by Dale Cramer
Rachel and Miriam were fast becoming experts on the making of adobe. With their crew of Ada and the two little sons of Mary and Ezra, they were turning out bricks at a prodigious rate. Even Hope got into the act, though she mostly provided a riotous diversion. Twice she fell into the cistern, and the newer bricks all had paw prints in them until Miriam finally tied the dog in the shade of the wagon with a bowl of water.
During lunch Domingo wandered over to their adobe brickworks just uphill from the well. He had taken off his hat and shirt to work in the well. His upper body was lean and muscular, his shoulders broad and his waist narrow, though at the moment he looked like a savage – covered in mud from head to toe, his long hair matted and his pants plastered to his legs. The only clean spot on him was his right hand, which he had wiped off to eat. He took a bite from a big hunk of bread as he inspected the brickworks.
Rachel and Miriam, having finished their lunch, came over and stood on either side of him, proudly surveying their handiwork.
“Bueno, no?” Rachel said.
Domingo jammed the hunk of bread in his mouth and held it in his teeth while he reached down and hefted one of the driest bricks from its plank. He held the forty-pound brick in front of him at eye level for a second, and then let go.
The brick crashed down on the plank, landing on a corner and shattering into a half dozen big chunks.
Both the girls gasped, their mouths flying open in outrage.
“Es tú loco?” Rachel said, figuring it was probably not the right words, but he’d get the idea from the tone of her voice.
Domingo pulled the bread from his mouth, chewing while he toed the remains of the destroyed brick.
“Demasiada paja,” he said.
Miriam and Rachel stared at each other, their faces twisted in confusion. Miriam’s Spanish was better than Rachel’s, but even she didn’t understand what he’d said. They turned their palms up, the universal sign for Huh?
“Demasiada paja,” he repeated, nuzzling the rubble with a bare muddy toe, pointing at it with his bread.
“No entiendo esa palabra,” Miriam said. I don’t understand that word.
Domingo rolled his eyes. “Zu viel stroh!” he said, raising his voice. Too much straw. In High German.
They were stunned. It took a moment, but Rachel recovered first.
“You speak German?”
A casual nod. “Jah. I worked for Herr Schulman three years. I may not read or write, but I can hear and I pick up language quick. I have a good ear.”
He spoke with a heavy Spanish accent, but the words were right and they could understand him quite well.
“Does Schulman know you speak German?” Miriam asked. This was on Rachel’s mind too, but they had listened to Schulman enough to know it was unlikely.
Domingo flashed Miriam a devilish grin and stared at her for a moment before he shook his head. “Nein, cualnezqui. It was a great advantage, knowing what he said to his wife. He would never have spoken his mind if he knew I understood.”
Domingo then went on to explain about the straw. The drop test was normal, he said, a way to know if the mixture was right. If there was too little straw in the bricks, they would crack during the drying process. Too much, and they would crumble. A proper adobe brick could be dropped from shoulder height and not break – most of the time. It was not an exact science.
“Well then,” Rachel said, “we’ll cut down on the straw.”
Miriam was still gaping in astonishment. “Your German is pretty good,” she sputtered. “How could you work for the man three years and never tell him you learned his language?”
A sly smile lit his dark eyes. “There are two things you must know if you are to thrive in this land, cualnezqui. The first is, never tell anyone everything you know.”
Miriam’s brow furrowed and she looked at him a little sideways. “Cualnezqui,” she repeated, sounding out the syllables. “Twice you have called me this. I don’t know this word. Is it Nahuatl?”
“Sí.”
“What does it mean?”
He chuckled. “Friend,” he said. “Or neighbor. Whichever you like.”
“Thank you,” she said, blushing. “It sounds nice.”
Domingo shoved the last of the bread into his mud-smeared face and went back to the cistern without another word. Lesson over.
“Nahuatl, Spanish, and High German,” Miriam mused. “An ignorant savage who speaks three languages?”
“That we know of,” Rachel said. “And he has a sense of humor, too.”
Miriam’s eyes followed Domingo until he went out of sight down the ladder.
Chapter 20
Rachel sat up late Sunday night writing a letter to Jake at the makeshift table in the hovel, a kerosene lantern hissing and guttering beside her. The others had all gone to bed, most of them in the tents outside, a few in the hovel. Ada was having one of her bad nights, and Mamm lay against her in the corner, cooing to her and trying to get her to sleep. “Shhhh, little one. Gott knows. Shhhh.”
Rachel dipped her pen in the ink and paused, trying to sort out everything that had happened lately and choose the most important. She had planned to write Jake at least once a week but it just hadn’t been possible – there wasn’t time.
Dear Jake,
Gott has been good to us. The weather here is wonderful for mid May, with sunny days in the sixties and chilly nights. It only rained twice since we came, but the well is almost ready. Gma was good today, though we miss having a real minister, and of course all the others. We pray that a minister comes soon so we can have a real church.
She stopped writing at that point and sat dawdling with her loose hair and staring into space. There were thoughts she could not express because she feared Jake’s mother might read the letter – oh, how I miss you and long for you to hold me, to look into my eyes – and there were other things she would not say even to Jake. Some things were only for dreaming, but dream she did. Anyway, marriage was not even possible so long as no minister came to Paradise Valley.
Men are busy with the well, digging a basement for the house, and planting. The sweet corn is in already, and they are plowing for the field corn. Dat says the sweet corn is from that new seed Danny Chupp gave him. Danny told him if it gets good water it would be ready to pick two months from planting, but Dat says he’ll believe when he sees. If Danny was right, we’ll have ears to sell by August. Pretty good.
Everyone is working daylight to dark, coming home worn out and sleeping like the dead. There’s hardly even time to write. Last week Dat hired a Mexican named Domingo to help out. Two days later Domingo brought two of his cousins from San Rafael and Dat hired them, too. We all enjoy learning Spanish from them even though sometimes they laugh at how we say things. The way they really talk is not like in the book.
She paused again to wipe a tear from her eye because she could not write that there was only one voice she longed to hear, and his words were not Spanish.
Mamm’s feeling a little better. She stays busy with her kitchen garden, with Mary and Emma to help. Her garden is coming up nice and green but right now we have to carry water to it and weed it every day.
Emma says she thinks she is going to have a baby, and Mary too! Our little colony will be growing soon.
Emma. Lucky, lucky Emma. Life was easier now that they didn’t have to be quite so careful of their words. What must it be like for Emma, to be united with the man she loved and able to start a family together?
And what would Jake’s children look like? Would they have his eyes, his easy smile?
Harvey was out plowing and got bit by a rattlesnake! Praise Gott, he is fine now, and back at work. He says it still aches a little, and he will have a scar but it could have gone much worse. Answered prayers!
Miriam and I have become the best adobe brick makers in all of Mexico, with Ada and the little ones helping out – Mary’s boys like to mix the mud and straw with their feet.
Oh, and we got a new pet, a fine G
erman shepherd pup named Hope. She loves Miriam, a good thing because Miriam needed a friend just now.
Miriam. The one girl in all of Mexico with hopes slimmer than her own. Miriam hid it well, with busy hands and a placid, inscrutable face, but Rachel saw the pain in her sister’s eyes sometimes late at night, after prayers, and she knew what prayers Miriam had not spoken aloud.
Well, I’ll stop since it’s getting late. We miss you’uns terribly and count the days until you come.
Your friend,
Rachel
We. You’uns. Yes, Jake would read between the lines and hear the words I miss you. There was so much behind the words. She missed his voice, his touch, the way he looked at her. She missed the mere fact that he looked at her, that his eyes watched for her alone, and she fervently hoped, against all the natural angst and doubt that came with being a teenage girl, that somehow, across a thousand miles, his eyes would continue to look only for her.
In the end, she trusted Jake. He would read between the lines. Jake would understand, and smile at the closing words.
Your friend.
Indeed.
Chapter 21
The weeks passed and the corn sprouted, shooting up out of the ground as if it shared Rachel’s impatience. The men finished digging the well and lined the sides with rock hauled from an outcropping in the nearby ridge. Water poured in from the radial holes at a surprising rate, filling the cistern halfway to the top. They installed Schulman’s diesel pump for irrigating the fields and a hand pump for personal use, then built a tin-roofed shed over the whole thing.
By the time the corn was knee-high the men had finished digging the basement for the house. They hauled more rocks from the ridge and built the foundation walls with a wagonload of surplus lime mortar Señor Fuentes had graciously sold them from the hacienda warehouse, saving Dat a trip to Saltillo. Meanwhile, Rachel and Miriam and Ada and the children stacked up adobe bricks by the hundreds.
As soon as the well was finished the whole family moved their tents from the stable to their land. By keeping all the farm implements at the homestead instead of hauling them back and forth they gained nearly two hours of work time each day.
The weather had warmed to what passed for summer in the mountains, but still the temperatures seldom climbed into the eighties.
Late one Saturday afternoon Dat took a walk down through the field to see how the sweet corn was coming, taking his time for once, admiring the deep green stalks higher than his head. Emma and Rachel walked with him, a rare moment of calm.
“Gott is good,” he said, reaching out to rub the tassels between his callused fingers. “The earth here is very fertile, and Danny Chupp’s seed grew as quick as he said it would. This field is almost ready for harvest.” Then he glanced at Emma’s swollen belly and smiled. “Emma, I guess mebbe you’ll be bringing in a crop of your own soon.”
Emma blushed, and only Rachel knew why. Her time was closer than it should have been, and Emma couldn’t help being a little afraid of what her father would think if she delivered a baby in early fall when she’d only gotten married in March. Even a man could count. She changed the subject.
“Your big well has done mighty gut too, Dat. No more rain than we get, I don’t know where we’d be without that well.”
He nodded, stroked his graying beard. Rachel watched her dat’s eyes, and she could see how proud he was. Things had gone well. The Benders had gained a foothold in a new land in a remarkably short period of time.
“In a couple weeks the corn will be ready to pick and we can take a load to sell in Saltillo.” Dat looked up the hill at the half-finished adobe walls rising from the knoll. “We can buy tin for the roof and some glass for the windows while we’re there – plus the windmill. Emma, I’m thinking I’ll need you to go with me so you can sell corn in the market while I go to buy what we need.”
Emma glanced at Rachel, and a sly smile turned up the corners of her mouth.
“Dat, I don’t know if it would be so good for me to go bumping all the way to Saltillo in that old wagon.” Emma patted her belly, flashing her eyes at her father. “Maybe you should take Rachel and Miriam instead.”
Dat stared at her from under his hat. Rachel saw the tiny smile in both their eyes and understood. Emma wasn’t worried at all about riding in a wagon to Saltillo – she would ride bareback to Boston if she had a mind to, and Dat knew it. But she also knew how monotonous it must be making bricks all day, so she was suggesting to her father that he give Rachel a little break. All this passed between them in one silent glance.
“Jah, well, Rachel, you have been working mighty hard, so mebbe Emma’s right. You need a little rest, and a chance to see some of the country.”
A shiver of excitement went through Rachel. She actually clapped her hands in delight. “Can Miriam go, too?”
He nodded. Lifting one of Rachel’s hands, he ran a thumb over the calluses, and a little sadness came into his eyes. “I’m sorry you and Miriam have to do men’s work,” he said. “Things will be better when the others come, but for now we’re on our own here and we have to make do with what we got. Soon our friends will be here, and everything will be better.”
Rachel squeezed his hands in hers. “It’s all right, Dat, we don’t mind. Me and Miriam are happy to do whatever is needed, and think how proud we’ll be when the house is done! Anyway, the work is making us very strong.”
Emma laughed that golden laugh of hers. Pregnancy had filled her with joy, once she got over being sick in the mornings, and heightened her natural glow. “Jah, pretty soon the two of them will be wrestling with the boys in the haymow!” she teased.
Dat pointed a warning finger at his silly daughters, but there was laughter in his eyes. And pride. He walked away shaking his head, chuckling.
“Emma, I hope your little one can hold off for a while,” Rachel said, once her father was out of hearing. “I mean no offense, but you really have gotten big.”
“Ach, this is nothing,” Emma said, walking aimlessly through the corn, dragging a hand across the stalks. “Have you looked at Mary lately?” Her eyes bulged and her cheeks puffed out as her hands mimed a belly the size of a washtub. “I’m wondering if it’s twins this time, she’s so huge.”
“Oh, I hope so!” Rachel cried, giggling. “The more the merrier. When is her bundle supposed to arrive?”
“She says December, but I’m not so sure the buppela will wait that long.” Her smile faded, and Rachel saw the lines of concern crease her forehead.
“What’s the matter, Emma? What are you thinking?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just I hope nothing goes wrong.”
“What do you mean? Are you talking about your baby or Mary’s?”
“Both,” Emma said. “Now that my time is getting close it worries me. And Mary, too. As big as she is it could be twins, and there is no doctor here.”
“Jah,” Rachel said, “but there was never a doctor at home, either. The closest one was in Kidron.” A grasshopper buzzed into her hair, and she bent over suddenly, snatching her kapp off and raking frantically at her hair until it came out.
“But at least there was a doctor in Kidron,” Emma said. “If something wasn’t right, we could send for him anyway. The doctor in Agua Nueva is a day’s ride away, and the one in Saltillo even farther. Rachel, do you realize that until the others come, we don’t even have a midwife here?”
Rachel honestly hadn’t thought about it, though she didn’t have as much invested as Emma did.
“Well, it doesn’t seem like such a great worry to me,” Rachel said, trying to cram her unruly hair back into her kapp while Emma waited. “I helped lots of cows and horses have babies, and it always goes good. There’s never any problems.”
“Cows and horses are one thing,” Emma said, worry carved plainly on her face. “Women are another. Lots of things can go wrong. Sometimes the baby is breech, or the cord gets tangled. Mary lost both of her last two babies, so I know she’s worried. Things j
ust happen.”
They walked on between the cornstalks in silence for a minute, and then, out of the blue, Emma turned to Rachel and said, “I want you to be my midwife.”
“What?”
“When I have my baby,” Emma said. “I want you to be my midwife.”
“Me?” Rachel’s mouth hung open. “But, Emma, I’m only sixteen. I’m not even married! I’ve never even been in the room with a woman having a baby. I don’t know anything about it!”
“I still want you there.” Emma’s eyes were determined, smug. She’d made up her mind.
“But what about Mamm?”
“She’ll be there too, but you know how she is – Mamm is steady as a mule until something goes wrong, then she gets all flustered and befuddled. You’re just the opposite. You always worry and fret like a little girl, but when things go crazy you keep your head. Rachel, there’s nobody in the world I trust more than you. Not even Levi. I want you there.”
Rachel looked long into her sister’s face, astonished, but Emma’s eyes attested to the truth of what she had just said.
“Then I will be there,” Rachel said. “With Gott’s help, I will be there for you.”
“And you can be there for Mary, too.”
“But – ”
“No buts. I have a very good feeling about this, Rachel. Something tells me you’ll be a fine midwife.”
There was no arguing with Emma once her mind was made up. Rachel nodded numbly. “Okay.”
The round trip to Saltillo would take three days. It was still dark when Caleb hitched the Belgians and headed north in the wagon with a huge mound of sweet corn in the back and his two daughters beside him on the bench seat. All the money Caleb had left in the world was sewn into a hidden pocket under the waistline of his handmade trousers, and he wasn’t sure it was enough.
