Wonderful Lonesome Read online

  “We don’t know what might happen. Caring for each other is what our people do. How can we just shut people out?”

  Eber raised one foot and laid it on the opposite knee, massaging it. “I am not suggesting we be rude, only that we can be self-sufficient. We can be gracious in explaining we have no need to trouble anyone.”

  The baby squirmed within her, and Ruthanna rested her hand on her belly. “What about when my time comes? I will need Abbie and Esther.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I can see that. But we are more than two months from that day. Perhaps we will know by then who is at the root of this trouble.”

  Abbie waited three days. Reuben was sincerely sorry, and she believed that once Willem cooled off he would see that he had been harsh. But he did not come.

  On Saturday morning she took a horse and the buggy and rode over to Willem’s. It might be unseemly for her to broach the subject with him, but she could not wait any longer. Reuben was miserable, and if she could do something to alleviate his suffering, she would. She had never been afraid to speak her mind to Willem, and if she wanted to be his wife—and she did—she saw no point in cowering now.

  Willem was in the pasture brushing one of his own horses. Abbie tied her horse to a fence post near the gate and lifted the latch.

  He looked up but did not greet her with a smile the way he used to. She counted her paces in her head as a way to keep calm. One. Two. Three. She hoped he would speak first. Four. Five. Six.

  She stood before him, her hands crossed behind her waist. Now she counted his strokes through the horse’s mane. Seven. Eight. Nine.

  He looked up again but still did not speak.

  Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

  “Willem.”

  “Yes.”

  “Reuben feels terrible about your coal.”

  “I know.”

  Thirteen. Fourteen.

  Abbie took a deep breath. “Of course the coal is valuable. And you worked for hours to dig it out. It was not right that someone should come along and take it.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  Abbie moved one hand to a hip. “Must you be so unyielding?”

  Fifteen. Sixteen.

  Finally he let his arm drop to his side and turned to face her. “What would you like me to say, Abbie?”

  “That you know Reuben is more valuable than the coal.”

  Willem said nothing.

  “That you know coyotes have been a bigger and bigger problem. The longer the drought goes on, the more widely they will roam.”

  Willem sighed.

  “That whatever has gone wrong between us, you know that Reuben does not deserve this punishment.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Is that how you see it? That things have gone wrong between us?”

  “Haven’t they?”

  He raised his brush again. “I suppose so, though my feelings for you have not changed.”

  “Nor mine for you.” If he reached out with his hand, she would lay hers in it. She would not be able to help herself. Perhaps it was just as well that he made no move toward her.

  “Do you still believe the church can survive?” he said.

  “Have you given up trying?”

  “If you mean to ask whether I am still talking to Jake Heatwole, the answer is yes. There is a difference between giving up trying and accepting reality.”

  “There is no reality outside God’s will. We must not give up on God’s will.” Twenty. Twenty-one. “Willem?”

  “Our people live a simple life,” he said. “What if God’s will is not as simple as we wish to think?”

  “Do you doubt the teachings of the church?” A year ago Abbie would not have imagined Willem could say such a thing, but now she could hardly keep from gasping at how far he allowed himself to stray.

  “I love the church, Abbie,” he said. “You know that.”

  “Then why do you talk to Jake Heatwole and let him fill your head?” She glared.

  “Because I miss the church as well. The Mennonites live plainly and speak our language and worship our God. The longer we go without our church, the harder it is to see what is so wrong with their ways.”

  Abbie forced herself to exhale and inhale. Twenty-four. Twenty-five.

  “I believe even the Mennonites would agree that we are called to forgiveness.”

  “So we are back to Reuben.”

  “Yes.”

  Willem nodded. “I will come over later today, and Reuben and I will speak words of peace to each other.”

  Abbie fell into her dreams that night before the sun had been down an hour. After Willem and Reuben reconciled, her brother invited Willem to stay for supper, and after supper Levi begged their guest for a game of checkers that turned into four. Willem finally reminded the little boy that he had a cow that needed milking, and Esther affirmed Willem’s departure by sending Levi to bed. Abbie cleaned up the dishes, humming to herself a favorite hymn from the Ausbund. By the time she finished, her mother sat at the table writing a letter and her father was nodding off in his chair with the family Bible in his lap. Drenched in gratitude for the resolution of Willem’s disagreement with Reuben and the comfort of Willem’s company for the evening, she went to her bed rubbery with readiness to sleep.

  Shrieking hens wakened her. In the darkness, she had no idea what time it was. The thunder of footsteps in the hall told her the entire household was awake. Abbie groped for matches to light the candle at her bedside and rushed to follow her family toward the door.

  “Coyotes?” Abbie’s stomach hardened.

  “Esther, keep Levi inside.” Her father stopped for a rifle.

  “I want to see.” Levi pressed forward, but Esther clamped a hand on his shoulder.

  Abbie trailed after her father and two brothers. Reuben held a lantern high and moved in a slow circle. Ananias put his rifle to his shoulder and fired a shot into the air. Abbie, with her candle flickering in the cooling night air, stood beside Daniel holding her breath. The torment in the henhouse had subsided.

  “Abigail, did you see anything?” Ananias swept his rifle in a moonlit arc.

  “No.”

  “Boys?”

  “No, Daed,” they answered together.

  Ananias lowered the rifle. “We’d better check the hens—and figure out how a coyote got in this time.”

  Abbie licked her lips. A coyote needed very little room beneath a barrier to slide through. The concentration of human scent must have chased it off—that and the satisfaction of a vanquished meal. Abbie nudged Daniel forward to the henhouse and opened the door. Chickens immediately clacked and scattered. Reuben was behind her now with the lantern.

  Two hens lay on the floor, lifeless. Abbie peered into every corner, counting chickens. One was missing, and she knew just which one it was.

  “Three of Mamm’s best layers,” she muttered.

  Reuben grunted. “I knew there was a good reason I should track that coyote I saw from the ravine.”

  “You can’t be sure it was the same one.”

  “But it could be.” He knelt beside the two dead hens. “I’ll take them out of here, but in the morning I am going to see if I can find any teeth marks. Then we’ll know if it was a full-grown male like the one I saw.”

  The Sabbath passed quietly. The boys milked the cows, and Esther inspected the henhouse. Reuben studied teeth marks, though he could not be sure of a pattern. Otherwise the family ceased their labors. Levi kicked a rock around the yard. No one wanted to talk about the coyote. Abbie walked behind the barn, out of sight of the rest of her family, and permitted herself tears at another passing Sunday without a worship gathering of all the Amish families. Esther served a cold supper, and Ananias read aloud at length from an Old Testament passage about the people of Israel whining at their sufferings in the wilderness.

  In the morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Abbie was surprised to see Willem’s wagon approach. She met him in the yard.

  “Do you feel like a trip to town?
Your mother must have a good list going by now.”

  “Yes.” She answered without hesitation. “How much do coyote traps cost?”

  He stiffened. “Did you have a coyote on your land?”

  She gave him the gruesome details. Some of the birds were still too frightened to lay. Even by taking what was in the pail in the kitchen, Abbie doubted she could produce enough eggs to be worth trading for traps.

  “Don’t worry about what they cost,” Willem said. “I will figure something out that the mercantile owner will accept, and I will set those traps myself.”

  “We should have done it sooner.”

  “Don’t focus on regret, Abbie. The way forward is what matters.”

  You have to take me with you.” As the day ended and shadows fell, Abbie put her hand through the bridle on Willem’s horse to keep him from urging the horse forward away from the Weaver house.

  “It’s going to get dark.” Willem was on the bench already, reins in hand. “I’m just going out to listen for coyotes so I can decide where to set the traps we bought.”

  “I know. I want to come.”

  “Reuben will be jealous if you are out hunting coyotes. He thinks that’s his job.”

  Abbie rolled her eyes. “I’m coming, Willem.” She lifted the hem of her skirt and raised her leg to climb into his wagon.

  “And your daed?”

  “He knows we enjoy an evening drive and has never objected.” They had not taken an evening drive for several weeks, but Abbie had kept to herself the reason she and Willem saw so little of each other now. When he came to supper the previous Saturday, his family treated him as if he still belonged among them.

  Willem adjusted the lantern hanging at the front of the wagon, which they would need soon enough, but did not protest further. Abbie settled in beside him, and the horse began to move.

  “Where will we go?” she asked.

  “To the corner where the farms meet.”

  Abbie knew the spot in daylight. Willem and Rudy’s farms bordered on the Weaver and Gingerich farms, and while the farms were not square as quilt patches, there was a narrow point where a person could see the back fields of all four farms. Rudy was the only one who had planted his back field, and that was last year. Otherwise the land lay fallow and neglected during this impossible summer, used as nothing more than a shortcut between farms.

  “I figure to get out of the wagon and sit on the ground, perfectly still.”

  Abbie nodded.

  “The coyotes are howling every night lately. If we listen carefully, we should be able to tell which direction the sound comes from.”

  “Right.”

  “You have to promise me you won’t make any sudden movements once we’re on the ground.”

  “I am aware of the seriousness of the situation, Willem. Some of my mother’s hens still have not recovered from the fright. We all know how close that coyote was to the house.”

  Willem was not driving fast. Stillness cloaked their path as the sun slid behind the distant mountains and gray began to blur their sight. In the fading light, Abbie raised her eyes to the everpresent Pikes Peak. It was there any time she stepped outside, unmoving and faithful. When the Weavers arrived in Colorado and she gazed on the mountain for the first time, she had tucked away the thought that it was a symbol of what their district would someday be—a church unmoved by changing times and faithful to the Word of God.

  Now, though, fear welled that her mountain of hope would crumble like so much soft lignite in Willem’s hands.

  Willem turned the lantern to a brighter setting. The new moon was only a few nights old and cast just a sliver of light. The lantern was all they had to see by as the horse stepped forward in a slow rhythm and the wagon swayed in response.

  As they rode in near silence, Abbie choked on questions. Was Willem actively helping Jake Heatwole? What prayer was in his heart these days? Did his heart clench at the thought of a future without her, the way hers did when she tried to imagine being another man’s wife? Or no one’s.

  “Willem.” She spoke softly.

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you for this. For getting the traps. For trying to help us.”

  He turned his head to look at her, but the lantern was behind his head now and she could not make out his expression in the deepening darkness.

  “Of course,” he said. He reached across the bench for her hand.

  She knew she ought to let go. He was going to leave the church. Leave her. She closed her eyes and prayed for God to send an Amish minister to the settlement. Soon. But she did not let go of Willem’s hand.

  Willem took his hand back only when he required its use in bringing the wagon to a safe stop. He unhooked the lantern, offered Abbie assistance in descending from the bench, and led her a few yards away from the wagon.

  “I hope you don’t mind sitting on the ground.” His voice was barely audible.

  She lowered herself into the dirt and pulled her knees up under her chin. Willem sat beside her, the light burning between them.

  “Should we turn the light off?” Abbie whispered.

  He shook his head. “I am not trying to lure the coyotes. I only want to know where they are, whose farm might be next.” His voice trailed into silence.

  Abbie found herself holding her breath so she would not miss a valuable sound because she was listening instead to the air flowing in and out of her lungs. Willem was still as a boulder.

  The howling came, distant, mournful, insistent. Following the noise, Abbie’s head turned in the direction of Rudy’s farm. Allowing herself a breath, she thought of his beautiful cows. Could a coyote take down a cow? Certainly the calf was vulnerable.

  She tilted her head, thinking she heard something closer. A moment later, Willem leaned in the same direction.

  The crack of a rifle threw them both to the ground, Willem’s weight on top of Abbie.

  “You two all right?” Rudy lowered his rifle and moved toward Willem and Abbie.

  At the sound of his voice, they sat up and then sprang to their feet.

  “Rudy!” Abbie raised the lantern and turned it up to bring them all into its circle of light.

  “You could have shot us.” Willem took the light from Abbie’s hand.

  Rudy stood his rifle on the butt and held its slender nozzle in his hand. “Or that coyote could have pounced on you.”

  “We were only listening to them howl,” Abbie said.

  “This one wasn’t howling.” Rudy moved in the direction he had shot. “I saw his eyes. Bring that light and let’s see if I got him.”

  Willem and Abbie followed Rudy’s long stride.

  “There.” Rudy pointed with the end of his gun.

  Rudy had caught the beast between the eyes. It lay sprawled as if its legs had gone out from under it in an instant.

  “I don’t understand,” Abbie said. “I thought the scent of humans repelled coyotes.”

  “Usually,” Willem said. “But Reuben did say he saw one in broad daylight at the ravine.”

  “And Ruthanna,” Rudy said.

  “What about Ruthanna?” Abbie stiffened.

  “Didn’t she tell you?” Rudy raised his eyebrows. “Right after it happened I was over at their place helping with chores. She was still rattled, but she didn’t want to tell Eber. On the day of that meeting about whether Noah Chupp should be minister, a coyote approached her.”

  “She never said a word!”

  “I guess she got it out of her system when she told me. Probably she wanted to make sure it wouldn’t get back to Eber while he was so sick.”

  “Do you think it’s been the same coyote every time?”

  Even in the darkness with only the light of the lantern, Rudy saw the pale color of Abbie’s face. “I expect so. He was probably hungry.”

  “But there are plenty of gophers and rabbits.”

  “That’s what I’m planning to bait the traps with,” Willem said.

  Abbie raised a hand to he
r mouth, as if to banish the sickening image. She understood the realities of living on the Colorado plain, but Rudy knew her well enough to know she would recoil at innocent animals finding such a fate.

  “We should all go home,” Rudy said. “We can talk about this tomorrow.”

  “I am still going to set traps,” Willem said.

  Rudy nodded. “And I still think you should.”

  “I want to see where they are.”

  Two days later Willem looked up at the sound of Abbie’s voice in his yard. “I didn’t know you were coming by,” he said.

  “I wanted to be sure I caught you before you left and I wouldn’t know where to find you.”

  She had no horse with her.

  “You walked?”

  “Daed wanted both the horses.”

  She must have set out the minute her mother finished serving breakfast. The sun already was rising hot in the sky. Light twisted in the braids coiled against her head and shimmered loveliness through her stature. If only she would listen to Jake Heatwole even one time. Could she not see Jake was their best hope of marrying at all?

  “The traps are dangerous, Abbie.” A dozen of them clanked against each other as Willem laid them in the wagon.

  “I know that. I’m not foolish enough to set one off. I only want to know where they are. Levi sometimes wanders.”

  “He might have to reform that habit. I will speak to your father about having a stern conversation with your brother.”

  “If I know where they are, I can help Levi stay away from them.”

  “I saw how squeamish you were when I said I was going to use gophers for bait.” Willem watched for change of color in her face, but she only straightened her shoulders.

  “A human being could get hurt,” Abbie said. “Sacrificing a few gophers is a small price to pay.”

  “The gophers are no friend to the farmers, either, you know.”

  “I know. Daed says they eat the wheat.”

  Willem tapped the side of the wagon. “Get in.”

  Ruthanna met Abbie’s gaze later that afternoon as they sat together in the Gingerich kitchen.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the coyote?” Abbie set her jaw, and Ruthanna knew she was determined to have an answer.