Blood of the Prodigal

by P. L. Gaus

  “Thank you,” Enos said, “but I have lunch in the buggy.”

  Branden followed Coblentz to a black one-seater parked beside the corral. It was of the classic Ohio style, the sides slanting in at the bottom to meet oval springs. Branden noticed the rubber-padded rims on the wheels and tapped at them, not thinking anything in particular, but aware nonetheless of their significance. Coblentz was not Old Order. At least not conservative Old Order. Surely not from Eli Miller’s district.

  Coblentz eyed the professor and then said, almost grinning, “Can you think of a reason why a buggy shouldn’t be comfortable?” Then he lifted a black metal lunch pail from the buggy and ambled to the picnic table under the shade of a willow. A push mower leaned against the trunk of the tree. A quiet stream lapped past the exposed roots of the willow. Branches mingled lazily into the water and gave the small glade a peaceful, easy quietness, the saw having been stopped for lunch.

  “I’ve been at it all morning,” Branden said, “and you’re the first person who’s been willing to talk much about Jonah Miller.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Coblentz said while unwrapping the wax paper on his first sandwich.

  “Can you tell me about the ban?” Branden asked.

  “What’s to tell?” Coblentz remarked. “Jonah asked for it.”

  “Then can you tell me what actually precipitated the ban?” Branden said.

  “Pride.”

  “How so?”

  “Like I said. Jonah took to fancy dress. He was admonished. Everyone knew it.”

  “Yes, but what else?” Branden instantly regretted his impatient tone.

  Coblentz ate slowly. The tranquillity in his eyes gradually gave way to an expression of rising inner turmoil. “It was a long time ago,” he said eventually. “I can’t recall everything that happened, but the way I see it, the ban actually started most of Jonah’s problems.”

  He glanced into the corral and said, “See the bay? How she trembles there, standing? She don’t like people much. Mostly just likes to run. Too spirited for her own good. That’s the way Jonah was.”

  Coblentz fell silent again, and Branden waited, standing at ease beside the rough-cut picnic table, watching as Coblentz ran the puzzle of Jonah Miller through his mind. A breeze pushed delicate branches of the willow into Branden’s hair, and he absently brushed the slender leaves aside.

  Coblentz laid his sandwich down on the smoothed-out square of wax paper and stared unseeing at the cluster of standardbred horses and a single Morgan in the corral.

  “I do not think Jonah was really so bad,” Coblentz said. “First it was only simple matters, but in Miller’s district, any indiscretion was invariably handled decisively. Chastised for small mischief, there. Do you realize, Professor, that I am not Old Order?”

  Branden nodded and slid onto the bench on the opposite side of the picnic table.

  “Our rules are not quite the same,” Enos explained. “It’s a revelation for me to think of him this long after our year of mischief. The grand Rumschpringe of Jonah Miller and Enos Coblentz.” He shook his head and smiled.

  “I’ve got a brother, Professor. Jonas. He started in the mills, just as I am doing now. So, should Jonas be blamed that the only farm that came up for auction had electric already in it? Of course the rules can be changed. Who would insist that Jonas disconnect the power? Thing is, Eli Miller would have insisted.”

  With that, Enos Coblentz seemed to have lost his appetite. He rubbed at his temples in slow circles and said, “It’s a marvel how the mention of an old friend’s name can affect us so much after all the years gone by. It has been a long time, Doktor Branden, since Jonah Miller’s name has come to my ears. Is there a reason his name comes to them now?”

  “Yes,” Branden said straightforwardly, but offered nothing more.

  A pause, then, “Can you tell me what it is?”

  “Partly, I can,” Branden said.

  Coblentz considered that and then asked, “Would I be doing a bit of dreaming if I were to think that Jonah has come home?”

  “Not entirely,” Branden said and then explained the reason for his questions. He told of young Jeremiah, now spending the summer with his father. He told of their search for the boy. And of Bishop Eli Miller’s request for help.

  “The bishop came to you for help?” Enos asked, clearly surprised.

  “Yes,” Branden said, fully aware of what that would signify to Coblentz.

  “Doughty Valley’s gonna be sure abuzz this summer,” Enos said with a mischievous smile.

  “The bishop hopes that we’ll be able to locate the boy,” Branden said.

  “I would not be calling that an exaggeration, by any means,” Enos said and laughed. He picked up his sandwich, chuckled a bit, took two eager bites, and spoke with his mouth full. “What you are saying, Professor Branden, is that Bishop Miller wants the boy back.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Well, you sure won’t need to explain that to anyone in these parts,” Coblentz said with his eyebrows raised.

  Branden tapped his fingers on the picnic table, thinking while Coblentz finished his lunch. He rested his chin in a palm and rubbed thoughtfully at his short brown whiskers.

  Why had the bishop said they could search for Jonah but not make an effort to recover Jeremiah?

  “Can you tell me,” Branden said at last, “what provoked the falling out between Jonah and his father?”

  “As I said before. Fancy pants,” Coblentz said, loosened now to talk. “Jonah wore wide leather belts and store-bought fashion jeans. And he secretly carried a pocket watch on a gold chain.”

  “Even after warnings to conform?”

  “Especially then,” Coblentz observed. “Jonah was a rebel. He gave the bishop no choice. Everyone agreed. Jonah asked for it.

  “But that wasn’t the end of the matter,” Enos said as he packed the remains of his lunch into the black metal pail. “We ran together in our year of the Rumschpringe. Eventually it had come to smoking dope, drinking, and women. I quickly got my fill of it. Went home and took my vows.

  “Jonah moved to Millersburg after the ban. He moved in with a girl he had met in a bar. She was one of those ‘Amish Lieben.’ English who fancy the Amish. Seems I remember she came from a good family, but by the time she met Jonah, she was pretty well gone on dope. And she was a regular at all of the bars. Six months after Jonah left town for good, she delivered a baby boy.”

  Enos stood and frowned, his memories evidently difficult. Branden sat gazing up at Coblentz from his seat at the picnic table and studied his face as Coblentz thought the puzzle through. He realized, by the set in Coblentz’s jaw, that he would learn little more here today. Coblentz acquired a distant look for a brief spell and then focused his eyes again on the professor.

  “Everyone saw it coming,” Enos Coblentz said morosely. “After all, a leather belt betrays a prideful heart.”

  With that Coblentz went back to his mill, leaving Branden to return to his truck, frustrated over how little he had really learned about the Jonah Miller of today.

  10

  Saturday, June 20

  2:00 P.M.

  “LET HIM on through, Ellie,” the sheriff hollered from the back of the jail. “That’s Doc Branden.”

  “You’re Professor Branden?” Ellie Troyer asked, flustered. “I’m sorry. I’m new.”

  Branden nodded and smiled sympathetically.

  “I’m Ellie Troyer. You can go on back,” Ellie said.

  Branden asked, “Any relation to Cal Troyer?”

  “No,” Ellie said. “He’s the preacher, right?”

  “Right,” Branden said and then held up a finger mischievously. He leaned forward with both elbows on the counter and said, “Let’s listen a bit.”

  Sheriff Robertson’s deep voice carried easily along the halls and through the thin walls inside the jailhouse. It had been paneled in the fifties with light-brown pine, and it had looked rustic then, and fashionably w
estern, just the way the sheriff at the time had liked it. Now the panels were faded, and the nails showed through as little rusty dots. The thin wooden walls carried the current sheriff’s voice like an amplifier.

  “I don’t want to see your young butt back here EVER again, Crist Detweiler,” Robertson roared. “Someday you’ll want to grow a beard and take the vows. How you think I’m gonna feel meeting your wife on the street then, knowin’ your drinking habits as I do?”

  In the moment that followed, Branden and Ellie Troyer heard muffled, penitent assertions in Low German.

  “All right then,” the sheriff bellowed unsympathetically. “You want your Amish or your English clothes?”

  Again, there came a soft, contrite answer in German. Branden whispered to Ellie, “Looks like I’ve caught the sheriff in one of his moods.”

  “Do tell,” Ellie laughed. “He’s been pumped for two straight days, now.”

  “So it’d be fair to guess that all of the deputies will be conveniently out of the jail on any missions they can dream up,” Branden said.

  “Wouldn’t you hightail it?” Ellie asked. “You know how he gets.”

  Branden nodded and smiled, knowing as well as anyone how his old friend could “swing a mood.” Robertson could be up, and then nothing could touch him. He also could be down, sometimes frighteningly so. To compound matters, Robertson characteristically refused to take the medication prescribed to moderate his mood swings, saying, “I’m way too good at this when I’m up and on a run. Can’t risk losing that, now, can I, Mike?”

  “I’m going to keep your English clothes, then,” the sheriff said, still much louder than necessary. “I’ll give them to someone who can use ’em. Consider it a fine, and don’t let me see your butt in here EVER again. Verstehen Sie?” and then almost explosively, “DOST DU VERSTEHE?”

  Seconds later, a wilted Amish teenager stepped backwards from the sheriff’s office and glanced ruefully down the hall. When he saw Branden leaning against the counter, his delicate skin flushed crimson under black Dutch hair, and he slipped out through the back door, into the alley, utterly mortified to have been seen.

  Sheriff Bruce Robertson followed shortly, carrying a brown grocery bag stuffed with English clothing. He dropped the sack onto the counter and shook his head. An anxious deputy sheriff came out of Robertson’s office and joined them at Ellie’s front counter.

  Branden peered into the sack and turned up his nose at its odor of cigarettes and beer. Then he grinned at Ellie behind the front counter and said to the sheriff, “You’re going to get fired someday, Bruce, barking at youngsters like that.”

  “Don’t make me laugh, Mike,” Robertson said with exaggerated confidence. “People in this county love me, and you know it.”

  He turned to Ellie and introduced Branden. “Ellie Troyer,” he said, beaming, “this is Professor Michael Branden. Civil War history and suchlike. Boyhood friend. He’s the grand pooh-bah of Gettysburg. The one with the cannon out on the east cliffs.”

  “I know that, Sheriff,” Ellie said. “We’ve just met.”

  “Well, good. Then look, Ellie. The professor always gets through. Understand? Day or night. Always put his calls through. Always send him straight back. Verstehen sie?”

  “No problem,” Ellie assented. She pretended to busy herself with papers at her desk and smiled brightly. “The professor always gets through.”

  Robertson spun Branden around heartily and ushered him down the hall with an arm clamped around Branden’s shoulder. He motioned for Deputy Ricky Niell to follow. Jovially, he said, “How many cases have we worked on, Mike?”

  “Ten? Twelve. Not sure, anymore,” Branden said, enjoying the familiar company of the ponderous lawman. They had grown up together in Millersburg. Gone through the grades together with Cal Troyer. Branden glanced sideways at his sizable friend as they marched down the hall. In or out of uniform, Sheriff Bruce Robertson would always look to Mike Branden like a chubby, boisterous, irrepressible, and mischievous boy of ten on a grade-school playground.

  “And when did we ever have more than one or two cases a year with the Amish on the wrong side of the law?” Robertson continued in stride, turning the corner into his office.

  “One or two a year, if that many,” Branden said.

  In the office, Robertson introduced Branden and Ricky Niell, his newest deputy, with the department only a week. That done, he said, “You two want to tell me what these Amish kids are doing showing up in town bars in English dress?”

  “Such as that fellow just now?” Branden said.

  “Exactly. Seems I get one or two a week, now.”

  Robertson sat on the front corner of his antique cherry desk and Branden dropped into a low leather chair beside it, legs out straight, ankles crossed, relaxed. Niell stood awkwardly near the door.

  The sheriff’s office was large, occupying fully a quarter of the first floor of the house-like, red brick jail. Two of the tall windows looked out onto Clay Street, which runs north and south through Millersburg past Courthouse Square. The north windows of the sheriff’s corner office gave a view of the courthouse lawn, with its Civil War monument. The sheriff’s desk stood with its back to the south wall. Several straight wooden chairs and a few leather easy chairs were scattered about the office. Behind the sheriff’s desk stood a full-length, floor-to-ceiling bookcase, holding an assortment of photos, plaques, books, and trophies. One section of the bookcase was devoted to Robertson’s collection of vintage Zane Grey western novels, all valuable collectibles, each thoroughly read. On the paneled wall to the sheriff’s right, Robertson had stapled his collection of some seventy to eighty police department arm patches. They were tacked to the wall haphazardly, in whatever location had happened to suit the big sheriff at the moment. The jumbled, spontaneous array worked pleasantly on the eyes only because of the sheer number of patches, not because of any care he had given to their arrangement.

  Robertson snapped a cigarette out of a pack of Winstons on his desk, lit up, and blew out the match, his thoughts shifting impulsively. He pointed the lit end of his cigarette at Branden and mocked a grave tone. “City Council’s got a problem with your cannon again, Professor. Some old ladies want me to shut you down. They know the chief can’t do anything because you’re outside the city limits.” He gave his words a serious inflection, and glanced sideways, hoping to find Niell watching. Niell was, intently.

  Branden noted the conspiratorial glance. “We’ve been over this before,” Branden said, calmly for Niell’s benefit. “And you know I always wait until noon.”

  Robertson seemed disappointed. “Doesn’t matter, they still want it stopped.”

  “In that case, I’ll cannonade at precisely midnight.”

  “Certain old ladies on the council don’t think you can do it at any time, day or night.”

  “Then let ’em read their own statutes. I’ve been outside the city limits for ten years. Special dispensation. You know it and so do they.”

  Robertson drew slowly on the remains of his cigarette and chuckled. Then he studied the smirk on Branden’s face, shook his head, laughed and said, “Same time?”

  Branden eased smugly into his chair, and said, “Twelve, noon. I presume you’ll attend?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for anything,” Robertson said and slapped Niell on the arm as he walked to a sideboard and poured a cup of coffee. He offered to Niell, who declined with a self-conscious wave of his hand. Robertson poured a second cup, added cream, gave it to Branden, and sat again on the front edge of his massive desk. After a sip, Robertson asked, “Is this a fishing trip, Mike, or are you here on a case?”

  “It’s a case,” Branden said and blew across the creamy coffee. “I’d hoped you could provide us with a mug shot out of county records. We’re looking for Jonah E. Miller.”

  Robertson whistled and shot Niell a surprised glance. “Jonah Miller’s back in town?”

  “I don’t know where he is. I’m simply trying to find him,” Br
anden explained and set his coffee cup on a coaster on the sheriff’s desk.

  “Why?” Robertson asked, suspicious, but scarcely pausing before clicking on the intercom and asking Ellie to have the jail photos of Jonah Miller sent over from the courthouse.

  “We go back a long way, Bruce,” Branden said and propped himself a bit straighter. “You’ll have to believe me that I can’t actually tell you why I’m looking for him.”

  “Mike! You have any idea what that name means around here?”

  “Not really,” Branden said. “I can only say that Bishop Eli Miller has asked me to find him.”

  “And then what?” Robertson asked.

  “Simply tell the bishop where Jonah Miller is, so far as I understand the matter,” Branden said discreetly.

  The sheriff walked around his desk, sat in his swivel chair, and leaned heavily back with his toes balanced against the floor, elbows up, hands clasped behind his head, cigarette between his teeth.

  “If you do find him, Mike, I’d advise you to tell no one other than the bishop,” the sheriff said, the remains of his cigarette bobbing between his lips, eyes squinting against the smoke.

  “You seem pretty certain of that, Bruce. Mind telling me why?”

  Robertson drew again on the cigarette, rocked forward, and thumbed it out in a scarlet ashtray. Then he leaned back again, folded his hands across his substantial belly and said, “For his own good, that’s why.”

  “Whose?” Branden said. “The bishop or his son?”

  “Both!” the sheriff exclaimed. “Look, Mike. You’re obviously out of the loop on this one. Think about it. Aside from a few youngsters in trouble, like that kid that just snuck out of here, the Amish have rarely been a problem for the law. In all the years you and I have logged in this town, we’ll still not be able to come up with more than two or three serious cases between us. Maybe a couple of conscientious objectors and social security tax resisters in the old days. But never any real criminal trouble. Jonah Miller is the exception. Follow me?”