The cellphone rang in Alden’s shop and he sighed. Just when he’d found a comfortable rhythm with the twisted bars he was stockpiling in case Doc MacDonald had been serious about that gate. He pulled off his gloves and headed for the desk, then wasted another ring trying to find the noisy thing under a pile of paperwork.
“Stolzfus Smith and Farrier. Alden sp—”
“Alden!” Julie shrieked. “Come quick! There’s been an accident.”
His stomach did a double flip and twisted itself into a knot. “Bischt du okay?”
“Ja, ja, we’re fine, but … oh, Alden, a big truck hit us and it’s in the ditch.”
A sudden vision of an eighteen-wheeler filled with liquid nitrogen or something equally horrific filled his head. “How big? Get away from it!”
“A pickup—the one I saw before. Cord McLean’s pickup. And Alden, there’s a girl in there with him. An Amish girl. They’re not moving. Please come, as fast as you can.”
An Amish girl?
“Where are you?”
“I—I don’t know. A little ways out. I can see the Zook brothers’ house from here, and there’s a great big clump of wild roses on the fence.”
Mile marker two.
Without even saying good-bye, Alden clicked off the phone and called 9-1-1. He rapidly explained what had happened, and the dispatcher told him the EMTs were on the way. He had a second to wonder if Zach was on shift today before he forgot everything except grabbing up a couple of crowbars and wishing he’d had the sense to put together a first-aid kit long before this.
It was only by Gott’s grace that he’d brought some metal stock over to the shop with Joseph this morning. It would save him a flat-out run back to the house to get the horse. He had the big Belgian hitched up again in record time, and pushed him to his considerable limits for the two miles of highway.
Two miles had never taken so long in all his life.
As he rounded the curve, he recognized Cord McLean’s truck, nose down in the ditch. On the far side, the sound of a siren shut off as the boxy EMT van rocked to a halt. Joseph headed straight for his stable mate, Timothy, and the buggy, which was pulled up a distance past both.
Julie had taken his frantic command to get away from the truck literally.
Broken amber glass sparkled on the shoulder of the road and crunched under his wheels, which were not rubberized. He pulled up and leaped from the farrier’s wagon. “Julie? Beth? Are you all right?”
The girls were standing on the off side of the horse, and fell into his hug together. “We’re okay. But we’re so afraid,” Beth said, her voice wobbling, on the edge of tears. “Alden, I think it’s Malena.”
His knees went weak. He took a deep breath that was more like a gasp.
“Pray,” he croaked. Then he turned and jogged back toward the EMT van, whose lights were flashing in warning to the oncoming traffic.
Down in the ditch, one of the EMTs had the driver’s side door open and was talking to the person inside. Cord.
But Alden’s concern lay entirely on the other side.
Don’t let it be Malena. But that was evil. It could be any of the Youngie and he had to help, no matter who it was.
He slid down the bank to find Zach Miller up to his ankles in water, hauling on the door for all it was worth. The truck was slightly tilted toward the passenger side, and part of the door and the truck bed were stove in. A motionless form leaned against the window, the seatbelt still fastened and the deployed airbag draped all over her.
Zach looked up, his face calm but desperation tugging at the corners of his eyes. “I can’t get it open. I can’t get to her.”
“I’ve got crowbars.”
Denki, Lieber Gott, for prompting me to grab them on the way.
In seconds, he was back with the crowbars. With Zach on the top and Alden on the base of the door, they heaved in unison.
The heavy door groaned open and Malena’s limp form sagged out. Alden reached for her as though his entire soul would escape his body if he didn’t.
“Don’t touch her!” Zach commanded. “Her spine could be hurt. I’ve got a backboard right here. Once I get her secured on it, we’ll lower her into the sled.”
Dazed, Alden realized that Zach’s medical equipment lay in the flowers, ready for use. He didn’t know how Zach could be so calm as he worked with swift gentleness on his sister’s unconscious form. Alden, who was not a crier, was barely keeping the tears at bay, and had to wipe his eyes with his sleeve to see clearly.
At last Malena was secured in the sled, and together, they carried her up the slope to the van. Traffic was creeping by, people staring out their windows wide-eyed. And there was the youngest Madison boy in his truck, gawking into the back of the van, where Cord was already strapped into a cot for transport to the clinic.
He didn’t know what had possessed her to get into the truck of such a reckless driver. There was only one reason he could think of—that secretly, she must somehow be attracted to him. That after the scare in the river, she had realized which of them she really cared for, and grabbed the chance to be alone with him.
That she was baptized into the Amish church, that he was as worldly as a man could get—none of this would have mattered, maybe, when her heart was involved. If there was anything he knew about Malena, it was that when her heart was in something, it was in it the whole way, come what may.
Someone was calling his name.
“Alden!” Zach shook his arm. “Are you OK? You look like you’re in shock.”
He blinked, and the images shattered into pieces in his mind.
And fell into his heart, like shards of glass.
“It looks like the truck sideswiped the telephone pole after it brushed your sisters’ buggy. You need to get them home. And call the Circle M. Tell them what happened. Mamm will want to drive to the clinic right away.”
“Ja. Right away.”
Zach leaped into the back of the van with his two patients, the other EMT slammed the doors, and in a moment they had wheeled into the eastbound lane toward Mountain Home, siren wailing and lights flashing.
Alden was never going to be able to hear that sound in future and not think of this moment.
He found his sisters waiting by the buggy, which was somehow not damaged except for the buggy lamp on the rear. “Can you drive?” he asked Beth.
When she shook her head, still clearly shaken and pale, Julie put an arm around her. “I can. Will you follow us?”
“Ja. Turn around. By then I’ll have collected my crowbars and maybe this traffic will have cleared.”
The Madison boy’s truck was gone, so presumably the Rocking Diamond had already heard what had happened to their accident-prone guest. There was nothing to be done about the truck—its passenger door wasn’t about to close anytime soon. With any luck, the Madison boys would return and pull it out of the ditch a second time. He wasn’t about to hitch Joseph to it and pull it out, though he was pretty sure the big horse could do it.
That wasn’t his job. His job was to see his sisters safely home.
And call the Circle M.
And somehow find the words to tell them what had happened.
Naomi was in the habit of keeping the cellphone in the cookie jar. Cookies never lasted long enough around the ranch to actually make it into the jar, but it was a gut place to keep the phone—out of sight, out of mind.
On the rare occasions when it did ring, it vibrated inside the china container, sounding like the big, old-fashioned alarm clock with two bells that Malena had to use. The racket was the only thing that woke her up.
Naomi fished the noisy thing out and pressed the talk button. “Circle M Ranch.”
“Naomi, this is Alden Stolzfus. Zach told me to call.”
Zach was on shift at the volunteer fire department. There was only one reason he would have told someone else to call and not used his own work phone: he was in the van looking after an injured person.
Her skin chilled from head to foot. The only member of her family who was unaccounted for was Malena.
In the background on his end, she could hear the rapid clip-clop of big hoofs. A car going past. Things rattling. Metal things.
Alden was in his farrier’s wagon, and Zach had told him to phone.
A cold trickle of dread seeped into her stomach. “What has happened, Alden?” She tried to keep her voice steady. “Is it Malena?”
“Ja. She was riding in the pickup with Cord and it ran off the road after knocking the buggy lamp off my sisters’ buggy. I’m following them into town now.”
The picture in her mind was no less vivid for being described in so few words. “And Zach?”
“He’s gone in the EMT van with her and Cord. He told me to phone. That you’d want to go to the clinic.”
She forced herself to breathe. “How bad is it, Alden? Did you see her?”
He swallowed, and even with all the noise, she could hear it. “I don’t know. She wasn’t awake. We had to pry the door open with a crowbar—it hit a telephone pole before it went into the ditch.”
Naomi’s knees quit working and she sat at the kitchen table so suddenly the salt shaker fell over. “But she’s alive?”
“Ja. The airbag went off. Maybe it knocked her out. I don’t know. Anyway, Zach is with her.”
“Denki for telling me, Alden. You’ll be with her, too.”
There was a long silence. “I don’t think so. Zach said only you. And probably Reuben. Family.”
“But—”
“I have to see to my sisters. I—I hope she’ll be all right.”
And he disconnected.
Naomi stared at the phone in her hand as the call light went out. What did he mean, I don’t think so?
The man she had seen last night had revolved around Malena the way the earth revolved around the sun. The way the church revolved around der Herr. That man would have seen to his family and then nothing would have prevented him from meeting her and Reuben at the clinic. Nothing.
Sara and Rebecca, she realized suddenly, were in the kitchen doorway, each with a baby on her hip and identical expressions of fear in their eyes.
Rapidly, she told them what had happened. She pulled on her away bonnet, grabbed her handbag from the dresser, and ran down the steps.
Reuben, thank merciful Heaven, was in the barn, just hitching up Hester for a trip to town that had an entirely different purpose now.
She had barely gabbled out what had happened when she found herself in his strong arms. “Breathe, Liewi. Take a moment. Take a breath. We will pray.”
She obeyed, her chest rising and falling against his as she appealed to their heavenly Father for His help. When she opened her eyes, the sight of the track a tear had made down her husband’s cheek nearly broke her. “Our Malena!” she said on a sob.
“Our Zachariah is with her,” Reuben said hoarsely. “He’ll do everything in his power for his Schweschder. I’ll finish hitching up and we’ll go. The girls will tell Lovina what happened.”
Somehow nothing was as bad when she and Reuben faced it together. Not even the sight of that foolish truck, face down in the ditch like a broken bird, one door hanging open. The passenger door. Where Malena had been sitting.
She choked back a cry of dismay and hid her face in Reuben’s shoulder until they were long past the sight.
The private neurological rehabilitation clinic on the far side of town did not only cater to those recovering from trauma. Not for the first time, Naomi breathed a prayer of thanks that one of its doctors rotated in from the county hospital in Libby to staff a small emergency department. Instead of going to the rehabilitation wing, as they had done to find Rebecca and the man who had believed himself engaged to her last spring, they went to the busy ER at the back.
The woman at the desk made a phone call, and in a moment Zach came through the swinging doors. “Mamm. Dat. Back here.”
“Is she—” Reuben’s voice choked into silence.
“She’s awake. She’s talking,” Zach said.
Naomi’s breath whooshed out of her and she would have burst into tears in the privacy of her away bonnet, except she needed to be calm for Reuben’s sake. He loved his twin girls to pieces, and even a skinned knee or a bump on the head from a fall would upset him badly until he could take the little hurt to der Herr for comfort.
They found Malena in one of a series of curtained-off cubicles that lined a long room. With Reuben and Zach right behind her, Naomi slipped inside to see her vibrant, laughing girl still and pale against the white sheets. Even her hair seemed to have lost some of its intensity. Her Kapp lay on a narrow table at the foot of the bed.
She had no prayer covering. And her hair had been taken down.
“Mamm.” Malena held up her arms the way she had as a baby, asking to be picked up.
Naomi folded her into the gentlest hug of which she was capable, considering she wanted to crush her girl against her chest and never let her go. She stood aside so that Reuben could do the same. Then they sank into the plastic chairs Zach had produced, and Naomi had time to look her over.
A black eye.
A big bruise on one forearm, as though she had fended off an attack.
A splint on the third finger of her left hand.
“It looks worse than it is,” Zach said hastily, seeing what little color remaining in Naomi’s face draining out of it. “The bruises are from the air bag deploying, and she sprained her finger.”
“It could be worse, but it doesn’t feel like it,” Malena offered, her voice weak.
“I’m glad it isn’t worse,” Reuben said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “How did you come to be in that truck, Dochsder?”
“He was supposed to drive me home and get his luggage. But he wanted breakfast at the café. I tried to make him stop. He wouldn’t listen.”
Reuben’s face went motionless. Naomi knew her husband was holding back words meant for Cord McLean, not his defenseless daughter. She was holding back quite a few, too.
“From what she’s told me, I think that knock on the head in the river the other night might have resulted in something else wrong with him,” Zach said. “Something the doctor on duty that night might have missed.”
“At least he’s in the right place to find out,” Naomi managed. “We’ll pray for him.”
After a moment, Reuben nodded in agreement.
“How long will they keep her?” she asked her capable son.
“Honestly, she came out of it pretty well. I’ll go out and check, but I’m sure you can take her home with you today.”
Joy and relief welled up in Naomi like water in a spring, and she squeezed Reuben’s hand.
“I have to get back to work,” Zach said, leaning down to give her a squeeze around the shoulders. “See you all at home. I’m off at two.”
It took a while, between the release paperwork and waiting at the pharmacy for medicine, but at length Malena climbed carefully into the buggy. Instead of taking her place next to Reuben, Naomi sat on the rear bench beside her with one arm around her.
“Oh, Mamm,” her daughter sighed, cuddling closer. “I was so afraid.”
“It’s over now, Liewi.”
Reuben shook the reins over Hester’s back, and they started up the clinic’s long, winding drive with its unseasonably plush green lawns on either side.
“Gott was with you,” Naomi continued softly, marveling at yet more evidence that He held them all in the hollow of his hand. “His grace was sufficient for you. I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive that poor young man. Was he badly hurt?”
“I don’t know. He went one way and I went the other. He probably has bruises like mine, though.”
A throbbing sound seemed to surround them, and Hester tossed her head and looked askance at the helicopter with the big red cross painted on it. It settled onto a circular concrete pad close to the side doors of the clinic. Some other poor soul was experiencing the worst day of their life, too, it seemed. Naomi hoped it would have as positive an ending as their own.
As they rounded the last curve, a big Belgian pulling a heavy wagon clattered into view, going fast enough that its driver had to haul on the reins to get it to stop.
“Reuben?” The wagon drew even with them. “Do you have news of Malena?”
“Better than that, I have my girl right here,” Reuben said, tilting his head toward the two of them in the back. “They’ve just released her. We’re taking her home.”
“Stand, Joseph.” There was a jingle of harness as Joseph shook his mane, and a thump of boots. Alden Stolzfus slid aside the passenger door and peered in, for there were, of course, no windows in the back. “Malena? Are you all right?”
“Ja,” Malena told him, her voice warm even if it was a little woozy from the medicine. “I’m okay.”
“Bruises and a sprained finger. No more, thanks be to Gott,” Naomi said.
“Pray for Cord,” Malena said dreamily. “I don’t think he came out so well.”
Alden’s face looked stricken, and he backed away as though he had been slapped. “I will,” was all he said.
And then Reuben was urging Hester on. Naomi turned to look out the back window. Alden was standing at his horse’s shoulder, gazing after them as though it had suddenly turned into the worst day of his life, too.