Snow K.Z. - A Hole In God's Pocket.pdf

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HoleinGod’sPocket | K.Z. Snow
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We alone, a little flock,
The few who still remain,
Are exiles wandering through the land
In sorrow and in pain...
We wander in the forests dark
With dogs upon our track,
And like the captive, silent lamb
Men bring us, prisoners, back.
They point to us, amid the throng,
And with their taunts offend,
And long to let the sharpened ax
On heretics descend.
~ Amish hymn from the Ausbund
HoleinGod’sPocket | K.Z. Snow
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Prologue
August, Five Years Ago
T HEY gawked, the man and woman in the purplish car that
had slowed to a crawl. Billowing dust followed the vehicle
like a rusty shadow.
Faron boldly met the couple’s curious gazes. His two
sisters, properly demure, turned down their heads and
lowered their eyes, unable to hide beneath their small white
bonnets.
Can’t be from around here , Faron thought, watching the
car as it picked up speed. The locals were used to seeing
Amish, didn’t treat them like a sight rarer than a solar
eclipse.
He gently steered his sisters to the edge of the dirt road.
A startled frog leaped into the overgrown drainage ditch.
Miriam waved the remnants of airborne grit away from her
face. Younger Sarah, playing copycat, did the same.
The car disappeared over the hill Faron and the girls
had recently descended. Another hill, gently lifting the
ribbon of road, lay ahead. No longer weighted by the stares
of the tourists, Miriam’s eyes scanned the spectacle of
cattails that stretched beyond the ditch. Sarah, swinging her
gathering basket, skipped ahead.
Up the next rise they trudged, woods thickening as the
HoleinGod’sPocket | K.Z. Snow
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marshland fell away. The sky, a clean blue swatch overhead,
reminded Faron of shirts and dresses hanging from his
mother’s laundry line. Birds chirped and sang. Occasionally,
a squirrel chattered.
It was pretty and peaceful, this fecund, rolling land, and
easy to take for granted. Would it be just as easy to leave
behind?
A crow cawedwhy did crows always sound vexed?
before it took flight. Faron watched its beating wings tear
black holes in the sky.
“Will you be going out tonight?” Miriam asked, her
basket snug in the crook of one arm.
“No. I’m staying home.”
“Again?”
“Yes. I have things to do this weekend. I need to get to
bed early.”
Miriam brushed at the short sleeves of her dress, the
long drape of her smock-like apron. She tilted a shy smile
and veiled glance at her brother. “Have you met a girl you
like?”
Faron understood the implication: that he’d paired up
with someone special, and if he couldn’t be with her, he
preferred being alone. “Not yet.”
“You might have a better chance if you stayed for
Sunday lunch and singings. I’ve seen at least three girls
looking at you before and after church.”
“That’ll only mean something when you see me looking
back.”
Miriam returned her brother’s wan smile. “Don’t feel
discouraged. Somebody’s bound to catch your eye sooner or
HoleinGod’sPocket | K.Z. Snow
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later.” She let the subject drop. Sarah, still many paces
ahead of them, was oblivious to the whole conversation.
Faron had been pulling away from social situationsthe
gatherings after church services, the more unrestrained
parties he’d once looked forward to on Friday and Saturday
nights. He was almost two years into Rumspringa , but his
soul felt more unsettled than ever. After that bonfire he’d
attended last month, he knew why. He didn’t want to invite
more of the same disturbance. What he did wantand need,
actuallywas enough independence to figure out what was
going on inside of him. Being in a distracting herd of young
people every weekend didn’t bring him any closer to that
goal.
The breaking free and running around had been
exhilarating at first, whole self-indulgent weekends spent
cruising malls and going to concerts, enjoying fairs, getting
high in dim apartments or drunk at fire-lit campsites. Faron
had reveled in his new clothes and attitude, in conversations
more loud than quiet and music that drove rather than
lulled his blood.
He’d danced and laughed a lot. He’d sped down country
roads on a motorbike and wrecked it within weeks. He’d
been involved in a couple of fights. He’d smoked pot and
snorted coke and felt the unique, disorienting thrill of
sloughing off the dross of life, his many responsibilities
included.
Boys from his community trusted him, and girls from
most everywhere liked him. He could sense it. He’d even
been told as much. English girls liked his physique,
increasingly solid with muscle, and his large blue eyes.
Amish girls liked the full, wavy fall of his longish hair, dark

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