In Plain View (5 page)

Nicholas waited till the last moment to pull on the reins, just as He always did.

“
Guder
mariye
, Nicholas. Good morning. What do you have for us today?”

He passed her a bundle of envelopes tied together with string. “One is from Berks County.”

“My
onkel.”
Magdalena pulled the knot out of the string and began to flip through the stack. She paused when she recognized the blockish lettering of Jacob, her father’s younger half brother. “It must be news of the baby.”

“You can tell me all about it next time,” Nicholas said. “Nothing going out?”

“Not today.
Danki
, Nicholas.”

The horse resumed its trot. Magdalena scanned the road again, looking for any sign of Nathanael. Nothing stirred on the horizon. She was tempted to tear the end of the envelope, but it was addressed to her father and his wife. After one more glance around, she chose to take the letters to her father. Nathan could find her there.

Her parents had brought the family to the Conestoga Valley several years earlier. Her mother’s death, just two years ago, stunned them all. But Christian Byler, her father, lost little time in marrying again to another Yoder daughter. Now he and Babsi coddled a baby of their own. With three brothers and three sisters, Magdalena had thought herself too old to become a sister again, but of course no one could resist baby Antje’s blond curls and violet-blue eyes.

Magdalena decided to go to the barn rather than the house. Her father was sure to be there. She was curious enough about
Onkel
Jacob’s news to want her
daed
to open that letter, even if he read the rest when he was sitting comfortably in his chair by the fire. Magdalena found him right where she expected, standing in the hayloft with a pitchfork in his hands. When he saw her, he thrust the implement upright into the hay and leaned on it to look at her.

“
Onkel
Jacobli has sent a letter.” Magdalena waved the entire mail packet up for her father to see.

Christian Byler wiped his hands on his pants then carefully maneuvered down the sturdy ladder to the main floor. At fortyfive, he still seemed robust to Magdalena. He did not ask younger men to do what he was not willing to do himself. The end of his brown curly beard rested against his chest as he took the stack of mail from Magdalena.

She had laid Jacob’s letter on top. Her father now carefully broke through the end of the envelope and extracted a single sheet of paper.

“
Maedel
. A girl,” Christian said a moment later. “They’re calling her Catherine.”

Magdalena smiled. “A pretty name. When did she come?”

“Nearly three weeks ago. Sarah is there now. All is well.” Christian looked up. “I thought you were to walk with Nathanael Buerki this morning.”

“I am.”

“He’s late.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure you want to spend your life waiting on this man?”

Magdalena nodded. Nathanael’s perpetual tardiness bothered her father more than it did her. “He is worth it.”

“You had better be sure.”

“I am.”

“You could have been married last year. He has his own land with a cabin. It’s not the house you’re used to, but it would serve you well for now.”

“The cabin is fine. We’ll marry when the time is right.” Magdalena hoped it would be soon. “I’d better go back up to the road to wait for him.”

Nathan was there when Magdalena reached the end of the lane again. He looked over his shoulder as he hustled her down the road.

“What’s wrong, Nathan?”

“Patriots,” he said. “I saw a gang of them on the ridge.”

“They could be there for any number of reasons,” Magdalena said. “One of their meetings, perhaps.”

“I had a bad feeling, Maggie. From up there they can see the road in both directions. You never know when they will drop down.”

“I don’t understand why they cannot leave us alone. Is it so terrible that the Amish want to be neutral and peaceful?”

“Ever since the Patriots dumped tea in the Boston Harbor, there is no such thing as neutral in their minds.” Nathanael slowed his steps and reached for Magdalena’s arm when she got a few steps ahead of him.

“You said they were on the ridge,” Magdalena said.

“I think they’ve moved,” Nathan whispered.

Magdalena gasped and clutched Nathanael’s hand as four young men lunged from bushes beside the road.

One of the men broke from the others and sliced between Magdalena and Nathanael, knocking her down at the side of the road and pinning her shoulders there. She stared into his gray eyes. He was Stephen Blackburn. His family had arrived in the Conestoga Valley the same year hers had. They were hardly more than children when they first met. He was
English
, but he had never threatened harm.

“Don’t try anything.” He gave her shoulder an extra shove; then he stood up.

What did he think she would try? She was Amish. She would not strike him or purposefully cause him harm. And neither would Nathan.

The foursome now circled a frozen Nathanael.

“Have you considered the hypocrisy of your position?” Stephen taunted. “Your people came to America seeking freedom, but now that the British threaten the freedom of all the colonies, you will not stand up against persecution.”

Magdalena watched Nathanael’s Adam’s apple descend in a slow swallow.

“We are peaceful people,” Nathanael said. “We would be hypocrites if we were suddenly to take up arms.”

“There will be a war, you know,” Stephen said. “You will have to decide whether your allegiance belongs to Britain or America.”

“My allegiance belongs to God alone.”

“But you live in Pennsylvania. You must have some sense of patriotism.”

Nathanael did not answer. Still tasting dirt, Magdalena was afraid to move.

Stephen slapped Nathanael sharply on one side of his face. “Are you going to turn the other cheek to me?”

Nathanael did not move. Stephen slapped him again, this time with the back of his hand. Nathanael stumbled back a few steps but did not lose his balance.

“How does that feel?” Stephen jeered. “Are you holier now because you turned the other cheek?”

A sob shuddered through Magdalena. She was on one knee now, trying to stand on rubber legs.

“Take him,” Stephen said, and two others twisted Nathanael’s arms behind his back.

“Where are you taking him?” Magdalena tried to catch Nathanael’s downcast eyes.

“Hypocrites need to learn a few lessons in basic loyalty. Let’s just say we’re taking him to a school where he can learn.”

“Please, we mean no harm to anyone.” She stood firm on her feet now, her stomach turning itself inside out.

Stephen shoved Nathanael in the back, sending him stumbling into the bushes. He rotated toward Magdalena. “Don’t try to follow. It will only make things worse.”

Five

October 1774

A
t the pounding on the front door, Magdalena sprang to her feet. Across the room, her father stiffened.

“It’s the men who took Nathan,” Magdalena said.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Christian answered. “Stay out of sight.”

“
Daed
, they’ll hurt you, too.”

Christian turned from the mantel toward the door. “Maggie, take your little sisters and go into the kitchen. Babsi is there.”

Magdalena shepherded Lizzie and Mary to the kitchen, grateful her other siblings were away from the house.

Her stepmother looked up from rolling a piecrust. “What’s wrong?”

Magdalena shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Somebody’s at the door.” Little Mary climbed up onto the bench at the table.

“
Daed
thought you might like some company.” Magdalena took an apple from the basket on the table and handed it to Mary, hoping it would keep her quiet.

Babsi looked at Magdalena, doubt written across her face, but she said nothing. Avoiding Babsi’s gaze, Magdalena glanced across the room to see baby Antje nestled in her cradle. The latch was off the back door. If they had to, they could all get out quickly.

“Magdalena!” Her father’s voice boomed from the other room. “Magdalena! Come!”

She raced across the kitchen, pushed open the door, and launched into the spacious main room. Her brother Hans, at thirteen still growing into his man’s body, was lowering Nathanael into a chair.

“I found him up the road,” Hans said. “He’s beaten up pretty badly.”

Magdalena collapsed at Nathanael’s feet, grateful he was back even if he was wounded. She had whispered prayers from her bed through the watches of the night. God had been gracious to answer her pleas, and she now murmured words of gratitude.

“Hans,” her father said, “you’d better ride to tell his family. Magdalena, get some rags and a basin of water. Let’s see how bad it is.”

Magdalena forced down the knot in her throat. Babsi and the girls watched wide-eyed from the other end of the room. She pushed past them to the water barrel in the kitchen and filled a basin then grabbed some clean cloths.

“It’s not so bad,” she heard Nathanael say when she neared him again. But she did not believe him. The strain in his voice told her that even breathing pained him. Outside the house, Hansli’s horse gathered a gallop.

Magdalena knelt on the floor and dipped a rag into the water then gently pressed it to the cuts on one side of Nathan’s face. His eye was black and swollen. Dried blood traced its path from his cheekbone down the side of his neck. She moved the rag, moistened again, to his swollen lips. A ragged tear in his shirt—the kind created only in violence—exposed the bruises that had already formed. Hardly more than a few square inches remained untouched across his abdomen.

When she leaned back on her haunches, covering her mouth in horror at what he had been through, her father moved in and gently began peeling Nathanael’s shirt off.

“Mary,” Christian said, “go get a clean shirt from my wardrobe. Magdalena, see if there is
kaffi
in the kitchen.”

Babsi took over cleaning Nathanael’s wounds. Magdalena roused herself and went in search of coffee, though when she returned she could see that the cuts in Nathanael’s lips made it impossible to know how to offer it to him. He managed a swallow and allowed Christian to lean him forward and put a fresh garment on him. In time, Nathanael put his head back on the chair and was asleep.

“Nathanael may be chronically tardy,” Christian said, “but he is a good man. He does not deserve this.”

Magdalena’s tears came now. “What can we do,
Daed?
Is this what it means to be peaceful people?”

“I will ride to Berks County,” her father said, “and talk to Jacobli.”

“What can
Onkel
Jacob do?”

“He is surprisingly well connected. He might know who is behind these attacks.”

“And then?”

Christian rotated his wrists and held his palms up. “We try to have a peaceful conversation.”

“With the men who did this?” Magdalena could hardly believe her father would suggest an encounter.

“With their leaders,” Christian said. “With men who know the difference between a British officer and an Amish farmer.”

“I’m going with you.” Magdalena saw in her father’s face the understanding that she was not asking permission.

“The cows are milked, the boys are asleep, and the fires are stoked at
Mamm’s.”
Jacob rubbed his hands together over the flame in his own kitchen. He looked from his wife to his sister.

“You look pretty pleased with yourself.” Katie was nursing the baby in the only comfortable chair in the kitchen.

“And why should I not be?”

“Sarah, are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay up in the big house with your mother?” Katie asked. “There is more room there, and it is so much more comfortable. You’ve been a great help, but the baby has settled into a routine, and I can manage through the night.”

“
Mamm
seems to like her own routine,” Sarah said from the table, where she was writing labels for the next day’s canning efforts. “But I will see about spending a few nights with her before I go home to Philadelphia. I worry about her rumbling around that big house all by herself so much.”

“We see her every day,” Jacob reminded her. “And David is still living there. She’s not alone.”

“I just worry,” Sarah said. “She hasn’t been the same since
Daed
died. It’s been four years.”

“What is four years after all the years they had together?” Katie said quietly.

“You’re right. I can’t help feeling anxious for her sometimes.” At the neighing of a horse, Sarah looked up. “Are you expecting someone?”

Jacob shook his head.

Katie smiled at her cooing babe. “Perhaps it’s just one of your brothers coming for another look at my beautiful Catherine.”

Sarah scooted her chair back and went to the window. Jacob joined her. Shadows from the end of day lay across the yard between the house and Jacob’s tannery. Jacob pushed the curtain out of the way for a better look.