The Devoted

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Rose took a few steps, then turned at the doorjamb. “Do you think you could ask Birdy about it as soon as possible? Patrick Kelly is due in this afternoon at the bus stop on Main Street. I told him someone would pick him up.”

  The clip-clop sound of a horse approaching up the driveway drew Ruthie to the window. “There she is now. Let’s go ask.”

  What a day. It began for David Stoltzfus with the birth of his beautiful new grandson. A new life, just beginning. It was ending with the untimely, unfortunate death of a stranger, right across the street.

  David couldn’t shake a feeling of uneasiness. Certainly, the muddy circumstances that surrounded the man’s death were to blame. There was no point in borrowing trouble, no point in assuming that it had been an actual crime, not until the coroner’s report came back.

  But on the other hand, the entire thing sounded suspicious. The blood on the man’s forehead, the lack of any identification. His daughter Ruthie said she overheard the reporter say that most likely the stranger had been in a tussle, then whoever had injured him had come to the inn later to finish off the job.

  If that were true—and David knew enough about such matters to not jump to conclusions on unfounded fears—but if that were true, could Ruthie be in any danger as the sole witness?

  David was willing to let the Inn at Eagle Hill’s guest stay at their home for the time being, but he also insisted on being the one to pick him up at the bus stop. After ten years as an ordained leader, he felt he had become a pretty good judge of character. If he brought a stranger into his home, one filled with young girls, he was going to make absolutely sure he felt comfortable with him.

  He pulled the horse over to the side of the road to wait for the bus to arrive and thought about the other stranger who had created ripples of anxiety. So odd. No one knew who that guest at the inn was, where he came from, how he died. Or why he died.

  He was grateful that Galen King was the one who went into the cottage this morning and not his daughter Ruthie.

  Ruthie’s face suddenly swam into view. Right now, he worried about her more than any of his other children. David had found a GED practice book in a trunk in the barn’s tack room and had no doubt it belonged to Ruthie. Seventeen now, she was the one who was in the barn most often because she milked their dairy cow, and she was the one with the lively, active, insatiable mind. She was the one most intrigued by life outside the boundaries of the Amish world.

  After Ruthie had finished eighth grade, David hoped she would work at the Bent N’ Dent, but she took a job at Edith Fisher Lapp’s chicken and egg farm. Ruthie assumed she would be collecting eggs and caring for the hens. Edith gave her the job of ending the life of old layers and preparing the hens for the freezer. That job only lasted one week but gave Ruthie nightmares for a month. She kept dreaming that chickens were coming after her to seek vengeance.

  She worked for two weeks at the Sweet Tooth Bakery but had trouble sticking to the proper suggestions to use with customers. One of the bakery girls heard her discuss calorie counts with a customer instead of offering, “Better take two cinnamon rolls. They’re going quickly.” The customer did ask, Ruthie defended. She was let go.

  Brief, but that short stint at the Sweet Tooth Bakery gave Ruthie a taste for working “out.” She wanted to interact with as many non-Amish as she could. She loved the sound of foreign accents, the close-up glimpses of lives far removed from her own. When she heard there was a job available at the Inn at Eagle Hill, she begged David to let her work there.

  David held himself partially responsible. Maybe more than partially. When he moved his family from Ohio to Lancaster County, he hadn’t fully realized how distracting a place it would be for his family, especially for someone like Ruthie. Lancaster County was far less isolated, with far more interaction with tourists. Ruthie kept postponing baptism class (postpone? or avoid? he wasn’t sure which) and David respected her wishes. He wouldn’t interfere, but oh, how he prayed for her.

  Even more so now that his sister, nicknamed Dok, had become such a big part of his family’s life.

  It was a great blessing to have reunited with his sister, but with every blessing came a burden. Dok and Ruthie had a special connection. He wasn’t troubled that Dok’s influence over Ruthie would pull her away from faith, but he was concerned that Ruthie would leave the Amish church and all that it meant: the security of community, the comfort and blessings of family. His sister was a woman of sincere faith, and she firmly believed that one didn’t have to be Amish to live a life of faith.

  There were many Amish who would disagree with Dok’s perspective, many who believed that only the Amish were the true believers, but David wasn’t one of them. In fact, he encouraged the youth to get baptized and join the church only if their whole heart was in it. The worst thing of all, he was convinced, was to be half Amish. To sit on a fence for most of one’s life, partly in, partly out. Did not the Scriptures warn men of fence sitting? “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.”

  He heard the approaching bus before he saw it. It rolled around the corner and came to a squeaky halt at the stop. The doors opened and one person jumped off. A young man. A very English-looking man, with short-clipped hair, khaki pants, a crisply ironed blue button-down shirt, a fat brown backpack slung over his shoulder. In one hand he held a birdcage with a large black bird inside.

  That sight alone, David thought with a smile, would endear this young visitor to Birdy, his wife. Her childhood nickname had been bestowed on her because she was passionate about anything with feathers and wings. He hardly gave much thought to birds until he met Birdy, but now he spotted them everywhere and tried to identify them with the tools she’d taught him: size and shape, color pattern, behavior, habitat. He still couldn’t identify much more than a bright red male cardinal, but he found himself enjoying bird-watching. On buggy rides, on walks in the woods. No matter how complicated life became—and boy, did it ever—Birdy had a way of reminding him of its simple joys.

  The young man strode right toward David’s buggy and went to the open window, shifted the birdcage to his left arm, and thrust his right hand out for a shake. “I’m Patrick Kelly. I’ve got a reservation at the Inn at Eagle Hill. That is, as soon as the police give it the all clear.”

  A little startled by the young man’s direct manner, David reached a hand out to return his shake. “David Stoltzfus.”

  “The bishop?”

  David nodded. “How did you know?”

  “I’ve been a subscriber to the Budget for four years now. I’ve been reading about Stoney Ridge for a while.” He pointed to the empty seat next to David. “Mind if I get in?” He walked around the horse and slid open the buggy door before David had a chance to answer. He tossed his backpack into the backseat and settled into the passenger seat beside David, resting the birdcage on his lap.

  David ran through the identifying tools for this bird. Size and shape: bigger than a robin, smaller than a crow. Color: glossy black feathers, yellow-orange bill, yellow streaks on the sides of its head, fleshy wattles, bright yellow feet. Behavior: perched on a wooden rod. Habitat: a birdcage. Nope. He had no idea what kind of bird this was.

  The bird made a few clucking noises, a whistle, then suddenly burst out with a very clear phrase: “This is the day the Lord hath made!”

  David’s jaw dropped. “It talks?”

  “Yes and no.” Patrick grinned. “She mimics. This is Nyna, my common hill mynah bird. One of the world’s best birds for mimicking the human voice. I’ve taught Nyna to quote Scripture. That’s the verse we were working on during the long bus ride from Canada. It’s her longest phrase so far.”

  David laughed. “Wonders never cease. Imagine that! A bird quoting the Holy Book. She might be useful to keep people awake during church.” If he had harbored any doubts about letting this young man stay at his house, they just evaporated. “My wife will be interested to meet Nyna the Mynah. She’s a bir
d lover, a true birder. In fact, her name is Birdy.”

  “Oh boy.” Patrick beamed. “This is great. Just great. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here. I’ve been planning this trip for years. Looking forward to it for a very long time. It’s my defining moment.”

  David flicked the reins and clucked his tongue to get Thistle moving. “How so?”

  “A few years ago, my parents took our family on a trip to Lancaster County.” He shot David a grin. “My mother has regretted the trip ever since.”

  “It wasn’t a good trip?”

  “Just the opposite. It was the best trip of my life. That was the moment I decided I was going to become Amish. I was fifteen at the time, and my parents insisted that I wait until I . . . well . . . until I was a little older before I returned to Pennsylvania.” He grinned at David. “So here I am.” He looked out the storm front, straight ahead. “My parents have given me thirty days. But as far as I’m concerned, there’s no turning back. I’m going Amish.”

  Well, well, David thought. Interesting.

  3

  It started out as just a ride home. Luke Schrock was passing by Ruthie Stoltzfus after she visited Moss Hill to meet her newborn nephew and offered her a ride in his buggy. He slowed down as they approached the turnoff to their homes. “How about if we drive up to Blue Lake Pond and talk?”

  “Luke,” Ruthie said in her crisp don’t-pretend-we-are-still-dating voice.

  “What? I just want to talk to you. We never get a chance to talk at the inn without Sammy or somebody buzzing around us.”

  She sighed. That was the truth. Privacy was an oh-so-rare luxury. “Fine. But we can’t stay too long.”

  He drove past the turnoff to their respective houses and out toward the lake, turning onto a dirt road that led up to a very, very private lookout spot, a place the two of them had discovered on a hike last summer. She wondered if Luke had brought other girls here since she had told him she wanted to take a break.

  “I just now noticed you’re wearing my favorite-colored dress. That shade of blue always makes your eyes look like the color of a tropical sea. I don’t know how I missed seeing it when you got in the buggy. I must have been blinded by your dazzling smile.”

  Thinking that she didn’t remember smiling at him, she watched him climb out of the buggy. Tall, tall, tall, a full five or six inches taller than her father or brother. Luke held himself with the squared shoulders of a prince. He had midnight black hair that curled at the edges under his straw hat, and laugh lines at the corners of his sapphire blue eyes. He was so strong, he picked her up out of the buggy and swung her around. And then they both laughed as Luke set her down.

  “I’ve missed you!” he said.

  Well, she’d been right here. He was the one who had disappeared for the last few days. “Where were you last night as I was coping with a bloody stranger at the inn?”

  “I told you. Out with my friends.” He kept his hands on her hips and his eyes on her lips. “So . . . tell me again why we’re on a break?” In his eyes was a plea. She felt it more than she saw it. He just wanted it to be nice between them again.

  The tops of Ruthie’s ears started to feel warm. That meant they were turning pink, the only outward sign that she felt affected by him. She would never, ever, ever tell him about that betrayal signal. As far as he was concerned, she was in complete control of her emotions.

  The truth was that all kinds of emotions swirled around inside her. So many that she kept them tightly stuffed down. Sometimes she felt as if her feelings were like a bottle of shaken soda pop. If the cap came off, she might explode.

  She felt as if she were skydiving and never entirely sure her chute would open in time—a ridiculous analogy because she had never been skydiving and probably never would, but she had read about it once and realized that’s exactly what it meant to be Luke Schrock’s girlfriend: complete uncertainty of what was coming next and very worried about the landing. She had become the kind of girl she didn’t even like: jealous and suspicious. It was one of the reasons she told him she wanted to take a break.

  “I miss you so much, Ruthie,” Luke said. “I miss us. This break we’re taking—the one you said you wanted to take—I’ve used it to go out with a few other girls. They’re great girls, not a thing wrong with them, but I only went out with them a couple of times before I lost interest.”

  Girls. How many had there been? Ruthie felt a miserable wave of jealousy. She was the one who wanted to break up; she knew it meant he would pursue other girls. They were both free to date others. The difference was that no one held her interest, not the way Luke could. She wiggled out of his grasp and took a step back. “And why,” she asked, “are you telling me this?”

  “I want another chance,” Luke said. He swallowed, seeming to be overcome by genuine emotion, a rare thing. “I want you to be my one and only. Ruthie, you’re the best person I know. You’re the person who gets me like no one else gets me. You can’t deny that we get along so well.” He reached out and took her hands in his. “There’s no way you can tell me all your feelings for me have died.”

  Oh Luke. There were things she missed about being his girl—his eyes shining with mischief, his irreverent sense of humor, his over-the-top romantic gestures. But there were things about him she didn’t miss—that never-being-sure gut feeling that he might be spending time with other girls if she didn’t go with him to parties. But the truth was that she hated the parties. Luke’s life was an endless party.

  “Of course my feelings haven’t died for you, Luke.” He was one of those guys impossible to stay mad at, which in itself was maddening. “And I do understand you. But, Luke . . . I’m not sure you understand me.”

  “Understand you? Of course I understand you. I’ve always understood you. You’re beautiful and smart and witty. You like bonfires and buggy races and . . .” He searched for other words. “Books.”

  “Bonfires and buggy races?” She yanked her hands out of his. “Luke, that’s what you like to do.”

  “But you do like books.”

  “Yes. But so do you.” She looked him right in the eye. “I wanted a break because you were drinking too much. Have you stopped?”

  He glanced down at the tops of his boots. “I’m not going to lie. I haven’t stopped. Not entirely. I’m getting there, though. I know you think I can’t change—”

  “People don’t change,” Ruthie said. “They only get more so.”

  “That’s not true. Have a little faith in me, Ruthie. For you, I’ll do anything. And you have to admit that you miss us being together too.” He leaned toward her and took her hand, cupping it with both of his and holding it close to his heart. “Just a little?”

  To be honest with herself, there were things about Luke she would always be attracted to. In particular, his essential “I don’t care what anybody thinks-ness.” But was that enough?

  “A little. But not everything. Especially not the drinking.” She reclaimed her hand. “It’s getting late. I need you to take me home.”

  He nodded, then helped her into the buggy. She was startled and—what a surprise!—disappointed that he was giving up so easily.

  Leroy Glick tapped Jesse on the shoulder, leaving a greasy handprint on his freshly washed and ironed blue shirt. Jesse was particular about his clothing. The two apprentices were always tapping him on the shoulder with their dirty hands, and it immensely annoyed him.

  “If you want to ask me a question,” Jesse had said countless times, “you can always use my name. You don’t have to put your dirty hands on my clean clothes.”

  Leroy would look at his hands, surprised to discover that they were filthy, apologize, but it never changed. Sometimes, most times, Jesse felt he was fighting a losing battle.

  “There’s someone who wants to see you,” Leroy said, chewing a large wad of pink bubble gum—a disgusting habit. “He’s outside.”

  Jesse put down his wrench and wiped his hands on a cloth. He had been involved in
a particularly delicate operation—adjusting the taillights on a buggy with a switch panel on the dashboard. He didn’t like to be interrupted during delicate operations. They required his full attention.

  “Jesse, he knew my name.”

  “Who?”

  Leroy pointed to the door. “That guy. He knew my name.”

  Jesse pointed to Leroy’s coveralls. “Think that’s why?” After daily arguments between the apprentices about whose coverall was whose, Jesse had taped a piece of masking tape with their names written on each one.

  Jesse went outside and blinked a few times while his eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight. A young English fellow was walking around the old sisters’ buggy, peering inside. “Are you looking for me?”

  “I am if you’re Jesse Stoltzfus, the highly regarded buggy repairman of Stoney Ridge.”

  Jesse felt a little taken aback by this fellow’s forthrightness. Swooping in on top of that feeling came one of pleasure. He did not mind receiving a compliment or two. “I am. I’m Jesse.”

  “I’m Patrick Kelly.”

  “So what can I do for you?”

  Patrick looked at the buggy. “I’d like you to teach me how to drive a buggy. For pay, of course.”

  Jesse barely suppressed an eye roll. Another whacky tourist. “Two towns over, there’s a Mennonite who gives buggy rides for tourists.”

  Patrick shook his head. “That’s not what I want.”

  “Well, you don’t have to pay me. I’ll take you out on a ride. Or I can get my apprentices to take you.” Those two needed a great deal of practice to improve their social skills. They could be appallingly rude. The other day they told Edith Fisher Lapp that her buggy wouldn’t need new shock absorbers so often if she just lost some weight. Edith was outraged and complained mightily to Jesse.

  “No, no,” the fellow said. “I’m not being clear. I want to learn how to drive a buggy myself. I need lessons. Regular lessons. That’s why I want to pay you. I realize you have an important job to do here. I want to make it worth your time.”