The Believer (11 page)

"You don't say." Issachar laughed as he took off his hat and ran his hand over the bald top of his head. "So that's what happened to my hair. The birds had need of it"

Elizabeth couldn't help smiling at him, but Hannah looked very solemn as she placed both hands on top of her head to protect her hair. "They can't have any more of mine. I aim to keep the rest:"

The younger man laughed so suddenly at Hannah's words that the horses threw up their heads and flared their nostrils in alarm. He calmed the horses with a cooing word, but his smile lingered as he met Elizabeth's eyes. She too was smiling at Hannah's worry, and their smiles met and seemed to make a bridge between their minds. It was as if they already knew one another when there was no way that could be.

His smile faded away, but his intense blue eyes bore into hers as if searching for an answer to a question he had yet to ask. Her heart did a funny skip inside her chest, and she felt suddenly breathless. It was a moment before she realized he had the same look on his face now as when earlier he had reached out to touch Aristotle. As if she were just as much a mystery to him as the dog had been.

Then guilt bloomed on his face and spread color across his cheeks. He jerked his eyes away from hers to peer over at Issachar. He seemed relieved that the older man's attention was still on Hannah. The next time he looked Elizabeth's way, he scooted his eyes quickly past her as though he feared meeting her eyes again.

What did she care, Elizabeth thought as she climbed into the back of the wagon with Payton and Hannah. Her father had said they were a peculiar people. But she didn't have to understand them. She just had to live with their ways until another way opened up. She could do that. They could do that. She looked at Payton and Hannah in the late afternoon light.

Apprehension sat on Payton's face as he kept glancing over his shoulder toward the Shaker men and the horses to see if he could catch a glimpse of their village on down the road. Hannah didn't once look toward where they were going, but instead sadly watched the trees along the road behind them as if she feared she might never again see a tree.

Elizabeth had some of the same feeling. Not for the trees, but that the course of her life was being altered forever. That perhaps she was giving up control of her own destiny and would never now realize her dream of marriage to a man she loved and babies of her own to nurture and love. She was not so young. Already twenty. Her time for finding love might pass her by while she was with the Shakers. She pushed the thought from her mind. It would be better to dwell on the truth that they would have shelter and food-without her having to enter into a loveless union with Colton Linley.

Issachar called back to them when the road began passing through the Shaker lands. Fields of corn stretched as far as the eye could see in one direction, and behind stone fences on the other side of the road were red and white cattle. Then they passed orchards with rows and rows of apple trees and another kind of tree she didn't recognize. When she asked Issachar, he said they were mulberry trees for the silkworms the sisters raised for the making of silk. Elizabeth couldn't even imagine how a person made silk from worms.

"I didn't know people made silk in our country," she said.

"Our sisters do," Issachar said with a laugh. "Very fine silk it is too:"

"God is in a Shaker's work," the younger man said.

Payton glanced over at Elizabeth. He looked ready to jump off the end of the wagon and run back down the road the way they had come.

She put her hand lightly on his arm. "We will learn," she whispered. "Perhaps it won't be as odd as it sounds now."

The fields were laid out in perfect angles, and she could not see even one weed among the rows of corn. Men dressed the same as Issachar and Ethan were spread across the fields cutting the cornstalks and stacking them in shocks for shucking.

"They work as long as they have the sun,' Issachar said. "There is much corn to gather before the winter comes. Only a little farther now until you will be able to see the village ahead"

She had a picture in her mind of what the village might look like from what their father had told them after his visit there, but she was still amazed at the impressive three-story brick buildings that came into view as they approached the village. Issachar said they were the families' houses. They rode past one of the houses and toward a large building rising up in the center of the village. Its white stone walls wouldn't have been out of place on a palace, but there were none of the fancy trimmings one might expect on such a structure. There were no fancy trimmings on any of the buildings. Yet in spite of their austere lines, the buildings were pleasing to the eye. Better yet, they looked substantial, strong. The builders of such structures had to be prosperous and industrious.

In fact, the people moving along the walkways between the houses and the smaller buildings scattered in behind them moved with purpose. No one stopped on the pathways to talk with another, as might be expected in a village, and although a few of the people sent curious glances their way, none paused to stare.

The men all were dressed the same as the Shaker men in the wagon, and the women wore blue dresses with large white collars crossed in the front and white aprons over the full skirts. White bonnets covered their heads and shaded their eyes from Elizabeth. The people were different sizes and shapes. Yet there was something so uniform about their look that Elizabeth thought of ants walking a line to their hills.

In the very middle of the village was a white frame building that would have looked large and impressive to Elizabeth except for the great stone building rising so amazingly into the sky opposite it. Both buildings had two front doors, as did nearly all the buildings they passed. The two-story frame building had nothing about it to suggest it was a church, but Issachar said it was their meetinghouse.

"That's where we worship;' the young Shaker named Ethan said without looking back at them, as if he wanted to be sure they knew the purpose of the building.

In behind the houses were fields of what looked like strawberry plants, although Elizabeth had never seen such a large patch. In among the buildings were smaller garden patches with herbs that Elizabeth recognized. Some of the same ones that she'd planted with her mother behind the cabin. Others she did not know.

Payton's head twisted back and forth as he tried to see it all. "I know Father told us of this, but did you imagine it so .. He hesitated, searching for the right word.

"Big?" Elizabeth offered.

"More even than that,' he said with a hint of awe in his voice. "`Grand' might describe it better. What must it take to raise such buildings?"

"Perhaps you will find out. Perhaps you can be a builder" Elizabeth smiled at Payton and then touched Hannah's head. `And one of these buildings is surely a school'

Hannah's eyes were open wide as she took in the Shaker village. Elizabeth sometimes forgot how little of the world Hannah had ever seen. She hadn't been quite two when they moved to the cabin in the woods and had not gone into the town since their mother died when she was four. All she knew of the outside world was what their father told her and what Elizabeth read to her from books.

"Are we still in Kentucky?" she asked as the young brother guided the horses around behind one of the large brick houses and stopped the wagon in front of a frame outbuilding.

The young Shaker man laughed out again as he had earlier as he looked around at Hannah. "Yea, my little sister. We are yet in Kentucky, but I understand your wonder. I felt the same when I first came into the village as a child. Our land is in the state of Kentucky, but it is not of the world."

"That sounds like a riddle" Hannah kept her eyes on him as he and Issachar climbed down from the wagon and came back to them.

"So it does;" Issachar said with a smile.

"A riddle that those of the world cannot solve;' Ethan said. He reached up to lift Hannah down from the wagon and then offered his hand to Elizabeth.

She smiled at him as she put her hand in his strong hand that was browned from his work in the sun. "My sister knows little of the world;" she said, again meeting his eyes with that strange feeling of a connection that had no way of being. For just a moment as she leaned on him to step down from the wagon, everything around them faded away. There was nothing but her and the young brother speaking without words.

"Brother Ethan;' a voice boomed out behind them. Alarm chased across Ethan's face, and he jerked back from her as if fire had shot from her hand to his.

She stumbled and might have fallen if Payton hadn't reached out to steady her.

"Brother Martin," the young brother said. He almost stuttered as he went on. "I did not see you there:"

"So it would appear" The man stepped forward. The lines of his broad face were stern and far from welcoming as he swept his eyes over Elizabeth, Payton, and Hannah. None of the sternness left his face as he turned his look back to Ethan. "But you must know that our Eternal Father sees us at all times"

"Yea, Brother Martin, I know it to be true," Ethan answered meekly. "I will strive harder to keep that truth in mind' He stepped away from Elizabeth quickly as if moving away from a steep riverbank about to crumble away under his feet.

"We will speak of it later," the man named Martin said as again his eyes settled on Elizabeth. "What have you and Brother Issachar brought back from the town?"

Not who. What. Elizabeth felt like the worm Payton had spoken of earlier. Perhaps she had gathered winter around her too soon. Perhaps seeking shelter among the Shakers was not the plan the Lord had made for her and Payton and Hannah. Hannah moved over against Elizabeth as if she hoped to hide among the folds of Elizabeth's skirt.

Issachar's voice was as kind as ever as he answered, "These three seek shelter among us. Their father has died and they have no food or place to live:" He leveled his eyes on Martin. "It is our duty to be kind to those in need"

"You need not remind me of the duties of a Believer" The Shaker man's eyes narrowed on Issachar.

"Nay, I do not;' Issachar said. "We are delivering the sugar we bought for the sisters' apple butter making here at the preserves house. After that, I will find one of the sisters to take charge of the two young sisters. Then I will help the young brother settle among us:'

"Yea, it will be your duty. You brought them among us;" Martin said.

"Yea, Brother Ethan and I." Issachar didn't look toward the other man as he reached into the wagon bed to pick up a sack of sugar.

Ethan looked as if he were being tugged in two different directions as he stood between the two men. At the same time, Elizabeth felt he was very aware of her standing there by the wagon waiting to be told what to do. Then she realized that the young brother was also waiting to be told what to do.

Issachar must have felt Ethan's discomfort as well, for he looked up at him and said, "I can unload the sugar without your help, Brother Ethan. Go on along with Brother Martin if that is what he desires:"

"Yea, it's almost time for the evening meal," the other man said as he stepped between Ethan and Issachar and took Ethan's arm and turned him away from the wagon.

"I will need to wash my hands and face,' Ethan said as Martin began hustling him away.

"Pray that is all you need to cleanse yourself of:" Martin peered over his shoulder back toward Elizabeth, but Ethan kept his eyes straight ahead.

Issachar turned with the sack of sugar on his shoulder and stood a moment watching the two men walk away with the hint of a frown between his eyes.

Elizabeth spoke up quietly. "I didn't mean to cause your young brother trouble:"

"Nay, you did not, my sister." Issachar pulled in a breath and let the frown slip away from his face. "Brother Martin has a fear of any breath of the world touching the young men he teaches. And you are of the world. I think he fears you may be a temptation to Brother Ethan"

"I have no desire to be a problem for him or for any of you.

"Our desires often ask no permission to war within us. Brother Ethan has much yet to learn of such things" Issachar turned to smile at her. "As do you:"

"I will try to learn the Shaker way. We all will:' Elizabeth put her arm around Hannah to give her courage. "Our father said he felt peace when he visited here last spring. That's all we seek with you. A chance to earn our way and to feel that peace.

"That isn't too much to ask;' he said. "Now come, young Brother Payton, and help me unload the sugar. I think the sisters are no longer here at the preserving house. All have gone to the biting rooms for the evening meal. That's dining rooms to you:"

"We're not causing you to miss your supper, are we?" Elizabeth asked.

"Worry not, my sister. All will be taken care of in due time" He climbed up the steps and opened the door into the preserving house. "First the sugar must be unloaded, and then we will take you to the Gathering Family house. There you will begin your life among us."

"Can we not just stay with you, Brother Issachar?" Hannah asked.

"Nay, my child. That is not the way of the Shakers"

"I do not know the way of the Shakers;" Hannah said. "I only know the way of the woods around our cabin"

Issachar looked at Hannah leaning against Elizabeth and for a moment the shadow of a frown came back between his eyes. But then he smiled. "You will learn, my little sister. I will pray it is not too hard for you."

But it was hard when they got to the Gathering Family house and the two sisters came out to them. One, called Sister Ruth by Issachar, was tall and angular with no smile on her face. Her sharp eyes looked them over as if for signs of the world they had come from yet clinging to them like the sticktights on their clothes. The other sister, Nola, was as short as the first sister was tall and a bit thick around the waist under her apron. She was smiling, welcoming them into the family even before Issachar told her their names. A few locks of gray hair sprang out from under her cap and curled down her neck. Sweat moistened her upper lip and sat in beads on her forehead. She took a plain cotton handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her face dry.