Just Plain Pickled to Death Read online

  “Yah, but from what I heard, the service was for both mother and daughter. Imagine that, and the mother up in the Poconos having a good time.”

  “You don’t know that, Freni. Has anyone ever heard from Rebecca since then?”

  “Not a peep.”

  “And her husband, Jonas? What happened to him?”

  She shrugged. “The police questioned him. Several times even, but they let him go. I think I heard once that he lives in Florida now.”

  I would have pressed her for even more details of that fateful summer, but Leah had awakened from her nap and, smelling food, had homed straight in on the kitchen.

  The two older women got immediately embroiled in a polite but heavy conversation on the right way to make a tongue sandwich. Actually, they may have quarreled, but with the two of them it’s hard to tell. At any rate, while they were thus engaged, I took my tongue and got out of there.

  Chapter Seven

  It was another perfect day. Lying as it does in a mountain valley, Hernia tends toward cloudy weather. Not so this Saturday afternoon. There weren’t even enough wisps to wind around one cotton candy stick. The temperature was perfect too—somewhere in the mid-seventies.

  I took the same path I had taken on that fateful day when I fell in love with my Pooky Bear. The path led out of my driveway, across Hertzler Lane, and over a split rail fence. From there it wound through a lush green pasture—carefully avoiding the cow pies—to the banks of Miller’s Pond. This day, however, I extended the path to the far side of the pasture and into the Miller family farmyard.

  Since Aaron and his dad were out shopping, there was no one around except for the cows, an assortment of barn cats, and two or three million sparrows. It was both peaceful and noisy.

  I sat on Aaron’s front steps for a few minutes, imagining what it would have been like to be mistress of that domain. It would never be, of course. Aaron and I had decided that we would make the PennDutch our home, although he would continue to give his father a hand with the farm. Eventually the farm would be sold and Aaron would devote his time to helping me run the inn. This was not my idea, mind you. Aaron is not buggy-whipped, no matter what you’re thinking.

  While I was sitting there, a large female cat, misnamed Cyrus, jumped into my lap and began twitching her tail nastily in my face. I pushed her off, but she jumped right back up. Before I could push her off again, she started yowling seductively, kneading my thighs with her front paws. Immediately three male cats jumped onto the porch and approached Cyrus and me with great enthusiasm. It was all too horrible for words.

  “Get off, Rahab!” I shouted, standing up.

  But Cyrus didn’t seem to mind being called a harlot, and she didn’t get off. She had dug her nails into my denim skirt and, whether she intended to do so or not, had become part of my apparel. Unless you’ve tried, you have no idea how hard it is to dislodge a cat’s claws from fabric. I tried mightily, but it was no use.

  There was only one option that I could think of, and that was the garden hose (taking off my skirt and walking home in my Hanes Her Way was never an option). Cyrus was heavy, and I staggered off the porch trailed by three horny, howling toms. Had Aaron or his father been home to see the strange procession, I’m sure there never would have been a wedding.

  Fortunately the water did the trick, and Cyrus departed my denim, but not without first inflicting some nasty scratches—narrowly missing places my mama didn’t have names for. Needless to say, I had to get drenched in the process, and while the temperature may have been perfect for walking, it wasn’t too pleasant for water activities. Therefore I will claim distraction as a valid excuse when I confess that out of the corner of my left eye I saw something bigger than a cat dart toward the barn, but I could not identify it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a cow. Cows don’t dart.

  I trotted over to the barn, which was open, and peered inside. Approximately half of the floor space was empty save for a rather thick layer of loose hay and dust. Mama would have called it “strubbly,” the Amish word for messy. On the other side of the barn, a jumble of hay bales extended almost halfway up to the rafters. On top of the bales a dozen cats lounged. They regarded me indolently.

  “Okay, so I’m imagining things,” I said aloud. “I’m losing my marbles with only a week left before my wedding.”

  Behind me I heard a low, jarring thump. I whirled around, but nobody was there. I may as well confess that I screamed nonetheless. The echo of my voice in the half-empty barn gave me the heebie-jeebies, and I fled out into the warm sunshine.

  I am not a superstitious person, mind you, but I do believe in ghosts. I know, good Mennonites eschew such beliefs, but I guess my devotion to my faith will just have to remain suspect. I believe in ghosts because I have seen one. The specter I saw was my Grandma Yoder, and no one—not even my pastor—can tell me I didn’t. And I didn’t see Grandma just out of the corner of my eye either. I saw her, clear as day, in the bed in which she died— a week after she was buried. So real was Grandma that had I sat on the bed next to her, she would have snapped at me for messing up the covers.

  Maybe it’s because I live in a predominantly cloudy climate, but I think sunshine can heal just about anything. As my skirt dried, my cowardice vanished, and within twenty minutes I was ready for anything—except another close encounter with Cyrus. It was in this moment of sun-charged energy that I forgot my limitations and recklessly set out to investigate the Miller family root cellar. It was from there that the barrel of kraut containing Sarah Weaver had come.

  This root cellar is a subterranean room with stone walls and heavy wooden doors that open upward and outward. It adjoins the foundation of the house, on the north side, and there is a narrow door that leads from it into the basement proper. Aaron says that visitors from the Midwest have compared the cellar to a tornado shelter. Having never been to the Midwest, I wouldn’t know. I can only hope Midwestern children have as much fun playing in their storm cellars as Aaron and I did in his root cellar (when we were kids, I mean).

  If I remembered correctly, the Millers kept a padlock in the door hasp, but they never locked it. Aaron said there was no need to, since the back door of the house was never locked anyway. The padlock, like the sometimes locked front door, was just for show. Now, however, the lock was gone altogether, no doubt in the possession of the maniac mantis, Melvin.

  I tugged on one of the heavy doors. It seemed stuck at first, and then it fairly flew into my face, knocking me over backward. It was just as well that I was sitting down, because I would have sat down just as hard when I saw that face grinning up at me.

  The face belonged to Uncle Elias Fike, Auntie Magdalena’s husband. “Whoa! Didn’t mean for that to happen!” it said.

  I struggled for several minutes to catch my breath. My speaking voice came back a few seconds after that. I will edit those first words out of my mouth, on the chance that some of you still have standards. I must admit—and shamefully so—that mine had been gradually slipping, thanks to Susannah. She knows foul words for things Mama didn’t even know existed.

  “Hey, I said I was sorry,” Elias repeated. “You gave me a quite a start as well. What are you doing here?”

  “Me? I’m not the one caught snooping in someone else’s cellar, am I?”

  He had the nerve to smile. “No? Then why are we having this conversation?”

  “Beats me. I’m not actually in the cellar, am I?”

  “Well, I’m a member of the family, so I have a right to be here.”

  “You’re only connected by marriage, which is exactly what I’ll be too, come next Saturday. So don’t think you’re one up in the rights department.”

  He bowed slightly. “In that case, by all means come on down. But there’s nothing down here worth seeing.”

  “Says who?”

  “Look for yourself.”

  “What’s in those barrels?”

  “Sauerkraut, cider, and pickles. Of course, now it will spoil because someone
has pried open the tops.”

  “Melvin.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Our local constable.” Would that he were. The worst English constable would have it hands down over Melvin when it came to brains. Or personality, for that matter. No, if Melvin were British, he’d be a member of the royal family.

  “You never did say what you are doing here. Don’t you have a root cellar of your own?”

  “My mother was color-blind,” I said.

  “What?”

  It was a trick I learned from Susannah. When cornered, divert the enemy’s attention and then sneak away. So to speak.

  “I said my mother was color-blind.”

  “I heard what you said. What’s it supposed to mean?”

  He had confused me, possibly a diversionary plan of his own. “It means what it means. She was, and I’m not.”

  “Are you saying your mother wasn’t a racist, but you are?”

  “What?”

  “Because if it bothers you to marry into a family with an African American member, maybe you should think again. I’ve been married to Magdalena for fifty-two years, and I don’t plan to get a divorce anytime soon.”

  I stared openmouthed long enough to collect a snootful of flies before the cerebral lightning hit. Fortunately there was a light breeze, which kept insects at bay.

  “I meant color blindness literally. My mama couldn’t tell blue from purple, or green from brown. It’s a very rare condition in women, you know, but it does happen. Since Mama almost always wore navy or black, it didn’t matter much in clothes, but I used to have to help her choose her embroidery thread.”

  “So?”

  “So, your left sock is brown, your right sock is green.”

  He had a deep, hearty laugh. “Yeah, well, if my wife would sort them, it wouldn’t happen so much.”

  “You could learn to sort them yourself. She could mark the pair with letters or numbers and then you could sort them when you took them out of the dryer. You do your own laundry, don’t you?”

  “Poor Aaron,” he muttered, shaking his head.

  “What?”

  He sprinted up the stone steps, which surprised me. “I said, ‘Poor Aaron.’ It’s not going to be fun hauling all those barrels up here just to throw it all away.”

  I looked him over closely. “You’re pretty fast on your feet, you know.”

  “You mean, for a man my age, don’t you?” He laughed.

  “Were you in the barn earlier?”

  “Earlier when? I’ve been in that barn lots of times. I’m already family, remember?”

  I swallowed my irritation, since it had no calories. “Earlier this afternoon. Like just a few minutes ago.”

  “No. No offense, but I got bored hanging around at your place and wandered on over here. Decided to check out the root cellar—call it morbid curiosity if you will—but I had no reason to mess with the barn. Why? Is something wrong with it?”

  “Very funny. Do you mind telling me why you had the cellar doors closed when you were in it? Or is this something I don’t want to know?”

  “You’re a gas, Miss Yoder, you know that?”

  “You may call me Ethel, then,” I said drily.

  “Ha, ha. Well, if you must know, I didn’t close the doors. They fell. Nearly hit me on the head. I could have been the second corpse carried up these stairs.”

  That certainly explained the thump I’d heard when I was in the barn. As for the darter—well, I would have to keep that appointment with my optometrist this year. When you have to hold the hymnbook further away than your arm can reach, your body is telling you something.

  I made a dignified retreat and retraced my steps across the pasture. At least I thought I had.

  “Ach, du heimer,” Freni gasped when I walked in the back door. “What is that smell?”

  I glanced down to see that one of my steps had been ill-placed.

  Chapter Eight

  “How did lunch go over?” I asked Freni.

  “Ach, that Leah! Just like a Troyer to want mustard on a tongue sandwich.”

  “She was born a Miller,” I reminded her. “And what’s wrong with mustard?”

  “On fruit?” she asked incredulously.

  I fled the kitchen before she could tell me her rationale.

  Three of the aunties were still in the dining room. However, they weren’t eating—they were quilting. I keep a quilt-in-progress stretched out on a frame in one corner of the room and allow my guests to try their hand at the craft. Actually, I encourage them to do so. Amish and Mennonite quilts, even poorly made ones, are very popular with tourists. As long as machines rule the world, “handmade” items will continue to fetch a premium.

  “Everything all right?” I asked graciously.

  Auntie Veronica’s nose rose and twitched a few times.

  “You tell us,” Auntie Leah boomed.

  “I left my shoes on the back porch,” I said quickly. “And that’s not what I was talking about.”

  I caught Veronica stealing a glance at her own tiny tootsies. “Well, if you were asking about our rooms,” she said, “I’d have to say no.”

  “Sorry, dear, but you’re not getting mine. We’ve already been over that,” I said for the benefit of the other two.

  “You see what I mean?” she said to her sisters. She turned to me. “There has been no maid service yet today, Magdalena. Are you going to make poor little Aaron change my sheets again?”

  I smiled patiently. “Of course not, dear. For the next week we’re all on the ALPO plan. You get to do your own room. And cheer up. Usually I charge extra for that, but on account of you’re family, this time I won’t.”

  Veronica did not beam with gratitude. “I would have stayed in a hotel, you know, but Van Doren’s Guide to Gracious Living doesn’t list a five-star establishment for Bedford County.”

  “Well!” I said. What else could I say? Robert Van Doren had not been amused by the ALPO plan, and when I shut off the hot water in the middle of one of his twenty-minute showers, he was possibly even irritated.

  “I would have stayed in any hotel,” Leah barked, “except that the Bottomless Pit has drained me dry again.”

  “The Bottomless Pit?” I asked politely.

  Six pairs of eyes narrowed. “Family business,” Veronica hissed.

  I started to leave.

  “Kissed a bitch,” my namesake whimpered.

  I ran that through my brain until it came out “missed a stitch.” Then I generously showed her how to rectify the problem, complimented them all, and set off in search of Auntie Lizzie, the sane one.

  She wasn’t in the parlor, but all four uncles were. They were sprawled out and snoring like overslopped hogs—except that hogs don’t wear suits and ties eighteen hours a day. It surprised me to see Elias among them. I hadn’t dawdled much on the way home, and the pasture route is a lot shorter than using the lane. Still, he appeared not only to have beaten me back but to have fallen into a deep sleep as well. No doubt it had something to do with the water back in St. Louis.

  I silently retraced my steps, and was just reaching for the doorknob when I felt something brush against my skirt. Actually—and it pains me to say this—it felt like something pinched me on my left buttock. I glanced behind me, and while it may have been only my imagination, it appeared to me that Uncle Rudy’s left arm was not where it had been a moment before. He, however, was still snoring as loudly, if not louder, than the others.

  “Do that again, buster, and you’ll have to use your toes to help you count,” I whispered. I maintain that I am a nonviolent person, and when I closed the parlor door behind me, I put that ugly scene right out of my mind.

  I found Lizzie on the front porch, in one of the white wicker rockers I put out seasonally. She had commandeered a little wicker table and was doing her nails. Frankly, I was shocked. She was the very first Mennonite I’d seen to be thus engaged. Susannah, who barely qualifies as a lapsed Presbyterian, doesn’
t count.

  I would have told Lizzie that nail polish drew unwanted attention to her huge hands, but she seemed glad for my company, so I curbed my tongue.

  “Who or what is the Bottomless Pit?” I asked pleasantly.

  Her eyes narrowed as well. “Family business, dear.”

  “Well, I am practically family, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact you are. But you really don’t want to know any sooner than you have to. Trust me.”

  I nodded. I would simply ask Freni. She would know. I could afford to switch the subject.

  “Nice out here today, isn’t it?”

  “I love this place,” she agreed enthusiastically.

  “Thank you. I’m rather fond of it myself.”

  “Of course! No, what I meant was I love Hernia. It’s so peaceful here.”

  “Hernia? Is Du Bois a big city?”

  She had a cultivated laugh, the kind you would expect from a woman with platinum hair. “Compared to Hernia, it is. God, I miss it here.”

  I was both stunned and thrilled. I had never known a Mennonite woman—one still active in her church—who used the name of our creator casually like that in a sentence. I didn’t approve, mind you, but it excited me to think that there was another way of looking at things besides my own, and besides that of those folks who were obviously headed for hell in a hand basket. Like the Presbyterians and the Methodists.

  “I’ve always wanted to travel,” I said wistfully. “This year I got to go to Farmersburg, Ohio, but that’s it. And I’ve never lived anyplace else.”

  “Count your blessings.”

  That was easy for her to say. She was polishing the nails on her right hand, and her left hand wasn’t even trembling. Clearly, she felt no wrong. Heaven and nail polish too! One couldn’t get any more blessed than that.

  “If you like it here so much, why did you leave? Was it Uncle Manasses’s job?”

  She gave me a queer look. “His job?”

  “Just guessing.”

  “You guessed right. Manny was a tobacco salesman. He used to travel all the time, so we could have made his base of operations anywhere. But you know how folks around here are.”