Читать книгу Blood of the Prodigal - P. L. Gaus - Страница 15

4

Thursday, June 18

1:00 P.M.

BRANDEN rode with the bishop on the plain buckboard seat of the buggy, through the remotest Amish valleys of Holmes County. From Becks Mills, they took a circuitous route out onto 83, north to Township Road 122, dropped through Panther Valley, and traveled south on Route 58. Where 58 broke into the Doughty Valley, they crossed Mullet Run and followed Route 19 over the Doughty Creek itself. From there, they continued south and west and eventually wandered into the farms of the bishop’s district. They rolled slowly past luxuriant farms and ramshackle affairs, what the bishop called kutslich, sloppy, ill-tended. There were tall, splendid farmhouses, with no electric service. Immense bank barns and long runs of wooden fence. Pastures and fields of barley, oats, and corn. Small bridges over rain-swollen streams. Manure spreaders with their distinctive aromas. Children at play under clotheslines, with their fluttering splashes of rich Amish blues, greens, and rose. And everywhere tall windmills, Belgians hitched to slow and ponderous wagons, and light buggies pulled by spirited horses.

As they drove the narrow lanes of his district, the bishop questioned Branden about his family. About his friends, and about his profession. So Branden told how he and Cal Troyer had grown up together, fishing on summer ponds. And how Branden and Sheriff Bruce Robertson had spent winters hunting deer in the glens of the hardwood lowlands and pheasant along the hilltop pasture fence lines. And he explained how Cal Troyer had been changed—called to the ministry—the day Branden’s parents had died in a highway crash, as an impatient tourist had swung out around a buggy in a no-passing zone and hit their car head on.

When Branden began to speak of his job at the college, the bishop questioned him sternly on his studies of war and the weapons of war. So Branden explained that his fascination with the Civil War arose from a scholarly desire to understand the origins of conflict and the impetus to arms. And how his fifth-grade teacher had sparked his interest in the Civil War by assigning a paper on the battle of Gettysburg. How his grandfather had taken him to a rifle range with a muzzleloader when he was ten and started Branden on his quest to understand the firearms of the period.

The bishop drove and listened as Branden rode on the buckboard seat beside him and told of his cannon, fired each Fourth of July as much to commemorate Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as to celebrate Independence Day. He spoke passionately of the eloquence of Lincoln. Of the valor of soldiers, and of bravery among common men. Of the memories his grandfather had cherished of summer afternoons spent on a country porch, listening to the ancient, grizzled veterans of that war. Stories told in turn to a young Michael Branden. Memories that now spurred his research into the letters and journals of Civil War soldiers.

As time passed, the bishop’s attention seemed to stray, and Branden fell silent. On a long, uphill stretch of a gravel lane, the bishop let the reins go slack, content for the moment to have the horse trudge along at its own pace. He leaned back heavily against the buckboard and sighed like a man who had endured a surpassing loneliness.

“Professor,” he said, and then faltered. Clearing his throat, he began again.

“The ban, Professor, is not cruel.” He looked fervently into Branden’s eyes. His expression was somber, and he seemed overwhelmed by the burdens he had shouldered. “The ban is a prayerful act. The last, joyless thing that a bishop can do to turn a soul around. Often, it brings repentance.”

Branden leaned forward from the buckboard seat, rested his elbows on his knees, laced his fingers together, and studied the backs of his hands, listening, and indicating that he would listen as long as the bishop should need. The horse had brought them to the crest of the hill, and the bishop pulled carefully right and brought it to a halt in the shade at the side of the lane.

“It is a bishop’s duty,” he continued, “to know when to impose a ban. And it is his obligation to have the strength of will to do it.

“Sadly, there are those whose rebellion is so complete, or whose character is so disreputable, that a ban only drives them away. They become nearly irretrievable, Professor. They refuse to be restored to the community of faith. When this happens, the burden a bishop carries is terrible. Still, it is a necessary burden.

“In my years as bishop, I have imposed only three bans. Two were members of the church, and today, they are members again.”

Miller lapsed into silence. Branden looked over and noticed a sheen of tears in the bishop’s eyes. He allowed the bishop to remain with his thoughts, and then asked, “And the third?”

Miller groped for words. He seemed overwhelmed, vulnerable. He remained quiet for some time, enmeshed in a private, enduring sorrow. In time, and with effort, he bolstered himself and sat a little straighter. He took up the reins again and guided the horse back onto the lane, down a small hill, and around a sharp turn that carried them over a ford at a little creek. Turning onto a larger road, he headed the buggy out of the valley, toward the pond where Cal Troyer waited.

“The third one,” Bishop Miller said, “was a lad of eighteen, who was not yet even a member of the church. Had not yet taken his vows.”

“You put the ban on an outsider?” Branden asked.

“He was not an outsider, Professor. He was my son.”

The bishop bowed his head, unable to continue. Branden hid his surprise and waited silently for the bishop to explain.

“The ban has other purposes, Doktor Branden. The community of believers have vowed to be submissive to one another, and the ban protects them from the destructive influences of proud and vain individuals. From those who insist on asserting themselves. Of holding themselves above the welfare of the others. Above the whole community.

“Such disbelievers, Professor, work their greatest evil on the young ones. Especially those in the years of running wild, before they take the vows. It is the Rumschpringe. We allow it for every youth, because our vows, baptism, are meaningful only for those who have seen enough of the world to know that they have chosen the plain life because it is a better life.

“So we have the Rumschpringe. They seem to get the wildness out of their systems. Mostly, they run in small groups, called gangs, and one gang will be a little more crazy than another. They are people, Professor, with all the flaws of any people, anywhere. And without the strong influence of the church, they make mistakes. I know you’ve lived among us long enough to understand that we are not saints, and that our young people can cause a lot of problems in their years of running around wild.

“Of all these people, my son was the worst. There was drugs, whiskey, sex. More self-assertive pride than we have ever seen in one person. His rebellion was so intolerable that he was starting to draw the wilder gangs away. Young people who were wild in their own right, but would have come home, in time, to their places in the faith. He also had a bad influence on young people from other districts. Those who made it to the town bars. I started to get visits from other bishops.

“So, for the good of the district and for the sake of the young people, I put the ban on my own son, so that those who knew they would eventually be coming home would not be drawn too much away by his example. My son would have nothing to do with his family, and I cast him out for the sake of the others. From that generation, we have lost only two. My son and a girl from another district, who ran with him.

“After that, he got worse. I believe he was what you call ‘hooked’ on whiskey. He lived with an English girl who poisoned any remaining hope he ever had of coming home. Some say I sacrificed my son only to save the others. But I thought the ban would bring him to his senses. Draw him back to us.

“Some have said it was cruel. In truth it was harder on my wife and me than anyone can know. She never speaks of it now, but I find her weeping sometimes when she prays. And I have prayed for him too, without failing, in all these years. We pray that to have cast him out will one day bring him home to us. Every day, Professor, we pray for his return. We always will. We never lose hope. I have even been praying for him now, as we have traveled together.”

Branden looked over at the bishop and watched him snap his whip to bring the horse to a brisk pace. The look on his face made it plain that he did not intend to linger in the memories of bygone years. Having said what needed to be said so that Branden would understand, he now evidently considered the matter closed.

“My son will not be lost forever,” he declared. “Only God can understand the reasons for the ban. And only God can restore my son to us. His sinfulness endangered us all. Now it endangers my grandson, too.

“It is our son, Professor, who has the boy. Jonah, who has been lost to us all these years, has our grandson.”

Reaching beneath his vest, he drew out a carefully folded note and handed it over without comment. Branden opened it, read it, refolded it, and handed it back to the bishop. The bishop gestured for him to keep it.

“My son intends to keep Jeremiah for the summer, but he does not know the danger,” Miller said. “He never really did. The danger of the world. Less than a month remains now, and my son does not know as much as he thinks he does.”

“Why would your son take one of your grandsons?” Branden asked.

“Because he is the boy’s father.”

Branden’s eyebrows lifted with surprise.

“After the ban, my son lived in town with a wretched woman he had met in the bars. At least he lived with her when he wasn’t in jail.

“Then, apparently, he left town altogether. At least we have heard nothing of him since then, up until he left this note. After he had been gone several months, Jeremiah’s mother gave birth, and we have pretty much raised the boy since he was a few months old.”

“And the boy’s mother?”

“Dead,” the bishop said curtly.

Branden waited for an explanation. When it became clear that no further details would be forthcoming, he tried another tack.

“You put the ban on Jonah when he was eighteen?” Branden asked.

“Thereabouts,” Miller said.

“And he ran with a wild crowd living in town?”

“And in jail.”

“Then, for all you know, he just moved out and went away. Nothing from him in those years?”

“Nothing until about a month ago, when he put that note in our mailbox and took Jeremiah away.”

“Then you want us to help you find Jonah?”

“Not so much my son. It is Jeremiah we seek. But with restrictions, Professor.”

Urgently, then, as they finished their drive back to the pond, the bishop explained his restrictions. The terms under which they could accept his help. The extraordinary fact that they had decided to ask any Englisher for help at all.

When they returned to the pond, the bishop nodded approval to Cal Troyer, shook Branden’s hand warmly, whipped his horse back up the lane, and headed the buggy home.

HIS TRIP had been successful, the bishop mused. The professor and the pastor would help. And the professor had given his word. He would abide by the deacons’ restrictions.

There would surely be great risk for the district, not to mention for the boy. But the deacons had agreed. The bishop consoled himself again with an urgent prayer. This was the only way. Sad, he thought, what assurances a bishop needs in these perverse times. In this perverse world.

Once, life had seemed flawlessly simple. As it was written, so it had always been. Their lives need never change. But now, there was the ever-clamoring pressure from the outsiders. First it had been the land. Always scarcer, and repeatedly divided among the boys. Few parcels worth farming still remained. Those that came up for auction these days were priced well beyond his means. He had seen that pressure coming for years. What he had not seen coming was the pressure from the tourists. Gawking city English, with their billfolds full of money.

But the land had been the start of it. The pressing need for money to buy new land. And the boys who worked in the sawmills and the wheel shops had become, inexorably, ever more accustomed to the world. No less the girls who worked in the restaurants. And in the quilt shops. Worldly enticements at every turn. That was where the liberals had gone astray. Today had confirmed it for him as nothing else could have. What greater proof might a bishop need than a single trip into town?

The bishop could see, with perfect clarity, what threatened his people. Rumbling over the back roads, he prayed for insight and for strength. There would surely be many tests to come. He asked for resolve, steadfastness, and simplicity. His fingers tightened on the reins. He prayed for protection from the world. As his thoughts turned to the families of his district, an answer was given to his prayers, and a sense of peaceful belonging returned to him.

There had been no serious infractions, lately. At least none that had been brought to his attention. One girl was suspected to have worn a dress with fewer than the proper number of pleats. When warned, she had submitted. A good sign. On the northern edge of the district, a lad had been found letting his hair grow past the earlobes. Again, easily corrected. Radios with batteries were a challenge, but they could get through that, he figured. In truth, there had been no serious challenges of authority or custom since his son’s. And his ban had assuredly taken care of that.

His authority as bishop was rarely challenged, now. Why couldn’t the other bishops understand? Of course he had a reputation for severity. But didn’t they know that the real issues were never the color of clothes or the number of pleats in a skirt? Not the length of hair, or the style of a summer hat. The real issue was, and always had been, authority. The willing, dutiful submission of a serene people. Righteousness thereby preserved. The profane world held at bay.

The strength of the people was not available merely to individuals. It rested only upon the whole, the Gemei, through hard work, plain living, and obedience. Submission to one another by denial of the individual self. Through sacrifice and, above all, lack of pride. And hadn’t he kept the Gemei pure through a tireless vigil of leadership? His people understood, better than any, that to be different was to be proud. To be profane.

There, precisely, was the root of evil, he thought. It was pride that caused nonconformers to assert themselves. Pride, the greatest of all sins. Such, he recalled heavily, had been the downfall of Jonah. He thought again of little Jeremiah, gone a month now.

He knew Pastor Caleb Troyer. A good man. If he would only forsake the world and become a farmer, then surely a righteous man. And the professor, Michael Branden. Serious. Not worldly. Not profane. Certainly not kutslich. And yet, still one of the vain ones. One of the proud. One of the English de Hoche.

Miller wondered again how much these two English should be trusted. Certainly more than the police, that was clear. But not yet entrusted with everything. Not yet trusted to the uttermost. Perhaps only trusted completely if the next month came to naught. May God forbid that so grim a need should ever arise.