Though Mountains Fall

by Dale Cramer

  Even Harvey would be gone within a month. He had come of age almost two years ago and started drawing pay from Caleb, saving every penny. The first Sunday back in Salt Creek Township the bishop shocked everyone by announcing that Harvey and Lovina Hershberger were going to be married.

  Harvey, Caleb’s last son, was leaving. Still in his fifties, every passing day left Caleb feeling more and more like a broken old man. His heart cried out to Gott, but Gott was not there. He felt no warming presence, thought no reassuring thought. Gott had turned away from him, disappointed.

  ———

  It got worse. That afternoon he went for a long walk, alone, then came home to a house that was no longer his and sat down to a supper cooked by his daughter from food provided by his son-in-law. There were fourteen people around the long table—Lizzie and Andy with their six children, and Caleb and Martha with Harvey, Ada, Leah and Barbara. On top of that, Lizzie was pregnant again.

  Gnawing a chicken leg in the middle of dinner, Andy said, “We have a surprise for you, Dat. It’s been a good year and the house is getting a little crowded, so we decided to build you a dawdi haus—across the lane by the buggy shed.”

  Caleb sat back, staring at him. “That wasn’t part of our deal, Andy. I never said anything about a dawdi haus when I sold you the farm.”

  “I know,” Andy said with a shrug, “but that was because you didn’t know you’d be needing it. You were going to Mexico and not planning on coming back. But when a man sells his farm to his son-in-law that’s usually how it goes—he gets a dawdi haus out of it. It’s only right.”

  “But what about my girls?” A dawdi haus was always small, a retirement home for an older couple. There would not be room for Ada, Leah and Barb.

  It was Lizzie who answered. “Dat, Ada will fall to us sooner or later anyway, and there’s plenty of room here for Leah and Barb.” She cast a mischievous grin in the direction of the two teenage girls and added, “At least until they get married.”

  Mamm blustered at this. “You shush, Lizzie. They’re children yet.”

  “Mamm,” Leah said, with marked indignation, “I’m eighteen, and Barb is sixteen now.”

  “Oh my,” Mamm said quietly, gazing in shock at her two youngest. “You’re right.”

  “Anyways,” Andy said, “they’re a big help to Lizzie. So what do you think, Dat?”

  Charity. Andy was being charitable. It was hard for Caleb to take, but he was in no position to argue. If the farm in Mexico didn’t sell he could not afford to buy his own place. Andy was master of this house now, and if Andy wanted to build him a dawdi haus he had no right to object. Caleb was no longer the man of the house.

  “Thank you, Andy. That’s very kind of you,” he said. He tried to smile, but there was no joy in him. He felt old and useless, a grandpa being put out to pasture.

  Harvey and Lovina were married in early December. He’d saved enough to buy a small farm a few miles to the west—just an old house on a marginal piece of farmland, but no one doubted that Harvey could make it work.

  The whole family gathered at Lizzie’s for Christmas. The entire Bender clan was there, and it felt just like old times. Even then, Caleb felt alienated and estranged. His heart ached, for he saw only the holes in his family.

  Amos and Aaron were missing.

  And Miriam.

  And Gott.

  Domingo had been gone for a month and Miriam still hadn’t heard from him. She sat at the kitchen table in Kyra’s house beside her mother-in-law, anxiously poring over the newspaper Kyra had just brought from town. The date was January 3, 1927, and the headline froze her blood.

  UPRISING IN JALISCO!

  “Domingo is in Jalisco,” she gasped.

  Kyra nodded, pushing a chair up next to her. “And Raul.”

  “Raul?”

  “Father Noceda.”

  Miriam gave her a sideways look, then turned back to the column on the front page. “It says here they’re calling it the Cristero Rebellion. On the first day of the new year a man named Garza issued some kind of proclamation saying, ‘The time of battle is here, and the victory will belong to God.’ It goes on to say that ‘campesinos and peasants armed with pitchforks and clubs have overrun villages in Jalisco, but the cities remain well defended.’ The government is sending in federales. They’re saying this disorganized rabble will be hunted down and slaughtered when the real army gets there.”

  Slaughtered.

  Domingo!

  “Does it say anything about Domingo?” his mother asked.

  Miriam shook her head, choking back her fears for the sake of Kyra and her mother.

  “No, Mother, there is no mention of Domingo . . . or Raul,” she added, with a purposeful glance at Kyra. “There is nothing about organized rebel armies at all, only of peasants conquering little outposts, but it’s happening all over Jalisco. I have a feeling this is only the beginning. Maybe we will hear from Domingo soon. In the meantime, all we can do is pray.”

  “I will light a candle,” the anciana said.

  Two hundred miles to the southwest, Domingo was bandaging a wound on Father Noceda’s head.

  “That went well,” the priest said, grinning proudly despite the gash at his hairline. He was sitting on a stump, a rifle propped across his knees while he cleaned and oiled it.

  “You were lucky.” Domingo leaned over him, dabbing at the head wound with a bit of rag. “One inch to the right and I’d be burying you now. Do you have to wear your collar and skullcap when we fight?”

  “Oh, sí! They protect me.”

  “No. I keep telling you, Father, your eyes and your wits protect you. Your compadres protect you, and your rifle protects you. Wearing your skullcap and collar is the same as painting a bull’s-eye on your chest. If you must wear them, at least cover them up. Hold still.”

  Noceda ignored him. “Father Vega knew exactly what he was doing, attacking that garrison. His tactics are impressive.”

  Domingo nodded. “A well-coordinated attack. It was over before they knew what hit them. But these were only agraristas—we will find out what our general is made of when we face real troops for the first time.”

  Noceda’s eyes glowed with admiration. “Vega is a native, like you, and a priest, like me. Who would have thought he would make such a fine commander?”

  The noise of drunken laughter drifted across the encampment, and they looked up to see Father José Reyes Vega himself heading for his tent, a giggling girl under one arm and a half-empty bottle of tequila swinging from the other. He threw back the flap of his tent and staggered inside.

  “The girl from the cantina,” Domingo said. “Father Vega may be a good general, but he’s not much of a priest.”

  More than a thousand miles to the north, Caleb spent most of that winter working on the dawdi haus, with help from Andy and a steady stream of neighbors and friends. The people of the church couldn’t seem to do enough to help the “Mexican Amish,” as they came to be known. People knew they had not been able to sell their farms, that they had left everything and come home virtually penniless after years of toil. Their undisguised pity was a matter of some annoyance to Caleb. Nearly everything these days was cause for annoyance.

  Worse, the Mexican Amish were treated like celebrities. Everyone wanted to hear tales of a foreign land, especially the part about the bandits. Some people were happy to oblige them, but Caleb never said much, and when asked about it would usually just mutter something like, “Farming is farming. It’s all the same, except Mexicans don’t eat cabbage.”

  People finally stopped asking him about Mexico, which he didn’t mind at all, but he also noticed that no one ever asked him about Miriam. They offered condolences for Aaron yet never mentioned Miriam. Perhaps it was just as well. Already sometimes he had trouble remembering her face.

  Chapter 30

  Noceda was difficult to convince, but after the third close call Domingo finally got him to wear a slouch hat over his skullcap and button his jac
ket up over the clerical collar.

  The Cristeros were becoming seasoned fighters, and Domingo’s reputation as a fierce warrior was growing. They won skirmish after skirmish, but only against local militia, mostly farmers themselves. They didn’t face the battle-hardened federales until late February.

  In his first real test, at the battle of San Francisco del Rincón, Father Vega did in fact prove to be a genius. His Cristeros anticipated every move of the federal troops, countering and outflanking with astonishing prescience.

  By nightfall the battle was over, the federales utterly routed. Noceda and Domingo sat by a campfire, eating tortillas and beans from tin plates.

  Noceda gloated. “I told you, didn’t I? Father Vega will teach these federales humility.”

  A volley of rifle fire echoed from a nearby ravine before Domingo could answer, and both men looked up.

  “What was that?” Noceda asked.

  Domingo turned back to his beans. “Your warrior priest is executing prisoners.”

  Another volley echoed from the ravine as the campfire crackled and sparks shot skyward. The grin disappeared from Noceda’s face. “Well, I suppose he has no choice. We can’t spare men to guard prisoners, and if we release them we will have to fight the same men again tomorrow.”

  Domingo stared at the priest, but didn’t answer. His doubts were his own. Noceda was an educated man, and anyway his logic was sound. Released prisoners would be armed again tomorrow, and Cristeros would die at their hands. It was war, and difficult choices had to be made.

  A week later the Cristeros won another decisive battle against regular army troops. Four days later, in desperation, the federales hurled a company of crack cavalry against them. It should have been a mismatch—seasoned soldiers on horseback against an army of peasants on foot—but again Vega outsmarted them. He sacrificed a squad to draw the cavalry into a narrow rocky valley, where his men held the high ground on both sides, then cut off their escape route. The Cristeros suffered heavy losses, while the cavalry was annihilated.

  Domingo and Noceda distinguished themselves fighting shoulder to shoulder in the battle, and as a result were awarded two of the captured horses.

  They spent the evening grooming their horses in a stable at the edge of a newly conquered town. Noceda was ecstatic.

  “The Cristeros are undefeated, Domingo, and Father Vega is becoming something of a legend. What do you think of him now?”

  Domingo stroked the side of the fine bay horse with a brush. “My opinion of him has not changed,” he said without looking up. “He still goes to his tent every night with women and tequila.”

  “But our cause is just,” Noceda said, “and the general fights like a madman! We are winning the war because of him, ridding our country of these atheist dogs. Is it not enough for you that he serves God’s cause?”

  Domingo shrugged. “How does a priest serve God’s cause and trample his vows at the same time?”

  Noceda’s eyes narrowed. “Do you not think the end justifies the means? Do you not think religious freedom is bigger than the petty indiscretions of one libertine cleric?”

  Domingo lowered his currying brush and turned to face Noceda. “Petty? Raul, do you remember what happened after our last ‘victory’ over the federales? We didn’t hear the shooting of the prisoners that night, and you said you thought perhaps Vega had grown a conscience.”

  “Sí. He didn’t execute the prisoners.”

  “But he did. Martinez was there, assigned to the detail. He said our supply train was ambushed and we were running low on ammunition, so Vega ordered them to slit the prisoners’ throats. That was why we heard no gunshots.”

  Noceda was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Are you sure about this?”

  “Sí.”

  Some of the zeal went out of the priest’s eyes then, and he spoke quietly. “But in the end, Domingo, what is the difference? Guns or knives, dead is dead.”

  “The difference is honor,” Domingo snapped. “There is no honor in dying like a butcher’s pig, and there is no honor in Vega. I was not always a Christian, and I remember well what people thought and said about the church. In Vega I see everything people have hated, for centuries, about the church. I’m sorry, Raul, but I’m starting to wonder about that collar you wear.”

  “That’s unfair. Not all priests are like him.”

  “No, they are not. You’re as upright as any man I have ever met, but Vega is the one whose name everyone knows, the one who is becoming a legend. He is our champion. And he is evil.”

  On a Sunday afternoon in March, right before planting time, Abe Detweiler and his family came to visit the Benders. Caleb and Martha had just moved into the dawdi haus. Caleb took Abe out to show him around the farm while Sarah and the children ate cookies in the dawdi haus with Mamm.

  The bishop trailed a hand along the top edge of a fence, walking out the back lane as they made small talk about the weather and about Caleb’s children. After a while there was a long pause, having exhausted all the news, and Abe Detweiler said, “People are worried about you, Caleb.”

  Caleb’s eyebrows went up. “About me? Why?”

  “They say you’re not the same. You don’t hardly talk, and they say you’re . . . grouchy.”

  “Pfff. Grouchy. Have I been grouchy with you?”

  “No, but to be honest you don’t seem like you’re at peace with yourself. Or with Gott. Is everything all right?”

  They were walking along the edge of a field, angling down toward the pond. Caleb sighed. “I just don’t understand, that’s all.” And then he told Abe Detweiler about the discussion he’d had with Emma on the train, about Emma’s suggestion that Gott had sent them to Mexico to fail, to learn something. “But I’ve pondered these things all winter and I can’t come up with it,” Caleb said. “In the beginning I knew for sure that Gott wanted me to go to Mexico, but look what happened. I failed. I lost everything, and I drug others down with me. Tell me, Bishop, what am I supposed to learn from humiliation and defeat, from losing my children and ruining the lives of my friends?”

  Detweiler thought about it for a minute and said, “Well, maybe it’s all in how you look at it. Why did you go to Mexico in the first place?”

  “So our children wouldn’t have to go all the time to the consolidated school.”

  “Because of the new law—the government. And what did you find?”

  “You already know. In the beginning bandits robbed us and there were no police to protect us. When we finally got troops, why, we found out they’re worse than bandits.”

  “Jah,” Abe said thoughtfully. “So maybe that’s what Gott was trying to tell you. That one government is as bad as another.”

  Caleb crossed his arms on his chest and stared out across the pond, his eyes hard. “I know that now, but what does it profit me?”

  Abe shrugged. “Caleb, Anabaptists have always been persecuted and we always will be, one way or another, because we are different. It was the government who chased our forefathers out of Europe in the first place. The trouble with government is that it is always run by men who seek power and fortune. A government has the power to take away a man’s money, or even his life.”

  Caleb nodded, remembering the look of horror on Abe Detweiler’s face when the rifles roared.

  “But short of making a man angry and discontent,” Abe said, “or putting him in prison, or killing him, they cannot change him. They can make a man a little safer maybe, but they can’t change his heart or show him the right way to live. Only Gott can do that. Maybe Gott took you down there to teach you to put your faith in Him. ‘We live, not by power or might—’ ”

  “ ‘But by the spirit of the Lord of hosts.’ I know. I didn’t have to go all the way to Mexico to learn that, Abe.”

  They talked on through the afternoon, yet as he watched the bishop’s buggy driving away that evening Caleb knew nothing had been resolved. Everything Abe Detweiler said was true, some of it even insightful, but none of
it was new to Caleb. He had already thought through these things. He had searched his own heart and satisfied himself that he had never really put his faith in government.

  Nor did he now.

  Whatever Gott was trying to tell him was still beyond his grasp. Even the bishop couldn’t put his finger on it.

  Emma’s words still rang in his head. “Gott’s questions are personal . . . somewhere inside you lies a question, a choice only you can make, and the rest of your life hangs on which way you choose.”

  But how could he choose when he didn’t even know Gott’s question? And Gott these days was eerily silent.

  Caleb’s darkness remained.

  Miriam grew heavy with child. By early April her daily walk to the post office in San Rafael became something of a struggle, and Kyra started going with her. Emma and Rachel wrote her regularly, and since the first of the year she’d gotten a letter from Domingo at least once a week. Emma’s baby was due sometime in early May, the same as her own. Rachel planned on being Emma’s midwife, which made Miriam a little jealous, but what really bothered her was her dat. Though she never talked about it, when she picked up the mail she always flipped through it immediately, looking for her father’s familiar handwriting. It was never there, but she couldn’t keep herself from looking, from hoping.

  Coming back home one afternoon Miriam opened a letter from Domingo and read it as she walked.

  “What does he say?” Kyra asked, trying to sneak a peek.

  Miriam pressed the letter against her chest. “He says the things a husband says to his wife when he is away. Things meant only for my eyes.”

  “All right,” Kyra said, backing away. “But what else does he say? Surely he sends news of how the war is going.”

  “You mean news of how Raul is doing. He says Father Noceda is well and he misses us all, that so far they have been lucky and only gotten a scratch now and then. But I wouldn’t be too optimistic, Kyra. What Domingo calls a ‘scratch’ might be a mangled arm or leg.”