Arms of Love (30 page)

T
he early morning sun made a slatted patchwork on the floor of the Wyse kitchen as Adam came to sit down at the table. He reached for a chunk of bread and caught his
bruder’s
eye. “So where’s your future bride?”

Isaac lowered the book he was reading and yawned. “She told
mamm
she was homesick and ran back this morn.”

Adam dropped his spoon. “You mean you let her go alone, through the woods, at this hour?”

“Boys!” their
mamm
pleaded. “Keep quiet; your fater is having a bit of a lie in this morn.”

“
Ya
, Adam, truly,” Isaac said. “When I wed Lena, are you going to keep up this incessant babble over her? You act like a moon-eyed calf.” His tone wasn’t challenging, simply matter of fact, but it was the straw that snapped the mule’s back for Adam.

He rose and leaned across the table, calmly took the book from his brother’s hands, and stretched his arms forward to grab his collar.

“Adam,” his mother exclaimed in alarm, coming over from the sideboard to the table. “Adam, sei se
gut
. Take your hands from your brother. ’Tis sin.”

“Is it?” Adam asked in a quiet voice, ratcheting up his grip so that Isaac was now inches off his seat.

“Yes,” his father’s voice intoned nearby. “It is. Put him down and go from the table. I will speak with you out by the barn.”

Adam dropped his hold so fast that Isaac almost fell backward off the bench. Then he stalked from the house without his hat, not meeting his father’s eyes.

Lena was surprised to see Bishop Mast looking pale and aged. The man was normally bursting with good health and vitality, but now he required her father’s help to lift him down from his faithful mule, Bud.

“
Ach
, I took a bad fall last week. Tried to tend it a bit, but I am afraid it’s got a
gut
hold now. I’ve had the fever and chills too.”

Lena and Ruth rushed to fluff up the pallet before the low fire in the hearth as
Fater
and John brought the bishop in and eased him down onto the pile of blankets.

“
Ach
, now this is comfort. I thank you, Samuel. Ladies. Where is fair Mary?”

Her father cleared his throat. “Our Mary died in childbirth, but the Lord blessed us with a new daughter. Faith, Mary named her.”

The bishop closed his eyes for a moment. “Samuel . . . I am sorry for your loss.”

“
Danki
,” her father murmured.

“Shall we tend your leg then?” Lena asked, and the older man nodded.

“
Ya
, do whatever you might.”

Lena glanced at Ruth. “I am not so skilled in healing,” she murmured, her mother’s death all too familiar in her mind.

Ruth patted her arm. “Let me have a look then.”

Ruth knelt and unwrapped the makeshift bandage that covered the lower leg. Lena caught the sickening smell of diseased flesh and steeled herself not to turn away. “What do you need, Ruth?” she asked.

“I must clean this first, but it will hurt a bit, I am afraid, sir.”

The bishop waved a weary hand. “Your hands are gentle, mistress.

Do what you need.”

Lena brought rags and water, and Ruth cleaned out the deep wound, causing the bishop to grasp Samuel’s hand tightly.

“Now,” Ruth announced. “John. Run to the creek bed with a bucket and dig down deep beneath the stones and water. Bring back the darkest mud you can find. And, Lena, I need cobwebs.”

Lena flushed. “I—I do not think the house that messy, Ruth.”

The other woman laughed. “Nay, from the outside porch corners, maybe. They will work to bind the wound together and bring about healthy clots.”

Lena hastened to gather cobwebs from the porch, brushing the disgruntled spiders out of her way until she had a whole handful of the sticky stuff. She went back inside, and John soon arrived, huffing with the wet bucket.

Ruth unceremoniously scooped a handful of the dark, earthysmelling mud from the bucket and slapped it into the wound. She continued until all of the reddened skin was covered, then added Lena’s layer of cobwebs. Then she drew a piece of muslin tightly about the whole area, and the bishop breathed a sigh of relief.

“Now,” Ruth admonished, “you must rest and keep this leg up a bit. No traveling on your mule ’til I see some pink and healthy skin a-growin’. Do you hear?”

Lena flushed at Ruth’s tone. Didn’t she know she was speaking not to a child but to the leader of all the regional Amish? But to her surprise, Bishop Mast responded with a polite and deferential nod.

“Ya, mistress. I will do as you say.”

Ruth got to her feet. “Call me Ruth, good sir. Everyone else does hereabouts. Now how about a hard cider to help ease the pain a wee bit?”

Lena cringed again and looked to her father. Everyone knew that hard cider was not something the bishop would partake of.

“I would love some hard cider, Samuel,” Bishop Mast said with a sigh. “If you have any on hand . . . for medicinal purposes.” His blue eyes twinkled.

“Ya, surely.” Her father hurried off to the cellar, while Lena considered that things were not always as they were expected in life.

Joseph walked outside to the barn area and found Adam splitting wood with ruthless abandon. He decided that things must be handled delicately at this juncture. He didn’t want to push Adam too much.

“You cannot lay hands on your brother, no matter your feeling,” he began with caution.

“Yet you have found it an easy enough pleasure to lay hands on me over the years,” Adam ground out, hefting the axe.

“One thing has nothing to do with the other. When you have
kinner
—”

Adam caught his eye over the axe handle and shot him a wicked grin. “When I have kinner I can feel free to beat them as I please?

Sorry . . . don’t plan on having any.” He let the axe fly again, and Joseph resisted the urge to take a step backward.

“I understand why you are angry,
sohn
.”

“Do you? I think not. You don’t understand the first thing about love. Somehow you managed to wrangle
Mamm
from her family without their being aware of what a tight-handed wretch they were letting her go to.”

A splinter of wood hit Joseph’s cheek, and the flame of anger began to grow in him at the boy’s words. “So that would make you the
sohn
of a wretch, would it not?”

Adam threw the axe so that it landed in the woodpile, then swung to face his father, gold eyes glistening. “I know you,
Fater
. I saw you break the windows in the house. I don’t know why, but I have a
gut
idea that it was to keep our family’s nose properly bent in front of the other Amish. It must mean that you’ve paid off someone here or there, while other, truer men sit in prison.”

It took everything within him for Joseph not to strike his son.

Instead he caught Adam by the collar and pulled him close.

“You will shut your mouth or leave this land. Do you understand?

You will remember who it is that governs this family and offers you the protection of a roof and labor. You will stop abusing your
bruder
and losing your head over a skirt. You will grow up!”

“
Fater
! Stop!”

It was Isaac, walking with purposeful strides toward them. Slowly Joseph let his hands drop.

Isaac came close and studied Adam, as if looking for some sign of abuse. “
Fater
, you will not lay hands on Adam. He serves you well— in truth, better than I, for he wrestles with his temper and I can’t even seem to find mine—until now. I tell you that if you ever again hurt Adam physically, I will pack my things and leave without looking back.”

Joseph looked at his sons, reading the disgust written on both of their faces. He knew he should make some response, show some sign of power to squelch this uprising, but he couldn’t seem to think. He turned on his heel and stalked toward the house.

Adam stared at his
bruder
, wondering what had happened, surprised at the dark intensity of Isaac’s gaze. “Isaac . . . what are you about?

You mustn’t damage your relationship with our
fater
over me. This was nothing.”

“I have been less than a man, Adam. I’ve watched him beat you for years, and I tell you that this is not the way to treat a
sohn
. If I had more character, I would have stopped him long ago, but I did not. I was afraid for my own place. The Bible tells us not to fear. Anytime a man makes a decision based on fear, it produces bad consequences. In this case, I have slept blissfully through the years while you have endured the brutality of the lash and much else. I ask for your forgiveness, though I do not hope that you will give it. I do not deserve it.”