“It’s not all in Cañon City. The jobs are spread around the southwest part of the state. He remodels apartment buildings, office complexes, and small hotels. You’d be installing ready-made cabinets. It’s all indoors.”
Rufus twisted his lips. “I don’t know, Tom. I don’t see how that could work.”
“Granted, it would be a change for you. But my buddy’s a good guy. Jeff would pay you well. And he would put you up near each job. The money could get you through the winter.”
“Sleep away from home?” Among the English? Rufus had built cabinets for many English homes. Each one was a work of beauty that brought glory to God. Working as an employee of an English had never tempted him, though. He did not want to fall into thinking that any work was beneath him, but the thought of separating from his family—and Annalise—fed his reluctance.
“You could do this in your sleep, Rufus.” Tom tilted his head back and drank the last of his coffee. “It’s honest work. It’s temporary, something to get you through a rough patch.”
Annie lurched toward the moving buggy. “Leah!”
Joel was four strides ahead of her and broke into a sprint. If it were not for her dress, Annie could have caught him, even passed him. The rhythms of running track in high school and college still rose from her muscles when called upon, and she felt the adrenaline now. But while Annie had to use her hands to lift her hem out of the dirt, Joel pumped his limbs and ran freely.
Leah did not look back as Annie and Joel chased her up the old rutted road.
Then with a thud, Annie hit the ground. Though she caught herself on her hands, the damage was done in her right ankle. Wincing, she sat up. Even Joel was slowing down. If anything, Leah was driving faster.
Joel finally stopped and turned to look at Annie. She pushed up to her feet and started limping toward him, testing her ankle with each step.
“I’m sorry,” Annie said once they were close enough to speak. “I had no idea she would do something like this.”
Joel offered an arm to Annie. “How bad is your foot?”
“I used to run races on worse injuries, but that’s been a few years.” Leaning on his arm, she was able to move at a steady pace, but the irregular terrain made speed challenging. “I hope she won’t hurt Brownie.”
It was an hour later when they reached the highway and found the horse, still attached to the cart, grazing contentedly.
Leah Deitwaller was nowhere in sight.
Eight
Annie lifted her right ankle while Ruth slid a pillow beneath it and gently pressed an ice pack against the lump. “Thanks for driving me out here.”
“I was coming for Sunday dinner with my family anyway.” Ruth settled at the end of the couch. “Do you need anything else?”
Annie shook her head. “I can’t believe I sprained my ankle chasing a buggy.”
“You’re lucky it’s not broken.”
“Lucky?” Annie smiled. “Have you become so English as to believe in luck?”
A smile escaped Ruth’s lips. “Gottes wille. You are blessed that your ankle is not broken.”
“It’s not really too bad anymore. It’s been three days, after all.”
“Don’t rush the healing. It takes time.”
“Yes, Nurse Beiler.” Annie pulled an afghan off the back of the sofa and spread it over her lap and legs. “I’m glad Brownie and the buggy were all right, but I’m worried about Leah Deitwaller.”
“You can’t help someone who doesn’t want help,” Ruth said.
“Oh, she wants help, all right. She just wants it on her terms.”
Ruth checked the position of the ice pack against Annie’s ankle. “It amounts to the same thing.”
“I wish I understood what her parents are thinking. Do you think they even know about the young man in Pennsylvania?”
“That’s hard to say. Many Amish couples keep their feelings to themselves until they are sure that the way is clear for them to marry.”
“But surely Leah would have told her parents why she did not want to move to Colorado. What if they don’t know this man? What if he is from another district and they don’t know that he would be a perfectly wonderful husband for their daughter?”
Ruth cocked her head.
Annie threw her hands up. “I know, I know. I’m meddling. Trying to solve a problem that is not mine to solve.”
“Well,” Ruth said, “I’m relieved we don’t have to have that conversation again.”
“You probably think I am as hardheaded as Leah.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“If I didn’t think it would hurt my foot to move that pillow, I would throw it at you.”
Ruth laughed. “No more acts of English aggression from you. You are a baptized Amish now.”
The door between the dining room and kitchen creaked open and eight-year-old Jacob appeared lugging a bag of ice. “We’re going to make ice cream in the barn. Rufus says I can turn the crank.”
Towering over Jacob, Rufus stood with a pan of cooked mixture.
“I love homemade ice cream.” Annie met Rufus’s pleased expression.
“You won’t chase any runaway horses while I’m in the barn, will you?” Rufus’s violet-blue eyes teased a warning.
“I think I’ve learned that lesson.”
She watched as the two brothers—the eldest and youngest of the Beiler children, more than twenty years apart—passed through the room and out the front door.
“They’ll be back for salt,” Ruth predicted. “Rufus never remembers it.”
“I know,” Annie said.
“Speaking of Amish couples,” Ruth said, “has Rufus said anything about making things official?”
Annie had thought he would move their relationship along a little more quickly now.
“Well?” Ruth prodded. “What’s he thinking?”
“I wish I knew.”
Rufus sent Jacob back to the house for the salt and carefully poured into the metal canister the mixture his sister Sophie had cooked on the stove. By the time his little brother returned, Rufus had the blade fixed in the vanilla goop and the lid on the canister. Together they lowered the can onto the bolt in the bottom of the wooden barrel and fastened it in place.
Jacob began to crank. What the boy lacked in physical strength he made up for in determination. Rufus decided to let Jacob give the task his best effort and see how long he lasted. Eventually, as the ice cream thickened, Jacob would need help.
The barn was the place where Rufus had first met Annalise—who of course had not known what she was getting herself into by turning up stranded among the Amish with her English life in a convoluted mess. He had driven her to town, where she hoped to find a ride to a location that met her expectations for civilization, someplace with a rental car business, or at least a bus station.
Only she had decided to stay overnight at Mo’s motel. And then a few nights. And then half the summer.
And then she bought a house in Westcliffe and began coming to church.
Certainly Rufus was never sorry she had been so reluctant to leave. Now she seemed to have long ago given up any thought of returning to live in Colorado Springs.
She was expecting a proposal, and he was no less anxious to offer one than she was to receive it. But Annalise had given up a personal fortune to join the Amish. How could he ask her to marry him while the bottom was falling out of his business?
“Peach,” Jacob said.
Rufus roused. “I’m sorry?”
“We should have made peach. It’s Annalise’s favorite.”
“That it is.” Rufus smiled. Even his little brother knew Annalise well.
The job Tom’s friend offered him was only through the winter. Would it be so bad?
One by one, Ruth’s family members wandered out to the barn, where she knew they would take turns cranking the ice cream. By now melted ice would be making a mess. Soon the mixture would go into the freezer so it would be ready after a light supp
er. Ruth would have gone out as well except that Annalise had dozed off, and Ruth did not want her to wake and find herself alone. Ruth had found her mother’s mending basket and put her hands to good use while Annalise softly snored.
When she heard the purr of a motor, Ruth sat erect and looked out the front window. She did not recognize the vehicle, a gray Mitsubishi that looked to be a few years old.
But she recognized the man who emerged from the driver’s side and spied the front porch.
Ruth pushed the mending basket aside, glanced at Annalise, and crossed the room before Bryan Nichols could ring the bell. She stepped out on the porch. At the last minute she decided to pull the main door closed before shutting the screen door behind her. Taking the seven steps down to the yard, Ruth looked toward the open barn door. Laughter greeted her ears and she was grateful that, for the moment, her family was absorbed in the simplicity of making ice cream.
Because they certainly would not understand the complexity of a visit from Bryan Nichols any more than Elijah Capp had understood her accidental meeting with Bryan on the trail. She put a finger to her lips and motioned for him to follow her around the far side of the house.
“What are you doing here?” Ruth asked when they were out of sight from the barn.
“I wanted to see where you live.” Bryan looked around, puzzled.
“But why?” Her heart pounded. “And I don’t actually live here.”
“I asked someone, and they said this was the Beiler farm.”
“It is.” Ruth hid her nervous hands in the folds of her calf-length corduroy skirt. “My family lives here. I just came to spend Sunday with them.”
“What’s going on, Ruth? Why is it a big deal if I drop by?”
She blew her breath out. “It’s complicated.”
“I’m a college graduate and a firefighter. I understand complicated things.”
“Amish complicated is different.” His green eyes made something puddle deep in her gut. “Did you need something?”
“I just wanted to tell you I enjoyed running into you the other day. Maybe we could plan ahead next time and enjoy the trail together. And then I could buy you dinner.”
She swallowed with deliberation. Was an English man asking her for a date?
The sound of a metal feed pail knocking against the side of the house made Ruth jump, though she had done nothing to feel guilty about.
“Mamm!”
“I thought you were in the house.” Franey Beiler looked from Ruth to Bryan. “Would you like to introduce your friend?”
“This is Bryan,” Ruth said. “Rufus and I met him last week out at the house that burned. He is a firefighter.”
“Oh. Thank you for your service.” Franey set her empty bucket in a stack of six others. “Would you like to come inside? We are about to have sandwiches and homemade ice cream.”
Ruth’s eyes widened. Her mother was one of the most hospitable people Ruth had ever known, even toward the English. But Bryan inside the house? If he were to repeat his invitation where someone might hear it—well, Ruth did not want to imagine the scene that might follow. Silently pleading, she caught Bryan’s eyes and shook her head almost imperceptibly.
Annie woke to the clatter of Beilers claiming their front porch. Franey and Eli. Sophie and Lydia. Joel and Jacob.
She loved every one of them. And she knew they loved her. If Rufus did not ask her to marry him, she still had a spot in the Beiler family for as long as she wanted it. If Franey and Eli knew what was in their son’s heart, they would not say.
Gottes wille.
They tumbled into the house, Jacob prancing around his father, who carried the canister of ice cream.
“Can’t I just have a taste?” Jacob begged. “Just one spoonful?”
Eli shook his head. “It’s too soft. And you don’t want to spoil your supper.”
Annie sat up and tested her ankle against the floor. Perceiving no objection to bearing weight, she stood and moved cautiously toward the door. Where were Ruth and Rufus?
Ruth stood in the long drive, speaking to someone through a vehicle window. Rufus stood at the base of the front porch steps, his arms crossed behind his back in that way that Annie knew meant he was watching the scene carefully. She stepped out on the porch.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Rufus looked up the stairs at her. “An English man came by to see Ruth.”
“Here?”
Rufus nodded.
“You don’t approve,” Annie said.
“It is not for me to approve or disapprove.”
“But you don’t approve.”
“I don’t think he knew any better,” Rufus said.
“Ruth would not have invited him here.”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“Then what is there to disapprove of?”
“You are the one who insists I disapprove.”
Annie watched Ruth for a few seconds. “It looks to me that she is being polite, just as she would have learned from your parents.”
“I have no doubt.”
Abruptly Annie realized that whatever troubled Rufus had nothing to do with his sister. “What’s wrong, Rufus?”
He shook his head. “It’s nothing.”
Annie knew she would get nothing else out of him tonight. But she hated the way that truth twisted her stomach.
Nine
May 1892
Joseph lay on his side, eyes closed. “Zeke?”
No response came, and Joseph wrestled with the moment when he might have sunk back into a deep sleep. He sensed the vague presence of sunlight beyond his eyelids. “Zeke.”
Joseph pushed up on one elbow. He had been more than agreeable to a night in a hotel, despite the stares that came with it, but Zeke had insisted on having their own room rather than conserve cash by sharing with two English men. Joseph raked fingers through his bowl-cut hair and wondered how long ago Zeke had left the room. Swinging his feet to the floor forced Joseph upright and gave him a view straight out the window. The sun blazed halfway up the sky. Joseph had not slept so late since he was a boy. He slapped the thick hotel mattress in blame.
With the heels of his hands, Joseph wiped sleep from his eyes, and then he reached for his clothes. No telling what Zeke would be up to by now.
Joseph dressed, combed his hair, donned his hat, and ignored his hunger. The clerk in the lobby reported that Mr. Berkey had been down for breakfast more than two hours ago and then left the building without indicating his intentions.
Unfortunately for Joseph, the hotel’s small kitchen was now closed for breakfast and at least two hours from opening for a midday meal.
He wandered into the sunlight, considering whether it was more urgent to check to see that their horses had been well cared for at the stables or to track Zeke. He opted for Zeke. The stablemen were more likely to look after the horses adequately than Zeke was to stay out of trouble.
Self-conscious, Joseph made his way down Gassville’s main street looking through plate glass windows and open shop doors. Finding one Amish man among all these English could not prove too difficult a task. Joseph paused outside John Twigg’s Mercantile, remembering Zeke’s remark the day before about the man’s anger and deciding not to enter. He continued a methodical yet subtle search for his friend. Eventually his walk took him back to the Denton Emporium. Instinct told Joseph to push the door open.
A number of people milled around the shop, some with lists, others inspecting the textiles. Zeke stood near the counter at the back of the store.
With the English woman.
“Oh, there you are.” Zeke gestured for Joseph to step to the counter.
Joseph shifted his eyes from Zeke to Miss Woodley and back again, nodding at them both noncommittally.
“I came in to inquire what sorts of supplies the Dentons can order,” Zeke said. “Miss Woodley overheard and has been kind enough to tell me how resourceful the owners are at procuring whatever one might want
.”
“I see,” Joseph said. “Our needs would be simple, of course. Guder mariye, Miss Woodley.” Good morning.
“I trust you rested well.”
The pleasantry in Miss Woodley’s eyes seemed sincere. Perhaps with some reflection overnight she decided that Zeke and Joseph were no threat to the fragile peace of Gassville.
A ruckus in front of the store drew Zeke and a few others to the window.
“It’s Twigg!” someone called out.
“That does not look like a man with all his wits,” Zeke said.
Joseph glanced at Miss Woodley, who gripped the edge of the counter with hands covered in white gloves.
“Does he have a gun?” The question came from Lee Denton, behind the counter.
Zeke shook his head. “I don’t see one.”
Joseph would have preferred Zeke to stay out of whatever was about to happen. There would be no explaining this to the bishop.
“He’s standing in the middle of the street with his arms crossed,” Zeke reported.
“He could be hiding a gun,” Lee Denton said.
When the voice boomed from the street, Joseph startled.
“Denton, you fool!” hollered John Twigg. “You are hiring people to steal from my store so you can sell those goods yourself. You idiots! Did you think I would not figure it out?”
Joseph moved toward Zeke, wanting to pull him back. In the process, he glimpsed John Twigg, bareheaded and—as far as Joseph could see—unarmed. His face flamed with fury.
Maura heard voices outside yelling back at John Twigg, but she could not tell whose. If she got her hands on whoever was inciting John, she would throttle the culprit. A person would have to be half-insane to take up with John.
The man had lost all sense of reason. He was not always like this. Belle had been enamored of John for so long that she refused to acknowledge the turn in him. Maura worried what might become of Belle if she really did marry John Twigg.
Taken for English Page 6
