Harmless as Doves (24 page)

He pulled his string-tie blouse over his head, and stepped into his denim trousers. Next came his waistcoat, also of denim, stitched by his wife, sized so comfortably and broken in so softly as to be part of him, a part of his place on earth. How many men enjoyed the luxury of their wife’s own sewing? How many enjoyed the blessings of the house they themselves had built? The bishop knew it was few, and he sighed. Sad, he thought. Sad how many men miss the true blessings.

In the kitchen, he lit his fire in the cooking stove and put on a kettle of water for his coffee. He stepped into his muck boots on the back porch, and then came back to stand in front of the fire, warming himself by the dancing flames, thinking they also were a blessing that too few knew.

When the water was hot, he poured it into a cup with his instant coffee crystals, and he gave it a stir with his callused finger. Cup in hand, he stepped off the back porch, and looked up again at the canopy of stars.

As he pulled his head back to see, he heard his milk cow stamping her hooves in the barn, and he thought, “There’s
Hedda again, always in her stall ahead of me. Impatient old girl, I’m coming.”

On his milking stool, Leon pulled the sweet milk from her and allowed his mind to start planning his day. Usually, he wouldn’t allow this so early. He wouldn’t worry his day forward too fast. But this was an unusual day. Crist and Vesta were home to visit with Crist’s parents, and the bishop had business with them that he very much planned to enjoy.

But it is only because of the sadness, he reminded himself, that this is all now possible. Three men dead, and the murderer of them all sent to the bottom of Sarasota Bay. Sad, he thought, that they thought to play God with their lives, when all that was required of them was to do no harm. To be wise, and to do no harm.

But never mind the sadness, he thought. Later, after it is light, you’ll go to Crist and Vesta. You’ll explain to them that they are to have the Spiegle farm. Who else should have it, if not them? Who better to give it to? It was the blessings of a bishop to make these types of decisions, and Leon Shetler had savored the blessings of this gift since he first had considered it.

Before then, it had been a problem. People had been asking. What was to become of the Spiegle farm, now that it belonged to the bishop? Leon had nurtured this secret in his heart, since the day his wife Katie had suggested it. Why not give the Spiegle farm to Crist and Vesta? Keep them near to us, she had said. Help them, Amish or not, and maybe they will embrace the church someday.

The milking done, Leon carried his pail back into the kitchen and set it on the counter. Katie was up and making coffee for herself, so he sat with her and counted that a blessing, too. How many men knew to spend their time as wisely as this? To take your morning coffee with your wife, by firelight, and let your day come forward on its own time.

Not so many men knew to do that, the bishop mused. Not so many men at all.

37

Sunday, October 25

2:00
A.M.

BILLY CAME home to Darba in the darkest of the night. He slipped into the house through the kitchen door off the back porch and found her sitting in the dark on the living room sofa. He knelt in front of her on the carpet and pulled her to him, her knees to either side of him, and he held her head on his shoulder until he felt her tears wetting his neck. Time and time again, he stroked her hair, and then he eased her away a little to look into her eyes, before he drew her close again.

Through her tears, Darba whispered, “I knew you weren’t dead, Billy Winters. I would have felt you go.”

Billy put his hands on the sides of her face and kissed her. “We’ve got to get out of here, Darba,” he said. “We can’t stay.”

“I don’t really think I can leave, Billy,” Darba said.

“I know, Darba. But we’ve got to disappear.”

“Just give me a minute,” Darba whispered and pulled him into her embrace.

“They all think I’m dead,” Billy whispered.

“I know, Billy. Not me.”

“I want them all to keep thinking that way.”

“Where are we going? We can’t just disappear.”

“That’s just what we’re gonna do,” Billy said. “Disappear.”

Darba sat back and held Billy’s hands in her lap. “How did you get away, Billy?”

“First, we’ve got to get going. While it’s still dark.”

“No, Billy. You tell me first. You tell me how you got away, so I can believe you’re really here.”

Taking a seat on the sofa beside her, Billy said, “Connie pulled a knife on me, so I pulled a gun on him.”

“Then what?” Darba asked. “You just ran away?”

“As fast as I could run,” Billy smiled.

“But he cut you.”

“Just a little.”

“Where’d you go, Billy?”

“Darba, I was raised down there. I guess I still know a few places where old Connie couldn’t find me.”

“He’s dead, Billy.”

“No, he’s not.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Darba, we have to assume I’m right.”

“Because he’ll come after you?”

“Yes. If he thinks he can find me.”

“Is that why we have to go?”

“That’s part of it. We have to go tonight.”

“Where?”

“You remember how sometimes it took me a little longer to drive home from Florida?”

Darba nodded a puzzled yes.

“I’ve been looking for a place for us, where the government can’t find us.”

“And where Conrad Render can’t find us?”

“Yes, Darba. I found a little farm in Virginia. On top of a mountain, so far back in that we’ll always be safe.”

“We’re gonna live there?”

“We’re going to hide there, and let the whole world think I’m dead.”

“You mean let Conrad Render think you’re dead?”

“The whole world, Darba. They all have to think I’m dead, because they all think I was carting drugs up here in the door panels of my truck.”

“But you weren’t.”

“I know. But that won’t matter to the Feds.”

“How’d the drugs get there, Billy?”

“Connie put them there, after I ran away. To frame me.”

“We could just tell them all that.”

“Do you really think anyone would believe us?”

“No.”

“Right.”

“I’ll miss the kids, Billy.”

“They have kids in Virginia. You can learn to care about them.”

“What about Dr. Carson?”

“They have psychiatrists in Virginia, too.”

“When are we leaving?”

“Tonight. But you can’t pack anything that someone might notice is missing.”

“Like what?”

“Cell phones. Photographs. Keepsakes.”

“Clothes?”

“We can take a few clothes. We’ll buy more after we settle up for that farm.”

“Who’s gonna sell us a farm, Billy? We don’t have any money. We don’t have any way to hide who we really are.”

“Wait,” Billy said and pulled a penlight out of his jeans pocket. Then he pulled something thin out of his jacket pocket. When he shined the light into his hand, Darba saw two Virginia driver’s licenses, one with Billy’s picture and one with hers.

“Darba,” Billy said, switching off the light. “We’re gonna have new names.”

“Are those forgeries?”

“Of course.”

“Where’d you get them?”

“I guess I know some folks in Virginia. They don’t like the government any more than I do. They take care of their own.”

“Do they take care of people like us, Billy?”

“Yes, Darba. They live
off the grid.
Like we’re gonna do.”

“But we can’t afford a farm, Billy. Where would we get that kind of money?”

Billy smiled, put the driver’s licenses back in his pocket, and took Darba’s hands in his. “We have the money, Darba.
It’s hidden in the barn. I helped Glenn Spiegle bring it up here from Florida. It’s cash money from his dead mother, and there’s a lot of it.”

“I don’t understand,” Darba said.

“Every time I went down there, I visited Glenn in prison. And I’d go out to see his mother. She’d give me several thousand in cash to bring up here, for when Glenn got out of prison. She knew she’d be dead by the time he got out, and she didn’t want anyone to know that Glenn got so much of her money.”

Darba smiled. “He’d be happy to know that we used it to start new lives.”

“Yes, Darba,” Billy said, “I think he would.”

1

Monday, April 4

7:45
A.M.

IT WAS COBLENTZ CHOCOLATE that had Mervin Byler awake so early that morning—fine Coblentz chocolate, and the artful widow Stutzman who made it. This would be his seventh trip this spring, up to the heights at Walnut Creek, and he knew the best gossips in the valley would be making sport of him again today.

What could draw old Mervin out so early, they’d be asking each other so delicately? Was it really the Coblentz chocolate? Was he just a retired old farmer out for a drive? Maybe he just liked to show off his high-stepping race horse. Or could it be the widow Stutzman?

Oh, how they’d sure be buzzing today, Mervin thought.
Why yes
—he smiled—
it looks as if he’s washed his best Sunday rig again
.

Mervin stepped out into the cold air in a new Amish-blue denim suit and stood on the front porch of his white clapboard daadihaus, set back twenty paces from the wide gravel drive that curled around the back of the big house. A cool breeze tugged at his white chin whiskers, and a gust caught under the wide brim of his black felt hat, nearly lifting it from his head. He settled the warm hat back into place and stood to enjoy the familiar sounds of the farm—all the family, parents and kids alike, at work since well before dawn.

In the woodshop behind the barn, that was his oldest son Daniel he heard, running lumber through the table-top saw. Lowing as they nipped at the hay in the feeders, the milking
cows were back on the hillside pastures beyond. Out of the hen house, the youngest kids were bringing baskets of eggs. And beside the big house, an older grandson was starting a gasoline generator, charging the marine batteries for the several electric appliances the family kept—a phone in a little shed out by the road, a secret radio for severe weather, half a dozen lightbulbs where safety called for something other than kerosene lanterns, and an electric butter churn that Mervin had brought home on a whim from Lehman’s hardware in Kidron.

Standing on his front porch, Mervin listened with satisfaction to the familiar sounds of morning chores, the early rhythms of family life on the farm. In his day, when the farm had been theirs, he and his Leona had been accustomed to early rising, too. They had owned the farm for forty years, and then they had lived together for seven more happy years in their little daadihaus, watching Daniel and Becky raise their own, in the same home where Mervin and Leona Byler had raised their twelve. It’s fitting, Mervin thought. The old move aside for the young, who in turn honor their parents with the gift of a new home.

Byler sighed and thought about Leona, gone for nearly three years. So fine a woman; so many good years. Now their little daadihaus was a lonely place for him, and Mervin had fallen into slack habits. Most would say it was shameful, the way he ignored the chores. He slept in, and he got up when it suited him. Because, Mervin Byler figured, he had earned his rest.

Truth be told, Leona might say it was a bit much. When they had retired, she had insisted that they rise with the others and tend to their share of the chores, too. But now Mervin gladly let the sons plant and harvest the crops, tend to the livestock, handle all the duties on the farm. Mervin Byler was retired, and he had fun and suitable places to be, never mind what the gossips might say about the widow Stutzman. He felt young again, and he knew with the wisdom of age that that was not to be squandered.

With great satisfaction over his prospects for the morning,
Byler noted that the stiff breeze was snatching a thin gray line of smoke from the chimney of Becky’s kitchen stove, at the back of the big house. The fire is still going, he thought. As late as it was, there’ll still be hot coffee in her pot. Maybe he could take some of Becky’s biscuits, too. Wrap them in a towel for the trip. Byler considered it briefly.

But his best mare was already hitched and waiting on the drive. Shuddering from the energy bottled up in her limbs. Just like Mervin, she was eager to begin.

Mervin clipped down the wooden steps on his new leather soles and climbed into his Sunday buggy, laughing at himself. Thinking that he could already hear the chatter. Knowing what the valley gossips would say if they ever got a look inside his cupboards—stuffed full to bursting with Coblentz chocolates of every kind—asking themselves why an old man needed to be driving back to Walnut Creek again, when his cupboards were already shamefully overstocked with more sweets than any sensible man could eat.

For the fun of it, he ought to drop a hint somewhere along the line. Put it out there among the talkers that he didn’t really like chocolate that much. Truth be told, he favored salty chips more than sweets. Wonderful, crunchy, salty chips of every kind.

Just tell one of them, he thought, and soon they’d all be a-chatter. He’d make a few trips into Walmart for a dozen bags of Ruffles, and that news would be singing like electric in the wires.
Why, don’t you know?
Mervin doesn’t really like sweets at all
. Then he could enjoy the sparks. He couldn’t remember a time when he had felt so young.

But don’t kid yourself, Mervin smiled. Today I’ll just tap the glass. See if she’ll come around to the tourist’s gallery for a chat. Maybe he could visit on Sunday with the North Walnut Creek Lehmans, and stay after services for the social. Then his valley would sure be all abuzz. Was it the Coblentz chocolates or the widow Stutzman? A Sunday visit with old Ben Lehman’s district would settle it for sure. They’d all be talking for over a month.

Mervin climbed up, took the reins, and walked his buggy
out to the lane in front of the big house. He turned right to follow Township Lane 166 toward the north, thinking that maybe she’d give him a look today. Something to help him make up his mind. But hadn’t she done that already? The last time he had visited? Mervin wasn’t sure. Was it a look, or was it a smile? Maybe it was just a glance.