DC03 - Though Mountains Fall (7 page)

K
yra’s little house became the center of a whirlwind once Miriam arrived. The men, already dressed, waited outside while the women took over the entire house to get themselves ready. Kyra and Maria swept Miriam into the back bedroom and fitted her into the same white cotton dress Kyra had worn on her wedding day, the same one her mother had worn. The loose-fitting dress was decorated around the yoke in intricate red Aztec patterns, embroidered near the bottom with a ring of red roses the size of her hand. They let her hair hang loose and full down her back. Leaving her face exposed, they draped her head and shoulders in a sheer lace mantilla veil, secured by a wreath Kyra had woven for the occasion out of delicate little vines salted with tiny white blooms. They put white satin shoes on her feet and filled her hands with a thick bouquet of white flowers.

When they went outside to load into the carriages, Miriam came last. Watching Domingo’s face, the other women parted to let him see his bride, and the first glimpse took his breath away. Broad-shouldered and erect in his fancy jacket, with his
hair tied back, his regal bearing didn’t change when he saw her, but he swallowed hard, and for an instant Miriam thought she saw tears in his eyes.

It was a fine spring morning, yellow and purple wildflowers dappling the fields, cactus beginning to bloom, and birds swarming through air scented with flowers and ringing with songs and laughter as the wedding procession wound its way into the hacienda village and up the narrow streets to the church.

Two little girls sprinkled flower petals in front of them as Miriam’s padrino escorted her up the church steps alongside Domingo. Father Noceda met them there on the portico, and the crowd in the churchyard fell silent as the ceremony began.

Miriam’s departure left a hole in Rachel’s heart, and she sat through services in the Bender barn that morning stiffly, listening without hearing. Perched on the backless bench behind her mother, Rachel knew she wasn’t the only one thinking of Miriam. Mamm sighed deeply every minute or two and kept a handkerchief at the ready the whole time, occasionally dabbing at the corners of her eyes. Again, she had eaten hardly a bite of breakfast. Mamm’s dresses hung loosely on her these days, and Dat worried about her. She endured church with a sullen, vacant look in her eyes, staring at nothing, as if she were watching Miriam’s wedding from a distance.

Miriam’s wedding.
Even the words sounded disjointed and ironic to Rachel. When they first came to Mexico, of all the Bender girls except Ada, Miriam was the one with the slimmest hopes of ever finding a husband. Rachel, on the other hand, already knew whom she would marry, and yet in the absence of a minister three years had passed without the opportunity. Now here she sat, nineteen and still single.

And Jake wasn’t in church this morning, another disquieting sign. There had been rumors whispered between the women for the last month. They knew something was going on because every day a couple of the younger men would disappear on horseback before dawn and return at dusk without saying where they’d been—a different pair every day. They did this even on Sunday, a breaking of the Sabbath that Rachel had never witnessed in her entire life. Esther Shrock had finally gleaned from her son that the fathers had assigned sentries to the heights on the north and west, but he would say no more than that. If the men were frightened enough to post lookouts on Sunday it could only mean that whatever was out there threatened the lives of everyone in the valley.

Halfway through the service, while John Hershberger was reading aloud from the Bible, all their questions were answered. Hershberger paused to take a breath, and into the little silence fell the distant but unmistakable echo of a gunshot.

Heads turned, and the men started to rise. Every one of the men, the heads of household, scrambled outside as quickly as they could. Hershberger stopped reading, closed the Bible and started after them. He hadn’t even reached the door when another shot rang out, this time closer.

Now even women and children got up and surged toward the door to see what was happening. Rachel elbowed her way to the front of the crowd. The fathers stood in a cluster at the edge of Caleb’s field, watching the road to the west.

It was Jake, on horseback, charging hard across the fields with a rifle in his hands, the barrel pointed straight up in the air. The gunshots were warnings. Jake was sounding an alarm. He shouted something, over and over, and the wind finally carried his words to her.

“They’re coming!”

Caleb stood in the edge of his field, his heart pounding.

“We should go,” Ira Shrock said, his voice high-pitched and full of angst. “Most of us came on foot, Caleb. It will take time to get back to our houses and hitch up. Oh, this couldn’t have come at a worse time!”

“Wait,” Caleb said. “Let’s see what Jake has to say.”

Jake made a beeline across the field, sliding the rifle into its scabbard. He pulled up right in front of them, his horse prancing sideways.

“They’re coming! Bandits. I counted maybe thirty-five of them.”

“How long before they get here?” Caleb asked.

“Not long. Maybe ten minutes. I’m sorry, they came from a different trail than what I expected and I didn’t see them until they were only a few miles away.”

Caleb gave orders, scattering the men. Most of them bolted away on foot while one or two borrowed horses from Caleb’s corral and took off bareback.

Caleb went up to the crowd of women and children gathered by the barn.

“An army of bandits is coming,” he told them, perhaps a little too bluntly. The women gasped and clutched at each other. He raised his hands, trying to calm them.

“The men will bring the buggies. Go down to the road as quickly as you can and wait for them. We will all flee to the hacienda, where we’ll be safe.”

Turning away, he called to his son. “Harvey, the surrey won’t hold our whole family. Get a team of Belgians and we’ll hitch the wagon.” He could ill afford to lose his draft horses anyway.

Ten minutes later a line of buggies and hacks and wagons
converged in the road in front of Caleb’s farm, and a caravan began slowly trundling out of the valley to the east.

Caleb brought up the rear in his farm wagon. He’d gone no more than a mile when Harvey, standing behind him, tapped his shoulder and said, “I see them.”

Caleb looked back. At the far end of the valley a line of men on horseback charged down the hill and headed for the nearest farmhouse—Levi and Emma’s place. He could hear the faint pop of pistols as they stormed the house and barn, slaughtering cattle and horses.

Caleb snapped the reins, urging his draft horses into a trot as he shouted to the buggy ahead of him. The warning was passed up the line and everyone picked up the pace.

When Caleb looked back again he could see a plume of smoke trailing from the roof of Levi’s barn, but that wasn’t the worst of it. El Pantera had apparently spotted the escaping Amish. His army had regrouped and turned toward the wagon train. Now they were galloping flat out in pursuit.

By then the caravan had made it past the crossroads, but they were still a mile from the gates of the hacienda—and the bandits were gaining on them. It was going to be close.

Standing on the portico of the old Catholic church in her antique Mexican wedding dress, Miriam’s emotions warred against one another. She was giddy with joy over finally being united with the only man she had ever loved, yet haunted by twinges of unspeakable grief over the absence of her family. The entire morning went by in a disoriented blur, right up until the moment when Father Noceda asked quietly, “Who gives this woman?”

Her padrino answered, “I do,” then placed her hand in
Domingo’s and stepped back. As Domingo’s fingers closed around hers she looked up at his face and felt herself falling straight through those dark confident eyes, into his soul. His unshakable devotion calmed her, instantly and completely—a love that would weather any storm without complaint, for her. Domingo was the embodiment of grace and patience wrapped in a towering strength, and all of it laid freely at her feet. She could trust him. He would always be there for her. Miriam was at peace, her mind no longer divided, and it was in that precise moment that she and Domingo Zapara became one.

She kept her eyes on Domingo while they repeated the vows spoken by the priest. Words. She barely heard them. In her heart she was already married.

The ring bearer, one of Kyra’s young sons, handed a long pink ribbon to the priest, who tied the ends together and draped the loop over their shoulders, a symbol of binding.

Domingo took a small leather pouch from his pocket. Maria had told her about the
arras
in advance, so she knew what to do. When he opened the pouch she held out her hands, fingers splayed, and he poured thirteen little gold coins into her palms, a symbol of abundance. But it was only a ritual; the coins were, and would remain, the property of the church. The priest’s helper held out a basket to catch the coins as she let them slip through her fingers, a symbolic offering to the poor.

As the young robed assistant whisked the basket of coins away the ring bearer opened a small hand-carved box and held it up to the priest. Father Noceda took a gold band from the box and slid it onto Domingo’s finger, then handed him a smaller duplicate, which Domingo slipped onto Miriam’s hand. This too Maria had told her about. Gold rings were expensive, so for a peasant wedding such as this the church provided the rings, but only for show. They would be returned in three days, replaced
by leather bands like all the peasants wore. It didn’t matter. A ring was, after all, only a symbol.

After the priest blessed them and pronounced them man and wife, Miriam and Domingo kissed and turned about, arm in arm, to be saluted as a couple by the throng of family and friends in the courtyard.

The ceremony was only half done. There were still certain religious rites to be performed inside the church, but as the priest threw open the huge front doors a commotion rolled through the streets.

A barefoot peasant charged out from the main street across the churchyard, one hand holding his sombrero in place as he ran, shouting something to the guards on the parapet wall around the hacienda grounds. Miriam couldn’t make out the words, but Father Noceda brushed past her and flew down the steps, through the crowd and across the yard to see what was happening.

Domingo froze, listening.

Then she heard it—the unmistakable sound of gunfire in the distance. She gripped Domingo’s arm.

“
My family!
”

“Come with me,” Domingo said, pulling her with him through the big doors into the narthex, then pressing her shoulders against the stone wall.

“Don’t move!” he commanded, and then dashed through a side door and up a spiral staircase to the belfry.

The commotion outside grew, and in a moment Domingo flew back down the stairs, burst into the narthex and whisked her out into the churchyard.

“Bandits,” he said. “We must get everyone behind the walls of the hacienda. Come.”

Fifty yards from the church, the massive iron gate in the
hacienda wall swung wide. Bedlam ensued as everyone from the wedding and most of the people in the hacienda village crowded through. Miriam dropped her flowers and struggled to keep up in her wedding dress and satin shoes. She stopped. When Domingo’s hand tore away he skidded to a stop and came back to her. Hastily stripping the dainty shoes from her feet, she gripped them in a fist as she hiked her skirts.