Taken for English (47 page)

Jerusha had encouraged Leah to make an initial overture toward peace with her parents as a first step.

“Did you mail your letter to Aaron?”

“Yesterday.” Leah rubbed her trembling hands across the fabric of her lap. “And I’m going to keep on writing even if he doesn’t write back.”

“He wants to respect your
daed.”
Annie signaled the horse to begin the trek.

“I know. And I love him for it. It shows me how much he wants to be a man of respect.”

“I do want to make one stop,” Annie said.

Leah smiled with one side of her mouth. “Rufus?”

“Yes, Rufus.”

An hour later, Annie turned her rig into the long Beiler driveway. Eight-year-old Jacob looked up from where he was scattering chicken feed. He dropped the bucket of food and lit across the clearing to Rufus’s workshop. Annie did not try to stop him. By the time Rufus emerged from his work, Annie had parked the buggy and was leaning casually against its frame.

“Good morning.” Rufus looked around. “Where has Elijah gone off to so quickly?”

“Elijah is not here,” Annie said.

Rufus grinned. “He’s a brave man to loan you his horse and buggy.”

“He didn’t loan it to me. He sold it to me.”

Rufus planted his feet and crossed his arms. “Annalise Friesen, what have you done?”

“We’re going to need our own rig.” She moved toward him. Little Jacob dashed to the house. Annie knew in a matter of moments Franey and the girls would scramble down the porch steps to see for themselves what Jacob was even now describing to them. “No matter where we live, we’ll need a buggy.”

Rufus’s violet-blue eyes, inherited through ten generations, shone in the cerulean of the Colorado sky.

Annie stepped closer. “I trust you to make the right decision about the land and where we live and how we make our livelihood—and even when to marry. If you want to wait, we’ll wait.” She paused to point at the buggy. “But you don’t have to face anything alone. I’m not going anywhere. This is my down payment on our future.”

She wished he would kiss her then, and she knew he wanted to, but the screen door snapped open and footsteps tumbled down the wooden steps. Rufus touched his hat and nodded ever so slightly, and she saw the flash of approval roll through his complexion.

When Annalise had gone and the commotion settled, Rufus saddled Dolly. In a leather bag he had carried for years, he packed his sketch pad, two charcoal pencils, and three apples for the horse. After nearly seven years on the farm, he knew its boundaries well. He could recall from memory the surveyor’s legal description of the property he and his father had chosen when they pooled their resources to buy land and erect a sprawling house for the eight members of the Beiler family who joined the new settlement.

He rode now around the perimeter of the land and then followed the horse paths that cut through it, dividing fields. His parents always talked about someday building a
dawdi
house where they would retire to enjoy grandchildren by day before sending them back to the main house and their parents—whoever that would be—when they tired of them. Joel would take over the farm, Rufus had always assumed. He had a much richer love of the soil than Rufus did, and it was too early to say what Jacob might like to do.

But the land could sustain a third house. If he situated it at the far corner, it would not interfere with the crop rotations and irrigation rows.

Rufus slid out of the saddle and stood to gaze at the line where the land met the sky. In his pad, he sketched the layout of the farm and drew rectangles for the existing buildings. He marked off where a new house could sit, with its front porch soaking up the vista of the Sangre de Cristos just as the main house did.

For now he and Annalise would be happy living on the farm with his parents. Rufus did not know if Larry’s Denver clients would choose to make an offer on his land. He did not know if the land might sit empty for two years or five years. He did not know if the farm would turn the corner toward financial stability. He did not know if he would build a home on the land he had purchased or here on the corner of the farm.

When the time was right, he would build Annalise a house, and wherever it was, it would be the right place because Annalise would be there and their children would be there. Time would reveal
Gottes wille
, and Rufus only wished to stand in that place.

Annie took the buggy over the final ridge and pulled on the reins slightly to slow the horse’s gait down the gentle slope onto the Deitwaller farm.

“You’re coming with me, aren’t you?” Leah asked. “Into the house, I mean.”

“If that’s what you want.” Annie intended all along to be at Leah’s side. Unlike her last encounter with Leah’s mother, this time Annie was armed with the truth, and she was prepared to step in if Leah’s composure diminished.

Leah sat forward on the bench. “There are my brothers. What rascals. I’m sure they are supposed to be doing chores.”

The boys, tumbling over each other on an empty wagon bed, had spotted the buggy and now stood still to watch the arrival.

“Mamm!”
The older one turned toward the house and hollered. “It’s Leah!”

Annie slowed the rig and pulled alongside the boys.

“Have you come home?” the younger boy asked.

“I’ve come to talk,” Leah answered calmly. “Do you know where
Daed
is?”

“In the barn.”

“Will you please go get him?”

Both boys sprinted toward the barn. The screen door creaked open, and Annie looked up to see Eva Deitwaller standing in front of the house with a mixing bowl in her hands.

“Daed
will want to finish what he’s doing.” Leah slowly climbed down from the buggy bench. “He likes to do one thing at a time.”

Annie noticed Leah glance toward the barn rather than move closer to her mother. The scene reminded Annie of a standoff in a B-rated cowboy film, the sort of thing she and her sister used to laugh at on Saturday afternoons when they were kids. This time, though, Annie felt the tension, wondering who would make the first move.

Leah’s father finally emerged from the barn. In no rush, he paced across the yard, halting only when he was within a few feet of his daughter. As if on cue, his wife now approached. Beside Annie, Leah tensed.

“You look well.” Mr. Deitwaller inspected Leah, who wore a freshly laundered dress and crisp prayer
kapp
.

“You’re thin.” Mrs. Deitwaller examined Leah from head to toe. “I suppose that’s what comes from living like a wild animal.”

“Leah is not a wild animal.” Annie took a half step forward.

Leah stopped her. “I’ve been staying with Annalise. I’m going to stay there until I’m ready to go to Pennsylvania.”

“You’ve still got that nonsense on your mind?” Mrs. Deitwaller scowled. “I’ve got work to do, so if you’ve come to say something then just say it.”

“I know you asked Aaron not to write to me, and he has respected your wishes. But he has written to Annalise. His parents have invited me to live in their home.”

“I won’t have it.”

“In three weeks I’ll be eighteen.” Leah’s jaw was set. “I’m going to work hard to make better decisions, and I don’t want to hurt anyone. But Aaron wants me, and his parents want me, and I want to go. I have come to ask your blessing.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” Mrs. Deitwaller shook a finger in Leah’s face. “You’ll not have our blessing.”

Leah’s features strained against the assault, and her breathing quickened as she clenched her hands behind her back.

Annie spoke softly. “Your daughter is going to go. Wouldn’t it be better if she left on peaceable terms? That’s all she asks.”

“This matter does not concern you.” Mrs. Deitwaller glared at Annie.

“Eva.” Mr. Deitwaller had only to speak one word in that tone to silence his wife. “I am the head of this household. It is my decision whether to give Leah my blessing. Everyone deserves forgiveness. And love.”

Annie intertwined her arm with Leah’s. The girl trembled as her father stepped toward her and kissed her cheek.

July 1892

T
he night yawned deep and dark, taunting Joseph with every wakeful shift on top of his bedroll. In the midsummer heat, he lay watching the moon’s progression across the sky. He both yearned for the release daybreak would bring him and dreaded the finality.

No. Not finality. Maura would change her mind. The weeks since his arrival in Gassville seemed to him a lifetime away from the ways of his people, but to Maura they would have been brief and muddled with anxiety, frustration, confusion.

Joseph rolled onto his side and tucked a hand under his neck. A brush of pink teased his flittering eye open, and he sat up with a sigh. The moment could not be far off now, but first he would start the day with prayer. For Maura. For Belle. For Woody. Even for Leon Mooney. And for Hannah and Little Jake.

For the light of God’s gracious will and hearts ready to see it and accept it. He breathed deeply and began to speak his prayers softly.

When he opened his eyes, dawn had broken with sufficient light for Joseph to gather his belongings and slide the stable door open and lead his horse out. He took the steed to the trough and pumped water. While the animal drank, Joseph slapped the blanket over the horse’s back and filled the saddlebags.

“Joseph.”

He spun at the sound of her voice, and Maura stepped from the early morning gray.

“I couldn’t sleep all night,” she said.

He straightened his hat with both hands. “I was awake as well.”

“I wanted to see you one more time.”

The sun lit her from behind, casting a glow around her that would have been angelic if his heart were not cracking. Joseph was unable to speak.

“I’m worried for you,” Maura said. “You’re going to face judgment, and it is all my fault.”

“No. No.” He stepped toward her and held out a hand.

“There’s no telling what Zeke will have told everyone by the time you get home.”

“Stephen will have the bigger mouth.” Maura’s hand felt so small in his. Joseph tightened his hold.

“What does it matter? Either way, it’s the same in the end.”

He shifted his hand to intertwine his fingers with hers. She offered her other hand.

“It is true that some of my people will say I was foolish to get involved with the
English
, that I fell into temptation. They will say God’s will brought me back from the brink.”

“And you?” Maura searched his face. “What will you say?”

Joseph felt the tremble in her fingers laced through his. “I have no regrets.”

He leaned in to kiss her. She offered soft, eager lips, and he owned them until they were both breathless.

“Joseph,” she murmured when they stepped apart.

“Shh.” He put a finger on her lips. “I will be back. Those are the last words I want you to hear from me.”

She kissed his fingertips but said nothing. Joseph swung into the saddle and trotted his horse out of the stable yard. He did not dare look back.

Belle hung her handbag over one arm and a basket over the other.