Gerald regarded him with sudden gravity. “Well, that places a question on one theory.”
“You thought it was Krueger?”
Gerald nodded. “Still could’ve been. He might have placed those switches on his own porch in order to misdirect.”
“But what reason would he have for doing it? Krueger’s whole family disappeared. And yet the threats are still being laid.” Red told Gerald about what had happened to Bertie and Edith yesterday.
Gerald shook his head. “I’ve tried to talk Butch into reopening the case.”
“No luck?” Red asked.
“None. You know how stubborn he can be sometimes. I’ve overheard a few discussions down at the Exchange. Lots of crazy ideas, all the way from Joseph’s neighbors doing the deed, to someone from out of town.”
“I think Joseph Moennig and the Kruegers and my mother were all chosen because they’re German,” Red said.
Gerald’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I wondered about that, too. Have you considered the possibility that the culprit is actually a Nazi?”
“You mean someone who’s infiltrated the country? Gerald, that’s the kind of thinking that’s caused so much trouble with folks all around. It’s why innocent families were forced into detention camps.”
“How do we know all those people are innocent?”
Red didn’t have an answer. He didn’t agree with Gerald, but then Gerald wasn’t German American.
“Red, I trust our government. If intelligence sources have concluded that there are infiltrators sent by that demon, Hitler, they could be anywhere. They could be in any town.”
“But the Germans surrendered.”
“Publicly, yes. But Hitler started making his evil plans to take over the world long before he started the war. His people and their families could have been indoctrinated for years. There could even be second-generation Nazis under cover, and if they haven’t been caught, they might carry Hitler’s standard as long as they can, even with Hitler dead.”
Talk of such things gave Red a queasy feeling. “But why attack other Germans?” he asked. “And why here in Hideaway? We’re so far removed from major defense plants and military headquarters.”
“We have no idea how many spies Hitler could have sent to infiltrate,” Gerald said. “Now that Germany’s lost the war, they could be wanting to do as much damage as they can to their enemy out of revenge, and they see German Americans as turncoats. That’s who they want to attack.”
Red shook his head. “I don’t agree.”
“I don’t want to think like this, Red. It’s frightening to consider that anyone in our neighborhood, any of our friends, could be the enemy, but we have to be realistic. We know what Hitler was capable of.”
“But we know all our neighbors. Someone would’ve had to come here years ago, hide their accent, and have the downright meanness to hurt and kill their neighbors.”
Gerald spread his hand, indicating the crowd around the church. “It takes all kinds to make a community, Red. Take your pick. Arielle’s parents still have a Swedish accent, but you can tell she sounds purely American.” He stood beside Red, studying the newcomers, most of whom walked to the church. “The infiltrators would be trained to blend in.”
A large black hearse pulled to the front of the church, and Gerald nodded toward it. “I think we’ll be getting started in a few moments. I’m a pallbearer, so I’d better be going.” He patted Red on the shoulder once more. “Whatever you do, make sure Bertie doesn’t get herself into trouble. I’d like to talk more about this later. Maybe tomorrow. I’ve already made plans for a fishing expedition later this afternoon down by the caves below the Moennig house. Fish are really biting there right now, and we have an empty drawer in the meat locker.”
Red nodded and watched Gerald walk away, wondering at the things he’d said. Could there actually be someone among them who had been spying on their community for years?
He didn’t even want to think about it. But he did.
Krueger hadn’t been in town long. He’d left the day Joseph was found dead in his corral. Could he, as Gerald said, have placed those switches on his own porch to deflect suspicion from himself?
Though the sun shone brightly today, Red felt as if the whole town was covered by a thick cloud of gray.
Bertie watched from the front of the church as her father’s casket was carried through the foyer by the pallbearers. She knew all these men. Ivan Potts and his father, Gerald, John Martin, Fred Cooper, Bernie Wilson and Leon Peterson.
She was grateful to them, and she knew Dad would be proud that such fine men would usher his body to its resting place.
During the funeral, Bertie sat at the front of the church and allowed the organ music to float over her, hearing the words of “How Great Thou Art” in her head.
She stared out the side window at the cemetery. Dad would be buried there in a little while…his body lowered into the earth, to be covered in darkness.
Lilly’s arm came around her from the left, and Edith took her hand from her right. Oh, God, how could You do this to us? She thought of her brother. Medical science was coming a long way toward curing tuberculosis, but not everyone lived through it, even yet. The sanatorium, in Mt. Vernon, Missouri, was their only hope.
Dad had been the youngest in a family of four brothers. The others were dead, and Bertie’s cousins, all boys, were in the Pacific Theater, risking their lives for their country, just as Red and Ivan had done. She had no family here.
She glanced past Lilly to the cane leaning against the pew in front of them.
The whole world was flying apart, and she couldn’t keep from wondering if she was flying apart with it.
The service ended and people filed forward to view the body and greet her. She swallowed and forced a smile. So many friends loved her, were here for her. The church was full, and old classmates, former teachers, her church friends, all came by to tell her how sorry they were, and remind her about what a wonderful man her father had been.
As if she needed reminding.
The final person filed past. The funeral director—who had driven over from Hollister—bent toward her, gesturing for her to approach the casket.
But as she started to rise, she realized she couldn’t do it.
Lilly gently urged her to stand.
Bertie wanted to shove her away, but she didn’t. She just didn’t stand. Edith, bless her, just sat holding her hand.
After a few moments, Edith said quietly, “You can’t go with him, no matter how much you probably wish you could right now.”
Bertie looked at her, saw tears in Edith’s eyes, and realized she was reliving a loss of her own.
“Your time hasn’t come yet. You have to keep going,” Edith said.
Bertie nodded, then slowly stood. The people waited outside for the casket to be carried past and into the cemetery. She would go with it.
But the life she had known was over. What would happen next?
Chapter Thirty-One
Red stood apart from the crowd that circled Joseph Moennig’s grave. He wished he could be strong for Bertie, holding her up and encouraging her the way Edith and his own Ma were doing, but try as he might, his mind was on the battle. He couldn’t let it go, not even when he saw Bertie turn around and study the crowd, and her gaze lit on him.
She was probably seeing the old Red, with his threadbare suit and red hair slicked down for church. She was seeing the boy she’d grown up with, played baseball with, fished with, worked with.
She wasn’t seeing what was inside him now. She used to be able to look at his face and know what he was thinking, long before they’d started seeing each other in a…romantic way.
Back when they were both in that ol’ one-room schoolhouse out past this church, she only had to look at him to know if he was gonna go fishin’ after school, or if he had to get home to the farm to help with chores.
But she didn’t know him anymore. He was a soldier home from war, with o
ne more battle to fight, and he didn’t have the weapons he needed for this battle—wasn’t even sure he could win this one.
It ate at him that he didn’t have the strength to fight it alone, without this blasted cane.
A soldier had to be on guard all the time, and Red was.
John Martin stepped up beside him, looking even more awkward in his old suit than Red did. John had kept growing after high-school graduation, and the sleeves and legs of his jacket and slacks exposed a little too much of his long limbs. Fashions these days were skimpy on material, saving all the excess for the war effort. Even Gerald Potts, who could afford a new suit, wore one he’d had for at least ten years.
“I think you’re hopeless, Charles Frederick,” John said. “Bertie Moennig’s a fine woman, and she needs you over there with her, helping her through her loss, not over here brooding by yourself.”
“I’m not brooding, I’m thinking. Besides, Bertie needs something I can’t give her.”
“That’s silly. It doesn’t take much to stand beside her, let her know she’s not alone.”
“And how’m I gonna do that?” Red demanded, gesturing toward his ma, Edith, Ivan and Ivan’s dad, who all seemed to be competing for Bertie’s attention. “They’ve got her well in hand. I can’t even get close to her right now. Besides, I’ve got other fish to fry.”
“I don’t see you frying any fish,” John grumbled. “I see you avoiding Bertie because of that limp of yours. You’re all hung up about—”
“You can’t tell me how to behave with this leg if you ain’t gone through it yourself,” Red growled back.
John glared at him. “At least you got to come home as a wounded war hero, and you’re still alive. Others came home in caskets. And still others are living in shame because they weren’t counted worthy to fight for their country.”
Red flinched. He knew John had tried to enlist more than once.
“I’m not a coward, Red Meyer,” John said.
“I know that,” Red said gently. John simply didn’t know, and there was no way to explain it to him.
“I’d have done my part if they’d have let me. I’m doing my part here every time I can. I give blood so often I must—”
“Didn’t say you was a coward,” Red grumbled.
“Yeah, well, sounded different to my ears, but then maybe that’s because of the chip on your shoulder. The words must bounce off that big old chip and sound like other words by the time they reach me.”
Red sighed. He was tired of apologizing for being so tetchy, but he didn’t know how he could manage to act differently. Right now, everything seemed to simmer below the surface, ready to boil over with one word, one wrong look. He knew it, he hated it. He wanted to do something about it, but what?
“You notice anybody who oughta be here but isn’t?” he asked, shooting a look around at the crowd. Even the Shorts were here, unwelcome as they were with their foul thoughts and mouths.
“Kruegers aren’t here,” John said.
“Anyone else?”
“Other than that family, nobody’s missing that I’d have expected to be here.”
Red turned and studied the individual faces in the crowd. Could there be someone here who wasn’t surprised by Joseph’s death? Could someone here even have been the one who caused it?
Bertie stared at the casket as others wandered away, chatter growing louder as they prepared for the meal on the church grounds.
It was time to cry now. It was time to say goodbye. Even Lilly and Edith were sniffling beside her, and Arielle was holding a handkerchief to her eyes.
Somehow, though, Bertie’s eyes remained dry. She felt as if the tears she had held inside since Monday had petrified in her heart like that forest had done in Arizona.
She stood over the place where her mother’s body had been buried for more than three years.
Edith placed a hand lightly on Bertie’s shoulder. “You never told me how your mother died. Do you realize she and my Harper died only a few months apart?”
Bertie nodded. She and Edith had never discussed death much. Thoughts of it were too close to both of them. “Mom died of polio. Hard as the doctors and nurses worked over her, nothing they did could save her. Dad and I had already tried every potion Mom ever used on the townsfolk and neighbors around Hideaway—hot onion poultices, hot mustard plaster, mullein, coneflower that grew along the roadsides. Nothing worked, even though these things had done the job many times before.”
“You said your mother used to treat sick neighbors?”
“That’s right. Mom was the closest we had to a doctor hereabouts, and folks came to her from all over. Hill folk, mostly, who didn’t trust modern medicine.”
Edith stood beside her in silence.
“In the end,” Bertie said, “the doctor accused Dad and me of keeping Mom home too long. He said we were ‘experimenting’ on her with our ‘crazy witchcraft.’ I don’t think that doctor could’ve done any more for her if she’d gone to him at the first sign of illness, because there’d been an epidemic in Hideaway, and three of the townsfolk died in spite of all the doctor tried to do.”
“Your mother treated them?”
Bertie nodded. “That’s the sad thing. Mom caught the polio from a neighbor who had it and refused to travel the long distance to see a doctor. Mom treated this neighbor with those same plants. The neighbor lived.”
“Which neighbor was that?”
“Elizabeth Krueger.”
After Mom’s death, Bertie had cried for days, until she’d begun to wonder if she’d ever stop. Even last week she’d dreamed of Mom and had woken up teary-eyed.
Now she was afraid of those tears. She was going to have to be strong, stand alone.
“It sounds to me as if the herbs worked better than medical science,” Edith said.
“But try to tell anybody that,” Bertie said, glancing toward Red, who had wandered down toward the riverbank, leaning heavily on his cane.
Lilly placed her heavy arm around Bertie. “You said something to me this morning about treating Red with comfrey. It grows in the woods on your place, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, above the cliffs over the James River, where the caves are.”
The arm tightened. “Honey, it’s about to break my heart, watchin’ him brood the way he is. You really think it’ll help that leg of his?”
Bertie nodded. “If he’d let me try it, I think it could help.”
“I know most folks would scoff. They’d say no leaf could help where a doctor’s best medicine won’t bring healing, but I’m desperate. It could be just your loving touch that’d help more than anything.”
That was all Bertie needed. “I think I’ll have another talk with Red.”
“That’s my girl.” Lilly gave her shoulders a final squeeze, then looked down at Joseph’s casket. “Your father was always so proud of you, Roberta Moennig. He had every right to be. You’re the sweetest possible combination of your mother and your father, with a whole lot of just plain ol’ Bertie thrown into the mix.”
With those words, Bertie said her final goodbye to her father, then walked away from the burial site, past the churchyard, where most of the women, and at least half the men, were involved in setting up for the meal, while children played on the grass.
The ladies of the church knew how to set a table with all the best produce from their victory gardens. Lilly had already sent Ivan to the house to collect her beans, ham, cornbread and cobbler. John’s mother, Cora Lee Martin, carried another cobbler, proud of the berries her son had picked.
You’ve got people who love you, Bertie. They’d told her that, and she believed it, but someone in this town didn’t love her. It was hard to feel welcome with all that was going on.
She walked steadfastly toward Red’s receding figure, not knowing what kind of reception she’d get from him. He was so moody lately, one minute making her think he still cared about her, and the next minute shoving her away from him, almost like she was poiso
n.
No matter what happened between them, she’d do the best she could to help him heal—as much as he’d let her do—and she would stay in Hideaway. In spite of all the wondering about who might be behind Dad’s death, in spite of the ugly messages someone had been leaving, this place was home. She loved California, sure enough. It was beautiful. The mountains and the ocean, which she’d never seen before this past year, made her think of God’s majesty. His bigness. His power.
But these Ozark hills had been made by God, too. He had created the medicinal, nourishing plants that grew here. It was here, if anywhere, that Red would finally find healing.
The tears came then, as she realized how afraid she’d been this week. And she was still afraid of the future. Mom had always told her not to trust feelings, but to trust in the Word, because the Word would last through feelings. Mom had always quoted Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”
But what was trust? Sure, Bertie knew she’d be in heaven when she died, but was that all there was to trusting Him? What about here and now, on earth, when loved ones died or went to war and came back changed?
Besides a happy afterlife, what did she have to look forward to?
As old, familiar voices of longtime friends drifted across the cemetery, Bertie fought the loneliness and fear with silent prayer.
Neighbors and friends had all spoken to her today, hugged her, told her, “If there’s anything we can do, just holler.”
She’d nodded and thanked them, knowing she probably would never holler. But also knowing that at least some of those friends would be there when she needed them.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Red was halfway down the bank to the river’s edge when he heard soft footsteps behind him. He turned his head just enough to recognize Bertie’s blond hair.
She didn’t give up.
He turned around, leaning on his cane. “Been a bad week for you,” he said.
She climbed down an incline and stopped in front of him, but didn’t say anything. He knew that look in her eyes. She had something on her mind. Still, she needed to hear what he had to say.
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