Between Two Promises

by Shelter Somerset

  Aiden blushed. “It wasn’t that much, really, anyone would’ve done it.”

  “Ach, everybody says things like that, but it’s never true.”

  Mark kicked at the snow and torqued his shoulders. “Heidi says there’s a fine line between being humble and outright lying.”

  Everyone shared a good-natured chuckle.

  “That’s me,” Heidi said. “Always with the philosophy.”

  “Where’s your car?” Mark asked, glancing between Aiden’s and Daniel’s shoulders.

  “Back at the inn.” Daniel seemed to stiffen. “Didn’t want to drive it in the snow.”

  “That beast of burden?” Mark’s brown eyes popped. “For sure that thing can handle this little bit of snow on flat farm roads, if you drive it around Montana.”

  “Best we leave it,” Daniel murmured.

  “Ach, thank you for the gift of the furniture,” Heidi said, grinning so widely Aiden wondered if her apple cheeks might knock off her kapp. “The night tables are wunderbar.”

  “Du wilcom,” Daniel said. “But we best get inside. It’s cold out. Mark, you don’t have a coat, and Heidi, you’re not wearing any boots.”

  “I’m still not used to dressing for this cold weather.” Heidi cupped her hands over her mouth. “Down in Corpus Christi it never gets this cold. I haven’t seen so much snow in my life. I guess I’ll have to get used to it, living here. Mrs. Schrock was so kind to make me this winter coat.”

  “I bet it’s so new for you,” Aiden said, remembering Mark had met Heidi last December while on rumspringa at Texas’s Mustang Island, near where Heidi lived with her parents in a fledgling Amish settlement.

  “New and exciting, for sure,” she said. “But Daniel’s right. Let’s get inside. You both can meet my parents.”

  MR. AND MRS. MILLER were seated at the large oak kitchen table under the soft glow of a hanging lantern, sipping stovetop-brewed coffee, when Aiden and Daniel were introduced to them. Daniel judged them to be pleasant, but he was suspicious neither was helping with the kitchen work. His mother kneaded dough. Grace was hand-washing dishes at the sink. Elisabeth sat at the table cradling Gretchen. Heidi’s two aunts, who had been briefly introduced to him last night when they’d stopped by for a visit, were at the counter cutting celery stalks and onions.

  “Where’s Dad?” he asked, glancing about.

  “Basement, doing watch repair,” Rachel said. His mother looked exhausted. Her hair fell in clumps from under her kapp, and her eyes burned red. The kitchen, usually scrubbed spotless after breakfast, was in a muddle. A mess of pots and pans were stacked to the side of the sink, opened bags of flour and sugar and dirtied mixing bowls covered the counter, canned goods in boxes filled an entire corner of the wood floor.

  “Looks like you been keeping busy,” he said, taking a seat on a bench at the table.

  “Ya, been baking nonstop for Mark and Heidi’s wedding, on top of everything else,” Rachel said. “Hardest part is keeping up with orders for my baked and canned goods.”

  “Business picking up?” Daniel said.

  “Ya, for sure,” Rachel said. “Been keeping us busy since summer.”

  “Things seem to be picking up everywhere,” Mr. Miller said. “We got so many orders for houses lately, we been turning work away.” The Millers, like Daniel, made their living woodworking, but instead of building furniture, they built houses along Texas’s Gulf shore and refurbished those damaged in the storms. Daniel and Mr. Miller talked shop while Rachel fried Aiden and Daniel “dippy eggs” and bacon.

  “How do you like your room at the inn, Aiden?” Rachel asked, carrying over a cast-iron pan sizzling with fried eggs and bacon. Using a spatula, she plated their breakfasts.

  “It’s nice,” Aiden said. “Room has a good view of the farmland and the creek.”

  “And Daniel, how do you like your room?”

  Aiden and Daniel swapped glances across the table.

  Daniel tried to will the blood from heating his cheeks. He knew how much Aiden hated being forced to lie. Daniel didn’t like fibbing much either. Surely Aiden understood they were Amish. Things weren’t like with Aiden’s parents. With them the words had flowed like rain. But how long could they hide the truth from Daniel’s family? At some point, a resolution had to be made. Snubbing that thought, Daniel said, “I like my room fine.”

  “Adel and Sam are staying at the Harvest Sunrise,” one of Heidi’s aunts said over her shoulder as she sliced into a new bushel of celery. “Is it nice, like folks say? I haven’t yet seen them to ask.”

  “It’s very nice.” Aiden lowered his eyes to his plate and nudged around his fried eggs with his fork.

  “I hear the place is haunted,” Grace said, dipping a platter in and out of the sudsy water.

  “Grace,” Rachel breathed, “the things you say sometimes.”

  “But Mom, I’m only repeating what I heard. Folks say the original owner, some Englisher farmer from a hundred years ago, still walks the halls. Some say they seen him.”

  “No one needs to hear about ghosts and hauntings, Grace. Now get back to the dishwashing so you can help me with the baking.”

  “Where’re the relatives?” Daniel wanted to change the topic of where he and Aiden were staying. He forked a bite of egg into his mouth and chewed slowly.

  Rachel sat at the table with a heavy sigh and mopped her forehead with the back of her flour-speckled hand. “Your Aunt Frieda should be here early this afternoon, if the bus from Indiana doesn’t get held up in Chicago, like it did last time she came for a visit. We’re expecting your Uncle Abraham and Uncle Wayne tomorrow. Joe Karpin’s daughter’ll be picking them up from the train depot. Everyone else is already here, scattered about.”

  “Why Joe Karpin’s daughter?” Daniel wondered why Joe Karpin, the Englishman who hauled the Amish around in his fifteen-seat van for a small fee, wasn’t picking up his uncles.

  “Him and Mrs. Karpin are wintering down south somewhere. His daughter’s filling in for him.”

  “Sounds like you’ll have a full house, for sure,” Daniel said. He hadn’t remembered so many relatives traveling to his and Esther’s wedding. “Where’re you putting them all?”

  Rachel sighed again. “Aunt Frieda’s staying in Grace and Moriah’s room. The girls’ll find a place to sleep with Elisabeth. David’s moving in with Mark so your uncles can stay in his room with the two beds. Ach, I’ll be glad when the place clears out.”

  They talked about the wedding plans, relatives they hadn’t seen in many years, the difficulty of traveling long distances in winter. The Millers kept switching to Pennsylvania German, although the others spoke mostly in English. Daniel had no idea if the Millers knew how the family had become acquainted with Aiden, but he assumed Heidi, who had been clearly thrilled with Aiden’s story of how he saved the Schrocks, had filled them in.

  Aiden looked relieved when Moriah asked him to see the quilt she was working on in Leah’s bedroom. Recently, the family had converted the small sewing room into a makeshift bedroom for Leah so she’d be closer to Rachel and Samuel, since her wheelchair made getting upstairs near impossible. With Aiden safely away from the uptight kitchen table, Daniel, grabbing his coat and hat, took the opportunity to duck out to the barn and check on the horses.

  Living in Montana, Daniel missed his favorite buggy horses, especially Gertrude. He’d won her at auction last summer. Seemed from another life. Another man. He shook his head, remembering how his mother had forced him to take along Aiden, still staying with them at the farm after he’d saved the family. He’d refused to confess to himself at the time, but Aiden had already grabbed his heart. He’d captivated Daniel with his curly black hair, golden eyes, and heartfelt gumption. Difficult to believe he’d first met Aiden a mere year and a half ago. Never in a million years had he foreseen their lives would become so entwined.

  He stopped short when he came across David, raking soiled hay from Gertrude’s stall.

  “Hello,” D
aniel said. “Good to bump into you. We hadn’t much time for talking. You been hiding away since I got here.”

  “What’s to talk about?” David said, clutching onto the rake. His brow was corrugated with deep wrinkles for such a young boy, and his mouth was puckered into a rigid hole.

  David’s behavior hadn’t changed since yesterday. He was still angry at something. But at what? Even in the dull light of the barn, his eyes no longer flashed like bright gray marbles but seemed darker, opaque, and without sheen. Anger clouded those charcoal eyes.

  How long had such harshness stewed inside his growing frame? Had it existed even before Daniel had moved to Montana, he wondered as he dug a curry brush from a bin by the horse stalls. Was his orneriness the typical brooding of a hatchling adolescent, or did he suspect something he disliked about Daniel? Something about him and Aiden?

  David was always astute, too astute for the boy’s own good.

  Pulling the curry brush strap over his hand and stepping up to Gertrude, Daniel said, “I was interested in how things been for you. Anything new going on? What do you think of our baby sister?”

  “She’s a baby,” David mumbled. “There’s nothing to think about. She sleeps all the time and dirties up lots of diapers. That’s what babies do.”

  Daniel chuckled despite himself. “Ya, I figure that’s the truth.”

  The mare’s thick black coat rippled under the touch of the curry brush’s rubber bristles. Gertrude, like the other horses, had grown a long winter coat since Daniel had last seen her in the summer, and extra care was needed to keep her hair untangled and clean.

  “I can see you been taking good care of the horses,” he said to David. “They look healthy and happy. I thank you.”

  “Nothing to thank me about,” David said. “It’s my job to care for the animals.”

  “Good you take to it so diligent. You show a lot of maturity for a twelve-year-old.” Daniel hoped to soften whatever hardness roosted inside his youngest brother. Chiseling away at rosewood fared easier.

  Being the middle child of a large family never came easy, Daniel guessed. With a new baby sister and Daniel having moved clear across the country, chores probably had piled up for him.

  Unless David’s sour temper was the result of something else.

  “Nobody likes dirty choring,” Daniel said when David remained silent. “Mom tells me in her letters you do it with hardly any complaint, and that’s goot.”

  “It’s no big deal,” David murmured.

  “Don’t underestimate yourself, David. You’re good to have around the farm.”

  David glared at him. “Someone’s got to be, right? Now, if you don’t mind, I got more choring to do in the buggy shed.” He dropped his rake to the ground and stomped out of the stall.

  Shaking his head, Daniel worried over his little brother’s testy behavior. He recalled how restless he’d been at David’s age, yet there seemed more to it.

  Probably wasn’t such a good idea to bring Aiden here, Daniel worried again, his head still shaking in dismay while he focused on brushing Gertrude. Too much raw emotion lingered at the farmhouse. Too many hidden threats still haunting Frederick County.

  “You look to be in deep thoughts.”

  Daniel looked up to find his father standing outside Gertrude’s stall. “Ach, hello, Dad. I thought you were in the basement doing watch repair.”

  “Ya, but I needed some fresh air.”

  Daniel sniggered. “In the barn?”

  “Better than the house.”

  “Too many guests?”

  “Ya, and it’s only going to get worse,” Samuel said. “Your mom’s already running around like a rabid hound.”

  “It’ll be over soon enough. After the wedding and Christmas, it’ll all quiet down.”

  “Ach, you think so?” Samuel wrinkled his forehead. “Most likely not. Already having nightmares about Mark and Heidi’s baby screaming above our heads. One wailing baby’s enough.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be settled in their own farm by the time they have any kinner,” Daniel said.

  “Let’s hope so. Thank da Hah if the house ever gets emptied.”

  Samuel grabbed the rake from the ground and took up where David had left off. Daniel hadn’t noticed with the commotion when they’d arrived yesterday, but his father seemed older than the last time he’d seen him over the summer. His shoulders slumped forward as he raked. His beard, almost completely gray now, scraped against his ever-protruding belly. His movements were slow and almost pained. For sure the added child, not to mention Leah’s worsening illness, taxed his middle-aged father.

  “At least you’re wearing your Amish clothes,” Samuel said out of the blue, sizing Daniel up and down while he chored. “And you let your hair and beard grow. Those are good signs.”

  Daniel raised an eyebrow at his father, the curry brush poised over Gertrude’s back. “What do you mean?”

  “That last time you were here, you looked like you had enlisted in the Marines. You gave your mom a start. What exactly is it you’re doing in Montana, Daniel?” his father asked him, returning his eyes to the raking.

  “I’m doing woodwork. You know that.” Daniel went back to brushing the standardbred, wishing his father had never left the basement, where he fixed busted watches for a second income.

  “Can’t you do woodworking here, like you used to?”

  “I like it there,” Daniel said. “I told you about it.”

  “Perhaps your mom and me should take the train and come out and see you, when the weather warms. Perhaps this spring, after the planting. Your mom reads me some of your letters. You describe the place like it’s heaven.”

  Daniel stiffened. There was no way he could allow his parents to visit him in Montana. Not with Aiden living with him. “I live in a very small cabin,” he said. “Maybe you should wait until I find something bigger.”

  Keeping to his task, Samuel said, “We still don’t understand why you called off your wedding to Tara Hostetler and moved out there.”

  The horse’s nickering and blustering filled the silence. “Tara and me weren’t meant to be,” Daniel said. “I think you realize that.”

  “Then why did you ask her to be your wife?”

  Daniel sighed. “I thought I was ready after Esther and Zach’s deaths, but I was wrong.”

  “She was a good choice for you,” his father said. “I hear she’s courting someone from another community back east. It may be too late for you to patch things up with her, but I don’t see why you can’t try.”

  “I don’t plan on patching things up with her, Dad. I’m here to sit next to my brother while he gets married, and that’s all.”

  “Are you going to the church gatherings in Montana at least?” Samuel went on.

  “Nay, I have to say I haven’t, not yet.”

  “That’s a gross infraction to the church, Daniel.”

  “I’m still settling in.”

  “It’s been many months,” Samuel said. “How much settling in do you need? You been there since June. It’s now near Christmas.”

  “I spoke with the bishop there, he understands,” Daniel said. “He has not pushed me.”

  “You aren’t the only one who spoke with the bishop in Rose Crossing.”

  Daniel eyed his father over the horse’s hindquarters. “What do you mean?”

  “The ministers here spoke with him too.”

  “About what?”

  “You, of course.”

  “How am I any of their business?”

  “Daniel, such a tongue. You need more respect. Mountain air has made you bruchig.”

  “Sorry, Dad, I don’t mean to be brash.”

  Daniel had always shown deference to the ministers, but lately he did not care to, not after what he’d learned about Reverend Yoder, about what Aiden had revealed in his fleeting investigation. He figured Reverend Yoder was caught up in his second cousin Kyle’s death somehow. But how? He never could fit all the piece
s together. Yet he believed that somehow the reverend was responsible. Each time Kyle’s horrible death skimmed across his mind, more and more, he believed Aiden had been right. Reverend Yoder had killed his own son.

  How could he respect anyone like that?

  “They’re only concerned with your spiritual life,” Samuel said. “They want to make sure you’re going to the gmays. The bishop there told them you keep a distance.”

  Daniel’s head reeled. Did the Rose Crossing bishop know he and Aiden lived together and mention the fact to the Henry ministers? “What else did the bishop say?”

  “Only that you’re an able-bodied and -minded man who should be closer to the community,” Samuel said. “They need men like you. They got many maydels looking for husbands. You keep one foot in and the other out.”

  Daniel moved to Gertrude’s front and brushed her mane. The mare nickered. “I still don’t see why the ministers felt the need to contact the Rose Crossing bishop on my behalf.”

  Samuel stopped his raking and peered at Daniel with fused eyebrows. His beard hung low, past his pants flap. Faint billows of steam escaped from his mouth.

  “You were baptized, Daniel. How much do I have to emphasize the importance of that? You’re not some youth rumspringa.” Samuel lowered his voice, as if he worried someone might overhear, or the livestock, like the animals at baby Jesus’s birth, understood human language and might gossip about what they’d learned. “People are wondering if we should shun you or not. The ministers will want to talk with you about this. I’m warning you so you’ll be prepared.”

  Dozens of prickly, cold fingers crawled up Daniel’s spine. He had anticipated a faceoff with the ministers in Henry. Yet he did not want to think about it. Now his father’s words brought the reality of a confrontation crashing against his chest.

  “There’s nothing really to talk about,” he said, keeping to his curry brushing while making like his father’s words hadn’t fazed him. “Why should they want to?”