“Thank you for suggesting her.”
“The kid deserves good counsel, even if he’s guilty. And my motives aren’t entirely altruistic. I was thinking that if you get someone of the caliber of Irene Glidden to represent Moses, maybe we can get on with our wedding.”
Rachel curled her foot under her and leaned back in the easy chair. “I am getting on with it,” she said. “I’ll be wearing a white gown when I walk down that aisle, and not an Amish dress that would double as my funeral shroud.”
“Pleasant subject. Where did that come from?”
“It’s the custom. At least in our church . . . my parents’ community and many of the Old Order groups I know. A woman’s wedding dress is a plain dress, usually blue, but it can be a different color. After her wedding day, it’s packed away for her to be buried in.”
“I don’t want to think about the dress you’re going to be buried in. Not on our wedding day and not today.”
She smiled. “And you won’t have to, because I’m wearing an English bridal gown.”
“When will I see this amazing dress?”
“When I walk down the aisle. Not before.”
“It can’t come soon enough for me,” he said.
“Or for me.”
“Oops, someone’s in a big hurry. Got to go, Rachel. Duty calls.”
She heard the wail of a siren. “Be safe,” she warned. “I love you.”
She suddenly felt a chill. Why Evan loved being on the road, she didn’t know. “Be safe,” she whispered again into the empty room. “And God watch over you.”
* * *
On the way home from State College for her gown fitting the following day, Rachel made her way to Joe Troyer’s farm and lumber mill, where Moses had lived and worked. Joe’s property was outside of her mother’s church community, but not far as the crow flies, backed up against a section of state forest land. As she drove up the lane, she glanced to her left at the mill, where stacks of freshly sawn lumber cured under open sheds and mountains of logs waited the sharp bite of steel-toothed saws. A tractor-trailer stood in the process of being loaded, and trucks and Amish buggies were parked along the driveway.
Rachel continued on toward the main house and barns on the crown of a hill. Whitewashed wooden fencing lined the lane, enclosing pastureland where dairy and beef cattle grazed. Huge round bales of hay were covered in plastic and the stubble from a cornfield stretched off to the right. No tepee-shaped shocks of corn adorned the field. This had been cut and harvested by machine. From all accounts, Joe Troyer was a modern farmer with enough acreage, financial stability, and knowledge to earn a tidy living from the farm. Pennsylvania soil was some of the richest in the world, and Joe’s family had made the most of it for two hundred years. And if they, like many of their neighbors who’d come here when this was wilderness, had shed precious blood to claim this land, they cherished the land all the more for the high price their ancestors had paid to settle here.
She found Joe on the telephone in a small building near the barn. Like many Amish businessmen, he’d obtained permission from his bishop to possess a phone, so long as it was a distance from the house. He saw her, nodded, and quickly wrapped up his conversation.
He came toward her, a chubby, middle-aged man of medium height with a curly red beard and lively brown eyes. “A buyer for some prime walnut we’ve had seasoning in the barn loft,” he explained once they’d exchanged names and greetings. “A custom furniture manufacturer in Albany, New York. I hate to part with it. Old timber, really nice boards.”
Rachel nodded and smiled as Joe went on at length about the walnut and the history of the tree he’d harvested it from. For all his successful ventures, Joe was a farmer. No business could be contracted without allowing for the courtesy of a pleasant exchange of conversation. Finally, when the weather and scarcity of wild turkeys so far this year had been covered and Joe was assured of the improving health of Rachel’s mother, he said, “I suppose you’ve come to ask me about Moses.”
“I have.”
“Not a lot to say. Good worker. Kept to himself. Not what you’d call a bushel of laughs, but a young man who was a credit to his upbringing.”
“A young man facing serious charges,” Rachel said.
He thought on that for a moment. “I find it hard to believe that Moses could do such a thing. Terrible, losing Daniel that way.” Joe hooked a thumb in his coat pocket. “Loss to the family. But . . .” He shook his head. “Not Moses Studer. Too much like his father.”
“But Moses is . . . different.”
“Like his father. Grossfader, too, so I heard. But I never knew old Jonah. Ernst, I did know. And he was much as Moses, maybe a little easier around strangers. But Ernst held hard to his faith, despite his chronic sickness and being in the wheelchair. Rarely missed church service. Different the Studer men might be, but they aren’t killers.” He waved Rachel to a bench in the sunshine, out of the way of the wind.
She sat down. “You were going to be part of a hunt the day Daniel died, weren’t you?”
“I was.” Joe settled onto the bench beside Rachel, keeping a decent distance away from her. He spread his legs, planted his boots squarely on the gravel, and folded his arms. “But it didn’t work out that way. I’m sure you’ve heard we decided not to do a drive.”
“I’m guessing I only got part of the story. I understand that it was a disagreement over where to hunt,” she suggested.
Joe shook his head. “Ne. Who told you that?” When she didn’t answer, he went on. “Me and Daniel. We exchanged hard words.”
“But not over
