by Jan Drexler
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 Samuel, 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 could 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.
“Whoa, boy, it’s okay.”
The horse settled down, but Bram’s nerves still jangled.
He had let himself get into the worst position he could imagine. No car, no backup, no telephone, a woman to worry about...
At the thought of Ellie, he cast a glance backward along the road, where the moonlight stretched its silent way behind him. No lights cast a glow under the overhanging trees, and no motor sound echoed in the still night. Would she be safe?
If anything happened to her...
The rising heat found a focus. Kavanaugh. The man loved killing, whether he pulled the trigger or ordered one of his men to do the job, and he struck without warning. No open spray of hot bullets from a tommy gun for him. The snake preferred to kill with a derringer.
Bram pressed against the lump of the pistol in his pocket. With luck, he could protect himself if Kavanaugh found him, but what about Ellie and the children? What about her parents?
The heat against Kavanaugh was quenched in a dash of ice. Before he’d come, they had been safe. Yeah, sure, the gangsters were in the area, but they never would have thought of searching among these peaceful farms if it wasn’t for him. He was the one who had put them in danger.
Rising irritation hammered against his tactics so far. He had established his cover, but now he needed to use the cover to do more than just hide. Kavanaugh was around, for sure, but it was time for Bram to be on the other side of the table. No more scared rabbit for him. He would become the fox and hunt out that snake.
Should he put a call in to Peters? The FBI agent would love to know he had found Kavanaugh, but then what? All Bram could tell him was that he had seen Kavanaugh in Goshen. Peters wouldn’t be able to act on such a slim lead, not when things were so hot in Chicago.
Besides, if he contacted Peters, he’d increase the risk that his location would be known, and it could get out to the wrong people.
Bram shifted on the buggy seat, his skin crawling. Kavanaugh wasn’t his only enemy, or his worst. Someone had tipped off Kavanaugh about the raid in April, and it had to be someone in Peters’s office. If he was premature in contacting the Chicago office, he’d have to leave the area quickly and quietly. No goodbyes, no explanations, no contact...not even Ellie.
The scent of her as he had held her close filled his mind, and he shut his eyes against the memory. Why had he dared to kiss her cheek like that? Her sweet face enticed him until he nearly turned the buggy around to get one more look at her. How could he bear to leave her?
He couldn’t. The only thing he could do was to start hunting.
* * *
Ellie woke with a start in the hot bedroom, the early-morning sun at work already. If she hurried, she might have a chance to water the strawberries before fixing breakfast.
Benjamin was already at her pump, filling a bucket.
“Denki, Ben, I slept late this morning.” She grabbed a second bucket to fill.
“When I finished my chores early, Dat said you might need a hand.”
They walked through the gate, each carrying a full bucket of water. Ben had already finished two of the rows, so Ellie started on the third. As she reached each plant, she tipped the bucket to splash water onto it. The ground was dry and dusty, even though she had done this same chore the morning before.
“It’s so dry.”
“It’s bad for your strawberries. Look at this one.” Ben stopped watering and knelt down to show Ellie the next plant. “It’s hardly grown at all from when you planted it a month ago.”
Ellie reached out to lift up the stems of the heat-stressed plant. The seedlings were still green, but the papery leaves and stunted growth told her they were just barely alive.
“If we can just keep them going until it rains...”
“It doesn’t look like it will, at least not for the next week.”
“Well, it has to rain sometime.” Ellie chewed on her lip, remembering the days and weeks without rain two years ago. It couldn’t happen again, could it?
“Maybe we’re in for another drought. Dat said the pond is lower than he’s ever seen it.”
Ellie shot her brother a glance. He had no idea what a drought would do to her plans. She went back to watering her row. Every farmer knew that weather went in cycles. They had just gone through years of drought, but last year’s normal rainfall was the end of that cycle, wasn’t it?
“The pond is spring fed—it won’t dry up. That will help us, won’t it?” There had to be hope somewhere.
“Ja, that’s what Dat said. But it gets low in drought years, just the same.”
Low water. But she had a well, and there was another one for the big house and the barn. There would be enough water for them all.
There had to be.
She continued down the row, giving each plant a splash of water.
Ellie straightened for just a minute to ease her back, and her mind flitted ahead to the rest of the day. It was a church Sunday. Would Bram be there?
She tipped the bucket at the next plant.
The thought of seeing him again sent her heart beating fast. Did she even want to see him, after what he told her last night?
Ja. When he grinned at her, that secretive grin meant just for her, it drove all other thoughts out of her head. And then last night when he had kissed her cheek! Ellie stopped with the bucket in midair, remembering that delicious, tender kiss as he had held her close. He made her feel...
Ellie smiled to herself as she finished one row and turned to start the next one. He made her feel like a girl with a beau instead of a widow with three children. Even if he was Englisch, even if he was leaving soon, it was a wonderful-gut feeling.
“Ach, Ellie. What are you smiling about?”
Ben passed her with his bucket, heading back to the pump.
“Today’s a meeting Sunday, ja?”
“For sure it is. We’d best be hurrying on.”
* * *
Bram opened the back door of the house quietly, last night’s caution still weighing on him. He reached into his pocket to let his hand close around the reassuring grip of the gun while he surveyed the barn and fields. Nothing out of place.
It was early, but he had a harness to mend before church. That cut rein had haunted his dreams. Was it a warning, or was it just Samuel’s spiteful way of delaying him?
Bram shifted his shoulders and stepped onto the back porch. He was letting himself get spooked. Caution was one thing, but panic could kill him.
In the quiet of the barn, with Partner’s munching the only sound, Bram concentrated on splicing the ends of the harness together. The task of tapering the blunt ends so they would fit together smoothly was so familiar that he did most of the work by touch.
Was this what God was doing to him? His own blunt edges were being shaped to fit into this community, conforming in a way that he never had during his childhood. God’s presence was with him, molding and shaving off the rough edges, taking away his past more cleanly and completely than shutting it up behind a door.
Growing up, he had never felt part of the people, but now God was taking the rough, blunt mess of his life and working it into the community bit by bit, just as he was taking this piece of leather and binding it to the other. Nothing he had ever done gave him the satisfaction that his life here did, even if he did face the frustrations of living without modern conveniences when he needed them. Sometimes conveniences were necessities.