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Northkill (Northkill Amish Series #1)

By Bob Hostetler, J. M. Hochstetler

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Friday, September 22, 1752

“Christian!” Stiffening, seventeen-year-old Barbara Hochstetler came to an abrupt halt on the stone threshold of the log house.

Out in the yard, her little brother, sky-blue eyes wide, reached up to touch the silver baubles that hung from the neck and ears of the Indian warrior who bent over him. While Barbara watched in breathless terror, the man returned the boy’s smile and trailed claw-like fingers along the soft curve of the child’s cheek, speaking in a melodious language she could not understand.

The sight of the wide bands of black and red paint slashed across the warrior’s lean, pockmarked face, caused Barbara’s heart to contract so painfully she felt lightheaded. “Maam!” she gasped, frantically searching the farmyard for her mother’s ample form.

On the near side of the barn by the chicken house, she saw her mother, Anna, swing around, the pan of crushed corn she had been scattering for the hens dropping to the ground. Barefoot, Maam ran back toward the house with astonishing speed for one so plump, her full petticoats bunched in her clenched fists, the wide brim of her flat straw hat bouncing with every step.

“Christli, ins Haus! Schnell!” In the house! Quickly!

Christian jerked around at her scream, his expression registering confusion and fear. A flurry of squawking, flapping fowl scattered out of Maam’s path as she crossed the dusty yard to pull Christian away from the warrior.

Biting her lip hard, Barbara focused on the man’s face, which darkened into a frown. Eyes narrowed, he straightened to his full height and spoke again as he reached for Christian. This time the menace in his voice and gesture was all too clear.

Maam shoved the boy in Barbara’s direction and, hands on hips, planted herself protectively between her children and the warrior. Her stance reminded Barbara of an angry hen guarding her clutch of eggs.

If she had not been so frightened, she would have laughed. Instead, she sucked in another sharp breath as five more warriors, painted and armed like the first, emerged from the woods behind the springhouse.

Before she could cry out a warning, Christian collided with her so hard he almost knocked her to the ground. She staggered, then regained her balance and caught the six-year-old in her arms. Sobbing, he pressed hard against her legs, burying his tear-streaked face in her petticoats. She was shaking as much as he was.

To her astonishment, her mother did not shrink back at this new threat. Instead, she kept her narrowed eyes on the man in front of her, whom Barbara took to be the roving band’s leader. He was angry, that was clear. But Maam held her ground, even when the other warriors advanced.

They all carried muskets, with a tomahawk hanging from their belt, and a hunting knife dangling from a rawhide thong against their chest. The weapons glittered in the sunshine.

Barbara pressed her clenched fist against her mouth and breathed a fervent plea for God’s protection. She tried to think where the rest of her family would be at that hour.

By now ten-year-old Joseph should be driving the cows up from the pasture for the evening milking. Today, as usual, he lagged in performing his chores, and she added a prayer for his safety.

Early that morning, twelve-year-old Jake had gone with their father to Christian Stutzman’s plantation a mile away. The men of their Amish Mennonite community were completing the roof of the new house Crist was hurrying to finish in time for his and Barbara’s wedding in October, only a few weeks away. Daat and Jake should be on their way home along with her oldest brother, Johannes, who lived with his wife, Katie on the adjoining plantation.

She wanted to go to Maam but dared not leave Christian alone. He clung to her so tightly that she was afraid he would panic if she pulled away.

If the worst happened, she and Christian might have time to escape through the house and out the side Stube door, intercept Joseph on the path to the barn, and make it to Johannes’s home. But seeking sanctuary with Johannes might lead the Indians to her brother and sister-in-law and their new baby. She felt sick at the thought.

Daat, come quick! she pled.

The warriors had made no further move toward her mother or the house, and for an instant Barbara dared to hope they might yet leave peaceably. But then a sneer twisted the leader’s face. He spoke in rapid, unintelligible syllables, while waving one muscular, dark-skinned arm in the direction of the fat, golden loaves of bread cooling on the trestle table set up in front of the outdoor bake oven.
Maam shook her head in stubborn refusal, the muscles of her jaw clenching.
Barbara’s stomach churned.

She had been only three when her family settled in the tight-knit Amish Mennonite community sprawled along swift-flowing Northkill Creek in Berks County, Pennsylvania. While encounters with roving bands of Delaware who lived in the region had been common as long as she could remember, most of the time the natives simply asked for food or offered handmade goods for trade before continuing on their way.

Recently, however, the community had been alarmed by rumors that the French were once again stirring up the tribes in an attempt to halt the spread of English settlers, soldiers, and forts that continued to creep over the boundary of the Allegheny Mountains into the continent’s fertile interior—territory claimed by France. And now, as Barbara studied these warriors more closely, she concluded that they were most likely members of the warlike Shawnee from beyond the Blue Mountains, whose hazy bulk formed her family’s western horizon.

Suddenly she heard a dog baying, followed by a cry that caused her to swing around, her hand pressed to her bosom.

“I’m coming!”

It was Joseph. Barbara’s heart sank when she saw her brother race toward them from the direction of the pasture, their dog, Blitz, a white streak several yards in advance.

“Go back in the house, Maami!” Joseph shouted. “I’ll drive them off!”

***

Jakob shook the reins over the rumps of his matched black Belgian horses, his sturdy forty-year-old frame ramrod straight on the wagon bench. Squinting, he tilted his head to assess the angle of the pale gold sunlight that slanted low through the dense trees and underbrush bordering the path.

“It’s getting late. The milking should be half done yet.”

“Joseph will have the cows up from the pasture and in the barn—you’ll see.” Jakob’s namesake flashed a confident smile.

The wagon wheels jerked across the ruts in the dirt road, jolting both of them hard enough to rattle their bones. Even after the long day’s labor, he noted, Jake clung effortlessly to the wooden seat with no sign of weariness. The boy already worked like a grown man.

Jakob’s fingers tightened over the reins as he urged the Belgians to a faster pace along the narrow lane that connected his homestead with Johannes’s place, where they had dropped off his oldest son. The team leaned into the harness, their huge hooves kicking up plumes of dust on the dry track.

“I can’t count on him the way I do on you and Johannes. He has yet to learn responsibility.”

“He’s only ten. Neither was I so responsible at his age.”

The boy always rushed to defend his brothers, Jakob reflected, and his stern visage softened. He couldn’t help wishing his younger boys were more like Jake.
“Ya, but you’re one to take things more seriously. Ten is old enough to get chores done on time—and not to go running off on some foolishness like chasing that fox that’s been after the chickens.”

“Joseph wouldn’t do that. Not after you told him not to anyway.”

Jakob raked calloused fingers through the untrimmed beard that fringed his face. Rubbing a bead of sweat off his shaven upper lip, he glanced in his son’s direction.

“I’ll get the fox the next time he comes around. Joseph would only waste time and gunpowder. He’s not a good shot yet, nor does he track so well as you do.”
Noting the late afternoon chill and the flame and russet that burnished the leaves of the taller trees overhead, he pushed back the broad-brimmed black felt hat clamped over his curly black hair. “It took longer to top off Crist’s roof than I expected. He’s building a good home for our Barbara, ya?”

“Ya, Daati. And we worked hard today for sure.”

Jake pulled off his own hat, revealing damp, dark brown hair plastered against his forehead. Taking his kerchief out of the shallow crown, he wiped perspiration from his brow and fanned his flushed face before replacing the kerchief, and then the hat.

“Now that we have the house under roof, Crist only needs to put in the windows and move in furniture.”

“With the wedding coming up right after we harvest the corn, it’s good we kept at it till we finished. But it’ll be dark by the time we get the milking done. Your Maami won’t be happy to keep supper waiting so long.” Jakob gave a sly smile. “She may just skin us.”

Jake grinned. “She might catch you, but I run too fast.”

The wagon rolled out of the woods into cleared land, where rolling pasture alternated with cultivated fields. Jakob’s smile vanished as his gaze took in the rangy red cow emerging from the rows of cornstalks at the edge of the field up ahead, her udder heavy with milk. Acknowledging them with a twitch of her ears, the animal continued to chew contentedly on the corn leaves hanging from her mouth.

“Vass iss des?” What is this?

Jakob drew hard on the reins. With a jingle of harness, the Belgians snorted and came to an abrupt halt, tossing their heads and sending his heavy wooden carpenter’s toolbox sliding the length of the wagon bed.

Another cow wandered into sight. Shaking long, curved horns, she lowed softly while trampling the pumpkin and squash vines that twined through the hills of corn. Jakob could hear still others thrashing among the drying stalks. Hastily he set the brake and wound the reins around the handle.

Jake jumped off the wagon and headed for the wide opening where fence rails lay scattered on the ground. “I’ll drive them out and get them up to the barn.”
Jakob began to climb down from the wagon but arrested at the sound of Blitz’s furious snarls, followed by a deep-throated howl that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. The commotion came from the direction of the house, blocked from their view by the large bank barn directly ahead. Hearing loud, angry voices, he froze.

Jake turned sharply to look at him, alarm written on his face. “It’s Maami!”
Jakob had already recognized Anna’s voice. The men spoke in one of the native tongues, their tone threatening. Indians. Probably members of the Delaware tribe, or Lenape.

He dropped from the wagon’s step and raced up the path past the orchard. Behind him he Jake’s footfalls at his heels.

Their Amish community maintained peaceful relations with their Indian neighbors and carried on a mutually profitable trade with those living in the area. That had not always been the case for the surrounding communities of die Englishe.

The English, as the Amish referred to outsiders, seemed more interested in taking the Indians’ lands for themselves than in living peaceably with them.
A number of incidents over the past year had resulted in violence, which had spilled over into the English and German communities closely bordering their own in this frontier region. The thought caused Jakob’s heart to hammer.

Rounding the barn, he came to a halt so abruptly that Jake collided with him from behind, his hat flying into the dirt. Jakob took in the scene in an instant.

Directly in front of Anna and Joseph, six warriors clustered near the stone bake house, shouting and making threatening gestures with the muskets they clenched in their hands. Blitz paced up and down between the two groups, teeth bared, hackles raised.

“Vek!” Anna shouted, motioning violently for the Indians to leave. “Geh vek!” Away! Go away!

Jakob took a step in her direction. She started and glanced toward him, her round face flushed and perspiring beneath the plain white linen Haube that covered her hair.

“Jakob, make them go!”

She struggled to jerk Joseph behind her as she swung to face the warriors. Joseph appeared equally determined to maintain his position between his mother and the intruders.

Movement in the doorway of their two-story log home caught Jakob’s eye, and he saw that Barbara stood there, her face contorted with terror. Christian cowered against her, red faced, eyes squeezed shut, hands pressed tightly over his ears.
“Maami,” Joseph pled, “go inside! Please! Let us men handle this.”

Before Jakob could stop him, Jake darted around him and ran to plant himself in front of Joseph and Anna. Instantly, every warrior dropped a hand to the tomahawk at his belt, while the leader of the band reached for the boy’s arm, waving his musket with his other hand.

Anna shrieked. The dog set up a furious clamor and lunged for the man.
Jakob sprang across the yard, gripped Blitz by the nape of her neck, and yanked her back. “Nchutièstuk! Nchutièstuk!” Friend!

It was one of the words in the Lenape language that he had picked up while trading with Delaware families who lived nearby. The warriors glared, and Jakob repeated the word, worried that they were unable to decipher his thick German accent.

He noted telling differences between these tall, muscular men and the Delaware tribesmen he frequently encountered. In spite of the cool weather, they wore only mid-thigh-length fringed leggings, moccasins, and breechclouts. Their hair was entirely plucked off except for a scalp lock at the crown of the head decorated with feathers, tufts of fur, or silver ornaments. Silver medallions hung from their earlobes, and the savage designs tattooed on their shoulders lent them an even more fearsome appearance.

But it was the broad slashes of black and red paint across face and torso that constricted Jakob’s breath, however. They were painted for war.

Releasing Blitz, he snapped his fingers and pointed down. “Nieder! Sei schtill!” Down! Be quiet!

The animal hugged the ground but continued to eye the warriors, teeth bared, ears laid back.

Cautiously Jakob straightened and raised his hand, palm outward, in front of his forehead with his index and second finger pointed to the sky. He prayed that the warriors knew the Delaware sign for friend.

“Nchutièstuk,” he repeated, speaking slowly and distinctly.

The band’s leader stared at him through narrowed eyes for a long, tense moment. At last, to Jakob’s relief, he perceptibly relaxed his stance.

Jakob drew in a shaky breath, struggling to recall the French he had learned growing up in the Alsace, the region that straddled the border between France and the German Palatinate. Most of the tribes were allied with the French, and he knew that many of the native peoples spoke at least some of the language.
“Paix, amis,” he offered. Peace, friends.

When he repeated the sign and words, he sensed a distinct change in the war party’s manner. Keeping his movements slow and easy, he crossed to the trestle table under the overhanging roof of the stone-walled bake house, where a week’s worth of fresh bread lay cooling. He took a quick count before motioning to the warriors to help themselves.

“Daati, nay!” Joseph protested hotly. “They’ll take it all!”

Jakob silenced him with a glare. Softening his expression, he again offered the bread to the warriors. The men exchanged suspicious glances, but after a brief hesitation, they came forward one by one to each claim a loaf.

Jakob nodded and smiled broadly. “Bon!” Good.

The warriors’ leader fixed him in an unreadable stare. Hs dark eyes bored into Jakob’s, then he glanced at the rope strung between two trees on the far side of the kitchen yard, where Anna was airing her quilts in preparation for the cold months to come. He waved his hand toward the brightly colored rectangles fluttering in the autumn wind.

“Nay!” Anna cried. “The bread is enough! Don’t give them my quilts, too—not with winter coming on!”

Jakob hesitated. The warrior’s steely gaze warned him that his decision would tip the confrontation either toward peace or disaster. At last, closely trailed by Blitz and the warrior, he strode over to the quilts.

Both Jake and Joseph joined their mother’s protests now, but Jakob abruptly motioned them to silence. He scanned the quilts quickly, then pulled one off the line and offered it to the warrior.

The man accepted it warily, seeming to weigh it in his hands while he scrutinized the quality of the fabric and the fine stitches that wove an intricate pattern across the colorful quilt blocks. Finally he looked up and nodded in approval. His eyes had lost their hardness, and Jakob felt the knot in his chest loosen.

Without moving his gaze from the warrior’s face, he dropped his hand to pat Blitz’s head. “May Gott bless you on your journeys.”

The warrior inclined his head and uttered several syllables Jakob interpreted as thanks. Then he turned and motioned to his companions. Together they moved to depart.

As the warriors filed off around the end of the house in the direction of the orchard, Christian slipped free from his sister’s restraining arm and stepped cautiously out of the doorway onto the broad stone that served as a front step. He wanted to get a better look at the war party, but halted quickly when the band’s leader paused to wrap the quilt around his shoulders.

Without warning, he fixed Christian in an unblinking stare. The boy froze. But with a solemn expression the warrior made the same sign Daati had used earlier: friend.

Christian smiled shyly and raised his hand to return the sign. As he did so, he caught sight of Maami’s frown. He flushed and hastily put his hands behind his back.

It was a move he instantly regretted. The warrior had caught the exchange, and he rounded on Maami, his eyes narrowed. Returning to the bake house, he snatched up a charred stick used to poke the fire, then strode to the end of the house as though he meant to follow his companions. With a single fluid motion, he slashed a strange symbol across the weathered, square logs. Then he tossed the stick disdainfully to the ground and stalked around the corner and out of Christian’s sight.

***

The instant the warrior disappeared Barbara fled across the yard to Maami’s arms, while Christian hurried to squeeze in between them. Joseph watched, scowling, then bent to scoop up a handful of dirt and pebbles from the yard and ran to the house. He had to stand on tiptoe to reach the charcoal streaks, but he vigorously scrubbed at the warrior’s mark until all that remained was a grey smudge.

His father’s sharp command halted his work. He turned to see Daati facing Maami, his stocky form tense, muscular arms crossed.

“How did all this start?”

Joseph could see Maami’s hands shake though they stood several yards apart. She loosed the ties that held her scoop hat in place and pulled it off to fan her flushed face, while with her free hand she straightened the white linen Haube that covered her hair.

“Barbara called to me while I was feeding the chickens. That one who marked the house was bending over Christli like he meant to carry him off. I no more than sent him to the house when the rest of them showed up and tried to take our bread.”

“I was bringing the cows up from the pasture when I heard shouting, and—”
Daati transferred his steely gaze from Maami to Joseph. “Ya, and now the cows are in the corn, trampling down what they haven’t eaten yet.”

Joseph could feel the heat climb into his face. He dropped his gaze and wiped his hands on the seat of his brown linen breeches, digging his bare toes into the dirt.

I can never do anything right in Daati’s eyes. The bitter taste of resentment welled up in his mouth.

“He was afraid, Jakob,” Maami protested.

Barbara flashed Joseph a sympathetic look. “We all were, but he tried to protect us.”

Daati swung back to Maami. “Have I not told you time and again never to deny them bread? All you accomplish is to tempt them to harm you and the children.”

Joseph glanced at his mother, then quickly away. As far back as he could remember, she had appeared to accept the ceaseless toil of their life without complaint. She always supported Daati unquestioningly in everything he did. At least in front of him and his sister and brothers.

The death of his baby sister four months earlier, just hours after her birth, had changed things between them, however. Joseph wished desperately that his parents’ relationship was as it had been before. But his mother was different since the day they laid little Freni in the ground, while his father seemed unwilling or unable to acknowledge her grief.

Or his own. For Joseph sensed a difference in Daati, too, though his father showed little outward change.

Now, as she had with the Indians, Maami refused to back down. “Should I bake bread and work my fingers to the bone for every savage who passes by? Should I have given them your son too?”

“I think they were Shawnee,” Joseph broke in hastily. “From the way they were painted up, it looks like they’re on the warpath.”

As though catching on to Joseph’s attempt to distract them, Jake added, “The French must be stirring up the tribes again. Crist’s brother Hans said he heard that there’ve been more attacks on the English trading posts and settlements on the other side of the mountains.”

“Daß sich Gott erbarme!” God have mercy! Maami threw her hands up and lifted her eyes heavenward. “The savages are going to kill us in our beds! Why ever did we come to this forsaken land?”

Daati scanned his children’s faces, and his mouth tightened. “Now is not the time to talk of this.”

“We’ll be ready the next time they come,” Joseph vowed. “From now on I’m going to keep my rifle loaded and primed.”

“Nay, you will not! The Lord God commanded us to do no murder. Christ Jesus said we are to love even our enemies and do good to all men, and we will act as Christ did. We will not lift our hand against any human being.”

“The English fight,” Jake protested, “and they believe in God too.”

Daati regarded the two of them with a look as unyielding as stone. “Words come cheap. How you live proves what you believe. Our example is Christ, not die Englishe. What other men do is on their heads. What we do is on ours.”

Christian shifted uneasily from one bare foot to the other. The flat finality of his father’s words cut off any further discussion, and although he could not understand everything the others were talking about, even he could feel the tension that hung heavy in the air.

He shivered. The sun had sunk out of sight behind the darkly wooded ridge that defined the western boundary of Pennsylvania’s Great Valley, sprawling from northeast to southwest two miles west of their plantation. The lengthening shadows cast by the trees and the house held an autumn chill.

Daati motioned toward the barn. “We should have started the chores an hour ago. I’ll bring up the wagon. You boys drive the cows out of the field and into the barn.”

His stern gaze fastened on Joseph. “By the time we finish milking, it’ll be too dark to see how much damage they did. Tomorrow morning early I expect you to go through the field and clean up as much as can be saved.”

The two older boys wheeled in unison and took off toward the cornfield, with Blitz bounding ahead of them. Christian moved to follow them.

A heavy hand on his shoulder stopped him before he had gone two paces. “You have chores to take care of.”

Christian looked up to meet his father’s frown. “But Daati—”

Daati shook his head, cutting off his plea. “Go help your mother and sister.”
Christian threw a mournful glance after his brothers. “Ya, Daati.”

***

Following Jake and Joseph with long, easy strides, Jakob watched them race each other down the path toward the cornfield, exchanging playful taunts, while Blitz danced around them, barking in excitement. They briefly disappeared from his sight, but when he rounded the barn, he saw Joseph a short distance ahead of him.

The boy bent to catch up two objects from the grass beside the path, one long, the other smaller. Then he hurried on, keeping his hands in front of him. Jakob did not have to see what Joseph carried to know.

Several quick strides brought him to Joseph’s side. He wrenched the finely crafted, long-barreled Pennsylvania rifle out of his son’s grasp and held out his other hand. Their eyes locked for a tense moment, then Joseph dropped his gaze and grudgingly surrendered the powder horn.

Jakob bit back his anger and motioned Joseph toward the cornfield. Without a word or a glance back, the boy strode after Jake, who waited by the fence, brow furrowed, a look of apprehension on his face.

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