Tender Mercies (Men of Lancaster Counter Book 2) Page 2

  Eddie tried to pet Ginger’s nose through the opening over the trough, but she shied away immediately.

  She has no idea what to expect from you. Give her time.

  He let her eat in peace and went back outside to rejoin Devin.

  “You have no clue what you’re doing, do you?” Devin said easily, watching the cows.

  “Nope. Not a clue. I’ve read some books, though.”

  “Well,” Devin sighed. “I had a dog once. How much harder can they be?”

  Eddie laughed. “Other than being ten times larger and not socially cued to humans?”

  They’d be a challenge, but Eddie didn’t mind. He felt a fierce happiness at having Ginger and Fred here. Nerves too, yeah, but mostly happiness. After all, a farm wasn’t much of a farm without animals, and a farm sanctuary was nothing at all.

  “I can’t believe you took them so fast. Only you, Eddie, would end up owning two cows before you’d even spent one night on your brand-new farm. You should have given yourself a few weeks to settle in, get unpacked.”

  “I had no choice. The couple who owned Fred and Ginger sold their homestead two months ago, and they had no place to put them. They’ve been living in some guy’s garage ever since. A garage. He’s been calling me relentlessly, asking me to take them. He threatened to call a butchering operation if I didn’t get them soon.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Yeah.” Eddie rubbed at his breastbone to soothe a sudden ache. The idea got him right in the feels. “And the homestead they were on before that was tiny. I saw a picture of it. They were in a small backyard with an overhang for a shelter. The lady was milking Ginger after Fred was born, but then got bored with it. At least now they have a pasture with real grass and an actual barn.”

  Devin slung his arm around Eddie’s shoulders. “Lucky cows.”

  “I hope so.”

  A flutter of nerves returned. Fred and Ginger were here, and they were counting on him. If the farm sanctuary failed, they’d be homeless once again. He sighed. “You have no idea how many animals in need there are out there. When I filed the paperwork for 501(3)(c) status, I had to be a registered farm sanctuary. And once I registered, my contact info went up on the farm sanctuary website. I’ve had a dozen emails already, people who need to rehome animals. And it’s only going to get crazier. I’ve already committed to three sheep, but that’s it for a bit, at least until I get my bearings.”

  Devin hugged him tighter. “You’re just one person. As it is, I can’t see how you’re going to take care of this huge property, and the animals, and work full-time from home. I wish I could hang out for a week or two, but things are nuts for me right now. And not the good kind of nuts either. I’ve got two new ad campaigns kicking off next week.”

  “It means a lot to me that you came for the weekend. This would have totally sucked if I’d been alone.”

  “Alex is a douchebag,” Devin said firmly. “But you’ll find someone else. Someone better. I just know it.”

  Eddie said nothing, but he thought to himself finding a boyfriend was the least of his worries. In fact, after what Alex did, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to date again. The real problem was running the farm alone. And money. Definitely money.

  Devin patted his arm like he was a kid. “Seriously. Things happen for a reason. You’ll be fine, and you know why? Because no one has as big a heart as you, and because all you want to do is help animals. You’ve got karma on your side and angels on your shoulders.”

  Eddie snorted. “I wish I could believe that.”

  “Just listen to your inner voice. You’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah, like those guys who constantly predict the end of the world and then, hey, look at that! They’re wrong. Or, you know, Son of Sam. Inner voices don’t have the greatest batting average.”

  Devin stuck out his tongue. “How can you be such a soft touch and a stone-cold cynic at the same time?”

  “I was born kindhearted . The cynicism is learned behavior.”

  “Ha,” Devin said flatly. “Well, maybe you should unlearn it, buckaroo. You’re running an animal rescue now. No cynicism allowed. I say we go crack open that bottle of wine and celebrate your new cows. Are you with me?”

  Devin held up his hand for a high five. Eddie rolled his eyes and gave him one. “Yeah. Just wait right here. There’s one more thing I want to do.”

  Eddie ran into the house and dug out a two-foot statue from a duffel bag, where he’d wrapped it in clothes so it didn’t break. He went back out to the barn and placed it in the nearest garden bed, digging the base of it in a little so it wouldn’t fall over.

  “There.”

  Devin raised an eyebrow at the terra cotta piece. “Isn’t that a saint? I thought you were Jewish.”

  “It’s Saint Francis, patron saint of animals. My boss gave it to me as a going-away present. It’s symbolic. Or possibly a gag gift. Anyway, you’re the one who just told me not to be a cynic.”

  “True. Well, I hope St. Francis brings you all the good juju.”

  Eddie did too. Fred, Ginger, and dozens of animals he hadn’t met yet were depending on him.

  II. How Samuel Comes To the Farm

  Home is a place that finds you.

  Chapter 2

  “What the devil are you doing?” Father’s voice boomed through the hayloft, frightening Samuel half to death. He was looking out the window with his back to the ladder, and he hurriedly did up the flap on his britches. He’d barely closed the buttons before his father was there, shouldering Samuel aside and peering out the window.

  Humiliated, Samuel stepped back, his heart sinking. Oh Lord, please don’t let him see.

  But his father did see, and he understood. When he turned from the window, the stern, bearded face was set hard, and his eyes burned. “You have a sick, filthy soul!”

  “No, Da! I was only lookin’ at the sky.”

  “Liar! Don’t make your sin worse by lyin’ to my face!”

  “Da….”

  “Don’t you move! Not one inch!”

  Father moved swiftly to the hayloft ladder and climbed down to the main floor of the barn. Samuel knew he would return, and when he did, Samuel would be in for a world of hurt. He was nineteen years old, for land’s sake, and he hadn’t had a beating since he was fourteen. He avoided them by staying quiet and doing what he was told. But this…. He was in terrible bad trouble.

  It was bad enough Samuel’s father caught him touching himself. But that would likely warrant extra Bible study, not a whipping. What was worse was Samuel did it while looking out over a field. The only point of interest in the field below was their neighbor, young and handsome John Snyder, who was out there working a plow. His body was strong, and his muscles bunched under his white sweat-slicked shirt…. Even now the memory of the sight caused eddies of arousal to swirl amidst the fear in Samuel’s belly.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d been caught at something like this either. He was found behind the schoolhouse with a boy when he was fourteen, their hands down each other’s pants when the boy’s father came around the corner. Samuel was driven home, and the man talked solemnly to his father. Samuel got the worst beating of his life that night. But he promised his father it was the only time he’d ever done anything like that, and it was mere curiosity, not his nature. He’d lied.

  In the years since, that incident had eroded away his relationship with his father like rot in the foundations. Samuel sometimes looked up to find Da staring at him, suspicion and worry in his eyes. But Samuel ignored it, tried to prove he was a good worker, that he was an honorable man, that physical desire of any kind was not part of his makeup. Now one glance out the window had sparked those long-buried doubts in his father’s mind, and all those years of hiding lay crumbled to dust at Samuel’s feet.

  His belly crawled with shame and self-loathing. Why did he do these things? Why did this desire torment him so? What was wrong with him? He was a grown man. He shouldn’t still be getting beating
s from his father, shouldn’t be doing the kind of furtive, shameful acts that deserved them.

  His father came back up the ladder. “Take your shirt off!” he ordered, his voice as dark and cold as a winter’s night.

  Hands shaking, Samuel stood, pushed off his suspenders, and began to unbutton his shirt. His fingers were graceless, fear robbing them of their usual dexterity. There was nothing he could say that would convince his father now. Any lie would only make things worse.

  He laid his shirt neatly on a bale of hay and turned his back obediently to his father. Maybe if he showed humility in this, his father would be appeased. His shoulder dipped as his bad foot made the maneuver of turning awkward. As he moved, he glimpsed the large switch in his father’s hand. His da kept a box of such switches in the barn, cut anew from green saplings from time to time. They were an excellent deterrent to his children but rarely saw use.

  This was going to hurt. Bad. Samuel braced himself for pain. A few strokes, he told himself. Maybe three. Five at most. Then it would—

  There was a faint whistling sound, and fire shot across his back. The pain was so sharp and fierce Samuel couldn’t stop a cry and a half step forward.

  Before he could begin to recover, another blow came, and another. He found himself half lying, propped up by the stacked hay bales and clinging to their rough surface. There was unfettered fury in the blows that rained down upon him. His da held nothing back, striking Samuel with all his might again and again.

  Samuel lost count of the blows. His cries came in a steady stream of agony and pleas. The fire in his back turned sharp and cutting as skin bruised, swelled, and broke open under the assault like a melon left to rot in the field. He felt blood trickle down his back. He twisted but couldn’t escape the cruel lashes or the clouding effect of shock and pain.

  Oh dear Lord in heaven, help me.

  Through the fog of agony, he heard his father’s ranting voice. “Shoulda known! That foot of yours is a sign from God about the sick, twisted nature of your soul! Your foot’s not the abomination! You are! You lying, lustful, sick, devil-ridden….”

  “Da, stop it!” It was Matthew’s voice, urgent. “Da, please stop! You’ll kill him!”

  “Stay out of it!” His father shouted.

  “I’m gettin’ Ma. Ma! Ma!” Matthew was eighteen and the only one of Samuel’s siblings he had any true closeness with. He heard Matthew’s voice grow faint. Matthew would get mother. She would stop this, stay his father’s hand. She had to. Please, Lord.

  But the blows had already stopped, Samuel realized. The only sound was his father’s harsh panting. The fear-fueled adrenaline that had kept Samuel mostly upright now vanished, leaving him exhausted, his senses overwhelmed with pain. He dropped his head into his arms, still propped on the hay bales, and sobbed. They were big, wracking noises he couldn’t contain.

  His father gripped his bicep firmly and tugged him upright. “Get to your feet. Now, boy!”

  Samuel stood, shakily, and wiped at his eyes. He was ashamed of the tears, but he couldn’t seem to stop them.

  “You listen to me! You will go down that ladder and walk to the road, and you jus’ keep on walkin’. I don’t want you on this farm no more. Because if I catch you sinnin’ again, I can’t answer for what I’ll do. And I don’t need that on my conscience. Do you understand me?”

  Samuel hitched in a breath and stared at his father in disbelief. He wiped a sleeve over his eyes again as if he couldn’t trust his own senses. “But… but Da….”

  “I mean it!” His father’s face, his voice, were flat and merciless. “Take your coat and hat and be gone with ye. Here.” His father dropped the switch, fished out his wallet, his mouth set in a white line, and took out a bunch of twenty-dollar bills. He shoved them into Samuel’s hand. “Take this and don’t never come back! I wash my hands of you.”

  Da turned and went down the ladder, not looking at Samuel again.

  Samuel’s ears were buzzing. His back throbbed and stung like it had been run through a thresher. His head swam. Nothing felt real, and yet surely this was too awful to be a dream. Surely the dream world was not so stark nor so cruel. He picked up his shirt and his black wool coat and black hat from where he’d lain it to the side earlier, before his world commenced to shatter. He stood for a moment, holding the clothes. He didn’t want to put the shirt on. It was white, and it would quickly stain with the blood he felt on his skin. But he couldn’t very well go walking down the road in March half-naked.

  He put the shirt on, breathing through the pain as the movement stretched tortured skin. Then he put on his coat and placed the hat on his head, smoothing his long hair behind his ears with shaking fingers. He wiped the tears and snot from his face, swallowed the ache in his throat, and gingerly climbed down the ladder. The rough wood of the rungs felt too solid under his palms, the moment too important. I’ve climbed this ladder a million times since I was a little ’un. I’ll never climb it again.

  When he reached the driveway, he looked back at the farmhouse . He expected to see his mother or Matthew or Eliza, anyone. Surely someone would come out to say Where are you going, Samuel? What’s wrong? We’ll talk Da ’round, you’ll see. But there was no sound from the house, and no movement except the flutter of a curtain as someone stepped back away from the window.

  Da was keeping them inside. He wouldn’t let them come.

  Your foot’s not the abomination! You are!

  His heart shrank in his chest, withdrawing into the furthest reaches of his rib cage like an abused dog hiding in a doghouse . Abomination. He’d been cast out, sure to be shunned by the bishop. His family, Ma, Matthew, Jane, Sarah, Eliza, all his older brothers and sisters, cousins… they were all lost to him. He had nothing and no one. Dazed and in shock, Samuel turned and walked to the road. His normally mild limp, caused by his twisted foot, was exaggerated due to the agony of his back. He pathetically swung from side to side.

  He turned right at the end of the driveway. And he kept walking.

  Chapter 3

  Samuel slept the first night in a barn that belonged to the Oberfells. The family had always been friendly to him, but he didn’t want them to know he was there. He couldn’t face admitting what had happened. But he couldn’t walk any farther either. Exhaustion overcame him like a thick, heavy cloak that promised forgetfulness. He stumbled on the road, barely able to keep his eyes open. His back had stiffened up something fierce, and the stinging pain sank into his bones.

  He awkwardly climbed a fence and found a dark corner in an empty stall of the Oberfells’ barn. It smelled like goat, but the straw was clean. The straw, and his coat, were his only comforts. He woke often in the night, the pain in his back forcing him to shift position from one side to the other. He rose and slipped away again before dawn.

  Walking in the cold and rainy March morning, Samuel’s situation began to sink home, past the disbelief and shock.

  What was he going to do? He had $240 in his pocket—the money his da had given him. He had the clothes on his back—black wool pants, a white shirt ruined with dried blood, suspenders, his black coat, black hat, socks, underwear, undershirt, and his work boots, the right one specially designed for his bad foot. That was all he possessed in the world.

  He needed to find a job and a place to live. Perhaps if he found a job, his little bit of money could buy him lodging for a few weeks until he was paid. He didn’t need anything fancy, only a place to lay his head, someplace out of the rain. And food, just plain food sufficient to survive. He didn’t deserve anything delicious or homemade.

  Abomination.

  Where could he look for work? All he knew how to do was farming. He could manage basic repairs, but he was no skilled carpenter. And he couldn’t look for work in the Amish community. The idea of his da finding out where he was and coming in his buggy to talk to his employer, tell them why Samuel should not be allowed among decent folk….

  Abomination.

  No. The thought alone made
him want to vomit. Samuel couldn’t risk it. He had to look for work among the English. He father wouldn’t follow him there.

  Dear Lord, why do you hate me so?

  Samuel had known since before his voice changed that he liked boys. He was prone to strong, gut-twisting crushes. Other kids at the Amish school made fun of him when he tried to hold hands with or acted affectionate with other boys, his friends. He learned young to hide those urges. The desire to touch didn’t lessen as his body matured and he grew older. It grew stronger, a hunger that at times was so fierce it felt like it would consume him, eating him up from the inside out.

  He had a terrible crush on Robert Yoder for years. The boy’s soft brown hair and big brown eyes were the epitome of beauty, as far as Samuel could judge. Robert and he weren’t friends, especially. Robert had his own brothers and cousins to pal around with, and he didn’t live real close by. But Samuel saw him every Sunday at church. He looked forward to it all week. That funny feeling in his belly would start the moment he laid eyes on Robert. He tried not to watch him. No, that wasn’t true. Samuel tried not to get caught watching him.

  Robert got engaged to Sophie Miller last spring. Samuel actually cried when he found out, alone in the dark of his bedroom. It was pathetic behavior for an eighteen-year-old. He cried not because Robert was lost to him, but because there had never been a chance for another outcome. He cried because Robert would go on to live a normal life with Sophie, a pure and upright life of the sort that Samuel was denied. He cried because he hated himself for loving Robert, for wanting him that way. The passions inside him were useless feelings, as productive as casting good seed on cement. But he couldn’t control them, and he couldn’t fix them.

  Why was his mind so broken? Why had God made him this way? Why did God hate him so? Wasn’t his foot burden enough for any man? His right foot was twisted ninety-degrees to the inside, his right sole facing his left ankle. The area around his right ankle had grown large and tough because he was forced to walk on it. His boots, special-made, added inches on the right side so the height-difference wasn’t so bad, but he still limped. A clubfoot, they called it. Duck foot, the kids in school said.