Whispers of a New Dawn (8 page)

“It’s not
just like that
. We were in the sky for thirty minutes.” She hugged him. “And I have been praying about it all summer. I don’t want you shunned or repenting of being up in a plane with me. Let the Jenny stay on Mr. Parker’s runway from now on. You and I can plant our crops and have a farm, and our marriage can be what takes us into the clouds. Okay?”

“But you love flying planes—”

“Shh.” Her fingers moved to his lips. “But I love you more.” She glanced at Bishop Zook. “I want to take my vows and be baptized.”

His thick eyebrows moved upward. “
Ja?
There will be a period of instruction.”

“I’m fine with that.”

“All things must be done in accordance with the
Ordnung
.”

“Of course.”

“Usually we have our baptisms in the spring. Marriages in the late fall or early winter. Well after harvest.”

“Perhaps if I’m an exceptional student the timetable might be altered slightly?”

“Oh–ho—you think so?” He laughed. “I will talk to the ministers. Then I will decide. We should come to your place tomorrow morning after chores. Is that all right with you, Rebecca?”

“Yes.”

“I will need to talk to your mother and father about it right away. Can I offer you two a lift back to your buggy? You should go home first, Rebecca. You should be talking to them about what is going on before I do my bishop speech. And Moses, you must talk with your mother.”

“What about the plane?” asked Moses.

Henry Parker cleared his throat and stepped forward. “If someone will give the prop a twirl I’ll get her back to the hangar and loaded up for a run over my apple orchards. You don’t need to worry about Jenny.”

Becky gave the old man a strong hug that startled him. “Thank you so much, Mr. Parker. It was a dream to be up in the air again. And to have Moses along. A dream. I’m so grateful.”

Moses shook his hand. “I can’t thank you enough. Your loan of the aircraft has changed my life completely.”

Henry Parker smiled. “You’re welcome. She’s never been put to better use than she was this morning.”

“Let me give the propeller the spin, Henry.” Bishop Zook handed his hat to Moses. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“I keep my gear under the pilot’s seat.” He pulled out his jacket and helmet and began to tug them on. Then he climbed on board and adjusted his goggles. “Any time now, Bishop Zook.”

The bishop smiled, spat on his hands, and gripped a propeller blade firmly. He threw down on it with all his might, and the engine sputtered, made a choking sound while he stood back with a worried look on his face, then rumbled and roared. Henry Parker tossed him a salute and steered the Jenny into the wind. He lifted into the air, circled once, and headed north to his farmhouse and the landing strip. Hands on his hips, Bishop Zook watched him go.

“If I could make horses fly,” he murmured. He looked at Moses and Becky. “Well, shall we head over to your horse and carriage?”

The three of them climbed into the buggy and headed off to where Moses had parked. Moses and Becky sat holding hands in the back. She leaned forward.

“Bishop Zook.”

“Mm?”

“I hope there will not be a great deal of trouble for Moses over this.”

“The flying? There will be some mutters and scowls. But it will all pass like a sun shower the moment I announce you are going to take instruction for baptism and are leaving planes behind for good. Once it’s made clear Moses intends to marry you when the baptism is over, and that you have every intention of being a good Amish bride, it will be as if the flight this morning never happened.” He smiled back at them. “Except in your own hearts.”

When they reached Moses’ buggy, where Milly patiently cropped grass in the ditch, the bishop handed Becky a packet of letters once she had climbed down. “These came for your family just yesterday.”

Becky turned them over in her hand. “Who are they from?”

“I don’t know. Two of them have come a long way. First to Africa, then the Caribbean, finally to Paradise.”

Becky examined the postmarks. “Why, those two are from the Hawaiian Islands. We don’t know anyone there.”

He shrugged. “Someone knows you. One has an army seal on the envelope.” He squinted up at the sun. “You get started. I will show up fifteen minutes after you arrive at the Kurtz home. Is that enough time?”

“Yes,” responded Becky. “I think so.”

Once they were seated side by side Moses flicked the reins and Milly started along the road into Paradise. Becky leaned her head on his shoulder and squeezed his hand.

“Don’t worry. I’ll sit up straight once we come into town.”

“Why should I be worried? I like your head where it is. It can stay on my shoulder right through the Amish farms.”

“My brave man.”

“Maybe not so brave. I get tight in my chest and throat when I think of talking to your parents.”

“No, no, they’re not that bad.”

Moses moaned. “
They’re
not bad. I am. What am I going to tell them?”

“That you love me and want me as your wife.…or is it
frau
?”

“That’s it? That will be enough?”

“Tell them we had a plane ride.”

“Oh, sure.”

“They had one, you know. Before they were engaged.”

“How did that turn out?”

“Oh, Mom’s parents wouldn’t let her see Dad ever again.”

“What?” Moses stared at her. “You tell me that now?”

“Relax. They’re married, aren’t they?” She kissed him on the cheek. “It will all work out.” She sat up and dug around in the pockets of her flight jacket. “Excuse me while I pin my hair back up. And we should take these jackets off.”

Moses shrugged the leather jacket off his shoulders and arms and turned around to throw it into the backseat. He saw the letters his grandfather had given her and the US Army insignia on one of the envelopes.

“So why is the army writing your father? I thought that was over with a long time ago.”

“It is over with. I have no idea. Maybe they owe him money.”

“You think so?”

“No.” She put a final pin in her hair and posed. “There. What do you think?”

He glanced at her. “I think a woman’s crowning glory is her hair blowing in the wind. But I’ll take it short too.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll have it halfway down my back for our wedding night.”

Blood rushed into Moses’ face. “
Ja
? And when will that be?”

“Christmas. I’ll be your Christmas present. How’s that?”

“But your baptism—” he began.

She tightened her lips. “I’m not waiting until 1942 just because they think they can only baptize people in the spring and marry them in the fall. I’ll be baptized and Amish from the tips of my toes to the top of my head before we celebrate Thanksgiving. Just watch me.”

S
IX

W
ho is Ram Peterson?”

“A fellow I flew with during the war. We were in the same squadron in France.”

Becky scanned the letter in her hand. “Why on earth does he call himself Flapjack?”

Jude sipped at his mug of coffee. “That was the nickname we gave him.”

“Did he like pancakes or something?”

“I don’t know.”

“What was your nickname?”

Jude glanced across the breakfast table at Lyyndaya. Grandfather and Grandmother Kurtz and Aunt Ruth looked at her too. She smiled and dropped her eyes. Becky glanced up and saw the silent communication between her parents.

“What?” she asked. She looked at her father again. “Is it some big family secret?”

“My nickname was Lover Boy.”

Becky stared at him and then burst into laughter. “Are you serious? Why?”

“Because of your mother. It was the letters back and forth that started it. Even after I couldn’t get her letters anymore I kept re-reading the old ones.”

Becky looked over at Lyyndaya. “Mom.”

Lyyndaya shook her head. “Never mind. We were young and foolish.”

“You were young maybe, but it doesn’t sound foolish. It’s sweet.”

“Thank you.”

Becky looked back at the letter. “So he wants you to come and help his company in Hawaii give flight instruction to army pilots?”

Jude nodded. “Apparently the military doesn’t have enough instructors to make their pilots as combat-ready as they’d like them to be. Of course Flapjack trains civilians as well.”

“Why do they suddenly need pilots in Hawaii to be combat-ready? We’re not in the war. And Germany is so far away.”

“It’s not the Germans they’re worried about in Hawaii, Beck. It’s the Japanese.”

“I heard America was working out some sort of peace settlement with them.”

“Maybe.” Jude rubbed his hands over his eyes. “We started cutting oil and steel and iron exports to Japan last summer. Our way of protesting what they have done in China.” He paused. “And because of the way they are trying to expand throughout the entire Pacific region. But just the other week we upped the ante and imposed a full embargo on Japan—no oil, not so much as a drop. And we froze all their assets in the United States.”

“What does all that mean?”

“Japan is a small island country. They don’t have much in the way of oil to run their factories or their ships or their military. They don’t have resources like iron ore to mine. So they have to get it somewhere else. If they can’t import it from us, where are they going to go? And what are they prepared to do to ensure they can get the oil and iron and steel they want?” Jude looked down at the second letter from Hawaii, the one that bore the army insignia. “So things are getting tense. Japan wants to grow and we’re saying no. Japan wants to do whatever it wants to do in places like Manchuria and China and we’re saying no to that too.”

“But still. There are the peace negotiations.”

“Right now, yes.” Jude tapped the letter in front of him. “This note is
from another old buddy from the war—Billy Skipp. He was quite the daredevil pilot. Stayed in the military, and now he’s a big-time officer in the US Army Air Forces, the USAAF. They just formed it in June.”

“I haven’t read it. What is he writing you about?”

“Same thing. He says he asked Flapjack to track us down and get us to come to Hawaii and help pilots hone their flying skills. Especially the kind needed for air combat—dives, spins, barrel rolls—”

Becky interrupted. “Barnstorming!”

“Yes. Stunt flying. So he’s basically backing up Flapjack and asking your mother and me to come to the island of Oahu. That’s where Flapjack’s flight school is and that’s where the military is based. The Pacific fleet has its anchorage on Oahu at Pearl Harbor.”

“Flapjack doesn’t mention me.”

“But Billy does. And he mentions Nate. Up until we went to Africa we used to see the guys from the squadron every year at our reunions. And lots of them came to our air shows. Don’t you remember?”

Becky shrugged. “No. Not really.”

“We had big picnics. You met their kids.”

“Sort of.”

“Anyway, Billy asks about bringing you and Nate along. They do have female flight instructors.”

“But I want to stay here. I want to get married to Moses.”

“I know that.”

“You’re not going, are you?” Becky looked from her father to her mother. “Aren’t you going to stay here with me and the rest of the family?”

Jude stared into his empty coffee mug. “They need us over there, honey.”

“I need you over here. What about me?”

“Beck. You have your Aunt Ruth, your grandparents, Moses’ mother and father, and more Yoders than you could ever run out of in a lifetime.”

Becky stared. “Are you serious? None of that’s the same as having your father and mother close by. We’ve always been together. Right through
all the barnstorming years and the missions in Kenya and on Turks and Caicos. You can’t be thinking of running off and leaving me behind!”

Lyyndaya was near enough to reach over the table and hold her daughter’s hand. “We only got the letters yesterday. Your father and I are praying about everything. No one is talking about running off and abandoning you. But you are a woman now and making your own decisions about your life. Sometimes our paths will run parallel to each other. Sometimes they will diverge.”

“This is all happening too fast.” Becky wiped at the corner of her eye with a finger. “
Everything
is happening too fast.”

Ruth was beside her and leaned over to give Becky a hug. “You will always have family here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Neither are we.” Grandmother Kurtz smiled. “Certainly not to Hawaii. Pennsylvania is beautiful enough for us. You’ll never be a lonely bride, my dear Rebecca.”

“No one is talking about rushing off anywhere.” Lyyndaya squeezed Becky’s hand. “These people in Hawaii are good friends, that’s all. We went through life and death with them. They deserve our prayers if nothing else.”