Between Two Worlds

by Shelter Somerset

  Badger led them farther along and Aiden, pondering what he’d just seen, settled back in his seat. Perhaps the adult establishment explained why the Amish had prospered in the United States for so long. Sex shops and religion may seem as incongruous as skunks and hawks, but Aiden reckoned that in their own way, one could not exist in America without the other.

  Just another square sewn into the great American patchwork quilt, he figured, the wagon jostling rhythmically down the road.

  At the horse auction Daniel became even more distant. His body language told Aiden he had no time for playing tour guide to an Englisher. For Aiden, he had no idea where to begin. He had never been to a horse auction before; he had gone to tobacco auctions as a boy in southern Maryland with his grandfather, but nothing on such a large scale with so many different attractions.

  He left Daniel to his essential farm business and wandered about the grounds on his own. Aiden respected the Schrocks’ ways by keeping his cell phone shut off and stowed in his duffel bag while at their farm, but before leaving the house, he had concealed his old Motorola RAZR in his pants pocket. Hidden behind a signpost, he took the opportunity to call his insurance company regarding a rental car. The company was still processing his accident claim, but he could pick up a rental anytime—he only needed to fax the receipt for reimbursement. He called information and the operator connected him with the nearest rental agency that guaranteed him a car for tomorrow.

  Aiden snapped his phone shut and kicked at the dirt. In his short stay with the Schrocks, he had already grown attached to them. Somehow he imagined he would even miss the aloof and handsome Daniel. His heart a little heavier, he gazed around the expansive auction grounds, tucked between fields of soybeans, corn, and grains. His first time in public dressed as an Amish man, Aiden was unsure how to react when some of the tourists ogled him. One elderly woman snapped his picture. He scowled outwardly; inwardly he grinned.

  But Aiden, being the astute journalist, intended to snap a few photos of his own to accompany his article. Taking furtive snapshots of the grounds with his Motorola, he discovered not everything up for auction was a standardbred horse. There were many other livestock—cows, pigs, goats, sheep, and farming merchandise too. Patchwork quilts were on auction in a large barn. Vendors sold everything from potted plants and chicken feed to cream-filled whoopie pies and faceless Amish dolls.

  In the auction arena near the sale ring, he found Daniel huddled with a large group of Amish men. He tucked his phone into his pants and, standing in the background, watched the groundsmen haul out the different tack supplies and farming equipment up for bids. The auctioneer cried out rambling sentences that, although spoken in English, Aiden hardly comprehended. Only Daniel bid on the eighteen-inch buggy shaft.

  Aiden noticed Daniel tense with anticipation when the groundsmen brought the standardbreds into the sale ring. Three others bid against him, but they did not stay in long and Daniel won a twelve-year-old muscular black mare named Gertrude for just under nineteen hundred dollars. He paid for the horse along with the buggy shaft and a few other vendor items he needed for the farm at the cashier trailer. An agent would deliver the horse and shaft by Thursday, the cashier said. Aiden was surprised when Daniel pulled out a credit card for the payment.

  “You can use credit?” Aiden stared transfixed at the Visa card in Daniel’s large, calloused hand.

  “We pay it off,” Daniel grunted. “Besides, Bobby Jonesboro’s insurance will likely reimburse us for the horse and shaft.”

  Aiden did not mean to insinuate the Amish were unable to make payments. He decided against clarifying himself, leaving well enough alone. Regardless of reason, Aiden figured nothing would change Daniel’s determination to dislike him.

  On the return home they spoke even less than on the trip out. To Aiden, the clip-clop of Badger’s hooves on the buggy-battered blacktop proved as good a distraction from the silence as a radio.

  Passing the adult superstore, Aiden noticed that Daniel and the Amish woman driving the buggy on the opposite side of the road refrained from even glancing at it. The “Jesus Is Watching You” billboard receded into the distance. A few miles down the road, Daniel steered Badger into a country store with a gas station.

  “Are we getting gas?” Aiden joked. But Daniel acted as though he didn’t hear. He brusquely set the brake and, alighting without comment, tied the gelding to a hitching post.

  “I’m getting a root beer,” he said, and marched inside.

  Aiden jumped off the wagon and stretched. He decided he could use a cold drink, too, and trailed after Daniel.

  Five minutes later, Aiden walked out of the store. Daniel was already back in the driver’s seat of the wagon, a scowl on his face as he took sips of his root beer. Aiden paid his sullenness no mind. He unwrapped the two impulse items he’d bought by the checkout counter and handfed them to Badger.

  Daniel stood and looked over the horse’s head, his brow braided. “What’s that?”

  Badger’s thick tongue lapped over Aiden’s palm. “Filling her up,” Aiden said, grinning. “Peanut butter granola bars.”

  Daniel, tightening his lips, sat back down. Aiden finished feeding Badger and climbed into the wagon with a wide grin. Tugging the reins, Daniel barked “Get!” and Badger, happier, trotted out of the parking lot toward home.

  The horse auction had hay and water for all the stabled horses, but Daniel knew the sweet-salty granola would make a good spur to get Badger to trotting speed, especially with halfway still to go. Yet he hadn’t expressed his approval to Aiden. He did not want to be too friendly with him. What was the point? If he was too kind to him, it might give him the wrong impression. Aiden, in some ways, was like a puppy. Feed him with compliments and he might never leave.

  They were turning onto the blacktop lane where the Schrocks lived when Aiden commented that the gray clouds had formed into long, corrugated rows and the south sky was darkening.

  “Just in time. Storm coming.”

  “How do you know?” Daniel said, although he too knew a storm was fast approaching.

  “Years of backpacking and camping, I guess. I figured out what the different cloud formations mean. Kind of comes second nature to me now.”

  When the gelding pulled into the Schrock’s driveway, the first heavy drops of rain fell from the darkening sky. By the side of the house, Daniel spied Grace and Elisabeth yank the last of the clothes off the line and dash inside with their large bundles. He said, “Make wet.”

  Aiden giggled. “What does that mean?”

  “Means it’s raining.”

  Once he climbed down from the wagon, Daniel looked toward the encroaching storm and tugged on his beard. He loathed thunderstorms. Hated them deeply.

  With a quiet, almost sympathetic, manner, Daniel and Aiden unhitched Badger and led him to the horse stall in the barn. Taut lips stretching across their faces, they unloaded the wagon of the wild bird seed and peat moss Rachel had asked Daniel to buy and pulled the emptied wagon to the metal buggy shed. Daniel secured the swing door extra tight in anticipation of the storm.

  “Nix sunsht?” Aiden asked Daniel in Pennsylvania German.

  Daniel gawked at him. It was the first time he had heard him use the “correct” way of speaking instead of his aggravating textbook German. “Where did you learn that?”

  “I picked it up listening to the vendors at the horse auction. After a while, I could tell what they were saying.”

  Daniel was impressed that Aiden learned things so quickly. “Nay, I don’t need anything else.”

  “Better get inside then.” Aiden scurried for the house. Just as he reached the stone path, he stopped and looked to Daniel. “Thanks for taking me with you to the horse auction.”

  Double checking the latch on the shed, Daniel murmured, “Du wilcom.”

  Daniel did not follow Aiden inside the house. Instead, he took refuge in his woodshop, where he worked on his mother’s corner kitchen cabinet. Wood shavings curled from
the plane as he pushed it smoothly over the oak plank. His bare forearms moved back and forth, smooth and steady. A gas Coleman hung from overhead and spotlighted him in a circle of soft golden light; the smell of hot sawdust surrounded him. Hens rustled agitated in their coop just a few steps away. He only half noticed, since he’d become used to their prattling through the years. Even if the hens’ chatter was unusual, his head was too full of heavy thoughts for him to have cared.

  He watched the first sharp flash of lightning through the woodshop’s window. Squeezing his eyes tight, he waited for the inevitable boom. Thunder plowed over the landscape and into his woodshop; the loud rumble seeped into his soul. His arms froze in mid-motion, his eyes gaping. A slight tremble filled his muscled forearms as he clutched onto the motionless plane.

  Shuddering, he let go of the plane and dropped to his knees on the chip-covered floor. He pressed his palms together and brought his fingertips to his beard. Frantic prayers fluttered from between his quivering lips. Weakening, he fell to his haunches and dropped his wet face into his palms. His body convulsed with sobs.

  Chapter 6

  Early Wednesday morning Aiden strolled to the phone shack just down the lane from the Schrock farm. During breakfast, Samuel had told him Joe Karpin’s number was tacked to the wall. Aiden needed Joe to drive him to the city of Mattoon to pick up the rental car he had reserved while at the horse auction. Daniel and the boys were manning the family’s furniture shop in Henry, and Samuel was going to be busy with watch repair, which he did on the side for extra money while Rachel and the girls baked bread all day. He figured today was as good as any to pick up the car. He was in no mood to go, or to leave the Amish and the Schrocks, but he knew his time with them had neared its end.

  Thirty minutes after Aiden called, Joe pulled his Ford Club into the Schrock’s gravel driveway. There were no other passengers for the fifteen-mile trip, so Joe had Aiden, dressed in his jeans and Oxford shirt, hop up front. The icy blast from the air conditioner caught Aiden off guard. Already used to being in a non-air conditioned environment, he instinctively closed his vent.

  “Off to Mattoon, huh?” Joe craned his neck from side to side and backed out of the driveway.

  “Yeah,” Aiden said, fastening his seatbelt. “They have the closest car rental office.”

  His liver-spotted hands clasped onto the steering wheel, Joe made his way down the Schrock’s lane. At the end of the lane he made a left where smaller farmhouses almost abutted the side of the gravel lane. A quick right took them down another gravel lane that opened up so that larger farmhouses sat farther off down long tree-lined driveways. Oat shocks sat atop green fields where dairy cattle grazed. Aiden watched, amused, as a white-tailed yearling nibbled on fallen sheaves. Farther down, they passed a small Amish cemetery. The nondescript stone markers jutted out of the lawn like crooked teeth.

  “I been making a lot of long trips lately.” Joe grinned. His tanned face stretched with deep corrugated lines. “Not that I mind. Since I retired, it gives me something to do. I just took Rachel and Leah over to Decatur yesterday.”

  “Yes, I know. You took them to the hospital, right?”

  “Yep, been there three times this week.” Joe chuckled. “Each time driving the Schrocks. Samuel twice in one day, then Rachel.”

  He was glad Joe had brought up the subject of the Schrocks; he’d planned all along to ask about some of the nagging mysteries that surrounded them. He had feared offending the family by asking them directly, but with Joe, English like he, none of those uncomfortable cultural potholes lurked between them.

  “Hope nothing is serious,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

  Joe slowed as he approached a wagon and waited a respectful time before passing. Aiden and he nodded at the cheerful-looking red-bearded driver as they went by. “You don’t know about Leah?”

  “No.” Aiden shook his head. “The Amish are pretty tight-mouthed.”

  “You notice anything strange? I mean, for her age?” Joe glanced in the rearview mirror before pulling back onto the right side of the lane.

  “Well… I guess. She doesn’t talk much. She’s adorable though.”

  “They found out last month she’s got something called…. Hard to pronounce. I think it’s Muscular… Meta… Micha… Well, the short name for it is MLD. Ever heard of it?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Causes some kind of deterioration of the brain or nervous system, or something like that. Used to drive another Amish boy to Decatur a few years back for the same treatments. Then one day he just never woke up. Rachel says Leah’s got a milder form, but it’ll all have the same results. She looked pretty good yesterday. Once the symptoms become worse though, well…. That’s how it was with that poor boy.”

  “That’s terrible.” The words seemed trite, but Aiden meant them with all their force. “I never imagined.”

  “The Amish have ways of coping.” Joe shrugged. “They talk a lot about God’s will.”

  “How do they pay for their hospital bills?” Aiden asked. “I know they don’t have insurance.”

  “They have a community fund to pay for medical expenses. Usually get the money from proceeds at flea markets and auctions and things like that.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Nice to have a community like that, isn’t it?”

  Joe stopped at a junction and checked for traffic before turning left, then headed south on the paved two-lane county road toward Mattoon. For five miles the road continued straight without a single bend. The farms here were larger. Aiden noticed farmers using modern machinery as the Amish center of the region was left mostly behind.

  “Yep, the Schrocks sure have been through a lot lately, lucky you saved them like you did.” Joe shook his head, his thick silver hair barely moving. “Can’t imagine what might’ve happened if you weren’t there last Sunday. You were a Godsend to them. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced God was working through you. My wife says that’s how miracles happen, when you’re open to God.”

  Aiden did not wish to crush his family’s faith by telling him he wasn’t so open to God. How could he be when he doubted one existed? “What all have the Schrocks been through?” he asked.

  “You don’t know about Esther and Zachariah, either?”

  Aiden shook his head, wide-eyed. “Esther and Zachariah?”

  “Daniel’s wife and son.”

  Finally. He was to learn about Daniel’s elusive wife. And he had a son too. Happy to have the most pressing of the Schrock mysteries about to be solved, he sat back in his seat and beamed.

  “Did his wife run off with their son without his permission? With another man, maybe?” Yesterday, during the drive to the horse auction, Daniel had mentioned traveling to Glacier National Park just before his wedding. Daniel’s mentioning his marriage had stoked Aiden’s curiosity. But he had kept his throbbing interest in Daniel’s personal life to himself. Now, safe with Joe, his reporter’s instincts clawed to the surface uninhibited.

  “Run off? Oh, no.” A deep pinch formed between Joe’s bushy white eyebrows. “Esther would’ve never done that.”

  “They’re not separated?”

  “Separated? No, the Amish can’t do that, not even for infidelity or being married to a good-for-nothing drunk.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Esther and Zachariah, they were both killed.”

  Aiden’s smile vanished in an instant. Stung by Joe’s words, he slumped in his seat. The chest strap of the seat belt pressed into the right side of his neck, but he hardly noticed the irritation.

  “Daniel’s wife and son were killed?” He mouthed the words, trying to comprehend the awfulness of it. He knew something hung heavy over the tall, good-looking Amish man; he had never imagined anything so awful. He mentally kicked himself for assuming Daniel’s bitter mood had come from a broken marriage, and how he had taken a certain pleasure in the thought.

  Joe shook his head, his pale blue eye
s on the blacktop. “His son was only a month old too.”

  “A baby?” Aiden gaped.

  “Yep.” Joe nodded. Deep canyons framed the sides of his frown. “Sad, isn’t it?”

  “How did they die?”

  “Killed by a tornado. Just this past March. Hit their house. Destroyed the whole thing. Most of his farm gone. Lost almost all his livestock. Three more people died up in Champaign County from the same storm. Oh, but whenever a child dies, it’s…. Well… at least the mother and baby are together in Heaven.”

  Overwhelmed by all Joe was telling him, Aiden stared transfixed at the passing corn and soybean fields. He thought back to yesterday when he and Daniel had returned from the horse auction, and how afterward Daniel had climbed down from the wagon and had stood looking toward the coming storm so introspectively. Aiden had scoffed at his somber mood then. Now he realized that Daniel would of course look at dark skies differently than most. A dark sky had devastated his entire world, producing a tornado that had taken from him his wife and baby son.