by Dale Cramer
Neither man moved. Domingo just stood there with his hands at his sides, his eyes full of suspicion, watching. He nodded slowly.
“Señor Bender.”
“So the war is over?”
A shrug. “For me.”
“It’s good to see you again. I was afraid I would not.”
Domingo’s head tilted. “Afraid? The last time we met it sounded like you would be happy for me to die in battle so you could have your daughter back.”
Caleb’s eyes wandered. “The last time we met that might have been true, but I am not the same man I was then. Riding down here alone on the train I have had plenty of time to think about these things—about the laws of Gott and the laws of man, whether it’s right for a girl to follow her heart or for a man to take up arms to defend those he loves. Mexico is a different world, with different rules—a world where, as you said, a man must fight or die—and in this world I have only seen you act with honor and courage. You have always treated me with respect and done what you believed was right. Countless times I used you and your guns to protect my family, and several times you have risked your life to save my daughters from a terrible fate, so how is it right for me to judge you now? Judgment is for Gott alone. It is not my place. I was wrong and I ask your forgiveness.”
Domingo still had not moved. He stood ten feet away, staring. “You would ask forgiveness from the man who took your daughter from you?”
Caleb closed the gap between them. Stopping an arm’s length away he looked Domingo in the eye and said, “The man who marries my daughter is my son. I would ask forgiveness from my son.”
He held out his hand, but Domingo ignored it and wrapped him in a fierce hug.
“In Mexico we are not afraid to embrace,” Domingo said, and kissed his cheek. “Welcome to Mexico, my father.”
Walking from the barn to the house Caleb told Domingo about Emma’s passing, and they shared a private moment of grief.
“It just doesn’t seem possible,” Domingo said. “Emma, gone. She was a wonderful woman and a good friend. The world will miss her badly. And Levi! How will Levi ever live without her?”
Caleb shook his head. “I don’t know. I fear for him.”
Miriam was huddled in the living room with Kyra and her mother when she heard the back door open and saw her father and Domingo coming in from the barn. Rising, she dried her eyes and went to her husband.
“Él me ha perdonado,” she said with a proud glance at her father. He has forgiven me.
A rusty cry came from the bedroom. Miriam hurried out and came back carrying her baby. “Dat,” she said, holding the infant out to him, “we want you to meet your new grandson.”
Caleb held the baby timidly in his work-roughened hands as if the child were made of glass, yet she noticed he was careful to support the head. He’d learned that much from Mamm.
“He’s a beautiful boy,” Caleb said, beaming. “What is his name?”
Miriam glanced at Domingo, who nodded slightly, a trace of a smile wrinkling the corners of his eyes.
“Caleb, Father. His name is Caleb.”
———
Kyra went back and forth from the kitchen, cooking supper while Miriam sat with her dat in the living room, catching up. Miriam felt a little ashamed at first because any other time she would have been helping Kyra, but not today. Her father was allowed to eat Kyra’s cooking, not hers. There was only one table in the kitchen, so when everything was ready she had Kyra serve up separate bowls and leave hers on the counter. Miriam remained standing by the rough-plank counter as the others seated themselves around the table. All things considered, it seemed a trivial price to pay for having her father back.
Kyra asked Caleb if he would like to give thanks, but as he was about to bow his head he looked up at Miriam. A sadness came over him and he shook his head.
“I cannot do this,” he said quietly, pushing his chair back. Miriam had no idea what he was up to until he went across the living room to the little shrine in the corner underneath the hanging crucifix and began to remove the candles from the table. There was a small shelf fastened to the wall, and as he started to place the candles on it he looked over his shoulder at Kyra.
“Lo siento, Kyra,” he said. “I should ask your permission. Is it all right for me to do this?”
There were tears in Kyra’s eyes. “If you’re doing what I think you’re doing, Señor Bender, it is more than all right. Christ is smiling.”
Caleb lifted the little table and carried it to the kitchen. He fished a peso from his pocket and used it for a spacer as he pushed the two tables together, then brought Miriam’s plate and placed it on the smaller one.
“Here, daughter,” he said. “You sit here, next to me.”
———
They were halfway through the meal when Father Noceda came in, fixed himself a plate and sat down beside Kyra.
“You’re not wearing your collar,” Caleb said. “And you look like you’ve been working.”
“Sí, I have left the priesthood,” Noceda answered, shoveling beans into his mouth and chasing them with a bite of corn bread. Hard work had apparently given him an appetite.
“What happened? Did the troops finally get to be too much of a problem for you?”
Noceda shook his head, swallowing. “No, the troops pulled out a month ago, reassigned to the fighting in the west. It was the Cristeros who changed my mind.” He fairly spat the word Cristeros as if it were distasteful to him. He cast a warm glance in Domingo’s direction and added, “A wise friend has taught me that the kingdom of God is not to be found in buildings, or gold, or armies, or presidential palacios. It is in the hearts of peaceful men, trying to feed their families.”
Caleb’s eyebrows went up. “You learned this from fighting? Perhaps there is wisdom in war after all.”
Noceda grinned. “Perhaps. So, Señor Bender, how long will you be staying?”
“Only a few days. I’m afraid I will have to get someone to take me to Arteaga, though. I think my mare is coming up lame, and the stallion won’t be able to pull the wagon by himself.”
Miriam turned, stared at him. “Dat, there’s nothing wrong with that mare. She walks fine.”
“I been working horses for forty years, child. I think I know when one of them needs a rest. Anyway, Kyra, I was wondering if I could leave them here with you. And the wagon too, I guess.”
His request hung in the air for a silent, awkward moment. It was Domingo who finally said what they were all thinking.
“Señor Bender, we only have a tiny little pasture, and it is poor. It is barely enough for our own animals. How will we feed a pair of draft horses?”
Miriam held her tongue, waiting. She knew her father well enough to know he would never make such an imposition. He was up to something.
Caleb wiped his mouth on a napkin. “What you need is more pasture. Perhaps a bigger place. I happen to have a farm for sale.”
Kyra’s face darkened. “We cannot afford your place, Señor Bender. You know this.”
“But I’ve been trying to sell it for months and no one has made an offer. Not one. Rich Mexicans are selling, not buying, and the poor can’t afford it. The Amish won’t come because there is no church, and Englishers won’t come because of all the fighting. I can’t keep paying taxes on a place that produces nothing, so I’m thinking the best thing I can do is sell it to you at a discount.”
“How much?” Kyra asked, clearly skeptical.
“A hundred pesos,” he said.
“No, I don’t mean the discount. I mean what is your price?”
“A hundred pesos.” He didn’t blink.
Dead silence. Kyra’s mouth fell open. “Señor Bender, you are loco. You have completely lost your—”
Caleb raised a palm to interrupt her, then said rather gruffly, “There’s no use trying to talk me down, Kyra. That’s my final price and I won’t take a peso less. Take it or leave it.”
Miriam cleared her throat. “K
yra,” she said very softly, “give him the hundred pesos.”
Kyra frowned at her, openmouthed. “But, Miriam, the outhouse is worth more than that. It’s a two-hundred-acre farm with an irrigation system, a big house, a barn—”
Miriam cut her off. “Kyra, do you not see what my father is doing? He can’t do business with me or my husband. Give him the money, por favor.”
Caleb pulled the deed from his coat pocket, unfolded it and laid it on the table.
“I got this from Hershberger, in Saltillo,” he said, and shot the tiniest little grin at Miriam.
She understood then. This was no sudden impulse. He’d been planning it the whole time.
Kyra got up, went to her bedroom and came back with a stack of coins. She set them on the deed. “Thirty-two pesos. It’s all I have.”
Kyra’s mother went out for a moment and brought back seventeen more pesos to add to the pile.
“Miriam, how much do we have?” Domingo asked.
Miriam pulled a leather pouch from her dress pocket and emptied it onto the table. Four coins, ten pesos each.
“A loan,” Domingo said to Kyra. “That makes it your money.”
“A total of eighty-nine pesos, if I’m counting right,” Raul Noceda said. Then he emptied his own pockets and dropped ten more pesos on the pile. “This is everything I have. My job doesn’t pay very well, and my widow’s mite still leaves you a peso short.”
“A hundred pesos,” Caleb said flatly. “My price is my price.”
They all stared at Caleb, who didn’t budge. Again it was Domingo who broke the silence.
“What do we do now, Dat? There is no more.”
“It’s only one peso,” Caleb said. “Look around—you can find a peso anywhere. People drop coins all the time. Maybe there’s one on the floor.”
Kyra frowned indignantly. “Señor Bender, I assure you I sweep my floor every—”
She was interrupted by the rattling of dishes, followed by a small clink as Caleb quickly withdrew his hand from the edge of Miriam’s table. Raul Noceda chuckled as he reached under the table, picked up the peso from the floor and dropped it onto the pile.
Without a word Caleb raked the money and put it in his pocket. Then he signed over the deed and reached out to shake Kyra’s hand.
“There. Now you should be able to feed my horses until I come back for them . . . in a year. Maybe two,” he said with a wry grin. “They’re very good horses, a breeding pair in their prime. If I were you—”
“I think we get the idea,” Domingo said.
“You know, Domingo, that reminds me. If nobody stole it yet, there’s a broken plow the Yutzys left behind in their barn. With a little elbow grease, maybe you could mend it.”
After dinner Caleb went out back to stretch his legs. Propping a foot on the fence behind the garden he stopped to admire the sunset. The sun had sunk into the mountains, leaving streaks of blood red and royal purple smeared across the whole wide horizon, and jagged mountains silhouetted black in the foreground. Behind him there were already a few stars winking against black velvet.
He heard soft footsteps. Miriam came to him quietly, taking his arm and watching with him in silence for a while.
Finally she said, “Dat, I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done. You can’t even begin to imagine how much this means to me.”
His eyes stayed on the horizon, content. He was whole now, perfectly at peace.
“It was nothing,” he said. “I would have lost it anyway. This way at least I got something out of it.”
She glanced up at him, her brow furrowed in confusion. “You mean the farm? Jah, thank you for that, too.”
His head tilted down, grinning at his feet as he laughed at himself, but also at the daughter he thought he had lost—a daughter whose mind was so like his.
“Domingo was right,” he said softly. “The kingdom of Gott is in the heart. It’s not important where we live, but how.”
She tightened her grip on his arm. Her touch was warm, his daughter.
“I need to borrow your oxcart in the morning,” he said. “Would you like to go with me?”
“Where?”
“Paradise Valley. I want to tend Aaron’s grave. And Kyra’s garden tells me there hasn’t been much rain lately,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “We’ll need to water Emma’s trees.”
Acknowledgments
THE DAUGHTERS OF CALEB BENDER is my first series fiction, as all my previous efforts have been stand-alone novels. It’s also my first historical, the first time I’ve written extensively from a female point of view, and the first time I (or likely anyone else) has set an Amish series in Mexico. The process has stretched and challenged me, and without the help of a lot of people I’m certain such a massive undertaking would have been entirely impossible. I could not have done it without the following people:
My wife, Pam, who, besides being an extra pair of eyes, has given me the ability to create believable women. For me, a woman’s mind is a terrifying landscape, where I would never dare to venture alone and unescorted.
My father, Howard Cramer, whose Amish upbringing has supplied me with a wealth of authentic details and priceless anecdotes.
My cousin Katie Shetler, who tried very patiently to help me understand the Amish mind-set, and sometimes even succeeded. Any glaring blunders are entirely my own.
Marian Shearer, a local writer born and raised in Mexico, who corrected my Spanish and graciously shared her encyclopedic knowledge of Mexican life, culture and geography.
My old friend Larry McDonald, who has been and continues to be a constant source of support and encouragement.
Lori Patrick, a freelance editor who not only gave me honest feedback and some insights on midwifery but also wrote the back cover copy.
A host of other friends too numerous to list (but you know who you are), who helped me shape early drafts through brainstorming sessions and fireside chats.
My editor, Luke Hinrichs, both cheerleader and coach, who brings all the various aspects of writing, editing, cover art and marketing together into a cohesive whole.
My agent, Janet Kobobel Grant, a keen-eyed editor and wise counselor.
Last, but certainly not least, this work owes a great deal to a book by David Luthy titled The Amish in America: Settlements That Failed, 1840–1960. To my knowledge, it is the only comprehensive written record of the Paradise Valley settlement, and it was instrumental in creating the backdrop for this novel.
About the Author
Dale Cramer is the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed novel Levi’s Will, based on the story of Dale’s father, a runaway Amishman. Dale’s series, THE DAUGHTERS OF CALEB BENDER, is based on an Amish colony in the mountains of Mexico, where three generations of his family lived in the 1920s. Dale lives in Georgia with his wife of thirty-seven years, two sons and a Bernese Mountain Dog named Rupert.
For more information about the author and his books, visit his website at DaleCramer.com. Or readers may correspond with Dale by writing to P.O. Box 25, Hampton, GA 30228.
Books by Dale Cramer
* * *
Sutter’s Cross
Bad Ground
Levi’s Will
Summer of Light
THE DAUGHTERS OF CALEB BENDER
Paradise Valley
The Captive Heart
Though Mountains Fall
Resources: bethanyhouse.com/AnOpenBook
Website: www.bethanyhouse.com
Facebook: Bethany House
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