Bride's Flight from Virginia City, Montana (21 page)

“Pastor Yoder, I would not call him ‘my’ young man, but I would be happy to speak about him later and at great length.”

Mary Beachey squeezed Lynndae’s hand as a warning, but did not look at her.

Augustine looked to Moses Beachey. The older man spread his hands. “Miss Raber, let us come right to the heart of the matter. Your family was asked to leave the church because your father and brothers insisted on going to war. Some of our people do not think it is right that the sins of the father were visited upon his womenfolk. Nevertheless, we must ask you, do you support your father’s actions, or are you opposed to them?”

Lynndae looked calmly at Moses. “I respect my father, as God has taught all children to respect their parents. But I look at that war, and I see only pain and bloodshed and the loss of life. I hate war, Pastor Beachey. I hate what it does, and I hate what it takes away from God’s earth. My father and brothers were wrong to take up arms.”

“So you are opposed to your father’s actions?”

“Yes.”

“You are opposed to his defiance of the Ordnung and his dismissal of the teachings of our pastors and bishops?”

“Yes.”

“We must also ask about your brother; I am sorry.” “I understand perfectly, Pastor Beachey. It is a necessary question.”

“Bishop Schrock wished to be absolutely clear on this and on the matter of the children. He is on a business trip to Philadelphia and New York. Otherwise, he would have been here this morning.”

“What about the children?”

“First we must discuss your brother Seraphim.”

“No, first we must discuss the children.”

Mary Beachey hissed under her breath, but Lynndae was in no mood to listen to her warnings.

Moses considered Lynndae for a few long moments. “Very well. It is only that with their parents dead, we feel it is best Samuel and Elizabeth remain here with their relatives and their church. Bishop Schrock was quite determined about that. As are all of us. We know they have grown attached to you. But if you choose to return to the Montana Territory, we want you to understand we believe they belong with us.”

“Perhaps if you had not excommunicated their parents, we would not need to be discussing their fate this morning.”

“They violated the Ordnung. They were warned on several occasions. The matter was handled properly. It is none of your concern.”

“Excuse me, Pastor Beachey, but it is my duty, my Christian duty, to be concerned. You punished my mother and sister and me, as well as my youngest brother, for something our father did, not us. Then you punished Ricky and me for something our brother continued to do. Has it occurred to any of you that there might not have ever been an Angel of Death if you had shown love to my family instead of judgment?”

“We are a church who love one another.”

“Yes, you love those who are like you. Everyone does that. You do not need Jesus Christ to help you do that.”

“We do not need to be lectured by you, Miss Raber.” Malachi Kauffman spoke up. “Take care.”

Lynndae turned on him. “Those were your own relatives you sent to their deaths, Pastor Kauffman.”

Malachi reddened. “It was their choice to travel west. I did not want them to do that.”

“What did you expect them to do? You shunned them to such an extent they could not live here anymore. Where would they be able to find land where they could afford to start over again except by going into the Territories? The terrible irony is, they were excommunicated Amish who were murdered by another Amish man who had been excommunicated. All from the same community and the same church.”

“That is enough, Miss Raber,” said David Lapp softly.

“You sit and speak of judgment and shunning so calmly and easily, even though many have died due to your decisions. I wonder what you will do when God faces each of you on your own day of judgment and passes sentence on your lives?

What will you do if He has as little pity on your souls as you have had on the souls of others?”

Mary had her head down and her eyes closed, but Lynndae could see that her lips were moving. Across from her the men were stone-faced and silent. Then Augustine cleared his throat.

“Miss Raber, still we must clear up the matter of your brother Seraphim.”

“Pastor Yoder, with all due respect, what do you expect me to say? That Ricky and I believed in what Seraph has done for the past ten years? You must know we have never condoned any of the terrible killings he has participated in.”

“Seraphim Raber was ushered into the presence of his Maker only last week. There he will receive a just judgment for the deeds he committed while in the flesh. But we must hear from your own lips how you felt about those deeds.”

“I have told you how I feel.”

“Did you ever encourage or assist him in his activities?” “How can you ask this?”

“Do you know about John Wesley Hardin?” said David Lapp.

Lynndae felt confused. “The outlaw from Texas?”

“We read in the New York and Philadelphia papers about the men he has killed, more than forty, and this despite the fact his father is a Methodist preacher and that he was named after the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, a God-fearing minister.”

Lynndae waited.

Malachi Kauffman spoke. “We read how his brother helped him, how even his father, a Christian man and a minister, assisted him in eluding the law. Time after time family and relatives kept him out of jail and hid him, and time after time he killed more men because of this. Today he is still on the loose and will destroy more lives. So we ask, did you or Ricky assist your brother Seraph in his crimes?”

Lynndae sensed a tightening in her throat and a burning in her eyes. “No, never.”

“Did you ever help him to elude the law?”

“No.”

“Did you ever go to the police or the sheriff and tell him what you knew of his whereabouts or his plans?”

Lynndae bent her head and felt the streaks of warm tears on her cheeks. Mary’s hand rested gently on her arm. “We never knew of his whereabouts or his plans. He never wrote, and he never came to our house. I tried, Ricky tried, several times, to get messages to his camp, asking him to stop the raids and turn himself in, but we never knew where to send them. Sometimes the messengers found Seraph and sometimes they didn’t. Two or three times, a reply made its way back to us, months later. They always said the same thing—as far as he was concerned, the war was not over, the war would continue until the day God told him to stop.”

Augustine held up his hand. “I am sorry. It is our duty to ask these questions. Why did you not make a sketch of him for the police?”

“For the same reason you didn’t, Pastor Yoder,” moaned Lynndae. “I did not know what he looked like. The last time I saw him was the last time you saw him—a tall boy, too tall for his age, skinny as a stalk of wheat; yes, just a boy with a pet dog and a pet raccoon, you remember, only twelve. What could I give to the police? A drawing of a young boy, when it was a man who was leading the raids, a man whose face was no longer that of a youth’s, who may have gained weight, grown a beard, perhaps lost one of his eyes in battle and might now be wearing a patch? My memory of a child would have served the law no good purpose. That is why I did not go to them. And that is why no one in Bird in Hand went to them. None of us knew him anymore.”

“Calm yourself,” whispered Mary in her ear.

“I do not mean to be disrespectful. I am still tired from the journey and the danger, but that does not excuse my tongue. None of you passed judgment on my family in 1861, none of you were pastors at that time, and I know that not everyone agreed with the shunning, the
streng meidung.
I am told several families left the church because of the decision to excommunicate my family and because of the judgment passed on other families. I came back to talk these things over with the church, and so many words have just come tumbling out. I accept that the children must stay. I only ask that you consider the circumstances of my life when you come to make your decision about whether I may come back into the church or not. I do not know whether I will stay or go. I myself have not been able to make up my own mind, but I ask that you consider what my brother Ricky and I went through and how we had no other choice but to leave and start again in the West.”

Lynndae cried with a down-turned face. Moses nodded and got to his feet.

“We will talk alone now, Miss Raber. My Mary will stay with you. When we are done we will ask for you.”

Mary and Lynndae put on long dark
mandlies,
the woolen cape coats the Amish women wore in the winter season, and thick bonnets and walked out into the road. They held each other’s arms.

“I am sorry, Mary,” Lynndae said.

“Hush.”

“I spoke too much. I cried too much.”

“Hush. None of us have ever been through what you have experienced all these years. None of us have had such a train journey as you had this past week. Hush now. We will not talk. We will walk and pray in our hearts. They are good men; they have wisdom among them. And Moses and I want you to know, we did not agree to the shunning of your family, nor to the shunning of the Kauffmans, Troyers, and Millers. Moses only drew the short straw to be a pastor last month. God have mercy on us all.”

It began to snow gently from a sky that was both blue and the color of woodsmoke. Lynndae hoped they might see Zeph or Samuel or Elizabeth, but the muddy track was deserted. Over their heads, now and then, a few crows flew back and forth. Gradually the snowflakes covered up the mud and ice like a clean blanket.

When they returned to the house in an hour, the ministers were still meeting behind a tightly closed door. Yet no sooner had Mary and Lynndae sat down to coffee, Snitz happy in Lynndae’s lap, than Moses came out to the kitchen.

“Yes, we are ready for you now,” he said.

Chapter 24

O
nce the two women had sat in their chairs, Augustine stood up and prayed again before they began. Then he sat and nodded at David Lapp.

“Miss Raber,” said David, “we understand the young man Zephaniah Parker was instrumental in seeing you safely to Bird in Hand.”

“Yes, Pastor Lapp. God alone knows, but I do not think we would have arrived here in good health were it not for Mister Parker.”

“Is it true the Raber Gang stopped a train you were on?”

“Yes. The Union Pacific between Cheyenne and Omaha. They wanted Samuel and Elizabeth because the children had seen their faces.”

“How did you escape?”

“Zephaniah told us to hide in the baggage car. When outlaws boarded the train, he refused to tell them where we were.”

“Did he shoot them?”

“Zephaniah does not carry a gun, Pastor Lapp.”

“Yet he sometimes wears a badge, the children tell us.”

“He was deputized by his brother before we left the Montana Territory. If he needed to ask for help from government officials, he put the badge on. Being deputized was not his idea. But his brother insisted on it.”

“His brother is?”

“A federal marshal. His other brother is pastor for the church in Iron Springs.”

David nodded slowly. “Why does he not carry a gun when so many other English do?”

“The war.”

“So it is not a religious conviction?”

“I cannot say it is or isn’t, Pastor Lapp. You must speak with him.”

“Have you never discussed it?” “Not at length, no.”

“Yet you were on a train together for so many days.”

“We read the Bible together a good deal, spoke with the children, looked at herds of buffalo. We slept. No, we did not spend any amount of time discussing firearms and killing people.”

Another squeeze from Mary Beachey’s hand.

“Tell us, what do you think, can you see yourselves as a married couple, raising children, starting a farm?”

“I have thought about it a little. But he has never declared such intentions to me in so many words.”

“If you remained here and were welcomed back into the church, what do you think, would he wish to remain behind and marry you? Would he willingly take up our ways and ask for baptism?”

“Oh, I cannot answer that. He knows so little about our ways. He would need more time to think it over than a day or two.”

“But would he stay behind for you?”

Lynndae felt her face growing warm. “I hope if he stayed behind it would be for God as much as it would be for me, Pastor Lapp. But I cannot say I matter to him anymore. He did not know my real name until last night. He did not know I was Seraph Raber’s sister. Now I have told him, and I do not know if he can love me or forgive me.”

“What did he say when you told him?”

“He looked at me in disbelief. ‘Why did you hide the truth from me?’ he asked. ‘You were not the killer, were you? Why could you not trust me after all we have been through?’ Then he turned and walked back into the house.”

“He is a farmer in the Territories?”

“Beef cattle. A rancher. As I am.”

“Yes. As you are. You have many men working under you, we are given to understand.”

“I have ten hired men and a cook.” “And a cook?”

“I am often out and about on horseback, Pastor Lapp.” “Yet you found time to sew plain clothing for the children and for Mister Parker.”

“I did.”

“You own a good deal of land out there among the English?” “Ricky bought it. It is in my name, yes.” “Can you give it up?” “Pardon me?”

“If it were God’s will for you to remain here and marry and raise a family, could you give up the land in the Territories? Could you give up being a boss—
der chef
—out in the west and be here a mother to your children and a helpmeet to your husband?”

“That is something I am praying about.”

“Well, keep praying. I am sure the answer is not difficult to find, Miss Raber, not for an Amish woman baptized into the church as you are.”

Lynndae sensed a fire rising up inside her, but she bowed her head, so the men would not spot it in her eyes.

Moses Beachey spoke. “You are not sure yet and neither are we. We hold nothing against you from your past, not from your father’s decision to be a soldier or from your brother’s decision to be an outlaw. What we are uncertain about is whether you can submit to a Christian life that sees you in the home instead of telling ten hired men what to do. It does not sound as if you are certain you can see yourself in that Amish home yet, either. So we must proceed slowly. There is plenty of time. We hope you can remain here indefinitely—or at least until a decision is made on your part.”