by Jan Drexler
“Gideon Fischer.”
Mother stood. “I object to that nomination.”
Wilhelm Stuckey stood up on the men’s side. “You can’t object to a nomination. They were given in due order, and we must accept them.”
“But that man doesn’t meet the requirements. He is a sinner.”
Wilhelm looked at the folks sitting on the benches. “And who among us isn’t a sinner who has been forgiven by the grace of our Lord?”
Mother looked furious. “I meant, he is living in unrepentant sin right now.”
Abraham took a step forward from the line of nominees standing at the front of the room. “What sin do you accuse him of, Salome?”
“He is carrying on with your daughter, Ruby.” Mother pointed at Ruby, standing in the back of the room with Daniel in her arms. “And they are doing it right under your nose, in the house you provided for them.”
Mother looked at the women sitting around her, waiting for them to join in her protest, but even though the people of the congregation talked among themselves, no one stood up to join in Salome’s accusation.
Finally, Lydia stood, waiting for everyone’s attention. When the room was quiet, she said, “I have known Gideon since he brought his family to Weaver’s Creek. I knew his wife, and I know his children. Most of all, I know my daughter, Ruby. I have seen no evidence of the truth of Salome’s accusation in all that time.”
Mother frowned. “You must have seen how close they are and how much time they spend together.”
Lydia nodded her agreement. “Talking together, ja. Ruby promised Gideon’s wife that she would care for the children after the poor woman passed on, and she is doing an admirable job. She and Gideon often confer on how to handle issues that come up.”
Mother looked around again. “I’ve seen her go to his house early in the morning, much earlier than is suitable for a normal caller.”
Millie tugged at Mother’s skirt, her face red with embarrassment. “Mother, sit down. You just heard that Ruby isn’t doing anything more than caring for the children. She would need to be at the house early to make their breakfast.”
Mother cast a glance at Father, but he wasn’t looking at her. He studied the paper in his hand. Mother sat down on her bench with a thump.
“The next names on the list are Wilhelm Stuckey and Karl Stuckey.”
Levi nodded to himself. Either one of Katie’s brothers would be a good minister.
Father brought six copies of the Ausbund from the bedroom and laid them on the table in the front of the room.
“As you know,” he said, “we are selecting two ministers today, so two of these books have the lots hidden inside. We will now have a time of silent prayer before the candidates select their books.”
During the prayer time, Levi couldn’t focus. He felt a twinge of disappointment that his name hadn’t been on the list of nominees. At one time, he would have been in despair, knowing that years could pass before the church needed to select another minister, but not today. He searched his mind, his heart . . . but he only found contentment and relief. The Good Lord knew he wasn’t ready for such a task. A thought passed through his mind that the preparation the Lord had for him might be unpleasant, or even sorrowful. Gideon had been through such trials, and it had made him wise and compassionate. Levi sighed.
Whatever it takes, Lord, make me more like you.
He shuddered slightly. What if the Lord answered his prayer?
Father cleared his throat and the selections began. The men chose their books in the order their names had been called.
Abraham was first. He leafed through the thick hymnbook, but no slip of paper appeared.
Simeon Keck was next. Levi knew God’s will must be done, but he couldn’t help hoping that Simeon would not be one of the new ministers. In Levi’s opinion, he was too sympathetic to the change-minded part of the church. But there was no slip in his book, either.
The same for Johan Lehman, and then it was Gideon’s turn.
Gideon was hesitant, reaching for one book, then changed his mind and took a different one. As soon as he started turning the pages, a slip of paper fluttered to the table. Gideon stopped, his head bowed, but murmurs of approval went through the congregation.
Wilhelm also hesitated. There were only two books left. He finally took the one Gideon had almost chosen, and the second slip appeared. Wilhelm held it between two fingers as if in disbelief. Karl put his arm around his brother and held him in a tight hug.
Father cleared his throat again. “Gideon and Wilhelm are our new ministers. The other nominees may take their seats, and we will have a time of prayer for the men God has selected for us.”
As Father started to pray, Levi was surprised to hear humility in his voice rather than his usual droning tone. He looked at him, standing in front of the people, his hands on the shoulders of the two men who had just been chosen to lead the community alongside him. His tone might be humble, but his stance was just as unyielding as ever. Levi looked toward Mother. She sat next to Millie, but her head was not bowed. She was staring at Father with a look Levi could only describe as disappointment.
Perhaps he could stay at Gideon’s house tonight. He didn’t want to be at home while Mother and Father discussed today’s events.
Amos’s prayer had just started when Gideon heard a sound from outside the house that left his mouth dry.
It was the roll of hoofbeats drumming on packed earth. The sound grew louder and distracted the congregation. Abraham left the meeting, heading toward the kitchen door, and Gideon followed, walking down the aisle between the two rows of benches.
Gideon passed the kitchen table, hurrying to stop Abraham before he opened the back door, but he was too late. The screen door moved slowly, swinging out as Gideon looked past it to see mounted men lined up at the edge of the porch. Beyond them Gideon saw the children in the barnyard. The older girls who had been watching them had gathered them together in the center of the yard, exposed and vulnerable.
“What can we do for you?” Abraham asked. His voice didn’t quaver as he took a step onto the porch.
“We’re here to make an example.”
The leader, a captain, raised his pistol, pointing it at Abraham. The man’s finger tightened on the trigger, bright in the morning sunlight. The trigger slid back—
“No!”
Gideon leaped forward as the gun exploded in black powder, smoke, and sound.
He grasped Abraham’s shoulders as the older man fell back into his arms, a bloom of red on the front of his white shirt. Abraham’s legs crumpled and they both fell to the floor in the doorway.
“Are you ready for the same?” the rebel asked as he raised his gun again.
Trapped under Abraham’s limp body, Gideon stared at the man’s finger, still on the trigger. But he was wedged in the doorframe, unable to scramble to his feet.
The other raiders laughed. One of their voices squeaked shrill, then deep. Gideon focused his gaze on the boy until his laughter stopped. The boy licked his lips, then cast a nervous glance at the captain.
Behind him, Gideon heard folks in the congregation whispering, and someone sobbed. Out in the barnyard, the children had disappeared. Gideon could only hope that the girls had hidden them somewhere far away. Gideon gave up trying to stand and clutched Abraham closer.
“I’ve heard of you Amish,” the captain said as he spit tobacco juice into the grass at the edge of the porch. “You won’t fight to save your own lives.” He lifted the gun and gestured toward Gideon. “You stay right there, and my boys will take what we need. We’re after horses and feed today, and I’m sure there are plenty of both in yonder barn.”
He turned toward his men. “Corporal, take as much feed as you can carry, and the best of the horses. If we need more, we know where to find it.”
The captain spit again, this time the brown juice hitting Abraham’s shoe. “We’ll see y’all again. This is a friendly neighborhood, and we like it here.” His
eyes narrowed. “Just don’t get any ideas about calling in help. We’ll be watching the roads in and out of here. One of you leaves, that’s the one who’ll get it next.”
His men came riding out of the barn, leading the horses by their halters. Gideon was sick as he saw Samson and Delilah run across the stone bridge behind the soldiers, and then Abraham’s team. Well trained and hard workers, all the horses strained at their lead ropes.
Then they were gone. Gideon waited until the last soldier was out of sight up the hill, then tore off his coat and pressed the wadded fabric into Abraham’s wound.
“Help me get him inside,” he called to the group behind him. “If he hasn’t lost too much blood, we can still save his life.”
Levi and Caleb helped pull Abraham into the kitchen, then Gideon knelt beside the wounded man in the middle of the kitchen floor. He pressed his coat, now red and sticky, into Abraham’s shoulder. He felt heat increase behind him as someone lit the stove, then Lydia was kneeling beside him.
“What do we need to do?” she asked, her voice and face calm. She was ready to face this trial.
“The first thing to do is to slow the bleeding, then we’ll need to examine the wound. The bullet is in there somewhere, and we need to get it out.”
“I’ll get the doctor from Berlin,” someone said.
“Wait. No one can leave without being killed, remember?” Gideon’s hands shook. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We’ll have to take care of him ourselves.”
“Have you ever—” Lydia’s voice broke, then strengthened again. “Have you ever removed a bullet?”
“I’ve seen it done.”
Gideon took another deep breath. He had to do this. He didn’t have any other choice if Abraham was going to survive. He looked away from Abraham for the first time, searching the crowd around him. Where was Ruby? Where were his children?
Abraham groaned as he began to regain consciousness.
“Lydia, we will need some laudanum if you have any.”
“We’re already heating up some water,” Levi said from behind him. “What else do we need?”
“Strips of clean cloth for bandages, and we should get him off the floor.”
Lydia stood, taking charge. “There are some sheets in the cupboard under the stairs,” she said. “We’ll use one for a stretcher to carry him into the bedroom. Some of you girls can cut another one into strips. Anna, you know where I keep the laudanum.”
As the crowd shifted, some going outside, some to follow Lydia’s instructions, Gideon lifted his bloody coat from Abraham’s shoulder. The bleeding had slowed, but still oozed into the gaping wound. Just before the blood filled the cavity, he glimpsed the bullet lodged next to a bone. The wound looked clean, with no bullet or bone fragments to worry about. He pressed the cloth against the wound again.
“What happened to the children? Where are they?” he asked, but no one heard him.
He searched the room and finally found Ruby. She sat on one of the church benches, Daniel in one arm, with Ezra and the girls leaning close to her. Her face was splotchy under her freckles and her eyes were puffy, as if she was holding in her tears. He tried to give her a reassuring smile and saw the corners of her mouth turn up a bit.
Abraham came to full consciousness and reached his right hand toward his wounded shoulder.
“Abraham,” Gideon said, and waited until the man’s eyes focused on his. “You’ve been wounded, and we need to take the bullet out.”
“Lydia? Is she all right?”
“I’m fine,” Lydia said as she knelt next to them again. The bottle of laudanum and a spoon were in her hands. “No one else is hurt, and the soldiers are gone.”
“The children—” Abraham grunted as he struggled to sit up. “The children were in the barnyard . . .” He lay back, exhausted.
“The children are safe.” Lydia poured some of the brown liquid into the spoon. “You need to take this. It will make you more comfortable.”
“It will put me to sleep,” Abraham said, frowning.
Gideon caught his hand as Abraham tried to push the spoon away. “You will want to be asleep. Moving you is going to hurt awfully bad.”
Abraham let Lydia spoon the laudanum into his mouth, then relaxed, grimacing.
“Does it hurt?” Lydia asked.
“It tastes . . . terrible . . .”
Abraham’s eyes closed, and Gideon gave Ruby a nod. She smiled then and spoke to the children.
Someone brought a sheet and they worked to lift Abraham onto it. Gideon released the pressure on the wound as the men carried Abraham into the bedroom, then he sat next to him and examined his shoulder, using the clean strips from the sheet to sponge away the blood as it seeped in. The bullet wasn’t too far in. It looked like he could reach in with a thumb and finger and pluck it out, but the doctor he had observed one time in Virginia had used the point of a knife.
Gideon sat back, leaving the cloth on the wound.
Mein Herr . . . He licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. Give me strength.
15
Ruby longed to be with Mamm as the men carried Daed into the bedroom, but her first thoughts were for the children.
Roseanna and Sophia stood by her side, leaning close as she held Daniel in one arm and Ezra on her lap.
“Is Abraham going to die?” Roseanna asked, her eyes wide as she gazed at the bedroom door.
Ruby swallowed. “I don’t know. We have to wait and see.”
“He got shot,” Sophia said, taking her thumb out of her mouth. “When folks get shot, they die.”
“Have you seen someone shot before?” Ruby asked.
Roseanna shook her head. “Soldiers came, and they were hurt. Mamm said they had been shot in the war. One of them died and they buried him in our woods.”
Sophia nodded. “He died. He was a soldier. He was a bad man.”
Ruby looked at their faces. Both girls were calm. Resigned. They had witnessed much more of the results of war than she had thought. “Who told you he was a bad man?”
Roseanna shrugged her shoulders. “The soldiers killed Bessie and ate her. They killed the pig, too, and all the little pigs. When they left, they took all of our food. That’s what bad men do.”
Ruby didn’t answer right away. Who was she to judge which men were bad and which ones weren’t? Although the soldiers who had ridden into their farmyard this afternoon certainly seemed like they were bad. Violent. Ruthless. But did they deserve Sophia’s and Roseanna’s calm pronouncement? Were they any worse than she was?
Her stomach turned. They were enemies, and the Good Book was clear on how they were to treat their enemies.
“We must forgive those men,” she said.
She spoke quietly, more to herself than to the girls, but Roseanna heard her.
“But they’re bad.”
Ruby nodded. “Jesus said we must love our enemies and pray for them.” She hugged Ezra as he laid his head down on her shoulder. Did she really believe what she was saying?
She looked up to see Mamm take a seat on the bench in front of her.
“You are right. We must forgive those men and pray for those who persecute us.” She took Sophia onto her lap and looked around at the people who were still in the room. “Wilhelm, I don’t see Amos anywhere. Would you lead us all in prayer for forgiveness of these men?”
Wilhelm glanced at the closed bedroom door. “And we will pray for Gideon, as he seeks to remove the bullet from Abraham’s shoulder.” He cleared his throat. “Will you all join me in prayer?”
Ruby barely heard the words of Wilhelm’s prayer as her mind swirled with accusations. Her actions so many years ago had been a worse sin than that of the soldiers today. They had a reason for what they did, even if it was wrong, and they served a government. She had betrayed her conscience when she had spent those days with Ned, and she had betrayed her sister when she made her believe there was nothing wrong in seeing men who weren’t part of their church. She was
the older one, and she should have been the wiser one, but she had led her sister astray.
The soldier who shot Daed had sinned against him and his family, but she had sinned against God. She could see no forgiveness for her actions.
After Wilhelm ended his prayer, the folks who stayed in the house settled into the time of waiting while Mamm went into the bedroom where Gideon was working to remove the bullet from Daed’s shoulder.
Most of the families had gone to their homes, some of them fearful that they would find their own livestock stolen. Ruby heard Amos’s name mentioned several times.
“Where did he go?” Margaretta Stuckey asked. “He is our minister and should be here with us at this time.”
Katie came to sit on the bench across from Ruby, bringing her mother with her. “I don’t know where Amos is, but Wilhelm is still here, and Gideon. They’re both ministers now.”
Ruby hadn’t noticed when Amos left, but she agreed with Margaretta. Amos should be with them during this time.
Evening was coming, so Ruby found something for the children to eat, then took them upstairs. She sat with them until they were all asleep. Even Roseanna was tired after the day’s events. By the time Ruby came downstairs again, the sun was sinking below the western horizon. The Sabbath was nearly over.
Finally, the bedroom door opened. Gideon leaned against the doorway, his face more tired than Ruby had ever seen it. His undershirt was stained with blood, and his suspenders hung from his waist.
“The bullet is out, and we have cleaned the wound and closed it as well as we could. Abraham seems to be comfortable. We will need to wait for morning to see how he feels then.”
He walked into the kitchen to wash up, and Ruby slipped into the bedroom to fetch a clean shirt of Daed’s for him to wear. Mamm sat at the bedside, holding Daed’s hand.
“How is he?” Ruby whispered.
“He’s sleeping,” Mamm said.
Ruby gave her a hug. “I’ll be in the other room if you need anything. The children are asleep upstairs, and the rest of the people are going home.”
“Denki, Ruby. I’ll leave everything in your hands.”
