DC03 - Though Mountains Fall (2 page)

Domingo shrugged. “It was a narrow pass. A child could have held it.”

“But a child would not have broken half the bones in El Pantera’s body, would he?”

“So El Pantera is still alive?” Locked in a fight to the death, Domingo and the bandit leader had fallen together from a cliff. The fall had nearly killed Domingo, but the fate of El Pantera remained a mystery. Until now.

“Sí, he lives,” the bandit said, “but he is not the same man. His left arm was so badly shattered he has lost the use of the hand, and he has only recently begun to ride a horse again. They say he is half crazy with rage, and he swears revenge.”

“Against me?”

Alvarez glanced at Caleb. “Sí. And against your friends, too. There are already twenty men in his camp, and more are coming. He wanted me to stay, but I told him I had to go to San Luis Potosi for my brother’s wedding.” A casual shrug. “I don’t have a brother. I only came here to warn you.”

Caleb couldn’t resist asking. “Why?”

The bandit’s eyes smiled, though his mouth was completely hidden behind his mustache. “Because Domingo’s father was my friend, and because you treated me and my men with respect, señor. You gave us bread, watered our horses and talked to us like men, so I wanted to warn you of the storm that is brewing. If I were you I would flee. And say nothing of this meeting. . . . If El Pantera learns I was here, he will kill my whole family.”

“This is bad news indeed,” Caleb said. “When do you think he will come?”

“I’m not sure. It will be a little while before he is strong enough to ride so far, but he
will
come. Three weeks, maybe four—that would be my guess.”

“Well, there’s not much left for him to steal. With all the newcomers, our winter stores are almost gone.”

The bandit shook his head grimly. “You misunderstand me, Señor Bender. El Pantera is not coming here to steal. He is coming to burn and to kill.”

Before sundown Miriam went to the barn to do her chores. With her dark complexion and raven hair, Caleb’s daughter could have passed for a Mexican if it weren’t for the Amish dress and prayer
kapp
. As she dipped a bucket into the feed bin she saw the shadow of someone behind her and spun around, surprised.

Domingo drew her against him and kissed her. Miriam let herself melt into him and kissed him back.

Holding her in his strong arms, he brushed aside a wisp of hair that had escaped her starched white prayer kapp and gazed into her eyes.

“Your mother is doing much better these days,” he said softly.

To anyone else it might have seemed an odd thing to say under the circumstances, but Miriam knew what he meant. Mamm had been thrown into a state of mental confusion and despair by Aaron’s murder last summer, along with the kidnapping of Rachel and a diphtheria outbreak that claimed the lives of four children in the Paradise Valley colony. And then Miriam disappeared for ten days while she and Kyra tended Domingo’s wounds at the abandoned silver mine in Parrot Pass. It was there, alone in a veritable Eden, that Domingo asked Miriam to be his wife. After long deliberation she accepted, on two conditions: he would have to wait, and their betrothal would have to remain secret, for it would have broken her mother. For the last six months Mamm’s fragile mental state was the only thing preventing them from being married.

“
Jah
, it has been more than half a year,” Miriam answered, meeting his eyes. “Christmas was hard for her with Aaron gone, but since then she has grown stronger, more like her old self. Just this morning she was helping me gather eggs when she slipped and fell. Now, you know what the floor of the chicken coop is
like. She soiled her dress, her hands, her kapp, but, Domingo, she was
laughing
. While I was helping her up she laughed like a schoolgirl. It did my heart good.” Laying her head against his chest, hearing his strong heartbeat, she said softly, “Perhaps it is time for us to be married.”

He nodded. “I must talk to your father first. I have too much respect for Señor Bender to do this behind his back. Everything will change for you now,
Cualnezqui
. Are you sure you want to go ahead?”

Tightening her arms about his waist, she said, “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. I am
yours
, Domingo. I am forever yours.”

There was a faint crunching of straw behind Domingo and the shadows deepened. Miriam stepped back hastily and looked around him.

Her sister Rachel stood in the big barn door, the westering sun slanting through, backlighting the red hair along her neck, at the base of her kapp. Rachel’s hands covered her mouth and tears welled in her eyes.

“How long have you been standing there?” Miriam asked.

“Long enough.” Rachel’s eyes flitted back and forth between them. “Miriam . . . you and Domingo are going to
marry
?”

Miriam nodded slowly, moving toward her younger sister, reaching to her.

But Rachel stepped back, keeping her distance.

“How could you not tell me this, Miriam? How could you keep a secret like this? From
me
!”

Miriam shrugged an apology, shaking her head. “Rachel, among the Amish, wedding plans are
always
secret.”

“But this is not an Amish wedding!” Rachel cried, glancing at Domingo. “If you marry an outsider it will break our mother’s heart! You will be banned, an outcast in your own family. I know
how you feel about Domingo, but Miriam, have you considered the consequences?”

“Of course I have—carefully, and with great sorrow,” Miriam answered softly. “I know what lies before me if I take this path, but I am twenty-two years old and I know my own heart, my own mind.” She put a palm against Domingo’s chest and smiled confidently into his eyes. “Gott has brought us together, and though I know our path will be filled with trials, it is
our
path, and together we can face anything.”

Rachel was silent for a second. The words that spilled out of her next came quietly but with an unmistakable undercurrent of threat.

“What would Dat say if he knew?”

Miriam was stunned into silence. Before she could find her tongue, Domingo said, “Your father will not know until I choose to tell him.” He didn’t return Miriam’s puzzled glance. His black eyes were locked on Rachel. “Everyone has secrets. Now that you know ours, I think you would do well to keep it.”

Rachel stared at him a moment longer, then nodded meekly as her eyes dropped away from him. Without another word, she turned and walked softly out of the barn.

Baffled, Miriam asked, “What was
that
about?”

Domingo shook his head, still staring after Rachel. “You will have to ask your sister. I cannot say.”

She knew that tone of voice. There was a point of honor here, somewhere. “Cannot? Or
will
not?”

He shrugged. “For me, one is the same as the other.”

———

Domingo saddled his horse and went home for the day, and a few minutes later Rachel came back into the barn. No matter what else happened, the cows still had to be milked.

Sitting on a three-legged stool Miriam glanced around at her
younger sister, wondering what was going through Rachel’s mind. She refused to speak, wouldn’t even look at Miriam, and yet her eyes betrayed more sorrow than anger. It was puzzling. They were completely alone; why didn’t Rachel just speak her mind? They had always been so close, slept in the same bed together all their lives and shared secrets. Now it seemed an impenetrable barrier stood between them, and it broke Miriam’s heart.

“Rachel.”

No answer. Not even a look.

“Rachel, I’m sorry.”

Still no answer, just the steady
rip rip rip
of milk in the pail.

“Rachel, I’m so sorry about keeping this a secret from you. It was just . . . this was a decision I had to make alone, out of my own heart and no one else’s. I found a pearl of great price, and I had to decide whether to sacrifice everything for it. The burden was mine alone. There was nothing you could do, and I didn’t want to be swayed. Can you understand that?”

Rachel was silent for a long time, but then she took a deep breath and said, “Jah. I know what it is to carry a burden you can’t share.”

She still wouldn’t look at Miriam, but the lines of pain and sorrow etched themselves even deeper in her face and the anger left her entirely. Could it be that something
else
was bothering her? Was it possible Rachel bore a secret of her own—something as earth-shattering as Miriam’s secret? Domingo’s words came back to her now.

“You will have to ask your sister.”

“Rachel, if you have something you want to tell me, you know it is safe with me. You can tell me anything. It couldn’t possibly be any worse than—”

“Oh, it can be worse,” Rachel said. “A
lot
worse. You have no idea.”

Miriam’s hands stopped milking and she looked around at Rachel. The cow shuffled its feet and let out a soft
moo
. Worse than marrying an outsider? Only one thing sprang to her mind.

“Rachel, you and Jake aren’t . . . in
trouble
, are you?” Jake was
the one
, the love of Rachel’s life.

“No,” Rachel said, instantly and firmly. “
I’m
not, anyway.”

“So . . . Jake has done something?”

Rachel was silent for so long Miriam wasn’t sure she’d heard the question, but at last she spoke, very quietly.

“He killed a man.”

Miriam recoiled, nearly falling backward from her stool.

“He did
what
?”

Rachel came and knelt beside her, gripping her arm with both hands, her eyes full of tears. Words spilled out of her, mingled with a great long sob.

“Remember I told you about the bandit who came to me in the middle of the night when I was chained in El Pantera’s barn, and Jake pulled him off of me before he could do anything?”

Miriam’s head backed away, her eyes wide. “Jah?”

“Jake strangled him with his handcuff chain. The bandit was
dead
, Miriam.”

Miriam’s hand covered her mouth, shaking. “Oh, my stars! Poor Jake! What must he be going through?”

But Rachel shook her head and pulled away, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

“He doesn’t know. We lied to him, Domingo and me. We both knew the guard was dead, but we told Jake he lived. Jake doesn’t know.”

“Rachel, you must tell him. His
soul
is in danger.”

Rachel’s face contorted as she looked up at Miriam and cried, “I can’t! They’ll send him to Ohio to face the bishop, and then his father will never let him come back.
I’ll never see him again!
”

Rachel’s future husband, or his soul. An unthinkable choice, perhaps even more difficult than the one Miriam had made. There was nothing she could say. She could understand why Rachel might keep such a burden to herself. It was her choice to make, alone.

Just like her own.

As the sun kissed the western hills Miriam wrapped her arms around Rachel’s shoulders. In the dim twilight of an adobe barn in the mountains of Mexico two sisters huddled together against the world, and wept.

Chapter 2

S
itting among a hundred Amish on the second level of her father’s barn for church services that Sunday, Miriam felt the kinship of her people more acutely than ever, for she felt the nearness of its loss. Despite a cool morning breeze they flung the doors wide to let in the sunlight while they sang songs from the
Ausbund
, the ancient traditional hymns that welded them together. Caleb gave a short devotional and then read a prayer of thanks from the prayer book. Miriam knew why he chose that particular prayer. Despite grievous losses, her father was indeed grateful for good weather, good neighbors, and for the calm that had reigned over the last six months. There had been no more outbreaks of diphtheria, and the bandits had stayed away. But before he closed the prayer he added his own plea for Gott to send a bishop to Paradise Valley.