The Believer (31 page)

The bell for the evening meal sounded just as Ethan fastened the ends of his suspenders to the waistband of his clean britches. It felt good to be clean again. He looked more the proper Shaker on the outside. But inside he carried guilt and sins he had need to confess. First he would eat.

His brothers nodded to him in silent welcome when he came into the Centre Family House to join them as they filed toward the biting room. They stood at their appointed place at the tables until all were gathered-the brethren on one side of the biting room and the sisters on the other. Then in unison they knelt at their places and offered up silent prayers of thanksgiving for the food they had to eat. Ethan added a prayer for Brother Issachar and then, as he got to his feet, for courage to speak his sins to Brother Martin after the meal.

The sisters who had the duty to serve them sat bowls of beans, meat, and bread out for each group of four. That way all could reach each bowl with no need for words to ask for anything to be passed. The brethren in his group, Will, Henry, and James, let Ethan take his serving out of each bowl first. They didn't speak. Conversation was not allowed in the biting room. There were only the sounds of the spoons on the bowls and the forks on the plates as they ate, but his brothers' eyes showed gladness that he was back among them as well as concern for Brother Issachar.

Yet in spite of the welcome he saw in their eyes, in spite of his relief to be back at Harmony Hill, he didn't feel the peace he had expected to feel back among his brethren. The silence beat against his ears, and he wanted to stand up and have the gift of shouting or speaking in tongues. Perhaps even howling like a dog as he had seen Brother Patrick do once in meeting. Anything but the terrible silence. But he stayed in his place. He continued to spoon food into his mouth.

Such gifts would not be allowed in the biting room. Later at meeting, he could shout. A gift of shouting might be rejoiced in there. But now is when he wanted to break the silence. Now is when he knew that, even though he might look like the proper Shaker on the outside, he was a failure as a Believer on the inside.

He knew he wouldn't be able to empty himself of all his sins when Brother Martin listened to his transgressions. He could confess his sin of curiosity that had ended with Brother Issachar so badly wounded. He could confess his sin of worry and despair as they traveled home. He could confess his sin of gathering worldliness like his britches picked up sticktights and cockleburs in the woods. But he was far from ready to empty everything from the treasure chest in his mind. He carefully put his longing for the young sister, Elizabeth, down into that imaginary chest and shut the lid. He tamped it down tight.

But no matter how much he imagined hammering it closed, he knew he could open it again. He knew he would open it again.

Brother Issachar drifted in and out of consciousness over the next several days. Sister Lettie sat with him day and night except a few brief hours when Ethan or one of the other brothers relieved her. She insisted Elizabeth be allowed to stay with her to be her hands and feet. "I'm not so young as I used to be," she told Elder Joseph when he questioned the wisdom of pulling Elizabeth out of the regular rotation of duties. "Our new sister shows a gift for healing. It's wrong to ignore the gifts of our Eternal Father."

"There are many gifts, and the first is our gift to be simple" Elder Joseph frowned across Issachar's bed toward Elizabeth, who bowed her head and did not meet his eyes. "We must not puff ourselves up and celebrate this or that gift as greater than any other. God is a part of all our laboring. He abides in our work whether it's planting potatoes, weaving cloth, or fashioning the inner workings of a drawer for a new chest:"

Elizabeth kept her eyes on the floor in a show of diffidence. She wouldn't be allowed to plead her case to stay with Sister Lettie at any rate. Her duty was to be obedient, and since her spirit often chafed at such mindless subservience to whatever the elders and eldresses determined was good and proper, she had found it best to hide her eyes from most everyone in the village except Sister Lettie, who never searched her face for evidence of fault.

Unlike Sister Ruth who tried to glean every wrong thought or deed. Elizabeth had no choice but to endure Sister Ruth's harping on her obvious shortcomings as a Shaker novitiate whenever she had to make confession, but at least Sister Melva was no longer watching her every step. Since Elizabeth was working so closely with Sister Lettie, the Ministry had assigned Sister Melva to a different newcomer to their village.

The village increased in number daily, but Sister Ruth scorned some who joined with them. "Winter Shakers. Mark my words, most of them will be gone as soon as the sun warms and good riddance" Then she stared at Elizabeth as though surprised to find her even yet in front of her eyes continuing to masquerade as a Shaker sister.

Elizabeth wasn't growing in the spirit. At least not in the Shaker spirit. But she was growing in the knowledge of healing, and if she had to dance in a pretense of worship, then what would that hurt? The Bible spoke of King David dancing in the joy of worship. Perhaps such worship was a gift as the Shakers said. And there seemed no real wrong with the idea of shaking off the sins of worldly desires and stomping out boastful pride. Any preacher would expound on the need for a Christian to do that.

As she felt Elder Joseph's eyes boring into her while he considered Sister Lettie's request, Elizabeth said a silent prayer that he'd believe she was shaking off her sinful desires. She wanted to stay with Sister Lettie that much. And with Issachar.

She blocked thoughts of Ethan from her mind. It wasn't the time to be thinking of the young brother. If Elder Joseph guessed at how her eyes feasted on the sight of Ethan's face and how her heart leapt up in her throat each time he came to see Issachar, she'd be sent out to plant the crops or to the washhouse for sure, or perhaps even sent to another Shaker village. She couldn't allow that to happen. She could not leave Hannah behind.

Before Elder Joseph spoke her fate, Issachar cried out and began to struggle with the bedclothes. Without thought, Elizabeth stepped closer to the bed to lay her hand on him. His fever seemed to be rising once more, and whenever that happened, he was tormented with unhappy dreams. Her touch never failed to calm him even as it did now. She dipped a cooling rag into the basin of water and laid it on his forehead as she softly began to sing one of the Shaker songs.

When she heard the door close, she looked up. Elder Joseph was gone, and Sister Lettie was smiling. "You will be allowed to stay. At least until Brother Issachar gets better."

Elizabeth smiled, but then her smile faded when she turned her eyes back to the man on the bed. "Is he getting better?"

Sister Lettie's smile also disappeared. "The wound heals on the outside, but his continuing fever makes me fearful the inner wounds are not healing as they should. Our brother is strong, else the fight would have already been lost, but there are times now I wonder if he wants to come back to us enough to keep on fighting. He seems to be reaching toward a different world than the one he knows here" She stared at Issachar as she spoke directly to him. "Brother Issachar, do you want to come back to us?"

His eyelids flickered, and for a moment it looked as if he were trying to rouse enough to answer her question. But then he threw out his arms and tried to lift himself off the bed as he shouted for Eva. They had heard her name often as they sat with him.

Sister Lettie let out a sigh. "Speak to him, Sister Elizabeth. Hold his hand and calm his spirit before he does damage to himself."

Elizabeth did as Sister Lettie ordered and Issachar grasped her hand with surprising strength. Sister Lettie mixed a draught of medicine.

After she held Issachar's head up to dribble some of it into his mouth, she looked over at Elizabeth. "You do realize he thinks you are his Eva"

Elizabeth looked up at Sister Lettie. "Please don't tell Elder Joseph that"

"Why?"

"He might think I had encouraged some sinful thought"

"It's not your thought. It is Brother Issachar's" Sister Lettie's eyes narrowed on her. "But it is a thought you understand, is it not?"

"Yea;' Elizabeth admitted.

"The young brother is very handsome:" Sister Lettie's voice carried the same no-nonsense tone it always did. "But he is a Believer, my sister. You must remember that:"

"Yea. I have no thought to change that"

I believe you speak the truth, but it will be better if you aren't alone with him."

"Yea, I wouldn't want to bring him trouble. There are those who think I have brought trouble enough to your village"

"Our village," Sister Lettie corrected gently. "It is your village too. And there has been no more trouble of late. No fires. No disturbances of the spirit that can be laid to your blame unless we speak of the young brother's struggles when he looks at you. And warring against the temptations of the flesh will make him a stronger Believer. If he wins that war." She stared at Elizabeth a moment longer before she sighed. "I suppose that remains to be seen the same as whether Brother Issachar wants to come back to us. Only time will tell"

The dinner bell rang and Sister Lettie stood up and shook her apron as if ridding herself of those worries. "Every dilemma can't be solved before the sun goes down. We move forward one step at a time. And now the bell signals our time to eat. You need to fetch our meals, Sister Elizabeth. And Brother Issachar's broth from the kitchen. But first go to the Medicine Shop and get some slippery elm so I can make a new poultice for the wound:"

Elizabeth had the slippery elm and was on the way back to the Centre Family House when a horse suddenly stepped off the roadway into her path. She had been so deep in her own thoughts of what Sister Lettie had said about Ethan and Issachar that she had forgotten to be on the lookout for Colton.

He stared down at her from his horse. "Well, if it isn't a devout little Shaker woman:" The flaps of his coat fell down over his saddle, and his boots in the stirrups showed no scuff marks. His broad-brimmed hat shaded his eyes, but she had no trouble imagining the arrogance in them.

Without responding to his words, she turned to walk around him, but he moved his horse to block her way.

"Not yet, Elizabeth," he said as he swept off his hat with a gentlemanly flourish. Now she no longer had to merely imagine his eyes as he peered down his long narrow nose at her, and she had to make herself stand fast and not shrink back from him as he went on. "I've been watching for you for many weeks. I was beginning to think perhaps you'd died. You know, sudden like, the way your father did:"

"Nay, I am in health:" Elizabeth lifted her chin and stared straight at him. She had no reason to fear him. He could surely do her no harm here in the middle of the village with the Shaker brethren and sisters all around them.

"Nay?" He snorted with derision. "So they've roped you in and got you talking like them now. Do you do their dances and whirls and shake like a leaf in the wind?"

She didn't answer his question. "What do you want, Colton?"

He slid off his horse in front of her. She started to back away from him, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. "You know what I want" He leaned down so close to her face that she felt the moisture of his words. "I want what is mine:"

"We brought nothing of yours with us to this place" She tried to jerk free from him, but he gripped her arm tighter.

"There's you:"

She mashed down the urge to fight against him. He was too strong. Instead she made herself stand very still and breathe in and out slowly while she stared at his face. His eyes were cold and hard and showed no concern for her, only anger. "You own no title to me," she said.

"I need no title. You were to come to me when your father died. It was what was supposed to happen. I had a plan for us" His eyes bored into her as he changed his words. "I have a plan for us. You will come with me and marry me as I planned:"

"Why would you want to marry me? You know I could never love you:"

He laughed loudly and the sound ripped through her as his grip on her arm tightened until she knew the mark of his fingers would be imprinted on her skin long after he turned her loose. If he turned her loose. The smile that lingered around his lips was not pleasant. "You think this is about love?"

"Why else would you want me to marry you?" Elizabeth stared at him with a frown. "There are many women in the world if love is no object:"

"I married twice for love or so I thought. The first woman was weak in body and died in childbirth. The second was weak in spirit and ran back to her parents at the first bit of complaint. But you:" He stared down at her. "You are strong, with wide hips well suited for child bearing, and you have a strong will. But mine is stronger. I picked you as a girl when your father moved you to the woods. He promised you to me.

"I don't believe that," Elizabeth said.

"Neither did he after you came of an age to marry. He tried to say we'd never had any such understanding, but why else would I have let him live in my cabin, let his cow eat my grass, let him burn my wood in my fireplace to keep his family warm? You were the reason. It wasn't written on a paper, but you are mine:"