An Unexpected Match

by Gayle Roper

  “Right. Gotcha.” But he didn’t.

  “We’re going to do this like a bank would,” she said. “Paperwork. Your signature. A set amount to be paid back each month.”

  He frowned. “Why don’t you just gi—”

  “I’m not giving it to you. I’m lending it to you so you can get out of your jam. You’re paying me back. Take it or leave it.”

  “Take it!” He grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a big kiss on the cheek. “We won’t need to go to the cops after all.”

  And here was the part that bothered her ethically and spiritually. “But you still did wrong, Johnny. And Mr. Sherman is still doing wrong.”

  “He’s not my problem anymore. Just write that check and I’m free!” He gave Bagel a head rub. “Hear that, dog? I’m a free man again!”

  She watched him with a sinking heart. She was used to people accepting responsibility for their actions. One of the strengths of the Amish way of life was personal responsibility and repentance.

  Johnny showed no signs of admitting his wrong and accepting the consequences. He showed no interest in righting the wrong being done by lawbreakers. Certainly there was no repentance.

  “Go write that check, Rach, while I get dressed. I’m going to fix this situation once and for all.

  “You’ll have to wait until I get back from Mom and Datt’s.”

  “Oh, right. Rusty. Hurry up, okay? He grinned. “California here I come!”

  Chapter 40

  Johnny leaned against the kitchen counter eating a leftover chicken breast he’d found in the refrigerator. He’d been very considerate taking just the one. There was another piece left, not quite as large but nice and meaty. Rachel would have her dinner tonight.

  He frowned. That second piece did look awfully good. The more he thought about it, the more he coveted it. There was a lot of sliced Lebanon bologna in there. She could make a sandwich with it and some cheese and have a good dinner. She could add chips, some of Mom’s pickles, and maybe a soda or lemonade. She’d never miss the chicken.

  He looked at the fridge. Rachel still thought Amish in spite of her Englisch clothes. It was like you could take the girl out of the Amish but you couldn’t take the Amish out of the girl. He smiled at the thought. It was true. She always shared. She wouldn’t mind if he took that other piece.

  He should have come into the house right away instead of hiding in the barn. It was cold out there, and Rusty wasn’t the best tempered roommate. What did he think? That Rachel would call Mr. Sherman and say, “My brother’s here; come and get him”?

  It was hard to know what to do these days. He’d never been a fugitive before. He thought for a minute. Did he have to be hiding from the police to be a fugitive or was hiding from Mr. Sherman enough? But in a very real way he was hiding from the police too. If they knew what he had transported from Philadelphia, they’d be very unhappy with him.

  The chicken suddenly felt like a big indigestible lump in his stomach.

  Bagel sat at his feet staring up at him, hoping his sad eyes would earn him a taste of the chicken. It was amazing how well in-house dogs did begging. Outside ones knew better.

  Should he give Bagel some chicken? Would Amy mind? He shrugged. She wasn’t here. The way his stomach felt, he might as well give the animal some.

  He tore off a small chunk and held it out a little higher than his waist. Bagel leaped and Johnny lifted his hand over his head. Bagel fell to earth, still hopeful, still all wiggly.

  Johnny lowered his hand. Bagel jumped again and he raised his hand again. Hand low. Hand high. Down, up, down, up.

  Johnny laughed. He hadn’t realized how much fun a house dog could be.

  Finally Bagel stopped jumping and just stood, staring unhappily.

  Johnny shrugged. Apparently they’d reached the end of the game. “Sit.”

  Bagel dropped to his haunches, vibrating again in anticipation. Johnny dropped the meat and the dog pounced. It was so weird about dogs, how they never seemed to chew. They just swallowed. Cows on the other hand chewed and chewed.

  Bagel looked up all sad-eyed as if he hadn’t just enjoyed that chunk. Johnny made no move to give him more, just stared at him. The dog put his paws on Johnny’s thigh, his nose quivering as he inhaled the scent of the chicken. Johnny pushed him gently to the floor.

  He should get a beagle. Talk about a way to impress Amy. He pictured them walking with their twin beagles on matching leads. She was smiling at him, laughing at something he said or maybe something the dogs did. She was so cute. Sure, she was a little too keen on Jesus, but he could work with that. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life hanging with Merle and Bennett. They might be great guys, but the trailer needed a woman’s touch. And let’s face it. Becky was a lost cause.

  Just thinking about life with Amy made his stomach relax. Forget Mr. Sherman. Forget the police. He and Amy would go to California together and live happily ever after. They’d get a little house by the ocean and watch the sun set each night as they sat on their front porch. Mr. Sherman and Thomas—and poor Mick—boy, he never thought he’d use the words poor and Mick in the same sentence—would never cross his mind.

  Bagel gave a tiny bark to remind him of his presence.

  “Want to live in California, dog?”

  Bagel cocked his head as if he was thinking about it.

  Rachel’s buggy rumbled down the drive, and Bagel forgot all about California. He pushed off Johnny’s leg and raced across the room to the bookcase by the front window. Without pausing, he jumped. He slid a bit on the smooth wood of the bookcase’s top surface, his nose bumping into the window. He went into a crouch and began barking like a mad thing at the buggy.

  “Shut up, dog!” He tossed the bones into the trash and opened the fridge for the second piece. “Shut up.”

  Bagel ignored him.

  Did Rachel know how Bagel amused himself while she and Amy were gone? If she hadn’t figured it out already, the scratches on the wood were bound to give him away soon.

  Rachel guided Rusty down her driveway and then stopped at the street and looked both ways. With a flick of the reins she told Rusty to pull onto the road and head toward Mom and Datt’s. She’d hoped to get there much earlier, before the family got home from church, pretty much an all-day affair today between the recommitment service and Communion preparation. She wanted to avoid any awkwardness or distress when they saw her in her English clothes, but all the issues with Johnny had made her later than she planned.

  They might well be home by now with Datt reading Die Botschaft to anyone within earshot. Mom would be trying not to hear him, and the boys had probably escaped to the barn. Maybe Sally and Eban were visiting, sitting at the kitchen table with Mom and Ruthie while Ruthie told them all about her time with her friends last night.

  Then in a disorienting shift, that familiar picture of home was skewed as she imagined a couple in English clothes standing by the door, welcomed but as visitors, not integrated into family life. She took a deep breath to ease the pain.

  And she was giving up Rusty along with everything else. She and Aaron bought him when they were first married to pull their new closed buggy. He was a good horse, strong and intelligent, and he had many years of service left. Under other circumstances, she’d be driving him for years.

  Instead she was going to drive a black Honda. No more cold mornings buckling Rusty into his leatherwork and tethering him to the buggy. No more mucking out his stall, filling his water trough, seeing to his feed. No more rein game.

  She sighed. Change. No matter how desired, it hurt. At least the consequences hurt.

  Rusty plodded along, head alert. The fall day seemed to invigorate him.

  “I’m going to miss you, Rusty.”

  His ears twitched as if he understood.

  When Aaron died, she’d taken to talking to Rusty. She knew Max talked to the absent Buddy a lot. She’d never talked to Aaron much, but she’d talked to Rusty. It was safe to reveal h
erself to him since he’d never tell on her.

  Now she would be sharing her heart with Rob. The thought made her smile.

  “Sorry, boy, but you’ve been replaced.”

  Rusty shook his head.

  Rachel took a deep breath of the crisp fall air and grinned. Rusty trotted on and the farm lane came into view. Neither one was prepared for the car that roared up beside them and, brakes screeching, pulled to an angled stop across the road, blocking their way.

  Chapter 41

  Rusty snorted and shied, distressed by the large loud thing in front of him.

  Mom’s words, “You can’t trust cars,” echoed in Rachel’s mind as she struggled with the reins and the unhappy Rusty. It wasn’t cars that were the problem. It was those who drove them without regard for the sensitivities of high-strung animals like Rusty.

  As she struggled to calm Rusty, the driver jumped from the car on the far side, a thin man with a beak nose and curly hair. Her blood chilled at the sight of him. Thomas.

  He glared at her over the roof of the car, and she blinked at the fury in his expression. What had she ever done to call forth such venom? She pushed back against the seat as if she could get away from him.

  “Where is he?” It wasn’t so much a question as a demand that she answer.

  “Who?” What else could she say?

  “Where is he?” He brought up a handgun, pointing it at her. Not a finger gun like Mick had aimed at her but the real thing. She stared at it in horror.

  He threatened you and Sally and Ruthie. He said that if I didn’t pay him back, they’d hurt you.

  Well, Johnny was going to pay him back; Thomas just didn’t know it yet. All she had to do was tell him, and she’d be safe.

  “You need to know—” she began.

  “Shut up!” He gave the gun a shake as if he was shaking his index finger under her nose. His finger on the trigger looked none too steady.

  She shut up.

  Thomas circled the car, the gun sighted on her. When he cleared the back bumper and moved toward the buggy, his quick movements made Rusty shake his head and shuffle his feet nervously.

  “Easy, boy. Easy.” She wanted to jump down and go to Rusty to calm him, but she was afraid of making any sudden movement. Who knew what Thomas would do if she did.

  As she stared at the gun, a terrible thought occurred. Had Thomas been the one who killed Mick? Johnny claimed he knew who the murderer was even though he hadn’t seen him. How many men with guns could Johnny know? Logic and Johnny’s small world said not many.

  Did Thomas suspect Johnny knew? Would paying back the money be enough to ensure Johnny’s safety if Thomas or Mr. Sherman knew he knew? Lack of proof might not mean a thing to men who had already killed.

  Situations like this were so far out of her world that she didn’t know what to do. It was one thing to pay off a loan shark and get Johnny out of trouble with Mr. Sherman. Unpalatable. Ugly. Not illegal.

  It was another thing to cover for a murder. There was no way she could participate in that.

  “Where is he?” Thomas roared the question again and slapped the side of the buggy.

  The blow against the supple buggy skin wasn’t terribly loud, but combined with the yelling it made Rusty snort and prance nervously in place. Rachel’s heart slammed in her chest and her hands felt curiously weak as she fought to control the animal’s movements.

  “Where?” Thomas yelled again.

  “I-I don’t know.” That wasn’t exactly a lie. He could be in the house or in the barn or in his bedroom or in the living room.

  Thomas’s eyes narrowed and his mouth hardened. “Don’t give me that. You were just at his trailer. You know where he is. You got his things for him.”

  She stiffened. “You spied on me?” For some reason that bothered her more than the gun.

  “I didn’t spy on you. I don’t care about you.” Scorn laced his words. “Besides I know where to find you whenever I want to.”

  Her skin crawled at that comment.

  “I want Johnny. I was waiting at the trailer for him. He has something I want.”

  And with Rusty here, no one was protecting what he wanted as it lay beneath the straw in her barn.

  “Where is he?” He stepped closer and pointed the gun at her head.

  She stared at it. It was ugly and black, but she thought that if she hadn’t gone to that movie with Rob, she wouldn’t have recognized its power. She was used to guns for hunting, rifles and shotguns, big guns with big power, not handguns. This one looked so small she might have misjudged its ability to harm. She couldn’t help thinking about the children at the Nickel Mines School shootings. It was speculated that those children never understood their danger because they’d never seen a handgun before.

  Would it hurt when he shot her? Because she couldn’t tell him where Johnny was. He was her brother, and she loved him.

  She closed her eyes as she prayed for courage. She might be leaving her community, but her Anabaptist heritage ran strong in her veins. She would face her trial with the same resolute bravery as her ancestors. She wasn’t about to be burned at the stake for her faith, but she was facing death for love of her family.

  “Look at me!” Thomas slapped the buggy again. This time the slap cracked.

  Rachel jumped and her eyes flew open. Rusty looked over his shoulder, his eyes wide with distress.

  The passenger door of the black car flew open right under Rusty’s nose, and a fat man jumped out.

  “What are you waiting for, Thomas? Grab her and make her talk! Grab her!”

  Chapter 42

  Rob watched the fields of dry cornstalks glide by. Soon an Amishman pulling his John Deere with a team of huge work horses would cut the stalks, leaving behind a field that looked like the stubbled chin of a very large man.

  He could feel the tension draining away the farther he got from the prison and his father.

  As he drove, he repeated his frequent prayer: Lord, don’t let me be like my father. Please don’t let me be like my father.

  He thought of Rachel, his lovely Rachel, who wanted to meet Eugene Lanier. Poor woman. She didn’t know what she was asking. She was used to love and kindness. She’d get stony silence from his father at best, acerbic unkind comments at worst.

  He’d take her with him to Allenwood because she wouldn’t let it go until he did. He knew that. Her kind heart required she reach out to Dad. He smiled as he imagined the two of them together. Her sweet and gentle spirit and his sour mean one. If anyone could break through Eugene Lanier’s bitterness, it would be her. It’d be a miracle, but the Lord was in the miracle business, and women like Rachel were some of His best weapons.

  He knew he was almost home when he passed a farm where perhaps forty Amish young people were playing volleyball and eating from picnic tables laden with food. In a nearby field several miniature horses stood watching the activity while half a dozen fleecy sheep ignored everything but the grass they nibbled.

  He smiled at the maples turning their beautiful fiery red and the pumpkins lying scattered in the fields like fat orange balls. A sign for a corn maze slid past, and No Sales on Sunday signs hung by Amish farm lanes. The sun shone brightly, filling Rob with optimism about the future.

  His Rachel loved him. She was going to marry him. Life didn’t get any better.

  “Did you hear me, Thomas?” the man demanded. “Grab her.”

  “Yes, Mr. Sherman.”

  Mr. Sherman? That chubby man was the man Johnny feared so much? He looked like an out of shape cartoon character, not a man to fill others with dread.

  Rachel held up a hand to ward off Thomas. “We’ve got the money! You don’t need me.”

  Thomas reached for her, and Rachel slid across the seat as far from him as she could get. She fumbled with the latch to the closed door.

  “Did you hear me?” She spoke loudly and clearly so he couldn’t help understand. “We’ve got the money.”

  She would jump out and r
un, losing herself in the cornstalks in the field beside the road.

  Thomas reached into the buggy and grabbed her arm before she got the door unlatched and started pulling her toward him.

  She struggled against his unexpected strength, hitting at him with her free arm, and shouting, “Let me go!”

  The buggy shook with the struggle, and Rusty shifted in agitation.

  “Johnny!” Mr. Sherman yelled. “Where is Johnny?” He took a step toward the buggy, frightening the already unnerved Rusty who whinnied in distress and sidestepped, trying to find a way to escape. The car blocked his way on one side and a shallow ditch at the edge of the cornfield stopped him on the other side.

  “Be careful,” Rachel yelled. “You’re scaring the horse!”

  “Forget the horse.” Mr. Sherman waved his hands as if he intended to brush Rusty out of his path.

  The upset Rusty drew his lips back and showed his teeth for an instant before he bit the appendage closest. Mr. Sherman screamed and pulled his hand away.

  “He bit me!” There was as much disbelief as horror in his voice. “He bit me! Get him away from me!” He backed up against the car, cradling his bitten hand to his chest.

  “Let me go to Rusty,” Rachel begged Thomas who was dragging her out of the buggy with no concern for the crack of her hip against the edge of the door or the fact that she had been spun around and was about to land on her back. “I need to calm him down before he hurts someone else.”

  Thomas ignored her and kept hauling, wrenching her arm at the shoulder. Rachel stopped herself from landing on her back by a desperate last minute grab at the edge of the door as she was jerked past. She ended up sitting on the ground, dangling from Thomas’s hand. Thomas yanked her upright and waved the gun at her. “Keep still!”

  “Get this beast away from me!” Mr. Sherman looked almost as wild-eyed as Rusty did.

  Rachel pulled toward her horse. “It’s okay, Rusty. It’s okay.”

  Thomas gave her a hard jerk. “Stay where you are. I’ll take care of him.” He dropped her arm and extended a hand to grab Rusty’s halter.