Twenty years before
I was fifteen years old the last time I saw Jonas Bowman. It was worship Sunday at Leroy Miller’s farm. I’d suffered through three hours of preaching in a sweltering barn and another two of the old folks “piecing” on pie and coffee and catching up on the latest gossip. As usual, a “singing” was planned for afternoon; as usual, I had no inclination to attend.
The problem was, I’d agreed to let Jonas drive me home afterward. I wasn’t sure why that was a problem; my parents would be none the wiser if he dropped me off at the end of the lane. I had no idea what was wrong with me. I thought about him all the time. I missed him and yet I didn’t want to spend time with him. I couldn’t even be nice to him.
I’d caught glimpses of him throughout the morning. But with the women seated on one side of the barn and the men on the other, we didn’t speak. Didn’t even make eye contact. I didn’t, anyway. But I caught him looking in my direction a time or two. By the time worship was over, I was feeling sulky and out of sorts. The last thing I wanted to do was ride home with him.
We’d seen each other several times over the summer. We didn’t talk about it or make plans to meet, but somehow it always seemed to happen. He’d helped my datt dig postholes for the cross fence at the back of our property. Twice, we’d met at the creek. Once, at the covered bridge. Those stolen moments had become important to me, the more spontaneous, the better.
Mamm knew something secret was afoot. On more than one occasion, she reminded me that Jonas was too old. She couldn’t explain why Datt—who was six years her senior—wasn’t too old for her. When you looked at it that way, the four years between Jonas and me didn’t seem like that much.
I was almost to the Tuscarawas Bridge when the clip-clop of hooves—and the electric blare of music—drew my attention. I turned to see Jonas in his buggy pull up beside me. I kept walking. He slowed the horse to keep pace.
“You stood me up,” he said.
I looked straight ahead, trying not to acknowledge the tension climbing up the back of my neck. “I forgot.”
I kept walking, but I was keenly aware of him, keeping pace, watching me. The music floating in the air like birdsong.
“You could have at least told me you didn’t want to ride with me,” he said. “I looked for you.”
I kept my eyes on the road in front of me. I didn’t want him to know that I was secretly happy to see him. I knew if I looked at him, he would know.
Finally, I mustered my best frown and looked at him. “That radio is going to get you into trouble.”
“Since when do you care about getting into trouble?” Leaning forward, he turned up the music. “I like this one.”
It was a beautiful song with a wailing guitar and a woman’s voice that sounded like poetry or some exotic foreign language.
“It’s awful hot to be walking in the sun,” he said.
“I’ll get into trouble if I ride with you.”
“No one has to know,” he drawled. “I’ll drop you off at the end of your lane.”
“So you said.”
But I stopped walking. He halted the horse and climbed down. For an instant, we simply looked at each other. I didn’t remember him being so tall. For the first time in my life, I smelled men’s cologne. In that instant, the music faded and the only thing I could hear was the pounding of my heart. Then he took my hand and helped me into the buggy.
A sense of freedom and excitement engulfed me as we flew down the road. I’d never felt so grown-up. I waved at Mrs. Fisher as we passed their farm. Any other time, we might’ve stopped to chat, but Jonas kept going, the radio blaring. I didn’t say anything when he passed the turnoff for the farm where I lived. I had an idea where he was taking me, but it was the only place in the world I wanted to be.
A mile farther, he made the turn onto Rockridge Road. The asphalt gave way to gravel and he kept going. Another quarter mile and the road dead-ended.
“Whoa.” Jonas stopped the horse, then climbed down to loosen the lines so the animal could graze.
It was a pretty spot. Tall elm trees offered welcome shade. A profusion of wildflowers in the ditch. Raspberry bushes growing along the fence. I was thinking about climbing down and checking for ripe berries—maybe taking a few home—when he came back and climbed in beside me. Reaching under the seat, he pulled out a cooler and handed me a beer and got another for himself. I caught a glimpse of the other items in the cooler. Cookies wrapped in wax paper. Some kind of cheese. Crackers. Only then did I realize he’d planned a picnic—and I’d foiled his plans by standing him up.
Embarrassed that I’d noticed the food, he closed the cooler.
“There’s a baseball game Friday out to John Hershberger’s place,” he said. “Wanna go?”
I sipped my beer, thinking, knowing my parents wouldn’t let me go, wondering if I could sneak out. I didn’t look at him because I was afraid he’d see just how desperately I wanted to go. “Maybe.”
“You never used to be so complicated,” he said.
I slanted a look at him, trying to figure out if that was an insult. “I’m not complicated.”
“First you say yes, then you stand me up. What am I supposed to think?”
I didn’t have an answer. For several minutes we didn’t speak. I listened to the music, loving the voices and instruments and lyrics, and I daydreamed about escaping with Jonas into a world that wasn’t as muddled as the one in which we lived.
“You ever been to the Icebox?” Jonas asked.
The Icebox was a swimming hole on Painters Creek. A mysterious place where the water was so deep no one had ever touched the bottom. Stories abounded; the most memorable was about the English boy who’d drowned when the creek flooded. The Icebox turned into a whirlpool and sucked his canoe into the abyss. To this day, his screams can be heard in the woods at night.
“I’ve been there,” I told him, leaving out the fact that I hadn’t had the guts to get in the water.
“Elam Yoder told me his grandfather saw the whirlpool back when that kid was killed,” he said.
I felt my eyes widen. An imagination is the one thing I’d never lacked. The thought of all that water swallowing a boy alive made me shiver. “I don’t see how the water can be that deep.”
“That’s not all he said.” Watching me, he tipped his bottle and drank. “A couple weeks ago, Elam and his friends were there, swimming, and he decided to find out just how deep that hole really is. So he got this big rock, tied a rope to it, and went into the water where there’s a drop-off. He let that rock take him down, held on to the rope as long as he could, but he ran out of breath before he reached the bottom.”
My imagination surged with the mystery of it, the danger. “Did he see anything?”
“He said there was a big cave down there. All sorts of strange currents.” He lowered his voice. “Said he saw that canoe, too, and it creeped him out.”
I stared at him, feeling that tingle for adventure take hold. “Have you ever been there?” I ask.
“Twice.”
“Did you try to reach the bottom?”
“What do you think?” He laughed. “I’m a good swimmer, Katie. I tried, but I couldn’t do it. Never seen water so deep. The deeper you go, the colder it gets.”
A small part of me didn’t believe all the stories. But it was fun to imagine such a dangerous and exciting place right here in Painters Mill.
“It’s early yet. Plenty hot.” Squinting against the sun, Jonas looked out across the land. “Want to go?”
Despite my efforts otherwise, I was intrigued. I wanted to see the Icebox again. I wanted to explore its depths. I wanted Jonas and me to be the ones to reach the bottom before anyone else could.
“How far is it from here?” I ask.
“Couple miles down the road. We can be there in five minutes.”
I looked down at my dress and shoes, knowing swimming wasn’t a very good idea. But, oh, how I wanted to explore that storied body of water. I could always hang my clothes in the sun to dry afterward. Mamm might not notice. I could always tell her I slipped on a rock while wading.…
“You brought all that food.” I smile at him. “Maybe we can have our picnic there.”
Jonas smiled back. “I brought two towels, too.”
“You thought of everything.” I got to my feet. “I bet we could find a couple of big rocks.…”
He took my hand. “Come on.”
We never reached the bottom of that deep pool of water. We had sex right there on the sandy bank, atop the afghan his grandmother had knitted some forty years ago. It was a first for both of us. Awkward. Earth-shattering. Beautiful.
I won’t get into the sordid details, but we got caught. One moment we were entwined in each other’s arms, half dressed, awestruck by what had just happened, trying to come to terms with what it meant in terms of our lives and the future. Then we heard the sound of buggy wheels against gravel—and my datt’s voice calling my name—and we flew into a panic. We barely had time to yank on our clothes. One look at my datt’s face and I knew he knew. It was the most mortifying moment of my young life. Only later did I learn that Mrs. Fisher had gone to my datt and told him she’d seen us together. Because of our age difference, the bishop got involved. When the sheriff’s department paid the Bowmans a visit and had a conversation about statutory rape, Ezra Bowman decided to move his family to Pennsylvania.
Three days later Jonas was gone, and I never saw him again.