The Witnesses

by Linda Byler

  Sarah was moving toward the door and could see the cool, clean night beyond, when a fiery beam exploded over her head. She looked through the opened door, wide, beckoning, and she knew she could make it out. When she heard the cracking, tearing sound, she was puzzled by it.

  The great, blackened beam slowly tilted to the side, gathering momentum, and crashed to the cement floor below. The only object cushioning its impact was Sarah’s bent form. When it hit her head and neck and shoulders, the sparks and flames from the burning wood ignited the soft fleece of her headscarf, which instantly caught on fire.

  There was a moment of blinding, indescribable pain, and then nothing as Sarah’s world turned darker than black.

  Omar could not hold back Dominic, the great Belgian stallion, as he hung frantically to the thick leather of the halter. He had no regard for his own safety as the stallion reared, lifting him off the ground. He talked to the animal, he screamed out his fear, but in the end, he had to let go and watch helplessly as the enormous giant tried to return to his stall.

  Horrified, Omar could only stand helplessly as the horse tried to crash through the opened door. Omar let out a desperate cry as a woman, skirts billowing, darkly clad arms waving, stepped directly in front of the plunging behemoth, turning him aside at the very last minute.

  Snorting, eyes rolling in terror, the stallion wheeled, galloped down the driveway, and up the road in the direction of the Beiler home.

  Omar skidded to a stop, panting.

  “Mam!”

  Lydia stood beside him, watching Dominic race out the drive.

  “Where’s Sarah?” Lydia asked.

  “Where is she?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No!”

  “Omar! Oh, please!”

  “She was in the barn!”

  “With you?”

  Omar didn’t answer, he was already through the door, into the mouth of the roiling, smoking, crackling furnace that had been the proud handiwork of Lee Glick.

  “Sarah!”

  He screamed and screamed.

  Smoke filled his eyes, his nose, and his mouth. He gagged, choked, couldn’t breathe. Faraway, as if in a dream, he heard the thin, panicked voice of his mother, but he could not go back.

  Somewhere, Sarah might have fallen, been overtaken by smoke inhalation.

  He bent low and stumbled, falling headlong to the fiery concrete floor, aware of the dark still form beside a flaming timber.

  Lifting an arm, he coughed into the inner elbow, the fabric of his shirt mercifully allowing him one more gasp for breath.

  In one swift movement, he turned and found her, inert, the length of her completely engulfed in small flames.

  Without knowing how, he rolled her, shoving, gasping, choking, until every devilish, dancing little flame was extinguished.

  Disoriented now, the forebay spun around him as he staggered and fell to his knees.

  It was the popping, cracking sound of the great timbers overhead that infused his veins with the adrenaline he so desperately needed.

  In one swoop, his strong, young arms scooped up the charred, heated body that was Sarah. With flaming lungs bursting, he stumbled through the door and across the cold gravel to the frosty grass on the other side.

  Lydia could not control her voice—hoarse sobs and cries emerging in unearthly wails as terror consumed her. Omar lay face down, gagging, as wave after wave of nausea expelled his stomach’s contents.

  Her cries reduced to moans and sobs, Lydia bent to Sarah’s charred form, tenderly laying her sweater over the burnt body. Then she removed her housecoat and covered her legs as well.

  Lydia stood in her homemade, flannel nightgown, her large eyes pools of shock and incomprehension, as Elam Stoltzfus and Matthew came gasping up the driveway, Hannah’s large figure behind them, crying, questioning, answering herself.

  Immediately, they heard the high, thin wail of the vehicles from Gordonville Fire Company heading their way.

  “What happened?” Elam gasped.

  Matthew remained silent, surveying the almost fully engulfed barn before turning to look at the covered form on the grass.

  “Who?”

  Lydia, slowly entering the first state of shock, shivered, crossed her arms, and rocked from side to side, as small beads of sweat formed on her forehead.

  Matthew yelled at her, not realizing what was occurring, “Don’t act so dense!”

  Grasping her arm, he lowered his face and yelled again, but Lydia’s head wobbled on her shoulders, a rag doll now, as she slowly sank to the ground.

  It was the brilliant, bluish headlights piercing through the orange, smoke filled night that illuminated Sarah’s still dark form with Lydia sitting beside her, awake, but not aware. Omar sat up, tears streaming down his cheeks, and told Elam and Hannah that it was Sarah lying there, and, no, he did not know if she was dead or if she still lived.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE TRAINED INDIVIDUALS, BOTH AMISH AND English, that answered the call of 911 that night all agreed. They thought she had died and then wondered why she hadn’t. It was the worst case they had ever seen.

  They found a weak, fluttering pulse and sprang into action. Radios crackled, lights flashed blue and orange, sirens wailed repeatedly through the early spring night. The fire raged, roared, and crackled. The walls collapsed, then the roof.

  Neighbors came on foot. Men had thrown on their clothes haphazardly and jammed straw hats backwards on their heads.

  Women left at home hovered on porches or at upstairs windows with blinds rolled up, curtains held aside. Children pressed against them, and the mothers stooped to answer childish questions as their hands dried frightened little tears.

  Davey Beiler was awakened by his wife, Malinda, with a soft, repeated calling of his name. At first, he was bewildered, but then he knew with the assurance of experience. Somewhere, there was another fire.

  When Malinda told him it looked like the Widow Lydia’s barn, he groaned within himself. Why her? Why a second time?

  He fought back a rage so intense it filled his mouth with a metallic taste. He yanked on the strings of his brown, leather work shoes so hard that his ankles hurt.

  Who was demented enough to return and do this same evil to Lydia a second time?

  Davey pulled his broad brimmed straw hat down on his head, smashing it angrily. The rough straw beside the soft cloth lining inside of the crown scratched his forehead, but he was beyond caring.

  “Take care of the girls and Levi,” he said roughly, before lunging through the door.

  His thoughts were tangled, his steps long, as he hurried up the road past Elam’s. Cars were now vying for position to get near the fire, sirens wailing repeatedly through the night.

  Men were directing traffic around roadblocks, their fluorescent vests gleaming in the night. Davey was glad. No use having all this traffic around.

  As he neared the scene of the fire, he noticed the Gordonville ambulance at Lydia’s gate. Had someone been hurt?

  As he hurried, his mouth turned dry, and a premonition pushed its dark head into his mind.

  Omar?

  The Widow Lydia?

  He remembered Sarah then. She had gone to visit her friend. Hadn’t she returned?

  He was fighting emotions as he walked up to Elam, his neighbor for almost thirty years, and touched his elbow.

  “Who?”

  That was all he could think to say.

  When Elam looked at him and his mouth twitched downward, Davey knew it was Sarah.

  When Elam’s lips compressed in an attempt to check his emotions, and his great, calloused hand was clapped on Davey’s shoulder, he knew it was bad.

  “Iss noch laeva dot (Is there life yet)?”

  “Ach, ich glaub (Oh, I believe so), Davey.”

  Davey nodded.

  In the kaleidoscope of lights and sound, he singled out a member of the trained personnel and plucked at his sleeve. He pushed his white face towards the wor
ker’s and asked who it was, his capable fingers shaking, useless now, devoid of their usual power.

  “I understand it’s a neighbor girl.”

  “Sarah Beiler?”

  The man inquired, returned, and nodded his head, affirming the premonition.

  “I am her father.”

  Davey bowed his head then and let the tears roll down his cheeks. He shook like a leaf. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his broadfall denim trousers to still them, acknowledged the arm thrown about his shoulders.

  He prayed silently that God would spare her life, but that His will might be done. He knew God ruled omnipotent, His ways so far above his own, and who knew if God would choose to take Sarah as well as Mervin, his beloved, towheaded six-year-old?

  He could feel the submission come, the calming arrive, as he prayed on. Slowly, the night, the sounds, the smoke, and flames receded, and he focused on the interior of the red and white ambulance, where four people hovered over the figure on a stretcher.

  He saw the tubes, the stethoscopes, the tanks, the lights, and knew there was nothing he could do. She was in good hands.

  A driver came. He was ushered into the front seat of the ambulance.

  “Remember to tell Malinda. Bring her.”

  Elam bowed his head, shook it. Matthew stood beside his father, his face waxy, white.

  Hannah was illuminated in the lights of the ambulance as she knelt by her neighbor Lydia, a hand on Omar’s back, the girls huddled around their brother.

  The last thing he saw was the streams of water directed on the new dairy barn, keeping it safe from the overpowering heat from the burning horse barn. Then the ambulance crunched down the lane and turned onto the road, on its way to the emergency room at Lancaster General.

  A sharp sense of reality made the night, the headlights, the two yellow lines on the road, the frosty grasses by the roadside, come into a clear focus.

  When the driver turned on the siren and pushed down on the accelerator, Davey pressed back in his seat as they shot forward.

  He sat immobile, as they raced through the night, picking up speed as they turned onto 340, the Old Philadelphia Pike, on their way through Bird-In-Hand and towards the city of Lancaster.

  His lips moved in prayer, his shoulders slumped in submission, but his hands continued their weak trembling, so he stuck them both between his knees to still them.

  As a minister of the Old Order Amish church, Davey was no stranger to the ER or the Lancaster General Hospital. His duties took him there many times. The lights, the automatic doors that slid quietly open, the voices of doctors and nurses as they padded down glistening tiled hallways in professional footwear—it was all familiar.

  The night air revived him, helped stabilize the feeling of defeat, but there was nothing he could do about his trembling limbs, so he stood, shaking, in the cold night air as the ambulance doors were flung open.

  He cried slow, hot tears when the realization hit him.

  A helicopter was standing by.

  Men and women clad in pastel colors rushed out, swarmed the stretcher. Without thinking, acting solely on instinct, Davey rushed to the stretcher. He bent over, peering frantically between the doctors and nurses, trying to see until he was pulled gently away.

  “I want to see her,” he pleaded.

  No one answered.

  Inside, he sank to a chair in the waiting room and did as he was told. He answered questions, nodded his head, said yes or no, provided an address, a telephone number, her birth date.

  No, he didn’t know her Social Security number. He produced his own and felt like crying all over again because the small blue card was so old and worn, and he shouldn’t carry it in his wallet, he knew.

  He showed his ID, his wallet slapping against his knee as he tried to insert it back into the plastic sleeve.

  He wished for Malinda intensely. She was quicker, smarter, better spoken at times like this. Small, stout, quick, she was so capable.

  They didn’t let him see Sarah. That was the hardest part. And he didn’t know they’d taken her until she had already gone. He’d signed forms but wasn’t aware how swiftly they would convey his daughter away from him.

  Mein Gott (My God), he cried inside.

  The Amish were forbidden to fly. They were not allowed to enter an airplane, small or large, so they didn’t. Except when medical aid was needed.

  It was hard to be alone, waiting, without knowing. He felt as though he was the one suspended in mid-air, dangling, fighting fear.

  He kept his head bowed, his straw hat beside him, occupying a whole chair by itself. He should hang it on the steel hooks provided for that purpose, but he felt better having his hat close by, a familiarity, an old friend to wait with him.

  He looked at the round black and white clock. Three eleven. Or twelve. Not quite quarter after three. He wondered when Malinda would come. Who would do the milking?

  Panicked, he turned his head to the left, then to the right. The waiting room was fairly empty. A few weary people slumped in their seats, and a couple was having a quiet conversation in the corner.

  Rising slowly, he went to the desk window and waited before asking if there was phone service available.

  When he was led to the nurses’ station, he followed instructions carefully, relieved to hear Malinda’s greeting on their voice mail. He left a message, saying Priscilla and Suzie would have to milk as best they could, and the vet was coming in the morning for number 84 in the box stall.

  He returned to the waiting room, his eyes filled with a new light when he found his wife standing hesitantly inside the automatic doors, wearing her black shawl and bonnet.

  Quickly, he was by her side. They did not hug or touch at all, but their eyes spoke volumes. They understood each other’s pain, the fiery trial, and the endurance that would be required. They were not strangers to suffering.

  Together, they sat quietly, and Davey spoke in hushed tones as Malinda silently wept, her flowered handkerchief lifted repeatedly to wipe away the tears.

  Finally she burst out, “But will she live?”

  “I can’t tell you. I don’t know.”

  They sat, waiting, drawing comfort from one another.

  When a doctor came to the door and asked for David Beiler, Dat almost leaped to his feet, but after shaking the physician’s hand, he sat back down, weakly.

  Mam lifted a white, ravaged face.

  His name was Dr. James, and he was the specialist on call.

  “Your daughter’s injuries are extensive.”

  Mam caught her breath.

  “We have what we call ‘the rule of nines,’ referring to the percentage of the body that is afflicted. The head and each of the arms make up nine percent, the back, front, and each leg eighteen percent, and so forth. We don’t know the exact invasion on the epidermis or the deeper tissue, but most of one whole side of her body was in contact with the flames. For how long, we don’t know. The actual depth of her wounds will be determined at the burn center near Philadelphia. That’s at the Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland. There, she’ll be given the best treatment possible.”

  The doctor paused.

  Dat swallowed, his mouth gone dry, remembering horrific tales of children enduring the removal of dead tissue from a burned area. Debridement, they called it, the unusual term now springing unexpectedly to his mind. They’d once said no parent could stand to watch or to hear the cries.

  Mam bowed her head, weeping quietly.

  “Our first concern is the trauma. She was in shock and will need transfusions. Another big concern, of course, is the smoke inhalation with the risk for infection in her lungs and pneumonia. So far we can offer a fair evaluation. She’s young and was seemingly in good health. Are there any questions?”

  Dat shook his head.

  Mam lifted her gaze to Dr. James and asked what percentage of Sarah’s body was burned and how bad it all really was.

  The doctor remained forthright, saying the e
valuation would be much more accurate at the burn center. His answer seemed to satisfy Mam, and she nodded assent. They shook hands, thanked the doctor quietly, and turned to go.

  Dat hadn’t thought to ask who the driver was and if he was willing to drive them to the burn center at this time of the night.

  It was Wendell, the good, dependable driver who knew every route in and out of Lancaster and the surrounding counties and states. A retired truck driver, he was competent and skilled at goot zeit macha (making good time). It was a term often overheard in Amish circles, an analysis of each driver’s ability to efficiently get his load of people from point A to point B.

  How could a night be so long? The sky was still pitch black as they travelled along on the interstate highway. The stars twinkled above them, and the half moon hovered to the west, yet it seemed the time moved twice as slowly at this nightmarishly early morning hour.

  Davey hoped that the hovering, man-made wonder called a helicopter had landed safely. Would Sarah’s burns be so severe she may be better off perishing because of them?

  Just help us through, guide us, let us accept what You have for us.

  His prayers kept him calm, centered, in the middle of this giant whirlwind that had whisked him off his feet and thrown him into a nameless land where nothing made sense, except to blame himself.

  “You’re going to keep this up until someone gets hurt!” Melvin’s words rang in his ears now, and Davey laid his head against the van seat, drew a shaking breath, and closed his eyes.

  He had not allowed it, in the end. No media or private detectives. God had allowed this, the spate of fires, barns burning at random, hadn’t He?

  Yes, it was wrong. But as Davey had said a hundred times before, the Amish were a nonresistant people. If a man takes your raiment, give him your cloak also. If he smites one cheek, give unto him the other. If he asks you to go with him one mile, you’re supposed to go with him two.

  But did it apply? If a man burns your barn, give him your house as well? The principle was insane when it came to personal loss. Or was it?

  God’s people were peculiar. They did things differently than the world, and it appeared a foolishness to many.