“I did not.” Hans lifted his head, his eyes sagging with regret. “I did not know where to begin.”
Tessa turned and ran up the stairs.
Beacon Hollow
Christmas Day 1763
Tessa tried to be cheerful on Christmas Day, for the sake of the boys, for Betsy, mostly for her mother. She knew she’d been difficult lately, moody and distant. Her spirits lifted when Felix arrived, bringing Benjo and Dannie, Hans, of course, and Dorothea—her first venture away from home in a few months. And then Catrina and Maria arrived. After the bounteous meal, Catrina and the boys—all four—surprised everyone with a performance. They sang songs and recited poems, short stories, and Scripture verses. And then, the boys lined up along the hearth and recited in unison this ending, in English:
We’re glad it isn’t size and weight
And age that counts today,
’Cause then we might not have the chance
To stand up here and say . . .
“Happy Christmas!”
Catrina beamed as everyone clapped. “Anna, this is credited to you. You insisted that Felix and I learn to read, write, and speak English on the Charming Nancy.”
Tessa’s father reached out and squeezed her mother’s hand. “How well I remember! Down in the lower deck, near the pigs.”
Felix grinned. “We brought to the New World the most well-educated pigs known to man.”
They laughed at that, but soon Felix’s smile faded and his face grew solemn. He rose to his feet. “I have an announcement.” He cleared his throat and his cheeks, Tessa noticed, had turned a curious shade of red. “Somehow, I have persuaded Catrina to be my wife and the mother of those two imps I call my sons.”
There was a stunned silence, and then, an explosion of happy sounds. Benjo and Dannie whooped with joy, Bairn clapped Felix on the back so hard it made him cough, Maria started crying—hopefully, for joy, though Tessa wasn’t quite sure. Maria had always been sharply critical of Felix, but then, of whom wasn’t she critical? Her mother hugged Catrina and welcomed her to the family.
And with that, a knock came to the door. Tessa opened it to find rumpled Martin on the stoop with a squirming puppy in his arms. The wind had painted Marty’s nose bright red, his hair looked like a gale force had arranged it, and his face was lit with a grin. “Happy Christmas, Tessa!”
After everyone had left for home and before the darkness of evening folded in, Betsy crossed the yard, the frost crunching under her feet as she passed through the deep shadow cast by the barn. It was her Christmas gift to Tessa—a week of milking the cow. Once in the warm barn, she took her heavy cloak off and tossed it on top of a barrel. Something slipped out of her cloak pocket and clunked on the floor. She bent down to pick it up, astounded. It was her lost journal. She was sure she had left it upstairs, sure she had kept it in the cupboard; she’d turned the loft upside down looking for it. She couldn’t remember putting it in her cloak pocket, but perhaps she had. Regardless, she had found it. And on Christmas Day!
She skimmed through it, satisfied that it was intact, and slipped it back in her cloak pocket. The sun had dropped below the horizon and shadows cast eerie light against the barn walls. She scooped up hay from a stack and dropped it on the ground in front of the cow. She plucked the milk pail off the wall peg, and the stool, and sat beside the cow, leaning her forehead against its warm, sweet body. She had nearly finished when she realized she wasn’t alone.
Caleb.
She blew out a startled breath. He stood a few rods away, watching her with a soft look on his face. She pulled the pail away from the cow so she wouldn’t kick it over and spoil all that good milk. She rose to her feet, and approached Caleb slowly. “I was hoping to see you today. I wanted to wish you a happy Christmas.”
“My mother was the last person who wished me a happy Christmas.”
“Where have you been?”
“Hunting game for the prisoners.”
“They’re not prisoners, Caleb. It won’t be much longer. They’ll be free to live where they want to, as they want to.”
He gave her a sad smile. “This . . . massacre. It’s the first of more to come. The white people are hungry for land. And there are many more of them than Indians.”
She dropped her head. Without warning, tears stung Betsy’s eyes. The realization of why he had sought her out this afternoon lay like a stone on her heart. “You’ve come to say goodbye. That’s why you’re here, on Christmas Day.” Tell me I’m wrong. Oh Caleb, don’t be considering such a thing. But she knew he was, and they need not discuss it further for Betsy to know why he was leaving. Even still, she lifted her eyes to him for an explanation.
“I am Indian. I cannot stay in one place for long.”
“You’re only part Indian, Caleb. You belong here. We are your people too.” She knew her tone sounded both urgent and injured, but she was desperate to make him stay.
He lifted his chin. “Soon, you will marry the blacksmith.”
She looked up at him, and despite the dim lighting, she could detect great sadness in his face. “Before the attack on my family, Hans and I were planning to wed.”
“And you long to return to that time.” He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers, the cheek with the scar running down it, and his gentle gesture nearly undid her.
Tears began to spill down her face. “But it can’t be done,” she whispered. “That attack changed everything. The time in the village changed me.” She looked up at him. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know where I belong.”
“Yes, Betsy. Yes you do. You belong to the Holy One. That will never change.” He took her in his arms and she clung to him as he held her, stroking her back. He rested his chin on the pleats of her prayer cap and held her closer. Then he pushed out a sigh that sounded as if it hurt, and he released her, stepping back slightly. His palms clasped her face and she reached up to cover his hands with hers. She wanted him to stay. His somber expression twisted toward a smile.
“Be happy, Betsy Zook.” He kissed her scarred cheek and quietly left her, walking silently down the hallway of the barn and into the darkness.
She stared at the door as it shut behind him, and her eyes burned with tears.
The cow shuffled impatiently and Betsy wiped her face, before reaching to pick up the milk pail. As she bent down, she caught a flicker of something moving in the far corner of the barn. She jerked, and the pail splashed milk over her apron. “Who’s there?” she called, feeling a chill crawl down her back.
Hans stepped out of the darkness.
“Hans! I thought you’d left for home.”
His hat cast his face in shadow, with the brim hiding his eyes. “Dorothea picked up the wrong bonnet. She wanted me to return it, so I went to the house. Anna told me you were in the barn.” He took a step closer to her. “It’s him. I read in the diary about a man you loved—but I assumed it was me.” He scraped a hand over his chin; he seemed dumbfounded. “Your soul was bound to him, you wrote. I thought you had written of me. But it’s . . . him.”
“You read my journal? How did you get it? So you . . . did you put it in my cloak pocket?” She paused while she tried to compose her thoughts into a sensible order. How long had he been there? How much had he heard?
Hans thumbed his hat back, frowning, and she saw something flit through his eyes—a strange and urgent light, that crazed look in his eyes before. The look that made her fear him. “You love him. The half blood.”
“Hans,” she said gently, in as calm a tone as she could muster. “Caleb is my friend. He has been good to me.”
“You seemed distant, distracted, since your restoration, but I thought it was because of the grief you suffered for your parents.” His eyes fastened on her. “It never occurred to me it was because you’d fallen in love with a . . . half blood.”
The silence in the barn grew oppressive, even the cow stilled from chewing her feed and turned her big head to watch them.
“
Hans, Caleb is my friend,” she repeated. “He risked his life to bring me to Beacon Hollow. To the Bauers.” She reached out a hand to him. “To you.”
“Don’t lie to me, Betsy,” he whispered. “Please, don’t lie to me.” He backed away from her, one step, then another, and left the barn the way he’d come in.
21
Beacon Hollow
Second Christmas 1763
Throughout the next day, Tessa kept the puppy by her side. Despite the giver of the gift, Tessa found herself charmed by him. Marty said he gave her the puppy because he realized old Zeeb had switched loyalties to the Zook brothers, and he thought she needed a dog of her own. She laughed as she watched the puppy tear around the kitchen, its tail whirling in a circle. When she went to the loft to work on her sewing, she brought the puppy along and let him curl up on her bed. She decided to name him Rumple.
Betsy came upstairs and sat on the edge of the bed, patting the sleeping puppy. In her other hand was her diary.
Tessa stilled. Her heart started pounding. “So you found it.”
Betsy’s face held a pensiveness, her pale features seemed strained. “Tessa, by any chance . . . did you give Hans my journal?”
“Your journal?” Her insides felt shaky.
Betsy held it up. “Yes. This journal. Did you give it to Hans?”
A wave of shame and remorse rose and crashed over her, and as it crested, her eyes filled with tears. Confess, repent, make it right. Rumpled Marty’s words echoed and echoed in Tessa’s head. She pulled her eyes from Betsy’s to answer. “Yes,” she whispered. With a sob, she dropped her forehead to her knees and circled her legs with her arms. She felt sickened by her action, and ashamed. So very ashamed. A hand gently patted her shoulder. Oh no. No, no, no. Don’t be nice, Betsy. Yell or scream or cry or call me names, but please don’t be nice.
“Why?” Betsy said softly. “What could make you do such a thing?”
Tessa winced. Her heart sank lower and lower. “The green-eyed monster.”
“What? What’s that?”
Tessa chanced a look at her. “Jealousy.” She slid off the bed and sank down onto a stool by the fireplace, then dropped her head on her knees again.
“You’re jealous of me?”
“Of you. Of Hans. Of Hans and you, together.” She lifted her head. “I’ve loved Hans for as long as I can remember. I was born loving him.”
Betsy sank to the ground and leaned against the bed frame, directly across from Tessa. “So that’s why you’ve disliked me so.”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Betsy. I’m so sorry.” She let out a big sigh. “He’s never loved me, if that helps. He’s only loved you.”
Betsy gave her a sad smile. “I’ve always been jealous of you.”
“Of me? Of me.” Tessa blinked. “Why?” Why in the world would anyone, ever, be jealous of her?
“You’ve always been free to speak your mind. Free to be yourself.”
“It’s my worst fault. I’m far too outspoken.”
“Assured. Confident.”
“Maria calls me bold-minded.”
“Plucky.”
“And I’ve heard the three stout sisters call me brazen.”
“I prefer . . . spirited.” Betsy smiled. “There are worse things.”
“Like what?”
Betsy’s gaze shifted to the window. “Like feeling trapped in a cage when you’re meant to fly free.” She tipped her head. “Tessa, what made you love Hans?”
“He is so beautiful, I suppose.”
“He is, indeed. The comeliest man in all of Pennsylvania. But the strength of his character does not match the strength of his physique. That is a mistake we both made, you and I.” Betsy rose and went to the window. “I fear Hans has gone to Lancaster Town. I don’t know what he might do, given his state of mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“I heard your father say that the Paxton Boys are all over Lancaster Town, drinking and carousing. Hans is angry and hurt. He can be . . . vengeful.” She put a hand against the cold window. “And I don’t know how to warn Caleb.” She touched her forehead against the window. “If he has gone to Lancaster Town, I fear for his life. And there’s nothing I can do, not for Caleb, not for Hans. They could not be more different, those two, but they are both very stubborn.”
Tessa moved across the floor to sit in front of Betsy, folding her legs under her. “Tell me more about Caleb. Tell me more about the time you spent in the village by the river. I’ve never asked. I’m sorry I’ve never asked.”
Betsy looked at her for a long while, as if trying to gauge her sincerity. Then she slipped down to the floor beside Tessa and started from the beginning, the night of the raid on her parents’ farm. She told Tessa everything, and Tessa told her all she knew too—even the parts that were hard to tell. Hans taking the infected blankets to the Conestogas. Meeting Hans the morning after the raid on Indiantown. They talked until the boys came home from school and supper needed tending and the puppy woke and needed to be taken outside, fast.
That night, Tessa barely slept. She had no idea all that Betsy had endured. Nor did she realize what kind of man Caleb was, or the background of his mother’s captivity. Being raised as a tribute child, then going on his journey to become a man and ending up as a slave. Becoming the one who kept watch over others. Like the way he had watched over Tessa when he found her in tears by the sheep pond.
Caleb the Watchman.
Confess. Repent. Make it right.
Make it right.
As soon as the cock crowed, Tessa slipped out of bed, dressed, and tiptoed to the stairs.
Betsy rose and leaned on her elbow on the bed. “Where are you going?” she whispered.
“There’s something I need to do,” Tessa whispered back. “To try and make one thing right.”
Stoney Ridge
December 27, 1763
Tessa searched for the stallion all morning long. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack—melting snow hid all the usual telltale tracks. But she knew he would be hungry, and she knew there were only a few places where he could find enough food to satisfy. She tried each place she had seen him feed, and finally decided to check out one last spot.
Despite her fear of rodents, she crossed Faxon Gingerich’s cornfield of short stalks, past his big barn and behind his large silo, and headed to a small section of the silo that had rotting wood. Oblivious to Faxon, his harvested corn poured out of the hole. Tessa had seen deer at the corn hole, raccoons, mice, moles, squirrels, all kinds of birds, and one time, she had seen the stallion here. It was like all the wildlife of Stoney Ridge knew of this feeding spot, all except for Faxon the Saxon.
And there was the stallion, just as she had hoped. His long neck was stretched out, his big head was in the silo. He was helping himself to a winter meal, thanks to Faxon Gingerich.
She tiptoed close, then clucked her tongue to let him know she was near. He pulled his head out of the silo, big mouth full of corn, and kept chewing as he watched her. She lifted a halter and let him sniff it, then gently wrapped it around his giant head and buckled it. “I think there’s someone who needs to meet you.”
He let her climb on his back. With one hand on the reins and one hand on his mane, they went toward Lancaster Town.
Beacon Hollow
Betsy was filling the bucket with water from the well, wind whipping her capstrings, when Felix came galloping down the lane from the road.
“Where’s Bairn?” he shouted, throwing himself off the horse. “Bairn!” He seemed frantic.
Bairn bolted out of his carpentry shop. “What’s happened?”
“A mob broke into the workhouse in Lancaster Town. They’re dead, Bairn. All dead. Will Sock, his wife, his son.” Felix choked on the words.
White-faced, Bairn reached for the horse’s bridle. “What of Christy? Of Betty Sock?”
“Dead.” Felix seemed wild-eyed with disbelief. “Murdered in cold blood. In broad daylight. I heard the sh
eriff just . . . stepped aside.”
Betsy stared, trying to make sense of it all. She listened to Felix with a growing dread. For a moment all sounds ceased, or seemed to, as if she were underwater. She heard nothing beyond the frantic thumping of her own heart. She didn’t want to acknowledge the fear this news had set in her heart. But it came anyway, along with an overwhelming panic.
“Caleb?” she whispered, her eyes wide, her throat hot and tight. “Was he among them?”
“I don’t . . . know. The bodies . . . they were . . .” Felix bent to grasp his knees, as if he was going to get sick. “They’d been chopped to pieces. The bodies.” Head bowed almost to the ground, he let out a sob. “Our friends’ bodies . . .” He breathed in and out, trying to hold himself together.
For a moment Betsy closed her eyes, gulping, unable to swallow the lump of fear in her throat. Was it possible? Could Caleb be dead? The awful reality hit her full force. Tears filled her frightened eyes, and she pressed a fist to her lips.
Bairn stood ramrod straight, stiffly, woodenly, as if he might snap in two. He spoke in an urgent tone. “Did they make any arrests?”
“No.” Felix drew in a deep, unsteady breath and straightened up. “No arrests have been made.” Still breathing hard, his eyes were fixed on his older brother. “And our Hans didn’t come home last night.”
Tessa took a shortcut through the woods to Lancaster Town when she saw a lone figure standing, waiting, through the thick trees. Or rather, he saw her and seemed to be waiting for her. Caleb.
He had a knack for seeing someone before that someone saw him.
She slipped down off the stallion and led him by the halter to approach Caleb. He looked exhausted, covered by a weariness that went bone-deep. “So you have tamed the mighty stallion.” He let the horse sniff him, and then the horse did something that surprised Tessa. Surprised, and yet didn’t surprise her. The stallion took a step forward and nuzzled Caleb with his nose, a greeting of sorts. On some level, in some part of his memory, this horse knew Caleb, Tessa was sure of it.
The Return Page 24
