By now, Rebecca, Gramm, Mamm, Ruth and the few others who joined us for the afternoon are standing on the porch, gazing at us with a sorrowful understanding of what’s happened, and of what is to come, and of what that will mean for us all.
It takes three days to dig a grave, which is the traditional time period between an Amish person’s death and their burial. But that was too long to wait before dealing with the problem of the bear, which gave rise to these other miseries.
The elders hold a meeting. But it isn’t one of their closed sessions, rather this is more of an open forum, to include men outside of the council of elders. Even some of the women are invited to attend, depending on their relation to an elder or his family. Since my daed is now on that informal committee, I am invited. As my sister and the betrothed of elder Olaf Thompson’s nephew Beau, Rebecca is also invited. We bring Gramm and Mamm too.
Lilly’s parents are with her and Jessup’s parents, the five of them mourning together.
The question quickly turns to the bear. “This creature has to be destroyed,” Simon tells the group, although he is not himself an elder. “I insist on leading the hunt, and as soon as possible. The longer we wait, the less advantage we have.” I know how Simon feels about Jessup, about losing him, and I know that inspires his sense of vengeance and a desire for justice. So I do not contradict him.
Yet.
Nor do the other men. All nod and mumble and mutter their agreement and a death sentence is handed down.
“His personal sense of vengeance aside,” my daed says, “Simon is right. The animal is a threat, and if this behavior persists we may all be in grave danger.”
“Special care must be taken,” Olaf says. “According to the...evidence left behind, by that I mean the remains of poor Jessup, it seems clear that this is a female bear, perhaps with cubs. If so, they’d be almost a year old, ready to hunt, almost ready to go on their own. That’s going to mean at least one additional target, maybe more.”
“With cubs?” I repeat, not really a question. After giving it a bit of thought, I ask, “Do you think they have anything to do with the male bear we killed last month?”
“Seems likely,” Olaf says. “Now, we’ll want to divide up into two parties, one to...”
My voice rises up out of my throat, without any keen desire on my part. It just kind of happens. “So,” I interrupt, “we killed this male bear, leaving its mate and cubs to fend for themselves.” Around me, Lancaster residents are shaking their heads, muttering their judgments of me as an outsider, a malcontent. “So now we’re just going to kill the mother and cubs. Well, the cubs’ll die anyway without their mother...”
“Cubs born in winter,” Gramm croaks out. “Nearly grown now.”
“Furthermore, the beast has a taste for human flesh,” Olaf says, “it can’t be expected to cohabit with us any longer...or be allowed to survive. The cubs are no different.”
“That’s an old wives’ tale,” I say, inspiring even greater guffaws from my neighbors. “Shouldn’t the animal be hibernating by now anyway?”
“The beast could be ravenous,” my daed says, to the rest of the room as much as to me. “It may be desperate to feed before hibernating. I must go against my daughter’s wishes and urge that this creature be hunted down before it retires to hibernation.”
“But why, Daed? If it is to die from starvation, let that be God’s will. At least the blood won’t be on our hands.”
“What about Jessup’s blood?” Mamm asks me.
“Is it an eye for an eye, then,” I say, “is that what we’re really talking about? It’s not safety that concerns you all! You know that bear will be asleep in a week, and if it lives through the winter...”
“If it lives through the winter it will awake hungry,” Olaf says, “and with a taste for the easiest prey to hunt.”
“Us,” Daed says grimly, the others nodding and murmuring. “We shall take to the hunt tomorrow morning, so that the thing will be killed by the time of the lad’s funeral in two day’s time.”
“So that we’ll have all the more funerals to plan for afterward!”
My daed glares at me with a coldness I haven’t seen since before his decided to participate in my wedding, and in my life. This was the daed of old: unyielding, unwavering, unwilling to back down. “Stand down, daughter. The creature must die, and it must die now.”
“What does she know?” one Lancaster resident tossed up out of the crowd.
“Yeah,” another offers, “she’s an outsider and she always will be.”
Daed points an angry finger into the crowd. “Careful how you speak, and of whom!”
“That’s enough,” Simon says to them, the glare in his eyes backing them down. “She is not an outsider!”
“Maybe not in your home,” another says. “But when it comes to one of us or some mangy bear, she chooses the bear!”
They grouse and gripe, while the clamor of their discontent rises around me.
“I’m not choosing between the life of a person or the life of a bear,” I say. “Jessup’s gone. Killing that animal and its litter isn’t going to bring him back. ‘Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” saith the Lord.’”
“Don’t you blaspheme to us!” another shouts at me, the room quickly becoming a din of anger and contempt, most of it directed at me.
Simon holds his hands out to them. “Okay, okay, everybody quite down! If you have a problem with my wife, you can take it up with her, or with me, some other time. Right now we’ve got a more pressing problem.” He turns to me with an expression which says, “I’m sorry, honey, but...”
He turns to them and adds, “She’s not the enemy here. The bear is.”
I feel a cool chill through my body, turning in my stomach, my skin rising in little goosebumps. I’m not sure whether Simon is sacrificing the bear as an enemy that can absorb the community’s ire so that I don’t have to. It could be that the bear is a threat and must be exterminated, as everyone seems to think. What lingers is that I’ve been outvoted, and worse, I’ve once again put myself on the losing side of a battle against my neighbors. And something inside my body is warning my brain that a lot more has been lost than merely the fate of a single black bear.
* * *
About fifteen minutes later, Simon drives our carriage home, with me sitting next to him and Gramm behind us. Simon stares off, into the night.
“Hey,” I ask softly. “You okay?”
“Yeah...no...I dunno. It’s just...all this...it’s a sad day.”
I wrap my arms around one of his, snuggling up close against his shoulder. “You two were close. It must be hard to lose him so soon, and so quickly.”
Simon gazes into his memory, a bittersweet smile barely clinging to his lips. “When we were kids, about seven I think, we each cut our thumb and then pressed them together.”
“Blood brothers,” I say.
He smiles a bit more, at my recognition of the centuries-old tradition as much as his own childhood participation in it. Simon goes on, “We had a secret handshake too.” I wait, but he doesn’t divulge what the gestures included. I let him have his little secret.
Then Simon’s expression lights up from more than simply the moon. I glance over at the side of the road and can barely believe what I’m seeing.
CHAPTER TWO
Lilly is alone on the side of the road, still in her black mourning dress and bonnet. And as troubling as it is to see her wandering around the roads at night alone, especially given the circumstances, it’s a lot more troubling to see what she’s doing.
Dancing.
Her left arm is extended, her right is bent in front of her, as if an invisible partner were leading her in an elegant ballroom waltz.
Simon pulls the carriage over and stops, climbing out to her. “Lilly? Lilly! What’s going on?”
“Oh, Simon, hi,” Lilly says, very casually, even happi
ly, a smile on her face. “We were just celebrating!”
Simon stands there as I climb down and approach them. But I don’t want to get too close. I don’t want to spook Lilly, especially now.
When she’s falling apart.
Simon says, “We? Who’s we, Lilly?”
Lilly keeps dancing in a circle, spinning as she makes her way around that five-foot radius. “Jessup, of course! He’s back, can’t you see? Now everything is gonna be perfect!”
A terrible cold feeling settles in my stomach. I look back to see Gramm sitting in the carriage, her old face in a grim mask. She can see what’s going on here, anybody could.
Poor Lilly is having a nervous breakdown.
Simon reaches out to her, carefully and gently. “Lilly, stop for moment, please.”
I ask Simon, “How did she get way out here? And why’s she here alone?”
Simon shakes his head. “We gotta get her back to her house.” He turns to Lilly, still twirling happily. “Lilly? Lilly!” Lilly finally stops, but her arms remain extended, because her imaginary dance partner Jessup is still in her arms. Simon says, “Lilly, why don’t you let us take you and Jessup home now?”
“Home?” Lilly giggles like a schoolgirl. “Silly Simon, it’s a party.”
Simon nods, beguiled by the sheer oddness of the conversation.
I add, “Lilly, we decided to have the party at your house, don’t you remember?”
Lilly is in a daze, and she looks around like she’s trying to recall. Finally, her expression comes alive with recognition. “Oh yeah, that’s right!” She adds a sorrowful, almost pathetic, “C’mon, Jessup,” as she scurries past me and climbs into the carriage. Gramm sits there as Lilly climbs in and takes her place in the front seat of the carriage.
Simon looks up at the carriage, at Lilly in the front seat. He looks at me with a hopeful smile that asks, Would you mind?
I think about it, rolling my eyes and sighing my answer: Fine.
He lifts me up and I take my place with Gramm in the backseat of the carriage as Simon crosses around the front and climbs in to take his place in the driver’s seat. He shakes the reins and the carriage pushes forward. In front of us, Lilly leans over, against Simon’s shoulder.
Gramm and I exchange a knowing, nervous glance as we roll deeper into the Pennsylvania darkness.
* * *
That night, Simon and I finally climb into bed, pulling our thick quilt up around us, snuggling in the warmth.
My mind and heart are drifting now, uncertain of where they should be, unable to grab a foothold on the shifting tides of my emotions.
Not to mention the emotions of others.
“You don’t have to worry,” he says, his voice low and deep, a throaty rumble.
“About Lilly? Well, anyone would be worried. Poor thing’s falling off her rocker.”
“Not that,” Simon says. “I know you’re worried about Lilly...and me. You’re afraid that losing Jessup might somehow bring us together. And now that Lilly doesn’t have Jessup to love anymore...”
“Um, excuse me,” I say, trying to keep the conversation light, “you love me, I think we’ve established that. Or was our whole wedding just sort of a way to spend the afternoon?”
He chuckles a bit, giving me a playful but loving kiss on the top of my head. “Well, that’s just what I’m trying to say. I think it’s sweet that you’re jealous...”
“Jealous?”
“But Lilly needs me right now.” After a tense moment, Simon adds, “Well, not needs me, but, she needs the friend I’ve always been to her, the friend God intends for me to be to her, the friend I hope I can always be to her.”
This catches my attention. I pull my head off his chest and look at him, the moonlight streaming in through the window to cast him in an almost ethereal glow. “I never objected to you being Lilly’s friend, Simon, and I never will.”
“I know,” he says again, with a little smile which thanks me and bids me to put my head back down on his chest, to go on loving him and not worrying about him loving me. So I do. His heartbeat is muffled under his muscular chest, but its sound still reaches me - steady, calming, always there.
Just as we’ll always be there for each other. And I want him to be there for Lilly and for anyone else who needs him. It’s his willingness to help people, myself among them, that is one of the qualities I love most about him. So I have no plans to ask him to stop seeing Lilly.
And I hope I never need to make such a request of him. I love Simon, and that means loving the things he loves and accepting into my world the things which are part of his world: his family, his friends. They are a big part of what he is and I don’t want to start separating him from the things that make him special.
But Simon is a sweet and, in some ways, still a very innocent person. He can’t fathom the devious ways of the female mind, much less be prepared to deal effectively with them.
But I can. And I will if I have to.
I don’t like to think of myself as a jealous person, nor as a paranoid. And I’ve long believed that if a man loves a woman, and that love is strong, no outside influence can interfere. But I don’t want my belief to be challenged at this time, nor for Lilly to be the instrument of my trial. And I know that I must rely more than ever on Simon’s personal sense of integrity to secure my marriage.
I must pray, and rely upon God.
But there is another love that troubles me, although it does not threaten me.
I ask Simon, “You really loved him, didn’t you?” After an unnecessary pause, I add, “Like a brother.”
“Blood brother.” Simon stares off, a sad sigh spilling out of his lips. “He was always there. I don’t just mean he was always there for me, which he was, but...he was always there. I don’t remember a time before Jessup, or Lilly. We were just always there, always...always here. To think of his being gone, it’s like a part of me has died. I guess that sounds silly, but...”
“It doesn’t sound silly at all, Simon, not one bit. You’re a sensitive, loving man, that’s what I love about you.”
He looks at me with mock offense. “And that’s it?”
I smile, wrapping my arms around him. “Lemme sleep on it. Maybe by the morning I’ll be able to think of a few other things.”
* * *
The next morning I arrive at my family’s house before daybreak. I pick up Abram and we ride out to a barren area just outside of town. This isn’t the first time we’ve been shooting, of course. I taught him how to shoot myself, years ago in Indiana. Since we were the ones taking care of the house while Daed was at his blacksmith stable, we had time and even the responsibility to learn how to defend ourselves and the household. There wasn’t too much in the way of crime or creature attack, but a firearm was just a survival tool which was too important not to pick up and learn how to use well.
Handling a firearm poorly is much worse than never handling one at all.
As the sun reaches up over the mountains, the cans are clear targets.
We each hold a Ruger Varminter, which is an excellent long-range weapon. I raise my rifle and line up the sites on one of several tin cans which I’ve set up on a fallen log about a hundred feet away. The can sits there, the peach on the label dead-center. I squeeze the trigger, the blast surprising me. In the sites, the can jumps off the log.
Another blast from a few feet to my side grabs my attention. I look over to see Abram hold against the rifle’s recoil, his own tin can target knocked off its perch.
“Nice shot, Abram. That’s two in a row.”
Abram smiles, then raises his rifle, aims and shoots again. “Better make that three,” he says with a little smile.
“Don’t get cocky,” I say, “an angry mother bear is no tin can.”
“But it’ll be a much bigger target!”
“Yeah, a moving target,” I say, “and moving directly at you! I dunno if you’re ready, Abram.”
“Oh come on!” he says with whining imma
turity. “Three in a row!”
“Abram, those cans aren’t snarling and growling, swinging their big paws at you, or jumping out from behind a tree or a rock. You’re not taking the psychological factors into account.”
He slumps, disappointed. “You think I’m still just a kid.”
“No, I don’t,” I say. “You’re a fine young man, and I’m very proud to have you as a brother. In fact, I’d like to keep you as a brother for a good while longer, if you don’t mind.”
“Whatever,” he says, reloading the rifle.
“Abram, I know you’re anxious to grow up and get on with your life, but one thing youth doesn’t understand, and that’s its own value.” He looks at me like I’m speaking Chinese. In a lot of ways, I may as well be. I go on: “You’ve still got a little childhood left in you, and only a little. Why not enjoy it while you still can?”
He raises the gun, aims and shoots. Another hit. “I suppose. But how am I ever going to be considered a man until I prove myself? You don’t just become a man, Hannah. You earn it. Native Americans have rites of passage, they send out their young braves into the wilderness to kill or be killed.”
“This isn’t the Wild West or the New Frontier, Abram. We have different rites of passage.”
“Rumspringa, big whoop.”
“Not rumspringa,” I answer, raising my own rifle to take a shot, my can blasted off the log. A whiff of gun smoke is thick in my nostrils, bracing against the autumn fog. “Putting your responsibilities to others above your own desires, that’s what it means to be a man. Daed’s going out on that hunt, Abram, which leaves you to take care of Mamm if he doesn’t make it back.”
“If he...?” Abram shakes his head. “Oh please. Daed’ll probably tear that bear’s heart out with his own two hands, and...”
“Stop it, Abram. If you really want to be a grownup, try looking at your parents with grownup eyes. Daed may have terrorized us, but we were only kids. And even then he backed down when finally having to come face-to-face with his own mistakes.” After a nasty little pause, I add, “The bear won’t have that problem. And no man, no matter how ill-tempered or aggressive or strong-willed, can go head-to-head against a black bear and survive. No man.”
Whoopie Pie Promise - Book 3 (The Whoopie Pie Juggler: An Amish of Lancaster County Saga series) Page 2
