The Beekeeper's Son (The Amish of Bee County Book 1) (11 page)

A head came up. More grunts and snorts. One of them stared directly at her, the whites of its eyes shiny in the dusk.

Deborah took a step back, then another. Her foot hit something slick. She slipped and staggered, arms flapping.

The writhing in the dirt and the rutting of the tusks against the black earth stopped. Beady eyes studied her. She stilled. The biggest pig raised its head and sniffed, its long snout quivering in the air. Its head bobbed and its massive body started toward her.

Deborah whirled and ran.

Phineas picked up his binoculars from the wooden crate next to the hive and slung the strap over his shoulder. Combining work
with pleasure had an economy that pleased him. He enjoyed his time with the bees and watching for birds. He smiled to himself as he always did when he thought of the little, silly joke his daed liked to make about Phineas’s interest in the birds and the bees. He studied the horizon. The gathering dusk meant it was too late for any more bird-watching.

The thought didn’t bother him too much. It had been a long day. Time to roll into bed. Dawn would come early. He strode through the field, humming to himself. When he realized what he was doing, he stopped. Just because the singing was tonight didn’t mean he had to partake. No matter how many times Daed and Susan and Esther brought it up. He liked this time outdoors much better. The music of nature suited him, a concert all its own. Birds cooing in the trees, crickets singing, frogs croaking, dogs barking.

He slogged through the weeds, keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes. They liked to come out once the sun started to set and the day cooled. He’d rather not come upon one unawares. They really wanted to be left alone and would only strike if they felt threatened. Still, he chose to wear his work boots when he walked in the fields.

One thought led to another. Deborah and her fear of snakes. Deborah and her bare feet. Deborah and her determination to go home. Last he’d heard, she was still here. Daed had mentioned showing her and her sisters how to extract honey from the frames. Then Susan had brought it up. Then Esther. They acted like they’d never had new folks at a frolic at the house.

Any girl who had as much dislike for this place should go home.

Then he would stop thinking about her.

He could admit it. To himself. When he closed his eyes at
night, for some reason, which he couldn’t explain, her face appeared. When he worked the hives, his mind drifted to the look on her face after he’d plucked the stinger from her finger. Gratitude, and something else.

Rather, something lacking. She hadn’t been thinking about his face or his scars. She’d been thankful for him. No girl had ever looked at him like that.

A shriek cut the serene evening quiet. A woman. Phineas swung right and pushed through withered cornstalks and weeds to the road. Deborah Lantz ran smack into him, slammed into his chest. Out of sheer instinct, he caught her. His arms went around her. She stared up at him, her face contorted with surprise and shock. Her mouth opened but no sound escaped.

“What happened?” He’d been thinking about her and here she stood. The shock of that realization made him stutter. He held her, acutely aware of her warmth and her ragged breathing. Her heart pounded against his chest, making his own race to catch up. He wanted to keep her there, close, within the circle of his arms. After a second or two, something else hit him. She stank. “What’s that smell?”

Panting, she tugged free and stumbled back a few steps. A sudden, disorienting sense of loss enveloped him.

“You. It had to be you.” Her voice quivered. “Every time I do something silly, you appear. Where did you come from? Did you see them?”

Her words sounded almost like an accusation. Phineas breathed through the desire to snap back at her. She’d been scared, and sometimes people who were scared lashed out. “I was working the hives. I heard you scream.”

“I didn’t scream.” Her cheeks, already scarlet with heat and
exertion, burned redder. “I may have . . . yelped a little. They were chasing me.”

“Who was chasing you?”

“Not who, what. I don’t know exactly.” Her chin came up and she stalked away. Phineas stood there for a second, then rushed to match her step. If she walked any faster, she’d be running. “They looked like pigs only . . . bigger . . . and black.” She flung her arms out as if measuring their widths and heights. She always seemed to need to talk with her hands. “They were . . . digging around in the dirt, and when they saw me they rushed at me. I ran away from them.”

“Stepped in something along the way, did you?”

“What do you mean?”

He sniffed the air. “You’re a little . . . smelly.”

She groaned, stopped, and picked up the skirt of her dress a few inches. Brown stuff smeared both sneakers. “That’s just great. Great.”

“It’ll wash off.”

She started walking again, her face the color of beets now. “I suppose.”

“Are you going to your Onkel John’s?”

“Jah. What does that have to do with it?”

“You’re going the wrong direction.”

Her expression saying it was all Phineas’s fault, she halted, pivoted, making a cloud of dust around her feet as she stomped. Dust that stuck to the manure. Then, with more grace, she resumed her hurried stride in the right general direction.

“Wild pigs.” Phineas whirled and kept pace with her. “Technically, they’re called javelinas.”

She didn’t look at him. “Javelinas?”

“There’re a lot of them around here. They rut around, rooting for food. Tear up the fields something fierce. When it’s dry like this, it’s hard for them to find anything to eat. They’re usually down around the creek bed, hoping it’ll have water, I guess. By the way, they don’t chase people. I imagine they ran the other direction. They only come after people who antagonize them.”

“I didn’t antagonize them.”

“Then you probably had nothing to worry about.”

“Right. Now I know.” Her pace slowed again. “Are there any other wild animals I should know about?” She waved both arms over her head as if in surrender. Apparently the more worked up she got, the more she had to move her hands. “Anything else that might run me down, bite me, chew on me, spit me out?”

Phineas liked her feisty anger better than the earlier fear. Her tone suggested she was ready to take on any critter who tried to take a bite out of her. Phineas waited a beat or two, letting her catch her breath. “Coyotes.”

“Coyotes. Onkel mentioned those.” She sighed, a blustery, exaggerated sound. “What else?”

“Mountain lions.”

“Mountain lions?” She finally glanced sideways at him, her eyebrows lifted. Her arm swept out in a disdainful gesture. “Are you pulling my leg? This place is flat as a pancake. There are no mountains here.”

“They get pushed out of their natural habitats by folks building stuff and go where they can find food. There’re not a lot of them, but once in a while, we find a cat or a dog or a goat that’s been killed by one.”

“How do you know so much about animals and such?”

“I read.”

At first because it filled his time, especially when he was in the hospital those long weeks of recovery. His jaw had been wired shut and his nose taped into place, the swelling making it difficult to breathe, let alone talk. And later because it kept the loneliness at bay.

Deborah’s expression said she still didn’t understand. She wanted him to explain himself. He’d never made conversation with a girl to any extent. He dredged up the words. “They interest me. We also have the two-legged animals you have to watch out for around here.”

“What do you mean?”

“The escapees.”

“What escapees?”

The real reason she shouldn’t be gallivanting around the countryside alone at night. “Once in a while, a prisoner escapes from the McConnell Unit or Garza, the west transfer unit.”

“Prisoners?” Her shoulders hunched and her head went down. “There’s a prison out here?”

“Just east of Beeville. There are almost as many prisoners as people living in Beeville.”

“Why would people want to live around a prison?”

“Jobs.” Pure and simple. People were hurting for ways to put food on the table for their children. The folks in Beeville had lobbied for more and bigger prisons. “A way to make a living that doesn’t involve sweating on the back of a tractor, I guess.”

“Farming is honest work. I suppose guarding prisoners is too.” She was silent for a few more yards. “Are they dangerous?”

“They say they put the worst of the worst here, so you shouldn’t traipse around at night by yourself. I’m surprised John didn’t mention it.”

“He’s too busy trying to put food on
his
table.”

Good point. “Anyway, I think that’s it for the dangerous creatures who live in our neck of the woods.”

She picked up her pace as if chased by those very dangerous creatures he’d mentioned. “What are the binoculars for?”

He’d forgotten they hung around his neck. “I like to bird-watch.”

Her eyebrows rose and fell again. “Just any birds?”

“Unusual birds. They fly through here on their way to Mexico for the winter and come back through in the spring. Even in the summer you can see some interesting birds sometimes.” It sounded like a silly thing for a grown man to say aloud. He wanted to kick himself. Birding was something he kept to himself. He’d been doing it since his daed gave him the binoculars and a book on birds the day he left the hospital. Mordecai knew he would need something to take his mind off the grotesqueness that was his face with the new, red, raw scars like braids across his cheeks and nose. “I like the way they look when they fly.”

“Me too. I wish I could fly with them.”

The knot of embarrassment in his gut dissolved. “Me too.”

He’d never told anyone that and she’d said it first. They had one thing in common.

He matched his stride to her shorter one and took a quick peek at her. She marched along, arms swinging, her gaze fixed on something on the horizon. Her breathing still seemed strangely fast and the color hadn’t faded from her cheeks. Sweat dampened her forehead, and the tendrils of blond hair that escaped her black kapp curled around her temples. She glanced his way, then back at the road. “You don’t have to walk with me.”

He slowed. He’d been so intent on making sure she was all right, he forgot to think about whether she wanted his company.
Of course she didn’t. Why would she? Fine. The smell wafting from below the hem of her dress didn’t make her particularly good company either. Nor did her general air of discontent with him, with Bee County, with the world. “Good night.”

She glanced back, her expression much more tentative than it had been only seconds earlier. “But I wouldn’t mind if you did . . . walk with me, I mean. If the
schtinkich
isn’t too much for you.”

“It’s not like I’m not around manure every day.” She shouldn’t be out here by herself. At least that’s what he told himself. Phineas sped up. “What were you doing out here anyway?”

“Walking back from the singing.” The tiniest tremor in her voice gave her away. This had not been good. She hunched her shoulders, her gaze on the road. “I decided to go home—back to Onkel John’s a little early.”

“Didn’t enjoy it, did you?” He kept his tone neutral. It was none of his business. “That’s the funny thing about those singings.”

“Nothing funny about it.”

“I just mean the idea to start pairing off with the person you might marry someday. Most of us here, we’ve all known each other forever already. I reckon we should’ve figured it out by now.”

“Not me.”

So that was it. She’d felt left out. The new girl. Even with Frannie there and her sisters, most likely. He’d felt the same way and he’d known all these people for his whole life. “Didn’t go so well?”

“It was fine. I’m just tired.”

“What does it matter?” Deborah didn’t plan to stick around here. She’d told him as much the first day she flopped at his feet in horror at the sight of him. And again after the bee sting. She’d seemed pretty set on leaving as quickly as possible. “You’re not in the market for friends anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t plan to stay. At least that’s what you said.”

She seemed to take a sudden interest in the road, sidestepping a twig and two-stepping past a stone. Her cheeks flamed still brighter. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Truth is truth.”

“I can’t go back anytime soon. My mudder needs me here, at least until after the wedding and probably beyond, given the state of Stephen’s house.”

“He isn’t much of a housekeeper, but surely your schweschders can handle that.”

She picked at a burr stuck to the bottom of her apron. “You can’t expect things to stay the same just because you’re not there anymore. People move on.”

She uttered this statement with a faint underpinning of what sounded like despair, or more like melancholy. That was it. Melancholy like he so often experienced when he stared up at the sky and wondered why God had bothered to plant him on the earth, so little did he have to offer those around him who pretended to accept him as he was, but shuddered after he turned away. He found he had no answer for her, none that would make it better.