Finally she was close enough to call out. “Joel!”
The black mass thinned as one figure paused and turned. The others slumped along, unperturbed. Annie resolved to succeed at keeping her balance on the old bike and swung a leg over its seat. She forced the top pedal down and threw her slight weight into making it rotate.
Joel heard her, she was sure of it. He paused, after all, and looked back across the field at the sound of his name. But he had turned back to follow the others. Annie saw them disappear one by one, at random intervals, but because of the rise in the hill and the distance she could not see where. She pedaled yet harder—and tumbled to the ground. Splayed in the dirt with the bike three feet away, Annie gobbled air. When she managed to get upright again and assure herself that it did not hurt to move, Joel was out of sight.
Annie kicked the bike’s front tire and left it lying in the dirt. Then she muttered, “Humble, humble, humble.”
On foot, she scrambled to where she had last seen the boys. Without the eye-bending rise and fall of terrain, she saw now where they disappeared. A slight slope hid their final steps, but only one destination was possible.
A construction site. Or at least some kind of storage site.
It was fenced and surrounded by a tent of thick plastic. Annie sidestepped along the fence line looking for an interruption to the boundary, any place they might have slipped under a loose flap of plastic sheeting or squeezed around a post.
“Hey!”
The booming voice nearly stopped her heart. “What are you doing here?”
Annie expelled breath then allowed a measured amount of air back into her lungs as she turned around. She did not recognize the tall, deeply tanned man. “Just out enjoying the countryside.”
“This is a hard hat zone.” He knocked his knuckles against his own head covering. “And it’s private property.”
Annie raised her hands, palms out. “Not looking for trouble.”
Twenty
Hard Hat Guy gestured with one thumb that the conversation was over. He pointed Annie back the way she had come.
Annie smiled pleasantly. “Have a nice evening.”
She backtracked to where her bicycle had betrayed her and yanked it upright. Scanning the view once more, she saw for the first time the tracks of mashed weeds. Twenty feet away were the twin ruts trucks must have used. Following the boys earlier, she had descended the knoll at the wrong angle. The truck route would have been doable on the bike. She heard an engine catch and watched the man in the hard hat steer his truck onto the makeshift road and head in the other direction.
Good. The coast was clear. It took more than a guy in a hard hat to deter Annie Friesen.
On her bike again, Annie rode in the tracks down to the fenced area and around to the other side. If a construction site had a front, this was it. She approached and held still, certain that if the boys were inside she would hear them. Nothing. No shuffle. No murmur. A cat brushed her leg as it emerged through the fence. It shot off in a typical feline manner, but Annie figured the cat saved her some time looking for an opening. She laid her bike down and squatted to peer through the tear in the plastic sheeting.
Stacks of bricks. Bags of cement. Piles of lumber neatly arranged by size. Twin green wheelbarrows. Rolled rubber edging.
What was so secretive about that? Annie did not see what Carter might have been looking for, but other than some odd storage she did not see any sign of actual construction, either. She might have been strolling the aisles of a home improvement store. Relieved not to find anything more sinister, she straddled her bike again.
She still had Carter’s phone.
Rufus closed the trailer door behind him, having come to a fragile agreement with Karl Kramer. He would do everything he could to prove he meant what he said.
Next he would have to persuade a few more people that he had not lost the good sense God gave him. He untied Dolly, led her in a half circle to get turned around, and headed the cart toward home. He needed a good meal before the evening meeting.
Annie spotted Joel, perhaps a mile later, his lanky height in relief to his surroundings. He was on a footpath that ran parallel to the highway in stretches and disappeared at other times. This time she did not call his name. She just pedaled harder.
He was alone when she reached him and cut him off by riding just past him, then bringing the bicycle to an abrupt halt in his path.
He met her eyes but said nothing.
“I know you heard me.” Annie planted her feet on either side of the bike and removed her helmet.
“I wasn’t sure you were calling me,” he mumbled.
Yes, he was. Annie let it pass. “Where is everyone else?”
“Heading home for supper, I guess. Carter and Duncan have homework.”
“And Mark and Luke?” Why wouldn’t the Stutzman boys be with Joel if they were all returning to the Beiler home for the evening meal?
“Not sure. I think they went to find their daed for a ride. I decided to walk.”
At that rate, he would be late for supper again. Annie reminded herself she was not his mother. Joel was seventeen. He knew what he was choosing.
“What were you all doing at that storage site?”
“We weren’t.” Joel answered quickly. “It’s just a shortcut.”
That was the longest shortcut to nowhere Annie had ever seen.
She pulled Carter’s phone from her back pocket. “Carter picked up the wrong phone.”
“No wonder it wasn’t ringing constantly.” Joel put out an open hand. “I’ll get yours back for you.”
Annie swung her arm back, moving the phone beyond Joel’s reach. “That’s all right. I’ll hang on to this one for now. I know how your father feels about having cell phones in the house.”
She watched him, looking for a sign that he knew what was on the phone. The wobble in Joel’s nod was unconvincing.
“By now Carter has probably figured out the mistake,” Joel said. “I’m sure he’ll want to trade back as soon as he can.”
“No doubt. He can come by the shop.”
Joel scuffed a step away from Annie. “I should probably get going.”
Annie did not move. “What’s going on, Joel?”
“Excuse me?”
Joel did not have the same wide violet-blue eyes several of his siblings had. His were brown. Annie never could read brown eyes. She stared into them and found no hint of anything amiss, but she did not believe it.
“How is Carter getting along these days?”
Joel spread his feet and stood solid. “The English make everything so complicated.”
Who was he talking about?
“Joel, I looked at Carter’s phone. At his Internet history. I saw what he was looking up.”
“Carter is always looking at his phone. He sends texts and plays games. I don’t pay attention.”
“So you don’t know what he was looking up today?”
He moved to get around her. Annie let the bike roll forward to block him again, relieved that he was reluctant to lie outright.
“Joel,” Annie said, “if Carter’s in trouble, you want to help him, don’t you?”
“Carter is just English. They don’t know how to let things be.” Again with the doublespeak about the English.
“I think you know what’s on his phone.”
“You make too much of it.”
“Do I?”
Brown eyes or not, Annie was ready to stare down Joel.
Rufus slowed the cart, looking for a safe place to pull over and be out of traffic. His tug on the reins halted Dolly.
“Joel!”
Joel and Annalise both answered his call with their glances. Though Joel was on foot and Annalise had her bicycle, Rufus suspected he had interrupted more than a random encounter between friends.
“Joel, Mamm was looking for you. She’ll be wondering where you were. I’ll take you home.”
“She does not have to worry about me.” J
oel gripped the side of the cart’s seat and prepared to heft himself up.
“It’s a matter of simple respect to tell her if you need to leave the farm.”
“I’m not a child, Rufus.”
Rufus turned away from his sulking brother and took in the sight of Annalise. Dirt smudges on her jeans. The gray sweatshirt, unzipped, falling off one shoulder. A haphazard elastic band slipping out of her hair. Disheveled. Annalise at her best, in Rufus’s opinion. “You look like you could use a ride home.”
Annalise sat on the bike, her hands gripping the handlebars, one foot on a pedal, the other ready to push off. “I’ll be fine.”
She always said that. So independent.
“It will only take me a few minutes to ride a couple of miles,” Annalise said. “You should take Joel home.”
She would manage, Rufus knew. And it was better if he did not imply that she needed his help. Still, he wished he had time to take her home.
“Are you going to the town meeting tonight?” Annalise asked.
“Yes.” Rufus perked up. “And you?”
She nodded. “At the elementary school, right?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Then I’ll see you there.” Annalise smiled.
“I’m sorry we did not have our walk, Annalise.”
“There will be other days.”
Joel swung himself into the seat. “We’d better go or we’ll both be late for supper.”
Rufus turned back to Annalise. “May I pick you up for the meeting this evening?”
Her eyes flickered bright. “That would be lovely.”
Again, she glanced at Joel. Rufus followed her eyes. What was going on between those two?
“Then I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” Rufus said.
Annalise nodded and shoved off. Rufus watched her pedal in the opposite direction; then he nudged Dolly forward.
“Joel,” he said, “is there something going on that I should know about?”
“Just drive.”
Twenty-One
After supper, Rufus took Dolly down Main Street pulling a buggy, rather than the nimble cart he used for daytime errands. With the sun gone down, the temperature dropped, and the buggy was warmer and dryer. Rufus wanted Annalise to be comfortable, even though the ride to the elementary school was only a mile from her home.
He turned left off Main Street a block early, made two right turns, and pulled up in front of Annalise’s narrow house aimed back toward Main Street. Her head bobbed in the front window just before she pulled the curtain closed and put out the light. A moment later, she locked the front door behind her and followed the path of concrete stepping-stones, hardly more than rubble, that led to the street. More than once Rufus had offered to clear the crumbling steps and pour Annalise a new walkway. So far she refused. She had fallen once over the winter, but even then she insisted that a new walkway would ice over just as easily as the old one.
Rufus dropped from the bench at the front of the buggy and offered a hand to Annalise. He was never sure if she would accept his assistance or walk past him to heave herself up into the buggy.
Tonight she accepted, and he squeezed her hand slightly in the process. Her dress was not Amish, but she wore a modest dark skirt and sweater rather than jeans. She had gotten pretty good at braiding her hair and pinning it close to her head. He liked her hair down, but of course he would not tell her that.
“I was surprised to find you with Joel,” Rufus said once they were moving.
“He was there on the path when I came along on my bicycle.”
She flashed him a smile, yet it disappointed him. He knew her smiles. This one said, I’m not going to talk about that.
“He should have been at home.” Rufus let the sway of the buggy nudge his shoulder into Annalise’s.
“So I gathered.” Annalise was watching the road, turning her head in both directions at the corner.
She still had the instincts of an automobile driver, Rufus thought. He did not suppose anyone ever unlearned how to drive. She had not said anything for weeks now about learning to drive a buggy. He waited for three cars to pass before giving Dolly rein to turn left onto Main Street and follow the way to the school.
“Daed is becoming impatient with Joel,” Rufus said. “My brother Daniel used to do the same thing—disappear for hours and see no wrong in it as long as his work was done.”
“Daniel straightened out, didn’t he?”
“Only because Martha Glick came along. Daniel was smitten hard, and she does not put up with nonsense.”
Annalise laughed. Something at the center of Rufus melted every time a lilt escaped her lips. Daniel was not the only Beiler brother to be smitten. But Martha was Amish. The solution had been simple. Daniel and Martha shared a faith and a community that included their families. Annalise’s choice would be more complicated.
“I am afraid Daed will not be so patient this time,” Rufus said. “Joel needs to think about his choices more seriously.”
She did not answer. He wondered again what she knew.
They reached the school. Rufus steered Dolly to the edge of the parking lot where she would be out of the way.
“Looks like a good turnout for the meeting.” Annalise accepted his assistance down from the buggy.
His was the only buggy, though. Not many Amish men would leave their farms and families for a town meeting, especially in the evening. His own father did not. Still, Rufus had hoped some would come.
Inside the school gym, a few rows of plastic chairs beckoned. Rufus and Annalise sat together. It was an odd sensation to be next to her in a group of people. In church, the most he could hope for was a glimpse of her among the women, across the wide rooms of hosts’ homes. Rufus estimated about forty English had come— and thirty-five of them were speaking into cell phones, reading cell phone screens, closing cell phones, putting away cell phones.
Annalise used to be like that. He doubted she even had her cell phone with her tonight. People could change. Rufus liked to think so, at least in Annalise’s case.
Tom Reynolds stood behind a table at the front of a group of chairs and cleared his throat heavily.
“Thank you all for coming,” Tom said as the thin crowd settled. “As you know, this is not an official town meeting. It’s just a conversation. A few of us have had some ideas for a project, and it seemed wise to invite others into the discussion. If you wish to speak, just raise your hand and I will call on you one at a time.”
Tom scanned the gathering as heads nodded then recapped the idea for creating a recreation area on acreage the town owned. “The likelihood is the town council will make the project official, provided the community is willing to help. The project is outside the town’s budget, though, so funding will be minimal. If the idea does come to fruition, it will be because the community makes it happen.”
Rufus glanced at Annalise. She seemed to be listening intently. He wished they had sat farther back. He could not tell who might have come in late and sat down behind him.
Karl Kramer, for instance.
As soon as Tom Reynolds invited comments, Mo was up on her feet and standing in the aisle.
“We must have strong leadership,” she said. “Someone who knows what he’s doing. Someone who has the right skills for the sort of project we’re undertaking. I propose that we ask Rufus Beiler to head it up.”
Murmurs rose, and feet shuffled, but Mo held up a settling hand. “I know some of you are still unsure about the Amish in our community, but you all know Rufus Beiler. He does excellent work. You could trust him with your life.” She turned to nod at Rufus.
“Why aren’t any of the other Amish here?” someone asked. “If they are not going to support this, why should we put one of them in charge?”
Rufus winced.
“Tell them.” Annalise elbowed him, whispering. “Explain how the Amish stay home with their families in the evening.”
He shook his head.
; Mo was still in the aisle. “You can’t ask for a more dependable man than Rufus Beiler.” She pointed around the gathering. “I know some of you have hired him to build your cabinets and to make furniture. When he accepts a project, he commits to excellence.”
“Too bad you’re not running for president.” Annalise covered her mouth to hide her grin.
“Perhaps we should hear what Rufus has to say,” someone suggested.
It was as if a wind blew through the place and turned every head toward Rufus.
He stood slowly, his hands on the back of the empty chair in front of him. “I suspected something like this might come up.” He paused. “I recommend we include Karl Kramer in leading this project.”
Annie heard the collective gasp.
“Karl Kramer!” Mo put both her fists on her hips. “You can’t be serious. Karl Kramer would be the first person to wish the Amish would disappear from Westcliffe and all of Custer County.”
“I did not say it would be without challenge.” Rufus’s fingers drummed the chair’s back.
“He tried to kill you last year,” Mo said. “If Tom hadn’t found you on that construction site, you might have bled to death.”
“We don’t know that Karl was responsible for that.”
“The police dropped the investigation because you would not press charges.”
“The past is the past,” Rufus said. “I bear no grudge toward Mr. Kramer. I think we both have seen there is work enough in this valley for the two of us—and others. I have already spoken with Mr. Kramer, and he has agreed to be coleaders.”
“You and Karl Kramer?” Tom Reynolds’s voice quivered in confusion. “You are proposing that you and Karl would work together?”
“I am.”
IN PLAIN View Page 13