Shunning Sarah (15 page)

“Do you know that or are you guessing?” I said.

“It’s as good a guess as any,” she answered.

Minnesota has a controversial conceal-and-carry gun permit law that allows sheriffs to decide who carries firepower. There’s no statewide standard, except that violent felons can’t pack heat. Whether citizens can or can’t depends a lot on the county where
they live. Some sheriffs are strict, others have never turned down any applicant.

“Granting the permit is really at the sheriff’s discretion,” I explained. “Experience tells me that any time an elected official has that kind of clout, politics are always in play.”

I decided to make some calls later and see what I could learn. In the meantime, because Husky seemed so content running around with the other pooches, I left him behind. And because we’d seen no sign of bear, I worried not.

What a difference twenty-four hours makes.

T
he mysterious black bear of southern Minnesota was in the news again—this time with corroboration.

A couple of hikers surprised the creature as it stood on its rear feet marking a tree in a state park near Harmony.

“We froze. It froze. Then it disappeared into the woods,” one was quoted as saying in the
Rochester Post-Bulletin.

The other hiker snapped two photos. The first showed a hairy butt in some weeds; but in the second, the animal had turned as if mugging for the camera, thus ending the debate over bear vs. dog. The picture, the size of the tracks, and the height of the claw marks definitely established it as an American black bear.

“By the size, I’d guess a male. And a big one,” a state wildlife official estimated. “At least a six-foot reach. For sure, three hundred pounds. Maybe more. Plenty of bear.”

Every news agency in Minnesota had apparently linked to the story on their website. And it was now among the top viewed stories in the state. As a courtesy, I’d called in to the assignment desk to tell them I was in southern Minnesota, but would be back in time for the morning news huddle.

“Stay where you are.” Ozzie filled me in on the bear story. “Bryce is interested in it. I’ll let him talk to you.”

“Keep an eye on this,” Bryce said. “A bear out of his territory could be news.”

While I lived to chase news, I had no interest in chasing bears. Bryce was sounding more and more like my old boss, Noreen, crazed with the animal beat. “But isn’t this story out of our Channel 3 territory?” I asked, playing his designated market area game against him. That proved unwise. Immediately I was driving east under orders to shoot a standup next to the bear claw tree. I tried to argue against being my own photographer because who wants to hike alone in the woods with a bear loose?

But when I arrived in town, I discovered bear hunting season was still under way, and anyone within fifty miles who owned a gun was also out looking for the bear. The woods were a dangerous place.

I got a quickie lesson in bear hunting. Hunters can only actually fire during the day between a half hour before sunrise to a half hour after sunset. The rule wasn’t designed so much to give wildlife a chance at survival as to keep people from shooting each other.

I recorded some sound bites from hunters on the prowl.

((HUNTER1 SOT))

THIS IS MY CHANCE TO

LAND A TROPHY.

Signs with names and addresses showed up in the woods, and were described to me as “stands” where hunters reserve their spots. I considered putting up a sign myself to reserve safe space for the station even though our form of shooting was not fatal.

((HUNTER2 SOT))

HUNTING IS WHAT I DO AND IF

THAT BEAR’S AROUND, HE’S MINE.

Southern Minnesota is not considered prime bear-hunting territory. In fact, few hunters bother trying. They go after deer and waterfowl. The knowledge that an American black bear was somewhere close changed the hunting dynamics.

((HUNTER3 SOT))

WAHOO!

One hunter expressed confidence that his bait station would do the job, and showed me donuts and jelly designed to lure the mammoth beast to his sight line.

“Isn’t that cheating?” I asked.

Sure seemed like cheating to me. But a DNR official defended the practice on the grounds that bears are so elusive, few of the beasts would fall prey to man without baiting. He guided me to the parkland and showed me the tree bark clawed deep by our celebrity bear.

((WILDLIFE SOT))

SEE THE STRENGTH BEHIND

THAT REACH. NO WONDER

EVERYBODY’S AFTER THAT BRUTE.

I found myself feeling sorry for the bear. And I was starting to think Channel 3’s viewers would, too.

•   •   •

Once I had enough bear material for a news package, I drove down the dirt road toward Sarah Yoder’s grave. During my walk in the woods, I’d picked a couple stems of red autumn foliage to lay on her plot in lieu of a flashy floral bouquet.

The first thing I noticed was that the sketch I’d left of her face was gone. But I wasn’t actually surprised, knowing that Amish faith rejected pictures as vain. Leaving Sarah’s picture
might have been selfish of me. But I didn’t see any shredded paper or burnt ashes. Any destruction must have happened off site.

I decided to be bold and drive by Sarah’s house in case anything looked different postfuneral. As I got closer, I saw a small figure carrying a lunch pail in the driveway. It was her sister, probably coming home from the Amish country school.

I pulled alongside her and rolled down the car window. I didn’t make any mention about Sarah, because I didn’t want to ruin our second encounter.

“Hi there, I could use some eggs. Are you open for customers today?”

She glanced around as if checking to see whether I might be talking to someone else, but she was the only one on the road. I smiled at her like my presence was a blessing.

“Maybe you could tell your folks you have a customer.”

While she went in the house, I parked the car down the road so that my ultimate departure would take longer in case her mother chased me away again. The girl’s lunch bucket sat on the porch steps. Bored, I plopped down and peeked inside it, under the cloth dishrag.

The drawing of Sarah Yoder stared up at me from the bottom of the pail. I dropped the fabric quickly to keep the secret covered and scrambled to my feet as mother and daughter came outside.

I knew now who had beat me to the cemetery.

I said nothing beyond requesting a dozen eggs from Mrs. Yoder, who startled me by agreeing. She sent the child back to bring them out and told me that would be a dollar. I handed her the bill and asked what crafts she sold, making sure I flashed the cash in my wallet.

“Just a moment,” she said. “I’ll be back.”

I knew she recognized me from my other visit, but was certain she had no idea I’d been to her daughter’s funeral.

The child returned with the eggs first. “Your name was Hannah, wasn’t it?” I asked.

She nodded, and I handed her the bucket. “Best you take this away.” She knew I knew. And so she left.

Her mother brought a key and led me to a shed between the house and barn. Shelves lined the walls and crafts filled the shelves. Quilted table runners. Numerous handmade baskets. Jars of jams. But most unnerving, a row of rag dolls, dressed like Amish men and women. Without faces.

T
he empty faces wore hats and bonnets along with their aprons and suspenders. They lacked eyes, noses, and mouths. I was both fascinated and repelled.

I picked one up, but couldn’t understand how a child could embrace such a blank slate. Yet even without eyes, the dolls seemed to be watching me. Their expressions covert.

Somehow, I couldn’t shake the feeling we’d met before. I set a pair—boy and girl—on the counter to purchase with some cash.

“Why don’t they have faces?”

My question didn’t seem unexpected. Tourists probably asked it all the time because the Amish woman had a practiced, ready answer. “That is our way. No images or likenesses.”

The image of Sarah as a faceless Amish doll came to my mind. And until the forensic artist gave her back her identity, that’s what she was, another Jane Doe lacking a proper burial.

Just then the little girl stuck her head in the door to check on us. Her mother made a sharp comment in Pennsylvania Dutch and left me alone at the counter while it sounded like she was scolding her daughter. Reaching to put my change back in my purse, my fingers found a marker. On impulse, I added facial features to my handmade doll to make her more human. Eyes. Nose. Mouth. I smiled at my creation just as Hannah was leaving the shed.

The Amish woman gasped when she saw the blemished toy. Before I could react she’d grabbed my rag doll away from me and ripped its head off. But holding each piece of doll in a different hand, the woman seemed even more shocked than me. She, embarrassed for displaying temper. Me, impressed by the strength necessary for the damage.

As we considered each other, the doll’s head and body dropped from her hands to the floor. I picked up the torn head and flashed back to a childhood moment of dismay, finding another doll head facedown in a ditch by my family’s farm.

“I suspect we might have met before.” I described two little girls having tea with their dolls decades earlier while our fathers talked business. “Perhaps you are that other child?”

She nodded without hesitation. The long-ago afternoon had apparently made a bigger impression on her than me.

“My father tore my doll,” she said. “He told me the face you drew was prideful.”

“My name is Riley Spartz. And you are Miriam Yoder?”

Another nod.

“Sarah’s mother?”

Again, a nod.

“Can we talk about Sarah?”

She shook her head. “God’s will.”

“God also wills justice,” I replied. “I know your daughter lost her Amish faith. I’d like to try to understand why.”

Sometimes a victim’s family appreciates being able to talk about a loved one. Not the case here. Miriam seemed a by-the-Bible Amish.

“I’m sorry for what happened to her,” I said. “And I’m sorry for you, too. Nobody deserves to lose a child like that.”

Her mouth tensed, before once again she replied, “God’s will.”

“Why was Sarah being shunned?” I asked.

I sensed her struggle. How best to explain such an esoteric concept to an outsider?

Miriam Yoder paused. “Sarah was rejecting the Amish way. Things most important to our people.”

I talked about all teens struggling to find their path. “Sports cars can be habit-forming.”

Miriam did not look amused. She justified the shunning because in her words, Sarah had her chance to test the English world, but chose to be a baptized member of their church.

“She should have respected the
Ordnung,
” Miriam said. “But she refused. We couldn’t look away.”

“Did she tell you she was leaving? Or was it a surprise?”

She shook her head. “She was gone one morning without a word.”

“How about the rest of the family?” I asked. “Her father? Her siblings? Was she close to them?”

Miriam was a widow. I shared that I also had lost my spouse. Neither of us said anything right away after that. Miriam started stacking baskets methodically.

“Sometimes I think having a child would have helped me better cope with my loss,” I told her. I hadn’t ever said that to anyone else before. “I envy that you have a family to raise.”

“My son is everything to me.”

I was puzzled she didn’t mention Hannah. But I saw her remark as another indication that men have higher standing among the Amish. If Miriam was grieving, she was keeping specific feelings private. Considering I was a stranger, that seemed normal. But I doubted she was sharing them with anyone since Sarah’s burial.

I remarked that she and her youngest both wore black dresses. “Is there a certain length of time you will keep the black?”

“One year,” she answered.

Maybe she thought by getting me to understand their manners, our conversation would end. But it just made me more curious. The journalist in me focused on the one question her story seemed to hinge on. “What rule did she break?”

Miriam squirmed, clearly not wanting to say more. “That is our concern, but Sarah knew the outcome for obstinance. The bann.”

Then I asked again about how Sarah’s brother and sister coped after she left. “Did she tell either of them goodbye? Or where she was headed?”

Miriam shook her head. “Hannah was upset. And her brother knew nothing about her plans either.” She mentioned how a neighbor reported later that Sarah had been seen in town. But because of the shunning, her family did not seek her out.

When investigators arrived with questions, she did not imagine Sarah had come to harm. She suspected her daughter was in trouble with the law. Maybe drugs and sex. Or theft. She had heard disturbing tales of other runaway Amish youth.

“The sheriff carried the same drawing you did the first time you came,” she said. “I told him, yes, it was Sarah. He told me she was dead.”

“That must have been horrible,” I said. “But surely you can understand how using the sketch—and the media—might help their investigation.”

Before she could answer, an unmarried Amish man entered the shed. I concluded he was single because he was clean shaven. Miriam called him Gideon. Hannah had apparently told him I had returned as a customer. He was her brother. The head of the family.

He ordered me to leave. “You don’t belong in our world.” Then he scolded his mother. “This is the television woman I warned you about.”

The nickname wasn’t especially flattering, so I tried to tell him my real name. But he wasn’t interested in that or a business card. My phone number, email, or station address meant even less to him than my moniker.

“Why was your sister being shunned, Gideon?” I hoped his answer might yield more detail than his mother’s.

It didn’t. “That’s no business of the English.”

I noticed one of the fingers on his left hand was missing, but didn’t pry because he didn’t seem the chatty type.

I thanked Sarah’s mother for her time and didn’t let on to her son that we’d been visiting before he interrupted us. At the car, I realized I only had half a doll in hand. The boy doll was still on the counter, the girl doll body presumably still on the floor. I was afraid to go back for either souvenir, instead settling for my doll head with a smudged face.