The Innocent (40 page)

“Out of her head?”

“Yea, such a tragedy that she hit her head when she fell. Or perhaps when she was pushed.” The elder sounded more like himself. “We locked the girl in the vagrant house. Since it seems she was the cause of Sister Edna’s fall.”

“The girl?” Mitchell narrowed his eyes on the man. “What girl?”

“Why, Sister Carlyn, of course. Didn’t they tell you that when they came after you? There has been naught but trouble since she came among us. Men of the world sneaking about our village. The fire. Now, poor Sister Edna. Everybody
knew Sister Carlyn had an uneasy relationship with her Shaker guide, but we would have never suspected such a tragic ending.”

“Sister Edna told you the girl pushed her?” Mitchell watched the man closely. Something sounded a little too eager in the man’s telling of what happened.

“Didn’t she tell you the same?” The elder pulled his hat brim down lower on his head and kept his eyes away from Mitchell’s face.

“I just got here.” He could pretend to know more than he did only so long. “I haven’t questioned her yet, but I think I should talk to the girl first. Hear her story.”

“Very well, if you think that best,” Elder Derron said. “I’ll show you the way. But you can’t allow her claims of innocence to sway you in your duty. It is quite plain she is responsible for Sister Edna’s fall.”

“Did someone see her push Sister Edna?”

“Nay, but she is nevertheless responsible. Mother Ann has assured me of that.”

“Mother Ann?” Mitchell gave him a hard look. The woman who founded the Shakers had been dead for decades.

“Yea, I hear doubt in your voice, but though our mother has passed on from this earthly realm, she continues to lead us through visits of the spirit.” The Shaker stepped off the pathway to walk around Mitchell. It was as if he needed to keep his distance. “Follow me. You will see.”

Mitchell was definitely seeing that something wasn’t quite right with the elder. Mitchell studied the man’s back. He kept his shoulders very straight and no longer looked around as he had before Mitchell stopped him. In spite of what he said about coming from the bathhouse, his pants were far from
clean and his shoes had dirt caked on them. Strange that he hadn’t cleaned his shoes since he seemed so bothered by dirt.

“Have you been digging this morning?” Mitchell asked.

The elder’s shoulders jerked as though Mitchell had struck him with the words. “Nay.” He shot a glance back at Mitchell. “Why would you think that?” He spoke a little too quickly, almost tripping over his words.

“Your shoes.”

He looked down but kept walking. “Oh. Yesterday I spent time in a garden. I will have to confess that I forgot to properly clean my shoes before I put them on this morn.”

“I’m surprised you found any mud even in the garden. It’s been dry for a while.”

“Dirt can cling to one’s shoes whether there is rain or not when the ground is properly tilled.” He spoke without looking back. “The house is just up ahead.”

The rising bell began to ring and once more the elder jumped. He had to have heard that bell thousands of times in his years at the Shaker village, yet the dongs seemed to unnerve him this day.

At the small house, the door was slightly ajar.

“Oh, dear heavenly Mother, she’s gone.” The elder reached for the doorknob with shaking hands.

“How do you know she’s gone?”

“The door is no longer locked. She knew her guilt. She will be gone.” He pulled the door open wider and moved aside to let Mitchell go in.

Carlyn was not there. Nothing looked touched except for a burned down candle. “Are you sure she was ever here?” Mitchell stepped back outside to where the elder waited.

“Yea, I locked her inside myself.”

The lock showed no sign of being forced open. The bad feeling that had kept Mitchell from sleep grew stronger. “Who has a key besides you?”

“The only key is kept at the Trustee House. On a hook inside the cupboard in the front room so it will be available when needed. We do not turn vagrants away, but neither do we want them wandering about our village in the night hours. We must keep our sisters safe.”

“Did you put the key back there last night?” Mitchell looked at the grass around the door. The ground was too dry to show tracks.

“Nay, it was after midnight and it seemed reasonable to leave the key at the Gathering Family House so that one of the sisters could carry the girl her morning meal.”

“Did you entrust the key to someone for safekeeping?” Whoever had that key must have let Carlyn out of the vagrant house and would know where she was.

“Things were very frenzied with Sister Edna being carried to the infirmary and the peace of the house in upheaval.” The elder shoved a hand in his jacket pocket and pulled it back out. “The key could be anywhere now.”

Mitchell didn’t know why Elder Derron avoided giving a straight answer, but he was sure the man knew exactly what he’d done with the key. The elder was a man who paid attention to details. “I didn’t ask who had the key now. I asked where you left the key after you locked the door here.”

“Why does that matter? She’s gone. And good riddance.” The elder’s voice rose as he slammed the door of the house shut. “She was nothing but trouble from the day she showed up here, carrying a gun and with that dog. Now that dog is
keeping Brother Willis from his proper duties. Nothing but trouble.”

Mitchell had never seen Elder Derron so animated. Or so strange, but Mitchell couldn’t worry about the elder. He had to find Carlyn, and the dog might be the answer. Carlyn wouldn’t leave the village without him. “Is the dog still here?”

“How would I know? I have nothing to do with dogs. No proper Shaker does.”

“Then we better go see.”

“Go if you want, but I am too busy to look for dogs.” Elder Derron’s voice was still too loud. “I must clean my shoes and be ready for my morning duties.”

“Your duties can wait. You need to come with me.”

“Nay.” The elder glared at Mitchell. “I have to clean my shoes.”

“Elder Derron.” A young brother ran down the path toward them. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“You have found me now. Here with the sheriff.” Elder Derron’s greeting was curt. “What say you?”

The young Shaker gave Mitchell a sideways look, but he didn’t allow his curiosity to distract him. “Eldress Lilith insists you must come right away to help with Sister Edna.”

“Why does she need the elder?” Mitchell asked.

“Sister Edna is distraught and keeps calling for Elder Derron.” The boy shifted his eyes from Mitchell to the elder. “Eldress Lilith hopes the sight of you will calm the sister, Elder. She says they can barely keep her restrained.”

“She is awake?” Elder Derron’s voice was faint, almost as if he were talking to himself. “Mother Ann allowed her to wake?”

“Come,” the Shaker boy said. “Eldress Lilith will be
unhappy that I have been so long finding you. She’s in the infirmary.”

“I know where she is.” Elder Derron’s voice was firm again. “I cannot go there with dirt on my shoes. Tell the eldress I must clean my shoes.”

“If you come, I will clean your shoes,” the boy said.

“Nay, I must do it myself.” Elder Derron turned and ran across the road.

Mitchell considered going after him, but it would be better to question the eldress. She might know where Carlyn was.

“The eldress is not going to be pleased.” The boy blew out a breath. “But if you come with me, she may be less upset. After I found Elder Derron, I was to ride into town for you.”

“Is Sister Carlyn there with her?”

“Who?” the boy asked, then answered his own question. “Oh, you mean the sister they locked up here last night. Is she in there now?” He peered toward the house.

“No.”

“Then I guess I better tell the eldress that too.” He turned and started toward the stone building in the center of the village.

Mitchell caught up with him. “Did you think Elder Derron was acting oddly?”

“All the elders are odd,” the boy said. “You stay here long enough, you are going to be odd. I don’t plan to stay that long.” He glanced over at Mitchell. “I would just as soon you didn’t tell anybody that. I wouldn’t want them getting all upset. I plan to take off without having to hear them crying woe and telling me I’m on a slippery slope to eternal damnation.”

“I doubt I’ll have need to mention it.”

“Good.” The boy looked back over his shoulder to where Elder Derron had disappeared into the shadows. “But you are right. Elder Derron was acting stranger than usual. But if he said he had to clean his shoes, then he had to clean his shoes. These people make war against dirt.”

36

Carlyn awoke with her head against the door and the shard of glass in her lap. Daylight pushed though the crack in the door that she might have made a fraction of an inch larger with all her gouging. When the moonlight had been blotted out by the dark hours before dawn, despair had overtaken her and she had whispered into the black air pressing in on her. “I am in my grave.”

Pray anyway.
Her mother’s words echoed in her mind. So very slowly she whispered the Twenty-Third Psalm. How often had she heard her father read that at funerals?
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
of my life, and I will dwell in the house
of the Lord forever.
That was where Ambrose was. Joyful in the house of the Lord. It was a house she wanted to dwell in someday, but not yet.

What would her mother pray? Carlyn shut her eyes as one of her mother’s oft-spoken prayers echoed in her memory.

For trials, I give thee thanks, for such
hard times make us depend more on thee. I thank
thee for love, for without it we are but sounding
cymbals. I covet thy watchcare over these, my children. And
I pray for the morrow, that thou will give us
another day to try to serve thee better. May we
dwell in thy hope, O Lord.

“I pray the same. I need hope, Lord, that Mitchell will find me,” Carlyn whispered. It didn’t seem wrong to reach for Mitchell. A friend the Lord had put into her life. A man she might yet love if she were delivered from this tomb. She shut her eyes and his face was in her mind. He would find her. The Lord was giving her that hope. With that thought, an unexpected peace settled over her and she had dozed off.

When she heard the Shaker bell, the sound was so faint she wondered how far from the center of the village this cellar was. But the night before, she had heard the clank of a shovel when Elder Derron must have been digging Curt’s grave somewhere near here. Would he come back tonight to dig hers? She shook away the thought. It was only the heavy door that muffled the ringing of the bell.

She would wait and pray and rejoice in the light pushing through the crack in the door to prove the Lord had gifted her with another day. She picked up the shard of glass and began whittling at the door again. Hands to work. Heart to God. She could embrace that Shaker teaching. Diligently, she continued to work with her hands while prayers without words rose from her heart.

When Sister Edna saw Mitchell, she tried to sit up and reach for him. Two Shaker women murmured calming words and kept her from rising.

“Don’t upset yourself, Sister. Brother Benjamin says you should lie still and rest,” Eldress Lilith said.

“You don’t understand.” Sister Edna pushed at their hands. “I must get her help. He means her harm.”

“Who?” Mitchell asked.

She fell back on the bed, her face as pale as the white case on her pillow. “Sister Carlyn. I was wrong to not tell.”

“Tell what?”

“About him.” She shut her eyes. For a second, Mitchell thought she might have lost consciousness, but then she muttered, “Elder Derron.”

The eldress leaned near Mitchell to speak close to his ear. “Sheriff, the poor sister is out of her head. Speaking such. Elder Derron would harm no one.” She looked around at the young Shaker who had explained why the elder hadn’t come with them. “Even now cleaning his shoes so that he wouldn’t bring dirt into our presence.”

Sister Edna must have heard at least some of what the eldress said. “There is dirt only Mother Ann can clean away.” Her voice was weak.