Abram's Daughters 03 The Sacrifice (10 page)

Tonight he had gladly received the preacher's fervent words. They, along with many months of Bible study at the Mennonite college, had converged in an overwhelming epiphany, clinching his decision to become a country preacher. Truly, he wished he might have known God on some significant level during the war. What comfort and support he might have offered to his comrades and others had he been a believer then. Certainly the chaplains weren't the only ones imparting spiritual consolation during those horrendous days and nights. He recalled there had been a few Christian boys who had shared the Good News among the young, yet hardened soldiers. He would have joined ranks with them had he known then what he knew now. To think he might have saved a life or two, or more ... for God. Instead, he had aided in the death of many enemies of the Allied forces a martial victory, true, but a defeat for eternity, nevertheless.

Now, on the drive home, the words of the seasoned minister continued to resound in his thinking. He felt nearly euphoric as he drove the forsaken back road. Something was compelling him to follow through, to get his license to preach despite his father's disapproval, which was ongoing and would surely be voiced during the coming holiday. Still, his spirit

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I I icy had been talking about the fact that neither of them .veil versed in the Holy Scripture when Leah first heard a . in I he distance. The wail came closer as Gid's horse

I i he courting buggy back from Uncle Ike's farmhouse ml c Jobbler's Knob.

Well, Gid," l^eah said, clutching her throat. "Someone I >y must be hurt." I lie ambulance was approaching fast behind them, and

.killfully reined the horse onto the dirt shoulder and I h.-J while the shrill siren pierced their eardrums.

Wanna follow and see i{ we can be of some help?" Gid

I alter the ambulance had sped by.

Sure, if we can catch up."

I lie accident, as it turned out, was less than a mile away, hy i he time they arrived, the ambulance had already 'il :md left. Two patrol cars blocked the road in both

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directions, so Gid parked the buggy a distance away, leaving Leah holding the reins. "I'll be back right quick." He jumped out of the buggy. "Will you be all right here alone?"

She said she would, but up ahead the sight of a car crisscross in the road, its headlights shining across the mowed cornfield, frightened her no end. A lame horse, which looked to be awful young more like a pony, really was being led limping off the road by one of the policemen.

Then she noticed a young Englisher sitting in the backseat of one of the police cars. Could it be he was the driver of the car? Had he caused the accident, maybe startling the young horse?

Heart pounding, she stood up for a better look and saw the splintered remains of what looked to be a pony cart. On the east side of the road, a farmhouse stood way back snuggled against tall trees. She wasn't so sure in the dark, but she thought this might be the homestead of Deacon Stoltzfus and his large family.

She did think it peculiar that, by now, none of the family had come running down the lane to offer assistance. Then it dawned on her that maybe hopefully not one of their children had been riding in the crumpled pony cart, in which case the deacon and probably his wife and some of the youngest children would have gone along in the ambulance, leaving the oldest girls to look after the rest. The older boys, Leroy, Gideon, Ezra, and Elias, most likely were out riding around with their girlfriends, unaware of the dreadful accident.

A lump caught in her throat. Dear God, please help whoever was hurt here tonight, she prayed.

The distinctive ripeness of late autumn closed in around99h e Sacrifice

u i mil when a sudden wind came up, Leah felt its eerie chill i I Jrcw her shawl near. Oh, she wished Gid would hurry < I .11 ill fell her what on earth had happened.

"' I 'hi- pony and cart shot out from the lane onto the road, =* -11 -,iiy ?" the police officer quizzed Robert.

I'uinting to the concealed treed lane, Robert explained, 'i '- i-i there, leading down from the farmhouse. The cart i|>|h mvd out of nowhere, right in front of me . . . before I miltl rver stop." He felt sick with the memory of the youth yiiij; unconscious in the road, broken and bleeding. "My car ill II broadside."

[he policeman filled out an accident report, scrutinizing l..lu.Tt's driver's license, then inquired about his father. "Is ' Schwartz your old man?"

"That's right."

The policeman looked him over. "Say . . . aren't you the it >i i who fought in the war?"

I li- felt his shoulders tense. "I ... well, sir, God must have i n watehing out for me overseas." That's all he could say il'i'iii the past when the present and possibly the future ii.i. Muring him hard in the face.

Returning his attention to the accident report, the officer u.Ui-il, "The lad's Old Order Amish, so I doubt there will be rli.ii|(i'.s filed against you, although it's clear you weren't in the \\ i 'i i|!- If this goes the way most accidents do involving them, yii'll never hear boo from anybody. The Amish practice nonii i lance."

Nimresistance ...

Robert swallowed hard, hoping the boy would survive the

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accident for both the boy's sake and his family's. He had certainly put into practice every first-aid technique he'd ever learned from his father in tending to him his body crushed and bleeding trying his best to save the kid's life.

"You were driving the speed limit or less?" he was asked.

"Yes, sir." He waited as the policeman finished filling out the accident report, feeling a desperate coldness steal over him. Robert shuddered in the darkness as the reality of what had happened here sunk in. "Can someone please phone me later? I'd like to know the boy's name and where I might visit him," he said.

A visit to the hospital was the least he could do; he wished he could do more. No doubt there would already be Amish friends and relatives gathering at the hospital, as was their custom. They would not want the boy and his family to suffer through the dark night alone.

"Someone from the station will be in touch with you, Mr. Schwartz." The policeman's voice startled him. "Take care, son."

"Why . . . thank you," he heard himself say. Robert's words, though sincere, sounded hollow and distant even to his

own ears.

Due to the lateness of the hour and the heavy cloud cover, the road leading home was even darker now as Robert headed down the final stretch. His memory haunted him as he replayed the accident scene again and again. The shattered pony cart, the moaning boy lying in the road, the mournful

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miph ill i lie wounded horse ...

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I "li w;is a terrible mess up there," Gid told Leah when he

liiiiii'd at last, somewhat out of breath. "If somebody didn't

It m i In if wreck, I'd be mighty surprised."

I " A11yone we know?" She was unnerved.

I t ud seemed dazed as he took the reins from her, sitting

In 11- Im the longest time without speaking. And then finally

I did. " Hummel, this slaughter on the roads cars and car-

Imi'.<. just keeps . . . happening." His voice faltered.

I I oiil) was shaking. What if one of her own kin was in such

It .irddent? The People reckoned tragedies as being God's

Vwign will, yet she shuddered to think of losing a sister to

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I "The pon cart belonged to young Elias Stoltzfus," Gid

Iih I hi last. "He was severely injured tonight . . . if not mor-

lily"

I I.eiili gasped. Not Mary Ruth's beau! Suddenly she was Hi nostricken at the thought of her own sister. Was she riding haw with Elias tonight? she wondered. Was she?

"Was there anyone else in the cart?" Leah managed to ask.

"I don't know."

"Are you certain it was Elias who was hit?"

l. 3 id nodded slowly, his expression sad.

If the boy did not survive, many of the People would

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gather as a compassionate community for the wake at the Stoltzfus house, offering to help in any way possible. Leah determined that if the worst were to be, she would volunteer to help with the milking and whatnot. Anything to assist and by so doing lessen the immediate pain of loss.

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Leah arrived home, where she was relieved to learn Mary Ruth was safe. Hours later she witnessed firsthand how much

Mary Ruth cared for Elias the whole family did. When they saw the tall figure of Leroy, the oldest Stoltzfus boy, on the back step, face drawn, eyes red . . . coming to deliver the death message, Mary Ruth burst out sobbing and fled from the kitchen.

Her heartrending cries were heard all through the house, and the pitiful sound struck Leah at the core of her very heart, for she knew too well something of the sting of Mary Ruth's loss.

Leah, Hannah, and Mamma offered their sympathy as best they could, but Mary Ruth would not be comforted. Her weeping continued as Leah sat on the side of the twins' bed, stroking Mary Ruth's hair while Hannah lay next to her twin, her slender arm wrapped around her. Mamma, after a time, kissed each of them good night, then slipped off to her own room, sniffling every bit as much as Leah recalled her doing the weeks following Sadie's shunning.

Miserable and helpless to know what to say or do, Leah decided now was a good time to pray not the familiar rote prayers of their childhood, but one that came directly from

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m IntmI. The kind she knew Mamma and Aunt Lizzie often ifiynl, ;uid the kind of earnest prayer she herself had offered I I he woods, following her heartbreak over Jonas.

Niiiin^ in the darkness, she silently pleaded for divine pinion lor her grief-stricken younger sister, as well as the ptknilu-arted Stoltzfus family.

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Lvestless and unable to sleep, Mary Ruth tiptoed down the stairs after midnight, leaving the warmth of her bed to hurry outdoors. The night was as still as the animals resting in the stable area of the barn. Deftly she reached for the sides of the old wooden ladder and climbed to the hayloft without making a sound, wanting to sit alone in the midst of the baled hay.

She anguished at the memory of her last conversation with Elias in the barnyard following Preaching service yesterday. He had asked her to go "on a lark, for some fun before going to the singing." Ezra, it seemed, had gotten first dibs on the courting buggy and was planning to spend time with Hannah again, just the two of them. So Elias had wanted to use his pony cart.

If Ezra had included Elias and me, she thought, my dear beau might still be alive!

Now in spite of Elias's fondness for her and hers for him, he was gone forever, soon to be buried in the People's cemetery not so far away. Her own beloved.

Too exhausted to ponder further what might've happened

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flhingN Inul been much different this night, she pulled the Rill Illlll'k shawl about her and wrapped her arms around her

I1 . Stissy, I he new pup short for Sassafras soon found I I he droopy-eyed pet comforted Mary Ruth by licking her I i . vherks, remaining by her side as she wept till close to li u

j I fiiiinnh stared at the new handkerchief she had quickly | ' lor lilias's grieving mother. Somehow, she hoped to find I in slip it to the poor woman, though seeing the crowd | 'Miners gathered at the Stoltzfus house, she didn't know |' >i when that might be possible.

j lnh| now, though, standing in the backyard with the other

i-mm'u of her family, waiting to enter the farmhouse, Hannah

Ml In't shake the fear of death knocking on her own door,

i""HiK loo soon, before she was ready for it. She'd long strug-

* l ihlh way. Like Elias had been, she felt she was much too

: in die, though if such a thing should happen, even pre-

'ii'ly, the People believed it was the divine order of

> I lannah had been taught this from her childhood, and

i' r, it baptized church member now, having made her kneel'

HHnv back in September with Ezra, she felt she, too, must

^Hu c the Lord God's supreme plan for each of His chil-

^HYi'l she still battled the horror of death when it was to

^Hjitnd how it might happen . . . and, most of all, how dif-

^Ht> might be to get to the other side. She felt her neck

^Hlxcucdingly warm with the worry. :

^Hll' what did the Lord God heavenly Father want with

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young Elias up in heaven when there was so much left for him to do down here? She guessed there must be some mighty important work waiting for him in Glory Land maybe something that required lots of time. Jah, maybe that's why he wastaken so early.

Robert was reduced to sitting in the backseat, a passenger in his father's car as he and his parents traveled down the road to the Amish funeral on Tuesday morning. Not able to sleep or eat since the accident, he had thought of staying home and would have preferred to, but his mother had slipped into his room after breakfast and attempted to console him, reminding him the mishap was simply not his fault. "Any driver mighl have hit the boy. It was impossible for you to see him," she'd insisted. Then she had encouraged Robert to "come along with us, in spite of the accident. Share your sadness with the Amish community. The entire Stoltzfus family will be there, I am sure."