Pennsylvania Omnibus (30 page)

“What’s that?” Jed asked.

“Rheumatism medicine,” Matthias said. “Gerald Miller makes
it.”

“It’s booze?”

“Well, that is kind of a crude and English way to put it,
but yes. I need something right now after hearing that story.” Matthias poured
a small amount into the glass, then hesitated before taking a long pull
directly from the bottle instead. “I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his mouth. “Do
you want some?”

Jed shook his head. “No. I want to go find Dawn.”

“Right,” Matthias said, then he downed the liquor that was
in the glass.

“So you say it’s unbelievable, Matthias. Does that mean
you don’t believe me?”

Matthias laughed. “No. It doesn’t mean that. That’s why I
needed the drink. I
do
believe you, and that is now my problem.”

Jed had told his friend the whole story. From the
beginning all the way through to his conversation with his sixty-seven-year-old
brother. Throughout the telling of it, his friend hadn’t said much at all. He’d
asked a few questions now and then, especially when it came to the parts about
the window with the coffee can pane, and the wild savage named Eagles with the
green towel.

“So what are you going to do?” Jed asked.

Matthias pushed the cork into the bottle, walked to the
cabinet, and put the bottle away. “I suppose I’m going to help you find your
girlfriend.”

“She’s not my… well… she’s…”

“She’s your girlfriend and you love her, so we need to go
find her,” Matthias said.

“Okay.”

Their conversation during the buggy ride was a little more
animated than Jed had expected. Matthias was full of questions, particularly
about the animated BICE visions and how Jed had hacked into his brother’s head.
The questions didn’t stop until the two young men were standing on the Yoders’
porch and knocking on the door.

Marcus Yoder answered the knock, and when he opened it Jed
could see that two of Marcus’s cousins—a husband and wife from the family that
had been bringing food to Jed and Matthias—were seated in the great room.
Matthias had arranged with Marcus to give Jed a tour of the farm, so Jed was a
little curious as to why the other Yoders would be there.

Introductions were made, and Jed and Matthias were invited
to sit.

“It is a strange thing, Jedediah Troyer,” Marcus said,
“for visitation to be taking place on a Saturday. As you know—and I suppose it
is still the way things are done back in the old world—every other Sabbath day
is set aside for such things.”

“I understand,” Jed said, “and I’m very thankful that you
were willing to receive us today.” He didn’t offer an explanation, though it
was obvious Marcus and the rest of the Yoders were expecting one.

“Well, then,” Marcus said. “Shall we take a look
around?”

Marcus Yoder gave them a fairly comprehensive tour. He
started by showing the two friends his house, which was an unremarkable and
very typical Amish dwelling. The cooking and lighting in the house was provided
by either propane or natural gas, but Jed didn’t bother to ask which it was.
There was a large area rug in the great room—something that was definitely not
typical for an Amish house. Jed wondered to himself if the
ordnung
allowed for the rug, and he made a mental note to ask Matthias about it
later.

There were five bedrooms in the large home, and the
windows had green shades on them as the
ordnung
required. There were no
closets—clothes were hung on pegs—so Jed didn’t have to go around peering
behind closed doors looking to see where Dawn might be hidden.

After the tour of the dwelling, Marcus took them on a walk
around the property. Jed was curious why Marcus didn’t take them directly to
the large banked barn, and he wondered if maybe Dawn might be in there.

Yoder spent a long time showing his guests his plowing and
farming implements, particularly (and maybe a little too pridefully) his new
threshing machine—one that was operated using a large belt that, when it was in
use, stretched to the barn where Jed assumed there would be either a tractor or
a large generator.

“May we look in the barn?” Jed asked. He was getting
anxious and a little impatient with the length and detail of the tour.

Yoder hesitated, but only for a moment. “Yes. Jedediah
Troyer, if you’d like to see the barn, we can go take a look at it.”

Matthias looked at Jed and showed by the slightest
furrowing of his brow that he wasn’t too pleased with Jed rushing the
search.

“I have always loved barns,” Jed said, smiling, “and with
Matthias having his barn-raising in a week, I’d really just like to take a look
at yours, Marcus.”

The men walked to the barn in silence and the tension
between the three was palpable. The things that were unsaid seemed to multiply
as they walked, and Jed began to wonder what he would do even if he were to
find Dawn in the barn.

When Marcus slid open the huge door, the darkness inside
was a little disappointing to Jed. Part of him wished that the light would
flood in and he’d see Dawn there, waiting for him to save her. Another part of
him hoped that he’d been mistaken all along, and that Dawn wouldn’t be there at
all. He did wonder why, if Dawn was being held in the barn, Marcus Yoder would
freely allow Jed and Matthias to look there.
Maybe he plans to capture us,
too?
Jed thought.

The three men walked tentatively into the barn because of
the darkness.

“Let me go slide open the far door,” Marcus said. “Then
we’ll have more light.”

When he walked away, Matthias leaned in and spoke into
Jed’s ear. “What will you do if you find her here?”

Jed shrugged. “I don’t know.”

As the far door slid open and the light began to flood the
large structure, Jed and Matthias held their breath. But Dawn was nowhere in
sight. From all appearances, it was just an Amish barn.

“Do you mind if I look around?” Jed asked.

Marcus just nodded his head. While Jed poked around,
Marcus and Matthias chatted. From what Jed could hear of their conversation,
Marcus was asking Matthias about the details of his new barn that was scheduled
to be built in just a week.

After a full inspection of the place, even the upper
portions that included the hayloft and the cubbies for tack storage, Jed was
unable to locate Dawn… or any place where she might be hidden.

“Satisfied?” Marcus asked.

It seemed to Jed that there was more to the question than
an inquiry about a barn tour.

“I suppose I’ve seen everything I came to see,” Jed
replied, and smiled.

They were back in the Yoders’ great room, which included
the kitchen, and as Elizabeth Yoder was pouring lemonade for the four men Jed
noticed the area rug again. It was out of place. It didn’t fit. It was like the
AT10S floating in the sky in its incongruity. He spoke before he really had
time to think about it, or gauge how his words might be received.

“I’d like to look under that rug,” Jed said, pointing at
the floor

Yoder actually flinched. Jed saw it on his face and in his
manner as the question rang through the silence in the kitchen. “Excuse me?”

“I’d like to look at the flooring under that rug,” Jed
repeated. “Our district
ordnung
in the old world didn’t allow for such
things, so I am interested in why it’s there.”

Yoder stared at Jed for a moment with a look that bordered
on hostility. “The floor is damaged. That’s why the rug is there.”

“I’d like to look at it,” Jed insisted.

“This is not possible,” Elizabeth Yoder interrupted. She
was tense, and somewhere in her look Jed could see that she was afraid, too.
That’s when he became certain that Dawn was down there—somewhere.

He moved without premeditation. His body took over even
while his mind was reeling. He was all emotion and intensity. He leapt forward
and reached for the rug. Marcus Yoder moved forward too, as if to stop him, but
Jed pointed a finger directly at Yoder’s face, stopping the man in his tracks.
“Stand back,” Jed said firmly.

He pulled the rug and then flipped it back on itself,
exposing the cellar door that was built into the floor.

“Stop!” Elizabeth yelled. “It’s not what you are
thinking!”

Jed reached for the cellar door and pulled it open. “What
am I thinking?” Jed said. There was fire in his eyes.

“I see that you are violent, like your brother,” Marcus
said, but he didn’t move to stop Jed from going down the steps.

“I’m nothing like my brother,” Jed snapped.

The space under the kitchen was dark, and when Jed reached
the bottom of the stairs he could only see faintly into the room. What he could
see, however, made him catch his breath.

His heart pounded in his chest. Dawn was there. Tied to a
chair. Her eyes met his and he could see by the expressive movement around the
eyes that she was excited to see him. He pulled out his knife, and in seconds
he had the ropes cut. Dawn fell into his arms, and he pulled the gag off. She
spit out another rag that had been stuffed into her mouth, and her hand came up
to massage her jaw.

“Jed!” she said, as soon as she could speak.

Jed steadied her and lifted her to her feet. “I have
you.”

“I knew you’d come.”

“Let’s get you out of here.” He looked up, and Yoder was
standing at the top of the steps.

“Jedediah,” Yoder said. “Don’t jump to conclusions. We
work for the SOMA. For your brother.”

“That’s impossible,” Jed said.

Yoder leaned into the darkness, and only then could Jed
see the Amish man’s face. “It’s true,” Yoder said.

Just then, Jed heard a commotion above him. Shots rang
out, and he heard loud thumps, as if bodies were landing hard on the floor over
his head.

“What—” he started, but Dawn grabbed him and pulled him
away from the stairs and into the shadows just as something struck Yoder from
behind and he tumbled down the stairs. Blood poured from wounds to his neck and
the back of his head.

The figure of a man appeared where Marcus had stood, the
light from behind him causing him to appear as just a menacing silhouette. Dawn
and Jed tried to push themselves farther back into the shadows.

“Just come on up here, Jed Troyer and Dawn Beachy,” the
man said. “Let’s get this over with.”

Jed knew the voice, but he couldn’t quite place it.
Who
could it be?

“Get up here,” the voice said, “now!”

Dawn leaned forward even though Jed tried to pull her
back. “I know that voice,” she said.

“Then get moving,” the voice said.

Dawn stepped out and, avoiding the body of Marcus Yoder,
held tightly to Jed’s hand and pulled him forward too. “Teddy Clarion,” she
said.

“Only my mother calls me Teddy,” the man said. And that’s
when Jed knew. It was the Transport official who’d captured them in the No
Man’s Land west of the City. The man who had killed Conrad and Rheems.

“I’ll give you five more seconds, and if you aren’t up
here, I’ll come down and kill you there,” Clarion said.

When Jed emerged from the cellar, he felt as though he
were entering some kind of nightmarish alternate universe. The same serene
Amish great room in which he’d sat politely just moments earlier had now been
stained by violence and death. The bodies of Elizabeth Yoder, her husband, and
Matthias lay lifelessly on the floor, blood pooling around them. Jed could only
stare in shock at his friend Matthias, a good and peaceful man who now lay
facedown in his own blood. Four Transport officers in full battle gear stood
around the room, eyeing Jed and Dawn warily.

“Your time is up,” Clarion said. “We’d hoped to use you
two for… morale purposes… among the plain people here, but you just couldn’t
leave things alone, could you, Mrs. Beachy?”

Dawn didn’t reply.

“You should have known we’d find out you were trying to
help the boy.”

Dawn sneered. “You brought me here. What did you think I’d
do?”

“We hoped that we could just hold you and produce you if
ever Jed here needed convincing,” Clarion said. “Of course, we didn’t know at
the time that our insiders here, the Yoders, were working with the rebels
too.”

“There seems to be a lot you didn’t know,” Dawn said.

“I know what happens next,” Clarion said, smiling.

“I’m a soldier,” Dawn said.

“Soldiers die.”

“Then we all know where we stand,” Dawn replied.

Clarion didn’t speak again. He turned and gave some orders
to his men, and as he did, Jed noticed a slight motion on the floor. He glanced
down at Matthias and saw his friend’s hand move. Matthias was still alive!

“Hold it!” Jed shouted, and when Clarion looked at him,
Jed acted like he’d been speaking to the Transport men, rather than to his
friend.

“We’ll hold nothing,” Clarion replied with a smirk and
raised his weapon. “Like I said. Time’s up.”

The noise was deafening as the windows of the Yoder house
exploded inward and the green blinds were ripped from their moorings. Jed
sensed the impact coming before it came, or perhaps he’d seen a shadow move
through the blinds, but in any event he grabbed Dawn firmly by the arm and, as
the impact happened, pulled her to the ground.

Clarion and his men reacted slowly. Too slowly. And most
of them were dead before they’d even realized what happened. The windows of the
Yoder house imploded as men smashed through them simultaneously. Jed recognized
Pook Rayburn as he pulled the trigger on his pistol and fired the shot that hit
Teddy Clarion in the head, killing him. The wild man named Eagles appeared like
a specter behind one of the Transport soldiers and, lightning-fast, produced a
knife from somewhere in his mass of odd and mismatched clothing and cut the
soldier’s throat, throwing him to the ground.