by Dale Cramer
Facing him on her knees, Miriam said, “Go easy, Micah. It’s supposed to be fun. Give the young ones a chance.”
His hands didn’t slow down as he glanced worriedly at Jake and Rachel, two rows over. “It’s not the young ones I’m worried about,” he said. “Jake and Rachel are already a shock ahead. That boy is fast.”
She laid a hand on his forearm. “That’s okay. It’s the number of ears, not the number of shocks that counts. Anyways, you wouldn’t have to win at everything, would you?”
He paused for a second, his head tilted in a puzzled stare. “What else would you have me do? Miriam, you’re the reason I want to be the best at everything.”
He snatched another ear and ripped it open, a trickle of sweat crawling down his forehead as his eyes concentrated and his hands flew.
She watched him for a second and said calmly, “You’re always trying to impress me, Micah. Maybe you should relax a little.”
A quick, nervous glance. “I’m always trying to win you, Mir. I just want to be the best.”
“That’s what I mean. Winning isn’t everything, and best doesn’t always mean strongest or fastest.”
He smiled at that. “Spoken like a woman,” he said, but his hands did not slow down.
Chapter 12
Caleb was alone in his field when the bandits came. It was early November, on a Saturday after the chores were done, which was a good thing because most of the young people had gone to the store in the hacienda village.
They came down out of the western mountains, a dozen horses taking their time, moving at a canter, cutting directly across Levi’s fields toward Caleb’s house. Perhaps it was the way they casually ignored the road and trampled a man’s crops, or perhaps the way they held themselves proudly in their saddles, but something about them told Caleb these were El Pantera’s men.
Shouting as he ran, he herded Mamm and Ada from the kitchen garden into the house, told them to bar the door, and then walked out into his field to face the bandits.
All the blood seemed to drain out of him in that moment, as even from a distance he could make out the horse in the front of the pack—a big bicolor Appaloosa.
El Pantera.
As they drew closer he also recognized the little weasel who had stolen the horse from Emma’s buggy a year ago, who tried to kidnap Miriam on the way back from Saltillo in February, and whose stolen horse came home with Caleb after Domingo and Micah thwarted the kidnapping attempt. The weasel had promised to return. Now he had come for his revenge, and brought El Pantera with him.
Caleb made his stand in a fresh-plowed field just beyond the kitchen garden, watching them come. He braced himself, unbuttoning his work coat and spreading his feet, keeping his hands away from his body so they would see that he was not armed. No matter what he did, he knew there was a fair chance El Pantera would just shoot him like a dog, but he would not hide from them. If they wanted his life they would at least have to look him in the eye when they took it. There was nothing more he could do, so as they closed on him he said a silent prayer asking for deliverance.
The horses kept on coming, still cantering directly at him without changing pace as if they didn’t see him, but he saw the grin on the weasel’s face. In the last moments Caleb could even hear the laughter.
He dodged to the left at the last second to avoid being run down by the Appaloosa, but El Pantera’s boot swung out and clipped him on the side of the head. Reeling, he bounced off another horse’s hip, spun around, got kicked in the back of the head by the weasel and went down hard. He was only vaguely aware of the hooves pounding around him as the last of them passed by. He saw nothing at that point, but he heard raucous laughter and the weasel’s voice fading away.
“Buenos días, Señor Horse Thief! I told you I would return!”
When he regained his senses a few minutes later, Caleb raised his head from the soft earth and looked toward the house. The front door was broken and hanging by one hinge, but the bandits’ horses were gathered in front of the barn.
Hatless, he managed to get to his feet and stumble up to the house. Martha and Ada crouched by the stove, huddled together. Ada was wailing, wild-eyed, as Mamm stroked her back. A nod from his wife told Caleb they were okay. If he’d been thinking straight he would have stayed there with them, but in his addled state he went back out the door and staggered up toward the barn.
Standing in his barn lot dazed and confused, Caleb watched helplessly as the armed men plundered his barn. The girls had taken his good buggy horses to town, but the bandits strung up a fine standard-bred colt and two mules, turning the rest of the animals out. El Pantera himself shot a cow that wandered into his path, and with his pistol still in his hand, he turned and grinned at Caleb.
“Where are the pretty girls, gringo? In your casa I found only an old woman and a loco fat girl—no use to me at all.”
Boots scuffled in the second level of the barn, and El Pantera shouted up to his men, a few of whom had climbed up to throw down sacks of oats.
Caleb’s fear quickly turned to rage, and his anger made him do a foolish thing. He stalked right up to the barn and stood in the wide entrance as they were mounting their horses and leading away a team of mules loaded with sacks of his grain.
Raising a fist, he yelled at El Pantera, “What gives you the right to do this? Who do you think you are?”
But the bandit only laughed and spurred his horse. Caleb tried to dodge out of the way, but he couldn’t move quickly enough, and this time the big Appaloosa caught him flush. He was knocked off his feet and skidded to a stop on his face in the hoof-churned mud of the barn lot as the bandits galloped past him, laughing and whooping, waving their hats and firing their guns into the air. Horses flashed over him, and it was only by a miracle that he was not trampled.
Barely conscious, he felt the snort of a horse near his head. Large hooves stamped and pawed the ground around him as he lay waiting for the gunshot that would end it all. But it never came.
El Pantera’s raspy voice came from somewhere above, and there was a casual sneer in it. “I think I will let you live this day, Señor Bender, but only because you are such a good provider. We will be back.”
Hooves pounded as El Pantera raced away to catch up with his men, and then there was silence.
When Caleb finally managed to struggle to his feet he took inventory of himself. Half blind with a headache, his chest hurt when he breathed and his knees shouted with pain, but he had not been shot and his arms and legs seemed to work. More important, the bandits had not harmed his wife and daughter. They had taken nothing that couldn’t be replaced.
Hobbling past the house as quickly as he could, Caleb leaned a palm against the windmill and watched the bandits ride into the distance. He stayed there, motionless, waiting to make sure they turned north around the end of the ridge—away from the hacienda village—because in that moment his only thought was to see that his girls were safe. He had not yet begun to deal with his own rage and fear, the awful sense of utter helplessness and violation.
But things could have gone much worse.
Once he was positive the bandits were leaving the valley he wiped the mud from his clothes and went to the house to see about his wife and daughter, then went back out to the barn for a block and tackle so he could hang up the dead cow and bleed it out. No sense wasting good beef.
The next day, a Sunday, everyone was there when an automobile drove down the road and turned in at Caleb’s driveway. It was a shiny new convertible driven by none other than the hacendado, Don Louis Alejandro Hidalgo, with his overseer Diego Fuentes riding in the passenger seat. Caleb rarely saw Hidalgo because he traveled abroad most of the time or stayed at his villa in Mexico City, but he sometimes spent a few weeks at the hacienda around planting time and harvest.
Most of the women were in the house fussing over Emma and her new baby girl. All of the men and boys stopped whatever they were doing and stared at the automobile when it pulled up in front of
the house. None of them had ever seen one in Paradise Valley. It seemed out of place, a visitor from another world, another time.
When the introductions were done and the two Mexicans had run the long gauntlet of Amishmen who lined up to shake hands, the boys went off to get up a baseball game and a clutch of men wandered up toward the barn to talk. Caleb led them that way without meaning to. He had it in the back of his mind that the owner of the hacienda had come to inquire about yesterday’s bandit raid, and the barn would help him recall the details. Hidalgo stepped carefully after they went through the gate into the barn lot, working interesting little feats of stride and balance to keep from soiling his fancy shoes or getting manure on his expensive suit.
“Señor Bender, I was very sorry to hear about what happened here yesterday,” he said as they passed from hard sunlight to the cool shadows inside the barn. “Was anyone hurt?”
Caleb’s hand went involuntarily to his ribs, one or two of which he suspected might have been cracked. He couldn’t take a deep breath without a stab of pain.
“No. Thank Gott no one was hurt. Only my wife and eldest daughter were home, and the bandits didn’t harm them. They killed one of my cows, though.” Even now, his wife and the other women were preparing a feast of steaks for the whole Amish community. The beef would not last long.
“Of course there was no way for me to know,” Hidalgo said. “But if I had known what was happening, I assure you these bandidos would have paid with their lives.”
It was common knowledge that he kept a force of twenty well-trained mercenaries to protect the hacienda.
“Thank you, Don Hidalgo, but I would not want anyone to die—certainly not over a couple of mules and a few sacks of grain. We have neighbors who will help us recover from the loss. In the end I am only glad that most of my daughters were in your village when the bandits came.”
Levi and Ezra nodded at this. The Amish would take care of their own. But Caleb had seen the fire in Levi’s eyes and knew that his son-in-law had an axe to grind.
Levi glared at Hidalgo. “What kind of country is this, where bad men are allowed to roam free and take whatever they want? Is there no law? Would we chust have to wait and let them kill us all?”
“My men are at your disposal,” Hidalgo explained patiently, “but you are miles from the hacienda, so we do not know what is happening until it is too late. When you see trouble coming you should send a rider immediately and then barricade yourselves in the house and defend your home until my men can get here.”
“We can hide in our houses,” Caleb said, “but we will not use guns against men. We are a peaceful people.”
Hidalgo took off his white fedora and wiped his brow with a silk handkerchief, staring into an empty stall for a moment. When he spoke again, Caleb could hear frustration in his voice.
“Señor Bender, things have changed. When you came to Paradise Valley we had little to fear from Pancho Villa’s men. Now that he is dead, there are no guarantees. I cannot promise you that hordes of bandits will not sweep down upon us. It is different than before.” He waved his hat in the general direction of the hacienda. “Always before, my little garrison at the hacienda was an adequate deterrent against the rabble that passed through your valley, but now I cannot say. Again, I would advise you and your people to arm yourselves. I cannot promise to be able to defend you against what may come.”
Caleb shook his head slowly and repeated, “We will not take up arms against our fellow man.”
“Then I don’t see how I can help you if you will not defend yourselves. Perhaps you could appeal to the government for help, send someone to talk to the official I told you about in Monterrey—see if he will send troops to Paradise Valley.”
“We have already done this,” Caleb said, his own patience wearing a bit thin. “Señor Montoya would not help us. He said his troops were badly needed in other places and he could not be bothered with a handful of gringo farmers.”
Hidalgo sighed and gave a tired shrug. “This does not surprise me. Did you offer him money?”
Caleb’s eyebrows went up and he flinched, surprised by the open talk of a bribe. Was he the only one who thought it unethical?
“We don’t have the kind of money it would take to buy troops.”
Hidalgo and Fuentes both huffed at this, almost laughing, but not quite. Hidalgo stared at Caleb for a long moment.
“Señor Bender, if you will not defend yourself, and you cannot pay people to do it for you, then may God help you.”
Caleb stared back and nodded slowly. “Gott has brought us this far.”
Chapter 13
There was very little discussion at the Bender farm about whether or not they would have another community feast on the day after Christmas. It was a foregone conclusion. The first one, the year before, had been such a resounding success that in most of their minds it already seemed an established tradition. This year’s gathering would be twice as big. The Shrocks and Hershbergers were all there, plus the German farmer Ernst Schulman and his wife, Domingo and his sister Kyra, and all the kids from Miriam’s school plus their families. Even the weather cooperated, with a light breeze and temperatures in the sixties. Men and boys who had lived in Paradise Valley for less than a year kept taking their hats off and grinning up at the bluebird sky in utter disbelief, marveling at a place where a Christmas feast could be held outdoors in shirtsleeves.
Before the feast, a kind of segregation existed. The Amish boys stood shoulder to shoulder with their backs against the wall of the barn while the older men talked in the open bays of the buggy shed, gazing out over fields and pastures, stroking their beards and gesturing with work-roughened hands. The women rushed around getting food to all the tables lined up in the yard, and the Mexican families mostly stood off to themselves whispering to each other, gaping at the sheer volume of food.
During the meal another kind of segregation existed; there were tables for men and tables for women. Babies and toddlers sat on their mothers’ laps, with one notable exception—Aaron hijacked Little Amos from his mother, and kept him.
It was a rare thing to see an Amishman holding a baby at mealtime, but no one seemed to mind—least of all Mary, who was busy enough with Little Amos’s twin sister. The twins were able to walk now and growing like weeds.
Miriam was helping clear away the tables after everyone had eaten, and amid the hustle and bustle Micah and Levi Mullet, Miriam’s brother-in-law, wandered over to her.
“Look at that,” he said. “Levi and me were just talking about Aaron and that nephew of his.”
She could see Aaron walking alone down into the stubbled remains of the cornfield, carrying Little Amos in the crook of one arm.
“Jah,” she said, smiling. “Does the heart good to see Aaron’s spirits lifted like that. I didn’t think he’d ever get over his brother.”
“Well,” Levi said, “that wasn’t what we were talking about exactly. It’s about that thing in his hand.”
Then she saw it. Aaron was holding the harmonica, and as he walked he leaned his head down close to Little Amos and blew softly into it.
“I can’t believe your dat allows that,” Micah muttered. “We don’t hold with musical instruments, and your dat knows it.”
His eyes were hard, his face drawn.
“Maybe so,” she said, “but every time I see Aaron with it, I’m reminded of Amos, and how much we loved him. I think that child—and that harmonica—mean more to my brother than any of us can imagine. I can’t help feeling it would be a sin to take that away from him.”
“But it’s just not right,” Levi hissed. “It was wrong when Amos did it, and it’s wrong now. It’s against the ordnung.”
Miriam turned around and fixed Levi with a burning glare. How could one who had been forgiven so much still be unwilling to forgive such a small thing? Surely Levi knew—surely Emma had told him that her sisters knew of their deception. None of them spoke of it outright, but they could count, and the sisters k
new that Levi and Emma’s first child was born barely six months after their wedding.
“Lots of things are against the ordnung,” she said coldly, “but sometimes we love the person so much it’s just better to look the other way. Forgive and forget.”
Apparently the hint found its mark because Levi’s eyes narrowed and his mouth drew into a tight line. He wisely chose not to respond.
Micah’s head tilted in confusion. He had not been there and did not know of Levi and Emma’s deception. He opened his mouth to say something, but Miriam picked up a stack of plates and walked away, toward the house. Micah wasn’t acting like himself, and she was fairly sure he was only trying to make an impression on Levi. It didn’t matter. Micah would understand or he wouldn’t, but either way, this was not a debate she wanted to air in public.
———
When she came back out of the house Micah and Levi had gone up toward the barn and the horseshoe pits, while over by the end of the tables stood a mixed group of Amish and Mexicans, talking and cutting up. In their midst she spotted Domingo in his cotton work clothes and striped poncho, grinning. There were two little boys clinging to his legs, standing on his feet while he stomped around pretending to try and shake them off. The air rang with their laughter, and the two boys looked up at him with hero worship in their eyes.
She stopped in her tracks without meaning to, caught by the sight of Domingo with the children. Something in it pierced her.
When she realized she was staring she shook herself and turned away quickly, hurrying to her work.
“It will pass,” she muttered to herself as she gathered a handful of glasses from the table. “It will.”
That evening, after the guests had all left, the young people held a singing at the Bender house. Later, Micah took Miriam’s hand and slipped away with her to the buggy shed.