Читать книгу Plain Refuge - Janice Kay Johnson - Страница 11
Оглавление“THEY’RE AWFULLY BIG,” Matthew said, standing behind the board fence and well back from the row of Percheron horses.
Rebecca stroked the cheek of the nearest gelding, which whuffled a response that startled a giggle out of her, one that made her wince as her swollen cheek protested. “They’re friendly,” she said. “From birth, Onkel Samuel and cousin Mose groom them and feed them and pick up their feet, so they like being around people. Didn’t you see these four pulling a plow yesterday? That was part of their training, to work as a team. I think they will be ready for a new home soon.” The horse she was petting nudged her for more attention, and she added, “They can smell better than we can, so they know we have carrots.”
“They really like carrots?” her son said dubiously. He didn’t mind carrot sticks, but detested cooked carrots. His pickiness where food was concerned had already brought surprise from her family here, where children weren’t indulged in the same way they were in the outside world.
“A carrot is like a cookie to a horse,” Rebecca said firmly. “Watch.”
She broke off a chunk and held it on the palm of her hand. The horse she’d been petting promptly lipped it up and crunched with such enthusiasm that saliva and flecks of carrot flew.
Matthew laughed.
She had just persuaded him to feed a piece of carrot to another of the horses when she heard a car engine followed by the sound of tires crunching on gravel. There were innocent reasons for a car to be driving down this quiet road, even if the homes on it were all Amish owned, but she couldn’t control her spike of anxiety. She turned and saw the green-and-white SUV with a rack of lights on the roof slow and turn into the lane leading to her aunt and uncle’s home. It would pass right by her and Matthew. Rebecca had no doubt who the driver was.
Turning her back on the police car, she cupped Matthew’s hand and helped him hold it out. He squeaked in alarm when lips brushed his palm, then laughed in delight when the carrot vanished.
“It tickled!”
The police vehicle rolled to a stop right behind them. A door slammed, and she and Matthew both turned to face Daniel Byler, who strolled around the front bumper and joined them.
“These are beauties,” he said in a voice that was just a little gravelly. “Your uncle raises the handsomest draft horses I’ve ever seen.”
She smiled despite her tension. “Say that to him, and he would then tell you about three other Amish men he knows who raise horses just as fine. And he would also admonish you for admiring them for their looks, when it is strength and willingness and heart that truly matter.”
His chuckle was a little rough, too. “You’re right, he would. Although I have no doubt he is willing to discuss desirable conformation with buyers.”
“An entirely different thing from calling them beautiful,” she said, trying to repress another smile.
“Why shouldn’t they be beautiful?” Matt burst out. “Aren’t horses s’posed to be—”
“Sheriff Byler is teasing,” she said hastily, seeing his raised eyebrow. “And you know Onkel Samuel is right. These will be working horses. A horse pulling a plow could be mud brown and have a bump in the middle of his forehead and mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown—”
“Like that dog we saw!” he said excitedly.
“Yep.” Uh-oh. “Ja,” she said hastily. “Remember how funny-looking he was? But if the horse was strong and did the job, no one would mind how he looks.”
“Oh.” Matthew frowned, then nodded. “Can I have another carrot?”
The sheriff stayed at their side as they proffered, piece by piece, all the carrots they’d brought. Rebecca was very careful to guide their minimal conversation so that Matthew wouldn’t have a chance to say anything else so un-Amish.
Sheriff Byler offered them a ride up to the house, which she would have refused except for Matthew’s excitement. She held him on her lap in the front seat. The sheriff showed him how to turn on the siren and flashing lights.
Matthew reached out. “Can we...?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Think how it would frighten the horses.”
“Oh.” He subsided. “I guess it would.”
He was happy when a voice came over the radio. A deputy reported, using code that the sheriff translated, that he’d pulled over a motorist for speeding.
Byler’s mouth was tight, and she knew why. Speeding was always dangerous, and particularly on narrow country roads shared by horse-and-buggy travelers.
At the house, she opened the door and let Matthew out first. Already used to the dogs, he giggled to find them waiting. “Go tell Aenti Emma or Grossmammi that Sheriff Byler is here. I’m sure he would like coffee or one of those sticky buns I saw going in the oven.”
Accompanied by Onkel Samuel’s dogs, Matthew raced for the house while the sheriff laughed. “You know your aunt’s sticky buns are famous in these parts. She bakes enough so the café in Hadburg can sell them.”
“Ja,” Rebecca said, striving for the faint accent she heard in the speech of local Amish. “For sure, I know my cousin Sarah drove to town this morning to deliver some.”
Matthew had wanted to go, but Rebecca wasn’t ready to let him out of her sight. The plain clothing wasn’t enough of a disguise. His hair was too short to resemble a typical Amish boy’s bowl cut. His new, wide-brimmed straw hat didn’t hide his face the way a bonnet did hers, and that was when he managed to keep it on his head. And if he saw his father...
Who couldn’t possibly have found them yet, she kept reminding herself, for what good that did.
“You seem to move carefully,” the sheriff said, before she could leave him. “Are you healing?” Turning toward her, he laid his forearm casually on the steering wheel.
“Yes, I am mostly sore.”
“Mostly?”
Being this close to him unnerved her. She was too conscious of him in a short-sleeved uniform. His forearms were strong and tan, dusted with bronze hair tipped with gold. She could see the hint of darker stubble on an angular jaw and noticed the thick, short lashes and the wave in his hair. His eyes were a penetrating dark blue. To evade them, she lowered her gaze, which meant she was looking at powerful thighs. Damn it.
“I have bruises,” she admitted after a moment. “And two cracked ribs. They hurt the most.”
He frowned. “You shouldn’t lift your son.”
“My middle—” she laid a hand over her stomach “—is wrapped for protection. Of course I must pick him up.”
He made a grumbly sound she took for disagreement, but said, “What happened?”
Careful. “I stepped out in the street—” She cut herself off before she finished the sentence. The last thing she could admit was that she’d been about to get in her car. “I thought I had looked for traffic, but afterward I was confused, so I’m not sure. A car came fast and hit me. I think I was jumping out of the way, but it still lifted me in the air. I went over the hood and banged into a car coming the other way. That driver stopped to help me, but not the one who hit me.”
“A hit-and-run.”
“Ja, that’s what the police called it. No one saw the license plate, so there was not much they could do.”
As she had lain there waiting for an ambulance, she’d berated herself. She should have fled after the shooting. Instead, because Tim had sounded shocked about what had happened when she called him, she had given him a couple days to talk to “other people”—his vague reference. Make sure there was no repetition. Instead, he had called her back the next day to say tensely, “You’ve got to give those things back, Rebecca. You’ll be okay if you do. I swear.”
Not believing that for a second, she had packed and been ready to run as soon as she picked Matthew up at day care. That was where she’d been heading when she was hit.
This time, she hadn’t been surprised when her phone rang. The message conveyed was even shorter: “Ignoring my last call, not so smart. Lucky for us, you have a weakness.”
Matthew. Dear God. All she could think to do was take him and hide.
Now Sheriff Byler watched her in a way that made her suspect he knew there was more to her story, but he only said, “I’m surprised you chose to travel when you were hurt.”
“I wanted to go away,” she said simply—and truthfully. “Here it is quiet. Not so busy.”
“Where are you from?” he asked, as if making conversation. She knew better and had been prepared.
“Pennsylvania. There, we have so many tourists.” She shook her head. “I was scared every time I crossed a street or heard a car coming up behind my buggy.”
A twitch of his expressive eyebrows made her realize her mistake.
“You think I am not trusting in God.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I do in my head,” she explained, “but my heart still races and my hands shake.”
“Post-traumatic stress,” he said quietly.
She pretended to look puzzled.
“Your body reacts without waiting for permission from you. It takes time for that kind of response to go away.”
She shivered. “Ja.”
He laid a big hand over hers. “You’re cold.”
Her fingers curled into her palms and she quickly withdrew from him. “My hands and feet are always cold.”
A smile crinkled the skin beside his eyes. “Even in August here in Missouri? Teach me your trick.”
She wanted to laugh. Instead, she said shyly, “There is no trick. It’s fine in summer, not so good in winter.”
“No.” His gaze rested on her face a moment longer. Then he reached for his door handle. “We should go in. I see your uncle coming from the barn.”
Oh, heavens—everyone in the house was probably peeking out the window by now.
“Ja, you are right.” She leaped out faster than she ought to have and slammed the door. “I should have been helping to cook, not sitting here like a lump.”
Walking beside her, the sheriff said, “I suspect your family wants you to rest until you don’t hurt anymore before you dive into chores.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to listen to them. It is so kind of them to take us in.”
Another mistake—he must know that visiting was a favorite pastime for the Amish, who loved having family even for extended stays.
But Sheriff Byler only glanced sidelong at her before remarking, as if at random, “It occurs to me your last name isn’t Graber.”
Her mind stuttered in panic. She couldn’t admit to being divorced. The Amish didn’t divorce. Widowed. She would be widowed, except then she would have retained her husband’s last name. And she’d never heard of anyone among the Amish with a last name of Gregory.
Lie? But Matthew might give her away. Oh, no—if he ever told anyone his last name was Gregory, they were in trouble.
“I... No,” she said.
The front door opened just as Onkel Samuel reached them, his long strides eating up the ground. Amid the greetings, Rebecca was able to slip into the house and take Matthew to the bathroom to wash his hands. Heart still thudding, she realized how important it was that she avoid giving Sheriff Daniel Byler any more chances to corner her. She’d made too many slips already. He wasn’t Amish, of course, but she suspected he knew the citizens of his county well enough to notice anomalies in her speech or behavior. And he was too interested in her.
Once back in the kitchen, she took a seat at the far end of the farmhouse table, staying silent as her uncle talked with the sheriff about local happenings, including an upcoming street fair and auction in Hadburg to raise money for the volunteer fire department. She tensed, knowing everyone would go. People would comment if she and Matthew didn’t.
When Sheriff Byler finally rose to leave, her uncle politely standing to show him out, Rebecca only joined the others in murmuring “Goodbye.”
She nudged her son, who said, “I liked looking at your police car,” which was only polite. That was the moment when Rebecca realized in horror that they had been speaking in English the entire time. Of course they had been. But an Amish boy Matthew’s age shouldn’t be fluent in English.
Frantically trying to think of an excuse if the sheriff ever asked, Rebecca didn’t let herself meet those dark blue eyes, and she stayed seated until he was gone. Once she heard the engine, she let Matthew run outside.
Onkel Samuel came back to sit across the table from her. “Curious about you, he is.”
She nodded. “I think that’s why he came by this morning.”
“Ja, that is so.” Lines in his forehead deepened. “I didn’t tell you, but after you got off the bus, he asked about your face.”
Her aenti Emma and Grossmammi bustled in the background and didn’t contribute to the conversation.
“I knew he’d seen my bruises,” Rebecca said. “When we were sitting in his car, he asked how it happened. I made it sound like an accident, but told him the driver didn’t stop and the police hadn’t been able to find him.”
His face relaxed. “That is good. There was no need to lie.”
“No.” Onkel Samuel wouldn’t approve of lying, but... “He asked what my last name is. You greeted him then, so I didn’t have to answer, but what if he asks again?”
He pondered that. “Outsiders join us sometimes. Someone named Holt could be one of them.”
“Yes, but if he looked me up in his computers, he might find me. And Matthew’s name is different from mine, besides.” She hesitated. “I did lie to him. I said I had come from Pennsylvania.”
He frowned. “Perhaps we should tell him what you fear. Someone must set things right. I think he can be trusted.” Still, he sounded reluctant.
Inexplicably, the idea of confiding in Sheriff Byler was appealing...as was he. And that triggered a new kind of alarm. Being attracted to him was a really bad idea. Plus, a physical attraction was absolutely the wrong reason to trust him. She could easily imagine him being cocky enough to think he could solve her problems, and arrogant enough to do what he thought best without asking her first. And that was assuming he didn’t have more in common with Estevez than she wanted to believe.
“The fewer people who know I’m not Amish, the better,” she said slowly. “What if he tells a friend, or one of his officers, who tells someone else? So fast, everyone could know.”
“If you ask him to keep silent...”
“Why don’t we wait and see what happens?” she said. “He came out here and saw that I’m doing fine. He may have satisfied his curiosity.”
After a moment, he nodded. “Ja, that is so.”
Rebecca hesitated. “You don’t think I’m off in the head to think someone was trying to kill me?”
“Wu schmoke is, is aa feier,” he said without hesitation.
That much of the language she remembered: where there is smoke, there is fire.
“God asks us to trust in Him, but He does not say to be a fool,” her uncle added. “When a horse lifts a hoof and I see he will set it down on my toes, I move my foot schnell.”
“Denke,” she said, torn between humor and tears.
He only smiled and said, “I must get back to work.” Clapping his straw hat onto his head, he departed.
It took her a moment to collect herself enough to rise and say, “Let me wash those dishes, Aenti Emma.”
* * *
DANIEL DROVE AWAY from the Graber farm no more satisfied than before. He knew he didn’t have Rebecca’s whole story. She’d failed to offer her last name, which increased his suspicion that she was running from an abusive spouse.
He didn’t much like that explanation for several reasons. At the forefront was the danger to Rebecca and her kid. In his experience, domestic violence was like dynamite, volatile and deadly.
What was most puzzling was the rarity of an Amish woman fleeing from her husband. They were a peaceful people, committed to nonviolence. Domestic abuse existed among them, but forgiveness was so ingrained that women rarely gave up on a husband. Or perhaps it was more that the women knew how few alternatives they had. If the abuse was bad enough, she might go to her bishop, who would chide the husband, maybe going so far as counseling him and demanding he confess and beg forgiveness from the entire congregation. But for the wife to take her child and run... Daniel had never heard of such a thing.
Even as he brooded, Daniel noted how well the corn seemed to be coming on, thriving in the heat. Many local farmers would plant a second crop once the corn was harvested—soybeans had become a success in the difficult northern Missouri climate, but many of the Amish chose a cover crop like forage turnips, which provided good grazing for livestock and kept down weeds. Even the Amish moved with the times, just with more deliberation than their neighbors.
He wasn’t sure what more he could do to help Rebecca when she so clearly didn’t want his help. Daniel fully understood the stubborn refusal of the Amish to turn to outsiders. Samuel Graber was a capable man, and he had extended family in the county. Yet he was ill equipped to counter violence. The best he could do was slow down an intruder to give Rebecca and Matthew time to hide in the barn or the woods at the back of the property. Samuel would let himself be shot rather than strike a blow.
And that was where Daniel had collided with the Ordnung, the rules directing the people that had once been his.
No, his decision to go out in the world had been more complicated than that, as nearly every life-altering decision was, but he knew his father or mother would say sadly, “Daniel could not forgive.”
To them it was that simple.
He wished he thought any of the Grabers would call him if a dangerous man came seeking Rebecca.
* * *
“SLEEP TIGHT.” REBECCA kissed her son’s forehead and stood. She lifted the kerosene lamp to light her way back downstairs. Thank goodness Matthew had never been afraid of the dark.
“Mommy?” he whispered.
She paused and turned back.
“Can Daddy come see us here?” Matthew asked. “I bet he’d like the horses, too.”
He’d asked about his father when they first set out, but not since. After a moment, she returned to sit on the edge of his bed again. Smoothing his hair, she said, “You know how hard he works. He wouldn’t be able to get away for days and days. This is our adventure.”
“But...what about when it’s his weekend?”
His weekend had just come and gone. She didn’t like to think about how he’d reacted.
“We’ll make up for it later,” she said. “Just like we do if he has to travel for work and can’t be home for his weekend.”
Matthew was quiet. She knew he understood that much.
“I don’t know when we’ll go back,” she said softly. Or if. “Aren’t you having a good time?”
“Aenti Emma makes good cookies. And I liked fishing with Abram and his dad.”
Mose, the son who farmed alongside Samuel, had his own house and a growing family on the far side of the cornfield. In his thirties, he already had four children, the oldest almost eleven. Like Matthew, Abram was six.
“Only, Abram doesn’t talk that good.”
“That well. And Abram talks just fine, but he’s only starting to learn English. I actually thought he was doing pretty well with it for his age.”
“But how come he doesn’t speak English? Everyone does.”
So she explained again how the Amish people spoke their own language, and that children weren’t usually exposed to English until they began school at six years old. By the time they finished eighth grade, they would be able to speak two languages, which was more than you could say for the typical American student.
Matthew was quiet long enough that she hoped she could slip out, but then he said, “Abram wants me to go to school with him. He says Sarah will be his teacher.” He sounded astonished.
Rebecca smiled despite feeling a pang. When would she be able to have her own classroom again? She could hardly apply for jobs now. “It’s true. Cousin Sarah is a teacher. Just like teachers and kids at home, she has the summer off. She told me that tomorrow she is going to the schoolhouse to start preparing for the new school year. I offered to help her clean. You can come with us, if you’d like.”
“Can Abram come, too?” he asked, with eagerness that encouraged her.
“If his mamm and daad say he can. Now.” She made her voice firm. “Sleep, and no argument.”
“’Kay,” he murmured. “But you’ll come to bed real soon, too, won’t you?”
“I will.” Without electricity or television or smartphones, there was little temptation to stay up late. And on a farm, the work began early.
She kissed him once again and this time made her escape, taking old worries and new ones with her. What would she say if Matthew kept asking about his father? If he begged her to let him call Daddy? And how would he react when he found out he likely wouldn’t be in Mrs. Chisholm’s first-grade classroom this fall, but would instead be joining his cousin Abram and the other children in their church district in a one-room school?
He was young. He’d adapt.
But Rebecca knew she’d keep asking herself if this huge adjustment she expected of him was fair or even possible. And yet Tim had let her know he couldn’t protect her or Matthew. Her priority had to be keeping herself and Matthew safe. If Tim truly loved their son, if he felt even a shadow of affection for her, he would understand what she’d done.
How long would they have to stay in hiding? Right now, all she could do was check the internet for any news about Steven, Josh, Tim or the construction company when she could make it to the library in Hadburg. If she found no news about an arrest or closing of the investigation, at some point, she had to talk to Tim again.
But not yet.
