The Captive Heart Page 7

  Then Lovina turned the same mischievous smile on Miriam. “And Rachel might not be the only one thinking about a wedding.”

  All hands stopped, and all eyes turned to Miriam.

  “Oh?” Mamm said, her needle pausing halfway through a square of fabric. “Miriam, is there something we don’t know?”

  Lovina mouthed the words silently, Miriam and Micah.

  Miriam’s eyes narrowed and she glared, but Lovina wouldn’t let up.

  “She rode with Micah when we went logging that day.”

  “There was nowhere else to sit,” Miriam countered.

  “The road was rough, too. I guess that’s why you had to sit close and hold onto his arm, then. Oh, and she rode home from Saltillo with him in the back of Dat’s wagon the other day, too.” Her eyes danced, watching Miriam squirm.

  Miriam could have cheerfully strangled Lovina in that awkward moment, with Micah’s mother sitting at the table.

  “Is this true?” Esther Shrock asked. There was an unmistakable twinkle in her eye. “Are you and Micah courting, Miriam?”

  She hesitated for a long awkward moment, thinking. Over the last few days, since she’d agreed to let Micah call on her, a host of conflicting emotions had assailed her. It wouldn’t do for anyone to see the pictures flashing through her head, or hear the voices—Domingo and his talk of fences, the rage in Ira’s face as he slapped his son and the pain in Micah’s eyes. Miriam really didn’t want to discuss any of these things in front of Esther Shrock. Privately she knew her infatuation with Domingo was not quite dead and buried, nor was she entirely sure how she felt about Micah, even now. It might have only been pity that made her decide to let him court her.

  But everyone at the table was staring, waiting for an answer.

  She looked up at Esther Shrock and heard herself saying, “Jah. Micah and I are courting.”

  They meant well, she knew that. The way they carried on—Esther Shrock and Mamm beaming, exchanging knowing glances as if they could already see themselves as in-laws. It was a great compliment in its way. Miriam expected it, and yet they seemed a little too happy at the news of her courting. In the end their exuberance was very nearly insulting, as if they were saying, We thought you would never find a man.

  Later, when the house was quiet and dark and everyone else had gone to sleep, Miriam rolled over in bed, leaned up on an elbow and whispered, “Rachel, are you awake?”

  “No. I’m sound asleep.”

  Miriam could hear the grin in her voice. Rachel was enjoying this, too.

  “Did you see the way that little vixen put me on the spot?”

  She felt the little quiver in the bed, Rachel giggling silently. After a moment the giggling stopped and Rachel said, “There’s nothing to be ashamed about, Mir. I like Micah. He’s a good man, and you saw how he faced down those bandits. He’s very brave. He’ll be good for you.”

  “Maybe,” Miriam conceded, but a question nagged her as she laid her head back down on her pillow. He might be good for me, but will he be good to me? She felt as if part of him was kept hidden, and most of the time he seemed almost haughty. The things he was proudest of—his brute strength and fierce competitiveness—worried her. Too often a boy ended up being just like his father, and after what she’d seen at the logging camp that was a troubling thought.

  In the middle of the night the dream came to her again. Once again she awoke in a sweat, Domingo’s face filling her mind.

  “This is unfair,” she whispered through her hands, sitting up in bed. “But it will pass. Surely it will pass.”

  On a Saturday afternoon at the very end of July Emma went to water the trees she had planted. As the sun sank in the west and a golden light slanted across ripening fields she put a barrel in the back of the hack, pumped it full from the well and made her weekly rounds.

  Half finished with the trees along her father’s long driveway, she straightened up, a bucket in one hand and the other pressed against the small of her back, straining against the counterweight of her swollen belly. Soon now, she thought, Levi’s second child will come into the world.

  She handed the empty bucket up to Ada, who dipped it into the barrel and handed it back. Emma smiled at her sister, but Ada only rolled her bottom lip into her mouth and chewed on it. At twenty-eight she was the oldest of Caleb’s daughters, but she had the mind of a child. In need of continuity and familiarity, Ada mourned the loss of her Ohio home more deeply than the others, but she’d been doing better lately, visited less frequently by frightful bouts of depression and hysteria. It helped to keep her busy, and Ada was always glad to do her part when she could, which meant whenever the task was simple enough for a child. Emma sometimes wondered what demons swooped like dusky bats through her older sister’s mind in the dark hours, but Ada seldom spoke, and when she did it was usually only mimicry of something she’d heard Mamm say.

  Emma had bent over to pour water on a little poplar sprig when she heard hoofbeats—Domingo, heading home for the day. He slowed and stopped, hopped down and tied the horse to the back of the hack.

  She admired his horse. “Star is looking like her old self these days. You’ve been kind to her.”

  “I would be a fool not to. She is a fine animal,” Domingo said, stroking his horse’s face. “A great gift.”

  His head tilted and an eyebrow went up as he appraised Emma’s ballooning waistline. “Emma, you should not be doing such work. That baby is coming any time now.”

  He reached out, beckoning with his fingers, and she handed over the bucket. The first time he bent down to pour from it his hat fell off. He picked up the flat-brimmed hat and sailed it up to Ada, who fumbled it against her chest, dropped it into the water barrel, then fished it out half full and jammed it on her own head, dousing her white kapp and clapping her hands with childlike glee as water ran down her face.

  Emma walked beside Domingo as he hauled water and Ada filled the bucket, his hat cocked absurdly on her head.

  “These trees will change the face of Paradise Valley,” Emma said wistfully. “Someday this will be a beautiful shady lane. I can just see it.”

  Domingo smiled, carrying water, saying nothing until Micah’s courting buggy passed by them, trotting briskly along.

  Micah waved as he passed, Miriam sitting primly beside him with her hands folded in her lap. She barely acknowledged Emma and Domingo before her eyes went back to the front, expressionless.

  Emma glanced from Miriam to Domingo and knew instantly that something had happened between them, though she couldn’t begin to guess what it was. It could be that Miriam was only behaving this way because of Micah, who was known to be a little jealous. Emma made a mental note to ask Miriam later.

  But then Domingo said the strangest thing.

  “I don’t understand your God.”

  Emma blinked. Her head tilted. “What brought that up?”

  “Micah.” Domingo stopped and faced her, bucket dangling. “Earlier this summer, when Micah pulled the shotgun on those bandits at the logging camp, he saved my life and his father beat him for it. Ira’s God was angry with Micah for doing something that saved us all.”

  Emma’s eyes wandered, slightly embarrassed. “Jah, I heard about that. Ira can be hard sometimes, but he is still Micah’s father.”

  Bending down, pouring water gently so as not to wash out the roots, Domingo said, “The Amish God is a mystery to me.”

  Emma shrugged. “Sometimes He is a mystery to me too, but Gott is Gott.”

  Domingo shook his head. “At least the Spaniards’ God is useful to them. He keeps the peons calm. But I don’t understand the Amish God at all. The Amish don’t conquer anybody, and their God tells them not to fight back when they are attacked. What kind of God is that?”

  Emma thought for a moment before she answered. “Gott does not serve us; we serve Him. We are His children.”

  Domingo’s eyes held suspicion. “If you are His children, why does He let bad men attack you? Why can’t you fi
ght back?”

  “Because it is a sin to kill. It is in the nature of men to fight, to steal, even to kill, but with Gott’s help we may overcome our nature. The fight is not out there, Domingo, it is in here.” She tapped her chest. “We work to conquer ourselves.”

  He handed the bucket up to Ada. “But this makes no sense. Isn’t your God the same as the Spaniards’ God? The men who ruled our country for so long came with a sword in one hand and a cross in the other. The Spanish God has no quarrel with killing.”

  “That is not Gott you are seeing, Domingo, it is men. There have always been men who used religion for their own ends, to wield power over other people for selfish reasons. Maybe such men only pretend to know Gott.”

  Domingo laughed, a brief sardonic chuckle. “Where is the man who does not pretend?”

  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

  When 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.