The Long Road Home Romance Collection

by Judi Ann Ehresman

  “I am a friend of Emil.”

  My heart sank, fearing the worst. “Is he hurt?”

  “No, he’s fine. He sent messages and gifts. We did some shopping along the crazy border. There wasn’t much to buy, but we got some wool blankets, and he sent you a couple. It seems our army pay was held up, and they paid us for three months all at once, so we spent some of it rather than having it stolen later.” The soldier untied rawhide strips holding baggage behind his saddle and removed two tightly rolled Mexican blankets that he handed to Vater. “You must be the Vater I’ve heard so much about.”

  Vater and I were completely speechless. Perfect timing for the day: News that Emil was all right and two blankets for the winter!

  Lux filled in the silence. “I think they are overcome, but say thank you. By the way, I’m Lux Buechner, a family friend.” Lux offered his hand.

  “I’m Conrad Melitz from Bockhorn. My family was on the first ship of the Verein. I joined the army from Indian Point.” Conrad seemed very polite. Quite properly he shook Lux’s hand. “Emil also sent you some money.” He pulled out a little cloth bag and handed it to me.

  I clutched the weight of coins. “Conrad, never has anything been so appreciated. As you can see we lost almost everything, and with winter coming on we had no blankets or food. But a neighbor has brought hoecakes and coffee…well, almost coffee. Would you like some?”

  Conrad’s good manners ended. He was on to the hoecakes like he hadn’t eaten in days. We watched in amazement as he wolfed down most of them before he took a long breath. Finally he noticed our amazement and stopped eating. “Oh. Sorry. I haven’t eaten in two days except for Guadalupe River water. My stomach was caved in.”

  We murmured our understanding as he continued to apologize for losing control. He sat next to Vater on the ground and began telling him about Emil and how they fought house-to-house and hill-to-hill. He told of food shortages, ammunition shortages, blistering heat, victory celebrations, eating well when welcomed by farmers, their difficulty in learning Spanish, and his own discharge from the army after his sixth month. And the best news of all, he told Vater that Emil would be discharged in one more month and couldn’t wait to get home. After a while he seemed eager to leave, asked directions to Comaltown, where his family had settled, and climbed on his tired horse. “I probably shouldn’t ask, but where are your Mutter and Sophie? I have heard a lot about them from Emil.”

  I explained about Mutter, and as if on cue, Sophie appeared from the horse shed rubbing her eyes and appearing lost.

  Lux stepped near the horse. “As you can see, she is very much all right. Conrad, I will walk you to the shortcut bridge over the Comal River and point you toward Comaltown. See you later, Rika. Good-bye, Sebastian. Good-bye, Sophie.”

  The second surprise of the morning was a double surprise. Engel Mittendorf’s mother, the woman who avoided me and had chicken-squawked Engel away from me at every opportunity, strode down the road, eyed the mess of ashes for a long time, and completely without ceremony thrust a cloth-covered item into my arms. “It’s an extra and not beautiful,” she said in her gravelly voice, “and it is a Necessary. I hope you can use it.”

  I uncovered a cracked, brown crockery chamber pot. It truly was ugly, but it would do. I smiled at her. “You are wonderful to share. Is this a loan, or would you like it back?”

  This seemed to upset her. “Of course we don’t want it back.” Her voice softened a little. “Rika, I never approved of what you did. It was outrageous for a woman to drive a wagon and undertake such a trip, but you did it. Engel watched out for you, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. And I appreciate it. Thank you for coming, and thank you for bringing the Necessary.” I placed the chamber pot on the dirt floor of the shed and offered my hand for her to shake.

  For a moment she looked at my grimy, soot-streaked hand, as if considering not shaking it; then she offered hers. After she shook my hand, she wiped the soot on her skirt and said in her gravelly, chicken-squawk voice, “Good luck to you.” Then she was gone. As I watched her back disappear down the road, it occurred to me that people are just themselves, and that inside her squawking exterior lived a person trying to be generous.

  Throughout the morning a succession of wagons stopped in front of the smoldering ashes of our house. First was Herr Schmidt with Elise, Phillip, and Catherine who unloaded some packing crates and a hammer. When they left, Sophie was on their wagon and on her way to a good lunch.

  Next came Frau Kellerman and Herman, who unloaded a saw, tripod cooking pot, and a tub of oatmeal. “I’ll need the tub back, but we had extra oatmeal,” Frau Kellerman said.

  Carlos, the Mexican driver who had followed us on the first part of our trip, brought hot tortillas and a bucket of cornmeal. “Poor baby dragon,” he said in English with a grin. Then, through gestures of fanning flames and scrubbing with his arms he told me that when the fire cooled he would help me clean the cookstove.

  Otto came bearing money, and with a grin told Vater that he figured his gun had melted down in the fire, so he wouldn’t be able to shoot him in the legs. Vater was overcome with gratitude, thanked him over and over for finding Sophie, accepted the money, and asked him to stay. Otto refused, saying he just wanted to make sure Sophie was all right.

  Marie Kessler brought me a skirt and blouse. “They’re old and may not fit,” she said, “but they will be a change.” She looked at my flowered dancing dress with the now tattered and singed lace and said, “If you will change into the skirt and blouse, I can take that dress and wash it for you.”

  Kurt had come with her bringing a worn but polished pair of black boots. In them he had stuffed a pair of socks. “I’m so sorry that your secret satin shoes got ruined,” he said.

  The satin slippers, once the focus of my ambition to dance on a civilized floor, had been completely forgotten. Now on my feet they were black and damp from dousing water, and the rosettes had wilted into soggy blobs. The shoes suddenly lost their importance.

  “What about your reticule, Rika? And your diary?” Kurt had watched me write in it many times.

  “They’re gone.”

  Marie put her arm around my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Rika. All those memories lost.”

  Guiltily, I remembered that one of my first thoughts after Sophie’s safety had been the loss of my diary. I looked everywhere for it, suspecting that it was doomed since I had hidden it under my bed behind a basket of sewing. “Every event of this trip is seared into my brain in pictures. I can even remember the color of the surf at Indian Point, the sight of wagons leaving me behind, the jingle of harness as Lucas watered the oxen. I remember the storm on the meadow by the San Marcos and crossing the Guadalupe at flood stage. I’m amazed at what I clearly remember without the diary.“

  “Why don’t you write a book? I’ll read it.”

  This from Marie, who hated to read, made me laugh. “I think I will, maybe as soon as I buy a pencil and some paper.”

  Kurt laughed and laughed. “Be sure to include the brown shoes that you loved so much. Describe where they have been and tell about this funeral pyre. I’m sure you will miss them something awful.”

  “Now there is one thing to be thankful for.” I laughed. “The boots you brought are a godsend. Thanks.”

  After I changed from my charred, tattered dress into the skirt and blouse Marie had brought, Kurt and Marie said their good-byes and wandered down the street carrying my once pretty dress rolled into a laundry bundle. When they thought they were out of sight, I noticed they were walking close together holding hands. I carried Kurt’s boots back into the shed and placed them under a pile of bedding. Even in their grimy, ruined state, I was reluctant to take off the dancing shoes. Somehow they seemed a triumph of my spirit.

  The unexpected trickle of friends, acquaintances, and even complete strangers who brought us gifts dumbfounded me, and in the midst of grime and gray ashes, I felt my spirits lift in gratitude. People shared what they had. The
Englemans brought two potatoes. Gessina Eberts brought a head of cabbage and a knife to slice it with. Franz Holm loaned Vater a razor that was a family heirloom. Someone left a worn but serviceable washboard and a bar of soap. A woman I didn’t know dropped off a half-burned candle. Christoph Hahn, one of Vater’s special friends, pulled his wagon near the shed and unloaded hay and firewood. Christoph lived near Comaltown in a half-finished house, so we knew the wood was sacrificed from his cookstove.

  Chapter 17

  Just at twilight, Christoph Hahn returned driving his hay wagon and hurrying his team of energetic black horses. We heard him calling from the distance. “Sebastian! Sebastian!”

  We ran to meet him at the edge of our yard, prepared to go with him if he needed help. Christoph, a bulky man fattened on his wife’s famous apple streudel, never showed emotion. If he ever got excited, no one knew it, so his shouting in the distance meant something was very wrong.

  As he came closer, we could hear a rattle and see that he was carrying boxes. And someone was sitting down on the flatbed of the wagon.

  “Sebastian! Rika! Look who I found at the ferry? Come quick!” Christoph pulled his sweating team to a halt in front of us. In the dim light we saw her.

  “Oh, my dears,” she said simply as she struggled to stand on the unsure footing of loose hay.

  “M-mutter! M-mutter!” Sophie screamed. She leaped on the wagon and tangled herself around Mutter’s legs before Mutter could climb down. Mutter’s hands stroked the top of Sophie’s head, caressing her hair and pressing her head lovingly against her own thin body.

  Stoic Christoph kept swallowing and finally looked away, so overcome by the reunion he didn’t know what to say. Finally, he said, “She crossed with Harriet and Adam Haas from the wagon train. I was there waiting to go the other way.”

  I knew that at least two of the crosses marking graves along the Indian Point wagon trail had belonged to Christoph and Hilda Hahn’s children and that the Hahns had comforted Vater when I arrived without Mutter. Christoph was genuinely excited about delivering Mutter to us. He unloaded her cloth satchel and two boxes with great satisfaction while Mutter disentangled herself from Sophie and climbed from the wagon.

  We were so surprised and happy we didn’t know what to do. I just kept saying, “Oh, yes, yes, yes! Oh yes, yes, yes!” over and over because I couldn’t think of a way to say the joy I felt. Vater hugged her close, refusing to let go.

  Christoph clambered back on the wagon and guided his team toward the ferry, leaving our family joy to play itself out. At long last, Vater turned loose, and Mutter turned to look at me. For a moment, fear froze me. What if Mutter was angry that I left her behind? Would she hold it against me forever? But there was no anger in her face as she inspected me head to toe, her eyes finally coming to rest on the secret charred satin shoes with their melted rosette blobs.

  “Rika, you have changed so. And whatever happened to your beautiful shoes?” Then she took me in her arms. As I hugged her, the frail, thin body with its bony shoulders reminded me of Frau Kellerman, and I noticed that from under the knitted cap she wore, there was no hair.

  “Mutter! You also have changed. But you are alive! What happened to my shoes was a fire. Look behind you. Our house is gone.”

  Slowly she looked at the ruins, now mostly white ashes with only a few red coals leaving curls of smoke in the wind. “Oh, my,” she said simply. “It just happened, then?”

  “Just last night. I’m so sorry, Anna.” Vater’s voice was sad.

  Silently, we walked around the ashes of our home, recognizing only the messy form of the cookstove buried in them. “Carlos will help me clean the stove,” I said. It was the only encouraging thing I could think of.

  “Was there nothing saved?” Mutter asked.

  Vater could not look at Mutter’s eyes but looked at the ground. “Only the few things left in the horse shed.”

  Disappointment caught like measles. Sophie began to cry. “I-it was m- my fault,” she sobbed.

  Vater picked her up, holding her close to his face. “Look at me, Sophie, and remember this. It was not your fault. It was an accident.“

  Sophie calmed enough to lead Mutter inside the horse shed to show her the pile of covers on which she had slept. “M-my b-bed,” she proudly proclaimed.

  “Your bed is beautiful,” Mutter said.

  I could see her taking inventory of what was left, much as we had done on the small boat before landing at Indian Point. She looked inside the mostly empty trunk. “Oh, my,” she said with a sigh. She walked around touching things, looking for missing items, and trying to let the sight sink in.

  Vater kept touching Mutter’s shoulder. Sophie bounced silently on her covers, and I stood mute by the shed door, the joy of seeing her suddenly gone sour. “Whatever will we do?” I asked.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Mutter said firmly, “Why rebuild, of course.” There was a familiar ring to the “of course” since she had stood in the boiling sun on the docks in Indian Point waiting for the arrival of our crates, and she had answered my question of “Where will we live?” by saying, “Why build, of course.”

  “Building this house was the hardest thing I ever did. I don’t know if I can do it again.” Vater’s shoulder slumped and he leaned against the door, apparently overcome with the trial of it all.

  “I’m sorry,” began Sophie. “I p-promised you I w-would n-never touch f-fire or the g-gun.”

  “You have a gun?” Mutter’s voice was incredulous.

  “Had is the better word,” said Vater.

  “You have never owned a gun. Is it that dangerous here?” Mutter asked.

  “It’s the b-bad g-guys,” piped in Sophie.

  “Mutter, we have lots to tell you, and you have much to tell us. Let’s find a way to settle in for the night and talk. Frau Kellerman and Herman brought us oatmeal, and we have plenty of hot coals to cook it. Frau Kellerman is the one who helped me nurse you, Mutter.”

  After eating, we closed the door against the autumn chill and arranged ourselves in the small shed the best we could with Sophie in the corner on the bedding, Vater and I sitting on the trunk, and Mutter as guest of honor on a chair. Bitterly I thought we hadn’t made much progress since we were similarily crowded into the tent shack at Indian Point. Then I saw the beautiful smiles exchanged between Mutter and Vater, and I knew we had come a long way.

  “Tell us how it went in Victoria,” Vater said.

  Mutter wasn’t ready. “First tell me about Emil. Is the news good or bad?”

  We described the arrival of Conrad Melitz and the news that Emil would be coming home soon. We showed her the bag of money he had sent and brought out the two Mexican blankets. She draped one of the blankets over her knees, fingering it like an old friend since Emil had no doubt fingered it when he folded it.

  Mutter held the blanket to her cheek and looked from Sophie to Vater to me. “Now my joy is complete. I can hardly believe it.”

  In the midst of the stench of burned out coals and the darkness of the crowded horse shed we sat in silence for a minute, just feeling the joy of balance back in our lives.

  But Vater still wanted the story. “Now will you tell us about Victoria?”

  The story took a long time. Aunt Mathilde, true to her reputation, had nursed and nourished Mutter through the crisis of cholera and the rattles, rales, and fever of pneumonia. Mutter told of vile-tasting herbs, weak tea, flavorsome broth, unpalatable gruel, and finally solid food. During the last stages of her recovery, she had helped care for other patients.

  Mutter reported a love-hate relationship with Aunt Mathilde, who became a relentless taskmaster in their care, especially in the area of hygiene, an area that, in addition to herbal medications, probably saved Mutter’s life. The washing and drying of linens and the patients’ clothing had been an offensive, arduous task for Mutter, but in looking back on it, she said it meant she had gained strength for the trip to New Braunfels.

  To her
surprise, on the day she left, Aunt Mathilde had given her a present in a rough, wooden box, one she now opened. Folding back the layers of soft cloth, Mutter produced Emil’s treasured trumpet. We all sucked in our breaths in awe. One of the Mueller family’s favorite treasures, it was the one thing Vater could never understand my leaving behind. Aunt Mathilde, it turned out, had a soft spot for the Muellers, and although she had kept the pewter dishes, had generously returned this part of the fee she had earned as a boarding nurse.

  It had been Dillman Mantz, assistant to Black Peter and friend of Karl, who offered to drive Mutter to the McCoy Creek Station, where she could wait for a wagon train going north. Apparently I had quite a reputation at the station, for when she told Bart Creedon who she was, he had immediately laughed and said, “You are the mother of the courageous girl wearing the strange skirts and riding the strange horse.” Bart sent his regards and wondered if I had learned Spanish swear words for the strange horse, Baya.

  Mutter sent me a questioning look. “And did you?”

  “Oh, I learned them, all right. I just didn’t use them. Well, perhaps once.”

  Sophie chimed in. “B-but she says T-Texas is h-h—”

  I cut her off. “Come on, Sophie. That was a quotation. And it described the trip when no other word would fit.” I was unable to meet Mutter’s glance.

  “So, Rika, tell me about the trip.” Mutter shifted her weight in the chair.

  We lit our half candle, and on into the evening I told the story of the trip beginning with the time Mutter became ill, for I knew she would not remember that terrible time. I told about Frau Kellerman with a hand missing, whose children had died at Indian Point and how she had taught me ways to nurse Mutter and had encouraged me to take her to Victoria. Truthfully, I told about my disappointment when Karl had gone on with the original wagon train. I recounted how Oma Gunkel vouched for me as a strong person of character getting me onto the wagon train; how Gustav had entertained us; how Otto and Lucas had threatened me and, in order to watch me, had taken care of the animals; how I was too tired to go on.