When the English Fall

by David Williams

  I nodded. I told them they were welcome to search.

  “’Preciate it. And we’re also just letting y’all know to keep a watch out. If you see anything, just get word to my house, and folks will get word to us. We just want to be sure that no one else around here gets hurt, no more kids, no more Old Order people, nobody.”

  I told him we would keep our eyes open.

  “Seriously, Jacob. Be careful. Stay away from danger.”

  A half smile came to my face. “We do. But we can’t seem to keep it from coming to us.”

  He shook his head. I thanked him for his efforts to watch out for us.

  “Thanks, Jacob.”

  He took a half step down, but that moment, the dogs began barking, barking fiercely and pulling at their leads. The guns came up, but it was just Mike, coming out of the daadi haus to see what was happening.

  He offered to lend a hand, said he had a rifle and knew how to use it, and asked if he could come along. Bill nodded, and said they could always use an extra hand and set of eyes. Mike ran back to the daadi haus, and returned with that carbine of his.

  And they were off again, Mike with them, walking back down into the darkness. Hannah and I returned to bed.

  IT’S BEEN A COUPLE of hours, and Hannah is back asleep. I am not, though. The dogs were barking for a while, and I was aware of Bill and the other deputies as they moved through the fields, but they moved on over an hour ago. I am simply awake, and I do not feel like reading. I feel I need to write about all this, to chronicle this uncertain time.

  Outside the window, the first of the morning light is beginning to stain the sky. I will be tired today. Hard to be focused, when you have not slept. But focused or not, the cattle must be fed, the pigs must be fed, and work must be done.

  October 26

  Today blended with yesterday, like the sunrise slowly becoming day. I was weary all day, and I could feel myself moving more slowly as I worked.

  It is like working while sick, when much has to be done and a cold has taken you. You simply get done what you need to, but at a different pace. Hannah was patient with me, and having Mike’s family with us made the morning go more smoothly. Mike came back in the early morning, rested, and then left again to join the deputies in their searching. We gave him food to sustain himself. He said he would be gone until they’d found the men, and there was a grimness in his voice.

  Jon came by again, cantering up on Chestnut. It was good to see him riding again, and sharing what he had learned, although there was not much that was really new, of course. We had already heard everything last night. But it was good to see him.

  It is late afternoon now, and I am too tired to write more. I will rest, for a short while.

  THEY CAME AT DUSK.

  I was at the front of the house grooming Nettie when they moved out of the shadows, the two of them, both lean and intent. One was taller, rangy, his eyes sleepy and lidded. The other moved behind him like a ghost, a full head shorter. The tall one carried a long gun, exactly like the ones the soldiers carry. The smaller one held an automatic pistol in one hand. He held Jacob in the other. His hand was tightly wrapped around Jacob’s upper arm, and I could see that Jacob was struggling not to cry out.

  The tall one looked at me, with eyes that both saw me and didn’t see me.

  “We need food,” he said, in a smooth, easy voice. “Hard times, eh? Folks gotta do what they gotta do, and right now, you gotta help us.” He smiled, and gestured toward Jacob with the rifle. His eyes were not smiling at all. “Right?”

  I told him that we had food in our larder, and that he was welcome to take what he needed. As I said this, I heard an exhalation from behind me, and it was Hannah, standing on the steps to the kitchen.

  “Why don’t you come down over here, ma’am,” the sleepy-eyed man said, smoothly and politely. “Who else you got here?” he asked. “You folks do have big families, don’tcha?”

  I did not say anything, but it was then that Sadie appeared with a basket of eggs. She did not seem startled or upset, and when the man waved for her to come over and join us, she did so quietly.

  “Any other family kicking around?” he asked. “I don’t like surprises, you know.”

  I told him that this was all of our family. I did not lie. I hoped, in that moment, that Shauna and Derek and Tad would stay quiet and out of sight.

  The tall man hurled a duffel bag toward us. “You and the boy go get us as much food as you can put in this bag. We’ll stay here to keep an eye on the ladies. Don’t you take long, now. I’m kinda in a hurry.” He grinned again.

  I told him that we would go quickly and get what they needed, and he nodded. “Y’all are such helpful people.”

  Jacob and I ran to get the food, and quickly filled the bag with supplies from the larder. We did not speak, and Jacob looked ashen.

  We returned with the bag, and when we did, he motioned for Hannah and Sadie to come stand by us.

  “Have the boy bring it over here,” said the tall one, as the smaller one kept his pistol trained on us. Jacob did, and then was sent back over to stand with us. The tall man took a look at the bag, carefully examining the contents. Canned vegetables and soups, and enough jerky for two men for days. “Jerky, huh?” Again, the smile. “Thanks, man. I love me some jerky.”

  “Let’s get out of here, Jim,” said the smaller one, in an anxious voice that crackled and broke.

  The rangy man gave him a slow, pointed look. “You giving the orders now?”

  “No, no, man, but I . . .” And he fell silent.

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” He passed the duffel bag to the smaller man, who shouldered it.

  “But he does have a point, doesn’t he? It’s time for us to get going.” He looked at me, as serene as a serpent. “Course, folks are looking for us, and it just won’t do for you to tell ’em which way we went. So I’m gonna ask you to turn around, get on your knees, and then close your eyes and count to a thousand. Nice and easy. You can do that for me, right?”

  Sadie slipped her hand into mine at that moment, and looked at me. “Dadi,” she said. “You know his heart, Dadi.”

  And with her eyes meeting mine, I knew what this man intended. I felt it with certainty. In the emptiness of his eyes, I could see him saying just that very thing to Isaak. I could see it just as surely as if I had been standing there when he had them kneel, and then killed them.

  I took Hannah’s hand with my other, and held it tightly. Jacob stood by her side.

  I could feel my heart racing in my chest, but I managed not to let the trembling enter my voice.

  “Leaving is not the only thing you mean to do now, is it?” I said this, and I looked at him. “We will not raise a hand to stop you, but neither will we look away.”

  He uttered a short, resigned curse, and then raised the rifle, as the other lowered his head and stared at the ground. Hannah’s hand closed hard on my own, and I heard her whispering the Lord’s Prayer.

  “Whatever,” he said, shaking his head, the smile fixed in place.

  And there was a roar like a blow, and another, and another, four in all, fast and close. Hannah let out a short, breathless gasp.

  The tall man’s smile was gone. As was much of the tall man’s head, and he fell like a toppled tree. He lay on the ground, legs out straight and twitching. The other fell, too, with a crashing of jars. He writhed and cried out, a gurgling, strangled cry.

  There, by the workshop, stood Derek, pale as a sheet. In his hands he held my father’s pistol. He took a half step back, and then vomited.

  Shauna was suddenly there. “Oh my God oh my God oh my God,” she said, over and over again.

  Sadie moved away from me, like a ghost, past the body of the dead man and to the one who lay struggling for life on the ground.

  The smaller man was dressed in fatigues and a dark, heavy jacket, which were draped over his thin frame. Whippet thin he was, probably in the best of times. His breathing was a wet struggle, ja
gged inhalations, rough breaths, his eyes wild and unseeing.

  Derek had hit him in the chest. His head was resting on Sadie’s lap, and her light blue dress was stained with his blood.

  “He’s hurt so bad, Dadi,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I do not think that he will live.”

  I looked at him, and though I am not a doctor, I had to agree with her.

  “I wonder if he has a name. He seems very young,” Sadie said.

  She was right. His hair was long and dirty, hanging matted over his face. As she swept it away, I saw that he was only a few years older than she, the edge of his sunken face barely traced with stubble, a wisp here and there of light beard. He was barely a man, barely older than Derek.

  Shauna ran to the daadi haus, then returned with her kit. She settled in next to Sadie, and pulled up his shirt slightly to examine the wound. He did not flinch, or even shift, but just continued with his ragged, shallow breathing. Under the shirt, it was a terrible mess, and Shauna covered it up again.

  She looked up at me. “Can’t do anything for this,” she said. Her face was pale.

  I nodded, and Sadie asked if we should move him, and maybe try to get the doctor. “It can’t help,” said Shauna. “But we can try to make him more comfortable. Not long, I think.”

  “Should I go try to find my dad and the sheriff?” asked Derek, his voice shaky. I said he could if he wanted to, and he nodded. Tell him one is dead, and that the boy will not live, I instructed him.

  So Derek left, and we stayed with the boy, as the darkness spread across the sky and the air grew cold.

  Hannah brought blankets from the house, and food for us. We covered him as we could, but he was past the need for food and drink. We prayed both out loud and in silence. There was nothing else that could be done, but pray and be there with him.

  Sadie would not leave him, not for a moment. And he lingered. His body was broken, but it must have been young and strong before hunger wasted it and the bullet tore at it. An hour passed, and still he breathed. The night grew deeper, and the chill pressed in. She spoke to him, softly, about the trees and the stars and the sky. About forgiveness.

  After a while, his body tensed, his breath became a rasp, deepening, clutching at the cold of the night.

  And then Sadie’s voice was that little singsong tune, wordless, meaningless, comforting. She sang, and she sang, and then she stopped. And he grew stiller, and the breath hissed away like steam into the night, and he was dead.

  “He and me, Dadi.” She set his head down gently, and put her face close to his ear. “Vi miah dee fagevva vo uns shuldich sinn,” she said, in a soft voice that carried. As we forgive those who sin against us. Then she stood, and walked to the house.

  I sent Tad for the handcart, and for some sheets for the corpses. We are keeping them in the barn tonight.

  It has taken a long time for my hands to grow warm enough to write this. They still feel so cold, and they will not stop shaking. But I do not think they shake only because of the cold.

  October 27

  We buried the man and the boy in the morning, after the sheriff and a deputy came to see the bodies and talk with us.

  It was a bitter day, bright with sun, cold and sharp. A light frost lay on the grass, and the wind came in ragged gusts.

  We had wrapped the bodies in sheets for burial. Their blood had stained the sheets a deep umber, here and there. We used the handcart to move them back to a stand of trees on the southern edge of the pasture, and there Mike and I and Derek began to dig. The others stayed in the house.

  The ground was near frozen, hard and unyielding, and the work was slow going. We labored in silence, only the sounds of our shovels against the soil.

  I looked up from my work, and there was Sadie. I had not heard her come, or seen her.

  She was kneeling by the shrouded corpse of the boy, her back to me. In her slight voice, she was singing that lullaby again, with words that meant nothing to me.

  She was not wearing her kapp on her head, and the wind played with her long hair, twisting it, tangling it. I set down my shovel, and walked to her, and put my hand on her shoulder.

  The wind rose up, stinging my face.

  The air filled with leaves, torn down from the trees by the thousands. Like rain, dancing down all around us, brown and brittle. They filled the air, hissing, like dried cat bones through the sky. They eddied over the opened ground of the grave, and skittered like the husks of insects across the shroud.

  One caught in Sadie’s hair. She reached back, absently, thoughtlessly, took it, and then closed her pale, delicate fingers around it.

  It crumbled like nothing in her hand. Then she opened her hand, and the pieces leapt away in the wind.

  Her head turned to me, and her eyes were bright.

  “Oh, Dadi,” she said.

  October 28

  This morning, I felt so tired. Like the life was out of me, like my heart was full of molasses. I woke, but it was hard.

  Mike was up, and a good help, and Shauna was in the kitchen with Hannah. Tad is helping Jacob. Derek was with Sadie, helping with the milking and her other chores.

  I did what needed to get done, but my thoughts kept returning to that boy. And that man. I will not ever know their names, I don’t think. The man, like a wolf, his eyes just filled with simple violence.

  But the boy? It was like Sadie said. He was just a boy. And yet there he was, living because of the hate of the man, being fed by the violence. I cannot stop thinking about it, and it is distracting me. I read and reread what I wrote yesterday, about burying him. I see the bloody sheet, feel the hardness of his body.

  I must stop writing now. I must stop reading now. There is work I must do.

  SADIE HAD VISITORS THIS afternoon, Liza Schrock and Rachel Fisher, as have so often come. But others, too, a dozen. Almost every wife of the community, and some of the girls. And Shauna. She was there, and my Hannah. They sat in the grass out by where the late-season kale still grows, women all in a circle.

  Sadie seemed calm, at ease, different than she had been. It was hard to say in what way, but she did.

  I could not hear most of what they were saying, but there was much talking. What I heard, a snippet here as I passed, was about the boy and his dying. They huddled and leaned in close as Sadie talked, like being gathered around a campfire on a cold night. I saw that Shauna was crying, but I could not tell why. Others were crying, too. Hannah looked distant, sad in the way she shows her sorrow, by going deep inside.

  I felt like a busybody watching them, and there was a pig to be slaughtered, so I went about my business.

  I TALKED TO SADIE, there in the kitchen, as she was preparing dinner. Hannah was distracted, slow, moving the way that I have felt these last two days. Sadie, though, seemed fine. Just peeling potatoes, quick and nimble, just like everything was normal.

  I asked her what it was about, what the women wanted to hear from her.

  She looked at me, and her eyes were sad.

  “Oh, Dadi, you know. You know what some people think. That I know things.”

  I asked her if she did.

  She sighed, and her hands paused in their task. “It’s like sometimes my soul is all lit up, like lightning on a summer night, in a cloud without rain.” She suddenly looked very old.

  I told her she hadn’t answered my question.

  Her eyes flitted downward, to the potato in her hand. “I know I haven’t.”

  I asked again. “What were you telling the women?”

  “I think we have to go.”

  “Go where?” I asked.

  “To where it isn’t safe.”

  I was going to ask what that meant, but Hannah came over, and chided me for distracting Sadie.

  “Dinner’s got to be made, Jay. Let a woman do her work!” She tried to say it with humor, but she just sounded tired and frustrated.

  So I let them work.

  October 29

  Last night, distant gunfire woke m
e twice. Tocktocktocktocktock, like many men nailing boards in a barn all at once. It went on for a while each time. I had trouble returning to sleep. Fortunately, Hannah slept through it.

  It was cool this morning, neither hot nor cold. There was no frost in the ground. So hard to predict. This time last year, it was hot every day. And now I worry about the last of the crops, the greens and the late potatoes, but the frost has not yet taken them.

  They have not been easy, these last days. I find myself still so distracted, so full of myself and my own pride. I know that there is work to do, that I have my duty to perform. But I feel weakened. Bloodless. My mind is listless, and this is not good.

  Twice now this morning, I found myself here with this diary in my hand. I sit and I read, when I know there is work to be done. I am reading back, and seeing the picture of the boy in my mind’s eye. I wonder who he might have been, among the English. I wonder about who his parents were, and when they last saw him.

  I think of Hannah’s hand, tightening in my own. Her gasp. I see the man fall, and hear the ragged breath of the boy, and smell the scent of his blood in the air. I can see the tremble in my hand as I wrote about it, how my letters are shaky and uncertain. I feel my hands, cold as they wrote it. Reading it, I feel that day again, just as strong.

  Maybe stronger. It is like alcohol, as the memory ferments in me.

  AFTER THE WORK OF the early day was done, I took Nettie and rode to visit Asa in the late morning. I wanted to talk, hear what Liza was telling him, and ask about what he was thinking.

  As I rode, I passed a man walking. He was very thin, like a rail, and his many layers of clothes were dirty. He wore a backpack, heavy with things. It looked like it had been very nice once, and his boots were fancy hiking boots, expensive in the way of the English. Or they had been. Now they were as dirty as his face.

  “Can you spare anything,” he asked, in a voice that was frail and brittle. “Please. It’s been days. I . . . please.” He looked furtive. Ashamed.