Off the Grid (Amish Safe House, Book 1) (5 page)

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

Rose suddenly turned shy. “Well, there’s not
much to tell. His name is Samuel Esch.” Her face turned beet
red.

She’s got it bad
, Kate thought with a
smile. “I’ll tell you what, Rose. Next time I see you and Samuel
together, I’ll take note and then see if there’s anything I can do
to help. Would you like that?’

Rose’s face lit up. “
Jah
,
jah
.
Denki
, Katie,
denki
so much.”

Psalm 147: 12 – 13.

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your
God, O Zion! For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses
your children within you.

Chapter
8
.

It had been almost a week, and Kate was
exhausted. Who knew these Amish worked so hard? She had spent her
days baking, weeding, cleaning, feeding the chickens and pigs,
milking the cow, and then there was the endless and time consuming
washing of clothes with an old wringer machine, along with taking
food to the sick and elderly with Beth.

Kate returned to her small, temporary home
after the sun had gone down. The sky above her was beautiful,
almost pitch black with a million shining stars, and a fat moon
that was bloated and silver. She had never seen a sky so clear
until she had ended up at that small Amish community. There was no
pollution here, no cars pumping noxious gas into the sky, or
factories nearby with unending streams of gray and white smoke
coming from their tall chimneys.

Kate took another quick glance up at the sky
and then pushed open the door to her small
haus
. It was one
floor, and only a few rooms, yet she felt quite at home there.

Kate moved to the small bedroom and pulled
off her over-apron and then her long dress, quickly throwing on a
nightgown, as the night air had a bit of a chill to it, and she
hadn’t built a fire. Kate reached into her dress, found the hidden
pocket sewn there and pulled out her emergency cell phone. She
stashed it under her pillow, and sat on the edge of her bed.

The phone was a simple burner, cheap and
plastic, nowhere near as loaded with features as the one she had
left behind, in her old life. There were no games on it, and it
couldn’t connect to the internet.

The internet
. She missed the internet
so much. She missed her email; she missed Netflix. She didn’t even
really know what was going on in the world. She hadn’t watched
television; she hadn’t even read a newspaper.

And her iPad, she really missed that. The
stupid little games, how she would pass the time in the hotels in
which she was forced to stay as she drove from state to state.
There was nothing here. It was just hard physical work during the
day, and then coming home at dark, lying in bed, and staring at the
ceiling until she fell asleep. Kate was already going stir
crazy.

There was a knock on her front door, and
Kate rose from the edge of her bed. She pulled on the simple cotton
robe and then made her way out into the living room, and she pulled
the door open.

Beth was there, holding a bunch of lavender
in one hand and a bunch of rosemary in the other.

“I thought you might like a hot bath with
these to soothe and relax you,” Beth said, and she handed over the
herbs.

“Thank you,” Kate said.

Kate watched Beth walk across the yard to
the back door of her own home, thinking how kind and considerate
she was. Then Kate shut her door and went to the bathroom.

The tub there was old, on four feet and was
of heavy porcelain. She released the herbs into the tub into the
hot water after fitting the rubber stop into the drain, and then
she undressed and slid into the water.

Kate had to admit it felt nice to be taking
the bath, and she closed her eyes and managed to forget just how
bored she was for a while, though a movie afterwards would have
made the bath even better. Of course, there was none of that
anywhere around her.

After soaking in the tub until the water
cooled, Kate washed up and got out. After a quick dry, she was in
her nightgown once more, and as ready for bed as she was going to
get. She lay on her bed and reached under the pillow, pulling out
her burner cell phone. She pressed the button and looked at the
screen, her face illuminated by the pale blue light streaming from
it. She had wanted to see if David had called, but of course he
hadn’t. It was for emergencies only. She likely wouldn’t hear from
him again until the person who was after her was in custody, and
she could go back to her own life. She slid the phone back under
her pillow, and then she cried.

In the morning Kate awoke when the sun came
streaming in through her window and fell across her face. It forced
its way under her eyelids, and she sat up and groaned as she
stretched her arms over her head. She got up and dressed, taking
the phone from its hiding spot and sliding it into one of the
hidden pockets sewn into her dress. Socks and shoes on, and then it
was time to find some breakfast.

Kate had gotten into the habit of having
breakfast in her cabin, and then joining the family for the rest of
the meals of the day. Beth had shown her how to make a quick and
delicious oatmeal, and Kate repeated the lesson with slightly less
success, though it was still good and more importantly, filling.
She left the few dishes for later. She tied her bonnet to her head
and then went outside.

Beth and her husband Isaac were outside,
working in the large garden that ran alongside their house. Isaac
saw her first, standing straight and smiling as he waved. He was a
nice man, with a full beard that had once been black but was now
mostly gray. Of course, like all Amish men, his beard did not
include a mustache, and Kate had learned that this tradition was
from the days when having a mustache signified that the man was in
the military.

“
Gude mariye
,” he called as Kate
neared, and she returned his
good morning
in English. By
then Beth had stood as well, and was coming toward her.

“Katie, I wonder if you would be kind enough
to do us a favor,” she said in her soft and small voice.

“Of course,” Kate said. Beth and Isaac were
certainly doing
her
more than a small favor, allowing her to
live in their
grossmammi haus
, and they were so kind Kate
that would have done anything for them.

“Would you please take the buggy and deliver
some whoopee pies to Mr. Byler for me will you? There’s a basket in
the kitchen. He’s a widower, and we often take food to him.”

“The buggy?” Kate asked, hoping her face
didn't betray to them the fact that she had no idea how to drive a
horse and buggy. Still, the bishop’s wife had warned her that this
would happen, and assured her that she would be given only the
quietest, most well mannered horses to drive. After all, the
community had been told that she’d had a buggy accident.

“Yes, it’s some way up the road,” Isaac
chimed in. “If you walked, you’d likely miss lunch for the next
three days.”

He smiled, and Kate couldn’t help but laugh.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll leave right away.”

“I already have the horse harnessed up, and
the buggy ready to go,” Isaac said. “It’s out front. Head straight
down the highway there; take a right off this road, and you’ll go
until you see a sign for Byler Farms. There’s a big white house at
the end of the lane there, and Mr. Byler will be expecting you, I’m
sure.”

Beth patted her arm. “The horse is old and
very quiet,” she said. “You have nothing to fear after your
accident.”

Kate nodded and then headed for the front of
the house. She saw the buggy there, with the horse at its front. It
was not the same horse as the one Beth had driven to visit people.
Kate turned away and went inside, finding the huge basket of packed
whoopie pies of which Beth had spoken, and then she moved back
outside. She placed the basket of whoopie pies up on the seat and
then moved to the front of the buggy so she could have a pep talk
with the horse.

The beast was large and black, with soft
hair and a shining mane which was graying at the roots. Kate patted
the horse on the side of his neck, and looked him square in his
large eye.

“Listen,” she said. “I don’t know what the
heck I’m doing, and you’re going to have to just get me there
somehow, all right?”

She turned to head to the buggy proper, but
stopped herself and went back to the horse. “Uh, Byler Farm, all
right? That’s where we’re headed.”

Shaking her head at her own foolishness,
Kate made her way to the buggy and climbed up onto the bench. She
placed the basket beside her and then took up the reins. She wasn’t
expecting the horse to take off like that, but he did. Apparently
he knew it was time to go, and he was doing just that: going.

He started trotting slowly along the dirt
path, away from the house and toward the paved highway. At first
Kate was terrified, but the horse was only going at a steady pace.
The dirt path was a mile long, with a few branching paths leading
to more Amish houses and farms. The highway was used by the Amish
and the non Amish alike, but there wasn’t very much traffic, and as
she turned onto it, Kate did not see a single car, much to her
relief.

There were yellow diamond shaped signs up
and down the road, indicating that the wide lane to the right was
for horse and buggies, and Kate made sure to stick to that lane.
When she saw her first car, it was coming toward her, in the other
lane, but Kate found herself sucking in a deep breath and holding
it until the car was gone. Ten minutes after that there was
another, this one coming up behind her.

There was a small circular mirror attached
to the side of the buggy, and she saw the car in it before she
heard it, but as she neared she could hear the engine revving and
screaming, and she found herself racked with fear. Then the car was
speeding past, a blur of red, and Kate fought to regain her
composure and calm herself.

What were those people thinking?
Kate
wondered. They had known she was in an accident, or at least that
was her story. And here they were asking her to drive their buggy
ten miles down the road. For all they knew, she was an amnesiac
because of her accident, and getting back in a buggy on the road
might surely cause her to have crippling flashbacks or something
like that.

Of course, Kate hadn’t really been in a
buggy accident, so it was all for naught. Maybe Beth and Isaac
thought they were helping her in some way.
Getting back up on
the bike after a crash
, as the old saying went.

By the time Kate saw the sign for Byler
Farms, she had been passed in either direction by eight cars. By
the seventh car, she found herself able to be passed without
holding her breath, although her heart pounded so fiercely it was
audible in her ears each and every time. At least the horse seemed
to know what he was doing.

The sign was large and a pristine white,
with black lettering that spelled out
Byler Farms: Turn
Right
. She did so, leaving the paved highway and finding
herself on dirt once more. Turning was an easy maneuver after all;
she simply pulled gently on the rein in the direction in which she
wanted to go. She had watched enough old westerns on TV to know how
to do that. The horse had done almost everything himself, and Kate
had been thankful for that.

The dirt lane stretched on toward a strand
of large trees, and then it twisted through them, and when the
buggy came out of the woods on the other side, there was the
farmhouse, and great rolling green hills, most of them filled with
apple trees.

Kate managed to stop the buggy in front of
the house. She climbed out, picking up the basket of whoopie pies
and making her way to the horse. She patted him once more. “Thanks
for not getting me killed,” she said. She tied him to the rail,
left the horse and buggy behind, and climbed the few stairs to the
porch of the large farmhouse. She knocked on the door and waited,
but there was no answer. A series of knocks later provided the same
result.

Kate left the porch and looked down the side
of the house. There was a large red barn there, and both doors were
hanging open. As Mr. Byler was Amish, he was likely working hard in
the barn, not lazing away his hours in the house. Kate placed the
basket of whoopie pies on the porch, just outside the door, and
headed for the barn.

When she got there, her blood ran cold. Her
hair stood on end. She sensed something wrong; her training told
her that. The barn was dark, the morning sun streaming only a
quarter of the way in through the slightly open door. Toward the
back of the barn, there was a dark shape upon the ground. Kate knew
somehow what it was, without her eyes having enough information to
confirm her thought. It was a person.

Someone was hurt, or worse. Kate ran
forward. She reached the dark shape and kneeled down. It was a man,
an older man in his sixties, Amish. He was staring up at the roof
of the barn, his eyes wide, but unseeing.

“Dead,” Kate said, and she stood up
straight, dusting her dirty hands off on her dress. How had he
died?

She heard something behind her, turned, and
saw someone coming for her. Whoever it was, wore a hat that created
a large enough shadow to conceal his face. He held a heavy garden
fork above his head, and he brought the blunt end of it down at
Kate.

Philippians 4: 8
.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever
is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is
lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if
there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.