Wil ran to Pieter and, with Heinrich’s help, stood the priest up to behold the world as it should be. Pieter stared silently for a long moment. His eyes moistened and his throat swelled. “Fields of gossamer touched by the rainbow,” he whispered weakly. “Dear God, You have brought us to the portal of paradise.”
The man began to sag in his fellows’ grip. He tossed his head weakly toward a stout oak to which he was quickly carried and seated against its sturdy trunk. Solomon slumped close by, then laid a forlorn chin on the man’s lap. Pieter rested a loving hand atop his companion’s head. “My good and faithful friend,” he whispered.
Looking across the river, the failing man pointed a trembling finger and asked faintly, “Is it there? Is that Stedingerland?”
Heinrich knelt by Pieter’s side and laid a soft hand on the man’s shoulder. “Ja, Pieter, it is there, just beyond the river.”
The priest smiled, then looked quietly into the distance for along while. His lambs gathered close to either side, and the whole of the company stared wistfully at the panorama before them.
In time, Heinrich retrieved Karl’s cross from his belt. “Pieter, I shall plant this in free soil.”
Pieter nodded. “Good. He would have it so.” He lifted his feeble hand upward to touch the apple wood lightly. “Dear friend, would I be too bold to ask you to set it at my grave?”
The baker’s throat swelled. He turned a wet eye to Wil and nodded. “Indeed. I surely shall. Karl would have liked it to be so.”
Pieter sighed contentedly and closed his eyes. He then awakened with a start and stared into the distance again. His breathing began to falter before he pointed his finger once more. “You all do see it, don’t you?” he asked weakly. “Maria, Wil…?”
“Ja,” his fellows answered in unison.
The good man nodded, then stared into the shadowed lands far beyond the Weser. “Then your day is come …” His eyes lost their light, then fluttered and closed. “You are home,” he whispered faintly. He took a difficult breath and muttered something indiscernible.
“What, Papa?” asked Maria as she clutched his arm. “What did you say?”
Pieter stirred as his troubled flock leaned close by either side. He opened his eyes and gazed ahead once more, then lifted his timeworn face toward heaven. There he sat silently as the sun sank peacefully in the west. Frieda led the others in some quiet songs, and Pieter’s breathing became shallow.
At last, the old fellow’s eyes rolled slightly, and his head tilted to one side. In a faint whisper he murmured, “What… hidden harbor … greets the fleet of stars … that cross the night… and … where do shadows gather… after they have lost their li …” Pieter Godson von Kinder’s voice trailed away, and his chest released its final breath. He slumped into his beloved Maria’s arms, and his soul flew to his Maker’s breast.
Solomon whined and Maria whimpered. Great groans of sorrow rippled through the grieving company. Their Pieter—their Papa Pieter—was gone from them. It could not be, yet it was; and it was very much to bear.
For the next hour, the mourners suffered their loss with sobs and anguished cries. Death remained as it always had been: that certain shadow that follows every life, that ruthless foe that bites the tender places and shows mercy to none.
In time, Wil and Alwin laid the good man prostrate on the soft, bloom-spotted grass and folded his cold hands over his heart as Heinrich stood to speak. He wiped his eye and cleared his throat.
“Pieter Godson von Kinder was my friend,” he said with a loving smile. “He taught me much of things that are and of things that shall surely be.” The pilgrims shuffled close and listened carefully as the simple baker proceeded to bless them with something of a homily on the resurrection to come. His words were soft and comforting, and he finished by saying, “For in the rising of the Christ we find our only hope against this curse. In that, and in that alone, is our final triumph. Take heart, my brothers and sisters, though we grieve this night, we shall see him again.”
Then, under the gauzy light of the rising moon, Pieter’s body was carefully carried to the shores of the lapping Weser to be bathed. His mourners stared heavenward, as if hoping to somehow see his white beard amidst the silver of the night’s sky. Frieda said that he would have loved the way the stars were shining down on the river. “They are making the water sparkle clean and bright,” she said. “He is smiling on us; he is at peace. I can feel his joy all around.”