by Jan Drexler
Jacob patted the boy’s wet shoulder. “He wanted to come, but Daed needed him to help out there. They’ll be coming to Indiana in the fall.”
“You’ll be our neighbors, won’t you? Peter and I are going to build a house in the woods and live with the Indians.”
“And hunt bears,” Menno added.
“Look, we’re stopping!” Mose and Menno ran ahead to where Josef had pulled the team off the road and into the meadow.
Jacob watched them run. Years ago, that would have been him and Hansli, running to find whatever mischief they could get into.
“What are you smiling about?”
He turned to the others, all staring at him. “Boys. They make a game out of everything, don’t they?”
“Girls do too. Come on, Naomi!” Hannah grabbed Naomi’s hand and they ran after the two boys. Henry followed, whooping as he ran, leaving Mattie laughing as she walked next to Jacob.
“You’re not going to run with them?”
She smiled at him. “And leave you here alone? That wouldn’t be kind.”
Cole’s words echoed in Jacob’s mind. Mattie had said she wouldn’t go to Oregon with the thief, but Bates had sounded so sure. And how could he tell what Mattie was thinking?
“You wouldn’t leave me alone, would you?”
Her smile disappeared. “You’re not talking about me following Naomi and Hannah.”
He stopped in the road, reaching for her hand. When he tugged at it, she turned toward him.
“What Cole Bates said last night . . .” Jacob looked into Mattie’s brown eyes. As soon as he had mentioned Cole’s name, they had widened like a startled deer’s.
“I told you. That Cole is a thief and a liar.” But her eyes shifted away from his.
“You wouldn’t go west with him?”
“Of course not.”
He waited for her to raise her eyes. To look at him. But she looked at his knees, and past his shoulder. Anywhere but his face.
“I want your promise, Mattie.”
She looked at him then. “You asked for my pledge to marry you, but I’m not ready to give you my answer yet.”
“Then at least promise that you won’t go with that Cole Bates or anyone like him. Pledge your word that you won’t leave your family and . . . and me.” Jacob’s throat closed on the last words.
The corners of her eyes crinkled a little as she smiled. “I can promise that. I won’t run away to go west with Cole Bates or anyone like him.”
A tight band around Jacob’s chest loosened at her words. “That’s enough, then. I have your pledge.” He stroked her arm, longing to hold her. “And perhaps someday you’ll promise—”
She laughed. “You’ll never give up asking me, will you?”
He pulled her to him then, hugging her the way he would hug Hannah, even though he would rather encircle her with both arms and never let her go. “Never.” He whispered the word into her hair.
He released her before she pulled away. Before he kissed her.
Suddenly aware of the silence around him, he looked for the wagons. “They’ve already unhitched the horses.”
“We need to hurry, then.” Mattie tugged at his hand. “A storm is coming, and we’ll want to get dinner finished and cleared up before it starts raining.”
Jacob glanced at the clouds again. They hadn’t drifted any closer but were building into thunderheads that towered in the sky.
Soon the camp had settled down to eat a quick dinner of leftover biscuits and bacon from breakfast. They had decided against building a cooking fire because of the approaching storm. Noah and Andrew, both shaky from the fever, joined the rest of the group for the meal, and Jacob found a seat near them.
“How are you feeling?” Jacob didn’t want to look too closely at Andrew’s pale face.
“Better.” Andrew held his biscuit with a shaky hand. His normal teasing tone was gone, but he forced a grin even though the corners of his mouth quivered. “I’m so weak, though. It took all my strength to move two steps from the wagon to this bench. And now I don’t even think I can get this biscuit to my mouth.”
“Take it slow.”
Andrew took a bite, then swallowed. “So, while I’ve been sick, you haven’t been horning in on my favorite girl, have you?”
“Mattie?”
The grin came back, but disappeared. “I can’t even joke like I used to.” Andrew leaned down, his forearms on his knees. “The only one I think about anymore is Jo.” He shook his head. “Jacob, I’ve got it bad. I even thought about asking her to marry me.”
“You want to marry Johanna?” Jacob shot a glance at Andrew. No, he wasn’t teasing.
“As soon as I can be baptized. I never thought I’d get married. No girl has ever made me feel like this, like I would clear forests for her, and fight bears, and . . . and . . .” He sniffed. “All the time I was sick, she was there. I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I woke up someday and she wasn’t by my side.” He sat up and laid a heavy hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “I’d do anything for her.”
“Even join church?”
When Andrew smiled, all traces of the old mocking grin were gone. “How could I not obey the Good Lord when he has given me such a gift? Of course I’m going to join church, but not for her. Because of her.”
Andrew tried to stand. Jacob helped him up and then supported him as he made his way back into the Bontrager wagon and his pallet.
Once he was settled in his bed, Andrew grasped Jacob’s hand. “I’ll be up and around again, and soon. I might never be so maudlin again, so I’m only going to say this once. I hope you find what I’ve found, Jacob. I know you like Mattie—keep after her until she surrenders to you. She can be pretty stubborn.”
Jacob patted Andrew’s shoulder. His friend’s eyes closed in sleep before he could turn to go.
While he had been in the Bontragers’ wagon, an eerie stillness had descended over the camp. The storm clouds had moved in and were churning in a greenish-gray mass, but only fitful gusts of wind disturbed the tree branches. A rumble of thunder bore down on the little meadow.
“Jacob!” Josef called. “Help me get the canvas tied down.”
Jacob started across the circle as mothers gathered their little ones together and crowded them into the shelter of the wagons. The horses had been brought in from their pickets and tied to the wagon wheels, and Isaac and Eli were stowing the harnesses under the wagons. Jacob cast an eye upward again. They were in for a big storm.
As he and Josef tied down the canvas, the wind bore down on them in a strong gust, tearing at the tree branches and anything else that wasn’t fastened down. Eli Schrock came running over to their wagon.
“Have you seen Mattie?”
“Not since before dinner.” Jacob had to shout as another gust ripped the words away. “Is she missing?”
“She isn’t in our wagon. I hoped she had decided to take shelter in someone else’s, but yours is the last one I’ve checked.” Eli held his hat against another gust and peered toward the line of trees at the edge of the meadow. “Lydia said someone had mentioned seeing early strawberries near the woods, but I don’t see her there, either.”
“I’ll look for her.” Jacob looked up just in time to see a lightning bolt jump from one cloud to another. A crack of thunder followed close behind. “I’ll head over to the woods to see if she’s there.”
“Be careful.”
Jacob nodded, and took off running for the line of trees. Just as he reached it, hail burst from the sky, pelting his back. “Mattie!”
The impact of the hailstones against the canopy of leaves overhead was deafening. If she answered him, he wouldn’t hear her.
He turned the other way. “Mattie!”
Was that a shout in answer? He ducked under a low-hanging branch and peered through the twilight of the woods. The hail ended as quickly as it had begun, but now sheets of rain poured down accompanied by a loud crash of thunder. The center of the storm must be di
rectly overhead.
There—a hand waved from under a shrub. He ran to it, ducked down, and found Mattie huddled under the roots of a tree that had fallen years before. The hollow gave some shelter, and he crouched there with her.
“Your daed is worried about you.” Jacob shouted over the noise of the rushing wind that accompanied the rain.
“I’m sorry. I was picking strawberries and then the hail started.”
Jacob saw no strawberries. Something churned in the cold pit that had become his stomach, and he heard Cole’s words again. She wouldn’t meet him in the woods . . . A vision of Cole and Mattie together burned into his mind. But she had given her pledge . . .
“Where are the strawberries?” He spoke carefully, as if it didn’t matter.
“I dropped them.” She waved toward the forest floor outside their shelter. “When the hail started, I just ran for shelter and dropped them all. There weren’t many. Not even enough for one person. I guess it’s too early.”
Jacob pushed his suspicions down. Mattie wouldn’t lie to him. When the next lightning bolt brightened the sky, he saw them. Three bright red berries, no bigger than cherry pits, lying among the grass blades just outside their shelter. He crawled forward and gathered them up.
“Are these all you found?”
“Oh, no. There were a few more,” she stopped, looking at him sideways, “but I ate them. You can have those.”
He held one up between his thumb and forefinger. “This won’t put a dent in my appetite.”
She giggled. “They were pretty sour, anyway. It’s too early for strawberries.”
The next rumble of thunder came from the northeast. The storm was moving on, but the rain still fell in buckets.
“We should go back to camp as soon as the rain lets up.”
Mattie leaned close to him. “Ja, for sure. My family will be worried.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the rain. A few drops made it into their shelter and Jacob drew Mattie close. He understood what Andrew meant, when he said he would do anything for Johanna. Right now, he had a wild wish that he was all alone in the world with Mattie and that they would live in this woods forever.
Mattie leaned forward to look out into the woods. “Is it getting lighter?”
Jacob pulled her back. She looked toward him and he couldn’t resist. He kissed her, then kissed her again when she responded with a happy sigh.
“What has gotten into you?” Naomi spread a shirt over the branches of a shrub.
Mattie smiled, spreading a dress over the next shrub. Between the wind and downpour of rain in the storm, much of the bedding and clothes in the wagons had gotten soaked, so the group had decided to rest for the afternoon and dry their supplies out as much as possible. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Naomi came closer, lowering her voice. “Ever since you and Jacob came out of the woods after the storm, you’ve had that look on your face.”
“What look?”
“That look that says you have a secret.”
Mattie smiled again.
“There it is! So tell me, what is it?”
“If I have a secret, then I shouldn’t tell, should I?”
Naomi raised her eyebrows, then moved to the next bush with another shirt while Mattie picked up a sodden blanket and shook it. Jacob’s kisses had been too sweet to share them with Naomi yet. Kissing Andrew, when she allowed him to kiss her, had been awkward and funny. Cole . . . she swallowed. She didn’t want to think about Cole.
But kissing Jacob had seemed so right. Something she could do for the rest of her life.
She spread the blanket out in a sunny space where the grass was drying in the sunshine. The storm had passed quickly, and the skies behind it were blue and clear. Yost Bontrager, with Daed and Henry, had gone down the road to see if anyone had suffered any more damage than they had, and the rest of the group were trying to dry out. Nothing had been lost, but a couple of the wagon covers had blown off, exposing the wagons and their contents to the downpour.
As Mattie shook out another blanket, sounds of the children playing a game of tag reached her. After the oppressive heat this morning, the cooler sunshine was a welcome treat, and the children were making a holiday out of it. She paused to watch them. Mose was “it” and the younger children ran from him with shrieks of delight. She counted eight children, including the three-year-olds, Leah and Mary. Mose was careful to run slowly so the younger ones had a chance to get away from him. When he did tag someone, it was seven-year-old Barbli Hertzler, Johanna’s sister. The group of children had grown close on this journey, just as close as she had ever been with Johanna, Jacob, Hannah, and the others along the Conestoga Creek when they had been the same age.
Andrew must be feeling better. She had seen him at noon, sitting with Jacob. Noah was up and out of his bed this afternoon, too, sitting in the sunshine with Andrew, visiting while they watched the children play. She couldn’t see Jacob from where she was, but earlier she had seen him with Josef, taking the horses out to graze farther away from the wagons.
Jacob. She smiled again as she reached for the next soggy item, a linen sheet. His kisses had reached deep into her, tugging at the desires that warred with the longing to see what was beyond this small meadow. Desires for the home Jacob planned, a farm built for future generations. When Jacob had held her in his arms, she felt that she could be content with him, anywhere he was.
Mattie pulled the sheet across three bushes, easing out the wrinkles as well as she could. She straightened the hem and looked at the expanse of the sheet. Even with her pulling and tugging, the wrinkles remained a nearly permanent reminder of being wet and crumpled, and stains where the sheet had pressed against the wet edge of the wagon streaked across the white sheet. It needed to be washed and ironed. Nothing else would bring back the snowy whiteness.
Like her sin. Hadn’t Daed said something like that during evening prayers a few nights ago? Sin was a stain impossible to remove on our own. Only through Jesus Christ could one become pure and unblemished. At the time, she had taken comfort in the fact that her sins were nothing. A small lie here and there, perhaps. But not anything that would make her as stained and wrinkled as this sheet, right?
A sudden memory of Cole’s dark eyes assailed her. She dropped the edge of the sheet and backed away.
“Mattie, help me with this blanket. It’s too heavy for one person.”
Naomi’s call pulled her thoughts back to the task at hand.
“Ja, for sure.”
After they had spread the blanket across a grassy spot in the sun, Mattie straightened to ease her aching back. “Is that the last?”
“I think so. Mamm was going to check the barrels to make sure they had stayed dry, but she would have let us know if she needed our help.”
She caught sight of Jacob coming toward the wagons from where he and Josef had taken the horses. “I’ll be back in time to help with supper.”
Naomi glanced in Jacob’s direction, then back at Mattie. “If you aren’t back in time, I’ll know where to find you.”
Mattie grinned at Naomi’s joke, but her sister had already turned to go back to the wagon. Ever since Johanna and Andrew had become a couple, Naomi spent more time by herself or with Mamm than with the group of young people.
Jacob watched her as she made her way toward him through the drying clothes and bedding. He met her at the edge of the meadow, and taking her hand, pulled her toward the cover of the trees at the edge of the woods.
“There is a lot to clean up after that storm.” He pulled at her hand until she took a step closer to him. His smile pushed every other thought out of her mind. “Did anything get ruined?”
She tried to focus on his question. His warm brown eyes were very distracting. “I don’t think so. The food barrels are tightly sealed, and a little rain won’t hurt the clothes and bedding.”
He leaned toward her and she met his kiss. She settled into his embrace.
“We can be married as soon as I have my land and build us a house. Maybe as soon as this fall.”
Mattie backed away. “This fall? Isn’t that too soon?”
“Why? That’s half a year away.” He smiled and pulled her close again. “I don’t want to wait any longer, Mattie.”
“But . . .” A sudden vision of a long winter trapped in a small cabin made Mattie’s throat close in suffocating dryness. “I don’t know if I’m ready to set up housekeeping yet.”
Jacob’s arms tightened around her. “What else would you do besides marry me?”
“I’ve told you.” She motioned up and around them. “I want to see more than this world of trees and snatches of blue sky. Daed said that out in Iowa there are huge areas where no trees grow, and the sky is so big you can’t see the end of it—” She stopped as Jacob released his hold on her and backed away.
“Nothing will make you content until you see the West, is that it?”
A twisting spiral of regret churned in her stomach when she saw his smoldering eyes, his lips pressed into a thin line.
“Why couldn’t you come with me?” Her face flushed as the idea took hold. “We could marry, and then go west together. We could go all the way to Oregon and settle there.”
He took another step back. “You would want to leave your family and the community, just to see a new country, when we have everything we need in Indiana?”
Mattie clenched her fists at his stubbornness. “You don’t understand at all, Jacob Yoder. Trying to talk to you is like beating my head against a stone wall.” She jerked away from him and stumbled toward the wagons.
His hand grabbed her elbow and spun her around. He gripped both of her arms in his hands. “You’re right, Mattie. I don’t understand.” He dropped his hands. “I don’t understand why you can’t be content with what I have to offer you. Why you don’t want to live the way we’ve been raised and taught.” He turned away, his hands on his hips, then spun toward her again. “I don’t understand why you are willing to throw away everything to chase some dream, especially after you gave me your pledge.”
Mattie bit her lip. She didn’t have an answer. Jacob’s eyes were wet with unshed tears.
