Blood of the Prodigal

by P. L. Gaus

  “They don’t trust them,” Branden said.

  “Partly,” Cal said. “More likely, they think it’s not yet necessary. They simply haven’t gotten to the point where they think that the police need to be involved.”

  “So,” Caroline said, “you’ve been asked to help the Old Order Amish find Bishop Miller’s grandson, who has evidently been taken for the summer by his father. The father was earlier shunned by his people. The note says that the boy will be returned at the end of the summer.”

  “By harvest,” Cal interjected.

  “Where’s the boy’s mother?” Caroline asked.

  “Dead, according to the bishop.”

  “Do we know who she was?” Caroline asked.

  “No,” Branden said. “The bishop wouldn’t speak of her at all. Just that Jonah met her in a bar and left town before the child was born. The bishop and his wife took in the boy as an infant and have raised him since then. That’s all he would say.”

  “Should be easy enough to find out who she was,” Caroline volunteered. “Doesn’t sound likely she was Amish.”

  “No, and that could mean her folks would be more willing to talk about Jonah,” Cal observed.

  After a moment in thought, Branden said, “It’s unusual for the bishop to have approached Englishers for help. And I agree with Caroline. Why come to us instead of the police?”

  “That’s not out of line at all. They’d be unlikely, whatever the circumstances, to involve the police,” Cal said, and eased himself back down into one of the white wicker loungers.

  “If you push this concept through to its logical extreme, this is a kidnapping case,” Caroline said. “It’s not just a ‘grand summer away with father.’”

  “Their distrust of secular authority runs deep,” Cal said. “It’s part of their suspicion of outsiders. And governmental authorities are the most suspect of them all.”

  Branden stood, paced to the far end of the porch, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and said, “I still don’t see a compelling reason for them to have come to us.”

  “Perhaps one summer out in the world is more than they think the boy can handle,” Caroline offered.

  “Yes, but there’s got to be more to this case than Miller’s let on,” Branden said.

  “We’ll get little more out of him at this point,” Cal said. “We’ve already been told more than I would have expected.”

  Branden said, “Then we’ll have to find out more from other sources, obviously.”

  “That’ll take some time,” Cal said.

  “There really isn’t much time left at all, when you consider what a cold start we’ll have finding Jonah,” Branden said. “The bishop gave it a month. Said something like ‘a month from now and it won’t matter anymore.’”

  “He said the same thing to me,” Cal told Caroline.

  “Before what?” Caroline asked. “If you believe the note, at the very worst, the boy’ll be gone for the summer and then brought home for harvest.”

  They each fell silent and thought, Cal and Caroline seated, Branden pacing in front of the windows. Dense, billowing clouds had gathered over the valley. The afternoon breeze had grown chill.

  Eventually, Branden said, “I keep coming back to the fact that the Amish, who insist on independence and self-reliance, have engaged the assistance of outsiders to solve what is essentially a family dispute over a boy.”

  After a few quiet moments, Cal said, “We need to know more about the boy’s father, Jonah Miller.”

  “How?” Branden said. “No one will talk to us about him.”

  “No Amish will,” Caroline said. “But how about the authorities? Police, social services, schools, neighbors who are not Amish. Anywhere someone might have known Jonah E. Miller.”

  “Or those who know Eli Miller,” Cal said.

  “Good point,” Branden said. “Also the preachers and deacons in neighboring districts.”

  “How about relatives of the boy’s mother?” Cal said.

  “Maybe her folks have been in touch with Jonah,” Branden said.

  “Good luck,” Cal said with obvious pessimism.

  Branden stood at the windows for a while longer with his gaze focused on the distant hills, pale green under cover of gathering clouds.

  Caroline asked, “Didn’t his teachers ask about Jeremiah?”

  “The bishop told them he was needed on the farm,” Branden said.

  Cal scoffed and then said, “I’ve got a few days yet. Maybe I can work on Amish folk who know the bishop. I might find one who’s willing to talk.”

  “A few days before what, Cal?” Caroline asked, concern evident in her tone.

  “Sorry, Caroline. Next week’s when I leave for the missions conference.”

  “How long will you be gone?” Branden asked.

  “A week. Too long for me to be of much help to the bishop. I’m hoping you’ll have it wrapped up before I’m back.”

  “We’ll need your help, Cal,” Branden said. “Especially for talking with Miller’s neighbors.”

  Troyer shrugged apologetically and said, “I’ve got half a week before I leave. I’ll get you started, Mike, but mostly you’re going to have to work this one yourself.”

  “Then I’ll help,” Caroline said. “Teachers, newspapers, neighbors, that sort of thing.”

  “Don’t you have a deadline on your book?” Branden asked.

  Caroline shrugged and said, “I’ll do what I can, Michael.”

  As they cleared the dishes, Branden added, “Just one more thing. I don’t know why, but the bishop has insisted on special conditions. He’s accepted our help only because he trusts that we’ll abide by those restrictions.”

  He paused to let his words have effect and then said, “We can’t let on to anyone that the boy is being held against his will. Or that he might be harmed. We are especially not to tell the law that Jonah has Jeremiah. He only wants us to investigate whether or not the boy and his father can be found. If they can be found, we are supposed to decide, without approaching the father, whether or not we think the boy can be returned to the family. I have also given the bishop my word that we will not attempt to take the boy from his father. We’re simply to locate the two of them, find out the boy’s condition, and advise the bishop. Nothing more.”

  Caroline and Cal glanced curiously at each other and then at Branden, waiting for an explanation.

  “For some reason,” Branden said, “the bishop is afraid to force the return of his grandson. If we can’t turn something up in the next few weeks, he’ll wait out the summer until harvest, rather than cause a ruckus now.”

  “I don’t get it,” Caroline said. “Does he want the boy back or not?”

  “His restrictions, for now, are quite specific,” Branden said. “We can look for the boy diligently, but we are not to make it appear that Miller is seeking to force the return of his grandson. He was very clear on this. Said something like, ‘For now, Professor, we must be very cautious. Just see if you can find him, and then let me know.’”

  “To what end?” Caroline asked.

  “I don’t know, exactly,” Branden said. “Maybe he just wants to make sure that the boy will be safe until harvest. And that’s all we can do. Maybe once he knows where the boy is, he’ll bring him home, himself. Keep it in the family. You know how clannish they can be. Secretive, even. That’s why I promised to abide by his restrictions. They’ll not accept our help on any other terms, and they’ll certainly never go to the police with the matter. So finding the boy is something we’ll have to do on our own, and even that, as little as it is, is an amazing and unusual thing for a bishop to have asked an Englisher to do.”

  “Working through the sheriff’s office would be the best way to find them quickly,” Caroline said.

  “We can’t tell the law, any law, about Jeremiah’s being gone.”

  Cal said, “You’d expect that sort of resistance from Old Order Amish.”

  “I think the bishop is b
eing a little foolish,” Caroline said.

  Branden reiterated, “They won’t take our help unless it’s on their terms, Caroline.”

  Cal said, “But Caroline’s right, of course. The sheriff could do this faster.”

  “Believe me, I agree,” Branden said. “That’s not the issue. It’s the bishop. He’s setting the rules, and I promised I’d do things his way, so that’s the way it has to be. He was very specific about that. Said that if the law got tangled up in the matter, he’d deny ever having a problem in the first place.”

  6

  Friday, June 19

  I0:30 A.M.

  BRANDEN stood looking down at the legs of Jeff Hostettler, jutting from under the front bumper of an old pickup. Hostettler wore black boots and a dirty pair of blue mechanic’s coveralls. From under the engine, Hostettler said, “What makes you think I care about Jonah Miller?”

  Branden answered, “I’ve been looking for him precisely one day, Mr. Hostettler, and that’s today. First place I went was social services, and the first thing I learned was that you fought the Millers in a custody battle over your nephew.”

  “So what?” Hostettler said and pushed out on his roller pad from under the truck. He stood, walked over to the workbench in his garage, took down a wrench, lay down again on the creeper, and slid back under the truck.

  “So, you’d have good reason to know where I could find Jonah Miller.”

  “If I knew where Jonah Miller was, I’d do more than just open that custody hearing again,” Hostettler said indignantly. “But I don’t know where he’s at, and I don’t care anymore.” He rolled out again, looked up at Branden, and added, “I’ve had all I can stand from that Miller bunch, as it is.”

  “We’ve reason to believe that Jonah has returned to the area,” Branden said.

  Hostettler lay still and thought for a moment, then rolled back under the truck. Branden heard the wrench clinking into place and saw Hostettler’s legs lift at the knees as he grunted with the exertion. There was a slip, a thud, and the clanging of the wrench on the concrete floor. Hostettler pushed out from under the truck, holding bloody knuckles in his hand. He hauled himself upright, cursing, and stepped to the workbench. He took a clean towel from a drawer and began patting it on his black and greasy knuckles, where blood and pink skin showed through the grime.

  Hostettler wrapped his hand in the towel and spoke in an angry tone. “The Millers have been nothing but trouble to me since my sister took up with Jonah. I hate them, and I don’t mind telling you so. First, they as much as killed my sister, and then they took the boy. I’ve got nobody left now, Professor. Got any idea how that feels? Nobody except that little boy, and him I never get to see. They’re raising him Amish, too, as if taking him from me wasn’t enough. Amish! He’s gonna grow up to be one of those dirty little buggy brats, and I can’t do a thing about it.”

  Branden said, “There’s worse things than growing up Amish.”

  Hostettler took an impulsive step toward Branden, fist raised. He fumed instantly to a bitter hatred and shouted, “Not the way I see it!”

  Branden let Hostettler cool off a moment. “Look, Hostettler. I’m sorry. I didn’t know about Jeremiah. I didn’t even know about you until this morning.”

  Hostettler held his knuckles in the towel and grumbled, somewhat cooler now.

  Branden added, “I’d just like to find Jonah, and I thought maybe you’d know something. That’s all.”

  “Why should I help you?” Hostettler asked.

  Branden stuffed his hands into his front pockets. “If we were to find Jonah, and that’s all we want to do, but if we were to find him, what difference would that make for you?”

  “None at all,” Hostettler said. “The guy’s a doped-up alcoholic, wherever he is, anyways.”

  “So what harm could he do you, if we were to bring him home?” Branden asked.

  “He’ll never come home,” Hostettler said.

  “Why not help us find him?”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  Branden thought there was hesitation in Hostettler’s answer. “But you do have some idea where we might look.”

  Hostettler stood for a long time with his fingers wrapped in the towel. His hands were blackened from his struggles with the engine of his truck. His coveralls showed more dirt than blue. His boots were old and worn. He wiped at his brow and smudged his forehead with black grease. He leaned back against the workbench and began to talk.

  “It’s only me now, Professor. When my sister died, Jeremiah’s mother, I lost the last one there was. Then Jeremiah, too. Those were rough and wild times for me, and just like Jonah Miller, I did my share of drinking. We were good people, and I lost the family home snortin’ cocaine. It’s no wonder the courts put Jeremiah with the Millers. Now, all I’ve got is this little house, a couple of beat-up cars and trucks, and a job I’ve been able to hold onto for the last seven years. It pays the bills, nothing more.

  “So when you came at me with Jonah Miller, it threw me. There isn’t another name in all the world that could have thrown me like that. Now, you want to know where he’s at, and there’s nothing I’d like less than to see his sorry face back around here.

  “I’m going to tell you one thing, though, and then I want you all to leave me alone. Somebody mentioned him to me last spring. I won’t say who, and I won’t tell you why. But, I got a call in early May saying that this certain someone had run onto Miller up in Cleveland.

  “That’s it. That’s all I’ll say, and now I’d just as soon you leave.”

  With that, Hostettler threw the bloody towel down on the floor and stomped into his house, letting the screened door to his garage bang shut behind him.

  As he walked down the short gravel drive to his car, Branden wondered what Hostettler had meant when he had said, “First, they as much as killed my sister.”

  7

  Friday, June 19

  3:00 P.M.

  DONNA Beachey stood awash in memories at a dirty window in Leeper School and watched a horse-drawn wagon roll along slowly in a distant field. She ran a finger along the dusty sill and then absently brushed cobwebs away from a corner of the glass.

  She turned to Caroline and said, “I can tell you exactly why they sent you to me. It’s the same reason I asked you to meet me here. The story of Jonah Miller starts here, with me, and they all know it.”

  Donna glanced around the single room, seeing a grade-school classroom, filled with happy Amish children of all ages. “This was my first teaching assignment. One of the last groups of children to have been taught in Leeper School.” She wondered, somewhat amused with herself, why she had agreed so impulsively to this meeting.

  Her hair was tied neatly in a bun under a white Mennonite prayer cap. She smoothed out the plain apron in front of her pleated aqua dress and walked slowly to the chalkboard at the front of the classroom. There was still an eraser in the tray, and she picked it up out of habit, lost again in memories.

  Caroline stood quietly in the middle of the empty room and waited. She had interviewed three teachers today. Two had mentioned Leeper School. The third had also spoken, in hushed tones, of Miss Donna Beachey.

  “Funny,” Donna said, “how you forget.” She dropped the eraser back onto the tray and dusted off her hands with a somewhat wilted expression. “That was almost twenty years ago.”

  “Why did you want to meet here?” Caroline asked, glad at last to be talking.

  “This is where it started.”

  “That’s what I’ve been told,” Caroline said, delicately.

  Donna Beachey noticed Caroline’s restraint, and smiled appreciately. “I’m surprised you don’t have the whole story,” she said. “There used to be better gossips in these parts.”

  “I know very little, really, if anything.” Caroline held back, wondering what she’d learn from the one person who evidently knew it all.

  Donna Beachey returned to the window with an air of resignation. She was
surprised by how much she had forgotten. Being here again, and using her old keys to open the schoolhouse door, had brought it all back. She had cherished the feel of the curved sandstone as she had climbed the worn steps outside. The familiar noises the hinges had made as the front doors swung open. The aroma of chalk dust and the creaking wooden floor. She stood at the window for a long time, with her memories upwelling.

  Caroline let the minutes pass quietly. In time, the teacher motioned for Caroline to join her at the window.

  “It’s pushing twenty years since they closed this little school, but the view here hasn’t changed in the slightest.”

  Caroline stood behind her and looked out over the top of Miss Beachey’s head covering. Rows of hay, recently turned, lay in the fields beyond. A few shocks of corn stood along a fence where they had been stacked last fall. A flatbed wagon with large black rubber truck tires eased along silently in the distance, drawn by two Belgian draft horses. The driver sat lazily on the plain wooden buckboard, dressed in a summer hat, white shirt, black suspenders, and denim trousers. He held a whip, tassels high overhead, but seldom employed it.

  “I was a rookie teacher then, Mrs. Branden. They usually had their own. It would be one of the young mothers from a nearby farm, or an unmarried daughter with time on her hands. In earlier days, the teachers might not have had much more education than their oldest pupils. I think it’s better now, and sometimes there will be one with an actual teacher’s degree. But for a spell, it was the Mennonite colleges that sent most of the teachers here, like me.

  “Now as far as Jonah goes, by the time I started, he was in the fifth grade, and already reading at a high school level.” She turned to look at Caroline, wondered briefly if she would understand, and then turned back to the window with a sigh. “The Amish choose a lifestyle that seems backward, but that doesn’t mean they choose to be stupid. It just means that they have different rules.

  “Take that wagon,” she said. “See the rubber tires?”

  Caroline nodded.

  “See how they’re inflated?”