Jacob's Return

by Annette Blair

  Datt’s cranky bantam crowed.

  “Till dawn, we argued—”

  “And chased.”

  He smiled. “Argued and chased till dawn. Is this what our life will be like from now on?”

  “I hope so. Jacob, dawn is the beginning of a new day, a good time to begin a new life,” Rachel said. “It is fitting, because I want to begin every new day with you, until there are no more days left for me here. And then I want to spend them with you in heaven.”

  Jacob shook his head, so torn between leaving her and taking her, he wanted to roar his frustration. “You will not be winning every discussion we ever have,” he promised. “And if the world is the hell I expect it to be, I will bring you back here where you will be safe. Then you will understand it is best for all of you.”

  Jacob could tell by Rachel’s smile that she knew she’d won this argument, if argument it were. Fate, more like.

  Destiny, he thought it was called.

  He shook his head again and flicked the reins. “I wish I could believe taking you is the right thing, no matter what Atlee said.”

  Rachel looked curious. “What did Atlee say to you? I know he was upset about your decision to leave, and sad beyond belief, because he thought we should be together. But what did he tell you?”

  “Wait,” he kept telling me. “Just wait. God will provide. Now you know I used to believe that as much as the next man, but when you’ve angered Him as much as I have—”

  “And I—”

  He covered her hand. “No. I won’t accept that. But I do worry His anger at me will splash over onto you and the little ones.” He smoothed the curls at Emma’s ear. She lay against him and yawned. “Pa-pop,” she whispered.

  “God is never angry with us,” Rachel said. “You must have forgotten that. He may be saddened by our deeds, but He is never angry with us.”

  Jacob nodded. “If for no other reason, I suppose I must keep you with me to remind me of all I have forgotten.”

  “There are other reasons.”

  Jacob all but growled. “Those reasons got us into this.”

  Rachel laughed, the sound pure and uplifting.

  Shaking his head, Jacob flicked the reins. “Yup, Caliope. Let’s go home. Wherever that is.”

  * * * *

  Reluctant or not, Jacob was taking them and Rachel experienced an elation almost as heady as her fear had been. Dizzy relief assailed her. They left the barn, passed through the yard, then turned onto Buttermilk Hill Road. Life beckoned.

  A life together, for her and Jacob and their small family.

  Buggy wheels on gravel behind them got her attention, and she looked back, but she could not believe her eyes.

  Jacob pulled over and Rachel feared he’d changed his mind. “Why are you stopping?”

  “There’s someone behind us. It’s slow going with all this—”

  Levi, marketbuggy piled high with possessions, pulled beside them. “Nice morning to go flittin,” he said. “Do we know where we’re going?”

  Jacob lowered his head — in shock or thanksgiving, either or both. His shoulders tensed, relaxed. When he gazed at his father finally, his wet-eyed gaze expressed hope. And disbelief. “Datt.”

  “You’re not leaving this old man behind. I plan to watch those babies grow up.”

  “Ah, Datt,” Jacob said blinking.

  “I’ll lead,” Levi said. “I need to drop off the papers for the farm at your father’s, Rachel. It’ll give you a chance for a last goodbye. I know you’d like that.”

  Like it and hate it, she thought nodding, filled with a renewed pain for leaving Pop and Esther.

  Levi moved ahead and waved them on.

  They passed the cemetery at a slow canter. In their hearts, Rachel knew they were all saying their last farewells.

  When her Pop’s farm came into view, Rachel shivered. She could do this, she could. She must, because if she did not remain strong, she was afraid Jacob would turn around and take her back.

  Levi stopped his buggy, but did not alight.

  Rachel examined every window for a glimpse of Es or Pop. But no one looked back. The clapboards on the house were whitewashed, the garden neatly rowed and swelling with abundance, the farm buildings orderly and well kept.

  The barn had been her playground. She loved it most.

  As if responding to her thoughts, an unseen hand threw the barn doors wide, the yawning doorway making the barn smile. Sunlight glinting on the upper windows made it wink.

  A goodbye to cherish.

  Movement altered the barn’s smile.

  A horse. Moving. Something behind it. Pop. Driving his marketbuggy, two trunks and mom’s favorite painted cabinet lashed to the back.

  Rachel straightened. Oh. Oh.

  Ruben, Esther at his side with little Daniel, drove their buggy out next, attached trailer following.

  Atlee came trotting after them, his smile so wide, Rachel imagined him as a young man. She hadn’t seen such a spring in his step since he was eighty, and she laughed.

  Totally bewildered, Jacob took Emma. “Go.”

  Rachel jumped down and ran. Her Pop enveloped her in a hug, then swung her in a wide circle, his hearty laugh bringing her great gulping sobs. Did her eyes confirm what her heart desperately hoped was true?

  Her father held her close. “Ach, Rachel mine, don’t cry. Do you think we could let you go from us forever? A weak Bishop I am who cannot shun his own daughter, no, nor lose her, either.”

  “A Bishop with a heart,” she said against his ear.

  Esther hugged them both. “We’re coming with you.”

  “We don’t even know where we’re going.” Rachel straightened her father’s hat. “Blind faith, Pop?”

  “You’re going to Winesburg, Ohio,” Esther said. “We all are.”

  “We are?” Rachel looked toward Jacob near their buggy, waiting, unsure, Emma wrapped around his leg, Anna and Mary in his arms, and Aaron leaning sleepy-eyed against him.

  Rachel giggled and her heart expanded.

  Love, it was called.

  “What if I had not caught up to him this morning?” Rachel asked, lightheaded for their close call.

  “I was prepared to stop him when he passed here,” Ruben said. He feigned a loud yawn. “I have not slept in two days for watching.”

  Esther laughed.

  Levi squeezed Rachel’s arm. “And I was prepared to bring you here. My Jacob, you know, is too stubborn just to be told. We knew he would need to step into hell for a while before he would see reason.

  “When he didn’t go before today, we knew we would leave this morning,” her Pop said. “So here we are. Jacob looks like he’s worried we’re taking you back.”

  “Because you made it clear he would not be welcome as your son-in-law,” Rachel said.

  “Guess I need to be forgiven,” he said.

  “Forgiveness is a good thing,” Rachel said, kissing him on the cheek.

  “Beginning again is too,” her father said. “Let’s go tell him.”

  As they approached, Jacob’s expression, part naughty little boy, part confused little boy, made Rachel love him more.

  “We’re going to Winesburg, Ohio, Jacob,” Rachel said, taking Anna from him and drawing Emma too.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Ruben slapped him on the back. “Atlee found us a new community. They call themselves the Bontranger Amish after their leader, Zeb Bontranger. They are expecting us. Seems they have broken with their strict Amish neighbors and have brought along a good share of Amish sinners who wish to begin again. Atlee says they believe in repentance, more than shunning, and are committed to looking ahead, rather than back. Should take four, maybe five days to get there. They have even given us directions to friends’ and relatives’ homes where we will be welcomed along the way.”

  Jacob shook his head, as if this was too much to comprehend. “Amish,” he said. “Together?”

  Rachel nodded, tears blurring h
is dear face, then Ruben took Anna from her and gave her back to Jacob, took Rachel by the hand and walked her to his trailer. He knocked on the oilcloth covered mountain tied to the back and threw the cloth off. “Built it myself,” he said. “Not a real Gutenberg, but—”

  “Never was a Gutenberg,” Atlee said.

  Everybody looked at him as if he’d grown horns.

  He patted it. “Just like mine, just like a Gutenberg.”

  Rachel was the first to laugh.

  Jacob shook his head. “Those press parts would not have fit.”

  Ruben slapped Atlee on the back. “Old coot!” He turned to Rachel, still shaking his head. “In Winesburg, there is a farm waiting for us, with an old sawmill building for the press. They need a newspaper, Rachel.”

  “And a Bishop,” her father said. “A Bishop with a heart.”

  Rachel covered her face with her hands.

  Esther took her into her arms and together they shed tears of joy.

  The men, Jacob’s look stunned, joyful, waited indulgently.

  Atlee stood by Rachel, hat in hand, like a little boy waiting for a pat on his head. He cleared his throat.

  Rachel let go of Esther, took his hand and smiled. “Oh, Atlee.” This strong-willed patriarch had been there for them all their lives. He would be the greatest loss in leaving the Valley.

  “For you, Mudpie, did I do this, already. For your care of me last winter. And for your babies,” he said, turning to Jacob. Her Jacob, standing beside her, children climbing on, and hanging off him, kissing and hugging them and shouting with laughter.

  “You will never have to leave them,” Rachel told Jacob.

  “Or you,” Jacob said, pulling her close. “I will never have to leave you again.”

  Atlee swatted Jacob’s arm. “As should be. Your hide I should paddle. Did I not say, ‘Wait, God will provide,’ already? But did you wait?”

  Jacob took the scold he deserved quite well, Rachel thought. She hugged Atlee hard, his bony frame reminding her he would soon walk with God. She kissed his parchment cheek. God had a treat in store.

  The bent, white-haired man blushed. “Sell your farms, I will,” he said. “And send you the money, less my fee, already.” He cackled and slapped his knee. “A fee for the taking care of. It makes a good bargain, aint?”

  They were still smiling as they climbed into their buggies. Memories of Atlee would accompany them, even if he could not. Their caravan set off, four buggies in a row, precious futures before them. The Sauders, Zooks, and Millers were flittin.

  Rachel was happier than she had ever been.

  When they got close to the Yoder farm, four-year-old Abby Yoder sat on a rock by the side of the road waving them down.

  Jacob stopped the buggy.

  The little girl came forward, offering a wrapped parcel. “Grossmommie’s corncakes for your journey,” Abby said with a shy smile. “Godspeed.”

  Jacob regarded the parcel. “Annie and Saul Yoder just said goodbye.”

  “I know,” Rachel whispered.

  Junior Adam Stoltzfus, Great-Grossdaudy Weingardt, and little Jake Yost waited at the Beaver Dam crossroads where their farms met.

  Rachel squeezed Jacob’s arm and he pulled the buggy to a stop.

  Adam silently gave them a cloth-wrapped sausage. Weingardt pushed a jug of tea into Jacob’s hand with a mumbled blessing. Little Jake came around to Rachel’s side and handed her a cloth embroidered with a likeness of the valley. “Just for pretty,” he said. “And to remember.”

  Jacob cleared his throat as they set off again. “Our friends have sent their young ones, who don’t break the ban by speaking to us, to say goodbye for them.”

  “Weingardt’s not so young,” Rachel said. “Ninety, maybe.”

  Jacob smiled. “Stubborn, that one. Always breaking the rules.”

  “Like us,” Rachel said.

  He squeezed her hand. “Like us.”

  He pulled their buggy to a stop, the heavy traffic at the Strasburg crossroads making it necessary to wait their turn.

  Jacob looked toward the Valley and sighed. “Family and community are unusual gifts,” he said. “I have learned, with your help, Mudpie, that it is not the place makes a home, it is the people. You were right, wherever we are together, we are home.”

  Rachel leaned over and kissed his cheek, right there before God and half the village, and took his hand. “And what better home is there, than where one is welcomed with open arms, where the past is forgotten, and the future is filled with hope.”

  Jacob looked back at the row of buggies.

  His Datt waved. So did Ruben. The Bishop nodded.

  “And if the people there happen to be the ones we love, there is nothing more perfect under God’s heaven than that.”

  Epilogue

  In marriages between widows and widowers, the December wedding rule did not hold. This sun-blessed, late September day Bishop Ezra Zook’s daughter, Rachel, was marrying the man she had loved since she was three, she insisted, Jacob Sauder.

  As Bishop of the Winesburg, Ohio, Bontranger Amish Community, he stood proudly — sorry, Lord, make that humbly — waiting for the bride and groom to rise from their knees, so he could join two people who’d traveled to perdition and back to reach each other.

  His daughter, Esther, big with child, and her husband, Ruben Miller, a good, hard-working man, stood witness.

  The congregation — their new friends — shared joyously in the blessing on the couple, smiling openly at the first row of guests, Ezra’s five fidgety grandchildren, four of them, children of the bride and groom.

  There, the Bishop saw in many eyes, was a story they would like to know. But he had lived among them for weeks and he knew no questions would be asked. They had stories aplenty of their own that would never be told.

  Only their devotion to living the Plain and simple life, in accordance with God’s plan, mattered to their scarred souls.

  With open arms, they welcomed blemished and wounded spirits.

  As should be.

  This morning Ezra had helped Jacob move his things from the daudyhaus — which the poor man had patiently shared with him and Levi since they arrived — into Rachel’s bedroom in the main house, where she and the children had settled.

  In nine months time, Ezra fully expected at least one more grandchild, if not two, to be added to their family.

  Esther and Ruben occupied the house on the opposite side from him and Levi, one as large as the main house, praise be, because they were set upon filling it with Amish offspring themselves.

  What did it matter if they were Beachy Amish, Bontranger Amish, or Amish Mennonites, North Dakota Amish, Pennsylvania Amish or Ohio Amish, as long as they lived their faith?

  Go out from among them and be ye separate. That’s what all of them were doing … as a family. Together.

  He placed his hands on Jacob’s and Rachel’s heads for their first blessing as man and wife, and looked up, far beyond blue skies and sun-splashed clouds. Well, Mary mine, we have come a long way together. Rachel and Jacob will sit at the corner table today. Esther expects a little one soon, and much to our Ruben’s dismay, he is a favorite choice for preacher come spring.

  Ach, Mom, our Rachel and our Esther are happy.

  Author’s Biography

  Annette Blair is a national bestselling, award-winning author. In her thirty plus books, she’s explored nineteenth-century Amish Country; Regency and Victorian Britain; and madcap, modern Salem, Massachusetts, where bold women follow the Celtic faith with heart. There, she fought dragons, and fell in love with an angel. More recently, she’s solved mysteries beside Connecticut’s Mystic River. Wherever she’s landed, she thrived. An adventurer and storyteller at heart, she’s second generation American and takes great pride in her French Canadian roots.

  Table of Contents

  Title page

  Dedication

  Coming Soon

  Reviews for Jacob’s Return

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sp; Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Author’s Biography