The Face of Heaven

by Murray Pura

  “No. That is precisely what Paul did not do. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—we all agree on that, yes?” Nathaniel paged through his Bible, which he had set on the table during the discussion. Reaching his place, he continued, “Paul plainly said, Receive him back not now as a slave but above a slave, a brother beloved specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord? If thou countest me a partner, receive him as myself.

  “Paul said no to slavery. He said it here, he said it when he declared a slave should try to win his freedom, and he said it when he told us there was neither slave nor free but all of us are one in Christ. How can we say we live the gospel of our Lord Jesus and keep men and women in bondage? How can we say we follow the Word of the living God and deny those made in his image the liberty to live as we here in Elizabethtown have the liberty to live? Did our forefathers not come to America from Europe so that they could have this liberty? Yet we will not give that same freedom to men like us sleeping in the room upstairs.”

  His voice was still not that loud but his words struck her heart with what seemed to her the very fervor of God. How was it possible that all these thoughts had been locked away inside him and she had never known about it? But how could she know? Nathaniel was just her brother’s friend, it was all he had ever been, never anyone special to her or she to him. Yet now all sorts of feelings stormed through her, most of them to do with what he was saying to the Amish leaders, but others touching on feelings she had never experienced before for any man in the community. She closed her eyes and put her head in her hands. What was happening?

  This time the silence after Nathaniel’s words was even longer. Finally Samuel Eby spoke again. “Still, we are commanded to obey the law of the land. It is Paul himself who tells us that in Romans.”

  Lyndel lifted her head from her hands in surprise. Now it was her brother, quiet Levi Keim, who was talking. “Pastor Eby, we Amish do not obey the law when it comes to war, do we? The government tells us we must fight, but we say no, we will not fight. Why do we not obey the law then, Pastor Eby?”

  The pastor didn’t respond. Lyndel listened to her brother answer his own question. “The law of the land tells us to go to war but we do not go to war because we say God’s law is higher and that he commands us not to kill. So do you not think God requires us to answer to a higher law when it comes to slavery? Do you not think we should obey God rather than man, as Peter and John argued in Acts? Do you not think we should treat slaves as fellow human beings in the eyes of God and grant them the same liberties we enjoy since they are made in his image just as we are?”

  Nathaniel spoke up softly as Levi finished. “The Scriptures say that God ‘hath made of one blood all nations of men.’ ”

  “Not to mention,” Lyndel’s father said in the hush that followed Levi’s and Nathaniel’s words, “that Paul tells us in Timothy that the law is not made for the righteous but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and the sinner, for the unholy and profane. And he includes murderers among those who are lawless and unholy—he includes those who commit adultery, those who commit perversions, those who are liars and perjurers. He includes those who are slave traders—yes, slave traders. He reached for Nathaniel’s open Bible, now setting again on the table. Reaching his place, he read, “Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient…for menstealers—slave traders—and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.”

  “Amen.” Lyndel just made out Abraham Yoder’s whisper.

  Suddenly there was hammering at the door. Without thinking Lyndel shot to her feet. But none of the men saw her—they had all turned toward the door and several were out of their chairs. Lyndel’s mother was rushing down the staircase without her candle and she cried, “The yard, it is full of men with torches and guns!”

  Lyndel watched her father swing open the door to Sheriff Jackson. The sheriff had a grim look on his face. Behind him several men were clutching blazing torches in one hand and long rifles in the other.

  “What is it?” Lyndel’s father demanded. “Why do you come to my house at such an hour and in such a manner?”

  “Bishop Keim,” the sheriff replied in a dark voice, “it’s my understanding that you are harboring fugitives on your property. I must order you now, in the name of the law, to give them up to these men so they can be returned to their rightful owners in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

  3

  Lyndel’s father stood firmly in the doorway and would not move.

  “This is a matter we have just been discussing among our leadership,” he told the sheriff. “We will need a bit more time.”

  “A bit more time for what?” growled a man with a torch just behind Sheriff Jackson. “To make sure our slaves get clear to the border?”

  “Are they in the house, Bishop Keim?” asked the sheriff.

  Lyndel’s father hesitated. “They are resting.”

  “Where are they resting?”

  “In a room upstairs. They cannot be disturbed. One of them is wounded.”

  “Cannot be disturbed?” The man behind Sheriff Jackson mimicked the bishop’s voice. “Who do you think they are? Lords and masters of a Virginia plantation?” He shouldered past the sheriff and shoved Lyndel’s father to one side. “We’re wasting time. And you’re breaking the law.”

  Lyndel watched Nathaniel spring to the staircase, blocking the man’s path. The man stopped, surprised. Then he handed his torch to one of his companions, all of whom were crowding into the house. He swung the stock of his rifle as hard as he could into Nathaniel’s stomach. Lyndel cried out and rushed down the staircase as Nathaniel gasped and his knees bent. But he would not fall and he held his ground, glaring at the slave hunter, his green eyes on fire.

  “Why, ain’t you a tough one for a Yankee.”

  The man swung his rifle into Nathaniel’s stomach two more times as fast as he could. This time Nathaniel groaned and collapsed. The slave hunter ran up the stairs followed by six of his companions. Once they reached the second floor they began throwing open doors and brandishing torches and pointing pistol and rifles. Lyndel’s younger sisters began to scream. Their mother ran up the steps, calling out in Pennsylvania Dutch for the men to stop, and the bishop bolted up the steps behind his wife. Lyndel knelt by Nathaniel and lifted his head as the slave hunters charged to the third floor and one of them shouted, “Well, boys, look what we have here! What’s the matter, Charlie? Ain’t you happy to see me?”

  The man tugged Charlie out of bed and pushed him roughly toward the stairway. When they arrived at the second landing, the man shoved him forward down the final set of stairs and the slave landed with a cry of pain on top of Nathaniel. Immediately behind, Moses came tumbling down the steps after him. He had taken a gun-stock blow to the head. Tears streaking her cheeks, Lyndel covered all three men with her arms and shouted at the slave hunters, “Leave them alone! They have done nothing wrong!”

  The man who had struck Nathaniel with his rifle laughed from the second landing. “Why, yes they have, ma’am. Them slaves is plantation property, no different than the horses and cows and cotton fields. They ran, and that runnin’ is against the law. And your beau, well, he tried to prevent me from takin’ ’em and that’s what the legal folk call obstruction of justice.”

  He walked down the stairs, his boots thudding on the wood, his men behind him. Hauling Charlie and Moses upright he shackled their hands and their feet while another held his torch and gun. On the second floor Lyndel’s mother was hugging and kissing the three girls and telling them everything was going to be all right. Moses looked straight into Lyndel’s eyes, and at the pain in his eyes, she felt things falling down and breaking apart.

  “Back home, we’d burn your house to the ground for harborin’ and abettin’ fugitives,” the leader of the slave hunters said. “But ye�
�re godless Yankees and you don’t know no better.”

  Levi and the ministers had stayed rooted at the table during the forced entry into the home. Now Abraham Yoder stepped forward.

  “We need no lectures from you on godliness, you who would desecrate a man’s home and frighten his children and treat the guests sleeping under his roof worse than brute beasts.”

  The slave hunter grinned. “Why, they ain’t nothin’ but brute beasts, mister. That’s God’s truth.”

  Now Levi shook off his fear and shock and stood beside Pastor Yoder. “I will tell you what God’s truth is—there are neither slaves nor freemen but all are one in Christ Jesus. And I will tell you something else that is God’s truth—no slaveholder has a place in heaven.”

  The slave hunters’ faces darkened and Lyndel saw their fingers move in and out of the trigger guards of their weapons. She saw the leader’s face twitch between annoyance and anger and rage. Finally he jerked at the door and told his men, “Get our property out of here and into the wagon.” The men dragged Charlie and Moses through the doorway in chains. Charlie glanced at Lyndel with a look she knew she could never erase. Nathaniel, finally coming to himself, stood to his feet.

  The leader gripped his rifle more tightly. “Am I gonna have more trouble from you?”

  “No, you’re not,” Sheriff Jackson finally spoke up, “because you’re not going to be here. You’ve got what’s yours. Now get out and get back to Virginia.”

  “These people broke the law, sheriff. Not Virginia law. Federal law.”

  “Get going and get across the state line before the folk in Elizabethtown wake up. A lot of them might take exception to slave hunters roaming about in their midst. They have more guns than you do and they won’t treat you as gently as these Amish folk have.”

  “Is that a fact?” The leader nodded to himself. “I guess it’s gettin’ close to the time Virginia joins in with Mississippi and Texas and Alabama and has its own country. Yes, I reckon it’s long past time.” He bent his head. “Thank you kindly for your hospitality. Come and visit the Hargrove Plantation sometime and we’ll see if we can’t do you one better.”

  He left, and Lyndel followed Nathaniel and Levi and the pastors out onto the porch. The wagon of slave hunters was already moving down the lane to the main road. Moses and Charlie sat in the middle, flames from the torches lighting their faces. Moses had an expression like stone. Charlie was broken, his cheeks wet, holding a hand to his side. In a few minutes the wagon was no more than half a dozen torches floating in the darkness.

  “We failed them,” said Nathaniel in a quiet voice. “We had them under our protection and we let the slave hunters drag them away.”

  Sheriff Jackson stepped out onto the porch. “It was the law, Mr. King.”

  “God’s law or man’s law?”

  “Washington’s law. The Supreme Court’s law.”

  “Then perhaps it is time we change the law.”

  “Oh? And how do you plan on doing that, young man?”

  But Nathaniel was staring at the pastors. “You are the leaders of the church. Men chosen by God. Yet you did nothing. Nothing.”

  Samuel Eby bristled. “We are people of peace, not confrontation.”

  “You could not even attempt to block their path? To hold the bedroom door shut?”

  “That is not our way. You yourself overstepped your bounds and your calling as an Amish man.”

  “Did I?” Nathaniel looked around him and his eyes rested on Lyndel. “Did I, Miss Keim?” He stared at Levi. “Did I, Levi Keim?” Then his eyes fell on Abraham Yoder. “Did I overstep my bounds, Pastor Yoder?”

  No one responded. Nathaniel walked slowly down the porch steps to the ground and made his way to his carriage. He climbed painfully into the driver’s seat in a way that made Lyndel want to rush out and help him but she knew he wouldn’t want that. He glanced over at them as he flicked the reins in his hands. “We are not much like Jesus in the end, are we? He cleared the temple. He made a whip. We are not able to even clear the temple of Lancaster County of these men-stealers. Because of our weakness, men like Moses and Charlie pay with their freedom and their blood.”

  His carriage began to roll out of the yard. Lyndel realized that now was the time to tell him what she thought of the words he had said at the table and the stand he had made at the staircase. Tomorrow would not do and a week from now would be too late. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter to him, but it mattered to her. Surprising herself as well as the others she lifted the hem of her dress and flew down the steps and across the yard to the carriage. Nathaniel saw her running and reined back.

  “Lyndel,” he said, “what are you doing?”

  She rested her hand on the side of the driver’s seat. “I just wanted you to know I heard what you said at the meeting. Everything you said was right. Yes, it was right. And what you tried to do at the staircase was also right.”

  His face was like granite from his anger at the Amish leaders and the slave hunters. Yet as he listened to her a small smile broke through. “How do you know what I said at the meeting?”

  “I was sitting on the staircase.”

  His smile grew. “Were you? With your father’s permission?”

  She smiled back. “My mother’s anyway.”

  He looked away. “Well, what I said didn’t seem to make much of a difference.”

  “It did to me.”

  He glanced back at her. “Ja?” Then he stared ahead. “I always come to the Keim house to call on Levi. How about if I come tomorrow to call on you instead?”

  She was startled and didn’t know what to say.

  “Or is that too much too quickly?” he asked.

  Lyndel made up her mind in an instant and put a hand on his arm. “For the first time in our lives—yes, come and call on me.”

  “Well. It was not a very good evening. But this was the best part of it.” He flicked the reins. “Do you know what I feel like doing, Lyndel Keim?”

  The wagon was moving forward at a walking pace and she kept up with it, her hand still on his arm. “What’s that?”

  “Giving chase to the slave hunters. Running them off the road. Scaring them into the woods. Rescuing Moses and Charlie and driving like a crazy man for the Canadian border in New York.” Suddenly, despite the grimness that hadn’t left his face since the arrival of the slave hunters from Virginia, he gave a sharp laugh. “I reckon I don’t sound very Amish, do I?”

  “It sounds like a good plan,” she responded. “But you’d need help.”

  “Yes. I would. But except for you and Levi and Abraham Yoder, and perhaps your father, I’m not likely to get it in time, am I?” He glanced away from the lane and at her. “What will happen to Moses and Charlie, Lyndel?”

  She shook her head.

  “Here’s the road. We’re picking up speed now—take care. I hope to see you tomorrow, Lyndel Keim.”

  “I’ll look forward to that, Nathaniel King.”

  His buggy turned onto the wide roadway and moved off toward his family’s farm. She stood for a while under the stars and as she watched him go, she obeyed a desire to pray for him. Lord Jesus, have mercy on Nathaniel King…and on us. Have mercy on our country.

  That night sleep was slow to come. Two of her younger sisters were in bed with her, constantly tossing and turning in their anxiety. The other sister slept with their mother. When Lyndel did find a moment’s rest, her dreams were torn by flame and gunfire and leering slave hunters and rope. Moses and Charlie were running but they never got away—men on horses always rode them down. She kept telling the men from the plantation to set them at liberty: “America is the land of the free!” But the leader of the slave hunters was there to tell her over and over again, “America is a slave nation, Miss Lyndel. It has been from the beginning and it always will be.”

  The next morning as she and Levi entered the house after milking the cows, they sat down to a subdued breakfast. Her father read from the Bible and prayed and her siste
rs helped their mother wash up but few words were spoken.

  After eating, Lyndel made her way silently back to the barn and led the herd out to pasture. She lingered to watch a number of the cows head toward the creek that ran through the trees a hundred yards away. The sun had been behind a cloud bank, as if reflecting the Keim family’s melancholy mood, but now began to slowly slip free of the gray. Sunlight brought the green of the April grass alive. She closed her eyes a moment and turned her face upward to the sun. How long the winter had been and how unpleasant the evening and night. The warmth felt good inside her and out.

  Lord, be with us. There is so much about my world I don’t understand anymore.

  Cows bawling made her open her eyes quickly and look toward the trees. Had one of the new calves become stuck in the mud of the creek bank? The bawling grew louder and the cows began trotting out between the tree trunks and branches. Lyndel walked swiftly toward them. They passed by her as she stepped in among the trees, under the spread of green leaves yellowed by the morning light. She saw the creek, brown with soil and silt, but none of the herd was there. Glancing to her left and right, she walked farther into the cluster of birches and aspens. Still nothing. So she headed into the sugar maples about a hundred feet away looking for a calf or milk cow in distress or the sign of a predator like a wild dog or coyote. But there was no sound and nothing at all was moving.

  Heading closer to the creek she paused to squint up and down the bank in the flood of fresh sunlight that made the dark water gleam. Picking up a small flat stone she flung it sideways. It skipped three times and sank in the middle of the creek. You’ll be sitting there at the bottom a long time, she thought and turned to start back to the farm.

  But then as she glanced off the right, she gasped. She looked closer, then turned away, nausea rising. It can’t be!

  But it was. It was the body of Charlie hanging from one of the sugar maples.

  Forcing herself closer, hoping against hope, she wrapped her arms around his legs, instinctively trying to push him upward and take the weight of his body off his neck, but she could only do it for a few seconds at a time. His face was no longer Charlie’s, yet she knew it was the man she had cared for. The word RUNAWAY was printed clumsily on a sign around his neck.