In the end, though, the scrap of newsprint she held on her lap gave the lie to all that English freedom. It called her to face the truth about the dangers that were out there in the world. It reminded her that John Schlabaugh and Abe Yoder no longer answered their cell phones or returned text messages. Just when John had promised them all the means to free themselves from the vise grips of backward Amish traditions, he had disappeared. Andy Yoder, too. There wasn’t going to be any great emancipation for the John Schlabaugh Rumschpringe gang of Saltillo. There weren’t going to be any easy answers. No easy escapes.
Sara cast her eyes to the newspaper clipping and read the cryptic lines in the correspondence section of the
Budget.
Four lines of numbers, demanding attention from the handful of readers who could decipher them, inserted among the scores of family letters from Amish all over the world. The
Sugarcreek Budget,
published each Wednesday, and mailed to anyone, anywhere, who might be interested to know what had happened recently in the lives of the Helmuths in Kansas, or the Peacheys in Ontario. Troyers, Millers, or Yoders. Who had been born, and who had died, in Texas. The quality of the wheat harvest in Mexico that year. Family news from around the world, in an Amish paper published for Amish readers everywhere.
But Sara was concerned only with the four lines of type that were meant, ominously, for her. A greeting number. A location—latitude and longitude. And a closing number:
Only she and eight others would know what it meant. Anyone in the John Schlabaugh Rumschpringe gang that year. This was their meeting place. This was where they gathered, out of sight of their families, for their running-wild trips to town, once their chores were finished. Once the weekend had come, and they had changed into English clothes. Their parents discreetly looking aside. Pretending not to worry.
Sara folded the paper, set it beside her on the leather seat, and snapped her whip lightly over the withers of her horse. She worked the buggy slowly past the traffic triangle at the top of the ridge and dropped down through the cool shade of the tree farm on the gravel lane of Township 129. At the bottom of the hill, she turned south on County Road 58, crossed Lower Sand Run, and turned eventually onto a narrow, pebbled drive that took her through a stand of pines, around a curve, and up to a small clearing. Near a pond at the edge of a cornfield stood a small red barn. As she pulled to a stop in front of the barn doors, a raccoon with dirty paws scrambled out from under the exterior wall of the barn and scurried off into the corn.
She hitched her horse to a wooden railing that John Schlabaugh had posted in the ground beside the barn, and a rusted, blue Buick Skyhawk rolled into the clearing. As she tugged the looped reins tight on the railing, Henry Erb climbed out of the little sedan. He was dressed in English clothes—designer jeans, a yellow golf shirt, and white running shoes—but his Dutch-boy haircut gave him away as Amish.
Henry said, “You saw the
Budget,
too?”
Sara nodded and asked, “Have you seen John or Abe?”
“No,” said Erb, and glanced around expectantly. “Anybody else been here?”
He saw that the lock on the barn doors was hanging loose, and he came around the front of his car to open the doors.
Sara joined him and said, “I should have come out here yesterday.”
“It was just coordinates in the newspaper,” Henry said. “What are we supposed to do with that?”
Sara said, “I wouldn’t think anything of it if John and Abe weren’t missing.”
“I tried their cells again this morning,” Henry said. “Still nothing.”
Sara took the left side and Henry the right, and they swung the heavy wooden doors open. There was a damp and musty odor as they entered the gloom of the barn. Henry reached up to a kerosene lantern hanging on the inside wall, lit the wick, and carried the sooty lamp into the barn. At the far edge of the light, an old, red Pontiac Firebird sat with its stern backed up against the far wall.
Sara followed Henry to the car. He held aloft the light to shine it into the front seat. Sara peered into the passenger-side window, touched the vinyl seat, and brushed off a crusty rust-red residue. She showed her fingers to Erb. “John and Abe must have had another fight,” she said. “Right? It doesn’t mean anything more.”
Erb shrugged with a grimace, and walked around to the driver’s side. He opened the door, looked in, and said, “Keys are missing.”
Sara said, “Did you ever know John to park his car here?”
Erb frowned. “No. He keeps it out at his trailer. With mine and Jeremiah’s.” With a clipped, stuttering cadence, Erb added, “John would never leave his car. If he’s parked it here, then something’s wrong.”
“It’s gotta be the drugs,” Sara said ruefully, backing away from the Pontiac. “They’ve gotten themselves in too far.” She looked furtively around the barn, anxiety showing on her face.
“John’s too smart for that,” Erb said, closing the car door.
“I’m not so sure,” Sara countered. She turned from the car and saw something in the near corner. “Bring the light over here,” Sara said, kneeling on the dirt floor of the barn. When Erb brought the light, they could see a ragged hole scratched in the dirt.
“I scared off a raccoon when I drove up,” said Sara. The edge of a plastic bag showed in the hole. Sara scooped dirt out from around the bag and pulled it loose.
Inside the bag were a black leather wallet, two car keys on an antique Pontiac fob, a GPS receiver in a plastic camouflage case, and a cell phone. Erb said, “Those are John’s keys. For the Firebird.”
Sara took out the wallet and thumbed it open. “This is John’s wallet, too.” She pulled out the GPS receiver and asked with growing dread, “Is this John’s GPS unit?”
“Can’t tell,” Erb said. “John’s is like all of ours. I guess it’s his.”
Puzzled, Sara said, “This is not John Schlabaugh’s phone.”
“Right,” Erb said, “but whose?”
Sara frowned, shook her head, and dropped the items back into the plastic bag.
Erb stepped back toward the doors of the barn and said, “Look, Sara. I don’t like it here. John’s got some kind of funny business going on, and I don’t think we ought to be messing in with it.”
Sara asked, “Who put those coordinates in the
Budget,
Henry?”
“I don’t know.” Backing out the door.
“You need to stay and help me figure this out,” Sara insisted.
“I was going up to Wooster. You ought to come along,” Erb said sheepishly. He reached his car, got in quickly, cranked the engine to life, and spun around in the dirt to point his Buick back down the lane. With his left arm hanging out the window, he said, “Look, Sara. This is John’s business. He calls the shots. So I’m not getting involved.”
Sara shook her head, not bothering to hide her mounting consternation. “There’s something wrong here, Henry. And none of us is innocent anymore. We need to face this.”
“I can’t get mixed up in any more of John’s schemes. The bishop has been to see my father already.”
Sara took her cell phone out of the front pocket of her apron and said, “I know someone who can help.”
“I can’t stay,” Erb said, his voice strained. “I’m going up to Wooster tonight. If you want to go, come down to the schoolhouse. I’m going to get the others to come along.”
Sara gave a dissatisfied shake of her head and waved Erb off. She stood in front of the barn doors, punching in the phone number, and watched Henry Erb speed down the lane toward County 58 and disappear into the overhanging pines.
While she waited for the call to go through, Sara held the plastic bag up to her eyes and studied the contents with growing apprehension. The call went dead. She lowered the phone from her ear and saw a “No Signal” indication on the display. She untied the reins, got back into her buggy, trotted her horse up to the higher ground at Saltillo, and tried the call again. With better reception on the ridge, she got Pastor Cal Troyer at his church in Millersburg. She explained where she was and asked him to come out to meet her at the barn. When he asked what her problem was, she gave an evasive answer.
Pressed further, Sara said, “It’s two of my friends, Cal. They’ve been gone for a week now, and I just found one of their cars parked in this little barn. It shouldn’t be there. And some of his stuff was buried in the corner.”
“I’m with a friend, Sara. OK if I bring him along?” Cal asked.
“Can’t you just come out here yourself, Cal?”
“It’s someone you can trust, Sara.”
Sara hesitated, thinking she shouldn’t have called.
Cal said, “Professor Michael Branden, Sara. You know who he is. Teaches history at Millersburg College.”
“Is he the one who rescued Jeremiah Miller a few years back?”
“Yes. The Millers know him and his wife Caroline well. They are Amishleiben, Sara.”
“Then I guess he can come. But just the two of you, Cal. I don’t know what’s going on out here. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble with the law, but I’m starting to get a little rattled, and I don’t like it.”
“Maybe you’d better tell me what’s going on, Sara.”
“When you get here, Cal. I’ll tell you what I know.”
“OK, but are you still going to come in to the church this afternoon? For our regular talk?”
“I don’t know, Cal. Maybe I shouldn’t talk with you anymore. Maybe something’s gone wrong out here. Right now, I just want you to come out and tell me what you think.”
“Can I tell the professor a little bit about what you’ve told me in the past several weeks?”
“Why?”
“I just think it will help if he knows a little of the background. How you kids are getting along. The Rumschpringe.”
“OK, but I’m not sure we’ve even got a Rumschpringe gang anymore. The group has kind of fallen apart.”
“OK, Sara. Tell me how to get there.”
2
Friday, July 23
8:50 A.M.
WHEN Cal Troyer and Michael Branden drove up the lane to the barn Sara had described, they found her standing beside her buggy horse, holding a water bucket up to its nose. She saw them coming, put the bucket down, loosened the reins so the horse could reach it, and stepped forward on the dirt patch in front of the barn to greet them.
Cal offered his hand to Sara. She took it lightly, a little shy about it, and found herself reassured by the touch of his callused palm and firm grip. His arms were thick, and muscled with knotty strength from the work he did as a carpenter. The pastor was dressed in jeans and a blue work shirt. His boots were old and scuffed. He introduced the professor, and Branden came forward and shook her hand, too.
The professor was dressed in jeans, loafers, and a light blue cotton shirt with a button-down collar. His brown hair was cut short and parted, a patch of silver showing at his temples. He seemed strong to Sara, and trim. Confident.
Branden judged Sara to be about eighteen years old. She was dressed in a long, plain, dark plum dress with a white lace apron. Despite the gathering heat, she wore black hose and a pair of soft black leather walking shoes. She carried a small, black cloth purse on a thin black loop. Her black hair was gathered in a neat bun, tucked up under a white head covering, and she wore wire-rimmed spectacles, silver in color, over her large brown eyes. Her complexion was a flawless ivory, her cheeks tinged with rose. If he hadn’t talked with Cal Troyer on the trip out, Branden might have seen nothing in Sara Yoder but the demure serenity of one of the county’s Peaceful Ones. But he now could see that, in spite of her carefully controlled manner, Sara Yoder was more than a little worried.
Sara looked Branden over skeptically and glanced back at Cal. Cal smiled and tilted his head briefly in Branden’s direction. Branden held his peace. He shaded his eyes with his hand in the bright morning sun and kept them on Cal.
Cal, no stranger to Amish reserve, said to Branden, “Sara lives with her parents down by Saltillo.”
Branden said to the girl, “Then you know Panther Hollow pretty well.”
Sara shrugged, rubbed her hands together nervously, and said, “I reckon I’ve been there a few times. It’s a place where kids go.”
Cal said, “Sara has been all over, Mike. Holmes County, anyway. Some of the boys in her gang own cars.”
“Gang?” Branden asked.
“That’s what we call it,” Sara said, flustered. “John Schlabaugh’s gang out of Saltillo. It’s just a band of kids.”
Branden held Sara’s eyes with his steady gaze, and Sara eventually added, “It’s a harmless little group of us. Nine to start with, now just seven, I fear. We kind of run together, is all. It’s our parents who can’t stand the strain.” She shifted self-consciously on her feet, and wandered over to the shade beyond the open barn doors.
Branden followed and said, “Cal tells me you’ve been having some problems. You’ve been talking with him a couple of times a week?”
“I’ve been worried,” Sara whispered, and furrowed her brow.
Cal said, “It’s probably not as bad as you think, Sara.”
“They’re about ready to kick me out of the house,” Sara blurted.
Cal cleared his throat and said, “Maybe it’s not that bad.”
“All the younger kids know it, Cal. I can see it in their eyes.”
“Maybe they’re just worried about you,” Cal said. “We’ve talked about this before.”
“Rachel is only four. She came crying to me yesterday, Cal. Wanted to know if I was going away.”
“She’s your sister?” Branden asked.
“Cousin. It’s a close family, Professor. We all live right next to each other on the farm my granddaddy started.”
“Why would she think you’re going away?” Cal asked.
“Because her parents have talked about me with their kids. Warning them. They are all watching to see which way I’ll swing. Stay Amish or go English. They think I’ll be lost to them. Now they don’t ask me to take care of the little ones anymore.”