Wild Indigo (7 page)

Because he needed her, she reminded herself. Still, she'd heard nothing but good of Jacob Blum. His tone held so much modest pride and yet entreaty that she had an urge to touch him. She stifled that urge. He said he needed her. It occurred to her that need was a kind of wanting. She wondered if it could become a kind of love.

 

Jacob led his tavern hack to the town's large barn, heart thumping in his chest. It wasn't from the fight. He sloughed off the concerns of Brothers Samuel Ernst and Frederick Marshall, both of whom had seen the altercation. The watchman approved, the Elder did not. Jacob didn't care what either thought.
As always, he had done his part for his town. No, what plagued him was something else.

He had bungled it with Sister Retha. Rosina Krause hadn't helped, of course, by introducing his proposal to his elected bride in such crass terms. He couldn't control what his fellow Elder said. He clenched his jaw in sudden anger. Between the war and his wife's death, he had little enough control over his life anyway. On top of that, he had lost his sense of humor.

Scaife had riled him. Perhaps if the fight hadn't sent Jacob's blood boiling with the sheer joy of action, he would have kept his wits about him and proposed to Sister Retha like a man. She had accepted his half-witted offer with a look of resignation. It cut him to the quick. He never wanted a reluctant bride.

Inside the barn, he mopped his brow. Compared to the stifling heat, the barn was cool. He welcomed its dark recesses. She was beautiful, yes, but he liked everything about her, even the way she had stood up to him. She had countered every one of his meddling questions.

No, he told himself, he wasn't meddling. He was exercising his rights as her Elder and her bridegroom.

He smiled a little at the thought of Retha's determined but ill-advised loyalty to the Voglers. He admired that in her, actually. Not that her loyalty was altogether misplaced. When Vogler had stood up against the community to marry the woman he loved, he had lost all but her. Jacob had loved his own wife in a quieter, easier way. Part of him envied Vogler such conviction, such passion, even while
Jacob had exacted Retha's pledge to stay far, far away from the man and his Cherokee wife.

Despite the hounding possessiveness that made Jacob bristle to see his bride in another man's arms, Jacob believed her innocent. Her tremors and her tearstained face convinced him that the fight had terrified her. The fight, or something about it.

He wished she had been willing to say what. He could not brush away his nagging feeling that she had secrets.

For it seemed that she did. And those unacknowledged secrets—not the likelihood that her friend was a spy nor the danger Retha could face if caught speaking English—disturbed him now.

The horse gave itself a hard shake when Jacob lifted the saddle from its back. In fact, he thought Gottlieb as fortunate in Alice's devotion as he himself had been in Christina's. Sadness nudged him strangely. What would
she
think, his original bride, the adoring mother of his children? Would she wish only for Retha to be good to those children? Or would she also wish Jacob happiness, affection such as they had known together? A brief image of her quiet smile flickered in his memory and vanished. Was it approval, or portent?

He sighed heavily. Few enough people found true affection in marriage, whether by lot or by random human choice that some would ascribe to love. With Christina, he had been fortunate that circumstance, proximity, and childhood ties had combined to bring together two like-minded, companionable people. Jacob was not without hope for himself, even this second time.

If he could but clear up one bothersome question. He handed the horse to the tavern's slave and prepared for an assault on the Single Sisters' silence about one of their own.

 

“What is the matter with Sister Retha? Surely there was a reason you never proposed her for the lot,” Jacob said impatiently to Rosina Krause an hour later in her office at the
Gemein Haus
. At eye level, a rack of lightweight leather buckets, essential for the fire protection brigade, hung along the wall. He sat ignominiously under them, kindling a conflagration of his own.

Sister Krause's chin dimpled in hesitation. “There is naught the matter with her. Naught that could prevent her from being a suitable—”

“Then why did you not recommend her in the first place? You said there was no one suitable.” He couldn't keep an accusing tone out of his voice.

Sister Krause shot a question back at him. “Are you the reason she was out that night we found her in the meadow?”

“Of course not,” he said, indignant. What kind of Elder did she think he was? But then, he could understand why she might ask. What if he had stepped out that night for a rendezvous with Retha? Illicit trysts were not unheard of among courting couples, and his fellow Moravians were not intolerant of ordinary human passions. If he had been with her, the Sisters might well have dealt with her more lightly, not virtually locked her up.

“But you were there,” Rosina observed dryly, giv
ing him his first view of how she held sway over a bevy of older girls and women.

“At the end, yes.”

Sister Krause leaned forward, a commanding movement he recognized from Elders' meetings. “Do you know what she was doing there?”

Jacob wouldn't lie, but he wouldn't betray Retha's confidence either. “I do now,” he said carefully.

Instead of questioning him further, his fellow Elder pushed her ample body away from her desk and stood gazing out the window. Jacob knew the Square was virtually empty, the market done for the day, and anyone left driven inside by the blaze of heat. He had to admire the way the Sister dangled him, puppetlike, for her own purposes. He was a negotiator himself.

After a long moment, she closed the shutter with a snap. “Then perhaps you know why Sister Retha has slipped out of the house night after night since the day we took her in.”

“Every night?” Jacob was dumbfounded. He had no idea.

“We don't know if she went out every night.”

Her simple answer couched a bleak confession of failure. Jacob understood at once. One of the first women to arrive in Salem, Sister Krause had a keen sense of duty and responsibility. She would not take failure lightly.

“Surely Samuel Ernst would have detected her,” Jacob said, struggling to sound calm and logical as new and sharper doubts assailed him.

“No, not Brother Ernst. He never did. She has
always been elusive. We tried to keep her…absences to ourselves, but Sister Holder and I could never be sure—”

“Sister Holder knows?” Jacob asked, all too aware of how knowledge traveled in a town that did not yet number two hundred citizens, counting children and infants.

The Elder's round face softened with unexpected sympathy. “Sister Holder knows, Brother Blum, and I know. No one else, save you.”

He let out his breath. His family did not need to be objects of further gossip. “Good. That is good, I think. But how did Sister Retha get away with it?”

“How did she slip out? I have often wondered. We simply could not watch her every night.” Rosina Krause cleared her throat nervously. “If you can keep a secret…”

Jacob nodded reluctantly. He didn't need another secret.

“Myself, I sleep through thunderstorms, and Sister Holder snores.”

Jacob laughed, and suddenly felt less out of place in this pristine office. Losing control of his life frustrated him, but the Sister's life was hardly all in order. He sobered himself. “I beg pardon, Sister Krause.”

“Oh, no. 'Twould be comical if it were not so serious.”

It was serious. Jacob worked his hand into his neck, thinking. His bride-to-be had to have a reason for being out at night. “Do you know why? Have you any idea?” he pressed.

Rosina Krause shook her head. “We have none.
We don't know why or how often or even where she was going.”

“Do you think she was up to…” he trailed off. She had been feeding her wolf only a short time. That was not her reason. She had denied consorting with spies so forthrightly, he couldn't imagine that either. And as for another man…no, no. He couldn't think she would. She was innocent to her core, he felt it in her shy response to his touch.

It was a moment before he realized that Rosina was waiting for him to continue. “She couldn't have…”

“No, Brother Blum. Apart from the deception, we cannot say that she has done aught wrong. In fact, when she was very young, we assumed she was sleepwalking. I can only tell you that she has done it from the beginning of her life with us. Oh, and that the night you came upon us, we found her, ah, dancing.”

Like a sylph, Jacob thought, but said nothing. Rosina Krause need not know he had seen Retha, too.

“Do you think she's sleepwalking now?”

“No,” the Sister said decisively. “She was wide awake the other night.”

Liebe Gott
, Jacob swore to himself. Or prayed. His bride-to-be had wandered the night for years. He would never know why, when, or where she had gone, and not even the Sisters could say how often she had stolen away. He could not know if she would continue, or quit.

If only he could foresee what Retha's irregularities would mean for his children. If only he could
foresee what they would mean for him. His impulsive decision to ask for her hand was looking reckless and irresponsible for all concerned.

Sister Krause was so forthcoming, he should not ask for more. Still, he sought reassurance.

“Surely you have an opinion about what should be done.”

“Brother Jacob, the lot said yes. 'Tis our faith to abide by the Savior's will as He reveals it through the lot,” she said with simple faith.

Sometimes simple faith left him grinding his teeth. “But knowing what you know, you could have forestalled my request.”

She looked torn. “I could not. 'Twould have put Sister Retha in a bad light—when, as far as we know, she has done no grievous wrong.”

Without even thinking what he was doing, Jacob began to stalk around the small office. The Sister stopped him with a firm hand on his forearm.

“Brother Blum, our lot is the Lord's will. He has proven it so time and again. You may be the bedrock of her happiness. She may be the wellspring of yours.”

Jacob studied the woman's round, earnest face. She cared for the girl more than she let on. He would care for Retha, too. Whatever folly his neglected senses had driven him to commit, his rational mind would deal with the consequences.

 

Hot afternoon sun streamed in through the tall, paned windows of the
Gemein Haus
meeting room. The assembled crowd sweltered in the heat. Retha stood beside her bridegroom, dazed. The thick,
humid air made it hard to breathe. She tugged at the peplum of her new linen dress, a wedding gift from the older Single Sisters. Already damp with perspiration, its fabric still scratched where it touched tender skin. Sister Rosina, for once aflutter with excitement, had laced her up too tightly.

Retha swallowed against the narrow ribbon under her chin. It tied her clean, starched
Haube
around her just-washed flyaway hair. The ribbon was still pink. She was still single.

Her hands shook, her knees trembled. It was her wedding day. She thought she might explode.

Jacob's children looked explosive too. Brother and Sister Ernst, who were keeping them for a couple of days after the wedding, herded them to Jacob's side. The thin son shuffled, the large one giggled. Retha scarcely knew as yet which boy was which. Brother Samuel reached out an arm to still the giggler. When Sister Eva shushed the daughter and leaned over to whisper to her, Retha swallowed against a lump of confusing emotion that lodged in her throat.

In minutes, she would be mother to them all.

Jacob intervened with a snap of his fingers. The children went quiet. Retha stole a sideways glance at him and shivered in the heat. Her bridegroom. She scarcely knew what marriage meant.

He seemed larger here, confined to whitewashed walls. Taller, meeting her on the even ground of the wide planked floor. Wider, suited in his dark Sunday coat, its buttons marching down its front almost to his knees. More dignified. Even more commanding than when he had questioned her on market day.

Five days ago. So long ago. And now they were being married. So soon.

He caught her glance and gave her a quick, sure smile. As he had done all day, all week since they last met. Last argued. She wasn't at all clear where they stood with each other, except that he felt bound to marry her and she had bound herself to marry him.

That agreement reached, they had not been allowed to be alone together since.

He had communicated with her nonetheless with a smile across the Square, an intent gaze from his nightly station in the choir. Less encouragement from him, and she would not be here, her resolve wilting in the heat. His strength, his will, his distant warmth had held her to their purpose. All week she had thought of flight, digging her fingernails into her palms.

What had she been thinking to say yes to him, to his children?

She barely heard Brother Marshall's formal German liturgy. She did not, in fact, know all of the educated words he used. She longed for her old simpler life with the Cherokee, for wilderness, where wolves trotted free and indigo grew wild, where deer marked trails from high meadows to cool ponds, and she knew them all—plants and paths and creatures of the wild.

Not this. House, husband, children. They were not for her. She feared—she knew—she was not for them.

“I will,” she heard Jacob say, his baritone voice mellow and firm.
Love her, honor her, care for her
.

Then Brother Marshall called her name, and she
put her mind to what he said. Her vow was not the same as Jacob's.
Love him, honor him, be subject unto him
.