Love Finds You in Homestead, Iowa Read online

  His body felt as if it was about to be ripped into two pieces, but he couldn’t give up now. With a loud grunt, he heaved one leg into the car. And then the other.

  Shovels rattled the metal walls around them, the entire boxcar vibrating with the madness of the angry mob as he gasped for breath. Somehow, by God’s mercy, he’d gotten on the train.

  His daughter crawled over, snuggling into his arms, and he kissed the top of her head as he pulled her close to him. He didn’t know where they were going, but he and Cassie were on their way out of Chicago. Nothing else mattered at the moment except that they were together.

  “Didn’t think you was gonna make it.”

  Jacob jumped at the sound of the raspy voice in the corner of the boxcar and squinted toward the source. In the dim light, he saw the shadow of a woman. “Me neither,” he said.

  “Good thing you did, mister. I ain’t got no idea how to care for a kid.”

  Cassie’s tears were soaking his only good suit jacket, but he didn’t push her away. Her entire body was trembling, and then he realized he was shaking as well. The truth hit him even harder than the shovels that hammered the sides of the train.

  He’d almost lost his daughter.

  What would he do if he’d lost Cassie? He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if she had ridden away on the freight train alone.

  He should have waited to get on another train. They could have gone west another day, once the strike was over.

  Yet if he’d waited…who knew when the strike would be over or if the passenger line would honor his train tickets next week or next month? Not that his train tickets did him any good. Here he was, riding the rails like a vagrant, and he’d brought his daughter along with him.

  If they’d stayed in Chicago, they would have spent the night on the floor of City Hall or, heaven forbid, in a prison cell. He’d had to make a choice, and there were no good options. Kissing the top of Cassie’s head, he thanked the Lord they’d both gotten on the train.

  The woman shuffled in the hay that covered the floor of the boxcar. “First time ridin’ the rails?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The woman laughed at his words. “My name’s Etta.”

  “I’m Jacob Hirsch, and this is my daughter, Cassie.”

  Cassie’s shaking started to subside, though her voice was strained. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Etta laughed again. “A pleasure indeed.”

  Jacob inched up the corrugated wall of the boxcar, Cassie on his lap. The shovels had stopped their pounding and the train now rattled across a trestle, racing above the city. The fog had started to clear, and he could see the tall buildings near Lake Michigan, the city where he’d spent most of the past eight years.

  Etta inched closer to them. A worn bandanna covered her hair, and a long scar cut like a channel across her leathery forehead.

  She wasn’t focused on his face, though. Her eyes were on his leg. “You know you’s injured?”

  “Injured?” He looked away from her, down at his left leg. His trousers were soaked with blood.

  Scooting Cassie down beside him, he carefully pried up the sticky material and rolled down his sock. Blood pooled over a gash on the side of his leg.

  A shovel must have gotten him after all.

  “Does it hurt?” Cassie asked, her voice trembling again.

  A bolt of pain shot up his thigh. “Just a little.”

  “You want me to kiss it?”

  “Maybe later, sweetheart.”

  Tugging a handkerchief out of his pocket, he wrapped it around the wound. Then he took off his jacket and tucked it around Cassie, hoping she would fall asleep again so she wouldn’t see him in pain.

  Strange that he hadn’t even felt someone hit him with a shovel. He’d been so intent on getting on this train that he’d blocked out everything else, including the gash in his leg.

  Etta dug into a satchel tied around her waist and held out a tin flask. “This’ll help.”

  She passed the flask under his nose, and the rancid smell made him choke.

  He turned his face away from the bottle. “What is it?”

  “Whiskey.”

  “It doesn’t smell like whiskey.”

  She shrugged. “It’ll knock out that pain of yours.”

  Another ache rippled up his leg, and he grabbed the flask and took a swig before he reconsidered. The drink burned down his throat, but seconds later, the pain began to subside.

  Etta screwed the lid onto the flask and settled back onto her blanket. “What kind of hell broke loose back there?”

  In the distance he could see the dome left behind after the Chicago World’s Fair. “The bad kind.”

  “No kiddin’,” she squawked. “Strikers?”

  Cassie sighed beside him, but her shaking didn’t stop.

  “The workers down in Pullman started it, but it’s rippling through the city.”

  “They got a decent reason for striking?”

  He curled Cassie’s braid in his fingers, grateful that her breathing had slowed again. “The company cut their wages but refused to lower the rent on their houses.”

  “Are these houses—” she began. “Do they have to live in them?”

  He shrugged. “If they want to work for Pullman Palace Car.”

  “Then I can’t blame them for striking.”

  His laugh was hollow. “At least they have a job.”

  “Too many spineless people in the world,” she mumbled. “Someone twists their arm and they roll right over and play dead.”

  “Those would be the hungry people.”

  Cassie leaned forward, coughing, and then nuzzled back into his chest.

  “Her cough don’t sound good,” Etta said.

  “I can’t seem to get her better.”

  “She don’t have a sore throat too?”

  “A slight one.”

  Etta’s tone turned suspicious. “You got to get that girl to a doctor.”

  He wiped his hand across Cassie’s warm forehead. “I can’t afford a doctor.”

  Etta tsked at him under her breath, and he stiffened. How dare she judge him for how he cared for his daughter? He’d been stomping the pavement in Chicago for months, trying to find work. Trying to take care of his child. The moment he found a job, he would get her to a doctor.

  Etta straightened the blanket under her. “Ridin’ the rails ain’t for kids.”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  It was as if she didn’t hear him. “I met a family once on the rails, mother and three kids. A boxcar done run over their daddy.”

  Cassie shivered under his jacket, and for a moment, he wanted to jump right back off the train. This was no life for Cassie…and it was no life for him either.

  “Where you headed?” Etta asked.

  “Minneapolis and then Spokane.”

  “This train’s going to Iowa.”

  Iowa? Somehow he would have to find a train that was headed north and then west. A train they could ride without a ticket.

  “Washington’s a long way,” she said, as though he hadn’t spent days preparing for this trip.

  “Almost two thousand miles.”

  “Whatcha gonna do when you get there?”

  “Get a job.”

  They passed a row of dirty tenements, and the dark buildings reminded him of blackened tombstones lined up in a graveyard.

  “You got work waitin’ for you?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  She cleared her throat. “I hate to tell you, mister, but there ain’t no work in Washington neither.”

  “But I read—”

  She cut him off. “I’ve met whole camps of people traveling east from Washington, going to cities like Chicago to find work when there ain’t a lick of work out East either.”

  His mind raced. He’d read about the opportunities for work in the newspaper—the need for miners and loggers and railway workers throughout the Great Northwest. He’d never worked in a
mine or a logging camp, but he figured he could learn the work quickly. He’d do almost anything to provide for Cassie.

  “The Daily News said there was work in Washington.”

  Etta laughed again, and the sound grated on his nerves. “You believed some newspaper?”

  “Of course.” Why wouldn’t he believe the article?

  “Can’t tell you how many hobos I’ve met on the rails who were scrambling to catch the next train because of some silly article.”

  Her words tumbled around in his mind, and the horror of them closed in. Would someone from the newspaper really write an article to rid the clogged streets of some of their homeless? Send them off to the West with a promise of work when the entire story was a fabrication? Propaganda.

  Last summer people across Chicago had panicked when the stock exchange crashed, streaming through the doors of banks to withdraw their savings until some of those banks were forced to lock their doors. Some were temporary closures. Others were permanent.

  Jacob banged his head on the metal wall behind him. He’d read in the papers that the panic closed out banks across the West as well, but he’d also read that there were still jobs in the forests and mines. Had he been so desperate for work that he’d blinded himself to the reality? Or had reality been so hard for him to face these past few months that he’d grasped any glimmer of hope?

  Cassie lifted her head and coughed into her arm again. If only God would help him, for the sake of his beautiful daughter.

  Dull light streamed into the car as they raced out of the city and into the countryside. He could barely make out the fields of corn and wheat as they flew by, the wind whipping through the open doorway. The handkerchief stopped the bleeding in his leg—and Etta’s drink put a temporary end to the pain—but not even alcohol could stop the pain in his heart. It could dull it for a while, but it wouldn’t go away.

  Cassie scooted back up onto his lap and shivered. Then she opened her eyes and smiled at him—Katharine’s smile.

  He smiled back at her.

  Just a year ago, Cassie, Katherine, and he were living safe and secure as a family in their rented home near Hyde Park. He adored his wife, and Cassie adored her as well. There was laughter in their home along with hope and faith and an indescribable joy.

  His wife had been the warmth of their home. A ray of light in their dark city.

  And he’d lost it all, shattered like the window on the train. His job, his house, his wife, his baby son—all gone.

  All he had left was his daughter, and he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her.

  There is nothing in this time except misery and pain, work and struggle, day and night.

  Johann Friedrich Rock, 1733

  Chapter Four

  Liesel lifted her hand to wave good-bye as the passenger train crept out of the depot in Homestead, traveling east. Even at this distance, she could see Sophie’s nose pressed against the window and the forlorn look in her eyes. Liesel was afraid for her friend.

  A small crowd gathered in the field beside the depot to wish Conrad and Sophie well on their journey and their new life in Cedar Rapids. Sophie had never been outside the seven villages in their Colonies. The Amanas were her home. Her security. Conrad would be in school all day and her dear friend would be alone in a world she didn’t understand.

  Someone cried out, and Liesel turned her head to see Conrad’s mother, Hilga, sobbing in her hands. It seemed so wrong, so unnecessary to break the hearts of loved ones in their community to pursue one’s own ambitions. Why couldn’t Conrad be satisfied with the work the Elders assigned, like the rest of them were?

  She choked back her tears, sadness clinging to her like dew on the grass. Who else would share her secrets? Who else would understand?

  She had plenty of women friends in Homestead and Main Amana, but there was no one like Sophie. Her friend hadn’t passed judgment in the days after Liesel’s engagement, even when Sophie wasn’t certain that Emil was the man for Liesel. Sophie didn’t scold Liesel when she used her coupon book to buy peppermints and black licorice from the general store instead of saving it for something more practical like thread or new shoes. She didn’t laugh about Liesel’s fear of water…or her fear of marriage.

  The tears fell fresh down Liesel’s cheeks, and she pushed back the top of her bonnet so she could watch the train press toward the jungle of trees that sheltered their village. Sophie’s face was gone, but even still, Liesel stared at the last of the passenger cars, waving with both arms until the caboose vanished into the overgrowth.

  Rain sprinkled down the sides of her sunbonnet and onto her cheeks, blending with her tears. If only it was all a bad dream. She could wake up, relieved that her friend hadn’t left Homestead. That nothing had changed. She could meet Sophie for breakfast, walk out to the garden, and laugh at her silly dream.

  Conrad’s mother cried out again, and she watched Niklas Keller try to console his wife. It wasn’t a dream. Sophie and Conrad were gone.

  Liesel scanned the crowd, searching for Sophie’s mother among the sunbonnets and dark dresses, but she didn’t see her. Perhaps it was too hard for her to say good-bye to her only daughter with everyone watching. As the crowd dispersed, Niklas escorted his wife away from the tracks, his comments carrying in the breeze.

  “So many young people leaving for the world,” Niklas said to his wife.

  “He’ll come back.” Hilga struggled to steady her voice. “He and Sophie will both come back.”

  Niklas placed his hand on Hilga’s back. “Ja, of course they will.”

  Hilga’s eyes were swollen, her cheeks blotched with red. As she and Niklas drew near, Hilga met her eyes and rushed over, reaching for her hands. “My dear Liesel. You hurt too.”

  Liesel tried to nod her head.

  “So much pain,” Hilga said, more to herself than to Liesel.

  “I miss her already.” Liesel sniffed as she released Hilga’s hands. “Terribly.”

  “You will join us for dinner?”

  “No…,” she replied. “No, thank you.”

  Hilga nodded, patting her arm, and the Elder and his wife shuffled toward Moershel’s Kitchen. It was almost noon—dinnertime—but Liesel’s feet seemed to be frozen in the tall grass. She couldn’t imagine sitting on a bench, eating her tomato soup and noodles, without her best friend….

  In minutes, she was the only one left at the depot, and loneliness pierced her heart. Twenty-two years in the Amanas and she had never once felt lonely, but now…now she felt terribly alone.

  Slowly she backed away from the tracks until she was leaning against the fence. Sheep bleated behind her, but she didn’t turn. Instead, she stared at the tracks, hoping that one day these same tracks would bring Sophie back.

  She closed her eyes. What was she going to do without her friend?

  They were in Iowa now, or at least that was what Etta said as the train cruised over the grassy hills. The woman hadn’t stopped talking since they’d left Chicago four hours ago, entertaining him with stories about her travels from coast to coast. She looked to be fifty years old, so he was shocked when she told him she was thirty-eight. Only ten years older than he was.

  Cassie shivered against his shoulder, and he rubbed warmth into her arms. Etta kept talking, more to herself than to Jacob. She’d been married once, she said, when she was nineteen. Her husband died a year later in a mining accident and there weren’t any reputable jobs for a woman near Sonoma, so she’d jumped on a train and headed east.

  “I worked a bit here and there and slept most nights in the hobo camps or on the trains.”

  “No one caught you?”

  “Course they did. Four times.” She paused. “Three times a bull took me to the sheriff, who done locked me up for a night. Then the sheriff took me back to the train station the next morning and told me to git out of town.”

  “What about the fourth time?”

  “That bull beat me senseless with his club. Never will forget his eyes—
angry as a viper when he caught me.”

  “What’s a bull?” Cassie whispered in his ear.

  “It’s a man who guards the freight trains,” Jacob explained quietly before turning back to Etta. “The bull hurt you, but you still ride the rails?”

  “Ain’t no other way for me to live.” Etta laughed again, but the sound didn’t bother Jacob as much this time. For all she’d endured, it was good she could still laugh.

  They slowed down at a station, the engine hissing as it crawled to a halt.

  “Welcome to Oxford,” Etta whispered from the corner. “They’ll be checking the train here.”

  He gathered Cassie even closer in his arms. What would a bull do if he caught them in this car? Probably not stop to find out why Jacob was riding the rails with his daughter instead of using his paid ticket on a passenger train.

  He’d promised Katharine he would take good care of Cassie, but he was doing a terrible job. She’d be heartsick if she knew what had happened to them.

  The train stopped with a sudden bump and threw them back a foot or two. Cassie hit her head on the wall and cried out.

  “Quiet,” Etta hissed.

  Jacob held Cassie close to him, trying to soothe her. “Shh, sweetheart. We’re only stopping for a moment.”

  Her torso started shaking. “My head hurts.”

  He picked her up like a baby and rested her body against his chest. Her face burned against his cheek. “I’m so sorry, Cassie.”

  “It hurts….”

  “Hush up,” Etta whispered again.

  A club banged the metal car in front of them, and Jacob whispered in his daughter’s ear, angry at himself for making her stifle her cries. She shook in his arms, but she didn’t make another sound.

  Their car rattled against the slam of a club, and Jacob held his breath, waiting for the bull to catch them and drag them off to a jail cell. Seconds passed slowly, but the man didn’t even glance into the doorway. Jacob’s shoulders slumped in relief.

  Cassie jerked away from him, and he saw the tears smeared across her cheeks. This time she didn’t scream, but her voice was desperate. “Papa…”