“I’m sorry you did not get along with your father.”
“Instead of applying to an elitist four-year college, I enrolled at the community college. They have a great program.”
“I’ve heard that.”
“It’s true.” Alan scraped his chair back a few inches.
Ruth was relieved to see that the officer behind Alan had taken note of his movement.
“Maybe I wanted to be found out,” Alan said. “Maybe I dropped that water bottle strap on purpose. Did you ever think of that?”
“So it was your strap.”
“You are more observant than I gave you credit for. How many people would pay attention to something like that?”
Ruth refused to divert her gaze. “You did drop it when you set the fire in Joel’s field.”
He slapped the table. “Why, yes, I did. I was supposed to discover that fire, but you and Bryan turned up first.”
“And the others?” Ruth hoped she was asking questions that might be useful to the sheriff.
“I made sure no one would get hurt. Only empty structures with space around them.”
Ruth waited.
“I tried to vary things just enough to break the patterns we learned about in school.”
She waited some more, mindful of the recorder on the table.
“If my father could see that I was doing something important, he would get off my back and let me follow my own career.”
“So you were going to solve the arson case.” The light went on in Ruth’s mind. “You were going to set Bryan up. You wanted to be the hero who put out the fire, and then you wanted to expose Bryan as the one who set the fires. That’s why you wanted to make me doubt him.”
“I miscalculated you,” Alan said. “I did not want to believe you were anything more than a naive Amish girl.”
The knot in Ruth’s throat was about to choke her.
Forty-Six
Ruth sat at Annalise’s dining room table with her chair scooted toward Elijah’s and one arm linked through his elbow. She was not sure when she would be able to let go.
“You were so courageous.” Annalise carried a pot of coffee in one hand and three mugs by the handles in the other. She set everything in the middle of the table.
“I wish I could do something to help Alan.” Ruth used her free hand to pull a mug closer.
Annalise poured coffee. “I think you did.”
“I wish he didn’t have to go to prison.”
Elijah patted her arm. “I understand sometimes the English work out a deal of some sort.”
“If he cooperates,” Annalise said, “the charges might not be as severe as they could be. Either way, I suspect he’ll get some mental health help.”
“I hope so.” Ruth poured cream in her coffee.
“I’ve been reading a book about Arkansas history,” Annalise said. “There was a Sheriff Byler who was killed by an outlaw. Well, I suppose killing the sheriff is what made him an outlaw. They sent out posses, but he got away. From what I read, they would have hanged him on the spot if they’d caught him. I like to think that law enforcement is more humane now, while still keeping people safe. If Alan needs help, that’s what he should get.”
“And Leah?” Elijah asked. “Do you think she will cooperate with getting help?”
Annalise nodded. “It’s her best hope for getting what she wants—to go to Pennsylvania with her parents’ blessing.”
Ruth took a long swallow of coffee and set her mug down. “We should go out to the house for supper.”
Annalise glanced at the clock on the wall. Her eyes lit. “We have time to help set the table. Franey won’t mind the extra mouths. I’ll drive.”
“Oh, no, no, no.” Ruth waved her free hand. “It will be dark soon, and you don’t have enough experience driving a buggy at night. We’ll take the car, and I will drive.”
Annalise pouted. Ruth picked up her coffee.
“Word will get around town quickly that the sheriff has detained Alan,” Ruth said. “I realize my parents might not have any reason to go into town for quite a while, but I want them to hear about what happened from me.”
“I agree,” Annalise said. “And I’d love to tell Rufus about how things went with Leah.”
Ruth realized she was going to have to let go of Elijah to drive.
“I’ll check on the horse.” Elijah pushed his chair back. “Perhaps you can drop me at my new place.”
Ruth clenched his arm. “You’re not coming to supper with us?”
“Would you like me to?”
She lost herself in his eyes, so relieved to have him near.
“They won’t approve of the decision I’ve made.” Elijah put his hands in his jeans pockets. “I don’t want to cause trouble.”
“They’re going to have to get used to it.” Ruth stood and pulled Elijah to his feet. “I think they will be pleased that we are going to be a package deal after all.”
Elijah grinned.
Annalise gasped. “Is it all settled?”
Ruth chuckled. “We haven’t even talked about it yet. But I don’t think there will be much to discuss.”
Elijah cleared his throat. “Now if Rufus would just get it through his head that it is God’s will for him to propose to you.”
Ruth caught the smile that Annalise tried to obfuscate. “He has, hasn’t he?”
Annalise nodded.
Ruth finally let go of Elijah in order to embrace her friend. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It only happened yesterday. And you can’t say anything! He wants to be traditional and wait until the banns are read.”
As Ruth backed the car out of the driveway a few minutes later, Leah approached on the sidewalk. Ruth stopped and rolled her window down.
Leah leaned in. “I came home this afternoon and there was a horse in the garage.”
“There still is.” Annalise leaned forward from the backseat. “He’s mine. The buggy, too. You probably recognize it. You drove it.”
“Don’t remind me.” Leah rolled her eyes. “I’m so sorry for all the trouble I caused that day.”
Ruth pushed the button for the automatic unlock of the back door. “Why don’t you get in? We’re going out to my family’s farm.”
Leah’s eyes widened. “Why would you invite me?”
“I think you’ll be interested to hear some of the things we’re going to talk about.” Ruth reached behind her seat and pushed open the door from the inside. “Besides, they are your people, your church. You should get to know them.”
“Wait a minute,” Annalise said from the backseat. “I have one condition.”
Ruth scrunched up her forehead.
Annalise put a finger to her lips. “No one says a word, not one word, about the horse in my garage. I want to surprise Rufus when the time is right.”
A week later, Annie felt as if tectonic plates had shifted.
A public defender representing Alan struck a deal with authorities that would assure he got the help he needed. And Alan wrote an article for the local newspaper apologizing to the entire town for the disruption and anxiety he caused. His father refused to see him, but his mother had driven down from Colorado Springs to make sure he knew she had not given up on him.
Leah had eaten breakfast and dinner with Annie every day for the past week. She still wandered during the day, but she accepted a jacket from Annie and came home before dark every day. During Friday’s session with Jerusha she nodded agreement to let Ruth drive her to Pueblo to see the counselor in her office once a week and not to try to leave Colorado before they both agreed she was ready for the life waiting for her in Pennsylvania. Annie would make sure the counseling bills were paid.
Just after ten on Saturday morning, Leah brought the horse in from the small pasture behind Annie’s house.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” the girl asked.
Annie patted the side of the horse’s neck and slipped the bridle over his hea
d. “I admit I’m glad to have an experienced buggy driver with me, but I feel ready.”
“It’s ten miles—twice as far as the Beilers’.”
“I know. You can help me harness the horse to the buggy.”
Together they positioned the horse in front of the buggy and double-checked the arrangement of leather straps.
“Let’s go.” Annie hoisted herself up onto the buggy bench and took the reins in her hands.
Leah climbed up beside her and let out a protracted, well-managed sigh.
“Nervous?” Annie asked.
The girl nodded. “I’ve been practicing in my head all day what I’m going to say.”
Jerusha had encouraged Leah to make an initial overture toward peace with her parents as a first step.
“Did you mail your letter to Aaron?”
“Yesterday.” Leah rubbed her trembling hands across the fabric of her lap. “And I’m going to keep on writing even if he doesn’t write back.”
“He wants to respect your daed.” Annie signaled the horse to begin the trek.
“I know. And I love him for it. It shows me how much he wants to be a man of respect.”
“I do want to make one stop,” Annie said.
Leah smiled with one side of her mouth. “Rufus?”
“Yes, Rufus.”
An hour later, Annie turned her rig into the long Beiler driveway. Eight-year-old Jacob looked up from where he was scattering chicken feed. He dropped the bucket of food and lit across the clearing to Rufus’s workshop. Annie did not try to stop him. By the time Rufus emerged from his work, Annie had parked the buggy and was leaning casually against its frame.
“Good morning.” Rufus looked around. “Where has Elijah gone off to so quickly?”
“Elijah is not here,” Annie said.
Rufus grinned. “He’s a brave man to loan you his horse and buggy.”
“He didn’t loan it to me. He sold it to me.”
Rufus planted his feet and crossed his arms. “Annalise Friesen, what have you done?”
“We’re going to need our own rig.” She moved toward him. Little Jacob dashed to the house. Annie knew in a matter of moments Franey and the girls would scramble down the porch steps to see for themselves what Jacob was even now describing to them. “No matter where we live, we’ll need a buggy.”
Rufus’s violet-blue eyes, inherited through ten generations, shone in the cerulean of the Colorado sky.
Annie stepped closer. “I trust you to make the right decision about the land and where we live and how we make our livelihood—and even when to marry. If you want to wait, we’ll wait.” She paused to point at the buggy. “But you don’t have to face anything alone. I’m not going anywhere. This is my down payment on our future.”
She wished he would kiss her then, and she knew he wanted to, but the screen door snapped open and footsteps tumbled down the wooden steps. Rufus touched his hat and nodded ever so slightly, and she saw the flash of approval roll through his complexion.
When Annalise had gone and the commotion settled, Rufus saddled Dolly. In a leather bag he had carried for years, he packed his sketch pad, two charcoal pencils, and three apples for the horse. After nearly seven years on the farm, he knew its boundaries well. He could recall from memory the surveyor’s legal description of the property he and his father had chosen when they pooled their resources to buy land and erect a sprawling house for the eight members of the Beiler family who joined the new settlement.
He rode now around the perimeter of the land and then followed the horse paths that cut through it, dividing fields. His parents always talked about someday building a dawdi house where they would retire to enjoy grandchildren by day before sending them back to the main house and their parents—whoever that would be—when they tired of them. Joel would take over the farm, Rufus had always assumed. He had a much richer love of the soil than Rufus did, and it was too early to say what Jacob might like to do.
But the land could sustain a third house. If he situated it at the far corner, it would not interfere with the crop rotations and irrigation rows.
Rufus slid out of the saddle and stood to gaze at the line where the land met the sky. In his pad, he sketched the layout of the farm and drew rectangles for the existing buildings. He marked off where a new house could sit, with its front porch soaking up the vista of the Sangre de Cristos just as the main house did.
For now he and Annalise would be happy living on the farm with his parents. Rufus did not know if Larry’s Denver clients would choose to make an offer on his land. He did not know if the land might sit empty for two years or five years. He did not know if the farm would turn the corner toward financial stability. He did not know if he would build a home on the land he had purchased or here on the corner of the farm.
When the time was right, he would build Annalise a house, and wherever it was, it would be the right place because Annalise would be there and their children would be there. Time would reveal Gottes wille, and Rufus only wished to stand in that place.
Annie took the buggy over the final ridge and pulled on the reins slightly to slow the horse’s gait down the gentle slope onto the Deitwaller farm.
“You’re coming with me, aren’t you?” Leah asked. “Into the house, I mean.”
“If that’s what you want.” Annie intended all along to be at Leah’s side. Unlike her last encounter with Leah’s mother, this time Annie was armed with the truth, and she was prepared to step in if Leah’s composure diminished.
Leah sat forward on the bench. “There are my brothers. What rascals. I’m sure they are supposed to be doing chores.”
The boys, tumbling over each other on an empty wagon bed, had spotted the buggy and now stood still to watch the arrival.
“Mamm!” The older one turned toward the house and hollered. “It’s Leah!”
Annie slowed the rig and pulled alongside the boys.
“Have you come home?” the younger boy asked.
“I’ve come to talk,” Leah answered calmly. “Do you know where Daed is?”
“In the barn.”
“Will you please go get him?”
Both boys sprinted toward the barn. The screen door creaked open, and Annie looked up to see Eva Deitwaller standing in front of the house with a mixing bowl in her hands.
“Daed will want to finish what he’s doing.” Leah slowly climbed down from the buggy bench. “He likes to do one thing at a time.”
Annie noticed Leah glance toward the barn rather than move closer to her mother. The scene reminded Annie of a standoff in a B-rated cowboy film, the sort of thing she and her sister used to laugh at on Saturday afternoons when they were kids. This time, though, Annie felt the tension, wondering who would make the first move.
Leah’s father finally emerged from the barn. In no rush, he paced across the yard, halting only when he was within a few feet of his daughter. As if on cue, his wife now approached. Beside Annie, Leah tensed.
“You look well.” Mr. Deitwaller inspected Leah, who wore a freshly laundered dress and crisp prayer kapp.
“You’re thin.” Mrs. Deitwaller examined Leah from head to toe. “I suppose that’s what comes from living like a wild animal.”
“Leah is not a wild animal.” Annie took a half step forward.
Leah stopped her. “I’ve been staying with Annalise. I’m going to stay there until I’m ready to go to Pennsylvania.”
“You’ve still got that nonsense on your mind?” Mrs. Deitwaller scowled. “I’ve got work to do, so if you’ve come to say something then just say it.”
“I know you asked Aaron not to write to me, and he has respected your wishes. But he has written to Annalise. His parents have invited me to live in their home.”
“I won’t have it.”
“In three weeks I’ll be eighteen.” Leah’s jaw was set. “I’m going to work hard to make better decisions, and I don’t want to hurt anyone. But Aaron wants me, and his parents want me, and I want to go. I
have come to ask your blessing.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” Mrs. Deitwaller shook a finger in Leah’s face. “You’ll not have our blessing.”
Leah’s features strained against the assault, and her breathing quickened as she clenched her hands behind her back.
Annie spoke softly. “Your daughter is going to go. Wouldn’t it be better if she left on peaceable terms? That’s all she asks.”
“This matter does not concern you.” Mrs. Deitwaller glared at Annie.
“Eva.” Mr. Deitwaller had only to speak one word in that tone to silence his wife. “I am the head of this household. It is my decision whether to give Leah my blessing. Everyone deserves forgiveness. And love.”
Annie intertwined her arm with Leah’s. The girl trembled as her father stepped toward her and kissed her cheek.
Forty-Seven
July 1892
The night yawned deep and dark, taunting Joseph with every wakeful shift on top of his bedroll. In the midsummer heat, he lay watching the moon’s progression across the sky. He both yearned for the release daybreak would bring him and dreaded the finality.
No. Not finality. Maura would change her mind. The weeks since his arrival in Gassville seemed to him a lifetime away from the ways of his people, but to Maura they would have been brief and muddled with anxiety, frustration, confusion.
Joseph rolled onto his side and tucked a hand under his neck. A brush of pink teased his flittering eye open, and he sat up with a sigh. The moment could not be far off now, but first he would start the day with prayer. For Maura. For Belle. For Woody. Even for Leon Mooney. And for Hannah and Little Jake.
For the light of God’s gracious will and hearts ready to see it and accept it. He breathed deeply and began to speak his prayers softly.
When he opened his eyes, dawn had broken with sufficient light for Joseph to gather his belongings and slide the stable door open and lead his horse out. He took the steed to the trough and pumped water. While the animal drank, Joseph slapped the blanket over the horse’s back and filled the saddlebags.
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