Wonderful Lonesome (5 page)

Ruthanna yanked open the door and stood in its frame screaming regret.

“Eber!”

Ruthanna had bitten her tongue two hours ago when Eber said he wanted to walk the fence line. He did not want to take the chance that a neighbor’s hungry cow would nudge a loose post out of its earthy pocket in search of a scrabbly patch of grass to nibble on. If he had any grass, Eber would gladly share it with a cow. What he feared was that the animal would start in on his tenuous field of barley just as it showed signs of taking root. Eber had not regained his full strength. That was plain as day. But she could not hold him back from doing the only thing he could think to do as an obstinate summer yawned before them.

“Eber!”

Ruthanna’s mind told her it was pointless to shriek into the wind, but she could not help it. The clanging smash of hail dumping from the sky against the tin roof drowned the sound of her voice even from her own ears. Eber had declined to take a horse with him, and he had been gone long enough that he could be anywhere on their acreage. When Ruthanna stepped out far enough to scan the horizon around the house—just to be sure Eber was not near—hail stung her cheeks. White icy mounds swelled around her as ever-larger hail pelted the finer base layer.

With one hand on her rounded abdomen, Ruthanna shielded her eyes with the other and peered through the onslaught of white. Eber’s white shirt would be lost against the hail. His black trousers would be her only hope of glimpsing him. Methodically, she scanned the view from left to right for any movement. Chickens in the yard scurried into the henhouse, but Ruthanna expected at least one or two would not survive the storm. Horses whinnied on the wind in their pasture. Ruthanna offered a quick prayer of thanks that their two cows were safely in the barn at the moment.

But she did not see Eber.

Within minutes, the hail was five inches deep. Ruthanna stepped back into the shelter of the doorframe, watching this mystery of spring. Only a few weeks ago five inches of snow would have been cause for rejoicing. Precious moisture would have melted into the ground and prepared the soil to welcome seed meticulously buried at precise depth and intervals. Even if hail had come before the seeds sprouted, the crop might have survived. But this! This was only terror.

Her father would have reminded her
Gottes wille
. God’s will. Could it really be God’s will for twelve obedient Amish families to suffer this racking devastation?

And then it was over. The sky had emptied and stilled. Drenched, Eber limped from around the back side of the barn.

Willem shoved open the barn door and hurtled toward the horse stalls. The stallion bared his teeth and raised his front legs in protest against the commotion. Willem slushed hail in on his boots. Frozen white masses in various sizes melted into the straw that lined the barn floor. Willem’s tongue clucked the sequence of sounds that he had long ago learned would calm the frightened horse. He would not enter the stallion’s stall until he was sure the animal had settled, but Willem spoke soothing words and familiar sounds. In the stall next to the stallion, the more mild-tempered mare hung her head over the half door hopefully, making Willem wish he had a carrot to reward her demeanor.

On the other side of the barn were the empty cow stalls. Intent on farming, not husbandry, Willem only had one cow. The hail’s beating had been brief but swift, and Willem could not predict how the cow would have responded. He hoped it had not tried to bolt through Eber’s fences.

Bareheaded, Willem stood in the center aisle that cut through the barn and stroked the mare’s long face. Only two drops plopped on the top of his head before he raised his eyes and saw daylight through the barn’s roof. Dropping his gaze, he saw that his feet stood in a mass of freshly damp hay. Hail had beaten its way through two wooden slats only loosely thatched over. Willem had hoped for proper shingles this year, but that required cash.

He put a hand across his eyes and bowed his head. Any of his fellow Amish worshippers might have thought he was praying, but Willem knew the truth. The thoughts ripping through his mind at that moment were far from submissive devotion to God’s will. He forced himself to take several deep breaths before moving his hand from his eyes and again surveying the damage to his barn and the distress of his stallion. He could only imagine what his fields must look like.

Months of praying for favorable weather. Weeks of coaxing seeds to sprout in undernourished soil. Evening upon evening spent bent over the papers on his rustic wooden table writing out calculations and scenarios essential to the survival of his farm.

A hail storm was not part of the equation.

Willem pushed breath out and said aloud, “We will be all right.”

The stallion shuffled but no longer protested.

The mare gave up looking for a treat in Willem’s hand and nuzzled the straw in her stall.

Willem turned on one heel and left the barn. Outside the sun once again shone brilliant, as if the last twenty minutes had been a bad dream. Willem marched out to the pasture in search of his cow.

Abbie’s heart rate slowed—finally.

The clattering of hail stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Cautious, Abbie pushed open the shed door. The extra resistance of several inches of hail required her to put her shoulder into the effort. Outside, fields of white glinted and forced her to squint. Abbie grabbed fistfuls of skirt and raised her hem above the slosh as she moved to where she had tied the horse. The animal was reasonably dry and unperturbed, Abbie was glad to see. As she hooked the cart to the horse again, she inspected her immediate surroundings. The size of the hail and its sheer quantity in the last few minutes twisted a lump in her stomach. In the distance she could see Ruthanna and Eber’s house and wanted to see for herself that they were safe before continuing her journey home. The path was difficult to discern at first, covered by hail, but Abbie found signs of the familiar entry and guided the horse. Under the animal’s feet and the cart’s wheels, each sound of crunching hail reverberated through Abbie’s mind with the implications of the storm.

A few minutes later, Abbie pulled up in front of the house. She saw boot prints leading from the barn to her friends’ home, where the front door stood open and she could see clear through the structure. On the cooking side of the cabin, Eber sat in a straight-backed wooden chair with his boots off and his shoulders slumped, suspenders down around his waist. Behind him, Ruthanna worked at toweling his head dry. Abbie paused long enough at the door to knock and announce her presence. With a gasp, Ruthanna abandoned the towel and crossed the sparse sitting area to embrace Abbie.

“You’re all right?” Squeezing her friend, Abbie felt the growing babe between them.

Ruthanna sniffled. “What does all right mean? Physically we are unharmed, but Eber…”

Abbie glanced across the room. “Eber, did you get caught out in the storm?”

Eber responded by putting his elbow on the table and hanging his head in his open palm.

Abbie tried again. “I hope you don’t mind. I took shelter in your empty hay shed. You’ll be glad to know it seems quite watertight.”

Eber stood, pulled his suspenders over his shoulders, and retreated into the bedroom.

Ruthanna turned to Abbie. “What will we do now?”

“You’re not alone. We have the church. We are all together, whether rejoicing or suffering.”

“I cannot imagine anyone rejoicing today.”

“Then we will suffer together and rejoice another day when God shows us His will for the next step.”

“Eber is tired.” Ruthanna wiped the back of her hand across her face. “In body and spirit. He is tired.”

The bedroom door closed with a thud.

With a promise to return the next day, Abbie said her farewell to Ruthanna. They both knew that a wife should go to her husband in a moment like this.

By now most of the hail had melted and puddled. In some places, miniature rivulets carved a downward path. As thirsty as the ground was, it could not absorb the moisture as quickly as icy chunks transformed into liquid on a warm afternoon. At first, Abbie willed herself to keep her eyes on the road and not to turn her gaze toward the fields on either side.

Ruthanna and Eber’s fields.

Willem’s fields.

Her father’s fields.

What good would come from pausing to look at the damage so soon after the storm? After all, it was possible some shoots would have bent under pressure but might revive during the night, was it not? And Colorado hail sometimes dumped mercilessly in one area, while only three miles away the sun shone uninterrupted. The Amish farms were spread over miles and miles. She would be jumping to conclusions to presume that everyone’s farm suffered equal fate. Perhaps the damage was more like a heavy, welcome rain. Surely no one would speculate about the severity or widespread nature of the loss on the same afternoon.

Abbie urged the horse’s trot into a canter and kept her eyes straight ahead. She made her ears focus on the rhythmic beat of hooves and the swaying creek of the cart and breathed deeply of the spring scent after a rain.

Only once she turned down the ragged lane that led to the Weaver farm did Abbie allow herself to slow and observe. Her father stood in a field with two of her younger brothers. Abbie pulled on the reins, jumped out of the cart, and stepped delicately into the field.

She could see immediately that she need not have bothered with such care.

“Oh,
Daed
.” Her voice cracked as the lump bulged in her throat. Ananias Weaver was beyond hearing range, but Abbie fixed her eyes on him until he at last looked up and met her gaze. Slowly, he shook his head before kneeling. Whether he bent in prayer, inspection, or resignation, Abbie did not know.

Abbie drew a knife through a loaf of bread and laid the resulting slice on the small plate her youngest brother held. Somber faced, Levi carried the plate to the table and sat down.

“Would you like to have two slices?” Abbie poised the knife over the bread again.

Levi shook his head. “We should be sure there’s enough for everybody.”

“I made four loaves today. You can have more.”

The boy declined again.

Abbie laid the knife down. “I suppose we don’t want to ruin your appetite for supper.”

Levi picked at his bread. At eight, he was a skinny child with a usually infinite appetite.

“What’s wrong, Levi?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“
Mamm
has a bit of ham for supper, and some vegetables we canned last fall.”

“If I tell her I’m not hungry, she won’t make me eat.”

He was right about that. Esther Weaver did not force children to eat supper, but she did make clear that if they chose not to, they would not have another opportunity until breakfast.

“
Mamm
asked me to give you an afternoon snack.” Abbie dropped into a chair next to Levi. “Don’t you feel well?”

“I feel fine.” Levi put his hands in his lap. “Why don’t you wrap this up for someone to have later? I’ll go do my barn chores.”

Levi nearly knocked his mother over on his way out the rear door of the family’s narrow two-story house.