Where Grace Abides (7 page)

Later that night Susan lay abed, sleepless and unsettled. Fannie had been asleep for hours, so the house was totally quiet except for the few creaks and groans that had grown comfortably familiar after years of living there.

She had become used to a quiet house at night. They went to bed early, she and Fannie, and with Gideon and Rachel now gone, there was little to disturb the silence. Even so, she seldom slept deeply. Most nights she tended to wake several times. She would get up and go to check on Fannie or go to the kitchen for a drink of water. Sometimes she would pull up her rocking chair by the bedroom window and sit looking out on the field between her house and Rachel's, if there was enough moonlight to allow a view.

Sometimes she thought she might be more suited to sleeping through the day and doing her chores at night. She smiled at the thought. No doubt such an idea would scandalize her neighbors.

So restless she was that at last she got up and went to the window to look out. There was nothing to see except an occasional glimpse of the moon through the thick clouds scudding across the night sky. She stood there thinking of Rachel, so sad and so withdrawn again; of Gideon, her prodigal, gone away from his home and family except for the times he came back to help with the more strenuous farm chores; and of her sweet youngest daughter, Fannie, who these days seemed to be more herself than she'd been ever since that awful attack last winter, when some
Englisch
boys had taunted her and
knocked her down into the snow. Thanks to Captain Gant, she'd been rescued in time and finally recovered not only her health but her lively spirits, though it had taken months.

Susan couldn't bear to think of what might have happened to the child had Jeremiah Gant not seen her lying in a snow drift and gone to fetch her, despite his own recent leg injury that made it difficult for him to walk. She would be forever grateful to the former riverboat captain who surely had saved her sweet daughter's life.

If only he could have helped her
other
daughter build a new life as well. A new life with him…

She shook off the thought. No sense thinking such things now. The bishop had said no to Gant and Rachel, and that was that. Their love simply wasn't meant to be. Somehow the two of them must get on without each other.

Though Rachel would hate knowing it, Susan still couldn't dismiss an uneasy sense of guilt when she thought of her own happiness as her wedding to David approached. It seemed so unfair that she, a middle-aged widow and mother, should be granted a new love, a new life, when her young daughter continued to live with a broken heart.

She caught herself then, recognizing that her mind had taken a treacherous path. It was almost as if she were questioning the Lord God with these forbidden thoughts of what was fair and what wasn't.

She closed her eyes in a prayer for forgiveness, then turned and went back to bed before her mind could wander any farther down that troublesome path.

 
7
 
N
IGHT
S
OUNDS

The silence of the night
mocks my fainting heart…

A
NONYMOUS

S
omething jolted Susan from a fitful sleep. She sat up and listened.

Outside something cracked. Then again.

A strong wind had blown up in the night, and at first she thought she'd merely heard tree branches snapping. But then came the jangle of a harness and a shout.

Footsteps pounded the ground. The sound of running.

Another shout.

A horse whinnied and snorted.

She ran to the window, pulling on her night robe as she went.

A thick, oppressive darkness hung so heavy over the meadow she could see nothing for a moment. She'd left the window cracked but now tugged it all the way up and stuck her head out to look.

Nothing but blackness.

She hurried across the room to light a lantern, then ran out into the hall, stopping only long enough to look into Fannie's room. The child stirred but didn't wake.

Susan ran down the steps, her heart pounding, her hands shaking as she unlocked the door. Time was when the Amish didn't lock
their doors. But no longer, not with everything that had happened over the past couple of years.

Stepping out into the night, she held the lantern high. The night air, dank and raw, slapped her skin.

She lifted the lantern even higher.

The barn doors stood open, the darkness within vast and gaping as if frozen in shock.

The horses!

Barefoot, she stumbled as she ran, stubbing her toe on a rock. Pain shot up her foot, but she kept on running until she reached the barn.

Her bare feet smacked the planked floor as she came to a halt just inside and stood listening. Cold and utter silence greeted her. The quiet chilled her more than the cold. Her hands shook as she lifted the lantern, swinging it first to the left, then to the right.

The two buggies—the small one and the larger, sturdier one that her husband, Amos, had favored—sat parked side by side looking eerily abandoned and useless.

Smoke, the sleek black buggy horse, and the older Rosie were both gone. Missing too was Cecil, the honey-colored Percheron Amos had brought home some years before he died. Susan counted on the big, powerful draft horse for all the heaviest farm work.

She called their names almost like a plea. The sound of her trembling voice unnerved her, and she called out again, this time more forcefully.

The dark, empty silence of the barn mocked her.

She tried to take in the reality of the missing horses, tried to quiet the thunderous pounding of her heart, tried to think what to do. The lantern dangling from her hand flickered crazily, creating shadows that seemed to move and lick the walls, then rush toward her.

Something nagged at the fringes of her mind. She lifted the lantern a little higher and swept its beam around the barn.

The cats. The little black and white spotted female and the
all-black male—neither was anywhere in sight. The two always came running when someone entered the barn. She called for them, but she knew that they too had gone missing.

Shock threatened to paralyze her as the enormity of her loss began to settle in. Tears burned her eyes, not only for the horses now but for the barn cats as well.

Contrary to Amos's warnings about treating animals like pets, she had always harbored an affection for the horses, especially the dependable, sturdy Cecil, whose massive size belied his gentle nature. And Fannie loved the cats, was always begging to bring them inside, though she knew Susan wouldn't allow it.

It suddenly struck her then that she couldn't just stand here doing nothing. They were her responsibility, after all. They hadn't run away of their own accord, this much she knew. She had to find them.

She
would
find them.

She whipped around, then took off running to the house and began to tug on the bell rope that would summon help.

 
8
 
A C
ALL FOR
H
ELP

Whatever the wealth of our treasure-trove,
The best we shall find is a friend.

J
OHN
J. M
OMENT

T
he clanging of a bell dragged David Sebastian from a deep sleep. He'd gone to bed early, already trying to accustom himself to Amish ways—one being their early-to-bed, early-to-rise routine. With his approaching conversion to the Amish church and his marriage to Susan, he wanted to be reasonably well-settled into all the Plain People's ways.

At first he thought he'd been dreaming, for the sound seemed a great distance off. He turned on his side, intending to go back to sleep, but when the ringing didn't go away, he sat up.

Years of being awakened in the middle of the night rendered him instantly alert. Four gongs, a pause, then two more. Four again and another two
.

Susan!

That was the help signal Amos had set up when he'd first hung the bell at the back of their house. Susan would never ring that bell in the night unless she was in need of help.

He fumbled for his glasses and lit the lantern, throwing on his clothes over his nightwear before rushing from the bedroom. At the front door, he grabbed his medical case.

Susan's house was just up the road. He hurriedly hitched the bay to the buggy and drove off at breakneck speed, praying all the way that the Lord would keep Susan and Fannie safe until he and others arrived to help.

The first to respond to the bell was Fannie. She came charging into the yard, barefoot and in her nightdress, even while Susan was still yanking the bell rope.

“Mamma! Why are you ringing the bell?”

Susan continued to pull the rope, saying, “You need your coat, Fannie. Go back inside and get it. I'll explain later.”

Before Fannie could reach the back door, however, Rachel came running around the side of the house from her own farm across the field. “Mamma! What's wrong?”

She had thrown a coat over her night clothes, but like Fannie she arrived with bare feet. Of course, most Amish women didn't bother with shoes in warm weather, but the nights were too cool now to go without them.

“Inside, both of you,” Susan scolded, dropping the bell rope, taking each of her daughters by the hand and coaxing them indoors. “And Rachel, we'd best get our clothes on. Malachi and the boys will be here any moment now, I'm sure. We need to be dressed.”

“But what is it?” Rachel pressed as soon as they stepped into the kitchen. “What's happened?”

Inside Susan did her best to keep her voice calm as she explained. “It's the horses. Someone let them out of the barn. They're gone. And—” she glanced at Fannie. “The barn cats. They're missing too.”

Fannie went pale, a stricken look crossing her features. Rachel reached to put an arm around her little sister, her gaze locking with Susan's.

“Rachel, hurry and get some clothes on now,” Susan said. “You
have dresses here, and if you want shoes, you can wear mine. Fannie, you might just as well get dressed too. There won't be any more sleep for us this night.”

Even as she spoke, footsteps came pounding up onto the porch. “That'll be Malachi and his boys,” she said. “Run on now, while I tell them what's happened.”

But when Susan opened the door, she found not Malachi Esch but Samuel Beiler and two of his sons.

Embarrassed to be caught in nightclothes, she pulled her robe more tightly around her.

“Susan—what's happened here?” Samuel spoke sharply in the language of the People, his stern features and gruff voice declaring him ready to take charge. His eyes, however, roamed the room behind Susan, no doubt looking for Rachel.

Susan fought to collect herself as she answered him. “Samuel, it's good of you to come.”

She waited as he and his boys came inside, disliking herself for wishing it was Malachi Esch who stood in her hallway. Samuel Beiler was a good man, a man who could be depended on in an emergency. She should be ashamed of herself for not feeling more gratitude and warmth toward him.

But Samuel was such a
hard
man, so strict and unbending. A good many of the Plain People were, if not exactly intimidated by him, at least guarded around him. There was also his persistence in pursuing Rachel. He should have remarried years ago for the sake of his sons, yet as far as she knew, he had never courted another woman since his wife's passing. He wanted only Rachel.

But Rachel didn't want
him.
And even though Susan would like nothing better than to see her daughter again content and settled in a good marriage with a good man, she had to admit she could almost understand why Rachel might resist Samuel's attentions. In spite of the fact that she and Amos had considered him a friend, Susan had never been completely comfortable around the man.

As she was standing in the open doorway, David pulled up in his buggy, with Malachi Esch almost directly behind him in their farm wagon.

Susan hoped she could be forgiven for the wave of relief she felt that others besides Samuel Beiler had arrived to help.

A little after four o'clock in the morning, Gant and Asa sat drinking coffee in Gant's kitchen. Gant had risen before dawn every morning for over a week, having received word that there would be runaways coming any day now. So far there had been no sign of anyone, and he was beginning to worry that something might have gone wrong.

Suddenly Mac growled and shot to his feet from his place by the cookstove as someone pounded on the back door. Asa was already out of his chair as Gant pulled himself up.

“Finally,” he said, limping to the door without his cane.

He opened the door only about halfway, quieting Mac with a short command at the sight of Gideon Kanagy.

“Sorry to wake you, Captain, but I needed to tell you—”

Gant threw the door the rest of the way open before the boy could finish. “I was up,” he said, motioning Gideon inside. “But what's got you stirring about so early?”

He caught a glimpse of another boy—an Amish boy—waiting in a farm wagon at the edge of the road.

“Gideon? Don't stand out there in the cold. Come on in.”

Even in the flickering glow from the kitchen lamp, he could see that the lad was in a lather about something or other.

“I'd best not take the time, thanks. Reuben's waiting for me—Reuben Esch. He came to get me, but I thought I should stop here first. I'd told you I'd open the shop again in the morning, but I won't be able to. Something's happened at the farm, and I need to get out there right away. Mamm will need me.”

Gant's mind fumbled to make sense of the boy's words. “Slow down, son.
What
happened?”

“I'm not exactly sure. Reuben said the horses are gone, and the barn cats—they're gone, too.”

Gant stared at him. “
Gone
?”

Gideon nodded. “Looks like someone stole the horses. The cats probably got scared and ran off.”

Mac had squeezed himself in between Gant and Gideon, and the boy leaned to stroke his head.

“Your mother and Fannie—are they all right?” Gant ordered Mac back inside.

Again the boy nodded. “Reuben says no one's hurt, but they're pretty upset.”

Gant drew a long breath. “Rachel?”

Gideon's gaze remained steady. If he knew anything of the situation between his sister and his employer, he gave no indication. “She'd be there with Mamm by now. She'd have heard the bell.”

“The bell?”

“The dinner bell Dat put up. He meant it to be used in case of trouble too, so the neighbors would come if ever help was needed.”

Gideon glanced back at the boy waiting for him by the road. “I should go now,” he said.

Gant's decision was already made. “Mind if Mac and I go with you?”

Gideon shot him a look of surprise but didn't hesitate. “That'd be fine.”

“Will your mother mind?”

The boy's reply was quick in coming. “You're always welcome at Mamm's house, Captain. She'd tell you so herself, were you to ask.”

Gant gave a nod. “Just let me get a coat, and I'll be right there.”

He watched for only a moment as Gideon hurried off to the wagon, then turned to Asa. “I don't like the sound of this. Can you take care of things here?”

“You've shown me what to do if anyone comes,” Asa said. “What about the shop later this morning?”

“Just put the
Closed
sign up on the door. I'll get back as soon as I can. One of the people will bring me, but for now I need to see what's going on out there.”

“Has there been trouble before?”

Gant looked at him, as he pulled his coat off the wall peg and shrugged into it. “As it happens, they've had more than their share. Some while you were gone. I'll fill you in later.” He paused. “You're sure you don't mind taking care of things without me if need be?”

“I know what to do, Captain.”

Gant nodded slowly, watching him. “Yes. You always do.”