A Wedding for Julia (45 page)

“Don’t Amish often give birth at home?”

“Lydia was planning to have her child at home,” Caleb explained. “Not in the basement, but at home. And her
mamm
, Ella, has assisted in several births just since I have been here.”

“Is she near term?”

“Yes. That’s why she wasn’t here at the cabins today.” Aaron sank against the stall’s wall, defeated.

“I know you want to be with her.” Caleb rubbed his hand over the top of his head and through his hair, and came away with leaves. “You don’t even know that the babe is coming, but if it is, then this is the day the Lord appointed, Aaron. Don’t you think I want to be with Julia? She’s only across Pebble Creek—”

“Which is probably raging now.”

“No doubt. We must trust in
Gotte
. If our faith can’t see us through tonight, if it can’t see us through the worst of times, then what
gut
is it?”

Aaron pulled at his beard, but he finally nodded and accepted the cup of water handed to him by one of the guests. Fortunately, most of the supplies in the barn had been stored against the back wall in case of just such an emergency. They had blankets, a few lanterns, some food, and plenty of water.

Caleb turned back to Brenda. “How’s the little girl with the hurt foot?”

“Her name is Darby, and she’ll need a tetanus shot, but she’ll be okay. Most fatalities during a tornado are caused by flying debris.”

Aaron stared at her. “Are you sure you haven’t been hit by something, Doc? Maybe it rustled around the facts in your head a bit. I always thought it was the getting sucked up in the air and slammed back down that did you in.”

Brenda patted his arm. “It happens, yes. But debris is more likely to harm people. You two did a good thing moving everyone in here. I was just driving up in my car when I saw the group running toward the barn. It was a smart thing to do.”

Shaking his head, Aaron stared down at the barn floor.

“She’s fine,” Caleb assured him. “Your house has a cellar, as does Ella and Menno’s. If the homes are gone we will rebuild, but your family is safe underground.”

When Brenda glanced from one to the other, Caleb explained, “His wife’s family lives next door, and his father-in-law has been very ill. I’m sure they would have gathered together as soon as the weather changed.”

“Ah. Then we’ll pray for all of their safety. If your wife is as practical as you are, I’m sure she headed downstairs early.”

It was the first thing anyone had said that caused Aaron to smile. “Lydia’s as sensible as they come. When we first met, she was in charge of these cabins.”

Brenda looked surprised. “An Amish businesswoman? Now there’s someone I’d like to meet.”

“She would have checked you into your cabin, but I insisted she stay home today.”

“And maybe that was a
gut
thing too. At your home she’s in the safety and warmth of a basement rather than this smelly barn.” Caleb stood and stretched. “Think I’ll make the rounds and check on everyone again.”

As he walked past the horse stalls, which miraculously had remained intact, he couldn’t help feeling a pull toward Aaron’s gelding. The horse might make it through the storm, not with the younger man riding, but if he were to take it out. He might be able to make it down the road to check on Julia.

First he needed to check the weather. He needed to see if the snow had let up any.

He walked to the end of the barn, which wasn’t that far now that the front portion had collapsed. Two of the
Englischers
waited near the bay doors. One was Rupert and another was Eddie—Caleb was having the hardest time telling them apart. It seemed all
Englischers
looked the same, though he knew that wasn’t true. Probably he was just tired.

He didn’t mention his hopes to ride home as they pushed against the doors to open them. Which turned out to be a good thing, because his hopes faded more quickly than water passed through his fingers when he reached a hand down into Pebble Creek.

At first it seemed perhaps something had fallen in front of the doors.

“It’s only been thirty minutes,” Rupert muttered. Or was it Eddie?

“Might need to change our snow patrols to every twenty minutes, Eddie.” Rupert stopped pushing and dropped to his knees. He was a big man, with a large stomach, but Caleb didn’t doubt that he could put all of his weight behind what they were trying to do. “I’m going to push from the bottom while you lean into the middle of the door.”

“I’ve got the top,” Caleb said, catching on to what Rupert had in mind. Now he had them straight. Eddie was thinner and bobbed his head in agreement a lot. Rupert would have made a good farmer with his size and his practical ways. Caleb had heard him mention to someone that he worked on computers and had come to the cabins with his wife so they could experience nature.

“On three.” Caleb feared it wouldn’t work, but slowly the door gave an inch. By the time there was enough space to squeeze through, they were all out of breath and slapping each other on the back.

“How did it get so high so fast?” Eddie stood in the small hole they’d made from pushing the door out. The snow had completely encapsulated the loading area of the barn. “I don’t understand this at all. First the warm weather, then day turned to night, the rains came—”

“Followed by tornadoes,” Rupert reminded him.

“Yeah. Then hail, snow, and now a blizzard. It sounds like something out of Revelation.”

“It’s not the end-times, only a bad storm,” Caleb assured him. “It happened here once before, more than a hundred years ago. As far as how the snow has built up, the winds must have shifted. If it wasn’t a blizzard before, it is now.”

Caleb glanced back into the room, where several of the women, a few older men, and some of the children were watching. “Let’s find some buckets and start a line. We’re going to have to take the snow into the barn until we can clear a path out. Dump it back against the cave-in.”

The work was exhausting, but somehow it managed to raise everyone’s spirits. Perhaps because they were doing something constructive instead of simply waiting. Maybe because they were working together. Caleb noticed a few smiles as buckets of snow were passed from hand to hand. When they finally broke through, a cheer went up through the group.

The euphoria didn’t last long.

Slamming the door shut, they regrouped inside.

“My iPhone said the temperature is three below zero. Is that a malfunction?” Eddie was staring down at the small screen in disbelief.

“It’s probably right. The storm of nineteen eleven did the same thing—” Caleb noticed several in the group staring at him. “In that storm the weather was at first unseasonably warm, then the temperature dropped dramatically and was followed by a tornado and then a blizzard.”

“Will we freeze in here?” A woman from the back pulled her child into the circle of her arms, as if she needed to protect her from instant death.

“This barn was built to protect livestock in the worst of our winter weather. It will do the same for us.”

The woman nodded and turned away.

Caleb discussed a fifteen-minute rotation of snow clearing with Eddie and Rupert. He knew they would be safe in the barn, but he didn’t want their only exit closing up. Come daylight, he wanted to be out and on the road. Emergency personnel would be combing the area looking for survivors. Aaron and the little girl—Darby—needed real medical attention. He wanted to get information about Lydia.

And one way or another, he would find his way home to Julia.

Chapter 37

W
hen Julia woke, the darkness had begun receding from the basement windows. At first she was disoriented, unsure of where she was. It seemed as if her arms were pinned at her side, and she thought maybe it was a dream. If she tried a little harder, she could wake fully.

Then the pain in her left arm became sharper, and Sharon’s concerned face popped up in front of her.

“You’re awake. I hope I didn’t bother you. I didn’t mean to, but I was worried. You are sweating even though it’s freezing in here.” There was the sound of a cloth being dipped into water, and then Julia felt the sweet relief of coolness across her forehead, down her cheeks, and across her neck.

“What—” her voice was a croak.

“Try to swallow some of this.” Jeanette was on her other side, lifting up her head and pressing a bottle of water to her lips.

“What happened?” Julia’s eyes adjusted to the small amount of light coming through the high windows. She was able to make out the huddled forms sleeping around her, and Tim standing a few feet away. “Where—”

“You passed out when Frances tried to change the wrapping around your arm.” Sharon looked as if she were going to cry. “I think…she said maybe you’ve lost too much blood. Please don’t move.”

Julia lay back, more because of the panic on Sharon’s face than because of the dizziness that she was sure would pass if she sat up for a moment.

“You did lose a lot of blood, Julia, but your pulse is steady.” Jeanette raised the jackets someone had covered her with and checked her left arm. “It seems to have stopped bleeding for now, but if you start moving around again—”

Nodding, Julia waved her right hand toward Tim.

“He’s bundling up because the blizzard seems to have stopped.” Jeanette hesitated as if she wasn’t sure how much she should reveal. “The other men are donating what clothes they can spare. Together they have spent the last hour building a ladder of sorts—a way for him to climb out the window.”

“But the branches—”

“He’ll push his way through. Julia, we can’t stay here another day, and it could be some time before anyone finds us. It was right to shelter here through the night, but now it’s time to go for help.”

“Tell her.” Sharon sat back and pressed her fingers to her lips.

Jeanette looked unsure, but after helping Julia to swallow more water, she moved closer and lowered her voice. “The phones are still out, but I was able to catch one news report on my 4G network. It only worked for a moment, and then it went out again.”

“What…what did it say?”

“This area took a direct hit. Emergency personnel and first responders have been conducting search and rescue missions. They are not going well. The blizzard conditions have persisted, and everything is moving at a snail’s pace. They’re saying this is the worst storm since nineteen eleven.”

Julia closed her eyes, unable to stop the tears coursing down her cheeks.

Where was Caleb? Why hadn’t she told him how much she loved him before he left? Why had she been so stubborn and so cold to him the last night they were together?

Her regrets piled on top of her questions. How many of their
freinden
had perished? And would Tim be able to find help?

She wasn’t surprised when she heard her mother, her voice as calm and gentle as always. She wasn’t even baffled by Ada’s words. If anything, her mother had always been consistent. But for some reason, this morning her mother’s greeting had a different effect on her. Instead of hearing an old woman clinging to words from their Bible, she heard Ada—the one person in her life she knew best, speaking from the very depths of her soul.

This time the age-old words from the Psalms worked their way straight to Julia’s heart, past the places that were broken, through the secret chambers where her fears lived, and into the very center of her being. They soothed the ache in her soul.