Paradise Valley (36 page)
“I was not speaking of the book, cualnezqui, but the gift of reading . . . and the respect you give me by pretending you are not teaching me. To a Chichimeca, respect is the rarest gift.” She could hear the smile in his voice as he added, “But thank you for the book, too. I will treasure it.”
He turned away without another word, leaving her to watch from the darkness as he mounted his oxcart and snapped the reins.
“You are welcome, my friend,” she whispered as her fingertips drifted up to the place on her cheek where he had touched her.
The Bender family ate sauerkraut for New Year’s because it was tradition, but it seemed to Rachel that a tradition didn’t mean much when it was exercised every day. She ate sauerkraut the day
before
New Year’s and she would eat it again the day after, but she would not complain. It was food, and she had been raised to understand that she was never to complain about what kind of food was put in front of her so long as Gott provided food.
After dinner, but before anyone had gotten up from the table, Dat pulled out the latest letter from John Hershberger and read it aloud to the family.
“ ‘Well, Caleb, I hope you’uns are ready for company because it looks like we’ll be down there before too long. The first of us will arrive at the station in Arteaga on Friday, February 2nd.’ ”
“I told them they should stop in Arteaga,” Dat explained, “since it’s only a little farther than Agua Nueva and the road is much better for buggies and wagons.”
And then Dat read down the list of names John Hershberger had written in his letter. The Hershbergers and Shrocks were the only two families that would be coming down in February, but six more families from Wayne and Holmes Counties planned to come the following summer, and a couple more even later than that. All the names were familiar. Oddly, though, of the four men who had originally been arrested along with Dat, the only one still planning to come to Mexico was John Hershberger himself. The other three had all backed out.
Rachel hung on every word, hoping to hear the name Weaver, praying that by some miracle Jonas Weaver had changed his mind and decided to bring his family anyway. Of course she’d already been told the Weavers would not be coming, but hearing her dat read the list out loud and come to the end of it without saying the name Weaver drove a spike through her heart all over again. It was all she could do to keep from breaking into tears right there at the dinner table.
The first of the newcomers would be arriving in four weeks, and she couldn’t care less. By the end of summer the Mexico settlement would number well over a hundred people, many of whom she knew and loved, as well as a few strangers that in time she knew she
would
come to love, yet none of it mattered one bit. There was only one name she really longed to hear, and it wasn’t on the list. She excused herself and took her plate to wash. There hadn’t even been a letter from Jake in the last month. He had given up.
Maybe it was time she did, too.
The men stayed busy for most of January finishing the other two houses, putting windows and doors and kitchen shelves in them, and running pipe to a spigot from the big well at Caleb’s.
There was always something to do. They were all so busy the month flew past, and before they knew it the day came to go get the newcomers from Arteaga.
At supper, the night before he was to leave, Caleb made a surprise announcement.
“I’ve decided to let Miriam and Rachel go with me to Arteaga to meet the train,” he said. “Lovina Hershberger will be there, and I’m thinking she’ll be glad to see some girls after riding on the train with all those boys.”
The two girls were delighted, but Mamm glowered.
“Do you think it’s safe?” she asked.
After a year in the dry climate of Paradise Valley, Mamm had nearly stopped coughing and regained some of her strength. Able to resume many of her chores, she had even lost weight and put some color back in her cheeks. She was slowly returning to her old feisty ways.
Caleb smiled at her and said, “Jah, Mamm, it will be all right. Schulman is going with us – he always carries his rifle on his lap to warn bandits away. Anyways, I don’t think we have anything to fear when there are so many of us. And Domingo will be there, too.”
She stared, a look of intense worry on her face.
“I’ll need somebody to cook for me,” he argued.
“The Hershberger and Shrock women can cook,” she countered.
He sighed. “The girls need a break, Mamm. They’ve worked very hard.”
Reluctantly, she gave in, but the worried frown did not leave her face.
Levi and Emma had settled into their new home already, but on the morning Dat was to leave for Arteaga the whole family came down to Mamm’s house to see him off.
After breakfast Rachel and Miriam loaded a box of food to put on the wagon. Emma helped clear away the breakfast dishes while Mary laid Little Amos up on the table to change his diaper. He took advantage of the opportunity to pee in his own face. Seeing this, and the look of utter shock in the infant’s eyes, Emma laughed so hard she nearly lost the plates. As she set the stack of dishes on the counter she gasped and dropped to her knees, one hand gripping the edge of the counter and the other clutching at her stomach.
“Emma?” Mamm and Rachel both rushed to Emma’s side, kneeling with her, supporting her. “What is it?” Mamm asked.
“I don’t know,” Emma said, wide-eyed, as she drew a breath through clenched teeth and tried to straighten up. “I have a sharp pain.”
“Here?” Mamm said, placing a hand on top of Emma’s. “Do you think . . . is it possible you are with child again so soon?” Mamm asked. Ada stood behind her mother, eyes wide with fear and her teeth clamped tightly over four fingertips, moaning and swaying.
Emma nodded weakly. “I think so, Mamm. I’ve been sick in the mornings lately. But something is not right.”
“We have to get you to bed,” Rachel said. “Maybe if you get off your feet for a while, whatever is wrong will pass.” She looked at Miriam. “Can we get her down the stairs?”
The basement of Dat and Mamm’s house was now unoccupied, though one of the beds remained. The Hershbergers would soon be sleeping there.
“No.” Emma winced. “If I have to be laid up, I want to go home, to
my
house.”
Miriam bolted out the door and in a moment came back with Levi. He lifted his wife from the floor, carried her out back to the surrey and drove home while her sisters held her in the back seat. Mamm stayed home to mind the three babies, and Ada.
When they got to Emma’s house Levi brought her in and laid her on the bed, anguish carved into his young face. He knelt at her bedside stroking her forehead.
“Are you gonna be all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said, glancing up at Rachel, Miriam and Mary, but her face was pale and ash gray. “This is nothing, you’ll see.”
“Okay, then.” Levi pointed a thumb nervously over his shoulder. “I left the team out. I guess I better . . .”
“Jah,” she chuckled. “Go to work, Levi. There’s nothing for you to do here. My sisters will tend to me.”
Rachel looked at Miriam and said, “Go with Levi back to the house. Tell Dat I’m staying here with Emma. Mary is here, and Mamm will be up in a bit. We’ll take care of her.”
Emma rose up on an elbow. “No, Rachel. You go on. I know you were looking forward to the trip. Don’t stay here for me. I’ll be fine.”
There was a strange twinkle in Emma’s eye, despite the pain, but Rachel held her ground. “No. If I’m to be a midwife, then it’s important for me to be here at a time like this. I’m not leaving. But one of us should go meet the train, for Lovina. Go, Miriam! Dat won’t wait long.”
Miriam hesitated, glancing back and forth between her sisters, but she got no support. “Oh, all right,” she said. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I know how excited you – ”
“GO!” Rachel waved her off.
As soon as Levi and Miriam were gone, Rachel and Mary undressed Emma and put her gown on her.
“Was there blood?” she asked as Mary pulled the covers up and tucked her into bed.
Rachel nodded, biting her lip. “A little.”
“What can I do?”
“Nothing,” Rachel said. “Be very still. Give your body time to rest and maybe whatever is wrong will heal itself.”
“That’s right, I remember now!” Mary said. “This same thing happened to Ezra’s cousin in Maysville a while back, only she went to the doctor with it. He made her stay in bed for a
month
.” She gave Rachel a curious sideways look. “You’re so sure of yourself, child. How do you know these things?”
“Did the cousin get better?” Rachel asked, ignoring Mary’s question. Emma’s eyes said she wanted to know, too.
“Oh, jah,” Mary said. “I heard she had a new son right before we left Ohio, and they were both doing well.”
Domingo sat up front with Dat while Miriam bumped along in the back of the wagon by herself all the way to Arteaga. It was just as well, as she felt she would have been too flustered to talk to Domingo right now anyway. She sorely missed Rachel.
Late that afternoon they rolled into the station in Arteaga. On a siding in the rail yard, six cars had almost finished disgorging two large families of Amish along with all their worldly possessions. Dat’s arrival made the chaos momentarily worse as all the newcomers converged on him, shaking hands and being formally introduced, one by one, to Schulman and Domingo.
Miriam found Lovina Hershberger, and they hugged each other fiercely, a truly happy reunion. When Miriam looked up she got the shock of her life.
Jake Weaver was standing there watching, hat in hand.
“
Jake!
Oh my goodness! Where did
you
come from?
OH MY!
I thought you weren’t coming! Rachel said – ”
“I know,” he said, smiling. “But at the last minute your dat convinced my dat to farm me out to John Hershberger so I could come down by myself.”
“Dat did this?” Miriam looked around instinctively for her father. He was talking with John and Ira, paying no attention to them. “Why?”
Jake chuckled. “I think Emma talked him into it – for Rachel’s sake.”
“Emma knows you’re coming? She didn’t say a word.”
“Jah, she knows. I guess she and your dat wanted to surprise Rachel. I might have ruined the surprise, though. I sent a letter a few days ago, as soon as I found out. Didn’t she get it yet?”
