Thieving Forest by Martha Conway Page B

mending an iron jacklight for Brother Lyle, who likes to go eel fishing at night. The horses, stabled underneath—the barn is partially dug out of the ground and the horses are in the lower level—have just been fed, and Seth can hear the smacking of their huge lips. Through a chute in the floor he sees a bay mare with her nose in a feed bucket.
    “Shall we walk together to the chapel?” Brother Graves asks. Although he isn’t actually smiling, he looks, to Seth, as though he might as well be, so gentle are the lines of his face. “The midday service begins shortly. Perhaps you would like to attend with me.”
    Although this is not really what Seth has in mind on such a beautiful, fresh morning, it occurs to him that chapel is the one place where he might see Susanna, since both women and men are allowed to attend any service. He has not seen her since he helped her off his horse two weeks ago, and has had no way to communicate with her. In Gemeinschaft single men and women are not allowed to meet or even exchange letters.
    “I’d be glad to,” he says.
    They walk out together through the wide barn doors and into the daylight. A copper-colored horse blanket is hanging on a fence post to dry, and the flies are very interested in that. Seth walks beside Brother Graves while he talks about the cost of iron goods, the labor involved in making them. In Seth’s opinion, could the brethren import raw materials and begin to forge their own?
    Seth is glad to offer his advice. He has been here for a fortnight, and even to himself he has to admit that he is dawdling with no set purpose. He has done virtually nothing to earn his keep except help out in the stable or mend bits of equipment.
    As they pass a rosemary bush Brother Graves pulls off some needles and holds them up to his nose. An unlikely sensualist, Seth thinks.
    “The country here is beautiful,” Brother Graves says. “As the years go on I find myself more and more unwilling to leave, even just to buy supplies.”
    “Some think the land too flat.”
    “But the trees give it depth, don’t you agree?”
    Seth can smell a pervasive scent of cut green wood and he watches a thin plume of smoke rise above the trees. Although he too likes this country, he would not choose Gemeinschaft as a place to live. Ohio, yes, but not this place. Something about it sits uneasily with him. Perhaps it is all the mission Indians dressed like Europeans and carrying around Bibles, their little daughters wearing white aprons. Or is he just being closed-minded? Back in Severne most of the farmers distrust Christian Indians, even Old Adam who has lived among them for years. Equally so they distrust the missionaries. Well, they do not have complicated opinions, those farmers. Whites should be whites. Indians should move elsewhere. Small wonder that Amos hid his Potawatomi blood from them.
    At a pause in their conversation Seth says, “I have been meaning to ask you about Susanna Quiner. Is she well? And her sister? I would like to offer them my services back to Severne but I don’t know how I might approach them.”
    Brother Graves assures him that they are both well. They are working hard and going to services. He does not say where they are working. He rubs the bit of rosemary between his fingers again and then lets it drop on the path. “Do they wish to leave?” he asks.
    That gives Seth pause. “I assumed...” He stops. He does not want to insult his host.
    “And you—you wish to leave us also? We could use someone with your talents in our little community. Our door, as you know, is open to everyone. But I would in particular like to welcome you in.”
    They are in need of more blacksmiths. Seth understood this after only a few days. Brother Lyle, who performs that job now, has not been well trained. “Thank you. But I’m not sure I’m enough of—a good enough—Christian.” He is trying to imply that he rarely goes to church.
    But Brother Graves says lightly, “Your