The Outsider (6 page)

“All right.” Brice took a drink of his coffee and waited. “

They tell me in town that you been out among them they call Shakers.”

“I’ve been caring for a boy out there for a few days.”

“What kind of people are they?” The man’s eyes sharpened on Brice as he waited for his answer.

“Good enough people. Different from most, but they seem content with their ways.”

“I hear tell they dance and carry on. Some say they even have fits where they roll around on the floor. And they call it worshiping.”

“I wouldn’t know about that. I didn’t see any of their worship services. What difference does it make to you anyway, Hope? What they do. You thinking about joining them?”

The man laughed. “Not me. I can’t see me dancing nowheres excepting maybe in a tavern somewhere if I was in my cups.” His smile died away. “But I got a wife and daughter who went to the Shakers. You see, I just come back to this part of the country to see if my girl had growed up all right, and they tell me that she’s part of this bunch of Shakers.”

“She’ll be well cared for and brought up decent enough, I’d guess. But if you wanted to know about them, why didn’t you just go straight to the Shakers? They may not welcome people like us into their village, but they don’t lock them out either. They would tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Well, I would have, but you see, when I took off to work on the river some years back, I sent my wife word that I was dead. I thought Martha could marry again that way, that I’d be doing her a good turn. I’d have never guessed she’d do something so crazy as join these Shakers.” Hope raised his hands up and let them fall back to his lap. “I don’t know that they’d even let me see them now. I mean thinking I’m dead these many years and all.”

Brice set his coffee down on the table. “Let me get this straight. You deserted your family years ago, and now you’ve taken a notion to come back to claim them.”

“No, no. You got me all wrong, Doc. I don’t care what Martha does. I wasn’t never right for her. But I loved my little girl. She was always something extra special. That’s one reason I left. To give her a better chance. Martha had this uncle over in the settlement that was an important man. Had some money. But he hated me. I thought if I was out of the way, maybe he’d sort of adopt Gabrielle, and she’d have a chance of being a real lady like she was meant to be. But it just ain’t right, her being with those Shakers.”

Brice’s eyes narrowed on the man. “Did you say Gabrielle?”

Hope nodded. “I think it was Martha’s ma who named her that. It always was a mouthful, but it seemed to fit her even when she was just a bit of a babe.”

“The young sister is your daughter?”

“Young sister? I don’t reckon she’s no sister of yours, Doc.”

Brice frowned. “I mean Gabrielle.” Now that he knew who the man was, he could see a likeness to the young sister in the color of his eyes, but the deep blue had been dimmed by age and hard living.

“You know her then? You saw her at this Shaker place?”

“I saw her.”

“Then you know it ain’t right her being there.”

“I couldn’t say about that.” Brice thought of how the young sister had looked when they met on the path as he left the Shaker village. Perhaps such a combination of beauty and innocence was better sequestered from the world. “She seems satisfied with her life there.”

Hope made a sound of disgust. “It’s just that she don’t know no better. Tell me, Doc, is it true what they say in town about the folks out there? That they don’t hold with marrying?”

“That’s what I’ve been told.”

“That just ain’t natural. It ain’t the way the good Lord intended either. Me, I never claimed to be a religious man, but I know enough about the Bible to know Adam and Eve got together often enough. And there’s that part about cleaving to your wife or some words to that effect.” The man stared at Brice, waiting for him to agree with him.

Brice looked down at the coffee in his cup. “They hold different ideas than most of God’s people.”

Hope rubbed his chin a minute before he said, “Some of the folks in town believe they dance to the devil in their meetings. That there ain’t nothing religious about it. Some say they even strip off naked when they’re dancing.”

“I don’t believe that,” Brice said.

“You ever been to one of their meetings?”

“No.” Brice picked up his coffee and took another drink. “But they’re good enough people. Maybe a little curious to us, Hope, but they’ll bring no harm to anyone.”

“In my mind they’re harming my girl already by shutting her away out there. She ought to be married with babes of her own by now. She’s nigh on twenty. Instead she’s stuck in there to spend her life as a barren old maid.”

Brice looked straight at the man. “You have to let your daughter choose the kind of life she wants.”

Hope stared back at him. “I’m willing to do that, Doc, but I don’t know as to whether these Shaker people are. They’ve got her closed up in that little town of theirs till she can’t see what life might be like anywhere else.”

“Go, talk to her then, Hope. Tell her she has a choice.”

“I’ve thought about that, but I’m dead to her now. I can’t just sashay in there and say, ‘Howdy, here’s your pa back from the dead’ after all these years.”

“Then I guess that’s your choice.” Brice started to stand up. “I don’t see how I can be of any help to you.”

“You don’t remember me, do you, boy?” Hope smiled and shook his head. “Of course, you don’t. It’s been a pile of years.”

Brice sank back down in his chair and stared hard at the man. A long-closed door creaked open in his mind. He was a boy again fetching firewood for the squaws. Brice heard the men before he saw them. Speaking white men’s words. His words. The hunters looked thunderstruck when he stepped in front of them and spoke his white name. This was one of those faces he’d thought he would never forget. “You were one of the hunters.”

“That’s right, boy. And you were just a little white boy who’d almost turned pure Injun.”

“I did what I had to do and learned the Indian way, but I wasn’t Indian.”

“And you were grateful that we got you away?”

Brice met the man’s eyes. “I’d have left in time anyway, but I suppose I am beholden to you. I’ve got some money here.” Brice pulled out the little sack of coins the elder had given him. “I’ll pay you for the booty you traded for me.”

“I don’t want your money, Doc. You know that. I want your help. Help just like I give you back then.”

Brice kept the money there between them in hopes the man would take it still.

But Hope didn’t reach for it as he went on. “The way I see it, my little girl is in sort of the same fix you was in. You liked it there with the Injuns, but once we got you away, you liked it better. She thinks she’s one of these Shakers now, but she ain’t. I want you to get her away from there so she’ll know that.”

“How? I can’t trade for her the way you did for me.”

“I don’t know how. But at least you can let her know she can leave. That she’s got a friend out here waiting for her. Tell her whatever you want. Just let her know she don’t have to stay with them Shakers.”

“But what if she wants to stay?”

“She won’t. A place like that is for old women like Martha who never did like living. Gabrielle’s not like that. I’ve seen her sing to little butterflies and whirl around to a secret tune nobody could hear but her. She’ll come away when she sees that she can.”

Brice stared at the man a long time before he spoke. He didn’t want to do it. The young sister had already disturbed a part of him that he’d thought was long dead. But the man was right. He did owe him. There was no denying that, in spite of what he’d said about leaving the Indians on his own. They’d brought him away from the Indians while he was still white. In another few years he might have forgotten too many of the white man’s ways.

Brice slowly nodded. “I’ll talk to the young sister if I can. But I’m not sure it will do any good. She not only lives among the Shakers. She is a Shaker.”

6

Gabrielle saw the doctor when he came to treat Nathan, but she stayed back in the shadows so he wouldn’t notice her. The third day he rode into the village, she didn’t see him in time to step out of his sight, but when he turned his horse in her direction, she bent her head and hurried on toward the schoolhouse. She could feel his eyes boring into her back all the way up the path, and by the time she went through the door, her heart was pounding inside her chest as if she’d been playing a game of tag with her young students.

She couldn’t allow the doctor to engage her in conversation again. Sister Mercy would never be able to understand or perhaps even forgive another chance meeting. While Sister Mercy had not continued to upbraid Gabrielle for talking with the doctor, Gabrielle felt a difference between them. A difference that saddened her spirit.

From the first moment Gabrielle had stepped into Sister Mercy’s presence, she’d felt a special bond with her. Sister Mercy had been more mother to her than her own mother had ever been. But now when they were together, a worried frown often crept into Sister Mercy’s eyes to push aside some of the fondness that had always been there so abundantly for Gabrielle.

The day when Gabrielle had talked with the doctor and then begged Sister Mercy’s forgiveness, the eldress had said, “Ye need not forgiveness from me, Sister Gabrielle. It’s Mother Ann you should appeal to. And ye know that if ye ask sincerely for forgiveness and pray for a pure heart, our good mother will be sure to grant you such.”

They were words Gabrielle had heard many times before when she’d run to Sister Mercy to confess a slight wrong of spirit, but Sister Mercy’s voice had not sounded so kindly or forgiving in Gabrielle’s ears that day. Rather she had looked at Gabrielle as though some of the doctor’s worldliness might be clinging to her. The stain of worldliness was not easily shed.

So Gabrielle had prayed to Mother Ann for forgiveness in hopes that the forgiveness of Sister Mercy would follow, but her prayers seemed to fall back to her unanswered. Gabrielle had never felt the same comfort praying to Mother Ann as she did to the Eternal Father. It was a lack in her life as a Believer that troubled her spirit even though Sister Mercy continually assured her that Mother Ann did hear all prayers and wanted to drop balls of blessings on their community.

As the days passed and even though Gabrielle did pray sincerely for a simple spirit that only thought of service to the Lord, she began to wonder if Sister Mercy was right and she had been touched by the doctor’s worldliness. Wasn’t she having doubts where none had been before? Weren’t strange new feelings haunting her while questions crept into her mind that she hardly dared even acknowledge, much less try to answer?

Instead she pushed the questions deep inside her where she could almost forget them. Except when she met the doctor’s eyes. Then the questions echoed in her mind and the doubts ate at her soul. So she kept her eyes to the ground away from the doctor. Better to push away the questions than to allow them to upset the peace she’d always known there with her Shaker sisters and brothers. Still she could feel his presence each time he was in the village. He seemed to linger to seek her out with his eyes as if he had questions of his own to be answered.

Gabrielle bent herself to her tasks. She set her mind to the Believers’ way and did her best to put her hands to work and give her heart to God. She worked patiently with the little girls she taught, showing the same love and acceptance to those who were slow to grasp new ideas as to those who learned more easily and with joy.

Learning was a magical thing to Gabrielle. She grabbed at each new thing offered to her eagerly. She’d read all the books the Believers had, and sometimes with a pang of regret, she thought of the shelves of books her Uncle Jonas had owned. She remembered the feel of their dark bindings as she’d traced their titles with her fingers in anticipation of the secrets they would hold out to her in time. The promise of those books had been lost to her the day she and her mother had come together with the Believers.

The year before, she’d asked Sister Mercy if she could have more books. The elders and eldresses had discussed it before deciding Gabrielle’s time would be better spent working with her hands. What one learned from doing a physical chore well was of equal or even more importance to whatever one might learn from a book. If there was extra time and the desire to read, she could read from the Bible or a book of Mother Ann’s precepts. To soften the refusal, Sister Mercy had given her a journal to record some of the daily events of their family.

Gabrielle had already filled several volumes with the daily happenings of the village, the accomplishments of her students, and a record of her duties. When school wasn’t in session, Gabrielle’s hands stayed busy working for the good of the village the same as any of the other sisters, taking her turn in the laundry room, in the kitchen, or wherever she was assigned. She enjoyed working with the other sisters nearer her age and hearing their talk.

She was often touched by the new sisters’ sufferings and sorrows even though she had little direct understanding of their woes. She listened closest and with the least understanding when the women spoke of their husbands and how they missed lying by their sides at night. Many of the new sisters hadn’t wholly converted their hearts to the Believers’ way, and they spoke of their men with the longing of something much more than brotherly love.

Once Gabrielle had dared ask a young sister about this love. “But we all love one another here. How is this love you speak of different?”

The two of them had been working together in the washhouse, scrubbing the men’s clothes, and with the noise of the splashing water, there was little chance they would be overheard. Sister Cassie had paused with her hands still in the soapy water and looked up at Gabrielle. Sister Cassie was young, with eyes that shifted green to blue with her mood. She and her husband had been married only two years when he’d decided to join with the Believers. She had had no babies, and it was a grief to Cassie that now she would never bear a child. She looked at Gabrielle with something akin to pity in her eyes. “Poor Sister Gabrielle. My life may be barren now, but at least I’ve known love.”

“But I know love,” Gabrielle protested. Her life fairly exploded with the love she felt for those around her.

Sister Cassie smiled. “True. You know love as it is here. You’re much better at this kind of love than I will ever be. But I mean the love of a man and woman, bound together as one. James and I had that kind of love. It’s still strong in my heart.” Sister Cassie pulled a hand out of the sudsy water and held it against her bosom. “That kind of love should last forever. Till death do us part the way we promised each other in front of the preacher the day we married.”

Sister Cassie bent back over her tub and blinked her eyes. Tears mixed with the sweat on her cheeks as she went on. “Now James won’t hardly look at me. Says I’m the devil’s temptation. Calls me ‘sister.’ I’m not his sister. I’m his wife.”

“Maybe you should try to love as we love here,” Gabrielle suggested gently.

“I’ve tried. Am trying. But it’s not enough. If I was like you and had never known a man’s love, then maybe it would be. But I don’t want to live like this with the natural juices of life dried up inside me. I want to have my own cabin, my own man, and a houseful of children just like my ma did.” Cassie began scrubbing the knees on a pair of trousers furiously. “I love James. Promised him I would forever, but I don’t know how much more of this kind of living I can stand.”

Gabrielle had no experience with the kind of love Sister Cassie longed after. Gabrielle had witnessed no such shared love between her mother and father before her father had gone away and found death on the river, but it seemed to be the intended way for many of the world from Bible times on down. Adam and Eve. Abraham and Sarah. Isaac and Rebekah. Jacob and Rachel. Many of the converts who came into the village were married before they joined the Society of Believers.

Even Mother Ann had been married before she had recognized the true spirit inside her and the purpose the Eternal Father had for her. At times a newly converted couple came into their midst equally devoted with full acceptance of the Believers’ way, but other times only the husband believed strongly, as with Sister Cassie and her husband. Then the wife was encouraged to bend her mind and will to the better way of the Believers.

Gabrielle took note of the converts who left and those who stayed and wrote of them in her journal as she sought fuller understanding of this part of life she’d never know. Marriage could never be part of a Believer’s life.

Sister Mercy had explained it to her many times. “As Believers we feel the need to devote all our attention to the spiritual life and fill our hearts with spiritual love. Worldly love destroys spiritual love because there is often strife among families. Here in the Society of Believers we can worship God fully without the distractions of individual family ties. We are one family with the blessings of Mother Ann.”

Gabrielle accepted that as right for her life, but sometimes when she thought of the pain in Sister Cassie’s eyes or heard Becca’s lonely weeping at night, she wondered if the Believers’ life was right for all people.

Then the doctor had held her hand and looked deeply into her eyes, and suddenly all the questions weren’t just to do with others. So Gabrielle stayed away from the doctor just as she avoided getting too near to the boilers that heated the water for the laundry. A wise person stepped back from danger. It advised as much many times in the book of Proverbs. Instead she sought her news of Nathan’s progress from Elder Caleb or Sister Mercy.

Each time they told her of how Nathan was getting stronger and walking easier, she felt a growing relief. Not only for the healing of Nathan’s wounds, but because once Nathan was healed, there would be no reason for the doctor to return to their village. Then she would be able to put him from her mind and the worldly questions and doubts with him. Her life was planned, and if at times she lost the absolute surety that it was the perfect life the Believers intended it to be, all the same she had no doubt it would be her way of life forever.

She wrapped herself in prayer, and any time an unworthy question or doubt slipped into her mind, she plucked it out and threw it down on the ground where she could stomp it into dust. Sister Mercy had taught her to do that when she first came into the village and missed some trivial part from her life before she became a Believer. Parts so unimportant that Gabrielle couldn’t even remember them now.

This too was just a moment in her life. For this moment the sea of her emotions was rougher and the view ahead wasn’t as clear. But when this moment had passed, then she would once again see her future with the Believers as it was meant to be.

On Sunday after Gabrielle dressed for the early meeting, she helped the little girls get their scarves and caps on straight. When the meeting bell sounded, they all sang as they walked to the meetinghouse. As they came close to the building, their voices joined with the other Believers coming to meeting from the other houses. The familiar sound of the gathering song always renewed Gabrielle’s spirit.

Inside they sang a hymn and then sat on the benches while Elder Caleb brought forth some Society business and spoke of the fire.

“The loss of the harvest barn is a hardship, but working through this trial will only make us stronger. We have already cleared away the rubble and will commence to build a new structure in the coming week. Soon we will be planting new crops, and in the fall we’ll once again have a barn filled with the harvest of our labors. Meanwhile the Eternal Father and Mother Ann will provide for us.”

“Praise God,” one of the men called out.

Elder Caleb inclined his head for a moment before he went on. “As you know, Brother Nathan was badly burned in the fire. But again our Father has been kind. It now appears that in time Brother Nathan will recover the full use of his legs. Each day he grows stronger and by next week he may be well enough to attend meeting again.”

A murmur of thanksgiving rippled through the Believers.

Elder Caleb said, “Later we will labor a special song for him and his complete recovery.”

After a few more items of church business, the elder read from the teachings of Mother Ann. Gabrielle listened raptly for some special message that might touch her, but the words seemed to float around and away from her even though she tried to grab on to them. She’d never felt so strange in meeting before. It was as if some invisible hand was pushing her apart from the other Believers and keeping her from entering into their common worship.

When at last Elder Caleb stopped speaking and they began to push back the benches, Gabrielle was glad. Laboring the songs would surely bring her back into full fellowship with her brethren and sisters.

She did feel better as they lined up in preparation for the marches. Gabrielle took her place with the singers. She loved to sing and was gifted with a clear, melodious voice and a natural ear for the tunes of the songs. The other singers followed her lead as she sang first one song and then another. They were simple songs, songs that begged for the humble life.

“I want to feel little,” Gabrielle sang. “I want to be low. I want Mother’s blessings wherever I go.”

There was no music other than the music of their voices and the sound of the feet of those laboring the songs as they moved back and forth and through and between the other sisters and brethren. The spirit began building in the room, and Gabrielle broke into a whirling song. The laborers moved faster across the floor and the singers lifted their hands and gave themselves to the song.

Suddenly there was a stir in the air, and one of the brethren leapt into the air and shouted. A sister fell trembling to the floor while another sister cried out, “It is the devil. We must stomp him out.”

Gabrielle joined the dancers as they stomped and shook away their sins. There was another shriek, and then as quickly as the frenzied dancing had come, it departed. The Believers were once again moving orderly about the floor while those who had fallen were helped to the benches.