overheard Aaron say as she blew a kiss to Fern to speed her up—or was it a kiss to Andrew?
* * *
As Ella headed home from the mill, the early afternoon sky clouded over and the wind picked up. The weather was important to her people, a big topic of conversation, but she hadn’t heard it was going to storm. She could feel the extra weight of the buggy from the four big bags of ground shells, or else she would have giddyapped Fern faster. To avoid getting caught in a downpour, she turned onto a farmer’s lane that was a shortcut home. It was only wide enough for a four-horse hitch or big work wagon, but if she met someone coming the other way, she could easily pull off on the grassy edge of the cornfield.
Her thoughts on Andrew, she didn’t hear the motor vehicle behind her at first. Too much of a smooth sound, not loud like an English farmer’s tractor or planter. She craned her neck and tried to look back through the thick plastic window, which she hadn’t rolled up today. It looked like a big buggy at first but it was a van, a black one. It seemed to have dark-tinted windows. She knew how impatient English drivers could be. She’d better pull off and let it pass. But why would a vehicle that probably wasn’t local be on this cut-cross lane? There was nothing back here but corn and a couple of woodlots.
You might know, it began to rain. She didn’t stop to unroll the plastic windshield in front of her and blew Fern a kiss to get her to a place up ahead, which looked like a good pull-off spot. Most drivers in Amish country were considerate and polite—at least the ones who weren’t out drinking, like Sam Lee might have been, or who weren’t taking the hills fast because of the rollercoaster-like thrills.
Thunder rumbled even as the van’s engine behind got louder, vroom, vroom, like it was going to leap at her. The vehicle came closer, bumped the back of her buggy! Didn’t they see the sign that read Slow-Moving Vehicle? The van’s lights had been on low but now bright headlights popped on. Another bump, harder. The buggy jolted. She was nearly to the pull-off spot—or should she just keep going? No way she could escape, however fast Fern could go.
Rain pattered on her bonnet as Ella leaned out and looked behind, even extended an open hand as if to say, “Keep back! Stop!” Ya, the windows of the vehicle were tinted so dark she could not see the driver. The windshield wipers whipped back and forth hard. Her heart pounding, she threw herself back inside the buggy.
Though she wasn’t to the best spot yet, she swerved Fern to the right onto the grassy fringe of the field. Rain thudded on the fiberglass frame of the buggy like loud drums. She twisted around to stare out through her back plastic window. To her dismay, the car stopped, backed up and turned in too, this time shoving the buggy almost into Fern. Thank God, she wasn’t on the edge of a treed ravine like the one that had almost killed Ray-Lynn when she plunged over it! But that would-be killer was in prison. Out here in the open, exposed, no one around—what did this person want? Just to scare her? Or worse?
Don’t fight back…turn the other cheek, she recited to herself. Should she leave Fern, get out and run through the field? The plowed soil and rain would make for slow going. The van couldn’t follow but a person could. She’d be a sitting duck if someone had a camera—or a gun. Some terrible attacks on the Amish she’d heard or read about increased her panic: some drunk English teens turned over a buggy with a woman inside; an Amish boy throwing tomatoes at cars was shot to death. The only thing she had to fight back with, without really fighting back, was four bags of ground oyster shells.
When lightning crackled and struck something nearby, Ella nearly jumped out of the buggy. Had it hit a tree in the woodlot? If it struck again, what was taller out here in the open, the buggy or the van? Metal would attract the bolt, wouldn’t it? No one emerged from the van as it just sat there, rumbling low with the front windshield like a huge eye just staring at her. She should have told Daad and Andrew about that light she glimpsed on the hill. At least there was no more bumping or shoving. What did that person want?
She fumbled on the floor for her jackknife and slit the string stitching at the top of one of the big plastic bags. If someone got out and came around to hurt her, she’d fling ground oyster shells at them, in their eyes, get out and run across the corner of the field into the trees, lightning or not. Surely, this could not have anything to do with their hiding Andrew. No one around here knew who he really was, did they? So how could anyone have found him? This had to be about something else, about her. Like Daad had suggested, was she being stalked?
The van hulked behind her like a big beast, its hood and front bumper tight against her buggy, as if playing with its prey. She was certain her wheels would sink in the soil if she drove straight ahead into the field.
While thunder rumbled again, this time more distantly, she dug out fistfuls of the ground shells and dumped them in her lap, ready to throw. Sweating, praying—Oh Lord, please take care of Your own—she waited. Then came a deep honk-honk! of the van’s horn. Ella jumped. Fern snorted and startled. After another hard bump of the buggy, the van backed out, turned and drove away.
Despite the rain, Ella scrambled down from the seat, spewing ground shells and dust from her apron. She was going to get that license plate at any cost, tell Sheriff Freeman. Maybe the sheriff would know if others had been harassed this way too.
But the license plate was draped with a big dark cloth that dragged behind in the mud. It looked like an Amish woman’s cape, black as ravens’ wings. For a moment, she thought she glimpsed a face in the big, tinted back window, but it looked too thin—the white barrel of not a gun but a lamp? A telescope? Her grandfather had one they used to watch the stars through from the hilltop, years ago.
As the van disappeared down the lane at the end of the field, Ella heaved a frustrated, furious sigh and broke into tears she’d been holding back. She crunched through the wet oyster-shell grit and scrambled back up into the feeble protection of the buggy. At least the spilled feed would mark the exact spot so she could tell the sheriff where to look for tire tracks or anything to identify the van.
“Thank you, Lord, for Your protection,” she whispered as she picked up the reins and backed Fern and the buggy out onto the road. One of the buggy wheels seemed wobbly, but she had no choice but to head home. She was wet and chilled but that wasn’t why her hands were shaking so hard she almost flapped the reins. She reached behind into the small back seat and storage area for her cape.
It was gone, not on the floor, nowhere, but she knew she’d left it there when she went into the mill. And she knew now what was being dragged to death in pieces through the mud behind that black van.
6
AFTER A DASH through the woodlot, where she was afraid the van might appear again, Ella emerged onto Oakridge and headed straight for home. Now only the rattle of a bent back wheel pursued her until she heard the piercing shriek of a siren behind her.
She gasped when she saw a black vehicle. She stuck her head out to look back. Thank heavens! Only an Eden County police car. It must be the sheriff! She reined in, then realized it could be a trick. It wasn’t the sheriff’s car—no markings—nor did she recognize the short, muscular man who emerged from it, but he was wearing an officer’s uniform.
He must have realized her unease, because before approaching her he called out, “Winston Hayes, ma’am, the new Eden County deputy. You don’t have a fluorescent safety triangle on the back of your buggy. It’s the law. Some Amish been protesting that and even went to jail over it in Indiana.”
She looked at the back of her buggy. Not only was the safety sign gone but the back was scuffed and dented. Obviously, the van had knocked it off somewhere. She’d rather tell Sheriff Freeman what had happened, but she couldn’t pass over it with this man. Deputy Winston
