Deadline (23 page)

And now Diana faced her own time of truth. Everything else around her was smothered under waves of nostalgia and fear, and she saw Joanne Sayers as just a frightened child. Not a dangerous public enemy, not a rabid animal. Stripped of all her bad press, Joanne was just another creature who needed help. Wasn’t that what her father had always said?
We are all our brother’s keeper.
They were coming up to the farmhouse slowly, riding under the perfectly even trees that lined the road. Behind them, the paved road slipped from sight behind the trees and underbrush. Just ahead was the house, tree-shaded and recently painted. Behind the house stood a new barn.

“I’ll have to introduce you as friends of mine. As husband and wife. That’s the only way this can work.”

“Okay with me,” Joanne said.

Several buckboards stood in the clearing ahead. The horses had been unhitched and led around to a small paddock adjoining the barn. Two little boys had come outside and were sitting together on the front steps, watching. They wore the plain clothes of all Amish kids. Their wide-brimmed black hats almost dwarfed them.

Walker parked the car. Diana took a deep breath and opened the door. “Let’s do it, people,” she said. Her voice was flat, the voice of someone talking to herself. She was a novice again, about to audition for her most important part. In the eyes of her parents, she would be found lacking. She knew that in advance. The only question was one of degree.

Walker and Joanne followed her across the grassy brown lawn. They came together, as husband and wife might. As they reached the edge of the porch, Walker noticed that Joanne had left the bag, along with the gun, inside the car.

Diana stopped at the foot of the steps. “Hello,” she said to the boys. “What are your names?”

“Aaron Yoder, ma’am. This is my brother Daniel.”

“I see. Then Daniel Yoder Sr. is your father.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then I’m your aunt Diana. I’m your father’s sister.”

The boys looked at each other curiously and said nothing more.

“Would you please go inside and tell your grandpa I’m here?”

The older boy jumped up and disappeared into the house. Diana looked at Walker and again her eyes were full of sadness and fear. Walker smiled at her and tears started down her cheeks.

The door opened and a graying woman, perhaps sixty years old, stood before them. For a full minute, Walker didn’t know what to expect. The older woman gave nothing until, quite suddenly, she hurried down the five wooden steps and embraced her daughter. Diana cried against her mother’s breast. When she could talk, she said, “Mama, these are my friends. Mr. Walker. His…wife. Joanne.” She looked guilty as the lie passed her lips. Walker wondered if the old woman could see it. To Walker, Diana said, “My mother, Rachel Yoder.”

Mrs. Yoder offered a thin, dry hand and no expression at all. She led them into a warm, dark house. Diana was almost overcome by the look of it, by its feel and smells and tiny, dark corners. There were five rooms, with no frills in any. The floors were bare hardwood, each with a small oval rug in its center. They squeaked when you walked on them. The main part of the house consisted of a single room, almost like a meeting room in a community center. Chairs ringed it, as though it had been set up for a prayer meeting. The chairs were straight-backed and hard.

The kitchen area was against the far wall. There was a wood-burning stove of black iron, and a pile of logs beside it, and nearby was a handmade table that extended or contracted to whatever degree of intimacy you wanted. Now it was pulled out, with the appropriate wooden leaves added, to serve perhaps a dozen.

There were three younger women hard at work in the kitchen. Diana knew them, but from very long ago, before they had married into her family. Mrs. Yoder introduced them in a voice that halted, as though suddenly uncertain if they knew each other, and how well. The one nearest the window was Trudy, the wife of Diana’s youngest brother Michael. She took Diana’s hand warmly and smiled into her eyes, then greeted Walker and Joanne with equal warmth. She was a plain farm girl with freckles. Susan Yoder was lovely and aloof. She was Daniel Yoder’s wife, and Walker remembered that Daniel was the eldest, the strictest religiously, and was the man they had seen on the road coming west to Chicago. Susan Yoder didn’t speak or offer her hand. Her eyes met Diana’s briefly, and she did not look at Walker or Joanne at all. She was perhaps thirty, Diana’s age, and her skin was creamy and her hair had a red tint to it. She turned back to the sink at once and went on with her work.

The third wife, now about seven months pregnant, was Abe’s wife Elizabeth. She took the middle ground, not nearly as friendly as Trudy, but not as cold and distant as Susan. She spoke an unintelligible word, then, at Mrs. Yoder’s direction, began extending the table to include their guests. “You’re in time for dinner,” Mrs. Yoder said.

She told them that the men had walked over to the next farm to look at Mr. Jenkins’ horse, which Daniel was thinking of buying. They would be back shortly. Joanne told Mrs. Yoder that they had eaten and didn’t want to intrude on the dinner hour, but already the woman was helping Elizabeth set three extra plates. Diana was obviously surprised at being asked to join the table. She excused herself and went out back, to the outhouse. Mrs. Yoder looked increasingly uneasy. Joanne offered to help, and Mrs. Yoder didn’t know how to react to that. Trudy came over and told them to sit and relax until the men got home.

Diana got back just ahead of the men. She put on an apron and went to work. No one objected. Susan Yoder made room for her near the sink as if she had never been away at all; as if she had always been a good Amish girl, doing for her men. Joanne and Walker sat in the straight-backed chairs, which were even more uncomfortable than they looked. They waited in silence.

It was almost a place out of time, a frontier home moved suddenly into the twentieth century, but unchanged and unchangeable by all of it. The only light came from four oil lamps, which hung by nails in each corner, and from the yellow glow of a fire in the hearth.

“I don’t believe this,” Joanne said softly.

A moment later, she said, “It’s beautiful.”

Jacob Yoder was a powerfully built man with piercing eyes. He stood in the doorway and peered into the room, tipped off to the arrival of outsiders by the presence of a car in his yard. Flanking him were his three grown sons. The sight of them, outlined in shadow in the open doorway, gave Walker a momentary chill. Mrs. Yoder crossed to her husband and said in a flat voice, “It’s Diana, Jacob. Daughter’s come home.”

There was no display between them. Jacob Yoder looked past his wife and found the agonized eyes of his daughter. They didn’t move toward each other. He withheld his words in a fine display of dramatics, and she simply had no words to withhold. For a moment Walker was certain that she would go to pieces, but she didn’t. She didn’t look away, either. Her eyes were wide and her face absolutely white.

“So you’ve come home,” the old man said at last. He took a step closer, and Walker saw Diana’s lower lip quiver.

“Here to stay, are you?”

Diana didn’t answer at once. The question had caught her by surprise. Like so many things that she knew by heart, she had looked beyond it, had overlooked the simplicity and leaped past the narrowness of his thinking. She was prepared for broader talk. She had lived in the city too long, and now the fundamental nature of her people surprised her with its black-and-white directness. She swallowed and said, “I don’t know.” Her brother Daniel threw his hands up in the air, impatience bursting through the awkwardness of their long estrangement. “God help us all,” he said.

Jacob Yoder ignored his son and now stepped past his daughter. “I don’t believe I know you, sir.” Diana introduced them once more as Mr. and Mrs. Walker. She seemed surprised when her father said, “Will you have some food with us?” Michael came forward and hugged Diana around the shoulders. Her face went red with pleasure. Abe kept his distance, but smiled slightly when their eyes met. Daniel gave not an inch.

“We’ll be going, Father,” he said.

“As you wish,” Jacob Yoder said.

Daniel, unable to conceal his anger, gathered Susan and his boys and hustled them out through the front door. Through a side window, Walker could hear him harnessing his horse. A moment later the buckboard hurried down the dirt road.

“Daniel is impulsive,” Jacob Yoder said to Walker. It was an attempt at explanation, not apology. “Daughter here has told you about us?”

“A little,” Walker said.

“Good. Then you do understand.” He turned to his wife. “Let’s eat.”

They washed up and ate without further talk. Jacob Yoder rolled up his sleeves and gave thanks, and they passed the steaming plates from hand to hand. The meat was ham, and there were rice and cabbage and cornbread. Diana ate little, having eaten just an hour before, but Joanne ate heartily. Jacob Yoder’s eyes darted around, and always came to rest upon his daughter.

“I expect you’ll find things changed around here,” he said.

Again she forced herself to look at him. “Oh?”

“There’s been some letup in the old ways.”

“Father’s been one of the main movers in that direction,” Michael said.

Jacob silenced him with a look. “The Church was too strict for this day and age,” he said.

“I never thought I’d hear you say that, Father.”

For a while, Jacob said nothing. He ate as he thought, slowly, mechanically. Then he said, “It was driving out the young. Understand, there’s been no relaxing of basic beliefs. But some of the old practices weren’t in our best interests.”

Again she balled up her courage and faced him. “Like shunning, you mean?”

“That’s part of it. It makes no sense to shun family. No sense to some of us.”

“Daniel’s still caught up in the old ways,” Michael said.

“Daniel Yoder can be a pig-headed young man,” Jacob said.

“That’s how he was raised, Father,” Diana said.

The old man looked at her sharply.

“I didn’t mean he was raised to be pig-headed,” she said quickly. “I meant he was raised to be strict and follow the old ways.”

“You have to admit that, Father,” Michael said. “She’s right about that. You made us tow the mark when we were little.”

“Something you’ve sadly forgotten with age,” Jacob said. “That’s the trouble with change. Don’t you think so, Mr. Walker?”

Walker was surprised to be included. He mumbled something noncommittal, about change always being full of danger as well as opportunity.

“That’s sure the truth.” Jacob Yoder looked at his daughter, and again his eyes were relentless. She seemed to wither before him. Twice he seemed on the verge of words, but he took another bite each time and went on chewing. And Walker thought, this guy would have made a great film director. In another time and place.

“So the Church has changed, and I wanted you to know it, before you go deciding whether you’ll go or stay.”

“Father, I only came back for a visit. Because I wanted to see you all.”

“We’ll see. You’ll be here at least through the weekend.”

“I suppose so.”

“Then you’ll be here for church Sunday. It’ll be at the Jenkins house, and I want you to be there with us.”

“I don’t know.”

Mrs. Yoder looked at her daughter and nodded. Her eyes were full of hope.

“I suppose I could,” Diana said.

“Good. Then it’s settled.”

Michael leaned over the table. “You will find it different, Diana.”

She smiled.

“We’ve split away from the main body,” Michael added.

“Really? That’s incredible.”

“Incredible?” Jacob Yoder seemed offended. “Why do you find it so incredible, miss? Do you think your father is so hidebound and unbending that he can’t make up his own mind about things?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, since Michael here’s taken it on himself to tell you, he might as well tell it all. Go ahead.”

Michael seemed unperturbed. “About three years after you left, there were a lot of runaways.”

“Let’s get our facts straight,” Jacob Yoder said. “Three children, of which two later came back. Let’s not make it worse than it is.”

“I thought three was a fair number, when you’re as small a group as we are,” Michael said. “So Father proposed relaxing some of the Ordnung.”

Diana looked at Walker. “The rules of the Church,” she said.

“There was a lively debate, which went on for several years,” Michael said. “It was a strange situation around here, with Father on one side and Daniel on the other. It got pretty heated, with neither wanting to give much.” He looked at his father in apology. “Daniel is a stubborn man.”

“You needn’t be trying to pacify me at your brother’s expense,” Jacob said. “I raised Daniel Yoder to be a God-fearing man of the Church, and I have no regrets at anything he’s done. Daniel’s stuck by his guns. He’s stood up for what he believes and I’m proud that he’s my son.”

“But the end result is that we now go to different groups,” Michael said. “Abe and I decided to go with Father; Daniel remained with the old Church.”

“You didn’t tell me any of this when you came down to New York,” Diana said.

“I didn’t see the point.”

Again a hush fell over the table. Jacob resumed staring at his daughter. At last he said, “So tell me what you’ve been doing down in New York City.”

“Didn’t Michael tell you?”

“If he had, I wouldn’t ask you. Do you think I’d have you to my table for the first time in ten years, then lay a trap for you?”

She didn’t say anything for a very long time. At last she looked at her father and said, “I’m a dancer at Radio City Music Hall.”

Jacob let it lie for just an instant. “Is that supposed to shock me? Is that why you’re turning all scarlet in front of me, because you think I’ll be shocked? Lady, I might remind you that I’m not a stupid man. Uneducated, yes, and sometimes hard. I’d plead guilty to either of those things, but never to stupidity. I knew where your head was the moment you walked out that door. I knew what you wanted out of life, or thought you did. The thing that really surprised me is how long you rode it out. I kept looking at that front door, thinking you’d walk back in here any minute…”