“Yet the feud continues.” Maura put both hands on her hips and surveyed the water. “Old Man Twigg and Leon Mooney go after each other with hateful words practically every day in the middle of the street. It’s only a matter of time before one of them carries a gun again. Why cannot we live in peace? Surely there is enough prosperity for everyone.”
With her lips pressed closed, she inhaled deeply the scent of Joseph Beiler mingled with stumps and river spray. This spot would never again smell as it had before the trees were removed, but now it would at least remind her of Joseph Beiler, the most unlikely visitor she had ever welcomed to Gassville.
“Zeke is going to tell the bishop the county is too violent for a settlement of our people,” Joseph said quietly.
“We should have welcomed you all with open arms. But it would seem that even the death of a man as noble and well loved as Abraham Byler cannot force people to treat each other like human beings.”
“Surely the present sentiment will not last forever.”
“I’m not sure I want to be around to find out.” Maura surprised herself with her words. “Maybe I should just get away. Go back east. Go south. Go north. Just go someplace where people are more civilized.
“Would you really leave?” Joseph’s eyes widened, and Maura’s spirit stumbled under the import of what she had voiced.
If Maura Woodley would consider leaving Gassville, perhaps she would consider leaving with him. Joseph dried his clammy palms on his trousers and straightened his hat with both hands.
“Are your people truly peaceful?” she asked, her voice full of quiver.
Joseph wished he could give an unequivocal answer but settled for the truth. “We have our quarrels. We are sinners, too.”
“But you stick together somehow.”
“Somehow, yes. By God’s grace.”
“I cannot imagine God is very pleased with the likes of Gassville right now.”
“God is love.”
Maura paced away then returned. “You talk about the closeness of your families. The Dentons and Twiggs might say the same thing, but look what they are doing.”
Joseph cleared his throat. “That is because they are motivated by pride, not submission. That changes everything.”
“So why are you here, Joseph? Why are you riding with the posses?”
Joseph had asked himself the same questions a hundred times. “A man has to test his convictions. To be sure they are his own.”
“And are they?”
Her brown eyes begged him for an answer that made sense. If only he had one.
“Halt or I’ll shoot!” The anger in the man’s voice jolted them both, and they startled. A second later they stared at the end of a pistol.
“Ing Denton, what are you doing?” Maura roused and reached out to slap the pistol away.
“What are you doing on my land?” Ing demanded.
“I’ve been strolling through your land since I was a little girl.”
“And what about him?” Ing thrust a finger toward Joseph.
“I suppose working on your land made me come to admire it,” Joseph said.
“Well, I’m not taking any chances with those crazy Twiggs around. Get off my land. Both of you. Now.”
Thirty-Six
Yes, it’s Alan’s.”
Bryan ran his finger along the blue zigzag as Ruth held the strap.
“But he wasn’t at the fire last night.” Ruth felt a tremble take hold in her knees. “Why would his water bottle strap be in our field?”
“He was definitely working at the grocery store last night.”
“How can you be sure?” Elijah spoke for the first time. “Ruth says she was with you before you discovered the fire.”
Ruth’s stomach crunched. She had hated having to reveal that fact to Elijah. The words sounded even worse coming from his mouth.
Elijah pressed the issue. “If you weren’t working, how can you be sure Alan was?”
“Alan was on the schedule,” Bryan said. “The store manager was leaning on him pretty hard not to blow it off.”
“Pardon me if I am being rude,” Elijah said, “but that does not sound the same as being certain.”
“I saw him go into the store at the start of his shift, about an hour before Ruth and I left town.”
Ruth looked from Elijah to Bryan. Neither man’s eyes budged from the other.
“The carabiner is broken.” Ruth wound the strap around one hand. “Wouldn’t his water bottle have fallen off?”
“That’s hard to say,” Bryan said. “Maybe he left the strap in one of the engines and it happened to fall out last night in the field.”
Ruth shook her head. “The spot where I found it was not anywhere near where the engines were parked. At first I thought it might belong to one of the firefighters, but the more I thought about it, the less sense that made.”
Bryan shrugged. “Then maybe I’m wrong and it’s not Alan’s.”
“No one in my family has anything like this. Besides, it’s decorative.”
“So?”
“So the Amish would not so much as put a ribbon in their hair or on the band of a hat,” Elijah said. “They certainly would not carry a strap like this.”
“Let’s not jump all over each other.” Bryan put up both hands, palms out. “I want to help. But if this is Alan’s strap, and you’re implying that he had something to do with the fire, well, that’s serious.”
“I don’t mean to imply anything,” Ruth said. “I’m asking questions, that’s all. Trying to make sense of things.”
“Why don’t you let me talk to Alan?” Bryan reached out with an open hand. “Let me take the strap. I could say I found it.”
“I don’t want you to lie,” Ruth said.
“I think Ruth should hang on to it in case it turns out to be important.” Elijah glared at Bryan.
“Hey, Alan is my friend. I care what happens to him. If he has something to do with the fire, I want to get to the bottom of things as much as you do.”
“It’s all right.” Ruth put a hand on Elijah’s arm. “Alan trusts Bryan, and so do I.”
On Monday Ruth checked her cell phone at a frequency she would have been embarrassed to confess. It was fully charged. It was turned on. Even in the pocket of her scrubs, it would vibrate enough to alert her of activity, and even at work at the clinic she would be able to step away and at least listen to a message.
She was not sure what she expected. Bryan had said he would get to the bottom of things, but he had not promised immediate results. Only a day had passed since she let the strap drop into his hand over Elijah’s objection. Although they were roommates, Bryan and Alan did not always work the same shifts at the grocery store or volunteer together at the fire station. Those schedules were in the hands of other people. In reality, they probably saw less of each other than she and Annalise did.
Ruth’s clinic schedule on Monday was all day. She worked the morning at the front desk then spent the afternoon shadowing a physician’s assistant. Normally she looked forward to opportunities to at least observe the medical staff rather than be buried in files and phone messages, but on Monday, her concentration had been no better than during church on Sunday. Halfway through the shadowing shift, she snagged a notepad from the front desk and forced herself to write notes in an effort to pay closer attention.
When her day ended at four o’clock, her phone had not rung all day. She took her jacket off the hook in the staff room and slid her arms into the sleeves while she weighed the pros and cons of trying to track down Bryan in person. He had never said where he lived, just that he lived with Alan, but the town was small enough that she could cruise the streets and look for his car. Or she could casually stop by the grocery store for some shampoo or something else she did not need.
No. She would not go looking for trouble. She trusted Bryan. He would find her when he knew something.
Ruth draped her purse strap over one shoulder and went out the back do
or of the clinic.
When a form moved out of the shadows, Ruth sucked in her breath and stepped aside.
“What’s the matter, Ruth?”
Alan.
“May I walk you home?” He produced a genial smile.
Ruth might have felt better if she could see his hands. They remained plunged into the pockets of his gray fleece-lined jacket. She glanced toward Main Street.
“A lot of people would drive to work.” Alan touched her elbow now. “I suppose you people like your exercise.”
You people?
“Sometimes I drive. It depends on my mood or whether I’m running late. It’s only a few blocks, after all.”
“You must have been on time this morning. I didn’t see your car.”
“I didn’t know you knew my car.” Ruth wished he would take his hand off her elbow as they walked.
“You could have asked me about that strap, you know.”
The pit of her stomach hardened.
“I’ll bet Bryan didn’t tell you that we got identical straps and water bottles about two years ago.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“They were a perk from the gym where we worked out in Colorado Springs.”
“Oh. Well, that sounds healthy.”
“Perhaps you miss my point.”
Ruth held her tongue, grateful to be progressing toward a well-populated block.
“My point,” Alan said in his easygoing tone, “is that you can’t be sure that strap is mine. It could be Bryan’s.”
“Why would it be Bryan’s? He would have just said so.”
“Would he?”
She said nothing.
“I’ve known Bryan a long time. I would hate for you to get hurt because things are not what you think they are.” An alarm sounded on Alan’s phone. “Oh, I gotta go.”
He tapped her shoulder and began to sprint down Main Street.
Rufus read David’s letter again before turning on the cell phone he used for business and calling the shop in Colorado Springs.
David could guarantee one hope chest larger than the ones on the store floor and was waiting to hear from another customer about a set of matching bookcases.
He set the phone down and began mental calculations. While Rufus was grateful that David carried his furniture, he needed more work. He would not miss hanging manufactured cabinets, though he would have said a proper good-bye to Marcus if he had known he would not be returning.
The workshop door was propped open. Rufus looked up when a shadow fell across his workbench and Joel was standing in the doorway.
“I just wondered if you were able to get hold of your boss.” Joel’s gangly arms hung from his sharp shoulders. “About the job.”
Rufus lowered himself onto a stool. “You’ve had a day to think. Are you as sure as you were last night?”
Joel nodded. “More. I’ll try again in the spring, but in the meantime I need to feel that I’m contributing something to the family.”
“Daed is grateful for your help in all the fields, not just the one that burned.”
“I’ll be eighteen soon, Rufus. I need a start at something. I thought it would be farming, but now I’m not sure.”
“You have better instincts for the farm than all the other Beiler sons together.”
“Matthew and Daniel seem to be making a go of it. And you have your woodworking. Everything is so different here than it was in Pennsylvania. Maybe I shouldn’t assume I’ll farm.”
“Beilers have always farmed.”
“You don’t. Elijah doesn’t, either. I see other Amish families starting businesses. If I earned some money to get started, I could do something, too.”
Rufus picked up a pencil and parked it behind his ear. “The job is yours if you want it. Jeff will call when he has the details arranged.”
The cell phone on the workbench rang, and both brothers leaned toward it.
“This is another matter,” Rufus said. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
The phone rang a second time, and a third. Rufus waited until Joel was out of earshot before picking up the call right before it went to voice mail.
“I might have a deal for you.” Larry sounded upbeat.
“You said the market was slow,” Rufus said.
“It is. I just stumbled onto this. My cousin in Denver mentioned a friend of his was thinking about taking up a simpler, rural life. Working from home, growing their own food, animals, the great outdoors, that sort of thing.”
Rufus smiled to himself at the description that matched his life. But the smile faded in uncertainty. “What if I’m not sure I’ve decided to sell?”
“I’m not sure they’ve decided they want to buy. This is just an opportunity to strike while the iron is hot.”
“I’d like some time to think.”
“Of course. I’ll check back with you in a couple of days.”
Rufus shut the phone off, not wishing another interruption to his thoughts. He had saved for years for a solid down payment on land, and he was confident the land was a good choice for the future. Jacob was only eight. His parents were probably a dozen or more years away from having an empty nest, as the English liked to say. Although he and Annalise might start married life under his parents’ roof, they needed a nest of their own.
It was time to take Annalise to see his dream of the future.
Thirty-Seven
Rufus tied Dolly to the tree bulging the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Weichert’s shop on Wednesday afternoon. If he remembered correctly, Annalise would finish working in a few minutes. The bell jangled as he pushed through the door.
Mrs. Weichert looked up from the stack of papers she was studying behind the counter. “She’s using the telephone in the storeroom. You can go on back if you like.”
Rufus nodded his thanks and crossed the store. The door to the storeroom stood open, and he could see Annalise hunched over the small desk in the corner, a computer in front of her and a notepad under her hand. She looked up at him.
“Hello. I can’t believe they put me on hold again.”
“I thought you might like to take a drive.”
“Mmm. Sounds nice. Depends on how long this takes.”
“Trying to get a price on something?”
Annalise held up a finger and turned her attention back to the screen, where the image of a picture frame filled the shape.
“We think it’s from the 1940s,” she said into the phone. She paused to listen. “Okay, we’ll wait for your call. Thank you.”
Rufus crossed his arms at the wrists.
Annalise scraped the wooden chair back and stood. “A drive, you said?”
“I would even let you do the driving, if you’d like. Aren’t you off soon?”
“I am.” She pushed her bottom lip out. “But I have a couple of personal calls to make. Mrs. Weichert doesn’t mind if I use the phone here, and it seems like the easiest thing to do.”
“I’ll wait.”
“I’m trying to line up some appointments for Leah. I have to call Ruth at the clinic and see if she was able to get Leah into the counselor’s schedule on Friday.”
“After that, then.”
“I’m afraid I’d only have about half an hour.” Annalise stacked papers and tapped them against the desk to straighten them. “Leah sometimes comes home in the late afternoon, and I want to catch her before she decides to leave again.”
This excursion was not one Rufus cared to rush. “What does your morning look like?”
“Oh! That’s much better.” Annalise brightened. “Would you mind so much? I could bike out to the farm so you don’t have to fetch me.”
“I’ll come for you.” They would have more time together that way. “I want to show you something. Then I’ll bring you back into town.”
Annalise wrote a note on a pad of yellow paper. “I’m sorry to be inattentive. I can’t get my mind off Leah.”
“Tomorrow is soon enough.” Rufus glanced over his should
er and saw that Mrs. Weichert was consumed with her own stack of papers. He stepped over to Annalise for a quick kiss. It deepened unexpectedly. He did not want to leave her. But if they were going to spend their lives together he had to recognize her independence for the blessing that it was.
She smiled shyly. “I didn’t deserve that after turning down your delicious offer.”
He dipped his head. “Tomorrow.”
“I do not think it is a good idea.” Elijah pressed his palms flat on the coffee shop table.
“I would be careful.” Ruth countered by calmly sipping her tea.
“You already don’t trust Alan. He makes you uncomfortable.” With the heels of his hands on the tabletop, Elijah thumped his fingers. “Why would you want to try to attract his attention?”
Ruth looked a way for a few seconds then met Elijah’s gaze. “Because I think he knows something. Or did something. And what if what I suspect is true and I did nothing?”
“The English have their sheriff for these things,” Elijah said. “Shouldn’t you report Alan?”
“And say what? That he has a suspicious strap on his water bottle?”
“You found it in the field where the fire was.”
“That doesn’t prove anything. Alan could say I was the one who put it there.”
“Why would you have his strap?”
“The reason is not the point. Or he could say it was Bryan’s strap and that Bryan is trying to frame him.”
“The English have a strange concept of friendship.” Elijah picked up his coffee at last. “And what if Alan is right about Bryan?”
“Do you mean that?” Ruth could believe that Elijah might be jealous of her friendship with Bryan, but casting accusations at Bryan was going too far.
“Bryan and Alan have been friends a long time. You’ve chosen to trust one and distrust the other. What if things are not what they seem?”
“If you spent any time with the two of them, you would see the difference for yourself.” Ruth pushed her tea away.
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