Love Finds You in Amana Iowa

by Melanie Dobson

  Or maybe she would wait until Friedrich returned and they could go together to announce their engagement. The thought of being with him, of their reunion, propelled her to walk even faster toward the mill.

  At the corner of the main street was a yard with clotheslines strung on poles, a rounded brick building behind them. One of the sisters stepped out of the washhouse, her face steamed red as she shook out a towel and clipped it on one of the lines.

  When the woman saw Amalie, she gave a quick nod and ducked back into the washhouse.

  Amalie sighed. Pity from the tourists didn’t bother her, but there was no reason for her sisters to feel sorry for her. It was this pity from the brothers and sisters in her society that disturbed her the most. The quick, nervous glances from men and women who didn’t know what to say to her. The unspoken questions about Friedrich’s desertion and the reasons he left.

  They weren’t privy to the words in his letter nor to the longings in his heart. They might think he was running away from her, but she knew the truth. There was nothing for her to be ashamed of.

  As she turned the corner, steam hissed from the engine that powered the woolen mill and puffed into the sky.

  In his letter, Friedrich didn’t say how long he would be in the army. General Morgan said the war would be finished soon, the Confederates victorious. Maybe Matthias would know how long Friedrich would be gone.

  Outside the woolen mill’s front door were three men dressed in dark, double-breasted suits. One of them held open a newspaper, and they stood focused over something inside. Normally she wouldn’t have cared about the news outside their colony. Normally she would have ignored the men and their paper, scooting around them to get in the door.

  But this morning her eyes wandered to the bold letters on the first column. The headline stopped her.

  FEDERAL TROOPS BATTLING REBELLION IN TENNESSEE

  She stopped walking and stared at the words. Which Federal troops were battling in Tennessee?

  One of the men looked up and noticed her. He lifted his top hat and stepped aside to give her access to the door, but even then, she didn’t move. If only she could read a few words of the paper, just to find out what had happened in Tennessee.

  “If you please—” she began, and the other men looked up.

  “Would you like us to move?” one of them asked slowly, like she might not understand him.

  “Nein.” She pointed at the front page. “Could you tell me what is happening in Tennessee?”

  The man with the tall hat turned back to the front page and skimmed the headline before he looked at her again. “The Union is trying to force Bragg and his men out of Chattanooga.”

  “Are there troops from Iowa in this battle?”

  He clicked his tongue as he read through the article. “Says there are troops from Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio.”

  “Are there any from Iowa County?” Her voice shook slightly with her question.

  “It doesn’t say.”

  “Martin Smith’s son volunteered to fight in the cavalry,” one of the men said to his colleagues. “They signed him up for three years.”

  “They’re signing all of them up for three years now.”

  She stepped back, feeling faint again. Surely Friedrich hadn’t signed up for three years. How could they wait for three more years to marry?

  The men continued talking to each other, as if she and her calico dress had faded into the backdrop of buildings and fields.

  She wanted to tell them that she was going to marry one of the Union soldiers when he returned home. That her Friedrich was willing to leave his home and his community for a call he believed came from God.

  Of course, the visitors didn’t need to know this about her—or about Friedrich—but for some odd reason, she wanted them and other people to know. It wasn’t just those on the outside who were serving in this war. Friedrich was serving too.

  The men didn’t seem to notice as she remained by the door, listening to them.

  “This war was supposed to end at Bull Run.”

  “No one, not even Honest Abe, can predict how long a war will last.”

  “The Rebs are getting closer,” the man with the top hat said with a sigh. “There’s talk of the Confederacy fighting in Iowa one day.”

  “The war will never come to Iowa.”

  “I wouldn’t be so certain,” he replied. “They’ve already fought in Indiana and Ohio.”

  Her stomach felt queasy. What would happen if the Rebs came here, men like General Morgan? Would they burn the beautiful buildings that the Amana men erected? It made her hope, in her own selfishness perhaps, that the Union troops stopped them long before they came to Iowa.

  The door opened, and Brother Schaube greeted the men with a round of handshakes. She stepped aside as he waved them into the woolen mill. Before the door swung shut, Matthias walked outside, hauling a carved tool chest in his arms. Their eyes met, but he didn’t acknowledge her as he moved forward.

  She eyed the door, thinking for a moment about Henriette’s instructions to be swift, but Matthias needed to eat as well. And she needed to ask him a few questions.

  “Where are you going?” she asked as she followed him away from the mill.

  He didn’t glance at her again, not even to give her the courtesy of a good morning. “To your kitchen.”

  She expected to feel a rush of enthusiasm that Matthias was beginning to work on it, but any gladness had disappeared with the news of the war. Her kitchen didn’t matter much right now.

  “Do you know who those men were by the door?” she asked, trailing behind him. He kept a remarkable pace, even carrying the large tool chest.

  “They’re business owners from Cedar Rapids. They come each month to place orders for their shops.”

  “They were reading a newspaper.” She struggled to keep up with the stride of his long legs, especially with her arms anchored by the food baskets. “There is fighting in Tennessee.”

  “We are far from Tennessee,” he muttered.

  “We are far, but Friedrich might be there.”

  This time he stopped walking and focused hard eyes on her. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “I—I don’t know. But he could be.”

  “Don’t borrow trouble, Amalie,” he clipped. Like she enjoyed trouble.

  She didn’t know what she’d done to make him despise her so, except to agree to marry Friedrich. He didn’t think she was good enough for Friedrich, but it wasn’t his decision to make. They needed to lay down the bitterness from the past and focus on the one person they both cared deeply about.

  “They said the army was enlisting the men for three years.”

  “The war will be finished long before three years.”

  She set down her baskets on the path, considering his words. If the Union conquered the Rebels in Tennessee, then maybe Friedrich would be home soon. In weeks even.

  “Have you received any letters from Friedrich?”

  He hesitated. “Not since he left.”

  “I only want to know if he is safe.”

  “As long as he is fighting this war, he will not be safe.”

  She looked down at her baskets. Even if Matthias was right, she didn’t want to hear his words. Friedrich was a clockmaker, not a warrior. If he were one of the men in the Tennessee battle, he wouldn’t know how to fight. Not with a gun or whatever it was they used to try to kill each other with.

  “You will tell me if you hear from him?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  Amalie nodded, but he had already turned, leaving without his morning snack.

  She picked up her baskets and moved back toward the mill. Matthias would do good work on her kitchen, that she was certain, and he would tell her if he heard from Friedrich. Other than that, she would ignore him. Like he said, there was no reason for her to borrow trouble, and Matthias Roemig was trouble.

  Though earth be rent asunder, thou’rt mine eternally;

&nbs
p; Not fire nor sword nor thunder shall sever me from Thee.

  Paul Gerhardt

  Chapter Thirteen

  The steady drumbeat compelled the soldiers forward, through the small cove. They’d crossed the Tennessee River into Georgia, and the beauty was spectacular, with knobby tree branches arched above their regiment, leaves dripping onto their path. Columbine spiked out of the rocky crevices, the red blooms bowing to the troops as they marched.

  The clefts of Pigeon Mountain surrounded him, but Friedrich couldn’t enjoy the beauty. They were supposed to be chasing the Rebels, but the soldiers knew if the Confederates trapped them in this gorge, with its steep cliffs on both sides, escape would be almost impossible.

  Major General Rosecrans had commanded the Federals to chase the Confederates out of Chattanooga, drive them down into Georgia. The days were hot in the south, climbing past ninety degrees and soaking their skin in sweat, but the nights were so cold that sleep eluded most of them. They hiked at least twenty miles today, over the rough terrain on the mountain with their packs.

  Friedrich’s division had joined four others to march south, but they’d yet to see a Confederate soldier along their journey, crossing through Tennessee without even a skirmish. And he’d yet to look into someone’s eyes and pull the trigger.

  He couldn’t see them, but the rebels were out there in the trees someplace, ready to fight for the Tennessee border.

  Friedrich held his gun a little closer to him. He wanted to fight for what was right, but he still didn’t know exactly what that meant for him. Even though his sergeant hadn’t said it, Friedrich knew he would send the newest recruits into the battle before the seasoned veterans. Whoever made it out alive would have proven himself to be a decent fighter and move up in the ranks. The green fighters—and the frightened men—would be filtered out on the battlefield.

  As he marched, Friedrich pressed his finger to his chest and felt the crispness of paper tucked under his coat. He didn’t believe the lock of Amalie’s hair would bring him good luck, not like the charms some of the men believed in, but having her hair close to his heart made him feel like she was close as well.

  He hoped, wherever she was, that Amalie was praying for him.

  The shotgun clutched in his hands, Friedrich tried to pretend he was hunting for deer as they marched along. Shooting a gun wasn’t a problem for him, but his mind still struggled about whether he could shoot another man. He didn’t know how he could win the battle in his mind at the same time he fought one with his hands.

  “Halt!” the sergeant commanded, and then the man lifted his field glasses and looked up the hills.

  Before them, Friedrich could see a pile of felled logs blocking their way. The men around him groaned. They would have to climb up the rocky cliffs or turn back to the summit of the mountain.

  The drumbeat continued, but above the pounding, he heard a yell. At first he thought one of the men was joking, Earl Smith or another one of them who liked to mimic the Rebel’s battle cry, but the cry came again.

  The drums stopped and a ball whizzed over his head. He ducked down, his heart racing.

  Jonah knelt beside him, his gun ready. “You can do this, Vinzenz.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “We have to fight for those who cannot.”

  The sergeant yelled for them to charge, and Friedrich rushed toward the cliffs with the company of soldiers. Straight into the line of his brothers. His enemy.

  He shook his head as he ran, like he could shake off his doubts as well. It was too late to think about his actions now. If he were wrong, he prayed God would forgive him. If he were right, he prayed God would allow him to forgive himself.

  He didn’t know who fired the first shot, but in an instant, the air popped like kernels of sizzling corn over a fire. Shots echoed all around him, the smells of sulfur and gunpowder stifled the air. He forged ahead with his fellow soldiers, but he didn’t pull his trigger. His fingers seemed to be seared to his shotgun. Instead of firing it, he held it at his side.

  Next to him, Earl Smith buckled on the ground with a howl of pain. Friedrich stopped running. He looked back down the hill, into a valley of smoke, and then looked above him, at the soldiers rushing toward him, their guns propped over their shoulders.

  He could see the holes in the uniforms of the Rebels now. The dirt on their faces and their matted hair. With the exception of the faded gray color on their clothing, the enemy looked just like the soldiers who fought beside him.

  Earl cried out again, and Friedrich looked down to see blood soaking the man’s leg. Was this how Colonel O’Neill went down, on a battlefield like this? He had lost his leg, but he hadn’t lost his life.

  The wall of fallen logs was a good forty feet behind him. Fifty even. He didn’t know how he could make it to the safe place, behind the wall, but he couldn’t let this man die in the blood wash of the battle.

  “Close it up, men!” the sergeant yelled through the chaos. “Close it up.”

  Friedrich pushed the gun back over his shoulder and leaned down to the wounded man. The others would have to do the shooting this afternoon. He would do the rescuing.

  He reached down, hooking his hands under Earl’s arms. The man screamed out in pain as he dragged him back down the hill. They were almost to the wall of logs when a blast knocked Friedrich off his feet. Where there had been grass, there were bodies now. Fragments exploded in the place Friedrich had been standing seconds ago.

  Another soldier cried out below him, holding his hand over his eye. Friedrich wanted to run to him as well, hide him behind the wall, but it wasn’t possible for him to rescue everyone.

  He pulled Smith behind the logs and then ripped off a piece of his own trousers to wrap around the man’s wound. Friedrich leaned Earl back against the wall and propped Earl’s gun in his hands. If Earl could ward off the enemy from here, his life might be spared.

  As he started to go back into the fight, Earl reached for his arm, stopping him.

  “Thank you, Vinzenz.”

  Friedrich gave him a nod and rushed back to help the other men wounded from the shrapnel. He didn’t care what the sergeant or anyone else said. He would start by helping the man who’d hurt his eye.

  As he ran to the soldier, he tripped over a body and fell, landing on the chest of a dead man. It was another one of the men who’d ridiculed him back at Camp Pope, but instead of showing mockery, his empty eyes stared up at the sky.

  Friedrich vomited the little he’d had for breakfast. This wasn’t war. It was hell.

  He picked himself off the ground, searching through the smoke for the wounded. The man who had hurt his eye was still alive, sitting up among the dead. Why didn’t he lie down, pretend that he was dead as well?

  The moment Friedrich spotted the injured soldier, he watched a Confederate discover him too. The Reb raced toward the man, the blade of his bayonet pointed in front of him. In seconds, he would finish what the cannonball started.

  Friedrich swung his gun over his shoulder. He didn’t stop to think about the repercussions. The Rebel was going to kill the wounded man, and he had to stop him.

  The gun kicked back against his shoulder when he shot, and the Rebel fell onto another body. Friedrich felt no sense of glory in his conquest. He had killed one man to rescue another. One life lost, another one saved.

  Friedrich raced to the wounded Union soldier and helped the man to his feet, steadying him.

  Another Union soldier shoved Friedrich’s shoulder with the butt of his gun. “The ambulance will come back for him.”

  But Friedrich didn’t stop.

  Few if any of the wounded would be alive if they waited for the wagons to come.

  What pleases God, O pious soul, accept with joy,

  Though thunders roll and tempest low’r on every side.

  Paul Gerhardt

  Chapter Fourteen

  Amalie’s fingers trembled with the weight of the envelope in her hands. The paper was smeared with
dirt and a reddish blot that she dared not think of as blood. Even with the dark stains, the handwriting was clear. Friedrich had written to her.

  She clutched the envelope to her chest for a moment before she looked down at it again. The postmark read IOWA CITY, and she sighed with relief. Friedrich wasn’t in Tennessee.

  “Who is it from?” Sophia asked over her shoulder.

  “Friedrich.”

  “Can I read it?”

  She pulled it back to her chest again. “Of course not.”

  The Homestead postmaster tipped his hat as he stepped out of the kitchen, on his way for his weekly mail delivery to all the villages. He could suspect, but he would never know how important it was for her to have a letter from Friedrich.

  Friedrich’s location was all she’d been able to think about during the past week, since she had heard about the battle in Tennessee. Not even her work in the kitchen had been able to distract her from her thoughts. She’d tried to read more of the book about the slaves, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the man she loved, far away on a battlefield.

  She wanted to sink down on the kitchen floor and savor every word he’d written, but she didn’t want Sophia to watch her. Nor did she want her or Henriette or the two other assistants in the kitchen to see her cry.

  “Supper is in ten minutes,” Henriette said as she glanced around the busy kitchen. Then she pointed at the door. “But go read it first.”

  She didn’t have to repeat her instruction. Amalie fled outside, to the orchard below the windmill. There in the solitude of the trees, she collapsed on the bench and ripped open Friedrich’s letter. A single piece of paper fell into her lap, and she lifted it to read about his weeks in Camp Pope and how much he missed her and Amana. His words were light, but the joviality in them sounded forced. Part of her wished she knew more about what he was thinking, even though she was afraid his thoughts might scare her.

  He said he loved her, but in this letter, he didn’t mention their marriage, nor did he ask her to wait for him like he did in his first letter.