Debby Giusti - Amish Refuge

“That can’t be right,” Miriam objected. Why couldn’t they both understand? “Do you know what a cell phone looks like?”

The man pursed his lips. His face clouded, either with anger or frustration. “My sister did not find a cell phone among your things.”

“Do you have a phone? A landline? Or a computer with internet access?”

He raised his hand as if to silence her. “You must eat. Then we will talk.” The door closed.

Miriam groaned with frustration. She threw off the covers, dropped her feet to the floor and sat upright. Her head throbbed and her mouth was thick as cotton. Gingerly, she touched her side, remembering the blow to her ribs.

Her muscles ached and the room swirled when she stood. Holding on to the wooden bedframe, she pulled back the sheer material that covered the window and glanced outside. In the distance she could see hills and a winding road, no doubt, the one she had raced along last night. She shivered, remembering her car careering over the embankment and heading for the icy water.

The muffled sound of a door slamming on the first floor forced her gaze to the yard below. The man left the house and walked with purposeful strides across the dormant winter grass. He had donned a black coat and felt hat with a wide brim and turned his head, left to right, as if to survey his land as he walked.

A crow cawed overhead. She strained to hear the sounds that usually filled her ears, of cars and sirens and train whistles. Here the quiet was as pristine as the landscape.

Glancing again at the man, she touched her hand to the windowpane, the cold glass taking her back four days.

A jumble of images flashed through her mind. The middle-of-the-night traffic stop on the mountain road. Two cops, one with the serpent tattoo insisting she leave her car. Her mother’s confused outrage, escalating the situation until the second man stepped to the pavement and brandished his gun. The shots rang in her memory.

She closed her eyes, unwilling to go deeper into the tragedy. Instead she thought of her time at the cabin when she and her sister had been held captive.

Sarah!

Grief weighed upon her heart. Hot tears stung her eyes. Her sister, just barely twenty-one, had been carted away last night by a tall, skinny, red-haired man. His threat to silence Sarah if she didn’t stop crying played through Miriam’s mind and made her gasp with fear.

She choked back a sob of despair and wiped her hand over her cheeks, intent on regaining control of her emotions. She had escaped from the cabin. Now she had to find Sarah and learn the truth about her mother.

With a series of determined sniffs, she turned her focus back to the Amish man as he neared the barn and pulled the door open. He glanced over his shoulder. Then looked up. His gaze locked on hers.

Her cheeks burned. She dropped the curtain in place and stepped away from the window. She didn’t want him to see her watching.

She had to get away, away from the mountains and back to civilization where she would find trustworthy officers who would enforce the law. Once they learned how she and her family had been attacked, they would hunt down the corrupt cops and help her find her sister.

She had to find Sarah. She had to find her alive.

TWO

“What do you want from me, Lord?” Abram had finished feeding the horses and now stared at the gray sky, wishing Gott would part the clouds and speak to his heart.

Bear trotted from the corner where he slept to rub against Abram’s leg as if even the farm dog understood his confusion. Bending to rub Bear’s neck, Abram took comfort in the animal’s doleful gaze and desire to please.

“You are a smart dog, but you do not understand the human heart.” Neither did Abram.

As Bear ambled back to his favorite corner, Abram straightened and stared again at the sky, questioning his own sensibilities. No woman had made him feel so much emotion since Rebecca. His first and only love had been taken too soon, which, as his faith told him, was Gott’s will. Although if that were true, then why in the dark moments of the night did he question Gott’s wisdom?

He turned his gaze to the second-story window where the woman had stood earlier. Abram had not learned her name, yet he yearned to know more about her. She had fallen into his arms, seeking help, not knowing of his failings in the past.

What had come over him, thinking thoughts about another woman? Especially an Englisch woman?

A righteous man lusted not with his eyes nor his heart. The admonition sprang from deep within him, darkening his already somber outlook.

He left the barn and headed for the house, turning as a car pulled into his drive. The sheriff braked to a stop and crawled from his squad car. He was mid-fifties with graying hair and tired eyes that had lost their sparkle years earlier.

Abram approached the car and extended his hand. “Samuel.”

The sheriff—Abram’s uncle—smiled ruefully as the two men shook hands. “You’re the only one in the family who acknowledges me, for which I’m grateful.”

“Yah, but if you returned home to Ethridge, you might find some who would offer welcome.”

“Your mother, perhaps. She is a good woman who knows how to forgive. I don’t think your father would be as charitable.”

Abram knew too well his father’s unwillingness to forgive. “My father does not understand a man who leaves his faith.”

“The Amish way was not my way. We have talked of this before.” Samuel sniffed. “You’re a good man to allow me into your life, Abram.”

“I welcome you as the sheriff of Willkommen. You keep the peace so I can live in peace, as well.”

He studied his uncle, seeing the shadows under his eyes and the flash of regret that could not be hidden. “Yet you still question your decision.”

Samuel’s brow furrowed. “What makes you think I’m not at peace?”

“I see it in the set of your jaw and the bent of your shoulders. You carry a heavy load.”

“No heavier than you, my nephew. You still grieve for Rebecca.”

“Yah, and for the mistake I made out of my own pride. Not going to the Englisch hospital when her labor pains started cost Rebecca her life, as well as the life of our child. That is the burden I carry.”

“And the bishop?”

“He says I am forgiven.”

“Yet, what about you, Abram? Can you forgive yourself?”

The sheriff’s eyes pierced the wall Abram had placed around his heart. Three years had passed but the wound was still so raw. A wound he feared would never heal.

Just like Emma’s limp and his good friend Trevor’s tragic death, some mistakes lasted forever.

“God doesn’t exact payment for our wrongdoings, Abram. Remember that.”

“My father would say you are wrong, Samuel.”

“Does your father not have his own burdens?”

Abram smiled weakly. “I was his burden.”

“Perhaps in your youth when you were struggling to find your way, but you remained Amish. That should have brought him comfort.”

Longing to shift the conversation away from the past, Abram said, “You did not come here to talk about my transgressions.”

“You’re right.” Samuel pointed to the mountain road. “Old Man Jacobs said two cars raced down the hill last night. Curtis Idler and my new deputy, Ned Quigley, are talking to him now and trying to get more information.”

Abram turned his gaze to the road. “I am surprised Ezra Jacobs could see anything at night and even more surprised that he would contact the sheriff’s office. As far as I know, he is one of the few Englischers who never installed a phone line.”

“True, but his son, Walt, has been checking in on Ezra and left a cell for him to use in case he needed help.”