The Captive Heart (16 page)

Downhill.

Chapter 22

C
aleb slept fitfully that night, tossing and turning while snatches of dark, ominous dreams nipped at the edges of his sleep. He awoke an hour earlier than usual, but there would be extra chores in the absence of Aaron and Rachel, so he dressed himself and went out.

When the chores were done, the family gathered for breakfast, and there with them was the doctor. An expatriated American by the name of Leonard Gant, he'd been bunking in Caleb's basement for the last couple of nights while he tended the diphtheria victims in Paradise Valley. Dr. Gant was about Caleb's age, a gray-haired, sophisticated gentleman who wore a three-piece suit and tie to the breakfast table. He had run his own practice in Saltillo for twenty years and was fluent in Spanish, but the Benders relished the opportunity to speak English for a change.

“I'll be heading back home in a day or two,” the doctor said over bacon and eggs. “I've administered antitoxin to everyone at risk in your Amish colony, but some of the younger ones are still in danger. Today will tell the tale, I think. Caleb, your wife tells me your children haven't returned from Agua Nueva. Any news?”

Caleb shook his head, took a sip of coffee. “No, and I'm thinking they should have got back by now. Chust as soon as I'm done eating, I'm going to look for them.”

Even with a guest, the table seemed empty and quiet in the absence of Aaron, Rachel, and Ada. Especially Ada. She was always there. In all her years, unless she was laid up sick, Caleb couldn't remember a single breakfast without her.

“I'm sure they're fine,” Gant said. “Dr. Gutierrez probably just wanted to hold them for a day or two to make sure the toddler was on the mend.”

The sky was streaked with pink, the sun just beginning to peek over the eastern horizon. There was a nip in the air, and blue shadows still clung to the bottomland when Caleb and Harvey hitched the Belgians to the farm wagon and drove around front. Domingo cantered up from the east on Star, and for some reason Jake Weaver was trotting up Caleb's driveway on one of Hershberger's saddle horses.

They converged in the front yard at the head of the driveway. Caleb hauled back on the reins, bringing his team of Belgians to a shuddering halt.

“Good morning,” Jake said, leaning on his pommel. “I heard you were going out to look for Aaron and Rachel this morning and I wondered if I could go along. John said it was okay with him.”

“Harvey's going with me—and Domingo,” Caleb said. His dark-eyed younger son, on the bench beside him, tipped his hat to Jake. “I don't know as we'll need help.”

Jake nodded. He would never argue with a man old enough to be his father, but Caleb couldn't miss the crestfallen look, or the way Jake slumped a little in the saddle. The boy was worried about Rachel.

“But then,” Caleb said, scratching his beard, “I'm thinking another pair of eyes couldn't hurt anything.”

“What is that?” Domingo was standing tall in his stirrups, peering down the road to the west into the shadows at the base of the mountains.

“Where?” Caleb stared, but in the pearly light, with a thin morning mist hanging over the road, his fifty-year-old eyes could see nothing.

Jake craned his neck, staring hard while his horse pranced nervously. “Domingo's right. There's something lying in the road. Maybe somebody's burro lost a bag of beans.”

Caleb thought he could see a lump in the road, but it was nearly a mile away. He wasn't sure he really saw anything until the lump rose up and began to move. To Caleb's eyes it was only a blurry black and white speck, but as soon as it began to walk he recognized that peculiar swaying gait.

Ada!

Snapping the reins and shouting his draft horses into action, he swung hard right, ignoring the driveway and angling across a ripe field of oats at a reckless gallop. Two horses passed by the wagon on either side, Domingo and Jake racing ahead.

By the time Caleb got there they had already dismounted and were walking alongside Ada, gripping her upper arms and trying to get her to stop. Caleb jumped down from the wagon and ran to his daughter.

Ada's kapp was missing and the skirt of her dress torn off. Her frizzy uncut hair shot wild over her shoulders, down her back, in her face. Filthy and bruised, scratched and bleeding in a dozen places, she was taking short little baby steps on swollen feet, limping badly. Her eyes stared without seeing and she babbled incoherently.

Caleb had to block her path just to get her to stop walking, and even then she didn't seem to recognize him. When she pushed against him it struck him that the odd bulge under her coat felt a lot like the flesh and bone of a toddler, and his heart leaped.

But when he started to undo the hooks she grabbed his wrists, squeezing with a strength he didn't know she possessed, and pushed him back. Her chin jutted and her eyes flared, the familiar angry expression he'd seen occasionally when Ada didn't get her way. As soon as he backed off, she shouldered past him, hobbling, limping.

“Help me,” he said, and the three of them tried to steer her to the back of the wagon. But as soon as they put their hands on her and started to exert a little force she let out a bloodcurdling wail and flailed with her arms until they backed away.

She plunked down heavily in the middle of the road and rocked back and forth, clutching her secret bundle. The baby hadn't made a sound, hadn't moved. That stillness, combined with Ada's bizarre behavior, filled Caleb with the darkest dread.

It must have upset Jake, too. He stared at her for a moment, shaking his head. “Something terrible has happened,” he said. Then his eyes grew wide. “Rachel!” Without another word he slung himself up into the saddle and tore off down the road toward the mountains at a wild gallop.

“Domingo, stop him!” Caleb shouted, pointing.

Domingo leaped on his horse and took off after Jake.

Caleb knelt in the road next to Ada, trying to reason with her, but she paid him no attention. Her bottom lip stuck out and she stared straight ahead, bleary-eyed, on the verge of collapse.

The chugging of an automobile motor approached, then died. A few seconds later Dr. Gant knelt next to Caleb.

The old doctor examined Ada briefly, lifting her eyelids, gently checking her pulse. But when his hands went near the hooks and eyes of her coat she shook him off, leaned lower over the bulge and crossed her arms on top of it.

“She may not even know you're here,” the doctor said.

“Oh yes,” Caleb said, his eyes flashing wide as he rubbed his wrist. “She knows. We need to see about the child, but she won't let anyone near him. She goes into a tantrum. What can we do, Doctor?”

“I can give her a sedative.”

He went back to the car for his other bag, and as he was rummaging through it a buggy pulled up. Mary and Ezra jumped down. Mary ran, breathless, her mouth open, stark terror in her eyes, shouldering her father aside as she knelt in front of Ada.

She gripped her sister's round face with both hands, forcing Ada's vacant eyes to focus on her.

“Ada?”

Ada had been rocking steadily and moaning, a low keening from the back of her throat, but when her eyes fixed on Mary she blinked and the moaning abruptly stopped. Her face tilted down. Black fingernails on grimy, blood-streaked fingers worked slowly at the hooks of her coat.

They all watched in awed silence as Ada opened her coat, slipped the knotted cloth over her head, carefully lifted the heavy bundle and held it out to Mary.

Utterly speechless, Mary's shaking hands peeled back the black cloth to reveal a face. She clutched her son to her breast and bent low over him, weeping.

Ada reached into her pocket, raised a fist to her mouth, blew a curiously loud note on the harmonica, then held it out to Mary. But Mary's head was down, her face pressed against her child. Ezra reached down to take the harmonica, but Ada snatched it back and glared at him. As soon as Ezra retreated she offered it again, and a little hand came out of the bundle to take the harmonica from her.

———

They didn't have much trouble with Ada after that. The men got her into the doctor's open-top Nash, and the whole caravan turned around and went back to Caleb's house.

Dr. Gant said that Ada and the baby were both badly dehydrated, and Ada vindicated his diagnosis by drinking a quart of water without stopping. He checked her out as thoroughly as he could, and then the women drew buckets of water and took her upstairs to set about cleaning her up while the doctor tended to Little Amos.

The front door opened. Domingo came in, followed by Jake, hat in hand. The young man's eyes were hard, his mouth open and his breathing sharp, like a man fresh from a fight.

Caleb went to him, laid a hand gently on his shoulder and spoke quietly to him, in Dutch. “I know how you feel, son, and we
will
do something. But first we must learn all we can from Ada and then we must act
together
. The last thing we want to do right now is go running off in different directions. That would only make things worse. Do you understand?”

Jake's eyes dropped away and he nodded. His breathing slowed.

In a little while Miriam came downstairs to the living room, where the men were waiting.

“Is your sister all right?” Caleb asked.

“Jah. There's more strength in her than we know, Dat. Mamm worries me more than Ada. She's gone to pieces.”

He nodded. “High-strung, your mamm is. I will speak to her and try to ease her mind. Could Ada tell you anything about what happened to Aaron and Rachel?” He braced himself for the worst.

Miriam's shoulders slumped, and she couldn't look at her father as she spoke. “We couldn't get much out of her. She kept saying
bad
over and over, and sometimes she would drag a finger down across one eye, like this.”

Like the scar on El Pantera's face. Caleb swallowed hard. “What else? Did she say anything else at all?”

A small nod. There were tears in Miriam's eyes. “She said
Aaron
and she said
blood
. Then she got so upset it was no use talking to her.”

Jake had crept close, listening. “What about Rachel?” he asked, his eyes focused and intense.

Miriam sighed deeply and shook her head. “I tried, but she either didn't know or couldn't remember. I think she told me all she knows.”

Chapter 23

C
aleb's heart was in his throat as he and Harvey set out in the wagon while Jake and Domingo scouted ahead on horseback. Dr. Gant offered to go with them, but Caleb declined. There were sick children who needed him more.

Three hours later, high up on the barren ridge halfway to Agua Nueva, Caleb spotted Domingo and Jake up ahead, kneeling on the ground. Rushing to the site, Caleb set the brake and climbed down from the wagon.

Domingo rose to meet him. “Something happened here. There is blood.”

Unprepared for the sight of so much blood, dried brown on the barren rock—the blood of one of his children—Caleb's knees almost buckled and his voice quavered.

“Tell me what happened. Where are Rachel and Aaron?”

“Find the buggy and it will tell us something,” Domingo said, his eyes roaming the crest of the ridge. “Bandits will steal a horse, but they would have no use for the surrey. It has to be here somewhere.”

Harvey spotted the wrecked surrey right away, down the hill at the edge of the trees. He ran down to it and shouted back up to the others, “Aaron is here!”

Aaron lay trapped between the seats in the crumpled surrey. Together they righted the buggy and pried him out of it. His normally ruddy skin was pale yellow and cold to the touch. When they stretched him out he uttered a muffled groan. His chest rose and fell slowly under a shirt soaked with blood.

Caleb leaned over him, pressing a finger under his jaw, feeling for a pulse. Fast and shallow. “Aaron,” he whispered.

No answer.

“I don't know how he's still alive,” Caleb said, pulling aside the soaked shirt. “He's lost so much blood. He's been stabbed—it's a knife wound, not a gunshot.” Caleb almost choked on the words, imagining the horrifying scene.

Harvey gave up his own shirt to make a bandage, then they struggled up the hill with Aaron as gently as they could and laid him in the back of the wagon. Harvey brought a buggy robe from the wagon box, and he and Jake tucked it around Aaron while Domingo left them to their work and went to scout around on horseback.

“What do we do now?” Harvey asked.

Caleb took off his hat, wiped his brow on his coat sleeve. “We got to get him home as quick as we can. I can't do nothing for him here.”

“Agua Nueva is about as close as home, and there's a good doctor there,” Jake said.

“There's a better one at home,” Caleb said, rising, standing in the back of the wagon. “Harvey, you keep him still and I'll try to drive smooth.”

Hoofbeats announced Domingo's return. He trotted up to the wagon and stayed in his saddle.

“Did you see any sign of Rachel?” Jake asked, his voice quavering with fear.

Domingo held out a prayer kapp. “I found this down the hill a little ways.”

“Ada's kapp was missing,” Caleb said. “It could be hers.”

Jake held the kapp up to his face, pinched a long hair from inside it and held it up to catch the sunlight.

“Red,” he said. “Rachel. So what happened to her?”

“I'm not sure,” Domingo answered. “I circled this whole place twice and didn't see any other traces. There's an old trail about a quarter mile back where I found the tracks of ten or twelve horses in a soft place, going north. Bandits.”

But as Domingo talked he kept glancing at Caleb. He was holding back. There was something else he wasn't saying.

Caleb spoke up. “Tell us what you think, Domingo. All of it. We are all men here.”

With a reluctant glance at Jake, Domingo said, “Rachel would never have left her brother's side or let Ada go wandering off by herself unless she was dead or captured.”

Caleb nodded.

“If she was dead, I would have found her.”

“So they have taken her.”

“There is no other explanation.”

Jake was incredulous. “Why would they take her captive?”

Domingo shrugged. “To sell.”

“To
sell
? What does that mean?”

“As a slave,” Domingo said. “There are rich men who will pay a lot of money for a young girl. Surely I don't have to explain—”

“No,” Jake said, breathing deeply, his eyes wide and his fists clenching and unclenching. “You've told us enough.” He untied his horse from the wagon, hooked a foot in a stirrup, and swung up into the saddle.

“I'm going after her.”

The look in the boy's eye told Caleb there was no point in arguing with him. But now he faced an impossible choice. Should he try to save his son or pursue his daughter?

Domingo, waiting patiently in his saddle, stared at Jake and held out a hand, palm down. Both of them remained where they were and waited for Caleb to speak.

“I don't know what to do,” Caleb finally said, his eyes pleading. “I want to go after Rachel. But the bandits already have a head start, and Aaron is barely alive. He will surely die if we don't get him to a doctor quickly.”

“Señor Bender,” Domingo said softly, “we have only two saddle horses.” He waved casually toward Jake. “You will not stop this lovesick fool from going after Rachel, and it would be suicide for him to follow bandits into those mountains without me. There is no choice for you to make. You and Harvey must take Aaron home. Jake and I will go and find your daughter.”

The young man's judgment was sound, his words wise. Caleb nodded slowly. “Be careful,” he said. “And bring my Rachel home.”

It was chilly in the heights, even in summer. Jake buttoned his denim work coat and turned up his collar, but the thought of his Rachel in the hands of those bandits left him shivering anyway. A whirlwind of horrors haunted his imagination as he followed Domingo up and down narrow mountain trails. If they couldn't find Rachel and bring her back, he was pretty sure he'd never be warm again.

Domingo trotted along at an even pace through forest and creek, up and down and around steep mountainsides on the meandering trail, moving ever northward.

“Can't we go any faster?” Jake asked for the tenth time. Alone with Domingo he spoke German, because Domingo's German was much better than his own Spanish.

Domingo shrugged, his shoulders hidden under a striped poncho. “Jah, we can go faster, but then the horses will have to stop and rest. We must pace ourselves.”

His flat-brimmed hat snugged tight on his head, Domingo's eyes constantly scanned the ridges and trees up ahead and on both sides. Most of the time he refused to talk, and it took a while for Jake to realize that he wasn't being unfriendly, he was just listening.

“Are you sure we can find them?”

Domingo gave him a sideways glance, almost a smirk. “I am not the tracker my father was, but I think I can follow the tracks of a dozen horses through the soft dirt of the woods. Anyway, I think I know where they are going, or at least I know the area.”

“Really?” This was a surprise to Jake. “You know these men?”

Domingo nodded. “In this part of Mexico there is only one man who kidnaps girls to sell. El Pantera.”

“The one who came to the logging camp last summer? Who robbed Herr Bender in the fall?”

“The same.”

Domingo followed the bandit trail down to where the tracks disappeared into a creek. He didn't hesitate but pushed Star right into the middle of the shallow creek. They began sloshing upstream.

Jake drew alongside. “How do you know El Pantera?”

“My father knew him. They fought together in the Revolution.” Domingo answered without looking up, his eyes scanning the banks for the spot where the bandits left the creek.

“And you know where he lives?”

“I know
of
it. They say he has a little ranch in a remote place called Diablo Canyon, far to the north in the mountains west of Arteaga. My father said it was well hidden, and well guarded. El Pantera keeps a small army there—twenty or thirty men.”

This was grim news to Jake. “Twenty or thirty,” he muttered. “How can you fight so many?”

Domingo chuckled. “I can't. I have only a rifle, and you will not fight at all. Our only hope is to get in and out without them knowing we are there, and to do this we must be
quiet
.”

Jake saw the sideways glance full of doubts about his ability to be quiet, but he still had a lot of questions. From now on he would talk more softly.

“How far is this place?” he whispered.

Domingo shrugged. “A long day's ride, probably.”

Jake slumped in his saddle, his heart sinking. “Then they are already there.”

“Maybe not. They might have stopped someplace for the night. El Pantera is in no hurry.”

“How do you know this?”

“The tracks are close together. Their horses are walking, not even trotting. Anyway, El Pantera knows no one would be foolish enough to come after him in these mountains without an army. Even an army failed, once.”

Suddenly he pointed to a bare spot on the bank. “
There
it is.”

Domingo spurred his horse and trotted up the bank onto dry ground, picking up the trail of the bandits where they left the creek, moving steadily northward.

Rachel was numb, all emotion wrung out of her during the night. She clung to the saddle listlessly, her face expressionless. At least she was alone. No one's hands groped her today, for as soon as the weasel cinched the girth on his saddle that morning El Pantera put Rachel on his horse alone and made the weasel ride bareback on the stolen standard bred. The weasel sulked, humiliated while the others harassed him mercilessly with their callous jokes. He didn't answer them, but the hounded look in his eye let them know that sooner or later someone would pay.

The bandits moved through the woods and creeks at an unconcerned pace, their horses ambling along. El Pantera was supremely confident, fearing no one in his corner of the mountains.

Before noon Rachel could make out a rocky bluff through the trees up ahead, rising high above the trail on the left. A quarter mile from the bluff they reached a clearing, where El Pantera stopped the column and waved his hat over his head.

A lone rifleman stepped out from behind the rocks on top of the bluff, returning the signal with his sombrero. El Pantera spurred the Appaloosa and they pressed on.

A few minutes later the column of horses rounded a sloping field of sandstone boulders at the base of the bluff, heading downhill and to the left into a steep-sided canyon. Sheer walls of rock towered a hundred feet high on three sides. On the floor of the canyon Rachel could make out a little clutch of adobe buildings—a house off to one side, and beyond it a long structure that looked like a bunkhouse. Behind the bunkhouse lay a two-acre garden patch, looking wilted and unkempt, the cornstalks yellowing. A rail fence stretched all the way across the back end of the little box canyon, making use of the walls to form a natural corral. A large all-wood barn stood in the center of the fence, and next to it a wire pigpen where two sizable hogs lay in the strip of shade cast by the barn. The house was partly shaded from the midday sun by a huge old oak tree, but apart from that only a few spindly pines and cottonwoods stood isolated on an otherwise rocky landscape. To Rachel's eyes it was a red and desolate place. What was left of her heart sank, and she wondered how much worse things could possibly get.