The Blessed by Ann H. Gabhart Page B

raise the neighborhood. Each time Isaac’s heart bounded up into his throat as he could almost feel hands reaching to grab his collar and drag him in front of the judge.
    When at last he left the city streets behind, he wasn’t sure he’d find the Shaker man still waiting, but Brother Asa was right where he said he’d be, leaning against his wagon while his horses picked at the spring grass.
    “I was beginning to doubt you’d come,” Brother Asa said when he spotted Isaac.
    “Yet you waited.” Isaac looked up at the sun. It was well past mid-afternoon.
    “Yea, so I did. And have you come with your mind made up to seek peace at Harmony Hill?” Asa climbed up to the wagon seat and looked down at Isaac.
    “I don’t know about peace.” Isaac thought that might be too much to ask. “But food and shelter I’ll admit to chasing after.”
    “Then food and shelter you will find. The Ministry will be glad enough to give you a bed in our Gathering Family. We have much need of strong, young men in our midst with the spring planting season upon us.” Brother Asa picked up the reins, and the two horses reached for a last mouthful of grass before they raised their heads. “Spring is more often a season of parting rather than joining for those uncertain of the Shaker way.”
    “I once worked on a farm. I know about planting.”
    Isaac’s legs felt heavy as he climbed up to sit beside Brother Asa. He told himself it was because he’d been running. It had nothing to do with reluctance to leave Ella’s town behind. He looked over his shoulder as Brother Asa guided the horses up onto the road and headed them east. There was nothing for him back there. He didn’t need to stand beside Ella’s grave to keep his love for her alive in his heart. Yet when he turned back to look ahead again and tried to pull up her face, her image kept drifting away from his mind’s eye as if this time she was refusing to allow him to carry her away from her beloved Louisville.
    He shut his eyes and forced her image out of the shadows of his mind. Her face the day they first met. The day the preacher pronounced them man and wife. The day they left for the West. Her face in death. The memories marched through his mind, some stabbing his heart. But he remembered. There was no reason to stay near her body in the grave. And every reason to get far away from her father. Especially now with the watch searching him out as a thief and a man capable of murder.
    They hanged murderers. Not the end Isaac was after. While he had been considering the advantages of dying, he didn’t want to partake of those advantages as an innocent man on the gallows. Better to join the living dead. That should be punishment enough.
    No chasing after adventure in the West. No loved one to lie down beside at night. No children to swing high in the air above his head. Nothing but work and discipline and preaching. Punishment enough.
    Once out on the road, Brother Asa flicked the reins to encourage the horses forward. He didn’t look over at Isaac or speak again as the horses settled into an easy pace.
    Silence hung over them. Not a good silence. At least to Isaac’s ears. He imagined unspoken questions bouncing between them with every jolt of the wagon, but when he peeked over at Brother Asa, he could see no lines of worry on his face. Nor did he slide his eyes over toward Isaac even when a horse and rider galloped up behind them.
    Isaac didn’t share the Shaker’s calm. His heart began pounding again as he imagined one of the watch riding after him. He scarcely dared breathe until the rider overtook them and passed by with nothing more than the slight nod of acknowledgment one traveler gives another.
    Isaac eased his grip on the wagon seat and tried to force his breath in and out slow and steady. He’d been poised to leap off the wagon and run for the woods across the field. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how used to staying out of sight in the shadows of the