Читать книгу Blood of the Prodigal - P. L. Gaus - Страница 14

3

Thursday, June 18

11:30 A.M.

A MILE or so south of Millersburg, in the wooded hill country sheltering the largest Amish settlements of Ohio, Cal Troyer eased his truck over the berm onto an isolated lane and dropped into a hidden glade near a long forgotten farm pond. Tranquil glens tucked away in nearly every corner of Holmes County hold spectacular bass ponds, made available to only a select few, and those few almost exclusively Amish. This particular pond, stocked years ago with fingerlings, had been fished by only Pastor Caleb Troyer and Professor Michael Branden.

They had acquired the privilege while working for a farmer who could not otherwise have paid them. “Working a case,” as the professor’s wife Caroline liked to tease. It had concerned a chemical problem with fertilizers used on a nearby English farm, plus runoff disputes, and the EPA. Children had taken sick. Farmers in the valley had been blamed. The EPA, it developed, had been wrong, at the cost of several livelihoods.

The bass pond had been Branden’s idea. He and Cal Troyer would accept no fees. But, in return for their help, they would fish the pond for life. The land would never be sold without provision for this.

Cal dropped the truck into low and chuckled, thinking it no surprise to find Mike Branden fishing here, today, working the far edges of the pond with a spinner bait. Troyer parked in tall weeds at the tree line, eased himself out of his rusty truck, and leaned back against the hood, watching, his short arms folded across his chest. His thoughts drifted to the first summer they had spent here, and his eyes turned up to the dilapidated farm house on the hill.

Branden cast into the shallows at the opposite edge of the pond and retrieved the spinner quickly, churning its blade just beneath the surface. At a point where the color suggested deeper water, a surge erupted under the spinner, and the bait jerked sideways under the impact of a strike. He played the bass on his arching rod, brought it steadily to him, lipped it with his thumb and forefinger, and held it up for Troyer, who acknowledged it with a wave, as Branden extracted the hook with a quick twist and tossed the fish back into the pond.

As Cal watched, Branden worked around the pond toward him, casting into each irregularity at the bank. He cast over weeds, tree roots, and stumps, the sport completely absorbing him. Here, nothing of Branden’s academic life could reach into his mind. Neither the petty politics of academia nor the inflated egos of his colleagues. No pressure from the administration for speeches to rich alumni groups. No endowment headaches. No urgent phone calls from the dean. No manuscripts to review. No campus mail. No committees.

Today, he had nearly managed to forget the Federal Express envelope that lay unopened on his desk. A phone call yesterday from a southern university had prepared him. He was to be offered an endowed chair in the history department. Prestige and money he’d never known. Reduced classroom duties. “An escape from the small college arena” was how they had worded it. Now Branden wondered if he was obliged even to open the envelope.

To open it would, perhaps, prove altogether too complicated. Caroline was strong again. They had buried two children, now, each miscarried without warning, and he and Caroline had sunk their roots deep into Millersburg during their grieving. People like Cal Troyer and Sheriff Bruce Robertson, both childhood friends of Branden, had helped them carry their burden of sorrow and loss, and slowly the void in their lives had filled somewhat, and healed over. So the question for him wasn’t about prestige and money, anymore. At one time it might have been. Not now. Still the offer lay on his desk, and sooner or later Caroline would hear of it. Then the question would be, would it matter to her?

Branden glanced with a smile across the small pond at Cal Troyer. Branden knew that Cal would have his gear out soon. But not too soon. First Cal’d simply watch. See how they were hitting. Then, when he was ready, he’d have a go. They had fished summers together since they were boys, and, over the years, they had developed an abiding competition. Biggest bass. Most bass. First bass. Last bass. In this, at middle age, they were still precious little more than boys.

How long till Cal noticed that the strikes were falling short today, Branden wondered. Short strikes that hit only the trailing skirts of his lures. The first hour had brought him no luck. Then he had solved the puzzle. The bass were on an early spawn and striking territorially, not feeding. So he had trimmed the skirts back, added a stinger hook, and scored half a dozen in as many minutes. As he worked toward Cal, he bagged two more and released them.

At the pastor’s truck, Branden leaned against the hood next to Cal. “I thought maybe you weren’t coming,” Branden said.

“Just held up, is all,” Cal replied. He studied Branden’s lure with unconvincing disinterest, saw the trimmed skirt, tapped the hemostat clamped to Branden’s vest, and asked, “Short strikes?” as if it’d be obvious to anyone.

“Not at all,” Branden said. Then he shrugged a smile and ambled over to the water.

Troyer followed.

“You’re not fishing, yet,” Branden offered. “I know you too well, Cal. Something’s on your mind.”

Troyer picked up a stone from among the tall weeds that had overgrown the lane next to the pond. He tossed it absently into the water and answered, “It’s a missing child.”

“How old?”

“Ten.”

“How long?”

“About a month.”

Branden wound slack line onto his reel. He thought for a moment and then said, “Police aren’t involved?”

“It’s Old Order Amish,” Cal said. “Bishop Eli Miller. One of the strictest in Holmes County, though his sect isn’t the most backward in the county. His grandson has turned up missing. He knows who has the boy, just doesn’t know where. He wants to meet you.”

“How would he know anything about me?”

“I reckon word gets around.”

“I reckon you’ll have told him something.”

“Told him you’re a mostly harmless, absent-minded professor who has little better to do in summers than wet an occasional line.”

“He’ll think me a shirker,” Branden complained with a laugh.

“He did say something about idle hands doing the devil’s work. So I told him of the various people you’ve helped over the years.”

“We’ve helped.”

“All right, we’ve helped. I could have told him more, but he seemed satisfied.”

“I’m supposed to have used my summers to think deep thoughts, write papers, attend conferences, that sort of thing,” Branden offered. Then he grinned, held up his pole, and said, “Tenure does have its benefits.”

“I leave Tuesday for the missions conference. I can help you get started locally, but that’s about it.” Cal shrugged and smiled apologetically.

“A missing Amish boy?” Branden asked.

“Kidnapped, essentially.”

“Old Order?”

“Moderate Old Order. Weaver branch. One of the strictest bishops.”

Branden’s gaze drifted to the long-deserted farmhouse on the hill. Gutters sagging, paint chipped, shutters fallen down. “Remember the summer we worked here, Cal?”

Cal nodded silently.

“That case was also tangled up with the Old Order.”

Cal held his silence, waited.

Branden mulled it over. After a few minutes, he asked, “And I’m to talk with the bishop?”

Cal nodded. “He’ll be at Becks Mills. At the general store in the Doughty Valley, about an hour from now. I’m to bring you there, and then he’ll want you to ride with him a spell. He said something cryptic like ‘in a month, none of this will matter,’ so we’ve only got that much time to find the boy. But, still, the bishop will want to take some time to get to know you, sound you out. It may take a day or two, I don’t know. He explained the whole thing to me as if time was short, but I gather he’s already sat on his hands a good while, as it is.”

Branden thought about that while toying absently with the line on his pole.

Cal explained a little further. “Look, Mike. We’ve known it was like this with the Old Order since we were kids. It’s just the Amish, that’s all. He came to me, but he’ll accept you. And you know it’s flat-out amazing that he’s come into town to ask for anyone’s help. So I imagine there’s more to this case than he’s told me. It’ll take time before he trusts us enough to bring us all the way in. For now, we’re going to have to handle this the Amish way. Say little. Listen a lot.”

“And what’ll you do while I clatter around in his buggy?”

Cal reached down to Branden’s lure, lifted it on the tips of two short fingers, noted where the skirt had been cut, and then grinned and helped himself to the hemostat clipped to Branden’s fishing vest.