A Dark Amish Night

by Jenny Moews

  Both Timothy and Ruth Anne brightened at the mention of this rare treat. They were out the door almost before Hannah could catch up.

  The last week of her shunning passed uneventful. Timothy was struggling at school, but thankfully he’d not had any more fighting incidents. Then came the final Sunday of her shunning, this service was just as the other two had been, awful. Hannah was so relieved when it was done. She just had a few more days to go and this nightmare would be behind her and her children.

  The evening she was to be presented to the community and welcomed back into the community came at last. She stood at the front, facing the Bishop with her back to the congregation. The indistinct chatter of voices became silent as the Bishop began to speak.

  “Widow Hershberger, having endured the shunning from the community, are you prepared to repent forever of your sins of impure thoughts and in carrying on an inappropriate forbidden relationship with an outsider to the Amish faith? Are you ready to rejoin your brothers and sisters in a pure and faithful community?”

  “Yes, Bishop, I repent of my sins of impure thoughts and in having a forbidden relationship with an outsider to the faith. I would like very much to rejoin my brothers and sisters of our community.”

  “Do you promise to keep your thoughts pure and to not have any kind of relationship with the English man who is not your husband?”

  “Yes, Bishop, I give my word.” Hannah kept her eyes downcast and her head bowed in a display of submission. She had to keep reminding herself that she was doing this for her children. She could do this for her children.

  “Then turn around and be welcomed back into the fold. You are forgiven.”

  Hannah turned around and smiled as warmly as she could at everyone in the room. She expected to be surrounded by loving arms to be forever forgiven. The only ones who came forward to greet her were Millie and Abe. Then Pattie Sue came and wrapped her in a loving embrace. They both cried on each other’s shoulders. Hannah never thought the day would come when Pattie Sue was her most beloved friend.

  The others in the packed church still held back. They did not openly shun her, but Hannah figured she would forever be tainted in the eyes of her community. She could live with that as long as they fully accepted her children back with open arms. She wondered, then, why she felt like she had just made a huge mistake. Because I will always regret you, Quinn. She answered herself.

  The bakery stayed busy with an almost constant stream of customers. The Thanksgiving holiday brought in even more work. Hannah and Dylan took turns running back and forth to the front counter while they worked tediously on decorating a special order wedding cake. It had been two weeks since she had been welcomed back to the fold. Yet the only Amish to visit the bakery had been Abe, Millie, and Pattie Sue.

  Millie was entering her second trimester. Hannah thought she positively glowed. Abe had decided it was time for Millie to not have to spend a large part of her day going to and from the farm in the buggy so she would not be returning to work at the bakery. Hannah was overjoyed for them and completely understood.

  Pattie Sue came to the bakery early every morning for a cup of coffee. Hannah never brought up the issue of her brother. She considered Pattie Sue her dearest friend and there was no point in discussing matters that they could not change. Pattie Sue was at first very suspicious of Dylan, but Dylan completely won her over with a delightful apple pecan turnover.

  Hannah worried for Timothy. Though things at school had gotten a little better, he was still having some issues with certain boys. All she could do was pray the situation would work itself out.

  “Whew, I’m so glad that’s done.” Dylan plopped herself down on a stool and surveyed the entirely white and freshly decorated three tier wedding cake she and Hannah had been working on.

  “Me too.” Hannah thought she might take a short break too, but the doors to the bakery swung open and an out of breath young Amish girl ran in.

  “Mrs. Hershberger, you have to come quick. Teacher sent me to get you. It’s Timothy.”

  Hannah threw off her white icing covered apron and ran out the door before the girl could say another word. She ran as fast as her legs would carry her to the schoolhouse. There she found Timothy swinging a big stick to keep everyone away from him.

  “My mother is not a whore!” He shouted as he swung the sick in a wide circle around him,

  Hannah did not hesitate. She ran to Timothy jerked the big stick out of his hands then pulled her boy close to her. Timothy crumpled in his mother’s arms as hot tears flowed down his cheeks.

  After Timothy had calmed down, and the Bishop had been sent for, Hannah sat with Timothy in an empty classroom. Timothy’s eyes were red and swollen from crying. The two of them sat in silence until the teacher and the Bishop came to join them.

  Hannah did not give either of them a chance to talk as she flew into a tirade. “This is your fault, Bishop Miller. You said my children were innocent and that they would not be shunned with me. But that is exactly what happened. It’s still happening.”

  “Hannah, I know you’re upset, and I know you and Timothy have been through a lot. You’re right, I should have done more. I just didn’t know things had gotten this out of hand.”

  “Well, it’s no matter now. I’m withdrawing my son from this school. I’ll homeschool him.”

  “Hannah, are you sure you can do that and run the bakery full time?”

  Hannah took Timothy by the hand and led him out of the classroom without answering the Bishop. She felt good having stuck up for herself and her son, but she hoped she had done the right thing. When they got back to the bakery Hannah thanked Dylan for watching over Ruth Anne as she had left the bakery in a panic. Then she turned her attention to Timothy.

  “Are you okay? You want to tell me what happened?”

  “I’ll be all right. I’m glad you took me out of the school. I don’t care if I ever go back there. I don’t want to talk about it. Am I in trouble?” Timothy looked up at his mother with those red puffy eyes and Hannah’s heart broke. Dear Lord, how much more can my boy take? This has to be it. He’s had enough.

  “Well, why don’t we talk about this later when we’re at home?” Hannah let the matter drop for now. She still had to finish out the work day, so she sent Timothy to sit with Ruth Anne while she and Dylan closed up the shop.

  The next day was Thanksgiving and Hannah thought they might attend a group dinner with the church, but decided instead to stay home with the children. She made a small dinner and the three of them rested at home the remainder of the day. She let the incident at school with Timothy go. It was just too painful to think about punishing Timothy for defending his mother’s honor.

  A Dark Amish Night

  Chapter Nineteen

  Quinn’s days at work got longer and longer. He hated going home to an empty house, so he worked Thanksgiving and ate a heated, over frozen turkey dinner for lunch. Those old feelings of loss always hit him hard when he was alone. He was vigilant about watching over Hannah as she came and went, always keeping a safe distance. He carried himself through his days doing the best he could to keep his thoughts of Hannah at bay. When he did make it home, he crashed onto his bed and then got up the next morning to start all over again.

  Ollie checked in with him often for any updates. It was during one of these calls in early December that something occurred to him. It was kind of a hunch, but Quinn’s gut feelings were usually right. He got off the phone with Ollie and pulled Peter’s rap sheet and put it next to Georgie McVey’s.

  “Hmmm…” Quinn scratched his head. By the look of it McVey and Peter Yoder had been in prison at the same time. He made a few phone calls and had an answer. Not only had McVey and Peter been incarcerated at the same time they had been cellmates. This was an interesting connection. Perhaps these two were chums searching for the gold together. It was now time to pay Peter an impromptu visit with some more questions. He picked up his hat. As he was leaving he hollered to Jess.
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br />   “Hey, Jess, I’ll be back later. I need to head out to the Yoder farm. I have my cell on me; you can call me if you need anything. Quinn still had not had that conversation with Jess about his relationship to the Yoder’s yet. That was because Quinn did not want to tip any of Peter’s family off that Peter was a suspect, but one day soon he figured he needed to have that conversation.

  Peter’s farm was even more remote than Hannah’s. Quinn parked his car and Rachel called out from the front porch of the house.

  “Evening, Sheriff, what can I do for you?”

  “I need to speak to Peter. Is he around?”

  “He’s in the barn.” Rachel pointed the way to the large red barn.

  Quinn tipped his hat to Rachel and headed to the barn. Peter did not seem too surprised to see him. Quinn could tell that Peter had been working with his horses and was now putting them in stalls for the night.

  “Evening, Sheriff, what brings you all the way out here?”

  “I had a couple more questions to ask you about your time in prison.” Quinn again watched for Peter’s body language. As far as he could tell Peter was not happy to be answering questions about his past, but more resigned to it than before.

  “What do you want to know?” Peter was putting away equipment and gear, but he stopped and stood to face Quinn.

  “I was wondering what you might could tell me about an old cellmate of yours, George McVey, goes by Georgie.”

  “Yeah, I remember Georgie. It was kind of a coincidence he and I ended up in the same cell.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, Georgie grew up around here. He’s Pattie Sue’s brother. Left the faith when he was seventeen and never came back.”

  “What can you tell me about Georgie’s father hiding gold up in the woods around the Hershberger farm?”

  “Yeah, Georgie, he liked to talk about how he was going to come back and find that gold. He was going to be rich and buy him a house with a swimming pool.”

  “And it never crossed your mind to go hunting for that gold, being as it was right here, so close and all.”

  “Awk, Sheriff, you hear lots of stories in prison about money stashed here and there. I never paid no mind to it. I served my time. I got out and started a family. I came back here to put all that behind me and I never looked back. I don’t have need for gold, least not so bad that I would go digging around those woods for it.”

  “I see. So have you heard from your old buddy since you got out of prison?”

  “Yeah, he came out here back in March, I guess it was. He wanted me to go help him find that gold. I told him I didn’t want nothing to do with that. Rachel fed him a good meal then I sent him on his way. I feel for the guy, but my old life is behind me and I can’t afford to be getting involved in some fool scheme with an outsider. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “Well then you wouldn’t mind if I took a look around just to be sure.”

  “Be my guest. Look anywhere you want. Sheriff, you wouldn’t be thinking that Georgie would be the one to have killed Eric? Georgie, he’s a nice guy. Not real smart, but he ain’t no killer.”

  “Right, duly noted. You’ll let me know right away then if you hear from him.”

  “I sure will.” Peter shook Quinn’s hand.

  Quinn took a short walk around the farm. It was getting dark and he didn’t find anything out of place. As he drove away, a small crack opened from the woodshed behind the barn, a pair of eyes peaked out and watched carefully as the squad car sped off.

  Hannah sat on her front porch watching the weather. A storm was coming in. A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky followed by a loud rumble of thunder. Ruth Anne jerked upright out of Hannah’s lap at the loud thunderclap.

  “It’s all right, little one. It’s just a storm coming in. Let’s get you up to bed.” Hannah started to head in when she noticed a squad car coming up the road. Quinn, you have to stop checking on us so often. Hannah stood in front of her door for just a few seconds hoping to catch a glimpse of Quinn as he passed by. Hannah had known for a long time that Quinn kept watch over her and the children. She wanted many times to tell him to stop, but the truth was, until Eric’s killer was found she felt safer knowing Quinn was always close by.

  The squad car pulled up in front of the house and stopped. Hannah’s breath caught in her throat. Surely Quinn would not be so bold as to come visit her at night, and he’d promised to go through Bishop Miller if he needed to talk to her. But Hannah was surprised to see that it was Jess, not Quinn, who stepped out of the car.

  The front door jerked open and hit a wall with a loud thud. Timothy bolted out the door with his father’s hunting rifle in his hand.

  “You get away from my mother and sister.” Timothy leveled the gun at Jess’s chest.

  Hannah screamed. “Timothy, what on earth are you doing? You put that gun down this instant.”

  Timothy stood still while Jess put his hands up in the air and slowly walked toward Timothy and the gun.

  “Now, Timothy, you better listen to your mother there, son. Put the gun down so no one gets hurt.” Jess crept closer and closer.

  Timothy stood his ground and lifted the gun higher. “Stop right there or I’ll shoot. I mean it. I’ll do it.”

  Hannah watched in shock and horror. When it looked like Timothy was really going to fire she grabbed the barrel of shot gun and pulled it away from Jess just as the rifle went off with a loud, Pow!

  Jess grabbed the gun and Timothy at the same time. He jerked Timothy towards him. “You got some explaining to do, boy. Who’ve you been talking to, huh? We had an agreement, didn’t we?”

  “I didn’t tell nobody nothin’.” Timothy squirmed to try and wiggle out of Jess’ grasp.

  “That so, then how about you tell me what the Sheriff is doing out at the Yoder farm right now?” Jess pulled Timothy closer to try and hold him still.

  Hannah tried to get close enough to get in between her son and Jess, but Jess was too fast for her. He let go of Timothy and shoved him to the ground. In one swift move he cocked the rifle then grabbed Hannah, who was still holding Ruth Anne. Jess pointed the rifle at Hannah’s belly.

  “Now, you gonna keep playing games with me boy, or you gonna tell me who you’ve been talking to and what did you say?”

  “You let my mother and sister go, right now, or you’ll never get that gold. I found it, and I hid it someplace you’ll never find it.”

  “You’re gonna take me to that gold right now or I’m gonna not only kill you, but your Ma and sister too.” Jess shoved Hannah and Ruth Anne to the squad car and locked them in the backseat. Then he grabbed Timothy and shoved him in with them. With all three locked in the backseat Jess got in the car tossed the rifle beside him, and drove away. He picked up his cell phone and made one call.

  “I got all three of ‘em. You get to the Hershberger farm, and you know what to do. I’m bringing the boy. He knows where the gold is.” Jess hung up and kept driving. Lightning continued to flash across the sky as the thunder rolled.

  Quinn was just making it back into town when a call came across the radio about a gunshot fired. A shot had been heard in Hannah’s neighborhood. He turned on his sirens and hit the lights as he floored the gas pedal. Dear God, let Hannah and the children be safe.

  A Dark Amish Night

  Chapter Twenty

  Hannah did her best to keep Ruth Anne quiet in her lap. She whispered gently in her little girl’s ears and held tightly to Timothy’s hand. It was obvious now what Timothy had been hiding all these months. Jess had something to do with Eric’s death and it had something to do with the gold that was supposedly hidden in the woods near her farm.

  She heard on Jess’ radio that someone had called in a report about a gunshot in her neighborhood. She said a silent prayer for Quinn to figure out what happened quickly. She prayed he would come for her soon.

  Jess took them to her farm. Hannah could see that a dark old pick-up truck was parked next to th
e barn. She remembered Quinn saying something about Pattie Sue’s brother owning a dark blue Ford truck, and he warned her to watch out for it. When they stopped, Jess got out and went into the house, leaving the three of them locked in the back of the squad car.

  “Timothy, tell me quick before he comes back, what’s going on?”

  “I’m so sorry, Ma. I tried to make sure you and Ruth Anne were safe. But Deputy Jess swore he would kill all of us if I said anything to anyone.”

  “Never mind about all that now. What did Jess do? Why did he threaten to kill us?”

  “They threatened Pa. They told him if he said anything they would hurt his family. Then I’m not sure what happened. I was still down in the floor of the buggy, and I couldn’t see anything. Pa told me when he saw the red lights flashing on Jess’ car when he pulled us over to stay down and keep quiet. I did what he told me to, Ma, but if I had done something maybe Pa would be alive. What if I could’ve saved him? Then I heard them yelling at Pa. They were saying something about him minding his own business and keeping his mouth shut. I heard some noises like shuffling and then it got real quiet. Then they came back to the buggy. I was crying for Pa and they heard me. Deputy Jess pulled me out of the buggy and told me if I said a word he would kill me and kill you and Ruth Anne. Then this old man came…” Before Timothy could finish talking the front door to the house opened and Jess came out with another person.

  Hannah tried to see who was with Jess, but it was too dark to make the figure out. Jess came around to the car door opened it and pulled Timothy out. Hannah screamed and pounded on the window. “No, please, please, Jess, don’t take my son. Please leave him with me.” Her screams went ignored as Jess took Timothy into the barn where the other person waited. Hannah cried out in terror as more lightning hit with crashing thunder now. The storm was closer.