Patsy’s steadfast grip would have to do for light shed on the men’s descent, and whoever was left with the horses would have to stand in darkness. Adam would not leave Susanna on the mountain in blackness.
“We will call to one another frequently,” Niklaus said to Adam. “When you hear me, you must call in return.”
Adam nodded. He would do as his uncle asked, but the voice he most wanted to hear when he called was Susanna’s.
Adam may not always have gotten along with his father, but he had learned the essentials of tracking. Anytime they left the house together, his daed insisted on Adam’s careful reporting of what he observed. What was different? What was missing? What did not belong? What was out of place?
Neglectful of any necessity for stealth, Susanna left plenty of clues. Crashing through bushes might have attracted animals and heightened danger to herself, but Susanna would have only Noah on her mind. And in fact, her aggressive progress seemed to have silenced the animals that ought to have been scurrying across the mossy forest floor, scampering up tree trunks, or disturbing branches. Adam detected not so much as a gray squirrel.
Instead, the trail of branches someone had brushed against was obvious, a handful of needles missing here and there. It could be no one but Susanna, and perhaps she did not realize that six or nine or twelve inches at a time, her route through the forest was taking her downward at an angle sure to miss the mark. Adam dangled his lantern near the ground so that he might look upward and judge whether Patsy’s was visible. From his immediate position, it was. From a few feet deeper into the forest, it would not be.
Whether Susanna lost her balance and slid downward or chose to turn her feet sideways and scrape through the dirt to maintain balance, Adam could not know. By God’s grace her path was not difficult to track. No man’s boot prints confused the smaller markings her shoes had rendered. No hunter or wood gatherer had been on this portion of the mountain in recent weeks. Adam witnessed a fresh canvas of movement through the woods. Periodically, when he discerned a branch had been brushed or broken, he paused for closer inspection under the light of the lantern. This was how he found the patch of violet threads that must have come from the worn apron borrowed from Phoebe that Susanna had donned every day since leaving the Hooley farm and spending her nights with the Kauffmans. The evidence was slight. Most likely Susanna had not even noticed the snag. Adam picked the threads off the pine needles and closed his fist around them.
He was on the right path.
“Susanna!”
Silence.
He pressed on, holding the lantern in front of him lest he overlook another snag or even a compressed bed of pine needles that indicated she might have stopped to rest, catch her bearings, or shift direction. Above him, Patsy’s light flickered. If he could see it, Susanna would have seen when she stood in this spot—though Adam did not know how long ago that was. She would have adjusted her path to take her as directly below the light as possible.
“Susanna!”
Silence. Then, “Adam!”
But it was not Susanna’s voice. Niklaus was calling from somewhere in the trees above him.
“Here!” Adam responded, turning his lantern upward and sweeping from side to side to make his presence known.
“What do you see?” Niklaus boomed.
“Nothing. No one.”
Adam pushed forward, turning his own feet sideways against the slope of the mountain while trying to maintain level progress into a faltering shaft of light.
He slipped and caught himself on a tree trunk. Something slick was beneath his right foot, causing the slide. Adam reached for it.
Susanna’s black quilted bonnet. Had she even noticed that it had fallen? He was on the right path. Up on the ridge, the stars provided little reassurance of direction. Under the canopy of trees on a near moonless night, discerning east from west and north from south was difficult.
“Susanna!”
He waited, then called her name again.
“Adam?” The response was faint, tentative.
“I am here,” he bellowed. “Talk to me.” Say something. Say anything.
“Here!” came her voice.
She was above and beyond him, not so far off the path he might have chosen himself while aiming for Patsy’s light. Adam lifted his own lantern high, catching her shadow.
“I am coming,” he called out. “Stay there.”
“I must get to Noah.”
“Wait for me.” Please. Just wait for me. Adam focused his eyes as best he could with limited light against a blanket of black.
There. She was there. He would have to clamber up toward her. “I am coming.”
Susanna slipped from Adam’s view. He stilled his movement to listen for hers, certain she had stumbled and was slow to rise.
“Susanna!”
Silence.
“Susanna, answer me! Please!”
Adam made his best guess and pushed through a thicket of new forest growth beneath the age-old trees.
“Here,” she said finally. “I am here. I am waiting.”
Niklaus rotated his stance and inched his boots back until just his toes remained on the ledge, both gloved hands gripping the rope lined up straight down the center of his body.
“You all understand?” he said.
In the light of Patsy’s lantern, they nodded. Charles had hold of the rope as well and would feed it down a foot or two at a time, steadily enough that Niklaus would make continuous progress but controlled enough that the line remained taut enough to keep Niklaus from swinging. Shem was on horse duty, making sure Galahad remained as unperturbed as Patsy promised he would be. A second length of rope was tied to Charles’s horse, and both animals were secured to trees with short leads that would prevent their departure if something spooked them in the dark.
Three heads nodded as Niklaus bounced on his toes three times before letting both feet slide off the ridge. Noah was straight below him, but he would have to zigzag past trees Noah must have tumbled through on his way down. Niklaus’s boots scraped against the mountainside as he found footing and controlled his movement with more certainty. He must depend on Charles to give him as much rope as he needed but not enough to bring him harm by allowing him to swing wildly. And Charles would have to trust Shem not to suddenly decide he had a better plan than the one they all agreed to.
Niklaus wanted to look for Adam, but he did not dare take his eyes off his own task. Let no man despise thy youth, he reminded himself. He was past his own youth, but he spoke these words to Adam from time to time when the young man’s confidence faltered. Niklaus could find his next mountain foothold while also praying that Adam would find his mountain wisdom and together—with Susanna—they would converge on Noah before it was too late.
CHAPTER 39
Lambent light licked its way through the leaves as Adam made his way toward her. Susanna dug the worn toes of her shoes into soft earth to suppress her impulse to keep her feet in motion even if she was uncertain of the direction in which she should aim. Adam was not so far behind her. He could not have wasted any time in noticing her departure amid the commotion on the ledge, nor in hastening his own. Every step she took away from the ridge and under the tree-covered path she had chosen—largely by guesswork—toward Noah had taken her deeper into darkness. She saw Patsy’s light only intermittently, and she did not know how far off her bearings were. The lantern Adam carried now, flickering though it was, burst with comfort that she might have more to rely on than the glint of Patsy’s light that seemed yards above and yards to one side.
Adam reached her, and Susanna let herself fall into his arms.
“You should not have done that,” he said. But his voice held no scolding.
“It was the only thing to do, and you know it.” Susanna gripped his hand. Together they looked upward toward Patsy’s light.
Adam cupped one hand at the side of his mouth. “Onkel!”
“Here!” came a quick response. “On my
way down.”
“I have Susanna.”
“Hold on to her!”
Adam turned to Susanna. “Charles will not be far behind.”
“Then my impetuousness caused no harm at all,” Susanna said. “Rather, we have doubled our possibilities that someone will reach Noah before further harm comes to him.”
“But harm might have come to you,” Adam said. He brushed dirt off her bonnet before putting it on her head, and then he straightened it and tied it loosely beneath her chin using only two fingers of each hand.
Susanna half-smiled in the darkness. His voice still was void of scolding.
“I found threads,” he said, opening a fist.
She peered in the light of the lantern. “My apron.”
“What has become of it?”
“It caught on a branch.” She raised the remains in her free hand. “Then I thought I might as well rip it into strips as I walked. We will need bandages when we reach Noah.”
“I cannot see him,” Adam said softly.
“Nor I.” Susanna led the way as they began to walk again. “But Patsy is steadfast at her post, and now you are here with another light. We will find him.”
She pulled a length of cloth from her shoulder, fingered a width, and tore swiftly as she walked.
“Let me help,” Adam said.
“’Tis enough that you are here and hold the light.” Susanna ripped another length. “’Tis no different than tearing remnants for a quilt.”
“At least let me carry the strips.”
She nodded and laid a careful pile over his shoulder before pointing upward. They had gained enough yards to see that Patsy’s light was clear, and Niklaus was well on his way down.
“We are too far over,” Adam murmured.
“Then we will correct our course.” Susanna ripped another strip and hastened the pace.
Niklaus’s parting words to Patsy had been the same as Susanna’s. Her job was to keep the lantern in view at all times so he would have a reference point in the dark. As long as he could see the light, he could give his best effort to dropping straight down the side of the mountain toward the last place he had seen Noah nestled in the tree limbs. Patsy’s second task was to keep her eyes on Noah in her shaft of light. If he moved, she was to cry out the news. No one should reach his spot and discover that he had turned over or tried to stand or fallen four branches down or hung by one shoulder.
Beside Patsy, watching Niklaus repel carefully and successfully without getting caught in branches, her father was antsy for his turn. He squatted and shuffled toward the edge.
“Papa, don’t.” Patsy did not take her eyes off Noah and Niklaus. Her peripheral vision was enough to know her father was squirmy and might compromise the careful instructions he had received.
“I just want to be ready,” Charles said.
“You are ready,” Patsy said. “When Niklaus calls to you, that’s when you go. Not before.”
“My goodness, you have become quite particular about these things.”
“This is serious, Papa.” If he moved as much as his little toe prematurely and it caused a complication that put Noah at greater risk—or Niklaus or Susanna—her father would never hear the end of it from Patsy. He was used to being a free spirit out on the circuit, with an occasional report to his bishop, but this was an entirely different sort of circumstance. She would not hesitate to impress the reality on him.
“If you want to help,” Patsy said, “tell me if you see Susanna or Adam. You might at least spot Adam’s light.”
Charles shifted in the dirt but said nothing.
“Papa?”
“Sorry, sweetheart. He’s with her now. We heard him call, and she answered. But the forest is just too thick to see.”
“If we can’t see their light, then they can’t see mine.”
“We don’t know that.”
Patsy dropped down onto her belly and stretched her arm its full length out over the nothingness before her.
“Patsy, take care,” Charles said.
Patsy’s only response was to dig her toes into the dirt, forming twin depressions.
“Charles!”
Niklaus’s voice startled them both.
“Ready?” Charles called down.
“Slow and steady,” Niklaus advised. “Let Shem feed the rope.”
Patsy pressed her lips together, resisting the urge to look at her father. She would not take her eyes off the shadow she believed to be Noah’s shape even to wish her father Godspeed as he began his descent. But when he kissed the top of her head, she blinked, and for half a second she feared she had lost Noah. She did not watch her father’s movements but only listened. Beside her, Shem gripped her father’s rope.
Fifteen had left the Kauffman farm.
Ten has promised to meet on the ridge.
Six had arrived on the ridge.
And now Patsy was alone on the ridge with the Amish bishop—the person she trusted least.
Or perhaps she herself was the one she least trusted. Shem was doing what had been asked of him, bracing his feet against Charles’s weight just as he was supposed to do and gripping her father’s rope with both hands. As long as he did what was asked of him, maybe she would be able to keep her mouth closed.
“Wait.” Adam lowered a shoulder and let the loops of rope slide off onto the wrist that held the lantern while reaching for Susanna with the other hand. “I want you tied to me before we go any farther.”
“There’s no time,” Susanna said.
But Adam would not let go. “Hold the light while I untangle the rope.”
“’Tis not necessary.” Susanna did not take the lantern. “We can see Patsy’s light. We are not far off.”
“I will not have you slip and fall faster than I can catch you.”
“I will not.”
“You might.” Adam thrust the lantern at her again, and this time she took it.
He let the rope hit the ground and fumbled for a loose end, dropping it twice before making his fingers stop trembling long enough to circle her middle and cinch a knot at her waist. In the process, the rope tangled itself and he had to pull the entire length of it through two loops while Susanna tapped her foot with undisguised impatience before he tied the other end to himself.
Susanna’s eyes answered the lantern’s flicker, and in them he saw gratitude that he had caught up with her despite her annoyance for the time it was taking. He only wished to mitigate the possibility that they might complicate the circumstances by bringing harm to themselves in pursuit of safety for Noah. Her breath came fast, shallow, anxious. Adam tugged the last knot.
“Now?” she said, her head turning toward where they had last seen Noah.
“Now.”
Susanna took off with the lantern, leaving Adam to scoop up the excess yards of rope and lope after her. When he pulled on his boots hours ago, the day had been ordinary and his reasons to trust their tread ordinary. Now he was glad he had not put off last month’s trip to the cobbler any longer. His boots would serve him well scrabbling along an untrodden, ill-lit trail. As she gained distance, the rope went taut, and he pulled himself along it hand over hand toward the light she held high. With each step, Adam dug his heels in, making sure that if he must pull against her falling weight, he would be well prepared to do so.
Finally, the rope slackened and the distance closed. Susanna’s shadow took form in the lantern’s illumination.
Susanna’s posture told Adam she had her eyes on Noah once again. And that they were yet again in the wrong place.
“Adam!” Susanna shouted over her shoulder and then turned, relieved, to find that he was right behind her. She would not have to untether herself from him after all, an action she was fully prepared to accomplish if necessary in order to reach Noah. She had miscalculated long before Adam reached her, and rather than correcting her course, by stubbornly racing ahead of him, she had taken them farther from Noah. She had crashed through branch after branch
, trying to keep her bearings by Patsy’s light, only to find herself steeply below Noah.
She would not cry. She simply would not. Tears would not help Noah.
Adam caught her by the elbows from behind, his head coming alongside her to see what she saw.
“We will climb,” he said. “We have the rope. We will get to him.”
“He is not moving.” She could barely push out the words.
“That may be the safest thing right now.”
She nodded but felt no less foolish for having miscalculated to such an extreme.
“Susanna.” Adam turned her to face him, but she could not meet his eyes.
“Susanna,” he said again.
She pushed out her breath.
“We are all trying to reach Noah. You are not solely responsible for him. He is in God’s care.”
She raised her eyes toward Noah once again. Adam meant to be tender, but there was no time for such indulgence. She lifted the lantern to sort out whether it would be fastest to take the steepest route up toward Noah or to zigzag a path that was less direct but also less steep and so in the end might take less time.
“Do you still have the bandages?” she asked.
“Yes, of course,” Adam said.
“Good.” She would tear up her entire dress if that is what it would take to care for Noah properly when she reached him.
CHAPTER 40
If Niklaus had known Patsy Baxton was capable of such steadfastness in a crisis, he might have welcomed her into one years ago. She had muscles of steel and the determination of ten men. Each time Niklaus raised his eyes from where his feet pushed off the mountain, Patsy’s lantern was directly above, unwavering in its duty of casting illumination straight down toward Noah. Three quarters of the men in the Amish congregation would have been shifting burning muscles and trembling with one more moment of effort, hoping for someone to step in and relieve them. But not Patsy. Never once did she so much as look over her shoulder or glance at her own father. At any moment, Niklaus could have called to her with an inquiry about Noah’s position and she would have responded in detail.
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