The Return Read online

  Christy had taught the boys the ways of the hunter—how to make snares and deadfalls, how to catch small animals. Even Anna couldn’t deny that Felix’s sons had acquired the eyes and ears of true woodsmen, alert at all times, instantly conscious of changes—a slight motion, an odd sound, or the faintest trail left by the passing of an animal or a man. They were thoroughly at home in the woods.

  But put those two boys in a church service and they turned into restless, fidgety, impatient, mischievous little imps. They had become a trial to the entire church, unaware of how loud they could be, how easily bored, how distracting to others. Their lack of awareness for how they affected others was only matched by their father’s amusement at their antics.

  Anna was sorry Felix was raising his boys without benefit of a wife. It seemed as if he was raising his boys the way he’d wished he’d been raised—without anyone telling him to take a bath or read a book. Perhaps if his wife, Rachel, had lived, he would be more even keeled. As it was, he was appallingly indulgent as a parent.

  Bairn thought Anna was a “wee bit too hard” on Felix, but she’d always felt more like a mother to him than a sister-in-law. Bairn asked her once if she might be taking on the raising of Felix’s sons because she had no sons of her own. She was surprised by that question—she felt she expected as much from Tessa as she did from Felix’s rascals. At the time, she didn’t respond to Bairn because she didn’t know how to answer him.

  Then, a month ago, she caught Benjo and Dannie throwing tomahawks at Beacon Hollow’s newly planted apple orchard—trees she had nurtured since saplings. She asked them why they were toppling her prized apple trees, and they said, “Because it was fun.” That was the moment she realized what was at the root of her concern about Felix’s sons. They were growing up wild.

  She had marched the boys into the house and dropped the tomahawks on the kitchen table, right in front of Felix and Bairn. “This is no toy. Six apple trees—chopped down at the trunk.”

  “I’ll replace them,” Felix said, untroubled.

  “I’m finding the boys a tutor. You’ve had long enough to find someone.”

  Felix was flummoxed. He felt his boys were beyond reproach and she was interfering. “They’re frontier boys, Anna. They’re learning what they’re going to need in this life. One day, they’ll be heading west to make their own way when they’re grown. They’re going to need to know how to hunt for food, not read books by the fireplace. Why, Benjo impaled a squirrel in a treetop yesterday. He’s barely nine years old.”

  “An education is something that will benefit them all their life, Felix. You’ve ignored it long enough. They should be reading by now.”

  In this, Bairn supported her; he agreed it was high time the boys learned to read. That very afternoon Anna wrote a letter to Catrina, whom Dorothea had suggested to her, and invited her to come back to Stoney Ridge. Soon, a letter arrived back in the post; Catrina readily accepted. Recently widowed and left with little means to support herself, Catrina had been seeking a way to secure the necessities of life. It was an ideal answer to a problem. Multiple problems, in fact.

  Such as the problem with Maria Müller. Anna would never admit it to Tessa, but she was also exasperated by Maria’s frequent, lengthy visits to Beacon Hollow. Once or twice, she’d even hinted at moving in with them. Anna shuddered at the thought. Maria needed someone of her own to fuss over.

  And now there was Willie Zook to consider. He, too, needed schooling.

  Anna smiled benignly at Felix. Catrina Müller was a perfect solution.

  It exasperated Felix that no one took his worry about Catrina Müller seriously. He remembered her as a dedicated man hunter. And he was a contented widower. He loved his life. His mother, when she was up to the tasks (which he admitted, was not often), took care of cooking and cleaning, which left him all the time he needed to pursue the things he loved: horse breeding, hunting, fishing, having fun with his boys. It was a life that suited him quite nicely . . . and now Catrina was going to ruin it all.

  He could see how it would all play out. Maria, Catrina’s bossy mother, would start pressuring from below, his mother and Anna would start pressuring from the sides, Catrina would show up at his house and endear herself to his mother, and then would start the pressure from above: Bairn, the minister.

  He was suddenly facing a bleak and dismal future.

  He thought of the pleased look on Maria’s face early this morning when she told him that Catrina was moving back. “She can’t manage the house on her own since her husband passed to his glory last winter.”

  “Wasn’t he an old graybeard?” He thought he’d heard she’d married a geezer.

  She fixed Felix in her hawklike gaze. “You remind me of Catrina’s third husband.”

  “Third husband? How many has she had?”

  She narrowed her beady eyes at him. “Two.”

  “Oh.” Felix felt the collar tighten around his neck. Like a noose.

  His mind replayed the morning’s conversation as they rode over to Conestoga Indiantown. He barely heard his niece chatter on about the phantom stallion—a topic he normally found enthralling. Tessa was the only one who had seen the stallion up close, many times now. Whenever she had a sighting, Felix would quiz her about every detail, gathering information for his horse breeding. The first time she’d seen it, he listened attentively but was fairly certain she was spinning a yarn. Tessa had a vivid imagination, much like his own. But that spring, an unusually large foal was born to him that looked exactly like Tessa’s description of the mysterious stallion, right down to the shortened tail. Then another foal arrived. Then four more.

  The following spring, eight more foals were delivered. They, too, showed characteristics of the phantom stallion. And as the first yearlings grew, he realized that their size was going to be off the charts. The legendary phantom stallion had found his way into his broodmares’ pasture and he couldn’t be more delighted. A gift from above!

  Three years old now, the first colts were nearly full grown. A breed perfectly suited for the farming life—gentle giants, with hooves the size of dish plates. His brother Bairn eyed the six colts and claimed them for his custom-designed wagon—the one that looked a little like a ship.

  Bairn had been working on that wagon for the better part of a year now, tweaking, fine tuning, adjusting. Felix wondered what Bairn would end up charging Faxon Gingerich for the wagon. Bairn’s policy was that the price of goods should be its cost plus an honest profit, and that’s how he priced his work, no more, no less. He was an honest tradesman in a dishonest colony. Felix was an honest tradesman too, but he had a different idea about bartering. He liked having a contest of wits between a buyer and seller. If it were up to Felix, he would have taken out a patent on this wagon of Bairn’s, so that the Bauers could receive a portion each time a copy was manufactured.

  But that was assuming the first protoype wagon would ever get completed. Hans’s disappearance put a serious wrench in Bairn’s plans. Hans was the only dedicated smithy for Stoney Ridge, arguably the most important artisan in the area, because few men had the ability to do the ironwork for themselves. Bairn, trained as a cooper, had started the forge fire when they first bought the land, twenty-five years earlier. Most of Bairn’s practice had consisted of shodding horses. Some oxen, too.

  At an early age, Hans had shown an interest in the work. When he was of age to be apprenticed, Bairn taught Hans all he knew. Hans had a talent for the work, quickly surpassing Bairn’s abilities. He did much more than act as farrier; he became the preferred toolmaker for the local farmers, the pot and kettle maker for the farmers’ wives, and when necessary, even pulled out neighbors’ aching teeth.

  The wagon was at a standstill until Hans returned to Stoney Ridge from wherever it was he went. Felix and Bairn had been working on making wheels, large hubs with spokes that radiated to the wooden rim. Bairn had the idea of making the wheels in the back of the wagon much larger than the front. He thought it would help
the wagon manage muddy roads. But he needed Hans’s help to shod the rim with strakes—curved strips of iron. He was the only one with the skill to trim a wheel with a ribbon of iron. But Hans was nowhere to be found.

  6

  Conestoga Indiantown

  April 29, 1763

  Tessa had been coming to Conestoga Indiantown as long as she could remember. She felt quite at home among these Indians. Will Sock, along with tribal elder Captain John, emerged out of the longhouse to greet their wagon. Will Sock had twinkly eyes, Tessa thought. They actually twinkled, like stars. He was a short man, small even for an Indian, and he wore his hair clipped and fringed like most white men. Captain John, who followed behind Will Sock, was elderly, gray and wizened with brown crepe-paper skin. He was the leader of the Conestogas, highly revered and equally beloved.

  The longhouses were fascinating to Tessa. Each family lived separately in their own longhouse; they were made with pole framing, shaped like a hoop, covered in tree bark. Inside, raised platforms along each side were used for sleeping and storage, and a round firepit was in the center. Unlike Tessa’s own home, there were no smooth wooden boards under one’s feet; the floor of the longhouses was made of packed earth.

  The Conestogas were farmers, dependent on the Susquehanna River for its rich soil and ever present supply of water. As a child, Tessa had loved visiting here. No longer. A once-lovely village on the river—if not thriving, at least stable—it had become a depressing place for her. The encroachment of immigrant settlers had taken its toll on the small tribe, and the village dwindled. Whenever some Conestoga arrived at Beacon Hollow, Tessa’s mother would buy their brooms and baskets and send them home with as much food as they could carry.

  Last fall, an outbreak of smallpox devastated the tribe even further. Tessa’s father insisted that no Conestoga be allowed in their home, nor could anyone go to Indiantown. He went unaccompanied to the village during that time to drop off food supplies and medicine, for he had survived a bout of smallpox as a boy on the Charming Nancy, but he burned his clothes when he returned home. It was called the Time of Great Sickness. The village consisted of only thirty people now, mostly women and children.

  Betty Sock, Will Sock’s mother, was the matriarch of the village. She had lived her entire life in the same longhouse. Sixty people had once lived in her longhouse, she had told Tessa, each one related to her. Her family. Now there were only five.

  “Greetings to you, Chief Bairn,” Will Sock said, smiling broadly. “Will you eat with us?”

  “Thank you,” Bairn said, “but we have just eaten. In fact, I was hopin’ I might be able to ask you to take some food off our hands before it spoils. You would be doin’ us a great favor.”

  Will Sock dipped his chin. “It is sinful to waste food. Yes, we will help you with this favor.”

  That was their way. Will Sock would offer food though he had none to spare. Tessa’s father always declined, saying he had just eaten, even if he had not, and offered spare food to Will Sock in a roundabout way. It helped Will Sock to save face, her father said, and that was important to a man’s pride.

  It was the only time Tessa knew her father to allow a man his pride.

  Will Sock’s twinkly eyes smiled at Tessa. “Where is Zeeb?”

  “He’s at home with our new houseguest. A little boy named Willie.” Old Zeeb wouldn’t leave Willie’s side. Or maybe Willie wouldn’t leave Zeeb’s side. Tessa wasn’t sure who was more devoted to whom. All she knew was that she was now second fiddle to Willie in Zeeb’s eyes. That was fine with her. Willie needed him.

  “You have grown even taller since you were last here, little one. Soon you will be taller than your father.”

  Tessa groaned. Her father was six foot six inches in his stocking feet. She glanced at Felix, her father’s brother, who was only five foot nine inches. She had surpassed him last winter. He took after Dorothea’s side of the family, not Jacob’s.

  “I wish I could trade you my height,” Felix often told her. “It’s not easy for a man to be short.”

  Tessa would roll her eyes at him. “It’s worse for a girl to be tall than a man to be short.”

  That was usually the point when Tessa’s mother intervened and told them both to stop complaining, that a person’s height was neither a shortcoming nor an achievement. It was God’s doing and they were insulting the Almighty with their foolish grievances.

  Tessa thought that was easy for her to say when she stood at five foot two inches, an average height, and would have no idea how it felt to be on the fringe of average. Not even the fringe—far from average!

  Betty Sock emerged from the flap that covered the entrance to the longhouse. She looked at Tessa’s father with a steady gaze. “You have come with news.”

  He smiled. “Not so much news, as a request. I came t’ ask for Will Sock’s help.” He turned to face Will Sock and Captain John. “There has been an attack on an Amish family. A girl, about Tessa’s age, was taken captive along with her brother, about Christy’s age. I’m hopin’ someone from Indiantown might be able to find out where they might be, and what it would take to get them released.”

  At the exact same second, Will Sock and Captain John both closed their eyes and Tessa wondered what was running through their minds. The Conestogas were not regarded highly by the powerful Iroquois Confederacy. The Conestogas were of the larger Susquehanna tribe, once a fierce tribal people who had defeated the mighty Iroquois. But as the Iroquois developed a confederacy among tribes, the Susquehanna remained independent. It left them weak and vulnerable; they were not strong enough to withstand the sweep of colonists, nor of other warring Indian tribes. Betty Sock had recited to Tessa the story of her people countless times over the years, that there were once as many Susquehanna warriors as trees in the forest. No longer.

  Tessa adored Betty Sock. She was fond of Will Sock and his wife, Molly, and their two children, but Betty Sock enamored her. She was never in a hurry, unlike most everyone in Tessa’s world, who moved from one chore to the other as if they were always late and trying to catch up. Betty Sock saw time differently; she had an abundance of it and was always willing to share it with Tessa. She gave her the history of her people, taught her how to make baskets, how to catch a fish with her bare hands, how to start a fire using a stick and a rock. She tried to teach Tessa how to cook boiled cornbread, a staple among her people, but after four tries, Betty Sock gave up. “White women cannot cook Indian food,” she had declared.

  Tessa thought that was tommyrot. Cooking was cooking. Then her mother explained that most of the food that made up their diet was introduced from the natives: maple syrup, maple sugar, peppers, sassafras, corn, and everything that came from corn—grits, hominy, cornbread. It shocked Tessa to realize that her parents had never even seen corn before coming to the New World. She had grown up with it; Beacon Hollow was heavily dependent on it—for their livestock and for their own daily fare.

  Will Sock and Captain John walked over to their totem pole. They knelt and bowed down low, foreheads touching the ground, and remained in that pose a very long time. Tessa had heard people in her church complain about those poles, wanting them removed because they were convinced totem poles were heathen, as suspect as the Asherah poles in the Old Testament, but her father held different ideas. It was the Conestoga’s place of prayer, her father explained, like an outdoor church. A place they sought answers.

  There were many similar traditions among the Conestoga Indians that caused grumbling among Tessa’s church but with which her father had no quarrel. And that, in turn, caused a great deal of grumbling about her father. Mostly, that he strayed appallingly far from the straight and narrow path.

  After a long time, a very long time, Will Sock and Captain John rose from their posture of prayer. They returned to Bairn, Felix, and Tessa, who had waited patiently in front of the longhouse.

  Captain John spoke first. “You ask a difficult thing, Chief Bairn. It will not be simple to find this informa
tion.” He looked to Will Sock to continue.

  “I will do what I can do,” Will Sock said, but Tessa noticed that his eyes were no longer twinkling.

  Tessa’s father dipped his head in thanks.

  On the way back to Beacon Hollow, Tessa asked her father if Will Sock was worried he could be in danger from other Indians if he left his village to go north to find information about Betsy.

  “I think,” her father said, “that he is not as concerned about other Indians as about other white men.”

  The Scots-Irish, he meant. They were immigrant settlers who moved west into the frontier, past the Susquehanna River. They had little tolerance for those who did not share their Presbyterian views, and even less tolerance for Indians. Any and all Indians. Her father’s Scottish accent had caused wariness among the Conestogas for a long time, until the Time of Great Sickness when he came to the village to help treat the sick and bury the dead. He won their hearts during that time.

  “Papa,” Tessa said, “do you think that Betsy and Johnny might have been taken captive by kind people, like Betty and Will Sock?”

  He gave her a sad smile and answered her in English, though she had asked it in their dialect. “Let’s pray for exactly that, Tessa darlin’.”

  Blue Mountain

  May 2, 1763

  Betsy had lost track of how many days it had been since the attack, or which day it was. Her legs ached, her stomach cramped from emptiness, the cut on her cheek burned hot and sore. There were times when she wondered if the warriors had no destination in mind at all, that their plan was to drive the captive children until they all fell down dead.