IN PLAIN View

by Olivia Newport

  “We’ve never had three English cars here before,” Jacob observed. “Maybe it’s a new world record for an Amish family. But it would be against Ordnung to be proud of it.” He slid into a seat across from Myra and asked her, “Is one of those cars yours?”

  “Yes,” Myra said, “the silver sedan.”

  “Mr. Reynolds drives the red truck, right?” Jacob kicked a table leg in rhythmic repetition.

  Sophie put a hand on his shoulder—a little tightly, Annie thought.

  “Don’t ask so many questions, Jacob,” Sophie said. “And stop kicking the table.”

  “Sophie,” Annie said, “would you mind making this pot of coffee for my parents? I’ll take Jacob out to check on the chickens and see if we can get the wigglies out.”

  “Certainly.” Sophie moved swiftly to the stove and lit it.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Annie assured her parents.

  Out on the back porch, Annie gulped air. Too much was happening that she could not control.

  Rufus listened patiently and managed to mollify Mo with the promise that they would speak again after he had been to visit Karl. With that assurance, she got behind the wheel of her dated green Chevy sedan and negotiated her way back to the road.

  That left Rufus looking at Eli, Franey, Joel, Tom, and Carter.

  “I smell coffee,” he said. “Perhaps we should all have some.”

  “Good idea,” Franey said. “I’ll get it.”

  “I’ll do it, Mamm. Just sit and relax.”

  He believed Carter’s naiveté. Giving him a cell phone was meant to make his parents feel more secure while they gave him more independence. Rufus doubted Carter would have thought to research bomb making if not prodded by someone else.

  In the kitchen, he found Sophie sitting quietly with Myra and Brad Friesen, who were both drinking coffee.

  “Where has Annalise gone?” he asked after greeting them.

  “Out with Jacob,” Sophie supplied. “He was not going to quit asking questions. I suppose she could see I’d had my fill of him for one afternoon. Mr. and Mrs. Friesen have told me a little of what has been going on here.”

  “It’s been quite an afternoon,” Rufus said. “Sophie, if I could prevail on you to take the coffeepot out to the living room, I’d like to talk to Annalise’s parents.”

  Rufus invited the Friesens to walk with him away from the house, away from the commotion. They walked across the open yard behind the Beiler home, and he led them on the wide path that meandered from the house and would eventually come out at the big rock. He did not plan to take them that far, though. There was no need to heighten their anxiety by taking them to the place where they all might have lost Annalise.

  “I’m grateful to have a few minutes to spend with you,” Rufus said. “I wanted to speak to you about Annalise.”

  “Yes?” Myra’s response was guarded, perhaps even suspicious.

  “I know her choices have seemed odd to you.” Rufus chuckled. “They seem odd to me, too.”

  “I hope you are not pressuring her in any way.” Myra batted at a dangling branch.

  “I assure you I am not.”

  “She seems fond of you,” Brad observed.

  “I hope so. I am fond of her.” Genuinely. Deeply.

  “If she changes her whole life for you, and you reject her, how will she ever get over that?” Myra’s tone splintered.

  “I don’t want to hurt Annalise.” Rufus stopped on the path and turned to Brad and Myra. “I don’t want her to change for me. I haven’t asked her to do that. Please believe me.”

  “So you are going to reject her!”

  “No, I—” Rufus began to respond, but Brad interrupted him.

  “No, Myra, you’ve got it wrong.” Brad fixed his gaze on Rufus. “This young man loves our daughter enough to stay out of the way of her choice. It’s the only way she can be sure. Have I got that right?”

  Rufus nodded.

  “So she’s not getting baptized because of you?” Myra asked.

  Rufus swallowed hard. “I had not heard that she was getting baptized at all.”

  “We just found out ourselves,” Brad said softly. “She’s going to start the classes.”

  Annalise was planning for baptism? Rufus’s heart beat faster as he smoothly turned the trio around and headed back toward the house. “The classes will be an opportunity to ask questions. It will be good for Annalise to listen to the answers.”

  “I don’t want her to feel pressured,” Myra said.

  “Myra,” Brad said, “have you ever known our daughter to do something she did not willingly set her mind to?”

  Myra grunted. “No. She has always been headstrong.”

  Brad extended a hand, and Rufus shook it. “Rufus, I’m beginning to understand what Annalise sees in you. There is much to admire. If you two decide you have a future, I know you will have her best interest at heart.”

  Annie stood outside the chicken coop while Jacob sprinkled feed around and giggled at the hens that pecked the ground in response to his gift.

  She blinked twice when she saw her parents and Rufus emerge from the path in the back. Her stomach clenched at the thought of the three of them together without her.

  “Will I get to talk to your mamm and daed?” Jacob threw another handful of feed.

  “I hope so. I know they would like you.”

  Annie looked again at Rufus and her parents. This time, she saw peace in her father’s face, and the weight of anxiety was gone from her mother’s posture.

  “Jacob,” she said. “How would you like to talk to my parents right now?”

  Forty-Two

  Only once had Rufus been to Karl Kramer’s office in the construction trailer that had been at the same location for at least five years. Twice Rufus visited Karl in the hospital. And now, after a quiet observance of the Sabbath the day before, he was on Karl’s personal property for the first time in a rural area outside of Westcliffe. Rufus did not know Karl kept horses. When he saw them on Monday morning, he made Tom stop the truck so he could get out for a closer look. At least a dozen nosed around in the field before him, and he supposed more grazed in the pasture beyond his view.

  “I wonder if Karl has ever thought about selling horses to the Amish.” Rufus leaned on the top rail of the fence.

  “It’s a hobby, I think.” Tom sat in his truck with the door open.

  “I had no idea. It could be a profitable hobby. If Karl weren’t so busy resenting us, he would see the opportunity under his own nose.” Rufus paused. “I’m sorry. That was unkind.”

  “You’re certainly doing your part to close the gap. Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  Inside the house a few minutes later, Karl was alone. After admitting them reluctantly, he moved with some care, but Rufus was encouraged to find him mobile and using his hands. They sat in a large central room, and Rufus told the story that had unfolded on Saturday.

  “You’re telling me we know exactly who is responsible for this?” Karl’s face reddened under the healing burns. The set of his jaw made Rufus’s stomach sink.

  “We are telling you what the boys said,” Rufus said.

  Karl jammed a finger in the air toward Tom. “And your boy was in the middle of this?”

  Rufus put his elbows on his knees and leaned toward Karl. “Carter did not understand everything that was happening.”

  Karl thrust his finger toward Rufus now. “If you’re telling the truth, it’s the Amish boys who knew what they were doing.”

  “Although they failed in their goal, yes, they seemed to have the best understanding of the science and math necessary.” Rufus paused. “We’re here today to ask your forgiveness.”

  “Forgiveness!”

  Rufus nodded and glanced at Tom. “I’m sure the parents will want the boys to make their own apologies as well.”

  “Forgive this?” Karl held his arms out in front of him, burns still healing under dressings. “You can’t be
serious.”

  Annie twisted her lips to one side in thought. On a sheet of notebook paper on her dining room table, she wrote down all the facts that had emerged from two days before. Then she numbered them and rewrote the list in a way that accounted for events in the order in which they must have occurred. Next to each event, she jotted the initials of the boys involved at each stage.

  In all the commotion, Luke Stutzman had raised a curious question. Why did Karl Kramer store construction and landscaping supplies so far from his office or the areas where he was actively building? Annie’s experience with construction was limited, but it seemed to her that the collection was more systematic than left over.

  Annie chewed on the top of her pen now. On another sheet of paper, she began to sketch what she remembered from her surreptitious visits. Neat rows of fence posts, cement bricks, carpet rolls, unopened five-gallon paint cans, tubs of grout, a stainless steel double kitchen sink, pallets of bricks, bags of cement, landscape edging.

  Black market? she wrote. But that made no sense, given what was there.

  Skimmed? Quite possibly.

  Stolen? Annie circled this word. It would be just like Karl Kramer to steal from other contractors if he thought they were cutting in on his business. After all, last summer Karl arranged for someone to knock Rufus unconscious and then mutilated brand- new cabinetry Rufus was about to install.

  “He’s still up to his old tricks,” she said aloud as she threw down her pen.

  The sympathy she had been feeling for Karl Kramer over the last week dissipated in an instant. Maybe he got What he deserved after all. But what would happen to all the stolen goods now? Karl Kramer could still get away with his shenanigans.

  Annie went upstairs and put on running shoes. What would she do for exercise, she wondered, when she adopted Amish dress all the time and could no longer wear running shorts and tennis shoes?

  Rufus doubted it could be good for Karl to be this worked up. Perhaps they should have made sure a visiting nurse would be in the house when they brought this news to Karl. Rufus had heard that someone came every other day to check on Karl, and that his ex-wife even stopped by to help change dressings.

  Karl winced in pain as he spread his fingers in haste. “I want the names of all those boys. Don’t even think about trying to protect any of them.”

  “We don’t seek protection,” Rufus said. “The boys know what they did was wrong.”

  “Even Carter understands he got mixed up in something he shouldn’t have,” Tom added.

  “Write down their names, and the names of their parents. This will be a matter for the sheriff ’s office. I intend to pursue the case to the fullest extent of the law.”

  “Of course that is your prerogative,” Tom said. “We have not hidden this from the sheriff. Rufus and I spoke to him Saturday night and again this morning.”

  “Then why hasn’t he arrested the whole lot?” Karl demanded.

  “The boys say they never meant to hurt anyone. That part was accidental, and frightened them into silence. The real point is that the sheriff has very little physical evidence.”

  “He has their confessions!”

  “He is making a point to talk to all the boys today to take their statements,” Tom said. “But he told us this morning that his officers did not get any useful footprints or tire tracks from the scene. Of course there are no fingerprints.”

  “Get to the point, Tom,” Karl barked.

  Tom raised a shoulder and squeezed it against his neck. “He’s not sure he could make a case.”

  “That’s up to the district attorney’s office.”

  “Of course it is. But the court will appoint a separate attorney for each boy,” Tom said. “The lawyers will jump on the lack of physical evidence and the contradictory statements from the boys about who was doing what. the confessions likely will be thrown out as coerced.”

  “Since when did you take up the practice of law?”

  “I’m just telling you what the sheriff said.”

  “The sheriff is not the district attorney.” Karl glowered across the room. “Why are you really here?”

  Rufus glanced at Tom. “For just what we said—forgiveness.”

  Annie’s run took her to the edge of a field where a tent of plastic sheeting sheltered assorted contractor supplies. From the cover of trees, Annie watched a pickup truck back up to the shelter. The driver got out, released the tailgate, and began unloading.

  Annie crept closer while he had his back turned, ducking behind a set of boulders. The man wore a hard hat, and Annie recognized his bulk. He was the same man she encountered the day she discovered this stash. She had gotten past him that day, and she would get past him again.

  Better yet, she would not even try to get past him. No doubt he was a wealth of valuable information if she could pry it out of him. Annie retraced her steps into the trees, mussed her hair a bit more, and set off at a controlled jog. She cut right across the field and came to a stop at the back of the truck. Her breathing sounded heavier than it really was.

  “Hello!” she called to the man. Close up, she could see he was transferring one-hundred-pound bags of sand as easily as if they were paper plates stacked and ready for the trash.

  He paused and examined her. “I told you before to stay away from here.”

  “I know. But when I run past here I can’t help being curious about what it is. Kind of a strange place to stockpile supplies, if you ask me.”

  “Who asked you?”

  “Well, no one. Good point. I guess I just have natural curiosity.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat.” He resumed moving sandbags.

  Annie determined to smile. “I hear all this stuff belongs to Kramer Construction.”

  “Not exactly.” The man’s rhythm of moving sandbags remained steady.

  Aha! It was stolen! “That’s just what people say,” she said.

  “People should mind their own business.”

  “Still, it’s a curious thing.”

  “Lady, do you have a direct question you’re festering to ask?”

  “Would you answer a direct question?”

  “Don’t think that counts as direct.”

  Annie pressed her lips together. She would only have one chance to ask the right question.

  Her phone sang a song, making her jump. She had promised her mother she would leave it on for a few days so her parents could reach her. This was a local number, though. She turned her back to Hard Hat Guy to answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Annie, it’s Tom Reynolds. I just wanted to apologize one more time for what Carter did. He should never have kept your phone.”

  “I know. And I think he knows. Apology accepted.” She glanced over her shoulder at Hard Hat Guy. The truck bed was empty, and he slammed the tailgate closed.

  “I’ll make sure he makes restitution.”

  “Thanks, Tom. I believe Carter got in over his head. I’m sure I can work through it with him.” Hard Hat Guy disappeared within the plastic sheeting, taking one sandbag with him.

  “Still, he needs to learn that his bad judgment has consequences. Karl is not about to let him off the hook.”

  “Are you out at Karl’s now?”

  “In my truck. Rufus is still inside. I think he hoped to make one last plea for mercy.”

  “I’d like to talk more later, Tom, if that’s all right.”

  “Sure. We’ll be talking a lot, I suppose.”

  Annie clicked the phone closed and turned around. Hard Hat Guy was nowhere in sight. She stepped toward the opening where he must have gone in. With her hand pushing back the plastic sheeting, she glanced back over her shoulder. Whatever she did, she would have to explain her choice to Rufus. She was pretty sure she knew what he would say. And it would not be good.

  “They are young boys,” Rufus said.

  “Young men,” Karl countered. “Among your people, practically grown, as I understand it.”

  “Among o
ur people we seek forgiveness whenever we can. And our way is not to withhold it. Our Ordnung commands us to forgive.”

  “Don’t try to convert me, Rufus.”

  “Of course not. But your forgiveness would free the boys to make honest restitution, rather than merely be punished.”

  When Karl did not retort immediately, Rufus held his breath.

  “What do you have in mind?” Karl finally asked.

  “They will apologize to you, of course. In person. Then they can work extra hours on the project. We can teach them something of what it means to be a man by owning up to their responsibilities.”

  Karl grunted. Rufus waited.

  “So you still want to move forward?” Karl asked. “Together?”

  “Of course. Are you willing?”

  Forty-Three

  June 1778

  David burst into the barn. “It’s over!”

  Maria jumped from the stool where she was milking a cow. In the hayloft above her, Jacob pitched down a load then stilled his movement.

  “When did you get back?” Jacob asked his brother.

  “Just now.” David drew his arm across his forehead, wiping a stripe through the grime that darkened his complexion.

  “How close did you get to the city limits?”

  “I was practically across. But I had delivered the last of my load. It would have looked odd to go in with an empty wagon. The merchants in the city have nothing to sell me.”

  “Could you really have gone in?” Maria asked.

  “The Brits don’t seem to care. General Howe resigned his command. Clinton’s in charge and has his eye on New York. No one cares about Philadelphia.”

  Maria knocked over the stool in her hurry to get out of the stall. The cow mooed.

  “You can’t leave the cow half-milked,” Jacob said. “Finish what you’re doing, Maria.”

  “I have to go to Philadelphia.” Maria righted the stool but did not sit down.

  “Are you sure it’s not a ruse?” Jacob jammed his pitchfork into the hay and threw down another load. “They could be trying to catch the Patriots off guard and trap them in Philadelphia.”