by Reid, Ruth
“Gordon don’t like fire . . . I want to go back,” the man whimpered.
“There’s no going back,” Jack said sharply. “You stick with me and you’ll be all right. You hear?”
“But—” Gordon cringed, looking up at the smoke-filled sky.
“Gordon!” he snapped. “We’ll get our stuff and find the treasure you told me about. You want to find it, don’t you?”
He nodded.
“Then we have to move fast.” Jack released his hold on Grace’s arm and slapped her shoulder, pushing her forward. “You stay ahead of me.”
Prodded and poked, Grace managed to stay ahead of Jack by some miracle. They had walked several miles when the sky turned black and thick smoke settled in her lungs. Between the muscle spasms in her legs from fatigue and respiratory spasms from lack of clean air, Grace couldn’t go much farther. Her pace slowed; her left leg dragged, refusing to cooperate.
“Stop,” Jack ordered.
She did so gladly, although standing in one position hurt almost as much. Following Jack’s sideways gaze at the connecting pathway off to the right, Grace saw a figure emerge from the foggy haze. Mitch. No, go back!
Running hard and breathing heavy, her nephew, followed by his friend Owen Schmucker, approached, arms waving. “The watermill’s on fire!” Mitch yelled.
“We didn’t mean to start it,” Owen added.
“Fire!” Gordon said. “No fire. Fire is bad. Oh dear.” He turned in a circle. “Gordon don’t like fire.”
Grace glanced at Jack from the corner of her eye, then addressed her nephew. “Geh to grossdaadi’s haus. Schnell, verschteh? ”
Mitch’s brows crinkled.
She made a shooing gesture. “Geh nau!”
Jack grabbed Mitch by the throat. “What did she say?”
Owen took off running into the woods.
Mitch’s face turned red and he wheezed for air.
“Stop! You’re choking him!” Grace kicked Jack as hard as she could in the shin. “Let him go!” She kicked him again. And again. Until he turned his rage toward her and released Mitch.
Jack grasped her by the back of the neck, intertwining his fingers under her kapp to get a firm grip on her hair. “I’m going to tame that spirit of yours.”
Grace managed to squeak, “Go!” and this time, Mitch took off running in the same direction that Owen had gone.
“You say something, kid, I’ll kill her!” Jack yelled.
“Jack.” Gordon tapped his arm. “I want to go too. Can I go?”
Jack thrust her forward. “You better hope they don’t send help.”
Danki, God, for letting Mitch and Owen get away safely. Grace tried to reposition her prayer kapp, but with so many pins missing, she had a difficult time keeping it in place. Her scalp pulsated like her hair was still being pulled.
Prodded forward, she felt the metal gun barrel dig into her spine. She didn’t go far before her legs began to ache, and she staggered. She glanced over her shoulder at Gordon. He lagged a few feet behind, his gaze darting.
“Hurry up.” Jack shoved her shoulder.
“I need to rest.” She stopped next to an oak tree and leaned against it.
“I didn’t give permission to stop,” Jack said.
“I have to catch mei breath.” She wheezed, taking in breaths of smoke-filled air. Stall. She took more labored breaths.
Gordon swayed from side to side, his focus up in the trees. “I want to go back. Let’s go back.”
“That’s long enough. Let’s go.” Jack motioned toward the trail.
“The woods are on fire. I can’t breathe.” She clutched her throat and coughed while at the same time keeping her eye on Gordon for his reaction.
Gordon ran his hands through his unkempt hair. He turned in a circle. “We need to get out of the woods.”
“Gordon’s right. We’re going to die if we stay in the woods,” Grace said, lacing her words with panic.
Gordon tugged on Jack’s arm. “We have to go back. Can’t we leave?”
“The fire’s a long ways away.”
Grace looked at Gordon and shook her head. “The last time the woods caught on fire hundreds of acres burned. People died.”
Jack leveled the gun at her face. “You keep talking, and I’ll shoot you.”
Grace clamped her mouth closed. Be strong in the Lord. Vengeance is God’s. He will not leave me nor forsake me. He will deliver me from evil. She took pleasure in Gordon turning circles, mumbling, and fretting over going farther into the woods. He was in the throes of a panic attack and Jack would have his hands full.
“Knock it off.” Jack smacked Gordon on the side of his head.
As if Gordon had slipped into his own secluded world—cocooned himself—he ignored Jack.
A harsh jaay—jaay call of a blue bird and the echoes of other wildlife sounds sent a chill down Grace’s spine.
Gordon dropped the shovel and basket and clapped his hands over his ears. “Tell them to stop.”
“Wildlife always knows when there’s danger,” Grace said.
Jack jammed the gun against her spine. “Shut up.”
A pair of pheasants took sudden flight, and Gordon jumped back a foot. His gaze darted in different directions with every sound. Grace could almost read the thoughts bombarding his mind just from his panicked expression. She almost pitied him, but prodded by the gun in her back, she continued up the trail.
She hadn’t gone too far when a small fox came out of a dead log, its ears perked. Grace had never seen a fox at midday. Usually they prowled at night, but this one moved stealthlike into the center of the path. Not wanting to startle it, she stopped. The fox did too. It held its bushy red tail perfectly still and stared at her with beady black eyes.
“Rabid varmint.” Jack raised the gun and took aim at the fox.
Grace couldn’t let him kill an innocent animal and pushed the gun to the side just as it fired.
“Why, you . . .” Jack snarled and lifted the gun again.
Whoosh.
The stock of the gun slammed against the side of her face. She teetered a moment, unable to see anything but black spots as a shudder of pain rippled over her in pulsating throbs. She dropped to her knees as everything around her went dark.
Ben groaned as he lifted his face off the cellar’s dirt floor.
Erma leaned closer, dangling a lantern over him. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.” He rolled to his side and pushed up, but a ball of fire shot through his shoulder when he put weight on it. He collapsed.
“Don’t try to move too fast.” Erma covered her mouth with her hand. “This is all mei fault.”
Mattie wrapped her arm around Erma and led her over to the shelves of canned goods.
Ben sucked in a breath through gritted teeth and pushed himself up. His entire right side ached. His ribs were tender, his shoulder throbbed, and his right knee didn’t want to move.
“I recognized one of the men,” Mattie said. “He was loitering around Grace’s buggy in the IGA’s parking lot.”
Erma sniffled. “I thought he was another visitor from Florida. He was wearing a short-sleeve shirt similar to yours, Ben.”
“Stolen.” Ben rubbed the back of his neck. The bishop’s wife wasn’t senile like he thought when she said his shirts had disappeared from her clothesline. He should have put it together with the other items that disappeared. “I’m sure they stole your pie and Grace’s dog bed quilts.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Mattie said.
Ben grasped the handrail and climbed the steps. He pinned his ear to the door. “I don’t hear anything.” He turned the handle and pushed on the door. Locked. He changed positions and rammed the door using his other shoulder. It didn’t budge. He ran his hands over the door’s surface and over to the trim. Just as he thought, the hinges were on the other side. Maybe he could take the doorknob off. “Do you have any tools down here?”
“We can look,” Erma said. She
and Mattie moved some jars around on the shelves and searched the area behind the stairs.
Ben slammed against the door. The force sent a wave of pain vibrating through his body. He couldn’t give up. He hated to think what Jack planned to do with Grace. Lord, I need Your power to work through me. He thrust his weight against the door, bounced back too far, and stumbled down a few steps.
“I found a putty knife,” Erma said. “Do you think it’ll work?”
“It’s better than nothing.” He met Erma on the step and took the knife. It was rounded at the end, so he wasn’t sure if it would do any good or not.
Erma sighed. “I don’t know what’s taking LeAnn so long.”
She was probably back at the bus station with Clutch. She didn’t look too pleased about going back home.
“I’m sure I’m nett the only one who saw the smoke signal,” Mattie said. “The others will kumm.”
He would like to believe that, too, but the wood hadn’t burned long before Jack barged through the door, demanding the fire be put out, and the wind would have carried the signal away.
He pushed against the door. If he kept at it, eventually it would open. It just had to.
Grace blinked a few times but couldn’t focus her eyes. Her head throbbed, especially her right cheek. She touched her face. Swollen. Her fingers moved gently over her right eye, which must be the size of a goose egg. No wonder she couldn’t see more than a slit of daylight out of it. She looked down at the quilt top covering her and recognized it as her own. Thieves.
The scent of mildew wafted from the sandy ground and engulfed her senses. She patted the area around her, touching rocks rather than branches or dead leaves. Grace closed her eyes and listened to the lull of rushing water. She was drifting—feeling at peace. Then a light spray of sand hit her face. She swept the sand away from her mouth, squinting at a hazy figure.
He bent down beside her and reached his hand toward her face.
Grace jerked away. Shards of sharp pain pierced her head and she cried out.
The man placed a sopping wet cloth over the right side of her face. Within seconds, the frigid water numbed the nerve endings and lessened some of the soreness.
“She’s awake, Jack.” Gordon patted her shoulder. “He said to tell him when you opened your eyes.”
Why, so he can hit me again? Grace bit back her thoughts. She didn’t want any more trouble.
“It was an accident. He didn’t mean to hurt you. Ain’t that right, Jack? Tell her you’re sorry.”
She slid her hand under the quilt and touched the area of her dress where she had stashed the nails. No! They must have fallen out when Jack knocked her unconscious. She touched her head—her matted hair. Her kapp was missing too. Grace pulled the wet cloth away from her face, discovered it was her kapp, and covered the swollen side of her face with it again.
Gordon rose from his place beside her and went over to where Jack was sitting on a log near a small campfire, digging through the basket Mattie and Aenti Erma had packed. A tin cup and empty pie pan were at his feet.
Grace pushed the prayer kapp aside to survey her surroundings. The river was on her left and not far from the area where Ben had tried to cross. She repositioned herself to look the opposite direction, but the trees were too tall to see anything beyond them.
Lord, are they out of the cellar yet? What about the fire? Has it spread? She closed her eyes as the verse in Philippians came to mind. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving . . . Grace’s throat tightened. Over the years, she had avoided that particular verse. She had never found a reason to be thankful for the infirmity she’d been born with, and she couldn’t see a reason to be thankful about her current situation.
But the verse kept coming to mind.
“Lord, I want the peace that surpasses all understanding, like Your Word promises,” she prayed in Pennsylvania Deitsch. “Show me how I can be thankful—with a clean heart—about two men who forced me to leave my home and family and go with them.” She sighed. “I can’t.”
“Your mumbling is starting to sound like Gordon’s.” Jack laughed. “Hey, Gordon, maybe you’re really Amish.”
Gordon crinkled his brows. “I’m Amish?”
“Well, you’re dressed like one.” Jack chuckled to himself as he tore a chunk of bread off one of the loaves in the basket. He took a bite, chewed with his mouth open, then broke off another piece and handed it to Gordon.
Grace closed her eyes. She’d sent Mitch to her house, but he might have gone home instead to tell his mamm. Susan wouldn’t know what to do. Her thoughts drifted to Ben. He’d told her to trust him, that he’d figure a way out of this. Maybe he was on his way to her now.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ben wedged the putty knife under the metal ring on the doorknob, then used the end of the mop handle to hit the knife. A slow process, but the flat part of the knife slipped farther under the metal ring with every hit. At least he hoped it moved and it wasn’t just a shadow. Erma and Mattie took turns holding the lantern as high as they could, but with the wick low to conserve lamp oil, it didn’t cast much light on the area he needed to work on.
“I’m sure grateful to have you here, Ben,” Erma said. “When did you decide to stay in Badger Creek?”
She was just passing the time with small talk, but he didn’t want to discuss why he didn’t leave. After reading the letters Neva sent to Toby, he wasn’t interested in seeing either of them anytime soon. They stole a part of him he would never get back. He jammed the mop handle against the knife, moving it a fraction of an inch.
“Do you smell smoke?” Mattie tilted her head and sniffed.
“Mei sense of smell isn’t so gut.” Erma shook her head. “Nay, I don’t smell anything.”
“It’s probably coming from the woodstove in the sitting room,” Ben said.
“That would mean someone changed the damper,” Erma said.
Mattie turned to Erma, who was standing a few steps down from the top landing. “Will you hold the lantern?” The light flickered as she and Erma exchanged places. Mattie went down several more steps, then sat.
“Are you feeling all right, dear?” Erma asked.
“I’m feeling dizzy and nauseated.” She peered up at Erma. “I don’t want to lose mei boppli.”
“God has this situation under control.”
Ben continued working on the door as the women chatted about Mattie’s health concerns. He didn’t know much about pregnant women other than they tended to get emotional. Ben blocked out their chatter and focused on removing the door handle before panic ensued. If he’d had the right tools, he could have had it dismantled in minutes. Finally, he hit the putty knife just right and the metal ring attached to the door popped loose. He squatted next to the doorknob, seeing some light from the kitchen for the first time.
“Aenti Erma? Aenti LeAnn? Anyone?” a faint voice called from the other side.
“Down here!” Ben pounded on the door. “In the cellar.”
Erma and Mattie echoed his call for help.
On the other side of the door, Ben heard what sounded like a chair sliding on the wooden floor. A moment later, the latch clicked, the door opened, and Mitch stood in front of them, his face red as a beet and taking deep breaths.
“The old mill is on fire,” the boy said, sprinting to the door.
Ben waited for Mattie and Erma to exit the house, then followed them outside. In the distance, a thick, concentrated funnel of black smoke billowed over the trees.
“The old mill is close to the bishop’s haus!” Erma’s face went white. “I sent LeAnn there. We have to warn them.”
Ben followed them to Mattie’s buggy and untied the horse’s reins as the women crawled inside. “I’m going after Grace.”
“The man said they would kill her.” Mitch’s brows crimped. “I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. He has a gun.” Tears streamed down the boy’s face. “Owen ran home to tell his mamm a
bout the fire. Grace told me to come here.”
Ben stopped Mitch from climbing into the buggy. “Where did you see her?”
“They’ll kill her.” He looked at Erma sitting on the bench. “I believe him.”
“Mitch.” Ben placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders and pivoted him to face Ben. “I have to know where you saw her last.”
“At the cutoff. With two men. They have a gun, Ben.”
“What cutoff? Where is it?”
“I can show you,” Mitch said.
Ben shook his head. “Nay, it’s too dangerous. I’ve been to the watermill before. How far from the river are they?”
“They weren’t really close. It’s a trail that splits off from the one that leads to the watermill.”
Ben nodded. “Okay, I’ll find her. You go with Erma and Mattie.”
“He’s going to kill Aenti Grace. He said if I told anyone . . . he’s going to kill her,” Mitch repeated as he climbed into the buggy.
“Ben, be careful,” Erma said.
He nodded. “I will. Let Bishop Yoder know about Grace. He can decide whether or nett to notify the police. I’m going to let the livestock loose in case the wind changes directions.”
“Pray for rain,” Mattie said.
“I will.” Ben jogged to the barn. Lord, please lead me. I’m nett sure which cutoff trail Mitch was talking about, but You know where she is. And please send rain to put the fire out.
He made his way to the horse stalls and shooed the horses into the pasture. He propped the gate open for the pigs and tried to herd them outside. The goats were already outside grazing along the fence line. The dog barked as Ben exited the barn. He raced around to the back side of the barn to the red hound with long ears. He launched up on his hind legs as Ben approached.
“Easy, boy.” Ben reached for the chain. The hound jumped up, landing his dirty front paws on Ben’s shoulders. Ben flinched as sharp, stabbing pain shot through his arm. He sucked in a breath, and as the dog licked his face, he unhooked his collar. Ben wiped the wetness from his face using his shirtsleeve. “How are you at tracking?”