The Pike, Indian Territory, 1868
“Look Elnora!” Samuel’s German accent thickened the English words and gave them a musical feel. He pointed to the vast expanse that spread before them. “That’s what the English call The Pike. Many are traveling west on this very road.”
Elnora peeked out from the wagon. “So, this is Indiana Territory.” Her eyes searched the desolate vastness. She giggled. “I see, Samuel. Many are traveling this road.”
Samuel swiveled on the driver’s seat to look at his wife. He shrugged and a smile played at the corners of his lips. “Perhaps all our fellow travelers have already passed for the day.”
“I miss Canada.” Heloise Graber kept her voice soft when Elnora turned back toward her. “But not as much as I miss Germany.” Heloise patted the back of the baby snuggled down in the cornflower blue quilt Elnora had stitched just for him.
“At only two years of age, your sweet baby Joseph has already crossed an ocean and three countries.”
Heloise, the older of the two friends, looked lovingly at her infant son.
Elnora’s face fell as her hand fluttered to her still-flat stomach.
Heloise covered Elnora’s hand with hers. “Your time to become a mother is coming. God has a special plan for you and Samuel, I can feel it.”
Elnora’s lower lip trembled. “I must say, at least the weather is more agreeable in Indiana Territory than in Canada. I may pack the extra quilts when we stop to rest.” She swiped at a trickle of sweat as it slid down her nose.
“You’ll do no such thing!” Heloise placed one long, thin hand on an especially fluffy blue quilt. “It may be a trifle warm but pass those blankets over here. I’ll sit on them; they ease the rickety ride.”
The women dissolved into a sea of girlish giggles.
“Yours are the softest quilts of anyone else’s in the village.”
“Take them with you when we swap wagons,” Elnora offered her fiery-tressed friend.
Heloise shook her head. The straps on her black head covering flailed about her shoulders. “It’s not the same,” she insisted. “Part of what makes Elnora Stoll’s quilts so soft is the wonderful company that comes along with them.”
Samuel’s quick yank on the horse reins interrupted Heloise’s compliment.
“Lucas, is that what I think it is?” Samuel’s voice grew higher as he called to Heloise’s husband in the next wagon.
The two women stared at one another, their eyes wide.
“Ja!” Lucas answered. “Ja, it is.”
Before Elnora could pull herself up to see the cause of the commotion, Samuel was off the driver’s seat. She peeked out to see the menfolk piling out of all the wagons. Lucas was even with Samuel, holding his hat on with one hand and pumping the air with the other. Simon Wagler, Sarah’s husband, stumbled as he ran, fumbling with the black braces that looped over his shoulders and held up his britches. On their wagon seat, Sarah nuzzled their infant Elijah, who’d let out a shriek with the sudden stop.
Isaac Raber pulled on his broad-brimmed hat as Jeremiah Knepp, Simeon Odon, and Abraham Yoder pulled their wagons to a halt in a haphazard line. In an instant, all the men of the families who’d come so far together were running toward the remnants of an overturned English wagon.
Pieces of the torn canvas fluttered in a passing breeze and the box itself lay on its side,
Elnora drew a fist to her mouth. “Did it roll off The Pike?”
Blood spatters dotted the ground around the silvery dust that refused to settle around the scene. Splintered wheels hung broken and unmoving from the axels.
Heloise’s breath caught in her throat. “No. Indians.”
Beyond Samuel, Elnora could make out the remains of a horse just over a small rise. She searched for any sign of the tell-tale arrows she’d heard so much talk of during their journey to Indiana Territory—which was also Indian Territory. She trembled as a prayer of forgiveness for judging those she didn’t even know filled her mind.
Heloise’s voice was solemn, as if in prayer. “God be with them. All of them.”
The men’s chatter, broken by the shifting breezes, allowed Elnora only fragments of their hurried conversation.
Lucas’s voice was the loudest. “No survivors.”
Slowly, the large German-born man trudged back to his wagon without so much as a glance toward Elnora and or his wife.
Without expression, Lucas rummaged only a moment before he pulled the hand-hewn spade from the wagon bed and started back toward Samuel and the others.
Careful not to snag her handmade purple dress on the rough wood, Elnora climbed out of the wagon and made her way to the crash. She didn’t speak until she reached her husband, who took the spade from Lucas as he passed.
Not a word was shared between the two men, but it was as though they were of a single mind. Samuel dug the sharp end of the spade into the earth, oblivious to his wife’s presence. Spadeful by spadeful, the grave dirt he turned became a small mound at his feet.
He swiped at the trails of sweat that leaked from under his broad-brimmed hat and down his neck. Beneath his arms, circles of moisture had long since stained his favorite blue shirt.
Elnora folded her arms as the memory of their first anniversary, when she’d given him the shirt she’d made for him that matched his eyes, filled her mind. He had pretended not to notice that one sleeve was a little shorter than the other. Two years have passed since that day, and we’re still without a child...
Finally, she spoke. Her voice was but a meek whisper. “May I tidy them before their burials?”
Samuel turned and revealed the scene of death they’d encountered more fully.
Elnora’s stomach twisted in knots at the sight of the mangled, crimson-streaked arm as it reached lifelessly from behind the overturned wagon. The blackness of death was already visible on the fingertips.
A crumpled bag, obviously store-bought, lay near the bloodied arm that pointed eerily at a rainbow of quilting squares that trailed the barren earth. Elnora dipped and retrieved a bright blue square that would never become a quilt to warm a babe. She rubbed the fabric between her fingers and looked at her husband with watery eyes.
Samuel rested Lucas’ spade against his leg and offered a downcast smile to his wife.
Before he could speak, a shrill cry broke the solemn silence.
As out of place as the cry was among the sea of death, Elnora recognized the sound in an instant. “An infant’s cry.”
She searched the terrain until another wail pierced the air. At once, her gaze fixed on a lone, scrubby bush. Elnora tucked the English quilting square deep into her dress pocket and ran. Her chest heaving, she reached the bush in a moment. Without bothering with her dress or her covering, she dropped to her knees. Instinctively, her hands clawed and searched through the summer leaf litter. The angry wail came again. Finally, something warm brushed her fingertips.
Elnora rose to face the throng of women who had gathered to witness the unfolding miracle. When she turned, the English baby whimpered in her arms.
“It’s a girl,” Elnora proclaimed.
Sarah Wagler’s mouth hung agape as she bounced Elijah absently on her hip, and the other Amish wives and mothers from the wagon train allowed tiny smiles to creep onto their solemn lips. Even the menfolk paused.
Elnora’s voice was uncharacteristically robust. “Not a scratch on her! Not a bruise, not a drop of blood.”
Heloise, toting wide-eyed Joseph in her arms, stepped forward to get a better look.
Elnora’s voice took on the soft shushing of a new mother as she rocked the squirming infant. “Hush now, sweet one. You’re safe now.”
“You’re a natural,” Heloise observed. Her eyes twinkled. “Look how she’s already calming. She feels safe.”
She is safe, Elnora thought as she gazed at the tiny girl. Safe with me. Safe with us.
“Come,” Heloise whispered. “Get her to the wagon and out of this sun.”
Sarah fell into step beside her friend, her blue eyes also transfixed on the English baby. “It’s a miracle she wasn’t injured...or worse.”
“I boiled goat’s milk for Katie and Annie,” Katherine Knepp cooed as she and the other women joined them. “I have extra. This little one must eat.”
Esther Odon nodded. “I have some girl clothes she can have.”
Dinah Yoder placed her arm around Esther’s shoulders. The memory of Esther’s hard labor on the trail which resulted in a stillborn baby girl was a raw one in all the women’s minds.
Tears pricked Elnora’s eyes. “Danke. Thank you, all.”
Day turned quickly to night as the Amish women fawned over the tiny infant who seemed to have dropped straight from heaven, leaving the men to finish the burials by moonlight.
***
“I understand your wanting to keep her, Elnora.” Samuel’s patient voice was gentle when he finally returned to the wagon. Gentle and firm. “Especially since the Lord has yet to bless us with children of our own.”
Elnora fixed her eyes on the baby who lay asleep in the nest of pillowy quilts in the wagon bed. Usually, Elnora was unable to tear her gaze from the stars in the night sky. They seemed to wink at each other in the blackness, making her think they were simply bright young children, playing gotcha-games in Heaven. Tonight though, Elnora couldn’t force herself to look away from the tiny miracle of a girl.
“Gelassenheit,” she whispered. “We must trust His divine reasons and timing.”
“We simply can’t keep her. She is not one of us.” Samuel exhaled and swiped his gritty hands on his britches. Exhaustion weighted his words.
“Ja, Samuel, but those she belonged to are now with Our Lord.” Elnora sucked in a breath. “Aren’t we all children of God?”
Her gentle voice wafted with the night breezes.
Samuel rubbed the bridge of his nose. The other men had returned to their families and were already fast asleep in their wagons, evident by several different tones of snoring. He stifled a yawn. “Ah, Elnora. I love you and your compassionate heart. I want so to make you a happy wife.”
“You do, Samuel.”
The baby stirred and began to squeak. Elnora’s voice was tender as she plucked the rooting babe from the nest of blankets. “Come here, Rebekah.”
“Oh mein! You’ve given her a name?”
She smiled and rocked Rebekah to and fro.
Sarah Wagler’s shy voice came from somewhere in the near darkness. “Elnora? Samuel? Are you awake?”
“Yes Sarah, we are.” Elnora bounced Rebekah in her arms, but the infant’s squeaks grew into angry coughs and sputters.
“I heard the baby fussing.”
Crimson colored Elnora’s cheeks. “I’m sorry to have woken you Sarah—”
Her friend waved a hand and cut her off. “Oh no. You see, the baby sounds hungry.” The flickering firelight from the Wagler’s dying fire illuminated her timidity. “And Elijah is only six-months-old. So, I thought I might feed her until…”
Worried creases melted from Elnora’s face. “Thank you for your kind offer, Sarah. We call her Rebekah. Danke.”
Sarah accepted Rebekah gently. She picked her way amid the carefully stacked wares and items back toward her wagon. “Ah, sweet Rebekah,” she cooed. “I will share with you the story of your namesake.”
“Wake me when you bring her back,” Elnora whispered loudly enough for Sarah to hear.
As Sarah and Rebekah retreated to the Wagler wagon, Samuel turned back to his wife. His hazel eyes shone with the tender light of a father. He squatted and scooped both her hands into his. “Elnora, would it be agreeable to you if we keep the child—”
She nodded so that the straps of her covering bounced against her shoulders.
Samuel’s face clouded over. “Dear wife, if we keep her safe only until another English wagon happens by?”
With pain cramping her heart, Elnora managed a compliant smile. “That is agreeable, husband.”
Her words hung in the air as the song of a night bird laced the momentary silence with hope. “But what should become of Rebekah should we not meet another English traveler?”
Samuel’s white teeth gleamed above his inky beard. He stood and ran his thumbs along the inside of his black braces. “Elnora, the English are moving west in droves.” He extended his hand and helped her to her feet. “The Pike is rumored to be the most traveled route in The United States now. We will meet more English; you’ll see.”
Elnora couldn’t meet his warm and weary gaze and instead nodded at the ground.
“Come, wife, let’s go to bed.”
With a heavy heart, she complied. When she laid next to her husband, Elnora closed her eyes tighter than she ever had before. Whether it was to hasten sleep or hold in the tears, she couldn’t be sure.
***
Over the remaining two days of their trip, the wagon train of Amish families moving south from Canada only saw each other.
Elnora kept her voice quiet as they approached their final stop. “Not a single wagon filled with English people has passed.”
Heloise was much too charmed with Rebekah to be bothered with watching for English wagons. “Such a good-natured baby.” Her voice lilted. “At this age, Joseph did nothing but cry.”
Elnora cupped Rebekah’s silken head in her palm and stroked the blonde wisps above her tiny ears. “And she has so much hair.” Elnora’s voice took the same tone as Heloise’s.
Her friend narrowed her wise, blue eyes. “That means she will be healthy.”
“We’re home!” Samuel announced. “Wilkommen to Daviess County, Indiana Territory!”
Elnora plopped Rebekah into a quilt-lined basket. Her eyes welled as Samuel helped her from the wagon. “Oh Samuel, it looks just like Germany!”
He beamed. “So, you are happy then?”
“I am so happy. Danke! What a beautiful place to raise a family. And there is ample wood for your woodworking—”
Elnora gestured wide with one arm toward the thick woods that ringed the clearing. Oak trees that seemed to scratch the floor of heaven stood tall and majestic as their leaves waved in the tender breeze. Shorter, wider trees, blooming in varying shades of snow white and blush pink, punctuated the deep greens and browns of the oaks and lent the entire area a magical feel.
Samuel’s large hand came to rest on her shoulder and successfully squelched her gracious spiel.
“Dear wife, I will go in to Montgomery tomorrow to find an English family to take the child. It will be best for everyone if she is with her own kind.”
Elnora sucked in a hard breath and willed the sudden fringe of tears not to spill onto her cheeks. She held Samuel’s gaze. There, in the hazel eyes she knew so well, she caught a glimpse of the same dull ache she felt beneath her ribs.
She patted her husband’s hand as the threat of those selfish tears subsided. “If it is best for Rebekah, then you must do as you will,” she agreed.
The tugging on the tender ends of her shattered heart, however, didn’t concur.
***
“What do you suppose Samuel found out in Montgomery?” Sarah’s whisper of a voice was edged with curiosity as she rocked both Rebekah and Elijah. The chair was a wedding present to Lucas and Sarah from Samuel and Elnora. Despite the numerous long-distance moves, the precious rocker had held up well as a testament to Samuel’s craftsmanship. Not a squeak sounded from the rockers.
Elnora glanced at the midday sun. “He has been gone since before dawn.”
No sooner had the words passed her lips than the sound of horse hooves called everyone’s attention to the horizon. Samuel was back.
“Here, take Rebekah,” Sarah offered knowingly.
When she was situated in the crook of her arm, Rebekah snuggled against Elnora and sighed a tiny baby sigh.
Oh my, she sounds content.
Samuel dismounted in one easy motion. “Elnora, I’m back.”
Without any tell-tale sign on his tanned face, he strode to where Elnora sat with Rebekah. His black felt hat seemed to loom over her, threatening to unleash its gloomy news all over the both of them. Samuel squatted down beside her.
Never one to mince words, he spoke plainly. “I met the Englishman who owns the livery in Montgomery. He gave me good news and bad news.”
Elnora resisted the urge to look down at the angelic girl in her lap and instead, focused solely on Samuel. “Let us have the good news first.”
“I took a wooden wheel and the owner agreed to buy my woodwork.”
The sides of her eyes crinkled as her lips thinned into a smile of the most genuine sort. “Ja, that is wonderful, Samuel!”
“After business was discussed, I asked if he knew of any suitable English families looking to take in a baby.”
The comfortable sounds of home that had hummed about them faded to silence with Samuel’s words.
Elnora’s voice came out in a squeak. “What did the shopkeeper say?”
Samuel glanced at the child in his wife’s arms. With one large finger, he stroked her tiny cheek. At his touch, Rebekah cooed and began sucking in her sleep. Samuel smiled.
“He said there are no families willing to take in a child. What families there are have all pulled up stakes and headed west. Gold fever, he called it.”
Elnora’s eyes widened, and she began to sway ever so slightly, dancing with the idea of this perfect baby becoming theirs. Forever.
Samuel’s eyes never wavered from Rebekah. “He said if we happened upon an unwanted child, there are places called orphanages where these children are kept.”
Elnora stopped swaying.
“These orphanages are filled with unwanted children, thrown away by the English, or whose parents have died. Those children have no one.”
Rebekah let out a sweet baby noise and opened her eyes.
“When they get too full of children, as they are now, they put them on orphan trains. They send them from city to city in hopes they will find a home on their own.”
Elnora gasped and clutched the orphan child closer to her breast.
Samuel sighed and stood. “Wife, you know what we have to do.”
Elnora shook her head infinitesimally. “Oh, Samuel.”
He cupped his hands round his mouth. “Families, please come here! I have an announcement.” He leaned forward and plucked the baby from Elnora’s arms.
When everyone had gathered around the Stolls, Samuel spoke again.
“I would like to introduce you all to our daughter, Rebekah Elnora Stoll.” The fatherly glimmer shone again in his eyes.
Simon clapped Samuel on the back. With a teasing note in his voice, he chimed, “If we keep acquiring family members, we will have to call this settlement the Stoll Inn!”
Samuel puffed his chest and proudly displayed his daughter on his arm. “You’re right, Simon. This place may become a regular village inn.”
Elnora’s voice was meek. “Then perhaps we should call our settlement Gasthof.”
Samuel’s free hand found hers and gave it a squeeze. “How clever, dear wife. Gasthof. The German word for inn. I believe it fits our new home perfectly.”