Wonderful Lonesome (28 page)

“Keep the coal,” Willem said, “but come with Reuben and me to the ravine today to dig. Three men will make the work go faster than two, and you will still have your coal.”

“I have a sick cow to tend to.” Martin’s voice had dropped to a mutter.

“No one wants your cow to go down.” Rudy jumped down out of the buggy. “I’ll see to your cow now, Martin.”

Abbie let her breath out.

I heard.” Ruthanna gestured that Abbie should follow her away from the house and into the open yard. “News like that gets around fast.”

“I didn’t think you had left your farm since supper at the Millers’.”

“I haven’t.” Ruthanna’s pace felt like a sluggish elephant even to her.

“Rudy?”

Ruthanna nodded. “I don’t think he meant to gossip. By the time he stopped by I don’t think it was a secret anymore. He wanted to know how we are for coal.”

Abbie turned the old yard chair around and indicated that Ruthanna should sit. “I know Eber hasn’t been up to digging.”

“I have enough to cook with, and the nights aren’t cold yet.” Ruthanna tried to get comfortable in the chair, a task growing in difficulty with every inch of her waistline.

Abbie stood behind Ruthanna and began to rub her shoulders. “I’ll talk to
Daed
and my
bruder
. They can make sure you have what you need.”

“Rudy has already offered.”

Abbie pressed into her shoulder, and Ruthanna gave a sigh of bliss. “You have strong fingers. Eber cannot even rub my sore feet these days.”

“He seems quite ill again, Ruthanna.”

Ruthanna forced herself to breathe. “He is.”

“I can take a buggy to Limon and get the doctor.”

“He was here three days ago. He never has anything new to say. It might be an ulcer, and Eber needs to rest, or it might be something worse. The pain in his stomach comes and goes.”

“Maybe we can get a doctor to come from Colorado Springs, or take Eber there. They will have a hospital. The trains go every day.”

“He won’t go. He says that if it is God’s will for him to die, then he will go to his Savior gladly.”

Abbie’s hands ceased their comforting motion as she swung around to crouch in front of Ruthanna and look her in the face. “Did he really say such a thing?”

Ruthanna nodded.

“But our people have no objection to medical care. Where did he get such a notion?”

“Gottes wille.”

“Both of you should go to Colorado Springs and stay. Eber could see a specialist, and you could have the baby there.”

“The child is not due for more than a month. We have no money. Where would we stay? How would we buy food? Who would look after our animals?”

“You know that the men would look after the farm. We could take up a collection for your other needs. That is our way.”

Ruthanna shook her head slowly. “Abbie, no one has any cash to speak of. Everyone gets by with trading. Besides, Eber will not agree.”

“This is no time for him to be proud. You should at least talk to him. We’ll figure out a way.”

Ruthanna changed the subject. “Rudy said the Nissleys want to have a meeting about what happened with the coal. Do you plan to go?”

Abbie lifted her shoulders and let them drop slowly as she stood up. “I suppose. It’s tomorrow. Pray for us all.”

“If it is true, then Martin is accountable to all of us.” Adam Nissley opened his blue eyes wide, creating ridges in his forehead. “Even without a minister, we all know that what he did was wrong.”

Abbie stood in the back of the crowded room. Not many of the other women were present, but no one had told her she could not be present. Millie Nissley poured coffee and handed cups around the ragged circle in her sitting room. Abbie watched as Willem took his cup and characteristically blew across the surface of the hot liquid before sipping. She wished she had thought to bring a coffee cake or rolls to share, though it hardly felt like a casual social occasion. Men either sat stiffly in their chairs or leaned forward on their knees.

Other than Eber, the one man missing was Martin Samuels, and Abbie wondered whether he had declined to attend or they had intentionally left him out. It seemed to her that he ought to have the opportunity to speak to his own people in a matter that so obviously concerned him.

“It is true,” Willem said softly.

“Is he willing to confess?” Adam said.

“You will have to ask him that question.” Willem sipped his coffee.

Abbie crossed her arms and clasped her elbows. Despite his rush to justice on the day Rudy discovered the coal, Willem had mustered surprising calm. But Abbie saw the way his fingers wrapped around his coffee cup, indignation swelling in his clenched joints. What was happening to him? He never used to let troubles disturb him to this extent.

Albert Miller spoke up. “I would never have imagined Martin was capable of this. If we cannot trust each other, then who can we trust?”

“We will all have to look out for each other,” Moses Troyer said, “to make sure this does not happen again. If any of us sees another falling into sin, let him speak up.”

Abbie swallowed her thought. The point of trust was not checking up on each other. Whether or not they all trusted one another, they could trust God to care for them. Willem had been offended, but he had not truly suffered. She watched his face now, but he simply caught Millie Nissley’s eye and she brought the coffeepot to refill his cup.

When the knock on the door disrupted the tone in the room and all heads turned, Abbie was closest to the door.

She pulled it open to find Jake Heatwole standing on the other side.

Willem immediately stood. Color rose through Abbie’s cheeks as she tensed every muscle in her face. Willem forced himself to look away from her and meet Jake’s eyes.

“I don’t mean to barge in,” Jake said, “but I heard about the disappointment you have all endured in the last couple of days.”

Willem nodded. Jake was not so distanced from the Amish that he did not understand that what wounded one of them wounded all of them.

Adam Nissley rose. “This is a private meeting, Mr. Heatwole.”

Willem resisted the urge to sigh audibly. If the Amish families would listen to Jake’s kindness, they would see that he meant no harm.

“I only wanted to see if there might be something I could do to help.” Jake glanced around the room, unperturbed.

“I think we have the matter well in hand.” Eli Yoder held his stiff-seated pose. “We will decide for ourselves what is fair.”

“I did not suppose you required any assistance with that determination.” Jake had not stepped any farther into the room than Abbie initially allowed. “You are all people of conscience. I suspect even Martin Samuels’s transgression is a lapse due to more general difficulties.”

“Are you excusing him, then?” Eli Yoder shuffled his feet slightly.

“Not at all,” Jake said. “In fact, I make no judgment about the matter at all. I merely came to minister if there might be any need that I might fill.”

No one spoke. Abbie still stood at the door, one hand grasping the thick panel of wood.

“Would you like some
kaffi
?” Millie asked.

Willem heard the reluctance in her voice and saw the relief in her face when Jake shook his head.

“I will not intrude further,” Jake said. “But if you don’t mind, Mr. Nissley, I would like to remain outside for a few minutes. Then if anyone feels the need to talk, I will not be far away.”

Adam pressed his lips together, but he nodded. Jake stepped outside the door, and Abbie closed it behind him and leaned against it.

Willem swallowed his second cup of coffee in one gulp. “Thank you, Mrs. Nissley, for your kind refreshment.” He nodded at the men around the room and the women on the periphery. Abbie’s eyes widened, but he knew she would not speak or try to stop him in a room full of people. Willem brushed a hand against hers on his way out.

Jake stood a few yards from the house stroking the slender nose of his horse. “Hello, Willem.”

Willem patted the horse’s rump. “Forgiveness has a hard edge, Jake. I need prayer if I am going to face Martin Samuels with love in my heart once again.”

The house quieted soon after sunset. Hours later, Abbie turned up the wick in the oil lamp that illumined her quilt square. Triangles of blue and green and purple and brown and crimson and black and white blurred together in her wearied eyes. The trunk of this family’s tree—the Yutzys, in Abbie’s mind—was stitched with precision, and she had started adding colors alternating with white to form the leaves of the tree. After the meeting earlier in the day, Abbie was more determined than ever to finish the quilt before further division could set in among the Amish families. Six of twelve blocks were finished, and she would not let up on the impeccable quality she chased. She had ripped out entire rows already, and she would do it again if she had to. The finished quilt must be a testament of enduring beauty, because it would represent the growth and spread of the settlement.

Abbie murmured prayers for every household in the settlement, even the long-gone Chupps, whenever she stitched. Twice she had stayed up all night, only realizing dawn would soon invade the sky when her mother shuffled into the kitchen to light the stove and start breakfast. She knew the names of every child in the settlement, though their precise ages often escaped her and she would have to calculate based on what she knew about the rest of the family. She knew whose wheat had suffered most in the June hailstorm and whose vegetables had flourished most in the July heat. She knew who might yet eke out a bit of cash from a second planting and who had given up trying. And she prayed for them all.

For Eber in his prolonged illness, that he might yet find hope.

For Willem in his temptation to leave the church.

For Rudy in his fragile dreams.

For Ruthanna and her tension-filled muscles.

For her parents and Daniel, Reuben, and Levi.

For Little Abe’s safety and his parents’ nerves.

For Martin Samuels and the stress that would make him do the unthinkable.

For all of them. Every leaf of every tree of life in her quilt and the prosperous future her heart ached for.