Psalm 147: 12 – 13.
Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your children within you.
It had been almost a week, and Kate was exhausted. Who knew these Amish worked so hard? She had spent her days baking, weeding, cleaning, feeding the chickens and pigs, milking the cow, and then there was the endless and time consuming washing of clothes with an old wringer machine, along with taking food to the sick and elderly with Beth.
Kate returned to her small, temporary home after the sun had gone down. The sky above her was beautiful, almost pitch black with a million shining stars, and a fat moon that was bloated and silver. She had never seen a sky so clear until she had ended up at that small Amish community. There was no pollution here, no cars pumping noxious gas into the sky, or factories nearby with unending streams of gray and white smoke coming from their tall chimneys.
Kate took another quick glance up at the sky and then pushed open the door to her small haus. It was one floor, and only a few rooms, yet she felt quite at home there.
Kate moved to the small bedroom and pulled off her over-apron and then her long dress, quickly throwing on a nightgown, as the night air had a bit of a chill to it, and she hadn’t built a fire. Kate reached into her dress, found the hidden pocket sewn there and pulled out her emergency cell phone. She stashed it under her pillow, and sat on the edge of her bed.
The phone was a simple burner, cheap and plastic, nowhere near as loaded with features as the one she had left behind, in her old life. There were no games on it, and it couldn’t connect to the internet.
The internet. She missed the internet so much. She missed her email; she missed Netflix. She didn’t even really know what was going on in the world. She hadn’t watched television; she hadn’t even read a newspaper.
And her iPad, she really missed that. The stupid little games, how she would pass the time in the hotels in which she was forced to stay as she drove from state to state. There was nothing here. It was just hard physical work during the day, and then coming home at dark, lying in bed, and staring at the ceiling until she fell asleep. Kate was already going stir crazy.
There was a knock on her front door, and Kate rose from the edge of her bed. She pulled on the simple cotton robe and then made her way out into the living room, and she pulled the door open.
Beth was there, holding a bunch of lavender in one hand and a bunch of rosemary in the other.
“I thought you might like a hot bath with these to soothe and relax you,” Beth said, and she handed over the herbs.
“Thank you,” Kate said.
Kate watched Beth walk across the yard to the back door of her own home, thinking how kind and considerate she was. Then Kate shut her door and went to the bathroom.
The tub there was old, on four feet and was of heavy porcelain. She released the herbs into the tub into the hot water after fitting the rubber stop into the drain, and then she undressed and slid into the water.
Kate had to admit it felt nice to be taking the bath, and she closed her eyes and managed to forget just how bored she was for a while, though a movie afterwards would have made the bath even better. Of course, there was none of that anywhere around her.
After soaking in the tub until the water cooled, Kate washed up and got out. After a quick dry, she was in her nightgown once more, and as ready for bed as she was going to get. She lay on her bed and reached under the pillow, pulling out her burner cell phone. She pressed the button and looked at the screen, her face illuminated by the pale blue light streaming from it. She had wanted to see if David had called, but of course he hadn’t. It was for emergencies only. She likely wouldn’t hear from him again until the person who was after her was in custody, and she could go back to her own life. She slid the phone back under her pillow, and then she cried.
In the morning Kate awoke when the sun came streaming in through her window and fell across her face. It forced its way under her eyelids, and she sat up and groaned as she stretched her arms over her head. She got up and dressed, taking the phone from its hiding spot and sliding it into one of the hidden pockets sewn into her dress. Socks and shoes on, and then it was time to find some breakfast.
Kate had gotten into the habit of having breakfast in her cabin, and then joining the family for the rest of the meals of the day. Beth had shown her how to make a quick and delicious oatmeal, and Kate repeated the lesson with slightly less success, though it was still good and more importantly, filling. She left the few dishes for later. She tied her bonnet to her head and then went outside.
Beth and her husband Isaac were outside, working in the large garden that ran alongside their house. Isaac saw her first, standing straight and smiling as he waved. He was a nice man, with a full beard that had once been black but was now mostly gray. Of course, like all Amish men, his beard did not include a mustache, and Kate had learned that this tradition was from the days when having a mustache signified that the man was in the military.
“Gude mariye,” he called as Kate neared, and she returned his good morning in English. By then Beth had stood as well, and was coming toward her.
“Katie, I wonder if you would be kind enough to do us a favor,” she said in her soft and small voice.
“Of course,” Kate said. Beth and Isaac were certainly doing her more than a small favor, allowing her to live in their grossmammi haus, and they were so kind Kate that would have done anything for them.
“Would you please take the buggy and deliver some whoopee pies to Mr. Byler for me will you? There’s a basket in the kitchen. He’s a widower, and we often take food to him.”
“The buggy?” Kate asked, hoping her face didn't betray to them the fact that she had no idea how to drive a horse and buggy. Still, the bishop’s wife had warned her that this would happen, and assured her that she would be given only the quietest, most well mannered horses to drive. After all, the community had been told that she’d had a buggy accident.
“Yes, it’s some way up the road,” Isaac chimed in. “If you walked, you’d likely miss lunch for the next three days.”
He smiled, and Kate couldn’t help but laugh. “All right,” she said. “I’ll leave right away.”
“I already have the horse harnessed up, and the buggy ready to go,” Isaac said. “It’s out front. Head straight down the highway there; take a right off this road, and you’ll go until you see a sign for Byler Farms. There’s a big white house at the end of the lane there, and Mr. Byler will be expecting you, I’m sure.”
Beth patted her arm. “The horse is old and very quiet,” she said. “You have nothing to fear after your accident.”
Kate nodded and then headed for the front of the house. She saw the buggy there, with the horse at its front. It was not the same horse as the one Beth had driven to visit people. Kate turned away and went inside, finding the huge basket of packed whoopie pies of which Beth had spoken, and then she moved back outside. She placed the basket of whoopie pies up on the seat and then moved to the front of the buggy so she could have a pep talk with the horse.
The beast was large and black, with soft hair and a shining mane which was graying at the roots. Kate patted the horse on the side of his neck, and looked him square in his large eye.
“Listen,” she said. “I don’t know what the heck I’m doing, and you’re going to have to just get me there somehow, all right?”
She turned to head to the buggy proper, but stopped herself and went back to the horse. “Uh, Byler Farm, all right? That’s where we’re headed.”
Shaking her head at her own foolishness, Kate made her way to the buggy and climbed up onto the bench. She placed the basket beside her and then took up the reins. She wasn’t expecting the horse to take off like that, but he did. Apparently he knew it was time to go, and he was doing just that: going.
He started trotting slowly along the dirt path, away from the house and toward the paved highway. At first Kate was terrified, but the horse was only going at a steady pace. The dirt path was a mile long, with a few branching paths leading to more Amish houses and farms. The highway was used by the Amish and the non Amish alike, but there wasn’t very much traffic, and as she turned onto it, Kate did not see a single car, much to her relief.
There were yellow diamond shaped signs up and down the road, indicating that the wide lane to the right was for horse and buggies, and Kate made sure to stick to that lane. When she saw her first car, it was coming toward her, in the other lane, but Kate found herself sucking in a deep breath and holding it until the car was gone. Ten minutes after that there was another, this one coming up behind her.
There was a small circular mirror attached to the side of the buggy, and she saw the car in it before she heard it, but as she neared she could hear the engine revving and screaming, and she found herself racked with fear. Then the car was speeding past, a blur of red, and Kate fought to regain her composure and calm herself.
What were those people thinking? Kate wondered. They had known she was in an accident, or at least that was her story. And here they were asking her to drive their buggy ten miles down the road. For all they knew, she was an amnesiac because of her accident, and getting back in a buggy on the road might surely cause her to have crippling flashbacks or something like that.
Of course, Kate hadn’t really been in a buggy accident, so it was all for naught. Maybe Beth and Isaac thought they were helping her in some way. Getting back up on the bike after a crash, as the old saying went.
By the time Kate saw the sign for Byler Farms, she had been passed in either direction by eight cars. By the seventh car, she found herself able to be passed without holding her breath, although her heart pounded so fiercely it was audible in her ears each and every time. At least the horse seemed to know what he was doing.
The sign was large and a pristine white, with black lettering that spelled out Byler Farms: Turn Right. She did so, leaving the paved highway and finding herself on dirt once more. Turning was an easy maneuver after all; she simply pulled gently on the rein in the direction in which she wanted to go. She had watched enough old westerns on TV to know how to do that. The horse had done almost everything himself, and Kate had been thankful for that.
The dirt lane stretched on toward a strand of large trees, and then it twisted through them, and when the buggy came out of the woods on the other side, there was the farmhouse, and great rolling green hills, most of them filled with apple trees.
Kate managed to stop the buggy in front of the house. She climbed out, picking up the basket of whoopie pies and making her way to the horse. She patted him once more. “Thanks for not getting me killed,” she said. She tied him to the rail, left the horse and buggy behind, and climbed the few stairs to the porch of the large farmhouse. She knocked on the door and waited, but there was no answer. A series of knocks later provided the same result.
Kate left the porch and looked down the side of the house. There was a large red barn there, and both doors were hanging open. As Mr. Byler was Amish, he was likely working hard in the barn, not lazing away his hours in the house. Kate placed the basket of whoopie pies on the porch, just outside the door, and headed for the barn.
When she got there, her blood ran cold. Her hair stood on end. She sensed something wrong; her training told her that. The barn was dark, the morning sun streaming only a quarter of the way in through the slightly open door. Toward the back of the barn, there was a dark shape upon the ground. Kate knew somehow what it was, without her eyes having enough information to confirm her thought. It was a person.
Someone was hurt, or worse. Kate ran forward. She reached the dark shape and kneeled down. It was a man, an older man in his sixties, Amish. He was staring up at the roof of the barn, his eyes wide, but unseeing.
“Dead,” Kate said, and she stood up straight, dusting her dirty hands off on her dress. How had he died?
She heard something behind her, turned, and saw someone coming for her. Whoever it was, wore a hat that created a large enough shadow to conceal his face. He held a heavy garden fork above his head, and he brought the blunt end of it down at Kate.