I have to warn Joseph and Thomas!
“Hey!” Rebekah banged on the window as a cramp bit into her middle and doubled her over. Vomit, unexpected and hot, shot out of her mouth and splattered all over the floor before she collapsed into it, face first, on her floor.
Chapter Four
Let a man meet a bear robbed of her cubs, rather than a fool in his folly. – Proverbs 17:12
Rebekah woke up, clean and tucked into her bed. Joseph, tear-streaked and doe-eyed, stared at her from the bedroom chair. A strange embarrassment burned in her cheeks as she remembered the vomit.
Joseph turned his hat around and around in his hands and chewed his lower lip. “Rebekah, I am so sorry for leaving you when you needed me.” His voice wavered. Rebekah feared he might cry. “I will never leave you like that again. You have my word.”
She hiccupped. “Oh, excuse me.” Rebekah grimaced at the terrible taste in her mouth. “I am so sorry for the mess.”
“Mess?” Joseph looked puzzled. “Oh, where you were sick? That is nothing. Thomas and I cleaned that up in no time at all.” He paused. “It is you that I am worried about.”
“Me?” Rebekah heard the absurdity in her own voice. “I am fine. I am having a bopplin, so everything is different.” She noticed a steaming cup on the bedside table. It boasted a strong smell that made her stomach stand up and take notice. “How is my cow?”
Joseph kept his voice even and low. “Buttermilk is fine. Just fine.” He moved from the chair to their bed. However, the worried look still creased his face in odd, un-Joseph-like planes. It was not often that her husband appeared out of sorts or out of control. However, in this moment, he looked both. “In fact, the bear strode right past her. Did not even give her a second look.”
“She didn’t?”
Joseph let his words out slowly. “She paid no attention to that bellowing heifer whatsoever.”
Rebekah shook her head slowly. “But I saw out the window. She was intent on something, staring. Maybe even stalking something.”
Joseph stared hard at her.
Rebekah continued her verbal musings. “If she was not after Buttermilk, what was she after?”
Something strange flickered across Joseph’s face. “I do not want you to worry, Rebekah,” he began.”
Goosebumps raced up her arms and down her spine.
Joseph took a deep breath, as though searching down deeply for the courage to speak to his wife. “The bear, well, she was wonderful big. Huge even. But she did not want the cow, who was tied up and would have made for an easy meal, had she been hungry.” He licked his lips and fumbled his hat in his hands. “She seemed more intent on Thomas.”
In that instant, Rebekah was able to place the unseemly emotion on Joseph’s face. It was fear.
Rebekah’s heart, moments before beating calmly, began to slap wildly against the inside of her chest. “On Thomas?”
“Don’t worry, he is safe now. He is playing with his kitten downstairs.” Joseph took her hand in his. “There is something wrong with the bear, Rebekah. It came close, too close. And she showed no fear of people at all. And the way she eyed Thomas…”
An Englischer affliction, terrible and terrifying, sprang to her mind and out of her mouth in the same moment. “Hydrophobia.”
Joseph hung his head. “That is exactly what I figure. She seemed so intent on Thomas.” His brow furrowed. “But enough about that. I cannot have you worrying yourself over things that cannot be helped.” He patted her hand. “You must trust me to take care of things.”
They shared a look before Joseph spoke again. “How are you feeling?” He let go of her hand and touched the back of it to her forehead. “I am worried that—”
Rebekah shook it off. “I told you that I was fine, Joseph.” Her words had a bit more bite to them than she anticipated. She took care to soften her tone. “You say not to worry, but worry I do. About everything. Tell me, is it safe for Thomas to be out there since he walks home? Since he explores? Since he runs up and down all of his secret trails?”
Joseph seemed unfazed by her snapping words. “Don’t worry about such things.”
“Joseph, he has so many secret trails from here to Montgomery, if he did go missing, nobody would even know where to look for him! We might not find him until it was too late, and…” Rebekah started to argue but stopped short as a sudden, familiar, and somewhat urgent urge struck her. “Can you walk me to the outhouse please?”
“Of course.” He stood and helped her to her feet. Slowly, they hobbled out the door and down the stairs.
Her bladder ached as they picked their way down the stairs, even though Joseph took care to help her step gently.
When they got out the front door and off the porch, Joseph tried to make Rebekah pause. It was no use. She was not moving fast, but she was moving steadily.
“I don’t see any sign of the bear,” he said. “Maybe we can make it over there before she comes back.”
Halfway across the yard with a bladder seemingly full of fire, Rebekah saw her. Sitting back on her haunches. The bear. Sitting down, she was as big as Joseph was tall. She loomed like a shadow behind the barn and if they had not been looking for her, she would have gone unseen, like any other woodsy shadow. “Look, Joseph! There’s the bear!”
Ever slow, she rose to all fours and stepped out into the light, her head down. Even bigger standing up, she was easily the size of a full-grown cow. But it was something else Rebekah noticed that no man ever would have thought to look for on a strangely acting animal. “Oh Joseph, look at the size of those dinners! She’s a mater.”
Dinners are what Rebekah’s family called teats on freshly birthed animals. Her mater, Elnora, taught her how to count teats, or dinners, to estimate the number of babies born. This skill had proved especially helpful when rounding up newborn kittens by moonlight—something she and her oldest bruder Jeremiah had done most every springtime as youngsters.
Rebekah tried to put her aching middle out of her mind as she looked around. “Her babies have to be around here somewhere.”
Joseph, however, hardened his tone and tightened his grip on her arm. “I do see that, Rebekah. And there’s no place more dangerous than between a mamm bear and her cubs.” He tugged her toward the outhouse. “Komme mit mir, fraa. Hurry.”
“She’s not dangerous, look at her!” Rebekah gestured wildly toward the advancing bear.
Her marble-like bear eyes, though obviously wild, never looked directly at them. Instead, she seemed to watch them from the corner of her eye. I am no threat, her demeanor seemed to scream. I do not want to hurt you or anyone. She kept her head low. Low and submissive.
“Look at her face, Joseph.” Rebekah fought against his iron grasp. “She needs help, she is scared—” A cramp, so severe, seized Rebekah’s middle and doubled her over. She slipped from Joseph’s grasp onto the ground. Unfortunately, her bladder let loose in the process.
Even though she was pregnant, he lifted her easily. “The bear? Is she still coming?”
“No more worrying about the bear or anything.” Joseph walked quickly back to the house, paying no attention to the bear whatsoever. “No more outhouse for you, Rebekah. You are officially on bed rest from now on.”
***
After she’d cleaned up and Joseph had her tucked back into bed, he looked at her sternly. “No more outhouses, my darling wife. Looks like the chamber pot from here until our bopplin comes.”
Rebekah gripped her quilt and worried it in her hands. She was much too concerned about the fate of the sad mater bear to even be embarrassed about her impromptu toileting accident in front of her mann. “Joseph…”
He didn’t let her finish. “I am going to get Thomas home safely in time for dinner like I promised your folks. Then, I’ll come back and fix something up for us. Is that oll recht?”
Rebekah stared into his eyes, willing him to understand. Gone were the sparkles of love that had lit them to the fiery, delicious hue she could get lost in. What replaced them was something flat. Something serious. “You cannot kill her, Joseph. Please.”
Joseph stood and adjusted his hat, but he did not respond.
Something frantic seized Rebekah’s insides. Fear? Hysteria? “Joseph!”
He started toward the door in silence.
“Please no! You cannot! You must not!” Her voice climbed higher with each word until they came out in shrieks. “Joseph, no!” She flung out her hand to catch his but missed.
