A Prayer for the Night

by Gaus, P. L.

  “He also kidnapped Sara Yoder,” Caroline said.

  “He did, or his people did it for him,” the professor said. “He also shot Abe Yoder.”

  “All the other kids are safe,” Caroline said.

  Up on the road, the last of the onlookers was headed back toward Saltillo. Dan Wilsher finished photographing tracks in the sandy ground of the softball diamond.

  Branden said to Robertson, “You going to follow this up?” nodding his head at Wilsher.

  Robertson said, “We’re just being thorough.”

  “Any ideas how they pulled it off?” Branden asked.

  “It’s the phones,” Robertson said. “They must have got him out here that way. From all the tracks, I’d say there were four or five of them, in buggies. And they had two weapons that we know of.”

  “Jeremiah Miller didn’t use his cell phone,” Branden said. “But he could have made calls from pay phones, and we’d never have known it.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Robertson said. “I’m not going to follow it up. Some good citizen did us a favor, and that’s enough for me. On this case, at any rate.”

  “So, what’s left?” the professor asked.

  “We’ve got a briefcase full of money and drugs,” Robertson said, “and a revolver from the cabin where Abe Yoder was hiding. My guess is it will check out with ballistics. Amish boys don’t shoot people.”

  “You’ve also got a red Pontiac,” Branden said.

  “Impounded,” Robertson said. “I consider it confiscated. I don’t think John Schlabaugh’s family is going to argue with that.”

  “You closed down an Ecstasy lab and a score of dealers,” Caroline said.

  “That we did,” Robertson said. “That we did.”

  “This all started out with nine kids,” Branden said. “Have you ever seen anything so extreme before, Bruce?”

  Robertson shook his head and put his hat back on. “Abe Yoder got off easy, considering he might have died.”

  “Of the six kids left from that gang,” Branden said, “two have left the area. Mary Troyer up at Middlefield, and Henry Erb out to Kansas.”

  “That leaves four,” Robertson said.

  “Would four determined Amish fellas, like members of Schlabaugh’s gang, be enough to trick and capture Samuel White?” Branden asked.

  “I’m going to have to believe that they would,” Robertson said. “I’m going to choose to believe that they did.”

  Caroline let a moment pass, then said, “I don’t know about you two, but this surprises me. A lot. Whoever did this was extremely resourceful. I have a hard time holding Amish in mind, when thinking about this level of intensity. And I don’t think you two are any different. I’m betting this one took you by surprise.”

  “We were never very far out in front,” Robertson admitted.

  The professor said, “I haven’t had much time to think about it, really.”

  “Before this,” Caroline asked, “did you think Amish kids could take things so far?”

  “No,” the professor said.

  “Not in a million years,” said Robertson.

  “Then Sara Yoder is a very lucky girl,” Caroline said. “Holmes County’s finest detectives were just following hunches.”

  “I don’t think it was that bad,” Branden said, and laughed.

  “I don’t either,” Robertson added.

  “If you hadn’t talked with Abe Yoder, you’d never have saved her.”

  “But we did talk to Abe Yoder,” the professor offered.

  “Still,” Caroline said. “I don’t know.”

  “We were lucky,” Branden said.

  Caroline tipped her head at the backstop where White had been pinned. “I’d say White was lucky, too, gentlemen. I’d say he was very lucky indeed.”

  THURSDAY, AUGUST 12

  31

  Thursday, August 12

  7:30 A.M.

  MARTHA YODER stood behind Sara, seated in her upstairs bedroom, and brushed Sara’s hair gently. “Your father’s going to want to talk with you before you go down,” she said.

  Sara nodded and turned around to face her mother. “Is he . . . angry?”

  “No, sweet child. No, not at all. I think he has a present for you.”

  “Hawe you . . . crying, Mother?”

  “I puddle up from time to time.”

  “Jeremiah . . . good man. Be a good husband.”

  “I know.”

  “Then . . . what is it?”

  “I wish you hadn’t been so wild, Sara. I wish you hadn’t gotten hurt.”

  “Going to be ... fine.”

  “Oh, Sara! You’re so young.”

  “Older than you were. When you and Papa . . . married.”

  “That was different.”

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  “I was never a wild child, Sara. I didn’t have much of a Rumschpringe in my day.”

  “Just as well. Not all it’s cracked . . . to be.”

  When she had put up her hair and finished dressing, Sara’s two youngest sisters, Annie, seven, and Lizzie, five, came into the bedroom. Annie gave her a picture she had done in crayon—a large stick-figure girl in the upper left corner, with a small smudge of a little girl, either kneeling or sitting, in the lower left corner under a tree with a scribble of green leaves and a thick brown trunk. Lizzie gave her a bundle of wildflowers she had picked that morning.

  Annie asked, in a small, high voice, “Are you going to visit us, Sara?” She sounded worried.

  Sara leaned over, scooped the girls into her arms, and held them close for a long time. Then she said, eyes moist with tears, “You’d better beliewe it.”

  “Are you going to have babies now?” asked Lizzie.

  “If I can, Lizzie. If I can.”

  “Are you Amish now?” Lizzie asked shyly.

  “Yes, little one. I . . . Amish.”

  When the girls had left, Albert O. Yoder came in bashfully and said, “You ready to do this, Sara? Are you sure?”

  Sara said, “Yes, Papa. Jeremiah’s . . . good . . . man.”

  “Those Millers are a frugal bunch.”

  “Be fine, Papa.”

  “If you ever need anything, you ask your husband first, and then you come see me.”

  Sara nodded and smiled.

  “I’ve picked out a breeding pair of goats for you. At least you’ll have milk.”

  “Be fine, Papa. You . . . stop worrying.”

  “Oh, you’re sure of that, are you, Sara?”

  “I am.”

  “A father never stops worrying. From the day you were born, until the day I die.”

  SARA YODER didn’t care that, in many obvious and telling ways, her wedding was not traditional. She knew there would be endless gossip over this within her family, near and far, and among her neighbors. But Sara didn’t mind. To her it mattered only that she was able to spend her day on crutches, not in a wheelchair, and that, when asked her vows, she would be able to reply with a strong and confident “Yes.” Yes to Jeremiah Miller. Yes to marriage. Yes to the church.

  She had talked at length with her parents about the details. Sara’s would be a rare summer wedding, a departure from the usual practice of holding weddings in the fall or winter, after the harvest. Hers would be a small gathering, by Amish standards. Usually, all of the bride’s relatives and neighbors would be invited and would be expected to attend. For Sara’s relatives, scattered through Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, a journey during the growing season would be burdensome and impractical. A summer wedding posed less of a problem for Jeremiah, since invitations are traditionally extended only to the groom’s immediate family.

  Following local tradition, the wedding ceremony was to take place not at the bride’s house but at the Albert P. and Miriam Yoder residence down the lane. After the ceremony at the neighbors’ house, the bride’s family would then be responsible for all the food and preparations at their own house. By tradition, the religious service, cer
emony, and fellowship would last the entire day. It was to be a Thursday wedding, according with the tradition that weddings be held on either a Tuesday or a Thursday.

  Sara and Jeremiah stood up to be married with four witnesses or attendants, called nevvehocker. Sara had chosen two of her cousins as attendants, and Jeremiah, two of his uncles. The four witnesses were dressed like the bride and groom, so that to the unknowing, it would not be obvious, until the ceremony began, who among them would be married. This is a tradition held over from the years of European persecution.

  Jeremiah and his two nevvehocker wore homemade blue serge suits and collarless white shirts of cotton broadcloth. Sara wore a light blue cotton dress with a high neckline, a full-length skirt with a white organdy kerchief in a pocket, and a matching apron reaching from her neck to the hem of her skirt. Her prayer cap was white.

  The ceremony at the neighbors’ house started traditionally, with a two-hour hymn service, the men sitting separate from the women. Then followed two hours of preaching on weddings in the Bible. Sara and Jeremiah had picked their two favorite preachers for this duty, and they had asked Cal Troyer to conclude with the traditional story from the Old Testament about the wedding of Tobias.

  Before their vows were spoken, Sara and Jeremiah met with Bishop Raber upstairs for the Vermahnung, their final instructions and exhortations from the bishop about married life.

  The actual rites, later in the morning, proceeded in German. Sara’s voice was confident, but still somewhat impaired.

  Friends and family were seated on the lawn behind the wedding party. The bishop started without formalities, saying, “Do you recognize it as a Christian Order that there should be one man and one woman, and can you hope too that you have started this union according to the Christian Order?

  Sara looked at Jeremiah, and he at her, and together they answered, “Yes.”

  The bishop continued. “Can you too hope, Brother, that the Lord might have ordained this our Sister as a married wife?”

  Jeremiah smiled, glanced at his uncles behind him and loudly stated, “Yes.”

  To Sara, the bishop likewise said, “Can you too hope, Sister, that the Lord might have ordained this our Brother as a married husband?”

  Sara nodded, paused to focus on her word, and said, “Yes.”

  The bishop drew himself up a little straighter and looked over the audience. He turned his gaze to Jeremiah and said, “Do you promise to your married wife that if she should come into bodily weakness, sickness, or any kind of condition, that you will care for her as is becoming a married Christian man?”

  Jeremiah answered, “Yes.”

  To Sara, the bishop said, likewise, “Do you promise to your married husband that if he should come into bodily weakness, sickness, or any kind of condition, that you will care for him as is becoming a married Christian woman?”

  Sara smiled and answered, “Yes.”

  A little louder, now, the bishop said, “Do you both also promise to the Lord and to the community that you will bear with each other love, life, and patience, and not separate from one another until the dear Lord will part you through death?”

  Sara and Jeremiah answered yes, and managed, both, to relax slightly.

  The bishop concluded: “So we see that Raguel took the hand of the daughter and put it into the hand of Tobias and said, ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Jakob, the God of Isaac be with you and help you together, and give you his blessing richly over you,’ and all this through Jesus Christ. Amen.”

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 13

  32

  Friday, August 13

  6:50 A.M.

  CAROLINE was up before the professor and waited for him in her pajamas, with a carafe of coffee, on their oak bench with a view of the Amish valley and the hills east of Millersburg. When he came out to join her, he was already dressed in work boots, old jeans, a heavy work shirt with long sleeves, and a Cleveland Indians ball cap.

  Caroline looked him over and shook her head, as if he were the worst variety of scoundrel. She poured his coffee and set it on the bench beside her, saying, “What can be more important than our mornings together, Michael?”

  He sat beside her, took up his mug, and said, “There’s no hurry. I predict, however, that you’ll find this little adventure to be worth every second we put into it.”

  She sipped at her coffee wordlessly for several minutes, enjoying the peaceful view off the cliffs at the back of their lot. Eventually, she asked, “What gives, Professor?”

  “Oh, nothing, really. I thought we might make a little trip in the truck.”

  “Will I need to dress like a sodbuster?” she said, laughing at his attire.

  “Work clothes would be appropriate,” he answered.

  Protesting the interruption of her morning, Caroline got dressed as suggested and found her husband in the garage, loading gear into his short bed truck. Caroline watched, amused, as he stowed two large flashlights, a length of strong rope, a Coleman lantern, a heavy tarp, a pry bar, and a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. She got in on the passenger’s side, and he drove without explanation or comment to the house of the late Spits Wallace.

  At the back door, he clipped the yellow police tape and unlocked the door to the kitchen. While she waited there, he went back to the truck and brought the two flashlights, the Coleman lantern, the pry bar, and the bottle of champagne in a backpack slung over his shoulder. He handed her one of the flashlights and led the way down to the basement.

  Once there, he said, while studying the concrete block walls, “Two things have bothered me about the Spits Wallace affair. One, how did he disappear so handily that afternoon when Samuel White came knocking on his door? Two, why didn’t we find any gold?”

  Caroline stood in the middle of the dank basement and watched him skeptically as he traced the electric wires in the basement. After several minutes, he fingered one line and followed it to a small hole between the top of the concrete blocks and the framing joist of the house. He lit a match and held it near the hole through which the wire passed. The flame blew out. He lit another match. Again, it blew out.

  Smiling, he lit the Coleman lantern and began to study the grouting between the blocks. Soon he had marked off a narrow rectangle. He wedged his pry bar into one of the seams, and the rectangle pivoted toward him as if it were on hinges.

  What he had discovered was a small wooden door, fronted by a thin layer of fake blocks, leading to a crouching tunnel. With a smile, he stooped, entered the tunnel, and held the lantern so that Caroline could follow. Inside, there was an electric switch and a string of lights down the tunnel. The professor turned them on.

  In the yellow glow of the string of light bulbs, the tunnel led slowly and gently down for about a hundred feet and terminated in a small cave. Branden shined his flashlight upward, and they saw overhead, fallen partway into the cavern, the tumbled logs of the decrepit old cabin that sat on the Wallace property.

  An opening to their left widened to a larger cavern with a steep, rocky slope. They carefully helped each other negotiate the slope, and came out on a flat underground table of rock. There they found an old blanket, a rusty shotgun, a kerosene lantern, and cans of food. And in the corner, there was a large stack of canvas moneybags.

  The professor opened one and pulled out a handful of heavy gold coins, dating from the nineteenth century. Astonished despite his earlier reckonings, he knelt beside the pile of coin bags and started to laugh.

  Caroline said, laughing too, “This is the famous Wallace coin collection?”

  Unable to reply verbally, the professor nodded in the affirmative.

  “What made you think it was here?” Caroline asked, and took one of the coins to admire it in the white light of the hissing Coleman lantern.

  “He was too dirty,” the professor said. “Both times we saw him he was covered with dirt and mud. And I knew he had his daddy’s coins, despite what he said.”

  “You noticed his dirty clothes?”

>   “That’s it, really. I figured he had been working in a tunnel or a cave, and then I remembered he said he made himself scarce when Samuel White came up his drive.”

  As astonished with him as she had ever been, Caroline said, “What are we going to do with it?”

  The professor grinned at her like a grade-schooler who had caught his first snake.

  Caroline exclaimed, “You wouldn’t dare!”

  The professor said, “I never told you much about Spits Wallace and me. Spits Wallace has few relatives. His wife and parents are all dead. He had no children. No brothers or sisters. And, here sits his gold.”

  Caroline cautiously repeated, “What are you going to do with it, Michael?”

  “Spits Wallace’s father was old Earl Wallace. And old Earl didn’t trust the banks. But I got to know him pretty well, and he showed me once where he had rigged up booby traps for anyone who might try to steal his gold.”

  “Seems like a strange connection for a college professor,” Caroline said.

  “When I was a kid, my dad used to bring me along to visit old Earl. He kept trying to sell Wallace insurance on his gold coin collection. I’d play with little William.”

  “You may be the only person alive who knew Spits Wallace’s given name.”

  “Could be.”

  “So you knew his father from those trips with your dad.”

  “That, yes, but after my parents were killed, my lawyer got me involved with his old man. I was in college and pretty sour, I guess, so he thought it would do me some good to meet this guy. Henry DiSalvo was the lawyer. Anyway, Henry told me to come along on a call with him. Out to the Wallace place. Earl Wallace was dying of lung cancer, and DiSalvo was his lawyer, too. Henry thought it’d be good for me to meet Earl, and in a strange way it was. I came out here every other day or so that summer, and I got to know the old man pretty well. William, Spits, was living with his mother then, in Youngstown, and I’d sit and talk with Earl for hours. That’s when I learned about his coin collection and the booby traps he had set up to protect it. He was a hardscrabble porcupine of an old goat, but I liked him. My grandfather had known him growing up, and they both belonged to the muzzle-loader club back then. Earl could hit a walnut at a hundred paces. Long story short, he died that summer, and William moved back home.”