Finding Mercy

This wounded man? Ella thought. She’d sure like to know more about what had happened to the outsider they were taking in.

* * *

Bishop Esh’s words seemed to cut to the core of things, something Alex had always admired in mentors and bosses, even Marv, whom he was going to betray—as his boss had betrayed everyone who’d trusted him and SkyBound.

“It’s like you been banned from your people for a while, and we understand that.” The old man went on, “And to tell the truth as you have about a sinner, at cost to your own safety—that is also why I said yes to the witness protection people. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside the still waters…that is why too. As the Lord shelters us, we ought to shelter others.”

Alex could only nod. He kept telling himself he was Andrew Lantz now, the Pennsylvania cousin of the family he would stay with and was about to meet. Gerald Branin, the WITSEC Deputy Marshal Inspector in charge of his case, had grilled him about his fake background but had not told him much about the Amish family who would take him in until the case came up in federal court in Manhattan. Five children, he’d been told, four of them still at home. As an only child, that would be a challenge, but maybe it could help to keep him from missing his friends so much. What he wouldn’t give for a good, noisy bar crawl with his buds right now.

Again he surveyed the rolling hills with fertile fields of nearly knee-high corn guarded by tidy farms and barns. It was pretty, he had to admit that, like stepping back into a Currier & Ives painting. He watched other buggies pass with a nod or a wave on this narrow road. Everyone seemed to know the bishop’s buggy—which looked like all the rest to him—and many called out a greeting in the German dialect.

When the bishop turned the buggy down a long lane, Alex saw a pale purple field of flowers marching partway up a high hill. The unearthly beauty of that—and that scent in the air amidst the buzzing of bees as the bishop reined in—seemed so foreign. As tense as Alex felt, the peaceful scene calmed his heart.

“I live just next farm over yonder,” Bishop Esh said, pointing. “Three of us church families close together here—Kauffman, Esh and Lantz—with a real nice pond in the center. You just walk that field there, come have a meal with me and my wife, tell us how you’re doing. Better make it after Friday, though, big family wedding with my daughter marrying the oldest of the Lantz sons. All kinds of things going on. You’re invited too.”

“Thanks. That’s kind of you. I appreciate all you’ve done.”

At least living with these backward, simple people would be a break from the high-speed chaos of his life, Alex thought. He usually lived fast and hard—he’d even been tempted to try an extreme sports vacation once, but he’d chickened out. Since he didn’t know the first thing about horses, barns or crops—or much about the Amish—maybe the next couple of months would be pretty extreme.

* * *

“Wait—maybe that’s them now,” Mr. Branin said, and jumped up to look out the window. “Mr. Lantz, that’s the same buggy that dropped me off here, isn’t it?”

Daad looked out the window as Mamm had been doing off and on, when Ella thought she was just yearning for Seth to bring little Marlena back. “Ya, it’s the bishop—them,” Daad said with a nod.

Ella leaned back in her chair, but it wasn’t worth it to crane her neck. Just get the man here, greet him kindly, then Daad, Abel and Aaron would keep him occupied, she thought. She had loads of work to do getting her new place ready and tending her crop, so she’d be too busy to help much. Her sister, Barbara, usually helped her tend the lavender but she was living with the Kurtz family ten miles outside town, since they had six children and the mother was ailing. Ella missed her younger sister, but Barbara would be back for Seth’s wedding. Everyone expected Barbara would be the next Lantz bride, because she was closer than ever to her come-calling friend, Gabe Kauffman.

“I see he’s tall and thin, this Andrew Lantz,” Daad said. “Can’t tell his hair or eye color from here—hope he’s not got dark eyes and hair. Harder to fit in among our people.”

“Ah, no,” Mr. Branin said, sounding nervous now. “Dark blond hair and blue eyes, though you can’t tell it with that hat yet.” He hurried to the back door behind Daad. With a single, small black suitcase in his hand, the stranger appeared on the threshold behind Bishop Esh.

Though Ella had heard Daad describe the Auslander, she was surprised to see he was a whole head taller than the bishop. His square chin had a little cleft in the middle of it under his firm lips. He put his bag down but kept rotating his hat brim in his hands, clean-looking ones, no broken nails or bruises. Daad introduced each of them in turn by name as they stood at their places around the table. She realized she’d been rudely staring.

“Next, Ella, middle child, eldest daughter, keeps the lavender field, sells her goods, yet a maidal—not married.”

Did Daad have to introduce her like that? Not only as a maidal, but sells her goods and not married yet?

“Ella.” The stranger repeated her name as he had not the others. His gaze, sharp blue as winter ice, snagged hers and held a moment. His voice was deep and in just the few words he said, she sensed how lost he felt. He looked sturdy, though, with the muscles he’d need to help around here. His chest swelled his shirt and his upper arms filled out his Amish coat, which was just a bit too short at his wrists. His trousers fitted him just fine, though. He had new running shoes; so clean and white they stood out.

“Welcome, Cousin Andrew,” she said, as the others had before, and then the introductions went on until Mamm sat him down and fed him and the bishop pie and iced tea, while Ella and Barbara bustled around to help Mamm prepare a light evening meal. They would feed him up good, unless his working around here kept the weight off.

More than once, when Ella darted a quick glance his way, their guest—Andrew—had those sharp blue eyes still on her. Later, when she placed his roast beef and gravy sandwich in front of him, she said, “Things are upside down today, first dessert, now the main course.”

“I appreciate both,” he said directly, quietly to her, then addressed everyone in a louder voice. “I mean to pitch in and help any way I can, though I’ve got to admit, planting a memorial tree after 9/11 is about as close as I’ve come to farming.”

“Oh, ya,” Daad said, “9/11, when the country was attacked and so many people died. Whatever is in the evil and sad past in your life, Andrew, we will keep you safe here.”

Ella was amazed to see tears shimmer in Andrew’s eyes. His lower lip quivered. He looked just the way she felt when she was afraid of the drowning darkness she had shared with no one and never could. She fought the desire to put her hand on his shoulder and began to serve the others.

2

THAT EVENING AS dusk descended, Ella worked late in Seth’s house. No, it was her place now, she reminded herself as she carried cartons of lavender products in from her work shed. Kitchen cabinets and counters, two long tables and planks on sawhorses would have to do for shelves and work areas until she could get everything built the way she wanted. She hoped to buy a still someday so she could distill the precious lavender oil. At least she’d finished stitching her dress to attend Hannah at her wedding. She’d been thrilled when Hannah asked her to be one of the side sitters, special friends of the wedding couple.

From dowels overheard, Ella hung the remaining bunches of last year’s dried flowers by the rubber bands around their stems. Instantly, the kitchen and living area, even the two small first-floor bedrooms, gave off the familiar, delicate smell. Sometimes she was so used to the scent that her nose went numb from it, but it was deep in her mind and heart and she could imagine it. The kitchen here bothered her, but not because it was so small. On its wooden floor, Seth’s wife, Lena, had died of an aortic aneurism, something she’d carried inside since birth and no one knew about.

Ella lit a third kerosene lantern to keep away sad thoughts. Her black mood had been lurking lately, probably because Seth and her little charge Marlena had left. Ella guessed worldly people would call her malady an off-and-on depression. Secretly, from books in the book mobile, she’d looked up the problem, but she still just wasn’t sure what to call it or how to best cope with it. She hoped it wasn’t what she read about bipolar disorder. Mostly, she just hid out when it hit her. You’d think nearly drowning would make every second of life that followed full of relief and joy, but that cold, grasping whirlpool seemed to pull her under sometimes, as it had then.

At least the hard work of producing her small number of Lavender Plain Products kept her focused outside herself. Now her family’s new houseguest gave her lots to think about. Since she’d moved her things into the previous unused upstairs here, “Cousin” Andrew was being given her bedroom. How strange to think of an intriguing mystery man sleeping in her once private place.

She decided to go back to the farmhouse to get the refrigerated items Hannah had brought her from the restaurant for her generator-run fridge. It had been so kind of Ray-Lynn and Hannah to think of a sort of housewarming gift for her, and she was going to give both of them scented candles when she got settled here.

But as she stepped out on her back porch, she saw a figure jogging down the lane from the house or barn. In the gathering gloom, she could see clean white shoes. Those, and the fact no one Amish went jogging, told her who it was. His quick steps spit gravel in a regular rhythm. But it was almost dark, and even buggies should stay off the roads now.

Earlier, she’d seen Daad take Andrew for a tour of the barn and the fields—back to the pond too, a place she always tried to avoid. Then she’d seen Mamm showing him around their big garden, pointing out and naming flowers and vegetables as if he were from another planet. It was pretty obvious to them that their adopted cousin had no idea of how to garden or farm. But Daad and the boys would teach him. She sure could use his help weeding her lavender beds, but she hadn’t dared say so.

Ella headed for the farmhouse. Since her brothers had carried her bedroom furniture to her new place after supper, maybe this would be her last trip tonight. Trail bologna, Swiss cheese, some of Ray-Lynn’s delicious baked goods; she’d seen how much Andrew had appreciated their food… Ach, she had to stop thinking about him so much, just because he was new and different. Too much happening around here at once, but maybe that would help her keep her head above water—she always thought of it that way....

She was almost to the farmhouse when she heard a long squeal of car brakes, then a crash. Not far down the road! What if a car had hit a buggy? It happened too often, and who came out the loser then? Little Marlena’s maternal grandparents had been killed in a buggy car crash in the area that sound came from—the direction Andrew had run.

What if a car had hit him, jogging in the dark on the road?

Not even taking time to call for help inside the house, she lifted her long skirt and broke into a run in the same direction he had gone.

* * *

When Ray-Lynn Logan heard the screech of brakes and the bang! she stopped her van right in the middle of the road.

She’d given her restaurant manager, Hannah Esh, the day off to help her fiancé, Seth, get settled at the Troyer house and to help her family prepare for her wedding day. Ray-Lynn had promised she’d pick her up after she closed the restaurant, and bring her home. Hannah had been living with her ever since Ray-Lynn’s concussion and coma, though of course Hannah was leaving this week to begin her new life as Seth Lantz’s wife and little Marlena’s mother. After her accident—which was really an attempted murder—Ray-Lynn had lost a couple of years of her memories, and that was about how long she’d had the restaurant. Worst of all, she’d forgotten her entire relationship with Jack, the county sheriff, which they were trying to rebuild—a relationship she still wanted to work, thank goodness. As appealing a man as Jack Freeman was, that kind of love—romance—she could not just fake.

But she was certain of what she’d just heard. Her accident had been at night too. She shouldn’t have driven out after dark even now, but she had to learn to cope again, to be normal.

Sweating, shaking, she knew she couldn’t just sit here in her new van in the middle of the road, even a usually quiet, country road in Amish country. She hit her emergency blinkers, fumbled for the cell phone in her big purse and punched in the easy-dial for Jack’s private number. He’d know it was her from the caller ID. He had to answer! Good! No recording. He was picking up.

“Honey, you home?” he asked before she could say a word. His voice sounded so good. “I had a domestic outside of town, didn’t get a chance to call you yet, but—”

“Jack, I’m in the van on Oakridge just before Troyer Mill Road, going to pick up Hannah! I—I’m not hallucinating, but I just heard a car hit something—it’s wrecked—I’m sure of it.”

“What direction from there?”

“Before the covered bridge, but past the Amish cemetery, not too far from that pond in the woods. I’m afraid to go look.”

“Keep clear of it. Go on back to the bishop’s house and wait there. I’ll check it out right now.”

“But Hannah will worry about me. You know she does.”

“You can explain to her later. Just do what I said, and I’ll look into it.”

He punched off. Yes, she should do as he said, but what if she could help someone the way others had helped her? The old Ray-Lynn, the one who was so outgoing, feisty and strong—she had to get her back so she could be the woman Hannah and Jack both assured her had made him fall in love with her. How could a take-charge man like Sheriff Jack Freeman ever love a wimpy, wishy-washy, scared little rabbit? Ding-dang, she still had to recover her old self!

She turned on her brights, put the van into Drive and headed down the road toward where she’d heard the crash.

* * *

Alex’s first reaction when the car roared down the road toward him was to dive out of the way, not even be seen. At least the roar hadn’t included gunfire. Since Atlanta, he’d been paranoid about loud sounds, about vehicles backfiring or even speeding up. If there was a contract out on his life, did he just have to fear guns or could someone try something else? A car accident would look a lot more natural than bullets in the brain.

Praying his location had not been compromised again, he leaped off the narrow road. The speeding car had barely missed him as it vaulted up and over the next hill ahead—and then the crash.

At least the ditch where he’d landed was dry, but when he got to his feet and tried to climb out, he realized he’d twisted his left ankle. Idiot! He’d been so desperate to run for a while, savor the safety and freedom of this place. Now how was he going to get to that wreck, get back to the farm and the Lantzes?

He had to go up and over a hill to see if he could help. When others came, he’d have to fade away, try to cut through the woods past the pond Eben had showed him on his tour this evening.

Alex limped up the hill, which seemed endless. A sharp pain stabbed his ankle with each step. What else bad could happen to him? His past in ruins, his life endangered, probably a price on his head. But he couldn’t just leave someone who might be hurt or dead. As much of a jerk as the driver had been to speed on these hills, Alex couldn’t leave someone in need, no matter if his own hide was in danger.

Running footsteps behind him. What if this was a setup? Someone tried to flush him out with the headlights, tried to hit him, but he’d jumped aside, now they’d make sure…

He hunkered down just off the road—no ditch this high on the hill—and saw a person running toward him. A woman? Her light-colored apron and the white cap Amish women wore seemed to glow in the dark. His eyes had adjusted after staring into the headlights of that car.

He stood and limped onto the berm of the road. The woman running toward him stopped. “Andrew? Oh, thank the Lord, you’re all right! I heard that car crash like it hit something.”

“I sprained my ankle getting out of its way. Can I lean on you? I’m pretty sure the crash was just on the other side of the hill.”

“Oh, ya, sure. Is it bad? If it hurts too much, I can just go see. That crash was loud. Surely someone else will come. They didn’t hit a buggy, did they—or if you didn’t see it, only heard it…”

He could tell she was nervous too, and not only because of the wreck. Did she not want him to touch her, put his arm around her shoulders? Ella was pretty, the lavender lady, with the white-blond hair and pale blue eyes. She had a great bod her Amish garments could not quite hide and an almost angelic face, framed by that stiff white cap. Unlike her mother and grandmother, Ella had her feelings written plain on her face, emotions that flitted past and changed. He’d been upset to hear he was being given her bedroom, but Mrs. Lantz had assured him that Ella had already planned to move to the small house on the other side of the garden and her big field.

“Okay, sure, lean on me,” she told him, stepping closer. Strange that, just as he reached his arm to touch her, the new moon popped over the horizon behind her head. Its sickle shape didn’t give them much light but, in the midst of his fear, it seemed strangely like a celestial smile.

* * *

At the bottom of the hill, the side of a small, red sports car was wrapped around a big tree. And the hood of the car was evidently on fire. As they trudged toward it together, their awkward gait—Alex was now half hopping, just putting pressure on his good leg—reminded Ella of a three-legged race.

When they got there, they both gasped. It looked as if the red car itself bled strings of blood. No—Ella saw it was spools of shiny, red cord that had been thrown out of the car.

“Stay back,” Alex ordered her, and took his arm from her shoulders. “I’ll see if someone’s still inside.”

“You can’t—your ankle. I’ll check.”

“No! If that fire spreads, the gas tank might blow!” he shouted, and made a grab for her. He missed and only snagged his fingers in her prayer kapp, which pulled off and yanked her long, pinned-up braid free. The weight of it slapped between her shoulder blades as she ran. She was pretty sure she heard a couple of curse words from Cousin Andrew.

He was right about a possible explosion. She smelled gas. She’d have to hurry. Passenger side crunched in. Driver’s door open. No one in the car, maybe got out, but to where? Been thrown out?

“No one here!” she started to shout back to Andrew, but he’d come up right behind her. He tugged her back so hard by an elbow that she almost flew off her feet. She banged into him. He fell back, but she balanced them before he pulled her away. His face, lit by the fire, looked like a mask of anger. What was this man really like?

“Get back, I said! You could be killed if that blows!”

Limping, he managed to drag her across the road and shoved her into the ditch, just as the car went up in flames with a big boom! Clinging together, they huddled in shallow water among grass and weeds. The light and heat slapped them, a hundred times worse than an open oven door or roaring fireplace log. Light all over—no, that was headlights up on the road. Someone was here to help! And here she was in Andrew’s arms, clinging to him.

Ella clambered up and out of the ditch, dripping wet, her snagged braid spilling her hair loose. Despite the headlights in her eyes, she could see someone was getting out of a van.

“Ella? Ella, you okay? It’s Ray-Lynn. The sheriff’s on his way. What happened? Whose car?”

“Don’t know, but he didn’t burn up with it. I went to get him out but he was gone.”

“We’ve got to find him, like you and Hannah found me, saved me. I— Oh, who’s that?”

“This is our cousin, Andrew Lantz from Pennsylvania, visiting us for a while. We were— We both heard the crash.”

Ella could see Andrew was already searching among the charred trees along the road, using a Y-shaped branch he’d found for a crutch. “Here!” he shouted to them. “He’s back here!”

They ran to him, bent over a prone form. It seemed one unwound spool of the crimson cording pointed right at him. A young, dark-haired man lay sprawled half in the ditch on this side of the road. When Andrew turned him over to see if he was breathing, they saw he looked Asian. Andrew gasped.

“You know him?” Ray-Lynn asked.

“No—just surprised. Chinese, I think, and here—in Amish country.”

They could hear the sheriff’s siren coming closer. Andrew’s head jerked up, turned toward the sound.

“It’s all right,” Ray-Lynn said. “Just the sheriff. He’ll call the authorities for help, and we can tell them what happened.”

Ella took off her apron and covered the unmoving man.

“He’s breathing, has a pulse,” Andrew said as he rose and moved away.

Ella bent over the injured man while Ray-Lynn walked away to flag down the sheriff. He jumped out of his squad car with a bright flashlight. Ella saw him give Ray-Lynn a quick, one-handed hug and whisper to her, though his words carried on the wind.

“Don’t you let this flash you back to your own accident. You done good, honey, you and Ella and— Where’d that Amish guy go?”

Ella looked around as Ray-Lynn filled the sheriff in, and he came over to look at the unconscious victim. Unless Andrew had dived back into the ditch, he was nowhere to be seen, and with that sprained ankle. Then in the scarlet reflection of the sheriff’s pulsating light bar, she saw he was crosscutting the field that led toward the pond and the more distant farm, moving jerkily with that homemade crutch.

Like a real Amish man, was he just humble, not wanting to take credit for helping to save someone’s life—if the car’s driver lived? Or was it because he had his identity to hide and even the sheriff could not know about his being in that protection program? Or, she thought as the new, local newspaper editor, Lucinda Drayton, pulled up, was Andrew just making sure he wouldn’t be interviewed or photographed?

Ms. Drayton slammed her car door and ran toward the sheriff shouting, “What happened?” Ella would have to tell Andrew that the new editor was real good about not showing Amish faces. Didn’t he know he’d have to talk to the sheriff later?

Sheriff Freeman told Ms. Drayton, “Don’t know much yet. That license plate’s almost toast, but I’m gonna call in what I can see of it. We got an injured man on the ground. Squad’s coming.”

He walked back to his car and bent inside it to get some sort of telephone from the seat. Ray-Lynn knelt by the victim, and Ms. Drayton started photographing the still-smoldering wreck. In the reflected headlights, her short, sleek silver hair looked like a prayer kapp.

Ella walked over and told Ray-Lynn, “I can answer the sheriff’s questions tomorrow, but I’ve got to get back right now.”

“I can take you home, but it will be a while. Where did your cousin go?”

“He’s new—shy, too. I’ve got to go see if he’s okay,” Ella said, and hurried away as she heard other sirens coming closer. Even though Andrew was hiking toward the place she never wanted to so much as see again, she cut through the trees the way he had, toward the pond.

3

ELLA HURRIED TO catch up with Andrew, but he had a good start on her, even using his makeshift crutch. Whatever he was hiding must be bad if he didn’t even want to meet the sheriff.

She wasn’t planning to go near the pond now, just skirt around it, but she needed to be certain he’d make it back to the farmhouse. She’d get Grossmamm Ruth to tend to that ankle with a poultice or a wrap.

Oh, no, he was making straight for the water. It was all worse in the dark, with the trees hunched over it, because it had looked like that when she’d met her best friends Sarah and Hannah there that night so long ago. Back then, Ella had been the wildest of the three, planning pranks, urging the others to sneak out at night. Scolding her once, Mamm had called her a daredevil, but even that bad name hadn’t stopped her adventures.