An Uncommon Grace (34 page)

Images of his family’s peaceful life being left in shreds because of this man’s greed.

“Levi?”

He heard a familiar voice—Jesse!

“
Bruder?
Are you okay?”

The rifle shot. Jesse had awakened because of the rifle shot. Jesse—always such a restless, light sleeper.

“Bring me that rope.” Levi nodded toward one looped over a nail in the barn wall. “Quick.”

Jesse didn’t hesitate. He ran to get the rope.

Levi’s attention was diverted by his brother for only a split second, but his grasp loosened a fraction, just enough to give the man the opening he needed. He twisted like an eel beneath Levi, freed himself, and lunged for the rifle lying discarded on the ground. He had it in his hands before Levi could stop him.

Jesse had already returned to Levi’s side. The now useless rope dangled from his hands.

It was probably simply a trick of the light, but Levi would have sworn that the man’s eyes glittered like an animal’s as he sighted down the rifle barrel.

“This gun’s not much, but if you take one step toward me,” the man said, “I’ll shoot the boy.”

Levi saw the muzzle of the rifle lower until it pointed directly at Jesse. And then he saw a crazy half smile spread over the man’s face—an expression that Levi had never seen on a human before. It looked as though the man was looking forward to pulling the trigger. Relishing it. As if shooting people were a sport.

If he had ever doubted that there was true insanity in the world, that doubt disappeared.

Grace was getting into the sheriff’s car when she heard a shot coming from Levi’s farm. It could be Levi scaring off a fox or coyote, or it could be something more sinister.

She and the sheriff looked at each other. He had heard the gunshot, too.

“Get out of the squad car, son,” the sheriff said.

“What?” Owen looked totally confused.

“Just get out—and don’t run away. I’m coming back for you later. Remember, you’re not under arrest. We just need to talk with you.”

The boy got out.

The sheriff turned to Grace. “You’re military-trained in weaponry?”

“I’m a nurse, but I did well on the rifle range in basic.”

“You know how to handle a shotgun?”

“Yes, sir.”

He backed out of her driveway and jammed his foot down on the accelerator.

Without giving thought to his own safety, Levi lunged toward the man, closing the distance between them at a full run. His headlong rush caught the man by surprise, but he still reacted in time to get off two shots that tore into Levi’s shoulder.

Levi felt the fire go through his body, but his only thought was to stop this man from hurting Jesse.

He fell against him, taking him down by the sheer force and weight of his body. The blow knocked the rifle out of the man’s grasp. Two seconds later, Levi had the man’s arms locked behind him. Without having to say a word, Jesse was already beside him, placing the rope in his hand.

Levi wound the rope around the man’s hands, and then both of his feet, hog-tying him as he would a calf.

The man lay cursing on the ground. He reminded Levi of a wounded snake as he writhed in the dust, and he hoped with all his heart that Jesse would not remember the bad words streaming from the man’s mouth.

By the grace of God, it was finished—and he had not even
struck the man except to knock him to the ground with his own body. He had absorbed the bullets into himself rather than allowing Jesse to be harmed.

He yanked on the end of the rope binding the man’s hands and feet, giving it one more cinch. He could feel the dizziness coming and he did not want to lose consciousness until he made certain that Jesse would no longer be at risk. Then he sank to the ground.

At that moment, the big sheriff came through the door with his gun drawn—and Grace directly behind him holding a shotgun.

“Not again!” Grace knelt beside him, held her hand pressed tight against the wound in his shoulder, and flipped open her cell phone with the other.

The last thing he remembered was thinking that he really needed to get one of those things. A man never knew when he might need one—for an emergency.

“Is my
Bruder
going to be okay?” Jesse’s voice was unsteady.

“Come here, sweetheart,” she said. “Do you suppose you could give me a hug? I could sure use one right now.”

The little boy didn’t hesitate. He flew toward her. She held him with her left arm while she pressed down on Levi’s wound with her right hand.

“Better?” she asked the little boy.

He nodded.

“It’s over now. This man will never hurt anyone again,” the sheriff said. “Your brother is very brave.”

“Now go get your
Maam,
” Grace said. “I think she will want to know what has happened.”

A few moments later Claire arrived wearing a long, plain nightgown. Her prayer
Kapp
was missing, her hair
was plaited down her back. Grace was impressed with the woman’s relative calm under the circumstances.

“How is he?” she asked anxiously.

“I’m pretty sure he’ll be fine, Claire,” Grace said. “Where’s Daniel?”

“Jesse is watching him.” She stared at the man lying trussed up on the ground. “Is that the man who shot my Levi?”

“Evidently,” the sheriff said.

“And killed my Abraham?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy.”

Claire walked over and squatted down beside Skraggs. “Why did you do these terrible things?”

Grace hoped nothing too vile would come out of the man’s mouth. It didn’t. He simply lay in the dirt, glaring at Claire, and then he spat at her.

Claire calmly wiped the spittle off her arm, stood up, and said the harshest thing Grace had ever heard her utter.

“I am glad my Levi knows how to tie such strong knots!”

“I
s Levi going to be okay?” Becky asked when she picked up Grace at Pomerene Hospital at dawn the next day.

Grace snapped on her seat belt. “By the grace of God, he is.”

Becky backed out of the parking spot. “Are you mad at me?”

“‘Mad’ isn’t a strong enough word, Becky,” Grace said. “I’m positively furious at you.”

“Because I gave Owen a place to stay?”

“No!” Grace slapped the seat. “That I can understand. I even understand trying to help him get enough money together to keep a killer at bay. What I’m furious about is that you kept all this from me.”

“You heard what the sheriff said.” Becky waited for traffic to clear, then pulled out onto the highway. “Frank might truly have hurt you.”

“He’s wrong about that.” Grace sank back into her seat, exhausted from a night of watching and worrying over Levi. “I can take care of myself. You should have told me.”

“Okay, so I made some stupid decisions. If I could do it over, I would make different ones. I was just doing the best I knew how. Can you ever forgive me?”

“I honestly don’t know yet.” Grace rummaged around in her
purse. “Do you have a mint? I feel as if my mouth is filled with cotton.”

“There’s some Tic Tacs in Grandma’s glove compartment.”

Grace shook some out into her hand. “You want one?”

“Thanks.” Becky popped one into her mouth without taking her eyes off the road.

“What happened while I was at the hospital?” Grace asked. “What did the sheriff do with Owen and Frank?”

“Frank’s in jail. The sheriff said they found a couple of his fingerprints on the bullets. The sheriff said he was glad Grandma wasn’t in the habit of keeping it already loaded, or it would have been harder to connect Frank to the murder.”

“What did he do about Owen?”

“The sheriff found a better temporary home for Owen than Grandma’s smokehouse.”

“Where’s that?”

“Some Old Order Amish man is giving Owen a place to stay in exchange for some work. Owen isn’t thrilled about getting up at four in the morning to put mechanical milkers on a herd of dairy cows, but he’s doing it.”

Grace sucked on the mint for a moment. “You’d better slow down. It’s too foggy to drive the speed limit. There are too many buggies on the roads in the morning.”

Becky obediently eased her foot off the accelerator.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Grace said. “Why did Skraggs need to use you to sell Grandma’s things? Why didn’t he just back a truck up, clean us out, and head to the next state?”

“He said everyone would be suspicious of him, but no one would suspect me because I’m just the sweet, innocent little granddaughter.”

“Are you trying to be funny?”

“No. It’s the truth. That’s what Frank said.”

“I still don’t
understand what Frank was doing at the Shetlers’ in the first place. How did he know there would be auction money there? He didn’t strike me as the kind of man to spend a lot of time hanging out at livestock auctions.”

“I found out only last night.” Becky swerved slightly to avoid a buggy and horses trotting along in the early-morning mist. “The murder happened on a Thursday morning. I didn’t know about Frank yet, and Owen didn’t want to get me involved. On the other hand, he didn’t have so much as a dime to give to Frank. On Wednesday, Owen had seen Abraham take a young horse to the weekly auction in Mt. Hope. He knew they would bring back cash and since the Amish are supposed to be nonviolent, he told Frank about it, thinking it would be a way of making Frank happy without anyone getting hurt.”

“Was Owen with Frank when he shot Abraham?”

“No. He didn’t even know Frank had the gun until afterward, when Frank started bragging about how he had shot Abraham and Claire. He said that’s when he realized Frank was crazy. Owen said he was scared stiff of the man. There’s something seriously wrong with Skraggs.”

Grace made a sound of disgust. “You think?”

“You really aren’t going to forgive me for a while, are you?”

“Nope.” Grace pointed. “Watch out. There’s another buggy.”

Becky swerved. “Gosh, they’re thick this morning.”

“It’s early,” Grace said. “And it’s a workday.”

“So many bicycles, too. Sometimes I wonder if Holmes County doesn’t have more bicycles than any other county in the United States. Even the Amish girls ride bikes to work.” Becky tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “Maybe I should get a job.”

“You’re going to have to if you’re going to pay Grandma back for the things you sold.”

“I took only the things she had told me I could have when she died.”

“She’s not dead yet, Becky!” Grace huffed. “Although I’m surprised this mess you made didn’t kill her.”

“I said I was sorry!”

“Yes, but it’s going to take a while before either one of us completely trusts you again.”

“I know.”

“What I don’t understand is how Frank managed to get the gun in the first place. Did you give it to him?”

“Of course not! He found it in Grandma’s house.”

“Skraggs was in our house?”

“Oh, yeah,” Becky said. “The first time I ever saw him, he was inside the house going through Grandma’s stuff and I surprised him. I about had a heart attack. He promised to stay out as long as I was giving him regular cash payments.”

“It gives me the creeps to know that he was going through our stuff!” Grace said.

“Are you ready to forgive me yet?”

“No.” Grace stared out the window for a few minutes. “What is the sheriff going to do to you?”

“I’ll have to testify, but the sheriff said he wasn’t going to charge me with anything except being young and stupid.”

“Nothing?”

“The only thing I had done illegally was sell some of Grandma’s things. The sheriff asked her if she wanted to press charges and she said that since I was her ride home, she’d rather not.”

“Sounds like her,” Grace said. “By the way, I saw the place where Owen was staying.”

“Sad, wasn’t it?”

“Very.”

“He was going to leave. He had found a job at one of the cheese-processing plants and was supposed to start next Monday. As soon as he got Frank paid off, he was going to find a place to rent.”

“You’ll need to go apologize to Claire and Levi for bringing this tragedy into their lives.”

“I’m really dreading that. But honestly, I was just trying to help. I never in a million years thought giving a friend a place to sleep would turn into this. Have you forgiven me yet?”

“Will you ever be dumb enough to do something like this again?”

“Not in a million years.”

Grace hesitated a moment. “I’ll work on it.”

“Y
ou should not be here,” Levi said as his mother brought soup and fresh-baked rolls to his room above the workshop. “The bishop would not approve.”

“Well, then we will be even, because I do not much approve of the bishop.”

“
Maam!
” He could hardly believe that his gentle mother had said such a thing. In their world, this was skirting very close to blasphemy.

“I will not shun my own son who has done nothing wrong.” She set the tray of food on his table. “Never again.”

“What? You will be disciplined if the bishop finds out.”

“The bishop is not God”—Claire put her hands on her hips—“and his daughter is not with child!”

This was surprising news to Levi. “How do you know?”

“I am not blind. I have helped deliver too many babies and watched too many women in the early stages of pregnancy. You can take my word on it. That girl is not carrying a child.”

“Does the bishop know?”

“Ezra Weaver is blind when it comes to his only daughter.”

“If you’re right,” Levi mused, “and she’s not pregnant, she’ll have to tell the bishop and her mother sometime.”

“Not necessarily,” Claire said.

“What do you mean?”

“She could always pretend that she ‘lost’ the baby.” Claire shrugged. “Zillah is good at pretending.”

“She is.”

His mother looked around the sparsely furnished room. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Only for this shoulder to heal so that I can get back to work. I’m worried about getting the rest of the planting finished.”