Love Finds You in Amana Iowa Read Online Free PDF Page A

Lisbon?”
    She nodded. “For the night.”
    “I’m sorry to say it, but the loss of the bridge will lengthen your journey.”
    Hope sprang up inside her. Perhaps he would release her to continue her journey.
    His horse stomped on the ground, and he inched back the reins. “We had to stop the men chasing us, you understand, but even with the fire, some of them will make it across the water. I think they take pleasure in chasing us, almost as much as we enjoy raiding their land.”
    She marveled at how he could smile in spite of the danger, or perhaps because of it.
    “You and your friends best keep moving along the trail,” he said. “It isn’t safe in these parts right now.”
    “Nor will it be if you don’t stop wreaking your havoc.”
    He laughed one last time, and then clucked his tongue. She ducked behind a sheath of leaves as General Morgan and the rest of his solders ran past her. As the general predicted, another band of men and their horses raced through the forest behind him minutes later.
    Through the leaves, she saw their fine uniforms made of blue, but thankfully, they didn’t seem to see her hidden in the trees. She prayed the Union soldiers would be as genteel to her brothers and sisters as the company from the Confederacy had been to her.
    Even when the soldiers were gone, she didn’t move. There could be more men behind this wave, trailing the Union men. As the minutes passed, the clamor of shouting and gunshots and the pounding of horses’ hooves were replaced by the soft brush of leaves dancing in the breeze.
    Quickly she moved back toward the trail. None of the other Inspirationists had returned, but the ox teams remained at the side of the path, eating grass along the trail. None of their animals or wagons appeared harmed.
    She breathed another prayer of thanks that the general hadn’t wreaked havoc on their wagon train.
    She climbed into the back of her wagon and cinched the cord to block out the sunrays. Running her hands over a wrought iron kettle, she hoped they could all celebrate together the Lord’s provision for them. Tonight they would rejoice as a community. The meal would be simple, biscuits and stew, but it would still be a celebration.
    She waited inside the wagon until she heard the galloping of a solitary horse. Peeking out the front, she saw Mr. Faust ride up, and she climbed off the wagon.
    He jumped off his horse when he saw her. “You are safe?”
    She nodded.
    He glanced around the wagons, like her friends might be hiding inside as well. “And the others?”
    “I pray they are waiting in the forest.”
    Mr. Faust reached back into his leather bag and took out a horn. The bugle blast rattled the pots hanging behind her, and she put her hands over her ears until the sound died out.
    “The Rebels burnt the bridge to Lisbon,” Mr. Faust said, his voice grim. “There’s no other place for us to cross in miles.”
    She didn’t tell him about General Morgan and how, in his pride, the man had laughed at the destruction. Or how the general seemed charming in spite of his actions. That’s how Satan himself would be, she guessed, if she ever met him. Charming and destructive. He would take as much pleasure in stealing and destroying as the general did.
    One by one, men clad in flannel shirts and trousers slipped out of the forest, onto the trail. Her heart leapt at the sight of each face, and she counted them as they joined her and Mr. Faust by the wagons.
    Nine. Ten. Eleven men.
    Mosquitoes swarmed around her bonnet, and she brushed them away as she squinted into the trees, looking for Karoline. They had left Ebenezer with twenty-five people, and they would arrive in Iowa with the same number.
    Minutes crept past, and the number of people walking out of the trees trickled.
    She counted sixteen now. Seventeen.
    Eight people were still out there, and she prayed silently that they weren’t lost in the woods.
    One of the brothers gathered the travelers into a circle. Mr.