The Thorn Part 29

Bishop brushed his brow with the back of his hand, then wiped the perspiration on his work trousers. "Christian's adamant that Nick owes me, so he's twistin' his arm, so to speak."

"To join church against his will?"

The bishop nodded.

"That's a terrible idea."

Bishop exhaled loudly. "Must sound thataway to Nick, too."

Solomon clasped Aaron's shoulder. "I'll keep this quiet ... and in my prayers."

"Denki, Sol."

Hearing this so soon after having seen Rose Ann and Nick ride off together left Solomon painfully aware there was much to beseech the Lord G.o.d for, indeed.

A few of the bishop's grandchildren were sitting out on the front porch telling stories when Rose Ann headed over there after supper. Nick was nowhere to be seen, which was just as well, since she had been stewing all day about what to say to help soften the blow of her rebuff.

As was often the case, the older boys were taking turns outdoing each other with their various tales, and several of the younger girls s.h.i.+vered with fright as the setting once again became the ravine.

For Rose, that location would now always be taboo. Nothing good could happen deep in a chasm like that. A dangerous path away from the real world.

She trembled as she recalled Nick's caresses, so inappropriate considering she was nearly engaged to someone else. Even though she'd found Mamm's money tin, she deeply regretted having gone to such a secluded place with Nick.

Thinking back on his impulsive declarations, she worried she might have led him on simply by being there. To think he'd said right out that he'd loved her first!

The twilight was very still, without a hint of a breeze. The smaller girls edged closer, till she had her arms around two of them on each side of her. "Just remember, it's all make-believe," she whispered to them, no longer convinced she herself believed that.

Rose looked at the sky and took in the changing shades and colors. Within minutes, the first star of the evening appeared as the sky grew darker.

The children were clad in coats or woolen shawls, but she knew it wouldn't be long before they went inside to Mammi Barbara to get warmed up with hot cocoa and to sit near the woodstove. Soon, too, the outdoor storytelling would become a faint memory as another year slipped away.

Glancing across the field to her house, Rose was glad Mattie Sue had stayed put with Hen and Mamm. Even though her niece would've enjoyed seeing the children gathered here, Mattie Sue was much too young for the foreboding tone the older ones seemed to enjoy giving their "tellings."

Then, looking back at the sky, Rose saw a falling star.

"Ach, Buck enrol datt! -just look at that!" several of the children said in unison as it streaked a white line down to the horizon and was gone.

"Someone's going to die tonight," one of the boys said.

"Well, sure they are," said another. "People die all the time."

"No, someone nearby," an older girl piped up. "My Mamma says so.

Rose suddenly felt cold. "Maybe we should go inside now," she said, and the girls scrunched up next to her nodded and quickly stood up.

"That's the silliest thing I've ever heard," said the boy who'd had his story interrupted, but even he followed the rest of the children inside.

Rose Ann decided to accept Barbara's kind invitation to stay and have hot chocolate and some fresh brownies, a favorite treat. In short order they were all talking and sitting around the table, along with the bishop and Verna, and the twins, Anna and Susannah, whose husbands had all gone together on an errand.

"Your Dawdi Aaron's got something for each of ya," Barbara was saying.

Bishop wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. "It's time I gave ya some of your inheritance," he said with a quick smile as he pulled out a handful of silver dollars. Amidst their oohs and ahs, he presented each of the eight children there with one bright and s.h.i.+ny coin.

Rose heard a horse whinny outside, and turned to glance through the window behind her. She gasped. Coming up the driveway were the bishop's sons, Christian draped head down over Pepper and being steadied by Nick, who led his brother's horse behind his own. Blood covered nearly all of Christian's head and face.

"Ach, no," she whispered, tears springing to her eyes. "Hurry, Bishop . . . go outside right quick!" she said, pointing to the window.

His eyes registered panic. "Was is letz? - what is wrong?"

Swiftly she rose to pull down the shades, instructing the children to stay in the kitchen as their grandfather rushed out the back door. She could see curiosity in their eyes, though they were obedient when Barbara suggested they all go quickly upstairs.

Nick trudged into the kitchen a few seconds later, struggling to carry his brother into the house. The bishop directed him to lay Christian on the table, where he stood over his unconscious son. Then, as if a light had gone on in his head, he pressed his fingers into Christian's neck, checking for a pulse. " 'Tis awful weak," he uttered, shaking with emotion. "Nick, what happened?"

Nick's face was as white as last winter's snows, his mouth turned down severely. He looked dreadfully guilty. "He fell," Nick muttered.

Barbara and Verna had gotten a bowl of cold water, the water rippling as their hands shook. With a cloth, Barbara dabbed at the gash still gus.h.i.+ng blood from Christian's head. His face was deathly white and his chest did not rise and fall as before. Rose stood stock-still with horror ... not knowing what to do.

She looked again at Nick, who'd slumped back against the wall, leaning as though he might collapse without its support.

Then, she saw it - his long hair had been cut roughly, as if someone had taken a knife to it. His short, dark locks fell forward, cropped off just below his ears. Nick's breath came in a short gasp, and his arms hung limp.

Did he lose his temper?

"I'll run for help." Rose dashed out the back door and lifted her skirt as she ran as hard as she'd ever run through the bishop's pasture, then into Dat's own immense field, her lungs burning. Oh, dear Lord in heaven!

Never once did she slow her pace till she reached the old phone shanty. "Someone's terribly hurt," Rose told the operator, then gave the location of the bishop's house. "Please send help right away!"

After calling for help, Rose ran all the way back to the bishop's house. She found Nick still standing in the kitchen, leaning hard against the far wall, his shoulders hunched forward, eyes gla.s.sy. He glimpsed at her, but she looked away. For the minutes that followed, they watched together in somber silence as the bishop made repeated efforts to keep Christian alive.

0 Lord, please let him live....

But despite the attempts, by the time the ambulance arrived, Christian had drawn his final breath. Rose wept quietly as men wearing white rushed into the house and began yet another fruitless attempt to revive Christian. She bowed her head, s.h.i.+elding her view.

Despite the activity in the room, she heard the bishop and Nick talking in the corner. Nick was describing Christian's fall, saying he'd cracked his head on a boulder deep in the ravine. She wondered, from the bishop's skeptical tone, if the minister thought Nick was lying. And the bishop continued to ask Nick pointed questions even as his son was being wheeled out on a covered gurney.

Suddenly Nick moved away from the man of G.o.d and plodded off toward the barn. In disbelief, Rose watched him go, struck by how exposed he looked without his thick black mane.

Shaken, she returned to the house to sit with Barbara and Verna, who were huddled near the woodstove in the kitchen. Anna and Susannah had gone upstairs to be with the children, and she could hear their soft footsteps just overhead. Oh, how she wished Mammi Sylvia would come to comfort the bishop's wife - the woman's constant weeping ripped at Rose's heart. She was relieved when her father and grandfather arrived to inquire about all the commotion, what with the siren swelling up and down Salem Road.

Not long after, Mammi Sylvia arrived in time to help Rose and Verna get Barbara upstairs to bed. Then, kneeling on either side of her, the women prayed for G.o.d's presence to be near, especially to the mourning mother. Fill the room and our hearts with your sweet solace, 0 Lord, Rose prayed silently. She did not know what else to pray at such a dreadful time.

Her grandmother reached for the Bible on the nightstand and began to read softly from the ninety-fifth psalm, still on her knees. it 'O come, let us wors.h.i.+p and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker. For he is our G.o.d; and we are the people of his pasture.... ' "

Rose waited till Barbara's heartbreaking cries had faded to soft whimpering, like an inconsolable child's, before slipping out of the room to the stairs. In a state of shock, Rose stepped out the back door, wondering, How can it be - Christian is dead?

She couldn't help but remember her brief conversation with him just yesterday. "Soon, very soon," he'd said with such urgency. What had he wanted to tell her? And why, oh why, had she dismissed him so quickly?

Trudging back home, Rose was sick with worry for Nick. What would become of him now? The words of King David's psalm plagued her. Mammi had stopped reading just short of the plea for people not to harden their hearts - as in the day of temptation in the wilderness. . . . Many times Dat had read the entire psalm for evening wors.h.i.+p: It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways.

Family wors.h.i.+p that night was a somber scene - Mamm looked terribly forlorn as Dat read the Bible, his face serious and drawn. Rose's grandparents joined them, as well, and nary a one of them spoke once Dat offered the evening prayers. Afterward, Rose hurried to her room, tears falling uncontrollably as she wept for Christian ... for Nick. For all of them.

Though she tried, it was impossible to erase the image of Christian's broken body upon Barbara's long table as he lay there, bleeding. Or Nick's strange demeanor - his unevenly chopped hair, his face wracked by shame. She suspected Christian of forcibly cutting off the ponytail, inciting Nick's long-simmering rage. With all of her heart, she hoped what followed had been an accident and nothing worse. Yet ... the two had been enemies from the very first day of Nick's arrival.

When Rose lay down to sleep that night, her dreams were shrouded in darkness.

The next day, Nick was gone. "Disappeared in the night," Dat told Rose, his face as grim as ever she'd seen it. "Left his Amish clothing behind ..."

"Will the police find him and arrest him?" she asked.

Dat shook his head solemnly. "According to the bishop, they already talked with him last night - and several neighbors, too. But no one saw or heard anything unusual, so in the end, they believed Nick was tellin' the truth."

Rose felt her breath escape her. "Do you believe he's innocent?"

Her father hesitated. "We might never know for sure, Rosie. But it's not our place to judge. Nick's soul is in G.o.d's hands now."

She trembled at the thought.

The rest of the day, she felt as heavy as a bale of hay. Rose slogged through her ch.o.r.es, keenly aware of Nick's absence. The hours pa.s.sed in a haze of grief. Surely Christian's untimely death had been an accident, just as Nick claimed.

Still, as much as she cared for him, the rumors were spreading. Soon there were more than a few fingers pointing at the boy who'd never embraced their culture - his hasty disappearance seen as the most damaging proof of all.

All the years of their friends.h.i.+p ... had Rose ever really known him? To think she'd come that close to Nick's beloved "edge," and nearly fallen into the chasm, right along with him.

Following Christian's funeral Wednesday morning, Rose and Hen walked to the burial service in the fenced Amish cemetery. The bishop and his wife were surrounded by their married daughters and sons-in-law, all ashen with sorrow.

The hole that had been dug for the newly built coffin was filled halfway with dirt before the men removed their hats and the preacher read a hymn from the old hymnal. Afterward, the grave was filled with the remaining soil. Christian's mother nearly fainted when it was time to take leave of the mounded earth, and Verna's husband, Levi, quickly steadied her and helped her back to the gray carriage.

So this is grief. Rose could not imagine what Bishop Aaron and his family were experiencing. My own anguish is nothing compared to theirs, she thought as cl.u.s.ters of families slowly returned to their buggies. Several headed up the road, back toward their homes, while the bishop and his extended family walked silently to their own farmhouse for a private meal.

"The bishop lost two sons in the s.p.a.ce of one day," Hen whispered to her as they walked toward home together. "His only sons ...

"One from this life, the other to the world," Rose managed to say, feeling awfully conflicted. In the short span since Christian's pa.s.sing, she'd had plenty of time to think. And to reconsider, too. She missed the Nick she knew, but she was also relieved he was gone from their midst. Wasn't it best? After all, he'd rejected everything that was good and n.o.ble ... each of the valuable life lessons he'd learned from the bishop. He rejected G.o.d, Rose realized anew. And at what cost?

Even so, despite Nick's stubbornness, part of her wanted to believe the Scripture he'd heard had not fallen on unfertile soil. Or deaf ears. She prayed that Nick might one day understand fully the reason he'd been handpicked to be brought up as an Amish Christian. Surely there was still hope for him.

As they walked, Rose glanced at Hen. The Lord seemed to be calling her sister to return to Him. Hen gave her a sad little smile and reached for her hand. Rose was glad for her sister's comforting touch at such an unspeakable time. Thankful, too, she hadn't had that final conversation with Nick, as she'd originally hoped. Best to just push that out of my mind, she thought, wondering how Nick could possibly find any happiness now ... wherever he ended up living.

Rose sighed. Truth be told, there were moments she wished she'd never known him. And yet, how could she forget him? Indeed, she must continually remember him in her daily prayers.

She thought back to the afternoon in the ravine and shuddered. Nick had given her the freedom to choose - nearly impossible as that choice had been. Despite that, perhaps the time Nick had spent amongst them could be deemed providential, just as his leaving was, as well.

Solomon could envision a hot meal and an invigorating shower. This final October day had seemed longer than most as he had finished up baling corn fodder. Still, there was another good hour or so before supper.

He wandered outside and across the long expanse of pastureland to look in on his bishop neighbor, mighty worried for him. Since Christian's death, the bishop's ruddy face had turned as withered as some of the shriveled grapes that still clung to the vine. The poor man was carrying the deepest kind of grief a soul could bear.

A father shouldn't outlive his son, thought Sol as he pushed open the bishop's barn door. He was surprised to hear Rose Ann's voice. Moseying over the cement floor, toward the stable area, he could see her tending to Nick's favorite horse, Pepper. She was currying him nice and slow, making long, steady strokes - talking to him all the while, though Sol could make out but a few words.

"Nick would want me to look after ya," she was saying.

He was struck by her remarkable tenderness. Why hadn't he comprehended it before? Had he been too distracted by Nick's fondness for Rose to pay close attention to Rose Ann herself?

With a great sigh, she stopped what she was doing and leaned over to caress the horse's mane, crying softly now. It startled him to witness such raw emotion, no doubt intended for a fellow who wasn't worth giving the time of day. As we now know ...

Solomon's bearded chin quivered suddenly. The last thing he wanted was for Rose to notice him there, struggling to keep his own feelings in check. Turning silently, he headed back toward the barn door and shoved it open again. He stepped into a shower of the sun's dusty rays and made his way to the big farmhouse where ungrateful Nick had put his feet under the bishop's table ... and heard the Good Book read each night. Where he learned about almighty G.o.d at the knee of our bishop, thought Sol, shaking his head in dismay. But what he learned just never took.

Thus Solomon consigned the worldly young man to the judgment he seemingly deserved.

Rose was perched on her bed that early November night, still wearing her brown choring dress as she tatted a doily - a birthday gift for a cousin. Suddenly she was startled by a light whirling over the window gla.s.s.

Could it be ... ?

She hastened to open the window, almost expecting to see Nick there. Peering down, she saw Silas below. Her heart fluttered in unexpected wistfulness. It wasn't her old friend after all.

"Hullo, Silas," she said softly.

"Will ya meet me downstairs?" His voice was restrained.

She nodded, her heart beating ever so fast. "I'll be down in a jiffy." When she greeted him at the back door, Silas asked if everyone was asleep.

"All but me," she whispered, scarcely able to speak.

"Gut, then," he said, stepping inside. Together, they made their way to the woodstove, where the metal box stored a few chopped logs. He leaned down to add another couple pieces of wood, then waited for the fire to brighten.

They sat side by side on the long kitchen bench, making small talk for a while - about the weather and the youth activities centered around the numerous weddings to come.

After a time, Silas rose to stir up the fire again before returning to her side. "I've been waitin' a long time for this day," he said, his eyes reflecting the firelight. "This night ..."

She listened intently, memorizing every word.

He reached for her hand, and the feel of it made Rose's pulse leap.

"Will ya have me, Rose Ann," he asked, "as your husband?"

She did not hesitate, not even for a moment. She said, "I'd be pleased to marry you, Silas."

He leaned forward, eyes searching hers as if to see whether she'd permit him to come so close. Then, with great tenderness, he kissed her cheek. "You've made me mighty happy, Rose."

She knew she must be simply beaming. "And me, too," she whispered.

"We'll wait till our wedding day to lip-kiss," he said, his gaze fixed on her mouth, then her eyes, and back to her lips.

"Probably should, ain't?" she said, now holding her breath, dying to know what it would feel like - his lips on hers.

Pulling back, he drew a long breath. "Jah," he said, though reluctantly, and raised her hand to his lips instead. "We best be waiting."

Rose smiled, enjoying this surge of pure delight.

"My father asked me to take over his dairy farm," Silas added. "He'll likely be ready for us to live in the main house, once we tie the knot, possibly next wedding season."