Fire in the Night (18 page)

“It’s my curly, crazy, dumb hair!”

“You always did have that.”

“It’s the humidity. It turns my hair into corkscrews. They just spiraling wildly off my head.”

“Well, go ahead and use the whole bottle of hairspray. Plaster your hair down hard as a board. You know the Fructis stuff isn’t cheap.”

“Who buys it? You or me?”

“You.”

“Well, then.”

Sarah lifted the green bottle, working the pump madly, while Priscilla plopped down on the bed, leaned back on her hands, and rolled her eyes.

“Go load the corn and lima beans a while. Dat got the spring wagon out. Go. Go on!”

“Your hair isn’t the only thing out of control!” Priscilla shot back and started for the stairs.

Laughing, Sarah could hardly see to comb her hair, so she leaned on the dresser, giving in to the mirth, and was shocked to find herself crying and laughing at the same time.

Alright. This was enough of this stuff, as dear Mommy Beiler would say.

She raked her hair back once more, plopped her covering on top, pinned it, and without another look, ran down the stairs, through the empty kitchen, and out to the spring wagon, where Levi and Priscilla sat waiting.

Dat stood at the horse’s head. “My, Sarah, we’ve been waiting.” But he was friendly, smiling. If he felt impatient, he’d never show it, his emotions about such minor things always on an even keel.

“It’s my curly hair.”

Dat laughed and leaned sideways to look through his bifocals at the now severely plastered hair.

“It looks pretty straight to me.”

Sarah laughed. “
Ach, shick dich
(Behave yourself).”

It was nice to have that reprieve of normalcy before the mile and a half to Ben Zook’s farm, or what was left of it.

They arrived to the stench, the smoke, the milling about of people with stiff, numb movements, eyes full of dread or horror, caring, or disbelief. They arrived to the fire trucks, the engines and hoses, the black water draining away, carrying flakes of ash and the remnants of this proud old German barn that had been destroyed by a flick or two of a lighter.

Fire and water—two life-giving elements that humans needed to survive. But in out-of-control quantities, both devastated unlike anything else. Sarah saw the muddy flood waters churning over Mervin’s head. She shivered and heard Dutch’s screams as the raging fire overtook him.

And when Matthew Stoltzfus walked over to help Dat with his horse, she heard the distinct cawing of the crows.

Chapter 13

“M
ORNING!”

“Good morning, Matthew. Good to see you. Hey, if you don’t mind, I’ll get the horse if you help the girls unload. Would you see that Levi has a comfortable chair somewhere? Maybe here by the fence?”

“Morning, Matthew,” Levi chortled.

“How’s it going, old boy?”

“Good. I’m real good.”

“Hey, Priscilla,” Matthew said, grinning down at her.

She didn’t bother answering, intent on rescuing Mam’s cakes from beneath the seat.

“Hello, Sarah.”

“Hi, Matthew.”

She smiled and looked gratefully into his brown eyes, so glad to see him, her whole world lit by his smile.

“Only Mam would bake a layer cake. Black walnut with caramel icing,” Priscilla mumbled.

“Something wrong?” Matthew asked, bending to put his face close to Priscilla’s to hear her better.

“Oh, nothing.”

Matthew’s arm went out, for only a second, a half circle about her waist. Blushing furiously, Priscilla yanked at the cake, grasped it, and pivoted out of his way.

Matthew laughed and looked down at Sarah. “Boy, your little sister is growing up!”

He whistled, watching her retreating form.

Sarah giggled and thought how kind Matthew was, always thinking of others, and of someone like Priscilla, who had been so saddened by the loss of her horse.

“She’ll likely take this barn fire hard.”

“Matthew! I want down!” Levi yelled.

“
Ach
, Levi. I forgot you, talking to Sarah.”

Oh, what hope! What a true cemented hope sprang in Sarah’s heart, hearing those words. He had just admitted that she was a distraction. She mattered so much that he forgot about Levi! Imagine. The morning was now filled with pure, unadulterated sunshine, birdsong, monarch butterflies, grass as green and flowers as pink and blue and purple as Sarah had ever seen.

The scene of devastation at the barn faded into the background. Sarah shucked the corn all by herself in Ben
sei
Fannie’s garden. She threw the husks across the fence to the three pigs they were fattening, about the only animals they had left.

As her hands ran swiftly across the ears of corn, removing the silk with a stiff bristled brush, she thought of Matthew. When she carried the first dishpan full of golden ears into the kitchen, her smile was dazzling, her face glowing.

She wasn’t even aware of the cluster of women at the kitchen window watching her sister. Priscilla stood, still as stone, gripping the picket fence with white-knuckles. The color drained from her face as she relived the horror of her own personal barn fire, the one that had trapped Dutch in its fiery claws, making him suffer as no horse ever should. Her Dutch. Priscilla smelled the burnt bodies of the cows, the huge draft horses, and she remembered.

Levi sat a few feet away, his straw hat pushed back on his head so he wouldn’t miss a thing. Men shouted as trucks moved among the gigantic black hoses. Cameras flashed as reporters skulked about, knowing they would soon be asked to respect the Amish men’s wishes.

Flames still broke out in the charred wreckage. Blackened stone upon stone—the mortar that had held them together for centuries now crumpled by the intense heat—was all that remained of what the forefathers had built by the sweat of their brows.

“That girl is going to have to go for counseling.”

“Not Davey Beiler’s girl. He’s better than any counselor.”

“She looks awful.”

“Somebody should go get her.”

“You can’t help her.”

“Oh, my heart goes out to her.”

“Where’s Malinda?”

“That poor woman has had enough. She doesn’t need to be here.”

“Priscilla brought two cakes in. She made a black walnut cake.”

“
Ach
, that Malinda. She is something else.”

“Her caramel icing is a tad too sweet, though.” This comment came from the owner of the community’s top roadside bakery, Henry
sei
Suvilla, completely uncontested by any other.

Amos
sei
Leah stuck a skinny elbow into Danny
sei
Becca’s ample side, causing her to jump with an almost inaudible little squeak. Two eyebrows shot up, and when Suvilla glowered at them, Leah quickly brought a hand to her mouth as she turned away.

Well, no wonder. Suvilla may have quite a business at her roadside stand, but nobody made walnut cakes with caramel icing the way Malinda did. And her being so genuinely humble.

Half these tourists didn’t really know what good shoofly pie was. They bought Suvilla’s dry old things and thought that’s how shoofly tasted.

“Oh, my! No! Here comes a reporter. Straight up to Priscilla!”

“Oh,
siss unfashtendich!
(This is just senseless!)”

“Somebody go get her.”

“Where’s Sarah?”

A flurry of searching followed but to no avail. It was too late. The reporter, carrying a whirring black contraption on his shoulder with straps dangling, bore down on the unassuming Priscilla.

She was completely unaware, lost in her own sad world of memories and loathing of anyone evil enough to murder these faultless animals. They had never done anything except serve their masters—giving their creamy milk, pulling the plow or the hay rake or the balers—servants that made a living, a way of life. Wasn’t that check in the mailbox because of them? Wasn’t the milk possible because of the horses’ hard work, their beautiful heads nodding, their harnesses clanking, doing what God designed them to do?

So the fortunate person with the camera captured the innocent young Amish girl and all the horror mirrored in her eyes and sold the picture to the prominent Lancaster newspaper with Priscilla’s own words in the story.

“No, I do not forgive him. I hope he spends the rest of his life in jail.”

The repercussions were terrible. Amish people all over the United States gasped in disbelief—except for a handful who felt the same, Ben Zook among them. The Beiler family knew nothing of it, unaware that day at the barn raising.

The next day was different. Priscilla stayed home with Levi and Suzie, who had both come down with a stomach virus. Mam said it was the dog days of August, what else could you expect?

She didn’t understand the politeness, the cold distance between her and the good womenfolk until Hannah, bless her heart, drew her aside and whispered, “Did you see the paper?”

“Which one?”

“Here.”

Hannah shoved the article under Malinda’s face. Sarah leaned over to see, and both of their faces blanched.

“Oh, my goodness,” Sarah said, slowly.

Mam lifted tortured eyes to Sarah. “Why? Why was she left alone?”

“I was probably shucking corn.”

Malinda compressed her lips and stared out the window as tears sprang to her eyes.

“And David thought to warn them all. The children.” She sighed, then squared her shoulders.

“Well, it is what it is now. We can’t undo it. We’ll just have to take the beating, the humiliation that will follow this article.”

“It’s because of Dutch,” Sarah said wildly.

“We know that. But the world doesn’t,” Mam replied.

And where was I? Sarah thought miserably. I didn’t even see her. I had my head in the clouds the whole blessed day, thinking of Matthew. And what had he done on Sunday? Nothing. Not one solitary thing. He never said hello or smiled or anything. As far as he was concerned, Sarah may as well have fallen off the face of the earth.

She stood in Ben Zook’s kitchen, picked up one chocolate cupcake after another, and spread chocolate icing on each one before placing them in a Tupperware container, seeing nothing.

Her heart ached for her parents. Priscilla had said the wrong thing, sparing no one. Those words were not her upbringing, not the Amish way. No doubt Dat would be accosted, over and over.

The yellow, pine-scented skeleton of the new barn grew beneath the hot, August sun. Once again, men clad in black joined forces with men in jeans and plaid shirts or t-shirts, wearing shirts out of respect, when, anywhere else, they might have gone without.

Hammers pounded, chainsaws whined, men shouted, tape measures snapped shut. Women moved back and forth, keeping the large orange and blue Rubbermaid coolers filled with fresh ice and water, with plenty of paper cups beside them.

It wasn’t more than midmorning before David Beiler’s neighbor, Sammy Stoltzfus, grabbed Dat’s sleeve as he hurried by on his way to get a box of nails. He shoved the distasteful newspaper clipping under Dat’s nose.

“Your Priscilla,
gel
?” he asked, in a voice oiled with sarcasm.

Dat stopped, searched his pocket for his handkerchief, and mopped his dripping face before tilting his head to look through his bifocals.

As Sammy peered shrewdly up at David’s face, searching eagerly for signs of outrage, another man, Levi Esh, came on to the scene and stopped, curious.

David Beiler’s face remained inscrutable. He might as well have been etched in stone, that was how still he stood, reading the article slowly, taking his time.

Before he’d finished, Sammy couldn’t take the suspense a second longer and blurted out, “Is that what you teach your children?”

Still Dat stood unmoving, reading. Slowly, he folded the paper and handed it back.

“It’s a pretty poor light, for the Amish, don’t you think?” Sammy asked intensely.

Dat looked at the ground, moved his foot, then lifted his gaze beyond Sammy. “Yes, it is,” he said finally.

“I thought so!”

Sammy fairly bounced in his aggressiveness.

“So. What will give?”

Levi Esh extended a hand to Sammy, and he handed over the evidence.

“I don’t know. She’s only fourteen.”

“Well, somebody should have to confess.”

“She’s young, Sammy. Her horse burned in our fire. She’s having a hard time getting over it.”

“So now you stick up for her. That makes you every bit as bad as her. I hope you know this is being talked about all the way out to Wisconsin. My brother’s out there. He left a message. Said he hoped I’d
fer-sark
this.”

Levi Esh lifted his head, pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes.

Dat took a deep breath. “Sammy, I’m sorry. This is not what we teach our children. But she’s hurting. She was very attached to her horse. He was a pet. She’ll get over it, but give her time.”

“Girls shouldn’t be allowed to have horses. They didn’t used to, in my day. You need to show better leadership. God didn’t spare your Mervin, you know.”

Sammy sniffed indignantly and rocked back on his heels, his hands clasped behind his back.

Then Levi spoke. His words were modulated but carried a certain authority. “I think we need to be careful here, Sammy. This newspaper article alone is punishment enough for David. It’s unfortunate, yes, but we know why Priscilla said that. She’s only fourteen. A child. Her pet was brutally burned. Don’t you think your measuring stick should reach a bit farther?”