St. Ignatius, Montana
The trip to the medicine tree seemed to have broken the stubborn mule’s back. Christine studied her hands in her lap. Aunt Lucy and Uncle Fergie had been waiting in the living room when she returned home after a long, dusty walk from the school to their house. She was so engrossed in trying to grasp all she’d learned about this new world from Raymond, Gramma, and even Tonya, that she didn’t see them at first. Until Aunt Lucy cleared her throat. Uncle Fergie started talking, and he hadn’t stopped yet. His voice rose and fell. His words pricked her skin like tiny knife wounds. Rebellious. Stubborn. Disrespectful. Consorting with pagans. With heathens. Ungodly.
Ungodly? She looked up and opened her mouth.
Aunt Lucy shook her head vigorously.
Christine clamped her mouth shut.
“I’m sending you to Haven. Jasper will take you.”
Jasper, who sat at the desk by the front window, ostensibly studying a seed catalog, turned around. “But I—”
“I can’t go to Haven. Please, Onkel Fergie, I want to go home. To my home. To Kootenai.”
“They haven’t allowed anyone back into the town yet. And when they do it’ll be for your daed to decide. I’ll call and leave a message at the phone shack tonight.”
Her father would be so disappointed in her. Mother might understand a little better—but only a little. Were Raymond, Tonya, and his grandma heathens? They believed in taking care of the earth, in treating it with respect. Plain folks believed that.
They didn’t believe in Jesus. They didn’t pray to the same God she did. She should pray for them. She liked them. They were sweet, kind, good people.
Being a good person was not enough. That’s what the bishop said during the baptism classes. “Remember, you can never be good enough to get into heaven. Entrance comes through salvation made possible by Gott’s sacrifice of His only begotten Son.”
The memory battered her. More sharp words pricking her skin.
I don’t understand, Gott.
“Are you listening to me?” Fergie’s face turned red and his eyes bulged. He would either explode or have a stroke. Or both. “Do you understand how wrong it is for you to go traipsing around the countryside with an Indian—or any man not related to you? I know you do. Did you act like this before—with your parents?”
“We weren’t alone. We were with his great-grandmother and his friend Tonya. There is nothing unseemly about this trip. I simply wanted to know more. I’ve read a lot of books, but it’s not the same as learning firsthand about people. I never had a chance before.”
The truth of the matter. She’d lived in a tiny bubble called Kootenai. And she’d been happy there. Now she knew the world was bigger and more complicated. Threads of many colors made up the fabric of this world. Its brilliance drew her in. She wanted to touch this bright, worldly shawl and wear it around her shoulders. If only for a short while. Then she’d come back and settle down and be the woman she promised to be when she was baptized.
“So you decided to turn your back on your baptismal vows while under my roof instead?”
“Nee. I didn’t decide anything.”
“I blame that boy Raymond.” Aunt Lucy fanned herself with a horse auction flier. Her face was as red as Uncle Fergie’s. “He’s a bad influence, and he’s pursued her even after both of us told him not to. That’s why you have to go to Kansas. It’s the only way to break the hold he has on you.”
“He doesn’t have a hold on me. He’s not a boy. And he’s not a bad influence.” Could studying history and the culture of another people be wrong? It wasn’t the same as leaping into a fallen, modern world. It simply helped students understand how this world had been shaped by past events. “I’ve learned history from him. I’ve learned to think for myself.”
“Such pride. Have you forgotten Gelassenheit? Demut, not hochmut. Plain women do not gallivant across the countryside with men who are not family members. It’s not done. You know that. You know better.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything. I’m unmarried. Until I find a mann, I have more latitude—”
“A rumspringa that never ends? Even then you don’t rub your family’s nose in it. Much latitude is given, but once you’re baptized, you’ve joined the church. You’re held to a higher standard.”
“I don’t mean to disrespect anyone.” How could she explain her desire to know—really know—Raymond Old Fox? It had nothing to do with man-woman things. Words weren’t big enough to describe the feeling she had when he introduced her to the falls under the swinging bridge, when he pointed out the red hawk or simply sat without speaking, letting the sound of the roaring falls inundate their senses. “The respect they have for the land and the plants and animals is similar to ours. They have fought against the Englisch for the right to their culture, religion, and even their language.”
“They have no religion—”
“That’s not true—”
A sharp rap on the screen door stopped Christine from pouring out all she’d learned of the Kootenai beliefs. They would never understand. She didn’t even understand. She didn’t defend their beliefs, only their right to have them. Did that make her a heathen?
Would God smite her?
Jasper went to the door. A minute later he returned with Bishop David Hershberger in tow.
Fergie’s fierce frown said it all. Now look what you’ve done. He hopped up from the couch. “David, gut to see you. What brings you by?”
David nodded at Lucy, who offered him her seat in the straight-back chair near Christine’s. “Sit, sit. I’ll get kaffi. There’s a chill in the air today. You remember my niece Christine, don’t you? How’s Diana? Are the kinner over their colds yet?”
She flitted around the room like a butterfly, not giving him time to answer any of her questions, and then flitted right out the door to the kitchen.
His expression amused, David said nothing until Fergie settled back on the couch and Jasper stomped up the stairs. “I’m glad you’re here. I wasn’t sure if you’d still be at the store.”
“We had business here at home.”
“I thought as much.” David had drawn the lot at the young age of thirty-one, according to Aunt Lucy. He was well respected for his even temperament and insistence on prayer before action. He never raised his voice and seemed content with his wife and six children under the age of ten.
Now he stroked his blond beard and openly studied Christine’s face. “You’re not a member of this district, Christine, but you’re living here with Fergie and Lucy, so what you do reflects on them and on us as a Gmay.”
“I was just telling her—”
“I heard what you were telling her all the way out at the road.” David removed his straw hat and settled it in his lap. His brownish-blond hair lay flat on his scalp. He had a big head for a rather slight man. It made him look top-heavy. “Loud words spoken in anger are rarely heard by the recipient.”
With one sentence he’d put Fergie in his place. Fergie’s pudgy jowls shook. His vigorous nod acknowledged the critique, but he said nothing.
“This isn’t about how it looks to others.” David’s stern gaze returned to Christine. She fought the urge to squirm. His eyes were a pale brown. “My concern is for you. All of us must be concerned for you rather than ourselves and the discomfort your actions may cause us.”
“I don’t mean to cause trouble.”
“Nee, you don’t. Yet your actions reflect a troubled heart and mind.” He studied her so hard she felt like a math problem he couldn’t solve. He sighed. “What troubles you so much that you seek fellowship with an Indian? Is it the wildfires that upended your world in Kootenai? Or your daed’s decision to move back to Haven? Why did you choose to stay here?”
A bundle of questions, none easy to answer. Especially in front of Fergie. “Private matters made me ask for permission to stay here.”
“With the understanding that you would abide by your onkel’s rules while living in his house?”
“Jah.”
“Yet here we are. Again, I ask what troubles you so much? Or is it simply the lure of the unknown or that which is different? A desire to experience the world? A desire that should’ve died when you were baptized.”
The soft delivery of his damning words was far harder to take than Fergie’s blustering. The lump in Christine’s throat didn’t help. Nor the voice in her head that screamed repeatedly, He’s right, he’s right. What’s wrong with you?
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Restlessness beset me like a bad case of the flu.”
“A person can recover from the flu, although a few die from it. The same is true of spiritual malaise.” David leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his expression intense. “You may not belong to our Gmay, but you are a member of Gott’s family, a child of Gott. I pray for your soul. I pray for Gott to remove the veil from your eyes so you can see the hope and the joy and the contentment you will find if you only lean on Him. We talk about obedience and humility and dying unto self often, and all are necessary, fundamental building blocks of our faith, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also experience joy in the Lord and contentment, knowing our hope is in Him. Do you understand that?”
“I do. I do.” That didn’t mean she couldn’t imagine finding all those things outside the Amish faith. The thought made Christine’s heart race. Her hands went to her throat.
She had chosen to be baptized at eighteen—early by some standards. She’d never considered any other option. To leave her family and friends and never see them again was unfathomable. Not the fire in Kootenai, her father’s decision to move her family back to Kansas, not even Andy’s admission that’d he once loved another woman changed her bedrock—her faith.
This faith shaped how she saw the world. Not until she met Raymond Old Fox had she given any thought to what others believed or why. She’d simply gone along with her parents and the deacon who taught her class, never questioning their words.
It had been a safe, secure place. In a few short weeks, everything had changed.
“I can see the struggle in your face.” Sadness a halo around his head, David gently shook his finger at her. “Don’t give up the struggle. Fight through it. If you must study the ways of another people, do it within the confines of your family and faith. Don’t run away. Face the restlessness. Persevere through the flu that afflicts you.”
He stood and placed his hat on his head. “I expect you at my house two days hence for counseling. Our deacon, Matthew Miller, will sit with us. Gott expects us to fight for the souls of our children. Fight, we will.”
“Wouldn’t it be best to send her to her parents in Kansas?” Fergie shuffled to his feet. “Let them fight the fight, so to speak.”
“Sending her away won’t abate the temptations set in front of her. She needs to confront them.”
Her life in a nutshell. Two men arguing over what was best for her. At least she didn’t have to go to Haven. Mother and Father would be horrified and angry. And she would likely never see her friends in Kootenai again. Or Andy. Or Raymond and Gramma and Tonya.
“You know best.” Fergie’s tone didn’t agree with his words. David simply smiled and nodded.
A tray filled with coffee mugs and cookies in her hands, Aenti Lucy trotted into the room. “Sorry, I had to make a fresh pot of kaffi . . .” Her gaze went from David to Fergie and back. “I brought lemon bars. Aren’t those your favorite, David?”
Nodding, David snagged a lemon bar and trotted past Christine toward the door. “I can’t stay, I’m afraid. Diana is waiting supper for me. She doesn’t ask much, only that I be home for supper.” He tugged the door open and then looked back at Christine. “Remember, Thursday, around nine o’clock. Matthew is an eager beaver. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“I understand.” Christine managed a smile. Her stomach rocked and bile burned the back of her throat, but she still smiled. “I don’t like to be late either.”
David tucked the entire lemon bar in his mouth and opened the screen door. The muffled words that followed could’ve been hello or goodbye or neither.
Before the screen door could close, Andy walked in.