Daed says, “Yes, you do. And He sent us to get you both out of here while there’s still time.”
The terrible roar of the bear, appearing out of nowhere, sends a pulse of white-hot fear through my body, my legs trembling, my arms numb.
I realize in a flash that there isn’t any time.
The animal lurches up out of the wood as if from out of nowhere. It’s not as big as I expected, but it’s certainly big enough as it rears up on its hind legs. Its mouth is huge and gaping as it roars, arms out, fangs and claws long and terrible.
Lilly screams with the terror of certain death before dropping her rifle and running into the woods behind her, her scream fading as the trees swallow her whole.
Simon is the first to shoot the bear. Bam! Click. Bam! Daed fires too, and out of sheer instinct, Abram and I also open fire on the beast. It waves its arms, still roaring as it topples backward. It rolls a few feet, muttering its disgruntled death moan, gurgling and grunting its last.
The mountain of black fur rests on the forest floor, its back gently rising and then falling, rising and then falling again, its useless snout wheezing out its final breaths.
We look over, rifles still in our hands, peering over the bear’s body.
“One of the cubs,” Daed says, looking it over.
Simon adds, “Must have been sent out of the den, had to fend for itself, wound up putting us on the menu.”
Rebecca looks at it with a certain horrid wonder, as one might have seeing a car crash on the side of the road.
But she doesn’t have long to digest what she’s seeing.
A second cub charges us from several yards away. We’d all been so focused on the first cub that the second has had no trouble sneaking up on us. Now we turn and fire, but our rounds were spent in our zeal to bring down the first bear, and now we stand completely defenseless.
“Run, scatter!” Daed cries out, grabbing Rebecca’s hand and dragging her away in one direction, Abram running off in another, Simon and I in a third.
I know Daed’s strategy: Put some distance between the bear and the shooter to allow enough time to reload. Then blast it straight to hell.
From a safe remove, Simon and I stop to reload. We look back, into the woods where the second bear cub should be.
But it’s gone.
An eery silence returns to the woods, only the odd bird to rustle one branch of leaves against another as it takes flight for safer climbs. I can hear my own heart beating in my ears, blood rushing in my veins, hands trembling around the rifle in my sweating grip.
And I don’t see Daed, Abram or Rebecca either. They’ve laying low too, I realize. But not knowing where they are makes shooting dangerous, unless the bear is too close to miss, which will have dangers of its own.
Simon and I exchange worried looks, each asking the other without words and then, sadly, having no reasonable response. We’re both in the dark, and it’s getting darker every second.
“Over there!” Abram cries out from the distance, before a gunshot rings out in the near distance. I see the bear too, and it’s massive and swift, tearing through the trees.
“I think I got it!” Abram says, now running in our direction through the thick wood. “We have to follow, we’ve got it on the run!”
“No, Abram,” I say, “we should find Lilly, get her and Rebecca back to Lancaster, the bear be damned!”
“Can’t turn our backs on it now,” Daed says, “it’ll hit us from behind. C’mon!”
So, against my better judgment and even my express leadership, we head off on the bear’s tail. Even in that rushing blur, of broken branches and the thick, damp carpet of moss and muck, I can see traces of blood smeared on the leaves at my side as I scurry in pursuit.
The animal’s been hit, I realize. Blood looks fresh. Way to go, Abram!
But there’s no time for idle chatter, and in fact silence is what’s required. Communicating through hand gestures, I motion that we split up, with Daed, Abram and Rebecca looping around northward, Simon and I taking a southern approach.
Everyone nods their understanding, and our single group splits up into two.
Simon and I prowl carefully toward the bear from one direction. It growls and roars, whining a bit, the pain of its injuries leaking through its robust throat. That means it might be weakened. But it also means it’s sure to be more dangerous, riled up, and angry and in pain. There’s almost nothing in the natural world more deadly than an injured predator.
Daed and Abram creep up on it from behind, I catch a glimpse of their rifles behind the Northern red oak trunks a few hundred yards away. Rebecca stays behind them, completely out of her depth.
Thank God we came when we did, I have to reflect. She’d be dead by now.
We approach the young bear, which seems too tired to keep running, but not quite tired enough to lay down and die.
That only leaves one option, and the bear seems to know it. With a few angry snorts, the branches break and the leaves rustle and the injured bear comes charging out of the brush. I raise my rifle and fire, Simon doing the same even as the animal charges straight at us. It whines and clacks its great teeth, jaws snapping as our bullets bite into it. My body is frozen stiff, my rifle sites dominating my perspective. Behind them, blurred, the bear stumbles to the ground face-first. It tries to get up, only a few yards from us, but falls back to Earth one final time, to sleep forever on that cold ground.
My heart feels like it’s going to burst, my legs are locked at the knees. Simon lowers his rifle, but mine remains in place. My arms are locked and I’m unable to lower them. Simon gently helps me, easing the rifle down and saying, very gently, “Hannah, pull yourself together.”
I realize that he’s right. This is no time to fall to pieces, I tell myself. That was just another cub. There could still be more, not to mention the mother, if she’s still alive.
That’s when Rebecca screams. I peer through the foliage to see a lot of action in their area, but I can’t quite make it out. When the mother bear’s roar cuts through the woods, it also cuts through my heart.
Simon and I run toward where they were standing and arrive in time to see the mother bear, much bigger than either cub, knocking my Daed over and sending him tumbling down the other side of the hill, toward the trout stream. I see Abram shoot, the bullet plunging into the bear without bringing it down.
I raise my rifle, but Simon lowers it just as quickly. “Too close!”
Simon points his own rifle upward and fires, the loud report echoing around us, nearly splitting my eardrums.
I refocus on Abram and the bear, in time to see the bear swat the rifle out of my brother’s hands. Unarmed, Abram turns and runs, unwittingly drawing the bear into a chase.
A chase my brother cannot hope to win.
Simon and I run too, hoping to find an angle to shoot at the mother bear without accidentally hitting Abram. But I can see the mother bear closing in on my kid brother, I can feel the weight of the creature on those four heavy paws as it gallops with incredible speed. I raise my rifle and shoot before Simon can stop me.
But I don’t stop the bear, so we keep running.
I see Abram stumble, falling to the ground, and my stomach sinks like a cold stone. He’s done for!
That’s when I hear yet another voice, one I don’t instantly recognize.
Samuel’s.
In a voice much louder and harsher than I’ve heard from him, cracking with anger and fear, he yells out, “Over here, you big, stupid oaf!”
The bear does turn, and Samuel, only a few feet away, pulls the trigger of the rifle he’s got trained on the bear. The gunshot is loud, just a bit louder than the crack of Samuel’s shoulder, bone splintering. He yelps in pain and stumbles back.
The bear roars too. She’s been hit, perhaps again but it’s hard to say. For a split second, the bear is confused between charging Samuel, now lying on the ground, or Abram, who is already scurrying away along the damp hillside.
&nb
sp; With both Samuel and Abram low and close to the ground, Simon and I seize upon the moment and open fire on the beast. We both shoot twice. I see one bullet strike the animal’s huge back, flecks of red blood and white bone jumping from the black fur along the top ridge of the spine. The bear flinches and spins, and, by sheer happenstance, another shot takes off a quarter of the animal’s skull.
After just a few terrible seconds, the animal is dead. My heart is ready to burst, lungs churning. But a breeze cools me with the assurance that the worst has come and gone. I rush to Samuel, lying on his back, his rifle discarded. I try to help him up and he winces in pain, right arm hanging slack.
“Damn bones,” he manages to say between his gritted teeth, “weak as church wafers.”
Simon joins us just as I ask, “What are you doing here, Samuel?” He looks at me, grim determination overtaking his usually pleasant expression. I know why he’s here; to kill the bear, to save the girls. To prove himself, to his wife and to his son.
And to himself.
Rebecca runs up to us, Abram and Daed following her. “Hannah,” she cries, throwing herself at me and nearly knocking Samuel out of my grip. “You did it, you did it, oh thank God you came!”
I turn to Simon and smile. “We did it.” I turn back to Daed and Abram. “We all did it.” I look back at Rebecca. “All of us.”
Simon asks Daed, “We did do it, didn’t we...kill them all, I mean?”
“No life in any of these beasts,” my Daed says, rubbing the back of his head. “If there were more in the family, I think they would have shown themselves by now.”
Abram asks, “You okay, Daed?”
Daed smiles and puts his hand on Abram’s shoulder. “Just a little bump and few scratches. And Son, you did very well back there, very well indeed. I’m proud of you.”
Abram can’t help but smile, and I’m glad. I don’t want him to help it. Instead, he lowers his head respectfully and says, “Thanks, Daed.”
Simon looks around. “We should get Mr. Thompson here to the hospital, maybe get you looked at too, Hyamm.”
“All right, everybody freeze!”
We turn to see the familiar PGC officer Todd Williamson standing about fifty feet from us, with his gun drawn. Behind him, five other officers also train their handguns on us.
“What on Earth is going on here?” Daed demands.
“I said drop your weapons or we will shoot!”
We stand in frightened silence. I’ve never had a gun drawn on me before, and it’s a feeling I hope never to experience again. One gets the feeling that death is ready to step in, even accidentally, to ease the tension in a most un-welcome and irreversible rescue.
We drop our rifles, which land with muted thuds on the damp ground, before raising our hands and waiting as PGC Officer Williamson reaches for the walkie-talkie transmitter fixed to the epaulet of his shirt and mutters a few codes into it which I don’t exactly understand.
But I get the gist of it.
We’re all going to jail.
CHAPTER SEVEN
We are escorted by the officers of the Pennsylvania Game Commission back into town. Samuel and Daed are brought back to the hospital, and their minor injuries are taken care of. Samuel is more badly injured, and his entire shoulder and arm are fixed in an elaborate cast which covers his torso and props one arm outward, encased in plaster, resting on an iron bar.
We are threatened with a variety of charges, but ultimately we are released. The bears are dead (a task which the game commission itself failed to accomplish) and there are no more fatalities, nor will there be any. So the commission lets the matter rest and we’re grateful enough to do the same.
But I think Rebecca was more grateful than anyone. By the time that we’d gotten to the hospital Beau had regained full consciousness. After peeking her head into his room and seeing him wide awake, some color back in his cheeks, she rushes to the bed and falls by his side, tears of relief streaming down her face. They kiss, lips pressing together in desperate gratitude, two lovers reunited, a coupling so strong that even nature’s most powerful beasts could not rend it.
We hear from Lilly the next day. She’d been picked up by some New Order Amish driving through the woods on the way back home to Pittsburgh from a rumspringa trip to Philadelphia. She confesses to us via a wire message that it was too painful for her to stay in Lancaster after losing Jessup, after everything that’s happened. She has decided to relocate, with the help of her new friends, and begin a new life. She wishes us all the best and promises to stay in touch from time to time. She even suggests that she might come back and visit.
And I have to admit to myself, I think I’d like that.
So the people of Lancaster and York Counties are finally able to come together in peace and celebrate the wedding of Rebecca Schroeder and Beau Thompson, held at the Thompson family farm in York. Work on the new house had slowed due to the bear hunt and Beau’s injury, but once he was back on his feet, the men of Lancaster and York pool their efforts to raise the new house quickly and efficiently. On the other side of the Thompson farm from the current house, Rebecca and Beau will have plenty of space to call their own, yet be close enough to Beau’s parents to foster their new and better relationships.
Ruth is more fond of Rebecca than ever. She’d resisted my sister at first, then come to accept and even like her after Simon shamed her at the harvest festival. But now that Rebecca has stepped into the line-of-fire, putting her life on the line for her son’s sake, Ruth sees the true qualities of Rebecca’s character. We all do.
And Ruth has more respect for her husband, Samuel, who stands next to her in his big and clumsy body cast. She looks at him with new pride, new respect, even smiling at him in public, something none of us thought we’d ever see. And, amazingly to me, Samuel smiles back at her. But the change in her is proof that he sees something in Ruth that all of us have missed. She is strong, we all know, but only he knew that she’d be strong enough to grant him her love and forgiveness, if he could be strong enough to earn it.
We sit at the service which will also include the union of Rebecca and Beau. Their vows are humble, written by their own hands to express the commitment they feel, and the joy of the commitment.
“I’ve always loved you,” Beau says, “all my life, although we only met this year. Still I feel that we’ve always known each other and that we are meant to be together. We have proven our love to be strong, strong enough to build a new life on, and new lives. I’m so glad you have deemed to join me on a path that was made for our feet alone, a path I could never have and would never have taken without you. By God I swear I will never leave you on that path to tread it without me.”
As part of her vows, toward the end, Rebecca says: “You have pulled me from a place of darkness and chill, and with you I can languish in the light and warmth of truth and true love. God has led me to you, I know this is true. And I am only too happy to be the instrument of God’s will, and to love you for the rest of my life, according to His great plan.”
After their vows, they are declared married. They do not kiss. They do not exchange rings. They do not need to.
I notice Abram sitting, visibly more relaxed than at Jessup’s funeral, which tells me how mature my kid brother is becoming. Neither fearful at one nor bored at the other, he’s seeing the facets of life in their startling contrast and accepting each for what it is.
Smart kid, I say to myself.
I glance at Daed and Mamm, looking on with such pride, such unspoken satisfaction. This is the day they’ve thought about and worked toward for all of Rebecca’s twenty-two years on the Earth. At times, it seemed a certainty that she’s marry happily. Years later, it seemed unlikely and even unthinkable. Now it’s happened. God’s plan unfolds before us with majestic perfection, unquestionable power. The love between Rebecca and Beau is palpable, I can feel it all the way to my chair. This, I realize, must be what other people try to describe when they recount the story of my own weddi
ng to Simon, a love so big, so clear and so strong that it almost defies description.
For those who have been lucky enough to have experienced it or even to have seen it up close, the fact is clear; it doesn’t need description. It is plain to all with eyes to see and hearts to feel. And for those who have not had the wonder of even brushing up against such a love in a passing bittersweet moment of promises unfulfilled, there’s no point in trying to explain or describe it.
It’s love, simple as that.
And just as complex as well.
There are thousands of guests, and they must be served in continual rounds, seven separate meal servings in all. With lots of volunteers ready to help, Daed and Mamm, Abram, Gramm, Simon and I are free to sit with Rebecca, Beau and the rest of her family. The wedding feast is expansive and delicious. The traditional celery is in hearty supply, drifting soft and lazy in steamy soup, crisp and cold with peanut butter and raisins. Everything is delicious and satisfying; roasted tom turkey, roasted chicken crusted with black pepper, mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy, roasted carrots and squash and peas and corn. The shoofly pie is the best I’ve ever had. And my own Whoopie pies are as popular as ever, especially the pumpkin flavored pies I make around this time of year. I even make a batch of my unique breakfast Whoopies, with the crispy, light cakes and mocha-powdered filling. They are a sensation, with everybody begging me to return to making them full-time.
But I’ve got a secret I won’t share with them, not yet. I won’t even share it with Simon until tonight, not wishing to steal any of my sister’s thunder on her special, long-anticipated day. But my Mamm seems to recognize a certain glow about me, and Gramm already guessed it earlier this morning. But she promised to keep my secret, for my sister’s sake.
And after tomorrow everyone will know precisely why I won’t be returning to my pie-baking career, certainly not for the next nine months and probably never again thereafter. My fate is calling me, my destiny, and it is not to be found in any cream filling between any two cakes, be they moist or crispy.
Because a Whoopie pie is a little thing, inconsequential when compared to the lives of people or even animals, for that matter. And to compare it to the new life stirring in my belly, as yet unseen, makes me feel more certain than ever of what is truly important in life.
Whoopie Pie Promise - Book 3 (The Whoopie Pie Juggler: An Amish of Lancaster County Saga series) Page 9
