Though Mountains Fall

by Dale Cramer

  Later, after he washed up on the back porch and came in for dinner, he hung his hat on a peg by the door and said bluntly, “Your dat said they’re going to rebuild my barn.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful, Levi! But surely it’s not a surprise. Our friends always do this for each other.”

  “But they’re bringing the lumber, too,” Levi said. “Your dat said they all got plenty left over and they’ll pool their money and buy what’s needed from Hidalgo. They want to start tomorrow—everybody. All the men and boys.”

  “Well then, I better start cooking.” She took a pot of new potatoes from the stove, set it on the table, and picked up Clara. When she looked around, Levi was still standing there, staring at her.

  “Emma, your dat—I think maybe he’s a very wise man.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “He told me these bandits were like a storm. He said a storm don’t care whose barn it tears down, so it’s up to the lucky ones to help him rebuild. He said that’s why we’re here, to see each other through the storms.” Levi shook his head, staring at the pot of potatoes on the table without seeing them. “Your father and mine—they’re not much alike, that’s for sure.”

  Smiling, she reached up to kiss Levi’s cheek. “You’ll understand him in time,” she said. “In due time.”

  They came in wagons at first light, one after another, bearing heavy loads of lumber and tools. Boys unloaded lumber and stacked it in the yard while men hauled down chests of tools and broke out hammers and saws and planes and mallets and razor-sharp wood chisels. They worked with purpose and precision, every man knowing his place and every boy helping, learning, watching, anticipating needs so that no one had to wait for anything.

  It wasn’t exactly a barn raising. Back home it was not uncommon for more than a hundred men to show up from surrounding districts for a barn raising, but the total population of Paradise Valley was only about a hundred, including women and children. In Mexico there simply were no other districts, and this was the busiest time of year for farmers, so the work would be spread out over weeks instead of days. Back home a barn raising would have been planned far in advance, all the joints carefully measured, cut and shaved to a precise fit before the actual construction began. Here, it would all have to be done on-site.

  They were setting the main posts in the middle of the barn when a quiet fell, and Emma stepped outside the back door of the house to see what was happening. An oxcart drawn by a standard-bred horse trundled up the lane with Domingo driving and Miriam by his side. She was dressed Mexican, her hair braided down her back with no covering. Levi stood near the barn, watching.

  Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at the oxcart. Emma hurried out to her husband, knowing instinctively that this would be one of those moments.

  “What are they doing here?” Levi asked, his eyes fixed on Miriam.

  “They have come to help,” Emma said. “To do good.”

  “But she’s not one of us anymore.” His eyes were hard.

  “Miriam is my sister, Levi, and I love her. She’s still welcome in my home.”

  “When she was baptized she promised to marry in the faith. She broke her promise. How can we forget that?”

  This was Emma’s moment and she knew it. She took his arm. “We don’t have to forget; we only have to forgive. The Book says who has been forgiven much, loves much. Look around you, Levi. We have been forgiven, you and I. These people, these friends, are Gott’s surest way of showing us that. Gott is love, and love forgives. Who are we if we don’t do the same?”

  He had no answer. She watched his eyes and saw a seismic change as her words washed over him and through him, the inkling of mercy. It was frail and tenuous, but it held.

  Levi nodded slowly as he watched Domingo help Miriam down from the cart. His head turned and he took in all the men and boys looking down on the scene, staring at him, staring at Miriam. There was tension in the silence. No one knew what to do, how to react, and they waited to see what Levi would do. It was his house.

  When Levi turned back to Miriam his mind was made up. Emma followed as he strode purposefully over to the cart and offered his hand to help Miriam down.

  “I’m glad to see you,” he said, with a clumsy smile. He shook hands with Domingo, then walked him up to the work site with a hand on his shoulder, talking to him like a brother, pointing, bringing him up to speed on what was being done.

  The tension broke then, as the noise of hammer and saw resumed and everyone went about their business, the show over.

  Emma put an arm around her sister and walked her toward the clutch of women waiting by the back door of the house. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “We’ll need your help with lunch.”

  It was a delicate moment, and Emma wondered at first if she should say more, but then she saw the thin line of silver at the bottoms of Miriam’s eyes and knew that it was forgiveness enough.

  For now. Emma ushered Miriam into the house and didn’t realize until they were inside that the other women had not followed. Her first thought was that they refused to go into the house with Miriam, but then she looked up and saw Mamm in the kitchen. The other women weren’t being standoffish after all; they were just giving Miriam a moment to face her mother alone.

  When Mamm turned around and saw Miriam her eyes went wide and her mouth opened as if to cry out, but she made no sound. She took a half step backward, and Emma, afraid her mother might collapse, rushed to her side.

  Mamm and Miriam stared at each other, neither of them moving.

  Emma whispered in her mother’s ear, “She’s still your daughter.”

  “I’m sorry,” Miriam said softly, with tears in her eyes. “I never wanted to hurt you, Mamm. You must believe that.”

  Emma could feel her mother straightening, stiffening herself. Her arm rose, shaking, and her fingers beckoned to Miriam.

  Miriam glanced from her mother to Emma, then slowly closed the distance between them. Mamm reached up and touched her fingers to Miriam’s dark braid, then slid her arms around her and drew her close.

  With her head on her mother’s shoulder, Miriam couldn’t hold it back any longer, and she wept.

  “Shhhh, little one,” Mamm whispered, stroking her daughter’s back. “Shhhh.”

  Chapter 12

  The letter from the bishop came on a Saturday afternoon, and the next morning Caleb stood up in church and read it to the whole community.

  “ ‘I regret that I cannot come there to visit with you, and I know what a terrible burden it must be for the brethren in Paradise Valley to miss Communion another spring yet, but I have grown old and frail. My health will not permit it, and I think I might not survive the trip.

  “ ‘I have discussed the matter of Jake Weaver with the ministers, and we are in agreement that he should come here to face discipline. When he comes we will gather together the local bishops to decide what should be done. It is too great a matter for one man alone.’ ”

  Caleb folded the letter without reading the rest of it, and so deep was the silence that everyone in the barn could hear the little sound as he slid it into the pocket of his Sunday coat. “So Jake must go back,” he said. “I will take him to Arteaga tomorrow and put him on the train myself.”

  Jake sat on the back row with his head bowed, painfully aware of the men turning to stare at him. Caleb glanced at him and cleared his throat.

  “The young man is still here among us, and I can see for myself that he is sorry for what happened. I’m sure when the bishops hear the whole story and talk to Jake they will want to see him through this time of separation, so he can be restored in fellowship with Gott and man. My Rachel will be going, too. She wants to be baptized, and since the bishop cannot come here I have decided to let her go to Ohio for instruction classes. It breaks my heart that we won’t be there for her baptism, but it can’t be helped. My daughter’s hope of heaven is more important than my feelings.”

  “What about the other matter?” It
was Ira Shrock who spoke, his eyes fixed hard on Caleb. “Your other daughter.”

  Caleb felt a twinge of shame then, and he hung his head, unable to meet Ira’s glare. “I didn’t tell the bishop about that yet,” he said. “I wanted to wait and see if he would come here, and it seemed to me that we put enough of a burden on him already with the Jake Weaver matter. I will send a letter with Rachel.”

  Caleb knew it was a flimsy excuse, and Ira looked at him a little suspiciously, but he said nothing else. Ira knew—they all knew—that Miriam would be banned and, unlike Jake, there would be no opportunity for repentance and reentry into fellowship. The ban was inevitable, and permanent. Since divorce was a banning offense, the only possibility for restoration would be if her non-Amish husband died and she came back to the church on her own, seeking forgiveness, though certainly none of them would entertain that wish. But until such time as the bishop sent the written command to his flock in Paradise Valley, Miriam was not officially banned. Caleb knew in his heart that most of them didn’t blame him for putting it off as long as possible. They would have done the same.

  “We should pray for safe travel for Jake and Rachel,” Caleb said, and without another word everyone went to their knees.

  ———

  Before sunrise the next morning Rachel and Jake loaded their meager belongings into the surrey while Caleb hitched the horse, and after parting hugs with the family they headed out. A mile from the house they met up with Domingo on his way to work.

  Caleb stopped the buggy and explained what was happening. Domingo didn’t know the letter had come or that Rachel was leaving.

  “If all goes well I’ll be back late tonight,” Caleb said. “I need you and Harvey to cut hay in the south field. Leah and Barb can help.”

  Domingo nodded. No one had to tell Domingo he was in charge. Since Aaron’s death, Caleb had treated him like a foreman.

  Domingo’s dark eyes focused on Jake and Rachel. “We will miss you two,” he said. His horse pranced nervously, but Domingo held him in check. “Jake, you take care of my little sister. Whatever your people decide, in my world you did no wrong in defending her. You’re a good man, Jake. Hold your head up.”

  “Thank you,” Jake said quietly, and Rachel heard the things that were not said. Jake had saved Domingo’s life in Diablo Canyon, a debt Domingo repaid at El Ojo. An unbreakable bond existed between them.

  “I will be back by harvest,” Rachel said, “and no matter what happens Jake will be back by spring planting. Give our love to Miriam, won’t you?”

  “I will.” Domingo spurred his horse, Caleb tugged on the reins, and they parted.

  Rachel was afraid to mention it for a while because she really didn’t know how her dat would react, but when they rounded the end of the ridge and the village of San Rafael came in sight she turned to him and said, “I haven’t seen Miriam in a week.”

  Dat didn’t answer. He kept his eyes on the road ahead.

  “She doesn’t know I’m leaving.”

  He still didn’t answer, his face a blank. But when they came to the little dirt road that passed through the heart of the town he turned the horse. Dogs barked and chickens scurried out of the way as the buggy rumbled between peasant hovels, heading toward Miriam’s house.

  “Maybe it’s best,” her dat said, without looking at her. “By the time you get back . . .”

  He didn’t finish the thought, or need to. Rachel knew. By the time she got back from Ohio Miriam would be banned, and her involvement with family would be strictly limited.

  Miriam was hoeing weeds in her kitchen garden when they drove up. Caleb and Jake stayed where they were, waiting, while Rachel jumped down. Miriam dropped her hoe and ran to meet her.

  Rachel hugged her sister and, before they pulled apart, reassured her once again. There were tears in Miriam’s eyes as their foreheads touched and Rachel whispered, “No matter what. Always.”

  Rachel’s sister Lizzie Shetler met them at the train station in Ohio, with her husband, Andy, and their five children. Jake’s folks were there too, and when the two families parted Jake and Rachel went separate ways. She held his hand and looked into his eyes for a moment before he climbed into his father’s buggy.

  “It will be all right,” she said. They had talked it through for a thousand miles and she had said these same words a hundred times.

  He took a deep breath and blew it out. “I know. I’ll see you at church I guess, but I may not get to speak to you for a while yet. That will make it even harder for me.”

  “I’ll take my portion,” she said, “and be waiting at the end.”

  He knew what she meant; she could see it in his eyes. They shared each other’s thoughts and clung to each other’s hopes. The sad smile as he turned away and climbed into his father’s surrey almost made her break down, but she stiffened her spine and kept the tears in check—for Jake.

  ———

  Rachel hadn’t forgotten an inch of the road to the house she grew up in, but having grown accustomed to Paradise Valley over the last three years she had forgotten how spectacular Salt Creek Township could be in the springtime, how deep the green of endless forests and how brilliant the fields, as if they drank sunlight and glowed in gratitude. There were flowers in bloom everywhere, bright colors bordering kitchen gardens and hugging front porches. The sky was deep blue and the air full of the chatter of birds, calling to each other as they guarded their nests and fed their young.

  When the old house first came into sight at the top of the hill she almost wept with joy. Almost, but not quite. While she would always see the house where she grew up as the repository of a million warm memories, it surprised her to find that she no longer thought of it as home. Home, she suddenly realized, was not made of houses and barns and trees but of faces and voices and laughter around a dinner table, of whispered secrets in the night, and tears behind the smokehouse. As homesick as she had been, and as precious the sight of the old house, home, for her, was Paradise Valley. Home, for her, was Mamm and Dat, Ada and Harvey and Leah and Barbara and Mary and Emma.

  And Miriam. She missed Miriam most of all.

  ———

  The following Saturday a group of ministers and bishops came to talk with Jake and Rachel. Jake was taken into a separate room to be questioned. They kept him in there a long time, then called in Rachel for a few questions because she had witnessed everything with her own eyes. She spoke the truth exactly as she had seen it, but she also made a point of telling them it was dark and Jake was excited.

  He never meant for the bandit to die.

  Jake’s feet felt like lead that Sunday morning, his heart like ashes. Willing himself into the barn for the service he took a seat alone on the back row, thankful, at least, that the council meeting had been held weeks earlier. At council meeting the preacher always talked about how to deal with an errant brother, the sermon always ending with the same chilling admonition: “Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” Even now, the words rang in Jake’s head. He felt Rachel’s compassionate eyes watching him from across the barn, but he could not make himself return her gaze.

  It was a normal service, except that at the end Bishop Schwartz asked all the members to remain seated while the rest were dismissed. He caught Jake’s eye and motioned for him to leave, too. The bishop had an announcement to make, for members only. Filing out the door behind the children and youth Jake’s ears burned from the stares of those who knew what was coming. Word had spread.

  Rachel was waiting for him in the sunlight just outside the door. She took his hands in hers and made him look at her as she whispered, “It’ll be all right. I’m with you.”

  He nodded grimly, but her words warmed him. She was his anchor. Even now, even in the coming storm, he knew his anchor would hold. As long as Rachel drew breath, he would never really be alone.

  Nothing else needed saying. They both knew what was happening inside. The bishop would announce to the members that Jake W
eaver had been banned, but that he had acknowledged his sin and his willingness to accept punishment. After a few agonizing minutes, the deacon emerged and came straight up to Jake.

  “You are banned,” he said with a formality that was not natural to him. “We will come and speak with you before next meeting.” He punctuated this with a sharp nod, then turned away and went back inside.

  It went exactly as Jake had anticipated, and yet an awful weight still settled on him. To be shunned by all his family and friends was a daunting prospect. He would be forced to take his meals in another room, apart from his own family, eating from separate bowls. But that was not the worst of it. The real horror was that during the ban he would be separated from Gott himself.

  Rachel visited as often as she could during the ban, to try and cheer him up, but Jake was inconsolable. He could find no way to escape his own thoughts. Since no one was allowed to do business of any kind with him, he couldn’t even work his father’s fields or do chores to keep his hands busy and his mind occupied. He had no appetite; food had no taste. On long walks through woods and fields even the brightness of high spring faded to brown, as if Gott had turned His back. Throughout the whole ordeal he clung to his memories, recalling moments spent with Rachel in these same surroundings three years ago. In some ways it seemed like yesterday, as though no time had passed at all, and in some ways it felt like a lifetime, as though he and Rachel were not even the same people anymore.

  Two weeks felt like a hundred years for Jake, but the time did finally pass and the second Sunday arrived. At the end of the service the nonmembers—this time including Jake—were once again dismissed while the members remained seated.

  He found Rachel tending a group of children outside and stood with her, waiting nervously while the members voted on whether or not to allow him back into the fold. With a reassuring smile she took his arm, leaned close and whispered the words he’d heard a hundred times.