Finding Mercy Read Free Page A

Barbara in the face and she scooted back in her chair.
    “I know it won’t be easy to pretend a stranger is part of the family,” Mr. Branin said. “But when the bishop brought me here a while ago in his buggy, he assured me that you and your people will take good care of this man. I must admit this is a radical placement for a witness, and I want to assure you that Andrew Lantz has done nothing wrong. Sometimes this program is forced to protect criminals who are informing on worse criminals, but that is not the case here. Andrew is helping our country at great risk to himself—a risk we will eliminate by hiding him here in a world so different from his own. Among your people, we appreciate that even the photographing of faces is not permitted.”
    “And,” Daad said, “the new owner who bought the county newspaper, so far at least, is not like those big newspaper people, always poking into our privacy.”
    “Good,” Mr. Branin went on. “And I assure you, I’ll make a visit every once in a while.” He looked from face to face and, evidently, since he hadn’t been introduced to Ella before, nodded at her. “Sometimes you may be aware of my presence, but sometimes not.”
    Ella thought that sounded funny. Was this man going to hide in haystacks or up on the hill above her field? She sure didn’t need someone spying on her, especially if she had to go off alone. She took a drink of iced tea and tucked into her piece of pie. For a moment, silence descended, but for the clink of forks on plates and Aaron’s fidgeting and shuffling his big feet under the table.
    “Someone’s going to have to tell Seth,” Ella said, her pie halfway to her mouth.
    “I told him and Hannah first,” Daad said. “They will keep Andrew’s secret too.”
    “But the others,” she plunged on, ignoring Mr. Branin’s frown, “the neighbors, the church…”
    “We have been helped, and we will help in turn,” Daad said. “We will be the Good Samaritan to this wounded man.”
    This wounded man? Ella thought. She’d sure like to know more about what had happened to the outsider they were taking in.
    * * *
    Bishop Esh’s words seemed to cut to the core of things, something Alex had always admired in mentors and bosses, even Marv, whom he was going to betray—as his boss had betrayed everyone who’d trusted him and SkyBound.
    “It’s like you been banned from your people for a while, and we understand that.” The old man went on, “And to tell the truth as you have about a sinner, at cost to your own safety—that is also why I said yes to the witness protection people. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside the still waters… that is why too. As the Lord shelters us, we ought to shelter others.”
    Alex could only nod. He kept telling himself he was Andrew Lantz now, the Pennsylvania cousin of the family he would stay with and was about to meet. Gerald Branin, the WITSEC Deputy Marshal Inspector in charge of his case, had grilled him about his fake background but had not told him much about the Amish family who would take him in until the case came up in federal court in Manhattan. Five children, he’d been told, four of them still at home. As an only child, that would be a challenge, but maybe it could help to keep him from missing his friends so much. What he wouldn’t give for a good, noisy bar crawl with his buds right now.
    Again he surveyed the rolling hills with fertile fields of nearly knee-high corn guarded by tidy farms and barns. It was pretty, he had to admit that, like stepping back into a Currier & Ives painting. He watched other buggies pass with a nod or a wave on this narrow road. Everyone seemed to know the bishop’s buggy—which looked like all the rest to him—and many called out a greeting in the German dialect.
    When the bishop turned the buggy down a long lane, Alex saw a pale purple field of flowers marching partway up a high hill. The unearthly beauty of that—and that