The Captive Heart (17 page)

The horses picked up the pace a little as they neared home, cantering toward the barn.

Caleb worked his team of Belgians with a delicate finesse, steering them over the gentlest ground he could find on the long rocky ridge. Harvey lay beside his wounded older brother in the back, holding him as steady as possible. Caleb glanced back often, each time praying he wouldn't see the hope gone out of Harvey's bright face. At nineteen, Harvey was his youngest son. They'd lost Aaron's twin brother, Amos, in the flu epidemic of 1918, and if Aaron didn't make it Harvey would be the
only
living son. The thought was almost more than Caleb could bear. He prayed for mercy and strength and drove his horses on, his shoulders tight, his forearms tense.

Three hours later, as the wagon crept down the last of the narrow switchbacks at the base of the ridge and crawled out into the flatland of Paradise Valley, with home in sight, Harvey called to him.

When Caleb looked back and saw urgency in Harvey's young face, he hauled back on the reins and stopped.

“I think he wakes,” Harvey said. “He tried to talk.”

Caleb scrambled into the back of the wagon and lay propped on his elbows at Aaron's side, their faces inches apart.

“Aaron.”

The eyes didn't open, but his head turned toward Caleb's voice and his lips parted. He made no sound and yet there was no mistaking what his tongue said.

Dat.

Caleb gripped his shoulders and squeezed. “Son, you
hang on
. We're almost home. There's a doctor in the valley and he can fix you. You're gonna be all right.”

Aaron winced weakly and his face moved from side to side slowly, feebly. Caleb wanted to believe the wince was only pain, but deep down he knew his son too well. It was surrender. He couldn't fight anymore. Aaron had the heart of a plow horse, but the slack skin and ashen complexion did not lie. Aaron had fought his way to the surface, using his last ounce of strength to communicate one last time.

It was enough to break a father's heart.

Aaron's mouth moved, but his breath was so faint that no sound came out. Caleb laid his wide hat aside and leaned close, placing his ear against his son's lips.

“What is it, son? Are you trying to say something?”

The lips moved again, and this time a single word brushed against Caleb's ear so lightly that at first he wasn't sure he'd heard it right.

“Amos.”

He pulled back and stared.
Amos.
Had death drawn so near that he was seeing his twin brother on the other side? But then Aaron's eyes opened for a moment. When Caleb looked into them he saw tears, and behind the tears a desperate need, a burning question. Wounded as deeply as Aaron was, with such great loss of blood, Caleb knew an ordinary human should never have survived the night. More than once on the long drive home he had wondered what was keeping his son alive—what lay beneath this inner pool of strength, this mountain of resolve?

Now he knew.

Caleb nodded, tried to smile. “He's fine, son.” His voice broke, but he got the words out. “Little Amos is at home with his mother. Ada brought him back to us safe and sound. He's fine.”

Aaron closed his eyes, and an unmistakable satisfaction crinkled the corners. He drew a deep breath, let it out like a sigh, and never drew another.

Chapter 24

T
he afternoon sun slanted sharply through the trees as Jake and Domingo came across the place where the bandits had camped the night before. Domingo knelt down by the cold campfire between the two logs and pressed his hand into the ashes. Rising, he wiped his hand on his pants.

“The coals underneath are still warm. They camped here last night and headed north again this morning. They would not have stopped if they were close to home. I'm thinking Diablo Canyon is another three hours' walk.”

Jake was leaning forward in his saddle, watching. His head tilted. “So what do we do now? Do we keep going?”

Domingo looked up at the sky. “Only as long as the light holds. I can't track them in the dark, and this close to Diablo Canyon we don't dare light a torch. From here on we must move slowly and be very careful.”

Jake shifted uneasily in his saddle. “I don't mean to complain, Domingo, but I would feel mighty bad if something happened to Rachel because we took too long being cautious.”

Domingo gave him a look. “And what good will it do Rachel if we get ourselves caught? I have said from the start that our only hope lies in El Pantera not knowing we are here. Now that we're getting closer it's more important than ever to be invisible.”

“I'm not afraid of him.”

Domingo chuckled, swinging back up onto his horse. “Only because you do not know him. I am not afraid to die, but I do not love the idea of dying for nothing. There will be lookouts posted on the heights, watching.”

Miriam was worried about her mother. A son and daughter missing, possibly hurt or killed, and diphtheria terrorizing the valley, leaving one of the newcomers' little ones dead already and several more in danger—with Caleb gone, it was just too much for Mamm. Her hands shook constantly, and she sat at the kitchen table dabbing at her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief all day, ignoring her work, weeping quietly.

Late in the afternoon, when she finally got a break, Miriam wandered out to the buggy shed to check on her school supplies and to have a moment to herself. She kept paper, chalk, pencils and erasers in a cedar box on a high shelf, but the school had been empty for a week and there were rats about.

Everything was fine, though she noticed as she trailed her fingertips over a tabletop in the half-light that the place needed a good dusting. The deafening silence made her miss the kids even more.

The door hinge squeaked and a soft footstep crunched the dirt. Micah's silhouette filled the doorframe.

“I thought I might find you here,” he said as he took her in his arms. “We got a lot of troubles just now, don't we, Mir?”

She laid her head against his chest. “Jah, I'm really worried about Rachel and Aaron. Thank Gott Ada found her way home with Little Amos.”

“I heard about that. It's a miracle, her being crazy and all. I don't know how she ever—”

“My sister is not crazy, Micah, she's just slow. She can't help it.”

His head backed away and he stared down his nose at her. “I didn't mean nothing by it, Mir. I just meant—”

“I know what you meant, and you're right about it being a miracle, but what Ada did would be a heroic thing even for me, and I'm not
crazy
.” Although there
were
moments when she doubted her own sanity. She pulled apart from him then, and turned her back.

Micah was silent for a minute, then said, “I heard Ervin Kuhns never showed up at the train station when your dat went to get him. Is this true?” He was quick to change the subject whenever he'd stuck his foot in his mouth.

She nodded, her back still turned to him. “Jah, it's true.”

“Maybe he's just late and he'll show up on his own in a day or two,” Micah said, and laid a hand gently on her shoulder. “We'll be needing him later in the fall, Mir.”

Miriam shook her head. “Dat didn't think so. They closed the border. Dat said that Ervin probably just went back home.”

Distracted, Micah took his hand from her shoulder and wandered a few steps toward the other end of the shed, where Dr. Gant's car was parked.

“That doctor's sure got a fancy automobile,” he said. “I can't believe your dat let him leave it in the buggy shed, though.”

Streaks of afternoon light slanted in from the cracks around the bay doors and dappled the doctor's Nash convertible. The cloth top was folded down.

“We get rain this time of year, and Dr. Gant is our guest. Dat didn't think it was right to leave his car outside.”

“Well, I guess it doesn't matter since there's no school now. Oh, that reminds me. Who will teach school after we get married?”

Miriam turned around and looked straight at him. “I will,” she said.

He put on a beneficent smile as he closed the gap between them and took her shoulders in his hands. “No wife of mine is
ever
gonna have to work a job, I promise you that.”

She leaned back, staring at him in the shadows. “I don't
have
to teach school, Micah, and I don't get paid for it. It's not a
job
; it's something I want to do because the children need me, and I'm good at it.”

Shaking herself out of his hands, she stalked past him, through the open door and down toward the house without looking back.

Movement in the distance caught her eye—a wagon coming slowly down the road from the west, drawn by a familiar team of horses, with a familiar figure holding the reins.

Dat!

She broke into a run, shouting as she burst through the back door of the house, “Dat and Harvey are home! They're coming up the drive!”

Miriam never broke stride but ran straight on through the house, out the front door and down across the yard to meet the wagon. Her two youngest sisters poured out behind her, and she heard their footsteps following, anticipating a glad reunion. But as she neared the wagon she saw her father's face, and Harvey's.

Despair was the only word for what she saw in their faces, and it was clear they had both been weeping. Only once before in her life had she seen her father weep, and now the memory filled her with despair because she knew what it meant. Her steps slowed and her hands came up to cover her mouth even as her eyes found what she already knew they would find in the back of the wagon—a long, low shape, shrouded entirely in a buggy robe and perfectly still.

Leah and Barbara caught up with her, and as Caleb brought the wagon to a halt the three of them stopped short, a last desperate effort to stave off the unthinkable for at least a few more seconds. Mamm burst between them crying, “No, no, no . . .” and ran right around to the back of the wagon. Breathless, wide-eyed, she reached out hesitantly and peeled back the buggy robe to reveal Aaron's booted feet. She collapsed to her knees before Caleb and her daughters could reach her.

When they caught up to her the whole family huddled around Mamm in the dirt behind the wagon, and the wailing began in earnest.

The sun had gone down and the light faded to dusky gray when Domingo stopped his horse and held up a hand. His eyes scanned the landscape up ahead, peering through the treetops. Jake eased up next to him, curious.

“What is it?”

“You see that high bluff up ahead on the left? There is a man up there with a rifle.”

Jake squinted. “Really? I see no one.”

“He's gone now, but I saw him move between those two rocks. He didn't act like he saw us. El Pantera's ranch must be close—maybe just beyond that bluff.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Hide,” Domingo answered, climbing down and leading Star into denser cover, uphill and behind them. “We can't get any closer until after dark.”

Jake followed him up into the rocks on the mountainside. They found a place not far away, completely out of sight from either the trail or the bluff, where wild grasses had grown up around the edge of a little spring. They tied the horses and let them graze.

Domingo gathered a handful of some kind of berries, and while they waited in the twilight they found a spot to rest.

Leaning back against a rock with his arms crossed behind his head, staring at a purpling sky, a question came to Jake for the first time.

“Domingo, why are you here?”

Domingo gave a derisive snort. “To keep you from killing yourself. Without me, you would have wandered in the mountains until you starved. Even if you were lucky enough to trail them to Diablo Canyon you would have blundered in and gotten yourself shot, and Rachel would be lost forever.”

Jake refused to be put off by his unkind remarks, chiefly because they were true. “But, Domingo, even I know this is a fool's errand. It makes sense for me because it's Rachel, but I can't help wondering why a man like you would risk his life for someone else's girl.”

Domingo pondered this for a moment, plucking a blade of grass from the ground and chewing the end of it.

“She is Caleb's daughter,” he finally said, “and I have great admiration for the man. He looks on me like a son, and I have come to love his family. Caleb treats other people with respect, and puts them above himself. This is how he lives. I still do not understand why, but I know that if things were different Caleb Bender would not hesitate to risk his life for
me
.” He shrugged. “So I am here.”

Jake nodded slowly. There was more to Domingo than he'd thought. “I'm
glad
you're here. You're right—I wouldn't have a chance without you. I'm not even sure there's a chance
with
you. Only Gott can get us out of this mess.”