Paradise Valley (2 page)

Policemen on her front porch! What would the world do next?

Rachel couldn’t make out what they were saying, but as the two policemen stood on the porch talking to her mother, she could see the growing fear in Mamm’s eyes, the trembling of her fingers as she covered her mouth to cough. Rachel heard quite clearly, though, when her mother turned and voiced one simple command to someone standing just out of sight in the doorway.

“Go get Dat.”

A minute later Rachel heard the back door slam, then hurried footsteps heading for the barn. Within seconds, hoofbeats charged out of the barn lot, and Rachel knew without looking that it was Miriam, the horse girl of the family – the only one who would even think of jumping on a bareback horse and taking off to the woods. Dat had gone out that morning with a neighbor to the fallow field beyond the creek, hunting rabbits.

Mamm disappeared into the house, and the two policemen after her. In the ensuing silence Rachel could hear the murmuring of voices, but they were not coming from the house. Confused at first, she turned her head about, listening, until she finally figured out that the voices were coming from the back of the police wagon.

Someone was locked in there.

Timidly, she tiptoed from the shadow of the house and inched closer to the Black Mariah, but despite her best efforts, her feet made crunching noises on the gravel and the murmuring from the paddy wagon instantly stopped. She froze, ten feet away, fear gripping her heart. She did not know what desperate criminals might be restrained there.

“
Wer iss sel?
” a hushed voice said – from the wagon. A Dutch voice.
Who is there?

She took a deep breath, swallowing her terror. “Rachel,” she finally answered, frozen in a crouch, prepared to bolt.

“Caleb’s Rachel? Bender?”

She straightened, relaxed a little. “Jah. Who are
you
?”

Fingertips appeared through a couple of the holes in the side of the police wagon.

“Jonas Weaver,” the voice said softly.

The Weaver farm lay two miles down the road, and she knew Jonas well, an upright Amishman and a deeply good man. The world had truly lost its bearings if Jonas Weaver had been arrested. Rachel rushed forward and spread her hands against the wagon, trying to see inside. There was more than one man in there.

“Why are you locked up? How many are in there?”

“With me are three other men. They arrested us because we wouldn’t let our children go all the time to the consolidated school. They come for Caleb.”

It was as if a mule had kicked her in the stomach. Her knees buckled and she sat heavily in the gravel, trembling, unable to catch her breath. Her face fell into her hands and she wept, overwhelmed with fear and remorse. She couldn’t even think. The police had come to take her father to jail – on account of her and her sisters!

“Rachel, you must get up. We don’t know what they will do
Para di se Val l ey
yet. You must get up and go. Run and hide so they don’t take you, too. Go!”

The voice of Jonas Weaver rang like a beacon of reason in a world gone mad, so she did as he said. Her heart was pounding, her head spinning and her vision blurred with tears, yet somehow she found her legs and fled toward the barn, stumbling over frozen clumps and nearly falling twice.

Once inside the barn, Rachel rolled the heavy door nearly shut, leaving only a crack large enough for her face so she could watch the house.

“Rachel.”

She jumped and spun about, barely stifling a scream, startled by the hushed voice coming from someone standing behind her in the darkness of the barn. But then a face and a broad dark hat appeared in the sliver of light coming through the door, and she saw that it was only Jake Weaver, the son of Jonas.

“Sorry,” he said. “I came to warn you. They took my dat, and I thought they might come here next. But I couldn’t outrun them, so I hid in the barn. I saw you out there . . . at the Black Mariah.”

“Jah,” she said, only now beginning to recover her voice. “I talked to your dat. He said this was because of the school.”

“Jah, that’s what the policemen said.”

“They’re going to put our fathers away?” she asked, her voice quivering.

He nodded gravely.

“How long? How long will they have to be in jail?”

Jake’s head wagged slowly and he sighed. “I don’t know.”

Jake was fifteen, the same age as Rachel, and she had known him all her life. His young face was full of fear and guilt and confusion, the same things she felt. Shocked and disoriented, in that moment Rachel did not know whether she would ever see her father again. She knew one thing for certain: If getting out of jail depended on Dat changing his mind and agreeing to send his three youngest daughters to “the school of the world” five days a week, then he would remain in jail for life. Caleb Bender was a man of principle.

They both heard the hoofbeats at the same time and knew that it was Caleb Bender returning on the horse Miriam had taken. Together, they put their hands to the heavy door to slide it open, and a moment later her father rounded the corner of the barn and steered his horse into the barn. He dismounted, put the horse in a stall and walked calmly over to the two of them, his shotgun still cradled in his arms.

“Jake,” he said, nodding to the boy. “Miriam said they have come for me. I’m thinking that if you ran all the way up here, then they must have took your dat, too.”

Jake nodded.

“Well, thank you for trying to warn me, but it won’t do any good. Me and your dat, we’ll just have to face this thing and see how it comes out.”

He put a gloved hand on Rachel’s shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. “It’s all right, daughter. Gott straightens the path of those who mind Him.”

Eyeing the Black Mariah parked in his driveway, her dat handed over the shotgun with a low chuckle.

“Could you put this away in the tack room for me, Jake? I’m thinking it might not be so good for me to go in that house with a gun in my hands yet. And it’s probably best if you two wait out here until they’re gone, just in case they might want to take you, too.”

Undaunted, Caleb Bender walked out of the barn with his shoulders squared and his head up.

Rachel was filled with a dark despair. Her father’s calm strength only served to sharpen her fears, and double them. He was a chunk of granite, her father – the center of her world, the pillar of strength and guiding force that held the family together, their decision-maker, their protector.

“They are in trouble because of us!” she cried. “What will we do?” She turned away from the door, put her face in her hands and wept.

It shocked her a little at first, when she felt Jake’s hands touch lightly on her shoulders and then slide around to her back, drawing her close and enfolding her in a gentle hug. The boy had never once touched her in so familiar a manner. She looked up at his face and met with another shock.

For years she had sat in the same little red schoolhouse with Jake once a week, seen him every two weeks at church services and did work frolics with his family at harvesttime. Each of them had grown up as an everyday part of the other’s world, like cousins, so her image of him was that of a bright and mischievous child who sometimes irritated her but on the whole was a dependable friend.

Until now. Now the boyishness was gone from his face, along with all fear and confusion, and his eyes suddenly reminded her of her father’s. Now she saw in Jake’s eyes a tender compassion and an iron strength that she had never noticed before.

“It will be all right,” he said. “Our families will be strong and wait for them to come back. The police will see they have made a mistake and let them go. Everything will be good again, you’ll see.”

Rachel noticed too, almost absently, that she had stopped crying. A warmth flushed through her, despite the bitter cold, and her fears subsided as she stared at Jake’s face. His arms felt as strong as trees, and yet he did not press her. She knew that she had only to step back if she wished – if she felt this was too close, too personal – and he would let her go. But again, she surprised herself.

She laid her head softly against his shoulder.

Chapter 2

Five days later, still wearing the same work clothes and winter coats they’d been wearing when they were arrested, the five Amish fathers filed into the courtroom with hats in hand, led by a uniformed deputy who directed them all to sit behind the cherry table down front. They had a few minutes to look around the room. Four of their wives sat in the pews behind the rail, but all they could do was wave to each other. When they tried to speak, the deputy ordered them to be quiet. Shortly, the “All rise” command was given and the Honorable Charles Etheridge of the Superior Court of Holmes County swept into the room and took his place behind the bar.

The defendants remained standing before him.

“Gentlemen,” he began, once he had settled into his big chair, “your cases are identical – same charges, same penalties – so in the interest of saving everyone’s time we’ll try them all at once, if no one has any objection.”

Silence. No one objected.

The judge nodded curtly, then picked up a piece of paper and studied it through the wire-rimmed glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose.

“Do you have representation?”

The five men standing before the bar glanced at each other in confusion.

“A lawyer,” the judge clarified. “Do you have a lawyer?”

They shook their heads, no.

“Is there one of you who would like to be the spokesman for the group?”

No one moved. Not a single expression changed.

The judge sighed. “Now, I honestly don’t know if what I’m seeing is stubbornness or humility, but if we’re going to get to the bottom of this,
one
of you is going to have to talk.”

No words passed between them still, but all of them squirmed a bit. Four of the men cut their eyes toward the bald-headed one in the middle, the oldest of the group. Caleb gave a small nod of resignation, cleared his throat and said, “I will speak.”

“And you are?” Again the judge glanced at his paper, going down the typed list of names.

“Caleb Bender.”

“Mr. Bender, in a court of law it’s customary to address the judge as ‘Your Honor.’ ”

“I’m sorry, sir – Your Honor. It’s chust I never been in a court before.”

“Mr. Bender, the five of you are each charged with neglecting the welfare of your children and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. How do you plead?”

Caleb thought for a moment and said, “Your Honor, if that last thing you said means we kept our children home from your school, then yes, we did that.”

“Then you plead guilty.”

Caleb’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know whether we’re
guilty
of anything, but for us to say we neglected our children, why that would chust be a lie. We kept them home because it was right. To send them to the consolidated school every day,
that
would make us guilty.”

The judge laid aside the piece of paper, propped his chin on his palm and, with obvious amusement, asked, “Do you feel it’s right to deprive your children of an education, Mr. Bender?”

“Oh no!” Caleb answered, earnest and sincere. “We keep them home to
give
them an education. Our children grow up to be farmers, and farmers’ wives. We teach them the ways of the farm, and the ways of Gott. Surely some schooling is
gut
, but if they learn to read and write and figure, what more would they need?”

“I see.” The judge’s face was still propped in his palm, one finger tapping absently against his cheek. A faint smile played at his lips. “So your argument is that subjects such as history, geography, and hygiene are not only entirely unnecessary but in fact detrimental to your children’s character in some way, and further, that one day of schooling a week is adequate, since all they need is the three R’s.”

The judge looked down his nose at the papers in front of him, waiting for an answer.

“Is that your argument, Mr. Bender?”

Caleb nodded, shifting his feet uncomfortably.

“Yes, sir . . . Your Honor.” His eyes narrowed involuntarily, his jaw clinched and his nostrils flared. He could already see how this would go.

The judge’s lips pursed and he stared over the top of his glasses, all traces of amusement gone.

“Well, Mr. Bender, I can see that perhaps we need to advance
your
education a little. Maybe a civics lesson is in order. You see, gentlemen – you
are
gentlemen, are you not?”

The five glanced at each other. “We are Amish,” Caleb answered.

Chuckling, the judge resumed his lecture.

“Gentlemen, we are a nation of laws. Ohio, likewise, is a
state
of laws. The way this works is, the citizens of Ohio elect representatives who enact laws to advance the well-being of the citizens who elected them, and who, incidentally, agree to
abide
by those laws.

“One of the laws enacted recently by our chosen representatives – the Bing Act – stipulates that all children shall attend public school five days a week from the age of six until eighteen with a possible exemption at sixteen, providing they obtain a valid work permit. Now, it’s not an easy thing to draft and pass a law – it’s an awful lot of trouble, a lot of work. Mr. Bender, do you have any idea why our esteemed legislators might have felt that it was worth all that effort to pass such a law?”