by Jan Drexler
“That should do it,” Guy said, straightening up. “Listen to the sap ring on the bottom of the bucket.”
All around them, drops of sap fell into the buckets they had emptied, filling the woods with a pinging noise.
Suddenly, a sharp crack rang through the woods, followed by a cry. Without a word, Guy ran through the soggy snow toward the sound. Judith ran after him. This was the direction David had gone.
Guy stopped at the edge of a small gully, next to a creek. David lay in the snow below him, his face white.
“Be careful.” David held his hand up in warning. “The edge gave way under me, and that’s why I fell.”
“There’s the problem.” Guy pointed to a broken tree trunk. Snow had been shaken off and the jagged edges showed where it had broken under David’s weight. Guy tested it by stepping on it, and the log cracked underneath him. “This log has rotted through.”
He jumped down to where David was still lying in the deep snow. The older man’s eyes had closed. Guy knelt next to him, then shot a glance at Judith.
“Go get help. Quick.”
Judith turned and ran back through the woods, not stopping until she reached the sugar shack. Matthew and Elam were emptying the barrel on the back of Matthew’s sled, while one of his brothers waited for his turn to unload.
“Help!” Judith shouted, trying to catch her breath. “There’s been an accident.”
All the men turned toward her, the sap forgotten.
“Who?” Matthew asked, grabbing his team’s bridles and turning them to head back the way Judith had come. “Where?”
“David.” Judith couldn’t speak, she was breathing so hard. She pointed with one hand into the woods. “Guy is with him. He said to hurry.”
Matthew’s brother Manassas jumped onto the sled and pushed the empty sap barrel off the back as Matthew urged the team to go as fast as they could through the wet snow and mud. Elam jumped on, too, and Matthew’s nephews followed, running in the packed snow of the trail.
Sarai, Matthew’s mother, had come out of the sugar shack at the commotion and grasped Judith’s arms before she could strike out after them.
“Don’t try to follow them. I’ll need your help here.”
Judith nodded, and the tears she had held back started falling. Her last glimpse of Guy’s face haunted her, full of fear and a deep sorrow. David had been lying still. Too still.
* * *
Melting snow seeped through the layers of clothing Verna had made him wear, and Guy was glad he had listened to her. If he was getting wet and cold, sitting here beside David, how cold must the other man be? Since Judith had gone for help, David hadn’t moved. Guy had to look closely to make sure he was breathing, but David had lost consciousness and was lying on his back beside the gurgling stream, as still as death.
“Hurry, hurry,” Guy muttered. A prayer? Maybe. He swallowed a threatening panic, tasting the bile. He had to remain calm. He had to think clearly to help David.
The older man’s face was white above his graying beard, his eyelids partially open. Guy leaned closer. David couldn’t die. He couldn’t. What would Verna do without her husband?
Guy grabbed the end of his leather glove in his teeth and pulled it off. Touching David’s white cheek with the back of his hand, he felt a bit of warmth. The injured man’s breathing was shallow, but he was alive. His breath whooshing out in relief, Guy sat back on his heels. What would he do without David’s guidance in his life? The old man had to survive this.
Guy bit his lip. David should have reacted to his touch. Before Judith left to get help, he had been awake. He had talked to them, so the fall hadn’t knocked him out. Something was terribly wrong.
Grasping David’s hand again, Guy leaned close to the still form. “Don’t leave me, David.” There was no movement.
After too many breaths, too much time, the sound of horses and the jingle of harness echoed through the woods. Then Matthew’s head peered over the embankment.
“What happened?”
“That dead log gave way underneath him.”
Manassas and Elam joined Matthew, and Elam slid down the slope, landing next to Guy. “Has he been unconscious the whole time?”
Guy thought he understood the question asked in Deitsch. “Ne. He was awake when Judith and I found him. He warned us to be careful so we wouldn’t fall, too.”
Elam felt David’s face the way Guy had. “David,” he said. When David didn’t respond, he called again, louder and with more force. “David! Can you hear me?”
David’s eyes fluttered, then opened. He took a deep breath and let it out, then closed his eyes again.
“David,” Elam called again. “Talk to me. Do you hurt anywhere?”
A groan was the only answer. Guy felt a bubble of panic rise in his chest. Why didn’t David wake up?
Elam’s expression was determined rather than scared, and Guy took a breath. If Elam could stay calm, so could he.
“David, try to move your arms.”
“He moved one earlier,” Guy said.
David’s hands twitched. “Cold. I’m cold,” he said.
Elam frowned. “Move your legs next. First the left one.”
David’s left knee raised slightly, then fell back to the ground.
“Now try your right leg.”
During the pause that followed, Guy’s fists clenched and unclenched. No movement. Then David groaned.
“It looks like his right leg might be broken,” Matthew said.
“My hip,” David whispered. “Hurts.”
Guy glanced at Elam’s face. The other man frowned as he stroked his beard.
Finally, he stood. “We need to get him to the house, and we need the doctor. His hip might be broken, or his leg. Either way, we need to handle him carefully.”
“Just tell us what to do, Daed,” Matthew said, speaking for all of them.
“All right. You boys go for the doctor. Take my buggy and hitch Storm to it. He’s fast and spooks easy, but you can handle him.”
The boys ran off before Guy could even gauge their reaction to their grandfather’s trust in them.
“Manassas, we need something to use for a stretcher. There’s a ladder in the sugaring shed that will work. And tell Mamm to send some blankets.”
Manassas took off at a run, following his sons, while Matthew turned the sled around, ready for the journey back to the house. Guy didn’t move from David’s side.
“Will he be all right?”
Elam locked eyes with him for a long minute. “That’s in God’s hands. We’ll do the best we can to keep from hurting him more than he is already, but it’s going to be tricky.”
When Manassas got back with the ladder, the four of them worked together to move David’s inert form from his cold bed in the snow to the makeshift stretcher. Underneath him was the rocky stream bed, covered in stones. Blood had seeped from a cut on David’s head and covered a large rock. Guy swallowed at the thought of David falling onto it with no warning.
“Careful now, boys,” Elam said. “Keep your movements steady.”
By the time they reached the Beacheys’ house and laid David on the bed in a downstairs bedroom, the doctor had arrived. Guy pressed against the wall of the little room, giving the doctor as much space as he could, but refused to file into the kitchen with the others. Judith stayed with him, slipping her hand into his.
As Guy watched the doctor examine David, Judith’s grip tightened.
“He’ll be all right,” she said, standing on her toes to whisper into his ear. “Everyone in the kitchen is praying for him, and the doctor knows what he is doing.”
Guy squeezed her hand. Her encouraging words flowed through him, easing the tightness and strengthening him. The doctor continued to work in silence while Guy waited. Judith leaned against him and he encircle
d her shoulders with one arm. He needed her here, with him. As David’s white face remained still, fear drummed in his heart. If not for Judith’s presence, the earth would be rocking beneath his feet.
After the boys brought the doctor, they had gone again to fetch Verna. Her voice, strong and sure, drifted into the room before her, like waves pushed by a boat in a quiet lake.
“Doctor,” she said. “How is he?”
The doctor stood, stuffing his stethoscope into his black bag. He glanced at Guy, then focused on Verna.
“He has had a bad fall, and some bones might be broken. He also suffered a blow to his head, and it concerns me that he remains unconscious. There could be some internal bleeding.”
“Can we take him home, doctor?” Verna asked.
“Not for some time, I’m afraid,” the doctor said. “We can’t risk moving him.”
Verna seemed to age several years at the doctor’s words, and reached one shaking arm toward Guy. He went to her, willing his strength to support her. She shuddered slightly as he took her in his arms, and she rested her forehead against his shoulder.
“Do whatever needs to be done, doctor,” Guy said, feeling Verna nod in agreement as he spoke the words.
The doctor’s eyebrows raised. “And you are...?”
Guy felt the pressure of a weight on his shoulders. He took a breath, holding Verna with a tight grip.
“I’m...”
“Our son,” Verna said, her hand on his chest, looking up at him. “Guy is our son.”
Chapter Nine
Guy woke to the delicious scent of bacon frying, and for a long, comfortable minute he lay still, absorbing the fragrance. Only his nose was out of the covers, and he let his mind drift until the events of the past two days crowded into his consciousness and tugged him into a groggy wakefulness. Kicking the covers off, Guy rolled until he sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.
David. After the morning chores were done, he needed to go to the Beacheys’ to see how David was doing and to take Verna the things she had asked him to fetch.
That thought brought him fully awake. He should be alone in the house, but who was frying bacon? That aroma hadn’t only been in his dreams.
After he dressed, he tiptoed down the stairs in his stocking feet, trying to talk himself out of his worries. No thief would take the time to fry bacon. Perhaps Verna had come home, after all. Perhaps David was well again, and life could get back to normal.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and peered around the corner into the kitchen. Judith was there, working at the stove, with Eli sitting at the table eating a slice of bread. As Guy stepped into the room, Eli saw him and grinned. Judith still had her back to him. She had put the bacon on a plate on the stove to keep warm and was cracking eggs one by one and dropping them into the hot pan. The bacon grease sputtered as they hit and Guy’s stomach growled.
Guy leaned against the doorframe, watching her. He had taken Verna’s work for granted. Her meals were always delicious and on the table right when he and David came in from working around the farm, a methodical efficiency born of long years of practice. Judith worked with as much efficiency, but her movements expressed the grace of a dancer, her skirt swaying, each movement choreographed to perfection as her tasks came together in a meal just for him.
When she turned to set the table, she saw him, but didn’t pause in her work.
“I see the sleepyhead has finally appeared. I thought I would have to do the barn work as well as make the breakfast.”
The cows. Guy had slept through milking time. Why hadn’t their bawling woken him up earlier?
Pushing past Judith, Guy glanced at the frying eggs with regret. “I need to get to the barn. Keep my breakfast warm, if you can.”
“Don’t worry. Matthew already milked and put the cows out in the pasture. He left the separating for you to do, and the rest of the chores. But you can do those after you finish eating.”
“Matthew did that? Why?”
Judith shrugged as she slid the eggs from the frying pan onto a hot serving platter. “That’s what neighbors do when there’s a need. He knew you returned home late last night and thought you needed the rest.” She put the eggs on the table along with the platter of bacon, then reached into the oven for a stack of hotcakes that had been keeping warm.
She pointed to the chair next to Eli. “Go ahead and sit down. I’m not going to eat all this food by myself.”
Guy sat, and without a word, they both bowed their heads for the silent prayer. But he couldn’t pray, not with Judith sitting across the table from him and Eli staring. His thoughts kept drifting to David and Verna, the responsibilities of the farm. How they were depending on him. He was even beginning to understand why the farm was so important. It was their home and their life.
He squeezed his eyes tight, trying to banish Verna’s echoing voice, but the thought still swirled. To the doctor, she had referred to him as their son, but he wasn’t a son to anyone but Frank Hoover. He had no home. No life of his own.
Eli stirred, restless at the length of the prayer time, but Guy wasn’t done. A fleeting thought, perhaps a prayer, ran through his head. That God would see fit to give him a place where he belonged. A family. A future.
He shook his head, sitting back in his chair as he opened his eyes. That was a pipe dream, like all the others.
As Judith put one of the fried eggs on Eli’s plate, Guy let his gaze feast on the breakfast she had prepared for him. He hadn’t asked her to do it. He hadn’t even considered that she might. But she had thought of him and his needs and had put them before her own.
“Denki,” he said, turning his spoon over and back again. He couldn’t look at her. “I’m sure you had plenty of your own work to do instead of making breakfast for me.” He cleared away a tickle that had appeared in his throat.
“I was hungry, too, and Eli hasn’t had his breakfast yet.” Judith passed the plate of eggs to him and took hotcakes for herself and Eli. “I knew that Verna was at Deacon Beachey’s.” She cut Eli’s hotcake into bites for him. “And bachelors are notorious for fixing themselves poor meals.”
“You can say that again.” Guy reached for the hotcakes. “I ate dinner at the Beacheys’ yesterday, but only had some bread and cheese for supper last night.”
He piled a half dozen hotcakes on his plate, spreading a generous smear of butter on each one. As the golden stream of maple syrup flowed onto the stack, his eyes blurred. Would maple syrup always remind him of David’s accident? And what if he wasn’t better this morning? What if...?
Half blinded by his watering eyes, Guy set the little glass pitcher down before he spilled the syrup.
“Is everything all right?” Judith paused with a forkful of eggs partway to her mouth.
Guy wiped his forearm across his face. “Ja, I’m all right. The maple syrup just reminded me of David.”
“How is he doing? We didn’t get over there to see him yesterday.”
He knew that. He had expected Judith to come, but the long hours by David’s bedside had dragged on without her. There were visitors, folks from the church who had heard of the accident and came to offer their support and help, but no Judith. No calm presence to hold him up under the strain.
“The doctor said he’s doing as well as we can expect. He woke up and talked to us for a while, but spent most of the time sleeping. The doctor said that was a good sign.”
“I’m glad.”
Guy looked up to meet her smile.
“I missed you yesterday.”
“I spent the day at Bram’s. With the new baby, I knew Ellie would need help with the other children.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. The irony wasn’t lost on him. A new baby’s cries filled one home, while at Deacon Beachey’s, the day had felt like a deathwatch.
“That’s good. Ev
eryone is all right?”
With that simple question, Judith’s enthusiasm bubbled up. Guy finished his hotcakes and his eggs, and was down to the last piece of bacon while she talked nonstop about the baby and the other children, and who knew what else.
“And you’ll never guess what they named her.”
Her words drifted into the swirl of thoughts he had been wading through while she talked. The worry about David, Verna and the farm kept breaking through so that he hadn’t kept track of everything she had said.
“What they named who?”
Her face turned bright pink as she glared at him. Without another word, she washed Eli’s hands and face and set him on the floor to play. Then she grabbed the empty dishes off the table and dumped them into the dishpan. Seizing the dipper from above the stove, she took the lid off the reservoir and started ladling hot water into the pan.
He watched her stiff shoulders as Eli came over to him, oblivious of his aunt’s mood.
“Up?”
Guy absently took the little boy on his knee and let Eli pull on his suspenders.
“Horses.” Eli said, pushing on Guy’s stomach to get his attention. “See horses?”
“Ja. I’ll take you to see the horses.”
Guy stood up, Eli in his arms. He took a step toward Judith but thought better of getting too close.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Her glare could have peeled paint.
“I’ll take Eli out to see the animals, then I’ll bring him in before I start the chores.” He took a step toward the door as she turned back to shaving soap into the dishpan. “I appreciate the breakfast. More than you know.”
He helped Eli put on his jacket and grabbed his hat from the hook. Glancing at Judith’s rigid back, he regretted whatever he had done to make her angry. If he knew more about women, he might know what to do to bring back that peaceful feeling that had reigned during breakfast.
“Come on, Eli.” He took the little boy’s hand. “Let’s go see the horses.”
