DC03 - Though Mountains Fall by Dale Cramer Read Free Book Online Page B

valley.
    Halfway through the service, while John Hershberger was reading aloud from the Bible, all their questions were answered. Hershberger paused to take a breath, and into the little silence fell the distant but unmistakable echo of a gunshot.
    Heads turned, and the men started to rise. Every one of the men, the heads of household, scrambled outside as quickly as they could. Hershberger stopped reading, closed the Bible and started after them. He hadn’t even reached the door when another shot rang out, this time closer.
    Now even women and children got up and surged toward the door to see what was happening. Rachel elbowed her way to the front of the crowd. The fathers stood in a cluster at the edge of Caleb’s field, watching the road to the west.
    It was Jake, on horseback, charging hard across the fields with a rifle in his hands, the barrel pointed straight up in the air. The gunshots were warnings. Jake was sounding an alarm. He shouted something, over and over, and the wind finally carried his words to her.
    “They’re coming!”

    Caleb stood in the edge of his field, his heart pounding.
    “We should go,” Ira Shrock said, his voice high-pitched and full of angst. “Most of us came on foot, Caleb. It will take time to get back to our houses and hitch up. Oh, this couldn’t have come at a worse time!”
    “Wait,” Caleb said. “Let’s see what Jake has to say.”
    Jake made a beeline across the field, sliding the rifle into its scabbard. He pulled up right in front of them, his horse prancing sideways.
    “They’re coming! Bandits. I counted maybe thirty-five of them.”
    “How long before they get here?” Caleb asked.
    “Not long. Maybe ten minutes. I’m sorry, they came from a different trail than what I expected and I didn’t see them until they were only a few miles away.”
    Caleb gave orders, scattering the men. Most of them bolted away on foot while one or two borrowed horses from Caleb’s corral and took off bareback.
    Caleb went up to the crowd of women and children gathered by the barn.
    “An army of bandits is coming,” he told them, perhaps a little too bluntly. The women gasped and clutched at each other. He raised his hands, trying to calm them.
    “The men will bring the buggies. Go down to the road as quickly as you can and wait for them. We will all flee to the hacienda, where we’ll be safe.”
    Turning away, he called to his son. “Harvey, the surrey won’t hold our whole family. Get a team of Belgians and we’ll hitch the wagon.” He could ill afford to lose his draft horses anyway.
    Ten minutes later a line of buggies and hacks and wagonsconverged in the road in front of Caleb’s farm, and a caravan began slowly trundling out of the valley to the east.
    Caleb brought up the rear in his farm wagon. He’d gone no more than a mile when Harvey, standing behind him, tapped his shoulder and said, “I see them.”
    Caleb looked back. At the far end of the valley a line of men on horseback charged down the hill and headed for the nearest farmhouse—Levi and Emma’s place. He could hear the faint pop of pistols as they stormed the house and barn, slaughtering cattle and horses.
    Caleb snapped the reins, urging his draft horses into a trot as he shouted to the buggy ahead of him. The warning was passed up the line and everyone picked up the pace.
    When Caleb looked back again he could see a plume of smoke trailing from the roof of Levi’s barn, but that wasn’t the worst of it. El Pantera had apparently spotted the escaping Amish. His army had regrouped and turned toward the wagon train. Now they were galloping flat out in pursuit.
    By then the caravan had made it past the crossroads, but they were still a mile from the gates of the hacienda—and the bandits were gaining on them. It was going to be close.

    Standing on the portico of the old Catholic church in her antique Mexican wedding dress, Miriam’s emotions warred against one another. She was giddy with joy over