by Jan Drexler
“If you try to work now, you’ll only make the injury worse. You know that. Mamm says you need to rest until Saturday, then you can get out of bed. But no strenuous work for several days after that.”
He took another bite of his bread. “You said Ezra is all right. He wasn’t injured?”
“Not hurt at all, thanks to you. He has promised he will never go into a pasture without looking to see what animals are there first.” She picked up her own slice of bread and laid a piece of cheese on it. “You were very brave. You could have been killed.”
“I’m not brave. I just knew I couldn’t stand by and watch that bull run the boy down without trying to do something.”
“But you risked your life. Not many men would do that, especially men with . . .” She let her voice trail off.
“You mean because I’m only half a man?” His voice was bitter. Caustic.
“That isn’t what I meant. Just because you’re missing a leg doesn’t mean you’re not a man. You proved that when you saved Ezra. But your missing leg would have given you a good excuse to do nothing.”
His eyes narrowed. “I only did what needed to be done.”
Elizabeth broke a piece of her cheese in half. “I don’t know many men who would have seen it that way, except perhaps Solomon.” Surely, he would have leaped into the pasture to rescue a little boy.
“Do you believe Solomon would have tried to save Ezra?” He stuffed the crust of his bread into his mouth. He spoke around the food, his words muffled. “Somehow, I don’t think so.”
Elizabeth took a small bite of her bread, chewing it slowly. Of course, Solomon would have, her mind protested. But she turned in her chair so Aaron couldn’t see her thoughts as they flitted through her mind and across her face. She had to admit that she couldn’t imagine Solomon running to intercept that bull the way Aaron had.
“I hope Solomon would have rescued Ezra. He’s a good Amishman and would risk himself for those of the community.”
Aaron set his plate aside, one slice of bread left uneaten. “Do you really know him, Elizabeth? Is he the kind of man you want to spend time with?”
She snapped her head in his direction. She had never spoken those ideas aloud, but they had played at the back of her mind.
“You’ve seen the kind of man he is,” she said. She took a deep breath remembering the look in Solomon’s eyes when she told him she hadn’t found Reuben’s papers yet. Was she trying to convince Aaron, or herself?
Aaron reached for her hand and she tried to pull it out of his grasp as she set her plate down.
“I have seen the kind of man he is.” He tightened his grip on her hand and pulled her closer. “I’ve met him before. He denies it, but I know I saw him in Virginia during the war.”
“That can’t be true. He is from Pennsylvania.”
“I couldn’t forget his voice, his stance, and his veiled threats. He’s a dangerous man.” He dropped her hand and rubbed his head along his hairline like his headache had suddenly grown worse. “I hate to see you ruin your life with him.”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together. Aaron Zook had no right to talk to her this way. She held her fist to her mouth as her chin started quivering. And what he didn’t know was that her life was ruined anyway.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Solomon is . . . is a good man.” She hiccupped. “He is Amish and—”
“And I’m not.” Aaron’s voice was bitter again. “He’s a whole man and I’m not. He’s a wealthy landowner and I’m not.” He glared at her. “If you don’t want to listen to me, then go away. I don’t need your company. I promise I won’t try to get out of bed.”
He slumped down under the covers and turned his back to her.
Elizabeth picked up the plates and walked to the door. As she turned to close it behind her, she looked at that hard back again. He knew nothing about Solomon. She slammed the door and went down the stairs to the kitchen.
Aaron was feeling good the next Monday but still took Jonas’s advice to hitch up the horse and wagon rather than walk to the Zooks’ harness shop. He chuckled to himself as he tossed the harness up onto Rusty’s back, remembering the first time he had tried to harness the horse alone. He had his strength back, he was steady on his feet. Or foot. And his headaches had dwindled to a reasonable level.
On Sunday afternoon, a week after the incident with the bull, most of the community had stopped by the Weavers’ farm to see how he was faring. He had sat on the back porch, Ezra close by his side. The little boy didn’t seem to notice Aaron’s missing leg as he listened to the adults talk about bulls and how dangerous they could be. Everyone seemed to have a story about a run-in with a bull, and every one of the men shook Aaron’s hand, thanking him for his heroic action.
By the end of the afternoon he still didn’t feel heroic, but he felt welcomed like he had never felt before. Except for Elizabeth—and he couldn’t reckon why it bothered him so much when she ignored him. She hadn’t come to visit him or her parents since Thursday when she had refused to listen to his advice about Solomon Mast.
Only that wasn’t his name. Aaron had spent the hours through Thursday afternoon and evening searching through his memory, and that name wasn’t one he recognized. He had even started doubting that he had the right man again, until the name slipped into his consciousness. The spy in the camp when Aaron was in the Shenandoah had been called Simon Miller. Rumors had been that he was a Mennonite farmer who helped both sides destroy the rich farms up and down the valley to prevent their enemies from living off the land.
A waste of resources, for sure, but the generals had all said it was the way to win a war. That might be so, but it still didn’t change the fact that all the officers, even a captain like himself, knew that Simon Miller was a snake. A useful spy, but not a man to be trusted.
Then late on Thursday night while lying awake with that pounding headache, Aaron had remembered another rumor that had circulated around the camp when they were in the same area as Simon Miller. The rumor of a predator who attacked girls and young women among the Mennonite and Dunker farms and small towns in the southern Shenandoah Valley. Folks had speculated that the man could be one of the soldiers, but Aaron had been tempted to connect that rumor with the spy. The thought that Solomon Mast could be that man made his blood run cold, but he blamed his imagination. No girls or women had gone missing since Solomon had moved into the Weaver’s Creek area. He had dismissed the thoughts and tried to sleep.
Solomon was still on his mind when he turned the horse into the Zooks’ farm lane and pulled to a halt outside the harness shop. He had been here often since Casper and the rest of the family had moved to the area, and he knew Dan’s boy Cap would be watching for him.
He was right. The ten-year-old had seen him coming and ran from the house to greet him.
“I thought you’d never get here.”
Aaron used his cane to steady himself after climbing down from the wagon seat and tousled the boy’s hair. “I’m here right when I told your grandpop I would be.” He started toward the horse’s head to tie him to the hitching rail. “What are you up to today?”
“I’m going to hoe the garden for Mamm. She says the weeds are about to overrun everything and steal all our food.”
“Then you have an important job, all right.”
Aaron started to tie the lead rope to the rail, but Cap took it from him.
“I’ll put Rusty in the pasture for you. Grossdawdi says you’re going to be here all day.”
“Thank you.” Aaron grinned at the exasperated look on the boy’s face. “All right. In Deitsch. Denki, Cap.”
Aaron walked into the harness shop. Just as he expected, Casper was already at the workbench, cutting the strips of leather needed for a set of harnesses from a tanned cowhide.
“Where can I start?” Aaron asked.
Casper finished the strip he was working on and pushed it off the worktable onto a pile of others.
“This harne
ss has been ordered by an Englischer in Berlin. He wants it double strength for his driving carriage. I’ve already dyed the leather black, and next we’ll need to measure the lengths of the straps and sew them together.” He turned to a large paper tacked to the wall with the various parts of the harness listed, their measurements, and the number needed next to each one. “We’ll work off this list. As you finish each piece, you can mark it off with the pencil there. Start wherever you have a mind to.”
“Will Dan and Ephraim be working on it, too?”
“They’re in the tanning shed, getting hides ready for the next project after this.”
Aaron started sorting through the pile of straps for the sizes he needed. “What’s that project?”
“A set of horse collars. Have you ever made one?”
“It will be something new for me. I hope I’m around long enough to learn how to make them.”
Casper picked up his knife and rotated the cowhide to the side he wanted. “Why wouldn’t you be here?”
“Ever since the war, I thought I might go west. There are a lot of opportunities out there for a man who needs a fresh start.” Especially a fresh start away from Elizabeth Kaufman. If she still thought Solomon Mast was a good choice, he would have to move on.
The older man worked silently for a few minutes while Aaron measured the straps and trimmed them to the right size.
“What do you think you will find out there that we don’t have here?”
Aaron shaved a jagged spot on the edge of the leather until it was smooth. “For one thing . . .” He stopped, trying to think of what had drawn him to the West when he had heard the other southerners talking about it, other than a place to escape from the memories. “For one thing, a man won’t be judged by which side he fought for in the war.”
“Do you think we judge you?”
“Ne, but an Englischer might.”
“What else?”
“I could establish my own business there, build a home, and start a family.”
“It’s hard to start a new business from the beginning.” Casper finished with the hide he had been working on and slid another one from the big table where they were stored onto his work surface. “Why not work here with us?”
“I couldn’t do that,” Aaron said, turning away from Casper as he selected the right size awl from the rack above the bench. “The three of you have a family business. Tobias should be the next man you take on.”
“Are you saying you can’t be part of it because you aren’t one of my sons?” Casper dropped his knife on the table and walked over to Aaron. “You are family. You’re one of us.”
Aaron turned the awl between his fingers, still not looking at the man who was Pa’s cousin. He had been playing at belonging in this family. They had been gracious, going along with it. But now they were talking about a business, not a family reunion. As much as he would like to stay and be part of this community, he hadn’t been born to it. Belonging wasn’t something he could claim.
“I need to make a home for myself.” He looked at Casper. “I don’t really belong here, you know that. I’m an Englischer. An outsider.”
Casper kept his gaze on Aaron’s face, the wrinkles around his eyes softening into a look that was the same as one Aaron had seen on Grandpop’s face many times. The look that was willing him to understand.
“A home. That’s what you’re looking for? A place to belong?”
The sweetness Aaron had felt as he stood in the doorway of Abraham’s barn last week flooded his senses. A home.
He nodded.
“You won’t find it out west. You won’t find it anywhere you go looking for it. Home is right here. Now.” He spread his arms to take in the workshop and everything beyond it. “Home is with these people and in this place.” He poked his forefinger into Aaron’s chest. “Where God is, that’s your home. And he is where you are.”
Aaron stared at his feet, thinking. If Casper was right, then . . . “I don’t need to go anywhere?” Saying it felt good. “I’m already home?”
Casper nodded. “That’s right. Because home isn’t a building, or a farm, or a business. It’s where you belong. The place where God has brought you to and with folks who love you.” He took a step closer to Aaron. “Do you want my advice?”
Aaron nodded.
“Stay here. Join the church. Learn to know us better and be part of our family. We’ll help you build your own house, your own place on Zook land. Then find the right woman to marry.”
Casper’s words described a dream that danced in the air just beyond his reach. “Did you forget that I’m not a whole man?”
Casper laid his hand on Aaron’s arm. “No man is whole when he is by himself. All of us are broken on the inside until we find our place with God—broken, sore, and weary. Your brokenness is visible, but the solution is the same as it is for any other man. God will make you whole.”
Aaron couldn’t speak.
Casper patted his arm, then went back to his worktable. “Think about it, son. I would hate to see you leave us to chase a dream that you’ll never catch.”
Picking up the awl and a hammer, Aaron started the slow process of marking the stitches in the leather. As he worked, a song Ma used to sing formed itself in his mind.
Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
weak and wounded, sick and sore.
That described him for certain and sure. He couldn’t remember the next line, but it had something to do with Jesus curing all those ills, like Casper had described. A whole man.
He hummed the tune as he continued his work, and another line came into his memory.
If you tarry till you’re better,
you will never come at all.
The awl wavered and he dropped the hammer onto the workbench. The last eight months he had been waiting until he was healthy again. Waiting until he was back to normal. Waiting until he was better. A better man than he was now. But too much had happened. He had seen too much. The brokenness would never heal itself.
If you tarry till you’re better,
you will never come at all.
Elizabeth stood in the old cabin on Reuben’s farm on Wednesday morning. With the beam lying on the floor, chinking pried out from between the logs, and dirt and debris everywhere, it was no longer a place anyone could live. The best thing that could happen to it was for lightning to strike and burn it down.
She turned in a circle, looking for any spot she might have missed. Aaron had taken a methodical approach the day he helped her, examining the walls inch by inch, while she had gone from place to place, searching everywhere she thought Reuben might have hidden the box. Behind the bed, inside the fireplace, in the kitchen cabinets. But it hadn’t turned up for either of them.
Perhaps there was a place for the box higher up in the chimney than she could reach. Walking over to the fireplace again, her shoes thumped against the wooden floor. Then one footstep sounded different. Elizabeth tried the spot again, stomping her foot on it, then stomping on the floorboard next to it. The first spot sounded hollow. It had been underneath the bed until she had pulled it away from the wall.
As she knelt on the floor, trying to pry the board loose with her fingers, Elizabeth imagined the look on Solomon’s face when she finally brought him the papers. He said he hadn’t been successful in Millersburg. Either Reuben had never filed their marriage certificate, or it had never existed. More than anything, she wanted to prove to Solomon that she could be the kind of woman he thought she was. Honorable, truthful, faithful. A good Amish wife.
Before the floorboard gave way, Elizabeth had broken two fingernails. But no matter. When she lifted the board out of its place, she found a square hole dug into the dirt beneath the floor. And in the hole was a dull, rectangular metal box. She snatched it from its resting place and took it out into the morning sunlight. This was it. This was the box she had seen in Reuben’s hands the night she lost her baby. Her hands shook and she whooshed out a breath along with the li
ngering threads of the painful memory. That was in the past. This box held the key to her future.
She pried it open. The box was full of paper. On the top was money. Elizabeth lifted the stack of bills out and counted it. Nearly one hundred dollars, all in Confederate money. Useless to anyone now.
Underneath the money were folded documents. As she opened the first one, she could tell it was the deed to Reuben’s one hundred sixty acres, with an additional paper declaring that the mortgage had been paid in full. The second document was faded, but legible. A marriage certificate, stating when she and Reuben had been married. At the bottom was another paper, the letter Reuben had received after his father had passed away. She kept the marriage certificate and the deed but placed everything else back in the box. After she returned the box to its place under the floorboard, she started off for Solomon’s house.
As she drove Pie up the hill, she dusted off her skirt as well as she could. Solomon wouldn’t want to see her in such a state, but he was anxious to see these papers. She couldn’t take the time to go home and change her clothes.
Solomon must have seen her coming. He stood on the top step of the porch watching her drive toward him. His face wore a frown, but that wouldn’t last long once he saw what she had.
As she pulled Pie to a halt at the hitching rail, she waved the folded documents. “I found them!”
She had been right. His face opened into a wide smile as he bounded down the steps and gave her his hand to help her out of the buggy.
“I’m so glad, my dear. This is the deed?”
Elizabeth nodded as she brushed a cobweb off her sleeve. “And the marriage certificate. I came over as quickly as I could after finding them.”
“Come in. I assume you have not had lunch yet?”
She shook her head and let him take her arm as they went into the house.
“I’ll ask Dulcey to fix a meal for you. Perhaps the two of you could eat together in the kitchen and become better acquainted.”
