Mother For His Children, A (21 page)

Ruthy's feet turned cold. “What do you mean? You're singing on the radio?”

“Yeah.” He used the
Englisch
slang she had always avoided. “I'm really good on the guitar....”

“You're talking about leaving the church.”

“Of course.” He moved closer to her and she recoiled. “As far as the church is concerned, you'll always be married to that old man, but that doesn't matter to us, does it? You know we'll be happy together.”

“Elam, I will never do what you're asking. I would never forsake God for anyone, even you.” Ruthy's breath caught as a sudden thought swirled through her mind. “What about Grace? Would you take her away from our faith? Would you want your daughter to grow up outside the church?”

Elam's face grew harder as she spoke. “Ruthy, you don't think any of this really matters, do you? What matters is you and me.” He pulled at her hand again, hurrying her along. “We will be happy together, I know we will.”

“
Ne,
Elam. I can't, I won't leave Levi and our family.” She tried to resist him, but he was too strong for her. “We will never be happy if you do this thing. You can find another girl who would be glad to marry you. You can have more children, brothers and sisters for Grace.”

“That's not the kind of life I want, Ruthy. I'm not spending my life scratching in the dirt for a few potatoes. I'm going to make it big, and I want you to come with me.”

He pulled at her again as they reached the top of a rise. Below them, at the edge of the woods, was a truck. When they reached it, he opened the driver's door, pushing Ruthy inside in front of him. She got into the truck, knowing that the only way to get away from him now would be to fight him, and Grace could get hurt. Maybe, somehow, she could talk some sense into him.

The truck started up with a roar, and Elam put it into gear. He sped up quickly, and Ruthy sat, helpless, as he drove her farther and farther from her home.

 

Chapter Twenty-One

L
evi hopped off the wagon that had brought him to the Mummert farm from Bird-in-Hand, waving
denki
to the farmer. Even the
Englischers
knew Ezekiel Mummert, and he had no trouble finding a ride from the train station.

Brushing off his trousers and straightening his coat, he took in the farm in front of him. From the cozy, white frame house to the lofty dairy barn behind it, the entire place spoke of a hard-working farmer. But was Ruthy here?

When he knocked on the side door, Naomi came rushing to answer it, but she stopped when she saw it was him.

“
Ach,
Levi! Levi!” Her face crumpled into tears.

Dropping his bag on the step, he pulled the screen door open and grabbed Naomi before she collapsed onto the floor.

“What's wrong? What has happened?”

Ezekiel appeared in the doorway to the front of the house, his shoulders slumped.

Levi helped Naomi to a chair at the kitchen table. “Is Ruthy here? Have you seen her?”

His father-in-law shook his head, taking a seat next to his wife and cradling her in his arms as she wept. “She has disappeared. She's gone.”

Levi took the chair across the table from Ezekiel, looking into his face, trying to understand.

“She was here?”

“
Ja,
until this afternoon. I was visiting our son, and Naomi was asleep. When she woke, Ruthy was gone, along with the baby.”

“What baby?”

He listened as Ezekiel told him the story of Laurette's death, the baby Elam had apparently abandoned, and how, until this afternoon, everything seemed to be going well.

Levi pushed himself away from the table, pacing back and forth in the kitchen. She had been here. If he had been a day earlier... But perhaps she had gotten word of his coming and had run away from him?

Ne,
that couldn't be. But where was she? Where would she have gone?

“Did she pack her bag? Take her things?”

Naomi shook her head. “
Ne,
nothing in her room has been touched. She didn't even take a bottle for the baby, or a blanket.”

“You've looked all over the farm?”

“Ja,”
Ezekiel said, nodding. “The barn, the outbuildings, the fields...even the well. There was no sign of her anywhere.” The older man rubbed his hand over his face. “Our sons are coming, to help with the search. She can't have just vanished.”

“Was she worried about anything? Expecting anyone? Did she have any plans?”

Naomi sniffed, controlling her tears. “She was worried about you, that she had been away too long, but she didn't want to leave until she knew what Elam was going to do.”

Elam again. “Why did she need to wait for him?”

“He had asked her to care for the baby, and then left. But we thought sure he was coming back to his farm and his daughter. She didn't want to leave the wee little thing without knowing what kind of home Elam was going to give her.”

The door burst open as three men came in, all the same height and build as Ezekiel. They could only be Ruthy's brothers. After a quick introduction, Matthias, the oldest brother, stuck his hands in his suspenders.

“We need to start looking off the farm. Could she have gone to a friend's house?”

“
Ja,
that could be.” Ezekiel named a few friends, and the two younger brothers ran out the door, ready to call on those families.

Levi couldn't get Elam out of his mind. “Could she...could she have gone to Elam's?”

Matthias nodded. “She could have.” He shot a look at Levi. “You'll come with me?”

Levi nodded and they headed out the door.

“We'll check quickly, and then come back here. Someone needs to stay here in case she shows up again.” Matthias waited until he got an answering nod from Ezekiel, and then set out at a jog.

He led the way along a path that passed behind the barn. “This isn't a good welcome for you, to find Ruthy missing.”

“I only want to know what's happened. To know that she's safe.”

“And the baby, too. She loves that little bum lamb of hers. She'd do anything to protect her.”

Levi nodded as they jogged along. He could imagine Ruthy's fierce devotion to her friend's baby. Matthias picked up speed as they came to a field, passing a side trail that led toward a stand of timber. Levi stopped to look up the trail. Bruised grass showed someone had passed that way recently.

“Matthias,” he called. The other man turned around.

“Ja,”
he said, nodding as he examined the trail. “Someone has been this way today. Let's follow this and see where it takes us.”

Just inside the edge of the woods, Levi stopped to pick up a rag that had been caught on a bramble. Not a rag, a diaper that had been used as a burp cloth. He held it up to Matthias.

“It looks like she's been this way. Are there any other signs?”

Matthias pointed out some scuff marks in the dirt, and they continued following the path to the top of a rise, and then down to the edge of a road. The trail ended there.

Levi paced along the edge of the road and back.

“She got into an automobile.” He rubbed the back of his neck. Where could she be? And why?

“Not just her. She wasn't alone.” Matthias pointed to the scuff marks. “There were two people here.”

“Does Elam have an automobile?”

Matthias nodded. “He has a truck. He claims it isn't his, but too many have seen him driving it for him to be able to deny it.”

“Do you... Do you think she went with him willingly?”

The other man gave him a level look. “How well do you know your wife?”

Levi shook his head, helpless. “I thought I knew her, but...”

“I know my sister. If she left with Elam, she had a good reason. She has the baby with her, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out she's protecting her, at all costs.”

Levi was sick. What kind of danger could she be in? Then a nagging suspicion flooded his thoughts—what if she weren't in danger at all? Could she have gotten into that truck willingly?

Dashing his hand across his face, Levi tried to wipe the thought away, but it persisted. It couldn't be true, could it? Not his Ruthy.

* * *

Ruthy sat in the corner of the truck's passenger seat, as far from Elam as she could. Grace slept peacefully, but for how long? And then what would she do? She had no clean diapers, no bottles, nothing to take care of the baby.

Elam hadn't stopped talking, but she had stopped listening. His talk of going to California, making it “big in Hollywood”—whatever that meant—alarmed her. He couldn't be serious, could he? Was he going to drive all the way there?

Ruthy chanced a sideways glance at Elam. His eyes on the road, he drove with his left hand on the steering wheel, gesturing with his right. He was animated and excited, not noticing her discomfort.

He drove on back roads, where the houses were scarce. Eventually they would come to a town, though, and she might be able to find help. Would anyone notice an Amish woman in a truck?

Elam drove around Lancaster, avoiding the city, but once they crossed the Susquehanna River, Ruthy was lost. She had never been this far from home except by train. The afternoon was waning, and Grace was beginning to stir. Her diaper was soiled and it was near her feeding time.

“Elam.” He didn't respond, so Ruthy raised her voice. “Elam?”

“What?” He barked the word. He never liked being interrupted.

“Grace is going to be hungry soon, and she needs a diaper change. Is there somewhere we can get some milk, and something to use for a diaper?”

He glanced over at her and the baby. “Yeah, I guess we have to. We'll stop at a store when we come to a town. You gotta speak English, though. That way they'll think we're Mennonite and won't think twice about the truck.”

Elam was still speeding along back roads with no town in sight when Grace's crying turned to screaming. Ruthy tried to keep her quiet, but the baby was hungry, and there was nothing she could do to pacify her. Elam drove faster and faster along the gravel road, but there was no town, no store, not even a farmhouse. Finally he skidded to a stop by the side of the road.

“I can't stand that noise.” He pounded on the steering wheel and yelled, “You've got to make her stop, or I will.”

“She's hungry,” Ruthy shouted back at him. Grace's crying filled the cab of the truck. “She won't stop until she gets something to eat.”

Elam reached under the seat, pulling out a dirty bottle with brown liquid in it. “Give her some of this. It'll keep her quiet.”

Ruthy moved the baby as far away from him as she could. “That's whiskey. I won't give her that. She needs milk.”

He eyed the bottle, and then the baby, and stuck the bottle back under the seat.

“If the brat's going to be this much trouble, then leave her here. I only wanted you to come, anyway.”

“Leave her here?” Ruthy echoed his words without thinking as she looked out the windows. The road they were on went between two empty fields. She couldn't see a house anywhere.

“Yeah. Just put her by the road. Somebody will find her.” He shifted his leg and the engine roared.

“You can't be serious. She isn't a piece of baggage or an animal that you can leave behind when it becomes a bother. She's helpless. She needs someone to take care of her.”

Elam glowered at her, his brows dark and heavy over his eyes. Had she ever loved him? Or had he changed so much in just a few short months?

“Then you get out with her.”

Ruthy looked around them again. It was getting dark and the road was still deserted.

Elam reached across her and lifted the door handle.

“Go on. Get out. You won't leave the brat here, and you can't take it with you, so get out. It was a mistake to think this would work. I'll do better on my own.”

She got down from the truck, Grace screaming in her ear. Elam pulled the door shut and gunned the motor. Red taillights disappeared in the dust kicked up by the truck, and he was gone.

 

Chapter Twenty-Two

L
evi accepted the cup of coffee someone handed him and took a sip of the bitter liquid. Ezekiel, Naomi, Matthias and the rest of Ruthy's family sat around the kitchen table, exhausted and defeated, while some of the neighbor women worked to feed the searchers.

Two days. It had been two days and there was still no sign of her. It seemed every Amish family from Lancaster to Ephrata had joined in on the search, but there had been no glimpse of Elam's truck, Ruthy or the baby.

With nothing more to discuss, no more ideas to pursue, they sat silently. Naomi worried a handkerchief in her hands, turning and twisting it over and over.

When the sound of an automobile drifted through the open window, Levi and the other men jumped up to look out the window. Two men in uniforms were emerging from the white vehicle. The state police.

No one had informed the police of Ruthy's disappearance, had they? How did they end up here?

Levi followed Ezekiel to the front door. The policeman who knocked looked at a card in his hand. “I'm Officer Charles, this is Williams. We're looking for the Nafziger residence.”

Ezekiel stepped back so the two men could come in. “Elam Nafziger is our neighbor, on the next farm east. Have you been there?”

“Yes, but no one is around. The place looks empty.”

Ezekiel exchanged glances with Levi.

“Why are you looking for him?” Levi asked. “Is there some kind of trouble?”

The policeman cleared his throat. “Is there someone we could talk to? Next of kin?”

“Elam is a widower, and his parents passed on several years ago.” Ezekiel shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose I'm about as close to him as anyone. Why do you ask?”

The policeman handed the card to Ezekiel. “There was an accident, and the man carrying this driver's license was injured. He was wearing Amish clothes, but he had been driving a Ford truck. Could this be the same Elam Nafziger?”

Ezekiel rubbed at the blood on the card with his thumb. “He was injured, you say? Will he... Will he survive?”

Officer Charles nodded. “We think he'll be fine, eventually. He has some broken ribs and a concussion. He'll have to stay in the hospital for a while, but he should recover.”

Levi stared at the card in Ezekiel's hand. If Elam had been in an accident, what had happened to Ruthy?

“Was there anyone with him in the truck?” Levi's voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “A young woman? A baby?”

The policeman looked at him, his eyebrows up. “No, he was alone. Was someone supposed to be with him?”

Levi looked at Ezekiel, waiting until the older man nodded.
Ja,
it was time to ask for help, even from
Englischers.

“My wife... We think she was with Elam in his truck.”

The policeman shook his head. “We didn't find any evidence that anyone else was involved in the accident. Either she wasn't with him, or she left the vehicle sometime before.”

“Where did it happen?”

One of the policemen went back to the car for a map, and everyone gathered around the kitchen table as they spread it out. Officer Charles stuck a thick finger on a spot on the other side of the Susquehanna River, southeast of York.

“It was out in the middle of nowhere. He had gone off a bridge into a culvert. That's why the wreck wasn't spotted right away.”

“So if Ruthy was with him, before the accident, she must be somewhere in here.” Levi drew his finger along the crooked roads between the spot Officer Charles had pointed out, across the bridge in Columbia, and back to Lancaster.

“Then let's start looking.” Matthias grabbed Levi's shoulder. “You and I can take my buggy and we'll search the roads all the way to the site of the accident.”

“You won't cover much ground in a horse and buggy,” Officer Charles said. “We can use our cruiser, and we'll contact other state police in the area. We'll need a description of both the woman and the baby.”

“I'm going with you,” Levi said. “I have to find her.”

Officer Charles nodded, and Levi grabbed his hat and coat off the hook on the wall.

“We'll go together,” Matthias said.

Levi grasped Matthias's arm in thanks. He could use the help of a brother on this search. The two of them squeezed into the backseat of the police car and Officer Williams started up the motor. Soon they were traveling faster than Levi would have thought possible. Lancaster flashed by in a haze of automobiles and buggies, and they were in open country again.

“We'll be crossing the river soon, and then we'll be in York County.” Matthias spoke
Deitsch,
close to Levi's ear so he could be heard above the noise of the motor.

Levi nodded, and Matthias grasped his arm. “You have nothing to worry about. We'll find Ruthy and the baby.”

When Levi only nodded again, Matthias leaned closer to him. “There's something else wrong, isn't there? Something you wouldn't tell
Mam
and
Daed.
”

Rubbing his hand over his beard, Levi considered how much he could tell Matthias. Over the last couple of days, the two of them had grown closer than he could have been with a brother of his own.

“Ruthy and I... Well, our marriage isn't all it could be.”

Matthias nodded. “I thought that might be the case, when she showed up here with Elam.”

“If...when we find her, I don't even know if she will want to come home with me. Ever since Elam stopped by our house three weeks ago, she's been different.”

Matthias looked out the window, then turned back to Levi. “Did Ruthy tell you about Elam?”

“Was he the man she had planned to marry?”

“Elam courted her for years. Ruthy never would look at any other boy, from the time they were in school together. It seemed strange to me that years went by and Elam never got any closer to marrying her. I also didn't like the way he acted. He joined church at eighteen, but he never seemed to be part of it. Kneeling on the outside, but standing up on the inside, if you know what I mean.”

Levi nodded. He had known others who had only made the appearance of joining church, but without a real love for the People or God.

“Then it was announced that he was marrying Laurette. Ruthy had no idea they had been dating, even though Laurette was almost part of the family since her
mam
died when she was so young. When it got out that Laurette was in the family way... Well, it was a hard way to find out that the two of them had been sneaking around behind her back all summer. Something seemed to die inside my sister.”

“And that's when she saw my ad in
The Budget.
”

“Ja.”
Matthias fell silent. They both watched out the window as the car sped across the bridge. The river stretched out beneath them.

“When she came back, after Laurette died, I saw a difference in her. Even though she was grieving for her friend, there was a joy that I hadn't seen since she was a little girl. I think it's because of you. She married you, and she loves her life. When she talked of her family in Indiana, she mentioned the children, but mostly it was ‘Levi did this' and ‘Levi did that.'”

Levi smiled in spite of his worry. He could hear her telling Matthias about the farm and the work there.

“If Ruthy went with Elam, there's one thing I know. She didn't go willingly. He would have had to force her to go with him.”

Levi glanced at Matthias. Ruthy's brother gave him a grim smile and squeezed his arm again. “She loves you, Levi, not him. She wouldn't leave you.”

A knot that had been growing tighter inside his chest with each passing hour loosened with Matthias's assurance. They would find her, and he would take her home.

* * *

Another truck, but this one wasn't being driven by Elam. Between Ruthy and George, the farmer who was driving, sat Margie, the farmer's wife. Without their help, she wouldn't have known which way to turn after Elam left her by the side of the road. But they had taken her in after she had stumbled into their farmyard on that nightmarish evening two days ago.

Margie, a woman about
Mam's
age, had clucked and scolded like a mother hen, feeding Grace, finding some old diapers she could use, and finally bedding them both down in the spare room.

George hadn't been able to make a trip into town yesterday because of trouble with one of his sheep, but first thing this morning they set out for York and the police station there.

“I don't want the police involved,” Ruthy had said. “I just want to find a way to get home.”

George had held up his hand to stop her protests, his bushy gray mustache wiggling back and forth. “We need to tell them what happened to you. Your folks will be worried, and the police can get you home lickety-split.”

So here she was, in another truck. Margie fussed over Grace as Ruthy thought about her next move. To get home to
Mam
and
Daed,
that had to be first. They must be worried to death about her, and at the same time they would be constantly praying. Had they asked the neighbors to search for her? Did they have any idea what had happened to her?

But then the next thing would be to go back to Indiana. To Levi. To her home. Now that she had been able to forgive Laurette and the icy rock that had taken over her heart was gone, it was time to start fresh with her husband. She loved him. The weeks away from him had softened her heart, for sure, but when she compared Elam to Levi...she didn't know how she could have ever loved Elam.

She had honored and respected Levi ever since she met him back in January on that snowy train platform, but somewhere along the way, love had crept in. She had to tell him she loved him. Perhaps, someday, he would come to love her, too.

George drove the truck into the outskirts of York, a huge city compared to Bird-in-Hand. Ruthy stared at all the automobiles on the streets and the tall buildings in the center of town. George parked the truck in front of a gray limestone police station and escorted them in.

He led the way to a high desk where a balding man in a police uniform sat. Ruthy forced herself to be calm. She wasn't used to dealing with so many
Englischers
.

The man behind the desk peered at Ruthy. “Well, what do we have here?”

Ruthy was glad when George spoke for her. “This girl has been separated from her family and needs to get back to them. Is there some way she could get a ride to Lancaster?”

The policeman smiled. “I think I can do better than that. There are a couple of gentlemen here looking for her. They came in a few minutes ago, wanting to file a missing persons report on a woman with a baby, and their description fits her to a
T.
”

Following the policeman down the hall, Ruthy wondered who the men could be. Elam? Or could it be
Daed?
Tears filled her eyes when she turned into an office and saw Matthias in front of her. He grabbed her in one of his bear hugs, lifting her off her feet.

“
Ach,
Matthias, how did you come to be here?”

“Not only me, Ruthy. Look who I brought with me.”

As Matthias set her down, he spun her around as if they were playing “pin the tail on the donkey.” Reaching out to grasp something, anything, to keep her balance, a familiar hand reached out to steady her. Levi?

She looked up into his face, and couldn't keep the tears back any longer. Even in front of all the people in the tiny office, Levi pulled her into his arms, letting her cry on his shoulder, holding her as if he were never going to let her go.