Rebekah's Quilt (7 page)

Cream and Butter were tied up in their stalls, pulling and rearing at the ropes that had become their enemy. Tiny Buttermilk bleated and mooed helplessly from behind her mother.

Rebekah yanked free the knots that held Cream and Butter at bay. The eyes of her normally-docile cows were wild and terrifying, but Rebekah grasped the lead ropes in her hands anyway and turned to lead them out.

She looked back at the tiny calf, frozen in fear. Their eyes met. “I’ll be back for you,” Rebekah swore.

Turning, she sang the flapjack ingredients song loudly, so as to be heard over the roaring flame, in a futile attempt to keep both her and the frightened cattle calm.

Another flaming beam snapped and fell behind them, spooking Butter. The milk cow bellowed and reared, dancing on her hind legs before jerking free from Rebekah and tearing off into the heart of the storm.

Rebekah stumbled and fell with the force of Butter’s yank, sending her sprawling in the mud. Pushing herself up, she managed to miss being trampled by Cream’s frightened hooves that stomped around her.

“Cream!” she yelled, her voice deep and foreign in her own ears, “Come
on
!” Ever obedient, Cream, though skittish, walked on to the house with Rebekah.

Tying the nervous cow to the front door, a strong pair of hands fell upon Rebekah’s shoulders, turning her around.

“It’s over,” her Pa yelled, pulling her to his chest in a tight hug. “It’s over, girl. It’s over.” It sounded as though he were trying to convince himself of that fact more than convince her. Over his shoulder, she saw that the fierce fire had overtaken the barn. Angry flames licked skyward from the loft.

Stiffening, a scream tore from her lips. “Buttermilk!”

“The baby’s gone,” her father yelled.

“No!” Struggling against his iron grasp was futile, but after a moment she managed to wean her way from under his elbow.

“Rebekah, stop!” Samuel bellowed. “Stillgestanden!”

Ignoring him, Rebekah dodged Jeremiah’s clutches easily, her eyes and heart already set on the glowing barn.

“Buttermilk, I’m coming,” she screamed again. Her father rasped behind her. Thankfully, he was all tired out from fighting the fire. She sped ahead, leaving him wheezing in the mud outside the barn.

“Rebekah, don’t baby, please.” His weak words sounded as far away as Germany as she raced into the barn.

Ashy timbers sagged in unnatural places, leaving the roof low and threatening. Getting down on all fours, Rebekah crawled through the smoky mess. “Buttermilk! I’m coming!” Her eyes watered and her breath came in quick, burning gasps. After an eternity, her hand came to rest on the soft hide of the silent calf.

Let’s get out of here and into some fresh air!
The thought was so strong that the words tingled on her tongue. She would have said them, for her sake and Buttermilk’s, but the thought of all the hot air rushing into her open mouth begged her to do otherwise.

Scooping the limp calf and placing her over her neck, Rebekah began to crawl. With her eyes squenched shut against the sweltering temperature, she felt for the cool mud that ringed the barn. With each searching pat, only hot ground and embers met her hand. Finally, her head hit a wall.

Rebekah struggled to orientate herself.
I came out of the stall and turned. Should be outside by now--
She ceased the thought.
Unless I turned the wrong way
.

A shroud of hopelessness cloaked her. Buttermilk made no sound.
I’m in the back of the barn, not the front.
Paralyzed by fear, the world irked to a sickening standstill and everything stopped. Everything, but the burning.

She didn’t hear Joseph bring back Butter, her wayward milk cow. She didn’t hear him fly into a tizzy when questioning Samuel over her whereabouts. She didn’t hear her Pa and brother crying over her certain death; they were unable to enter because of the caved-in barn. All she could hear was the crackles and sizzles as their warm, safe barn was reduced to charred ash and timber. She couldn’t even hear herself screaming.

“Rebekah, keep yelling!”

Something grabbed her dress, yanking her from the barn into the drizzle of rain.

“She’s smoldering, roll her in the mud!” Jeremiah’s young voice was panicked.

The sudden coolness was a welcome relief.

Jeremiah spoke the words that bumbled against each other in her foggy mind. “The calf, she went in after the calf, is it breathing?”

“Buttermilk,” she mumbled. Or, at least she thought she mumbled. Apparently, it came out as a scream.

Joseph’s voice was in her ear, soft as clover. “I’m here Rebekah. Everything’s going to be okay. I’ll make it okay.” His voice was far away again. “Jeremiah, cake your sister in this mud. Get her cooled down. Samuel, hand me the calf.”

Woozy, Rebekah tried to make sense of what was going on around her. It appeared that Joseph’s mouth was over Buttermilk’s, but that didn’t make sense. Then, it looked like her Pa was pumping his hands on the baby calf’s middle. That didn’t make sense, either. The only thing in the world that was right in that moment was the feeling of the chilled muck on her skin.

Just before everything went black, Rebekah thought she heard Joseph’s voice in her ear again, whispering something about Buttermilk being alright after all.

“Buttermilk?” Rebekah called as she crawled through sagging timbers and shooting flames. The calf was nowhere to be found. Her eyes burned, her skin burned, even her lungs burned. An ominous snap forced her to look up just as the entire roof of the barn came crashing down in a splintery ball of fire. She opened her mouth to scream, but the scalding air and smoke filled it first.

“That was a close call.”

Rebekah tried to force her eyes to focus, but they wouldn’t comply. Her world swam around her as she tried to find Buttermilk. Gingerly, she flexed her fingers. Instead of brushing against charred and burning wood, they met the cool underside of her childhood quilt

I’m not in the barn anymore; I’m in my own bed!
With that startling realization, Rebekah’s muscles relaxed and ached in unison as she stretched her arms and legs.

“You were having a nightmare, thought it best to wake you.” Joseph’s smiling voice was an audible beacon from the hellish dream that had almost been her reality.

Someone must have moved a chair into her room for him, because the only piece of furniture she possessed that was all her own, besides her bed, was her dresser. Her plain, perfect little dresser.

Rubbing her eyes, Rebekah drank in the sight of him. Things were still fuzzy around the edges, giving her entire room a dreamlike appearance. With one long leg propped up on the other, he would have looked as though he was simply enjoying a rest on the porch, had it not been for the dark shadows beneath his bloodshot eyes and deep creases in his brow. This was the stuff dreams were made of. “What happened? All I remember is --” Her words trailed off as she tried to disentangle truth from fiction.

“All I remember is mud.”

Joseph laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back, his lips spreading into a beaming grin. “There was lots of mud, there at the end. Seems you got lost in your own barn. Luckily, you were squalling so loud I was able to find you and pull you out.”

“Pull me out?”

Elnora waddled in with a tray. “He kicked down part of the barn wall to get to you.” Her words were breathy.

Joseph immediately rose from the chair and took the tray from Elnora’s trembling hands. “Here, I’ll take care of that, Mrs. Stoll.”

Grasping the end of Rebekah’s bed, Elnora struggled to stay vertical. “Thank you, Joseph. I think that did me in, I’ll be lying down if anyone needs me.” After patting Rebekah lightly on the foot, she turned and moved very slowly back toward the door.

Joseph deposited Rebekah’s tray in her lap and stepped to Elnora’s side. “Can I help you, Mrs. Stoll?”

Beads of sweat stood out against her pasty skin. Rebekah feared her mother may faint dead away any moment. “Yes, Joseph. Again, thank you.” Extending her arm, Elnora allowed Joseph to lead her out of the room.

Not bothering with manners, Rebekah dove into her food.
I didn’t realize I was so hungry
. The honey cornbread was sweeter than it had ever tasted before and the black coffee, which someone had thoughtfully cooled, swished down her raw throat with blissful ease. Before she even started on the thick slice of ham, Joseph returned.

“This pregnancy is draining your Ma. Thank God she’s at the end of it.”

Rebekah nodded, her mouth too full to speak.

“Do you need anything else?”

She swallowed, a task which had proven better in theory than in action. The chunk of meat almost didn’t go down. “Ow!”

Joseph shook his head. “That’ll go away in a day or two. Throat’s a little swollen from all the smoke you breathed in.”

Rebekah let her eyes fall to her quilt, her hand absently stroking the odd blue square in the middle. She had been about to ask how he knew all this, but before she could, the memories returned in a rush.

She and Joseph had returned earlier than expected from
rumspringa
. Before they had even exited the English family’s wagon, both could smell the stench of death and burned timbers permeating the usually serene Indiana night. The fear in Joseph’s eyes was like nothing she’d seen before, or since.

“My family’s place,” he kept repeating as they trotted together through the night, made darker still by the smoke-thickened air. As they had stepped onto the Graber place, a small forest of blackened sticks, still glowing orange at the ends, stood where the barn once was. Black shapes lay smoking and unmoving.

Her father’s voice, solemn and grave, came from somewhere behind them. “Joseph, your family is alright, everyone is alive.”

“Pa? Where’s my pa?”

Samuel’s strong hands came down, one on each of their shoulders. “Lucas collapsed in the barn. Your ma is tending him now.”

In a flash, Joseph had disappeared into the night.

Samuel’s arm tightened around his daughter’s shoulders. “Welcome home, Rebekah. Not a fine reception, is it?”

“Oh Pa.” She squeezed his middle. “Are the Graber’s really alright?”

Samuel held her close and made no move to release his bear hug. “They’ll be fine. We will get started on another barn in the morning. I also plan to give him Bacon, our new heifer.”

Rebekah bit her lip. “Did they lose a cow to the fire?”

“
Ja
, daughter. They lost them all.”

Tears pricked Rebekah’s eyes. “Oh, Pa. If only we’d come back a little sooner ...”

Samuel cut her off and guided them back toward their buggy. “
Gelassenheit
, daughter. We must trust the Lord’s reasoning and perfect timing.”

Rebekah shook her head, clearing the sad and smoky memories from her tired mind. “Would you mind bringing me my quilting bag?” Her voice was a whisper. “It’s in the next room.”

With a curt nod, Joseph stepped out of the room only to reappear seconds’ later, quilting bag in hand.