But . . . never to see her again?
The sky looked like a watercolor painting now. He lifted a hand to his face to find it wet. The last time he’d cried was after that tree fell and he had to use his ax to clear branches away until he found Levi’s broken body. Even then, he’d tried desperately to cut through the trunk of that maple so that he might shift it off Levi. Alone, it was impossible. He needed someone on the other end of the crosscut saw.
As Levi had always been.
That was when David fell to his knees, sobbed, and shouted at God.
Ja, these past six years he’d been running away from God as much as he was from Miriam, Esther, and his own family.
If he left now, he would still hold God close. Whatever life lay before him, it wouldn’t be a godless one.
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
Someday, if he could forgive himself, he would find thanksgiving. Feeling as old as Onkel Hiram must have near the end, David got to his feet. Every joint in his body ached, although none so much as the pain that swelled in his chest.
He looked around for the basket he’d been carrying and realized he’d left it where he and Miriam had talked. Food held no interest for him, but he couldn’t chance one of the Bowmans finding it, Deborah thinking he hadn’t valued her gift. As careful as the old man he felt himself to be, he climbed back over the fence, retraced his steps, and retrieved the heavy basket.
The sky was deepening in color by the time he set the basket on the back step of his house. His own horses had lined up at the fence now that he was home, and a trumpeting call from the barn along with excited yipping reminded him that he was needed.
As he set about his evening chores, David tried to keep his thoughts turned from Miriam. He would hope she hated him and therefore didn’t hurt as much as he did . . . except that wasn’t what their Lord asked of them.
All he had to do was remember the familiar passage from the book of Matthew.
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”
But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.
He had no doubt that Miriam would wish him well, do good for him if she could, but whether she could bring herself to love him in any meaningful sense of the world, David didn’t know. For her sake, he prayed it would be so, even if her love wasn’t the kind he craved.
* * *
* * *
Miriam had managed to slip into the house without her mother hearing her. By the time she went downstairs, she had erased the evidence of tears, only saying, “Ach, I tore my dress.” Which was true. “I needed to change. And you finished cleaning the kitchen without me.”
Mamm brushed off her apologies, of course, looked at her closely enough to make her wonder whether her turbulent emotions were seeping out like poisonous water from swampy ground. But Mamm didn’t say anything, and the evening passed much as usual. Daad pulled himself too hastily up from his lying position on the couch, clenched his teeth, and finally shifted to his chair.
As he read scripture, Miriam mended the rent in the skirt of her dress, then started on a pair of Daad’s pants that had a tear so clean, she thought he must have cut the fabric with a saw or sharp-edged chisel. Mamm hemmed a small dress for Abby, then crocheted a cloud-soft blanket sized for a crib. For Julia’s unborn boppli, she had admitted to Miriam when she started it. Miriam would make this kind a quilt, too, but the blanket would be softer.
She worked a full day on Saturday, their busiest of the week. More of the curious mixed with real shoppers. Miriam was glad to stay so busy. She didn’t even have time to slip down the street to have lunch with Julia, which might be best. She wasn’t ready to talk even to her best friend yet.
She spared a moment to be grateful because this wasn’t a worship Sunday. Yet a quiet voice inside insisted that she couldn’t continue to pretend nothing had happened, that she had to think about David’s confession and why he had made it.
Soon—but not yet.
* * *
* * *
On Saturday, David drove Copper pulling the small cart up and down the driveway—which was really more two dirt paths separated by a hillock of grass. Grass that he needed to mow soon, he noted.
The third time they reached the bottom of the driveway, he heard an approaching car and reined Copper to a stop. A car rather than a noisy pickup truck was what he’d sought, but this one sped past faster than was safe on this road. David allowed the horse to turn his head to watch it go, pleased at how steady he remained.
He turned him around in the road, hearing the approach of a buggy. This time he kept some tension in the reins, signaling that Copper was to disregard this distraction. Which he did.
Soon he’d be ready to go out on the road hitched to the buggy rather than the cart.
Halfway up the driveway this time, he heard a deep-throated engine that hesitated. Someone turning in behind him.
Copper’s ears swiveled, and his trot broke into a canter. David sternly corrected him, and the gelding fell back into a smooth trot that brought them to the barnyard. Only then did David look back and see the massive SUV with a light bar across the top.
The police chief, again. What did he want this time?
David got down from the buggy and waved a hello. Nick parked and turned off the engine, then strolled David’s way as he unhitched Copper from the cart and began removing the harness.
“Glad I don’t have to do that every time I want to go somewhere,” the police chief commented.
David smiled. “Ja, that is a disadvantage, but one that keeps us aware of the choices we make every day.”
Once he’d turned Copper loose in the pasture, he invited Nick to the house for a cup of coffee. The chief seemed glad to sit and took a long swallow.
“Julia told me that she thought those men would have shot at her and Luke if you hadn’t yelled at them not to,” he said abruptly. “She thinks they hesitated because of what you said.”
“It was nothing—”
“It was something. You were trying to protect everyone.”
He supposed he had been. Preventing violence from erupting had been his only thought.
“I’m glad only the police officer and Eli were hurt, and neither so bad.”
“My sister says he’s a stubborn old fool.” At David’s raised eyebrows, Nick laughed. “She didn’t say fool. Or maybe even old. I could tell what she didn’t say.”
Normally, David would have laughed, too. Instead, he studied the other man. A police officer, who must have seen a great deal of violence in his career. Maybe even committed some. Would he talk about that?
David wondered whether God had created this opportunity for him. He realized Nick was studying him in turn, as if seeing something unexpected on his face.
Before he could have second thoughts, David asked his question. “Have you ever been responsible for another person’s death?”
* * *
* * *
The police chief’s expression closed like heavy doors hiding whatever lay behind them. The silence grew uncomfortably long.
David cleared his throat. “You’re the only person I can ask.”
“This have anything to do with why you left the Amish for a few years?”
“Yes.” He realized he’d switched to speaking English without even noticing, it still felt so natural. “Julia didn’t tell you what she knew?”
“No, only that you’d been a friend of Miriam’s fiancé, who died in an accident.” His expression changed. “You have something to do with the accident?”
His stomach churned, as if the coffee
had gone bad. He shouldn’t have started this. He never wanted to confess his guilt to anyone else.
Want, no. But he’d already resolved to speak to Bishop Amos. So why not one more man?
“Ja,” he said slowly. Shook his head. “Yes. Everyone thought it really was an accident, but I blame myself. I ran away from the accusation I expected to see on everyone’s faces.”
“I . . . know that feeling.” Knots formed to each side of Nick’s jaw. His reluctance was obvious.
David understood. “We had a two-man business doing what you Englisch call selective logging, using our pair of draft horses to drag the logs out of the woods. We’d been good friends since we were boys.”
Nick didn’t move, only listened.
This was the worst part.
“I was jealous because Miriam loved him, but I put it aside. Levi was like a brother to me. I knew she’d never have looked at me anyway. I would have rejoiced at their happiness.” He prayed that wasn’t a lie, but truly believed it.
“But something changed.”
“Levi began to complain about her, saying she was too friendly with everyone, even other men and boys. She flirted, he said, was flighty.”
Nick frowned, but didn’t comment.
“It wasn’t true. She’s always been warm, friendly, willing to help, but she had eyes only for him. Her goodness was what drew me. I couldn’t understand where Levi had gotten these ideas, but he kept bringing up his discontent. She was only a girl, maybe too young for marriage. He should look around.”
“There was no basis for any of this?”
“You know her. What do you think?”
Frown still lingering, the police chief said, “I agree with your assessment of her. She and Julia became friends right away, and I could see why. They’re both . . . compassionate. Always willing to listen, to care. But flirtatious?” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen even a hint of that.”
“I think now it was coming from his mother, Esther Schwartz.”
“The one whose house you painted recently?”
“That’s right. I need to make sure she’s all right, for Levi’s sake.”
The nod reassured him.
“Then, I was angry instead. I would have given almost anything to have Miriam love me. He had what I wanted, and was saying bad things about her.” He told the story, then: Levi whining instead of thanking God that he’d been so blessed while David swung his ax to make the undercut that would control the tree’s descent. How he’d told Levi to shut up and made him take the other side of the crosscut saw. How the tree broke before they expected, and he’d known immediately why.
He described the utterly quiet moment when he felt the quiver that ran through the trunk, the long, drawn-out groan that followed as the tree began to fall. Still in slow motion, but nothing he could do. The expression on Levi’s face, the way he tensed to leap away but too late. His own grief and shame.
Voice choked, he said, “Later, after we cut the tree up enough to pull Levi’s body out, I looked at the core of it, where I’d opened it with my ax.” The rot, the strange twisting grain that told him any lumber from this tree would be useless. “I had to have seen it,” he concluded. “What if I was angry enough to want—” Even now, he couldn’t finish.
Nick sighed and rubbed his neck. “That kind of guilt can eat you alive.”
“It has. It does.”
His eyes met Daniel’s. “I have the same problem. I’d say with less excuse than you, but given my profession, the risk is high that any cop will make a mistake.”
Daniel nodded. He could see that. Carrying a deadly weapon, even with the intention of using it only to protect people, to save lives, was asking for trouble. Everyone made mistakes. For a police officer, it would be so easy to tighten a finger on the trigger.
He didn’t say anything, having no right to expect this man to share the tragedy that haunted him. But after a minute, Nick kept talking.
“I shot a kid. Killed her. She was only thirteen years old.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
She. Shocked despite himself at a confession as bad or worse than his own, David stared at Nick Durant, sitting across the kitchen table from him.
The chief gazed down at the coffee cup he was slowly rotating in circles with one hand. “I thought it was a teenage boy. She was skinny, had short hair, was wearing a baggy Cleveland Browns sweatshirt.” Lines had all deepened in his face. “If she’d been a boy, I’d have probably felt as bad. But once she was down, and I was trying to give first aid and realized she was a girl, that hit hard.”
He brooded for a minute or two while David waited.
“People were scared. We’d gotten a call that some guy with a gun was threatening a bunch of teenage boys on an outdoor basketball court. I was a lieutenant, not a patrol officer who usually answered calls, but I happened to be only a couple of blocks away, so I took it. When I got there, the boys were bunched up behind the basket, but talking to this young guy. Girl. Saying something about how they were sorry for whatever they’d done or said. I got out of my car and yelled for her to lay the gun down on the ground. She whirled and aimed it at me. I thought she was going to shoot me, so I pulled the trigger first. That’s what we’re trained to do.”
David didn’t think Nick even saw him.
“I holstered my gun, grabbed first aid stuff out of my car, and ran to her. I applied pressure to the wound, but I knew I was too late. And then I saw the gun up close.” His eyes closed. “It was . . . not a toy, but not a real one. A gun made to shoot water, but also made to look realistic. It fooled those boys, and it fooled me.”
“Why didn’t she drop it?”
“I don’t know. I’ll never know. Later—” He rolled his shoulders. “Later I learned things that made me think those boys had assaulted her, but I couldn’t prove it without her testimony. That was one of the two worst days of my life.”
Two? But David didn’t need to ask. He didn’t know exactly what had happened to Julia, only that it had been bad.
“I knew I had to find a different job. I wanted a small town where I could keep things like that from happening.” He grimaced. “Here I am, after this last couple of weeks, not so sure I can do that. I still have nightmares about that girl.”
“I do about Levi, too.” David felt odd after hearing this terrible story. “You did your job. You weren’t trying to hurt her. Once she pretended she was going to shoot you, what else could you have done?” Turn the other cheek, accept that his life was in God’s hands. But Nick Durant was not Amish, had not been raised with the same beliefs. And if the gun had been real, if he’d let the girl shoot him, then she might have shot and killed those older boys, too.
Expression somehow naked, Nick shook his head. “I don’t know. That doesn’t mean living with what I did hasn’t been a struggle.”
“You weren’t angry, like I was.”
“No. But I don’t think for a minute that you killed your friend on purpose.” When David opened his mouth, the police chief said, “Let me finish. Your anger may have distracted you so that you didn’t notice the tree was rotting and ready to come down, maybe in an unpredictable way. That’s not a crime. Emotions are powerful. They do sidetrack us from what’s right in front of us. Usually, the result isn’t tragic. In your case, it happened because the tree proved to be dangerous. Nothing you expected when you started cutting. And you had every reason to be irritated at this Levi, when he wouldn’t quit bad-mouthing a nice girl, one you cared about.” He gave an odd grunt. “I’m a fine one to talk, but you need to let go of that guilt you’re carrying like a hundred-pound pack. It was an accident. The timing was lousy, I’ll concede. If you hadn’t been mad at him, if you’d been preoccupied with something else, an argument you’d had with your father, say, would you have reacted the same?”
David let his head fall forward. “Loggin
g is a dangerous job. There was no excuse for letting my attention be pulled away by anything, especially when I put someone else at risk.”
“But we’re human, which means a long way from perfect.”
David raised his head, looked at this man suffering as much from a mistake he couldn’t have foreseen, and said, “That’s true. But you haven’t let yourself accept that, either.”
Nick gave a twisted smile. “Touché.” He lifted his cup and drained what coffee was left, then clapped it down on the table.
David didn’t understand the word, but understood what the other man meant.
“I need to get going. You helped protect my sister. I won’t forget that.”
Choosing not to argue again, David nodded and rose, too. “Thank you for telling me what happened to you. I’ll . . . have to think about it.”
“Once we get stuck in a rut, it’s hard to get out.”
Nick walked out, got in his big vehicle, and left after lifting his hand briefly from the steering wheel.
Stuck in a rut. That was a good way to describe the way his mind had been working, David admitted. Was it possible that the things the police chief had said might jolt him out of the rut so he could think more clearly?
* * *
* * *
“Something’s wrong,” Julia insisted. “You’re not ‘fine.’”
No, she wasn’t, but Miriam still wasn’t sure she was ready to talk to anyone about David—but she might never find a better chance.
On Sunday, the family had all gone different ways for once—Luke, Julia, and Abby to the Yoders’ house; Mamm, Daad, and Miriam to Rose’s; Elam to join Anna Rose and her family. Miriam had done her best to be cheerful.
Mamm had decided in advance to gather everyone on Monday instead. Rose’s husband had to work, and one of the kinder had an appointment for vaccines, so they had excused themselves. Still, both of Miriam’s brothers were here, Luke bringing his family, of course, and for the first time, Elam brought his come-calling friend, Anna Rose Esch. Poor Anna had been blushing almost from the moment they arrived, but seeing Elam so proud had warmed Miriam’s heart. No outsiders, for once. Nick had had to work. Nobody had mentioned inviting David today. Miriam suspected Julia had squelched the idea.
Mending Hearts Page 26