DC03 - Though Mountains Fall (27 page)

Caleb sighed heavily. Up to now he’d ignored Atlee’s indiscretions because drinking wasn’t expressly forbidden in their district, but now he had crossed the line. Now he had put his children at risk.

“Harvey, go hitch the buggy. I’ll be right out. Jemima, you have small children at home—go look after them. We’ll find Joe and Saloma.” She nodded without looking up and turned
toward the door. Before she opened it Caleb added, “I want you to know I plan to talk to Bishop Detweiler about Atlee. This has gone on long enough.”

Jemima looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes wide. “Oh, please do . . . but don’t tell Atlee I said that.”

———

The roosters were crowing, birds chattering, and the sky had grown pink in the east when two surreys crept slowly up the main road and turned into the Hostetler lane. When Caleb drove the lead buggy up into the yard Jemima burst from the door and ran out to meet him. He stopped, and she held her lantern high, peering at the girl lying on the back seat.

Jemima screamed, and her knees almost failed her when she saw Saloma’s face—a mass of yellow and purple bruises, one eye swollen nearly shut and blood smeared in wide swaths from her nose and mouth. Her kapp was missing, her hair tangled and matted.

“She’ll live,” Caleb said, “but she’s beat up pretty bad.”

Harvey pulled up beside them in the other surrey, and Caleb nodded in his direction. “Harvey’s got Joe, and he’s beat up worse than Saloma.”

Jemima ran to look at the dark form crumpled in the back of Harvey’s surrey.

“His jaw’s broke,” Harvey said, “and some of his fingers.”

Horrified, Jemima looked back at Caleb and cried, “What
happened
?”

“We don’t know.” He lifted the limp girl from the back seat of the buggy and started toward the house with her. “Joe can’t talk . . . and Saloma
won’t
.”

Jemima followed him into the house and showed him where to put her. The younger children peeked around the doorframe, and two of Saloma’s sisters ran to her bedside.

“She drug herself a ways to get to her brother’s side,” Caleb said. “We found them together, but Joe was unconscious until we went to put him in the buggy. I guess we mashed his hand and the pain brought him around. With his jaw like that he’s not going to be able to eat, so we’re gonna have to get him to the doctor in Agua Nueva—a rough road, but it’s the closest doctor.”

Jemima nodded meekly. “Did you find Atlee?”

“No, we didn’t see him anywhere. Nor his hack, neither.”

———

Caleb went to put away Hostetler’s horse and buggy while Harvey stayed with Joe. When he came out of the barn the sky had lightened and he could see a hack coming up the main road very slowly. Caleb squinted. The driver slumped forward as if he couldn’t quite hold himself erect, and as he drew nearer Caleb could just make out a black, pointed beard.

Atlee.

Harvey’s buggy horse pranced and snorted, but Caleb looked at his son and held up a finger—
wait
.

Atlee’s hack crept up the lane past Harvey’s buggy, finally stopping in front of Caleb.

Jemima came to the door and looked, but went no farther.

“Are you all right?” she called from the doorway.

“Jah,” Atlee said gruffly, and jerked his head toward Caleb. “What are
they
doing here?”

Jemima opened her mouth to answer but froze, looking back and forth between Atlee and Caleb as if she needed help answering. The fear in her eyes told Caleb all he needed to know. When a belligerent drunk asked a question there was never a right answer.

Atlee didn’t wait for one. He rose from the seat and made to climb down, but he caught his toe and stumbled. Falling, he reached for Caleb’s shoulder to catch himself. Caleb stepped back
so the hand caught only air, and Atlee fell flat on his face in the dirt. He shook himself, then lurched awkwardly to his feet. His eyes were bloodshot, and a rancid tequila smell rolled off of him.

“I’m all right,” he grunted. “I’m fine.”

“No, I don’t think you are. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Atlee. Joe and Saloma were beat half to death last night, and from where I’m standing it looks like your fault.”

“What are you talking about, Caleb? Why, I never even
seen
them. What happened?”

“When you didn’t come home they went looking for you, and found trouble instead. Some of your federale friends, I suspect. Your children were lucky—they’ll live—but Joe’s jaw is broke and his hands are busted up. He can’t eat like that, so somebody’s got to take him to the doctor in Agua Nueva.”

“Then I’ll take him. He’s
my
son, none of your concern.” But Atlee almost lost his balance as he said it and flung his arms out to steady himself.

“You’re in no shape for the trip. I’ll take care of Joe—you see to Saloma. I’ll send Rachel over. In Paradise Valley she’s the closest thing we’ve got to a nurse, and I’m thinking maybe she can help.”

“We don’t need any help,” Atlee grunted.

Caleb bristled, his patience at an end. “I’m in no mood to pay you any mind just now, Atlee. I’m the one having to take care of your children. Get some coffee in you and see to your chores.” Then he turned and headed for Harvey and the waiting buggy.

He didn’t look back.

“Be gentle,” her father said when he asked Rachel to go tend Saloma, “but try to find out the
whole
truth about what happened.”

It was odd, the way he said that. The Hostetler girl was five years younger than Rachel and they didn’t know each other all that well. Anyway, it should be Saloma’s family’s job to take care of her unless there was some reason her mother couldn’t do it. Odd. There was something her dat wasn’t saying, she could see it in his eyes—some unconfirmed suspicion that Rachel couldn’t begin to guess. What did he mean, the “whole truth”?

By the time Rachel got there Atlee had already gone to work in his fields as if nothing had happened. It didn’t surprise her. Atlee could be alone in his fields, away from accusing eyes.

Jemima didn’t want to let her in at first. She blocked the door and said, a little defensively, “We can take care of our own.”

“I know you can,” Rachel answered, and showed Jemima her bag. “But I’ve got some salves and herbal remedies Kyra showed me—stuff that’ll make her feel a lot better. How’s she doing?”

“I don’t know—she won’t talk. Hasn’t said a word.”

“I see. Well, you know . . . I’m only a few years older and I’ve been mistreated by bandits myself, so I thought maybe she’ll talk to me. You never know.”

Jemima pondered this for a minute, staring suspiciously, but she finally stepped aside and let Rachel in.

Saloma’s mother had already cleaned her up and put a gown on her. Now the girl lay in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin, her face turned to the side. She didn’t even look when Rachel sat down on the edge of her bed. Jemima eased out of the room.

“So how are you feeling?” Rachel asked softly, brushing blond hair lightly out of the girl’s face.

A tiny shrug was the only acknowledgment.

“Any broken bones?”

A slight shake of the head. Saloma still wouldn’t look at her.

She touched a finger to the girl’s chin. “Can I please just
look at your face? It’ll be all right, I promise. I won’t hurt you at all; I just need to see.”

Saloma’s resistance ebbed a bit and her face turned slowly toward Rachel. The left side was one big purple-and-yellow bruise, her left eye was swollen half shut, and a thin trail of watery blood trickled from her nose. Rachel reached for the pan of water on the nightstand, squeezed out a cloth and dabbed away the blood. When her knuckles lightly brushed Saloma’s upper lip she flinched.

“Is your mouth hurt?”

Saloma stared blankly, then her hand crept from under the covers. Wincing, she hooked a finger in the corner of her mouth and showed Rachel the gap where two teeth were missing.

Brutal. Whoever these men were, they were animals, and Rachel could not prevent the memory from welling up inside her—the stinking bandit manhandling her, the utter defenselessness, the sinking, hopeless feeling. Things would have gone much worse for her if Jake hadn’t intervened.

But Jake
did
intervene. Rachel’s attacker had come to her in the middle of the night with a specific thing in mind, and it was only Jake who stopped it from happening.

Now she looked into Saloma’s eyes and saw the lingering residue of that same horror, that same disgust. Her father said they’d found Saloma’s brother unconscious, which likely meant he’d tried to intervene, but failed. Suddenly she understood her father’s suspicion and knew what he meant by the “whole truth.”

She pulled her bag up to her lap and took out a little jar.

“This is a salve that comes from local yucca plants,” she said, opening the jar. “It will ease the pain if you’ll let me put some of it on you. Would that be all right?” she asked softly.

Saloma nodded.

Rachel talked to her in quiet, soothing tones while she gently
dabbed salve on the girl’s face with a fingertip. “I know you’ve heard the story about when bandits kidnapped me,” she said, her eyes on her work, avoiding direct eye contact. “They treated me pretty rough, but they never beat me like this. They tied my hands and made me ride double with one of them a long way through the mountains. I slept that night tied to a tree.”

While she talked, her hands worked, fingertips making light circles. She finished with the bruises on Saloma’s face, wiped her hands on a cloth and kept talking as she lifted Saloma’s arm.

“There was one of them who wanted to do other things to me. Terrible things,” she said as she slid the sleeve of Saloma’s gown up her arm. As she suspected, there were finger bruises on her wrist. Delving into memories she would rather have forgotten, she kept talking as she inched the sleeve higher. “He came to me twice, once the first night, and again the next night, in the barn. Someone stopped him, both times, or something far worse would have happened.”

More finger bruises, and deeper, just above the elbow. She pulled Saloma’s sleeve back down, patted her forearm reassuringly. The girl kept her eyes averted.

Rachel leaned down very close to her ear and whispered, “But Joe couldn’t stop the men who attacked you, could he?”

Saloma flinched and her eyes slammed shut, squeezing out tears. “You must tell no one,” she whispered, her voice quavering. They were the first words she had spoken since the assault.

“Saloma, I—”

“My mother has enough worries already, and I’m afraid of what my father will say if he finds out.” Her swollen eyes opened and bored into Rachel. “Dat wasn’t there. He doesn’t know, and you must not tell him. Tell
no one
.”

Oh, what this poor child must be going through, all
alone in a house of fear, with no one to
trust.

Rachel nodded. “All right. I will keep it to myself as far as I am able, but I know my father will ask. I can’t lie to him, and if I refuse to answer he will know why. This I cannot help. I’m sorry.”

“Make him
promise
,” Saloma hissed through her teeth, a heartrending mixture of shame and terror.

Privacy was the poor girl’s only remaining right. All others had been thrown down and trampled. Invaded.

“All right. I will make him promise. Now please, dear, tell me what happened.”

Saloma turned her face away and closed her eyes. Rachel thought she had withdrawn again, but then she began to speak very softly in the high-pitched tremor of a little girl.

“Joe and me heard a noise in the dark alley and went to it with the lantern, thinking it might be Dat. It wasn’t. There were two of them, in soldier uniforms, one in front of us and one behind. There was no way to run. Joe tried to tell them we were only looking for Dat, but they just laughed. And then they hit him.”

She fell silent, eyes still closed, and took two or three shaky breaths. When she spoke again Rachel had to lean close to hear, for she whispered.

“The big one grabbed me and threw me down. When Joe tried to pick me up the other one hit him from behind. They both jumped on Joe and beat him and beat him and beat him. He didn’t fight back or anything, and they knocked him out pretty quick, but they didn’t stop hitting him. I begged them to stop, but they kicked him and stomped him with their boots. I thought he was dead.”

She began to cry softly. “Then they came and . . . took me. Both of them.”

Now she opened her eyes and looked at Rachel, tears
streaming. “I’m so ashamed, Rachel. I couldn’t stop them. I never should have been there. It’s my fault. If I hadn’t been there they wouldn’t have hurt Joe.”

Rachel could take no more. She was crying herself as she wrapped her arms around Saloma and drew her up close in a careful hug.

“Child, you didn’t do anything wrong. You only went to find your dat, and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was
not your
fault
. There’s a lot of evil people in the world, that’s all.”

Rachel whispered the words over and over while they cried into each other’s shoulders.