Between Two Promises (30 page)

They had just covered eighteen miles from the trailhead on their way to Black Lake, where they would set up camp for the next three days, and were headed down the last of their switchbacks into the Basin. They had been unable to wait to hit the trail once the daytime temperatures in the higher elevations had reached the mid-sixties.

“Look at the lambs,” Aiden said, gazing around with his typical schoolboy enthusiasm. He marveled at the fledglings, keeping close to their mothers’ sides. A few were suckling while the ewes grazed.

The mountain sheep seemed disinterested in the two backpackers. Aiden and Daniel passed through the herds like Moses parting the Red Sea.

They left the sheep behind and hiked through a thick grove. Cordons of sunlight dangled from the branches of the towering trees and sparkled against the cottonwood seeds that drifted in the air. Daniel, carrying store-bought fishing poles that stuck out from his overstuffed backpack like antennae, thought it all looked much like a dream. After more than a week of courtroom appearances, he was happy to be back in Montana, the horror and stress left behind.

They had waited most of the winter and spring on pins and needles to get word of the trial dates while Carolyn Bates waited in prison without bail. Kevin Hassler had been released on a five-hundred-thousand-dollar bond. Four months of discovery, motions, and cancellations later, Frederick County’s prosecutors finally notified them in late April. The two trials in the county seat of Overton had lasted nine days combined. Daniel had thought they would never end.

They had tried Kevin and Carolyn separately, with a four-day break in between. Aiden held himself firm on the stand for each trial, showcasing his trademark honesty. With his golden eyes, he expressed sympathy for the two people who had harmed him. Aiden had more of the legendary forgiving Amish in him than most Amish Daniel knew. Daniel had learned to expect nothing less from him.

Carolyn appeared recovered from her head injury. She was clearly repentant for her acknowledged crimes but also, somewhere deep in her mind, disturbed. Although she had lost weight while in prison and her hair had been styled to look more fashionable and she wore business attire, in some ways her refined appearance accentuated her emotional disturbance. Dull, opaque eyes and slumped shoulders never lied.

After six days of testimony, the jury only needed two hours to find her guilty on each of the handful of charges the prosecutors had brought against her—second-degree murder, tampering with a crime scene, conspiracy. Too many for Daniel to remember. Fifty-two-year sentence with chance for parole in seventeen years. Kevin, whose trial lasted three days, received a harsher hand for the kidnapping. Sixty-seven years with possible parole in twenty-five years. He’d be in his eighties by the time he saw his freedom again.

During the newspaperman’s trial, he looked anguished, beaten. A man lost. Even Daniel felt a pang of empathy for him. They had worn similar shoes, almost. He understood the torment of nearly losing someone he loved. He did hope that Kevin, while in prison, would be able to piece together his life somehow. To find peace within himself. Perhaps establish a stronger bond with his two daughters, who had traveled from nearby states to stand by him during his trial.

Daniel had learned Kevin had sold
The Henry Blade
while he had been out on bail. A small group of Amish women had bought the newspaper on behalf of the community. They needed news, after all, they had said. Whether anything would amount from it, Daniel had no idea. Nor did he care.

The community, at the decree of the ministers, kept its distance from Aiden and Daniel during the two weeks they were in Frederick County for the trials. They stayed at a local Overton motel—only this time, to Aiden’s subtle delight, Daniel had reserved a room with one queen bed. Few back in Henry fully understood the details of Kyle’s murder or Aiden’s kidnapping. Facts of Daniel and Aiden’s relationship were irrelevant to the prosecution and defense. Daniel never knew just how much everyone grasped.

Reverend Yoder attended Carolyn’s trial while the prosecution presented its case in the death of Kyle. He sat rigid, firm, his face unmoving for three days. He never once made eye contact or spoke to either Aiden or Daniel. Joe Karpin had driven him to the trial each of the three days he attended. The venerable old driver sat in the back and watched, fascinated, how the proceedings unfolded.

Last Friday, two weeks after they’d returned to Montana, Daniel was surprised to find a letter postmarked from the reverend in their mailbox. He had written his appreciation that they had helped uncover his son’s killer. No other thoughts were expressed. A short one-paragraph, three-sentence, handwritten note. Aiden had been touched by his consideration. Daniel, shrugging outwardly, had inwardly embraced the letter as more closure to the lengthy, grating ordeal that seemed to have begun when the reverend had first spied Daniel and Kyle kissing in the barn ten years before.

True, the community had been ordered to shun him. No more contact with anyone—family, friends, associates. Yet in many ways, Daniel had shunned them.

Once the commotion of Kevin and Carolyn’s arrests in December had settled, Daniel had confronted Bishop Hershberger at his home and told him he was leaving the church, heading back to Montana. The bishop told him without pretense that, because Daniel had been baptized, he would request the shunning. Daniel nodded solemnly, understanding the full weight of the repercussions of his actions.

Tugging on his moustacheless beard, he gazed at Aiden as he hiked alongside him. Yes, the Englisher worried him to distraction, but that was only because of the devotion that clutched his heart.

Black Lake loomed in the distance, through a swath of early-blooming purple Pasque flowers. They stopped a moment to gaze at the shimmering beauty of the lake and the surrounding valley.

“Just like last year,” Aiden said, grinning. “Nature always has a funny way of staying the same, no matter what. Like it remains a certain way just for us.”

Daniel nodded. Nature, far more dependable than humans, did indeed seem to reach out to them. Nature had rules and etiquettes one had to abide by to survive, yet it opened its borders to anyone. Everyone was welcome, so long as they understood its Ordnung—come at your own risk. That was not the case with human society. Rules were meant, in many ways, to keep certain people out. Nonconformists like him and Aiden discovered few places that would welcome them. But even that no longer bothered Daniel.

For sure, the bittersweet loss of his family stung Daniel. But even that connection failed to be completely severed by Bishop Hershberger and the ministers. Elisabeth wrote him letters often. He had never officially “come out” to his family other than Elisabeth—and inadvertently to his father. More and more he was certain Aiden was right. Mark knew about their relationship. How much the others understood, he had no idea. They must have realized something was different, especially since the ministers had officially enacted the shunning. Elisabeth never wrote about his being gay, although in each of her letters she asked about Aiden, concerned for his well-being like any “sister-in-law” would be. Daniel doubted any of them discussed his “secrets” with each other.

Elisabeth kept him abreast of all the details of life in Henry, making up for his mother’s silence. Through her correspondence, he was able to keep aware of everyone’s doings, as if he were still a part of their lives. The fast-growing Gretchen kept everyone busy. Dad spent more time in the barn. When spring approached, David, Moriah, Grace, and the boy she was courting all helped out on the farm as best they could. Mark sometimes took time away from his small crop of soybeans to help with the oats. His efforts at woodworking had dwindled since his job at the English wood beam manufacturer required he work full-time.

Mark and Heidi adored the small parcel of land Daniel had deeded to them. Back in Illinois for the trial, Daniel was able to drive by and glimpse the barn and two-story home the community had helped build for the newlyweds. Despite the ministers’ decree, he and Mark had stolen three brief moments together before he returned to Montana. Certain bonds a half millennium of tradition could never break. The community had always tucked away an implicit knowledge that, during a shunning, devoted friends and family members would find ways of reaching out to the ostracized.

Elisabeth’s letter in February, informing him of Leah’s death, had come unexpectedly. The news had smarted more than he had imagined whenever he’d thought about how he’d handle the inevitable. Between Aiden’s sobs and his own, expressed concealed while in the shower, he thought the sorrow might never leave them. His tears had come so readily, as if the ducts in his eyes had been waiting for the news. It had hurt that he could not attend the services. No way could the community welcome him into a church gathering headed by the ministers, not after the official shunning. He wished he could have comforted his family. He remembered the last time he had seen little Leah sitting in her wheelchair, a broad, shaky smile on her pink face. He and Aiden had visited her grave while in Illinois for the trial, but only fleetingly. Leah had died on the same day in February as his son Zachariah’s birth.

But a new Schrock was soon on the way. Elisabeth had often expressed in her letters how everyone had been waiting for the news. God had finally graced the newlyweds. Heidi was with child, Elisabeth had written. Another August baby. Daniel would be an uncle—as would Aiden. Mark would see to it that they somehow kept a connection, he was certain.

The day his father had overheard him confess his love for Aiden to Elisabeth, Daniel’s life had transformed, yet some things stood steadfast and changeless. He still lived semi-subsistent, he still practiced age-old traditions that could hardly be lanced from his soul after a lifetime of devout adherence. He still crafted wood furniture. Daniel received lingering orders from his uncle (Uncle Eldridge had lost income due to Daniel’s shunning, income he wasn’t so quick to let go). Daniel also had his own website that Aiden had helped design. Dozens of monthly e-mail orders from around the world popped into his inbox for his handcrafted work. The last time he had seen his father, they had spotted each other across the oat field when Daniel had dropped off Elisabeth in his rental car. (She had been one of the witnesses to testify regarding Carolyn Bates’s relationship with Kyle.) The golden oat field might as well have been a massive schism in the earth, as endless as the mountain range that stretched before Aiden and Daniel.

Within an hour, they found their campsite near the shores of Black Lake. They set up their two-man tent, collected wood for a fire, hoisted their backpacks on sturdy urethane ropes. A small-sized black bear, probably two years old, snooped around the trail heading to the lake, but he ran off like he was on fire when he spotted them hiking along with strange, lengthy sticks.

They fished until the sun rested on the largest of the western Swan peaks like a star atop a Christmas tree. With five cutthroat trout, they had enough for an ample supper, along with the dehydrated chili they had brought along. Their elongated shadows followed them back to camp.

Everything cleaned and stowed and out of the reach of hungry animals, they sat by the blazing fire for the evening, their stomachs full and satisfied. Daniel wrapped his arm around Aiden’s shoulders.

“We’re living in paradise,” Aiden said, his golden eyes even more aflame from the reflection of the fire.

Daniel leaned in and kissed Aiden’s fire-warmed cheek. So easy to show him love out in the woods. Daniel still withheld overt affection whenever they were around people in certain public places. Aiden’s silence on the matter seemed to indicate he understood. Daniel had only wanted to keep Aiden safe. Away from the possibilities. Heart-stopping possibilities he’d rather no longer consider.

Aiden had recovered fully from his kidnapping ordeal. Only a small bump still lingered on the crown of his head where Kevin had struck him with the snow shovel. When Daniel would rub or kiss his curly black hair, he’d sometimes feel it. Emotionally, almost no visible scars remained. Aiden’s mental strength had always awe-struck Daniel. Victimhood, a word nowhere in Aiden’s vocabulary.

To Daniel, Scripture affirmed his and Aiden’s relationship. He had thought so while listening to Bishop Hershberger preside over Mark and Heidi’s wedding ceremony in December. “…ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” He had imagined him and Aiden kneeling before the bishop in Mark and Heidi’s place. They had wed, too, that day, at least symbolically. “…The twain shall be one flesh….”

One day, perhaps Daniel would make good on his pledge to marry Aiden the way Aiden had always dreamed. Perhaps they’d hold a ceremony back in Illinois, or in Iowa, surrounded by cornfields. Or maybe, one day when Montana legalized gay unions, they could take their vows in Glacier National Park, at the same spot where he and Aiden had run into each other by chance two years ago.

State validation meant little to Daniel. He needed no decree, no piece of paper stamped by a bureaucrat to enforce his intentions toward Aiden Cermak. He’d carry out the promise he had made to Aiden last summer and that night after they had first made love in Glacier National Park.

As the moon rose the eastern peaks and brought out murky shadows, Aiden and Daniel doused the flames and headed inside the tent. Snug inside their zipped-together sleeping bags, they clung to each other. So much had happened in the past two years. So much drama had eclipsed their lives. Just to lie still in each other’s arms, secure in a tent pitched in the middle of the Montana backcountry…. Daniel cringed, thinking how close both had come to never seeing each other again.

Aiden seemed to have detected his slight spasm. “What’s wrong?” he asked, nudging in closer.

In the moonlight that filtered inside the tent, Daniel smiled and kissed Aiden on the nose. His gesture was enough to appease Aiden. The plucky Englisher hunkered down, rested his head on Daniel’s chest. Love surged through Daniel’s body as Aiden’s breathing slowed, and Daniel sensed he had succumbed to a restful, and much needed, slumber.