A Prayer for the Night (20 page)

“We let him go,” Robertson said, rising from his desk chair.

Arnetto threw his arms in the air and glared spitefully at the sheriff.

“He’s gone,” Robertson said. “No charges.”

Arnetto cracked a sarcastic smile and said, “You’ve got two kids in the hospital, one in the morgue, and you let the only one who can help us go? That’s great, Sheriff! Commendable.”

Branden saw Robertson start out around his desk, and he bolted to his feet and blocked the sheriff at the front corner of his desk. Robertson glowered at Arnetto, gained control of himself with difficulty, and turned back to his seat, saying, “He hasn’t done anything, Arnetto. I don’t throw kids in lockup on a whim.”

Arnetto took his suit coat off and laid it over his arm with exaggerated calm. Scowling, he said, “Have you at least kept hold of the men from the barn bust?”

Robertson mastered his tone. “We’ve got a Dick DiPaldi upstairs. He was captured coming out of the trailer. And we’ve got John Albert under guard at the hospital.”

Arnetto said, arrogantly, “I’ll talk to DiPaldi first.”

Robertson punched his intercom button and said, “Ed, Agent Arnetto is to go up to the cell blocks. Set him up with DiPaldi.”

Hollings said, “OK,” and soon appeared in Robertson’s doorway.

Robertson gestured for Arnetto to follow Hollings, and the DEA agent stalked out of the office. Hollings lingered in the doorway, shaking his head, and Robertson said, “Don’t take any static from that guy.”

Hollings smiled and left, closing the door.

When Robertson was seated again, Branden said, “So, what’s our plan?”

Robertson said, “We’ll see what the phone company can do with calls made on Jeremiah’s phones.”

“And if Jeremiah goes down to Columbus?”

“I don’t know,” Robertson said, dissatisfied.

“And if Jeremiah doesn’t go down to Columbus?”

“I don’t know,” Robertson said again, dispirited.

“The best thing would be if Jeremiah just stays put,” Branden said.

“The best thing would be if none of this had ever happened.”

Wednesday, July 28
2:15 P.M.

 

 

THREE days later, Caroline and Michael Branden drove up to the high ridge at Saltillo under low, dull, nickel-colored skies. They traveled through a steady, warm drizzle as they crossed down into the little valley where Albert O. and Martha Yoder had their sprawling farm, straddling a gravel lane that bisected the valley. The professor parked next to Cal Troyer’s gray truck, and he and Caroline walked up the driveway, sharing a black umbrella. Ascending the steps to a front porch that stretched the full width of the two-story white frame house, they found Cal seated with several Amish men. Caroline inquired about Mrs. Yoder and was directed inside, to the kitchen. The professor leaned back against the porch railing and listened to the conversation, a running debate about modern tractors and slow draft horses. The men all wore cream-colored straw hats and sported chin whiskers, shaved smooth around the mouth. Most of the whiskers were white or gray. These were the older men, not needed for the afternoon on the farms. Two of the men smoked: one a pipe and the other a cigarette that he had rolled himself. At a break in the discussion, Branden asked about Sara and was told they still expected her home this afternoon. She was supposed to be released after lunch. The change in subject seemed to bring the debate about tractors to a conclusion, and the men fell silent.

Branden excused himself and went into the house, back along a narrow hallway, to the warm kitchen. There, several women worked at a black, cast-iron woodstove, sliding pies in to bake and taking out the ones that were done. Caroline had put on an apron and was peeling apples at the sink.

In a corner next to a worktable, Albert O. Yoder sat on a Shaker chair, vigorously turning the hand crank of an old wooden ice cream maker, sweat beading on his brow. Branden offered assistance, switched places with Albert, and began turning the stubborn crank. Albert leaned over the sink, got a drink from the spigot of a red hand pump, and then wet his handkerchief and used it to wipe his face and neck.

Martha Yoder stood next to Caroline at the sink, topping and slicing strawberries. She carried a bowl to Branden at the ice cream maker and had him open the top so that she could pour in her strawberries. Then she cut two Dutch apple pies while they were still warm, put a piece on each of five plates, and carried them on a platter out to the front porch. A neighbor lady carried out a tray with napkins, forks, and glasses of fresh whole milk.

Albert took over the crank on the ice cream maker, and Branden strolled out onto the back screened porch. Oblivious to the drizzling rain, a half dozen young children in either denim trousers or full-length dresses were intent on a game of tag that centered on a tall wooden swing set and spilled out of the backyard toward the barn at the side of the house. In front of the barn doors, Branden found six buggies, hitched to hobbled horses. A lad of about fourteen was carrying hay to the horses, and his sister, about ten, toted a bucket of water to one horse and lifted it high on her short arms to let the horse drink.

Branden cut in among the buggies and entered the dark and cool barn. In stalls along an inside wall, two boys were milking goats. The game of tag came too near them, and one of the milkers gently scolded the younger children away from the temperamental animals.

The kids ran out the opposite barn doors, splashing their bare feet in a mud puddle as they left. Branden paced the distance inside the barn, enjoying the aromas of straw and fresh-cut hay. He followed the children out the opposite side of the barn and walked around to the front porch again. He took an empty seat as one of the men was saying, “It’ll be a shame if she’s got permanent damage.”

Cal answered, “She seemed a little better to me yesterday.”

The men nodded solemnly. The pipe smoker knocked out his ashes over the porch railing.

Albert O. Yoder came out through the screened door rubbing at his cranking arm. He said, “Ice cream’s ready, if you care for some.”

Two of the men nodded, got up, and went inside. Albert O. sat next to Professor Branden, saying, “I thought they’d be here by now.”

Branden said, “The roads are kind of muddy. They’ll be along soon.”

Cal said, “I think they’re here now,” and pointed down the lane.

Jeremiah Miller drove a tall, proud, Standardbred horse hitched to a big, black, two-seater buggy. The seat beside him was unoccupied. He proceeded down the gravel lane slowly, negotiating the potholes and ruts with careful attention to minimize the jostling the rig took. There was a shout from one of the children, and the game of tag stopped, the little ones filing out to the front driveway. Albert called in through the screened door, and the women in the kitchen came out onto the porch.

Jeremiah pulled up on the lawn, close to the front porch, and jumped down from the buggy. He was dressed in his Sunday best suit. The formerly crisp lines of his fanciful beard were fading with new growth on his cheeks, trimmed to the traditional chin whiskers, and shaved around the mouth, Amish style. The thin and rakish beard and mustache that had been his statement of youthful identity, the thing that set him apart from the
Gemie,
were a mark of the Rumschpringe. Until he joined the church, this stubborn act of rebellion had been tolerated in the community. Now that he had given himself an Amish shave, he was known to have identified properly with the church.

He waved some of the men down from the porch. Four of them gathered at the back of the buggy. Together, they rolled Sara Yoder’s wheelchair to the edge and then lifted her and her chair gently down. An umbrella popped open over Sara, and Jeremiah began to roll her over the grass, toward the front porch.

One of the youngest children shyly said, “Hi, Sara,” and the others watched quietly. The men and women stood expectantly on the front porch and watched her approach. She was leaning heavily left in the chair, and her face was slack on the left side, eyes watery. When they lifted her up to the front porch, she held her left hand immobile in her lap, and reached out to take her mother’s hand with her right. Martha knelt beside Sara’s chair and kissed her on the cheek. Sara awkwardly mouthed the words, “I am tired,” and Martha wheeled her over the threshold. Albert met them in the front hallway and scooped Sara up into his arms, to carry her to her upstairs bedroom. Jeremiah stood, hat in hand, and watched through the screened door. When Albert came back down, Jeremiah and he stepped into the parlor for a private talk.

On the front yard, the game of tag started up again. The milkers came out of the barn, each carrying two pails of goat’s milk, and walked around to the back porch. One of the neighbor ladies served ice cream out of a large bowl, and the men on the front porch sat back down where they had been seated earlier.

Little was said. Very little needed to be said. To everyone assembled there, it was apparent that Sara had struggled mightily to keep herself upright in her wheelchair. She had mumbled the few words she had spoken. It was unclear whether her face would ever show a convincing smile again.

When Albert and Jeremiah came out, they were allowed to sit quietly with the men. They were not pressed into conversation. Eventually, Jeremiah said his sad good-byes and turned his buggy to go back down the lane toward home. Caroline came out and nodded to the professor that they should leave. Cal walked them out to their car, but said nothing beyond his thanks that they had come out that afternoon.

Down the lane, Bishop Raber’s buggy came into view. Raber stopped when Jeremiah came alongside, and the two men spoke for a while, out of earshot.

When the lane was clear, Caroline and the professor drove toward home. The bishop had gone into the house, and most of the visitors had begun preparing their buggies for their trips home. In the space of an hour, the Yoder family found themselves alone with their sorrows, as Sara slept upstairs.

Friday, July 30
9:00 A.M.

 

 

JOHN SCHLABAUGH was buried on the high ground at Salem Cemetery, under a towering blue morning sky. The whole congregation tended to the physical and spiritual needs of the Schlabaugh family, who alone sat in chairs, in a fluttering breeze, beside the grave. Cal Troyer and Michael and Caroline Branden attended the subdued services, and Jeremiah Miller brought Sara Yoder in her wheelchair. Abe Yoder was still in the Columbus hospital. Of the remaining members of the Schlabaugh Rumschpringe gang, only Ben Troyer and John Miller attended. Mary Troyer had taken a buggy to visit relatives up in Middlefield, and Henry Erb had left on a bus for Kansas. Andy Stutzman was conspicuously absent.

The first preacher handled the remarks at the graveside, emphasizing Psalm 139 and God’s refusal to abandon his children. Bishop Raber presided over interring the body. A longer service was later conducted in Albert O. and Martha Yoder’s barn, with martyr hymns sung
a cappella
, the second preacher giving forth for an hour and a half on the subject of forgiveness.

After the services, a large noon meal was served on the lawns of the Yoder house, both in front of the big house and between the house and barn, in order to accommodate the large number of people. Long tables were set up under canopies to ward off the sun. The women prepared the meal and first served the men, seated on deacon’s benches pulled up to the tables. The women went about their preparations calmly, carrying platters of roast beef and fried chicken, potatoes, buttered beans, and coleslaw from the bustling kitchen to the outdoor tables. When the men had eaten and the first round of dishes had been washed, the women sat down to eat. The men gathered in small groups, inside and outside, to talk.

During the men’s meal, Cal Troyer and Michael Branden sat together, across from Bishop Raber. Caroline helped the women serve and then ate with them. Jeremiah Miller ate with Sara Yoder, in the front parlor, when the women were served.

The smallest children of the congregation played on the swing set and trampoline in the backyard, and sent emissaries periodically to check on Sara and Jeremiah, the little ones unable to mask their curiosity about romance or silence their giggles. Older children gathered behind the black buggies parked up and down the lane, and whispered about the high drama of the Schlabaugh Rumschpringe gang. Cigarettes and a jug of last year’s plum wine were passed secretly among the oldest.

As the last dishes were being cleared from the tables, the people heard the loud revving of a car engine from some distance up the lane, and an old, brown Chevette lurched into view, weaving erratically, gears grinding out painfully as Andy Stutzman fumbled the gear shifter and the clutch. Too fast for caution, he drove the Chevette up to the line of buggies and slid sideways in the gravel to an abrupt halt. Andy stumbled out of the little car in formal Amish attire, a Sunday suit, and fell over onto his hands and knees, clutching a longneck beer bottle by the throat. With difficulty, he cranked his limbs upright, took a long pull on the bottle, and threw it off into the weeds beside the road.

He brought his eyes angrily into focus on the people standing in front of the house, and forced himself into a stumbling march across the lawn.

Andy’s father stepped forward, laid his hand on Andy’s shoulder, and said, “That’s enough, now. Go home.”

Andy pushed his father away and glared at the people. The younger children were gathered up quietly and taken into the house by their mothers.

Andy waved belligerently in the space in front of his face and blurted, “You’ve got no right! None of you!”

His father tried again to restrain him, but Andy pushed him off and stumbled backward. He wiped his sleeve across his lips and yelled, “Johnny Schlabaugh knew more about living than all you clodhoppers put together. You are not worthy to mourn him! Hypocrites!”