Copper Star

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Her eyes glittered with interest. She sat down on the porch steps and patted the spot next to her so I would join her. “So? What happened?”

  I sat down beside her. “War. It divided us.” That was one story I did not want to share with Rosita. “Someday, when the time is right, I hope to find someone and even have a family. But back in Germany where I belong.”

  “But you always say that our future belongs to God.”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “So maybe God wants you to stay here.”

  “Oh, no, Rosita, I don’t think so. I think God wants me to go back to Germany. I’m sure He does. Germany needs me.”

  “But maybe God thinks we need you more.”

  That comment astounded me.

  “What about William?” she asked.

  “What about him?”

  “Does he know you plan to leave someday?”

  “Yes, of course.” Did he realize that? “Well, I guess I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “That little boy loves you. And his own mama is gone. Don’t you think it will be hard on him if you just up and go?”

  I stared at her, speechless. I didn’t know how to answer her. I had never even given it a thought. Of all of the preconceived ideas I had about living in America, it never involved becoming attached to anyone.

  “Well…even still, that Stuart…he looked like a movie star, no?” she asked, meekly.

  I tried to scowl at her but then we both ended up giggling like schoolgirls. “Rosita, why are you so determined to find me an American boyfriend?”

  She leaned her head to one side and looked at me with frank, brown eyes. “If you fall in love and marry an American boy, then you will stay. I don’t want to lose you when the war is over.”

  I put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulders. “You’ll never lose me.”

  She went back home, but I stayed out on the porch, watching the sunset, nettled by her remark about William.

  After a while, Robert came out to join me. He leaned against the porch rail, hands in his pockets. “Still don’t want to talk?”

  “Not really.”

  He sat down next to me on the porch steps. “Louisa, did that fellow frighten you at all?”

  I looked at him, touched by his concern. “No. He just had different ideas about…well, things…than I did.” I smiled at him. “Any idea why William is upset?”

  “He’ll be fine.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  He waited for a moment before answering. “I think it bothered him to see you go off with a stranger.”

  I looked down at my hands in my lap. “Rosita was just saying something like that. She wondered if I had thought about how William would feel when I go back to Germany, especially after…” I stopped myself, realizing what I was just about to say.

  “Especially after his mother left? It’s true. He has grown fond of you.”

  I looked at him. “And I of him.”

  “I know.”

  “Rosita told me why she’s been working so hard to find an American boyfriend for me. She doesn’t want me to leave after the war.” I glanced down at the ground. “I didn’t expect this.”

  “Expect what?”

  “I came to America for safekeeping. I didn’t expect…I didn’t expect to…” I just couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Didn’t expect to find people who cared about you? I guess we didn’t think about that either when I told Dietrich I would sponsor someone.”

  “I just hope...I hope I haven’t made things difficult for William.”

  “Just the opposite. You’ve been part of a miracle for him.” He gazed out at the sun, watching it disappear behind a ridge. “Louisa, when you go back to Germany, if you go back, it won’t be like when his mother left. Let’s worry about that when the time comes.”

  The sky turned a beautiful rose color.

  “Alpenglühe.” My eyes locked on the reddish glow on the summit of the mountains.

  “Alpenglow?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Look! The first star.” I pointed to the sky. “I think it’s your copper star.”

  Robert looked up at the emerging star. “Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name.”

  “Is that a quote from Scripture?”

  “From the book of Amos,” he answered with a shy grin. “Always liked that Amos. He earned his living from a flock of sheep. He wasn’t a man of the court like Isaiah or an educated priest like Jeremiah. Just a simple shepherd. But when God called him into duty as a prophet, he went. And that man could preach a sermon!”

  As he watched the stars appear in the sky, I watched him. Not for the first time that day, I wondered why that awful flight instructor couldn’t be more like Robert.

  Chapter Eight

  On Sunday afternoon, Robert planned to take William and me hiking at Cochise’s Stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains north of Copper Springs. Just as he opened the back door of the Hudson for Dog to jump in, Esmeralda ran up.

  “My mother and I want William to come over this afternoon; we’re baking cookies and want him to join us. Okay?”

  Robert looked at me, uncertainty in his eyes. William had never been invited to play at someone’s home before.

  “I think it would be good for him,” I answered.

  Reluctantly, Robert agreed. Using a combination of words and gestures, he asked William if he wanted to go with Esmeralda. Before he could even finish, William was running behind Esmeralda back to the Gonzalves’ house.

  “Esmeralda! Miss Gordon is home, if you need help,” I called after her. “Just keep banging on the door until you wake her up!”

  She waved back at us. We watched William follow her down the street at a full gallop. Then, as quickly as William disappeared into the house, an awkward silence covered us like a blanket. I was glad I had brought a book to read, tucked in my handbag. We hadn’t really done much alone before; our outings always included William. We got into the car. Dog reached his big head over the top of the seat, tongue dripping slobber, as if to remind us that he was here, too.

  Robert pushed Dog back. “Well, I guess we should be off, then.” He started the car and backed out of the driveway.

  We drove for quite a while before arriving at the Dragoon Mountains, an area of jumbled granite domes and sheer cliffs. We hiked along an ancient Indian trail. Half-way up, we found a shallow cave with petroglyphs. Running my hands along the etchings, I wondered what story the rocks would tell, if only rocks could talk.

  Finally, we reached a rocky promontory. I let Dog off his leash and let him explore to his nose’s content. We walked around the promontory in silence, looking down at the thick tangle of boulders and superb views of the canyon.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Robert said, craning his neck to see into the valley below.

  “When I first arrived in Arizona, I didn’t think the desert was very beautiful,” I confessed.

  He straightened up. “Well, you came from a very different place. I think you almost have to have been born here to appreciate its beauty. It’s pretty desolate.”

  I gazed out at the sea of boulders. “Do you think that Moses and the Israelites wandered for forty years in an area like this?”

  Robert looked at me, an odd expression on his face. “Louisa, sometimes your comments come like a bolt out of the blue. What on earth made you think of Moses?”

  “This book I’ve been reading.” I pulled it out of my handbag. “It’s about the Underground Railroad during the American Civil War; the woman who organized it was called Moses.”

  “Harriet Tubman?” he asked, taking the book out of my hands.

  “Yes! You know of her?”

  “Every schoolchild in America does. She’s a heroine.”

  “When I was making the jo
urney from Germany to Arizona, I felt as if I was being taken care of by this same kind of Underground Railroad.”

  He leaned his hip against the rock ledge, arms crossed, facing me with an interested look.

  “Getting past the border guards of Germany was a mystery. A miracle, really. Just as a guard was looking at my passport, my false passport, a whistle blew and guards ran toward a frightened looking man and woman. The guard was distracted by the commotion. He stamped my passport and motioned to go ahead. I walked through the gates and was accepted through Swiss customs without any question.”

  Dog tore past us, chasing a jackrabbit into the scrub brush.

  “What happened next?” Robert asked, watching Dog disappear into the thicket.

  “A contact met me on the other side of the border, and from there, I was in the hands of kind strangers. Angels of mercy. There was someone to meet me at every juncture: bus station, train station, ferry. I was given rest, food, and shelter. Then and only then was I given instructions about the next leg of my journey. I was even handed the proper currency I would need. I was never told anyone’s last name. It had all been organized by the Resistance Workers. I felt like a piece of fragile luggage, being carefully delivered from place to place.”

  “Weren’t you ever afraid?”

  “Oh, yes! Many times. Especially through occupied France. Well, you remember the story about the hay wagon.”

  Robert glanced at my arm.

  I covered the scars. “In England, I felt rather protected. But from there, I took passage on a big merchant boat across the Atlantic Ocean. German U-boats had been spotted nearby, and the ship felt like a giant…” I cocked my head at him in a question. “What does your aunt call it—a sitting chicken?”

  “Duck. A sitting duck.” He tried to stifle a grin but didn’t make it.

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Anyway, finally, we reached America. As soon as I was admitted through Ellis Island, I felt like…I finally felt out of harm's way. I wasn’t really anxious again until…”

  I caught myself and stopped.

  “Until when?”

  I looked down at the ground. “Until the train pulled into Tucson and I knew you would be waiting for me. Then I felt a little nervous.”

  Robert had been gazing beyond me at the horizon. He turned his head and gave me one of his straight-in-the-eyes look. “And now, Louisa?”

  Something in the way he looked at me made my heart skip a beat.

  Just then, Dog came barreling straight at us with the biggest stick he could carry in his mouth, wild-eyed, looking utterly ridiculous and extremely proud of himself. Grateful for the diversion, I grabbed Dog, put on his leash, and we made a dash back down the hillside.

  Our enjoyable afternoon came to an abrupt end as we pulled into the driveway. A smoldering Miss Gordon marched out of the house, dragging a contrite looking William behind her.

  “Oh no, what has he done now?” Robert asked under his breath.

  “You won’t believe it! Robert, you just won’t believe what kind of trouble your son has gotten into this afternoon!”

  Robert said, “Calm down, Aunt Martha. Just tell me what happened.”

  “I woke up from my nap and went to start dinner. I took eggs out from the ice box and cracked one. The eggs were bad, so I put them on the back porch to take back to Mr. Ibsen. I forgot all about those eggs until Mr. Mueller came banging on the front door. He was covered with those rotten eggs! William and Esmeralda stole those very eggs and ran to where Mr. Mueller was out pruning back his prize peonies. They hid in the bushes and threw rotten eggs at him! I declare, Robert, I don’t know what gets into that boy.”

  Just as she finished, Herr Mueller came storming up the driveway. He must have seen Robert’s car drive past his house a few minutes earlier. Miss Gordon quickly took William back inside. I tried to get inside, too, and away from the approaching Herr Mueller, but he blocked the path.

  Robert and I were cornered against the car. “Gordon!” he bellowed. “It’s time you do something with that boy. He needs to be institutionalized before he becomes known as the Village Idiot. He’s already a menace to that church of yours. He’s an embarrassment to this entire town.”

  Indignation surging, I stepped forward and prepared to give Herr Mueller a piece of my mind, in German, so Robert wouldn’t know to interrupt me, but Robert grabbed my arm and held it tightly in warning.

  “I apologize on my son’s behalf, Mr. Mueller,” he said. “It will not happen again. Please remember he’s just a child.”

  Herr Mueller was in no mood to be mollified. “This time, apologies are not enough. I’ve had enough excuses! The truth is that you can’t manage your own child. You are an incompetent parent! This time, I am going to the authorities!” Mueller spun on his heels and marched back down the street. The only thing that almost got me smirking me was the sight of eggshells stuck on his pants.

  Robert threw me a stern glance. “Not a word, Louisa.”

  The evening meal was a very silent one. Weary from the day’s crime, William kept his eyes lowered to his plate and hardly ate. Miss Gordon turned down the offer for clean-up help in the kitchen, so Robert went to his office, William up to his room with Dog, and I slipped unnoticed out the front door and over to Rosita’s house.

  As I knocked on the door, a tear-stained Esmeralda, lips trembling, answered it. “I am so sorry!” she bawled. “I didn’t know how much trouble William would get in.” Rosita came to the door behind her, chagrined.

  “Esmeralda, please don’t worry,” I assured her. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “After we finished baking cookies and played some games we got bored, and Mama shooed us outside. We were just kicking a ball down the street when William saw Mr. Mueller outside working on his flowers. William ran back to his house and brought back the rotten eggs. He threw them at Mr. Mueller. I didn’t want him to, but he just kept throwing and throwing the eggs at him. I promise that I didn’t throw any eggs.” Then, sheepishly, “but I did hold the carton open for him. Mr. Mueller got so mad! His face got red, and he waved his arms and said some bad, bad words,” she stopped to take a deep breath, “and then he took William by the shirt collar and dragged him to Miss Gordon and then said more bad words to her.”

  “Esmeralda, why do you think William threw those eggs at Herr Mueller?”

  “I don’t know.” Then she looked at me from the corner of her eyes. “But that Mr. Mueller is mean.”

  “That’s not a reason to throw rotten eggs at the man.”

  “Is Father Gordon mad with me?”

  “Reverend Gordon not Father Gordon. He’s disappointed with William’s behavior, but he’s not mad at you.” I smiled and gave her a hug.

  “Will you ever let him come to our house to play again?” asked Rosita.

  “Of course!” I hugged her, too, and left to go to Robert’s office. Gently, I knocked on the door and poked my head in.

  He wasn’t working; he was gazing out the window. He frowned when he saw me. “I don’t want to talk about it, Louisa.”

  “I understand. Just let me say one thing and then I’ll go.”

  Slowly, he nodded.

  “I’m not excusing William’s behavior, but there is some reason that he truly dislikes Herr Mueller.” I told him about the time when William spit on Herr Mueller’s shoes in the library. And about the spitwads through the straw.

  Robert’s eyebrows shot up. “For Pete’s sake! Why didn’t you tell me about those things when they happened?”

  “Because there’s something about Herr Mueller that makes me want to spit on his shoes, too.”

  He rolled his eyes. “That’s really not very helpful. I need to discipline the boy. He’s played tricks on Mueller before. Once he shot a rock at Mueller’s backside with his slingshot. Another time he threw tomatoes at the Muellers’ windows during a fancy dinner party. I heard about that one for months.” He shook his head in disgust.

  “William might have a
very good reason for doing what he did.”

  He gave me a look as if I had lost my mind. “And what could that possibly be?”

  “I don’t know. I really have no idea. And until his language improves, I don’t know how we could find out why William hates Herr Mueller so. But I have faith in William. I hope you do, too. Please don’t be too hard on him.”

  He sighed. “You might have a point.” He spun around in his chair and looked out the window. “I’ve been sitting here wondering if maybe the time is right for William to attend the Southwestern School for the Deaf. I had wanted to wait until he was older, but it’s apparent he’s more ready than I had expected.” He spun back around to look directly at me. “You’ve shown me that.” Then, quietly to himself, he said, “I’m just not sure I could bear having him gone.”

  I drew a sharp breath. It never occurred to me that by teaching William to communicate, it might mean he would be sent to boarding school. I couldn’t imagine the Gordon home without William. I didn’t even want to consider it. I put my hand on the doorknob to leave but turned to say, “Anyway, thank you for such a lovely day up in the mountains with Chief Cochise.”

  “Somehow, I think Cochise would have been easier to deal with than Mueller,” Robert lamented.

  * * *

  I had hoped Robert would drop the subject about sending William to boarding school after the rotten egg fiasco with Herr Mueller. I was certainly not going to mention it.

  The next evening as dinner ended, Miss Gordon told William to go upstairs and get ready for his bath, waving her hands wildly as if she were taking a bath and scrubbing herself down. It always amused me to watch her homespun methods of communicating with a deaf child. She did seem to be able to get her point across to William.

  Robert watched William head up the stairs, Dog trotting dutifully behind his young master. Then he casually mentioned he had called the Southwestern School for the Deaf and scheduled an appointment for Friday. “I think it would be a good idea to see what the school has to offer.”

  Miss Gordon and I exchanged a look.

  “So the principal is going to give me a tour of the campus and let me see some of the classes,” he continued. “And they’ll do some testing with William.”