Josiah for President

by Martha Bolton

  “Well, if you need work, I could use some help baling hay this week,” Josiah said.

  Now there was one option Mark hadn’t considered. Baling hay?

  “It might take a spell to get your car fixed up, anyway,” Josiah added.

  “How long’s a spell?” Mark asked.

  “Well, a spell’s always longer than you thought but not as long as you feared. We’ll get you fixed up as soon as possible.”

  “Me baling hay, huh?” Mark couldn’t help but laugh. “Talk about a photo op! Can’t get more back to basics than that.”

  “Just offering you some work … if you need it,” Josiah said. “No offense.”

  “No, no. I appreciate it. But I should probably explain. I’m a politician,” Mark said. “A currently unemployed one.”

  “A politician?” Josiah said, obviously surprised. “I don’t think I’ve ever met one before. Most of ‘em don’t come around here much.”

  “I guess since the Amish don’t typically vote, you’re not on our radar.”

  “No, I don’t suppose we are. But we do vote. ‘Bout 10 percent of us do, anyway.”

  “Well, now that you mention it, I did campaign in South Bend, Indiana, not long ago when I was preparing for the upcoming Indiana primary. Met some Amish folks there. Or maybe they were Mennonite. Don’t really know the difference. They were from Shipshewana, I believe.”

  “There are differences, but the ones you’d notice most are that Mennonites drive automobiles and have phones. At least the modern Mennonites do.”

  “But you’re Amish?”

  “Old Order.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We live separate lives from the world. No cars, no phones …”

  “No stress,” Mark said.

  “Well, we do enjoy our peace and quiet,” Josiah said. “So were you a Washington politician?”

  “U.S. congressman. From Wisconsin. Stepped down to run for president. And now I’ve stepped down from that to … well, to go back home, I guess. Hence, unemployed.”

  “President, you say? Well, well. But why’d you drop out of the race? The election isn’t until November.”

  “I know, but sometimes you’ve got to pay attention to what the polls are saying. I was polling at the bottom, so I got out.”

  “Well, I don’t know much about politics,” Josiah said, “but how do you lose an election that hasn’t even taken place yet?”

  “Josiah, my good man,” Mark said. “I’ve been asking myself that same question ever since I left Washington.”

  “THAT WAS SOME GOOD EATING!” MARK SAID, WISHING HE’D GOTTEN a longer belt the last time he’d gone shopping for one. His current belt was suddenly one belt hole and one Amish dinner short of fitting.

  “You’re welcome to share our meals anytime,” Elizabeth said, gathering up the dishes.

  “But you don’t have to drive into a ditch to join us,” Josiah said. The comment caused the children to giggle.

  “No worries there,” Mark said.

  Josiah headed toward the door. “Well, are you ready to head on out there and get to work on that car of yours?”

  “Let’s do it!” Mark said, even though his body was screaming for a nap.

  Mark started to help Elizabeth clear off the table, but Josiah stopped him.

  “The kids’ll do that,” he said.

  And they did. Before Mark could even insist on at least clearing off his own plate, the children had already taken it from him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the two youngest having a bit of a tug-of-war over the last brownie in the basket, and he smiled to himself, almost relieved. Nobody’s kids are perfect 100 percent of the time.

  “You kids share that now,” Josiah said, interrupting Mark’s thought.

  “Do we have to, Dat?”

  Josiah didn’t answer. He just waited until Joseph obediently broke the brownie in two.

  “Come on, Mark,” Josiah said. “We’ve got some work to do.”

  Mark followed Josiah out of the house, and they walked down to the barn. Mark was both frustrated and amused at the turn of events in his life. Only a day before, he’d been knee-deep in Washington politics, and now look at him. He was in a barn with an Amish man, getting ready to hitch up some horses to pull his government car out of a ditch. Life could be full of surprises … and irony.

  “You ever hitched up a horse before?” Josiah asked.

  “When I was younger,” Mark said. “My granddad had a farm. Taught me some about horses. More about life.”

  “Can’t get that kind of learning from your universities, jah?”

  “I tell people I attended the Graduate School of Grandpa. The times I spent with him are some of my best memories.”

  “Here in our community, our elders are our compass.”

  “Used to be more like that in our world. Wish it still was.”

  “What changed?”

  “Nobody wants to be old anymore. It’s all about youth. Too often the elderly get pushed aside. But it’s a real shame — all that wisdom’s just going to waste.”

  “Getting buried with ‘em at their leicht?”

  “Leicht?”

  “Funeral. It’s Pennsylvania Dutch. Our native language,” Josiah explained. “So what else did you learn from your wise grandfather?”

  “The value of hard work. He’d always tell me, ‘Corn won’t grow in your bed, Mark.’ Would never let me sleep in.”

  Josiah laughed. “What else?”

  “ ‘Plant a potato, reap a potato.’ That was another one of his favorites.”

  “Sounds like your grandfather was a gut influence on you. And now your own kids will reap what he sowed. And what you’ve sowed into their lives too.”

  Mark nodded, hoping Josiah was right, and also hoping that he’d sowed enough good seed in his own children’s lives. In many ways, Josiah reminded Mark of his grandfather; that’s partly why he was enjoying his company so much.

  “Well, hitching up a horse is like riding a bike. Once you learn, you never forget how to do it,” Josiah said, grabbing a couple of harnesses off some hooks on the barn wall.

  “Here, take this one,” Josiah said, handing one of the harnesses to Mark.

  The men made their way to the pasture, where a couple of strong, muscular draft horses stood near the white fence.

  “So how many acres you got here?” Mark asked, looking around at Josiah’s spread.

  “A couple hundred.”

  “Is that right? That’s a good size. But a lot of hard work, huh?”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  Josiah grabbed the halter of the first horse. “This here’s Samson,” he said, patting Samson’s nose. The horse backed away slightly at the intruding presence of the stranger.

  “Easy, boy. Easy.” Josiah calmed Samson before slipping the harness over his neck. “Come on, Sam. Just got a little side job for you. That’s all.”

  With Samson harnessed, Josiah walked the horse over to Mark and handed him the reins. “You hold on to Samson here while I get the other one.”

  “What’s the other one’s name?” Mark asked. “Delilah?”

  “How’d you know?” Josiah smiled.

  “Seriously? Samson and Delilah?” Mark laughed. “I love it!”

  Josiah harnessed Delilah and then swapped reins with Mark. “Here. Delilah’s gentler. But I still wouldn’t turn my back on her.”

  “True to her name, eh?” Mark asked.

  Josiah gave a slight raise of an eyebrow, then pulled back his shirtsleeve and showed Mark a crescent-shaped scar on the middle of his forearm.

  “And she’s the gentle one?” Mark said, tightening his hand on the reins just a bit more.

  “Hold tight to the reins and make her earn your trust,” Josiah said.

  Mark and Josiah led the horses over to the makeshift “towing” equipment that was out by the tool shed. Once the hitch was set, Josiah clapped his hands together and said, “All right, let’s do it,”
and the two men started down the road toward the broken car.

  CHAPTER 6

  “BART!” HARLEY PHILLIPS BARKED FROM HIS DESK. BART ROLLED his eyes, dropped what he was doing, and walked into Harley’s office.

  “Whatcha need, Dad?” he asked, almost gasping as soon as the word, that word, slipped out of his mouth. He knew Harley cringed whenever Bart called him that, but Bart didn’t fully understand why. Harley was his father-in-law, after all.

  “How many times have I told you not to call me that at the office? It’s Mr. Phillips or Harley. Not Dad!”

  “Sorry, sir, I forgot.”

  “At home. And only in front of my daughter. You can do it for her. But don’t do it here!”

  “Okay, Harley,” Bart said with a slight shrug of his shoulders. Sometimes he didn’t understand Harley. Actually, he hardly ever understood Harley. But for his wife’s sake, he kept trying to give his father-in-law the benefit of the doubt. He knew that Harley had risen through the political ranks the hard way. And anyone who got kicked around enough would start biting back, even at friendly hands. Sometimes one only bit friendly hands. It was safer. The dog bites the cat, so the cat attacks the mouse. Not fair for the mouse, but safer for the cat.

  Bart also knew that Harley saw his son-in-law’s passiveness as a defect. Harley would often tell Bart that he was Harley’s Achilles’ heel. The weak link in an otherwise smooth-running operation. Bart couldn’t remember, but that might even have been Harley’s wedding toast at Bart and Stella’s reception. Still, Bart hung in there and took the bad with the good — the good being Stella, his wife and Harley’s beloved daughter.

  “So have you found anything on Kurtzfield yet?” Harley asked.

  “Like dirt?”

  “No, I mean like where she buys her clothes. Of course I mean dirt! Anything turn up?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, keep digging. Everybody’s got something!”

  Bart nodded in fake agreement and then walked out the door, almost bumping into Marcia, who was on her way in to speak with Harley.

  “So what kind of mood’s he in?” she asked.

  “His usual,” Bart said.

  “Oh?” Marcia said, clearly disappointed. “I was hoping for human.”

  They both tried to restrain their laughter so Harley wouldn’t hear them.

  “He’s after Kurtzfield now.”

  “Of course.”

  “Can I ask you something, Marcia?” Bart said.

  “Sure.”

  “What is it that drives politicians to go after each other’s dirty laundry the way they do?”

  “Maybe because it makes their own laundry smell a little better,” Marcia said and then, taking a deep breath, stepped into Harley’s office.

  CINDY HELD HER CELL PHONE TO HER EAR AND TRIED CALLING Mark again. The line didn’t even ring. Instead, a prerecorded voice came on telling Cindy the person she was trying to reach was unavailable.

  Cindy wouldn’t let her mind go to the unthinkable — that something had happened to Mark on the road. He was probably on one of those stretches of highway where reception was poor or, more likely, nonexistent.

  Comforting herself with that assumption, she hung up and, vowing to try again later, returned to her project of mailing out thank-you notes to everyone who had helped with her husband’s campaign. It was a daunting task, even for a flailing campaign like Mark’s. But it was necessary. Keep the donors happy and loyal — the first rule of politics. You never knew when you might need to call on them again.

  AFTER WALKING A GOOD DISTANCE, MARK AND JOSIAH, EACH leading a horse, turned onto the last stretch of road where the wrecked government car sat useless, straddling the ditch and the slope of the small hill, waiting to be rescued and restored to her former self — or at least as close to original condition as possible.

  “Well, there she is, right where I left her,” Mark said, pleased that the car hadn’t been stripped. He’d once parked a car in front of a Manhattan hotel, and someone had cleaned it out in five minutes flat. The only thing left had been the cigarette lighter — obviously a health-conscious thief. But this car was perfectly safe. Apparently, the crime rate in Amish country was about as high as the number of blizzards in Los Angeles.

  “I still can’t believe I drove off the road like that,” Mark said.

  “You’d be surprised how many times I’ve seen this,” Josiah noted. “Cars, trucks, you name it. Folks get to looking at the scenery instead of watching the road, and they veer right off it.”

  “And end up in the ditch, huh?”

  “It’s a hard, fast rule of life, Mark. If your wheels are pointed in the direction of a ditch, and you don’t turn ‘em back to the road, the ditch is where you’re gonna end up.”

  When they reached the car, Josiah told Mark to hold on to the horses while he took a few minutes to assess the situation. Josiah walked to the rear of the car. Then he walked to the side of the car. Then he stood in the ditch and looked up at the car. Then he returned to the front of the car and shook his head.

  “So how’s it look?” Mark asked. “Think your horses can pull it out?”

  “It’ll be a workout for ‘em, but jah, they’re up to it.”

  Mark looked down the ditch until he spied his unruly GPS, its cord dangling in shame. He walked over to it.

  “Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “She’s fired!”

  Mark kicked the ornery navigational device and sent it skipping along the pavement until it came to a stop close to where Josiah was standing. Josiah watched for a few seconds while Mark enjoyed the satisfaction of that action, and then he calmly walked over and retrieved the GPS.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d fire her in your own yard,” he said, handing the contraption back to Mark. “You said yourself, it’s beautiful country here. We’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Sorry,” Mark said. “You’re right. I suppose the lady does deserve a decent burial.”

  “Just trying to be a good steward of the land,” Josiah said.

  Mark tossed the device onto the backseat of the car. “If it helps, I voted for every anti-littering law and conservation bill that came up in the House.”

  “That so?” Josiah asked, looking half pleased and half doubtful.

  “Yes, I did,” Mark said, desperate to win back Josiah’s respect. He couldn’t explain it — perhaps it had something to do with his grandfather — but for some reason, Josiah’s opinion was important to Mark. “I surely did.”

  Josiah turned the horses around and guided them as they backed up to the front bumper of the car.

  “Come on, Samson,” Josiah said. “Back on up! You, too, Delilah. Let’s go. That’s it. Line ‘er up.”

  The horses dutifully obeyed, and once they were in place, Mark hitched them to the vehicle. When the hitch was secure, Mark put the car in neutral. Josiah moved behind the animals, gave a click with his tongue, and called out, “All right. Let’s go!”

  He gave the reins a snap, and the horses began pulling with all their might, but the car didn’t budge. Not even an inch.

  “What if I got behind it and gave it a push?” Mark said.

  “Couldn’t hurt.”

  Mark walked into the ditch and placed his hands on the rear of the car. When Josiah urged the horses forward again, Mark pushed. Samson and Delilah pulled with everything they had, and Mark pushed as hard as he could. It was teamwork in the purest sense of the term. But that didn’t budge the car either.

  “One more time,” Josiah said. “Samson’s got the strength, but he’s got to get the right footing.”

  Josiah snapped the reins again, and the horses started pulling again. “Steady, steady … You’re doing it! Don’t quit on me now.”

  “Don’t quit on us now!” Mark echoed.

  The words had a familiar ring to the congressman. Don’t quit — that was what both Mark’s grandfather and his father had always told him. Don’t quit had even been Cindy’s mantr
a over the years. Now Mark found himself a quitter. He had left the presidential race, left Washington, and was leaving his life’s calling of serving his country. It seemed a bit hypocritical for Mark to be telling a couple of draft horses not to quit when he couldn’t even take his own advice.

  As he pushed and the horses pulled, Mark recalled his last meeting with party officials Sam Lynch and Randall Baxter. There hadn’t been much budging then either. It was over the debate situation, and it hadn’t gone well …

  “Give me one reason!” Mark said. “One reason why you’re not backing me on this! I deserve to be in that debate, Sam!”

  “Deserve?” Sam snapped back. “How do you deserve any attention when you’re only pulling in 10 percent of the vote?”

  “The polls can be wrong. You know that.”

  “So what do you really have? Thirty percent? Forty? Did someone do the math wrong, Mark?” Sam said.

  “Mark, you’re not a contender this time around,” Randall interjected. “Give it another try in four years.”

  “I was a solid 15 percent and still climbing three weeks ago!”

  “And Super Tuesday blew you out of the water, Mark,” Sam said.

  “There’s still no clear winner,” Mark insisted. “It’s anybody’s game.”

  Sam shook his head.

  Mark was determined, but even he knew the party was going to have to side with a winner.

  “Look, it’s a matter of time,” Sam said. “Might as well face it, Mark.”

  “Go home. Spend time with your family. There’s no way for you to win it now,” Randall echoed. “It’s over.”

  “Harley’s all but sewn up the nomination,” Sam pointed out.

  “Not from where I sit,” Mark said.

  “Then you’d better scoot your chair back into reality, my friend, ‘cause we’re withdrawing our support,” Randall said matter-of-factly.

  “You’ve been sliding in the polls for weeks. That’s momentum in the opposite direction,” said Sam. “You’re at 10 percent now, Mark. Ten percent. And you’ve never even made it past 15 percent. You’ve been as low as three. We can’t continue to commit our resources to a train wreck!”

  “This debate would’ve done it for me, Sam! I could’ve hit a home run!” Mark snapped.