Paradise Valley (Large Print)

Paradise Valley

Caleb took a deep breath and tried to steady his shaking hands. He turned to check on Rachel. She was still crying, but Miriam had already helped her pin her hair up and cover it with the kapp.

He leaned down and laid a gentle hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

Rachel looked up from her perch on the food box and shook her head. “No, Dat, I am not hurt.”

He glanced over the pile of corn in the back of the wagon. They may have lost a bushel or two, but it could have been worse. Much worse.

A little ways down the road, after Caleb had calmed down, he said to Domingo in High German, “I don’t understand what happened back there.”

Keeping his eyes on the road ahead, Domingo said, “These men are mercenaries who rode with the División del Norte— Pancho Villa’s army. Their leader is a very dangerous man. He is a full-blooded Nahua and a great warrior, but he is a man with no conscience. Even his own people fear him. They call him El Pantera.”

“You know him?”

“Jah—or at least I know about him. My father knew him well. They fought together at the battle of Zacatecas, the fiercest battleof the war. There is a rumor that my father fell because El Pantera abandoned him at the wrong time. My father, too, was a great warrior.”

Caleb did not know quite how to answer this without offending the memory of Domingo’s warrior father, but in the end, as always with Caleb, the truth won out.

“Our people do not fight,” Caleb said evenly. “We will not take up arms against men, and we do not honor warriors. We believe it is wrong to kill.”

Domingo raised an eyebrow and his head backed away. “You don’t fight?”

“No. We are Amish,” Caleb said.

“Amish. Is that your tribe?”

“In a way, jah. We are plain folk. We live simply, in a way that honors Gott.”

“So, this Amish . . . it is a religion?”

“Jah, but also a way of life.”

“This is why the women dress the way they do?” Domingo’s forefinger circled his head, a reference to the white kapps the women wore.

“Jah. The men, too,” Caleb added, thumbing his suspenders.

“And you don’t believe in fighting, no matter what.”

“No.”

Domingo rolled his eyes. “Well then, I hope your god is very strong, because if he is not, you won’t last long in Mexico. If it weren’t for a warrior, you might be dead already.”

From Paradise Valley by Dale Cramer.
Copyright © 2011 Dale Cramer
Published by Bethany House Publishers, a division of Baker Publishing Group.