An Uncommon Grace Read Online Free Page B

mice.
    “I think so,” Levi answered. “Did you see him?”
    “No.” Jesse’s head emerged beside Albert’s. “We only heard him. He was shouting at Daed. Maam told us to go hide in the hayloft until she came for us.”
    “Where is Sarah?” Levi looked around, but the little girl was nowhere to be seen.
    “She cried herself to sleep.” Albert lifted some hay, revealing his little sister. She was hiccuping in her sleep from having cried so long. “I tried, but I could not get her to stop.”
    Levi thought his heart would break as he lifted the little girl into his arms. Her precious face—usually wreathed in sunny smiles—was puffy and red.
    How terrifying it must have been for these children to be up here, listening to gunshots, not knowing whether to try to run for help or to stay hidden.
    “You did well, little brother—keeping our sister safe. No one could have stopped her tears.”
    “Did the bad man run away?” Jesse asked.
    “I think so.”
    Albert frowned. “Where are Daed and Maam ? Why did they not come out here, also?”
    “ Maam was hurt. She is on her way to the hospital.”
    “Did Daed go with her?”
    Levi tried to answer, but his throat closed up. He coughed to clear the tightness, and it took every bit of willpower he had to say the brutal words.
    “No. Daed ’s dead. The bad man shot him.”
    They were little boys. Nothing in their lives had prepared them to absorb this kind of information. They sat in stunned silence.
    “Who will take care of us?” Jesse’s freckled face was creased, already trying to puzzle things out.
    That was one question Levi had no trouble answering. “With God’s help, I will take care of you.”
    Sarah awoke at that moment, disoriented, and called out for her mother. When Levi told her she could not come for her—that Maam was in the hospital—it took a long time to calm her down. He wished he could take all three of the children into the house, feed them, and then rock each one of them in Maam ’s rocking chair. But he could not take them into the house without them seeing their murdered father, and that was definitely not a picture he wanted emblazoned upon their innocent minds.
    “There you are.” A middle-aged man in a sheriff’s uniform climbed off the hayloft ladder. He was a large man, and his hair was cut flat on top.
    The two younger boys shrank away from him. A wide-eyed Sarah buried her face in Levi’s shirt.
    “I’m Gerald Newsome—the county sheriff.” He squatted beside Levi. “I got a 911 call from the dispatcher. Then I got a call from your neighbor, Elizabeth Connor, telling me all about the trouble you people were having. I’ve already been inside the house, Levi. I’ve seen your stepfather. Another ambulance is on the way. Are all of you okay?”
    Little Sarah pulled away from Levi and took a good lookat the strange man. Her chin began to quiver. None of them had ever been this close to a lawman.
    “No,” Levi said. “We are not okay.”
    Sheriff Newsome shifted his weight to the other knee, picked up a piece of hay, and stuck it in his mouth. “You got a place you can go stay for a while? Get the children away from here?”
    “We have many within our church who would welcome us.”
    “Good.” Sheriff Newsome chewed the piece of hay for a few more seconds. “I hate to ask right now, but I have to. Did you or the children see anything?”
    “No. I was gone. The children heard the man’s voice, but they did not see him.”
    “Was he Englisch ?” The sheriff glanced at the two little boys.
    Both Jesse and Albert nodded vigorously.
    “What did he say?”
    “He wanted Daed ’s money from the auction,” Albert explained.
    The sheriff looked a question at Levi.
    “My stepfather had a two-year-old foal that brought a good price at the Mt. Hope auction yesterday,” Levi explained. “Many would have known.”
    “That would explain a robbery, but not a . . .”
    In his mind, Levi heard the word that the sheriff