Rebecca's Promise Page 6

  There was an instant response. The sound of covers being pulled from creaky beds and feet hitting the floor was followed a little later by a patter on the stairs. Each child slid into his or her seat, and the table was quickly lined with five sleepy-eyed children, hungry for the pancakes set before them.

  “Let’s pray now before we all starve. Shall we?” Lester said, as the children bowed their heads in silence. Then after the “Amen,” there were no sounds except those made by a hungry family at the breakfast table.

  Mattie brought up the first conversation, after pulling the last pancake onto her plate. She announced quite suddenly, “Aunt Leona is having her baby, probably next week. She’s asked for Rebecca to help out. What do you think, Lester?”

  “When would she need to go?” Lester asked, turning options over in his mind.

  “There’s a load coming through on the way to Milroy. Saturday, I think,” Mattie said. “That might be a good time to catch a ride.”

  “Who’s going to Milroy?” Lester asked. “On Sunday, people were just here from there.”

  “No, this is a load from Holmes County,” Mattie said. “They want to be here by Wednesday, then travel out on Saturday morning. Older people. They have relatives here and in Milroy.”

  Lester nodded in understanding.

  Rebecca finally found her voice, grasping the implications of her mother’s words. “But what about the chores around here? And I’d have to tell John. Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  “That’s because I didn’t know. I only made my mind up this morning,” Mattie replied. “Leona has been after me about this, but I figured there would always be local help. Then I just got a letter from her on Saturday, saying that there have been two other births in the area, and two more are expected right soon. There does seem to be a real need. I’ll mail a letter this morning, telling her that you are coming, if that’s okay with you, Lester. I think it would be good for you to go, Rebecca. Matthew can take care of your chores. If not, I can fill in.”

  “Fine with me,” Lester said, shrugging his shoulders. This was women’s business, and he would only get so involved, and this was his limit.

  “Good, then it’s decided,” Mattie said. “You can tell John at a youth gathering this week, and I’m sure he’ll understand.”

  “But…” Rebecca started to say something, but her mother interrupted.

  “You’ll find a way. John will understand. It’s only for a week or so.”

  Rebecca nodded, knowing John probably would understand, but what she really wished he would understand had nothing to do with Leona’s baby.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rachel Byler stood by the kitchen window, washing the dishes. The suds rose on the water, stirred by her vigorous hand movements. And in her mind, thoughts were rising to the surface too, not yet forming a solid plan of action.

  She needed to speak with Luke. She had thought that after breakfast there would be a chance, but with the snowstorm, Reuben had wanted Luke to scrape the driveway.

  They were out in the driveway now, Reuben driving the steel-rimmed tractor with a drag attached by a chain. Luke followed, shoveling the trail of snow left on either side of the drag farther off to the side of the driveway. His shoulders were humped over, as his arms rose and fell with the swing of the shovel. Snowflakes, big, round, and heavy, swirled around the tractor and the shoulders of the two men.

  Anger rose up in Rachel as she watched them make the circuit—up to the barn, turn around, and back down the driveway. Visions of what some of the other local Amish farmers were no doubt using this morning flashed in her mind. Bishop Mose himself, his oldest son-in-law in charge of his farm, had a well-used, though still smart-looking, New Holland front-end loader on the place. Seated in such a contraption, a man could clean out a driveway in mere minutes. Such a machine would leave straight lines behind him in the snow and eliminate the need for hand shoveling. But that took money, which they did not have.

  Rachel sighed, forcing her eyes away. It would just have to be the way it was for now, but by God’s help and her own willingness to help Him, that would all change.

  Luke would be going to work as Emma’s hired hand later in the morning. Rachel knew she shouldn’t dislike Emma so much—after all, they certainly could use the money Emma paid Luke, which was more than the usual going rate for hired help on farms. Yet even so, Rachel couldn’t get past the fact that Emma was living on the farm that should have been hers. Even the money Luke was paid might have been from her father’s wealth.

  They, not Emma, should be living on that farm. Reuben and Luke should be running it. She belonged inside, cooking and taking care of the house. That beautiful house, with its fireplace in the bedroom, was really hers. And Luke ought to be looking forward to owning the place some day instead of working as a hired hand.

  She looked back at Reuben and Luke, now making their last round with the tractor, then disappearing into the barn with snow swirling around them. Moments later, Luke reappeared by himself, heading for the house. Reuben was nowhere in sight.

  Good, she thought, he’s coming in to get ready to go to Emma’s. Reuben won’t be in right away.

  When Luke opened the utility room door and stamped the snow off his boots, Rachel stuck her head and asked, “You going to Emma’s?”

  “Yes,” he replied, not looking up.

  “I want to talk to you first.”

  “How long will it take?” he asked, opening his coat, half taking it off. “With this snow, Emma will be expecting me to check on the cattle right away.”

  “This won’t take long,” she said.

  He finished taking his coat off, dropping it on the utility room floor. “So what do you want?” he asked, stepping inside and onto the rug.

  “Sit down,” she said.

  “Then I have to take my boots off,” he protested. “I don’t have time.”

  “Look,” she said sternly, “You have time for this. It involves your future.”

  Luke pulled his boots off and crossed the kitchen floor to take a chair. He waited there impatiently.

  “You know the story of how my father left his estate to Emma? All of it,” she began.

  “Of course,” he said. “Everyone knows that.”

  “I think she’s getting ready to do the same thing,” she told him flatly.

  “To us?” His face brightened.

  “No! To someone else.”

  “Has she told you?” he asked.

  “No! Of course not!” she snapped. “I wouldn’t be talking to you if she had. I think she’s doing the same thing my father did. She will cut us out…again.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Do you remember telling me that a strange car was at Emma’s house the other day?”

  He nodded. “I couldn’t see much from the back field, but the gray car was parked in front of the house for at least an hour.”

  “I think she’s talking to a lawyer,” she said solemnly.

  “Emma wouldn’t need a lawyer,” Luke said. “Surely she’s leaving the money to us. Who else would she leave it to?”

  “I don’t know,” Rachel said. “But before Dad died, he talked to a lawyer too. We found that out afterward. We didn’t know what to look for then. Maybe we would have noticed. Now,” she paused to look at him and then continued, “we know what to look for. There’s no reason to miss the signs.”

  “So what am I supposed to do about it?” Luke muttered, not convinced. “Ask her who it was? I don’t think she likes me all that well.”

  “Don’t say that,” she told him. “Don’t even think it. Of course she likes you. You’re family. She pays you well. For now, just keep your eyes open. If something comes up in a conversation, try to ask questions without sounding suspicious. Find out what you can about who’s visiting her.”

  “I can try,” he said, unpersuaded.

  “You have to,” she told him. “It’s our only chance for good information. There’s no us
e in me asking her anything. She’s not going to tell me. If Emma is contacting a lawyer, it can only mean one thing.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know.” She turned to look out the kitchen window, catching sight of Reuben heading toward the house. “Depending what her plans are, maybe we can go to Bishop Mose.”

  “Like he’s going to meddle in a family matter,” Luke said.

  “If it’s bad enough, he will.” She glanced out the kitchen window again. “Your dad is coming in. You’d better go.”

  “How much money is involved?” Luke asked, as he walked toward the utility room in his stocking feet, stopping at the rug for his boots.

  “An awful lot,” she said.

  His face gleamed as he reached for his boots. “That and some farms?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Now you see why I’m worried?”

  He just grunted without looking at her, pulling on his boots. When his father opened the door, his coat was already on.

  “Leaving for Emma’s?” Reuben asked.

  “Yeah,” he muttered, without looking up. “I’m a little late.”

  “Well, our driveway needed to be done,” his father said. “The work at Emma’s could wait.”

  “I suppose so,” he allowed. “It’s just that there’s feed to put out. Then I need to make sure the cattle can get under shelter and out of the weather.”

  “Has she got enough room for all the cattle inside?” Reuben asked, not remembering Emma’s layout exactly.

  Of course she does, Rachel thought bitterly, with all that money.

  “With the shelters in the fields, there’s enough,” Luke said.

  “How many cattle are on the home farm?” his father wanted to know.

  “Over two hundred head,” Luke replied. “The other farms—I don’t know.”

  “She’s got a lot of money,” Reuben chuckled. “No wonder your mother wanted some of it. Seems like there should have been enough to go around. Include all the family. Ever wonder why old M-Jay didn’t leave your mother her share?”

  “Maybe he didn’t like us,” Luke said.

  “I doubt if that’s the reason,” Reuben said. “M-Jay was a strange fellow. Good church member though. Never gave us a bit of trouble. At least during the time I was deacon.”

  Rachel cleared her throat, suddenly desperate to steer this conversation in another direction. “You shouldn’t be calling your father-in-law strange,” she said. “You married his daughter. Remember?”

  “That I did,” he acknowledged. “It was a good choice. Still a good choice.”

  Luke opened the door to leave. “I’ll be back at the regular time,” he said over his shoulder.

  Moments later his buggy went out the semi-plowed driveway, his horse shaking its head against the flurry of snowflakes.

  Reuben settled down at the kitchen table and said, “Rachel, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  Pulling a chair up to the opposite side of the table, she nervously sat down. “Yes,” she said meekly.

  “We have a problem in the barn,” he said, without looking up from the kitchen table. “The black driving horse is down.”

  “Is it serious?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “I should go down and call the vet. It can’t get up in the stall.”

  “We just drove it yesterday,” she said. “There was nothing wrong then.”

  “I know,” he acknowledged. “Maybe it’s nothing serious.”

  “So when are you calling the vet?” she asked him.

  He sighed, his eyes still focused on the kitchen tabletop. “That’s the problem.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Money. The checking account is empty,” he said flatly.

  “When is more coming in?” she asked.

  “I took some cattle in to the sale barn last week. It’ll be another week before we have the check.”

  “It’s that bad then,” she stated, more than asked, bitter feelings rising as they had so many other times when money was short. It brought her conversation with Luke to mind. “Maybe you should have been more concerned when my father left me with no money. If you had tried harder, the bishop might have been willing to do something with Emma.”

  He sighed deeply. “You know how I feel about that. Money isn’t the answer to everything. Just something to cause family feuds over. We must leave money matters in God’s hands.”

  Anger flooded through her. She bit her tongue. It would be no good to tell him what she thought—it would only complicate things.

  “God will surely supply,” Reuben concluded.

  “It would be nice if He supplied us with something now, when we need it,” she said, keeping her voice even.

  “I’m sure He will,” he replied. “We’ll make it somehow.”

  She said nothing more as he put his coat and boots back on and headed out the door. But one thing was clear to her: Something would have to be done.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Luke kept his hat low on his head, even though the snow couldn’t reach him inside the single-seated buggy. Although the roads were nearly impassable for automobiles, one did pass him, going slowly down the road near where he turned toward Emma’s on South Base Road.

  Ahead of him and on the left, he made out the entrance to the home farm—now Emma’s farm—where he had gone as a child with his mother many times and where he now worked. The graveled driveway curled upward from the main road, cresting on a slight knoll three hundred yards in.

  A large red bank barn flanked the white two-story house. Behind the house were two more barns and metal structures that were built while his grandfather was still living. Fences came up to within a hundred feet of the front yard, leaving its dozen or so large oak trees standing free. Like solitary sentinels in a clump, they stood beside each other. They had been there since Luke could remember.

  He drove his buggy straight to the bank barn and parked under the overhang on the lower level before climbing out. Unhitching, he took the horse into the barn, tied it up, and ran over the list in his mind of what needed to be done that day. Emma would be expecting him to head straight to his duties. He supposed his mother’s concerns would simply have to wait for whenever there was time for them.

  After his horse was fed, he headed for the year-old New Holland front-end loader. He turned the key for the warm-up in preparation for starting, the display showing it needed nineteen seconds. While he waited, he got out and opened the sliding door in the direction of the driveway.

  Behind him, his horse kicked vigorously on the side of the stanchion he had placed him into. “Quit it,” Luke shouted. The horse was now well-fed, so there was no reason for unhappiness.

  Sticking his head into the New Holland, the display told him the warm-up was done. He climbed in and turned the key. Almost new. Emma had told him last year to trade in the old New Holland at the equipment dealer in Rushville. He never mentioned such transactions at home, knowing how his mother would react. If he reported Emma’s expenditures, the news always caused a severe pained look to cross his mother’s face.

  He doubted whether Emma wanted the driveway cleared before he looked at the cattle, so he headed toward the pastures, pushing snow out of his way as he went. Cattle met him at the gate behind the house, their heads dusted with snow. He shooed them away before opening the gate. After driving through, he hopped back out to shut the gate behind him. Heading to the nearest shelter where the hay was stored, he chased more cattle away.

  Emma kept beef cattle on each of her three farms, preferring that to milking, which was the preference of most of the Amish farmers in the area. Luke’s father was no exception, of which he was glad. Milking held no attraction for him.

  “Less work,” Emma had once told him, “yet it still brings in a nice income.”

  That it did, he supposed, if you had three farms. She paid him well enough though, and he was not about to complain. At Emma’s
other two farms, she maintained renters who took care of the cattle for a reduced rent.

  Luke was aware that requests were periodically made to Emma to sell her farms, because she had told him. He also knew that she always refused, but she had never told him the reason for her refusals.

  Opening the gates surrounding a long row of round hay bales, he then cut another notch back on their plastic coverings, picking up a bale with the forks and driving outside. The cattle paid scant attention to him as he dropped it beside the partly eaten bale that was already there. They were well-fed, these cattle, at Emma’s insistence. This came as much from her principles as from a desire for fat cattle, he supposed. Too much hay allowed the cattle to trample it under their feet, but that bothered Emma less than cattle without hay at their beck and call.

  An hour later, after checking two more pastures, he headed back toward the house and parked the New Holland in the front yard. Knocking on the back door, he waited.

  “Come on in,” Emma called, his signal to enter.

  Emma was in the living room, seated at her little roll-top desk, a legal tablet open in front of her. This was how she appeared to him when he thought of her because she was often here when he came into the house, businesslike, perched at her desk. A gas lantern was lit and hung from a hook just behind the desk, even at this time of the day. The usual Amish frugality required that lights be turned off as soon as the sun came up, but Emma was different.

  This morning he was struck again by her commanding figure. Her hair, done up in the usual Amish head covering, did little to dilute the effect of her presence.

  She turned to him, her eyes characteristically serious, and said, “Good morning, Luke.”

  “Good morning,” he replied, waiting just under the arched opening between the dining room and kitchen. Built by the English in the early 1930s, the house had features not normally seen in Amish homes, including the elaborate stone fireplaces in both the living room and the master bedroom. Not that Luke had been in the bedroom recently, but he remembered it from his childhood visits.