The Roll of the Drums

by Jan Drexler

  “I know you don’t want me to, but I’m going to nominate you.”

  “You’re supposed to pray about it first.” Gideon’s mouth was dry. “Make sure your choice is God’s choice.”

  “I’ve been praying about it, and there are only two names I can consider.” Levi clapped him on the shoulder. “Your name is the one I’m going to nominate, no matter what you say. I thought you’d want to know.”

  Before Gideon could protest, Levi went back to the house where the women had set out plates of cookies. Gideon stayed where he was, watching the folks in the yard.

  The children were getting tired, so they should start toward home soon. Roseanna ran to where Ruby sat with another young woman Gideon didn’t know. Ruby bent her head toward Roseanna, listening to her. Paying close attention. Any other adult would brush the child aside. Roseanna must have asked about him, because Ruby turned toward him and waved along with his daughter. He waved back, then Ruby and Roseanna went back to their conversation and Gideon turned to watch the horses again.

  He missed Lovinia. He missed talking with her, spending quiet evenings by her side, planning for the future with her. He missed sharing his life with her. She would know what to do about his calling to be a minister, and she had always helped him when he had a tough decision to make. She would know what to say to Levi about the coming nomination.

  God was right when he created men and women to join their lives together. Was this loneliness what Lovinia foresaw when she told him to marry Ruby? He sighed, pulling one hand over his face. Someday the loneliness might be enough to make him want to take that step.

  Ruby was at Gideon’s cabin early the next morning. The sky was gray with hanging clouds promising a cool, damp day. In the distance, she heard thunder rumble softly. Perhaps they would get some rain.

  Gideon had already gone to the barn by the time she got there, so she crept up the stairs to the loft where she had slept with her sisters when she was a young girl. The room didn’t seem as large as it had when she was a child, but then everything seemed smaller than it had then. Gideon had built a large bed and placed it on one side of the room, and on Saturday Ruby had stuffed a ticking full of fresh straw. All three of the older children were sound asleep on the soft mattress, Ezra lying sideways above his sisters’ heads. Daniel’s cot was next to the bed and he was awake, lying on his back, the toes of one foot grasped in his hands.

  When he saw her, he grinned and sat up.

  “How are you this morning, little one?” Ruby asked in a soft voice.

  He pulled himself to his feet, reaching for her. She left the other children sleeping while she took him downstairs to change him into dry clothes, then poured some milk into his cup.

  By the time Daniel had finished his milk, Gideon came in from his chores. He gave her a quick nod, then went straight to the sink to wash up.

  “We need to set up a washing bench outside for you,” Ruby said.

  Gideon didn’t answer as she put Daniel on the floor and gave him a wooden spoon to play with. Then she searched through the cupboards until she found the supplies they had purchased in Millersburg on Thursday. This would be the children’s first breakfast in their new home, although Gideon had been living here since they had finished renovating the house last week.

  “I hope oat porridge sounds good for breakfast,” Ruby said. “I brought cream from home to have with it.”

  Gideon still didn’t answer, and Ruby glanced toward him to find that he was staring at her. He had filled a cup with water from the pump and was drinking it.

  Ruby started a fire in the stove. “I know oat porridge isn’t a very big breakfast, but I thought I would also fry some of the bacon we bought in town. Should I also cook some eggs to go with it?”

  When she looked at him again, he was still staring at her, a frown on his face.

  “What is wrong?”

  His eyes widened. “Nothing is wrong.”

  “Why were you staring at me?”

  “Was I?” He rubbed his beard and finished his water. “I didn’t mean to. I was thinking of something else. Did you know your daed planned to give me a cow?”

  Ruby put some larger pieces of wood on the fire. “He never told me anything about it. Which cow is it?”

  “The younger one. Bett. He said we had more need of a milk cow than the two of them.”

  We. The word started a warm feeling that Ruby quickly squelched. He meant the children. His family. The word had nothing to do with her.

  “That sounds like Daed. He is always giving away things he doesn’t think he and Mamm need anymore.”

  Gideon sat at the table and pulled Daniel onto his lap. “He said he’d bring her over later today, so this afternoon we’ll have our own milk.”

  “That’s good.” Ruby’s thoughts went to the tasks she would need to add to her work. Straining the milk, making butter, making cheese. She smiled, thinking of how much fun it would be to do the chores along with Roseanna and Sophia. “Do you want me to milk her, or will you?”

  “I’ll do it. I only have the horses to care for.” He frowned again.

  “Now what are you thinking about?” Ruby put a pot of water on the stove to heat and poured in the oats she had set out to soak last night after putting the children to bed.

  “There are things whirling around in my mind.” He glanced at her. “Do you mind if I talk to you about them? That’s one thing I miss—”

  He shut his eyes, and Ruby waited. She knew the pain of missing Lovinia.

  When he opened his eyes again, she said, “I know how valuable it can be to talk about things that are going through your mind, and I’m a good listener.”

  Gideon tapped the table with one finger until Daniel grabbed it and stuck it in his mouth. He smiled at his son, then looked at Ruby.

  “I’m not sure about the condition of the roof.” He looked up toward the ceiling. “It seems to be solid, but with rain coming, I’m not sure if we’ll stay dry.”

  “I’ll keep a watch out for leaks and let you know.”

  “I’ll still want to replace the roof before winter. Does your daed have a shingle cutter?”

  “I think so. You’ll have to ask him.”

  Gideon tapped the table again and sighed. “Another thing. The election for a new minister will be in two weeks. I understand that the church recently lost one?”

  Ruby nodded as she stirred the grain. “Since our bishop moved away, Amos has been the only preacher.”

  “Abraham asked if he could tell the others that I was already a minister and suggested that I could serve as one here.”

  “That is a good idea. I’m sure you were a wonderful minister in your church in Maryland.”

  Gideon shook his head. “I wasn’t. My flock is scattered, and I’m no longer a minister. I’m not certain I could ever be one again.”

  “You must be. You are thoughtful and kind. People listen to you and want to confide in you.” She pressed her lips together before she said too much, then changed the direction of her thoughts. “God doesn’t withdraw his calling so easily.”

  “That’s the same thing Abraham said.”

  Ruby put more wood on the fire. The heat was beginning to warm the top of the stove, but it would be several minutes before she would be able to start cooking the bacon, so she sat at the table with Gideon. “Daed is usually right.”

  He didn’t look at her.

  “What else?” she asked.

  “I can’t stop thinking about Morgan’s Raiders coming this way.”

  “We don’t know they’re headed toward us. We only heard that they are in Ohio.”

  Gideon rubbed at a rough place on the table. Daniel bounced on his knee, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You never know which way they’ll go. If they come here—”

  Ruby leaned toward him. “You don’t know that they will. That trouble is for tomorrow. We only need to worry about today.”

  “But we need to be prepared. We need to find a place in
the woods for you and the children to hide, and we need to be able to hide the stock too. The grain in the fields . . . well, they’ll probably just trample it.” His eyes glimmered in the light from the lamp in the center of the table as he looked at Ruby. “I know what these soldiers are capable of. We need to be ready for them.”

  “Have you talked to Daed about this? Or anyone else?”

  “You know they wouldn’t understand the need, just like you. You’ve never lived through it, so you don’t know the devastation they leave behind and the violence they’re capable of.”

  Gideon was right, she had never experienced what he described. But soldiers had passed near them before, volunteers on their way east to join the army. They had left the farms alone as they passed by. Then she remembered Jonas’s letter and his description of the aftermath of the battle in Pennsylvania. Maybe Gideon was right to be concerned.

  Daniel wiggled in Gideon’s lap and he turned the baby toward him, making faces to keep the little one amused. Ruby let concerns about the war slide away as the bacon started sizzling. She rose to stir the oatmeal. It wasn’t beginning to steam yet, so she moved the bacon to a cooler part of the stove to continue cooking slowly.

  When she turned back to the table, Gideon was staring at her.

  “What are you thinking about now?”

  She pumped water into the coffeepot and poured grounds in. After setting it on the stove, she sat in her chair again, taking Daniel as he reached for her.

  Gideon tapped the table again with his finger, frowning as he watched it. “Has Salome Beiler said anything to you about me?”

  “Salome rarely speaks to me. I don’t think she considers me a good example of an Amish woman. Why?”

  “I have noticed her watching me. Watching us when we were standing together a couple weeks ago. She didn’t look happy.”

  Ruby sighed, then went to the stove with Daniel on her hip. The oatmeal was steaming, and she stirred it before turning back to Gideon. “Salome has appointed herself to be the overseer of the women in the church since her husband is the minister. In all the years I’ve known her, she has never approved of me.”

  Ruby turned the bacon. Salome’s disapproval had heightened when Ruby was a young woman. Could she know about Ned Hamlin? She hitched Daniel higher on her hip. No one knew about him except for Elizabeth, and her sister would never confide in Salome.

  “So I should ignore her.” Gideon leaned back in his chair.

  “If she has a concern about you, she’ll take it to Amos first. If he thinks there’s something to complain about, he’ll let you know.” Ruby turned to Gideon. “Breakfast is almost ready. Would you hold Daniel while I call the children?”

  “I’ll get the children. The smell of the bacon frying is making me hungry, and you still have eggs to cook.” He took Daniel from her, then caught her elbow before she could turn back to the stove. “I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. It helps me clear my thoughts.”

  His eyes were soft in the lamplight and the pressure of his hand was warm and safe. Not the adrenaline-pulsing rush she had felt during her one week with Ned, but comforting, asking for more. Asking for . . . love?

  He squeezed her arm gently, then went up the stairs. Ruby rubbed her elbow, now rapidly cooling. She must have only been imagining it. She didn’t deserve anyone’s love. She didn’t.

  10

  Abraham brought the cow over that afternoon as he had promised. Gideon had spent the morning making a pen for her in the barn and repairing the fence that formed the boundary of the pasture. When he had first looked at the barn, he hadn’t thought it was salvageable, but when he had examined it, he saw that the roof had been sagging because one of the ridgepole’s supports had broken. Samuel and Abraham, along with the three Stuckey brothers, worked with him on Saturday, and now the roof was as solid as the day it had been built.

  “That old barn looks almost new,” Abraham said as he led the cow up the lane from the road. He tugged on his beard. “We’ve both turned a bit gray, that barn and I, but it looks like we’re good for a few more years.”

  Gideon glanced at the older man. “I’d say more than a few for both of you.”

  But the memory of the vision of the red bloom on Abraham’s white shirt made his palms sweat. He pushed away the thought that it might have been a premonition of his friend’s death.

  “We missed the children at our house this morning,” Abraham said as he put the cow in her pen and unfastened the lead from her rope halter. “With only Lydia and I for breakfast, the house was too quiet.”

  Gideon leaned on the side of the pen watching the cow. “When we showed up at your door last spring, I didn’t have any idea we would be imposing on you for so long.” He swallowed. If Lovinia hadn’t been ill, he might have driven on the next morning, and then he would have missed Abraham’s friendship. The sight of Ruby sitting at the table with him in the early morning with the lamplight making her face glow, reflecting off the tendrils of red hair, jolted him. If they hadn’t stayed in Weaver’s Creek, he would never have met Ruby.

  “We’re glad you stayed. And we’re also glad you’re settling so close. Lydia misses your children so much, you would think you had moved all the way to Millersburg.”

  Gideon grinned. “They’ve been gone for less than a day.”

  “And I passed Ruby on the road just now as she was taking them down to see Lydia.” Abraham chuckled. “My wife baked some cookies this morning, hoping she would have a chance to spoil them today.”

  “I appreciate all you’ve done for them. For us. My children have never known what it is like to have grandparents, but you and Lydia have given them that gift.”

  The cow found the hay Gideon had put in her manger and pulled some out with a twist of her head, the strands protruding from her mouth like whiskers as she watched them.

  “The Good Lord brought you and your family to us.” Abraham leaned his forearms on the top plank of the pen. “That brings me to the subject of our church. We need you as a minister. We need you to fulfill your calling.”

  Gideon’s head felt light and he took a deep breath, whooshing it out. How many times would Abraham bring this up? “That calling is over. I failed, and the Lord won’t ask me again. Look at King Saul, in the Bible. He failed, and God removed his blessing, putting David in his place.”

  “There are many more examples in the Bible of God using people who failed to accomplish his purpose. That same King David comes to mind. He sinned against the Lord many times, most notably in the affair with Bathsheba, but the Bible still refers to him as a man after God’s own heart.”

  Gideon didn’t answer. How could he? Abraham didn’t know how completely he had failed. How he had gone against the teachings of the church and God’s Word. Because of him, a man was dead. Because of him, his wife was gone. Because of him, their little church in Maryland had broken up, the members scattered.

  “I could list many more,” Abraham said. “Paul, Peter—”

  “You don’t have to name them.” Gideon ran a hand over his face. “Maybe I heard God wrong and he never called me to be a minister in the first place.”

  “You were chosen by lot from among the members of your church?”

  Gideon nodded.

  “Then you were chosen to shepherd the flock.” Abraham stepped closer to him. “What are you afraid of?”

  Still leaning on the top board of the cow’s pen, Gideon buried his face in his hands. “I lost my flock. I neglected them, and they scattered. I don’t deserve that kind of responsibility.”

  Abraham was silent for a moment. “I have a question for you. Whose church do you serve? Yours, or God’s?”

  Gideon peered at the other man. What point was he trying to make?

  “The church is God’s church.”

  “That’s right. And the people of the church are God’s people, his sheep. The minister doesn’t own them, and he isn’t the shepherd. Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd. The best the minister
can be is a faithful hireling. And Christ will never desert either his hired man or his flock.”

  Gideon closed his eyes again. Abraham was wrong. God had deserted him from the time he had first heard the roll of the drums echoing over the ridge last spring. From that time until now, his life had gone terribly, horribly wrong, and everyone else had suffered for it.

  Mein Herr . . .

  He massaged the bridge of his nose. “You don’t know what I’ve done. You don’t know how wrong everything has gone. I’m not fit to be a minister.”

  Gideon suppressed a shudder. He didn’t even deserve to be a member of the church . . . if Abraham knew, he would send Gideon and his family on their way.

  “You’ve said that before, that you think you’re responsible for everything that has happened to you.”

  “I know I am.”

  Abraham sighed, and Gideon waited. The older man had to see that Gideon was right.

  “Imagine you are driving a spring wagon with a spirited team hitched to it. A green, barely trained team of horses.”

  Gideon turned and leaned his back against the cow pen. He remembered a team like that, the ones he had raised from colts. They had been stolen by the army more than a year ago. Where were they now?

  “You’re holding on to the reins, in control, even though the horses are fighting against you.”

  Gideon nodded. What did this little game have to do with him?

  “Now imagine that I’m sitting on the seat beside you, and I reach over, put my hands over yours, and try to drive the horses myself.”

  “That could lead to a crash. The horses wouldn’t know who is driving and they would be confused.”

  “That’s right.” Abraham leaned into the pen and scratched the cow’s face.

  Gideon saw Abraham’s point. “I’m trying to control my life, but I’m not the driver. God is.” A cold stream of ice made its way through his stomach. “But if I let go of the reins . . .” He let his voice trail off. When he thought he controlled his life, it had been a disaster. Memories of the past year flashed through his mind, then lingered on Lovinia’s face. “If I let go of the reins the wagon will crash.”