The Wings of Morning (10 page)

“Are you speaking German, sir?” the startled officer asked Bishop Zook.

“Some German, some English, if one doesn’t work I use the other, come, come.”

The bishop managed to coax the English pilot to a blanket under a cluster of shade trees. He introduced the man to Emma, who gave the officer her brightest smile—and a plate of food. Meanwhile, the crowd dispersed back to their own blankets and picnic lunches.

Lyyndaya had to smile at the scene.
Soon the pilot will be eating cold chicken and potatoes and Emma will be feeding him fresh strawberries for dessert
. Her thoughts were interrupted as she was suddenly aware that she was not alone. She turned her head to see Jude standing beside her.

“Do you think your mother will notice?” he asked.

She dropped her eyes from his intense gaze and mumbled, “Not right away.”

“I wanted to thank you for letting me know about the aeroplanes. I saw you pointing.”

She looked up in surprise. “You couldn’t have possibly seen me.”

“I saw you all right.”

“How could you know it was me amongst the scores of people?”

“Well, not all of them wear a navy-blue dress. Not all of them have blonde hair and such beautiful green eyes.”

“Oh—” She couldn’t stop herself from laughing and giving him a shove. “As if you have eyes that could see all that from so far up.”

“Then how did I know, Lyyndaya?”

“From what I’ve heard, I would have thought you’d be looking for Emma Zook.”

“Is that what you really think?” He took the risk of tipping up her chin with his finger so her eyes were looking directly into his. She didn’t push away his hand or glance in a different direction. “Because I gave her a strawberry? Because my father and I had supper at her house?”

“Twice, I heard,” added Lyyndaya.

“Because she was helping people get into the aeroplane today?”

“You didn’t look like you were suffering.” She gently moved his hand aside.

Jude nodded. “Yes, she is tenacious. I admit she has caused me some confusion.”

“Oh, has she?”

“So have you.”

“I?” Lyyndaya pointed to herself. “Little short me? From a million miles away?”

“Yes, little blonde green-eyed
you
. Do you think you are so easily forgotten?”

She shrugged. “I suppose you don’t have much choice. My parents won’t permit us to see one another. So what are you waiting around for? Go put Emma Zook in your buggy and court her. She’s dying to be courted.”

“And you? Do you wish to be courted?” Jude asked. He reached out to touch her face, but she shook her head and stepped back.

“It doesn’t matter what I wish. You’re not the one who can court me. So you should move on to the next in line.”

“The next in line? Are you and Emma my customers then? Am I to make each of you a set of horseshoes for your feet? A bit for each of your mouths?”

Lyyndaya laughed and pushed on his chest. “Stop it. I shouldn’t be laughing. I shouldn’t be enjoying your company.”

“Why not?”

“My mother and father—we have no future—”

“Is that really what you think?”

“Yes…but…I…” She stopped and looked helplessly at him.

“Is this what God tells you?”

“I don’t know what God tells me.”

“You don’t? Are you sure?”

She felt heat in her face and looked toward the people picnicking in the meadow. “My parents will notice us.”

“Very well. Then I am telling you about the fuel. What the British pilot would call petrol.”

Lyyndaya stared at him, confused, her eyebrows coming together. “What?”

“You see the wagon by the side of the fence? The fuel drums on it? My two mechanics eating the sandwiches and drinking the lemonade Mrs. Kauffman brought them?”

“Yes.”

“They came on the train with the fuel, and Bishop Zook’s son Hosea brought the men and the drums to the field with his wagon. I am going to go over to them now and ask them to top up the British officer’s tank. And mine. After all, the King’s boy has to have his moment in the sky, doesn’t he? And little John Zook, the reader of entire libraries.”

Lyyndaya smiled. “Shall I call it—‘petrol’?”

“Yes. Why not? And if your parents ask, we were talking about aeroplanes and fuel drums—and horseshoes—among other things.”

She inclined her head. “So we were.”

Jude began to walk toward the mechanics. “The truth is, I miss you, Lyyndy,” he said.

Later in the afternoon, with Lt. Cook gone and Jude taking Peter King up to five thousand feet and down again, Lyyndaya wondered if Jude had really meant that, or whether he’d said it just to make her feel good. After all, hadn’t he confessed that he was confused about both Emma and herself? How did he really know what he felt about either of them? If she could see him every day, talk with him, listen to his words, watch his actions, then she might see the truth and, if he honestly felt something for her, she might become convinced of it. Since that was not possible, she would always be in doubt and never have a sense of security about their relationship, whatever that relationship might be. She prayed, but prayer didn’t make anything clearer in her mind about the two of them. Lyyndaya only knew she must obey her parents and could only hope that something might happen one day to change their minds about Jude.

But at breakfast the next morning Lyyndaya’s father began to grumble about what had happened with the planes the day before.

“Flying with those planes over the heads of our children and livestock, diving, rolling, so dangerous, he does not even think about what he is doing—”

Lyyndaya couldn’t stop herself from bursting out, “Papa, that’s not true. As soon as those planes came after him he flew as fast as he could away from us because he didn’t want anyone to be endangered.”

Her father shook his head and put a fork and knife to his eggs. “All part of the act, Daughter.”

“No, Papa, it was not. He didn’t know those planes were coming. He didn’t even know who they were. He was as surprised as anyone else.”

Her father kept shaking his head. “This is what you want to believe because you still harbor feelings for that boy.”

“When they landed he marched right over to the British officer and demanded to know what the man thought he was doing by flying over the heads of the crowd. I have not seen him angry like that before. I thought he might…but he reined in his temper.”

Her father leaned back again in his chair. “So—how do you know this happened? This anger?”

Lyyndaya didn’t look away from his hard gaze. “Many people ran up to the aeroplanes when they landed in the Stoltzfus field. I was close enough to hear what was going on. Jude had words for him.”

Her father shrugged and twisted his mouth. “Words.”

Lyyndaya pushed aside her plate of toast, reached out across the tabletop, and gripped both her father’s hands. Everyone at the table, including her father, was surprised.

“Papa, when the officer asked Jude if he would fly for the army when he was of age, what do you think he said? He said, no, he would not fight, he would not use a plane to kill. ‘We are Amish,’ he said. ‘We do not bear arms against our fellow man.’”

Her father narrowed his eyes. “He said this?”

Lyyndaya’s green eyes were burning in her face. “Yes. And more, Papa. He told the officer our people had come to this land to find a place to worship God in peace, just as the Pilgrims had come on their ship from Britain to find the same sort of freedom. He said our people did not come here so they could go back to Europe and slaughter others in a war.”

She released her grip.

Amos Kurtz sat still. Then he looked at his wife. “Well, Mother. If our daughter heard all this, so did others. It is Thursday. No doubt we will hear more about it long before we meet for worship on Sunday.” He turned to his oldest son. “Luke, hitch up Trillium. Bring the old shoes from the Percherons. Jude made them anyhow. Let us see what he can do for us today.” He smiled at Lyyndaya. “My girl, I told you I did not think he was a wicked boy. Just someone who thought he was more bird than man. Now that he is more of a man again, well, let us see what we can do to help him keep his feet on the ground.”

Lyyndaya felt like she was flying inside while she stood on the porch watching Luke and her father pull out of the yard in the carriage and head for the Whetstone house. Ruth caught her mood perfectly, coming up and linking her arm through her younger sister’s and asking, “Are you coming down for a landing anytime soon, Lyyndy?”

Lyyndaya laughed and hugged Ruth. “It is too good to be true. Papa is going to give his work to Jude. Oh, I pray something wonderful will come out of this.”

“So do I. And while we’re praying, Mama wants us to help with the baking for the Sunday meeting. You and I have the bread to take care of. Come. It will help the time pass quickly. Before we know it there will be Trillium stepping smartly up to the barn.”

The sisters went to the kitchen and set to work on the dough. Lyyndaya thought she would hear the buggy turning into the drive in an hour, but after two hours her father and brother had still not returned.

“What can have happened?” she asked Ruth as they pulled a half-dozen loaves from the oven, their faces red in the heat.

“They are talking.”

“Is it a good thing that they talk this long?”

“It can’t be a fight. No one could argue with Papa for two hours. He would just walk out.”

Another hour went by, and they were cooling loaves by the open window and putting more bread in the oven, when they both heard the crack of a horse’s hooves on stones. They quickly closed the door on the bread and raced to the door. Mama was already at the buggy and her hand was on her husband’s arm as he spoke. Her forehead was creased and her lips tight. Lyyndaya felt a coldness rush through her. Her father looked up at her and shook his head.

“My daughter,” he said, “the news is not good.”

L
yyndaya walked as quickly as she could along the dirt road, the sun and her stride bringing a fine film of sweat out upon her arms and hands. Father had said she could take the buggy to the Whetstone home, but she found she needed to work off the strain and restlessness she felt. Letting a horse pull her would not do that. It wasn’t so far to Jude’s smithy anyway, two miles at most. The Kauffmans drove past in a large wagon loaded to the brim with children and offered her a ride, but she forced a smile of thanks and waved them on.

When she reached the Whetstones’ she went immediately around back without once slackening her pace.

He may not even be at the smithy. If it were me I’d be out somewhere by myself, praying and trying to think everything through
.

But Jude was at the forge in a work shirt and suspenders, banging at a glowing orange-black horseshoe with one hand while pinning it to a huge anvil with a long pair of tongs. He did not look up as she stood in front of him. Only when he put the shoe over the coals again and pumped the bellows with his free hand did he finally look up and realize Lyyndaya was there. He stopped hammering.

“I’m just making your shoes,” he said.

“Not
my
shoes.”

He smiled. “But how is it you’re here? What will your father say?”

“It was my father who suggested I come.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“What has he told you?”

“That the army arrived here at your house while you were discussing the shoes for our Percherons. They will be extending the ages for those that can be drafted into the military—as young as eighteen and as old as forty-five. You will have to register. And there is no guarantee you’ll be exempted on religious grounds if your number is chosen.”

“One minute.” Jude worked on the large horseshoe a bit longer and then thrust it into the water. After that he laid it on a cooling rack. He wore a heavy leather apron that he began to unknot from behind his back. Hanging it up on a peg he went to a washbasin and soaped his face and hands and arms vigorously. Then he rinsed himself and rubbed himself with a clean blue towel. He turned back to Lyyndaya and said, “Come sit with me on the bench under the tree. Father set out a pitcher of lemonade and glasses about fifteen minutes ago. The ice has not altogether melted. You look like you could use a drink as much as me.”