The Innocent (20 page)

“We are unable to account for Brother Henry Stratton. We fear he may have perished while trying to save his horses.”

“Did someone see him go into the barn?”

“Nay. No one has seen him at all.” Elder Derron coughed
into a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket. “The smoke,” he explained.

“Perhaps your Brother Henry is just in another building or barn.” Mitchell looked around.

“That is unlikely. Some of our brothers did manage to get a few of the horses out, but no one saw Brother Henry. No one. That is not like him. Brother Henry treated his animals with the greatest of care. Often if one was ailing in some way, he would sleep in the barn with them.”

“Was he doing that this night?” Mitchell stared at what was left of the barn. If Brother Henry was there, his spirit had long since fled his body.

“I would not be surprised if it was so. Brother Henry could have been in the barn to calm his charges during the storm.”

“Then it seems he would have been able to escape the fire with his horses,” Mitchell said. “If lightning struck the barn, he would have known it.”

“Yea, so it would seem. But the fire was not the result of lightning, Sheriff.” Elder Derron looked directly at Mitchell, his face taut.

“Is there proof of that?”

“Yea.” He drew in a ragged breath that set off his coughing again. When he was able to stop the coughs, he wiped his mouth with trembling fingers. “I do apologize, Sheriff, but this is a tragic morning. Anyway, to answer your question, the brethren found an empty can with the strong odor of kerosene just inside the doors when they went in to rescue the horses.”

“And none of them saw Brother Henry? It seems they would have if he was in the barn.”

“It could be that our poor brother had already been overcome by smoke.”

“Or knocked in the head by whoever set the fire.” Mitchell’s voice was grim. He didn’t like thinking he might be investigating a murder, but he couldn’t ignore that possibility.

Elder Derron recoiled from Mitchell’s words. “Surely those of the world would not be so cruel. To leave a man to die in a fire if they knew he was there.” His voice grew faint and his face paled.

Mitchell should have guarded his words until he knew more. “Perhaps we are jumping to conclusions, Elder. It is best to wait for proof.”

“Yea. But such proof has surely been lost to the flames.” Elder Derron kept his eyes on the smoke rising from the fire.

Another Shaker man stepped up beside them in time to hear the elder’s words. “The good Lord will know the truth. Whether the scoundrel escapes here on earth, he cannot escape final punishment.”

Elder Derron started to answer, but instead was overcome by another fit of coughing. The new Shaker reached out a hand to support the elder. “Are you all right, Elder Derron? Perhaps you should rest before you try to talk more.” The Shaker man gave Mitchell a hard look.

“I am distressed but able, Brother Thomas.” Elder Derron held up a hand to reassure the other man. “Sheriff Brodie is here to investigate the fire and we must give him our cooperation.”

“Ah, Sheriff Brodie, forgive me. I did not recognize you,” Brother Thomas said. “We welcome your help if it stops such attacks as these from miscreants of the world.”

Mitchell remembered the older sister’s words when she first saw him. “I spoke with a sister named Edna when I got here. She said something about a man of the world bothering
Brother Henry yesterday. She had suspicions that I might be that man.”

“I’m sure you disavowed her of that wrong idea. But yea, we have a new sister among us who saw such and reported it to Sister Edna.” Elder Derron stuffed his handkerchief in his pocket. “Sister Carlyn. The one who owed Mr. Whitlow that debt we paid on her behalf last week.”

“The sheriff knows Sister Carlyn.” Brother Thomas spoke up. “She took her dog to him. An unusual-looking animal but our sister was quite concerned with its welfare and thought Sheriff Brodie could help her. Did you?” Brother Thomas peered at Mitchell.

“I kept her dog,” Mitchell said.

Elder Derron frowned. “We have more worries than a dog now.”

“Yes.” Mitchell looked at the pile of smoldering wood and hay. Here and there a flame licked up out of the debris into the air.

“The Lord and Mother Ann will supply every answer needed,” Elder Derron said. “Already we can note the Lord’s blessing of the rain-dampened ground that kept the fire from spreading.”

“It would have been better for the rain to keep the barn from burning.” Brother Thomas frowned a bit. “And Brother Henry from perishing with his horses.”

“It is not our place to question the ways of the Lord. He makes all work for the good of his plan.” The elder gave Brother Thomas a stern look as though to remind him to speak with care in Mitchell’s presence.

“Yea.” It was easy to see Brother Thomas didn’t feel as agreeable as he sounded.

If the elder noticed, he paid no attention as he turned to Mitchell. “Brother Thomas will take you to the men first at the fire. After that, if you want, I will arrange for you to speak with Sister Edna.”

“And Sister Carlyn.” It felt funny to call her sister.

“Is there need to talk directly to her?”

“If she was the one to see the men talking, it would be better to hear what she saw firsthand.”

The elder nodded. “Very well. If you think it necessary.”

“I do.” What Mitchell didn’t add was that any chance he had to see Carlyn felt very necessary.

18

By the time Mitchell talked to the men first to the fire who dared the smoke and flames to rescue four of the horses, the day was half gone and he didn’t know much more than when he started. Flames had been licking up to the roof by the time the alarm was raised. A kerosene can was seen close to the door, but nobody knew where it was now. Destroyed by the fire, they assumed. Nobody saw Brother Henry. They had no way of knowing if he had been in the barn. By the time they got the horses out of the stalls nearest the doors, more men were there, but the fire was too hot to attempt to reach the other horses.

They told their stories plainly and quickly with nothing hidden in any of their words. They knew nothing about who might have set the fire. If men from the world were skulking around in the shadows, they didn’t see them. They saw only the fire and all their hard work being lost to the flames. The grief of losing a brother came later.

The Shakers hadn’t wasted the morning. They’d rigged up
pipes and used horsepower to pump water from one of their ponds to douse the fire. If they could have gotten that apparatus working in the night, they might have saved some of the barn, but it probably wouldn’t have saved Brother Henry.

They found the man’s charred remains under smoldering hay in one of the middle stalls. A young brother who helped Brother Henry said that stall had been empty ever since Brother Henry’s favorite workhorse died last winter. As yet Brother Henry hadn’t found a horse he considered worthy of getting the honored stall.

“Some of the brothers thought that odd, but Brother Henry loved his horses.” The young Shaker looked around as though worried one of those brothers might be listening and think he was speaking out of turn. “He’d do anything for them.”

Brother Carson looked to be on the young side of sixteen. Just a boy. So when tears welled up in his eyes, Mitchell wasn’t surprised.

Growing up among the Shakers who preached peace hadn’t prepared the young Shaker for violent death. Even the war had passed the Shakers by when the president exempted them from the army draft. So while other men marched off to war, the Shakers stayed in their isolated villages and claimed peace in spite of the world blowing up around them.

Now somebody had disturbed that peace. Even if Brother Henry was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, he was still dead. Because of the fire.

None of the Shakers thought Brother Henry’s death was intended. While they were sure the fire wasn’t an accident, they did think Brother Henry being in the fire was. Mitchell didn’t like thinking the man’s death was intentional either,
but at the same time, he had to wonder why the man couldn’t get out of the barn before he was overcome by smoke.

It made sense to say he died trying to save his horses. One Shaker even suggested a horse might have kicked him in a panic. But they found his body in the empty stall, the one with no horse to rescue, while just across the breezeway a horse had succumbed to the fire.

The more he heard about Brother Henry, the more suspicious it sounded. Not that the man had raised any suspicions among his brethren. When Mitchell mentioned the sister’s report that he’d been seen arguing with someone from the world, most expressed doubt Brother Henry was the Shaker the sister had seen.

“Newcomers to our village are often confused regarding identities,” one of the older men claimed. “The like clothes. Hats that shade our faces. The sister had to be mistaken. Brother Henry was not a man to argue with anyone. He was a true Shaker.”

“What makes a true Shaker?” Mitchell asked.

“One who shuns worldly ways, works with his hands, and obeys the rules of unity. Brother Henry was such a man, favored with useful gifts from Mother Ann.”

“What gifts?”

“Skill with horses and other spiritual gifts one of the world such as yourself could not understand.” Brother Jonas settled his hat back on his head and straightened his suspenders. “I must get back to work.”

Mitchell held up a hand to stop him. “Do you know anyone who might wish harm to Brother Henry?”

“Nay. Whoever did this meant harm to our barn.” He pointed toward the burned barn. “Not harm to Brother Henry.”

“But Brother Henry was harmed.”

“Yea. Sin can bring about many tragedies.” Brother Jonas turned away from Mitchell then and left without another word.

The man could be right. Whoever set the fire might have thought the barn empty except for the horses. Still there was that argument Carlyn had seen. Whether she was mistaken about who was involved, she had witnessed a disagreement. With the fire happening so soon afterward, a connection seemed a possibility. Besides, if it wasn’t Brother Henry she saw, then some other Shaker knew more than he was telling.

Mitchell scanned the faces of the men who paused in their work to watch Brother Henry’s remains being carried away. He saw nothing to arouse suspicion.

Brother Thomas said they’d bury their brother the next morning. “There will be no sadness.” Brother Thomas had returned to Mitchell’s side after the body was found. “Brother Henry has simply stepped over from our village here to the perfect village in heaven. We strive for the same perfection in our Society, but those of the world have ways of slipping into our midst to find ways to cause us trouble.”

“But what do they gain from burning your barns?” Mitchell had no doubt the barn had been purposely set on fire, but he needed to know why.

“The wickedness of the world is difficult to understand, Sheriff.” Brother Thomas gave him a direct look. “Don’t you find that true as you endeavor to keep peace among the people of the world?”

“People are people wherever they are. Even here.”

Mitchell’s words brought a frown to the Shaker’s face. “Nay, our brothers and sisters shut out worldly thinking
and the sin such thinking causes. We work and worship with unity and treasure the peace that comes from brotherly love.” Brother Thomas lifted his hands up toward the heavens. “Our Mother Ann showers down blessings on us when we shake free of the worldly shackles of sin.”

“And yet you had no peace here last night and Brother Henry is dead.”

“By reason of the world. You will discover that to be true.” Brother Thomas set his mouth in a determined line. “I am sure of it.”

“Whoever is responsible, I will find them.” Mitchell wasn’t as confident as he tried to sound. He didn’t have much to go on. The one person who might know what happened was beyond telling. There was Carlyn. Odd that she had been the one to see the men arguing. He needed to get her story before he left the village. While he would have preferred to talk to her alone, he had to settle for a meeting in Elder Derron’s office.

Brother Thomas escorted him to the Trustee House and left him there. “I must tend to my horses before darkness falls.”

The man walked away with no hurry to his steps, sure of his path. Others moved through the village with the same single-minded purpose, to do their duty and shut away everything that might disturb the peace of their Society.

He hoped Brother Thomas was right and that the peace of the village would not be disturbed again, but Mitchell had a bad feeling about it all. The fire. Brother Henry. Whatever Carlyn had witnessed.

Surely she could have nothing to do with any of this, but she had been the one to see the men. He couldn’t seem to
get that out of his mind. Then again, he couldn’t seem to get Carlyn out of his mind at any time.

She was already in the elder’s office, the older sister beside her. No smile on that one’s face. Mitchell had to wonder if she ever smiled, but then perhaps in their worship. While Mitchell had never witnessed a Shaker worship service, he’d heard others say the Shakers were often ecstatically happy while shaking and whirling. Whether that was so or not, she definitely wasn’t happy now as she glared at him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she started calling him the devil again.