Huckleberry Spring

by Jennifer Beckstrand

  She still clutched the ledge with one hand and his arm with the other. With his free hand, he looped the scarf around her neck.

  He blinked as something warm dripped down the side of his face. He wiped it away and then looked at his hand. Blood. He must have hit his head when he fell. “Is it bad?”

  Her expression looked grim. “Not at all.”

  “Can you can pull yourself out of the water far enough to get on my shoulders? You might be able to loop the scarf around that pipe.”

  She nodded. “Take off your shirt.”

  “What?” he sputtered. “We don’t have time—”

  “Benjamin Helmuth, don’t argue with me. Take off your shirt.”

  He stared at her. Something told him it would be pointless and foolish to argue. If she wanted his shirt, he’d give her his shirt if it would do anything to hurry her along. He wanted her safely out of the well before he lost the strength to hold himself up. His arms already shook. It was only a matter of minutes.

  It proved difficult to unbutton his shirt with only one hand, but he did it as quickly as possible, ripping the last two buttons off with a flick of his wrist. He slid one arm out of the sleeve, and she released him momentarily as he shrugged the other sleeve off his arm. Without her support, he sank immediately. As soon as the shirt came off, she snatched his arm in hers.

  She slid her fingers away from the ledge. “Put your hand here,” she said.

  He did as he was told. His thin undershirt gave him little protection from the rough concrete wall, and the ledge would be his only support when she stood on his shoulders. He could barely keep hold of it. The cold water numbed his hands. Soon he would be completely immobile. He only had to hold on long enough for Emma to believe he was secure. No need for her to watch him die.

  She took one end of the scarf and one of the shirtsleeves and tied them together with a square knot.

  At the other end of the scarf, she tied a slipknot. She could slide it around the pipe and pull it tight. Despite their dire circumstances, she was thinking straight. Better than he was thinking at the moment, that was certain.

  She draped the scarf and shirt around her neck. “I’m sorry,” she said as she took his arm and used it to pull herself behind him. Clutching his shoulders, she nuzzled her cheek against his ear. Then she made him tremble as she brushed her lips across his jaw. He thought he had never experienced a more tender moment in his life.

  “Don’t let go of that ledge,” she whispered. Pressing on his shoulders, she heaved herself upward, first raising her knees and then balancing to anchor her feet on his shoulders.

  Ben grunted in agony and tightened his muscles, straining harder than he’d ever done in his life as her shoes dug into his shoulders. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t hold on. His fingers were wrenched from the ledge by the force of Emma’s weight. Unready for the sudden force downward, he swallowed several mouthfuls of water as he went under. Emma still stood on his shoulders, pushing him farther and farther down. Would he ever come up again?

  Ben didn’t realize how badly he wanted to live until he sensed he was drowning. He desperately tried to kick his way to the surface, but his useless legs only served to weigh him down.

  Good-bye, Emma. My last and every thought was of you.

  Suddenly he felt light as a feather. She’d made it. Emma had pulled herself out of the well. He could die now.

  He sensed a splash and felt a warm pair of arms clamp around his chest and hold him tight. Had Emma fallen back into the water?

  Don’t try to save me. Save yourself, Emma. Go and live a happy life. Let me die.

  Just as his feet brushed the bottom, she dragged him upward into the blessed air. He spewed water from his mouth and greedily gulped oxygen into his lungs. Maybe he wanted to live another day, after all.

  With her arms wrapped tightly around him, Emma pulled him to the tiny ledge. “Can you hold on?”

  “What are you doing? You’ve got to get out.”

  “Can you grab it before we both sink again?”

  His arm felt as stiff as a cold piece of leather, but he managed to raise it high enough to hook his fingers onto the ledge.

  Emma’s labored breathing and his uncontrollable wheezing echoed against the concrete walls. It couldn’t have been easy to pull a six-foot-plus body out of the water.

  He looked up. Emma had managed to loop the scarf around the pipe. Tied securely to the right sleeve of his shirt, the scarf and shirt together reached all the way to the surface of the water. Emma gripped the end of the other sleeve in her fist to keep herself afloat.

  “Pull yourself up, Emma. You’ve got to get out of here.”

  She touched her fingers to a tender spot on Ben’s forehead. “I’m taking you with me.”

  “Emma,” Ben growled.

  “Don’t argue. You’re wasting energy.” She plunged her arm into the water and found his free hand. “I need you to keep me afloat for a minute,” she said, resting her elbow on his outstretched arm. He dug his fingers into the hard cement. He wouldn’t lose his grip when she needed him so badly.

  With her elbow hooked over his arm, her hands were free to tie the dangling shirtsleeve around his wrist.

  “What are you doing?”

  “For a boy who seldom says a word, you ask a lot of questions. Save your breath. You might need it.”

  Ben wasn’t used to being the one taking orders. Frustration tightened his chest. “Emma, get out of here and go find help. Do you want us both to drown?”

  To his surprise, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close. “I don’t want either of us to drown,” she whispered. When she pulled away from him, her eyes glistened with tears. It sent a knife right through his heart.

  “That’s why you’ve got to pull yourself out,” he protested weakly.

  “This sleeve will keep you from going under, but hang on to the ledge too. I don’t know how tight Anna’s knitting is.”

  With both hands, she grabbed on to her shirt-and-scarf rope and pulled. Bracing her feet against the cement wall and gripping his shirt, she slowly climbed the makeshift rope. Water from her dress rained down on Ben as he breathlessly watched her progress. Inch by inch she crawled up the wall, taking care not to move too fast and lose her footing.

  Near the top, she reached for the pipe and wrapped her fingers around it, first one hand and then the other.

  His breath stuck in his throat as he watched her dangling from the small pipe that was her salvation. It stuck out only three feet from the top, but how would she ever be able to pull herself the rest of the way up? “You can do it,” he lied. She wouldn’t be able to reach above her when she needed both hands to hold fast to the pipe.

  He felt his own fingers slipping from their hold on the ledge. How long would the makeshift rope keep him up?

  Her knuckles turned white, and she panted as if there weren’t enough air in the entire world to fill her lungs. Her mouth drooped in exhaustion, but even from below Ben could see her eyes blaze with determination. A gut-wrenching groan bubbled from deep in her throat as she lifted her legs and kicked at a patch of cracked cement just below the pipe. Flakes of old cement plopped into the water like hail as she pounded the wall again and again.

  “Hang on, Emma. You can do it.”

  “Look out,” she yelled as she dislodged an apple-sized chunk of cement.

  Ben ducked and shifted his weight to the right as the cement tumbled. The movement proved too much for his shaky arms. His fingers slipped from the ledge, and he didn’t have the strength to put them back. The scarf and the shirt pulled taut and the fabric tightened around his wrist. It was a gute thing Emma had tied him to his own shirt. He wouldn’t have been able to keep hold of it by his own power.

  In awe, Ben watched as Emma kicked again and again, all the while anchoring herself to that pipe. How could she keep hold like that?

  Another chunk of cement, this one the size of a loaf of bread, crashed into the water. H
er breathing had turned ragged and wheezy, like an asthmatic in the throes of a life-threatening attack. Surely, she was absolutely spent.

  “Emma,” Ben whispered, barely able to keep his head above water. Emma’s rope might have been securely attached, but the effort it took to bend his elbow enough to keep his head above the water was almost too much. His legs felt heavy, so heavy.

  Emma shoved one foot into the hole she’d pounded out of the wall. In an amazing feat of balance, she braced the other foot on the pipe and in one swift movement catapulted herself to the surface. She expelled another scream straight from her gut as her upper body disappeared over the top and her legs followed.

  She was out!

  Thank You, Heavenly Father. God is good.

  Ben’s lifeline jerked, and he heard a ripping sound. His heart lurched. The sleeves were about to give way. No matter how well sewn they were, they couldn’t bear two-hundred-plus pounds indefinitely.

  But it didn’t matter. Emma had gotten out.

  He stared intently at the spot where Emma had disappeared. He longed for one more kiss, ached to tell her that he’d never really left her, that he loved her more than his own life.

  He hung his head in exhaustion as a single tear rolled down his cheek. He’d be gone before she got back. Still, he clung to his rope, determined not to go down without a fight. He wanted to live, to see Emma’s smile one more time.

  With his gaze pointed heavenward, he held perfectly still. Now that she was gone, the silence of the deep well pressed on him until he thought his ears might explode. Who knew silence could be so deafening?

  His tethered arm felt so tired. He let it relax, and his face slipped beneath the water. Just for a second. He must rest for only a second. When his lungs felt like they would explode in their need for air, he pulled up on his shirt and his head rose above the water. The effort sent searing pain ripping up his arm and through his shoulder. His arm might give out before his shirt did. He glanced up. Mammi’s scarf held firm. She was the best knitter in the whole world.

  His arm trembled so badly his entire body shook. Not much longer now. Completely drained of all energy, he relaxed his arm again and felt the profound relief to his shoulder as he slipped underwater. Holding his breath, he wondered if he would have the strength to pull himself up one more time.

  “Ben!” Emma screamed. Her voice sounded muffled and strange to his ears.

  He must be dying. Emma could not have returned so quickly.

  A scrape and a splash. Someone yanked his arm so hard it felt as if it had been pulled from its socket. His head broke through the surface, and he gulped in as much air as he could get.

  “Emma,” he gasped. She was back in the water. A tortured groan died in his throat. He had no strength to voice it even though the anger and frustration boiled inside him.

  Her hair had escaped from its bun. The sodden golden locks fell around her shoulders like tendrils of seaweed, but she was still the most beautiful girl in the world. Her eyes were wild as she clutched his helpless arm and studied his face. “Stay with me, Ben,” she growled.

  Her arm curled so tightly around his that it almost cut off his circulation. Her other elbow hooked around a weathered wooden ladder. The bottom half was invisible beneath the water and the top rails leaned against the wall of the well inches below the pipe. She must have lowered it into the well while he had been underwater.

  Ben fought for breath, dizzy with relief. “How are . . . Where did you find that?”

  “Buried below a tangle of bindweed. By the grace of God, it’s long enough. I prayed hard.”

  The ladder looked to be decades old, with cracking silver wood and rusty bolts holding it together. Emma tightened her grip on his arm, and the ladder creaked in protest.

  “Why did you come back? I told you to go get help,” Ben said.

  “And I told you I wouldn’t leave you.”

  Using Emma’s strong grip as leverage, he shifted to the left and curled his fingers around one of the rails. “When did you become so stubborn?”

  “About ten minutes ago.”

  “When you fell in, I looked all over for a ladder. Couldn’t find one.”

  After she made sure his grip was firm, she released his arm and let out a huge breath. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to spot something out of place in a garden. Come on. I’ll help you climb up.”

  He bowed his head in defeat, so ashamed to admit weakness to Emma. “I don’t think I can make it.”

  “You will make it. I’m stubborn enough for the both of us.”

  Maintaining her hold on the ladder, she grabbed his wrist with the sleeve still tied around it and placed his hand on the highest rung he could reach.

  “We don’t have much time,” she said. “This ladder could disintegrate into dust any minute now.”

  It might not disintegrate, but Ben feared it would crack under his weight. “It’s not going to hold us.”

  “God is with us, Ben. It’s going to hold. Can you pull yourself up rung by rung?”

  He grunted, straining to lift his entire body out of the water with only the strength of his arms. His spent muscles gave out before he could grasp the next rung, and it was all he could do to keep hold of the ladder at all.

  Determination hardened the lines around Emma’s mouth. After taking a deep breath, she disappeared into the murky water.

  “Emma, don’t.” It terrified him to lose sight of her, even for a moment.

  Below him, she nudged his legs in alignment with the ladder, then forced his foot upward, bending his knee for him. Still underwater, she propped his knee on a rung and then did the same with his other knee. Now his legs were more than dead weight, and Ben had enough leverage and strength to push himself up and reach the next rung.

  Emma filled in behind him, marking progress by pushing his knees up each rung as she followed him. It was a slow, painstaking process. If he made any sudden movements or Emma leaned too near, the ladder creaked and threatened to break. How it held them even now, Ben would never know.

  His hands finally reached the top rung of the ladder, three feet below solid ground. Emma pushed both of his legs up one more rung so that he knelt on the ladder, clinging to the top rung with his scraped and bleeding hands.

  Leaning his forehead against the cool cement wall, he tried to catch his breath. He needed a thousand pounds of strength, but he only had a few ounces left. Behind him, Emma struggled for breath with labored rhythm. She’d already climbed out once. She had to be almost to the breaking point herself. Ben shifted his weight and the ladder creaked menacingly, as if giving a final warning.

  “Push as hard as you can with your knees. There’s some grass up there you might be able to grab on to.”

  Certain he couldn’t move another inch, he mustered the last ounce of will he had left. For Emma’s sake he would try. If he failed, Emma would go down with him.

  Shoving his legs away from his body, he stretched his arms into the air and lunged for the top. His fingers latched on to a solid piece of wood at the surface that he gripped with all his might.

  “Emma!” he cried as the ladder began to collapse beneath him.

  He glanced back. Her foot found the protruding pipe, a few inches to the left, that had been their salvation more than once. She stomped on it and propelled herself out of the well before the ladder splintered into a hundred pieces and fell away.

  She landed on her knees and seized Ben’s arms. His legs dangled precariously into the pit. He couldn’t do it. Even as Emma tried to anchor him with her grip, he felt himself slipping away.

  “Don’t let go,” she grunted, sounding more angry than encouraging. Keeping hold of his elbows, she pulled herself to her knees to gain more leverage.

  It was no use. She was nowhere near strong enough to hold on to him, and he was too out of breath to convince her how useless it was.

  She lunged and hooked her arms securely around his right upper arm. Bracing her knees against th
e cement at the edge of the well, she pulled, practically wrenching his arm from his shoulder socket.

  A low, gut-splitting scream came from deep in her throat as slowly, inch by inch, she pulled him out. With what strength he had left, Ben clawed at the ground with his free hand. Suddenly, some of the sensation returned to his left leg, and he managed to drag it out of the well. Emma nearly laughed with relief as he braced his knee in the dirt and lent her the support she needed to pull him all the way out.

  He did his best to crawl as she tugged him a few feet away from the gaping hole. Finally, far enough away from the danger, they collapsed to the ground, their lungs heaving violently in search of air.

  “You saved me,” he said.

  “I’ve hefted a lot of pumpkins in my day,” she whispered back.

  Chapter 16

  Her lungs were on fire. Every breath felt like a searing hole through her chest. She tried to sit up, to make sure Ben was okay, but she felt so weak, she didn’t know if she would be able to rise ever again. Her shoulder throbbed, and when she tried to move her arm, pain tore through her like a jagged knife.

  Relief flooded her, and she welcomed the rush of pain. If she had felt it earlier, she would never have been able to pull Ben from the well. She thanked the Lord with every agonizing breath she took.

  “Ben?” She couldn’t raise her voice above a whisper to save her life.

  “Jah?”

  “Just making sure you’re still with me.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  After a few more groaning breaths, she gingerly rolled over and looked at him. He lay on his back, his eyes closed, with mud caking his hair and blood trickling from the wound on his forehead. Favoring her injured arm, she sat up and slid close to him. He might have looked a little worse for wear, but he was still as handsome as ever.

  The hitch in her throat momentarily stopped her breath as she gazed at him. His body looked strong enough—the muscles of his chest and shoulders attested to that—but something was horribly wrong. He must be carrying some heavy burdens, probably had carried them for months, and he had chosen to carry them alone.