The Return Read online

  As three-year-olds, the colts measured sixteen to seventeen hands at the withers and weighed nearly two thousand pounds. Their tails were short, and they had no long hair beneath their fetlocks. Another plus. The roads that led to Philadelphia were rocky paths, two ruts worn by wagon wheels and a grassy strip in the middle. In the spring or after a drenching rain, they turned into a soggy mess. Felix had brushed out enough filthy matted horsetails and fetlocks to last him a lifetime.

  Best of all, this new breed displayed a remarkably gentle nature for such big beasts and took to their task surprisingly well. Gentle giants, he called them affectionately.

  Felix trained two of the horses to take turns as the “wheel horse,” the lead horse on the left-hand side, nearest the wagon, assuming they would be ready to lead a full team of six by the time the largest wagon was built.

  He drove the team by working a single rein called the jerk line. To turn the team to the right, he yelled “Gee” and gave several short jerks of the line. To go left, he called “Haw” and pulled steadily on the line.

  As he led the colts up the path toward Not Faxon’s Farm, he saw Hans standing by the fenced pasture, watching the spring foals at play. He called to Hans. “Look at this!” Felix pulled out an oak board tucked under the wagon in front of the rear wheels and hopped on it to ride. “It’s my resting board.”

  “Looks more like a lazy board.”

  Felix grinned. “Ah! Even better.”

  “Have you caught that wild stallion in the act yet?”

  “No,” Felix said. “He’s sneaky, that horse. Jumps over the fences, does his business with the mares, jumps right back out again.”

  Three little foals ran past them in the pasture, kicking their hind legs as they cantered. Hans turned back to watch them run. “Just think if you caught that stallion, Felix. You’d be churning out all kinds of these creatures instead of just hoping that grand horse drops by each spring.”

  “Fat chance of catching him. I’ve never even seen him. Only Tessa.”

  Hans jerked his chin up. “Our Tessa?”

  “Of course, our Tessa. She’s seen him quite a few times. She knows his favorite spots.”

  “Why doesn’t she throw a rope around his neck and bring him in?”

  “For one thing, he’s enormous. For another, she wants him to trust her. You don’t win a horse’s trust by lassoing its neck the first time it takes a carrot from you.”

  “You do if you want to breed him to your broodmares.”

  “That horse has a wild nature, Hans. Some animals are meant to be free. Besides, I like the arrangement we have—he asks nothing of me and I ask nothing of him. And we both get something in return.”

  Hans looked at him the way Felix knew he often looked at his own mother, as if he might be a little daft. “Man is meant to have dominion over this earth, Felix. To subdue it. That includes taming a wild stallion.”

  Felix kept his face expressionless. “Claim and tame.”

  “Yes. Claim it and tame it. Exactly that.”

  That kind of thinking irked Felix to no end. “If you want to debate the book of Genesis with your deacon, you’ll have to wait for Sunday church.” His tone was sharper than he felt, but it had the desired effect on Hans.

  Hans spun on his heel and strode off to return to his smithy shop. Felix knew it riled Hans to have the deacon role tossed in his face, and he probably did it more often than he should. But Hans had always needed taking down a peg or two.

  Beacon Hollow

  The black stallion whinnied softly as Tessa approached. She wished she had thought to bring some fresh grass to offer him, then remembered she had put an apple in her pocket in case she got hungry. She held it out, palm open, and the horse’s nostrils flared. She remained utterly still, giving the horse plenty of time to decide if Tessa and her offering were safe. He took a step closer, then another, and still she remained like a statue. Then he reached out and took the apple from her hand, chewed it, watching her carefully as bits of apple spewed around. She wanted to reach out and rub his flank, to stroke his neck, but she didn’t dare frighten him off. When the horse had finished the apple, he stayed for a while. Little by little, Tessa moved closer to him, every so slowly. She reached out a hand and stroked his long neck, once, then twice. The horse lifted his head as if to say goodbye before trotting off into the woods, and she wanted to shout for joy; this was another momentous occasion and she couldn’t wait to tell Felix.

  She hurried down the trail toward Not Faxon’s Farm. Her breath caught when she saw Hans riding up the path. She shouldn’t be struck by the sight of him like some young adolescent, but she couldn’t help it. He was so beautiful.

  Even from a distance, his face looked drawn and distracted. He slowed his horse to a stop when he saw her, took his hat off his head, and rubbed his hair. When he drew close, she reached out to pat his horse’s velvety nose. “I’ve been looking for you, Tessa. Felix said I could find you out here.”

  He’d been searching for her? Tessa’s heart was beating too fast. She did her best to withhold a smile, though she knew her tight expression probably seemed odd looking. It didn’t matter; he wasn’t looking at her. “I haven’t seen much of you lately. Are you well?”

  “No,” he snapped, stiffening his spine. “No, I’m not well.”

  Wrong question.

  His hands, spread on his knees, closed into fists and opened again. “What’s most difficult is the way the world just carries on without her.”

  “And it’s not the same world,” she said softly. She couldn’t imagine what Betsy’s life was like now.

  He jerked his head up to look at her, truly look at her. “Tessa,” he whispered. “You understand. Someone finally understands my suffering.”

  Now it was Tessa’s turn to be stunned. She thought they’d been talking about Betsy, not Hans. She could think of nothing to say that would not break the fragile moment, and she didn’t want to irritate him again, so she remained silent, which he mistook as a sign of empathy.

  He relaxed his stiff posture in his saddle and leaned forward, tilting his head to one side in a way she’d always found particularly charming. “Felix told me you’re planning to capture the mysterious black stallion.”

  Tessa felt herself breathe a little easier. This was the Hans she knew. “No. Not really. Not capture, anyway. I’m trying to gain his trust. Little by little.”

  “I need something to distract me until Betsy’s restoration.” Hans donned his hat one-handed, settling it easily into place. Smile lines crinkled around his eyes, making his handsome face even more handsome. “Maybe I can help.”

  Tessa’s heart soared.

  Shawnee Village, Monongahela River

  June 30, 1763

  Betsy spent much of her day working side by side with Numees, and as they worked, she was taught Indian words. Slowly, little by little, they began to communicate. Betsy learned that Nijlon’s husband had been killed by English troops and that was why they had gone to the gathering place to adopt a tribute. Numees asked Betsy about her life before she had been adopted. Betsy explained that she had been born on the other side of the world, beyond the Atlantic Ocean, and the thought astounded Numees. She had never seen an ocean, she said, and wondered if it was as big as the Monongahela River.

  Betsy laughed and said it was much, much bigger. The amazed look on Numees’s face reminded her of her brothers, Johnny and Willie, of times when she surprised them with a newly hatched chick, or a bird’s nest, or a caught butterfly. Those sweet memories of her brothers brought tears to her eyes and she kept her head ducked to keep Numees from noticing. Numees, she had learned, was quite sensitive to Betsy’s moods. She shared all she had with Betsy and was eager for her to be happy, to feel at home among them, and it distressed her when her countenance appeared sad. She wanted Betsy to consider herself to be Indian, to be her sister.

  Betsy had indeed adopted many Indian ways. She wore a deerskin dress and moccasins, braided her hair
, draped a blanket over her shoulders when she went outside at night. She had finally developed a tolerance for the smell of bear grease so that it no longer made her nauseated. She smeared it on her hands and face to protect her pale skin from getting burned by the sun. She learned how to walk silently in the woods, and how to mend her moccasins at the end of each day. She had even grown to prefer moccasins to the cumbersome shoes she had grown up with; moccasins felt like she was barefooted, though in yesterday’s rain, she discovered they could be surprisingly stiff and uncomfortable when wet.

  There was much that bemused her about Indian ways. Children, for example, ran freely through the village with very little supervision. Their games and laughter were not only tolerated, but the adults often stopped work to observe them at play. Clearly, they adored their children. All children. In Betsy’s church, both in the New World and in Germany, children were “to be seen and not heard.” Affection might spoil a child, so it was withheld. Not so for an Indian child.

  Another thing that mystified her was the power that Nijlon held in this village. An Indian had reached out to touch Betsy’s long blonde plait and Nijlon slapped him across his face, hard, and rattled off a rush of Indian words. He scurried off, holding his stinging cheek with both hands. Nijlon’s word was law. In the world Betsy came from, a woman’s word carried little weight.

  Nijlon and Numees allowed Betsy a surprising amount of freedom. In the warm afternoons, the village rested and Betsy could do as she pleased. All her life, as the eldest daughter, she had worked alongside her mother from the moment she woke in the morning to the moment she went to bed at night. She was raised believing that idleness was the devil’s handiwork, a sin, a temptation to resist. In this Indian village, afternoon naps were not idleness, but considered a necessity.

  One such afternoon, the air in the wigwam felt stiflingly hot, so Betsy went outside. Caleb stood tending the central fire, burning out the inside of a log to make a canoe, a tedious process. He lifted a hand in greeting and she felt a ripple of pleasure by the delighted look on his face when he saw her.

  “I have not seen you during the rain,” he said. “I wondered if you had gone.”

  “Gone? Where would I go?”

  He shrugged. “You might have left to find your way back to your home.”

  “I was warned not to escape. My father told us not to try to escape.” It had never occurred to her to leave, not once, even with the freedom given to her by Nijlon.

  He seemed amused. “Do you not think for yourself?”

  “Yes. No. Yes. It’s just that . . .” She took a few steps closer to the canoe to see the burned, hollowed-out interior.

  “What?”

  “I was taught obedience was pleasing to God.”

  “What virtue does obedience have if it is not examined and then made to be a choice?”

  She’d never thought of such a thing. The way she’d been raised, obedience was a virtue. Not questioning, not doubting—they were all considered virtues. She couldn’t imagine what kind of reaction her father might have had if she had ever questioned his decisions. He had no tolerance for dissenting opinions.

  She remembered how her father’s eyes burned with excitement when he announced to the family they would soon sail to the New World and leave behind the pressures and persecutions of a country that despised them. Betsy’s mother was given no choice in the matter. She remembered how sullen and morose her mother had seemed, how her face was tightened with fear—a foreboding, perhaps?—even as she set about dutifully packing up their belongings.

  Betsy’s sister, four-year-old Mary, fell ill and died on that horrific voyage just a week or so after the ship set sail. Betsy would never forget when her little body, wrapped in a dirty white sail, was thrown over the side of the ship into the dark swirling water and the unearthly wailing sound that came from her quiet mother. Followed by the sound of her father’s sharp words about the sin of grief. “Der Dod nemmt yung un alt.” Death takes young and old.

  Betsy’s mind traveled to the week that the ship arrived in Port Philadelphia, and her father had news that he had purchased land in Berks County, deep in the wilderness of the frontier. Again, Betsy’s mother drooped with fear, as if she had a sense of what was to come. What if her mother had felt the freedom to voice her concerns to him? Might they still be alive? Might little Mary still be with them?

  She sensed Caleb’s gaze on her and realized he was waiting for some response.

  “Did God not give you a mind to reason with? Thoughts of your own?”

  “Yes, of course. But . . .” But what?

  “Betsy Zook, what makes your heart fill with light?”

  She looked up at him, surprised. She hadn’t realized he knew her name. The villagers called her Hurit. He pronounced Betsy in a unique way: Bit-SEE. “What makes my heart fill with light?” It was a lovely phrase, unexpected poetry from such a quiet man. “I suppose . . . writing. My mother gave me a journal for my tenth birthday. I wrote in it daily since then, filling it with my dreams.” She smiled. “I had to keep it hidden from my younger brothers.” Her smile faded and her gaze shifted to the fast-moving river. “No doubt the journal was burned during the attack.”

  “Perhaps it is just as well.”

  She glanced at him sharply.

  “There is no room for new dreams while the old ones fill your mind.”

  “I was happy with my old dreams.”

  He gave her the gentlest of smiles. “There is much happiness left for you in this life.”

  That night, as she lay on a pile of deerskins, she thought of her old dreams. And her thoughts went straight to Hans. She hadn’t let herself think of him much since the Indian attack on her home; it hurt too much.

  Betsy was sixteen when she first met Hans Bauer. She had gone with her father to purchase supplies in Lancaster Town and stayed overnight at the minister’s house, Bairn and Anna Bauer and their daughter, Tessa. The next day was Sunday, so Betsy and her father attended church. Afterward, she had barely walked out of the house where church was held and into the sunshine when an uncommonly attractive young man appeared in front of her. He had mesmerizing brown eyes, with auburn hair that curled over his coat collar. He told her his name was Hans Bauer, and he would like to come calling on her.

  She never truly expected to see him again. But Hans had meant what he said and made frequent trips to the Zook farm. He’d brought excitement into their solemn house. He taught her family to play quoits and wisely let her father win. Even he, her overbearing father, had found little to complain about in Hans Bauer. And her sweet-natured mother adored Hans. “Die erscht Lieb roscht net,” she remarked to Betsy. First love does not rust.

  And then her father would add sourly, “Mer kann net lewe vun Lieb alee.” You can’t live on love alone. Hans visited so often that Betsy’s father wondered aloud how the village of Stoney Ridge could spare their smithy, though he did not say no when Hans offered to shoe his field horses.

  Love. Betsy had had no experience with love before meeting Hans. Love was something all consuming, to be sure. She felt queasy when Hans came calling, forlorn when he left. When he wrote to propose marriage, she felt thunderstruck. Surely, she was the luckiest girl in the world.

  Surrender your old dreams, Caleb had advised. But that seemed ironic, she thought, because to surrender was to willingly give up. Her dreams had been stolen from her.

  12

  Beacon Hollow

  July 5, 1763

  Something had shifted between Tessa and Hans. He had started coming around Beacon Hollow on Saturday afternoons, then staying on to sup with them. He played quoits with Willie and Tessa, using old horseshoes to hit a metal marker. And after Willie went to bed, he remained in the kitchen to play checkers with Tessa. She had never been happier.

  Each time Hans left Beacon Hollow to head for Not Faxon’s Farm, Tessa wanted to run all the way into the deep woods behind the house and spin circles under the tall trees. Spin and spin until she fell d
own, dizzy with happiness. This was what love felt like, she was sure of it.

  One such July afternoon, Tessa heard a knock at the door and opened it to find Martin Gingerich, the Mennonite, standing on the stoop. He looked freshly shaved and scrubbed from a bath. In fact, there was a wisp of soap bubbles left on his neck. She looked him up and down, head to toe. “Martin,” she said flatly. “Why are you here?”

  He held out a bouquet of wilted wildflowers. “I happened to be passing by Beacon Hollow and thought I’d drop by.” He eyed Hans, standing behind Tessa. “Oh. Hello there, Hans.”

  Martin remained at the open door, grinning like a fool, until Tessa’s mother invited him in. And in he walked, rumpled Martin.

  Hans’s spine stiffened and he frowned. “Martin Gingerich, why are you spending time with the Amish?”

  “Amish. Mennonite.” Martin shrugged. “I like to think of people as individuals.”

  Hans was not impressed. “Your father holds a different view, I’m sure. Wouldn’t he be upset to know you are coming by an Amish girl’s house?”

  Tessa felt a little flutter of pleasure in her chest and ducked her head to hide her smile. Hans sounded a tiny bit jealous. But it was sinful to have such feelings, vain as well as foolish.

  Tessa’s father burst out with a laugh. “If that were true, then Faxon wouldn’t be spending so much of his spare time in my carpentry shop, prodding and pushing me to finish his wagon.”

  “Besides,” Martin said amiably, “the way I see it, we all come from the same stock.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” Tessa’s father gave him a broad smile. “There’s far more we hold in common than what separates us.”

  Her mother gathered up ingredients she was making for a peach pie. “Hans and Tessa and Willie were just going out to play a game of quoits. Why don’t you stay and make up a foursome? By the time you’re done, this pie should be ready for eating.”