Huckleberry Hill (17 page)

Moses sighed as if all the weariness in the world had caught up to him. He let go of the girls’ hands and trudged to the buggy where Rachel waited impatiently. Lia didn’t hear what they said to each other, but she saw Moses cup his hand under Rachel’s chin. Rachel’s expression softened, and she scooted farther into the buggy as Moses slid the door shut.

Hannah came from the house with two bulging canvas bags as Roy pulled into the driveway in his clunky white van.

“Cum,” said Lia. “Get in.”

She herded the children to the van while Moses gave Roy instructions. Peter lifted all three of his little sisters into the backseat, and Lia helped them buckle their seat belts and handed each of them a tissue from her bag. She saw Moses give Roy two twenty-dollar bills. Hiring a driver wasn’t cheap.

The two boys climbed into the middle seat and buckled their seat belts. Hannah chose the front seat. Moses came around the front of the van and motioned for Hannah to roll down her window. He glanced at Lia and then held out his hand to Hannah. Lia caught a glimpse of green that could only be more cash. “Call my cheese factory if you need anything.”

Hannah nodded but didn’t speak.

Moses signaled Roy. “Let me know if more is needed.”

Roy put his van into gear and backed out of the driveway. Hannah kept her eyes glued to Moses’s face until Roy drove away.

Moses gazed into Lia’s eyes with concern lining his face as he wrapped his fingers around her upper arms. “What now?”

“Take Rachel home. I’m going to strip the bed and wash everything,” Lia said numbly. “They must not be burdened when they come back.”

“I’ll help.”

“You should get Rachel home.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Lia all but burst with gratitude. What would she do without Moses?

They took a few steps toward the house when another knock from the buggy pulled them up short.

Again, Rachel slid the door open. “Are you coming?”

“I need to help Lia with the laundry. You don’t have to wait. Walk home, if you want.”

“I can’t hike up that hill,” Rachel whined.

Moses smiled sweetly. “Then wait for me.”

Rachel slipped out of the buggy. “I’m coming in.”

“There’s a lot of blood,” Moses said, his words dripping with sympathy for Rachel’s delicateness.

Rachel halted as if she’d run into a brick wall. “Why do you have to help Lia? She is plenty able to do laundry by herself.”

“It wouldn’t take too long to walk home.”

Rachel’s mouth twisted in annoyance. “I will wait, but don’t be long. You said you had to fix Anna and Felty’s roof.”

Rachel slammed the buggy door, and behind the glass, Lia could see her clasp her arms tightly around her waist and turn her face away from them. Rachel would be fit to be tied when she finally made it home, and Lia would never hear the end of how badly she had been treated. Dat would hear of it before week’s end and probably summon Lia home in a matter of days.

Lia felt too emotionally spent to concern herself with Dat’s displeasure. Who could worry about Dat when Saloma’s life hung in the balance?

In Saloma’s bedroom, blood stained the bedsheets and towels—a vivid reminder that six children might lose their mother today and that Lia wouldn’t have known what to do if she had been called upon to care for Saloma by herself. Saloma would have died for certain under Lia’s care. The thought frightened her.

A sob escaped her lips, and before she could control herself, the floodgates opened and she dissolved into tears. Moses immediately wrapped his strong arms around her and laid a tender kiss on her forehead. She soaked his shoulder with salt water, but he didn’t seem to mind. His arms held her securely with no hint that he would ever let her go.

“It will be all right,” he whispered. “You are safe. Everything will be all right.”

“I can’t do this,” she said, weeping harder, touched that he wanted to comfort her. “I’m so weak.”

“You stayed calm, especially after Sarah left. The children were afraid, and you soothed them.”

“Nae, you did that.”

“I did no such thing. How much could I have helped if you had been running around the house screaming or pulling your hair out with fear? I distracted them. You gave them assurance.”

With her breath still coming in spasms, Lia stopped crying and savored the sound of Moses’s heartbeat against her ear and the warmth of his arms wrapped tightly around her. She could stand like this forever. For the moment, he was not her future brother-in-law or simply a good friend. He was a handsome, wonderful man with whom she wouldn’t mind spending the rest of her life.

She tilted her chin to look at his face. His brows were knit in confusion as if two conflicting emotions were feuding in his brain.

He cleared his throat and pulled his arms from around her as the corners of his mouth turned down. “Sorry.”

Why did he feel the need to apologize for something so pleasant? Did he feel disloyal to Rachel by giving Lia his shoulder?

Lia felt no such obligation to apologize to him. She would cherish his touch forever.

With his lips pressed in a hard line and his expression guarded, Moses pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and handed it to Lia.

She took it and mopped up the moisture from her face. “Denki. I am not usually a crier.” She must look a sight. Her nose had probably turned bright red.

“It has been a difficult morning.” He didn’t take his piercing gaze from her face. “Your eyes are even prettier after you cry.”

Lia didn’t know how to respond to that, so she sniffled into his handkerchief until she regained her composure.

With heightened color in his face, he finally broke eye contact and took two steps away from her. “I will go find a bucket.”

Suddenly too flustered to utter a word, Lia busied herself stripping the bed. She gathered the sheets and mattress pad and took them to the washroom where Moses filled a bucket with a soapy solution. “I’ll do the floor,” he said.

Lia soaped and scrubbed and agitated the sheets until they probably looked whiter than the day they were purchased. Once she rinsed, she ran everything through the wringer twice so it would dry extra fast on the line. The wet sheets went into a basket for hanging.

She went down the hall to check on Moses’s progress. The bucket of filthy water stood in the hall outside Saloma’s room, and Moses was on his hands and knees buffing the floor with a dry towel. The refreshing scent of lemon and pine hung in the air.

Moses stood up, a satisfied smile playing at his lips. “Does it look okay?”

“I wouldn’t dare walk on it. How did you get the wood so shiny?”

“My mamm is very particular about her floors. She trained me well.”

Moses was the finest man Lia knew. His mamm had trained him well indeed.

He picked up his bucket. “How is the bedding coming?”

“Ready to be hung. The sun will give them an extra whitening.”

“I will help you.” Moses dumped his dirty water down the sink in the washroom and picked up the basket of wet sheets. “Let’s go out the back door. If I give Rachel one more excuse, she’ll probably want to throw very large rocks at me.”

Lia couldn’t help but smile. Moses knew Rachel too well. Lia didn’t try to understand why he liked her.

Lia grabbed a small plastic box of clothespins and they marched, somewhat stealthily, out to the clothesline on the side of the house opposite where Moses had parked his buggy.

They each held up a corner of the first sheet and pinned it to the line. Moses’s fingers weren’t deft with the clothespins, but he managed to fasten the sheet securely. Lia handed him another pin as they worked their way fixing the long folds of fabric to the line and raising the sheet higher in the air with the pulley.

Moses held out his hand for another pin. “Did I ever tell you I like tall girls? Your height comes in very handy when hanging clothes.”

“A short girl can hang laundry just fine.”

“But it gives her sore shoulders and a crick in the neck.”

Lia raised an eyebrow and grinned. Moses had been talking to Rachel.

His eyes twinkled mischievously, and he showed his dimple. “Will Rachel start throwing things at me if we stop at the Van deGraffs before I take you both home? I need to apologize to them and beg them not to have me arrested.”

Lia laughed out loud. “What are you talking about?”

His face clouded over before he smiled reassuringly. “I broke into their house.”

“You did?”

“They weren’t home, so I bent a screen and crawled in through a basement window. I made two calls, left some money and a note.”

Lia tried not to think about what might have happened if Moses hadn’t been determined to get into the Van deGraffs’ house. “Do you think they’ll be mad?”

Moses shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe not. I left a lot of money.”

With a teasing note to her voice, she said, “You must be very wealthy. How much money do you usually carry on outings with me?”

“Not enough. That screen is going to cost more than the fifty dollars I left.”

“I will help you pay for it. I got my wages from Anna yesterday.”

“That’s a ridiculous thought. You weren’t within a mile of Van deGraffs’ when that screen broke.”

“But I am partly responsible.”

Moses pulled the clothesline toward him, propelling the fitted sheet higher into the air. “No, you are so graceful and slender, you would have been able to fit through their doggie door, and the screen need never have been damaged.”

Lia smiled and tossed him another clothespin. “The sheets should not take too long to dry. After we go to Van deGraffs, you can drop me off here, and I will make up the bed before the Millers return. Then I can walk home.”

“I would not think of letting you make up the bed by yourself.”

“Do you know how to make a hospital corner?”

Lia’s heartbeat set some sort of speed record when Moses winked at her. “My mamm is very particular about her beds.”

“Moses!”

Both Lia and Moses snapped their heads in the direction of Rachel’s voice. She stood at the back door, hands on hips, glaring in their direction.

Moses lost his smile but his eyes shone with amusement as he glanced at Lia and turned to face the attack. “I think it is best we take Rachel home before going to the Van deGraffs’,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

“Uh-huh,” Lia agreed without moving her lips or changing her expression.

Rachel’s high-pitched voice sounded like fingernails against a chalkboard. “I ran through the entire house screaming for you. I’ve been waiting for hours, and neither of you had the decency to tell me you would be in the backyard.”

Moses flashed that winning smile that always turned Lia’s knees into jelly. “I’m just about ready.”

Rachel let the screen door slam and stormed toward them with her hands held stiffly at her sides and clenched into fists. Not paying attention, she passed under a tree, and a low-hanging branch ripped the kapp off her head, along with some strands of hair that came with the pins. She squeaked in annoyance and pain as her hands flew to her head in an effort to smooth her hair. It didn’t help. Unruly tufts of golden locks stuck out from her bun in all directions.

Moses sprouted a sheepish smile. “I guess you could have driven the buggy home an hour ago. I don’t mind walking.”

Rachel growled like a guard dog, and Lia was grateful there were no rocks nearby. Rachel would have been hurling them at Moses for sure.

Rachel had a very gute arm.

Chapter Fifteen

Hoping to catch a glimpse of Lia, Moses didn’t take his eyes from the window as he walked his horse up the lane. It had been three whole days since the scare at Saloma’s, and only the demands of running a cheese factory had kept Moses from Huckleberry Hill.

Lia was nowhere to be seen, and not even Rachel sat at her usual perch. Disappointed, he trained his eyes on the ground and kept walking. He didn’t know Lia’s whereabouts, but at least Rachel would not attack him the minute he set foot on the porch. Always the trade-off—if he wanted to see Lia, he had to endure Rachel.

He shook his head a couple of times. No matter how many curds and whey he separated or how many molds he pressed or how many days he stayed away from Huckleberry Hill, Moses could not get Lia off his mind. Thoughts of her played in his head like a graceful melody floating through the fragrant summer air. She smelled of roses and pine trees, apple spice and lilacs.

Nor could he banish the feel of Lia in his arms as she’d soaked his shirt with her tears on Tuesday at the Millers’. The desire to protect and care for her had almost overwhelmed him, and it took all the willpower he could muster to kiss her forehead instead of those soft, inviting lips that surely tasted of vanilla and sugar.

As he led Red into the barn, Moses took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. Had it been this way with Barbara? He loved her, but he remembered the heartache as she pulled further and further away from the church and him. She hadn’t loved him enough to stay.

Jah, he remembered the heartache.

In her stall, Dawdi’s horse bobbed her head up and down and whinnied softly as she restlessly stomped her feet with no place to go. Moses led Red to the stall opposite Dawdi’s horse, but Red didn’t seem to want to cooperate. He threw his head back and grunted rebelliously, and Moses had to tighten his grip so the reins wouldn’t be ripped from his hand.

“Whoa there, calm down, boy.”

Red reared on his hind legs and this time Moses couldn’t keep hold of the reins. He took a few steps back to avoid getting kicked, then circled to see if he could reach the reins dangling around Red’s neck. Red perked up his ears and snorted in panic. Something had him spooked all right.

Moses held up his hands and spoke soothing words to his horse as Red shuffled his feet in one direction and then another. “Whoa, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

Red turned a complete circle as Moses tried to dance around him. Without warning, Red swished his tail into the air and kicked up his back legs. He forcefully smashed into Moses’s leg with his metal-shod hoof. Moses felt a sickening snap, and he screamed in agony as his leg gave out from under him.

Red shook his head, whinnied, and trotted to the far end of the barn where he stood with his snout nudging the wall.

Moses gasped. It felt like Red had kicked him in the gut as well as the leg. He lay on his back, trying desperately to catch his breath, and focused squarely on the pain that radiated from his leg and filled every space in his body. He resolved not to pass out even though the pain made him unbearably light-headed and the warm sensation of blood trickled into his boots. The blow must have broken the skin as well as the bone.

Taking deep, deliberate breaths in an attempt to calm his racing heart, Moses moaned as he slowly pulled himself to a sitting position to take a look at his injury. The bottom half of his left pant leg was saturated with blood. He carefully pulled the fabric back to examine the wound and nearly collapsed in shock. The sight of blood usually didn’t bother him, but the sight of his bone sticking straight out of his skin made him a bit dizzy. He clamped his eyes shut and pulled the pant leg back over the wound. He should probably get to a hospital right quick.

But how would he get there?

He regretted being glad earlier that Rachel had not been watching for him at the window. No one would even know that he was on Huckleberry Hill. Leaning back on his hands, he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Help! Lia? Anybody, help!”

He strained his ears for any sound from outside, but all he heard were the two horses in the barn still fussing about something. He yelled again. No response.

Could he hop to the house?

Impossible. He couldn’t even stand up.

Maybe if he pushed backward with his good leg, he could drag himself outside where Lia would find him. Or Rachel. Maybe Rachel, with her incessant eagerness, would come to his rescue.

Bracing himself for the pain, he scooted himself two inches backward and almost lost consciousness. An agonizing jolt of electricity shot up his leg. He groaned involuntarily as he held his head in his hands to stop the spinning.

He wouldn’t be stuck here forever. Dawdi would be in to milk in another four hours. Moses pretended this was a happy thought. Only four more hours to go.

Light flooded the barn as someone behind him opened the door. He strained to see who had come in, but he couldn’t rotate his head that far, and turning his body around was out of the question. “Help me,” was all he could say.

He had never been so happy to see Rachel. Ever.

She walked slowly into his peripheral vision. “Rachel, I’ve hurt my leg. Go get Lia.”

Rachel inched closer to him and her eyes grew round as saucers as she caught sight of the blood. She clapped her hands over her mouth. This muffled her screaming but did not stop it. For a few seconds, she squealed hysterically behind her hands and then let them drop to her sides so she could scream louder. Her neck seemed to bloom with hives that traveled up her cheeks and overspread her face.

“Rachel, it’s okay. I’m okay. Get Lia. Please.”

The screaming deteriorated to incoherent sentences and babylike whimpers. “I don’t . . . I what . . . you shouldn’t,” Rachel whined as she disappeared from Moses’s line of sight. He was pretty sure she ran out of the barn because the blubbering grew softer, but he couldn’t be certain she would deliver the message. She might have run into the woods to hide from the horror of Moses’s injury.

Well, Dawdi would be here in four hours to milk the cows. Only four hours to go.

To his relief, Moses heard footsteps approaching not three minutes later, and Lia stood mercifully at his side. Dawdi and Mammi followed close behind, but Rachel did not return. It was turning out to be a gute day after all.

“Moses, dear, are you hurt?” Mammi said, nudging Lia forward and taking Dawdi’s hand.

“I see blood,” said Dawdi.

Distress darkened Lia’s expression as she knelt beside Moses and pressed a soft, cool hand to his cheek. “What happened?”

Moses’s relief at seeing her was as palpable as the pain. “Red got spooked and kicked me hard. My leg is broken.”

“Are you sure?” she said, in the calm voice that she probably used with her most hopeless patients.

“Jah, I’m sure.”

Lia gently pushed his pant leg up past his knee. Not wanting to see the horrible sight again, Moses kept his gaze glued to Lia’s face. She blanched and held her breath.

“Pretty bad?” Moses said, wanting Lia’s reassurance.

She flashed a weak half smile. “I’ve seen worse.”

Despite his pain, he gave her a quirky grin. “Really? When?”

She began unlacing his boot. “During the great Bonduel earthquake of two thousand eleven.”

He hissed as she cautiously pulled his boot from his foot. “Hey! There was no Bonduel earthquake of two thousand eleven.”

“We must stop the bleeding.” Lia sounded like the determined physician now, the professional who never revealed how bad a patient really was. She looked at Mammi. “Will you bring the milking stool? Felty, can you bend well enough to help me?”

“Jah, sure,” said Dawdi. “I’m as chipper as a seventy-year-old.”

“Okay, come over here.” Lia pointed to where she wanted Dawdi to stand and then stroked Moses’s hand with her silky fingers. “This is going to hurt something wonderful, but it will help slow the bleeding.”

Moses swallowed hard and nodded. He wouldn’t complain. Lia would see he could be at least as tough as any mother in labor, even if it killed him.

“Anna, we are going to lift Moses’s leg. You need to slip the stool under it as soon as we get it high enough. If we elevate the leg, it might stop the bleeding. If not . . .”

“If not?” prompted Moses.

Lia gave him a reassuring nod. “We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Dawdi, on the other side of Moses’s leg from Lia, patted Moses’s hand. “Don’t worry. We won’t let her amputate.”

We won’t let her amputate?
That was Dawdi’s attempt at reassuring him? Moses was definitely going to pass out.

Lia glanced at Moses. “It’s okay. You will be fine. Felty, put one hand under his ankle and the other under his knee.”

The simple act of both of them sliding their flat hands under his leg was excruciating. Moses panted for control.

Mammi stood at his feet with the stool in hand.

“Ready, Anna?”

“Ready.”

Lia locked eyes with Dawdi. “We lift on three. One, two, three.”

All thoughts of impressing Lia with his bravery vanished. Moses cried out in agony as they lifted his leg a mere foot and a half off the ground. Mammi must have deftly placed the stool because in less than ten seconds the ordeal was over. His leg rested uncomfortably on the stool as Lia tied his ankle loosely to it with some yarn from Mammi’s pocket. He could tell by her trembling fingers that Lia was trying to maintain her composure.

“This yarn should keep your leg on the stool in case it jerks suddenly.”

“I’m not moving an inch.”

“How is the pain?” she asked.

He didn’t want to upset her, but he might as well be honest. “Bad.”

“Oh, Moses, I am so sorry, but we had to do it. I think the bleeding is slowing.”

He tried to smile. He managed a wince. “I am glad you are here.”

“We need to get you to the hospital.”

“I can’t move,” Moses said.

“We’ll have to call an ambulance.”

The pain made him dizzy again. “This is why you need a phone, Dawdi.”

“You said I needed a phone if I had an emergency. Not if
you
had one.”

“Where is the nearest phone?” Lia asked.

Moses covered his eyes with his hand and tried to breathe normally. The pain would not let up. “Van deGraffs’. You know, where I broke their screen.”

Lia looked at Mammi and then Dawdi. “I’ll saddle the horse and ride down there.”

Mammi shook her head. “Have Rachel go. You must look after Moses.”

“Rachel’s hysterical,” Lia said. “She’s curled up in a ball on the sofa and can’t even form a complete sentence. I’ll go.”

“The horses are acting funny,” Moses said. “It’s too dangerous to take one of them.”

Lia gazed out the open barn door, considering her options. “Then I’ll run,” she said, taking another look at his leg.

“It’s pretty far,” Moses said.

Her eyes twinkled despite the worry on her face. “But you’re always reminding me what long legs I have.”

“Then go,” Dawdi said. “We’ll take care of Moses. I’ll sing to him.”

“Anna, if you got a bag of ice and laid it below his knee, I think that would help the bleeding.” Lia reached down and laid a light hand on Moses’s arm. “The bleeding has slowed quite a bit. I’ll hurry. Nothing to eat or drink while I’m gone.”

He didn’t want her to go. Even though the pain made him queasy, he’d have to be dead not to be touched by her beauty. She made him feel better just being there.

The pain intensified when she left the barn. “Be careful,” he called after her, too late for her to hear.

Mammi bent over as far as she could but she couldn’t reach Moses. She settled for kissing her index finger and pointing it at his cheek. “I’ll go fetch a pillow and a blanket. And some ice.”

Moses held perfectly still. It was the only way to avoid aggravating the pain. “And a cold lemonade?”

Mammi walked out of his view, but Moses could still hear her voice floating with the dust motes in the air. “Lia said no.”

Dawdi shuffled toward Red. The crazy horse stood innocently at the far wall of the barn. “I should get your horse in the stall so he doesn’t step on you.”

“No, Dawdi. He’s spooked.”

Dawdi knitted his brows and thumbed his suspenders. “I better have a look around, then.” He sniffed the air and studied his own horse, still restless in the stall. “Maybe a tornado’s coming.”

Moses lay with his arm spread over his eyes and tried to concentrate on Dawdi instead of his leg throbbing torturously.

Dawdi casually stepped over Moses as he went to the door and looked to the sky. “Not a cloud.” He shuffled to Moses, looked down, and shrugged in puzzlement.

Just a normal conversation about the weather, except Moses could barely lift his head and his leg was bent at an awkward angle.

Dawdi didn’t seem to notice. He walked to the stall that kept his horse, again stepping over Moses’s prostrate body. Moses held his breath and braced for Dawdi to come tumbling over onto him. Dawdi was not so sure on his feet as Mammi.

“Animals can sense an earthquake,” Dawdi said, patting his horse on the nose.

“In Wisconsin?”

Dawdi nodded, seemingly unconcerned that his grandson lay on the ground racked with pain. “Nineteen seventy-two an earthquake in Illinois cracked plaster in Kewaskum. My uncle Joe was there.”

Dawdi fiddled with his beard before retrieving a rake hanging from the sturdy hook on the wall. He walked into the empty stall, and from the rustle of hay, he must have been stirring it around.

The barn brightened as Mammi marched in with her arms full of supplies. “Now, Felty, this is not the time to be mucking out. Moses is in very serious condition.” She helped Moses raise his head and slipped a fluffy pillow underneath him. Much better than the cement floor. Then she unfolded a thick blanket knitted from lime green yarn. “Green is a healing color,” she said as she laid it over the top of him. The blanket felt stifling in the heat of August, but Moses didn’t complain. Mammi was doing all she could to make him comfortable. She carefully laid a small bag of ice below his knee near the wound. The cold burned his skin, but he didn’t argue. Lia was concerned about the bleeding.