DC03 - Though Mountains Fall (29 page)

Harvest wouldn’t really begin for another three months.
Few Amishmen would willingly be separated from their family for that long, though Abe was clearly reticent about explaining why. Time to prod.

“I don’t want to pry,” Caleb said, “but I can’t help wondering why you haven’t made up your mind about staying. There haven’t been any bandits at all since you got here. It’s been pretty quiet.”

“Jah, that’s true. It looks like those troops fixed your bandit problem, that’s for sure.” Then his ruddy face twisted in a doubtful grimace and he added, “But it’s the troops I worry about. All these men with guns riding back and forth through the valley every day, they make me nervous. Now they went and beat up Atlee’s young ones. I don’t know, Caleb. I keep hearing things about this Presidente Calles, and how bad he hates the church. If the Mexican government persecutes the Catholics, how long will it be before they persecute the Amish? It just feels like there’s something in the air—like we’re waiting for a storm.”

Caleb chuckled. “Well, I expect this meeting with the commander of the federales will put your mind at ease. He was pretty friendly when I talked to him the other day, and when he sent for us he said he wanted to make a gesture of goodwill.”

Abe nodded, staring at the fingers of deep red crawling across the eastern sky as Caleb tugged on the reins and turned the buggy into Atlee’s lane.

“Maybe so,” he said. “Maybe everything will be all right.”

Chapter 24

C
aptain Soto was waiting for them in his office, wearing his dress uniform as if he was expecting important dignitaries, a half-dozen medals pinned to his chest and a cavalry saber hanging at his side. He clearly recognized Atlee, but Caleb introduced him anyway, stating mostly for Atlee’s benefit that he was the father of the boy and girl who had been beaten. The captain shook his hand and even bowed a little, oddly obsequious.

Abe Detweiler didn’t understand anything they said. He’d only picked up a few words of Spanish so far, and he kept glancing back and forth between them, unable to follow the conversation.

When Caleb introduced Detweiler to Captain Soto, the grin, and all traces of obsequiousness, disappeared.

Soto shook Abe’s hand, but he was glaring at Caleb as he did it. “Did you say this man is your priest?”

“
Mi obispo
,” Caleb repeated.
My bishop
.

The captain’s eyes shifted back and forth between them, and Caleb saw an unmistakable trace of indignation in the glance.

“Correct me if I am wrong, but is not a bishop a high-ranking priest?”

Bishop Detweiler may not have understood the words, but it was clear from the expression on his face that he’d read the anger.

“He wants to know if you’re a priest,” Caleb said.

Detweiler hesitated for a second, then shrugged. “Sí.”

“We would not use that word,” Caleb said, “but I suppose he is the same as a priest.”

Soto’s eyes narrowed. A trace of a smile came back to his lips, but there was a sneer in it. “I suppose it makes no difference. As I told my courier, I have brought you here today to set things right.” He paused while Caleb translated for Detweiler. “I am aware,” the captain continued, “that my men have sometimes been a bit of a burden on the farmers in your valley, and you have been very generous in selling us your horses at a discount.”

Translating this, Caleb was tempted to say
stealing
the horses, but he didn’t.

“My lieutenants and I have thoroughly investigated the incident involving your two children, Señor Hostetler. We have apprehended the men responsible, questioned them at length and extracted the truth from them.”

Translating for the bishop, Caleb almost used the word
tortured
, but again he refrained. Still, the captain’s words, and his tone, left Caleb with an ominous feeling.

“These men have confessed their crimes in a fair and open court-martial, and they will now face justice. You will see I am a man of my word, Señor Bender. As I told you before, I will not tolerate men in my command who rape innocent girls.”

Caleb froze. Atlee, who had learned Spanish very quickly, probably from the federales, understood every word. His mouth fell open and he stared at Caleb in horror.

“Rape? Caleb, my Saloma wasn’t
raped
, was she?” He said this in Dutch, so now the bishop knew as well.

“Caleb?” the bishop said. “Answer him.”

Soto had sense enough to wait, though he understood not a word.

Caleb looked Atlee in the eye. “Jah, it’s true. Saloma didn’t want it told, and I didn’t mean for it to come out this way, but that’s what happened. She told Rachel. That’s why they beat Joe so bad, because he tried to stop them.”

Atlee’s face twisted into a mask of horror. His knees buckled, but Bishop Detweiler caught him by the shoulders and steadied him.

“Señor Bender, is there a problem?” Soto asked.

“They didn’t know about the rape,” he said bluntly. “I was the only one who knew, and I was trying to keep it secret—for the girl’s sake.”

Soto’s head tilted, his brow furrowed. “My apologies. You are a very strange people,” he said quietly. There was a curiously insidious smile on his face. The smile of a predator.

It reminded Caleb of El Pantera.

It was then that he heard faint marching noises from outside—the side of the rectory facing the high stone wall of the hacienda thirty yards away. But the curtains were drawn and he couldn’t see what was happening.

The captain must have heard the marching too, because he went to the big double window and drew back the curtains.

Outside, Caleb could see the backs of six soldiers, side by side at parade rest, the butts of their rifles standing on the ground by their feet. Beyond them, with their backs to the stone wall of the hacienda in the shade of a live oak tree, stood two soldiers, one much larger than the other. Their hats were gone, the stripes and insignia stripped from their uniforms, their
hands tied behind their backs, and a look of hopeless despair on their bruised faces.

Suddenly it all came together. He knew why Soto had called them here and why he was wearing his fancy uniform with all the medals, the polished sword and scabbard hanging from his belt. He now understood the smug grin on the captain’s face and knew what was about to happen. The soldiers outside waited only for their captain’s signal.

“Captain, I
beg
you,” Caleb said. “Please. You must not do this thing.”

“
Justicia
,” the captain said slowly, dragging the word into a sibilant whisper, enunciating every letter.

Caleb shook his head. “Do not do this. None of us want it, nor would we call it justice. All we ever wanted was to make the streets safe for our daughters.”

Soto’s eyebrows rose. “Sí, I will show you how that is accomplished, señor.”

“What’s going on?” Detweiler asked, clutching Caleb’s shoulder. “What is he saying?” Caleb ignored him.

“This is a hard country,” Soto said, “and we have gone through hard times. It is the duty of a leader to meet serious crimes with swift and harsh punishment, or else he will be perceived as weak. In hard times, Señor Bender, the weak perish.”

“What is
happening
?” Bishop Detweiler asked again, and this time he raised his voice.

“He’s going to execute them,” Caleb said softly, and Detweiler’s ruddy face went ghostly pale.

The bishop’s eyes grew wide. “No! You must not do this!” he said, imploring with every fiber, the veins bulging in his neck. “Captain, I assure you, the boy and girl—the
victims
of this crime—if they were here, they would beg you not to do this thing. Please, have mercy!”

Caleb translated his words.

Soto stepped closer to the bishop and gave him his best El Pantera smile. Their faces only inches apart, he stared hard into the bishop’s eyes, seething hatred on full display as he spoke through Caleb. “Señor Bender, tell your
priest
that in my investigation of these crimes I learned of the punishment given to your own murdering kin—this Jake Weaver—the young man who admitted attacking an unarmed man from behind and choking him to death. He freely admitted this! His punishment was to be thrown out of the church. For TWO WEEKS!”

Soto screamed this last from his tiptoes, purple with rage. And then, just as suddenly, he calmed himself and that sinister smile returned.

“Tell your priest he is no longer in America. This is
Mexico
. I have told you before, Señor Bender—mercy is a luxury I cannot afford.”

The little captain turned his back on the bishop and went to the window.

“This is why I brought you here today,” he said. “To show you what real justice looks like when it is meted out by real men.”

Soto nodded to his lieutenant, who stood outside watching him, waiting.

The lieutenant barked an order.

The six riflemen snapped to attention.

The lieutenant barked again. Instantly the riflemen brought their weapons up to their shoulders and took aim at the two prisoners.

“No!” Caleb whispered. “Please, NO!”

Soto snorted derisively, his back to the three Amishmen, his hands clasped behind him.

They heard the beginning of a third order barked by the lieutenant outside, but it was drowned in the roar of rifles.

Caleb drove in silence, in shock, the same as the bishop who sat stone-faced on the bench beside him. Atlee Hostetler hunkered in the back seat, brooding.

Finally, when they were well clear of the hacienda village and halfway home, Atlee leaned forward.

“I can’t believe you kept this from me, Caleb. I thought you were my friend.”

Caleb’s jaw clenched. He had done only what he believed was right.

“I
am
your friend,” he said, with more conviction than he felt, “but your daughter wanted me to promise I would not tell anyone what I knew, including you. A promise is a promise, and I think your daughter’s wishes are more important than your own—this once.”

“But she is
my
daughter, not yours. It is my right to know. Anyway, I don’t know what you’re so upset about. Those heathens got what they deserved.”

Bishop Detweiler turned halfway and looked back at Atlee.

“Only Gott has the right to judge a man’s soul and decide whether he should live or die, Atlee. For us to do that is arrogance. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of any man’s death, for any reason. I would rather see him forgiven, that he may turn from his ways and find peace with Gott.”

But the bishop’s rebuke only fueled Atlee’s anger.

“It’s this country,” Atlee growled. “None of this would have happened if we weren’t living in this godforsaken uncivilized country.”

His words were aimed at Caleb, and they found their mark. For a long time now Caleb had lived with deep doubts, especially since Aaron’s death. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore, but
his doubts were his own, certainly not subject to the challenge of an angry man seeking to justify his own failures. Atlee was only trying to shift the blame, point a finger anywhere other than himself.

Without looking around, Caleb answered very calmly. “None of this would have
happened
, Atlee, if you didn’t spend your evenings in town drinking tequila with the federales.”

He actually felt the buggy lurch a little from the force with which Atlee flung himself back in the seat. But Atlee would say no more; he had no answer.

The bishop was quiet for a while, his eyes on the road ahead, his ruddy face closed, thinking. Caleb found Detweiler’s silence more disquieting than Atlee’s rage. The bishop was the one man whose thoughts could grow into an edict that affected them all. When he finally spoke, Caleb’s worst fears were confirmed.

“There’s truth in your words—both of you,” Abe Detweiler said. “Atlee, there is no escaping your part in this. You should be home taking care of your family, not out spending hard-earned money on drink and carousing. This is the truth, and if I hear of it again you will answer to the church.”

Then Abe’s voice softened and he turned to Caleb.