The Believer (The Shakers 2)

by Ann H. Gabhart

  In spite of her best efforts to hold them back, a few tears overflowed from her eyes. Aristotle licked them away and made her laugh as she held out her hand for him to put his paw in it as her father had taught him. Then she stood up quickly and stepped back as Issachar lifted the dog up onto the wagon seat by the younger man and tied his rope to the back of the seat. The younger brother reached out gingerly to touch Aristotle as if perhaps he had never touched a dog's fur before and wasn't sure how it would feel. Aristotle leaned into his touch, begging for more, and the young man's face was a mixture of surprised pleasure and something else. It took Elizabeth a moment to realize his pleasure was mixed with guilt.

  "There's a spring-fed creek not far from the road over in that direction" Issachar pointed before he climbed back up on the wagon seat. "You can rest there until we return. It's well off the road:"

  Elizabeth looked up at him. "You won't speak of seeing us in the town?"

  "Nay, I know not why we would have occasion to speak of such," the man said with a smile and a nod toward the young brother beside him to include him in the promise. "The sun will be two hours from setting before we return"

  The young Shaker shook the reins to start the horses moving away. Aristotle began whining and scrambling around on the wagon seat to get free, but the older man grabbed the rope around the dog's neck and held him there. Aristotle twisted his head to look back at them beside the road and then he raised his nose to the sky and howled. The sound stabbed Elizabeth's heart and brought forth an answering cry from Hannah that pierced Elizabeth even deeper. Payton put his arms around them both, and they huddled there in abject misery as Aristotle's howls carried back to them long after the wagon disappeared down the road. It was as if they were burying their father all over again.

  Then as the dog's howls grew more distant, hoofbeats sounded from the other direction. Elizabeth pulled Hannah and Payton off the road just as a man on horseback came into view. He didn't notice them as they melted back among the trees. Elizabeth's heart pounded until she could see that it wasn't Colton.

  She told herself Colton would have no way of knowing which way they had gone. He'd surely think they had gone into Springfield to try to find a place to stay. He'd have no possible way of knowing they were going to the Shakers. And if he did suspect they had set the cabin on fire, he would be going for the sheriff in Springfield, not the one in far-off Mercer County.

  Even so, every time she heard a horse her heart jumped up in her throat. She feared Colton's hands on her, his eyes demanding she satisfy the debt they owed him and that had grown larger with the burning of the cabin. He would demand she trade herself for Payton's freedom. She felt safer off the road among the trees.

  They found where the spring bubbled up from the rocks into the creek and drank the clear, cool water. Then Elizabeth brushed off the top of a flat rock beside the creek to spread out the food Issachar had given them. A generous portion of ham stacked between thick slices of sourdough bread. Cheese and dried apples. Elizabeth cut the sandwich in half with Payton's pocketknife before cutting one of the halves in half again. She divided the cheese and the apples equally into three piles. As she handed the biggest sandwich to Payton, she said, "We should thank the Lord for his providence before we eat"

  Payton had been about to take a bite of the sandwich, but he pulled it away without taking a taste. "Guess we should. We might as well get into practice. Those Shakers will be a praying bunch or I miss my bet:"

  "I liked Issachar;' Hannah spoke up.

  "Yeah, but did you see how that other one looked at us? Like we were worms he wished would crawl back down into the dirt:"

  "He wasn't that bad" Elizabeth took up for the young Shaker. She didn't know why. "We were just strange to him"

  "Strange worms:" Payton dropped down to the ground beside the rock. "If we're going to pray, let's get it done. This ham wants to go in my mouth:" He raised his hand holding the bread and meat toward his mouth and then pushed it away with his other hand as if his hands were warring.

  Hannah giggled and Elizabeth couldn't keep from smiling as she bowed her head. "Dear Lord. Thank you for providing us food. And keeping us safe. Forgive us when we do wrong. Amen"

  When she raised her head, Payton was staring at her. "It wasn't wrong, Elizabeth. It was justice"

  "So you want to think, but Colton won't think so, and the law will take his side without a doubt:"

  Payton stared down at the bread and meat in his hand as if he were no longer hungry. "You think I should be sorry for doing it, but I'm not" He looked up at her. "I'm not sorry. I wish I could have stayed and watched the flames climb up the cabin walls:"

  'And watch our things burn, Payton?" Elizabeth stared at him with concern and confusion. "Is that what you wanted to see?"

  "If we couldn't have them, I didn't want Colton Linley to have them:' His eyes were defiant. "And I'm not sorry. I will never be sorry." He took a big bite of his sandwich. He chewed with pleasure before he swallowed and said, "Not about that:"

  "You must never do such a thing again, Payton. It's wrong to destroy another person's property, no matter what the circumstances:" Elizabeth reached across the rock to grab his arm to be sure he knew her words were important. Payton had always been entranced by fire, had once burned away his eyebrows by throwing lamp oil into the fireplace to see what it would do. "You must promise me:"

  "I know right from wrong, Elizabeth'

  "Promise me," she insisted. He tried to pull away from her, but she held tight.

  "All right, I promise," he said crossly. "What do you think I am? A firebug?"

  She turned him loose and didn't answer as she sat back and began to eat her share of the food. Such a gloomy silence fell over them that Elizabeth could hear Payton and Hannah chewing their food. The hoofbeats of several horses out on the road and then a man's loud laughter carried back through the trees. Elizabeth froze, afraid to even keep chewing for fear the sound would give away their presence there in the trees.

  Hannah scooted closer to Elizabeth and said softly, "They cannot see us. The trees protect us"

  "But what if they know of the creek? What if they want to water their horses?" She spoke quietly, but even so, her voice sounded too loud to her ears.

  "Then there are many places to hide in the woods:" Hannah peered up at Elizabeth's face intently. `And Aristotle is no longer here to bark and give us away. He was never good at hiding when we played in the woods. He could seek but not hide:'

  Elizabeth didn't know which she wanted to do more, smile or cry, as she thought of how she and Hannah used to hide in the woods around their cabin while Payton held Aristotle some distance away. The dog always found them in minutes. The smile won out.

  "Besides, it is not Mr. Linley," Hannah said.

  "How can you be sure? While I agree the laughter was not Mr. Linley's, he might have gotten help for his search;" Elizabeth said.

  "It is not the laughter of someone chasing after someone" Hannah spoke with no hint of doubt.

  "She's right;" Payton said as he cocked his head to better hear the sounds from the road. They were growing fainter as the horsemen passed on by. "I don't know how she knows that, but if you listen, you know she's right"

  Relief washed over Elizabeth as she touched Hannah's ears. "Our little sister must have woods ears:"

  "What are woods ears?" Hannah asked.

  "Those that have learned to listen in the woods and know the sounds that mean danger and the ones that are just sounds. Did the squirrels in the trees teach you that?"

  The thought seemed to please Hannah. "Maybe they did;" she said. "Do you think we can stay in the woods? Not go on to the Shakers' town:'

  "If the days were all like this, we might" Elizabeth handed one of the dried apples to Hannah. "But winter will come. It always does:"

  "But a person doesn't have to gather winter to him while the sun is yet warm;" Payton said as he stood up. "I'm going down the creek to find a deeper pool:' His eyes on El
izabeth dared her to tell him not to go as he put his forearm up to his nose and sniffed. "The smell of smoke lingers"

  "Wait" Elizabeth stopped him before he turned away. She dug down into her pack for a piece of lye soap. She smiled as she pitched it to him. "Wash well"

  "My sisters," he said with mock irritation. "One with ears like a squirrel's and the other always with a plan like a fox running from dogs:" He smiled. "I won't go far'

  "Perhaps we should do the same," Elizabeth told Hannah after Payton disappeared down the creek. "I have another bit of soap and it would feel good to wash. Especially my hair." Elizabeth pulled her bun loose at the nape of her neck and shook her head to let her hair fall free down her back.

  Hannah combed through it with her fingers. "I wish I had hair like yours'

  "I don't know why. My hair is common. Straight and brown like any other girl's. But you have curls of white' Elizabeth tried to smooth back the little girl's curls, but they had a mind of their own. "Perhaps a few too many of them, however. We'll trim some off before we wash them:"

  She combed and cut, combed and cut until Hannah's hair didn't spring quite so far from her scalp and there was a heap of curls on the ground beside them.

  Hannah piled the hair into her skirt tail and scattered it back through the trees. "So the birds can have a soft blanket in the bottom of their nests," she said.

  They washed their hair and as much of their bodies as they could without disrobing. Elizabeth didn't feel enough comfort in the woods to take off her dress with the possibility of horses on the road not so far away, but they did take off their shoes and stockings and let the cool water wash over their feet while their hair dried in the sun. Payton came back and sat on the rock they had earlier used for a table and whittled on a piece of wild cherry wood he had found.

  Hannah looked at Elizabeth and asked, "Will Aristotle be happy with the man Issachar spoke of?"

  "Perhaps not at first. But he will be after a little bit"

  "Will he forget us? Forget me?"

  "No. He will always remember you just as he remembers Father. But now he'll have a new friend:" Elizabeth pulled Hannah's head over to rest on her bosom as she stroked her hair. "Having a new friend doesn't make us forget the old friends. It just adds to the love in our lives"

  "I have no friends except for you and Payton,' Hannah said. `And the trees back home. They are gone now like Aristotle:'

  "It's hard to lose so much so quickly." Elizabeth kissed the top of her head. "But there will be more trees and there will be many people at this place we're going. People like the kind brother we met this afternoon. And there will be other children"

  "Like me?" Hannah peered up toward Elizabeth with a mixture of hope and concern in her eyes.

  "Not exactly like you. There's only one Hannah in this world. But girls your age, no doubt"

  "What if they don't like me?"

  "How could they not like you?" Elizabeth said. "Now pull your feet out of the water and let your toes air dry while you lay your head in my lap and rest. We should have another hour before the Shaker men return:"

  Hannah did as she was told and was asleep in two minutes. The sun was warm on Elizabeth's back and the sound of Payton's knife shaping something out of his stick of wood was somehow comforting. The bright afternoon sunlight sliced down through the trees to glint off the creek water. And that was like a promise from the Lord above that he was watching over them. Weren't things already getting better? Payton no longer smelled even faintly of smoke. He had obviously washed his shirt and pants as well as his body and now wore them while they dried on him. Hannah's hair was a sweeter halo of white around her sleeping face, and they had the promise of a roof over their heads before night fell.

  Perhaps her father's visit to the Shakers in the spring had been providential. Perhaps more of the Shakers would be kind like the brother called Issachar and not wary of them like the younger brother. For Payton was right. The younger one had looked at them as if he wished they would disappear. She knew not why, but then she knew so little of the Shakers. Just the bit their father had told them.

  What kind of people did not want to have dogs around? That was a worry but one she couldn't allow to sit in her mind. She stared back out at the sunlight on the water and pushed aside the questions about these people that she had no way of answering. At least not yet.

  They rode into the Shaker village just at sunset. They had been near the road waiting when the two Shaker men came back from the town. The older Shaker brother had pretended not to know them with the dirt washed from their faces as he peered down at them from the wagon seat with a mock frown. "I was looking for three young people, but that can't be you. For the youngest of the three had this great cloud of white hair, and this child only has a bit of a halo of white"

  Hannah stepped closer to the wagon and pulled on the ends of her curls to make them spring out from her scalp. "We cut some of it off so the birds could have a soft blanket in their nests for the winter."

  "You don't say." Issachar laughed as he took off his hat and ran his hand over the bald top of his head. "So that's what happened to my hair. The birds had need of it"

  Elizabeth couldn't help smiling at him, but Hannah looked very solemn as she placed both hands on top of her head to protect her hair. "They can't have any more of mine. I aim to keep the rest:"

  The younger man laughed so suddenly at Hannah's words that the horses threw up their heads and flared their nostrils in alarm. He calmed the horses with a cooing word, but his smile lingered as he met Elizabeth's eyes. She too was smiling at Hannah's worry, and their smiles met and seemed to make a bridge between their minds. It was as if they already knew one another when there was no way that could be.

  His smile faded away, but his intense blue eyes bore into hers as if searching for an answer to a question he had yet to ask. Her heart did a funny skip inside her chest, and she felt suddenly breathless. It was a moment before she realized he had the same look on his face now as when earlier he had reached out to touch Aristotle. As if she were just as much a mystery to him as the dog had been.

  Then guilt bloomed on his face and spread color across his cheeks. He jerked his eyes away from hers to peer over at Issachar. He seemed relieved that the older man's attention was still on Hannah. The next time he looked Elizabeth's way, he scooted his eyes quickly past her as though he feared meeting her eyes again.

  What did she care, Elizabeth thought as she climbed into the back of the wagon with Payton and Hannah. Her father had said they were a peculiar people. But she didn't have to understand them. She just had to live with their ways until another way opened up. She could do that. They could do that. She looked at Payton and Hannah in the late afternoon light.

  Apprehension sat on Payton's face as he kept glancing over his shoulder toward the Shaker men and the horses to see if he could catch a glimpse of their village on down the road. Hannah didn't once look toward where they were going, but instead sadly watched the trees along the road behind them as if she feared she might never again see a tree.

  Elizabeth had some of the same feeling. Not for the trees, but that the course of her life was being altered forever. That perhaps she was giving up control of her own destiny and would never now realize her dream of marriage to a man she loved and babies of her own to nurture and love. She was not so young. Already twenty. Her time for finding love might pass her by while she was with the Shakers. She pushed the thought from her mind. It would be better to dwell on the truth that they would have shelter and food-without her having to enter into a loveless union with Colton Linley.

  Issachar called back to them when the road began passing through the Shaker lands. Fields of corn stretched as far as the eye could see in one direction, and behind stone fences on the other side of the road were red and white cattle. Then they passed orchards with rows and rows of apple trees and another kind of tree she didn't recognize. When she asked Issachar, he said they were mulberry trees for the silkworms the si
sters raised for the making of silk. Elizabeth couldn't even imagine how a person made silk from worms.

  "I didn't know people made silk in our country," she said.

  "Our sisters do," Issachar said with a laugh. "Very fine silk it is too:"

  "God is in a Shaker's work," the younger man said.

  Payton glanced over at Elizabeth. He looked ready to jump off the end of the wagon and run back down the road the way they had come.

  She put her hand lightly on his arm. "We will learn," she whispered. "Perhaps it won't be as odd as it sounds now."

  The fields were laid out in perfect angles, and she could not see even one weed among the rows of corn. Men dressed the same as Issachar and Ethan were spread across the fields cutting the cornstalks and stacking them in shocks for shucking.

  "They work as long as they have the sun,' Issachar said. "There is much corn to gather before the winter comes. Only a little farther now until you will be able to see the village ahead"

  She had a picture in her mind of what the village might look like from what their father had told them after his visit there, but she was still amazed at the impressive three-story brick buildings that came into view as they approached the village. Issachar said they were the families' houses. They rode past one of the houses and toward a large building rising up in the center of the village. Its white stone walls wouldn't have been out of place on a palace, but there were none of the fancy trimmings one might expect on such a structure. There were no fancy trimmings on any of the buildings. Yet in spite of their austere lines, the buildings were pleasing to the eye. Better yet, they looked substantial, strong. The builders of such structures had to be prosperous and industrious.

  In fact, the people moving along the walkways between the houses and the smaller buildings scattered in behind them moved with purpose. No one stopped on the pathways to talk with another, as might be expected in a village, and although a few of the people sent curious glances their way, none paused to stare.