Manuel went back in the house, muttering as he went.
“And don’t you be callin’ fire down on my head,” Lowell hollered after him. “I speak Spanish, you know.”
About twenty minutes later, the Ford pulled up in the front driveway in a cloud of dust. A tall, dark-haired man got out.
“Howdy, stranger,” Lowell called from the porch. “What brings you to the Eagle’s Nest?”
“I’m looking for Lowell Jackson.”
“You’re lookin’ at him.”
“Mr. Jackson, I’m Reuben Springer. I got your name from the man at the general store in town. They said you might be looking for someone who’s good with horses.”
“Where you from, Reuben?” Lowell asked.
“Ohio,” Reuben said, “and I sure could use some work. I’ve just about run out of money. I’m headed for California. I had a job waiting for me outside Denver, but the man sold his ranch while I was in the Marines, so I’m headed west.”
“You’re a vet?” asked Lowell.
“Yes, sir,” Reuben replied. “I served in the First Division of the Marine Corps in the Pacific theater. I saw action on Guadalcanal.”
Lowell considered this and said, “I lost a son on Guadalcanal at the Tenaru River. If you served with my boy, you’re welcome at my table. Come on in and sit a spell. Manuel’s cookin’ up some steaks. We’ll talk about a job while we eat.”
A smile cracked Reuben’s stern features. “That sounds more than good to me, sir.”
“Lowell,” said the old man as he led Reuben into the house. The walls were made of peeled pine logs, notched and set into place. To the left around a corner was the kitchen, and Reuben could hear someone rattling around in there. Snatches of a song in Spanish and the welcome smell of frying steak drifted into the dining room. There were large windows and the room had a big plank table with rough-hewn chairs around it. To the right was a large open room filled with sagging couches and rustic old chairs set in front of a huge stone fireplace that took up the entire end of the house. A stack of fresh-split pine logs and a box of kindling sat to one side of the fireplace. A stairway went up and around out of the foyer where they stood.
Manuel came out of the kitchen with a two-pronged fork in his hand.
“Hey, mister,” he said, looking Reuben over, “how you like me cook your steak?”
“Medium rare would be fine,” Reuben said.
“You think this is a French restaurant maybe, señor?” Manuel grumbled as he went back in the kitchen.
Lowell laughed. “Don’t mind Manuel. He’s just pretending he’s polite. He doesn’t have a polite bone in his body. You’re gonna get your steak medium no matter what you say.”
Reuben laughed, but even as he did, Lowell sensed something about him. Sent me another wounded one, huh, Lord? He’s running from something, and I guess You got him up here for me to find out what it is.
A few minutes later Manuel came in with some plates on a tray. The steaks were still sizzling, and there were country potatoes and some refried beans. Reuben sat down to dinner with more anticipation than he had felt in a long time.
“So where’d you learn horses, Reuben?” Lowell asked.
“On my dad’s farm in Ohio. I’ve broken them, trained them, and everything in between.”
“Who’d you say was going to hire you in Denver?”
“Ansel Robertson. He had a ranch between Denver and Fort Collins,” Reuben replied.
“Just so happens I know Ansel,” Lowell said through a mouthful of steak. “He was one of my best customers before he sold his ranch. I’ll give him a call and check out your story. In the meantime, you’re welcome to stay here for the night. After I talk to Ansel, we’ll see where we go from there.”
After dinner, Lowell took Reuben down to the bunkhouse. “Don’t have any hands anymore except for Manuel,” he said. “I used to have around ten fellas working for me including my boy, but things are a little slow, and I’m getting old enough to where I mostly want to sit on my porch anyway. Put your stuff in here and then come on back up to the house. We’ll sit by the fire and have a chat.”
After Reuben stowed his clothes and spread out some blankets on a bunk, he went back up to the house. Lowell showed him to a chair by the fireplace and poured him a coffee. “I just got done talkin’ with Ansel, and he put in a good word for you. Says you come highly recommended by some friends back in Ohio. So if you want the job, I’m offering it to you.”
“That’s mighty good of you, sir...I mean, Lowell,” Reuben said. “When do we start?”
“Breakfast is at six. After that, we’ll see what you can do,” Lowell replied. And I guess we’ll find out why the Lord sent you to me.
Reuben fit in well at the Eagle’s Nest. Within a few days he had demonstrated his ability with horses and his strong work ethic. Soon he was cleaning up old piles of junk and making repairs around the place that Lowell had put off for years. From time to time Lowell tried to strike up a serious conversation with Reuben, but Reuben would only talk about superficial subjects. Whenever Lowell asked him about what had brought him out west, Reuben would clam up or suddenly remember something he needed to take care of. On Sundays, when Lowell and Manuel drove down to the little storefront church in Fairplay, Reuben always begged off or found a reason to stay at the ranch.
And so the spring and summer of 1950 passed as Reuben buried himself in work at the ranch. Lowell took a strong liking to Reuben. He reminded him of his son—a hard worker and serious but with something eating him. Still, Reuben wouldn’t open up.
One night after dinner, Lowell tried again. “So, Reuben,” he ventured, “the day you got here, you told me you fought on Guadalcanal.”
Reuben looked down at his plate and mumbled an indistinct reply.
“Look, Reuben, I don’t want to dig into your personal life. It’s just that I thought maybe you could help me.”
“Help you?” Reuben asked. “How?”
“Well, like I said, my son died on Guadalcanal at the Tenaru River. I never could get much information from the Corps...just that he had died in battle fighting off an enemy invasion. I wrote the War Department, but they said it was classified information. Since then I’ve tried a few times, but they don’t seem to care much anymore, and I just get passed along to another bureaucrat. I guess I’m grasping at straws by asking you about it.”
Reuben paused. He liked Lowell, and the old man’s simple request was genuine.
“I wasn’t at the Tenaru,” he said slowly. “I was...I was...”
It seemed to Lowell that each word caused him great distress. He started to tell Reuben that he didn’t have to finish, but Reuben waved him off.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s painful for me, but you’ve been good to me, and I want to help you in any way I can.” He thought for a moment. “My friend Bobby Halverson and I were in the scout and sniper platoon, so we didn’t see much direct action until the Battle of the Ridge. We heard about the Tenaru though. It was pretty tough going for our boys. Did they tell you any more about where your son was stationed?”
“They just told me he was one of a squad of men defending a sandbar across the river the Japanese were trying to use as a bridge. That’s all I know.”
Reuben’s eyes widened. “What was your boy’s name?” he asked quietly.
“Dick,” Lowell replied. “Richard. Corporal Richard Jackson. Why, did you know him?”
“No, but every Marine on that God-forsaken island heard about him.”
“What do you mean?” Lowell leaned forward.
“Your boy was a hero. Wouldn’t they at least tell you that?” Reuben asked. “When he heard that the Japanese were headed their way, he took his squad out on the neck, and they strung barbed wire across to seal it off. While they were finishing the job, a thousand enemy troops moved up from the beach and started trying to cross the sandbar. From what I was told, your son grabbed a machine gun and stayed out in front of the wire, fighting off
the enemy troops until his men finished stringing it across the neck. They warned him that he was going to get trapped on the wrong side, but he just ordered them to finish while he held off the Japanese. When he ran out of ammo, he ran for the wire but got caught in it, and an enemy soldier shot him while he hung there.”
Reuben shook his head. “If that wire hadn’t been strung, the Japanese would have come right across the neck and pushed us all the way back to the other end of the island. As it was, they got caught in the wire trying to cross and were sitting ducks for our troops.
“After the battle, the men went out and brought your son’s body back. It’s not often that you see battle-tough men cry, but they say there wasn’t a dry eye in that platoon when they carried him back to camp. I don’t know why he never got a medal, but he should have. What he did was a lot more sacrificial than what I did.”
Lowell looked at Reuben for a long time, and then the old man put his head down on the table and wept.
After a while, Lowell reached over and gripped Reuben’s arm.
“I can see that it was real hard for you to talk about the war, and I won’t ask why, but I got to tell you this. You will never know how much it means to me to hear that my boy died doing his duty. Dick and I had our times, and sometimes I was tough on him, but he was a good and decent boy. Even though he fought me, in the end he stood up for the values I taught him. That does an old man’s heart good, and I thank you for it.”
Both men sat silently for a few moments, and then Lowell chuckled.
“What?” Reuben asked.
“Barbed wire,” Lowell said. “If there was one thing Dick hated worse than rattlesnakes, it was barbed wire. He must have strung a thousand miles of that stuff while he was growing up. He used to come back at the end of the day with bloody scratches all over his arms. He just hated it. One of the last things he said to me before he left was, ‘Well, Dad, I guess I won’t be seeing much of that blasted barbed wire where I’m going.’ Then the last thing he does in this life is string barbed wire.”
Lowell’s laughter turned again to tears and then back to laughter. Reuben sat silently for a minute and then began to laugh with Lowell, and soon their laughter and tears flowed together and carried them beyond the struggles of this world to that place where pain and joy disappear into the light of blessedness.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
A New Day
AFTER THAT NIGHT, Reuben was a little less guarded with Lowell. He still refused to go to church, but he was willing to sit and listen when Lowell occasionally pulled out the Bible after dinner and read some of his favorite verses. At those times, Reuben sat politely, but Lowell could see that he held most of what was being read in disdain. One evening, Lowell read Psalm 27:9: “Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.”
When Lowell finished, Reuben muttered something under his breath.
“Did you say something?” Lowell asked.
“I said, that’s a prayer that God isn’t going to answer anytime soon, at least not if I pray it.”
“What is it about the Bible that bothers you so much?” asked Lowell.
Reuben looked at Lowell but remained silent. Lowell pressed on.
“Reuben, you must have had some religious upbringing,” he said. “You have values and standards, you respect your elders, and you’re a hard worker. It seems to me those are qualities you find most in children who have been raised by God-fearing parents.”
Reuben smiled wryly. “If you knew the half of it, you’d be mighty surprised. I have had my share of religion, that’s for certain, and I’ve come out the other end with a firm conviction that believing in God is for weak-minded people, people who need a crutch, people who want to escape—”
“I hope you don’t lump me in with all those folks,” retorted Lowell. “I regard myself as a pretty independent ol’ cuss. What happened to you to make you so negative toward God?”
Reuben began to grow agitated. “I still have some things to do before it gets dark,” he said. “I better get about them.”
“Okay, boy, don’t get all het up. I’ll leave it alone,” he said gently. “It’s just that I see there’s something troubling you, something deep down, and I wish I could help. I know if you’d turn to the Lord...”
“I turned to the Lord,” Reuben said with an edge. “All it got me was pain and suffering and the loss of everything I loved. I’ve been there, Lowell, and I’m not going back. Now I’m going out to see about that mare that’s about to foal, and when I get back I hope we can talk about something else.”
“Suit yourself, Reuben.”
Lowell watched as Reuben left the room. He looked over at Manuel. “Something is really stuck in that boy’s craw, and he won’t get well until he comes clean and spits it out.”
On another occasion, when they were mending fences, Lowell asked Reuben about his military service. Reuben put down his hammer and looked at Lowell.
“My military service isn’t something I’m proud of.”
“Well, the only reason someone would feel that way is if they were a coward or a deserter,” said Lowell, “and I doubt you were either of those.”
“No, Lowell, I wasn’t a deserter,” said Reuben. “In fact I won...”
“...a medal?”
“Yes, a medal.”
“Which one?”
Reuben hesitated. “Well, if you must know, I won the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
Lowell stopped and stared at Reuben. “The Congressional Medal,” he said with awe in his voice. “Son, I knew you were somethin’ special when I first laid eyes on you. How can you not be proud of that?”
Reuben sat down on a pile of posts and passed his hands over his eyes. “I won that medal by shooting, stabbing, and beating Japanese boys who were just like me except for the color of their skin. I still carry a picture I took from a sniper I killed. He had a wife and a child just like me, and now he’s a pile of bones out in that stinking jungle. His little boy will never know the father I killed. When I was fighting on the ridge, I saw men become animals, and I was the worst of them all. And for that they gave me a medal? What kind of a world is this, Lowell, that rewards men for going against everything God says is good and right? At least your boy gave his life to save his men. I wasn’t thinking about saving anyone. I just wanted to kill. And when it was done they put me up on a pedestal, but inside I knew who I was and what I’d done. So did God, and He punished me for it.”
Lowell stood in amazement. He’d never heard Reuben show emotion. Now the passion of this outburst had tears forming in Reuben’s eyes. Lowell couldn’t think of anything to say. Reuben stood up and walked away, wiping the tears from his face while Lowell stared after him.
There’s part of it, Lord, but that ain’t all. Show me the rest, Lord. Show me what’s eatin’ that boy so we can get him healed.
In the weeks before Thanksgiving of 1950, Reuben spent most of his free time by himself in the bunkhouse. Lowell sensed he could do nothing for Reuben, so he decided to back off for a while and let Reuben continue to work through it on his own.
But matters came to a head before that would happen. On the night before Thanksgiving, the sound of the barn door creaking open woke Lowell. He got up and went to the window and saw a dim light coming through the cracks between the boards. He grabbed his shotgun, slipped on his boots, and walked quietly out to the barn. He went around to the back and peeked through the window. What he saw shocked him. Reuben had thrown a rope over the main beam in the barn and tied it off. He was standing on a stool with the end of the rope looped around his neck.
As Lowell watched he saw Reuben tense his face and close his eyes. Just as Reuben pushed himself off the stool, Lowell kicked open the back door, raised his shotgun, and blasted the rope where it hung over the beam. Reuben fell in a heap and began to weep uncontrollably.
“Let me die, Lowell,” he cried.
“Please, just let me die!”
“Get up. Nobody’s getting hung on my spread unless they’re a murderer or a horse thief.”
“But I am a murderer. I killed my little girl. Please just shoot me and put me out of my misery.”
“Not before you tell me what happened. Let’s hear your story, and when it’s done, if you deserve it, I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
So Reuben began to tell Lowell the whole story—growing up Amish, leaving his faith and joining the Marines, fighting in the trenches, being wounded, and returning to his home and his Amish faith. And then he wept his way through the story of Jerusha and of Jenna’s illness and death and of his flight from Apple Creek and the pain and grief of the wife he had left behind.
“I thought if I obeyed the rules of our Order and did everything the ordnung said, I’d be safe. I did everything right, and God still let Jenna die. Either He’s not real or He’s cruel and capricious, and I just can’t face either one of those options anymore. I want to die. I deserve to die, Lowell.”
“From where I sit, there are men who deserve death a lot more than you do, yet they still walk this earth. And there are men like my son, who had his whole life ahead of him and died at eighteen in some stinking jungle halfway around the world. Reuben, you’re not the one who decides. That’s up to God and no one else. And you’re wrong—God is real and He’s not cruel or capricious. He didn’t kill your little girl; this sin-cursed world did. From what you tell me, it seems your little girl already understood God and His ways, and so her going home means she’s with Him.
“As for you killing her, that’s just not true. God keeps our lives in His hands, and when it’s our time to go, there ain’t no one can change that. If you had put a gun to her head and shot her, that would be different, and we’d be on our way to see the sheriff right now. As it stands, you were just trying to do what you thought was best, and it didn’t turn out.
“God is trying to show you something in all of this, Reuben. You don’t earn points with God by keeping rules. In fact, Jesus pointed out that there are only two rules: Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. It appears that you did neither. You didn’t love God. You tried to make Him do what you wanted Him to do instead of just serving Him. And you didn’t love your closest neighbor, your wife, like you loved yourself, so you bowed to your pain and forgot about hers. If there’s anything you’re guilty of, its abandoning your wife when she needed you most.”
A Quilt for Jenna Page 21
