The Prodigal Son Returns

by Jan Drexler

  Little spurts of dust rose with Partner’s hoofbeats in the empty road as the relentless question echoed in his mind. Ellie was right—if he stayed here, he’d have to make a decision to either join the Amish church or leave it. How could he make a decision like that?

  At the corner ahead, a buggy turned onto his road, trotting fast. As it drew closer, Bram saw that Matthew was driving. He pulled Partner to a halt when the two buggies met.

  Bram’s gut wrenched when he saw Matthew’s haggard face. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

  Ellie...

  “Matthew, what’s happened?”

  “It’s Hezekiah Miller. He’s missing.”

  “What do you mean, he’s missing?” Elderly Amishmen didn’t just disappear.

  “Amos Troyer went this morning to help out and found Miriam beside herself. Hezekiah never came in from doing his chores last night.”

  “I’m on my way over there. Where’s Ellie?”

  “She and Elizabeth went to Hezekiah’s as soon as they got the news. I’ve got more families to tell, and then I’ll be down there.”

  Bram gave a brief nod goodbye in return to Matthew’s and then slapped the reins on Partner’s back. The gelding set off at a fast trot.

  Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Bram thought of all the possible reasons for Hezekiah’s disappearance. If it was any of the other farmers, he might have thought the old man had decided to take a walk around one of the fence lines in the evening, but as crippled as Hezekiah was, he wouldn’t go farther than the barn itself. Not alone. Not willingly.

  He chirruped to Partner again, even though the horse was keeping up his steady, fast pace. Where had they looked already? Bram went over the farm in his mind, glad he had been there often enough in the past two weeks that it was familiar. It was only ten acres, not so large that Hezekiah could get disoriented and lost. The creek had steep banks—could he have slipped down them? He’d make sure someone looked there. The woodlot wasn’t big, but it was dense with undergrowth. Another place to make sure of. The barn itself? It was fairly small, but there were still places to look.

  Bram pulled into the small farmyard, glad to see it crowded with buggies. The people had come together in this crisis, as they always did.

  A couple boys had been given the job of seeing to the horses. Bram handed Partner’s reins to one of them, then strode to the house, where he saw the men and older boys gathering around the back porch.

  John Stoltzfus nodded as Bram joined the group, his mouth set in a firm line. Almost every man from the church was here. Bram nodded to Jim Brenneman,

  Ellie’s Englisch tenant, while John organized the searchers.

  “Amos already searched the barn and farmyard this morning, before sending for help. We’ll divide the rest of the farm between us. Look in all the fencerows, ditches, anywhere he may be lying hurt.”

  John sent a grim look around the circle of faces and then nodded to Bishop Yoder, who stood at the edge of the circle. The old bishop lifted his hands, shaking with palsy, to bless the men as he prayed. The rhythm of the Deitsch words flowed over Bram, giving him strength and confidence. With God’s help, they were sure to find Hezekiah.

  Before joining John and his boys as they headed to the east fence line, Bram glanced toward the house. Ellie stood in the doorway, holding on to the frame as if it were her lifeline. He caught her eye and nodded, giving her a smile that he hoped would be reassuring. She returned his smile with a worried one of her own and disappeared into the kitchen.

  * * *

  Ellie turned back to the kitchen and joined Mam at the counter, where she prepared chicken casseroles for the men who would be hungry at dinnertime. Ellie prayed it would be a celebration dinner as she chopped stalks of celery for the casseroles.

  Miriam stood at the counter next to her sink, where she could watch the fields through the window while she kneaded bread dough. She seemed calm, but her movements lacked the smooth efficiency that was normal for the older woman.

  Ellie remembered her own panic when Daniel was lying in bed, hurt, while she sat helpless at his side, waiting through that long day only to face his death at the end. Miriam must be feeling the same thickening of her throat, the same telescoping of sight to that last glimpse of her husband, and yet she continued to knead the dough until it was nearly overworked.

  Ellie’s eyes blurred as she concentrated on the knife and the celery. What would any of them do without Hezekiah?

  Mam put two large casseroles into the oven and went over to Miriam while Ellie washed up at the sink.

  “Come, Miriam, the bread has been kneaded enough. Let it rest now.”

  Mam took Miriam’s hands in her own and handed her to Ellie. The older woman’s eyes stayed fixed out the window, but she was as compliant as Susan when Ellie washed her floury hands at the sink while Mam covered the dough with a damp towel.

  “Let’s have another cup of coffee while the dough rises.” Mam got three cups from the cupboard. “Ellie, can you pour us all a cup?”

  Ellie led Miriam to a chair at the kitchen table. She had seen Mam do this same thing many times during a crisis. Keep things as normal as possible. Keep the conversation going. Anything to keep Miriam’s mind off what the men were doing, what they might find or if they never found anything.

  “I won’t be able to go on without him.” Miriam’s voice was edged with tears, and Ellie stifled a sudden sob. The last time she had heard Miriam’s voice like that had been the evening of Daniel’s death, when the waiting at his bedside finally ended. Ellie’s heart chilled at the thought of the lonely night vigil Miriam had just spent waiting for her husband to walk through the door, a vigil that had only ended with Amos’s arrival in the morning.

  “Ja, you will. Gott will give you strength.” Mam’s words were solid ground in this miserable morning.

  “They’re sure to find him soon, with all those men searching.” Ellie tried to sound hopeful, but Miriam didn’t seem to notice she had spoken.

  “Ja, Ellie’s right. They’re sure to find him soon.”

  Miriam got up from the table to look out the window over the sink again. “Ach, if only I could help them.”

  Whatever happened with Hezekiah, Ellie knew she couldn’t let Miriam stay on the farm without some help. The men of the church had been faithful in coming to help with the work, but even that hadn’t prevented this accident.

  Ellie looked at Miriam over her coffee cup as the older woman stood at the window watching the searchers for the first sign that her husband had been found. She rose to stand next to her, a woman as dear to her as her own mam. She put her arm around Miriam’s shoulders and supported her as the elderly woman leaned into Ellie’s strong embrace. They would share this vigil together.

  * * *

  Bram made his way to the woodlot growing on either side of the fence that separated Hezekiah’s farm from Ellie’s, the farm the Brennemans were renting.

  He eyed the brambles that grew at the sunny edge of the lot. Yellow jackets buzzed hungrily at the stunted black raspberries that covered them. It would take a determined man to break through that mess, and he would leave a trail. Hezekiah certainly didn’t have the strength to do it.

  Bram followed a path through the grass as it skirted the brambles and then stopped where it disappeared in a narrow tunnel leading into the trees. Could Hezekiah have gone in there?

  Looking around, Bram spotted Benjamin ten yards behind him.

  “Ben, over here.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Look here,” he said as Benjamin leaned down to look through the narrow opening. “Could he have followed a cow through there?”

  “Ja, I think so.” Benjamin pointed to a deep, cleft-hooved print in the long grass just outside the opening. “That’s not a deer print. If he was followi
ng a stray cow, he might have tried it.”

  Benjamin ducked and started down the narrow tunnel. Bram waited, listening to the sounds of the other searchers, praying they would find Hezekiah alive.

  “Here! Bram, in here. Hurry!”

  Bram echoed Benjamin’s shout to the other searchers, then followed the trail into the woods, ignoring the brambles that snagged at his clothes. He paused just inside the shadowed cover of the trees, letting his eyes adjust. The close, humid air pressed against him and hummed with mosquitoes.

  “Bram, he’s over here. I found him.”

  Benjamin knelt next to Hezekiah’s prostrate form; the old man’s body slumped over a fallen log. Adrenaline shot through Bram when he saw blood-matted hair on Hezekiah’s face. Kneeling next to him, Bram checked for a pulse. He thanked God it was there, faint but steady.

  “Is he...”

  “He’s still alive.”

  “We need to get him to the house.”

  “Not yet. We need to see where he’s hurt first.”

  The thick air of the woodlot filled with voices as the other searchers joined them. One by one, the men fell silent as Bram checked Hezekiah’s arms and legs. The old man groaned when Bram turned his head to find the source of the bleeding. A cold shock went through him when he found the wound. That ugly bruise didn’t come from a fall—he had been hit by something hard.

  Bram spoke to John hovering at his shoulder.

  “We can move him, but we need to make a litter out of a blanket or something.”

  Two of the boys left the group. They would take the news to the house and fetch the blanket.

  “Will he be all right?” John’s voice was raspy as he looked down at his longtime friend.

  “I don’t know. It looks like he has a concussion, and spending the night on the ground hasn’t done him any good. He’s been eaten up by mosquitoes.” Bram looked at John. “He’ll need the doctor. Can someone fetch him?”

  “I will.” Mr. Brenneman spoke up. “I’ll take my car.”

  Bram supervised as Hezekiah was moved onto a blanket, but he stayed behind as the group took the elderly man into the house. There had to be clues to tell him what had happened here last night.

  He looked around to get his bearings. The fallen tree was in a low spot, near a ditch that might be a small stream in a rainy year. Bram walked around the log, outside the perimeter of where the group of men had been standing. He found the cow’s prints in the soft ground of the ditch and the print of Hezekiah’s work boot.

  Following the ditch farther along, Bram found what he dreaded. There had been two men in the woodlot, and judging from the footprint in a muddy spot at the bottom of the ditch, they weren’t Amish. That print had been made by someone wearing shoes, not work boots. Bram slipped his hand inside his pocket and grasped the reassuring handle of his pistol.

  Following the faint signs on the disturbed floor of dead leaves, Bram arrived at the edge of the woodlot about fifty feet from the trail. Here he found a cleared space littered with discarded cigarettes and a couple of empty bottles that told him one or two men had spent several hours here—maybe even several days. A short log had been stood on its end. From the number of cigarette butts on the ground around it, it looked as if someone had used it as a seat for a long time. Why?

  Bram sat on the stump. What he saw made his stomach clench. An opening had been cleared in the brambles, just big enough to give him a perfect view of the barn, house and fields. Someone had sat here watching the farm.

  Hezekiah must have found them, surprising them as he followed that stupid cow. Bram could see how the scene played out: two gangsters overpowering the old man, cracking his skull with a gun butt and then leaving him for dead.

  He leaned down and picked up an empty cigarette packet, not wanting to believe what he saw. They were Jose L. Piedra cigarettes from Cuba, Kavanaugh’s favorite. The only reason for Kavanaugh being here was that they had somehow tracked him down. Bram’s mouth went dry. He never thought his efforts to help out would put the old man in danger, but if Kavanaugh had found him here, at Hezekiah’s farm, who else had he unwittingly set up as a target?

  Turning slowly, his eyes pierced the shadowy depths of the woodlot. Surely with the crowd of searchers that had been on the farm that morning, the gangsters would have cleared out, but there was still a chance they could be hiding in the underbrush, waiting. Hand on his gun, Bram made his way to the path through the bushes and headed to the house, the spot between his shoulder blades itching the whole time.

  * * *

  Ellie stood with Miriam and Mam at Hezekiah’s bedside, listening to the doctor’s advice.

  “He has a concussion, which can be dangerous.” The Englisch doctor pulled the light summer quilt up to

  Hezekiah’s shoulders as he rose to his feet and gave Miriam’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “Keep him warm and quiet, and I wouldn’t let him get out of bed for a couple days. If there are any changes, or if he falls asleep and you’re not able to wake him, send for me right away.”

  Miriam nodded as the doctor snapped his black bag shut and followed Dat out of the room.

  “I’ll stay with you tonight, Miriam,” Mam said. “I know I can count on Ellie and the girls to take care of things at home for a day or two.”

  “Ja, of course,” Ellie said. She helped Miriam to her small rocking chair next to the bed and then stepped out of the room and headed to the quiet front porch. The creak of the front screen door as she pushed it open was a comforting reassurance that everything was going to be all right, in spite of the day’s turmoil.

  Her stomach did a flip when she saw Bram sitting on the porch swing. If yesterday’s conversation had never happened, she could have found some comfort in his presence. As it was, she folded her arms in front of her and stood in the gap between the front door and the swing. How could she mend this rift between them?

  “I thought everyone had gone home,” she said.

  Bram’s face was set in a worried frown, but why? Hezekiah was going to be fine.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I want to make sure everything is going to be okay.”

  “You heard the doctor. Hezekiah has a concussion, but he’ll recover.” Thanks to Bram.

  He didn’t answer, just looked toward the barn. His hands gripped the edge of the porch swing. Something more than Hezekiah was worrying him.

  “Bram, what’s wrong?”

  He slid over to make room for her next to him on the swing. Ellie sat, waiting for his answer.

  “Hezekiah’s injury wasn’t an accident.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He came across that man I told you about—Kavanaugh.” Bram swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

  “But how would he? I mean, what does that man have to do with Hezekiah?”

  He turned to her, his eyes dark. “Me. He must have tracked me here one day and then waited for me to come back. He’s been hiding in the woodlot, and Hezekiah must have surprised him last night.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Bram shook his head, his face stony. “I have no idea.” He sighed, looking toward the barn and the fields beyond it once more.

  Ellie felt the thrill of fear that tales of wolves had given her when she was a little girl. She would look into the trees and imagine them lurking there, waiting to pounce when she wasn’t looking. But this fear had a name. This wolf was real.

  Bram took her hand, running his thumb across the back of it, and then with a sudden groan, he gathered her to him. Ellie clung close, pressing her ear against his chest, his steady heartbeat reassuring her of his strength. He would protect her, if he could.

  He pressed her closer to him and kissed the top of her head. “Ellie,” he whispered, “I couldn’t bear it if he hurt you.”
>
  “He won’t, Bram.” She tried to smile as he released her enough to lift her chin and look into her face. “Between you, Dat and my brothers, I’m very well protected.”

  “I’d like to believe that.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I’m sorry about what I said yesterday. I’ve been miserable ever since then, knowing we disagree.”

  She nodded. That same disagreement still hung between them.

  “I won’t rest until I find Kavanaugh. You know that.”

  A cold screw twisted her heart.

  “That isn’t our way, Bram. Vengeance belongs to the Lord.”

  “This isn’t vengeance, Ellie. This is my job.” His hand lingered on her cheek, and then he rose so abruptly he sent the swing rocking. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  Ellie nodded, regretting the rift that widened between them.

  “Ja, tomorrow at church.”

  * * *

  Bram drummed his fingers on the desk in the telephone booth at the exchange as he waited for the operator to make the connection.

  “Peters here.”

  “It’s Dutch.”

  “Dutch, are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, but I’m worried about Kavanaugh. Do you have any news?”

  “The information you gave us so far was right on the mark. Kavanaugh has been expanding operations into South Bend, Fort Wayne, Toledo and Detroit. We were able to track down one of his boys in South Bend, and the thug sang like a canary.”

  Bram wiped his face with his handkerchief and propped the door of the telephone booth open to let in some air. If Peters had done his job, then who had attacked Hezekiah?

  “So you got Kavanaugh?”

  “That’s just it. We rounded up a dozen of his men, but he was nowhere to be found.”

  Bram rubbed his palm on his pant leg. So he was right about Kavanaugh hunting for him. The gangster was getting desperate.

  Peters went on. “That stool pigeon told us Kavanaugh went out west. That he is working in Los Angeles now.”