The Winnowing Season Read online

  Landon couldn’t remember the names of half the people they met, but one of Rhoda’s conversations led to an invitation to visit the farm for a young woman named Nicole. She knew something about installing solar panels.

  Other than that, Landon was bored. By the time the class ended, he was more than ready to go home. He nudged Rhoda to quickly say her good-byes, and before long they were in the truck and a good fifteen minutes down the road.

  He braked for a stop sign.

  Rhoda clamped her hands down on a stack of papers in her lap. She’d collected them throughout the day and had yet to stop looking through them.

  She looked up. “The best method for making a large amount of mulch quickly is to find a way to shred the leaves. I’ve always shredded them by hand, but we need too much for the orchard come spring. Maybe you could rent a leaf shredder, emphasis on you. Because we Amish can’t. It would be just for this year. We can do all the shredding by hand next fall.”

  Landon couldn’t remember when Rhoda had been as happy as she was right now. Her eyes all but glowed.

  “We—the Kings, my brother, you, and me—can make this orchard everything we want it to be. And more. I know we can.”

  “I have no doubt of that, Rhodes.”

  “Did you enjoy the seminar?”

  “Not like you did. You were a sponge.”

  She giggled. “I’ve never been to a meeting that wasn’t church or community oriented. Every person in that room had one thing in common, and that was all it took for them to feel a connection.” She sighed. “Wow. Women were in jeans, men in suits, and me in this. Why, you could’ve worn swimming trunks, and no one would have said a thing as long as you were interested in organic farming.”

  Landon grinned. “Swimming trunks on a blustery day? In late October? I think they’d say something.”

  She made a face at him. “I’m not so sure. They seemed completely focused on learning all they could about organic farming. Nothing else seemed to matter.”

  “You’ve never seen that before?”

  “Well, ya, sure. We Christians have the common denominator of Christ, and that’s precious to me, even when we disagree about things. But at the seminar I felt as if what happened inside that building was a different kind of unity—sharing an excitement over organic farming.” She shrugged. “I can’t explain the difference, but it was powerful and fascinating.”

  “Yes, but that was one short day with one topic. I’m sure it’s not always that way. Like, if you were on the board or something, I bet there’d be plenty of sharp disagreements and different personalities not getting along.”

  A small frown creased her brow. “Don’t ruin it for me, Landon. I saw leaders who didn’t care how other men and women were dressed. They didn’t care if the speaker was male or female. They didn’t even care if someone had a degree in agriculture or had dropped out of high school. The only thing that mattered was sharing information and encouraging one another. I’ve never experienced that.”

  Landon pulled into the driveway. “You and I have worked together for several years, and I guess it just never crossed my mind how much you might enjoy a non-Amish event.”

  She opened the truck door. “You coming in?”

  He grinned. “If you’re inviting, I am.”

  “Sure. It’s almost time for supper, and you can help me tell everyone about our day.”

  The crisp air carried a delicious aroma, and he was hungry, but what mattered more than food was seeing a certain young woman with big, dark eyes, blond hair, and sass times ten.

  “Hallo?” Rhoda called as they entered.

  Jacob came out of the kitchen, grinning. “You’re home.” He embraced her and whispered something. Landon couldn’t help but smile. They were good together, the kind of good he’d never have thought possible for Rhoda.

  Jacob released her. “Landon, hi. We were just about to sit down for supper. You’ll join us?”

  “I’d like that.” When he stepped into the dining room with its long, well-worn table and ten chairs, Leah paused from setting the table.

  Her smile was the best thing he’d seen all day.

  “Well, don’t just stand there.” She held out the flatware. “Wash your hands and help.”

  “Leah,”—Samuel looked up from the ledgers and ordering forms and frowned—“where are your manners?”

  When he spotted Landon, it was as though he realized Rhoda had returned. His gaze searched for her and found her. Landon could swear Samuel’s attention seemed glued to Rhoda.

  “You.” Leah pointed at Samuel.

  He blinked. “Ya?”

  “Get your stuff off the table.”

  Samuel closed his eyes for a moment before he looked at Leah, a smile in place. He slammed the ledger shut in mock exasperation, then gave his sister a big-eyed grin. “Happy?”

  The clamor only grew as the women ladled food from the cauldron into bowls, handed out homemade bread, and settled everyone in their spots. During the silent prayer, Landon kept his eyes on Leah. She glanced up, grinned, and bowed her head again.

  Did Leah think about God a lot? It was hard to be around this group of Amish and not take note of their daily respect for Him. Although Leah seemed a little removed on the subject, sort of like he was.

  His family went to church regularly—at the start of every season of Lent, Christmas, and Easter. Yep, he’d been to church three times a year for twenty-two years. That had to count for something. When he was a teen, his mom made him spend two seasons of Lent giving up a few minutes of television each day for forty days to focus on the gospel of Luke.

  When she wasn’t looking, he slid a comic book into his Bible and read that instead. But he still remembered being interested in certain passages—though he couldn’t recall them right now.

  Most of what he read in the Bible confused him more than anything else, but his faith in God had grown over the last few years. He attributed that to watching Rhoda. Persecution came her way often, yet she never wavered in her belief in God and His goodness. Never stopped praying. But for all her faith, she was confused by what He wanted from her.

  That Landon identified with. What did an invisible God want from a bunch of frail, selfish people? The only thing Landon could figure was that He’d like for them to learn to love and help one another. Why else would they be living on such a difficult planet?

  For the most part Landon thought it best to keep the relationship between him and God a distant one. Faith was less confusing that way.

  As if on cue, every head lifted within a few seconds of one another—Rhoda, Samuel, Jacob, Leah, Steven, Phoebe, and their little ones. What were their names again? Oh, yeah, Isaac and Arie. How did each one, even the children, know when the prayer was over?

  Jacob pulled the cloth napkin into his lap. “Was your day all you’d hoped for?”

  Rhoda took a sip of water. “Definitely.” She beamed. “It was a great day. I didn’t learn a lot of new things, but they shared a few shortcuts for some of what I’m doing.”

  Steven stirred the bowl of beef stew, cooling it. “You didn’t have any, uh, problems?”

  “I didn’t.”

  At her soft response, Landon looked at Rhoda.

  Uncertainty flashed through her eyes as she looked back at him. “Did I?”

  Landon shook his head. If they’d just let Rhoda relax about her gift rather than wanting her to keep it all bottled up, she would at least be able to pick up on thoughts and moods like the rest of the world. As it was, she remained cloudy about the most obvious things—until an intuition became so loud she couldn’t squelch it. By that time it about drove her mad.

  “It couldn’t have gone any smoother.” Landon shook some pepper into his bowl. “We stirred curiosity. But it went as smooth as skating on ice.”

  Jacob studied Landon. “Curiosity?”

  He nodded. “This is a small community, and you’re all new here. You had to know that being the first Amish in Maine was going t
o pique people’s interest.”

  Jacob looked at Samuel, and it seemed they had just realized what had been obvious to him from the start. For all their smarts, sometimes these men could be a bit dense about how much the Amish stuck out in society.

  “I’m glad it went well.” Steven nodded.

  Rhoda brought a spoon of broth near her lips and paused. “I didn’t learn much of anything new, but I’ve never been so excited about tending to a crop.”

  Landon grinned. “Take it from me, that is saying something. She loves gardening and horticulture.”

  “What was encouraging about it?” Steven asked.

  “I’m not sure I can explain it.” Rhoda tore off a small piece of bread and dipped it into her soup. “The people in this area are so passionate about taking care of the planet and growing everything organically—from flowers to herbs to small gardens to major crops. Their goal isn’t profiting from organic horticulture, although that’s a concern for those of us who make a living by farming. But the heart of the matter is believing and trusting that the natural way is best for everyone in the here and now and for generations to come. It was exhilarating, and I can’t wait to go again.”

  Samuel scooped up a spoon of stew. “Since you didn’t learn anything new, maybe you shouldn’t go to any more classes.”

  Rhoda stared at him. “Of course I’m going again. They have them regularly, sometimes once a month, sometimes once a week. Why wouldn’t I go?”

  “Because I missed you.” Jacob made a face, looking baffled. “Who’d have thought that? I mean, you were only gone eight hours.”

  Despite his lighthearted tone, Rhoda pursed her lips. Landon knew that look well. She was digging in her heels.

  “Then you’ll miss me again. There’s another meeting in two weeks.”

  Her words confirmed it. She wasn’t budging.

  Jacob smiled and shrugged. “Well, okay, then.”

  Steven poured water into Isaac’s glass. “We’re having a service tomorrow morning. It’ll be fairly relaxed since it’s just us.”

  “Who’s preaching?” Rhoda asked.

  “Steven is,” Phoebe said. “Until the other families join us, he’ll be the spiritual head.”

  “Makes sense.” Rhoda shrugged. “He’s the only married man around.”

  Landon frowned at that. “Does that matter?”

  Rhoda nodded. “Most Amish communities prefer a married man as a church leader. They’re supposed to be more settled, dedicated, and wise. Although in my brother’s case—”

  “Watch it, little sister. I’d hate to start preaching early and keep it going all afternoon. When would poor Samuel get to study his beloved newspaper?”

  Jacob lifted his glass but paused before taking a sip. “And then he wouldn’t have new information to ponder.”

  “Oh.” Rhoda wiped her mouth on the cloth napkin. “Speaking of new information, I had two fascinating things happen today. I met a lot of people, but two women really stood out. One knows about installing solar panels, and she’ll drop by one day to talk to Samuel about what he needs to get the horticultural lights operational.”

  Samuel dipped up another spoonful of stew. “That sounds promising. I need to talk to someone about it.”

  “The other woman I met is a blogger.”

  Jacob choked on his water.

  Rhoda patted him on the back, giving him a few seconds to recover. “Landon said that a blogger is sort of like a newspaper reporter for the Internet. Some have only a couple of readers; some have tens of thousands. Diana something or other said that she writes pieces for two blogs about organic farming, one specifically for Maine and one that’s geared to help any organic farmer. She said the traffic on the latter is like thirty thousand hits per month.”

  “Just … met her?” Jacob asked through his coughs.

  “Ya, and she wants to do a piece on Kings’ Orchard. Ideally, she’d like to cover the King family, starting with a bit of history about your Daadi, Apple Sam. Wouldn’t it be nice to have something written about your grandfather this long after he passed? Then she’d like to cover our move from Pennsylvania and how we’ll go about restoring the orchard. It’d be a series, like once a month for six or so months.”

  Samuel’s eyes moved to Jacob’s.

  Leah looked from one brother to the other.

  “Here.” Rhoda passed Jacob her water. “Take a drink. It’ll help.” She passed the bowl of bread to Leah. “The blogger seemed really nice. Her degree is in journalism, and she asked if she could come out and take some pictures of the orchard. Maybe get some pictures now and then return in the fall—do a before-and-after piece on an abandoned orchard revitalized organically by the Amish.”

  Samuel leaned in. “You declined, right?”

  “No. I told her she couldn’t take pictures of us—well, none where we’re posing or up close.”

  “Rhoda, think.” Samuel pushed back from the table. “You’re making friends with someone who wants to share our lives through the Internet. Is that how the Amish live a quiet life or stay separate from the world? You should’ve stayed home like I said.”

  Landon could have punched Samuel. He watched the day’s excitement drain from Rhoda’s face.

  “I did think, thank you very much.” She reached toward Samuel, putting the tip of her index finger on the table. “I know the Ordnung as well as you. I didn’t seek her attention or agree to be quoted or photographed. She’ll cover facts about our farming methods and restoring the orchard. Anything she writes will help other farmers and will get the King-Byler canning products name out there. Amish run ads in magazines and newspapers, and you know as well as I do that Landon built and runs a website for my canned goods. If you’re afraid we’ll cross an Amish line to talk to the woman, Landon can be our spokesperson.”

  Jacob pushed away his half-eaten bowl of stew. “Does this blogger know where we live?”

  “Sure.” Rhoda glanced to Samuel. “Like Landon said, it’s a small community, and we’re new.” She looked from Jacob to Samuel. “What’s wrong?”

  Jacob shook his head. “Nothing.” He put his hand on her back and rubbed. “It’s just surprising, that’s all.”

  Landon wasn’t buying Jacob’s response any more than Rhoda was. Whatever Rhoda had done wrong, Samuel and Jacob were aware of it, and everyone else seemed clueless.

  Had Rhoda broken an Amish rule? Not likely. She’d known what she should and shouldn’t do since she was a kid. So if it wasn’t that, what was it?

  Landon studied the faces around the table, and realization dawned. Rhoda hadn’t broken any community law. So there was only one reason to be freaked out about the blogger, but it didn’t make sense. Or did it?

  Did the Kings have something to hide?

  NINETEEN

  Jacob’s pulse raced.

  Could a worse thing happen than a blogger coming to the farm? He had to prevent it. But how?

  If Sandra was right, and the insurance adjuster had set up Internet alerts, he could end up in court. Or worse.

  Memories hounded him—construction supplies being sent to the wrong home, money exchanging hands, inferior products being used, agonized screams rising from the ground.

  He wiped sweat from his brow. That deck collapsing wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t.

  If he went to court, Sandra would need to testify, because she knew far more than he did. Did the loan sharks set up Internet alerts too?

  A cold chill ran through him. If he went to jail, who would help Sandra before the loan sharks found her? What would happen to Casey if she lost her mother?

  “Jacob?” Rhoda rubbed his back.

  He looked into her blue eyes. If only he could be who she believed he was.

  “I don’t understand.” Her words were soft, gentle, but frustration was written on her face.

  How could he tell her?

  She put her hand over his, the warmth of it reminding him of all he had to lose.

  How could he not tel
l her?

  When he didn’t respond, she leaned in and whispered. “If you decide to clue me in, I won’t be far.” Rhoda excused herself and went out the back door.

  He imagined she was going to the greenhouse, and if he weren’t a fool, he’d go with her and tell her everything.

  No one seemed to have much of an appetite now, so Leah and Phoebe cleared the table while Steven took the little ones to wash up and get ready for bed.

  Landon tossed his napkin on the table. “So what’s the deal?”

  “We need to stay separate from the world. It’s that simple.” Samuel pushed his bowl to the corner of the table and looked at Landon. “I think you’d better go home. We’ll see you early on Monday, okay?”

  “I’ve never pretended to understand the Amish ways.” Landon tapped his fingers on the table, but it sounded more like a gavel pounding to Jacob. “Whatever is going on here stinks.”

  Jacob sighed. “I’ll make it right.”

  “I hope so.” Landon stood. “Rhoda came home excited, and as far as I can see, she did nothing wrong. Nothing.”

  “I know.” Jacob motioned to his brother. “We know. Okay?”

  Landon left the two brothers at the table. A few moments later the front door closed, leaving Jacob to stew in his guilt.

  “This fear of a blogger posting articles about our family on the Internet”—Leah stopped wiping the table—“has to do with your secrets, doesn’t it?”

  Jacob managed a nod.

  Samuel leaned in. “Will your past cause damage to the family business?”

  “No.” If Jacob wasn’t in shock over Rhoda’s news, he’d be tempted to rail against such a question. “I’d never do that.”