Combs shot out of his chair at the sight of the hat. “Where did you get that?”
“We found it,” Maura said.
Combs snapped toward Joseph. “Were you hiding evidence, Mr. Beiler?”
Joseph hardly knew how to answer the accusation and said nothing.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Deputy Combs.” Maura took the hat from Joseph. “I just told you we found the hat. It was sitting on a post at the edge of White Ledge Ranch, clear as day. I will not insult you by suggesting any of your men would have missed it had it been there two days ago.”
Bess Byler shrugged off her sons and stood up. “Then you think somebody was sheltering Roper?”
Maura nodded. “At the very least, he was hiding out on the property.”
“Looks that way, Bess,” Thomas said. “I’ll go out and ask some questions of the owners and any hands working the ranch.”
“That was our intention.” Maura gestured to Joseph. “But once we found the hat, we felt we should come right back.”
Joseph was uncomfortable with Maura’s use of plural pronouns. The intention had been hers and the choice to return hers.
“Maura, you should not have gone out there alone,” Thomas said.
“I was not alone,” she snapped back. “Mr. Beiler was with me.”
“And unarmed. What good would he be?”
Joseph’s spine straightened. “With all due respect, Deputy, twenty men with guns did not save your sheriff.”
Bess reached out and touched Joseph’s forearm. “My husband would have liked you. Even though he was a man of the law, he was not quick to resort to guns.”
“Obviously Roper left his hat on purpose,” Maura said. “He wanted someone to find it. Even though he was not here long, everybody knew how he flaunted that hat. He is not a man who makes mindless mistakes.”
“Well, he made a mistake in shooting our sheriff.” Thomas looked at the widow. “Sorry, Bess. I will get some men on this right away. We have a new starting point.”
“We won’t give up, Bess,” Maura said. “We will bring Jesse Roper to justice.”
Joseph stepped back from the group, away from the enticement of Maura Woodley’s we.
In Gassville on the following Monday, Maura lingered outside her uncle’s shop. The day was stifling. She could not decide whether she was more miserable indoors or outdoors. The task of checking her uncle’s accounts for the previous month was unfinished, so she would have to return to the stuffy back room at some point. For the moment she would have welcomed the slightest hope of a breeze.
Old Man Twigg stomped down the street toward Maura, bearded and bareheaded. Maura considered retreating into the shop, but clearly he was aiming for her and would only follow.
“I heard you had my grandson’s hat.” Gruff hostility shot through his words.
Maura took one step back toward the shop’s doorway. “I found it, if that’s what you mean.”
“I want it.”
“I don’t have it,” Maura said. “You’ll have to speak to Deputy Combs. It’s evidence.”
“It’s a hat, that’s all,” Twigg said. “It’s all I have left of my grandson, and he was all I had left of my daughter. I want it.”
“As I said, you’ll have to speak to Deputy Combs.” Even as she spoke, Maura wondered how well Combs would stand up to Twigg. He spoke with determination about finding Sheriff Byler’s killer, but Jesse Roper had not been the first person on the other side of the law to intimidate Thomas Combs.
“They sent another posse out after him, didn’t they?” Twigg glared at Maura. “He’s just a boy.”
Maura returned the glare. A posse had ridden out Saturday night and not yet returned. “He shot the sheriff, and the way I hear it, you were there making sure he got clean away.”
He harrumphed. “They won’t find him.”
Finally he moved on, stomping his way toward the post office.
Maura leaned against the door frame and let herself exhale heavily. Roper’s mother must have been John Twigg’s sister. The old man had lost two grown children in recent months. While she was sorry for the deaths, Maura refused to let that sway her feelings toward Twigg’s part in the murder of a man she considered her friend as well as her sheriff.
Perspiration trickled into one eye, and she delicately wiped it clear. When she opened her eyes again, blinking three times rapidly, she started to call to Joseph across the street.
Before the sound left her mouth, she realized it was not Joseph. The man was dressed identically to Joseph and Zeke and was about Joseph’s height with a similar build. But his hair was dark and trimmed shorter than Joseph’s. He could be nothing other than a third Amish man in Gassville, standing in the street holding the reins of his horse.
She crossed the street to greet him. “Welcome to Gassville, Mr.—”
“Bender,” the man replied. “Stephen Bender.”
“Mr. Bender.” Maura double-checked the cut of his black suit. “May I be so forward as to inquire whether you are seeking Mr. Beiler and Mr. Berkey?”
“Ya,” Bender said. “The bishop sent me. Do you know where they are lodging?”
Maura nodded. “Behind the livery. I will take you there.” With one hand, Maura indicated the way.
He led his horse, and they walked the blocks to the stables at the end of Main Street. Mr. Bender was not given to conversation, Maura decided. Her attempts at offering openings for him to say more about himself were met with brief replies. She remembered Joseph’s nervousness when she first approached him and how long it had taken him to find his words. She supposed that this young man was equally unaccustomed to conversing with an English woman. At least this time, Maura had the advantage of knowing something of the Amish people.
Joseph and Zeke sat in the shade of the livery’s front overhang with tin cups of cool water. Their work helping to clear the Dentons’ land was complete. While Joseph had wanted to accept the offer of work, the more trees the crew ripped out, the more he grieved the ravage of the land. Before much longer, Zeke would insist they should leave Gassville. Joseph would have to face a decision he had avoided for the last several weeks.
“Here comes your English friend.” Zeke lifted his cup toward the street then stood up. “I believe that is our Stephen Bender with her.”
Joseph set his cup down beside the bench and stood as well. There could be no doubt it was Stephen. Joseph had sold Stephen that charcoal mare himself.
“I believe you know Mr. Bender,” Maura said.
“Hello, Stephen,” Zeke said. “We are pleased to see you. Aren’t we, Joseph?”
Joseph nodded. “Hello, Stephen. Guder mariye, Miss Woodley.” Good morning.
Curiosity pooled in her dark eyes, and he could not resist meeting her gaze.
Stephen was already opening his saddlebag. “I brought letters from both your families. And the bishop. And Hannah sent a special letter for you, Joseph.”
Stephen sorted the letters, handing Joseph a letter from his parents and the one from Hannah. To Zeke he gave news from the Berkey family and the bishop’s letter.
Joseph broke the seal on the letter, written in his mother’s hand, and scanned the news of the new foal and the fence line his brothers had repaired. One of her best layers had stopped producing eggs. Although the news was trivial, Joseph felt his mother’s warmth. He folded the letter closed. Zeke had chosen to read the bishop’s letter first.
“He is not calling us home yet,” Zeke muttered.
Relief coursed through Joseph as he raised his eyes to Maura again.
“He asks for an estimate of our available resources,” Zeke reported, “and has sent a little money from the church for us to continue to look for a location for a new settlement.”
“Stephen, are you to carry the answer back?” Joseph asked.
“Not immediately.” Stephen fastened his saddlebag closed. “The bishop felt there might be benefit in my joining you for a time.”
Joseph felt Stephen’s eye
s on him and shifted his weight, wondering what range of topics Zeke had written about in his letter to the bishop.
“What is the news from Hannah?” Zeke nudged Joseph in the elbow. “Aren’t you going to answer the letter?”
“Is Hannah your sister?” Maura asked, smiling. “Is Zeke sweet on her?”
Zeke and Stephen laughed. Joseph watched the blush in Maura’s face.
“Hannah is my sister,” Zeke explained, “and she is en lieb with Joseph. They are practically engaged.”
“Oh. I see.”
Joseph’s stomach lurched. Maura’s face paled in an instant, the smile gone from both eyes and lips as she looked at him.
“We are not practically engaged.” Joseph eyes widened toward Zeke. He wished Hannah’s letter would disappear from his hand.
Maura had already stepped back. “My uncle will be waiting for me to finish the accounts. I’m sure you all have much to catch up on.” She nodded toward Stephen. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bender.”
Joseph moved a step toward her, but she had already turned away.
Joseph straightened his hat with both hands and turned toward Stephen. “You must have other news for us as well.”
But Stephen was watching Maura. “Joseph, why did that woman look at you that way?”
“I do not know what you are talking about.” Joseph stepped back to the bench in the shade and picked up his empty water cup.
“You are my friend, Joseph,” Zeke said, “but I cannot encourage you in this deceit.”
“What deceit?” Stephen demanded.
Zeke and Joseph stared at each other.
“What deceit?” Stephen repeated. “Does it have to do with the English woman?”
“Joseph has feelings for her,” Zeke said.
Indignation welled in Joseph. “You speak freely of my private matters.”
“We are three now,” Zeke said. “We are far from our people. We must remind each other of our ways and the reasons for them.”
“The bishop will not be pleased to hear this,” Stephen said.
“It is not your business to tell him,” Joseph said. “I have done nothing and said nothing to Miss Woodley.”
“But you feel something,” Zeke said.
Joseph swatted at the bishop’s letter still in Zeke’s hands. “You said he wants us to continue to look for land to settle on. Does he give specific instructions?”
Zeke unfolded the letter again. “He asks us to take one last trip farther west, beyond Mountain Home. Then we are to return home to give a report and recommendation. He is concerned that we have been gone from the community for too long.”
The stable doors burst open behind them, and the owner emerged with two horses. “Lee Denton is organizing a fresh posse. He will be here soon for his horses.”
Zeke took the horses’ reins. “We will be sure he gets them.”
“If you men want to ride, I can do without you for a few days.”
“Thank you, but no,” Zeke said.
“When are they leaving?” Joseph asked.
“As soon as they have a dozen men,” the stable owner said.
Joseph looked from Zeke to Stephen. “Our work on the Dentons’ ranch is finished. I will ride with the posse.”
Thirty-Two
Ruth clicked open the interoffice e-mail and read the doctor’s instructions:
Please make sure Mrs. Webb gets on the schedule with Jerusha on Friday for an initial visit. Call patient to confirm time.
Jerusha was the counselor who came from Pueblo once a week to see patients through the clinic. She would see patients there three or four times. After that, if she thought they needed a more indefinite therapeutic relationship, she encouraged them to arrange visits to her regular practice, where open appointments would be more available.
This was already Wednesday. Friday might be full. Ruth clicked through to Jerusha’s schedule and found one opening, so she located Mrs. Webb’s phone number and called to offer the appointment before returning to her e-mails to look for further follow-up notes from practitioners. Before her shift ended, she also needed to confirm all the appointments for the following day.
Elijah was supposed to check in with a local doctor after a week, but Ruth doubted he would follow that advice. She had stopped in to see him again that morning, and he was already talking about at least going into the office at the back of Old Amos’s house to help with paperwork if Amos would not let him go out on calls to the Amish homes needing appliance repairs.
Leah had left Elijah’s horse and buggy on the Capp farm for his parents to find. She had not known any more than Ruth did that Elijah had moved and was boarding his horse at the edge of town. Ruth’s instinct was to offer to drive him out to get his buggy, but she did not want any more jars of beans broken over her hood.
As frazzled as she was, Leah had done the sensible thing with the rig. Ruth paused with her fingers over the keyboard to pray for forgiveness and compassion to rise up, because she could not muster it in her own strength.
She could at least suggest to Annalise that Jerusha might be able to help Leah. Ruth prayed again, this time for Annalise to forgive the heartless spirit of their conversation the evening before.
Ruth closed out of Jerusha’s schedule and checked the sticky note of tasks she had written for herself at the beginning of her shift, scribbling out several accomplished items.
Jerusha was an English counselor. Would she understand enough of the Amish ways to be helpful without being offensive?
Alan Wellner. Now that was someone who should see an English counselor, Ruth thought. Something was not right in his soul.
“I’ve made some initial inquiries,” Larry, the Realtor, said to Rufus on Thursday afternoon, “but I have to be honest. It’s going to take some work to sell this property, if that’s what you decide to do.”
Rufus leaned back in the wooden chair across from the Realtor. The coffee the receptionist had offered sat untouched on the desk between them.
“What obstacles would we have to overcome?” Rufus asked.
“To begin with, the whole market is slow. I’ve been handling commercial properties in southwestern Colorado for twenty years, and this is about the worst I’ve seen.”
Rufus inhaled through the sigh he wanted to let out and considered the balding, fiftyish man before him. “What else?”
“You’re talking about land that may have to be rezoned to attract a commercial buyer who could invest in reasonable access. Were you planning to run a business from that location when you purchased it?”
Rufus nodded. “Also to live there.” The notebook in the small desk in his bedroom on the Beiler farm held sketches of the house he wanted to build for Annalise and the new workshop where he would build cabinets and chests.
The Realtor clicked his tongue. “There’s no livable structure on the land. I didn’t see anything at all when I drove out there.”
“I was planning to build a home.” He hoped to use plans similar to the Beiler home but on a smaller scale.
“Tell me again how much you paid for it.” Larry picked up a pen and pulled a yellow pad closer.
Rufus gave the figure. “Two years ago it seemed like a good value compared to what some of my people have paid for their land.”
“I’m sure it was—at the time. The market is different now.”
Rufus could not deny that even construction of new homes in the area had dropped off, which was part of the dilemma that brought him to this conversation. It did not surprise him to hear that properties with commercial potential also suffered. He simply never expected to face the choice before him now.
“I’m happy to take on the listing.” Larry’s laptop emitted a sound announcing an e-mail, and he glanced at it. “I just always like to help my clients have realistic expectations for both the process and the outcome.”
“I understand.”
“You haven’t said why you’re considering selling. But it seems to me t
he question is whether you want to sell so you can be out from your financial obligations as the purchaser—I assume there’s a mortgage—or if you were expecting to see a profit on undeveloped land after only two years.”
“I do have a mortgage, but the payments are manageable.” Knowing from experience that his business could have lean times, Rufus had been careful not to overextend himself. The debatable point was whether he could afford to build a house to live in with Annalise.
“What is your equity level?”
Rufus told Larry how much he had put down on the land, combined with advance payments he made when business was strong.
“If it were a larger plot, we could look at selling off pieces, but I don’t advise that.”
The land was big enough for a house, a barn, a workshop, pasture for horses and a milk cow, and a vegetable garden. But Rufus had never intended to farm, so he had not looked for the expansive acres most Amish families sought.
“You have my card,” Larry said. “Call me if you decide to proceed. In the meantime I will unofficially keep my ears open for anyone looking for land out that way.”
“Thank you.”
Larry scratched the top of his head. “Maybe you should hang on to it for another year. The market might settle as the economy improves. You could come out well.”
Another year could be too late for his daed if Joel’s land did not have a good yield.
On Friday afternoon, Annie closed up Mrs. Weichert’s shop and strolled the few blocks home. She compelled herself not to rush but to walk slowly and breathe in deeply and out fully every several strides. She rolled her shoulders and moved her neck. For good or for bad, the week had brought more than its share of stress.
Elijah’s injury. If she had not dragged him into the hunt for Leah, he would not have been hurt. She did not force him to climb that gravel truck, but she had not stopped him. When Annie thought about it logically, Elijah’s plans to leave the church should not have come as a shock. As teenagers, Elijah and Ruth had both questioned whether they ought to be baptized. Annie knew their story. Yet she found herself conflicted about understanding his choice and being disappointed that someone she cared for was setting aside the very vows she had taken.
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