Elnora’s lower lip trembled. “I must say, at least the weather is more agreeable in Indiana Territory than in Canada. I may pack the extra quilts when we stop to rest.” She swiped at a trickle of sweat as it slid down her nose.
“You’ll do no such thing!” Heloise placed one long, thin hand on an especially fluffy blue quilt. “It may be a trifle warm but pass those blankets over here. I’ll sit on them; they ease the rickety ride.”
The women dissolved into a sea of girlish giggles.
“Yours are the softest quilts of anyone else’s in the village.”
“Take them with you when we swap wagons,” Elnora offered her fiery-tressed friend.
Heloise shook her head. The straps on her black head covering flailed about her shoulders. “It’s not the same,” she insisted. “Part of what makes Elnora Stoll’s quilts so soft is the wonderful company that comes along with them.”
Samuel’s quick yank on the horse reins interrupted Heloise’s compliment.
“Lucas, is that what I think it is?” Samuel’s voice grew higher as he called to Heloise’s husband in the next wagon.
The two women stared at one another, their eyes wide.
“Ja!” Lucas answered. “Ja, it is.”
Before Elnora could pull herself up to see the cause of the commotion, Samuel was off the driver’s seat. She peeked out to see the menfolk piling out of all the wagons. Lucas was even with Samuel, holding his hat on with one hand and pumping the air with the other. Simon Wagler, Sarah’s husband, stumbled as he ran, fumbling with the black braces that looped over his shoulders and held up his britches. On their wagon seat, Sarah nuzzled their infant Elijah, who’d let out a shriek with the sudden stop.
Isaac Raber pulled on his broad-brimmed hat as Jeremiah Knepp, Simeon Odon, and Abraham Yoder pulled their wagons to a halt in a haphazard line. In an instant, all the men of the families who’d come so far together were running toward the remnants of an overturned English wagon.
Pieces of the torn canvas fluttered in a passing breeze and the box itself lay on its side,
Elnora drew a fist to her mouth. “Did it roll off The Pike?”
Blood spatters dotted the ground around the silvery dust that refused to settle around the scene. Splintered wheels hung broken and unmoving from the axels.
Heloise’s breath caught in her throat. “No. Indians.”
Beyond Samuel, Elnora could make out the remains of a horse just over a small rise. She searched for any sign of the tell-tale arrows she’d heard so much talk of during their journey to Indiana Territory—which was also Indian Territory. She trembled as a prayer of forgiveness for judging those she didn’t even know filled her mind.
Heloise’s voice was solemn, as if in prayer. “God be with them. All of them.”
The men’s chatter, broken by the shifting breezes, allowed Elnora only fragments of their hurried conversation.
Lucas’s voice was the loudest. “No survivors.”
Slowly, the large German-born man trudged back to his wagon without so much as a glance toward Elnora and or his wife.
Without expression, Lucas rummaged only a moment before he pulled the hand-hewn spade from the wagon bed and started back toward Samuel and the others.
Careful not to snag her handmade purple dress on the rough wood, Elnora climbed out of the wagon and made her way to the crash. She didn’t speak until she reached her husband, who took the spade from Lucas as he passed.
Not a word was shared between the two men, but it was as though they were of a single mind. Samuel dug the sharp end of the spade into the earth, oblivious to his wife’s presence. Spadeful by spadeful, the grave dirt he turned became a small mound at his feet.
He swiped at the trails of sweat that leaked from under his broad-brimmed hat and down his neck. Beneath his arms, circles of moisture had long since stained his favorite blue shirt.
Elnora folded her arms as the memory of their first anniversary, when she’d given him the shirt she’d made for him that matched his eyes, filled her mind. He had pretended not to notice that one sleeve was a little shorter than the other. Two years have passed since that day, and we’re still without a child...
Finally, she spoke. Her voice was but a meek whisper. “May I tidy them before their burials?”
Samuel turned and revealed the scene of death they’d encountered more fully.
Elnora’s stomach twisted in knots at the sight of the mangled, crimson-streaked arm as it reached lifelessly from behind the overturned wagon. The blackness of death was already visible on the fingertips.
A crumpled bag, obviously store-bought, lay near the bloodied arm that pointed eerily at a rainbow of quilting squares that trailed the barren earth. Elnora dipped and retrieved a bright blue square that would never become a quilt to warm a babe. She rubbed the fabric between her fingers and looked at her husband with watery eyes.
Samuel rested Lucas’ spade against his leg and offered a downcast smile to his wife.
Before he could speak, a shrill cry broke the solemn silence.
As out of place as the cry was among the sea of death, Elnora recognized the sound in an instant. “An infant’s cry.”
She searched the terrain until another wail pierced the air. At once, her gaze fixed on a lone, scrubby bush. Elnora tucked the English quilting square deep into her dress pocket and ran. Her chest heaving, she reached the bush in a moment. Without bothering with her dress or her covering, she dropped to her knees. Instinctively, her hands clawed and searched through the summer leaf litter. The angry wail came again. Finally, something warm brushed her fingertips.
Elnora rose to face the throng of women who had gathered to witness the unfolding miracle. When she turned, the English baby whimpered in her arms.
“It’s a girl,” Elnora proclaimed.
Sarah Wagler’s mouth hung agape as she bounced Elijah absently on her hip, and the other Amish wives and mothers from the wagon train allowed tiny smiles to creep onto their solemn lips. Even the menfolk paused.
Elnora’s voice was uncharacteristically robust. “Not a scratch on her! Not a bruise, not a drop of blood.”
Heloise, toting wide-eyed Joseph in her arms, stepped forward to get a better look.
Elnora’s voice took on the soft shushing of a new mother as she rocked the squirming infant. “Hush now, sweet one. You’re safe now.”
“You’re a natural,” Heloise observed. Her eyes twinkled. “Look how she’s already calming. She feels safe.”
She is safe, Elnora thought as she gazed at the tiny girl. Safe with me. Safe with us.
“Come,” Heloise whispered. “Get her to the wagon and out of this sun.”
Sarah fell into step beside her friend, her blue eyes also transfixed on the English baby. “It’s a miracle she wasn’t injured...or worse.”
“I boiled goat’s milk for Katie and Annie,” Katherine Knepp cooed as she and the other women joined them. “I have extra. This little one must eat.”
Esther Odon nodded. “I have some girl clothes she can have.”
Dinah Yoder placed her arm around Esther’s shoulders. The memory of Esther’s hard labor on the trail which resulted in a stillborn baby girl was a raw one in all the women’s minds.
Tears pricked Elnora’s eyes. “Danke. Thank you, all.”
Day turned quickly to night as the Amish women fawned over the tiny infant who seemed to have dropped straight from heaven, leaving the men to finish the burials by moonlight.
***
