The Captive Heart

by Dale Cramer

  He held his hands out and took a step forward, reaching toward Little Amos.

  It happened so quickly no one could have seen it coming, let alone prevented it. Aaron planted a hand and vaulted out of his seat, landing on his feet between El Pantera and the buggy.

  There was a quick flurry of movement, like a snake striking, and then El Pantera jumped back. Only then did Rachel see the knife in the bandit’s hand, and the blood on the blade.

  Aaron’s face was a frozen mask of surprise as his head tilted and he slowly looked down at his hands, clamped on his belly. Blood oozed from between his fingers.

  The world seemed to hold its breath for a split second, and then Rachel screamed.

  Aaron raised his bewildered face to plead with El Pantera. “Please, señor—please don’t hurt the . . .” The words tailed off as the big Amishman slumped to his knees, pitched over onto his side and drew himself into a ball, squirming in the dust, his breathing growing fast and shallow.

  Rachel’s whole world swirled and tilted. Sheer horror flooded her mind, and reason fled.

  El Pantera looked up at her and spread his hands in apparent apology, grinning sheepishly, waving the knife absently.

  “I did not mean to do that, señorita. It was only my hand, you see? My hand did it all by himself. Señor Aaron Bender should not have jumped at me like that.”

  Empty, meaningless words, but as he said them there was a rustling noise and she heard a low guttural moan that swelled quickly into a bone-chilling, inhuman wail. The buggy tilted as Ada leaped out the other side. She tumbled when she hit the ground, and as she rolled over, Rachel saw that she was clutching something tightly in her arms. A tiny hand flew up in front of Ada’s face. Little Amos!

  Rolling over and scrambling awkwardly to her feet, Ada ran blindly with her head down and her arms wrapped around the child—straight toward the mounted bandits.

  Two of them drew their guns, but El Pantera shouted, “Loca! The girl is crazy! Let her go!”

  She lumbered between their horses, wild-eyed and oblivious. Laughing and whooping, the mounted bandits raised their pistols into the air and fired, yelling, “Run, crazy woman, RUN!”

  Rachel watched in horror as Ada tripped over a rock and fell again, her dress and heavy cotton underskirt flying up, thick white legs cartwheeling through the air. But she clutched Little Amos tight against her, protecting him as she rolled. She stumbled to her feet and staggered on, wailing and swaying.

  Rachel started to jump out and chase after her sister, but an iron hand gripped her wrist and snatched her backward. El Pantera dragged her screaming out of the buggy, and her feet bounced on the coiled body of her brother. Aaron didn’t move or cry out. He lay very still.

  Too still.

  She fought and twisted, trying to wrench herself free from the bandit so she could see about her brother, but El Pantera was too strong. In the struggle he ripped her prayer kapp from her head. All the pins came out and her hair went every which way. El Pantera grabbed fistfuls of red hair and dragged her over the rocks, laughing.

  “Be careful with this one,” he said, leering at her as he flung her down in front of his men. “She is a rare one—young and spirited, with hair like flames! She will bring a pretty penny!”

  They bound her hands with twine and tossed her into the saddle with one of the bandits—a wiry, hawk-faced little man who stank terribly. He looked familiar. Another of them took the buggy horse out of the traces and tied a rope to his neck while El Pantera shouted orders for some of his men to throw the gringo’s body in the buggy and roll it off the road, into the trees where it would not be seen.

  Quaking with shock and terror, Rachel desperately scanned the road to the east for Ada, but she was nowhere in sight. Gone, and Little Amos with her. Rachel dared not even think what their fate would be, lost in the middle of the mountains with no one to help them. No one even knew they were here.

  She wept uncontrollably. The bandit in the saddle behind her told her to shut up, then smacked the side of her head roughly, but she could not stop crying. She simply had to endure the blows until he tired of it and stopped hitting her.

  With his arms tight around her there was no way to get away from him. He leaned against her, rubbed his hands over her body, pressed his lips into her hair and whispered, “I would have had your dark-eyed sister once, if it had not been for your little friend Domingo. But that’s okay, for tonight I will have you, and I think you are probably a sweeter berry even than your sister. I will make you mine, pretty señorita.”

  It was then that she remembered the weasel. That voice. She had been there two years ago, with Emma in the surrey, when the weasel and his friends forced them to trade a broken-down pinto for their best buggy horse. The mere thought of him made her physically ill, and the smell nearly made her retch. She wondered if he’d had a bath since the last time she saw him. Watching helplessly through a flood of tears, she saw three bandits hoist Aaron’s limp body into the back of the surrey and push it down the hill. The buggy got away from them, gained speed, bounced twice over the uneven ground, crashed hard into a twisted pine at the edge of the woods and tipped over in a tangle of weeds and vines. Strolling casually back up the hill, the three of them mimed the crash with hand gestures, chortling.

  Then, suddenly, it was over. Everyone mounted their horses and trotted away, following El Pantera down a logging trail deep into the pine and oak forest to the north.

  It hit Rachel like a flash flood. Her entire world had been swept away in the space of five minutes—captured and bound like a slave, carried off by the worst kind of men to a fate she dared not even contemplate, her brother stabbed, her sister and nephew lost in the wild mountains—and there was nothing she could do about it except pray.

  Her first and most fervent prayer was for Aaron, Ada and Little Amos. The second one was for Jake. Bouncing along on horseback with the arms of the weasel around her, she whispered, “Please, Gott, don’t let Jake come after me. Don’t let these monsters get their hands on him. Please just let me die instead.”

  Chapter 19

  Fear came upon Ada like a fog.

  In Agua Nueva her terror of the room in the strange place and the dreadful hurt in her throat overwhelmed her sometimes, forcing her to close her eyes and try to rock the fog away, the comfort of rhythm her last resort, the only comfort she could find. The strangeness surrounded her, nipping at her like a mean dog so that sometimes she had to bang her head to keep it from getting inside. At least Rachel was there. Rachel was real and good, part of home—not as good as Mamm, but still good.

  Ada hadn’t understood why they had to go to the strange place to begin with, or if they would ever go home again, but she could read faces and she knew Rachel and Aaron. When they left the strange place and started singing it meant they were going home. Back to Mamm. Back to normal.

  The songs they sang in the buggy made her feel safe too, for they were carved deeply on her mind. The words had always been there. The songs knew her and loved her the way her bed did. They made her happy, chasing away the memory of the strange place and the hurt in her throat. Everything was so nice until the strange men stormed by on their horses and the buggy stopped.

  When the horses came and the buggy stopped, the fog crawled back in. Her tongue swelled up to push against her eyes and she couldn’t see very well. When the bad man came up to the buggy the thrumming came with him, a deep soft hum swelling and ebbing in her head until it drowned out voices so she couldn’t hear them anymore. The fog closed in.

  Aaron scared her, jumping down like that, and then the bad man did something to him, and Rachel screamed. Madness, meanness, terror, fighting, all of it jangled together, and then she saw Aaron’s hands.

  Blood! Blood! Blood!

  When Aaron fell down bleeding, holding his stomach, the low humming rose to a piercing scream like a train whistle. Her eyes shook and her ears throbbed. She had to run away. Right this minute, Ada Bender!

  She di
dn’t know she had grabbed Little Amos. He was just there in her arms as she went tumbling across the rocks hurting her elbows. But she felt him then, knew him, clung to him.

  A piece of home, small enough to carry, her arms whispered. Run away!

  Suddenly her feet found the earth under her and she was upright again. Her legs pumped and ran, all by themselves. Horses came out of the fog, big horses with big teeth and sharp hooves, and then the ugly faces of strange men, laughing, jeering. But she couldn’t see very far and there was no turning in her legs. Bending over to hide from them, she plunged between the horses and by some miracle left them in the fog. Run away!

  Then came the noise of lightning, over and over, and bad men shouting words she couldn’t understand. Her knees tried to hide from the noise and she went down again. She barely saw the hard ground coming, but some part of her heard Little Amos crying, felt him clinging. If she fell on him he would be hurt and she would be in trouble, like the time she fell on baby Barbara, so she turned enough to make the ground hurt her shoulder instead.

  The sleeve of her dress ripped and one of her elbows screamed at her, but as soon as she stopped rolling her frightened legs raised her up again and she ran. She ran, wailing, because it was the only thing she knew. Run away!

  The fog thickened and the pounding in her ears drowned out all sound. All she could see was the two wagon ruts in front of her, and she stayed between them because there was order in them, boundaries, and she needed them. It seemed she ran for hours before she collapsed, spent and gasping, unable even to wail anymore. She could go no farther. The fog, the fear, the screaming in her ears, all of it caught up with her and grew until it overwhelmed her. Any second now the evil would catch her from behind and swallow her.

  She curled herself into a ball, still clinging to Little Amos, until the fog began to swirl and howl. As the din folded itself about her she felt herself falling, spinning into the vortex.

  Nothingness. Silence but for the whisper of the wind.

  Oblivion yielded to a growing, swelling tumult of fear until out of a tornado of white noise came the distant sound of a baby crying. Swimming up out of mottled darkness, Ada opened her eyes in bright sunlight to find Little Amos kneeling beside her, crying, slapping her shoulder and face, shouting.

  “Wachen, Auntie!” Wake up! The baby’s cheeks were red and his eyes swollen, his hat missing. Tears covered his face and a string of snot hung from his chin.

  Sitting up, rubbing her eyes, Ada tried to remember, but the slate was clean.

  “Mamm?” she cried, her voice high and brittle, but Mamm was nowhere to be seen. Looking around, she saw that she was in a barren rocky place that dropped off on both sides to a line of trees and shadows. Nothing was familiar except the wagon ruts running past on both sides. Fear gripped her and she began to moan and rock.

  “MAMM!” Louder this time, and high-pitched, almost a scream. Her voice echoed back from the canyon, mocking her. Barrenness, emptiness. She rocked harder. Her eyes filled and a keening welled up from the back of her throat. A little wind blew frizzy hair into her eyes, and she reached up to rearrange her kapp, but it was gone.

  “RAAACHELLLL!” A warbling scream.

  Only the wind answered.

  The pounding began, and the low hum. Fog threatened the edges of her vision. She moaned louder and rocked harder, all the way down, tapping her head against the rock, but a small voice broke through.

  “Durstig, Auntie.” I’m thirsty.

  Little Amos knelt beside her, pleading. So helpless. He looked to her, to Ada, for water.

  She blinked and forgot to rock. She wiped her eyes and the fog seemed to subside for a moment.

  Ada had always been, and still was, a child.

  No one had ever looked to her for help.

  In that moment, something clicked. Deep inside, perhaps in the blood of her father, some tiny awareness awakened, and for the first time in her life she felt burdened by someone weaker, more helpless than herself. This little one wanted his mamm—needed her even more than Ada needed hers.

  She lifted Little Amos onto her lap, took up the hem of her dress and wiped his face clean the way she’d seen his mother do. Then she hugged him and snuggled her face into his warm neck. Words of her own would not come, but she made a habit of memorizing the words of others, especially the things they repeated in moments of crisis.

  “Shhhh, little one,” she cooed. “Gott knows. Shhhh.”

  Quietly he complained again of thirst, but there was no water. “Shhhh,” she said, and rocked him. They sat that way for a long time, until this new arrangement of things settled on her heart and made itself comfortable. For the first time in her life there was something only she could do for someone that only she could help, and in her simple mind this small knowledge shaped itself into a mission.

  Find this boy’s mamm. Find Mary.

  Ada had no idea how to go about it or where to begin, but the darkness of her innate pessimism told her that Mary would not come to her. She must move. She knew at least that much.

  Gathering the child to her, she staggered to her feet and looked around.

  The tracks. She recognized wagon tracks, for she had seen them all her life. They were familiar, and familiar was good. She would follow the ruts as long as they lasted, but which way? Directions were all the same to her, the comings and goings of sun and moon a mystery. Wagon ruts led both ways from where she stood, and there was no way to know which way pointed to home.

  But when Rachel had been so upset riding to Agua Nueva in the surrey with Ada’s head on her shoulder she had repeated words over and over as if there was magic in them. Somehow the words had made Rachel feel better, so Ada repeated them now.

  “Please Gott help us please.”

  Nothing happened. She stood silent for a good five minutes, the wind blowing her frizzy hair about, lashing her face and the red face of Little Amos, but in the end the road still looked the same in both directions. The words themselves might have made her feel better, but nothing really happened. Gott did not show her the way. Worse, a coyote began to yip and howl, and the eerie sound filled her with dread. She had heard the stories when they thought she wasn’t listening. Coyotes were evil, like very mean dogs. Sometimes they would steal babies and eat them.

  Clutching Little Amos tight against her, Ada’s fear grew, clouding her vision and pounding on the doors of her mind. She turned her back to the yipping coyotes and ran.

  Heavy and unaccustomed to running, she lumbered awkwardly, stumbling often. The thirty-pound child in her arms weighed her down so that she staggered and weaved even more than usual because she couldn’t wave her arms for balance. In a few short minutes, panting for breath, her heart thumping like a drum, she slowed to a walk.

  But walking, or something, kept the fog from closing in. She would not stop again. Lumbering on, she clung to three simple thoughts: Keep going, follow the ruts, find Mary. She made it into a kind of song and repeated it to herself. She was still afraid—terrified, in fact—but she held off the fog and stumbled forward as one possessed, a woman with a purpose greater than herself.

  The fog was there. It was always there, but it did not close in. The fog feared this new Ada.

  The road seemed endless, the scenery unchanging. She didn’t know if it would ever change, for she had no concept of time or distance. Home, for all Ada knew, might lay as far away as heaven, in some other direction.

  Every so often when she missed a step she would fall down, but always she protected the child. Her arms ached, her knees throbbed, her elbows were skinned and bleeding and protesting, yet she refused to listen to any of them. At least for now, Ada had no room for Ada.

  Keep moving, follow the ruts, find Mary.

  Her feet blistered, then the blisters burst and bled. She refused to stop because she was afraid she might not remember to start again.

  Something had happened to the night. Bandits must have stolen the darkness, because she had walked for so
long that surely the darkness should have come, and yet the sun still shined.

  Limping now, hobbling on ruined feet and swollen knees, with blood congealing on a half-dozen ugly bruises, she plodded stubbornly on for an eternity, past dinnertime and Christmas and Rachel’s birthday, until it came upon her all at once that she was getting cold.

  Her shadow had disappeared. The sky had changed from deep blue to dim purple, and still the road ahead looked no different than the road behind.

  Keep moving, follow the ruts, find Mary.

  Little Amos fussed and cried a little. His voice cracked with a drying throat, but he had given up asking for water. Just before full dark he began saying he was hungry and cold.

  When it grew too dark to see the wagon ruts Ada walked a little farther and then stopped, afraid of stepping on a snake. Snakes were mean and evil, worse than coyotes. Now she, too, began to shiver from the cold, so she lay on her side on the bare rock and pulled Little Amos up inside her coat. They warmed each other, and before long the shivering decreased. Completely spent, both mentally and physically, Ada melted into the rock and went away.

  Chapter 20

  Caleb returned home that Monday afternoon. He dropped off Domingo in San Rafael and trundled into Paradise Valley a day late, without the preacher. He half expected to meet one of his sons or John Hershberger on the road home, coming out to check on him, but he made it all the way back to the valley without seeing a familiar face.

  As soon as he rounded the end of the ridge and caught sight of home he was filled with a deep sense of foreboding. His people had long awaited the arrival of an ordained minister. It would be cause for major celebration, since no Amish settlement was complete, or even entirely functional, without one. Under normal circumstances they would have posted one of the boys at the ridgetop to watch for his wagon. They would have spotted him ten miles away, and by the time his wagon reached home there would have been a crowd waiting to greet their new preacher. Even if the lookout reported that Caleb was alone, the whole settlement would have gathered to find out why. But no one turned out. He saw smoke rising from a few cooking fires at the Amish farms, but despite good weather there didn’t seem to be anybody out and about. Very disturbing.