A Prayer for the Night (23 page)

 

BY THE TIME Bruce Robertson had White cut down from the backstop, word had spread. Buggy traffic increased on 68, people being as curious as they are. A group of a dozen onlookers on foot had gathered along the blacktop, and a few adventuresome youth had come down the slope of the schoolyard to have a closer look.

Bishop Raber cut his rig out of the procession, and came down the lane to the softball diamond. He parked to the side, and watched Ricky Niell push White’s head down to deposit him in the backseat of a black-and-white cruiser. White’s hands were cuffed behind him, and there was less room in the backseat than was comfortable for a man of his size. When White tried to protest, Ricky slammed the door shut on him and walked away.

Bishop Raber walked slowly to the pile of English gadgets and clothes that had been stacked at White’s feet. He stood for a long time, gazing with satisfaction on the symbolism of the offering.

Eventually, Professor Branden joined him. “Everything is there, just as we found it.”

“Yes,” Raber said, “it is over.”

Bruce Robertson, in uniform, joined them and said, “All right with you, Bishop, if I just get rid of this stuff? Give some of it to Goodwill?”

Raber nodded. “We have no use for such things, Sheriff. I’ll find out who did this, if you want me to.”

Robertson stroked his chin, smiled, and said, “That won’t be necessary.”

The bishop left, urged his horse up the grade, and went about dispersing the crowd that had gathered on 68.

When the sheriff’s photographer had finished with the scene, and everything had been catalogued, Niell drove White into town. A second cruiser followed with the gadgets and clothes.

Caroline had stepped aside while the deputies worked, and the sheriff and the professor found her sitting on the wooden steps of the schoolhouse.

As they came up, she said, “Is that going to be the end of it?”

Robertson took off his uniform hat and wiped out the sweatband. He looked at the professor and said, “What do you think?”

Branden answered, “I think Tony Arnetto is going to be happy we got White.”

Robertson said, “I’m not sure Arnetto is the happy type. At any rate, we know Samuel White killed John Schlabaugh.”

“He also kidnapped Sara Yoder,” Caroline said.

“He did, or his people did it for him,” the professor said. “He also shot Abe Yoder.”

“All the other kids are safe,” Caroline said.

Up on the road, the last of the onlookers was headed back toward Saltillo. Dan Wilsher finished photographing tracks in the sandy ground of the softball diamond.

Branden said to Robertson, “You going to follow this up?” nodding his head at Wilsher.

Robertson said, “We’re just being thorough.”

“Any ideas how they pulled it off?” Branden asked.

“It’s the phones,” Robertson said. “They must have got him out here that way. From all the tracks, I’d say there were four or five of them, in buggies. And they had two weapons that we know of.”

“Jeremiah Miller didn’t use his cell phone,” Branden said. “But he could have made calls from pay phones, and we’d never have known it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Robertson said. “I’m not going to follow it up. Some good citizen did us a favor, and that’s enough for me. On this case, at any rate.”

“So, what’s left?” the professor asked.

“We’ve got a briefcase full of money and drugs,” Robertson said, “and a revolver from the cabin where Abe Yoder was hiding. My guess is it will check out with ballistics. Amish boys don’t shoot people.”

“You’ve also got a red Pontiac,” Branden said.

“Impounded,” Robertson said. “I consider it confiscated. I don’t think John Schlabaugh’s family is going to argue with that.”

“You closed down an Ecstasy lab and a score of dealers,” Caroline said.

“That we did,” Robertson said. “That we did.”

“This all started out with nine kids,” Branden said. “Have you ever seen anything so extreme before, Bruce?”

Robertson shook his head and put his hat back on. “Abe Yoder got off easy, considering he might have died.”

“Of the six kids left from that gang,” Branden said, “two have left the area. Mary Troyer up at Middlefield, and Henry Erb out to Kansas.”

“That leaves four,” Robertson said.

“Would four determined Amish fellas, like members of Schlabaugh’s gang, be enough to trick and capture Samuel White?” Branden asked.

“I’m going to have to believe that they would,” Robertson said. “I’m going to choose to believe that they did.”

Caroline let a moment pass, then said, “I don’t know about you two, but this surprises me. A lot. Whoever did this was extremely resourceful. I have a hard time holding Amish in mind, when thinking about this level of intensity. And I don’t think you two are any different. I’m betting this one took you by surprise.”

“We were never very far out in front,” Robertson admitted.

The professor said, “I haven’t had much time to think about it, really.”

“Before this,” Caroline asked, “did you think Amish kids could take things so far?”

“No,” the professor said.

“Not in a million years,” said Robertson.

“Then Sara Yoder is a very lucky girl,” Caroline said. “Holmes County’s finest detectives were just following hunches.”

“I don’t think it was that bad,” Branden said, and laughed.

“I don’t either,” Robertson added.

“If you hadn’t talked with Abe Yoder, you’d never have saved her.”

“But we did talk to Abe Yoder,” the professor offered.

“Still,” Caroline said. “I don’t know.”

“We were lucky,” Branden said.

Caroline tipped her head at the backstop where White had been pinned. “I’d say White was lucky, too, gentlemen. I’d say he was very lucky indeed.”

Thursday, August 12
7:30 A.M.

 

 

MARTHA YODER stood behind Sara, seated in her upstairs bedroom, and brushed Sara’s hair gently. “Your father’s going to want to talk with you before you go down,” she said.

Sara nodded and turned around to face her mother. “Is he . . . angry?”

“No, sweet child. No, not at all. I think he has a present for you.”

“Hawe you . . . crying, Mother?”

“I puddle up from time to time.”

“Jeremiah . . . good man. Be a good husband.”

“I know.”

“Then . . . what is it?”

“I wish you hadn’t been so wild, Sara. I wish you hadn’t gotten hurt.”

“Going to be ... fine.”

“Oh, Sara! You’re so young.”

“Older than you were. When you and Papa . . . married.”

“That was different.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“I was never a wild child, Sara. I didn’t have much of a Rumschpringe in my day.”

“Just as well. Not all it’s cracked . . . to be.”

When she had put up her hair and finished dressing, Sara’s two youngest sisters, Annie, seven, and Lizzie, five, came into the bedroom. Annie gave her a picture she had done in crayon—a large stick-figure girl in the upper left corner, with a small smudge of a little girl, either kneeling or sitting, in the lower left corner under a tree with a scribble of green leaves and a thick brown trunk. Lizzie gave her a bundle of wildflowers she had picked that morning.

Annie asked, in a small, high voice, “Are you going to visit us, Sara?” She sounded worried.

Sara leaned over, scooped the girls into her arms, and held them close for a long time. Then she said, eyes moist with tears, “You’d better beliewe it.”

“Are you going to have babies now?” asked Lizzie.

“If I can, Lizzie. If I can.”

“Are you Amish now?” Lizzie asked shyly.

“Yes, little one. I . . . Amish.”

When the girls had left, Albert O. Yoder came in bashfully and said, “You ready to do this, Sara? Are you sure?”

Sara said, “Yes, Papa. Jeremiah’s . . . good . . . man.”

“Those Millers are a frugal bunch.”

“Be fine, Papa.”

“If you ever need anything, you ask your husband first, and then you come see me.”

Sara nodded and smiled.

“I’ve picked out a breeding pair of goats for you. At least you’ll have milk.”

“Be fine, Papa. You . . . stop worrying.”

“Oh, you’re sure of that, are you, Sara?”

“I am.”

“A father never stops worrying. From the day you were born, until the day I die.”

 

SARA YODER didn’t care that, in many obvious and telling ways, her wedding was not traditional. She knew there would be endless gossip over this within her family, near and far, and among her neighbors. But Sara didn’t mind. To her it mattered only that she was able to spend her day on crutches, not in a wheelchair, and that, when asked her vows, she would be able to reply with a strong and confident “Yes.” Yes to Jeremiah Miller. Yes to marriage. Yes to the church.

She had talked at length with her parents about the details. Sara’s would be a rare summer wedding, a departure from the usual practice of holding weddings in the fall or winter, after the harvest. Hers would be a small gathering, by Amish standards. Usually, all of the bride’s relatives and neighbors would be invited and would be expected to attend. For Sara’s relatives, scattered through Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, a journey during the growing season would be burdensome and impractical. A summer wedding posed less of a problem for Jeremiah, since invitations are traditionally extended only to the groom’s immediate family.

Following local tradition, the wedding ceremony was to take place not at the bride’s house but at the Albert P. and Miriam Yoder residence down the lane. After the ceremony at the neighbors’ house, the bride’s family would then be responsible for all the food and preparations at their own house. By tradition, the religious service, ceremony, and fellowship would last the entire day. It was to be a Thursday wedding, according with the tradition that weddings be held on either a Tuesday or a Thursday.

Sara and Jeremiah stood up to be married with four witnesses or attendants, called
nevvehocker.
Sara had chosen two of her cousins as attendants, and Jeremiah, two of his uncles. The four witnesses were dressed like the bride and groom, so that to the unknowing, it would not be obvious, until the ceremony began, who among them would be married. This is a tradition held over from the years of European persecution.

Jeremiah and his two
nevvehocker
wore homemade blue serge suits and collarless white shirts of cotton broadcloth. Sara wore a light blue cotton dress with a high neckline, a full-length skirt with a white organdy kerchief in a pocket, and a matching apron reaching from her neck to the hem of her skirt. Her prayer cap was white.

The ceremony at the neighbors’ house started traditionally, with a two-hour hymn service, the men sitting separate from the women. Then followed two hours of preaching on weddings in the Bible. Sara and Jeremiah had picked their two favorite preachers for this duty, and they had asked Cal Troyer to conclude with the traditional story from the Old Testament about the wedding of Tobias.

Before their vows were spoken, Sara and Jeremiah met with Bishop Raber upstairs for the
Vermahnung,
their final instructions and exhortations from the bishop about married life.

The actual rites, later in the morning, proceeded in German. Sara’s voice was confident, but still somewhat impaired.

Friends and family were seated on the lawn behind the wedding party. The bishop started without formalities, saying, “Do you recognize it as a Christian Order that there should be one man and one woman, and can you hope too that you have started this union according to the Christian Order?

Sara looked at Jeremiah, and he at her, and together they answered, “Yes.”

The bishop continued. “Can you too hope, Brother, that the Lord might have ordained this our Sister as a married wife?”

Jeremiah smiled, glanced at his uncles behind him and loudly stated, “Yes.”

To Sara, the bishop likewise said, “Can you too hope, Sister, that the Lord might have ordained this our Brother as a married husband?”

Sara nodded, paused to focus on her word, and said, “Yes.”

The bishop drew himself up a little straighter and looked over the audience. He turned his gaze to Jeremiah and said, “Do you promise to your married wife that if she should come into bodily weakness, sickness, or any kind of condition, that you will care for her as is becoming a married Christian man?”

Jeremiah answered, “Yes.”

To Sara, the bishop said, likewise, “Do you promise to your married husband that if he should come into bodily weakness, sickness, or any kind of condition, that you will care for him as is becoming a married Christian woman?”

Sara smiled and answered, “Yes.”

A little louder, now, the bishop said, “Do you both also promise to the Lord and to the community that you will bear with each other love, life, and patience, and not separate from one another until the dear Lord will part you through death?”

Sara and Jeremiah answered yes, and managed, both, to relax slightly.

The bishop concluded: “So we see that Raguel took the hand of the daughter and put it into the hand of Tobias and said, ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Jakob, the God of Isaac be with you and help you together, and give you his blessing richly over you,’ and all this through Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Friday, August 13
6:50 A.M.

 

 

 

CAROLINE was up before the professor and waited for him in her pajamas, with a carafe of coffee, on their oak bench with a view of the Amish valley and the hills east of Millersburg. When he came out to join her, he was already dressed in work boots, old jeans, a heavy work shirt with long sleeves, and a Cleveland Indians ball cap.