“He cooks like a man, with no touch for seasoning. But good.”
A relieved sigh seeped out of Emma’s lungs. If Maummi complimented a man’s cooking, that meant she was prepared to be nice. Either Luke was beginning to win her over with his kind ways, or she had decided that there was no cause to be cross because in the morning he would be on his way and out of her hair.
Luke laughed. “I’ll relay the message.”
He settled himself on the ground with his feet toward the fire and his hat resting on the ground behind him. The knots in Emma’s stomach loosened as she bit into the cake. A good flavor but a little crunchy. Nothing near as good as Maummi’s, or even her own since she learned cooking skills at first her mother’s and then Maummi’s hands. She took it as a sign of the elderly woman’s determination to be nice when she settled back into the rocker, bit into her own cake, and said, “As well, good. A handful of chopped nuts wouldn’t hurt them any.”
“They are a favorite of the boys on the trail.” Luke popped the last of his cake in his mouth and leaned back, his manner easy. “Were you able to recover many of your things from the mess those marauders left?”
“They ripped up all our linens, and even our dresses and Papa’s breeches.” Rebecca pulled a face. “And everything they didn’t rip, they smashed.”
“Not everything.” Emma worked hard to keep the bitterness from her voice, but the probable fate of Mama’s quilt weighed heavily on her mind. “What they didn’t destroy, they stole.”
Luke turned his head to look her way. “You had something in that trunk, didn’t you? Something special.”
Tears sprang to her eyes at the sympathy in his tone. She nodded. “A quilt made by my mother.”
Papa’s gentle voice admonished her. “But we have forgiven them, haven’t we, daughters?”
Rebecca lowered her head, and Emma avoided the searching gaze that sought hers from across the fire. Times like these made her wonder if she would ever be ready to take the training and receive baptism. Surely forgiveness was the hardest teaching in all of Die Bibel. Forgiving Rebecca for a hasty word, or her friend Katie for slighting her at a Sunday night singing, was hard enough. But to forgive lawless men who had stolen one of the few precious ties she had to her mother? It would take her a lifetime to learn how to do that.
Luke might have been hearing her thoughts. “If you can forgive those no-good thieves, you’re a better man than I am, Jonas. You know if they cross your path again they’ll do the same thing.”
Papa nodded. “In all likelihood.”
Maummi rocked back in her chair and quoted, “Und vergib uns unsre Sünden, denn auch wir vergeben allen, die uns schuldig sind.”
“Pardon me, ma’am?”
“It is from Die Bibel,” Papa explained. “‘We forgive, even as we are forgiven.’” He shrugged. “It is our way.”
Maummi nodded, as if that explained everything. Luke’s expression betrayed his struggle to understand, but he remained silent, probably out of respect for their beliefs. The thought warmed Emma. A man who respected others deserved respect himself. Did he know Die Bibel? A person didn’t have to be Amish to love the Word of God.
Curiosity pushed a question out of her mouth before she could stop it. “Do you have faith of your own, Luke?”
A smile crooked his lips. “I used to think so until I met you folks. When I was a boy, my grandma read to me from the Bible at night.” His gaze slid upward to Maummi. “Only hers was in English. I loved the stories about David and the Philistine, and Noah, and so on. I learned my letters reading about the Lord’s life and death. She and Ma took me to preaching every time the preacher came to town, and when I was nine I was baptized in a river.” He glanced behind his back, where the waters of the river reflected a soft moonlight. “Kind of like this one, only without the muck.”
Maummi’s rocking stopped abruptly. “You are Christian, then?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He ducked his head. “I do a lot of thinking and praying during long days in the saddle. I admit, though, it’s been a number of years since I read the Bible on my own.”
“Your grandmother lived with you?” Rebecca grinned up at Maummi. “Like ours?”
“That’s right. Pa was a farmer early on, like you, Jonas.” He nodded