The Silent Order

by Melanie Dobson

  He collapsed back onto the pillow, trying to remember how he got here and what had happened to his arm. And his gun.

  The memories came back to him in flashes. Lance’s new coupe. Their country drive. The men in the Lincolns, chasing them.

  He and Lance tried to escape, but they hadn’t gone fast enough. Nico Sansone and the others forced them into a ditch. And then they started shooting.

  Bile filled his throat. His partner was dead.

  Lance Dawson had a girl. He had a family.

  Long before Lance became a threat, the Cardano family stole his life so they could get more money. Or power. Life held no value for people like the Cardanos. They killed just because they didn’t like someone. Or because they got in the way.

  Maybe, in some sick way, it was good that Lance was gone before this fight got any messier. The kid would have turned cynical in a few short years. Just like Rollin.

  He shifted against the pillows until the pain in his arm subsided, and then he closed his eyes.

  After she died, Liz wandered often through his dreams, teasing him with her smile. He’d stretch out his arms, trying to touch her, but he couldn’t seem to reach her.

  It had been years since he’d dreamt about Liz, but last night he saw her again. Her hair had been a glossy black, like the rich fur of a mink. Her eyes bluer than the water on the Great Lakes. He rubbed his fingers together. And her skin—her skin had been softer than anything he’d ever touched in his life.

  For an instant, he thought perhaps Liz had been sent to take him to the next life, but even in his dream, he knew that couldn’t be right. God only sent angels to pick up the good guys. A guy like him wouldn’t be welcomed at heaven’s gates.

  He opened his eyes again and stared at the light. He had to stop thinking about the woman he’d loved a long time ago. The woman who was never coming back.

  Clutching his left arm, Rollin slipped out of the bed and stepped to the window. He’d expected to see the barn and the trees and the fields of wheat and corn beyond the barn, but he hadn’t expected to see more than a dozen buggies lined up outside the red barn. And a long black-topped wagon at the end of the row.

  With one arm, he cracked open the window, and he heard the gait of a horse trotting up the drive. Men with long beards and black coats milled around the yard, and women with white aprons and black bonnets walked with trays of food between the house and barn.

  Had the Amish rescued him from Cardanos’ hatchet men?

  Someone knocked on the door, and Rollin turned to answer the knock, but before he could take a step, the door opened. A man with a tangled white beard and bulbous nose walked into the room and tossed some clothes, a pair of black boots, and a straw hat on the bed. He didn’t smile when he looked at Rollin, but the light in his eye matched the warm sunshine that flooded through the window.

  The man pointed at the clothes. “It’s time for you to go to church, Rollin Wells.”

  “Church?” Rollin sat down on the bed, shaking his head. “I can’t go to church.”

  The man shuffled to the side of the room and shut the window, pulling the drapes across it.

  “I don’t have time for church,” Rollin tried to explain. “I have to find a telephone.”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have a telephone booth near here, and you can’t go to town.”

  “Yes, I can,” he replied, releasing his grip on his bloody arm. “I need to call my boss so he can send someone to help me.”

  The man’s gaze traveled toward the window. “Others are looking for you right now, and I don’t think they are the kind of company you want.”

  “Black Lincolns?”

  “The only Lincoln I know had the first name of Abraham.” The man stepped away from the window. “But there are four cars that keep driving up and down our roads, searching for something or someone. We’re assuming they are looking for you.”

  Rollin pressed his fingers against his arm again. “Your assumption is correct.”

  “Which leads us to wonder why you are a wanted man.”

  “I’m not exactly sure.”

  The man nodded toward the window. “It probably won’t be long before they come on the Yoders’ property.”

  Rollin rubbed his fingers over the stubble on his chin. “I’ve brought trouble to you.”

  “It seems to be so.” He paused. “Are you the good guy or the bad one?”

  “I’d never presume to be good,” Rollin said. “But my job is to fight those who defy the laws of our land.”

  “These men—they seem to know you are close.” The man peeked back out the curtain. “We have to get you out of here before someone is hurt.”

  “How do you plan to do that?”

  “We’re still working on our plan,” he said. “But I need to know you will cooperate.”

  Rollin’s head felt heavy. His stomach woozy. He closed his eyes for a moment then opened them. “I’ll do whatever you ask.”

  The man eyed him for a moment before he stretched out his hand. “My name is Isaac Lehman, and my wife is better with medicine than any doctor around. Before we move you, we’d like her to look at your arm and have her give you something to dull the pain.”

  “Is your wife here?”

  Isaac walked toward the door. “She’s waiting outside.”

  Rollin’s arm throbbed, and the pain rushed through his entire body. He would take whatever medicine this woman offered, especially if it would help him walk out of this room.

  He propped up his arm. “I’d like her to look at it.”

  Isaac nodded and then he opened the door and introduced Rollin to his wife.

  Dressed in a light green dress and white apron, Erma Lehman was a petite woman who looked much younger than her husband. It was hard to tell her exact age without the fancy face paint and attire of the women he knew in Cleveland, but her hair was white and small wrinkles trailed the corner of each eye. He guessed she was in her mid-fifties. Maybe sixty.

  Her husband stepped back, sitting down on the bench along the wall. The woman didn’t speak. Instead, she set her satchel on the nightstand and leaned down to listen to his heartbeat. She lifted his arm above his head. When she pressed her fingers around his wound, he groaned.

  Then she looked him in the eye. “With God’s help, Rollin Wells, we will have you back on your feet in no time.”

  With God’s help?

  Erma sounded like Matthew Kennedy, the soldier he’d spent hours with in the trenches. Matthew used to pray for God’s help almost as much as he talked about God’s love. Matthew relied on God for help, and it got him blasted by a Boche into the next life.

  Erma began rifling through her satchel until she found a glass vial. Pouring a light brown liquid onto a spoon, she held it toward his lips. He didn’t ask what it was. Instead he swallowed, and the bitter concoction burned as it went down his throat.

  As she unwound the cloth around his arm, his skin pulled and stung. She said something to Isaac in what sounded like German, and her husband walked to the dresser and poured water into a basin. With a rag, she wiped off the blood on his arm, and when she pressed the wound, he couldn’t help but groan again.

  “Isaac said you were going to give me something to dull the pain.”

  She pressed around the wound again. “I already did.”

  “It feels like you shot me again.”

  “You didn’t really get shot,” she said. “The bullet just grazed you.”

  Pain tore down to his fingertips. “You could have fooled me.”

  She made a clicking noise with her tongue as she took a clean strip of cloth out of her bag. “But the bullet took a nice chunk of skin with it.”

  “It feels like it took my entire arm.”

  She laughed as she smeared an ointment over his injury and then wound the cloth around his arm. At least one of them was enjoying the process.

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood,” she said. “But my greatest concern is infection.”

&n
bsp; “My greatest concern is those Lincolns.”

  “What does Lincoln have to do with it?”

  He sighed. “The cars that were chasing me are called Lincolns.”

  “Don’t you worry,” she said as she cut the cloth. “We’ll take care of the Englishers.”

  After what the Englishers had done, they should all worry. “Why are you helping a stranger?”

  She pinned the cloth. “We don’t consider you a stranger. More like a guest from God.”

  God must have them fooled.

  “Have you seen my gun?”

  “Not recently, but I found this.” She handed his holster to him, and he clutched it in his hand.

  “Whoever took my gun might want to give it back as well if they’d like us to have any chance of defending ourselves.”

  “We don’t concern ourselves with defense—only with healing.”

  “You’re going to be quite busy with healing and burying if those men start shooting.”

  For a moment he thought she would crumble and find his gun, but she gathered up her things. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

  He stared at her like she was speaking another language. “But what if He takes away someone you love?”

  Isaac glanced at her, and in the man’s look, he saw an intense love for his wife.

  Erma stuffed the remaining cloth back into the satchel. “It is not for me to condemn our Lord for what He does or does not do. Even when He takes someone I love, I bless His name.”

  He leaned back against the pillows. There was no arguing with someone who wasn’t afraid of death. Still, he would not be responsible for the loss of a single Amish man or woman.

  “I have to get out of here.”

  “In time,” Erma said, patting his arm again. “God’s perfect time.”

  She nodded down at the clothes lying on the bed. “Isaac will help you get dressed, and then you come worship with us in the barn.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Katie slipped onto the threshing floor of the barn and sat down on the hard bench beside her aunt. Her white organdy apron was starched and pressed, and her toes were aching, crammed into the black oxfords Amish women wore only on Sundays.

  She set her bonnet in her lap and straightened her prayer kapp as she and the thirty other adults and children waited for the elders to finish praying together outside the barn door.

  “How is he?” she whispered in her aunt’s ear.

  “He lost a lot of blood, but he is recovering.”

  “So he will survive,” she said, more a statement than a question.

  “Ya. If the Lord wills it.”

  Katie’s gaze wandered toward the open door. “Where did you hide him?”

  “Isaac helped him back to where you found him.” Erma nodded toward the granary wall, now lined with black straw hats. “The elders are hoping the men in the Abraham Lincolns won’t bother him during the church service.”

  Abraham Lincolns?

  Katie bit her lip as she tucked her skirt under her legs. She’d laugh later, after Rollin Wells was gone.

  She eyed the open doors on the granary and hoped Isaac thought to cover him with a canvas or something. A church service wouldn’t stop the bad men if they were desperate. Sometimes she doubted God Himself could stop them, even with His army of angels.

  Isaac stepped out of the granary, pulling the door closed behind him. Katie watched him wink at Erma, but instead of smiling at the sweet gesture toward his wife, the knot in her stomach swelled. As long as Rollin was under their roof, the people she loved were in danger.

  Henry sat on the second row across from her, swinging his bare feet under the bench as he waited for Isaac to join him. He looked quite handsome in his dark Sunday suit and slicked back hair. When Isaac took his seat beside him, Henry straightened his shoulders. He would be nine in October, and she was afraid the next decade would pass in a flash. Nine for a moment and then Henry would be nineteen. In no time, he would be as tall as Isaac, and he would be catching his wife’s gaze across the room, winking at her.

  The elders shuffled into the barn and stood to the right of the benches. Erma opened the Ausbund beside her and Daniel Yoder began singing in Pennsylvania Deitsh. Even as Katie mouthed the words to the hymn, she didn’t focus on the meaning. Instead, her gaze wandered back to the wall of the granary.

  It was so strange to have Rollin Wells under the same roof with her again after all these years.

  Much had been given to her over the past decade and much had been taken away. Most of it she’d given away willingly, but she couldn’t give up Henry. No matter what Rollin did or said, she wouldn’t let him near her son.

  God would never require that of her, would he? He couldn’t require it.

  She dropped her gaze back to the rows of boys and men in front of her. Jonas Miller sat toward the back, his head bowed, singing with the rest of them.

  In righteousness at all times. Be prepared for Him,

  Him alone and no other. On this earth neither fire nor sword,

  Nor any other affliction, shall frighten you

  From God, so will He indeed let all your sufferings be turned to joy.

  Katie brushed her hands over her apron, singing the words a little louder.

  Nothing should frighten her. Not fire or sword or black Lincolns or bad men with guns. So many of their ancestors had suffered under the sword when they were in Europe, killed for their faith. They’d truly suffered for their belief, and yet they’d remained steady. Even in their sufferings, God had turned their grief to joy.

  She didn’t need to be afraid either. God had protected her before, and she prayed He would protect her again. But if He didn’t this time, He could turn her fears and her pain into joy.

  Even as she sang the words, her hands trembled. She couldn’t stop herself from being afraid.

  An hour passed as the men and women sang together and prayed. When Speaker Jacob stood up to dismiss the young children and their mothers for a break of cookies and milk, Daniel Yoder’s teenage son ran into the room.

  “There’s a black car coming up the drive,” the boy said.

  Jacob lifted his hands and the congregation stood. There would be no eating cookies today.

  Closing his eyes, Jacob blessed them through his prayer. “May God go with each one of you,” he said before he opened his eyes again and spoke. “You know what to do.”

  *

  Rollin drifted in and out of consciousness for what seemed like hours of mournful singing and long prayers in a language he didn’t understand. People shuffled in the barn’s heat, and he’d tried to stand up to look over the wall. Losing so much blood had filched his energy.

  Erma’s bandage wound tight around his upper arm, and the broadcloth shirt Isaac lent him chafed his skin. Pain continued to pulse through him but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.

  The threshing floor exploded with activity when a boy shouted that a car was coming. Shoes pounded the oak planks. Benches scraped the wood.

  At first, he thought they’d forgotten about him, but then the door next to him swung open. He looked up, expecting to see Isaac, but a woman stepped inside instead. Her head was bowed, her black bonnet pulled close to the sides of her face. Stepping close to him, she held out her hand and helped him stand.

  “You will hold up your head, Rollin Wells,” she whispered her command. “And you will pretend you have the strength of an Amish man.”

  “But my arm…”

  She stopped him. “Pretend like it doesn’t hurt one bit.”

  “Easy for you to say,” he mumbled.

  She stepped close to his ear. “I don’t care what happens to you, Mr. Wells, but I care very much what happens to the people outside, and I don’t want a single one of them hurt because of you.”

  He brushed the hay off his pants with his good arm and checked the holster he’d hidden under this plain jacket. It was still empty. “Understood.”

/>   “The elders have appointed me to be your wife for the afternoon, and as much as I don’t want to even pretend we are married, I will comply as long as you don’t give me trouble.”

  He tried to catch her eye, but her head was still bowed. He pitied the man who was really married to her.

  “Where are you taking me…Mrs. Wells?”

  “It’s Katie,” she replied. “Katie Lehman.”

  He moved past her, his shoulders back and eyes straight ahead. When he turned to look back at Katie Lehman, her gaze was still focused on the ground. “How does everyone know my name?”

  She held up the badge in her hand and tossed it to him. “Stick this inside your shirt or something. We don’t want your friends to find it.”

  “They’re not my friends,” he said. “What about my gun?”

  “You’ll have to learn to live without it.”

  His legs felt anchored to the barn floor as he plodded out of the granary in front of the woman posing as his wife. A crowd of Amish people milled around outside, all eyes on him. He nodded, wanting to say something to express his gratitude, but another man spoke to the entire group. Rollin didn’t understand the words, but when he finished speaking, all the men and women flooded out the two open doors.

  “Hurry now,” Katie said, tugging on his elbow. “We have to be in the middle.”

  “Middle of what?”

  She didn’t answer.

  When they stepped into the sunlight, Rollin followed her lead as she walked toward the long wagon. Men were loading benches into the wagon, and he thought they were going to hide him with the benches, but she stopped at a buggy in the center of the pack. His arm throbbed, crying out for him to brace it with his hand, but he didn’t press his hand to it.

  On both sides of him, men hitched horses to their buggies, and Isaac hitched a horse to the buggy in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see one of the cars at the corner of the yard, waiting in the driveway. Watching. He kept his eyes focused on the horse.