Taken for English (13 page)

Sometimes, like now, Annie wondered if she were assuming too much. Rufus still had not said a word about getting married. And she was not going to be the one to bring it up.

She turned down the ragged side street that hosted her narrow green century-old house. Outside the house next door, her neighbor stood in the front yard, hands on hips and exasperation flashing across her face.

“What’s wrong, Barb?” Annie paused to see if she could help.

“Oh, nothing serious. Just aggravating.” Barb flashed her eyes around the yard. “The cat’s milk dish is gone.”

“The one you leave on the front porch?”

Barb nodded. “If I had a dog, I would understand if it carried the dish off to bury. But cats don’t do that.”

“I hope it turns up.”

“I don’t know why I’m looking for it. Obviously someone took it. Who would be desperate enough to take a cat dish?” Barb turned to go inside her home, and Annie—her steps slowed—walked a few more yards to her own driveway. She knew one person desperate enough to take a cat dish.

The same person who would take a lantern, garden vegetables, and a sleeping bag from a clothesline. And perhaps even a cat. Had Leah Deitwaller said where she got the kitten she cradled in her apron that day? Where would she be getting milk?

Annie made up her mind. She had the whole afternoon ahead of her, and a free day tomorrow. She would get on her bicycle and look for Leah even if she had to crank those pedals for a hundred miles crisscrossing the land around Westcliffe.

She paced up the driveway to the back of the house. When she found Leah, Annie wanted to be prepared. The basket on the front of her bicycle would hold some fruit and bread with a couple of water bottles. In the kitchen she made three turkey sandwiches and grabbed an apple and a peach. No telling how hungry Leah would be.

Annie was lifting the garage door to retrieve her white three-speed bike when an old Ford Taurus pulled into the driveway. Julene Weichert got out.

“My grandmother has been taken to the hospital in Pueblo,” Julene said. “Mom and I need to head over there right away. Can you watch the store?”

Annie glanced at her bike.

“I know you were supposed to have the time off.” Julene dangled keys from one hand. “It might be a couple of days before we come back. Depends what we find out.”

Annie gripped the bottom of the garage door and heaved it down.

Annie fidgeted around the store all Tuesday afternoon. For the most part, she simply sorted through items she knew had been on the shelves a long time, separating some to box up and rotating out some new items from the back room.

Two people came into the shop in the space of three hours. Annie chewed on her bottom lip and tapped her toes all afternoon, watching the clock and glancing out the front window every few minutes.

Leah was out there. She was somehow managing to take care of herself and a kitten, but Annie did not like the visions that floated through her head about where Leah might be holed up.

For no good reason. That was the part that burned Annie. Maybe it was unrealistic for Leah to go home to her parents. Maybe their relationship was too damaged to work things out. But was sleeping who knows where and stealing off people’s porches really the best option?

Annie groaned in the late afternoon as the sky darkened. Rain. The farms and ranches surrounding Westcliffe needed the water. She had no doubt of that. Even if the rain blew through quickly, as Colorado storms often did, soggy soil would make biking around nearly impossible.

The rain did not blow through. Instead it settled into a steady, drenching rhythm. When Annie closed up the shop, she hung her sweater over her head for the dash home. Over a bowl of soup she sat at her small oval dining room table and stared out the window wondering how Leah was keeping warm. Or
if
Leah was keeping warm.

Why hadn’t Mrs. Weichert simply hung the C
LOSED
sign as so many of the small business owners of Westcliffe did? When Annie first arrived in Westcliffe last year, she was amused by how casually people closed up their shops in the middle of the day and went on errands. And it was not as if it was the busy season for the antiques shop. If someone did not come in on Wednesday and spend a great deal of money, Annie was going to be annoyed at the waste of her day.

Demut
, she told herself. Humility. How prideful it was for her to think that her time was worth more than the simple task of honoring her employer’s request even if no one came into the shop.

Annie was up at dawn and on her bicycle. She did not have to open the shop until ten. The open land would be too muddy for biking efficiently, especially on the hills, but she could at least try some of the areas accessible by paved roads. The new subdivision beckoned. Several houses were isolated and half-finished. Annie pedaled up Main Street, turned north on the highway, and cruised into the subdivision before the sun was fully up. She had been out there with Rufus several times to see the houses he was working on, so she knew which lots were under construction. Annie had not been there since the fire on her baptism morning, though.

She let a foot drag on the ground as she approached the burned structure. Ten days after the flames, cleanup had already begun. Annie supposed the fire department and the sheriff’s office had collected whatever clues they could find, but so far she had not heard a credible account of what might have happened.

Except that someone had set the fire on purpose. According to the Westcliffe rumor mill, the fire chief seemed certain of that much.

She stopped and stared. Surely Leah could not have done this. What motive would she have? Annie shook away the thought.

The fire had burned right through the center of the house, branching off from the hall to scorch Rufus’s cabinets in the various rooms. Annie could see their blackened surfaces from the end of the driveway, and grief tightened in her gut—for everyone involved in this pointless loss. At least no one had been in the home at the time.

Annie filled her lungs with fresh energy and put her bicycle in motion once again to move on to the next unoccupied house, knowing she might have only a few more minutes. Construction crews were notorious for getting an early start, and Annie did not want to face interrogation about her presence.

Inspection of three lots yielded nothing suspicious, no sign of a squatter, no residue of an unauthorized visitor. Annie headed back to town, calculating she had time for breakfast at the coffee shop before opening the store.

Between a bite of scrambled egg on a croissant and a sip of plain black coffee—she had given up her indulgence in mocha caramel grande nonfat lattes—out the window Annie saw Brownie trot by pulling the Beilers’ cart, with Joel in the driver’s seat.

She swallowed the coffee, abandoned her breakfast sandwich, and marched down the sidewalk in pursuit. Finally Joel saw her waving arms and stopped.

“We have to find Leah,” Annie said.

Joel turned his head to the left and then to the right. “We tried that already. It didn’t work out so well.”

“Is that a reason to give up?” Annie widened her eyes and leaned her face toward Joel. “She’s confused. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t need help.”

“Daed
is counting on me for help in the fields. Besides, how do you know she hasn’t gone home by now? Or found a bus to…somewhere.”

“Because my neighbor’s cat bowl is missing.” Annie listed the items people had reported missing in the last few days, including the food from her own back porch. “She’s out there.”

“She’s seventeen. Almost eighteen.”

“You’ve seen her. She’s in no emotional condition to be on her own.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open,” Joel said.

“I don’t know when Mrs. Weichert will get back.” Annie straightened her
kapp
. “I promised to watch the store.”

“I’ll try. But I don’t expect to be back to town this week.”

“You’re resourceful. If you see her, find a way to send me a message.” Annie tapped Joel’s shoulder. “Otherwise I’ll see you Friday when I come for supper.”

On Friday after supper, Rufus took Annalise’s hand and led her out to the front porch.

“I hear you are still looking for Leah Deitwaller,” he said.

“Somebody should be.”

“It’s been twelve days.” Rufus leaned against a post, not releasing her hand. “You’ve seen a few signs that she is around and not injured. It seems, though, that she is quite determined not to be found.”

“She is about to meet her match.”

Annalise looked up at him with her wide gray eyes. He squeezed her hand without speaking.

“You probably think I’m just being stubborn,” Annalise said, “but this is different. I feel something. A tug. A calling. Even if she were already eighteen, I would still want to help her.”

He nodded. “Then you should.”

“Really? You’re not going to talk me out of it? Tell me I’m being
English?”

“How can you be
English?
You are baptized Amish.”

She beamed. “You don’t know how great that is to hear you say.”

He took both her hands now and faced her. When he heard her intake of air, he knew he was about to disappoint her. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Of course.”

“I want you to know I’m thinking of you, of us, and also of my family. I have not made this decision easily.”

The light that had flickered in her eyes a moment ago was gone. He told her about the offer of employment to hang premanufactured cabinets over the winter.

“I’ll be away for days at a time, even a couple of weeks.”

“What about making your own cabinets?” Annalise’s face clouded. “Won’t you be setting your own business back even further?”

He nodded. “Possibly. I’ll work on them whenever I can be home for a few days.”

“It never crossed my mind you would take this sort of job.”

“Mine either. But when you pray for God’s provision, you cannot spurn the form in which it comes. The income will be more certain than my own business is right now. I want to help
Daed
if I can.”

“Is the farm in that much trouble?”

“We’ll know more in the spring.”

“That’s a long way off.” Annalise moved her hands and laid them on his forearms. “Won’t the church help? Isn’t that the Amish way?”

“They will want to, I’m sure,” he said. “But everyone is trying to farm. Everyone is stretched thin. It doesn’t take much for a settlement to fail.”

“Surely that is not going to happen. It’s been seven years, and new families arrive every few months.”

“I want to do my part, and this is one way I can help.”

“You do your part every single day, Rufus. Everybody knows that. I hate to see you give up your craft, the beauty you create that shows the wonder of God.”

He glanced into the house, where his siblings were getting ready to play board games. “I know this is not the conversation you were hoping for right now.”

She was quiet for too long. “Joel could hang cabinets,” she finally said. “It doesn’t have to be you.”

“Joel would go. But what if he did not come back?”

“Then, God’s will. Besides, Joel has told me more than once that he will be baptized when the time is right. He says he is not Ruth, that he is not going to leave.”

Rufus put an arm around Annalise’s shoulders and turned her to the view of the Sangre de Cristos. “Joel would not plan to leave. His reasons would not be as noble as Ruth’s. There is a difference between leaving and just not coming back.”

Her hard swallow was audible, and he leaned in and kissed the top of her head.

May 1892

B
elle Mooney charged up the street from the school.

Maura ran toward her, arms spread wide to stop Belle’s progress.

“What happened?” Belle pushed against Maura’s restraint. “I was at the school cleaning out my desk. I heard gunshots.”

Maura closed her arms firmly around her friend. “Belle…”

“It’s John, isn’t it?”

Maura sucked in her top lip. “I’m afraid it is.”