“Please, God, protect him,” Roland murmured under his breath. And louder, to J.J., he called, “Sit still, don’t move. Don’t do anything to startle them.”
J.J. giggled. “Don’t be scared, Dat. They won’t hurt me. They like me.” Bees surrounded him, walking on his bare feet, his arms and fingers. They buzzed around his head and face and crawled in his hair. And only inches from J.J.’s head, a wriggling cluster of the winged insects, thicker than the boy’s body, swayed on a slender branch.
“Don’t make any noise,” Roland warned as J.J. began to hum the tune to an old hymn. Roland’s heart thudded against his ribs, his skin was clammy-cold and his chest felt so tight that it was hard to breathe. “Do as I say!” he ordered.
When Roland was ten, he’d had a cousin in the Kishacoquillas Valley who’d attempted to rob a honey tree and had been stung to death. Roland shuddered, trying to shut out the memory of the dead boy’s swollen and disfigured face as he lay in his coffin.
He couldn’t dwell on his poor cousin or his grieving family. The bishop who’d delivered the sermon at his funeral had assured them that the boy was safe with God. Roland knew that was what the Bible taught. This world wasn’t important. It was only a preparation for the next, but Roland’s faith wasn’t always as strong as he would like. His cousin’s parents had had six living children remaining when they lost their son. J.J. was all he had. Roland had survived the death of his wife, Pauline, and the unborn babies she’d been carrying, but if he lost this precious son, his own life would be over.
“They tickle.” J.J. giggled again. “Climb up, Dat, and see how nice they are.”
“Hush. I told you not to move.” All sorts of wild ideas surfaced in Roland’s head. Maybe he could cut down the tree and J.J. could jump free. Or he could tell J.J. to jump into his arms. He’d leap into the pond—washing the bees off them both before they could sting them. But Roland knew that was foolishness. Neither of them could move fast enough. The bees were already crawling all over J.J.
Besides, if Roland startled the swarm, they might all attack both of them. He didn’t care about himself, but his son was so small. The child could be stung hundreds of times in just a minute. Roland’s only hope was prayer and the belief that Irwin would return soon with Johanna. She was a beekeeper. She worked with bees every day. If anyone could tell him what to do to save his child, it would be Johanna.
“Dat!” J.J. waved a bee-covered hand and pointed toward the meadow that bordered the road.
Roland looked up to see the Yoders’ black horse coming fast across the pasture. But there was no gate along that fence line. Irwin would have to backtrack around by the farmyard to get to the pond. But the boy was galloping straight on toward—
Roland’s stomach pitched. That wasn’t Irwin on Blackie! The rider wore a blue dress and a white Kapp. A girl? It couldn’t be. “Johanna?” Roland backed away from the tree and ran toward the fence waving his arms. Was she blind? Couldn’t she see there was no opening? Why hadn’t she reined in the horse? Surely, she couldn’t mean to... “No!” he bellowed. “Don’t try to jump that—”
But as the words came out of his mouth, Roland saw that it was too late. Blackie soared over the three-rail fence and came thundering down, Johanna clinging stubbornly to his back. She yanked back on the reins, but the horse had the bit between his teeth and didn’t slacken his pace. When the gelding didn’t respond, she pulled hard on one rein, forcing him to circle left. He dug in his front legs, then tried to rear, but she fought him to a trot and finally to a walk. Johanna pulled up ten feet from Roland and slid down off the horse’s sweat-streaked back.
Johanna landed barefoot in the grass and straightened her Kapp as she hurried toward him. “Is J.J. all right?” she asked.
Speechless, Roland stared gape-mouthed at her. She was breathing hard but otherwise seemed no worse for her wild careen across the field. All he could think was that she had come. Johanna had come, and she’d find a way to save his son. But what he said was, “Are you crazy? You? A grown woman with two children? To ride that horse bareback like some madcap boy?”
Johanna...the woman who might have been his...who might have been J.J.’s mother if not for one stupid night of foolishness.
“Are you finished?” she asked, scolding him as if he was the one who’d just done something outrageous. Her chin went up and tiny lines of disapproval creased the corners of her beautiful eyes—eyes so piercingly blue and direct that for an instant, he didn’t see a delicate woman standing there. In a flash, he saw, instead, Johanna’s father, Jonas Yoder, as strong a man in faith and courage as Roland had ever known.
Johanna walked to the base of the tree, her gaze taking in J.J. and the writhing mass of bees above him. “Hi,” she called.
“Hi.” J.J. grinned at her, despite the two bees crawling over his chin. “Look at all the bees,” he said. “Aren’t they neat?”
“Very neat,” she answered softly. She tilted her head back. “That’s a lot of bees.”
“A hundred, at least,” J.J. agreed.
Roland stifled a groan. “There must be thousands of them,” he whispered.
Johanna smiled, ignoring Roland. “You’re a brave boy. Some people are afraid of honeybees.”
J.J. nodded. “They’re nice.”
“I think so, too.” Johanna glanced back at Roland. A bee lit on her Kapp, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Do you have a stepladder?”
“In the shed.”
“Could you go get it? Irwin should be coming anytime with my bee equipment. When he gets here, bring it to me. Keep Irwin away.” She grimaced. “He makes the bees nervous.”
“They make me nervous.” Roland looked from her to J.J. and back at her again. “Are you going to smoke them? I’ve heard that calms them.”
“It probably wouldn’t hurt.” She glanced back at the swarm. “They’ve left someone’s bee box somewhere, or a hollow tree,” she said to J.J. “Or maybe an abandoned building.”
“Why did they do that?” the boy asked.
“Probably because their queen was old or the hive got too crowded. They’re being so friendly because they don’t have honey to protect.” She shrugged. “They’re just looking for a new home.”
“Oh.”
“Were they in the tree when you climbed up there?” she asked.
J.J. nodded. “I wanted to see what they were doing.”
“He’s been singing to them,” Roland said, swallowing to try to dissolve his fear. “He just didn’t understand how dangerous it was.”
“The bees didn’t sting me,” J.J. said. “They like me.”
“Do they like it when you sing?” Johanna asked. And when J.J. nodded, she added, “Then you can sing to them, if you want to. I sing to mine all the time.”
J.J. giggled. “You do?”
“The ladder,” she reminded Roland as she continued to watch J.J. in the tree.
Roland backed away slowly. He was still sweating and his hands and feet felt wooden, but some of the awful despair that had paralyzed him earlier had ebbed away. Johanna didn’t seem alarmed. Obviously, she had a plan.
He turned and ran. “Don’t leave him.”
“Don’t worry,” she called after him. “We’re fine, aren’t we, J.J.?”
“Ya, Dat,” he heard his son say. “We’re fine.”
Pray to God you are. Roland lengthened his stride, running with every ounce of strength in his