Stranger's Gift (3 page)

A lively discussion followed the reports, and the room was electric with anticipation and not a little fear for what the hurricane might leave in its wake. The news was not good. All the experts agreed that the watch status would change to a warning before the day was out. A warning meant the hurricane would be expected to hit within twenty-four hours. According to their best indicators, the only good news was that the storm might yet continue to stall offshore, buying them more time. One meteorologist had confirmed that once the storm came across the islands, it could weaken significantly before it hit Sarasota, but those barrier islands—Siesta, Lido, and Longboat Key—were in the storm's direct path.

Following the meeting, as members of the group broke out into clusters to compare notes, Emma went to the side table where coffee and tea had been set up and got Hester a paper cup filled with two-thirds coffee and one-third cream, just the way she liked it.

“Thanks.” Hester took a sip and grinned. “This will do for now, but once this is all over, I'm going to hold you to the promise of a latte on Main Street.”

“Just name the time and place,” Emma said, sipping her own black coffee. “I've missed you, my friend.”

“Ja. Me, too.”

The two of them sat knee to knee on the hard metal folding chairs of the county meeting room as they made lists of what each agency would be responsible for so there would be no duplication of services and everything could be covered. They had to prepare for the worst. If necessary, Emma's group would take charge at the three shelters, while Hester's volunteers would feed the army of volunteers from Mennonite churches in surrounding states and as far away as the upper Midwest. Once the initial needs were met, everyone would pitch in to manage the long-term work of cleaning up and rebuilding.

“Sounds like a plan,” Emma said as she put away her notebook and finished her coffee.

“How are the kids?” Hester asked.

“They are growing up so fast. Matt is completely wrapped up in soccer. Can you believe that Sadie is going to be sixteen years old? She and her cousin, Tessa, are as inseparable as Jeannie and I were at that age,” she said, referring to her younger sister.

“Okay, now you're making me feel ancient. I mean, it seems like just yesterday they were babies.”

Emma crumpled her empty cup and nodded. “I know. Can you believe it? Jeannie says that her Tessa is sweet and so reliable just like me, and I tell her just wait. Sadie was a sweetheart at that age as well.”

“They'll be fine,” Hester said. “Look at who they got for mothers.”

“And what about you?” Emma asked as the two of them headed down the corridor.

Hester shrugged. “Not much to tell.”

“Really?” Emma's eyebrows arched.

“Oh, you mean Samuel Brubaker?” It was like old times the way she had read Emma's question without her friend needing to explain.

“Oh, you mean Samuel Brubaker,” Emma said, mimicking her too-casual tone. Samuel was a young carpenter who had come to Florida for a visit and been recruited by Hester's father to stay and work with him in his carpentry business. And there wasn't a person in Pinecraft who didn't think that Arlen's real motive in hiring the Pennsylvania carpenter was to promote a potential romance with Hester.

“Come on. Tell me the truth. Do you like him?”

“He's nice,” Hester said as she drained the last of her coffee and let it burn its way down her throat.

“I see. Well, take some advice from an old friend and don't settle, Hester. He might be a fine man, a good provider and all, but if you don't feel …”

“Oh, Emma, I don't know what I feel. It's all come about so suddenly, and I know Papa has the best of intentions and only wants my happiness, but …”

“And are you happy as you are?”

Hester shrugged. “I love my work….” She sighed as a realization dawned on her. “So much so that when I saw you up there giving our report today, I felt threatened, like something could be taken away from me. It was the strangest feeling.”

“You have no reason to feel that way, Hester. You're one of those people who truly cares for others, who thinks nothing of putting her own life on hold to help someone in trouble or pain. You have a rare gift, my friend.”

Embarrassed yet touched by Emma's praise, Hester held the door for her friend as they stepped out into weather that had already begun to change. The traffic was bumper to bumper, and all headed east away from the shore and the sky that was beginning to change from brilliant blue to ominous gray.

“I have the car,” Emma said. “We could put your bike in the trunk.”

“Nein, danke
. I'll be fine. I want to go by the bay once more, you know, in case things change.” As she pedaled off, she silently thanked God that she and Emma had found their way back to the friendship they had treasured for so many years.

I
f Hester thought traffic had been bad on her way to the meeting, it was nothing compared to the jammed streets and impatient drivers she saw on her way back to Pinecraft. Clearly people had taken the evacuation order to heart in spite of the fact that in the past such evacuations had often been an exercise in futility when the hurricanes missed them completely. As a light changed and Hester eased her bike into the crosswalk, a pickup truck hurtled within inches of her as the driver rushed to make an illegal left turn. Car horns blared a belated warning, and she hesitated. Hester could see panic eroding what she could only assume were the normally pleasant features of the driver.

“Move it or lose it, honey,” another driver yelled from the open window of her car as she edged forward to make a right turn. The woman glanced up at the sky, her eyes wide as if she thought the hurricane might well appear full-blown at any second and wash them all out to sea.

The crossing lights were with Hester the rest of the way, although the parade of traffic headed east did not slacken in the least. She was faster on her bicycle than any of the motorized vehicles she passed. Just as she slid her bike to a stop at the small prefabricated building that served as the local MCC headquarters for collecting donations and distributing supplies, she heard a car horn and someone calling her name.

“Hey, Hester, your hurricane looks like it might be pretty impressive!” She turned to see Grady Forrest, the director of the county's disaster-relief program, leaning out the window of his Jeep and grinning. He pulled into the gas station lot across the street from the center and got out. It had been Grady who'd suggested that she volunteer to serve as the area representative to MCC.

“Guess I'll have to treat you with a little more respect,” he added as he dodged traffic and jaywalked across the busy street. “I wanted to touch base with you at the meeting, but you were out of there before I could break away. How are things coming here?” He nodded toward the open door of the MCC building.

“I expect we'll see the first volunteer teams from up north start to arrive within hours after the storm hits,” Hester said. “We got word that there are groups on their way from Ohio, Indiana, and—”

“That's great, Hester.” Grady glanced at his shoes and then up at the sky, clearly gathering his thoughts—or was it his nerve? “Actually, I have a request….” He paused. “There's this…thing. After I missed you at the meeting, I drove over here to ask you to help me with what could be a delicate situation.”

“How can I help?” The volunteers from all three Mennonite groups would be expected to focus first on the elderly, the infirm, and the underinsured—regardless of their faith or politics. For the county's coordinator of disaster relief to ask for their help was evidence that their agencies were every bit as well regarded as the Red Cross or other more well-known relief agencies. She looked at him curiously. “Our volunteer cup runneth over,” she teased, but Grady did not smile at the pun. “Hey, just tell us what we can do.”

“Not ‘we'—you. I want to do this quietly if possible.”

Hester felt a tingle of alarm. “I don't understand.”

“There's this one guy out on the point just down from the mouth of the creek where it empties into Little Sarasota Bay.”

The creek was Philippi Creek, the meandering stream that wound its way from the intercoastal waters that separated the mainland from Siesta Key eastward through the very heart of Pinecraft and beyond. It was that very creek that posed the greatest threat to the residents of Pinecraft. If it flooded, dozens of people right in her own community could be displaced. “You mean Tucker's Point?”

Grady nodded. “His name's John Steiner. Came here a couple of years ago from the Midwest, as I understand it, and bought the old Tucker place. He's been renovating the property. Word has it that he plans to revive the old packinghouse.”

“Okay,” Hester said, wondering where this conversation was going and wishing Grady would come to the point.

“Apparently he's also done a fair amount of planting—fruit trees, veggies, and the like. Somebody mentioned that he'd just started keeping chickens.” He shook his head. “You'd think the man was living out in the country miles from any neighbor instead of just across the creek from a large condominium complex.”

Hester studied her friend for a long moment. “Who is this man, Grady?”

“Well, now there's the interesting part. Seems that he's the grandson of the late Thomas E. Carter. Remember? He was the speaker of the house, and this guy's aunt took the old man's seat in Congress after he retired. She just happens to serve on the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security and is a close friend of my boss, who is planning a run for Congress himself, which is why this landed on my plate.”

Hester nodded, although the convoluted government bureaucracy of the outside world remained a mystery to her. “So this congresswoman called you?”

“Worse. She called my boss and his boss, and, well, the message is pretty clear that we need to make sure this guy Steiner knows what he's in for if he stays. Ideally we need to persuade him to head for the nearest shelter.”

“That's not our mission,” she reminded Grady.

“I know. That's why I'm asking for a special favor. If he decides to stay and then gets hit, I really can't put everything on hold to rescue him, or we'll be labeled another Katrina by the media. Could you just go out there and quietly check it out?”

“I guess …” she said reluctantly. “Why me?”

Grady ducked his head. “Steiner is Amish—or was. I didn't get the whole story yet.” He grinned. “So, a woman's touch?”

“I'm Mennonite, not Amish.”

“Close enough.”

She fingered one of the ties of her prayer covering. Perhaps doing this for Grady was one way of atoning for her bout of green-eyed envy at the meeting earlier. “All right.”

Obviously relieved, Grady took out a map of the area where Philippi Creek flowed into Little Sarasota Bay. He tapped the point that jutted out into the bay across from Siesta Key. “Word has it that he's left the road in pretty overgrown, so it might be best to go down the creek from here. Margery Barker can help with that. She's already tried to get the guy to leave but to no avail.”

As a prelude to the storm, the rain had started to fall in a steady downpour while John was having his supper. He was just finishing when there was a loud pounding on his front door. He knew what this was. No doubt the authorities had come to order him to evacuate. According to the latest data, the beast that had been lurking offshore for days had awakened and was stretching its tentacles toward the west coast of Florida. Throughout the day he'd been aware of the ceaseless stream of traffic crossing over the Stickney Point Bridge as the residents of Siesta Key fled to safety. It was past time to go if he was going, which he wasn't.

Fueled by his determination to stand his ground, John pulled open the door, prepared to state his case, but found himself speechless. Instead of the uniformed muscleman he'd been expecting, there was a young Mennonite woman clinging to her skirt and trying without much success to hold the hood of he rraincoat over her stiff white kapp. “John Steiner?” she shouted above the wind.

Dumbly he nodded, and the woman strode right past him into his house.

“I'm Hester Detlef with the Mennonite Central Committee,” she said as the wind slammed the door. With most of the remaining daylight blocked out by the plywood covering the windows and only the battery-powered lamp on the kitchen table for illumination, it was hard to gauge her expression, but certainly her posture even in silhouette as well as that bossy tone spoke volumes. The irony that a woman named Hester had appeared on his doorstep at the same time that a hurricane by the same name was headed his way had not escaped him. “You really need to leave now,” she added.