In Plain View (41 page)

It had taken him too long to think of this place. Now Sarah stood in the dim light at the far end, surrounded by boxes, her hair long ago fallen from its pins in several places.

“Jacob!” Sarah dropped a handful of loose items and hurried across the shop to embrace him.

Then he stepped aside and once again Jacob witnessed the wide eyes of recognition when Sarah saw Maria for the first time in almost three decades.

The sisters locked arms around each other and swayed in tearful embrace.

“Thirty years!” Sarah murmured. “I never stopped wondering about you. We have so much to catch up on.”

“We will. I promise.” Maria looked up at the hammered tin ceiling. “I remember this place. It was a bookshop. Elizabeth worked here. This is where we first found her.”

Jacob smiled. “The family she worked for stayed in touch over the years. Sarah lived with them for a while when she first came to Philadelphia.” He gestured around. “They used to sell inks and papers. What happened?”

Sarah shifted a crate. “The British write a lot of documents. They used every drop of ink and every scrap of paper in the place. When I heard the shop had been abandoned I knew we could put it to good use.”

Maria plunged a hand in a box and came up with assorted vials and corks. “Medical and surgical supplies.”

“Dearer than gold these days.” Sarah took from another box a thick roll of bandages. “Women are tearing their bedding into strips to send to the military hospitals.”

“I used to divert goods like this,” Maria said, “from British hospitals to ours.”

Sarah glanced at Jacob. “As it turns out, a number of boxes have gone missing from British shipments as of late.”

Maria grinned.

“What happened to your house, Sarah?” Jacob peeked in another box. “Where is Emerson?”

“The British instituted mandatory quartering for their officers. Emerson and I chose to stay with friends rather than wait on them. They hired their own Loyalist maid.”

“I don’t think they paid her enough. It appears she has not been there in some time.”

“Sarah,” Maria said, “I have a husband. He’s missing. Jacob says you may know people who could track down my husband.”

“Emerson knows a lot of people. We’ll start looking as soon as he gets back.”

The muscles in her face stretched in an unfamiliar curve. Magdalena had not done much smiling in the last few years.

But Jonas Glick made her smile.

After the Sunday night singing, he offered to take her home in a small open cart pulled by his half-lame horse. When he spoke, his eyes lit with shy wit that peppered his conversation. Magdalena wondered why she never saw his sense of humor before.

She thought he was a shy farmer, and he was.

She thought he was a grieving widower, and he was.

But he was quick-witted and resourceful and thoughtful. He looked her in the eye when they spoke. Making conversation was never hard. When he brushed her arm in the process of guiding the reins, Magdalena wondered what his embrace would feel like. If he wanted to kiss her, she would let him. Magdalena touched two fingers to her lips just at the thought.

“We’ve searched for four days and found nothing!” Tears welled in Maria’s eyes. “Even my old network has fallen apart.”

“We’ll find Ethan.” Jacob hoped his voice sounded certain. “Just not on this trip.”

Maria paused on her horse beside Jacob and looked back at Philadelphia. “It breaks my heart to leave without him. He’s here somewhere!”

“You heard what Emerson said. Many of the young men in town have joined an organized militia unit. He is fairly sure Ethan is marching to New York.”

“But he is not certain. What if Emerson is wrong? What if I am giving up too early?”

“Sarah and Emerson will be in touch if they find any clues at all.”

“I could go to New York and look for him there.”

“And you might be wasting your time. You wrote a message. Emerson will do his best to get it to Ethan when he has reason to believe it will reach him.”

“I should stay and help with the war effort. I have a lot of experience sneaking behind the British lines. No one pays attention to a woman. They’ll say anything in my presence.”

“It’s been so good for
Mamm
to have you there….”

“I know. But Ethan is my husband.”

“It’s time for you to be safe, Maria.”

“If Ethan is not safe, I am never safe.”

Forty-Four

R
ufus, how long is this board supposed to be?” Luke Stutzman called from twenty feet away, where he stood ready with a measuring tape and handsaw.

Rufus pointed past Luke. “You have to ask Karl.”

He watched as the teenager hesitated, turned around, and approached Karl. Across the outdoor space, Rufus could not hear what Karl said, but he saw Luke’s head bobbing in understanding. The young man moved to a spot clear of congestion, measured the board, took the pencil from behind his ear to mark it, and got ready to saw off a few inches. Luke was doing well. Amish and
English
had arrived together at this day after all.

Rufus studied the drawings in his hands, pleased with the turnout from the town on a Saturday morning in late June. This was their first workday. Crews were digging holes for posts that would mark the trail, while others cleared rocks along the route and cut back limbs. Karl’s injuries limited his ability to handle tools himself, but he was capable of giving clear instructions. Luke and a few other Amish boys worked under Karl’s supervision constructing a small shelter in the open area where hikers might take refuge from rain or get out of the sun. Three picnic tables were under construction, also under Karl’s eye.

The work would not be done in one day. Later volunteers would spread pea gravel along the trail to keep mud at bay on the mile and a half loop. The large boulder—Ruth’s rock, in Rufus’s mind—would stay right where it was. Rufus had two park benches in his workshop awaiting final sanding and staining. Eventually thick boards would frame a children’s play area. Steps carved out of the earth at regular intervals would make it easy and safe for people to climb to the top of the rock and enjoy the view. That had been Rufus’s intention all along. He and Joel would build a discreet fence to signal where the Beiler land started behind the rock, but they would make no real effort to keep out anyone who wandered across the boundary.

Rufus turned at the sound of a truck and found Tom and Carter getting out.

“Sorry we’re late,” Tom said.

“There is still much to do,” Rufus said.

“Carter,” Tom said, “grab a rake from the back and see if you can help along the trail.”

As Carter walked away, Rufus asked, “How is he doing?”

Tom pursed his lips and nodded slowly. “Apologizing to Karl was no piece of cake. Carter was relieved when that was over. Talking to the sheriff scared him half to death. He’ll be a lot less naive going forward, I’m sure. But he’s not giving me a pile of excuses or pointing the finger elsewhere. He’s owned up.”

“They all have,” Rufus said, “even Joel. he was trying to protect Carter and talk some sense into the Stutzman boys, but apparently Duncan wouldn’t let up with his dares. Joel thought it was all talk, but it escalated over a weekend. He realizes he should have spoken up sooner and gotten help. This was not the way to prove he was a man.”

Tom nodded in agreement.

“The sheriff told me Duncan tried to deny his involvement.”

“Not for very long,” Tom said. “He knew he was cornered. His father tells me Duncan won’t be leaving the house on his own for a long time.”

Rufus nodded. “But he promised they would both be here later today.”

“And Annie?” Tom asked.

“She had a long talk with the bishop about how the Amish handle these things,” Rufus said. “She’s not quite satisfied on the question of why Karl keeps that stockpile where he does, but she has backed off of trying to prove anything malicious.”

“The sheriff ’s office knows it’s there. If there’s foul play, they’ll find it.”

“I hope all they find is goodwill.”

“Ha! Rufus Beiler, you do have a way of thinking the best of people.” Tom gestured toward Karl and the Amish boys working on the shelter. “I don’t know what you said to Karl to get him to agree to this, but it seems to be working.”

“We cannot ask others to do what we are not willing to do ourselves. We are building more than a trail together.”

Ruth Beiler’s blue Prius was parked alongside her parents’ barn. She had walked down to the work site along the path she had tamped down with her own steps over the four years she had lived in the family’s home outside Westcliffe. Now she was on her knees, with hands gloved, digging out rocks that could cause someone to stumble and leaving them in a line along the side of the trail. Beside her, Elijah Capp was doing the same thing.

Elijah had not spoken much this morning, but when she knelt to begin working, he chose his place beside her.

“Shouldn’t you be doing something more important?” Ruth asked. “You know how to build things.”

“I am where I want to be.” Elijah gripped the rock Ruth had been digging around and pulled it out of the earth.

She had broken his heart over and over in the last two years, and he kept bringing it back and offering it to her again. Ruth could not help but smile at Elijah now.

As soon as the date was set to begin work, Ruth knew she wanted to help. Lauren had come with her, claiming she had nothing better to do with her weekend, though Ruth knew perfectly well that Lauren had a term paper due on Monday for her summer semester sociology class.

“Your friend works hard,” Elijah observed.

“Lauren does not have a slow speed about anything.”

Lauren wore her camouflage pants and army boots tied halfway up her shins. She had gravitated toward a task that would allow her to hold a power tool, and now she gripped a cordless drill in the middle of one of the groups making picnic tables.

“I like her.” Elijah spoke simply without looking up.

Ruth raised her brow. She liked Lauren quite well, too, despite their differences. But her stomach had clenched slightly at the thought of Lauren meeting her parents and Amish neighbors. Lauren did not change anything about herself to try to fit in—she did not soften her military wardrobe, she did not feminize her haircut, she did not seek out the company of women awaiting instructions from men.

Lauren was herself, no matter the setting. That was all Ruth sought for herself as well.

By now Ruth and Elijah had developed a rhythm. With a garden shovel, she loosened the dirt around rocks, and with his muscled hands, Elijah pulled them out. Ruth glanced at their mothers, who had set up a portable table together and made sure the workers had water and snacks. Franey Beiler leaned her head in toward Mrs. Capp in a way that Ruth regarded as conspiratorial.

Ruth went back to digging. She always wanted to be able to come home to visit her family, but even two determined Amish mothers could not change the realities of
Ordnung
.

“I will wait, you know,” Elijah said.

Ruth had no words.

She only knew that, in this moment, she loved clearing rocks beside Elijah Capp.