A Prayer for the Night

by P. L. Gaus

  Troyer said, “We’ll be fine. The worst is over.”

  Second Nurse eyed him skeptically and waited for the first nurse to finish attaching the IV needle to a second spot on Yoder’s wrist. When the first nurse walked out, Second Nurse said, “You’ll have to leave if he gets agitated again.”

  Branden and Troyer nodded silently, and she left. When they returned to his side, Abe was calmer. He started talking on his own.

  “I couldn’t hear what White was saying, but he was angry. He yelled a lot, and Johnny just knelt there, with his head hanging down. Then White went over and hauled Andy up onto his knees. Left him swaying there, drunk like he was. Anyway, I don’t know what he said, but White laughed, stepped back, and leveled that big black gun at Andy. Andy lurched forward, White cocked the hammer back, and that’s when Johnny lunged at him. To try to stop him from killing Andy. Johnny Schlabaugh got shot in the head trying to save Andy Stutzman, and all White did was laugh about it. He left Andy kneeling in the dirt, and drove away. He left Johnny sprawled out on the gravel, dead.

  “When I got down to them, Andy was sobered up some. He was knelt over Johnny’s body, crying. Moaning some horrible sound, like a tortured animal. I couldn’t get him to shut up. He must have been out of his mind. Then, all of a sudden, Andy stumbled up onto his feet, and started running down the lane. Like he was chased by demons. I tried to find him later, but he must have cut through the woods, because I never saw him again. All I could think of was that me and Johnny had a fight the night before, and he bloodied my nose. Him lying there dead, and all I could think about was some stupid fight.

  “I buried Johnny as deep as I could. My side was hurting, and I passed out once. I took his secret, prepaid phone because I thought it would be safer to use than mine. I hid in the cabin. Tried to heal up the wound from where they shot me. I called Jeremiah, and he came to help me. Then we got worried. They can trace those phones. We saw that on TV. I couldn’t let White trace me while I couldn’t move, so I let Jeremiah take Johnny’s phone. I told him to throw it away.

  “Before, when I still had Johnny’s phone, I put a message in the Sugarcreek Budget, and I was planning on getting away from there. I was going to be long gone before anyone could figure out that message. I didn’t even know they would see it, the rest of the gang, but everybody reads the Budget, so I thought—Oh—I don’t know what I thought. I couldn’t leave Johnny in that hole in the ground without letting somebody know where he was. And I couldn’t stand the idea of telling Jeremiah face to face what had happened. I thought I could get away. Not have to face any of them.”

  “You just buried him and left?” Cal asked.

  Abe said, “I didn’t know what else to do. I still had the drugs and a lot of money. If I told about Johnny, the sheriff would find out, and then I’d never get a chance to settle up with White. We’d all have been in danger. Guys like White can find people easy enough. I thought if I had more time, I could do something. But I barely made it back to the cabins. Then I felt bad about it, and I put that message in the Budget.”

  “How did you think anyone would find Johnny’s body?” Cal asked.

  Abe closed his eyes, sighed heavily. “I can’t remember. I was passed out half the time. Jeremiah helped me, but I never told him about Johnny. I guess I figured I’d be long gone by the time the Budget came out on Wednesday.

  “But I got worse in my side, and I started losing track of the time. Couldn’t travel. I don’t remember how I got in the hospital.”

  “I found you, Abe,” Branden said. “We took you to the hospital. By then, Sara had led us to John Schlabaugh.”

  Yoder drew in a labored breath and sighed it out slowly.

  Branden asked, “Did Jeremiah take you out of the hospital?”

  Yoder nodded and said, “He was crazy about Sara. Said we had to give the briefcase back to get Sara free. He said White had called him on Johnny’s prepaid cell phone, Friday morning, and said he was going to kill her if we didn’t show up with the drugs or the money. He said he was cutting his losses now that Johnny was dead. Said he couldn’t trust the rest of us hillbillies to make good on the sale of his drugs, so he’d take all the cash and all the drugs we still had.”

  “You didn’t know we had found the briefcase,” Branden said.

  “No. And then we were just crazy people. Went down to that bar. We didn’t know what we were doing. We couldn’t give the drugs back anymore. So, we had to try something.”

  “Sara is safe now,” Cal said, reassuringly.

  Yoder squeezed his eyelids together and sobbed.

  Branden dried Abe’s cheeks with the edge of the bedsheets. Cal wet a towel from the bathroom and placed it on Abe Yoder’s forehead. When Yoder got himself composed, he whispered, “Stop Jeremiah.”

  26

  Sunday, July 25

  7:40 P.M.

  IN ROBERTSON’S office later, Jeremiah sat in front of Robertson’s big desk in the same English clothes he had worn at the bar the day before and sulked. Branden sat facing him, and Robertson stood behind his desk. Jeremiah steadfastly refused to talk about either his activities or his intentions.

  Robertson said, “If I could charge you with something, Jeremiah, I’d do that. Just to keep you here.”

  “You haven’t got a reason to keep me,” Jeremiah said. “And I don’t want to stay.”

  Robertson said to Branden, “You try something.”

  Branden said, “We’ll get him, Jeremiah. All you have to do is trust us.”

  “Abe told me White killed Johnny Schlabaugh,” Jeremiah stated flatly. “And he tried to kill Sara. What would you do with him if you did catch him?”

  Robertson said, “He’d go to trial. Probably get life in prison.”

  Jeremiah shook his head and focused his eyes on the front of Robertson’s desk. “I don’t know where he is,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

  “Look, young man,” Robertson growled. “I won’t have you running off half-cocked to try to handle this on your own.”

  Jeremiah said, “I’m just one kid. How am I going to handle a guy like this White?”

  “Listen good,” Robertson said. “If something happens to White outside of the law, I’m coming after you!”

  “What can the law do?” Jeremiah asked. “This White gets away all the time!”

  “His people are locked up,” Robertson said, forcing some calm into his voice. “We got them, Jeremiah. They’re not getting off. And the same will happen to Samuel White. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Jeremiah didn’t respond. Instead, he looked to Branden with a question in his eyes.

  Branden said, “You can trust the sheriff, Jeremiah. Let the authorities handle this. Go see Sara. I’m sure she can use the company. Stay out of the hunt for White. Go home and sit a while with Gertie. You deserve some peace in your life. Make a life with Sara. She needs someone like you. Don’t let her down, now. Let it rest.”

  Jeremiah pondered the matter as he sat immobile in his chair. He closed his eyes and drew a long breath. He turned and studied the professor’s eyes, and saw a sure, peaceful conviction there. He nodded, got up, and said, “OK.” Then he turned to Robertson and said, “Can I go now?”

  Robertson’s expression was skeptical, but he said, “Sure, Jeremiah. We can’t hold you.”

  Jeremiah walked to the door, turned, and said, “I’m going to see Sara, and then I’m going away for a few days. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “No problem,” Robertson said. “You’re free to go. But I’m warning you. Don’t blow this now.”

  Jeremiah looked steadily to each man, turned, and walked out.

  Robertson sat down at his desk, took a pencil, and tapped the eraser end nervously on his desktop. Branden lounged in the low leather chair to the right of Robertson’s desk, feet out straight and crossed at the ankles, fingertips snatching nervously at his short beard.

  Robertson said, “That kid’s gonna go after White.�
��

  “I know,” Branden said. “We’ve got to figure a way to get to White first.”

  Bobby Newell, in uniform, came into the office holding a printout and said, “We’ve got a preliminary report from the BCI lab people on Schlabaugh’s Firebird. I asked them to come out a day early. Work a Sunday. They lifted seven prints. None are in the system. The blood on the driver’s seat matches Abe Yoder’s type, but it’ll take a while if we want DNA matching.”

  “We know Abe moved the Firebird,” Branden said. “Parked it in the barn. That’s going to have been after he got shot.”

  “So no DNA?” Newell asked.

  “Not at the moment,” Robertson said. “How about Abe Yoder’s phone? The one from the grave?”

  “Dan had the phone company print out the calls and messages earlier today. It’s apparently all innocuous stuff.”

  Branden said, “It has all the numbers stored?”

  “All the times, and all the numbers,” Newell said.

  “Then one of them is going to be Jeremiah Miller’s cell phone,” Branden said. “Another will be Johnny Schlabaugh’s.”

  “I suppose so,” Newell said.

  “Can the phone company tell us if Jeremiah makes a call on either of those phones?” Branden asked.

  “Yes,” Newell said. “They can tell us when he makes a call, and what his location is.”

  “So, that’s a way to keep track of where he is when he makes a call,” Branden said.

  Robertson asked, “Can they record the conversations?”

  Newell said, “They can get text messages. I don’t know about voice.”

  Robertson said, “Then let’s follow this up, Bobby. On your night shift, and Dan Wilsher, tomorrow. If he makes a call, we need to know where he is, and what he’s saying, if that’s possible. We especially need to know who he’s calling. And text messages he sends.”

  Newell said, “I’ll get a warrant,” and left.

  Branden pushed himself out of his chair and paced in front of Robertson’s desk. “Is this the best we can do?” he asked.

  “If we follow Jeremiah around,” Robertson said, “he’s either going to rabbit on us or lay low. Wait us out.”

  “Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.”

  There was a knock at the door, and the night-shift dispatcher, Ed Hollings, came in and said, “Sheriff, you have a visitor.”

  Tony Arnetto pushed past Hollings into the office and walked a slow, deliberate circle in front of the tall office windows. Hollings shrugged, turned, and left.

  Robertson asked, “Have you got White yet?”

  Arnetto ignored the question. “I want to talk to the kid you brought in with Abe Yoder. Jeremiah something.”

  “Miller,” Branden said. “Jeremiah Miller.”

  “Well, good for him!” Arnetto shot. “He’s a Miller. How very special.”

  “We let him go,” Robertson said, rising from his desk chair.

  Arnetto threw his arms in the air and glared spitefully at the sheriff.

  “He’s gone,” Robertson said. “No charges.”

  Arnetto cracked a sarcastic smile and said, “You’ve got two kids in the hospital, one in the morgue, and you let the only one who can help us go? That’s great, Sheriff! Commendable.”

  Branden saw Robertson start out around his desk, and he bolted to his feet and blocked the sheriff at the front corner of his desk. Robertson glowered at Arnetto, gained control of himself with difficulty, and turned back to his seat, saying, “He hasn’t done anything, Arnetto. I don’t throw kids in lockup on a whim.”

  Arnetto took his suit coat off and laid it over his arm with exaggerated calm. Scowling, he said, “Have you at least kept hold of the men from the barn bust?”

  Robertson mastered his tone. “We’ve got a Dick DiPaldi upstairs. He was captured coming out of the trailer. And we’ve got John Albert under guard at the hospital.”

  Arnetto said, arrogantly, “I’ll talk to DiPaldi first.”

  Robertson punched his intercom button and said, “Ed, Agent Arnetto is to go up to the cell blocks. Set him up with DiPaldi.”

  Hollings said, “OK,” and soon appeared in Robertson’s doorway.

  Robertson gestured for Arnetto to follow Hollings, and the DEA agent stalked out of the office. Hollings lingered in the doorway, shaking his head, and Robertson said, “Don’t take any static from that guy.”

  Hollings smiled and left, closing the door.

  When Robertson was seated again, Branden said, “So, what’s our plan?”

  Robertson said, “We’ll see what the phone company can do with calls made on Jeremiah’s phones.”

  “And if Jeremiah goes down to Columbus?”

  “I don’t know,” Robertson said, dissatisfied.

  “And if Jeremiah doesn’t go down to Columbus?”

  “I don’t know,” Robertson said again, dispirited.

  “The best thing would be if Jeremiah just stays put,” Branden said.

  “The best thing would be if none of this had ever happened.”

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 28

  27

  Wednesday, July 28

  2:15 P.M.

  THREE days later, Caroline and Michael Branden drove up to the high ridge at Saltillo under low, dull, nickel-colored skies. They traveled through a steady, warm drizzle as they crossed down into the little valley where Albert O. and Martha Yoder had their sprawling farm, straddling a gravel lane that bisected the valley. The professor parked next to Cal Troyer’s gray truck, and he and Caroline walked up the driveway, sharing a black umbrella. Ascending the steps to a front porch that stretched the full width of the two-story white frame house, they found Cal seated with several Amish men. Caroline inquired about Mrs. Yoder and was directed inside, to the kitchen. The professor leaned back against the porch railing and listened to the conversation, a running debate about modern tractors and slow draft horses. The men all wore cream-colored straw hats and sported chin whiskers, shaved smooth around the mouth. Most of the whiskers were white or gray. These were the older men, not needed for the afternoon on the farms. Two of the men smoked: one a pipe and the other a cigarette that he had rolled himself. At a break in the discussion, Branden asked about Sara and was told they still expected her home this afternoon. She was supposed to be released after lunch. The change in subject seemed to bring the debate about tractors to a conclusion, and the men fell silent.

  Branden excused himself and went into the house, back along a narrow hallway, to the warm kitchen. There, several women worked at a black, cast-iron woodstove, sliding pies in to bake and taking out the ones that were done. Caroline had put on an apron and was peeling apples at the sink.

  In a corner next to a worktable, Albert O. Yoder sat on a Shaker chair, vigorously turning the hand crank of an old wooden ice cream maker, sweat beading on his brow. Branden offered assistance, switched places with Albert, and began turning the stubborn crank. Albert leaned over the sink, got a drink from the spigot of a red hand pump, and then wet his handkerchief and used it to wipe his face and neck.

  Martha Yoder stood next to Caroline at the sink, topping and slicing strawberries. She carried a bowl to Branden at the ice cream maker and had him open the top so that she could pour in her strawberries. Then she cut two Dutch apple pies while they were still warm, put a piece on each of five plates, and carried them on a platter out to the front porch. A neighbor lady carried out a tray with napkins, forks, and glasses of fresh whole milk.

  Albert took over the crank on the ice cream maker, and Branden strolled out onto the back screened porch. Oblivious to the drizzling rain, a half dozen young children in either denim trousers or full-length dresses were intent on a game of tag that centered on a tall wooden swing set and spilled out of the backyard toward the barn at the side of the house. In front of the barn doors, Branden found six buggies, hitched to hobbled horses. A lad of about fourteen was carrying hay to the horses, and his sister, about ten, toted a bucket of water to one horse
and lifted it high on her short arms to let the horse drink.

  Branden cut in among the buggies and entered the dark and cool barn. In stalls along an inside wall, two boys were milking goats. The game of tag came too near them, and one of the milkers gently scolded the younger children away from the temperamental animals.

  The kids ran out the opposite barn doors, splashing their bare feet in a mud puddle as they left. Branden paced the distance inside the barn, enjoying the aromas of straw and fresh-cut hay. He followed the children out the opposite side of the barn and walked around to the front porch again. He took an empty seat as one of the men was saying, “It’ll be a shame if she’s got permanent damage.”

  Cal answered, “She seemed a little better to me yesterday.”

  The men nodded solemnly. The pipe smoker knocked out his ashes over the porch railing.

  Albert O. Yoder came out through the screened door rubbing at his cranking arm. He said, “Ice cream’s ready, if you care for some.”

  Two of the men nodded, got up, and went inside. Albert O. sat next to Professor Branden, saying, “I thought they’d be here by now.”

  Branden said, “The roads are kind of muddy. They’ll be along soon.”

  Cal said, “I think they’re here now,” and pointed down the lane.

  Jeremiah Miller drove a tall, proud, Standardbred horse hitched to a big, black, two-seater buggy. The seat beside him was unoccupied. He proceeded down the gravel lane slowly, negotiating the potholes and ruts with careful attention to minimize the jostling the rig took. There was a shout from one of the children, and the game of tag stopped, the little ones filing out to the front driveway. Albert called in through the screened door, and the women in the kitchen came out onto the porch.

  Jeremiah pulled up on the lawn, close to the front porch, and jumped down from the buggy. He was dressed in his Sunday best suit. The formerly crisp lines of his fanciful beard were fading with new growth on his cheeks, trimmed to the traditional chin whiskers, and shaved around the mouth, Amish style. The thin and rakish beard and mustache that had been his statement of youthful identity, the thing that set him apart from the Gemie, were a mark of the Rumschpringe. Until he joined the church, this stubborn act of rebellion had been tolerated in the community. Now that he had given himself an Amish shave, he was known to have identified properly with the church.