The Face of Heaven Read Online Free PDF

and into the wagon.” The men dragged Charlie and Moses through the doorway in chains. Charlie glanced at Lyndel with a look she knew she could never erase. Nathaniel, finally coming to himself, stood to his feet.
    The leader gripped his rifle more tightly. “Am I gonna have more trouble from you?”
    “No, you’re not,” Sheriff Jackson finally spoke up, “because you’re not going to be here. You’ve got what’s yours. Now get out and get back to Virginia.”
    “These people broke the law, sheriff. Not Virginia law. Federal law.”
    “Get going and get across the state line before the folk in Elizabethtown wake up. A lot of them might take exception to slave hunters roaming about in their midst. They have more guns than you do and they won’t treat you as gently as these Amish folk have.”
    “Is that a fact?” The leader nodded to himself. “I guess it’s gettin’ close to the time Virginia joins in with Mississippi and Texas and Alabama and has its own country. Yes, I reckon it’s long past time.” He bent his head. “Thank you kindly for your hospitality. Come and visit the Hargrove Plantation sometime and we’ll see if we can’t do you one better.”
    He left, and Lyndel followed Nathaniel and Levi and the pastorsout onto the porch. The wagon of slave hunters was already moving down the lane to the main road. Moses and Charlie sat in the middle, flames from the torches lighting their faces. Moses had an expression like stone. Charlie was broken, his cheeks wet, holding a hand to his side. In a few minutes the wagon was no more than half a dozen torches floating in the darkness.
    “We failed them,” said Nathaniel in a quiet voice. “We had them under our protection and we let the slave hunters drag them away.”
    Sheriff Jackson stepped out onto the porch. “It was the law, Mr. King.”
    “God’s law or man’s law?”
    “Washington’s law. The Supreme Court’s law.”
    “Then perhaps it is time we change the law.”
    “Oh? And how do you plan on doing that, young man?”
    But Nathaniel was staring at the pastors. “You are the leaders of the church. Men chosen by God. Yet you did nothing. Nothing.”
    Samuel Eby bristled. “We are people of peace, not confrontation.”
    “You could not even attempt to block their path? To hold the bedroom door shut?”
    “That is not our way. You yourself overstepped your bounds and your calling as an Amish man.”
    “Did I?” Nathaniel looked around him and his eyes rested on Lyndel. “Did I, Miss Keim?” He stared at Levi. “Did I, Levi Keim?” Then his eyes fell on Abraham Yoder. “Did I overstep my bounds, Pastor Yoder?”
    No one responded. Nathaniel walked slowly down the porch steps to the ground and made his way to his carriage. He climbed painfully into the driver’s seat in a way that made Lyndel want to rush out and help him but she knew he wouldn’t want that. He glanced over at them as he flicked the reins in his hands. “We are not much like Jesus in the end, are we? He cleared the temple. He made a whip. We are not able to even clear the temple of Lancaster County of these men-stealers. Because of our weakness, men like Moses and Charlie pay with their freedom and their blood.”
    His carriage began to roll out of the yard. Lyndel realized that nowwas the time to tell him what she thought of the words he had said at the table and the stand he had made at the staircase. Tomorrow would not do and a week from now would be too late. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter to him, but it mattered to her. Surprising herself as well as the others she lifted the hem of her dress and flew down the steps and across the yard to the carriage. Nathaniel saw her running and reined back.
    “Lyndel,” he said, “what are you doing?”
    She rested her hand on the side of the driver’s seat. “I just wanted you to know I heard what you said at the meeting. Everything you said was right. Yes, it was right. And what you tried to do at the staircase