Blood of the Prodigal. P. L. Gaus
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bishop’s duty,” he continued, “to know when to impose a ban. And it is his obligation to have the strength of will to do it.
“Sadly, there are those whose rebellion is so complete, or whose character is so disreputable, that a ban only drives them away. They become nearly irretrievable, Professor. They refuse to be restored to the community of faith. When this happens, the burden a bishop carries is terrible. Still, it is a necessary burden.
“In my years as bishop, I have imposed only three bans. Two were members of the church, and today, they are members again.”
Miller lapsed into silence. Branden looked over and noticed a sheen of tears in the bishop’s eyes. He allowed the bishop to remain with his thoughts, and then asked, “And the third?”
Miller groped for words. He seemed overwhelmed, vulnerable. He remained quiet for some time, enmeshed in a private, enduring sorrow. In time, and with effort, he bolstered himself and sat a little straighter. He took up the reins again and guided the horse back onto the lane, down a small hill, and around a sharp turn that carried them over a ford at a little creek. Turning onto a larger road, he headed the buggy out of the valley, toward the pond where Cal Troyer waited.
“The third one,” Bishop Miller said, “was a lad of eighteen, who was not yet even a member of the church. Had not yet taken his vows.”
“You put the ban on an outsider?” Branden asked.
“He was not an outsider, Professor. He was my son.”
The bishop bowed his head, unable to continue. Branden hid his surprise and waited silently for the bishop to explain.
“The ban has other purposes, Doktor Branden. The community of believers have vowed to be submissive to one another, and the ban protects them from the destructive influences of proud and vain individuals. From those who insist on asserting themselves. Of holding themselves above the welfare of the others. Above the whole community.
“Such disbelievers, Professor, work their greatest evil on the young ones. Especially those in the years of running wild, before they take the vows. It is the Rumschpringe. We allow it for every youth, because our vows, baptism, are meaningful only for those who have seen enough of the world to know that they have chosen the plain life because it is a better life.
“So we have the Rumschpringe. They seem to get the wildness out of their systems. Mostly, they run in small groups, called gangs, and one gang will be a little more crazy than another. They are people, Professor, with all the flaws of any people, anywhere. And without the strong influence of the church, they make mistakes. I know you’ve lived among us long enough to understand that we are not saints, and that our young people can cause a lot of problems in their years of running around wild.
“Of all these people, my son was the worst. There was drugs, whiskey, sex. More self-assertive pride than we have ever seen in one person. His rebellion was so intolerable that he was starting to draw the wilder gangs away. Young people who were wild in their own right, but would have come home, in time, to their places in the faith. He also had a bad influence on young people from other districts. Those who made it to the town bars. I started to get visits from other bishops.
“So, for the good of the district and for the sake of the young people, I put the ban on my own son, so that those who knew they would eventually be coming home would not be drawn too much away by his example. My son would have nothing to do with his family, and I cast him out for the sake of the others. From that generation, we have lost only two. My son and a girl from another district, who ran with him.
“After that, he got worse. I believe he was what you call ‘hooked’ on whiskey. He lived with an English girl who poisoned any remaining hope he ever had of coming home. Some say I sacrificed my son only to save the others. But I thought the ban would bring him to his senses. Draw him back to us.
“Some have said it was cruel. In truth it was harder on my wife and me than anyone can know. She never speaks of it now, but I find her weeping sometimes when she prays. And I have prayed for him too, without failing, in all these years. We pray that to have cast him out will one day bring him home to us. Every day, Professor, we pray for his return. We always will. We never lose hope. I have even been praying for him now, as we have traveled together.”
Branden looked over at the bishop and watched him snap his whip to bring the horse to a brisk pace. The look on his face made it plain that he did not intend to linger in the memories of bygone years. Having said what needed to be said so that Branden would understand, he now evidently considered the matter closed.
“My son will not be lost forever,” he declared. “Only God can understand the reasons for the ban. And only God can restore my son to us. His sinfulness endangered us all. Now it endangers my grandson, too.
“It is our son, Professor, who has the boy. Jonah, who has been lost to us all these years, has our grandson.”
Reaching beneath his vest, he drew out a carefully folded note and handed it over without comment. Branden opened it, read it, refolded it, and handed it back to the bishop. The bishop gestured for him to keep it.
“My son intends to keep Jeremiah for the summer, but he does not know the danger,” Miller said. “He never really did. The danger of the world. Less than a month remains now, and my son does not know as much as he thinks he does.”
“Why would your son take one of your grandsons?” Branden asked.
“Because he is the boy’s father.”
Branden’s eyebrows lifted with surprise.
“After the ban, my son lived in town with a wretched woman he had met in the bars. At least he lived with her when he wasn’t in jail.
“Then, apparently, he left town altogether. At least we have heard nothing of him since then, up until he left this note. After he had been gone several months, Jeremiah’s mother gave birth, and we have pretty much raised the boy since he was a few months old.”
“And the boy’s mother?”
“Dead,” the bishop said curtly.
Branden waited for an explanation. When it became clear that no further details would be forthcoming, he tried another tack.
“You put the ban on Jonah when he was eighteen?” Branden asked.
“Thereabouts,” Miller said.
“And he ran with a wild crowd living in town?”
“And in jail.”
“Then, for all you know, he just moved out and went away. Nothing from him in those years?”
“Nothing until about a month ago, when he put that note in our mailbox and took Jeremiah away.”
“Then you want us to help you find Jonah?”
“Not so much my son. It is Jeremiah we seek. But with restrictions, Professor.”
Urgently, then, as they finished their drive back to the pond, the bishop explained his restrictions. The terms under which they could accept his help. The extraordinary fact that they had decided to ask any Englisher for help at all.
When they returned to the pond, the bishop nodded approval to Cal Troyer, shook Branden’s hand warmly, whipped his horse back up the lane, and headed the buggy home.
HIS TRIP had been successful, the bishop mused. The professor and the pastor would help. And the professor had given his word. He would abide by the deacons’ restrictions.
There would surely be great risk for the district, not to mention for the boy. But the deacons had agreed. The bishop consoled himself again with an urgent prayer. This was the only way. Sad, he thought, what assurances a bishop needs in these perverse times. In this perverse world.
Once, life had seemed flawlessly simple. As it was written, so it had always been. Their lives need never change. But now, there was the ever-clamoring pressure from the outsiders. First it had been the land. Always scarcer, and