Fannie moved the baskets aside in two stacks. The men were going to need more gunnysacks this afternoon too. She might as well bring them out now. She went back into the smaller room and turned to the tidy pile lying in the semi-darkness when she heard a squeak. She sometimes thought of how the barn door sounded a lot like the squeak of their old windmill, but there was no breeze today.

  “Hey, Jer, I—” She swallowed her words as she turned and saw a shadow standing just inside the doorway of the outer room. It was a man, but not Jerry, who jerked about at the sound of her voice, his hands going quickly behind his back.

  CHAPTER 21

  Leo! She’d startled him, but her own heart jerked erratically. She couldn’t make out his expression in the dim light that filtered through the dust-coated window, but she could see how his shoulders tensed and his arms moved from behind to stiffen at his sides. He stepped forward so that the light cast over him better. As she eased out her breath, he gave a chuckle that sounded forced. “You give me surprise.”

  She stared back stiffly, framed inside the doorway of the tiny back room. Leo stood beside the workbench where the larger tools, equipment, and several cans of gasoline were within reach. It shouldn’t matter. He’d been in here before while collecting shovels and putting things away. Was he told to come here now? His shoulders relaxed, and then he pushed a hand through sweaty curls.

  “What are you doing in here?” she demanded. She spoke to him with more force than she had in some time, but she saw no other way to keep her voice from shaking.

  He shifted his stance casually and directed his glance beyond her. “Säcke.”

  Of course. She half-peered over her shoulder—crazily—she knew the sacks lay behind her right next to the old forge, but she didn’t want to meet him eye to eye. His shadowed stare unnerved her, and her heartbeat only quickened. Her pulse sped faster than ever as he shuffled forward another step.

  She moved aside, clearing the way to the stack of burlap bags. She could skirt past him and wait at the door. He paused, his features at once questioning and deciding. When he moved as if to angle his body away and come alongside her, so did Fannie, but she followed his movement rather than look away toward the door—her means of escape. And then she spied it. The grip of her father’s pistol jutted from the belt of his pants at the back of his waist where he’d concealed it when he came through the door. She only glimpsed it, yet she had no doubt.

  And like lightning flashing through her brain, Fannie knew where it had been all this time.

  Her intake of breath stopped him, and he stepped in front of her, preventing her flight. His gaze darkened, if that were even possible. He knew she’d seen.

  “You took it. You stole it out of the truck.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Fannie’s lip quivered. “You hid it under the cobblestone.” She should have known sooner! She should have at least remarked about the stone to Mom.

  Fannie made to charge past him, but his hands shot out. He clutched the strap of her overalls and snaked an arm around her. The strength of his arm as he drew her back against him pushed her wind out, and he clapped his other hand over her mouth. With strength that surprised her, he forced her into the smaller room.

  No! No! Fannie tried to yank her mouth free as she pushed against him, planting her feet on the floor and struggling, but he was too strong. His arms were like iron banded around her. With her free hand, she grabbed the doorframe between the rooms, but with a shove that made her fingers bleed, he pushed her through, never loosening his grip.

  He breathed heavily, and she could feel the throb of his heart against her back. “Do not be foolish, Fannie. This does not have to end badly.”

  For whom? she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t. She sucked hard for air, pulling back to free her nostrils, but he clenched his dirty hand tighter. She clawed at it, and finally he moved his fingers enough for her to pull in a breath.

  “Be still,” he growled again, but she promised him nothing.

  No more did she feel his arm loosen around her than she recognized the steel end of the gun in her ribs. The gun gave Leo the desired effect. She fell very still. Only her breath panting out her nose and her heartbeat shattering her ribs sounded in her ears.

  Now his lips touched her ear, and he whispered, “If you do not shout, I will let go.”

  Where is Jerry? Where are the others? Mama … Tears stung her eyes, but she swallowed against the flood pressing up inside. She wouldn’t give Leo the pleasure of knowing how frightened she was. She nodded.

  With measured slowness, he drew back his hand and turned her to face him. She glanced down at the gun pointing at her stomach, its barrel the only thing separating them. Then he stroked her jaw from her ear to her chin and pushed back the tendrils of her hair. She clamped her lips together and breathed hard through her nostrils as he pushed her scarf back so that it fell from her hair.

  “You look more Mischlinge than I do.”

  “I—I do not know that word.” She strained to keep her voice at a whisper.

  “Do you not? It means …” He squinted as if searching for an English word he knew to compare. “A dog of no breed. It is what it means to have your blood mixed with the Jews.” His voice hardened on the word.

  Shock spiraled deeper. Leo … Jewish! She’d read news stories and listened to the radio reports that spoke of Hitler’s hatred of the Jews and how he deemed them subhuman. Such irrational thinking, the entire notion that some people still thought of others that way, made Fannie’s skin crawl. Could Leo really mean that he himself was not as Aryan as his Führer dictated all Germany should be? She shot him a hard look, studied him with renewed curiosity that mingled with her fear. “Hitler called them a name.”

  “Untermenschen.”

  She didn’t know that word either, but she could guess its meaning by the ugly way he said it.

  He stroked her jaw again, and she jerked her head away. “Your eyes, your hair …” He let strands sift through his fingers. “Even your skin … You could pass for one of them. In Germany I could tell them you are Jewish and you would have to prove otherwise.”

  She’d not known he spoke so much English. She fought the trembling that threatened to collapse her knees. “Is that what you did? Proved otherwise?”

  He tweaked her chin. Then he leaned close enough to breathe the scent of her skin, causing her to shudder. His breath tickled her ears. “I did not have to. My blood is no longer unclean.” His lips brushed the fine hairs on her neck.

  Her heart slammed against the gun still grinding her ribs. “Don’t.” She could hear the weeping in her own voice.

  He chuckled and trailed his fingers around the back of her neck, then gripped it painfully, steering her farther into the room with their pressure while he pressed the gun barrel harder to move her forward.

  When her toe caught on the pile of burlap and she nearly tripped into the heap, panic screamed through her. At the same moment, she heard Jerry’s voice outside, calling Leo’s name. Leo stepped back, releasing the gun from her rib cage as he glanced toward the door. Fannie gulped for breath. She didn’t care anymore if Leo shot her. She was more afraid of what would happen to her brother. “Please. Don’t hurt him.”

  Leo leered at her again, a look in his eyes that burned her with its loathing. “If you don’t want him hurt, then do as I say.”

  Her throat tightened, but she nodded.

  He aimed the gun at the door.

  Should she charge him? Try to knock the gun away? What if it went off? Should she scream anyway? What did he intend to do if she didn’t stop him? Now that she’d caught him with the gun, did he really have any intention of quietly leaving her here?

  Someone is going to die.

  Through the blood-pounding muffle of her thoughts, she heard others. The porch screen door squeaked. Had Mom and Patsy come up from the root cellar? No! Stay! And then men’s voices. Wolf.

  “He must be getting the bags.” Jerry! “I’ll check.”

  “Wolf!” His name tore from Fannie’s lungs, and she tried to shove Leo, but he was immovable. “Wo—”

  Leo spun so quickly she had no time to react. He cracked her sideways with the pistol across the skull, sending her toppling into the stack of burlap. Her head smacked against the wall, and a wave of dizziness turned the room on end.

  The door burst open, and a shot fired.

  Fannie screamed. Didn’t she? Was it her voice that rang out after the gunshot, right before she descended into darkness?

  She knew, as she came around, that only moments had passed. She was as dizzy as ever, and the haze before her was a combination of the strike to her head and the dust rising in the room. Bodies grappled, and she drew both feet back as they tumbled next to her.

  “Jer …” She murmured, but she wasn’t sure it was Jerry there. Was Jerry all right? Had he been shot? Wolf. Leo.

  As her focus cleared, she made them out. Wolf and Leo, tumbling in the shadowy space, crashing against the cans of gas and then the workbench. Tools clattering to the floor. Blood on knuckles and cuts on faces. Rage on Wolf’s as he glanced her way for a quarter second, his blue eyes blazing. Leo, with blood streaming from both nostrils, locked in battle against his captain. Wolf’s fists beating him into submission.

  And the gun spinning just out of her reach. She dragged herself forward on elbows and stretched fingers until she touched the metal then clasped it. She collapsed into a circle and pulled the gun under her body, hugging it where it could fall into no enemy’s hands.

  Then suddenly everything cleared. Other voices rushed in, and a bigger boom exploded just outside the door. Calvin shouldered in as the two men fell apart, both of them panting on the floor. He had his rifle pressed into his shoulder, and Fannie smelled the hot metal and gunpowder of its firing. Behind Cal came Corporal Taft with his pistol cocked also.

  Wolf slid over closer to Fannie and raised both of his hands. Leo’s hands came up slower.

  Wolf peered at her, heedless of the weapon pointed at him. “Are you all right?”

  She stared for a moment, taking him in. He’d saved her. She placed a hand on her head where a welt throbbed beneath her fingertips, but she nodded. “I think so.”

  “Get up, you scum.” Cal spoke to both Germans at once. Did he not see what Wolf had done? “Get up off the ground and move.”

  Wolf rose. He glanced at Leo, who seemed nearly as dazed as Fannie. Wolf stretched out his hand to her.

  Cal surged forward and shoved him with the butt of his rifle. “Get your hands off her.”

  Wolf’s stomach convulsed at the jab, but he didn’t resist or argue. He merely looked at her, then at Cal before he shuffled toward the door and into the sunlight with Calvin a pace behind, the gun still trained on Wolf’s back.

  “What happened?” Mom’s voice, just outside, sounded frightened.

  Fannie moved to get up, drawing the gun with her, but she ended up settling back onto the pile of gunnysacks. Nausea crept up her insides.

  “Fan?” Jerry poked his head in the doorway as Corporal Taft hoisted Leo by the upper arm.

  Taft gave Leo a shove toward the doorway. “I’m really sorry about this, Miss O’Brien,” he said, his eyes glued to his prisoner.

  “Fan?” Jerry rushed to her side. A moment later, Mom was inside too.

  Fannie cradled her head. “Dad’s gun, Jerry.” She stretched out her legs, exposing the pistol lying on her lap. He reached for it and moved it out of harm’s way.

  “Fannie!” Mom gulped a sob and hurried to her. Together, Mom and Jerry raised her to her feet. “What did they do to you? What happened?” “I’ll be fine.”

  She limped with them past the window.

  “You have a bruise!”

  It felt like a lot more than a bruise. Her temple throbbed violently, and suddenly she knew she was going to throw up. “Mom …” She mumbled and turned her head.

  Jerry stepped back, still holding her arm. “Don’t worry. It’ll make you feel better.”

  She would have laughed if she didn’t want to cry so.

  Stepping out of the hot, heavy air of the shed, Fannie stopped walking. She braced herself against Jerry and looked at the lot of prisoners standing at attention. Cal kept them under guard while Corporal Taft locked Leo in cuffs, Wolf standing beside him.

  Fannie shook free from Mom and Jerry. She swiped the back of her hand over her mouth and trudged toward them. When she reached the cobblestone path, she gave the stone the barest glance, taking in its shifted position and the freshly loosened soil around it. She didn’t have to step on it to know that it wobbled again.

  She walked on. Without a word, she touched Cal’s arm and brushed past.

  “Fannie.”

  She ignored him and stopped before Wolf, whose wrists were being cuffed by Corporal Taft. Tears welled into her eyes anew as they looked at one another. “Danke.”

  His gaze held a depth of some emotion she couldn’t begin to identify. Grief? Regret? Something … more? “I am sorry I could not stop him sooner.”

  “Climb up.” Taft took him by the arm and steered him toward the back of the transport.

  Fannie stepped back, and Wolf obeyed.

  Leo sat inside in the far left corner of the truck, staring out but at no one in particular until his dark gaze clapped upon hers. Then he pursed his lips and silently kissed the air between them. His gray eyes went dull then, unrepentant as ever, though dirt smeared his face and blood stained his upper lip. A blue welt that matched her own swelled the temple above one eye.

  Cal rushed forward and raised his weapon higher. “Try that again. I dare you.”

  Leo smirked then turned his face away.

  Wolf sat in the near corner, as far removed from Leo as could be.

  “He saved me,” Fannie said to Corporal Taft and Cal together. “Wolf—Captain Kloninger saved me from Leo.”

  “I’ll make a note of it,” Taft said as he turned to the rest of the prisoners. “Get in.”

  They all filed past, some with eyes to the ground. Only Rudy and Richard Schorr took a glimpse of her. She wanted to offer them some thanks, some … thing. But why? Because she cared? And should she? Would any of them have done what Leo had done if given half a chance?

  No. They had the same chance. The same opportunity.

  Corporal Taft closed them in and strode back to her. “Do you have any idea where he got the gun, Miss O’Brien? I have to ask. Did you give it to him?”

  She blanched. A new wave of dizziness assailed her. Thankfully, Calvin wasn’t standing where he could read Corporal Taft’s lips. She turned her back so that her brother couldn’t see hers either. “Of course not, Corporal. It’s my father’s. Leo stole it out of the truck. We think during the fire. I was going to tell you.”

  “Were you?” He let the question hang there until she frowned.

  “Of course. We—I—only just discovered it missing. The day of the fire—that’s the only time that makes sense of when he might have taken it. We don’t know for sure.”

  “I understand. Just doing my job. You won’t have to worry about it happening again.”

  “The workers …” She stepped forward, urgency filling her tone as her gaze crossed the field of corn waving against the low-hanging sun.

  “I’m sorry, miss. I don’t foresee you getting them back.”

  “I see.”

  Jerry stood beside her. She hadn’t even noticed him approach. “It’s okay, Fannie. We’ll manage.” He turned to Calvin. “Won’t we, Cal? We’ll manage the corn picking.” He nodded at the field.

  Calvin lowered his weapon, cradling it in his arms. He cast a furtive glance at the prisoners in the back of the truck and then at his family, spread out like a wing before him. “Yeah. We’ll pick the corn. I’ll help.”

  A gush of relief and sorrow, a year of pent-up fears, all swept out of Fannie in a moment. And now she just needed to find a place to sit.

  CHAPTER 22

  October 1944

  “It’s very bad. Or very good, depending on how you look at it.” Fritz held the letter in front of him. He’d not been so talkative in weeks. Months even. Hearing from Emma had changed him overnight. He’d been carrying her letter around for forty-eight hours and pulled it out of his pocket every chance he got to read it again.

  “Oh?” Wolf tugged his woolen socks on and reached for a shoe. “Explain what you mean.”

  “It’s either very bad—the way the war is going for Germany. Or it is very good, because if they surrender, we will be sent home soon.”

  “Do you think so?”

  Fritz grinned ear to ear. “I can hope for anything now.”

  Wolf tied his shoes and stood. He gave Fritz a solid pat on the shoulder. “I’m glad she is well and her family too.”

  “I don’t know how well. I think there is much she cannot tell me.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean.” Wolf had gotten a letter recently from his own family. They’d sent supplies. Canned fish and vegetables. He was sorry they’d sent them, certain they needed it much more than he did. He would write again and thank them for their great sacrifice, but he’d tell them to keep future supplies for themselves or share them with someone in need there in Heidelberg. He would promise them that he was well fed. They wouldn’t believe it if he did not promise it was so.

  Wolf’s mind tracked back over the summer months to the many picnics Frau O’Brien had spread for them. Even when things changed, when Fannie’s brother returned and the offerings weren’t as opulent, she’d still sent out the occasional roll and jam, or the offering of cold, fresh buttermilk, or a bowl of fresh-picked raspberries and jug of iced raspberry tea made from harvested leaves.

  And he could still see Fannie’s face glowing with the kiss of the sunshine, tendrils of her chocolaty hair escaping their banded scarf to blow across her cheeks.

  “Horst’s sister is better too,” Fritz said.

  “Is she? I didn’t hear about that.”

  “He got a letter today. She is staying at a friend’s home in the country.”

 

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