Taken for English (17 page)

Maura peered down the street. Jimmy Twigg sat on a bench in front of the store, his rifle on his shoulder.

“He’s been like that all day,” Walter said. “The Dentons don’t dare walk down Main Street.”

“They can’t live like that,” Maura said.

Walter shrugged. “What else can they do?”

“There must be some other way than waiting to be shot.”

Walter pointed with his chin. “Here comes one of those Amish men.”

Joseph Beiler rode up the street and dismounted in front of the emporium.

“Good afternoon, Miss Woodley. Walter.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Beiler.”

He looked bedraggled, weary with the evidence that he had accepted the Dentons’ offer of work. Perspiration soaked his shirt—his only shirt, she knew, since he sacrificed the other to Walter’s wound.

“My friend and I are low on our foodstuffs,” Joseph said. “I thought I would get a few things from the emporium. Mr. Denton offered us an account as long as we are in their employ.”

“Do you cook outside?” Walter wondered aloud.

Joseph laughed softly. “Cook and sleep and everything. The livery owner is generous with his water, though, so at least we can clean up.”

“Mr. Beiler,” Maura said, “how would you and Mr. Berkey like to have a home-cooked meal with all the trimmings?”

The widening of his eyes made her smile. “I have a roast in the oven that is far larger than my father and I require. You would make me happy if you would agree to be my guests tonight.”

Joseph had done his best to rinse out his shirt and hang it in the late afternoon sun to dry. When he donned it, lingering dampness stuck to his skin in places, but he was confident that once he put on his suit jacket the moisture would not be visible. He brushed dust out of his trousers as vigorously as he could manage.

“So you insist on going?” Zeke gulped cool water from a tin cup.

“Miss Woodley offered the invitation in kindness. We should go.” Joseph had already made up his mind he would go whether or not Zeke came with him.

“I do not question her motive.” Zeke splashed the rest of the water on his face. “Yours concerns me.”

Joseph slapped at the dust in his pants one last time. “Miss Woodley will be disappointed you did not come.”

“Quite possibly she will be happy to have you to herself.”

Joseph met Zeke’s eye. “Then for the sake of propriety, you ought to come.”

Zeke stood. “Yes, perhaps I should.”

Joseph brushed his horse while he waited for Zeke to clean up and put on the shirt he had washed and left to dry the night before. They arrived at the Woodley home promptly at the appointed hour. Smiling, Maura opened the front door to welcome them.

Her scent filled the rooms. Joseph inhaled her allure above even the fragrance of the roast ready for the table. End tables held lamps but also bowls and figurines. Fabric with lively floral prints adorned the furniture. A painting hung over the fireplace. Joseph recognized the bend of the White River and the grove of trees he had helped to cut down that day.

“My mother painted that,” Maura said.

“It’s breathtaking.” Joseph wondered if Lee and Ing Denton might someday appreciate this visual preservation of the land they were so eager to alter. His own mother would have told him that a painting was a graven image and producing one a sinful waste of time. He turned to Maura, wondering if her mother had painted Maura. “Thank you again for your kind invitation.”

“It is my pleasure. Give me a moment to bring out the rest of the food and we will be ready to eat.”

A man entered the front room. “Hello. I’m Woody Woodley.” He extended a hand, which both Joseph and Zeke shook. “Funny name, I know. It’s a childhood nickname that stuck, and I suppose I like it better than Francis.”

“Thank you for welcoming us to your home,” Joseph said. “I am Joseph Beiler, and this is my friend, Ezekiel Berkey.”

Maura reappeared with a platter of sliced meat and a basket of rolls. “Daddy, why don’t you come ask the blessing for the food?”

They stood behind their chairs, heads bowed, as Woody Woodley spoke aloud a prayer of gratitude. Joseph had never heard an
English
meal blessing before. His people prayed privately, a moment of silence before a meal rather than a rush of words. Joseph rather liked the poetic lilt of Woody’s prayer. Just before the
Amen
, he lifted his eyes and found Maura smiling at him.

His lips turned up in response.

A
nnie rode in the blue Prius with Ruth to the Stutzman farm for church on Sunday morning. She had only a thin sleep Saturday night. Instead she wondered about Leah, prayed for Leah, hoped on Leah’s behalf. And she crafted a speech for Leah’s mother. Whatever Mrs. Deitwaller said, Annie would proceed with the next sentence of her speech. Her words would not castigate or blame or accuse. Rather, though outwardly Mrs. Deitwaller might not seem receptive, Annie believed that deep down any mother would want to know about the well-being of her child. Annie’s words would reassure as much as possible.

“Leah is safe for now.”

“I’ve made sure she has food.”

“She can come and stay with me if she wants to.”

“I’ll let you know if I hear from her.”

If Mrs. Deitwaller threw barbs about Annie’s intentions, Annie would take a breath and keep going until she said it all. Then she would pray that something penetrated Mrs. Deitwaller’s veneer.

The women of the congregation mingled in the Stutzman kitchen for a few minutes. Annie added her own spinach coleslaw to the broad refrigerator and helped with wiping the dishes the congregation would eat off of when the worship service was over. She chatted, still accepting congratulations on her baptism, and was mindful of each woman who entered the room.

None of them was Eva Deitwaller.

In a few minutes, it would be time for the women to take their seats on the benches on one side of the Stutzman barn, while the men prepared to process in and sit on the other side. Women and little girls and the smallest boys began drifting toward the barn. Outside the house, Annie paused to look around. A few children ceased their playing and dutifully answered their mothers’ summons. The men were already informally arranging themselves in the order in which they would march in.

No Deitwallers anywhere.

Annie caught Franey Beiler’s eye and said, “I notice the Deitwallers are not here. I hope they are well.”

Franey scanned the assembly for herself. “I have not heard any news, but perhaps there is illness in the house.”

Annie supposed that was possible. She lagged behind, though, still looking for one last buggy to come down the lane.

Rufus smiled at Annalise over the spinach coleslaw on his plate, and she returned the expression. Like most Sundays, they managed to sit at nearly adjoining tables, he with a group of men and she with women. He did not speak directly to her, but her eyes told him she heard what he would say if he could address her.

When the meal began to break up, he lost sight of her for a few minutes and supposed she had gone into the house to help wash dishes. He dutifully began dismantling the tables and benches so they could be loaded onto the wagon that would take them to the farm of the next family to host worship in two weeks.

Wherever he was headed to hang cabinets, Rufus hoped the next church service would find him seated in his usual spot for worship. By then the weather might be too cool to eat outside.

Finally the work was done. Teenagers organized a game of softball between two teams with not quite enough players and irregularly spaced bases. Younger children asked to go feed apples to the horses. Rufus’s brother Jacob led the expedition to the meadow where the horses were grazing for the day.

Rufus lingered in the Stutzman front yard, speaking politely with anyone who wanted his attention but gradually moving farther from the house. He knew Annalise would be tracking his movements and arranging hers to intersect his path.

When she did, he smiled at the prayer
kapp
that was not quite straight.

“It’s crooked again, isn’t it?” Annalise reached up with both hands to rearrange her
kapp
. “I’m beginning to think my head is lopsided. Why else would I have such trouble pinning my
kapp
on straight?”

“You look lovely, just as you are.” Rufus hoped that becoming Amish would not snuff out the quirks that drew him to her in the first place.

They walked together, staying in sight of the softball game and the horses chomping apples but carving out a private space around them.

“When do you have to go?” Annalise asked.

“Tonight.”

“But it’s the Sabbath.”

Rufus flinched. “I know. But I have to be north of Cañon City ready to work at seven in the morning. Tom is willing to taxi me up there tonight.”

She reached for his hand. “It will be so strange not to be able to picture where you are, not to think of you in your workshop humming hymns as you work.”

“I can still hum from the
Ausbund.”

“I hope you will. I hope that will keep you close to us.” Annalise turned to look him in the face. “Promise me that you’ll call me. You can call the shop. Mrs. Weichert won’t mind.”

“I would need a phone,” Rufus said.

“Believe me, the
English
always have phones.”

“If it is God’s will that I have such an opportunity, then yes, I will try to call you.”

She nodded, as if satisfied. Rufus had expected a stronger insistence because she knew he would not use his own cell phone for a nonemergency call. He was not sure he would even take it with him.

Annalise’s lips were slowly moving in and out. She was distracted in thought, and it was not his job that bothered her at the moment. He would not press her, though. Annalise needed no prodding to speak her mind when she was ready

As they ambled, he gradually steered her into a grove of pine trees. She may have been distracted, but Rufus had one thought on his mind that afternoon. He took both her hands so she was facing him and leaned down to find her mouth. She responded immediately, her lips surrendering their perplexed in-and-out motion to eagerly receive the press of his mouth on hers.

Rufus was on his way by now, sitting in the passenger seat of Tom Reynolds’s red pickup. The grief Annie felt was not so much about his absence from her. Because she lived in town and he worked on the Beiler land or in outlying construction settings, they only saw each other once or twice a week as it was. No, her grief was that he should feel it necessary to take the job, to be isolated from his people, to be out of the rhythm of work and worship that sustained his spirit.

Would he create a new rhythm, she wondered, surrounded by
English
workers? Would he draw away to the quietness that fed his soul?

She prayed he would, and that it would be possible.

Annie sat at her dining room table, nudged up against the window, nursing a cup of tea and flipping through the red book about Tennessee and Arkansas history before going to bed. It was already late, but her thoughts had not yet fallen into the organized slots in her mind that would allow her to receive sleep. More than twenty-four hours had passed since she left the backpack for Leah—with a note. Was it remotely possible that the Deitwallers were not in church because Leah had gone home? Had Leah even opened the backpack? Did she see the flyer about the training burn? Had she already moved to a new spot without leaving a trail? Yesterday’s relief at discovering where Leah was staying blackened now with the realization that, once again, Leah could be anywhere.