The Captive Heart

by Dale Cramer

  Miriam sighed, sniffed. “It’s Micah. I fear I have hurt him in a way that cannot be healed.”

  Kyra’s head backed away, tilted. “How?”

  “I humiliated him. Shamed him.”

  “But how could this be? Was it something you said to him?”

  Miriam explained, in Spanish for her friend, what had passed between her and Micah.

  Kyra stared. “You mean you humiliated him because you refused to obey him? That is nothing, Miriam! He will get over that. It is hard the first time, a little easier the second, and by the hundredth time it is nothing. Trust me, I was married to a proud man myself.”

  “I only wish it was that simple,” Miriam said. “An Amishman expects obedience from his wife, but I am not his wife yet. What shamed him was the clothes, the guns.”

  Kyra looked at the sky and shook her head in frustration. “Clothes. Are you serious? I guess I will never understand gringos.”

  “It’s not gringos you don’t understand, Kyra, it’s the Amish. Our beliefs are our law and our bond, our agreement with each other and with Gott. The way Micah saw it, when I laid aside my dress and kapp I was laying aside everything I am, everything I believe . . . everything Amish. He had a right to speak out against it. He is Amish.”

  Kyra said nothing for a long time, thinking. When she finally spoke, her eyes stayed focused straight ahead and there was a hint of quiet anger in her voice.

  “I may not understand the Amish,” she said, “but I know men. You are wrong about Micah, and you are better off without the coward.”

  “Kyra, Micah is no coward. We have both seen him do very brave things.”

  “You give him too much credit, I think.”

  Now it was Miriam who didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

  “You really don’t see it?”

  “No. See what?”

  Kyra leaned close, gripped her forearm. “Miriam, why did we put these clothes on in the first place?”

  Miriam shrugged. “To look like men.”

  “Because?”

  “Because the trail is not safe for women.”

  “Sí. And Micah knows this. Your brother died and your sister was kidnapped on these perilous roads. If Micah truly loves you his concern should be for you, not the Amish law. No matter how angry he is, a man, if he is a man, would never let his love go into the mountains unescorted in the middle of the night. I don’t care what kind of clothes we are wearing, he should have insisted on coming with us.”

  “Oh my,” she whispered, as the truth of Kyra’s words sank in. Blinded by Micah’s anger, she hadn’t even thought of it in those terms.

  “Sooner or later he will see this himself,” Kyra said. “But it will be too late. Face it, Miriam—it is over. Even if you crawl back to him now, he will never forgive you because he can never forgive himself.”

  Miriam nodded slowly. “Kyra, I’m afraid you’re right. He will never forgive me.”

  Her friend’s voice came softly, reluctantly out of the darkness. “Do you want to turn back? I will understand.”

  “No.” There was no hesitation, no thought required. “I’m going. Micah will have to wait.”

  Rachel slept late the next morning. When she finally sat up, rubbing her eyes, she was alarmed to find the room already bathed in sunlight. Miriam was gone, her side of the bed cold. Ada, Leah and Barbara were gone too, probably about their morning chores. Slightly ashamed, even though her family clearly meant for her to catch up on her sleep, Rachel sprang from the bed, dressed quickly, and ran downstairs.

  Mamm was in the kitchen, sitting at the table while Barbara put the finishing touches on a big breakfast. Mamm was still not quite herself, but she brightened when she saw Rachel.

  “Where’s Miriam?” Rachel asked, without preamble.

  “I have not seen her this morning,” Mamm said, her voice still tired and drawn. “I thought she was out doing chores with Dat and Leah.”

  Rachel went out the back door and half ran up to the barn, where she found Leah milking cows by herself.

  “Where’s Miriam? Have you seen her?”

  Leah looked around the cow’s hind legs, her shoulders working, the steady rip rip rip of milk into the pail never wavering.

  “No, and I’m a little put out with her. I’ve had to do everything myself this morning, with only Ada to help. Where did she go?”

  Rachel was gazing out the back door of the barn, scanning the pasture for Miriam’s shape, looking over the fields for a white kapp somewhere among the corn. There was no sign of her.

  “Last night she went to Kyra’s house in San Rafael,” Rachel said. “She should have been back long before now, but it was late when she left so maybe she decided to stay the night. That must be it. Kyra was probably very upset about Domingo, and Miriam decided to keep her company.”

  Still staring out over the pasture and the fields, Rachel saw nothing, and yet something was not right. Something bothered her, but she couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

  Miriam spent the night at Kyra’s—it was the only explanation. Rachel grabbed a bucket and stool and went to work.

  “Sorry about being so late,” she said. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  Leah smiled around the swishing tail of her cow. “After what you’ve been through? Sister, I’m so glad to have you back I would have let you sleep all day.”

  ———

  They were eating breakfast when Micah showed up. He tied his buggy horse to the barn lot fence, knocked twice on the back door and let himself in.

  “Good morning,” Caleb said. “Have you had breakfast?”

  Micah shook his head stiffly, standing just inside the back door with his hat in his hands as if he was afraid to move deeper into the kitchen.

  “No. I mean, no thank you, I’ve already had breakfast. I, uh, I came to give you a message from Miriam. I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier, but”—he waved a hand toward the other side of the valley—“I had chores.”

  Then he paused and fidgeted, peeking out the back window as if there were something to look at.

  “Well, what is it?” Caleb asked. “Rachel said Miriam spent the night at Kyra’s. Is that what you were going to tell us?”

  “Well, no,” he said, and his gaze went to the floor. “I mean, no, she didn’t spend the night at Kyra’s. I brought her back here last night. Late. After you’uns were asleep.”

  Mamm sat upright in alarm.

  “Then, where is she?” Caleb asked. “She’s not here.”

  “No, she’s not. That’s what she wanted me to tell you. She went with Kyra.”

  Rachel’s hand flew up to cover her mouth. Now she knew what had bothered her about the pasture—there were horses missing.

  “I took Miriam to Kyra’s last night and she told them what happened to Domingo,” Micah said, his eyes still downcast. “Kyra was very shook up, and her mother too. She said she was going after Domingo, to bring his body back home and give him a proper burial. They left last night. Kyra said they would be back in three days—if there’s no trouble.”

  Rachel cringed, knowing better than anyone the perils of the mountains. Not Miriam. Not now. She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if Miriam and Kyra ran into bandits in the hills, alone.

  Mamm’s face twisted in angst, and her mouth worked without words. Her fork clattered unnoticed onto her plate. Shaking hands covered her mouth and she drew a breath for a scream that didn’t come.

  Micah shook his head and his voice dropped. “I don’t know what got into her. She went back in the bedroom to help Kyra, and when they came out both of them were dressed like Mexican men, like peons or bandits or something. They took guns and then they came here to get horses. Must have been three or four hours before daylight when they left here on horseback, headed up into the mountains. Caleb, I told Miriam not to go. I begged her not to go, but she wouldn’t listen to me.”

  Horrified, Rachel watched her mother sinking back into
despair.

  The sorrow in Micah’s face slowly gave way to the self-absorbed anger of a petulant child. “She’s lost her wits,” he said through gritted teeth. “Running off in the middle of the night dressed like a Mexican. Dressed like a man! Why, I think she’s gone loco over that Domingo. Her mind ain’t right.”

  Rachel could take no more. She was about to challenge him herself, but her dat pushed his chair back and stood up straight to face Micah.

  “You brought her back here?” Caleb asked in a steady voice, though Rachel could see fire in his eyes.

  “Jah, I brought them both in the buggy, but not because I wanted to.”

  “So you were here when they left?”

  “No, I didn’t stay to see them off, if that’s what you mean. I wanted no part of it.”

  “But you were here, and you knew what she was about to do.” Raising an arm, Caleb pointed a finger in the direction of the mountains and his voice went up a notch. “And you let her go?”

  “I couldn’t stop her, Caleb! I forbid her, but she wouldn’t listen. She was crazy, I tell you!”

  Crazy. Rachel had seen crazy recently, and Miriam wasn’t even close.

  Caleb leaned a little closer, his eyes boring in on Micah. “So you admit that the girl you’re about to marry went off into those mountains in the middle of the night, and you didn’t go with her?”

  Rachel thought her dat might have overstepped his bounds just a little—Miriam’s engagement was a secret. But then Micah asked for it.

  Micah’s face flashed deep red and his eyes narrowed. He blustered and fumed and opened his mouth to answer, but he couldn’t find the words. His hands flailed about and he stomped out the door, slamming it behind him. Rachel thought she heard a garbled shout of rage when he was halfway to his buggy, but nothing she could understand.

  Mamm stared into space, her eyes pooling. Just as she had gotten one daughter back, another was lost, and Mamm was thrown right back into the abyss.

  It broke Rachel’s heart.

  Chapter 34

  Kyra kept them away from the main road during the night, following a narrow winding path that clung to the edge of the mountains in the deep shadows of the forest.

  “It is an old trail,” Kyra said, “a footpath of the native peoples for centuries before the Spaniards came. No one uses it much anymore, so I think we will be safer here.”

  The trail was too narrow for wagons, and in some places so steep that they had to dismount and lead their horses up the treacherous slope. The dawn broke clear, but during the morning the clouds gathered and by noon they had merged into a solid overcast of lumpy gray flannel. A chill wind began to blow.

  Sometime in the afternoon they emerged above the tree line. Ahead lay a vast field of yellowish-white rocks sloping up to the base of a limestone cliff that formed the spine of a long razorback ridge.

  “This is the place,” Kyra said. “You cannot see it from here, but there is a crack in those cliffs. El Ojo—the Eye of the Needle.”

  Miriam’s heart was as overcast as the sky, and as their horses picked their way up the slope among the rocks every step filled her with a greater sense of dread. When they reached the crevice in the face of the cliffs they stopped and listened for a moment. Miriam shivered, chilled to the bone partly by the cold wind moaning through the Eye of the Needle and partly, no doubt, from fear of what they were about to find. A gaggle of buzzards circled overhead, watching, waiting.

  Kyra glanced up at the buzzards, took a deep breath and spurred her horse slowly forward, into the pass. A hundred yards in, at the narrowest point, they found the bicolored Appaloosa. He lay on his side, shot through the chest, his saddle still in place. His head was turned at an unnatural angle and one leg was raised, jammed hard against the opposite wall. His eyes were still wide, his tongue hanging out, swelling. It was a gruesome sight.

  Their horses stamped and whinnied, nervous. Kyra dismounted and led both horses back to a bush growing in a little cut and tied them there.

  “We will have to go in on foot,” she said. “You can wait here if you wish, Miriam. I don’t know what lies beyond.”

  Miriam shook her head. “The last thing I want right now is to be alone.”

  They walked back to the Appaloosa, where Kyra knelt and went through the saddlebags.

  “There’s nothing here,” Kyra said. “The saddlebags are empty and the rifle is gone. I think El Pantera did not die with his horse, but I wonder why they left the saddle.”

  “I couldn’t begin to guess,” Miriam said.

  They stepped over the Appaloosa and continued. Farther in they found another dead horse beside a large bloodstain that didn’t come from the horse. But there were no human remains.

  “The second horse is facing in the other direction,” Kyra pointed out. “This one tried to get away when the shooting started.”

  She pressed on, Miriam following. Several times Kyra stooped to examine tracks in the rocky soil—both hoofprints and boot tracks. In two other places she found large dark spots in the ground, still damp with blood.

  “My brother put up quite a fight,” she said, rising, staring. From here they could see the other end of the pass, where it opened out into sky. Miriam followed Kyra all the way through to the end. They stood gazing over the bald approach on the north slope. There was nothing else to see.

  Kyra’s eyes narrowed, searching the ground. “Rachel said there were six of them?”

  “Sí. Jake said that, too.”

  “Two of them were killed or badly wounded, probably more, but there are no bodies.” She pointed to the tracks leading away to the north. “Only four horses left here, and if they took their own dead and wounded there would be no room for Domingo.”

  “Maybe he took one of their horses and went after them.”

  Kyra shook her head. “Domingo was too smart for that. He would never chase them into open country where they would have the advantage. If he managed to get a horse he would have come straight home.”

  Kyra turned around, and Miriam saw the hope fade from her eyes as she watched the buzzards circling the other end of the pass.

  “He is here,” Kyra said. “We just have to find him.”

  They made their way slowly back through the pass, searching the ground for any kind of clue. They found more blood, but no bodies. When at last they came back to the Appaloosa Kyra stopped and looked up. The buzzards were circling directly overhead in a darkening sliver of sky.

  “I know where he is,” she said calmly. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it already. Many times I heard my father talking to Domingo about the ways of war. One of the things my father said over and over was, ‘Never defend when you can attack, but if you must defend, take the high ground. Always the high ground.’ ”

  Her eyes traced the terraced walls of the pass, limestone pocked with holes and crevices that would make climbing easy.

  “This way,” she said, stepping over the Appaloosa. “It is no accident the Appaloosa fell in the narrowest place. This would have been Domingo’s first shot, and it had to come from up there.”

  It was Miriam who spotted it—a tiny tag of red, barely visible at the edge of a rock ledge about twenty feet up. She would not have seen it at all if the wind hadn’t lifted a little corner of the cloth right where she was looking. Domingo’s bandanna was red.

  Kyra found handholds in the rock face and scaled it with astonishing agility. As she raised her head up over the ledge, she froze.

  “He is here,” she said.

  There was no light in her voice when she said it, and Miriam, waiting alone at the base of the cliff, dropped to her knees. There was even a tinge of guilt in Miriam then, as it came to her that the weight of grief descending upon her in that moment was every bit as heavy as when her own brother died. Until now she had not understood just how deeply Domingo had affected her.

  Kyra hoisted herself up over the ledge and out of sight. Miriam laid her forehead against the cool stone and we
pt in silence, dreading what lay ahead. Now there would be a body, lifeless and cold, a tangible end to an unspoken hope.

  Instead there came a shrill cry, echoing from the walls of the narrow pass.

  “He is alive!”

  A moment later Kyra’s head reappeared at the edge of the shelf, her eyes wide.

  “Miriam, he lives! He is badly hurt, and unconscious, but his heart still beats. Bring the rope and one of the horses.” Without waiting for an answer, Kyra’s head disappeared, and Miriam ran, her heart pounding, to fetch the horse.

  She coiled the rope and tried to sling it up to Kyra. It took her five tries, but she finally managed to do it.

  Ten minutes later Kyra stuck her head out again.

  “I tied him the best I could and passed the rope around the bottom of a little stump,” she said. “I hope it holds. Now tie the other end to the saddle.”

  Kyra used her own body to shield Domingo from the jagged rocks as Miriam eased slack into the rope, lowering Domingo over the edge. He looked dead. His head lolled back, limp. His arms and legs dangled. The rope groaned and twisted, and as he slowly rotated toward her Miriam could see blood matting his hair and covering half his face. One of his legs was bent at a bizarre angle above the knee.

  Kyra scrambled down in time to wrap her arms about him and gently guide his body to the ground, shielding the back of his head.

  When the rope went slack Miriam hastily untied it from the saddle and ran to Kyra’s side. She nearly passed out when she got a close-up look at him. There was blood everywhere, dried on his face and hands, darkening the front of his torn poncho.

  Kyra lifted both of his eyelids with her thumbs and winced, shaking her head. “I don’t know how he did that to his leg, but that’s not the worst of it. There’s a knife slash across his chest, a bullet hole through the flesh of his left arm, and a nasty gash on the back of his head. His eyes don’t look right.”

  Miriam stared. “What can we do?”

  “Nothing, here, and I don’t think he would survive the trip home.”