A Clearing in the Wild (22 page)

“The accommodations aren’t much for ladies,” he told Christian. “But you’re welcome.” He said this with his eyes on me while Christian translated.

“It’s the physician we’re interested in most,” Christian said.

The captain pulled at the sleeves of his military jacket, straightened his shoulders as he responded to my husband’s words. “Aye, we have one. Frame building will be completed before long, and he’ll have a surgery. Meantime, he’s housed in that log one, along with his wife.” He pointed to a structure that looked sturdy and stable, with moss growing on its wooden shakes.

“There are women posted here?” Christian asked.

“Aye. A few of the officers have their wives here. Even a child or two.”

The captain led us to what I assumed would be our new home. We passed small log houses, and I could see easily that this had once been a farm, though someone’s vision of a fort in the future rose too. Soldiers cleaned the barns while others carried buckets that frothed white with milk. Chickens scattered like seeds as we walked.

“What about the rest of the scouts?” I asked Christian. “Are they coming later? Will there be places for them to stay?”

Christian didn’t answer. Instead, he took my arm in his and patted the back of my hand. I thought he might be pleased that I thought of someone other than myself.

We met the
gut
doctor, as I came to call him, at his office that was also his home. Christian explained our “circumstance,” and I once again suffered an examination—with my clothes on, thank goodness. “November,” the
gut
doctor said when he stepped from beneath my wrapper and I stepped down from his stool.

“Indeed. November,” Christian said. He pointed his finger at me to remind me of his rightness.

“It should be sooner,” I said. “Tell him it will be in October.”

“Twice now these men of experience have said November,
Liebchen
. I think we can trust this. And it’s good. You will have time now to rest, to settle in before the baby comes.”

“I don’t want to settle in. I want the baby to come and for us to stay the winter in a civilized place.”

“Father Keil often said it is not wise to want or desire, Emma, but to accept what we’re given.”

“As if he ever did,” I mumbled. If he had, we would still be in Bethel instead of here.

At the third log house, we were introduced to Nora, the
gut
doctor’s wife, a tiny woman with dark curls peaking beneath a cap that otherwise covered her head. She had small eyes that sparkled like a kid goat’s, with the same quick movements as she opened the door, invited us in. She wore a skirt full as a bell, and I wondered how many petticoats the material covered to make it sway so as she walked. Beside her, a child stood with hands akimbo; another, Nora balanced on her hip. I wished I’d known what all she said as she talked with quick, crisp words spoken through a mouth with all of her teeth. I deciphered only
baby
and
room
.

Nora led us to a windowless enclosure at the back of the cabin. A bed and bed stand marked the space. Still with the toddler on her hip, she picked up a ball and a small wooden horse from the floor, and I realized this must have been her son’s playroom we’d now taken over. The baby leaned out as she knelt, then pulled in at her mother’s neck when she stood up.

“
Danke
,” I said. When she motioned for me to sit, I nearly collapsed onto the bed as Christian removed the pack from my back. We’d left Fort Nisqually early that morning, walked through the two towns of Steilacoom and the final four miles uphill to this fort, encountered Indians, met the commander and doctor and now his family. It was late afternoon. My limbs felt shaky and weak. The pillows, filled with feathers, were soft as lamb’s wool on my cheeks.

“This will be a comfort while I’m gone,
Liebchen
,” Christian said, looking around the room.

I yawned. “Are you going somewhere?”

“To arrange things,” he said. He kissed my forehead and left, closing the door behind him.

I was too tired to ask for details and must have known by intuition that I wouldn’t really like his answers.

The “perfect arrangement” is what Christian called it. A physician nearby; a woman to be with if trouble arose; a military fort safe and secure, set within timbered land in a climate so mild I almost felt as though I’d taken a fresh bath when I hadn’t had one in weeks. I would have one this day, though, and that made the day seem blessed.

Then I learned what Christian was really up to, and no amount of my wailing or disagreeing budged him an inch. “You have miscalculated, Emma. I will make every effort to be back by the middle of November. That is your time. The captain says that the weather is rainy but mild well into December, so you are not to worry. All will be well.”

“But why you? Can’t Adam and the others find the place?”

He shook his head as at a recalcitrant child. His words were singsong, a repetition. “We are a team sent out, Emma. Finding a place for the colony, that is what matters most. You must remember this. I’ll be back in due time.”

I’d been a part of that team too, though he said nothing about that.

“I can’t even make them understand me,” I said. “How will I ever tell them what I need?”

“A good opportunity for you to learn English.” He sat beside me on the narrow bed we’d slept one night in.
One night!
He hadn’t even chosen to stay a week here, so anxious was he to complete his precious mission. “You said you could adapt, Emma, could make do, so we wouldn’t have to turn back, wouldn’t have to send someone chosen for this work on a detour. This is what you wanted,
ja?
You get what you want, now.”

“You’d leave me? With strangers? In this … fallen world? What about my possible corruption? Aren’t you worried about my becoming envious of the luxury here, unable to give it up when the time comes?”

He frowned. I realized I’d never mocked one of the reasons given for our needing to find a new site.

“Are you worried about people here making you do something you shouldn’t? I don’t believe this of them. They are soldiers. They’ll protect you. You’re safe here, from all kinds of harm. Even families are here.”

I wept then. “I have nothing for the baby when he comes, no swaddling cloths. My own dresses are thin as spider webs.”

“
Ach
,” he said, patting my shoulder as we sat side by side on the bed. “I’ll ask John Genger to leave an account with the captain. So you can purchase cloth to make a new dress and clothes for the baby. Purchase food for yourself, too, though the captain has said you can eat at his table. It will give you something to do while you wait for this one to arrive.” He rubbed my belly with the palm of his hand. “You will contribute now to the Lord’s work by waiting.”

“I don’t want to wait without you. It’s why I came in the first place, so I wouldn’t need to be alone when the baby came.”

He leaned back. “You said you didn’t know—”

“I meant when we talked about sending me back,” I corrected. “Does the Lord call you to leave your wife behind like this? Isn’t there a proverb about an unloved married woman being one of the three things no one can abide?”

“
Liebchen
, you are loved. You must learn not to rely on others to make you happy. Happiness comes from knowing what God calls us to and doing that. All else is false.”

“So that’s part of your, your … theology, deserting your wife in her hour of need? I thought our leader taught us to treat our neighbors as ourselves. This is not how to treat neighbors, Christian, deserting them when they need you most.”

He stroked my hair as I leaned into his chest. “What one comes to believe, one’s theology, is in large part what gets written on one’s own
heart in ways that are hard to describe to another. Like poetry it becomes. Like a beautiful dream that loses its depth in the daylight. Think of Martin Luther. Of John Calvin. Their everyday lives changed who they became and changed what they came to believe. And what others came to believe as well. Ask them about their theology, and they would talk to you of the struggles they had and the choices they had to make in their everyday lives,
ja?
Indeed. It’s how they came to know that each of us can speak for ourselves to God.” I nodded and sniffled. “I’m not called to abandon you and I don’t. I’m called to do what is asked of me, to take care of you and to continue with the other scouts to accomplish what others are counting on us to do. It is why we are here, Emma. Because others are counting on us. You must do your part now.”

“But what’s wrong with all the scouts staying right here in Steilacoom? Why can’t we find donation land claims near here? It’s perfect, as you said Ezra Meeker described it. There are already people here and towns and the climate …” I breathed in deep. “It is perfect.”

“Well, it may be, but we will not know until we survey more, look beyond what has already been carved out. We look for our own clearing in the wild, Emma. As each of us must do in our own hearts. Perhaps this time without me right at your side, where you are asked to do new things that might frighten you unless you lean onto the Lord, perhaps this is how you will begin to clear your wild.”

“The baby really will come in October,” I whispered.

“The doctors all say November, and I will be back in November. I always keep my promises to you,
Liebchen
. You can count on this.”

My tears did not stop him. My prayers were rarely answered of late, so when he walked through the door away from me, I didn’t bother to pray he would stay. Instead, I turned my back on him on the seventh day of October and buried my head in the feather pillow. I didn’t know when I’d see my husband again.

The day darkened with rain that fell from a pewter sky. No one knocked on my door to see if I was alive or dead. I lay on my bed, staring up at the peeled logs, watching a spider weave its web. I tried to imagine what the scouts would be doing, how Christian would get along without his wife at his side as I’d been these last months. They’d see, those scouts, how much harder it would be to search for the right site without me along. They’d see. I pulled the wool blanket up around me, feeling suddenly chilled.

Who would fix Christian’s corn drink on the trail?

The Knight brothers would.

Who would wash their heavy jeans and shirts?

Christian would, as he’d helped me perform that labor each time. He always acted as a servant, even though he was the chosen leader.

Who would encourage them?

It wouldn’t be me even if I had been along. Hans made us all laugh. George kept us fed with fresh game. John Genger kept us solvent. The Stauffers read the landscapes. What had I contributed?

I’d given little with my presence. They’d had to accommodate me on the journey west. My absence offered more to the success of their venture. What kind of uniqueness was that? What kind of theology was I inventing?

“
Challenges defined belief
,” he’d said. I looked back to see what evidence existed for that in my life. When I thought I’d be left behind in Bethel, I’d met that challenge by discounting the virtue of my childhood and lying my way onto this journey. At least, I’d omitted some truths and in that way betrayed those I said I loved most. What would it have hurt me to remain with my parents and travel out with Christian’s family in a year or two when they’d found a site? What would I have lost in staying behind?

I felt my stomach knot. To be excluded from this, to be asked to
continue on in the colony routine, to never question what our leader asked of us, was that a woman’s lot? Was that the belief I couldn’t accept? Tears dribbled down my cheeks and into my ears.

In German, the word
to believe
meant to feel deeply about a thing. I did believe in my husband and the work he was called to. I did feel deeply about the success of the journey and the ultimate goal of bringing the colony to a new and different place. But I felt deeply about my own needs, too, my own rights to pursue what I might be called to do. Helena Giesy would say wives were called to support their husbands. Our leader would say we are to shun the ways of the world and serve our Lord on the road our leader chose—the road of obedience to him, service to one another, and lives without envy.

My mother would likely concur with those virtues. I missed her this night. Though I did wonder, as I fell asleep, how that strand of pearls she wore hidden by her collar fit with her living a simple, devoted, colony life.

I’d have to ask for help for everything: where to empty my chamber pot, where to get water so I could heat it to bathe. He’d left me helpless as an infant, me who wished to be independent, to do things on my own. I’d become a bummer lamb, that smallest offspring sent for special handling because it couldn’t survive on its own.

Worse was that I couldn’t even ask without appearing like a
Dummkopf
. I’d have to fumble and mumble along like a toddler just learning to talk. My parents had never encouraged my learning English. They’d never stopped speaking German, even though they’d lived in America for years. Papa said it would make them too much like everyone else, that they’d just meld into the world around them if they spoke as the outside world did. Our leader never encouraged outside learning either, unless it offered practical advice about animals or grain, woolens or wagons. The Bible met our educational needs, he always said, and that book was written in German. Bethel didn’t even have a library. Still, my father learned English in order to reach out to those beyond the colony, to recruit people, to buy land for the colony owned by “the world.” He’d entered the world without becoming contaminated.