fight first and then return to her.

When he looked up again, Matthias was watching him, but this time Matthias didn’t mock him with his smile. Instead he nodded at Friedrich’s half-eaten plate.

“Are you ill?” his friend whispered.

He shrugged his shoulders. He couldn’t whisper back all that had happened this afternoon or the thoughts raging in his head. Lifting his fork again, he pushed the remaining cabbage and potatoes around his plate. The thought of taking even one more bite made his stomach roll so instead of eating, he guzzled down his glass of milk and then slid off the bench before Brother Schaube closed the meal with prayer.

The dining room door slammed behind him, echoing through the silence, but he didn’t care. How could any of them fill their bellies in silence when so many of their countrymen were dying? It seemed wrong now, so much peace here when a war raged in their country.

He marched forward on the narrow pathway that wove through the houses and gardens in Amana. He had to get away from the others, to a place where he could clear his mind.

Ahead was the stone residence where they met each night for prayer. Beside it was a grove of plum trees, lined in neat rows in a procession out to the cornfield. In the midst of the quiet trees was a wooden bench, and he sat down on it, resting his chin in his hands.

There was no fighting in their community. No battles among their people. Amana and the surrounding villages were about as close as one could come to experiencing a bit of heaven on this earth. The community members worshipped God together. Ate together. Encouraged and consoled one another.

Would God have him leave this peaceful world and the people who had loved him since he was born to go out to a place where people hated one another? Where a man wounded and sometimes killed his brother?

He pulled the envelope from his pocket and opened it. The letter was brief, but it was exactly what Colonel O’Neill had said. The government was mustering him to fight for the state of Iowa, for their union. And they wanted him to report for duty on Monday.

He flicked his fingernail against the paper. He hadn’t started this war, but something continued to stir inside him, something that urged him to fight.

Since he was a boy, he’d been the one to fight for the underdog. He’d even fought for Amalie when they were in school, stopping the boys who teased her when she excelled above all of them in their studies. He’d never tried to fight for his own good, only for the good of those around him, but he’d suffered the consequences for the fight that swelled within him, suffered under the switch of their schoolmaster and his father’s paddle.

His father often said that Friedrich reminded him of Otto Vinzenz, Friedrich’s grandfather. His grandfather had fought against Napoleon Bonaparte’s army fifty years ago and was one of many who defeated the tyrant in the Battle of Waterloo. A war hero. His father rarely talked about Otto Vinzenz, but Friedrich used to pepper his mother with questions about him when he was a child.

When his parents joined the Community of True Inspiration and moved to the United States, God had placed a new government over them, and now the same government that had provided freedom for them from oppression in German called him to duty to fight against the oppression of slaves.

Their leader, Christian Metz, spoke often of the war and sometimes about slavery. He didn’t think slavery was right, but he and the other elders believed that this evil would one day be eliminated by God, like other evils in their society.

Friedrich shook his head. What if God ordained this war to eliminate slavery? He wouldn’t join the infantry if he lived in the Confederacy, but the Union was fighting for freedom. How could he turn his back on men like Joseph who had been sold and beaten because of their skin color?

Matthias sat down beside him. “You never leave food on your plate, Friedrich.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

Matthias leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. “I never thought I’d hear those words come out of your mouth.”

Friedrich didn’t respond.

“Is it Amalie?” Matthias asked.

“Partly.”

“Have you changed your mind?”

He shook his head. “Neither my mind nor my heart have changed.”

“She’ll make a good wife for you.”

“You don’t even like Amalie.”

“That’s not true,” Matthias protested.

“You said she’s too impertinent for me.”

“When she was sixteen!”

Friedrich managed a smile. “So you’ve changed your opinion.”

“People change over the years—”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Friedrich interrupted. “Amalie isn’t the problem.”

“So there is a problem—”

Two sisters walked by them, and Friedrich waited to speak. More than a thousand Inspirationists had arrived from New York now, which made privacy in Amana almost impossible. Each member had their own room in which to sleep, but they worked and worshipped together. And sometimes they talked about each other like they were a giant family as well.

The two women slipped into the stone house, and Friedrich glanced back down the path. No one else was coming toward them. “Two men visited us today in the fields.”

“Vagabonds?”

He shook his head. “Soldiers.”

Matthias frowned. “What were they doing here?”

“Recruiting.”

“Metz said none of our men would be going to war.”

“The man was a colonel,” Friedrich said. “And he played a powerful argument.”

“It doesn’t matter how powerful an argument. It matters what is right.” Matthias’s voice was strong, determined, but Friedrich barely heard his words.

“There was a colored man with the colonel,” Friedrich said. “He was beaten by his owner in Georgia.”

“Slavery is a terrible, terrible evil.”

“An evil that should be stopped.”

“This isn’t our war,” Matthias said.

“Why not?” he probed. “This is our country. I can’t understand why this isn’t our war as well.”

“Slavery is wrong,” Matthias agreed. “But instead of brothers battling each other, the slaves should flee to safety, like our people did when we left Germany.”

“There is no place for the slaves to flee.”

“They can run north. To freedom.”

Friedrich fidgeted on his seat. “But what if they can’t run?”

“The colonel is playing with your emotions, Friedrich, so you’ll follow him instead of following what God has ordained for our community.”

His thoughts raced. “What is God’s plan for us?”

Matthias was quiet for a moment. They’d both heard the same words, the inspired testimonies from their
Werkzeuge
—the men and women God used to communicate to their society. Brother Metz had begged the leaders in Washington to cast themselves down in the dust of humility so that peace would be preserved, instead of stirring up brothers to war against each other. His words went unheeded.

“We need to pray for peace,” Matthias said.

Friedrich shook his head. “It’s too late for peace.”

“It’s never too late—”

“The Confederate Army just killed four thousand men in Pennsylvania.”

“Four thousand—” Matthias’s voice faded away as he looked across the street, toward grapevines that had entwined itself around the trellis. Brother Schaube walked by them with his wife and son. He tipped his hat, but Matthias didn’t seem to notice.

Seconds passed, the number of casualties walled between them. Matthias’s eyes stayed on the grapevines, his voice low. “How many Confederates did the Union soldiers kill?”

“I don’t know.”

“It is happening just as Brother Metz said it would. Instead of seeking peace, the brothers are fighting themselves. Killing each other.”

“For their fellow man.”

“Ach,”
Matthias snapped. “For the pride in their Union.”

The bell tolled from the tower, announcing their evening prayers, but Friedrich didn’t stand up. He held Matthias’s letter out to him.

“They want us to fight.”

“We are not to fight,” Matthias said as he stood. “We are to pray.”

Friedrich remained on the bench, still holding the letter out to Matthias. “We’re supposed to report to the enlistment office in Marengo on Monday.”

Matthias sighed as he took the envelope, but he didn’t open it up. “They cannot make us fight, my friend. The Bruderrath will hire substitutes for us and we will continue to build our Kolonie, where God has called us.”

As the chiming faded away, Friedrich stood up and followed Matthias to the stone house. His friend opened the door for a woman whose shoulders and head were covered with her shawl, and then the two of them entered the large sitting room. The woman walked to the left, and both men sat on a pine bench on the right.

Brother Schaube led them in prayer for their country and for the men and women traveling west to them tonight. Friedrich dropped his head in his hands and prayed like he’d never prayed before.

Should this night prove the last for me in this dark vale of tears,
Then lead me, Lord, in heaven to Thee and my elect compeers.
Dr. Johann Herzog

Amalie wouldn’t release Karoline’s limp hand. Niklas brought cold water from the river, wiping it across Karoline’s forehead, but all Amalie could do was cling to her friend’s fingers. She felt so powerless. Her friend was breathing, barely, but there was nothing Amalie could do. Karoline wouldn’t wake up, no matter how cold the water.

The sliver of the crescent moon was out tonight, its light spilling over the coolness of the evening and across the wagons in their campsite. Karoline was unconscious in the night air, stretched across the canvas Niklas had spread to protect her from the ground.

Amalie tucked a quilt tight around her friend’s shoulders, and Karoline moaned, tossing her head as Niklas dipped the washcloth back into the pail and dampened her forehead again.

It was her fault Karoline wouldn’t waken. She shouldn’t have given Karoline the cannabis nor should she have let her sleep. And she should have insisted that Mr. Faust ride toward Lisbon immediately when they realized Karoline was injured instead of waiting for the cumbersome wagon train to plod toward the river.

“Sister Amalie,” Brother John whispered. “The men need to eat something for supper.”

She looked up at him, dazed. “Supper?”

“Nothing fancy,” he insisted. “Just something to get us by for the night.”

Amalie took the washcloth from Niklas and dabbed Karoline’s head again. Then she stood up. “I have to start a fire.”

“We already started it,” John said, and she turned to see several campfires glowing along the riverbank. “You tell us what to do and we’ll cook tonight.”

“I will help you.”

He shook his head. “You tend to Karoline tonight. We’ll make do.”

She considered his words for a moment. “Can you boil potatoes?”

“I believe I could if you would tell me how.”

“Remove the iron kettle from my wagon and two of the coffee tins,” she instructed. “Fill them with water.”

When John moved toward her wagon, she explained to another man how to light the camp stove for the coffee and prepare the beans with her grinder. Niklas heated the kettle water for potatoes while the coffee brewed. John cut up pieces of beef jerky with his knife. When he was done, the men could mix the pieces with the potatoes to add flavor to the bland meal.

Amalie stroked Karoline’s hair while the men cooked, and prayed that God would allow her friend to stay on this earth with them a little longer. She couldn’t greet Karoline’s mother in Amana with the message that her daughter had died on the trail. The very thought wrenched her heart, but she blinked back her tears. Not since childhood had Amalie allowed anyone to see her cry. Her parents had taught her well that tears were a sign of weakness. She had never once seen either of them cry, not even when their only daughter left Ebenezer for Iowa.

Karoline’s mother reminded her of Louise Vinzenz, Friedrich’s mother. Both of them would do just about anything for their children.

Minutes later John returned to her side with a steaming tin cup outstretched in his hand.

“Thank you,” Amalie said as she sniffed its aroma. Then she sipped the heavy liquid. Her stomach growled, and for the first time that night, she realized she was hungry as well.