Esther coughed. She stood up with her proud husband, linking her arm through his. They walked back up the creaky steps.
"Asa and I'll be out in the field after lunch," David Yoder said to his son's back.
"I'll be there," replied Ben.
David winked at me. "There'll be a raising happening soon enough for the two of them. Will you join?"
It would be another chance to see Rebecca. I tried to hide my enthusiasm. "We'll see what my schedule is like," I said. "But, yes, I would like to join."
David looked around. "We're almost ready to bring in this year's wheat. Weather's been good. Real good. The strange seasons throw you off a bit, but I think I've got it figured this year. There'll be threshing soon, eh?"
He could have used any of a dozen instruments to predict the weather to a fraction of a degree, the rainfall to a tenth of a centimeter. No law against it. Just a moral repugnance to anything that would make his life easier. We'd argued it many times. I'd never come close to winning.
David kept trying to rope me into coming over to lend an able hand. And in truth I wanted to go. The women would cook blackberry and grape pies. There would be freshly churned butter and baked bread. Washing off a day's worth of hard sweat from forking wheat into the wheels of the thresher, joking with all the other men, eating that special food—it was an appealing picture. It was almost my only pleasure on this world, other than being in Rebecca's company.
Despite my privileged place in the community as a doctor, it was their nature to be wary of me. I had a very advanced education, which didn't sit too well with them, and technology was a very important part of my job (or at least it should have been)—but it was that very technology that was viewed as dangerous to the health of the community. No one ever told me I couldn't use it. I had the freedom to offer it to them; they had the freedom to refuse it. We were both batting a thousand: I always offered, they always refused.
Girls passed by us with white tablecloths, utensils, plates of bread, and half-moon pies. Someone brought out a tureen of bean soup. I pulled my watch out. "Brother Yoder," I said. "I'm falling behind already, I have to go."
David frowned. "You'll miss church tonight?"
"I'm afraid so."
"I don't know if that's good," he said.
"I have to see the Andersons' son and tend to him. They say he's had a cold for a few days, but it could be worse."
"There should always be time for God," David told me.
"A long time ago God spoke to me," I lied, trying to hide my irritation, "and charged me with curing the sick."
To which David could make no argument. He had been chosen by lot to be a preacher. His sermons were well thought out, I was told. I avoided Sundays, and sermons, and all that went with it. I could always easily be elsewhere. David and some of the other Elder preachers sensed that, but again, they usually made an allowance for me.
"I really must go," I said.
"
Ja
, well," David shook my hand and paid my fee. "Make sure you get some bread from my wife before you leave," he said.
"Thank you."
When I walked out the door I looked around. Rebecca stood out on the porch, just beside the door. She smoothed down her spotless white apron and smiled.
"Hi," she said.
She had her mother's honey-brown hair and hazel eyes.
I smiled back. "Hello, Rebecca."
"It's good to see you again."
I could see David Yoder looking at me through the window. He was no fool. Someday soon I would have to tell him that I had nothing but honorable intentions toward his daughter. Which was true: marrying Rebecca was about the only thing that would make all the unnecessary dead men and women bearable.
"I heard you say you might make the raising?" said Rebecca.
"Will you be there?"
"Of course," Rebecca said with a shy smile. "I'll be helping
Mutter
with the cooking."
"Then I will do my best."
"I hope you do make it," Rebecca said. "There's singing and dancing afterwards."
Their notion of singing and dancing wasn't about to put the dance halls of Earth and some of the colony worlds out of business, but it was better than nothing. Maybe, just maybe, for a few hours that day, no one would get hurt. No one would come down with a disease that I wasn't permitted to cure. Maybe.
I checked my pocket watch. I would have to push Zeke faster than his usual meander to make it on time. But it was worth every delayed minute.
"I would really enjoy dancing," I told Rebecca. "I have to leave now. I'm very late."
She took my hand and shook it. Her skin was cool to the touch, and feathery.
"
Gute nacht
, Rebecca," I said.
I drove Zeke at a quick clip through the forest, my mind thinking fuzzy, pleasant things about Rebecca. I didn't hear the distant rumble until Zeke began to perk his ears up.
It began low, but soon became a high pitch as I saw the triangular shape approach. Zeke slowed and sidestepped uneasily.
"Easy," I said.
The sound jumped to earsplitting. The ship buzzed just over the treetops, thundering past on a flyby, the pilot and his companions sightseeing no doubt. I craned my head back and caught just a flash of the number on the side: DY-99. The buggy bounced as Zeke began moving off the road.
"Whoa!" I yelled, pulling on his reins.
Zeke veered back toward the road, then stopped. He whinnied and looked back down at the bushes. A long creeper held his rear left leg. Hundreds of yellow barbs along the vine punctured his stifle, and blood began to trickle down toward his hoof.
I looked down at the gray floorboards of the buggy. The creepers might move up for me.
Calm yourself
, I thought;
nothing is gained by panic
.
"Come on, Zeke," I shouted, snapping the reins.
He strained against the creeper, pulling, his muscles quivering. Then he started kicking and bucking, until I heard a tearing sound, as he finally pulled free. Strips of torn flesh hung from his leg. He moved back away from the creeper, onto the road, but the buggy was still in the bush.
I snapped the reins again, and Zeke pulled at the buggy. We didn't move.
"Whoa."
I took my black bag and jumped out onto the road. Two long vines anchored the rear wheels. Zeke started straining at his harness again.
"
Whoa!
" It didn't seem to have any effect. Zeke still pulled, staring past me with determination and flared nostrils.
I started taking off his harness. My fingers slipped in under the buckle, and got caught as Zeke let up, then lunged forward again. Creepers began moving up the buggy toward Zeke. I waited for his next pause and lunge, then let go. I landed painfully, hitting my tailbone on a sharp rock.
I pulled a never-used scalpel out of my bag and tried to cut a vine away from Zeke's legs, but it was too small and the vine was too thick, and Zeke wouldn't hold still. He whinnied and kicked, but his efforts were becoming weaker, and finally he just stopped.
The vines wrapped around his legs and began to pull him down the side of the road. He pawed with his front legs at the road, dragging gravel and dirt in with him. Then he gave up with a snort.
The bushes rustled and sighed as they pulled Zeke in, and everything grew quiet.
Shaken, I stood up with my black bag.
The Andersons were a long walk away, but I could make it out of the forest road before dark. As long as I stayed in the middle of the road, I would be okay.
I limped off down the road, wondering what mad whim had made us come to this planet in the first place.
The Andersons were kind enough to give me a lift back to my house, though it meant a long drive. It was dark, and Mr. Anderson kept to the very middle of the road. I looked away as we passed the spot where Zeke had lost his battle for life.
Once I was back in my house I struck matches and held them over my gaslights. They lit the room with a
phoomph!
of pale flickerings. I made dinner: pasta and a red sauce one of the ladies bottled for me, and some stale bread. Tonight would be a good night to just go to bed early, I thought, instead of poring over my library of books, hoping to find old-fashioned ways to mimic modern medicine.
But instead someone thumped at the door.
I opened it to find David Yoder standing on my porch.
"What is it?" I asked. "Is it Esther?" Probably she was going into labor too soon. I turned, thinking about forceps, wondering how I could convince the old man to let me use them in his house.
"No," David said. "It isn't Esther. Rebecca collapsed . . ."
I stood there, dazed, until my mind caught up with the rest of me. I grabbed my bag in a daze and followed David out to his buggy.
"Creepers," I explained.
David nodded. He'd lost a horse or two to them as well.
Rebecca sat in her bed. Esther stood over her with a sponge. They thought she had a fever of some sort, but Rebecca looked like she had recovered already. She smiled when she saw me and apologized.
"I'm feeling much better now," she said. "I think it has passed."
"Well, let's make sure," I said. "Have you had any other dizzy spells?"
Rebecca chewed her lip.
She had.
"Are there any strange lumps on your body?"
The quizzical look in return sank me. I ran through the questions. And then under the watchful eye of her father I ran my hands over her pale white body, looking for the intrusions. She sucked in her breath slightly when I ran my fingers up the sides of her ribs.
"Your hands are cold," she said.
I didn't look at her face, but continued. It was bittersweet that the first time I touched her body was for medical reasons.
And that I found what I knew I had to find.
My lovely Rebecca had breast cancer. Maybe if she were more aware of her body, she would have been worried sooner. But even then, what could I have done on this world that permitted her the freedom to die in agony? It was advanced, metastasizing no doubt, spreading throughout her entire body.
When I stood up David Yoder caught my eye and nodded me out the door. We walked down through the kitchen to his porch.
"You know what's wrong," he said. It was not a question.
I nodded.
"Well?" he demanded.
"She has cancer."
I sat on the bench, leaned my head against the rough plank wall, and blinked. My eyes were a bit wet.
David didn't say anything after that. He stood near me on the porch for a while, then went into the house. Ben came out.
"Dad says to use one of our horses. I'll take you out to the barn."
I didn't reply. Ben sat next to me and clapped my shoulders.
"It'll be okay," he said. "God will protect her."
I looked the boy straight in the eye. Was he really that naive?
I woke up numb. The alarm clock rang until I slapped the switch down, my motions every bit as mechanical as the clock's.
The bed creaked as I sat on its edge. Two days' worth of half-open books lay all around me, some of them buried in my covers.
Candle wax dripped over the edges of a plate on my bed stand, the translucent stalactites almost reaching to the floor. I picked the nearest book up. The margin had a scribble in it:
DY-99
. Underneath it I had written a single question mark.
"Brother Hostetler?" came the strong shout of David Yoder from my front door. "Are you awake?
"Yes."
I stood up and pulled on my clothes, tying my rope belt off in a quick knot. A faceful of cold water dashed away my morning fuzziness. David's buggy waited outside, the horse looking as impatient as David was to get going.
Raisings were probably the most popular depiction of the culture among outsiders. Maybe it was just that it was a very attractive picture of community, and that was something they had in abundance. Many hands make light work, and there were many hands here at the edge of Yoder's property. Tables held food, lines of breads, preserves, and fruit juices. Soups simmered in iron pots. Women chatted and kids ran around, dodging around legs, tables, chairs, and whatever else served as a convenient obstacle course.
And the men gathered around the foundation of what would become Ben's home. We set to building his house together. It was more than just a community event, but a gift. When we were done Ben would have a home. A beginning.
We toiled together under the sun, hammering joints, then pulling walls up with ropes. Time passed quickly. The frame was up at lunch, and we broke to eat. Then we continued. At some point in mid-evening I stepped back, sweaty and out of breath, and looked up at a complete house.
They could have ordered a pre-fab, of course. It would have gone up faster and lasted longer. No law against it. But . . .
At the meal, when all the men sat in rows at the tables and ate, I walked over to David Yoder's house. Rebecca sat on the back stairs, looking out over the fields at the gathering. She had her skirt tucked neatly under her legs.
I sat next to her. We could just see the picnic tables over the rows of wheat shifting with the changing directions of little wind gusts.
"How are you feeling?" I asked.
"Much better," she said.
"Why aren't you out there, then?"
"Father told me to stay here, and rest myself."
I reached over and held her hand. She looked down at it.
"When you touched me . . ." she began. She caressed my hand. "I liked that." Suddenly she blushed and looked away.
We sat there silently for a long time, watching the stalks of wheat dance, running our fingers each over the other's.
"Are you frightened?" I asked at last.
"I was mad," Rebecca said. "Now I'm scared. I've done everything right. I go to church. I respect my parents. I do my best to be kind to all. Why is God punishing me?" She squeezed my hand, and pulled it to her cheek. "I don't want to die."
DY-99
, I thought.
"You don't have to."