DC03 - Though Mountains Fall (17 page)

Rachel didn’t see Abe Detweiler again until she was halfway through her instruction classes, but on a Sunday afternoon in midsummer his surrey pulled up the drive. The children all went out to play with Lizzie’s brood while Abe and his wife, Sarah, came in to visit.

Jake was there too, which was fortunate, because Abe wanted to hear more about what had happened in Diablo Canyon. Despite Jake’s interrogation, there were a great many details Abe didn’t know.

They exchanged pleasantries while Lizzie served coffee and apple pie at the kitchen table. She was well prepared; Sunday afternoon was when people would drop in for a visit unannounced, and Amish women prided themselves on spending their Saturday baking for just such a contingency. Lizzie was a little flustered nonetheless. It was a rare honor to have a bishop drop by.

“I don’t mean to dredge up unpleasant memories,” Abe said, a fork poised over a half-eaten slice of deep-dish pie, “but I’d really like to hear the whole story about how you came to be in a bandit’s barn so far from home.”

So Rachel told him. She started at the beginning, about how she, Aaron, Ada, and Little Amos were on their way back
from Agua Nueva when El Pantera and his men overtook them on the road.

“It was horrible,” she said. “Ada and Little Amos run off to who knows where, and Aaron is stabbed. I was so worried about them I just didn’t think much about myself.”

“When Ada came home the next morning we went looking and found Aaron,” Jake said. “Caleb and Harvey brought him home, and me and Domingo went after Rachel on horseback. We trailed the bandits all the way to their hideout in Diablo Canyon, but then they caught us.”

Sarah’s eyes went wide in terror. “So you were captured?” She had heard only the barest outline of what happened.

“Jah,” Jake said. “That night they chained us all in the barn, but I got loose. That’s when I . . .” His face darkened, his voice trailed off and he leaned over his apple pie, picking at it with his fork. “I don’t remember much after that,” he mumbled.

“It’s all right,” Abe Detweiler said, and there was compassion in his eyes. “It’s all behind us now. All is confessed and forgiven.”

Still grieved by the memory, Jake didn’t offer anything more, so Rachel told them the rest of the story about her escape, including Domingo’s stand at El Ojo. Abe and Sarah sat back wide-eyed, captivated, forgetting their pie and coffee.

“I’ve never heard anything like that in my life,” Sarah said. “It’s a wonder you weren’t all killed.”

“Gott protects His children,” Abe said softly. “But you were right in what you told me, Rachel. Everything that has befallen you and your family there—it’s all so different from how we live here. Almost unimaginable. Hearing what it’s really like down there makes it a lot harder to judge people’s actions. We just can’t know.”

But Rachel hadn’t forgotten her main objective. She was watching their eyes, gauging the bishop’s reactions and those of
his wife. In the end, Rachel knew Sarah was the one she would have to persuade.

“But the bandits don’t bother us anymore, now that the troops are there,” she said. “And there are a lot of good things about Mexico, too. Dat says the soil in Paradise Valley is as rich as any he’s ever seen. Wheat grows like hair on a dog’s back. The winters are milder, and since we’re in the mountains the summers aren’t so hot.”

“I thought Mexico was a desert country,” Sarah said.

“Not all of it. It’s nice in the mountains. There aren’t as many trees as here in Ohio, but Emma has planted trees everywhere. Someday our valley really will be a paradise.” A little smile came to Sarah’s eyes then, and Rachel decided it was now or never. Time to run out her best argument. “We even have our own school,” she said.

Sarah’s eyes widened. “No! You have your own
school
?”

Rachel nodded casually, wiping her mouth on a napkin. “We teach Amish kinner reading, writing and arithmetic, without all the other stuff they fill their heads with in public school. And we teach them Spanish, just like the schools here teach Amish children to speak English.”

“But who is the teacher?” Abe asked.

“Well, Miriam started the school, and she was amazing with those children—truly gifted. But after she married Domingo the others didn’t want her teaching their kinner anymore, so now I’m the teacher. Sometimes Leah and Barb help.”

“I didn’t know this,” Abe said, sitting back in his kitchen chair as if the thought itself knocked him slightly off-kilter. “I never would have thought of it. Everyone knows the school issue is why you went there in the first place, but I never dreamed you would start your own. This is a very good thing.”

Rachel could see it in their eyes. The seed was planted; Abe
and Sarah would discuss it between themselves later. Now, she judged, it was best to change the subject, not to belabor the point.

“Our houses are adobe,” she said. “They cost practically nothing because we make the bricks out of mud and straw.”

Sarah’s nose wrinkled. “Your houses are made of mud?”

The look on her face made Rachel giggle. “Jah, but you should see them. We plaster over the inside walls when we’re done, and then whitewash the whole thing. It’s really kind of nice once you get used to the idea. The men cut trees in the mountains for the roof, and we even found stone to build a basement.”

Abe’s brow furrowed. “Is there a market where you can sell your cash crops?”

Jake perked up, now that the conversation had gotten away from bandits, and it was he who answered the question.

“Well, we trade little things like milk and butter in the hacienda village, but we have to take our cash crops to Saltillo. It’s fifty miles, but they’re supposed to be building a railroad down our way. It’ll be much easier then.”

Abe and his wife asked questions all afternoon, clearly fascinated by life in Mexico. Jake and Rachel answered them all, and when the children came bursting into the house later in the afternoon Sarah took her youngest under her arm—a little sandy-haired boy named Eli—and whispered to him, “What would you think about going to a school where there were only Amish children?”

The bashful boy said nothing, but he looked up at his mother with a wide-eyed grin and nodded vigorously.

The look that flashed between Rachel and Jake was brief and wordless, yet there was an unmistakable gleam of hope in it.

Emma’s babies were asleep, the lights out, and she and Levi lay awake in bed.

“I saw Miriam today, in town,” she said. “She told me Domingo and the priest went to Saltillo for tin, and they’re ready to roof the building they’re going to use for a church.”

“That’s good,” Levi mumbled, and she could tell by the drowsy tone that he was already near sleep.

“It’s a lot of work. They’ll be needing help.”

He didn’t answer for a moment, and she was afraid he’d drifted off until he stirred. “And you want me to go help them?”

“Domingo helped you roof your barn.”

“A lot of men helped with my barn.”

“Jah, but Domingo more than the others. You owe him.”

Levi raised himself up on an elbow. “Emma, I like Domingo. He’s a good hand, and he don’t talk too much. But he’s an outsider who married your sister, and the ban is coming. To help Domingo is to help Miriam, and you know we can’t do that. What will people say?”

She smiled patiently. This kind of thinking was still new to him. “They’ll raise their eyebrows and wag their beards, but they can’t do anything more. Even if Miriam was banned there’s no money changing hands, so it’s not like you’re doing
business
with them.”

“But it’s a
Catholic
church.”

“It will also be a school for the poor children of San Rafael.”

“Mexican children.”

“Children are children, Levi. The little ones can’t help that their parents aren’t Amish. Gott loves them all, and so should we.”

He didn’t answer right away. She held her breath, waiting, because she knew her husband well. Though he loved Emma more than all the world and would always listen to her, he would
never do something he thought was wrong merely because she asked him to. It was his right as a man, and his duty as the head of his house. But if he thought it over and decided it was the right thing to do, nothing would stop him. Not even the raised eyebrows of the Amish.

He sighed deeply and said, “I knew you were a troublemaker when I married you. When will we go?”

There were lots of local people helping fix up the warehouse in San Rafael, but only one Amishman. Every morning, as soon as chores were done, Levi and Emma and their three babies showed up early and spent the day.

The women—Miriam, Kyra, and Emma—made sure everyone got their share of tortillas and beans at lunchtime, and carried water all day long.

They were filling buckets from the well one afternoon when they paused for a breather and fell to watching the men work on the roof.

“You know,” Kyra said, “Father Noceda swings a hammer pretty well, for a priest. But he’s no match for Domingo and Levi.”

Miriam smiled, and there was a note of pride in it. “When those two work side by side, no one is a match for them.”

“
Esto es verdad
,” Kyra said.
This
is true
. “But I’ll say this for Father Noceda—he’s every bit as good-looking as they are. Too bad he’s a priest.”

With an embarrassed grin Miriam slapped her shoulder. “Kyra, you shouldn’t even
think
such a thing.”

Emma’s head tilted. “Why?”

“A priest cannot have a wife,” Kyra answered. “He is married to the church.”

“Ahhh, I see. An Amish minister would never put up with that.”

“Nooo,” Miriam said. “If an Amishman didn’t have a wife he’d starve to death.”

They all laughed. Looking at the two of them side by side, Emma said, “You know, Miriam, I never realized how much you and Kyra resemble each other. In those clothes you look more like her sister than mine.”

“
Ella
es
mi hermana
,” Kyra said with a smile.
She
is
my sister
. “Which I guess means you are my sister, too, Emma. I can’t thank you enough for bringing Levi to help with the work. From what little I know of Levi, I never thought he would help work on a Catholic church.”

Emma smiled. “He and Domingo are getting to be very good friends these days, and he’s only repaying a favor. Anyway, Levi doesn’t think of it as working on a Catholic church.” She glanced at Miriam with a trace of pride. “He’s helping to build a school for the
niños
. What he doesn’t know is that he’s the first student. Levi is learning a lot.”

Chapter 14

A
squad of soldiers passed through Paradise Valley every morning heading west on patrol, and every afternoon they returned. Caleb watched with growing irritation, in the beginning because one or two of them were always riding standard-bred horses they had practically stolen from the Amish, but later because of their increasingly arrogant disregard for the farmers. On their way back to the hacienda village the soldiers would always stop and water their horses at one of the Amish horse troughs. Caleb didn’t mind this—he wouldn’t begrudge a thirsty horse no matter
who
was in the saddle—but they also walked their horses through cultivated fields. As the summer deepened and the crops grew, the patrols began walking their horses right through the oats and letting them graze, trampling a different stretch of field every day.