Amish Country Arson (2 page)

Might as well go home. With
the way my leg hurts, I will not walk much for a few days. I need
to get off this horse and into bed.
The
rider nudged the horse with the good knee.
“Go, Jack. Pick your way through the timber back the way we
came.”

Jonah Stolfus woke with a start to find his
bedroom illuminated by an eerie, orange glow flickering up and down
the walls. He heard the panicked cries of his livestock and feared
the worst before he knew for sure what happened.

Jonah jumped up and ran to the window.
Horrified, he saw the south side of his barn in flames. In the
light from the fire, he spotted the dark forms of a horse and rider
racing for the cornfield gate hole. At the moment, he didn't have
time to wonder why anyone would be in his cornfield at the same
time his barn was burning. He had more pressing worries.

“
Freda, get up,” Jonah said, heading
for his clothes.

His wife sat up in bed, wondering at Jonah's
frenzied actions. “Was ist letz?”

Jonah yanked on his trousers and pulled his
galluses over his nightshirt. “Hurry! Get the children up and out
of the house. The barn is on fire.

As close as the barn is, it might cause the
house to burn. I see sparks flying this direction, carried by the
wind. Get the children as far away as you can to be safe. Tell
Stanley to go to the phone shed as fast as he can run to call the
fire department. Send Jason and Davie to help me get the livestock
out of the pen.”

In the next moment, Jonah entered the barn
yard and darted in a zig zag out of the frightened animals way as
he headed to the back gate. He opened the gate and called.

The cattle and horses, blinded by the
brilliant glow of the blaze, smoke and heat, milled into each
other. Jonah edged around the fence to get behind them and joined
his boys. Jason, eleven years old, and Davie, ten, spread out,
waving their arms and clapping their hands.

As fire shot up inside the barn, two horses
bolted out the door and nearly ran over Davie. He hadn't been able
to move fast since a riding accident broke his left leg and left
him with a limp.

One horse stumbled out of the barn and fell
over dead. Jonah's stomach did a sickening roll when he saw the
tortured animal torched by the fire. The bull staggered out the
barn door. He appeared to be blind, badly burned and shivering.

The livestock rushed away from Jonah. The
boys yelled as loud as they could and waved their hands. The bull
followed along with them. Finally, the cows and horses found the
open gate hole and spread across the field to cool safety.

“
Should we check in the barn?” Jason
yelled at his father to be heard above the roaring
blaze.

“
Nah, it is too dangerous.” Jonah
sucked in smoke. He had a coughing fit and took his blue work
handkerchief out of his pocket to cover his nose to filter the air.
“Let's get away from the smoke.”

Jason and Davie walked out around the horse
carcass. With tears in his eyes, Jason lamented, “Poor Slow Poke
got roasted alive.”

High pitched warbles brought John Lapp sat
straight up in bed. Red and blue lights circled the room, bouncing
from one wall to another. His heart raced as he leaped out of bed
and ran to the window.

Hal put her feet on the floor and lit the
lamp. “John, was ist letz?”

John ran his fingers through his dark brown
hair as he stared at the darkness. “There is a fire somewhere, but
not here. The fire trucks are going by Elton Bontrager's farm
now.”

From downstairs, Aunt Tootie yelled shrilly,
“Fire! Fire! The fire trucks are coming. Get out quickly. The house
is on fire.”

Nora Lindstrom grumbled as she padded past
Hal and John's bedroom door on bare feet. “I better get downstairs
and calm Tootie down.”

Noah and Daniel's low voices chattered in
their room. Wide eyed, Redbird and Beth stood up, rubbed the sleep
from their eyes and peered over the baby crib at their parents. Hal
went to the crib to reassure them. “Can you see a fire, John?”

“
Jah, a big one. Looks like it is at
Chicken Plucker Jonah's farm. I can't tell which building is
burning, but the blaze is high in the air. The fire trucks are just
about there now.” John turned to Hal with worry in his dark brown
eyes. “I'm getting dressed and go see if I can help.”

“
Wonder what time it is?” Hal walked
back to the bedside table, and focused the lamp light on the alarm
clock. “One thirty in the morning. I should go along. There might
be need of a nurse. Should the boys go with us?”

“
Nah, they can stay here and milk if we
are still gone by chore time,” John answered back as he shoved his
shirt tail in his trousers. He left to hitch up the
buggy.

Hal dressed and pulled her prayer cap over
her frizzy red hair. Out in the hall, Noah, eighteen years old, and
Daniel, sixteen, leaned against the wall. Hal's father, Jim, stood
beside them. Hal paused long enough to tell the boys they could
milk if they didn't make it home in time.

Jim offered to help the boys. With a yawn, he
told Noah and Daniel, if he couldn't do anything else he was going
back to bed, and they should, too.

Hal stopped in the clinic to see about Aunt
Tootie. Her night cap was crooked and gray curls spilled out around
it. She sat up the bed, clutching a hand full of her light blue
cotton night gown as she breathed heavily. Hal's mother, Nora, sat
beside the elderly woman, propping her up. When Hal looked
troubled, Nora rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.

“
Are you all right, Aunt Tootie?” Hal
asked.

Aunt Tootie patted her chest and took a deep
breath. “I'm having a spell of the vapors, but I'm calmer now that
I know the fire isn't here.”

“
Gute for you. The fire's a couple
miles away at the Stolfus farm. John and I are going to see if
there's anything we can do to help,” Hal told them. “Mom, I settled
the girls down. You might check on them when you go back to bed.
Dad says he isn't getting back up until milk time. The girls will
want out of bed when they know you're up for the day.”

Just passed the intersection, a fire pickup
parked cross way on the road. The fireman, in the middle of the
road, stopped John's buggy. “You can't come pass here.”

“
Would it be all recht if we left the
buggy in the corn field and walked in? My wife is Nurse Hal. We
wondered if there was anything we can do to help our neighbors.”
John explained.

“
The ambulance came with us, but you
and Nurse Hal are welcome to walk in if you want to see if the
family is all right. I stopped here so I don't know what the
circumstances are except the barn is on fire,” the fireman
said.

Four fire trucks surrounded the blazing barn
as sprays of water arched into the hissing flames, creating huge
plumes of black smoke. The ambulance parked along the edge of the
driveway. The three paramedics, Daryl, Steve and Ivan, leaned
against the front of the ambulance, watching the action.

Daryl looked around to see who was coming.
“Look who is here, fellows. Hello, Nurse Hal.”

“
Hello. I see you're working hard,” Hal
said, smiling at them.

“
We're hoping we don't have to this
trip,” Steve replied.

“
Amen to that,” Hal declared as she
walked toward Jonah Stolfus's family. Freda and the children
gathered at the far end of the front yard as close to the country
road that headed north as they could get. Hal walked across the
yard toward white forms barely visible in the hazy smoke. The
children left the house in their nightshirts with only a blanket
around their shoulders to ward off the night chill. Freda had
managed to slip on a dress. Her white nightgown was visible below
the navy blue dress hem.

Standing beside the family was a neighbor,
Rosemary Nisely. “Wilcom, Hal, I am so glad you came. Your comfort
is needed.” She nodded toward Freda.

Hal put her arms around Freda and gave the
woman a hug. “I'm so sorry this happened.”

“
Jonah told me to get the children out
of the house and far away. He said the barn might spark the house
on fire since it is so close. Praise God, the fire trucks came so
fast. They wet the house down and saved it,” Freda said, swiping a
curl out of her eyes with a trembling hand and stuffing it under
her prayer cap where it belonged.

“
You and your family are all safe which
is a gute thing,” Roseanna said to comfort her.

“
Jah, the barn can be replaced,” Hal
assured.

Freda kept her eyes on the inferno.
“
It is such a frightening, terrifying experience to have a
fire break out so close when we were all asleep.” She raised her
eyes to the star studded sky. “It is God's will that Jonah woke up
in time to save us all. Praise the Lord!”

“Amen,” Hal and Roseanna said together.

John joined Chicken Plucker Jonah, his three
teenage boys and neighbors, Samuel Nisely and Eli Miller, in time
to watch the barn's roof topple into the blaze. The thunderous
crash seared through the hearts and souls of the men. With a
sinking feeling, Chicken Plucker's neighbors were thinking it could
just as easily have been their barn.

“
Our house is too close to the burning
barn. Look behind you. The home's vinyl siding buckled from the
heat of the flames. If the fire company had arrived ten minutes
later, my house would have caught fire. The men wet the house down
to cool it off,” Chicken Plucker explained, nervously stroking his
dark beard.

“
The siding can be replaced. Praise the
Lord, your home did not burn down, and your family is safe,” John
reasoned. His sympathetic eyes met the woeful blue ones of fair
haired Samuel and the dark, empathetic ones of young Eli. They both
nodded their heads in agreement.

Jonah's mind tumbled with worries as he
rambled on. “You should see my livestock. The hair is burnt off
most of them. It wonders me how many I might lose. Slow Poke is
dead. Roasted alive he was. A cow died, and the bull was having
trouble staying on his feet to go into the cornfield.

How do we manage milking after this? It is
not going to be easy to milk forty head of cows out in the open
twice a day.”

“
My barn is empty. You can use it to
house your milk cows,” Samuel said. “We will run the cattle and
horses down the road to my barn. You will not have far to come to
milk.”

“
I can help round the stock up after
daylight,” Eli offered.

The volunteer chief of the Wickenburg fire
department, Charlie Miller, a chunky man in his fifties, sauntered
toward them. “Mr. Stolfus, we're getting the fire under control now
that the barn collapsed. It may be after daybreak yet before we
leave. All that hay in the barn will smolder for a long time. We
want to make sure it doesn't flare back up. Wind's supposed to be
strong from the east today. We're still worried for your
house.”

“
Denki to you, and the other firemen
for your hard work.” Another weary thought crossed his mind as he's
eyes met John's. “That was my whole winter supply of hay gone up in
smoke. What a waste!”

John put a hand on the distraught man's
shoulder. “I have extra bales I can give you.”

“
So do I,” Samuel said. “We can get
plenty of hay from others to fill a new barn.”

“
I know one thing. With God's will, if
I have a new barn, it will be built a lot farther away from the
house,” Jonah declared.

“
I have to ask you a few questions,”
Fire Chief Miller said. “Do you have any idea how the fire started?
Did you leave a lit lantern in the barn?”

Jonah shook his head. “Nah, we bring all the
lanterns to the house with us. As short as the days are, it is
night when we come to the house. Still dark when we go back to the
barn in the morning to milk so we need the lanterns to see where we
are walking.”

“
Did you have any inflammable liquids
stored in the barn?”

“
Nah,” Chicken Plucker Jonah
answered.

“
After daylight, I need to look around
to see what could have caused a fire in a hundred year old barn
that doesn't have electric wires running to it,” the fire chief
said.

“
When I first looked out the window at
the fire, I saw a horse leaving the cornfield gate hole and head
east on the road. I think there was a person on the horse, but I
cannot be sure. It was so dark,” Jonah said.

“
If this is a case of suspected arson,
I have to call Sheriff Dawson. He'll investigate with me.” Chief
Miller added irritably, “We need to catch the person and punish him
for this horrible act.”

Jonah gave the man a kindly look. “Denki, but
we should not be so harsh or act too quickly. I stood here watching
my barn burn and wondered why such a thing happened to me.

I do not harbor an angry or bitter thought.
All I feel is a huge sense of loss.” As he watched the fire die
out, he made a decision and spoke. “I hope if someone did set the
fire, with the help of God, he will feel the hand of God directing
him to change his ways. He will become remorseful for his harmful
deed and convert himself.”

Fire Chief Miller shook his head,
disagreeing. “It has been my experience it doesn't work that way.
If someone lit that fire on purpose, don't expect the man to
change. That never happens, because an arsonist is a sick person. I
know. I've put out many a fire caused by people who get a thrill
out of setting the fire.” He paused, then added, “Usually, they
stick around to watch the building burn as long as they can without
getting caught. That sounds like what the fellow on the horse did.
He watched from the cornfield until he saw your bedroom light come
on, Jonah.”