Chapter Five

“Nice to s-s-see ya away from the f-f-forge,” Whitey stuttered, reaching out to shake Cullen’s hand. Cullen came every Monday like clockwork to the old junk yard for scrap metal, just as his father had before him. Already behind schedule, he hoped to make quick work today of sifting through old cars and ancient tractors for useful pieces before delivering Abram Schwartz’s new wooden shop sign he’d finished late last night.

“Nice to step away from it for at least a spell,” Cullen replied. Truth was, he loved his work. It was satisfying and didn’t require anything from him but some muscle and years of expertise as a blacksmith. Two things Cullen had plenty of.

Clifton Pennington was the man’s birth name, but these days Whitey had become the name he answered to. The local mechanic was a thin and jolly man, but after being struck by lightning years back, not only did the color of his hair change overnight, but his sound as well. Cullen recalled Whitey being quite the talker when Cullen had accompanied his daed on trips to sift through the rummage as a boy. Now the man’s winded stories had become no more than stuttered, simple replies. And though Whitey preferred to settle in silence now, Cullen had heard his singing on more than one occasion when Whitey thought himself to be alone. And how that man could sing, Cullen marveled. Time spent here with Whitey was as much a pleasure as it was business.

Once the buggy was loaded with a few useful pieces of metal, Cullen wiped his brow and climbed up into his seat. He released the brake. “I need to get this sign to Abram’s and head back to work. Danke again, Whitey. See ya next week?”

Whitey nodded and quickly disappeared back into a sea of debris, a tune already whistling on his lips.

Driving back toward Walnut Ridge, Cullen passed by the old house where Marty had once lived. Like every Monday, he looked toward the empty and hollow shell abandoned all these years and let in a string of melancholy that would carry him for another week until he passed by it again. A yellowed curtain blowing in the warm breeze was his reminder that that part of his life was gone. Marty had sewn the curtains herself, mamm taught her how, and yellow had always been her favorite. He was partial to it himself, considering her blonde mane was what had first attracted him to her.

They’d wanted a life together, kinner filling their home. She would have made a wunderbaar fraa and mutter, he thought. Ten years was a long time to mourn, his friends Lucas and Caleb reminded him on days when gloom shadowed his face. Ten years was a long time to miss someone, but who put limits on such a thing? Oddly, for a week now, Cullen realized he hadn’t thought of Marty. He had been busy, orders piling up daily. Then there was jumping up at every little sound floating through the holler, wondering if Grace’s ehemann had gotten to her.

He pulled his attention away to concentrate on the road ahead. This weekly routine had become common, a routine that only brought forth ache. Yet, he couldn’t imagine not driving by Marty’s old haus, keeping her to memory, even if that haus represented the worst of them. The words of the bishop sprang into his mind again. “Do the same thing day in and day out, receive the same results.” Bishop Mast was preaching encouragement, sticking to the path Gott laid before us and never wavering, but Cullen took the words in with fresh ears and let their meaning sink in to his current humdrum existence.

If he continued along this path, nothing in his life would ever change. Well, he had smiled at Sara on Sunday, so there was that. Cullen just wasn’t sure he was glad it appeared to make her so pleased after he did it.

Cloud-filled skies tore his attention away from the brown and dying season. He missed the colors of autumn, its vibrant reds, oranges, and brilliant birch yellows absent in the drought that had laid claim over the valley. But heavenward, everything looked as it should be. As he had as a boy, Cullen made out faces in the clouds. There was a dog with one ear and one cloud that resembled what he figured mermaids might look like. In the orbs of various blue hues, an eye looked down on him. Oddly, it brought a measure of comfort.

Dry, lifeless air filled his lungs as the buggy went from blacktop to gravel, and for some reason he couldn’t explain, his new neighbor entered his thoughts again. Since meeting her, Cullen couldn’t stop poking at their encounter. Her sly and bashful attempt to hide her belly was unsuccessful, but why the woman felt the need to do so was a bit puzzling. It wasn’t proper to talk about such things, or parade around boasting with pride like the Englisch did when one was pregnant, but Grace wore a look of fear, maybe a hint of embarrassment, too. He’d recognized it quickly—Marty had worn those same disturbing expressions often. But Grace was nothing like Marty, who had plenty of call to look sorrowful and embarrassed. Grace was Amish. She had family, community, an ehemann. Marty had the results of her father’s anger left boldly on display for others to see and no mutter to comfort her.

Why Grace had darted him those same looks was beyond him. Babies were miracles, promises from Gott, and Grace should be glad her family was about to add to the fold as He intended things to be. Cullen grinned. Grace Miller was such a small thing tucking into the shadow of Betty Glick. Pretty, too. Those eyes, even at a distance, he thought to be as blue as the water of Twin Fork Lake, as blue as a big bold sky.

Shaking his head, clearing it of any improper thoughts, Cullen tried to put the newcomer out of his mind.

Come to think of it, he realized that since the day he went to investigate the cause for all the recent interest in the old cabin, he’d seen no one come in or out on the cabin road. Why would a mann leave his beautiful fraa alone in such a place? Times had changed. He shook his head again. Many Amish men found themselves seeking work outside the life of farming, but three days was not normal by any standards he’d heard of. She was young, too, maybe nineteen or twenty. Would she not be afraid with her mann nowhere in sight? “Alone” was not a word considered in the Amish world. There was family, community, and friends. “Alone” was a word only he preferred, or at least he thought he did.

And there was the local wildlife to consider. He’d heard the coyotes on the hill night before last, startling him from some much-needed sleep. He should have been used to the sounds of the hillsides surrounding him, but they were closer than before. Close as they were just days before clearing out his mutter’s chicken coop. Thankfully they silenced after a spell and he fell back to sleep knowing whatever game they had been chasing had lost its fight for survival, and this time not one new hen in his coop suffered.

He hoped Grace hadn’t been frightened by them. Tessie Miller should have never insisted on a woman in that condition living in such a place when she had plenty of room for Grace and her ehemann in her own home. Tess liked to be all hard sticks and as bitter as the late afternoon kaffi she always offered him on days he stopped in on his mutter’s dearest friend. But Cullen knew Tess’s heart, as few did, and it was wide and giving—when she wanted to use it, that was.

Pulling into Abram and Elli’s drive, Cullen again had to set aside all thoughts of the pretty blue-eyed newcomer. Why couldn’t he just shake these thoughts of her? Elli emerged from the creamery barn wiping her hands on her apron front. She went to the back side of the wagon and inspected his work.

“It looks wunderbaar, Cullen,” Elli praised following the curve of the upper arc with her hands. She had always been a fan of his talents, even going so far as to advertise word of mouth and hang a flyer on the front wall of her creamery. The number of customers that frequented Abram’s woodshop and Elli’s creamery had abetted his prosperity further than he could have imagined. It didn’t hurt that she had Englisch family who liked his products, too. If work ever slowed, he could hang a flyer up in other places, but for now that was the last thing he needed, as behind as he was. Business was good.

His daed would have been proud of him. Mutter too, if they were still here. Oh, how he wished they were still here. At least he had told them goodbye that morning before they left for town. If he had known it would be the last farewell he would ever give his parents, he would have hugged them, told them he loved them, too. One always thought they had more time to do such things, but he should’ve known better.

Of all people, Cullen knew better. Learning that lesson as a young man, to never forget to leave someone knowing they are in your heart, in case Gott called them away and in your heart was the only place they would ever be any longer. He shrugged off the despairing thoughts of his parents and began unloading the sign he had made for Abram.

“You can say ‘wonderful.’” Cullen teased. Elli was always trying to practice her German on him, but the way he saw it, she was Amish no matter her stumbling tongue.

“I promised Abram I would try harder, all recht.” She lifted a stubborn brow.

“All right.” He chuckled and got down from the buggy seat.

“Have you seen anything of your neighbor of late?” Elli asked, stretching her neck to look at him.

“Nee. Why?” With both arms extended fully, Cullen lifted the sign and rested it on the ground.

“Grace assured me she would be here at first light, but she never came. I hope the poor thing isn’t unwell. I gave her a number for a driver but never gave thought to see she had the means to afford one.” The worry etched on the two lines of Elli’s forehead told Cullen the always-positive woman was sincerely concerned.

“You told her there was a phone at the end of my place, didn’t you?” Cullen’s wasn’t the only Amish business that had a phone somewhere nearby. Amish weren’t permitted to have them in their homes, but a phone shanty far from one’s house had never caused concern and helped a great deal when dealing with customers. He should have thought to have offered that information himself when he met Grace. Somehow the surprise of her condition and the fact she was going to live in a shack fleeted it from his thoughts.

“Tess told her in case she wanted to call home and leave a message for her parents or her sisters.”

“Well, she didn’t attend church, either. Maybe she is waiting for her ehemann,” he shrugged. “New place all alone, maybe she is shy.” He hoped Elli didn’t think he had looked for Grace on Sunday. That wouldn’t be proper.

Elli laughed, causing his ears to warm. “She will attend the next one. She needs time to adjust to her new surroundings first. But she is not shy. Not really. And Grace has no husband.”

Cullen froze at that last bit of information. Slowly, as the words replayed, he felt his hands roll into fists. Tess had made it clear Grace would do as ordered, meaning Grace did not choose to be here. Cullen understood some husbands tended to be harsher than others, but now it seemed Grace was suffering a different fate. A newcomer, pregnant, unwed, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Grace was sent here as an act of punishment for jumping the fence and veering off the Amish path.

“Unwed,” he muttered. “Does the bishop know?”

“He does. Tess made sure of it,” Elli rolled her eyes. “Grace faced her community elders, accepted her punishment. As I understood it from Betty, she confessed before her church.”

“Then why is she not with her family, people who can care for her, help her?” His knuckles were going numb and he loosened his grip.

The repercussions of shunning, the hard lesson of love behind its purpose, brought the sinner face to face with the sin. Cullen understood and upheld the century-old method, seeing many a young wanderer slip into a worldly place of exploration after taking his baptism promising he would be of sound heart and surrendering will. But Grace was alone, in an unstable cabin not worthy for rats. Where was the other guilty party? It was best he kept some questions to himself.

“I don’t know, Cullen. I don’t know what makes one family be one way and the next, another. But she is here now.”

Grace had a cautious way about her, but when she locked gazes with him and those blue eyes turned icy over his unintentional insult, he knew better. “Is it normal for her to say she will do something and not?” Elli shrugged, and a small prick of concern crept into his gut. Cullen had just assumed that as a new member of the community, Grace would have had many who would have looked in on her.

“I just met her, so I don’t know her habits. She didn’t strike me as one who would forget her first day of work. She needs the wages too badly.” Of course she would under the circumstances.

Cullen’s heart sank inside itself. He had always been blessed with a warm home and a good meal and he, too, knew just how tempting the outside world could be. He had never thought to cross lines after his baptism, but lines had wavered in his youth. He had to give high marks to a sinner who faced her community, confessed her immoralities, and accepted her fate. There was something to be said about that alone.

“I’m heading back now and I will go look in on her,” Cullen said a bit more sternly than he meant to.

“We both will,” Elli said firmly. “Let me tell Hannah and Rachel where I am going.”