Once we had all been scrubbed beet red, my mother, father, Sarah, Mrs. Parsall, and I walked over to the Miller house with casseroles in hand.
And to pray.
Plain folk held regular prayer services every other Sunday in each other’s homes. We prayed before every meal and when it was needed. Like now.
As we approached the lone light shining in the Miller house, walking in the darkness, I wanted to be comforted by that light. I wanted some reassurance of God’s will. That it remained constant. That it remained good. That he was still listening to us, even if he ignored the Outside world.
We prayed silently before supper and after. Then Herr Miller got out his tattered Ausbund prayer book, and we prayed and sang in Deitsch. Mrs. Parsall sat silently in the corner, absorbing the words with glistening eyes and hands clasped in her lap. I drew her down on her knees beside us and felt her leaning hard against my shoulder. I know that she understood none of it, though she was praying in her own way.
The Amish were not permitted to be prideful in prayer, and we made up no prayers of our own. We used the Lord’s Prayer most often and others from the prayer book. Many religions used prayer as means to impress, but we were forbidden to. We hoped that God heard us using the old words or our silence.
At one point Herr Miller broke down in tears. Elijah clasped his shoulder and wept quietly with him.
Herr Miller was facing every Amish parent’s nightmare. Not just the potential loss of his children—he was facing the loss of their souls. Amish people were not baptized until they were in their late teens or early twenties, after Rumspringa. Our community wanted them to choose the Amish life of their own free will and understand the decisions they were making, as adults. There was no point to us in forcing a small child to be baptized. They could not give consent, nor could they fully understand the rules to which they committed.
If, Lord forbid, Seth and Joseph died before they were baptized, they would be lost. Caught out. They would not enter heaven. Herr Miller would never see his sons again, and I could not imagine the depths of that grief. He, at least, had the hope of seeing his wife again after death. But without all of his children . . .
The thought of evil still permeated me, ignited by my discussion with Mrs. Parsall and fanned by the Lord’s Prayer. Much of day-to-day Plain existence kept me well insulated from evil—and those sins that I usually resisted were the things that the English took for granted as neutral parts of everyday life: driving cars, electricity, the pride of fashion and vanity. I was so accustomed to debating the evils of those things in my head that it rarely occurred to me to contemplate violence or destruction.
I knew that I was weak, that I sometimes failed to submit to God’s will. But I didn’t feel truly sinister. I’d never had the urge to harm another living thing, to do such violence that was supposedly caused by some piece of germ warfare. Illness, like everything else, was considered Gelassenheit—God’s will. Disease was invisible, and it was easily attributable to his divine plan.
But was the loss of Seth and Joseph truly his will? Had the Outside interfered with his divine will by creating an evil that was not spiritual? If it was a disease, would any amount of spiritual virtuousness deflect it? Or did God choose who would be affected?
My thoughts rushed and collided together, not able to be soothed by even the familiar rhythms of the Lord’s Prayer. I felt the loss of the young men who had been like brothers to me in an ache behind my breastbone.
That night I lay awake in bed with Sarah sleeping beside me, staring at the dark ceiling. I didn’t understand. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to.
Instead of snoring, I heard soft sobbing from the bed beside me. Mrs. Parsall was trying to muffle her crying in the pillow. I could see her blond hair pressed up against it in the moonlight.
I kissed Sarah on the forehead and slipped out of my bed. I padded over to Mrs. Parsall’s bed and climbed in beside her. I wrapped my arms around the older woman as she sobbed.
Like Herr Miller, she may have lost her children for all time.
And there was nothing I could say to soothe that hurt. All I could do was be a shoulder in the darkness.
***
Evil arrived on our doorstep the next day.
At the time, I didn’t see it that way. But that was the way the Elders saw it.
I was doing my chores and Elijah’s, feeding the cattle. Star dragged bales of hay on a sledge, and I stopped her in the middle of the field to put the hay in the iron bale holders beside the watering tubs. The bales were heavier than I was used to, about fifty pounds each, but I was determined not to complain. There were bigger concerns now than my own comfort. Though an air of crisis hung low like a cloud over our community, there were still mundane chores to be done. I was grateful for them, for the ache in my muscles that kept me tied to the present moment; the activity kept my mind off of useless ruminating about the future.
The cattle had seen me coming and were heading in, mooing and grumbling among themselves. Unlike the black and white dairy Holsteins in the barn, these were brown and white Herefords. Beef cattle. Most of them were bulls, and I gave them a wide berth. They were never aggressive. But at two thousand pounds, they could accidentally hurt a person as they made a beeline for the hay and grain.
I stretched, stepping back, as the bulls clustered around the feeder. My back popped in two satisfying places, and I looked up at the leadening sky. I wanted to get the hay bales out before it rained. It would be much worse slogging through a muddy field with soggy bales that weighed more than they ought to.
Suddenly, I heard a distant roar.
Four sleek triangular gray planes flew in “V” formation overhead, streaking across the thick sky from west to east. They reminded me of geese, the way they flew. I lifted my arms to wave and shout, wondering if they could see me. I supposed that perhaps they were checking the damage, to see who had survived.
The low roar rumbled over the field. Instead of white contrails, the tails of the planes were spewing something bluish. Not smoke. The planes continued along their way, heading east, streaking the sky with that mysterious blue, and receding beyond sight.
The breeze pushed the smell of the blue substance down through the field. I wrinkled my nose. It smelled metallic, like winter. I hoped that the military had found a cure for the contagion. Maybe they were dusting us, like crops, to get it dispersed.
Whatever the reason, the sight lifted my heart. It meant that there were still people out there in the Outside world. Alive.
I smiled up at the sky.
And it opened up and began to rain. The rain tasted cold and sharp, like metal.
I sighed and returned to my work, dragging the last heavy bale from the sledge. The bulls had crowded me out of the feeder, so I chucked this one on the ground, and the smaller, less dominant ones headed for it. As I surveyed the cattle, I began to worry.
The big ones were due to be slaughtered this fall. The small ones would be kept over the winter, to be slaughtered in the spring. Some of the meat would be sold to the English. But if Outside remained off-limits, then there would be a lot of cattle to feed. And we didn’t have enough room to keep all the meat. I doubted that we had enough food to sustain them through the whole winter. Things could get ugly very quickly, I decided, scanning the backs of the bulls.
I spied a dark shape along one of the fence posts in the distance. I frowned. The cattle shouldn’t be lying down at mealtime. A downer cow was a sign of illness. We would have to act quickly to protect the rest of the herd. Growing up Plain, I understood that the individual was weak, but the power lay in the collective. The group must be preserved at all costs.
I walked briskly to the edge of the field. Maybe this sick one could be separated in enough time. As I got closer, I noticed that the dark shape wasn’t on the inside of the barbed-wire and wood fence. It lay on the Outside, just inches beyond.
And it wasn’t a bull. It was too small.
It was human.
I approached cautiously, trying to stay upwind of the body curled up around the fence post. One foot was tangled in barbed wire, as if the man had tried to get inside but failed. It was an Englisher. He wore sneakers, jeans, and a black jacket with a great deal of zippers and flap pockets. His face and blond hair were pressed into the mud, rain tapping on his face. His eyes were closed. The rain rinsed blood from a wound on the side of his head, near his temple. He looked like he’d been struck with something.
“Hello?” I rasped. I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. I was afraid of both.
The pale form lay motionless in the mud. I crept closer, studying his shoulder. I saw that it rose and fell slightly with his breath, a breath that passed through his lips and disturbed the matted grass under his battered face.
He was alive. My heart caught in my throat.
I ran back to the horse to get help as fast as my feet would carry me in the sucking mud.
***
“We have to help him!”
I exploded into my house, soaking wet. My father was eating lunch in the kitchen and stared at me. He pushed away from the table, grasped my arms.
“Help who? Herr Miller? Elijah?”
I shook my head, struggling to catch my breath. “No. There’s a man out at the south field. He’s been hurt. He needs help.”
“Where at the south field?”
“At the fence.”
I knew that once I told my father, he would take care of it. An important part of the Amish belief system was helping those in need. And this man clearly needed us.
“Is he English?”
“Yes. I think so.”
My father reached for his coat. “Show me.”
I drove Star back to the field, where the man lay. He had not moved. My father approached slowly, crouched down at a distance.
“He’s outside the fence,” my father said. “We must ask the Elders for permission to bring him inside.”
My brow furrowed. “But he’s hurt.”
“He may also be sick. We must ask the Elders.”
My hands wound in my soggy apron. My father looked at me tenderly. “You have a compassionate heart, Katie. But we cannot violate the rules. We must ask them.”
I nodded slowly, water dripping from my nose. Surely when the Elders saw him, they would bring him in, take care of him. I could not blame my father. He was a good man and was trying to follow the rules.
“I will go get them,” he said.
“I will stay here and pray.”
“Don’t get too close,” my father cautioned. “He may be contagious.”
“I understand.” But I didn’t, really. The young man appeared to be hurt, not sick. The violence facing Outside had seemingly chased him down. I hoped that if Seth and Joseph found their way to an English house, that the Englishers would help the boys.
I watched as my father took Star and rode away, then turned back to look at the young man, the rain tapping on the ground and my prayer bonnet.
I knelt against the bottom rail of the fence, several yards upwind of him, and prayed silently with rain sliding down my knuckles. He did not move, did not seem to sense my presence there. But as I stole glances at him, I hoped that he could feel God with him, that he would know that rescue was close at hand. Just delayed by a bit of procedure.
Almost an hour later, I heard footsteps in the muck. I lifted my head to see my father, the Bishop, and two of the elder ministers walking across the field, rain streaming off their hats. My heart rose to see them, to know that they would end the young man’s suffering.
I stood respectfully, backing away as the Elders circled around the young man. I clasped my cold hands behind my back.
They stared for a long time, in silence, before the Bishop shook his head.
The Elders made as if to retreat.
A rebellious squeak came to my lips, and my hand flew to my mouth. “You’re—you’re going to leave him?” I whispered.
The Bishop looked me in the eye, and his gaze was sharp as steel. “We cannot bring him inside. No one goes in or out. The rule stands.”
“But he’s just beyond—” I protested. “He’s suffering!”
“And we cannot bring that suffering upon ourselves,” my father said, clasping a warning hand upon my shoulder. I was not being obedient. I blinked up at him in amazement.
“We will not allow him to suffer.” One of the Elders slipped a hunting rifle from his shoulder.
I stuffed my fist in my mouth to stifle a cry as my father steered me away from the scene. I looked back, wet bonnet strings stuck to my face, as the minister raised the rifle and took aim at the young man.
Rifles were used for hunting in our community, never used against people. Tears sprang to my eyes. The evil of Outside had surely reached in here, in the guise of fear and mercy.
I struggled to twist away. “But if it’s God’s will that he should die, should we not leave him?”
The black figures stared at me for speaking out of turn again.