The Return Read online

  Hans shot to his feet. “This was pure evil, Bairn. Nothing but evil! Betsy’s family was brutally killed. Her parents were left in an inhuman manner.”

  Tessa almost gasped. Speaking out like that in church, it just wasn’t done.

  Tessa’s father remained unfazed. He pivoted on his boot heels toward Hans. “It was indeed a truly evil act. It will not go unpunished. Perhaps not in this life, but in the one to come.”

  “But they’re bloodthirsty heathens!” Hans said. “No different than Canaanites in the Promised Land. The ones the Lord God told Moses and Joshua to rid the land of.”

  “Hans, you must stop such talk,” Tessa’s father said in his deep, gentle voice. “Those warriors in the north, they’re displaced from their hunting grounds and angry for it. It has made them conscienceless against the white settlers. But many Indians do not share their ways. Think of our Conestoga friends.”

  The Conestoga Indians, mostly converted Christians, were a peaceful tribe who lived nearby in Indiantown, on land that William Penn himself had deeded to them. Once Tessa had even seen the treaty, the actual treaty, signed by William Penn. It was a prized possession among the Conestogas. And they did not have much.

  They were a poor people, drastically reduced in number in the last year. Their livelihood consisted of making brooms and baskets to sell locally, and they had to beg for food as they went from farm to farm. Will Sock was a leader of the Conestoga and had been a friend to the Bauers. Christy was an Indian boy who spent hours alongside Felix’s sons; they were as close as brothers. Christy had taught Benjo and Dannie to track and trap wild animals with skill and daring as they explored the woods.

  “You let them sleep at your hearth,” Hans said, in a tone of ferocity and determination that shocked Tessa. He pointed at Bairn. “You bring them in your home. Would you still persist in that practice?”

  That was true, but it was not unknown to others, and Tessa didn’t know why Hans spoke in such an accusing way to her father. On cold nights, some of the Conestoga Indians who were on the road to sell handicrafts would stop at the Bauer home. They knew they could get a good meal and sleep by a warm fire. Betty Sock, mother to Will Sock, often helped Anna with household chores in exchange for food.

  “We’ve always allowed that for the Conestogas,” Bairn said, “and there’s no reason to stop that practice now. You must not allow bitterness to take hold of you, to change your views about a man and lump all Indians together.”

  Hans’s tone was sharp. “They’re murderers. They plunder farms, burn houses, kill women and children.”

  Beside him Josef Gerber bobbed his head up and down, as did Simon and a few others. Rumpled Martin watched the exchange between Tessa’s father and Hans with a thoughtful look on his face.

  Hans lifted his arms. “And you think they should not be lumped together?”

  “No more than we would want to be lumped together.”

  Hans shook his head in disgust. “But we can be lumped together. Because we do nothing to protect our own. Nothing. We are the ones who are lacking in conscience.” He spoke rapidly, stressing each word, as if all were of equal importance.

  And Hans walked out of church that day. Walked right out! Tessa could not remember anyone, ever, doing such a thing. She’d never even heard of such a thing ever happening. Through the window, Tessa saw him mount his horse and gallop away.

  To walk out of church! It was like walking away from God.

  Blue Mountain

  April 27, 1763

  Betsy was hungry all the time. She slept hungry and woke up hungry. Before her capture, she had never known a day without enough food to eat. Now food was dispensed to her by her enemies, bit by bit, scrap by scrap, only enough to keep her alive, moving along on this endless journey. Thoughts of food continually invaded her mind like whispers from the devil himself. She imagined tables laden with turkeys and hams and sausages and beef swimming in a thick brown gravy. Apple turnovers with flaky pastry, the sharp tang of newly cut cheese on her tongue, of crusty brown loaves of her mother’s bread, slathered with thick butter.

  As she walked, she catalogued meals in her mind, dwelling on each part of the recipes, distracting herself in the memories. With two brothers to work alongside her father outdoors—felling trees, clearing fields, caring for livestock—she had spent most of her time in the kitchen by her mother’s side. They worked long hours preserving jams and jellies, baking bread and pies, churning butter, making cheese. They had lived in the house a scarce year, but with the generosity of good neighbors who shared their bounty, the cellar had filled up with loaded barrels of food stuffs.

  The day of the Indian attack, she had spent the morning baking bread with her mother. The house smelled of bread, a sweet, yeasty scent. She remembered taking Hans’s letter out of her journal and reading it whenever her mother sent her to the cellar to fetch something. Hans had sent word through the minister’s circuit visit that he planned to come sometime in May to speak to her father about getting married. Early in the new year, he decided, they would be wed. As she went up and down the cellar steps, she remembered looking up at the sky, noticing the way the sun was shining through the newly leafed-out trees, making the green leaves appear almost glowing. She remembered feeling utterly safe, completely content.

  And yet, not far off, a farmer was tomahawked in his newly plowed cornfield. Later that night, all the neighbors would gather in the Zook house to fort up. Most likely, Betsy realized now, as she had stood on those cellar steps and read Hans’s letter proposing marriage, her thoughts floating off to her wedding day, warriors were already in position, patiently watching the house, waiting for nightfall to attack.

  Ironically, she had never been less safe than when she had last felt most safe.

  When would she feel safe again? Or would she ever?

  The convoy of captives walked west through the wilderness, stopping only to sleep when it grew dark, camping in the woods without shelter, and usually without fire for warmth. Extremely fatigued, weak with hunger, Betsy and Johnny lay upon the ground. Sheer exhaustion brought sleep, until at dawn they were roused to start off on the march again.

  It was with great difficulty that Betsy helped the other children. She did not want to know their faces, to see the fear in their eyes. She did not want to care a whit about them. But she did. They looked to her as the eldest. They were all in the same terrible situation, and there was little she could do for them, but she could offer a reassuring smile, smooth a furrowed brow, give a soothing word even if her dialect was not understood. Betsy didn’t falter. She wanted to. But never once did she falter.

  On the eighth night after the attack, Betsy was startled awake by the sound of piercing cries in the darkness. She raised her head to see warriors dancing around a large fire, raising their elbows, writhing in obscene postures, chanting, shrieking, hopping, twisting, lifting knees up high. Their naked bodies were dark against the bright flames, and for a few disorienting seconds, Betsy thought surely she must have died. Surely, this was Hell.

  She peered into the trees beyond the firelight. The Indians were wholly occupied with their wild reverie and paid no attention to the captives. She needed to relieve herself. She rose slowly, taking care not to wake Johnny. Suddenly, she found herself staring into her captor’s dark eyes. He stood right up against her, grasping her forearms, so close she could smell the stink of his breath mingled with smoke from the fire. Black stripes were painted on his face; tattoos of wolves, bears, and other predators covered his bare chest. Feathers held in his hair queue fluttered with each movement he made. He said something in a rush of words that sounded to Betsy like the grunting of a wild sow. Then he lifted his hand and there was the shine of his knife.

  Betsy was certain she was soon to die. “Don’t,” she begged in a tiny voice, even as she closed her eyes and steeled herself for the pain. “Thy will be done. Thy will be done.” She felt the blade against her face, felt it slide along her cheek. But she felt no pain
—nothing but terror. Then he withdrew his hand and released her, giving her an eerie, satisfied smile. As he left her to return to the dancers, she expelled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She lay back down on the ground and stifled her sobs, her only release. After some time she sank into a fitful sleep.

  It was only in the morning that she realized what she thought were tears running down her face was her own blood. The warrior had sliced her deeply on one side of her face, a thin line drawn from below her eye all the way to her chin.

  5

  Beacon Hollow

  April 29, 1763

  Days passed, yet there was still no sighting or word of the whereabouts of Betsy Zook. Nor of Handsome Hans. Everyone presumed Hans had gone to rescue Betsy.

  Hans’s absence distressed Tessa’s father. For a young man to leave his work and his family in anger, vengeance driving his heart, was not the Plain way but the way of the world. And his disappearance left undone work for the others. Tessa’s father had been counting on Hans’s help to forge hardware, unique and essential to this new wagon. And then, of course, everyone was worried about Hans. Tessa, mostly.

  She woke early one morning and heard her parents’ voices below in the kitchen. She thought she heard her father say the name Hans, so she slipped out of bed and tiptoed to the fireplace, taking care not to wake Willie in his cot near the window. Long ago, by crouching close to the loft’s fireplace, she had discovered she could eavesdrop on her parents as their voices floated up the chimney flue.

  Her parents were discussing options about what to do—should her father and Felix go after Hans? But that was a problem in itself, her father said, as he didn’t even know where Hans had gone.

  “He’s running on emotion,” Tessa heard her mother say. “He isn’t thinking straight.”

  “He loves her,” her father replied. “How could he just forget her and carry on with his life?”

  Tessa sighed. They meant Betsy Zook, of course.

  “Now, Anna.” There was a long silence, until she heard her father say, “Anna, darlin’”—spoken softer this time, so soft that Tessa had to lean her head into the chimney to hear—“I dinnae forget y’, darlin’. I just dinnae ken what t’ do.”

  Since her father had brought Willie into their home, he had used English for many such private conversations, to Tessa’s delight. She loved hearing his accent.

  “That was cold comfort,” her mother responded, “when I was up the Schuylkill, alone, while you were happily sailing away on the Atlantic Sea.”

  Tessa wasn’t exactly sure what her parents were referring to—she could only catch bits and pieces of her parents’ tumultuous courtship through eavesdropping because they were maddeningly private about their relationship. Once, she asked her mother outright, and her mother said, “It is our story, Tessa. What goes on between a man and a woman is theirs alone.”

  Such a response frustrated Tessa because everyone in the church seemed to know how she felt about Hans . . . except for Hans. He seemed oblivious to her ardor. Probably because he only had eyes for Betsy.

  Tessa let out a sigh. Betsy Zook. Even gone, she was present.

  There was that zing again, a stab of conscience. She should be praying daily for Betsy Zook’s welfare, not just for Hans’s return. She heard her parents’ mumble again and leaned closer to the fireplace.

  “Why dinnae y’ say what yer thinking? I can tell by the look on yer face that y’ve got something in mind.”

  “Hans was right about one thing. One thing. Being nonresistant should not mean being passive. We should be doing something to help locate Betsy. Hans stormed out of church because his anguish was not heard among us, or felt among us.”

  “But what ’tis there t’ do?”

  “I think you should go to Will Sock and see if he has any knowledge of Betsy and Johnny’s whereabouts. Surely Will Sock has sources among the Indians in the north. We have none.”

  Tessa’s father was silent for a long while. “Darlin’, yer right. Felix and I will go speak t’ Will Sock.” She heard a chair scrape and knew her father had gone to embrace her mother. They were very affectionate with each other, so long as no one was nearby to observe them. “How did I get so blessed to have y’ by m’ side?”

  She heard her mother laugh. “It was the rose. How could any woman resist a rose?”

  What was the story about that rose? They wouldn’t tell Tessa. Planted right by the front door, it bloomed profusely each spring, spreading its sweet fragrance over the front stoop. Her mother took exceptional care of it, covering it on freezing nights, adding tea leaves to the soil that covered its roots. She fussed over it like a baby.

  “Tessa, y’ can come down now,” her father called up the flue. “I ken y’ve been eavesdroppin’.”

  She rose and tiptoed to the stairwell to peer down at her father.

  “Would y’ like to go with me to see Will Sock at Indiantown?”

  She nodded. “Should I wake Willie? He might like to come.”

  “Nay,” her father said quickly. “Let the laddie sleep.”

  Tessa thought going to Indiantown might be beneficial for Willie, that it might be helpful to see other kinds of Indians than those who had raided his home and killed his parents. To meet young Christy, perhaps to play with him. But by her father’s quick refusal, he must have felt differently. Too soon.

  Tessa’s mother had gathered a flour sack full of food stuffs to take to Betty Sock, mother to Will Sock. A container filled with deer jerky, a bag of freshly milled wheat flour, another bag of dried beans, and two loaves of bread she had just baked yesterday.

  As Tessa ate a quick breakfast, she said to her father, “After church on Sunday, I heard some of the men agreeing with Hans. I heard them say that all Indians are savage heathens who need to be civilized and converted and subdued and contained. Not necessarily in that order, they said.”

  His gray eyes peered at her over the top of his teacup. “Hans spoke those angry words out o’ fear.”

  “What if he’s right?”

  “Right? About what?”

  “That Indians can’t be trusted.”

  He put down his teacup. “I think the same could be said of many white men.”

  “But you’ve always said that holy lives are a blessing to those around them. Betsy’s family hadn’t done anything to hurt the Indians.”

  “Aye, not the Zooks, and hopefully not other Amish farmers, but there are many settlers who encroach on land that’s been given t’ the Indians. Greed drives them. Fear and greed can inspire tyranny in all men. Any man. Whatever color be his skin. While it’s true that Indians have raided the settlers, far more often they’re the victims of white men’s greed. I ken of dreadful tales about how the Indians have been treated.”

  He leaned on his elbows to look right at her. “Tessa, when I was a sailor, I saw terrible things happen on a ship because of one man’s hatred toward another, simply because of his skin color, or his religion, or his surname. I met all sorts o’ people from all over the world, ones who treated me with great kindness, ones who did not. The worst thing is t’ judge a man by the color of his skin, or by his allegiance. Each man must stand alone before God, and that is the same way we should consider him: standing on his own convictions.”

  She heard a horse gallop up the path and hurried to unlatch the door. She saw her uncle Felix throw himself off his horse and stride to the front door, all business.

  “Felix! I was just coming t’ get you,” Tessa’s father said, stepping in front of her. “We’ve got an errand to run.”

  Felix stomped his feet at the bootjack to get the mud off. “First, I’ve got news. Serious stuff.”

  “News about Hans?” Tessa blurted out.

  “Hans?” Felix looked at her as if she had two heads. “No. He’ll be back when he runs out of steam. This is far more serious.” He plopped down in a chair at the kitchen table, hands flattened on its top. “Maria Müller arrived at the crack of dawn today.
” He slapped the table with his palms. “The crack of dawn!”

  “She does that to us too,” Tessa said with sympathy. “Rather a lot.” She didn’t look at her mother because she knew she would be frowning at her.

  “Do you know what she wanted to tell me?”

  “Oh, I bet I know! Catrina Müller is moving back.”

  “You knew?” Felix cried. “Wait a minute.” He glared at Tessa’s mother. “Is Catrina the tutor you’ve been threatening to hire?”

  Slowly, Anna nodded. “Dorothea had the idea. Maria is lonely and Catrina needs a livelihood. Your boys need schooling. So does Willie Zook. It’s a fine solution for everyone.”

  “Solution? Solution!” Felix was outraged. “Solutions are meant to fix problems. How can there be a solution when there’s no problem in the first place? You’ve gone and created a terrible situation. The worst. Catrina Müller set her sights on me since the day I was born. I’m doomed.”

  Anna had given Felix plenty of warning that she intended to hire a tutor to give his sons much-needed schooling. The stunned look on his face was comical. How many times had she brought this subject up to him? Dozens.

  It was time those boys were taught to read and write and do their figures, to learn English, all things that Felix was entirely unconcerned about. They were nine years old and couldn’t even scratch out their names. He gave free rein to his boys and they spent their time off in the woods or over at the Conestoga Indiantown playing with the young Indian boy Christy. They were boys growing up in the woods, with little womanly influence other than Dorothea, who was frail and elderly.

  The lack of education imposed on Felix’s sons reminded Anna of days on the Charming Nancy, crossing the Atlantic, as she tried to teach English to then eight-year-old Felix, when all he wanted to do was to explore the ship. To Benjo and Dannie, the deep woods were every bit as fascinating as a merchant ship on the high seas. They were entirely untroubled by the thought of reading or writing or doing figures. As was Felix. They were convinced all they needed to know could be learned by being out in the forest. With Christy, a boy nearly their age, as their sole tutor.