The Gifted

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “Well, if we can’t move him and we can’t leave him, what can we do?” Jessamine looked at his face with the blood trickling down toward his ear from the angry gash on his head. She did take out her handkerchief then and dabbed it against the wound. She waited to see if Sister Annie would condemn her actions, but when she did not, Jessamine reached out with her other hand to take hold of the handkerchief.

  With great care to make her movement look totally unplanned, she gingerly laid her hand down on the man’s cheek. The emerging whiskers were prickly under her fingers. She forgot about Sister Annie watching her and ran her fingers up his cheek toward his eye. There his skin was smooth and his lashes soft as downy feathers. Quite without thinking she dropped the handkerchief and touched her own eyelashes with her other hand. His felt much the same as hers.

  “Whatever are you doing, Sister Jessamine?”

  “Just wiping the blood from the gash on his head,” she said quickly.

  “I might be more apt to believe that if the handkerchief were in your hand instead of forgotten on the ground.”

  A flush rose up into Jessamine’s cheeks as she snatched up the handkerchief and began dabbing at the bloody gash again. “Forgive me, Sister. But I had never touched a man’s face before. I have continually wondered about their whiskers. How they might feel.”

  “Sister Sophrena often says your curiosity may be the death of you, but whether or not that is true, I am beginning to fear it will be the death of me.” Sister Annie let out a long sigh. “And we are not one iota nearer a solution to our dilemma than we were. We have no choice. We must leave him here and go back to the village. Elder Joseph will know what to do.”

  “I suppose you are right.”

  Reluctantly Jessamine lifted her hand away from the man’s face and started to stand. But before she could get to her feet, the man’s eyes popped open and he grabbed her wrist. She sucked in a startled breath as Sister Annie let out a frightened yelp behind her. She jerked to free herself, but the man’s grip was strong. She was caught as surely as a rabbit in a snare. So she went still and stared down into eyes the brown of butternut.

  After a moment, she said, “Hello.” Her voice carried hardly any tremble at all.

  3

  “An angel.” The man’s voice was as deep as his eyes were piercing. “I must be dead.”

  “Nay, assuredly not. Your grip is much too strong for a dead man.” Jessamine glanced down at his hand around her arm and then back at his face. Behind her, Sister Annie was breathing fast, as if she had already started running away even though she hadn’t moved one toe, but Jessamine’s curiosity was conquering any thought of fear. “And I must regretfully admit to being far from an angel.”

  “Where am I?”

  The man tried to raise his head to look around. When he groaned and fell back to the ground, his grip weakened and Jessamine pulled free of his hold.

  “Rest easy,” she said. She stripped off her apron to wad up and slip under his head. “You are in a woods not far from the Shaker village of Harmony Hill.”

  “Not far?” Sister Annie sounded incredulous. “Honestly, Sister Jessamine, we have to be miles from the village. Miles.”

  Jessamine ignored her as the man studied her face before he asked, “What happened?”

  “I cannot say for certain, but it appears your horse may have thrown you.”

  “Don’t forget about the gunfire.” Sister Annie spoke up again behind her.

  “There are two of you? Or perhaps a whole band of angels coming for me. I should be so lucky.” There was little humor in his short laugh that turned into another groan as again he raised up to peer past Jessamine toward Sister Annie.

  Jessamine gently pushed him back down. “We have no angel wings. Only aprons and caps. We are sisters from the village.”

  “Sisters. I hear your sister’s voice, but see no one. Tell her to come closer so I can see if she is as beautiful as you.”

  “Her spirit is much purer than mine. That’s where true beauty lies.”

  “It matters not who is beautiful.” Sister Annie’s voice was strident. “We must return to the village for help before darkness falls. There could be more men of the world in the woods.”

  They did need to do something and soon. Jessamine started to rise to her feet, but once more the man grabbed her arm and kept her from standing.

  “What is your name, little angel?”

  “Jessamine and behind me is Sister Annie. We want to help you, but we’re not sure how.”

  “And there is the matter of the gunfire your sister heard.”

  “Yea.”

  “Do I have a hole in my chest leaking out my lifeblood as we speak? Is that what makes me so anxious to see angels?” He turned loose of her arm to put his hand to his chest.

  “Nay. There is no wound in your chest. You do have a wound on your head that is bleeding, but it does not appear to be too deep. Perhaps you hit a branch when you fell.”

  “Or perhaps it was that gunfire your sister cannot forget. Are you sure there was gunfire or could it have been thunder?” He sounded almost amused.

  “I know gunfire when I hear it,” Sister Annie said. “It is a noise like no other. A sound that can signal death for man or animal.”

  “Your sister Annie knows of what she speaks.”

  “Do you think someone was shooting at you?” Jessamine looked over her shoulder at the dark shadows under the trees. They suddenly looked menacing instead of inviting.

  The man got an odd look on his face. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know how far you are from your home? It could be we should go there for help instead of all the way back to our village.”

  The look on his face grew more concerned. “I don’t know that either. I seem to not know anything. I do not even know a name to tell you by way of introduction.”

  “You must know your name,” Sister Annie said.

  “So one would think.”

  The man tried to raise himself to a sitting position using both arms. When he pushed against the ground with his injured arm, he let out a cry of pain. Jessamine scrambled to put her arm behind his back to hold him upright. He shut his eyes and took several deep breaths.

  “Your arm looks to be broken,” she told him. “But the bone isn’t protruding through the skin. So that is good.”

  He opened his eyes and peered down at his arm. “Good. I guess that is one way to look at it.” A fine sheen of perspiration covered his face. He leaned away from her arm and managed to sit on his own.

  Jessamine picked up her apron. There were bloodstains on the white.

  “So now what, little sister? Do we sit here in the middle of the woods and wait for someone to find us or for another gunshot to disturb our peace?”

  “We will go get help.” Sister Annie spoke the words with decision.

  “And leave me to the darkness of the forest and my mind. And the evil that might be lurking in the shadows and waiting to find me alone.”

  “We won’t leave you,” Jessamine said. Then she changed it. “I won’t leave you.”

  “And I won’t leave you alone with him,” Sister Annie said.

  “What a quandary.” The man frowned. “I do wish I knew my name. It is hard to think of any sort of sensible plan when I can’t even come up with my own given name.” He patted his coat pockets with his hand. “Empty. No clue to who I am there.”

  “Your horse might carry something to help,” Jessamine said.

  “My horse. That is our answer. Help me to my feet.”

  “You could have other injuries.”

  “Then it is time we found out about them,” he said as he began trying to get up on his knees.

  Jessamine stooped by his side and the man put his hand on her shoulder. “Help us, Sister Annie,” Jessamine said.

  Sister Annie came around behind the man and with great reluctance put her hands under his armpits. It took several attempts, but the man seemed to grow stronger with ea
ch attempt until he was finally able to stand. With his broken arm close against his body, he put his other arm around Jessamine’s shoulders and leaned so heavily on her she feared she might crumple under his weight. The blood drained from his face until it was as white as her collar.

  “Do you feel faint?” Jessamine didn’t wait for him to answer. “A foolish question. It’s clear you feel faint. Here, see if you can step over to that tree. You can rest against it a moment to gather your strength while we fashion a sling for your arm from my apron.”

  He did as she said and then stood silent while she and Sister Annie tore strips from her apron to tie around his neck and chest to hold his arm against his body.

  She looked into his eyes when they had finished. “I’ll get your horse. Then you will have to get on it. We will be unable to lift you.”

  When she started away, Sister Annie trailed after her. Jessamine stopped her. “You should stay beside him, Sister, to hold him up if dizziness comes upon him. He won’t hurt you.”

  Sister Annie frowned and stood her ground. “I don’t know how you could know such a thing. He is a man of the world and not one of our good brothers.”

  “Worry not, little sister.” The corners of the man’s mouth turned up in a grim smile. “I promise to only use you as a crutch. Nothing more.”

  “I can pray it so.” Sister Annie took two steps back toward the tree but stayed well out of arm’s reach of the man.

  “So you believe in prayer, Annie,” the man said.

  “I do.” Sister Annie’s voice carried absolute surety. “Don’t you?”

  “It’s hard to say since I know so little else, but I feel no comfort at the thought of prayer. No comfort at all. I must be a lost soul in more ways than one.”

  Jessamine wanted to turn and offer him some word of assurance, but the truth was that sometimes she wondered about her own prayers. If they might merely be more story words she’d thought up that meant nothing at all. She pushed the blasphemous thought away. She believed. Absolutely she believed. It was just that sometimes she wasn’t exactly sure what it was that she did believe.

  What she remembered from hearing the Bible stories at her granny’s knee and what the Shakers told her was truth seemed too different. Sister Sophrena was always telling her to pray for the truth to be revealed to her. She had silently said that prayer many times, but no clear truths had been planted in her mind. Instead the prayers seemed to open doors to more questions. And more worldly thoughts of the prince her granny said the Lord would send her way. That very thought was sinful and would put her feet on a path her Shaker sisters assured her would lead to naught but sin and sorrow. She had no desire for more sorrow, but she did have the worrisome desire to know more of many things forbidden by the Shakers. Like White Oak Springs and parasols. And how a man’s beard felt under her hand.

  Her hand tingled as she remembered the prickly feel of the man’s cheek. Something like she imagined and yet at the same time totally different. No doubt a long beard like Elder Joseph wore would not feel the same. Perhaps more like the coat of that long-ago pet raccoon.

  “Please hurry, Sister Jessamine,” Sister Annie called to her.

  “Yea,” Jessamine answered softly.

  Sister Annie was right. It was time she quit dawdling and thinking on things with no bearing on the duty at hand. The horse raised its head and stared at her warily when she walked toward it to once again capture its reins. She moved very quietly, but the horse, seeming to divine her purpose, backed away from her.

  “The man says you must talk to the horse.” Sister Annie’s voice made the horse throw up its head. Whether with curiosity or alarm, Jessamine couldn’t determine.

  Without looking back at Sister Annie and the man, she began talking softly almost under her breath. “Nice horse. Remember me. I didn’t do you any harm before. I only want to catch your reins and take you to a nice barn where one of our kind brothers will pour out grain for you to eat and wipe down your coat. You must be hungry.”

  She stooped slowly to pluck up a bit of grass growing in a spot of sunshine and then stood to hold it out to the horse. She held her breath while the horse considered the offered grass as if wondering if it was worth the risk of stepping closer to her. And then it did. She let it nibble the grass from the palm of her hand as she caught hold of the reins with her other hand.

  The horse followed after her with no hesitation as she led it back toward the man propped against the tree. Sister Annie watched him warily from several feet away. She would have been no help at all to the man if he had started to fall.

  “Now what?” Sister Annie’s eyes shifted from the man to the horse. “We lifted him from the ground, but we cannot lift him onto the horse.”

  Jessamine held out the reins to Sister Annie. “You take the horse and I will help our friend mount up.”

  “Friend. You’re letting your imagination run away with you again, my sister.” Sister Annie frowned. “He’s naught but a man of the world. No friend or prince either. For all we know he might have deserved to have someone shooting at him.”

  “Shh, Sister Annie.” Jessamine matched her sister’s frown as she continued to hold the reins out to the other girl. “Your words are unkind.”

  “But perhaps very true,” the man said with a short laugh. “It could be I did deserve the fate of a bullet crease in my head. But if so, I have no recollection at all of why that might be so, and I do promise you that I will restrain any evil impulses that might beset me, at least until after some person of medicine has straightened the bones of my arm. You say there is such a person at your village?”

  “He has fixed many a Believer’s bones so they could return to their labors in the fields when they healed.” Jessamine smiled over at him.

  “This man will do no labor in our fields,” Sister Annie muttered, the words barely loud enough to hear.

  “But it could be I labor in fields somewhere.” The man looked down at his hand. “My hand does not look overly soft. I can’t imagine that I don’t do some kind of work.” He let out a long breath. “How very strange not to know any answers.”

  “Perhaps it is the injury to your head that steals your answers,” Jessamine told him. “Brother Benjamin may be able to help with that too. Come, the horse seems to wait upon you patiently.”

  He pushed away from the tree and wobbled back and forth until Jessamine shoved the reins into Sister Annie’s reluctant hands and wrapped her arm around his waist to keep him balanced. “Lean on me.”

  “I fear crushing you.”

  “I am stronger than I look,” Jessamine said.

  He was a head taller than she was and when he slid his good arm around her shoulders, she felt his weight bearing down on her all the way to her heels. He smelled of the woods and sweat, a manly scent she secreted away in her imagination along with the feel of the stubble of whiskers on his cheek and the strength in the hard muscles under his coat.

  A completely foreign feeling tickled awake inside her as her heart began beating too fast. Suddenly she knew, without any doubt, that this very feeling of some sort of unmet need was the reason for the Believers’ rules that kept the sisters and brothers forever separate. But in spite of the way her cheeks were burning and her stomach was doing some odd flips, it was not altogether an unpleasant feeling.

  The horse turned its head to nicker at the man without fright.

  “The animal appears to know you.” Jessamine hoped the man would think her shortness of breath was due to the way he leaned on her. And in truth it was.

  “At least someone does.” The man took his arm from around Jessamine’s shoulder and grabbed hold of the front edge of the saddle. He put his foot in the stirrup and lifted himself up easily, but then once on the horse he slumped forward.

  “This is not going to work. He will fall off before we go ten feet and then be injured worse than ever,” Sister Annie said.

  The man grasped the horse’s mane and raised his head up. “Sensible
sister Annie is right. My head won’t quit spinning. One of you best ride along with me.”

  “Have you ever ridden a horse, Sister Annie?” Jessamine asked. “I have not.”

  Sister Annie looked ready to drop the reins as she backed away from the horse. “You had never caught a horse either. Or touched a man’s face or done a dozen other things that you have done today. If one of us must ride, I suggest it be you. I have no desire to wrap my arms around a man of the world.”

  “Even one as handsome as me?” the man said with a little laugh.

  Sister Annie gave him a look through narrowed eyes. “So you know you’re handsome, but you don’t know your name.”

  The man put his hand up to his face and felt across his nose and chin. “You have a point there, sensible Annie. As a matter of fact, my words may have been no more than wishful thinking, since I have no idea if my nose sits on my face straight or sideways.”

  “I will ride with you.” Jessamine took the reins from Sister Annie. “But you’ll have to hold on until I can walk your horse to a stump to help me climb up behind you.”

  She had to make two attempts from up on the stump, but at last she managed to throw her leg over the horse that had become quite passive with his master in the saddle. The horse moving under Jessamine’s seat felt very odd, and she thought it very likely she would simply slide off over its tail when it took a step forward. She tugged on her dress, but no way could she cover both her ankles with the way her skirt bunched up under her as she sat astride the horse.

  Such an exposure of limbs was yet another sin she would have need to confess to Sister Sophrena. Sister Annie had a way of reporting the least thing whenever she accompanied Jessamine on a duty. So it would be best if Jessamine didn’t neglect to remember her lack of modesty in her confession of wrongs to Sister Sophrena even though the sturdy Shaker shoes and stockings hid every inch of skin. Oh, for the barefoot freedom of her young years.

  “How do you stay on?” she asked as she shifted uneasily on the horse’s broad back. The man appeared to be well settled in the saddle in spite of his dizzy head and weakened state.