Shadows of Lancaster County

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “The man you saw, by any chance was he wearing a leather jacket and jeans?”

  “Yes, and a knit cap with ear flaps.”

  “Yah, that was no stranger, that was Caleb. No doubt he is off to visit with his English buddies or his fancy girlfriend.”

  I stood up straight, exhaling slowly. Of course. Caleb was on rumspringa, and it was a Friday night. As I pictured the movements of the man running through the snow, I realized that it had, indeed, been him. Lydia put the trunk away and we returned upstairs, her movements angry and swift.

  “You can’t be too mad at him,” I whispered as I followed along behind. “You were doing the same thing when you were his age.”

  She waited until we were in my bedroom with the door closed before she replied.

  “This is different!” she hissed. “I asked him specifically not to slip away from the house until Bobby returned or we knew what was going on. He is supposed to be guarding us, not running out to be with other people. He is so irresponsible! Always, he is bucking against everything, fighting every rule, every request.”

  She paced as she talked, and I could tell she needed to vent. I sat on the bed, pulling a blanket over my lap to keep from shivering.

  “At least Nathaniel’s still here,” I whispered, gesturing toward the wall. He and Grete were sleeping two rooms over, but even from that distance we could hear the vague rumble of his snoring. “We’re okay.”

  “That’s not the point, Anna,” Lydia said, finally stopping her pacing to sit next to me on the bed. “Things with Caleb are…so complicated.”

  I pulled the blanket up my chin, our breath making vapor as we spoke.

  “When he argues, he uses me as his example,” Lydia continued, shaking her head. “As one who left the Order, I could be seen as a very bad influence on my younger relatives. He does not know the position he puts me in when he says things like ‘I am going to do what Lydia did’ or ‘I do not know what is so wrong about taking the path Lydia took.’ Too much of that, and the bishops might not let me keep coming around. Ach, I am so mad at him right now, I could scream.”

  I reached out and patted her hand, wishing I could think of something to say that would make her feel better.

  “Have you told him that he needs to stop talking about you that way?”

  “Yah, but it makes no difference. He is hardheaded and says what he wants in the heat of passion. Besides, he does not understand how different his motives are from what mine were when I was his age and decided to break away.”

  “He’s not taking a pass on baptism out of love for his Englisher?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like you did, for Bobby.”

  Lydia looked at me in the dim glow of our flashlights, her eyebrows knit together.

  “This is what you think I did? That I left the Amish Order because I was in love with your brother?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  She shook her head slowly, looking at me in surprise.

  “No, Anna, that is not how it was at all,” she said earnestly, turning her body to face me fully. “I made the decision not to be baptized before Bobby and I even started dating.”

  “You did? Why?”

  She continued to shake her head, as if she could shake away the surprise of my misunderstanding.

  “Is hard to explain. Did you know that the Ordnung prohibits Bible study? The bishops say that to do such a thing could make a person prideful, because it might give them special knowledge.”

  “I didn’t realize that,” I said, remembering that the Ordnung was the unwritten set of rules that the Amish community was required to follow.

  “Maybe it was the rebel inside of me, Anna, but when I was told not to study my Bible, that only made me want to do it more. When I was seventeen, I began reading one in secret. Instead of letting the bishops tell me everything I was supposed to believe, I studied the Bible so I could decide what to believe for myself. Of course, much of what I read confused me because it contradicted what I had been taught in the church.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, the Ordnung says that it is prideful to be certain of one’s salvation, so they are required always to wonder if they will get into heaven, never to know for sure until after death, never to feel good enough in the eyes of God. But then I came to verses like in First John where he says that he has written “these things ‘so that you may know that you have eternal life.’ I decided on this issue the Amish were wrong. Long before I got involved with Bobby, I went to the bishops and quoted that verse and asked them why I was not allowed to have this assurance if God had promised it to me right in His Holy Word. They refused to answer my question but instead wanted to deal only with my ‘disobedience’ for having studied my Bible in secret. Right then, I knew that if I was going to be the person the Bible told me to be, then I would have to leave the Amish faith and find a church that was more willing to let me think for myself. When Bobby and I started dating, I had not yet made it official, but I already knew I was not going to be baptized as Amish.”

  “I had no idea, Lydia. I guess with the timing and everything, I just assumed you left for love.”

  “Is okay. It may have looked that way. When my parents died in the fire, I kept my decision private for as long as I could because I did not want to leave home yet. I knew I needed to stay close for a year or two longer to help with my siblings. When I turned twenty-one, though, after much pressure to be baptized, I announced my decision, and then of course I had to leave home. It was very hard, the hardest thing I have ever done. But soon Bobby came back into my life, and he still loved me, as I still loved him, so that helped me stay strong. We were married soon after, and I never was sorry.”

  Tears filled her eyes, and I wondered if she was starting to doubt whether Bobby had been the husband she thought he was, now that we knew he had been keeping secrets from her.

  “My brother Caleb,” she added, wiping at her eyes, “he does not do this thing out of a desire to know God. He does it from a desire to have freedom and independence. I worry that he is involved in things that have taken over his will and made him both headstrong and weak, all at the same time.”

  I considered her comment, wondering what she meant.

  “Maybe in the old days,” she continued, “when the world was a simpler place, maybe then rumspringa was a good idea. Turning a blind eye to teenage shenanigans is one thing, but these days, raising up children to be completely innocent of the world and then looking the other way as they go out into that world is crazy. The lure of drugs, sex, and the wild parties… You remember what it was like.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said, thinking of the several rumspringa parties we attended that fateful summer. What usually started as a fun gathering with a little music out in somebody’s back field would always degenerate once somebody showed up with a couple of kegs. From what I saw, it seemed like the Amish kids were often the wildest, getting dangerously drunk, pairing off and slipping away, everyone smoking. We learned to get to the parties early and not stay too long. Despite Haley’s relationship with Doug and my attraction to Reed, Haley and I liked going mostly so we could flirt with the cute Amish boys, who were sort of forbidden fruit as far as we were concerned. Though most everyone dressed like regular American teens at those parties, we always knew which ones were Amish by their white foreheads, the result of wearing hats every day as they worked the fields.

  “Ach, my heart aches for Caleb. Who knows what he is mixed up in out there?”

  We were both quiet for a minute.

  “Well,” I said finally, breaking the silence, “back when you were Caleb’s age, after the fire, everyone thought you had been hanging out with a wild bunch of partiers too—when in fact, our little group of friends was completely tame for the most part. The circumstantial evidence from that night made things look much worse than they were. Your brother’s activities could be just as innocent, you know.”

  “Maybe.”

&
nbsp; “Are you worried about drugs?”

  “Yah.”

  “Do you have any evidence?”

  “I do not know. Last month, Bobby saw Caleb down at the Quarry,” she said, referring to the older, more run-down portion of town, a place drug dealers were known to frequent.

  “Not the Quarry,” I said, a shiver running through me as I pictured it. Not only did I now understand her concerns about Caleb, I also began to wonder if this might have something to do with Bobby’s disappearance.

  Ten years ago, a Philadelphia-based drug ring had gotten a foothold among some of the Amish youth in this region, and though law enforcement had cracked down pretty hard on the whole thing, I had to wonder if it had started up again—and if Bobby may have been involved somehow in an attempt to help Caleb. It would have been just like my brother to act first, without regard to his personal safety.

  Of course, I didn’t say as much to Lydia, though she may have been thinking the same thing herself. We wrapped up our conversation and Lydia returned to her room to go back to sleep. Before I turned off my flashlight to do the same, however, I grabbed a pen and my skip tracing form and scribbled on the back of the last page. Quickly, I jotted down a list that seemed to be growing longer all the time. Headed Reasons Bobby Might Have Disappeared, so far it had four items:

  1. Something to do with the rubies, whatever they were.

  2. Something to do with the Dreiheit Five, though for what reason I couldn’t imagine.

  3. Something to do with his job. Bobby had a low-level position in a high-tech field, and he was currently under suspension, a fact he had hidden from his wife.

  4. Something to do with Caleb and drug use. I wasn’t going to tell Lydia this, but if my investigation had not progressed significantly in other directions by the same time tomorrow night, I intended to follow Caleb and see where he was going on his little midnight run.

  I felt more in control once my thoughts were down on paper. Shivering in the cold, I turned off the flashlight, rolled toward the wall, and tried to get back to sleep. It was things like this that confused me about the Amish faith, as I couldn’t fathom how sleeping in these kinds of temperatures brought one closer to God—unless it was all that time they must spend in prayer, asking for warmer weather.

  I managed to get back to sleep and stay that way for the rest of the night. But when I awoke the next morning, the room was even colder, and I was starting to worry if too many nights of this in a row might make me sick. I decided to give Melody Wynn a call—not so I could move over to her house, but just to see if I could impose on her hospitality long enough this morning to take a shower in a well-heated bathroom. After pulling my hair up into a ponytail, I grabbed my stuff and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

  It was gloriously warm in there, heated by the woodstove and the cooking. All of the window blinds were wide open, and the sun reflecting off of the snow outside bathed the room in a brilliant light. I had expected to find the whole family in there, but the room was empty. At the sink, it looked as if someone had abandoned the job of washing dishes halfway through.

  Suddenly, the door at the far side of the sitting area opened and Grete came walking in. She had something small and square in her hands, but the moment she saw me, she gasped and whipped it behind her back.

  “You gave me a fright!” she said, forcing a laugh. There was no smile in her eyes, however.

  “Sorry about that.”

  She remained awkwardly frozen in place, so out of courtesy I finally turned away and walked toward the alcove to put my stuff near the door. From the corner of my eye, I watched as she quickly stashed whatever she had been hiding in a large ceramic canister. After doing that, she walked to the sink and plunged her hands into the soapy water, obviously picking up right where she had left off. Though I was dying to see what was in the canister, I didn’t dare look. Instead, I walked over to the woodstove and stood in front of it, warming my hands.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Isaac wanted to go sledding before the snow melts, so Lydia and Tresa took him to the hill out back,” Grete said as she rinsed a plate and dried her hands. She was polite but not effusive, telling me that she had kept a plate warm for me on the stove. It was only a little after eight, but I quickly realized that the rest of the family had likely been up for several hours and had long since eaten.

  She carried the plate to the table and set it down next to a clean set of silverware, insisting that I sit and have breakfast. I sat, but as I regarded the full plate in front of me, I wondered how I was going to find room in my stomach for more food when I was still stuffed from last night’s dinner. Not wanting to be rude, I did the best I could, picking at the ham and eggs and biscuits to make it look as though I had eaten more than I really had.

  Grete returned to her work at the sink, quietly moving through the job with the same efficient motions I had observed last night. Thinking of whatever lay hidden inside the jar, I asked if she was okay. She looked at me, her shoulders slumping, and she exhaled in frustration.

  “I am sorry if I seem a bit distracted this morning. I do not know why it bothers me so much, considering that it has been happening every weekend lately.”

  “What’s been happening?”

  “Caleb,” she said, using the same frustrated tone of voice Lydia had used last night. “The longer he stays on rumspringa, the more agasinish he becomes. He went out last night, which is fine. It was a Friday. But now here we are on Saturday morning with cows that need milking and a wagon that needs repairing and stalls that need mucking, and where is Caleb? Who knows? He chose not to come home last night.”

  My eyes widened.

  “You mean he disappeared?”

  “No, he did not disappear. I know exactly where he is. He is running around with his friends who have jobs in town and have the weekends off. Those boys may have a lot of extra money and time to get themselves in trouble, but Caleb’s work is here on the farm, with Nathaniel, even on Saturdays. Because Caleb is not here, Rebecca and Ezra had to do his chores this morning on top of their own. We are all feraikled with him.”

  “So when does he usually show back up?”

  “Oh, we will probably see him at tomorrow night’s hymn sing, charming all the girls and making everyone laugh and acting like he did not abandon his work and his family for the entire weekend.”

  I took a final bite of my breakfast, thinking about the difficult road life had handed to Grete. To be saddled with an entire family at such a young age had to have been overwhelming, even with such extensive support from the community. To my mind, she was being far too hard on herself, obviously seeing Caleb’s behavior as a result of something she and her husband had done or didn’t do. I couldn’t say as much to her, but as far as I was concerned, considering the loss they all had suffered at such an early age, if these kids made it to adulthood as good, healthy, well-adjusted individuals who loved God and each other, then Grete had more than done her job, whether they ended up Amish or not.

  “Don’t beat yourself up about a little rebellion,” I said. “God can soften even the hardest heart, but in His time, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  With a nod and a smile, Grete turned her attention to the inside of the pantry. Taking advantage of the moment, I carried my plate to the trash can and quickly dumped my leftovers before she could notice how very little I had eaten. Bringing my plate and glass to the sink, I gave them a good washing and rinsing, and then I dried them and put them away.

  As I admired the handmade cabinets, I noticed the ticking clock over the stove, which reminded me I needed to get moving. I kept thinking about that jar, but Grete wasn’t likely to leave the room until I was out of there.

  “I feel bad that I just keep showing up for meals and then leaving,” I said, “but I really need to run. I have so much to do that I probably won’t be back until tonight. If there’s no snow, I probably won’t even make it back for dinner.”

  “Please,
you go. Find my sister’s husband. We are here if you need us.”

  I thanked her, taking a moment to look out the front window, toward the road.

  “I’m assuming that with the blinds up and the kids outside, that means there aren’t any reporters or photographers out there today?”

  “Not yet anyway.”

  “This is a good time to make an exit, then,” I said, thanking Grete again for the breakfast and the hospitality.

  She waved away my thanks and started shooing me out the door, so I bundled up in my coat and scarf, grabbed my bags, and left. Outside, from somewhere in the distance, I could hear the squeals of the children. I put everything into the car, but before I got in I headed toward the squeals to let Lydia know I was leaving.

  What I saw as I rounded the corner of the washhouse warmed my heart, a cozy scene of a young mother and her son and niece running up a tiny hill, piling onto various “vehicles,” and sliding down on them in the mushy snow, an endeavor that was more comical than successful. Tresa, dressed in her black Amish cape, was using a wagon of some sort, though in the place of the wheels were blades that looked like snow skis. Isaac, wearing jeans and a ski jacket, had a brightly colored store-bought plastic sled, the kind Bobby and I always liked best when we were kids.

  My smile dimmed just a bit when I spotted the bodyguard standing nearby, because his presence reminded me of the situation we were currently in. With that in mind, I gave Lydia a quick wave and called out that I would be in touch later. She waved back, and I headed to my car and took off, thinking as I did so how easy it was to be lulled into the peace and calm of an Amish household. Where everything had felt so urgent before, after one night with this family, I had already begun to feel as though I had all the time in the world, that no problem was too big for God and time to handle.