The Sugar Haus Inn, Page 3

  “Just traveling through.” There was no need to explain that although the truck was from Texas, he and Bobby were not.

  “It’ll take a day or two to pull the engine head and resurface it. And another day to put it in, maybe two.” He stuffed the rag into his right back pocket. “I could order the part before I go home tonight. You want me to do the work?”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  The man considered. “I’m a little backed up. It might be a couple days.”

  “I suppose we have no choice.” Joe shoved a hand through his hair. “How much?”

  “Depends. The parts and resurfacing aren’t too expensive, but there’s a lot of labor involved. Probably run you around five hundred. Maybe a little more.” He looked him over doubtfully.

  Joe knew the mechanic was evaluating his ability to pay, and who could blame him? The scruffy beard Joe had affected and the worn clothes he had picked up at Goodwill had not been chosen to inspire financial confidence. If anything, the exact opposite.

  “I’ll need a deposit if you want me to order it.”

  “Sure.” Joe shifted Bobby and groped his back pocket for his wallet—but it wasn’t there.

  Frantically he searched his other pockets. No luck.

  “I’ll be right back.” He rushed to the truck and tore the cab apart. The only thing he found were a couple of stray twenty-dollar bills and some change he had tossed into the console earlier in the week. Desperately, he tried to remember the last time he had seen his wallet.

  Then it came to him—the truck stop where he had filled up with gasoline this morning.

  He had gone into the restroom, carrying Bobby in his arms. Two men had jostled him as they passed in the doorway. He had not felt the hand slip into his back pocket, but he would bet money—if he had any—that one of them had lifted his wallet. It had contained several hundred dollars in cash, a credit card, and the card accessing his bank accounts—his lifeline.

  He felt the blood drain from his face.

  “You okay?” the man called. “You don’t look so good.”

  “I think someone stole my money.” He ran a hand over his face and realized that he’d broken out into a cold sweat. “Could I leave my truck parked here until I can figure out what to do?”

  “I suppose. There’s a place in back I can store it for a couple

  of days.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  They maneuvered Joe’s vehicle to an empty spot behind the station while Bobby watched with wide, frightened eyes from the cab. His little forehead was furrowed with worry, his gaze glued to his father’s face. Joe wondered when it would end, when his son’s fear of letting him out of his sight would cease.

  After what Bobby had been through, maybe it never would.

  Bobby coughed—a wrenching sound that made Joe wince.

  “I thirsty, Daddy,” Bobby said.

  Joe set the emergency brake and pulled Bobby out of the truck, rubbing a smear of dirt off his son’s cheek with his thumb. He dredged a juice box from a cooler in the back. It floated, alone, in a puddle of lukewarm water. The ice had melted hours ago.

  He tore off the attached plastic straw and its cellophane, inserted it into the box, and handed the drink to his son, wondering when he could afford to buy more.

  As Bobby slurped the juice, Joe nervously dug at an itch beneath his chin. He hated growing a beard—but it helped to hide his identity.

  “Is there a really cheap place in town to stay?” he asked.

  The mechanic choked out a laugh. “There isn’t even an expensive place to stay in town right now. Let alone a cheap one.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t know?” The man stared at him in surprise. “I figured that’s why you were here. This is Swiss Festival weekend. Everything in town has been booked for weeks. The place is crawling with visitors.”

  “I’ve got some camping equipment. Is there a state park or public land close by?”

  “There’s a campground up ahead.” The man shrugged. “The Wally Byham Airstream Caravan Club is probably already set up there by now. They come every year.” He pointed down the road. “Turn left on Edelweiss and keep going. You’ll see it.”

  “How far?”

  “It’s a bit of a hike.” The mechanic hesitated. “I’d take you, but like I said, I’m kind of backed up here.”

  “Thanks anyway.” Joe set his son on the ground and pulled a small tent and a duffel bag out of the truck. “Come on, partner; we’re going camping.”

  “I wanna go home, Daddy.” Bobby’s voice was plaintive.

  “I’m sorry, son. We don’t have a choice.”

  The mechanic disappeared into the depths of his garage as Joe walked toward the outskirts of town with Bobby hanging onto his belt.

  He considered the odds of getting enough money together to fix his truck in the next couple of days. Without his credit cards and ID, they weren’t good. By now, his money would be enhancing someone else’s lifestyle, and his empty wallet was probably residing at the bottom of some dumpster. Fortunately, the code to his bank card would be near impossible for a common thief to break.

  What should he do?

  He turned onto Edelweiss, and what appeared to be miles and miles of cornfields lay ahead.

  “Carry me, Daddy,” Bobby demanded.

  Joe was already lugging a tent and a duffel bag. Carrying forty solid pounds of little boy would be difficult.

  “Daddy needs for you to walk, buddy.”

  Bobby, at the end of his emotional rope, plopped himself down on the asphalt road and began to cry.

  Fearful that a car might come, Joe scooped up Bobby. The child’s sobs stopped. The baggage, in addition to Bobby’s weight, tugged at Joe’s bad shoulder. Pain shot down his arm.

  So many operations over the past two years—all from the best surgeons in the world. None, however, had been good enough to turn him back into the well-oiled throwing machine he had once been.

  Instead of a car, once again he heard the clip-clop of horse hooves. Turning around, he saw the same old Amishman who had stopped to talk to him outside of town. Joe wondered what the old man must be thinking now—finding him and Bobby on foot.

  “Wie geht’s.” The man pulled back on the reins. “Hello. Where is your vehicle?”

  “It has a cough,” Bobby reported importantly.

  “Ach.” The old man’s eyes danced with amusement. “That is a pity. Perhaps you should buy a goot horse and buggy!” He slapped his knee and chuckled at his own joke.

  Joe shifted Bobby in his arms. “Right now, that sounds like a pretty good idea.”

  “Put the boovli—the little boy—in here.” The old man shoved a box of apples toward the back. “I can take you a piece further.”

  Gratefully, Joe eased Bobby onto the buggy seat and wedged himself in next, putting the tent on the floor and holding the duffel bag on his lap.

  “Giddyap!” the old man said. The horse took off with a start, throwing Joe against the back of the seat. He automatically reached for a safety belt before realizing the vehicle didn’t have one.

  He felt exposed and vulnerable riding inside the buggy. It swayed with every movement. Visions of that monster truck surfaced.

  “I am Eli Troyer. And this”—he nodded toward the sleek brown horse—“is Rosie.”

  The horse acknowledged the introduction by raising her tail and depositing a steaming pile of fresh manure on the road. She followed that by passing gas—loudly.

  Bobby was wide-eyed as he stared at the horse’s rear end.

  Eli seemed oblivious to Rosie’s faux pas. “My Rosie was a racehorse,” he said. “Can you not imagine her on the track as a young mare?”

  “I’m sure she was something else,” Joe said.

  He had visited a racetrack a few times with friends. Never had he dreamed that any of the powerful horseflesh there could end up pulling an Amish buggy.

  A low-slung red car zoomed past, rocking them
in its wake. Rosie shied and danced a few steps to the right, into the gravel.

  “You must get tired of all the tourists,” Joe said.

  “That was no tourist. That was a local.” Eli steered Rosie back onto the blacktop. “The tourists are usually polite and careful. They stay far behind us when they follow us up a hill. It is our locals who lose patience.” He clucked for Rosie to pick up her pace. “The worst are the ex-Amish who have chosen to ‘jump over’ into the Englisch world. Some act angry when they pass us. It is as though they are saying”—Eli raised a fist in the air and shook it to demonstrate—“ ‘Get out of my way, old man! I am so smart to leave the church!’ ”

  Eli pointed at the car disappearing down the road. “I know him.” His voice was filled with sadness. “He used to be one of our people.”

  Joe had no idea what to say. This wasn’t his battle.

  Eli changed the subject. “What is your boy’s name?”

  “This is Bobby, and I’m Joe Matthews.” Joe noticed that the buggy’s rocking motion was causing the tent to edge toward the open door. He secured it with his foot.

  “It is goot to meet you. Do you have shtamm—family—here?”

  “No,” Joe said. “No family here. The mechanic back in town said there’s a campground up ahead.”

  “Sure is. But it is not so big, and it will be full.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It is Swiss Festival time.”

  Everywhere Joe turned, it seemed he was hearing about the Swiss Festival. Obviously, he could not have come to this town at a worse time. Where would he and Bobby sleep tonight? Joe looked at the huge cornfield they were passing and wondered if the farmer who owned it would mind if a man and a small boy pitched a tent at its edge.

  A deep cough racked Bobby’s small body.

  “Your son is ill,” Eli pointed out.

  “He’s had a cough for a couple of days.”

  “And you have no vehicle and no place to stay?”

  “That’s pretty much it.”

  “Do you have geld—money?”

  Joe felt embarrassed, but it was a fair question, under the circumstances. “Not much.”

  “I know a place,” Eli said. “It is not far.”

  “A place to camp?”

  “No. A sick child should be under a roof at night. I will take you to my cousins. It will be all right. You will see. But first I need to make this delivery of apples.”

  Eli seemed so confident about everything being okay that Joe allowed himself to be lulled by the gentle rocking of the buggy. Bobby, enraptured by the novelty of riding behind a horse, sat quietly, pressed tightly against his side.

  After Eli dropped off the box of apples at a young Amish housewife’s home and accepted payment, he drove Rosie back past the garage where Joe’s broken truck sat. They made a couple of left turns and then crossed over a small creek before trotting past an IGA grocery store that had also been constructed to resemble a Swiss chalet. Buggies were tied up at hitching posts at the end of the parking lot. Across the street from the IGA was a large restaurant also constructed with a Swiss chalet appearance.

  “Beachy’s has goot food.” Eli pointed to the restaurant. “My granddaughter, Mabel, works there. She is a hard worker, that girl.”

  They turned onto Sugarcreek Road and the village fell away as rolling farm land once again took precedence. When they topped a hill, a large, two-story white farmhouse with a blue metal roof appeared.

  “My cousins have closed their inn,” Eli said, “but I think they will make room for a father and his little boy.”

  Joe noticed two tiny white cabins dotting the yard to the east. A much smaller replica of the larger house sat directly behind the farmhouse. A lone horse grazed in the pasture. Multicolored chickens pecked at the grass. It was a pretty scene, and his heart lifted at the sight.

  As they turned into the driveway, he noticed a shedlike structure directly to his right. It reminded him of an old-fashioned outhouse, but for the life of him, he couldn’t imagine why it would be there. Were the Amish so accommodating that they constructed toilets by the roadside for travelers?

  “You will be wondering what that little building is for, I betcha,” Eli said.

  “I was.”

  “It is a telephone booth.” Eli glanced at Joe’s face to gauge his reaction to this news. “We do not have telephones in our homes, but we have them nearby for emergencies.” He pulled back on the reins to slow Rosie as she trotted down the gravel driveway. “We are very modern around here.”

  Joe shot the man a sideways glance to see if he was joking and caught a telltale twinkle in Eli’s eye.

  From his perch beside the buggy’s door, he spied a weather-beaten sign lying on the ground near the fence. It read Sugar Haus Inn.

  “Wait here,” Eli said. “I will see if it is all right for you to stay.”

  A face flashed momentarily in the window of the residence as the buggy stopped. Eli secured the reins to a hitching post before disappearing into the house.

  “I’m hungry,” Bobby announced.

  Joe had a few snacks in his duffel bag, but he wanted to dole them out slowly, hoping to get his son through the evening if he could.

  “Let’s wait. I want to see if we’re going to be staying here or not.”

  Instead of hunger, worry gnawed at Joe’s belly. When he’d left Los Angeles, he had never, in his wildest dreams, imagined that he would end up stone-broke in a strange place without so much as a roof over his head.

  “My cousins have an empty cabin for you,” Eli called, waving them in from the porch. “Come.”

  Joe climbed from the buggy and dragged out his baggage, laying the tent and duffel on the ground before reaching for his son.

  “I must go,” Eli said as he came near and untied Rosie. “It is past time for milking. My cousins will take goot care of you and your child.”

  Eli made clicking sounds as he coaxed Rosie to back up. Then, with a wave, he drove down the driveway and out onto the road.

  Joe and Bobby mounted the steps. A short dumpling of a woman, neatly dressed in a wine-colored dress with a white cap and black apron, stood waiting for them. She bore the unmistakable features of Down syndrome.

  “I’m Anna!” she announced happily.

  “I’m Joe Matthews.” He laid his palm on Bobby’s head. “This little guy hiding behind my legs is my son, Bobby.”

  “Wie geht’s!” Anna squatted and peered around Joe’s knees at the little boy. “We have cookies!” she sang.

  Joe shifted beneath the weight of the gear he was carrying. “Eli said you have a cabin?”

  “Uh-huh.” She put her hands over her eyes, peeked through her fingers at Bobby, and said, “Boo!”

  She giggled while Bobby dug his face into his dad’s leg.

  Joe cleared his throat. “How much do you charge for your cabins, ma’am?”

  She stood up, frowned, and chewed her lower lip as she concentrated. Then her face lit up as she remembered. “Forty-five dollars.”

  “I don’t have quite that much. We don’t mind sleeping in

  our tent.”

  “You can stay anyway.” Anna’s almond-shaped eyes were as innocent and trusting as a child’s. “Bertha says.”

  “We only need a piece of level ground and access to a water spigot,” Joe said. “I’m not looking for a handout.”

  “Bertha says!” She frowned and stomped her foot but then brightened and stooped to the boy’s level. “We have kitties. Wanna see?”

  Bobby slid out from behind his father’s legs and nodded.

  “C’mon.” Anna slipped the little boy’s hand into her own.

  Bemused, Joe marveled as Bobby grabbed Anna’s hand and trotted off beside her. She was the first person Bobby had trusted since…since…

  After all these months, it was still difficult for him to place his lovely wife, Grace, and the word “death” together in the same thought. His mind shied away from it l
ike a skittish colt. As he walked toward the cabins, he tried to focus his thoughts entirely upon having miraculously found safe shelter for his son. For now.

  Chapter 2

  As Rachel pulled into her aunts’ driveway and climbed out of the squad car, her stomach growled in eager anticipation of Lydia’s cooking.

  On the way here, she had ticketed the Keim twins again. Those two boys had enthusiastically and single-mindedly embraced the worst of the Englisch world during their rumspringa.

  She knew that their parents, good solid Amish farmers, were ashamed of the boys. Their grandparents were, as well. And yet since the twins were not yet baptized believers, the church could not discipline them with threat of the Bann. The whole community was watching and shaking their heads with dismay as the boys went on their merry and destructive way.

  She couldn’t count the number of speeding tickets she had issued to them in the past two years. They had even spent several days in the county jail for drunk and disorderly conduct. Unfortunately, they had liked it there. Television and free meals. No farm chores. The county sheriff had released them early—not for good behavior, but because they were enjoying themselves too much.

  In some ways, she understood their need for rebellion. Had her father not left the Amish faith, she would have had to. She was not a woman who was cut out for wearing dresses 24/7 or obeying without question the stricter tenants of the Ordnung—the rules each church district set forth to govern the dress and lifestyle of its members.

  As much as she respected certain aspects of her Amish heritage, she could not imagine never having gone to high school or to the police academy. She could not imagine never watching a movie, listening to music, driving a car. Or carrying a gun.

  Fortunately, she had not had to be the one to make that break. Her father had made it for her when he had chosen not to join the church. Since she was considered part of the Englisch world instead of being a rebellious Amish woman in need of discipline, she could be welcomed into her aunts’ home without her aunts being admonished by the bishop.

  It was rare for an Amish family not to be large, but somehow big families had passed theirs by. Bertha, busy caring for others, had never married. Lydia, now widowed, had endured a succession of miscarriages, which had produced no living children. And Anna was, well—Anna was Anna.