by Tamar Myers
“Even Jonas did not know until this spring when his new heifer disappeared. Jonas looked all over the pasture, no heifer, and all the fences not need mending. Finally, Jonas found the cave. By then the heifer was dead.”
“That’s too bad. How did they get it out of the cave?”
“They could not. The cave is too deep, and the heifer too heavy.”
I gingerly smelled my hand. It didn’t smell like dead heifer remains. It did smell familiar, however. I took another deep whiff.
“Coal.”
“Yah, it is cold,” Benjamin said sympathetically.
“I’m not talking about the cold,” I said, perhaps a bit irritably, “although that should have been the big tip-off that this wasn’t Hell. I’m talking about coal. C-O-A-L. We’re in a coal mine.”
“Yah?”
“Rub the floor and smell your hand. It’s slightly greasy and the smell—well, it’s like our old furnace room used to smell like before Papa installed gas.”
I heard Benjamin sniff. “Yah, it is coal. But there are many abandoned coal mines in this county, Magdalena. We could be anywhere.”
I sighed. “Isn’t that the truth.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. What about you? What do you think our plan of action should be?”
“Maybe we should pray.”
“It certainly couldn’t hurt, dear. Why don’t you pray first?”
We Mennonites and Amish are used to praying aloud, and in each other’s company. The Bible assures us that when even just two people share their prayers, God hears them. Fortunately the Good Lord knows High German as well as He knows English, because that’s the language Benjamin used.
While I know some Pennsylvania Dutch words and phrases, none of them are prayer words. High German is certainly beyond my ken. Not only did I not understand most of Benjamin Keim’s prayer, but it was interminable. Sometimes I think we Mennonites get carried away with our ecclesiastical verbiage, but the Amish really take the cake. Their church services last more than three hours and Benjamin, I remembered belatedly, sometimes preached in his. Therefore, I cannot be blamed if my mind wandered just a bit.
From infancy up, I’d been taught to pray with my hands folded and my eyes tightly closed. That is how one should pray. However, it was so dark where we were that I didn’t bother to close my eyes, and as for my hands—well, in my defense, I started out with them folded. Can I help it that Little Freni started fussing again? What else could I do but unfold my hands and put her in my lap?
Alas, the feline furball was not content to stay put. Much to my horror, she wiggled free of my restraining grasp and got completely away from me.
“Little Freni,” I whispered desperately, “Little Freni! Come back to me. Please!”
Either Benjamin didn’t hear me, or he thought I was praying for Big Freni. At any rate he droned on as if I hadn’t said a word.
“Little Freni!”
I felt the playful bat of a padded paw against my arm.
The sweet little dear was trying to engage me in a gentle game of boxing. I batted back with an unseen finger.
Benjamin prayed while Little Freni and I played. Every now and then, just to be polite, I threw in an amen. Who knows how long the man would have prayed, had not Little Freni suddenly stopped playing by the rules and sunk both teeth and claws into the palm of my hand. I shook her off, but she was on me again in a flash, her fangs sunk even deeper.
“Stop that!” I wailed in genuine pain.
“Ach!”
“Not you, Benjamin. My cat!”
“This cat,” he said skeptically, “I cannot see it. And I do not hear it. How do I know it is really there?”
“Just like God,” I said.
He gasped.
“I don’t mean to be sacrilegious, dear, but it’s true. Have you ever seen God?”
“No. But I feel God. In my heart.”
“You can feel Little Freni too.” I fumbled around until I had the troublesome little waif by the scuff of her neck. Then I dropped her in what I hoped was the general direction of Benjamin’s lap.
“Ach, you do have a kitten! One with many teeth and sharp claws. But where did it come from? I did not see one with you in the barn.”
“I have my secrets.”
“Yah.”
We sat in silence for a moment, which was a big mistake. What is irksome in broad daylight can be downright terrifying in utter blackness.
“Did God speak to you?” I asked just to hear the sound of my voice. “Did He tell you how to get us out of here?”
“No. Maybe now you pray.”
“Me?”
“Yah. Mennonite prayers are good too.”
I gave it my best shot. I began by begging the Good Lord to forgive me all my sins, both known and unknown. Then, the slate wiped clean, I implored Him to show us the way out of the coal mine.
No sooner had I said amen than my prayer was answered.
32
“I see light!” I cried.
“Where?”
“Straight ahead!” I pointed in front of me. “There!” Okay, so maybe “light” was the wrong word. What I saw was a smudge of darkness that was less black than its surroundings.
“I do not see anything.”
“But it’s there! And it’s getting stronger all the time.”
“How is it you see this light, Magdalena, yet I see nothing?”
“Because I cheated,” I wailed. “I had my eyes open during both our prayers and I’ve been staring straight ahead. Your eyes haven’t had a chance to focus yet. You’ll see it in a minute.”
“Ach! You pray with the eyes open?”
“Not usually, dear. And anyway, my prayer was answered, wasn’t it? Now look straight ahead.”
“But what if we are not looking in the same direction, Magdalena?”
“Good point. So stick out your arm,” I ordered.
“Yah, it is out.”
I felt around until my fingers found his forearm. Rest assured, they found nothing else along the way. Still, Benjamin squawked like a hen which had just laid an egg.
“Don’t be silly,” I chided gently. “I’m just going to point your arm to where I see the light.” He was about as plastic as a lamppost, but I managed to orient him in the general direction. “There, do you see it now?”
“Ach, no.”
“Well, it’s there. Look harder.”
“But I see nothing. Is it moving?”
“No, but you can bet your bippy we’re going to. Give me Little Freni.”
The kitten was not happy about being transferred again and mewed pitifully. Her tiny claws all but shredded my hands. Mercifully she settled down when I tucked her back inside my bra. No doubt she found the small space comforting.
“Stand up,” I ordered, doing the same.
“Yah, now I am standing.”
“Give me your hand.”
“My hand?” He sounded as nervous as a bride on her wedding night, and I’m speaking from personal experience.
Benjamin was not cooperative, but I managed to grab his right hand, which felt like a large pineapple with five smaller pineapples extending from one end. I pitied the cows he milked.
“This way,” I said and pulled him along.
It was not as easygoing as I had hoped. The light at the end of the tunnel was still just a smudge, and I still couldn’t even see my feet. Whereas the floor of the tunnel where we’d been sitting had been smooth, I soon discovered that there were chunks of coal and even rock scattered everywhere. I had to feel my way along, my toes acting as sensors. I repeatedly banged my tootsies painfully, and every now and then I flat out stumbled. If it hadn’t been for Benjamin’s strong grip, I might well have fallen all the way to the ground and broken something. Probably my probing proboscis.
“Magdalena,” Benjamin said, after pulling me upright for the umpteenth time, “how did you know Jacob Troyer was the one selling dr
ugs?”
“There were clues, dear.”
“Clues?”
“Signs. I barely know the man, but ever since Melvin asked me to help him investigate Lizzie’s death, Jacob Troyer has been popping up like a jack-in-the-box. His scrawny little wife too.”
“What?” he asked in alarm.
“Like gophers in a flooded field,” I said, switching to an analogy he might understand. “Plus Jacob lied to me. He stopped by the inn and asked to use my phone. He said the public phone in Hernia was out of order—well, it wasn’t! Besides, I figured the English had to have a go-between to reach the Amish kids. And what better choice than Jacob Troyer? He’s so—so—well, so charismatic.”
“Yah? What does this mean?”
“People like him. They find themselves drawn to him.”
“Yah, you think this way?”
“Well, you have to admit, he’s mildly attractive.”
“I do not see it. But then, it seems I see very little. Ach,” he choked back a sob. “I turn a blank eye to my sons.”
“That’s blind, dear.”
“Yah, blind. This is what I am. My sons, they take drugs, and I think they are normal boys. They look like normal boys, yah? Maybe they act a little strange, but I think it is the age. ‘It is just the rumschpringe,’ I tell Catherine. ‘They will get through it. They will get baptized. You will see.’ But drugs are dangerous, Magdalena, yah?”
“Very. And addictive. I’m afraid times have changed, Benjamin.”
“Yah. We did not have this problem when I was a boy.”
“Nor when I was a girl.” To my knowledge, Hernia had been drug-free in those days. The most shocking thing the kids I knew did on a regular basis was to hang out behind the janitor’s shed and smoke cigarettes. The tough boys wore their trademark pegged pants, the tough girls their boyfriends’ rings sized to fit with multiple wrappings of mohair yarn. I was not among them. True, Norah Ediger got pregnant her junior year, but that was just a onetime thing, and she was promptly expelled.
“I have trusted too much,” Benjamin said, his voice cracking again.
“And I have trusted too little.”
“Yah? How is that?” It sounded like his misery needed company.
“Well,” I said, obliging him, “to be honest, Jacob wasn’t my first suspect. I thought sure the supplier was one of the English that moved here from the outside. New York, in particular.”
“Like the Hamptons?”
“You know them?”
“Yah. They are such good people. They take my Catherine to the doctor whenever the little ones get sick.”
“Don’t forget your blank eye,” I reminded him gently. “Remember, appearances can be deceiving. Besides it wasn’t just the Hamptons I suspected. I suspected Dr. Rosen as well.”
“Ach, he is a good man too.”
“I know!” I wailed. “I don’t know what got into me. I kept thinking about the big-city angle and, well, I guess I just jumped to conclusions.”
“Yah, you—”
“Look, before you say anything else, I already know what I did wrong. What I don’t know is how to fix it. Gabe—I mean Dr. Rosen—will never want to speak to me again.”
“But Magdalena—”
“And spare me the lectures, please. What I need now is advice. Not that I’m expecting you to come up with any pearls of wisdom, mind you, because I doubt if you’ve ever been in my shoes.”
He wisely said nothing.
“But you don’t have to be silent either, because it’s awfully creepy here in the dark.”
“Say you are sorry,” Benjamin said quietly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Ask Dr. Rosen to forgive you. That is my advice.”
I thought hard and, while doing so, stubbed my toe. “Darn!”
“Magdalena, are you all right?”
“Fine and dandy, dear. I’ll probably limp for the rest of my life, but otherwise I’m okay.”
“This is a joke?”
“Yes. Now back to what you said. Do you think Dr. Rosen can forgive me for thinking he was a drug dealer?”
“Yah, I think so. Like I said, he is a good man.”
“And so are you,” I said.
We had gone about a hundred feet when Benjamin, too, saw the light. By then I was able to pick out dim shapes in front of me and our progress picked up considerably. Soon it was Benjamin tugging on my hand and leading the way.
“Look!” he barked suddenly. “There are boards.”
“The entrance!”
He let go of my hand and surged forward. I stumbled after him. Little Freni hissed or mewed with each new jolt. But the closer we got to the entrance, the more light there was, and soon we were leaping over piles of debris like gazelles over savanna bushes. Benjamin’s legs may have been slightly longer, but he’s less sprightly, and I was able to keep up. The last fifty yards we raced neck and neck. He won, I’m sorry to say, but only by a nose.
“It isn’t even sealed,” I said, gasping. “Look, this board is loose. We can get out.”
Benjamin ripped the board away and threw it out the opening. Another board followed a few seconds later.
“Ladies first, yah?”
“Yah,” I said and slipped carefully into the blinding sunlight.
Before me loomed the silhouette of a tall figure. I couldn’t see the features, but its stance was warm and welcoming. It occurred to me that I was indeed dead after all and had merely been moving through that proverbial tunnel. This meant—my heart began to pound—I was in Heaven. I’d made it after all!
“Lord, is that you?” I asked, my voice high and shrill with excitement.
“Magdalena?”
“It is I, Lord.”
“Magdalena, are you all right?” My eyes adjusted to the light as my ears adjusted to the voice.
“You’re not the Lord, at all,” I wailed. “You’re the giantess Darlene Townsend.”
“Magdalena, what happened to you? You look awful. And who’s this?” The gym teacher pointed at Benjamin, who truly did look awful. He was covered in coal dust from head to toe and looked more like a chimney sweep than an Amish farmer.
I looked at my hands, and then down at my clothes. No doubt I looked the same.
“We were—well, it’s a long story. You wouldn’t happen to have a cell phone with you?”
She shook her massive head. “No, I was just out for a walk and I heard something in the bushes. I thought it might be a deer.”
“A walk? Where are we? How far are we from the inn?”
She shrugged, altering the skyline. “I’m not sure. Maybe two miles.”
“Which direction?”
She indicated an area broad enough to include half of Pennsylvania. “Are there more of you in there?”
“Only Doc, Grumpy, and Sneezy. Snow White took the rest with her to lunch.”
She strode past me and peered into the mine shaft.
“They’ll be along soon,” I said. “Doc stopped to tie his shoes.”
Darlene straightened. “Miss Yoder, I don’t know what to make of this.”
Neither did I. It seemed an unlikely coincidence that she would just happen to show up at the mine shaft. Come to think of it, she’d been popping up as often as mushrooms after a warm summer rain. And hadn’t she been there when Jacob Troyer showed up at the inn that day? I decided to give her a little test.
“Like I said, Miss Townsend, it’s a long story. I’d be more interested in learning what you’re doing tramping around through strange woods. Aren’t you supposed to be off interviewing high school girls for St. Agnes?”
“Didn’t I tell you? I saw both of those girls we talked about this morning. You were right. They were both pretty tall—but it doesn’t matter anyway. Both sets of parents said they wouldn’t dream of sending their daughters away to school. The Mennonite couple practically shuddered when I mentioned St. Agnes.”
“Oh. Is that so? The name really freaked them out,
did it?”
“Different strokes,” the giantess said and smiled in resignation.
I turned to Benjamin. “Would you hold Little Freni, please?”
“Yah,” he said with surprising eagerness.
I reached in and extracted the recalcitrant mite. When I finally got her out, I nearly dropped her in her surprise. My poor pussy, a purebred Chocolate Point Siamese, was now as black as a Halloween cat.
“You poor, poor dear,” I cooed. “Mama didn’t know there was coal dust when she put you down. Mama’s sorry. Sooo sorry.” I thrust the kitten at Benjamin. “Here, take her.”
He took her in a hand just as black as she. “Is something wrong, Magdalena?”
“I have to visit Doc and the boys for a second.”
“What?”
“I think she has to tinkle,” Darlene said, and forced a giggle.
“That’s right. Catch you guys in a bit.” Then as casually as if passing from room to room in my own home, I stepped back into the old abandoned coal mine.
My eyes seemed to adjust faster this time, and almost immediately I found what I was looking for. Rocks. Lots and lots of little rocks. Coal lumps too.
I said a brief little prayer for courage and guidance and quickly slipped out of the upper half of my dress. Then it was my bra’s turn to come off. This wasn’t an easy thing to do, mind you, since that garment has never been removed outside the privacy of my home or doctor’s office. But off it came.
Then I pulled my dress back up, buttoned it securely, and gathered up the stones. It’s none of your business, of course, but in the days before Little Freni, I wore a smaller model, since space was not an issue. But lately, what with growth spurts—Little Freni’s, not mine—I now sported a bigger bra. It may surprise you just how many golf ball–size stones and coal lumps can fit in a forty, double D cup. You also wouldn’t believe the weight.
As I armed myself, I could hear Darlene and Benjamin conversing. Their voices got progressively louder. What a foolish woman that Darlene Townsend was. We Mennonites don’t put much stock in the concept of saints, but if we did, we could at least remember the right name. St. Agnes, indeed! Agnes was my fifth grade teacher, the one who paddled my skinny bottom with her tennis racket because I couldn’t do long division. If she was a saint, then so was I. The voices outside were clearly arguing now. Finally only one voice, Darlene’s, could be heard.