Which Way Home? Read online

  The characters and events in this book are the creation of the author, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  WHICH WAY HOME

  Copyright © 2016 by Linda Byler

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Good Books, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  ISBN: 978-1-68099-124-6

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-68099-135-2

  Cover design by Koechel Peterson & Associates, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota

  Printed in the United States of America

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  The Story

  Glossary

  Other Books by Linda Byler

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  NIGHT WAS COMING ON.

  All around her the thickets turned to shadows, the crickets’ song heralding the approach of darkness when the light would fail her. She’d need a place to rest or at least stay still. Alert, perhaps, but definitely still.

  Now more than ever, she needed every ounce of her Indian heritage. Was “heritage” the right word? Or was that knowledge simply in the blood that flowed through her veins? Had she been born with the Indian way?

  She guessed “heritage” fit more with the Amish, the people who found her when she was only a few days old. Or was it weeks? She would never know. She only knew that she was a full-blooded Lenape who was found by a white Amish woman. The Amish brought her up, these plain people who migrated from Switzerland to avoid religious persecution.

  This afternoon, after a long-overdue confrontation, Hester had packed a few possessions in her haversack and left her family and the prosperous farm, built by their years of hard labor and good management in the wooded valley of Berks County, Pennsylvania. Her father’s affections for her had ignited her stepmother’s jealousy, until the situation escalated to the point of misery for Hester, Hans, and his new wife Annie.

  Now Hester was on her own. She had always roamed the familiar forests of her childhood. Her own special rock, a large, flat limestone, jutted from the steep incline on the mountain where she spent entire afternoons. She went there as often as she could for some solitude, away from the ten siblings born after Kate had found her one morning by the spring. She loved the hills, knew the way of the forest, and was instinctively adept with a slingshot and a hand-crafted bow.

  But now this was different. She had no large stone house to hold its protective arms around her at night. There was no fireplace, no cookstove. She no longer had a home.

  Hester Zug had gone to school for a short period of time, but letters and numbers got all mixed up for her like a pot of vegetable soup. She could decipher some words, enough to get by, but numbers she had no need for. What she couldn’t grasp in book-learning, she made up for by knowing the forest and developing acute skills with her weapons.

  She stopped. Everywhere on the darkening hillside, there was laurel, thickets of it. Underbrush, tangles of vines, sharp blackberry shoots—almost impossible to navigate—stopped her ascent. She had wanted to reach the crest of this sharply inclined ridge, but since night had darkened the path, she would stay where she was. Lowering the haversack from her back, she sank to the ground, then rolled to one side to tear at the brambles that pricked through her skirt. She pulled the cork from the handled crocking jar, took a few greedy swallows of water, and replaced the cork. She had found no spring, no creek, so far.

  Through the deepening gloom, she kept looking for a bed of pine needles, knowing her chance for a night’s rest increased if she could lie on that natural carpet. But finding none, she’d have to make do. Leaping to her feet, she bent her back and rid the ground of stones, thorny bushes, any obstruction that would bother her during the night. Then she spread the cleared area with dead grasses, leaves, anything to cushion her night’s rest.

  Her stomach growled, and her whole body felt pinched with hunger. Sleep would be long in coming if she ate nothing. Reaching into the sack, she pulled out a long, flat piece of deer jerky, inserted one end into her mouth and tore at it ravenously with her teeth. She swallowed before the section was properly chewed, struggling to make it go down before tearing at it once more. The salt and grease increased the natural flow of her saliva, so she slowed down, chewing longer with relish before trying to swallow.

  She disciplined herself. She would need that in the coming days. Another sip of water and her evening meal was complete. She would have loved a warm bucket of water to soak her feet and wiggle her toes, to slosh about extravagantly as she used a bar of homemade lye soap to scrub the dirt from under her toenails.

  In summer, Hester was always barefoot. She detested the restriction of shoes, especially those heavy shoes from the traveling cobbler. Her mother allowed her to wear homemade moccasins, light and supple, at home, but to go to Amish church services, she was made to wear the cumbersome leather ones. Her feet were calloused, the healthy blue veins showing through the brown of her skin, capable of walking over any terrain. She wore no shoes now.

  In her haversack, she had packed a pair of moccasins, one shortgown, more dried meat, and the journal of recipes from the old Indian woman. It was filled with directions for making the medicines and herbal remedies, the Indian knowledge of healing which she had entrusted to Hester before her death. That was it, except for the slingshot, a knife, and a ball of twine. She would need the sturdy string to make a bow.

  The slingshot would serve her well for small animals, but before winter arrived, she would need to kill larger animals. She would need the skin of the deer. She would also need a shelter first, though many miles would need to separate her from her former home before she put something up that could be easily spotted.

  She had no idea where she would go. She was headed east and perhaps a bit to the south. She had heard of the great blue waters, the Atlantic Ocean, and wondered how long she had to walk before she came upon it. For now, she knew there would be an endless string of hills, valleys, and rivers, all covered in woods. These were Penn’s Woods—Pennyslvania—where William Penn had signed a treaty and worked constantly to maintain an unsteady peace with the Indians.

  She figured Hans would try to find her. He’d stomp around for miles, his face flushed with fear and the fever of his longing. Hester’s mouth was a compressed slash in her face. Her large, half-moon eyes were flat with disgust, clouded with remembering her own sense of innocence through the years when all the signs of his hidden torment had eluded her.

  He’d send Noah and Isaac, his oldest sons, to find her, the sons born after Kate had discovered Hester, a newborn crying at the spring. The sons he ignored, so taken was he with Hester from the first day he held her in his arms.

  Noah and Isaac had come to expect their father’s neglect. They had each other. They sat beside their father in church, swinging their bare feet, content to be with him and unaware of his lack of attention, not knowing they needed a father’s love.

  They thought fathers always loved daughters more. Until they grew in age and stature
. Their outward obedience had served its purpose. But an inward seething pot of rebellion, a fire stoked by Noah’s intelligence as he absorbed the supposedly well-hidden thoughts of his pious father, only grew. Hester didn’t know about this.

  But Hester was confident that Hans would not find her. He was not taught well in the ways of the wild. He thrashed around through the woods with his heavy workboots, awakening or alerting every shy creature for miles. Sure, he was a hardworking farmer and a good manager, but he wasn’t worth a lick at tracking or shooting.

  He posed no threat. Besides, Hester knew he would not leave his wife for any extended period of time. He held his status in the community close to his chest like a priceless treasure, tending it lovingly.

  Hester felt a fresh wave of hatred. It boiled through her veins, a foreign thing. She had never hated. She knew dislike, annoyance, irritation, but nothing like this. She had learned from her Amish community to be honest about her weaknesses, her sins. But how should she regard her father, who was held in high esteem by his fellow Amish? She imagined him wearing some kind of rich robe of righteousness, while inside he was crawling with maggots of lurid thoughts and consumed by wrong desires not yet acted upon.

  Hester was past the age of twenty, but how far, she wasn’t sure. She had come to believe that her own simple mind had failed to grasp what more intelligent girls would have seen years before. She had accepted the faith of the Amish. She had been baptized and had become a member of the church, promising to live for God since being saved by Jesus Christ. She had vowed to denounce the devil.

  Yes, she had promised. She knew that the hatred driving her was wrong. She could not realize the promise of heaven when she harbored such intense dislike of Hans Zug, her father.

  Hester was beautiful, and for that she took no credit. She was created in near perfection by God alone. A gift that might have been a blessing had turned out to be a curse, or so she thought. It was many things—the way she carried her tall lissome figure as graceful as a dancer; her thick, straight, jet-black hair; her dark eyes containing a myriad of lights; her small, straight nose; her full, perfectly curled lips, behind which a set of brilliant white teeth would occasionally appear. When they did, it was a delight to anyone who beheld her, so pure, so total was her charm. And so achingly guileless.

  Many young men had been enamored, smitten by the young Indian woman. William King from Lancaster, tall, dark, taking her hand to accompany her to supper at her father’s wedding to his second wife after the death of his first. Padriac Lee, the young man who poled travelers across the river on his raft, his red hair and easy Irish charm the source of her daydreams. But nothing had ever come of either one’s attention. Hester had always been elusive.

  Too many times she was labeled an outsider because of her Indian blood. She had developed no real relationships outside her family. Even her friendship with other Amish girls was sparse, cold, restrained, and reluctant. Now here she was, alone in every way.

  She wondered how long it would take until hatred separated her from the God she believed in. Or might God understand the intensity of her disgust? Hester understood well that to be forgiven, she had to forgive. But an overriding sense of hate, and the resentment she carried for having to leave the home she loved, ruled her.

  She was born an Indian. Her very being was of the Lenape tribe. The Amish called them faschtendich. Sensible people who roamed the forests of Pennsylvania, taking care of the land and worshipping the Great Spirit. But don’t get on their wrong side. They don’t forget, Hans always said.

  Hester twisted her body until she lay on her side, drew up her knees, placed both hands beneath her cheek, and closed her eyes. A shiver ran along the top of her shoulder and slid down her back. The night air was cooling down. Well, there was nothing to do about that. She had no quilt, no blanket to ward off the chill of the settling dew. She drew her knees up farther.

  The crickets and katydids kept up their night music, but Hester didn’t notice. At home, with the upstairs window open, the same sounds sent her off to sleep every night. She knew the call of the screech owl, the barn owl, and the night hawk, the yip of the foxes, as well as the baying of the wolves.

  She shivered at the high, primal scream of the wildcat, hoping she’d never encounter one alone in the wild. Noah had. He said they were shy creatures who would slip away unnoticed much of the time. When they were hungry or threatened, they were dangerous, however, so Hester learned to keep her eyes and ears on high alert when she was alone during the day.

  The trees overhead hid most of the stars, but a few twinkled like friendly beacons between the leaves. As far as she could tell, there was no moon. She’d put a notch in a soft sapling branch every day to record the moon’s rising as well as waning.

  Small scurrying sounds reached her ears. Little night creatures snuffled their way through the thick undergrowth, she knew. Mink would be slithering about, their long, thin bodies sleek and supple. Bright-eyed deer mice rustled as quietly as possible, their lives dependent on the ability to escape the largest creatures.

  Hester swallowed, thinking of a squirrel or rabbit cooking over a spit, the hot fire roasting the dark flesh to perfection. She’d find some blackberries in the morning.

  Sleep would not come. She was cold. Sitting up, she reached for her haversack, pulled out the clean blue dress, and spread it across her legs. Removing the remaining items, she draped the heavy sack across her shoulders. Ah, that made all the difference. She couldn’t believe a summer night could turn so cool, when at home, upstairs, it was so uncomfortably warm. The last thing she remembered was one star wishing her good night from its perch on the lacy pattern of leaves above her.

  She woke with a start. The sound of crashing underbrush assaulted her senses. She lay perfectly still. The sound of her heart swelled in her ears, the thumping in her chest painful, as if it would increase its beating until it exploded.

  If she got to her feet, she’d be no better off. The thicket, the thorny branches, the laurel, all the undergrowth would not allow her to run. She estimated the time it would take to gather her things and attempt to crawl through the heavy growth. Rolling her eyes, she estimated the distance to the nearest tree. She knew if it had low enough branches, she’d be able to draw herself up out of danger, but what if there were no branches she could reach? Then she’d only be revealing herself.

  She thought of the white-tailed deer. The old bucks, the wise ones that grew the biggest antlers, often eluded hunters by bedding down in impenetrable undergrowth, especially laurel. She’d stay.

  She estimated the cracking of twigs to be a few hundred yards off. Not close. If it was a large animal, it would have to be a bear, and a very careless one at that. No deer made that amount of ruckus while moving through the forest. A cat was even quieter.

  Humans? Was Hans on her trail? She knew she was capable of leaving little or no sign of travel, especially in her bare feet. He would not be able to track her. He was far too clumsy.

  Noah? Or Isaac? Real fear gripped her whole body like a vise, clenching her insides until bile rose in her throat. She fought it down, swallowing repeatedly.

  Realizing that Noah would be able to follow her crowded her like an onslaught of defeat. She knew his way. He was her brother. As children, they roamed the woods, the surrounding hills their playground. Hester taught Noah where the redbirds built their nests and where the squirrels hid their cache of nuts for the coming winter. She taught him how to track an animal by pointing out one leaf turned on its underside, one section of bark peeled unnaturally from the side of a tree.

  But would Noah accompany Hans? With all the hidden drama, this sordid battle of Hans’s nature, would Noah be perceptive enough to grasp the underlying truth of what was happening? As she lay in the undergrowth, Hester reasoned that Noah was someone she was barely acquainted with.

  He was her brother, her playmate. But after their mother passed away and a stepmother entered their lives, Noah became a young man she n
o longer understood. He grew to towering heights, his shoulders widening into thick, powerful muscles that could fell a tree much quicker than Hans could. Rarely did he speak, and he never acknowledged her presence.

  Sometimes Hester imagined he was a mute, perhaps deaf or not quite right, harboring a brain disease. Or perhaps he simply disliked her because she was an Indian. She didn’t know. She supposed if Hans ordered Noah to accompany him to find Hester, he would obey.

  She could not go back. There were no options there. The breaking of small branches drew closer. Hester curled herself in a fetal position, completely motionless. Had she made the wrong decision?

  Suddenly, the crashing stopped. Hester’s heartbeat was the only sound, the steady, dull thumping in her ears and in her chest. Had it been an oversize, clumsy black bear that had bedded down for the night? These bears were the reigning authority over a vast area of Pennsylvania’s mountains.

  Would he catch her scent? The air was from the southwest, behind her, the way it mostly was on warm summer nights. The bear, as she now called the noise, was a bit south of her perhaps to the east, which meant she would be downwind of him. He would not catch her scent readily.

  As she lay, hope infused her, along with the realization that all would be well after all. Black bears were fat and lazy in summertime, gorging themselves on berries and the fish that would be spawning thickly in the clear, gray-green waters of the many streams that flowed to the Susquehanna. The bear would go to sleep. And at the first streak of wan daylight, she’d be on her way, skirting the laurel by a wide margin, giving the bear plenty of territory.

  When the crashing sound resumed and she heard the frustrated, whining sound of her father’s voice, it did not penetrate her understanding at first. She thought the bear had spoken. But when she heard Hans’ high-pitched yell calling to Noah, then to Isaac, she knew he was after her. He had so much power over his grown boys.

  A great calm enveloped her, folding around her neatly like a freshly washed quilt ready to be put in the cedar chest. She’d stay. They wouldn’t find her in this thicket. Hans hated pushing his way through any brambles, often saying that nothing in a mess like that was important enough to put yourself through the pain.