In Plain View (22 page)

That morning, before he left his workshop for the home where he was installing cabinets, Rufus checked every hook on the wall the third time. The set of small chisels was not there. Now, in the wide yard beside the new home, he emptied his toolbox in the back of the buggy, though he had done this before as well. If the leather case did not turn up soon, he would have to bear the expense of a new set. For now, he chose a larger chisel and replaced the rest of The tools according to the careful arrangement that characterized his toolbox.

Rufus turned at the sound of a car spewing gravel. He put a calming hand on Dolly’s rump. The car screeched to an abrupt halt, bouncing forward with unspent momentum before settling. Karl Kramer leaned out of the driver’s side window.

“If we’re going to work together, you have to give me a phone number.” Karl shook a finger at Rufus.

“What’s wrong, Karl?”

“I can’t meet this afternoon. Somebody is stealing fertilizer from me, and I intend to find out who it is.”

“Who would steal fertilizer?”

“If I knew that, would I be chewing the fat with you now?”

“Tomorrow, then,” Rufus said. “I hope you sort things out soon.”

“I intend to. Whoever did this is going to be sorry.”

Karl pulled his arm inside the car and accelerated. With his hand on Dolly’s neck, Rufus watched Karl’s car hurl down the road much faster than it should have. He hoped Karl would calm down before they met again. If the project derailed because Karl could not let go of a couple of bags of fertilizer, Rufus would have little success convincing anyone to give Karl another chance.

“Annie, Rufus is here for you.”

Annie stuck her head around the corner from the desk in the storeroom where she had been making notes about the newest inventory. Her ponytail sagged and she was fairly sure a smudge covered one cheekbone, but she smiled anyway.

“I thought you had a meeting.” Annie entered the main shop and tucked a perpetually rebellious strand of hair behind her left ear.

“Canceled.”

Rufus’s lips did not turn up, but Annie caught the hint of dance in his eyes. She looked at Mrs. Weichert.

The shop owner waved a hand. “Yes, you’re through for the day. Go on, you two.”

“I’ll drive you home,” Rufus said when they stepped out on the sidewalk.

“It’s only four blocks.”

“We’ll take the long way.”

Annie took the hand Rufus offered to help her up to the buggy seat. Outside the bakery across the street, two women watched. Annie felt their stares, and she turned her head to smile at them. Curiosity on the faces of onlookers no longer made her self-conscious.

“I’m not sure Westcliffe has a ‘long way,’ ” Annie said.

“We’ll invent one.”

Rufus guided Dolly past the turn onto Annie’s street, going several blocks and then turning the opposite direction. They zigzagged up and down the streets, past the historic Lutheran church and the old schoolhouse, past the small railroad museum and the newspaper office. Each time he had an opportunity to turn in the direction of Annie’s house, Rufus went the other way.

“I suppose in your
English
world this is not much of a date,” Rufus said, his eyes forward.

Is that was this was? “This is better than an
English
date,” Annie said. “I’m glad to see you.”

“Karl is making a fuss about some missing fertilizer.”

Annie let three houses pass before she spoke. “Rufus, suppose someone in the Amish community was involved.”

“Why would any of our people be involved? We don’t steal and our sources of fertilizer generally are more…natural, shall we say?”

She smiled. “Well, then, not directly involved. Just theoretically.”

“If theoretically someone knew about this?” He leaned toward her.

“Yes. Theoretically.”

“Then theoretically someone ought to speak to the elders. But not theoretical elders. Real ones.”

Annie nodded. Thinking of Joel, though, complicated her thoughts. She did Not for a minute believe Joel would be involved with theft.

“Do you know something?” Rufus asked.

She squirmed. “Not exactly.” A false accusation would do needless harm. She chuckled as they went past the same corner for the fourth time. “People are going to think you’ve lost your mind if you keep driving in circles.”

“Theoretically I would hate for that rumor to get back to my parents.”

“Then theoretically, I suppose you should turn left at the next corner and take me home.”

In front of her house, Rufus helped Annie down. She stood for a moment to stroke Dolly’s neck.

“Thanks for the ride home.” Annie drank a deep breath and let it out in contentment. “I could make coffee. We could sit on the step.”

And then she saw her.

Beth Stutzman clomping down off Main Street toward them. Annie pressed her lips together.

“There you are!” Beth called to them from half a block away. “I’ve been trying to catch you all over town. Why were you driving as if you didn’t know where you were going?”

“Hello, Beth,” Annie said.

“Hello, Annalise.” Beth’s gaze barely moved in Annie’s direction, instead focusing on Rufus. “I was hoping you could give me a ride home.”

Rufus caught Annie’s eyes.

“You
are
going home now, aren’t you?” Beth asked, looking from Rufus to Annie and back again.

Beth’s tone grated even as Annie erased her vision of coffee on the front steps with Rufus. “I’ll see you later,” Annie said.

She saw the sink in his shoulders as he nodded at Beth. “Ya, I’m heading home.”

He politely aided Beth’s ascent to the buggy seat, climbed up beside her, and picked up the reins.

Theoretically, Rufus did not look very happy with Beth’s request. Theoretically, Annie was pleased to know he would rather have sat with her on her front step for a few more minutes.

Annie turned back to the house. The missing fertilizer was not theoretical, and neither was Annie’s memory of the Internet history on Carter Reynolds’s phone.

If only Joel were not being so evasive. The consequences could be far from theoretical.

Twenty-Four

September 1777

M
agdalena chose to walk. One of the Stutzman sisters, who had married a Yoder distantly related to Magdalena, had a new babe. Magdalena had offered to do some mending so the new mother could rest and enjoy the child. She knew her own talent with a needle. The couple’s mending had stacked up during the heaviness of pregnancy with an older child to care for. Magdalena’s repairs would hold for a good long while.

The couple’s farm was four miles away. Calculating both the walking time and the visiting time, Magdalena reckoned she had the better part of three hours away from the house, perhaps even four. Magdalena much preferred setting her body in motion and raising her face in the warmth in the sky to wiping noses and shooing children out of the kitchen. The brutality of summer heat had eased, but the days still brimmed with sun. She would cut through the paths that joined the back property boundaries and stay off the main road, and she would have hours for uninterrupted thoughts while she carried the mended garments to the Yoders.

Babsi’s baby had come as well. A boy. They named him Jacob, for his grandfather. The name had been in the Byler family for several generations already, and of course it made Magdalena think of her
onkel
in Berks County, and his son Jacob Franklin. The miles between Lancaster County and Berks County were far from insurmountable, but the two branches of the Byler family had less and less in common. Magdalena supposed that in another generation they would hardly know each other.

If only one of these little Jacoblis could be hers—hers and Nathanael’s. He did not come right out and say he did not plan to marry, but anyone could see he had lost interest. He was content. Too content.

It stabbed her sometimes, that he could lose his love for her.

Magdalena pushed out air and moved the old flour sack filled with mended garments to the other shoulder.

She did not see them until she crested the small hill, hardly more than a mound. And if she had not turned her head at that angle at that precise moment, she might have missed them altogether. Against the slope, four men sat on the ground, huddled around a patch of something. Leather? Paper? She could not be sure.

Magdalena did not realize her feet had stopped moving until she caught his glance. Eyes large and brown stared at her. No hat restrained his shaggy brown hair. They locked eyes while he jumped to his feet. His motion caused the others to look up as well. She heard the slap as rifles moved to their hands, and she froze. Never before had she seen a gun aimed at her.

“I’m sorry,” Magdalena muttered. “I won’t disturb you.” She took a few steps.

“Halt!”

When she turned again, the first man was moving toward her. “What do you have in the bag?”

Magdalena licked her lips and swallowed. “Mended clothing. For a friend.”

“Show me.”

Magdalena dropped the bag off her shoulder and spread the top edges. He riffled through a few layers with one hand, his musket at the ready in the other.

Who did they think she was? Magdalena wondered. And who were they? She watched their movements, curious.

“Do you come through here often?” he asked.

“No, not often.” Magdalena twisted the top of her bag closed.

“Why are you here today?”

“I felt like walking. Usually I take a cart on the road.” She realized now that two of the men wore jackets in shades of red. Not British uniforms, but nevertheless a suggestion of their sympathies. She took a step back and saw fire in his eyes.

“I should be on my way.” Magdalena slung the bag over a shoulder.

The man turned and spoke over his shoulder to the others. “Bring the paper.”

A younger man—surely no older than fifteen, her brother Hansli’s age—picked up the paper they had huddled around. He took five uphill strides and was beside her.

“You will carry this for us.”

She met the first man’s gaze and fingered the strings of her
kapp
. “I am Amish.”

“I know. That’s why you are perfect.”

“I do not understand.”

He pointed. “On the far side of that ridge is a boulder. It looks a little like a bear cub from a distance.”

Magdalena stood still, anticipating. She knew the ridge well. Patriots had been gathering there for more than two years.

Now he folded the paper as he talked. “It’s a simple task.”

“I am Amish,” she repeated.

“No one will look in your bag.”

“You did,” Magdalena pointed out.

“But not because I suspected you. I saw an opportunity.”

“Amish do not take sides in a war.” Even as she spoke the words, her belief in them trembled.

“When you get to the rock, look to the south. You will see a small cabin.”

Nathan’s cabin. Magdalena exhaled and inhaled three times before speaking. “What will happen to the men on the ridge if I do this?”

“What will happen to you if you do not? The battles are spreading. Your General Washington is going to lose Philadelphia any day.”

“He is not my General Washington,” she said. “The Amish have no generals.”

“It will be better for you if you are on our side when Philadelphia falls. It won’t be long before the countryside is under British control once again. Your theory of neutrality will not hold up then.” Without asking permission, he took the bag from her shoulder and plunged his hand inside, pushing the letter to the middle. His fingers came out empty. “Inside the cabin you’ll see a shelf with jars of preserves on it.”

Mrs. Buerki’s jars of peaches and beans, long forgotten. Magdalena’s heart thundered as she realized the squatters in Nathan’s cabin were British sympathizers.

“Put the letter under the third jar from the left.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

She held his brown eyes as she raised her bag to her shoulder. “And if I should happen to pass this way again?”

“Then perhaps we will happen to talk again.”

“The Israelites could not make bricks without straw, and I cannot make gunpowder without saltpeter.” Jacob pulled his leather apron over his head and flung it against the stone wall of the tannery.