schoolhouse sat in the fertile Beaver Creek Valley. Amish farms stretched out on either side, while in front of the schoolhouse the long lane led to the paved county road that entered the town of Beaver Creek a bit over a mile east.
Sara turned away from the road, heading across the playground behind the school. Here the ground sloped down to the creek for which the valley was named.
On the other side of the creek the wooded ridge went sharply upward, seeming to lean over the valley protectively. No year-round houses had been built there, but the ridge was dotted with hunting cabins that would be busy during deer season.
“Where are you going?” Caleb’s long strides kept up with hers. “Are you going to answer me about this old man? Does he live back here?”
“In a way.” She raised her arm to point. “See that rocky outcropping? Watch what happens when we move just a little farther.”
A few steps took them to the spot where the rocky cliff suddenly took on a different aspect, its sharp edges forming what a child’s imagination might see as the profile of an old man.
A quick glance at Caleb’s face showed that he understood. “Der Alte,” she said. “The kinner call it that. I forgot that you wouldn’t know.”
Caleb stared at the rocky profile, frowning. “Ya, I see. But I don’t understand what there is about it to frighten her so.”
“Nor I.” Her voice firmed. “But I mean to find out. If one of the older scholars has been telling scary stories to the young ones, that is not—” She broke off, her gaze arrested by something dark at the base of the cliff face. “Look there. That...that almost looks like—”
“A person.” Caleb finished for her. “Someone is lying there.”
* * *
Caleb’s thoughts fled to Rachel. But his little girl was safe enough in the schoolroom, and if someone was lying hurt across the creek, he must go help.
“Go back to the kinner,” he said shortly. “I’ll see what’s happened.” He didn’t take more than a few steps before realizing that Teacher Sara was right behind him. He swung around, exasperated. “I said—”
“If someone is hurt, it’s better we both go. Then one can stay with the injured person while the other runs for help.”
A look at her stubborn face told him arguing would do no good. Heaven preserve him from a headstrong woman. Not wasting his breath, he ran toward the creek.
“This way,” she said, panting a little. “Stepping-stones.”
He nodded and veered after her as she headed downstream. No doubt the teacher knew the area better than he did. If the man was injured badly enough to need a stretcher, she’d know the best way for emergency workers to get to him, as well as the closest telephone.
And if it was worse? He didn’t have a clear line of sight now, but that dark form had been ominously still. Well, he’d tried to protect Teacher Sara from going. If she saw something bad, it was her own fault.
She was already starting across the stream, jumping lightly from one flat stone to another. He followed, but when they reached the other side, he took the lead again, brushing through the undergrowth toward the base of the cliff.
They broke through into the pebbly scree at the bottom of the cliff. Any hope he’d had that the form was an animal or fallen log vanished.
Sara reached the man first. She dropped to her knees, her skirt pooling around her, and put her fingers on his neck. Caleb could tell her that she wouldn’t find a pulse. No one could still be alive when his head looked like that. The poor man didn’t have a chance.
Moving quickly to her, Caleb took Sara’s arm. “Komm,” he said, his voice gruff. “There’s nothing you can do.”
He helped her up, eyeing her face. If she was going to faint on him... But though her normally pink cheeks were dead white, Teacher Sara seemed to have herself in hand.
“Poor man,” she murmured, and he thought she was praying silently, as he was.
“Do you know him?” He drew her back a step or two, keeping his hand on her elbow in case she was unsteady on her feet.
Sara shook her head. “Englisch,” she said unnecessarily. If the man had been Amish, she’d certainly have known him. “He looks fairly young.” Her tone was pitying.
Young, ya. The fellow wore jeans and boots, like so many young Englischers. Dark hair, with a stubble of beard on his chin. He looked... Caleb sought for the right word. He looked tough. That was it. Like someone you might not want to get on the wrong side of.
But they couldn’t stand here wondering about him. “It doesn’t seem right to leave the poor man alone. If I stay with him, can you see to calling the police?” Amish usually tried to steer clear of entanglement with the law, but their duty was clear in this case.
“Ya.” Sara took a step back, away from the support of his hand. “There’s an Englisch house not far. They’ll have a phone. And then I’ll stay with the kinner.”
“My Rachel.” His gaze met Sara’s. “You don’t think she could have seen this?” He gestured toward the body, his mind rebelling at the thought of his little girl viewing anything so gruesome.
“No.” Sara seemed to push the idea away with both hands. “I don’t think... Surely he hasn’t been lying there since yesterday.”
“It’s possible.” He looked up at the cliff face above them. From this angle it just looked like a jumble of rocks. “If she was standing where we stood...” He stopped, looking at Teacher Sara accusingly. “You shouldn’t let the kinner go so far from the school.”
“It is the edge of the playground,” she said, a touch of anger like lightning in her green eyes. “The scholars are never out of my sight when they have recess.”
“Sorry,” he muttered.
He shouldn’t blame Teacher Sara, when the thing that troubled him was his own inability to get his child to confide in him. Rachel had been so distant and solemn since her mother’s death, as if all Rachel’s laughter had been buried with Barbara.
“I’ll go now,” Teacher Sara said, turning away stiffly.
He let his gaze linger on her slender figure until the undergrowth hid her from sight. No matter how long this took, he knew instinctively that she would stay with Rachel. She’d attempt to comfort his little girl.
But if Rachel really had seen this man lying dead... His thoughts stuttered to a halt as something even worse occurred to him. What if his little girl had seen the man fall?
TWO
“I’m not sure what else we can tell you, Chief O’Brian.” Sara tried not to think how odd it was to see the bulky, gray-haired township police chief sitting behind the teacher’s desk in the Amish schoolhouse. “Neither of us knows who the man was.”
She and Caleb were perched atop the first graders’ desks, which were, of course,
