Redeeming Grace and the Prodigal Son Returns

by Emma Miller

  “I heard some talk about Bram.” Ellie nodded, and Mam went on. “You know I don’t listen to gossip. If what is said has any truth to it, then it should be said openly.”

  “I don’t know if there’s any truth to what’s being said.”

  “Have you asked Bram about it?”

  “Well, his brother said Bram was involved in something, but I don’t know what he meant.”

  “But what did you hear Bram say?”

  A trio of women came into the kitchen just then, laden with clean dishes. With the interruption, Ellie couldn’t answer Mam’s question. How would she even respond?

  * * *

  Bram swung his hammer in a precise, measured blow. Set the next shingle and set the nail, a swing of the hammer, another nail. Once you learned to shingle a roof, you never forgot. He stopped to straighten his back and wipe the sweat from his forehead.

  Below him, women were gathered around a quilting frame that had been set up for the afternoon. He couldn’t see Ellie anywhere, but she must still be here. Her brothers were nailing in their shingles on the opposite end of the roof from him.

  He returned to his work. It wouldn’t do to let those boys get ahead of him. He’d never hear the end of it.

  Shingling took concentration and attention, but it was repetitive and allowed his mind to wander. Why hadn’t Ellie told him about Levi Zook before? Why did he have to find out about the man’s intentions this way?

  He hit a nail too hard, and it bent under his hammer. He pulled it out and pocketed it, then put a new one in its place. Precise, measured blows.

  He forced himself to concentrate, but the look on Ellie’s face as he had left her in the buggy haunted him. She had faith in him, but had she heard the gossip Samuel was spreading? And then there was Kavanaugh. He had to talk to her—he had to warn her.

  Warn her about what? To watch for a rat-faced man in a maroon Packard? All he had to go on was that maybe, just maybe Kavanaugh had recognized him and might be looking for him along the back roads of LaGrange County. That wasn’t enough for her to take him seriously.

  As he reached the peak of the barn roof, Bram took a quick glance at the Stoltzfus boys. They had finished their part of the roof and were filling in the space between him and them. He put his last nail in just as they reached him. “Is that the last?” Bram asked.

  “Everything except the rail,” said Reuben.

  Bram followed the boys down the ladder and watched another crew finish up the ridge. The final nail went in with a cheer, and the men scattered to gather their tools and families.

  Trying to keep track of the Stoltzfuses in the milling crowd, Bram lost sight of John and his boys. He made his way toward the house. Ellie must be here somewhere, gathering up her children. Or maybe avoiding him.

  “Bram, hold on.”

  He cringed inwardly at Samuel’s call—his brother’s call. Did Samuel have anything to say he’d want to hear?

  Bram kept his expression calm when Samuel stepped in front of him, a triumphant grin on his face. He looked as if he was satisfied with his day’s work.

  “I was surprised to see you here today,” Samuel said.

  “You shouldn’t have been. A barn raising is a time for the whole community to come together.” Bram waited. Samuel wanted something, and sooner or later he’d get around to it, but Bram would rather get it done with. He looked past Samuel to where the women were busy gathering up their things and calling their children together. Ellie stepped out of the house carrying Danny.

  “I hear you bought yourself a farm.”

  Bram turned his full attention to Samuel. He was a loose cannon and needed to be dealt with. He could only hope that Ellie wouldn’t leave too quickly.

  “Ja, it’s down near Emma. I’m settling there now.”

  Samuel grinned. “It makes me wonder where you got that kind of money, after being away in Chicago all those years. I’ve heard the only people in Chicago with money are gangsters.”

  “I know you’ve been spreading rumors, Samuel, and there’s no truth in them.”

  “That’s not the way I see it. The way I see it, there might be people back in the city willing to pay to find out exactly where your money is. You made a big mistake coming back here.”

  Bram fought for control, but he knew how to handle a man like Samuel. He drew himself up to his full height, laid his hand on his brother’s stocky shoulder and drew him close. He put a pleasant smile on his face, but his words, whispered so only Samuel would hear them, carried the punch he wished he could put into his fist.

  “You’re the one making the mistake, Samuel. Don’t try to threaten me. You don’t know anything about any money. As far as you know, I saved up while I was working in Chicago and now I’ve come back.” He leaned closer to Samuel and put one arm around him in a brotherly hug. “I don’t need to tell you what might happen if you keep spreading rumors, do I?” he breathed in the other man’s ear.

  He drew back. Samuel’s dismayed face told him his words had carried the right weight. He patted the dirty shirtfront. “I’m glad we had this talk.”

  Bram pushed past his brother, hoping he hadn’t made a mistake leaning into Samuel like that. Hopefully, throwing around a bit of muscle was all he needed to keep him quiet. Even so, he’d have to be careful. Samuel was just the kind of man Kavanaugh loved to use.

  Once he reached the back door steps, Ellie was nowhere to be seen.

  Standing on the back porch, Bram scanned the crowd, hot with impatience. Samuel had delayed him just long enough. He looked toward the field where the buggies were parked, but in the milling crowd he couldn’t tell one family from another.

  There, a young woman with a boy walking beside her. He started after them, but before he was even halfway across the yard, he could tell it wasn’t her. He shot a glance toward the parked buggies again and swallowed a curse. The Stoltzfus rig was gone.

  An endless line of buggies stretched in both directions up and down the road. They were in there somewhere, but he didn’t have a chance of catching up with her—not unless he could pull off the impossible.

  Partner greeted Bram in his usual way, mouthing the front of his shirt with rubbery lips.

  “No time now, boy. We’ve got to get going.”

  Bram checked the horse quickly and then reached for the harness. One of the reins was broken. A word from his Chicago past almost made it to his lips at the delay. He couldn’t drive Partner with it hanging loose, but how did it get this way?

  When he found the two ends, a cold chill ran down his back. They had been cut. This wasn’t an accident. He flashed a quick look into the trees of the fencerow. Could Kavanaugh have followed him all the way from Goshen? But the trees weren’t hiding anyone—the early-summer growth was too sparse.

  He tied the ends so the rein would hold together long enough to get home, slipped the bit into Partner’s mouth and tightened the harness buckles. That cut edge was clean. Whoever had done it had used a very sharp knife. Could Samuel have cut the rein? That was the kind of petty crime the brother he knew twelve years ago would have pulled off.

  Ja, Samuel was the same today as when they were growing up. They had been alike back then, as alike as brothers could be, but he wasn’t the same as he had been at seventeen. Seeing Samuel now was like looking into a shadowy mirror...at what he would have become if he hadn’t left home.

  So what had happened to change him? Life in Chicago, living on the streets? Ja, that was part of it. But there was something else. Something had made Samuel’s life repulsive to Bram.

  Something had given him a new way of looking at what he had been.

  That silken coil flowed through him again, and the answer pressed on his mind. God. The same God he had ignored for years was doing something to him...no, for him. Protecting him from being like Sa
muel, providing Ellie for him. Had that same God brought him back to Indiana and to a new life here?

  Would God do that for someone like him?

  Bram slowed Partner down to a walk. He’d give Ellie time to settle the children in for the night. But then he had to talk to her.

  The sun lowered, turning the whole sky into a deep blue bowl with a fiery red rim to the west. He tilted his head back to find the first star and spied it high in the eastern sky, just above a pale, full moonrise. He let himself relax as he watched more stars reveal themselves one by one, diamonds against deep blue velvet.

  Ja, he had to talk to her.

  * * *

  Echoes of her footsteps whispered in the quiet house as Ellie walked from room to room, willing her mind to settle so she could sleep.

  Johnny’s body sprawled on the front room sofa, tangled in his sheets already. She straightened his legs and lifted his arm back onto his makeshift bed from where it dangled over the floor. He didn’t wake, but rolled onto his side.

  The children had all fallen asleep quickly after a supper of bread and butter. Ellie wished she could join them; she was ready to put this day behind her.

  Stepping onto the back porch, she took in the summer night. Every night of her life, as far back as she could remember, she had taken the few moments this ritual required, even in the cold or rain.

  The dusky air was warm for June. The sky still held the light of the setting sun, but to the east a full moon hung over the trees. One bright star shone, hanging in the sky above the moon. As Ellie’s eyes grew used to the moonlight, she could see more stars dusted across the darkening sky.

  An owl swooped out from under the barn’s eaves, the first of several trips back and forth to the nest in the barn loft. Frogs croaked from the bog across the road, the bullfrog’s guttural gunk contrasting with the peeper’s creak.

  Then a different sound intruded—a horse and buggy on the road. Who would be out this time of night?

  The horse slowed as it came closer and turned into the drive by Dat’s house. Even in the dusk she could see the pale gray of the horse well enough. It was Bram. Her heart plummeted into her stomach, knowing she must talk to him. She must face him.

  He drove past the big house and barn toward the Dawdi Haus and pulled Partner to a halt in her yard. When he climbed out of the buggy, he stood watching her. She waited, returning his steady gaze. The silence stretched between them until Bram’s feet shifted in the dirt at the bottom of the steps. He leaned on the handrail and looked up at her, his eyes soft in the moonlight.

  “Come down here, Ellie. Sit on the step with me.”

  A warning bell went off in her head. Sitting next to him in the dark would be too close, too intimate.

  Any more intimate than feeling his arm encircle her on the glider in her yard?

  She sat on the top step, and he joined her in the shadowy dusk.

  “I have something important to tell you, but I want you to trust me.”

  Was he about to tell her what his brother had meant—what was it he had said? He wanted a piece of what Bram had going on. Would she ever be able to trust Bram?

  Bram reached for her hand. She let him take it, turn it in his hands, stroke her palm with his finger.

  “I need to tell you about...” He stopped, stroked her palm again. “How can I tell her?” he murmured, as if speaking to himself.

  Her mouth was dry, but she had to know the truth.

  “Your brother told me he wanted something from you—that you have something going on. Is it something illegal, Bram? Did you come here to hide from the police?”

  He looked at her, his face unreadable in the moonlight.

  “Ne, Ellie. I don’t know where Samuel came up with that idea. I’m not hiding from the police.”

  His hand stroked each of her fingers in turn. She longed to give in to his touch, to lean against his body in the darkness, to feel his strength. She had been fooling herself saying they were just friends. Friends didn’t lean this close, mingling their breath, their thoughts.

  Bram put an arm around her waist and drew her closer to him. His cheek brushed her cheek, the whiskers scratching against her soft skin. If she turned her face slightly, if she moved at all, his lips would find hers and she would lose herself in his kiss. She didn’t move and felt a butterfly-soft kiss on her cheek.

  He straightened, putting a few inches between them, but kept her hand covered with his. She should pull it away, disentangle herself from this temptation, but she was too comfortable to move. With one arm around her waist and the other holding her hand, she felt as safe as a nestling bird.

  “I need to tell you why I’m here, but for now it needs to be just between the two of us, all right?”

  She nodded. A secret? What could he tell her but not Dat and the other men?

  “I’m not on the run from the police—I’m working with them. Well, with the bureau, at least.”

  “The bureau?”

  “Ja. I’m working with the FBI, tracking down a gangster.”

  A cold chill made Ellie shiver. Gangsters, the FBI, secrets... What kind of man was this?

  “Bram, I don’t understand. If you’re working with the police, why are you here?”

  He didn’t answer; he stared at her hand caught in his.

  “You’ve been lying to us? Pretending you want to be part of the community, but all the time lying to Dat, to your sister...to me?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. How could she even talk about such a thing?

  “I...I didn’t mean to mislead you.” Bram let go of her hand and rubbed his face. “It’s gotten out of hand. I meant to just put on a disguise—hide in the community while I tried to find out what Kavanaugh was up to. But it isn’t that simple....”

  “Lying never is.”

  “I never planned for this to happen, Ellie.” His voice was soft velvet against the night sounds. “I never planned to meet you, your dat and mam, the children...I never thought I’d find a home.”

  Ellie’s mind spun. Just when she was beginning to trust him, to think he was one of them. “What did you plan?”

  “I thought it would take just a few weeks to find Kavanaugh, and then I was going to start over—maybe out west somewhere.”

  “So you never meant to settle here? What about your farm? What about...” She couldn’t ask him. She had no right to ask him what his plans were concerning her. He was just a fancy Englischer, and she was Amish. They lived in two different worlds.

  “I don’t know, Ellie. Everything has changed now.”

  His body went stiff as a sound drifted toward them from the road. They both turned to watch an automobile, its headlights glaring in the pitch-black of the road under the overhanging trees. It drove slowly, as if the driver was looking for something. The engine roared as the driver picked up speed at the Stoltzfus farm. Ellie heard it continue down the road to the east.

  He stood suddenly, putting distance between them.

  “I’ll watch out for you, Ellie, try to keep you safe. But don’t trust anyone, all right? Promise me? I need you to trust me.”

  He needed her. He needed her to trust him, an Englischer. An Englisch policeman. His eyes were nearly black in the moonlight, pleading silently with her. This wasn’t just any Englischer, a stranger. This was Bram. Could she trust him?

  From the depths of her soul, it came. Peace.

  She did. In spite of her doubts, she trusted him.

  She nodded, and he was gone.

  The buggy whip popped as Bram urged the horse to a fast trot when they turned onto the road. Ellie held her hand, still warm from his touch, to her cheek as she listened to the fading beat of the horse’s hooves in the empty night.

  She went back into the dark house and wandered through the kitchen to the front room. She coul
d see up and down the road from her front window, but it was empty.

  The room was close. Hot. She opened a window and stood in the fitful air, watching the silver-white moonlight on the strawberry field. A mosquito whined against the cheesecloth screen.

  Just...trust him? Do nothing else?

  Could she do that?

  That elusive peace struggled and was gone, driven away by her nervous fears. He wasn’t who she thought he was—a wayward Amishman coming back home. He was an Englischer, an outsider, a stranger. How could she have let him into her life? How could she trust him?

  How could she love him?

  She couldn’t love him...she mustn’t love him.

  Mam’s words came back to her. She hadn’t said anything about how to trust a man; they had talked about trusting Gott.

  Panic rose like a frantic butterfly trapped in her closing fingers, but instead of letting the wings beat her into senseless fear again, she tightened her grasp, holding it, examining it.

  What was she afraid of? If she trusted Gott, what was the worst that could happen?

  She could lose Bram. The sweetness of his touch, the soft kiss on her cheek, even his insistence that he trust her all told her they would never be able to be just friends again. Could she bear to take that risk?

  What if, in spite of everything, she gave her love to Bram and then... She wiped at the tears that flowed down her cheeks. What if he went through with his plans and she was left alone again? Could she bear that?

  The peace she was searching for came back, filling her with a calm that stopped her tears. Ja, for Bram she could bear even that.

  Chapter Twelve

  A scared rabbit, that was what he was.

  A few months ago, he would have gone after that Packard. His own car would have followed that rat to his hole and finished this business, and that would have been the end of it. But here he was, stuck in this backward place.

  Bram slammed his hand against the side of the buggy in frustration, making Partner jump into a panicked gallop.