Wonderful Lonesome (2 page)

“Of course! We can find a bench inside the depot. Willem will look for us there anyway. And we can talk about something happier.”

Willem watched the two heads bent toward each other as he held the door for a couple leaving the depot with four children stringing behind them. With a tall tin cup in her hand, Ruthanna looked relaxed. Eber had done well to marry her. Ruthanna balanced Eber’s subdued demeanor with an exuberance that allowed her to talk to anyone about anything. Between them they had all the traits an Amish household would need to survive on the Colorado plain. Twenty years from now, Willem predicted, they would be watching their firstborn son take a bride in a congregation with three ministers, and they would be hard put to squelch their pride.
Demut
, they would remind each other.
Humility
.

Willem certainly hoped it would be so. Perhaps he and Abbie would follow soon enough. Maybe their daughter would love Eber and Ruthanna’s son. A new generation would rise up from the dust of their parents’ acreage.
Gottes wille
. God’s will. May it be so.

As he walked toward the two friends, Ruthanna’s face cheered and incited Willem’s curiosity about what the women were discussing. A few seconds later Abbie smiled as well. No doubt Abbie was hanging on every word Ruthanna said, listening to stories, news, information, even gossip from the congregations their two families had left behind when they decided to settle in new territory. Abbie was the intense one. Ruthanna brought her the same balance she brought Eber. Abbie’s shoulders now dropped, as if for a few minutes she had released her load. Willem wished she would do that more often. Her head turned toward him in a serendipitous way, and he waved.

“The wanderer has come home.” When he reached them, Willem grinned and picked up Ruthanna’s suitcase. “I’m sure Eber is anxious to see you.”

“Did you mail the letters?” Abbie asked.

“Yes.”

“And pick up the Millers’ mail?”

“Under the wagon bench.”

“And my mother’s flour and pickles?”

“Sugar, dry beans, and baking powder, too.”

“And the wheel maker?”

“No cracks. A squeaky axle.”

Ruthanna laughed. “You two are quite a pair.”

Willem gave her a half smile. Most of the community—both Amish and
English
—paired him with Abbie. Many expected him to make a proposal in the fall, after the harvest. After all, he was twenty-six and she was twenty-three, well old enough to begin their own household.

“That’s Rudy Stutzman in the ticket line,” Abbie said.

Willem glanced toward the counter. Abbie scowled, stood, and marched toward the window. Whatever Rudy’s reasons were for being there, his explanation was not likely to satisfy Abbie. Willem admitted his own curiosity and made no move to constrain Abbie.

Rudy, I hadn’t heard you planned to travel.”

Rudy jumped at the sound of Abbie’s voice. “I thought I might make some inquiries about the price of fares.”

“Are your parents unwell?” Abbie asked. Rudy had few extended family members, she knew, but he had come west with the blessing of his parents. They would have his two younger brothers to care for them as they aged.

“My family is well. Thank you for asking.”

“Visiting someone?” Abbie said. Rudy’s pitch sounded distant.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Next,” the ticket agent called.

Rudy stepped forward. The angle of one shoulder raised a wall between them. When he leaned in to speak to the agent, Abbie could not hear his words.

“Are you sure you just want a one-way ticket?” the agent said at a volume anyone within twelve feet would have heard.

Abbie stepped forward and grabbed Rudy’s wrist. “No. Don’t do this.” Rudy glanced at her grip, and Abbie released it.

“Sir?” the agent said. Two people in line behind Rudy raised their eyebrows.

Rudy sighed and said to the ticket agent, “Perhaps for today you could just tell me what the cost is.”

“One way all the way to Indiana?”

Rudy nodded. Abbie’s heart sank.

The agent consulted a chart and announced the price.

“Thank you.” Rudy stepped aside and Abbie followed.

“One way, Rudy?”

“Abigail, not everyone is as stalwart as you are. After four or five years, some of us are admitting that this is a lot harder than we thought it would be.”

“We’re all in this together, Rudy. We all need each other. That includes you.”

“I am alone,” Rudy said. “Willem and I, and Widower Samuels. What good is it for us to have a farm or dairy if we cannot keep up with the work?”

“Then hire somebody to help.”

“No Amish families can spare their young men. My cash is in my land. I have nothing to pay an
English
with until the fall harvest. I only have what I make selling them milk.”

“All the more reason to stay and make a go of it. You cannot just get on a train and leave your land and milk cows.” Abbie’s heart pounded. As far as she could influence anyone, she would not let a single settler give up.

“I thought I would make a listing with a land agent. I may not get back everything I put in, but I would have something.”

“You know it is not our way to abandon each other in times of need. Speak to some of the other men. They will help you.”

“The need is greater than we are,” Rudy muttered.

“That is not true. That is never true.” Below the hem of her skirt, Abbie lifted a foot and let it drop against the depot’s oak decking.

Rudy looked past Abbie’s shoulder. “I see Willem. Is he waiting for you?”

“Yes. We came to pick up Ruthanna. Eber is feeling poorly, but you can be sure no one is going to let his farm fail either.”

“You cannot fight God’s will, Abbie.”

“You think it is God’s will for us to fail?” Abbie refused to believe the settlers had obediently followed God into a new opportunity only to be forsaken.

“It must be,” Rudy said. “It would take a miracle for us to succeed.”

“Then a miracle we will have. Believe!”

Rudy leaned back against the wall. He had known plenty of stubborn people in his twenty-eight years, but none was a match for Abigail Weaver. He appreciated how hard she worked helping to bake and clean for the single men of the Amish community, but when she crawled into bed at night, she still slept under her parents’ roof. He and Willem had ventured west without parents or wives. Rudy wasn’t sure Abbie understood the risk they had taken.

And Willem, apparently, did not understand his ability to make Abbie happy or they would have wed two years ago.

“Abbie,” Rudy said, “you are an example of great faith, but there is something to be said for realism as well.”

“Not today. This is not the day that you are giving up.”

Her dark eyes bore into him, and his resolve went soft. “You’re right. One day at a time.”

Her face cracked in a smile. “That’s right. One day at a time. We
will
get through this summer and have a bountiful harvest. You will see.”

Rudy lifted his eyes at the approaching sound of boots. “Hello, Willem. Abbie tells me the two of you have fetched Ruthanna home from Pennsylvania.”

“That’s right.”

As soon as Willem stood beside Abbie, Rudy saw the hopefulness in the turn of her head, the wish for what Willem had not yet given her.

Willem seemed in no hurry about anything except that his farm should succeed. He and Abbie were so different that Rudy often wondered if the predictions that they would one day wed would come true. Abbie’s one-day-at-a-time conviction might exasperate her when it came to waiting for Willem, and she might yet turn her head in that way toward another man.

Perhaps even toward Rudy.

When Rudy first arrived in Colorado, he regretted not bringing a wife with him. Then he met Abbie. He hated to think how he might have wounded a wife who saw through him.

“It’s good to see you both,” Rudy said. “We should all be on our way back to the farms, don’t you think?”

Willem squinted at Rudy’s retreating back. “Is Rudy all right?”

Abbie pressed her lips together. “I hope so. I suppose no one can blame him for a moment of indecisiveness.”

“Is that what it was?”

Abbie was not inclined to answer. Willem was not inclined to press.

“We should get Ruthanna home,” he said. “She’s worried about Eber.”

“Of course. If you are sure we remembered everything.”

“Even if we have forgotten something, Limon is not going away. We will be back.” Willem followed Abbie’s line of sight to where Rudy stepped off the depot platform and stroked the neck of his midnight black horse.

“We should make sure Ruthanna has plenty to drink,” Abbie said in a thoughtful murmur. “I can see she is weary, and Eber is ill. They will need something for supper tonight. I’m sure my mother can spare part of tonight’s stew.”

Willem nodded. Abbie, as always, thought of everything.

When they returned to the bench where they had left Ruthanna, she was standing and engaged in conversation with a man in a black suit. Willem’s mind tried to sort out which Amish man this might be.

“Is that Jake Heatwole?” Abbie asked.

Willem nodded slowly as memory came into focus. “I believe so.”

“What is he doing talking to Ruthanna?”

“You have to admit, they are two of the friendliest people we could ever hope to meet. They’ve met each other several times before.”

“But—”

Willem cut off Abbie’s protest. “But he’s a Mennonite minister. Yes, I know. Does it really make a difference when we can’t find a minister of our own?”

Abbie drew up her height. Willem ignored the
whoosh
of air she sucked in.

“Jake,” Willem said, “what you brings you all the way from La Junta again?”

“Thought I would come and see how folks are,” Jake answered with a smile. “Ruthanna tells me Eber is ill. Perhaps I’ll pay him a call while I’m here.”

“Jake says he plans to stay for at least a week,” Ruthanna said. “Of course, I hope Eber will be feeling better long before that.”

“He probably just needs his wife back,” Jake said.

“If you’re planning to stay a few days,” Willem said, “why don’t you stay with me? My home is small, but there’s room for another bedroll.”