The Captive Heart (9 page)

But he had not thought it out. Emma knew the answer—
Domingo's
answer—to this question.

“Dat,” she said. “There is no pretense in my father.”

Domingo's features softened, and the sneer faded from his face.

“Your father is a puzzle to me. I have never known a man like him.”

Ada grunted, leaning over the water barrel and glaring impatiently at Domingo.

“Sorry,” he said, handing Ada the bucket. A sad smile came into his eyes then, and Emma couldn't tell if it was confusion or resignation.

A hawk screamed, wheeling overhead. Gazing up at it Domingo said, “Pacifist or not, you are a dangerous woman, Emma. If a man wanted to find this God—your father's God—where would he find Him?”

“His footprints are everywhere,” she said, “but only if you know how to see them. Can you read?”

“Sí, I read very well these days, thanks to your sisters. Miriam gave me a book to practice my reading. A big thick book about Don Quijote. I have read it twice now—much faster the second time.”

“Do you have a Bible?”

“No.”

“Does your sister Kyra have a Bible?”

“Sí.”

She shrugged. “Read it. Start anywhere. If you look for Gott, He will find you.”

“Maybe I will,” he said, casting an odd glance at Micah's buggy as it disappeared behind the tin-roofed adobe home of Ira Shrock a half mile away. “But only because it makes no sense.”

He hefted his bucket and went back to watering the saplings. When he turned around again, Emma had dropped to her knees in the driveway, her head pitched forward and both hands wrapped around her belly.

She looked up at him, her face red, one part grimace and one part grin. “I think you were right, Domingo. This baby is coming
soon
.”

Chapter 11

W
hen Caleb got everyone together for church services in the Benders' front yard the next morning the women were all abuzz with the news of Emma's new baby. It was a difficult delivery, but his Rachel was there. Somehow, as always, Rachel knew what to do. Late Saturday night a beautiful red-faced baby girl had come squalling and kicking into the lantern-lit bedroom at Levi and Emma's house. They named her Clara. Mother and daughter both made it through the delivery well and healthy, and by sunrise the only thing left to do was give thanks.

Caleb was perhaps a little more thankful than most. Of all his daughters Emma had always been the closest to his own heart, and it seemed that she struggled mightily with pregnancy. He had said nothing, though he had worried constantly and breathed a great sigh of relief when it was over.

But the arrival of Baby Clara laid another brick on the weight of angst that lately clouded his mind. He tried to ignore it, tried to trust Gott, but the problem would not go away. What would happen if
real
evil came to Paradise Valley now? Not just the little bands of hungry vagrants he most often saw, but men who meant real harm. What would happen to his children, to his
grandchildren
, if El Pantera's men descended upon them?

Caleb had never felt so vulnerable in his life. That Sunday, while so many gave thanks in the sunlight, he offered up a silent, fervent prayer from the darkest corner of his heart.

Please keep my girls from harm.

So far, prayer had been enough.

Micah came to the youth singing that night and afterward slipped away to be alone with Miriam for a time. When he'd first started courting her she'd expected him to press himself upon her, but he didn't. He was gentle with her, holding her fingertips in his and gazing into her eyes in the moonlight behind the barn. She saw a gentleness in him sometimes. It was in the way he played with the little ones that very afternoon, rolling in the grass like a big bear, letting them think they had conquered him.

But she could read his eyes, for he was not a complicated man, and in him she saw a great desire held in check by a fragile patience. Perhaps she saw too much, for she also saw his pride. He was proud of his gentleness and patience, as if they were tools that he would use to pry open her shell.

He was trying to win her.

On a Saturday in October, Micah and Miriam decided to take a picnic basket and hike up to the top of the ridge with Jake and Rachel. It was a lovely mild, sunny day with a light breeze, cool enough at the crest of the ridge to wear a shawl. Rachel and Jake had wandered off into the trees to be alone for a bit, leaving Miriam and Micah sitting on the picnic blanket near the ridgetop where the cliffs fell away into oblivion.

They had run out of things to talk about, as they often did, and Miriam sat hugging her knees, staring out across the low hills to the north, listening to the chattering of the birds in the brush. She barely noticed when Micah took off his hat. But then he leaned over, put an arm around her and kissed her. He had kissed her before, but never like this. It caught her by surprise, though she must have smiled because he watched for her reaction and then gave her another kiss, longer and more intense than the last one.

She had grown used to Micah. She felt comfortable and safe with him, and when they talked it was pleasant, but only pleasant. When he kissed her it was nice, but only nice. Miriam understood that she had always expected too much of Micah, and perhaps even of life itself, yet she was patient too, and thought that perhaps over time she might peel back the layers of this uncomplicated man and find something to cherish. Something to love.

But as he went to kiss her a third time she pulled away and rose to her feet. Her hand came up to cover her lips, her fingers quivering.

“What is it?” he asked, still sitting. His head turned, scanning the tree line. “Are Rachel and Jake coming back?”

She shook her head, not saying anything because she couldn't.

It was this place.

The realization had come upon her like a cold wave, filling her with dread. This was the place of her dream—the exact spot. It had been two months since the vision last came to her in the night, and she had almost forgotten. Now the images came flooding back: the rocky ridge sloping into the ragged tree line on one side where the Bender farm quilted the valley far below, and on the other side dropping steeply away into nothingness. In the distance stood the treeless, boulder-strewn ridgetop, which looked exactly like the place in her dream where she had seen the great dark horse rearing up, charging. A gust of wind moaned through the crags and a chill went through her.

Micah rose and put his arms about her shoulders, watching her face. “What's wrong, Mir? Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost.”

She could not answer him. Even if she could have found the words to describe it, she still would not speak of her dream to Micah.

The scream of a horse echoed through her mind and she looked down at herself, at her clothes. Her hand rose slowly, trembling fingers reaching, touching her prayer kapp to make sure it was still in place.

Micah clung to her, holding her in his arms until her mind quieted and she came back to herself. She looked up at him as if seeing him for the first time.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “It's just . . . it was a very queer feeling I had.” She couldn't bring herself to tell him. Not about this. “An odd premonition, I guess. It was nothing. I'm okay now.”

He squeezed her a little tighter and she nestled into his arms.

“You're safe with me, Mir. I promise, I will let no harm come to you. You'll always be safe as long as I am with you.”

He meant it, and she really did feel safe with him, at least to a degree. But in her heart, and in her dreams, there were dark places and evil men far beyond Micah's ken.

When the field corn was ready at the end of October they held a husking bee. It was Micah's idea. Back home in Ohio a husking bee would have been a grand rollicking social occasion for the Amish youth—usually only boys and girls of dating age. After the corn had all been shocked and left to dry for a time, eighteen or twenty of the young people would get together in the late afternoon and couples would compete against one another to see who could shuck the most corn. At least that was the
grown-up
reason for the husking bee. The teenagers liked it because they could spend time together as couples.

But that was in Ohio, where they had a large community. In Paradise Valley there were only a handful of teenagers and hardly enough couples to make a pretense of a real husking bee, so they let the kids join in, and even some married couples. Levi and Emma were there, and Ezra and Mary.

The shocks were all lined up in rows in the field, like odd-shaped shoulder-high hats. Miriam and Micah chose a row, went to the first shock and faced each other across it, pulling ears from the dry stalks, slicing them open with a corn husker strapped to their palm, peeling away the shucks, tossing the bare ears into a pile between the shocks and spreading the husks at their feet. As they worked their way down the shock, they would kneel on the spent husks to keep their knees out of the damp earth.

Everyone worked quickly. It was what passed for competition among the Amish, work made into a game, but Micah took it seriously. His hands flew—slicing, ripping, tossing and breaking off another ear even before the last one hit the ground, his face twisted in concentration as he worked at a fever pitch.

Facing him on her knees, Miriam said, “Go easy, Micah. It's supposed to be fun. Give the young ones a chance.”

His hands didn't slow down as he glanced worriedly at Jake and Rachel, two rows over. “It's not the young ones I'm worried about,” he said. “Jake and Rachel are already a shock ahead. That boy is
fast
.”

She laid a hand on his forearm. “That's okay. It's the number of ears, not the number of shocks that counts. Anyways, you wouldn't have to win at
everything,
would you?”

He paused for a second, his head tilted in a puzzled stare. “What else would you have me do? Miriam, you're the
reason
I want to be the best at everything.”

He snatched another ear and ripped it open, a trickle of sweat crawling down his forehead as his eyes concentrated and his hands flew.

She watched him for a second and said calmly, “You're always trying to impress me, Micah. Maybe you should relax a little.”

A quick, nervous glance. “I'm always trying to
win
you, Mir. I just want to be the best.”

“That's what I mean. Winning isn't everything, and best doesn't always mean strongest or fastest.”

He smiled at that. “Spoken like a woman,” he said, but his hands did not slow down.