DC03 - Though Mountains Fall (16 page)

Jake’s feet felt like lead that Sunday morning, his heart like ashes. Willing himself into the barn for the service he took a seat alone on the back row, thankful, at least, that the council meeting had been held weeks earlier. At council meeting the preacher always talked about how to deal with an errant brother, the sermon always ending with the same chilling admonition: “Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” Even now, the words rang in Jake’s head. He felt Rachel’s compassionate eyes watching him from across the barn, but he could not make himself return her gaze.

It was a normal service, except that at the end Bishop Schwartz asked all the members to remain seated while the rest were dismissed. He caught Jake’s eye and motioned for him to leave, too. The bishop had an announcement to make, for members only. Filing out the door behind the children and youth Jake’s ears burned from the stares of those who knew what was coming. Word had spread.

Rachel was waiting for him in the sunlight just outside the
door. She took his hands in hers and made him look at her as she whispered, “It’ll be all right. I’m with you.”

He nodded grimly, but her words warmed him. She was his anchor. Even now, even in the coming storm, he knew his anchor would hold. As long as Rachel drew breath, he would never really be alone.

Nothing else needed saying. They both knew what was happening inside. The bishop would announce to the members that Jake Weaver had been banned, but that he had acknowledged his sin and his willingness to accept punishment. After a few agonizing minutes, the deacon emerged and came straight up to Jake.

“You are banned,” he said with a formality that was not natural to him. “We will come and speak with you before next meeting.” He punctuated this with a sharp nod, then turned away and went back inside.

It went exactly as Jake had anticipated, and yet an awful weight still settled on him. To be shunned by all his family and friends was a daunting prospect. He would be forced to take his meals in another room, apart from his own family, eating from separate bowls. But that was not the worst of it. The real horror was that during the ban he would be separated from Gott himself.

Rachel visited as often as she could during the ban, to try and cheer him up, but Jake was inconsolable. He could find no way to escape his own thoughts. Since no one was allowed to do business of any kind with him, he couldn’t even work his father’s fields or do chores to keep his hands busy and his mind occupied. He had no appetite; food had no taste. On long walks through woods and fields even the brightness of high spring faded to brown, as if Gott had turned His back. Throughout the whole ordeal he clung to his memories, recalling moments spent with Rachel in these same surroundings three years ago.
In some ways it seemed like yesterday, as though no time had passed at all, and in some ways it felt like a lifetime, as though he and Rachel were not even the same people anymore.

Two weeks felt like a hundred years for Jake, but the time did finally pass and the second Sunday arrived. At the end of the service the nonmembers—this time including Jake—were once again dismissed while the members remained seated.

He found Rachel tending a group of children outside and stood with her, waiting nervously while the members voted on whether or not to allow him back into the fold. With a reassuring smile she took his arm, leaned close and whispered the words he’d heard a hundred times.

“It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

A deacon came out shortly, summoning everyone back inside. As Rachel and Jake filed in behind a long line of children and teenagers, the deacon caught Jake by the shoulder. His heart stopped until he saw the little smile in the man’s eyes.

“The vote was unanimous,” the deacon said. “Not one person here thinks of you as a murderer.”

He very nearly wept with relief.

As Rachel was taking her seat on the backless bench, Bishop Schwartz began reading the story of the prodigal son from the Bible. When he was done, he called Jake to the front and asked him to kneel.

The bishop asked a few pointed questions, which Jake answered from the heart. His contrition was clear. When Jake rose to face them, the bishop said, “I encourage you all to forget
that this ever happened. This man is forgiven, and you should hold nothing against him.”

There was one point during Jake’s confession when Rachel almost got herself in trouble. When she heard Jake promise out loud before the church that he would “seek to do better,” in essence he was promising that in the future he would do his best to avoid killing anyone. She very nearly laughed at the absurdity—as if Jake were a murderer, as if there were the remotest chance he’d ever find himself in that situation again. But she managed to catch herself and lower her face to hide the smile.

And then it was over and Jake was restored to fellowship, a member in good standing.

After the service one of the bishops pulled her aside. It was Abe Detweiler, one of the younger ones newly ordained in another district and a second cousin of Lizzie’s husband, Andy. His face was ruddy, his beard as red as Rachel’s hair. She was afraid for a minute that he’d seen her smiling during Jake’s confession and was going to give her a scolding, but it wasn’t that at all.

“I read your father’s letter. It’s a shame about Miriam,” he said gravely. “We will have little choice, but we’ll give it time before we do anything. A grace period is customary because you never know—something could happen to Miriam’s husband and she could return to the fold. Of course it’s up to Bishop Schwartz, but I’m sure he’ll want to wait a while. Perhaps when you finish your instruction classes and are ready to return to Mexico, then we’ll decide.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Miriam and I are very close. I have to tell you, after all we’ve been through I cannot find it in me to fault her for marrying Domingo. I know she made a promise when she was baptized, but how could she have known she would
be hauled off to the mountains of Mexico where there were no Amish? No one knows what it was like for her. She never really had a choice. Mexico is a different world.”

He nodded and, despite his position as a bishop and a defender of the faith, there was deep sympathy in his eyes. “I have heard,” he said. “Your family has been through terrible trials . . . especially the death of your brother Aaron. We here can’t know what it must be like having to deal with bandits all the time. Do they still plague your valley?”

“Oh no. A detachment of soldiers came to El Prado not long ago. There was a battle, and the bandits lost. Word has already spread about the troops, so I don’t think we’ll have any more trouble with bandits.”

He stroked his rusty beard, staring at the floor. His eyes narrowed in thought and it hit Rachel suddenly that he was thinking about Mexico.

And he was a
bishop
!

Abe Detweiler was young for a bishop—only about forty—but he had several school-age children who were being forced to attend public school five days a week. She resolved to be careful with her words. It was just possible that Abe Detweiler was the answer to a thousand prayers.

“I have to go and help with lunch,” she said, “but I would love to tell you more about our home in Mexico. Perhaps you and Sarah could come visit sometime.”

He nodded, smiled. “I would love to hear more about it. And I will pray for Miriam.”

Miriam’s loss would be deeply felt by all, and none so deeply as Rachel, but on this day Jake was restored to fellowship, his sins washed away and forgotten. It was a day for joy. She and Jake went to the youth singing that night, together, and afterward they slipped away into the darkness for a little reunion of their own.

Chapter 13

E
mma saw a change in Levi that summer, and she nurtured it with great care and patience—the way she watered her trees, and for the same reason. When the men came and helped Levi rebuild his barn he began to step a bit lighter and smile more often. Taciturn by nature, he said little to Emma about the lifting of his spirits, but she knew. The grace of Gott was at work in her husband, and he was finally beginning to see it.

Domingo came by sometimes in the late afternoon when his work was done, toiling until dark, nailing boards on the outside of the barn and helping Levi cover the roof with new sheets of tin, paid for and delivered by his neighbors. Miriam came on those afternoons too, for she knew—had always known—that Emma held the key to her father’s heart.

“They work well together,” Miriam said one evening, watching from the back door of the house.

The sharp reports of hammers on tin told Emma what they were doing. She dried her hands on a dish towel as she went and watched over Miriam’s shoulder.

“They’re so different,” she said, “and yet in some ways they’re two of a kind. Strong, quiet, hardworking and honest.”

“You left off stubborn,” Miriam said.

Emma chuckled. “Jah, that too.”

“I’m glad to see them finally getting to be friends.”

“Levi’s come a long way in his thinking lately. When he saw that Gott has forgiven him he finally forgave himself, and it felt so good to him that he started forgiving other people. It’s all new to Levi. I only hope he doesn’t change his mind when the ban comes.”

“He won’t have any choice,” Miriam said. “Nobody expects him to disobey the church—least of all me. I won’t have anybody getting in trouble because of me.”

Emma took her sister’s shoulder and turned her until their eyes met. “Listen, Miriam. You know as well as I do that people bend the rules all the time, and your family will bend them as far as they can. The ban won’t be so hard. The only one you ever really had to worry about was Levi, and look at him now.”

They both glanced up at the barn roof just in time to see Domingo slip. He was high up near the peak, with Levi a little lower and off to one side. Domingo went to step sideways when the board he was bracing his foot against broke away. Domingo went belly-down on the steep tin roof, scrambling for a handhold as he started sliding.

Emma and Miriam both gasped, but then they saw Levi’s arm fly out quick as a snake, grabbing Domingo’s wrist and stopping the slide.

Two hammers clattered down across the tin roof and plummeted thirty feet to the ground as Levi strained to pull Domingo back up to a safe foothold.

It happened so fast neither of the women even had time to move. They just stood there with their mouths open, shaking
their heads in disbelief. There was nothing they could have done anyway, and by the time the panic subsided the danger was past and their husbands were laughing at themselves.

“Laughing,” Emma said. “Look at them. They’re
laughing
! Have they lost their minds?”

“No,” Miriam said, her hand still pressed against her beating heart. “They’re men. They don’t think the same way we do, and after all we’ve been through I’m glad for it.”