A Deadly Shaker Spring

by Deborah Woodworth

  Rose rubbed her eyes. She poured another cup of tea, now cold, and opened Fee’s 1911 journal. This time she skimmed through the early section to the spring, when Fee returned to the issue of Samuel and his traveling companion.

  Sometimes the brethren disappoint me no end. My word, do we sisters act this way? I shouldn’t say these things, I know it well, but may the Lord forgive me, I’m losing my patience! Klaus is complaining of Samuel—he isn’t working hard enough, he isn’t where he is supposed to be, he is secretive. And Samuel—well, he is indeed secretive. He will say nothing. Poor old Elder Obadiah, his heart is with the spirits, he never could handle squabbles among the brethren. But it’s clear as clear I’ll need to be sending someone besides Klaus along with Samuel this spring! Those two would kill each other, never mind their vows of pacifism. There are so few brethren and all have their special tasks, I’ve none to spare. I’m thinking of young Caleb, perhaps. He has had some troubles, poor lad. Agatha warns me against giving him too much responsibility, says he has two faces, and one of them can be turned too easily to evil. But perhaps it would do him good to learn a new task, and Samuel would be kind to him. I worry that Klaus has taken Caleb under his wing, so sending him with Samuel might worsen the situation. Oh, I’ve no patience at all with this nonsense! I’ll send Caleb, and that’s the end to it.

  Rose read through to the end of the volume, her eyes blurring from the cramped handwriting. Nothing struck her until the last page.

  Must remember to speak with Agatha about Evangeline and Faithfull. Can’t get those two to stop squabbling long enough to keep decent records of the tonics they give out at the Infirmary. I certainly hope Josie returns soon from her nursing course in Cincinnati. Why she thought she needed more training, I can’t imagine, when we need her so much here, and I can’t get a thorough list of the herbs and medicines the Infirmary is using so we can keep up with needs.

  Klaus? Was he perhaps the companion of Samuel’s that Hugo had mentioned? The one who left to work on the Cincinnati Enquirer!

  Samuel, Klaus, Caleb, Evangeline, and Faithfull. Rose tucked the third volume, for 1912, under her arm, picked up her tea tray, and hurried down to the kitchen. She might just have time to track down the full names of all these Believers and still make it into Languor before everyone in town had settled down to the evening meal.

  To become a part of the Society, each Believer signed the covenant, a document outlining the religious beliefs and communal rules of the Society. Each village had its own copy, sometimes altered slightly. North Homage kept its covenant safe in the small library of the Ministry House, where few visited. Visiting was not forbidden to Believers, only unnecessary. Most were far too busy with their daily tasks to take time for spiritual reading and contemplation. They relied on their Ministry to provide them with spiritual insight and direction.

  Wilhelm himself spent little time reading spiritual literature. His beliefs never wavered, and he preferred work and action to contemplation. Rose entered the library confident she would not encounter him there, nor elsewhere in the Ministry House. At this time of day, he would be in the fields, planting with the rest of the brethren and many of the sisters. But just to be private, she closed the door and left the curtains drawn.

  The covenant and the signatures of those who had signed it since North Homage opened in 1817 were kept in a small drawer in a maple desk. Rose extracted the document, as well as a pen and paper, and settled at the desk. She began at the signatures for 1910 and worked backward, hoping that the Believers she sought had all joined the Shakers at North Homage. If they had joined at another Shaker village and simply moved here, their signatures might be missing.

  This time her aching eyes had to contend with a variety of handwriting styles, ranging from Xs, followed by an elder or eldress’s printing of the name, to fancy curlycues. With only nine years to examine, though, the task didn’t take long. She found all the names except Samuel, who, she knew, had come to North Homage in 1904, as Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, declined. The apostates’ names were Caleb Cox, Klaus Holker, Evangeline Frankell, and Faithfull Worthington. She folded her list and stuffed it in the pocket of her work dress.

  The afternoon was well advanced by the time Rose drove the Society’s black Plymouth the eight miles to Languor. She wanted to have her long-delayed chat with Mr. Caleb Cox. She didn’t know where he lived, and had no wish to ask and call attention to herself. If Caleb didn’t live on the streets, which was possible, he would most likely live in the town’s one boardinghouse, located on the east side of town, close to the perimeter and away from the wealthier homes.

  She drove quickly through the poor outskirts of town, where the still shiny automobile attracted curious stares from thin, dirty children and their equally thin, weary parents. Arriving in another section of town, less ramshackle but still seedy, she parked under the arching branches of an elm tree and rang the boardinghouse doorbell.

  “I have an appointment to meet with Mr. Caleb Cox,” she said in her deepest, most commanding voice, as if she already knew he lived there.

  The matronly, middle-aged woman who answered the bell looked her up and down as if she didn’t allow Rose’s sort to cross her threshold. The warm spring weather had convinced Rose to leave her distinctive blue wool Dorothy cloak in her retiring room, but she knew she stood out in her long, loose cotton work dress with the white lawn kerchief crisscrossed over her bodice. As always, she wore her woven palm sugar-scoop bonnet over the white cap that covered her hair.

  Rose swallowed her self-consciousness and repeated her request. The woman blinked slowly and drew back into the dark entryway. Rose stepped inside. She noticed the smell first, a dankness from years of too much sweat and too little air, overlaid by the sharp odor of ammonia. She followed the woman through a long corridor lit by a dingy chandelier in which only a few bulbs still shone. The peeling wallpaper was a rich burgundy with a raised design that, Rose suddenly realized, represented naked young men and women gamboling through hills and valleys. Rose did not shock easily, but she felt her cheeks grow warm and shifted her eyes to the staircase. Now she remembered. This building had been a bordello until around 1914, when its customers went off to war. The new owners had never bothered to redecorate.

  The silent woman led Rose up the ornately carved staircase, which was lovely but in need of a good sanding and staining. They reached a room on the third floor. She knocked loudly.

  “Caleb. Company,” she said, and left without another glance at Rose. After several moments of scraping sounds, Caleb Cox opened the door and squinted at her with red-rimmed, unfocused eyes. Slowly he took in her garb. As comprehension dawned, he straightened his hunched back and his eyes widened.

  “Eldreth, ma’am,” he slurred. His pretension of sobriety was further doomed as soon as he opened his mouth and released waves of whiskey fumes.

  “I wish to speak with you briefly, Mr. Cox. May I come in?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Caleb tottered backward and allowed Rose to enter. She cleared the doorway and put some distance between herself and Caleb, both for propriety and to avoid his sour breath. She glanced around her. No brothel furniture had found its way into the small room. Dim light from one small, grimy window revealed an army cot covered with a rumpled, moth-eaten wool blanket; a rickety wood chair over which was tossed the patched jacket he had been wearing when he met Sarah; and a scratched pine table with a broken leg supported by a scrap of wood. An upturned orange crate next to the cot held two bottles of Jack Daniels, one nearly empty.

  Rose remained standing. With luck, this visit would be over quickly. She longed to return to the clean, bright rooms of North Homage.

  “Mr. Cox, I’m afraid I must be blunt. How well do you know Sister Sarah Baker?”

  Caleb wilted onto the cot and grabbed the nearly empty Jack Darnels. He took a long swallow. “Jus’ what she told you,” he mumbled, staring at the bottle. “Whatever she told you.”

  “What did she tell m
e, Mr. Cox?”

  Caleb directed his bloodshot stare in Rose’s direction. “Am I supposed to know that?” He looked again at the bottle as if it were involved in the conversation. “How’m I supposed to know that?” he asked with more certainty.

  “Mr. Cox, if you and Sarah are both telling the truth, your stories will be the same, will they not? Just tell me the truth.”

  “Tryin’ to confuse me.”

  “If you would put away the bottle, you would not be so easily confused. How much of that have you drunk?”

  Belligerence seeped into Caleb’s drunken stare. For the first time since meeting him, Rose felt a spark of fear. What did she really know of him?

  “None of your business,” Caleb said. “Just need a sip now and then.” He squinted at the low level of whiskey left in the bottle, and his face fell as if his mother had abandoned him.

  “Don’t put as much in a bottle as they used to,” he said. His eyelids dropped in a lazy blink. Rose suspected he wouldn’t be conscious much longer.

  “Never drink when I’m with Sarah. No ma’am, not around Sarah.” Caleb sniffed, and his lower lip quivered.

  “Nay, of course you wouldn’t drink around Sarah,” Rose said, hoping to keep him on track. “Because you don’t want to hurt her in any way, do you?”

  “No, ma’am. No, sirree. Never hurt Sarah.” He took an awkward swig from the bottle.

  “Because you care for her, don’t you? You love her.”

  Sudden tears spilled down his cheeks and dropped off his stubbly chin. “Sarah, she’s an angel. A pure angel. In my whole life, no one ever understood me like her.” He upturned the whiskey bottle and gulped until he’d drained it.

  Rose knew her time was short now. “Mr. Cox, Sarah and I need your help.”

  Caleb narrowed his eyes at her and swayed sideways. “Wha—? Sarah needs me?”

  “Yea, Sarah and all her Shaker sisters and brothers. We need you to tell us what you know about the apostates, the other people like you who have left our faith and are living here in Languor. We have reason to believe that some of them are trying to hurt us, maybe even to hurt Sarah. Please, if you know what is—”

  Rose barely had time to plunge sideways and curl up in a ball on the floor as Caleb, with a sudden surge of energy, waved his empty Jack Daniels bottle and flung it against the wall in back of where she had been standing. The bottle smashed on impact with the wood doorframe, and knife-sharp shards flew back into the room. Rose felt slight pricks as a few pierced the sleeves of her cotton dress.

  “Shakers! Them damn Shakers, it’s all their fault!” Caleb shouted.

  The room reeked of whiskey, and no doubt her clothing would, too, but right now Rose was more concerned with learning what she could from Caleb, then getting as far away from him as possible. Cautiously, she straightened. Caleb was struggling to open the fresh bottle of Jack Daniels.

  “Just tell me one thing, Mr. Cox, and then I’ll be glad to leave you alone.” She edged backward toward the door. Caleb stopped his fumbling and frowned at her.

  “Tell me why you are angry with the Shakers.”

  “Ruined my life,” he mumbled. “Damn Shakers ruined my life.”

  “But how? How did we Believers ruin your life?”

  “Just did, that’s all. Always keeping after me, like I couldn’t do a damn thing right. Now ruining Sarah’s life. My sweet Sarah.” Again instant tears appeared and tumbled downward. “Keeping her a prisoner so’s we can’t be together. But I’m gettin’ her away from them. I got a way to do it.” He glared at Rose. “I got a way, and I got friends.” He got the bottle open and took another long gulp. Pale golden liquid dribbled from the corners of his mouth. His eyelids shut, and he fell backward on the cot, the nearly full bottle pouring whiskey on his stomach and down onto the blanket.

  Rose pried the bottle from his hand and placed it on the orange cart. She hated to leave it for him to drink again when he awakened, but she would never be able to explain walking out of the house with an open bottle of Jack Daniels. She must leave Caleb to wrestle his demons without her interference.

  She turned to leave. As she passed the table, she saw a pile of papers. The top sheet appeared to be a notice of some sort, and the typeface looked familiar. She picked it up. It read:

  To our Languor Neighbors and Friends:

  Are you worried about enemies among us?

  Are your businesses being ruined by unjust practices?

  Are you frightened for your children,

  that they might be spirited away from your loving arms

  and forced to live an Unnatural life?

  Do you want to keep this great land of ours

  free from the icy fingers of evil?

  Then join us tonight, 7 P.M.,

  at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church on Beech Street.

  There is a way to keep Languor safe!

  Come and find out how!

  Rose now recognized both the writing style and the typeface. The author of this notice was the creator of the Languor County Watcher. She folded the paper and stuffed it in her pocket. She riffled through the pages to see if they were all the same. Wedged underneath the bottom page was a smaller, yellowed piece of paper, handwritten, with one ragged edge, as if it had been ripped from a pamphlet or book of some sort. She skimmed through it.

  Sweet Faithfull died in her sleep last night. The Infirmary sisters attended her at the end, and Evangeline said it was a gentle death, that her heart simply gave out, but she said that only to soothe my pain. There was no need. My pain is soothed by anger, for I know the truth, that she did not die gently. She was taken from her body while it was still strong and beautiful. My own heart is spent, but I will live on anger the rest of my days. And though it may take the rest of my days, I will bring to justice the man who did this.

  Richard is only a boy, but I can tell he suspects something, too. I can see it in the way he holds back and watches everyone. He must know his mother was strong and full of health and would never have slipped away in her sleep. When the time comes, he will be an ally. And the time will come.

  Rose pushed the small paper back under the leaflets. No matter how drunk Caleb might be now, he would surely miss that intriguing page. Never mind, she would remember those words. Clearly they came from an old Shaker journal. Was this why Samuel’s journals were stolen—because they pointed to Faithfull’s murderer? Rose was unable to tell if this was Samuel’s handwriting, but the anguished and literate style could easily have been his.

  Caleb groaned and began to cough. Rose left the room as quickly as she could without crunching on broken glass.

  “Rose! How lovely to see you, but what on earth have you been into?” Gennie Malone’s expression was caught between shock and amusement. “There aren’t enough flowers in the whole store to cover that . . . fragrance.”

  Rose had grown accustomed to the whiskey smell embedded in her clothing and was no longer aware of it. “I’ll tell you the whole sad story soon enough,” she said. “But let me look at you first.” She hugged Gennie and then held her at arm’s length. Gennie was eighteen now, and developing an air of confidence and serenity, despite her concern for Rose. Her auburn hair was fashionably bobbed and a riot of curls.

  “Come along to the back room,” Gennie said. “Customers can shout if they need me.”

  She led the way through a curtained doorway to a littered workroom. Rose paused to breathe in the heavy sweetness of fresh flowers. She saw white roses scattered on the table, but their delicate fragrance was overwhelmed by the heady perfume of a vase of white lilies. Everywhere she looked, she saw white flowers.

  “Gennie, don’t you use colors anymore?”

  Gennie laughed, a throatier sound than the giggle Rose remembered and missed. “Of course we do. But these flowers are for a wedding.”

  “Ah, of course.” Rose reached out and brushed her finger along a rose petal. She knew all about weddings in the world, had almost had one herself at eigh
teen. But it was a long time since she had thought about that.

  “Let me show you my herb project,” Gennie said, taking Rose’s arm, “and then I want to hear why your dress smells like a distillery.” She led the way to a sunny window. A long table held rows of small pots, each containing a lanky herb plant reaching toward the light. Many of the plants were in bloom, with long sprigs of tiny flowers—lavender, pale purple oregano, and faint blue rosemary.

  “These are the seedlings we ordered from North Homage months ago. I know they look a bit scraggly just now,” Gennie said. “But I’m trying to get people used to the idea of herb flowers in bouquets. They are healthful, inexpensive, and not nearly so likely to make people sneeze in the middle of a wedding ceremony.” She gently fluffed the rosemary stems to release their pine-like fragrance. “I know that you would never use flowers for such a frivolous purpose, but you must admit, it makes business sense.”

  “Indeed it does,” Rose said, regretting, as she often had, that Gennie would not be following her as North Homage’s trustee. “And you would be surprised—from what I’m hearing of other Shaker villages, if it weren’t for Wilhelm, we would all be hanging pictures on our walls and gathering bouquets for our rooms. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for us, after all. God created such beauty. Perhaps He means for us to enjoy it.”

  “I won’t tell Wilhelm you said that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now, tell me your story.”

  Without comment, Rose drew the lurid announcement from her pocket and handed it to Gennie, who read it through with a deepening frown.

  “Where did you come by this? I haven’t seen it.”

  “I suspect it was written by a group of apostates, and they must be limiting their efforts to people they identify as unfriendly to North Homage.” She told Gennie about her encounter with Caleb Cox.

  “Rose, I grew up under your wing, and I know you. You are planning to attend this . . . this meeting, aren’t you? You mustn’t, truly.”