Stranger's Gift by Anna Schmidt Read Free Book Online Page B

farther into the orchard, where he bent to scoop wet silt and sand from the ground. He could find nothing that was salvageable of the work he had poured his heart and soul into for the last two years. Here and there the recycled cypress boards he had used to build the planters stuck up from the sand like grave markers. The branches on the fruit trees that had managed to survive the storm’s rage were gray with sea salt. Other trees had been snapped off at the base.
    Slowly he took stock of his losses, trying without success to comprehend the fury of a storm that had robbed him of everything he’d worked so hard to build. When he’d settled on the Tucker property in spite of the naysayers who had thought him mad, he had seen not an abandoned homestead and business but a place where at last he could pursue his Walden experiment unencumbered by the disapproval of others. Here he could prove to those who had banned him that he was a man of faith and tradition—perhaps far more so than the neighbors he’d left behind had been. Here he could honor the memory of his mother and the way that she had encouraged him even with her dying breath.
    Still stunned by the extent of the storm’s damage, he finally registered the steady throttle of a fishing boat puttering close to what had once been his pier. It was now no more than a twisted aluminum sculpture sticking up from the muddy water. “What now?” John muttered as he watched a trio of Mennonites—conservative judging by their dress—beach the boat on a nearby sandbar and wade through the uncommonly high waters of the bay to shore. John bit his lip hard and silently prayed for strength and patience. Like he didn’t have enough to deal with.
    â€œPlain people” as the various sects of Anabaptists were often called. Amish, Mennonite, Hutterites—all linked under the yoke of plain dress and a simple separatist lifestyle despite their differences. In particular, the Mennonites seemed to have this thing about needing to help people—whether anyone asked for their help or not.
    So here they came—two men and that woman—the one who’d demanded he leave the night before. The men could have been father and son. The elder sported a full white beard, while the younger was clean-shaven, indicating that he was single. Both wore the somber uniform of their faith. Dark loose trousers with suspenders, solid blue cotton shirts with no collar, and the telltale stiff-brimmed straw hat. John had abandoned the dress code when he came to Florida because he believed it would be easier to maintain his anonymity if he did not call attention to himself.
    He turned his attention to the woman. She was wearing sneakers that were stained with the brown muck of the creek. Her dress was a pale blue floral print covered with a black apron. She carried a cloth satchel. Her skirt was wet and muddy for a good foot above her ankle where she’d waded in to shore. Her hair was parted in the middle, then pinned up and back and crowned by the traditional starched white mesh prayer kapp. And while the men were both fair, the woman was not. Her hair was as black as the night that had engulfed his property just before the storm struck.
    In no mood for company and especially not for the woman’s right to gloat, John glanced around, seeking escape. But other than the boat they’d arrived in, he had no other options. Where once there had been a winding lane out to the main road in the days when Tucker had owned the property, there was now a jungle of downed palm trees and uprooted shrubs to add to the maze that had been the overgrown path he’d so carefully avoided clearing. On top of that he sported a long bloody gash on one arm along with a variety of throbbing bruises and possibly a broken wrist given the pulsating pain he was feeling there. His shorts and shirt were both ripped, and his signature planter’s straw hat was probably halfway