Fire in the Night

by Linda Byler

  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 tshirts, 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?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that. Go home and read it in the Bible.”

  Sammy knew what Levi’s words conveyed, but he had the bit in his mouth and wasn’t about to give up.

  “Well, I told Ezra I’d take care of this. You know as well as I do it can’t be forgiven until someone confesses.”

  With that, Sammy stalked off, dead bent on doing the right thing no matter what. Levi Esh placed a hand on David’s shoulder and wished him well. The days and weeks ahead would be turbulent.

  When the nine o’clock coffee break was announced—actually closer to ten o’clock—David was stopped again. This time it was by a well-meaning elderly lay member who was completely disturbed by the photograph and accompanying words.

  “The world and her ways are encroaching on the young generation. God help us,” she lamented.

  Dat agreed and tried to explain, but he was rebuked with a stern warning to heed his role as a leader.

  Dat had no more than taken up a cup of coffee and was reaching for a warm cinnamon roll when Henry King unfolded the same article, inquiring about Dat’s knowledge of it. Dat nodded again, and again he bowed his head as pious judgmental words pelted him, hurting every bit as much as jagged rocks.

  He was not doing his duty as a father—and certainly not as a minister of God—if he didn’t have a better hold on his children than that. This came from a man who had three sons who had deserted the Amish way of life and chosen to live their own lifestyles.

  Over and over that day, as he pounded nails, the sweat flowing freely in the ninety-degree heat, Dat prayed for the power to forgive those who were well-meaning but unkind in their rebukes. Yes, Priscilla had done wrong. But oh, how his love for his daughter throbbed in his heart!

  Priscilla had always been emotionally frail, crying all the way to school that first day. Tears had dripped from her face as she wrangled her way through her first poem at the Christmas program. To be subjected to two great tragedies at the tender age of fourteen was almost more than he could bear on her behalf.

  Dat struggled mightily against the urge to lash out in words of self-defense. Pushing back thoughts of Jesus’ words to the scribes and Pharisees, he persevered in his work and self-control.

  In the house, Mam stirred the corn and lima beans, added a stick of butter, and told Hannah she could take over. Mam wanted to walk home. Hannah told her she couldn’t in this ninety-degree heat,
and Mam said she’d be better off melting away down the road than staying here fuming. Hannah laughed good-naturedly and let her go.

  Mam told Sarah to tell Dat, and then she walked the whole way home. When she arrived, she slammed the kesslehaus screen door as hard as she could. Kicking off her shoes, she sat down in the hickory rocker by the stove, lowered her face into her hands, and cried and cried, releasing all the humiliation and the disappointment in human nature.

  Priscilla found her mother there, shocked to see her tear-stained, swollen face. They unfolded the newspaper article, pored over the story, cried, laughed, then cried some more.

  Levi wanted to see, so they showed it to him, and he shook his head, grimly prophesying a sad future for Priscilla for letting someone take her picture.

  “I didn’t know, Levi!”

  “Yes, you did. You were looking straight at him.”

  “Not on purpose.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “No.”

  They let Levi have his say and then started making supper. Mam cut open a succulent watermelon and a warm cantaloupe, while Priscilla apologized, saying she hadn’t thought.

  “But is that really how you feel?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you know, you must forgive others or our own sins cannot be forgiven.”

  “I’m being very careful until I decide to forgive.”

  “Priscilla!”

  “No, I mean—how can I say this right? I know I have to forgive the arsonist. I plan on doing that. I actually have started the process. I’m not as mad as I was. But Mam, it’s so awfully hard to move on. Especially now, since it happened again. How many more fires before we all….” She stopped. “I may as well admit it. I’m not sure about our belief in being nonresistant. Are we just going to stand by and let that man or men or whoever just go along and burn barns?”

  “It’s only happened twice. Perhaps it will stop.”

  “And what if it doesn’t?”

  “We’ll have to wait and see.”

  Priscilla shook her head.

  Five days after the fire, Ben Zook had a new barn. The red barn was trimmed in gray with a gray roof, fancy by Amish standards. It did not complement his white house, but it was another beautiful symbol of fellowship and hard work.

  By the last week in August, when the children traipsed eagerly back to school, a new diesel engine purred in the sturdy shanty attached to the back milk house wall. The only thing that kept them from milking was waiting for the new bulk tank. Once that was in place, they could purchase a new herd and get back to business.

  With his horses and buggy gone, Ben Zook jogged or ran everywhere, his thick hair becoming steadily woollier as the days went by. His straw hat sailed off his head all the time. His anger had subsided, but he remained huffy, wary of anyone who tried to convince him to forgive and forget.

  Sarah offered to help Ben sei Anna with her peaches and apples, scootering over the Thursday after school opened. Anna was short and as round as a barrel, with a pretty face—a match for her husband with her unbridled energy.

  Her house was fairly new—they’d remodeled—but with nine children under the age of fifteen, there was a lot of wear on the new linoleum, she said.

  “I’m not much for mops,” she said. “The only way to clean a floor is on my hands and knees.”

  “Your house is always so clean.”

  “Puh!” Anna waved her hand, dismissing the praise. “My sisters say I have OCD, but I don’t,” she said, looking over her shoulder as she washed her hands. “Here, come wash your hands before we start to peel the peaches—Emma! Pick up the Legos. They don’t have to be all over the floor.”

  As they peeled the soft, juicy fruit, Anna talked about the fire, explaining in minute detail the explosion that had woken them, the burst of terror, the feeling of desperation, followed by acceptance after the knowledge of helplessness.

  “There is simply no feeling quite like it. To stand by while your whole means of making a living sizzles and flames and roars its way to total destruction. It’s just unreal. You know, I told Ben, I was literally heartbroken. I was so upset I threw up that night. But, you know, God giveth us richly all things to enjoy, and I suppose he thought it was time to take some back. I don’t know. Why does bad stuff happen? You can’t figure it out. Ben got so mad, it wasn’t funny. He says this is just going to go on and on, unless someone tries to stop it. He says he’s going to sleep in the barn. Huh! That won’t last long.”

  All morning, she talked, her words punctuated by another pretzel or cookie or peach stuck in her mouth. At eleven, she shrieked and said she forgot her brother, Lee, was here for dinner, and she had nothing ready.

  “Well, he’s not hard to cook for. I’ll make chili and cornbread.”

  Cupboard doors slammed, pots sizzled, the can opener cranked, and plates crashed onto the kitchen table with alarming force.

  “Oops! Here they come. And Ben’s in a hurry. He hops, like a rabbit, when he’s in a hurry. Shoo, I hope he likes chili. He’s sorta picky. Come, children. Mary, come. Wash your hands.”

  Sarah helped little Mary wash her hands, then emerged from the bathroom, wiping her hands on her bib apron. She looked up—straight into the eyes of the person she’d toppled at the volleyball net.

  “You’re?”

  “You?”

  They both laughed, she blushed, and he looked tremendously pleased.

  “You know each other?” Anna asked, her head swiveling from one to the other.

  “I think we met once,” Sarah said, smiling at him.

  And he thought he had never been so close to ecstatic as when she looked at him and parted her lips in that perfect smile. It was not lost on Anna, who looked from Sarah to Lee and promptly stuffed a slice of cornbread into her mouth to ease the stress.

  Chapter 14

  COUSIN MELVIN PICKED SARAH UP early Saturday evening. She wore the customary black. She also wore sneakers, as volleyball became a bit competitive on Saturday night, although she knew she’d play barefoot most of the evening.

  In addition to her traditional garb, Sarah wore an air of disquiet. Her eyes seemed haunted from lack of sleep, and a certain unhappiness, a subdued quality, hovered just below the surface.

  Melvin greeted her with the usual, “Hey, Cuz!”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “I wish you weren’t my cousin. I’d marry you right off the bat.”

  “I know you would.”

  “Seriously, there aren’t many girls like you.”

  “Yeah. Well…”

  Sarah stopped, turned her head, and blinked back the hated wetness that rose too easily to her eyes.

  “Well, what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing, I said. It’s nice if you think I’d be okay to marry. Nobody else does, evidently.”

  “Ah-hah! I knew something was wrong. Your eyes were too flat when you climbed into the buggy.”

  “Too flat! What does that mean? Duh!”

  “You know, Sarah, I’m going to stop right up there at the Tastee Freez, and we’re going to eat ice cream and talk. I have a hunch that you and I are in the same boat, paddling like crazy with one oar in opposite directions, and we’re so hopeless. Whoa, Buster!”

  The light stayed red for too long, so Buster pranced and bucked and tossed his head, rattling his bit. But Melvin said not to worry. It was all harmless, and Buster just did it for fancy.

  They pulled up to the hitching rail beneath a spreading crepe myrtle that was blooming profusely and humming with honeybees. Melvin declared it completely unsafe. He made her get back in the buggy and waited through the red light again with Buster acting as crazy as before. Melvin tied him to a tree on the opposite side of the street.

  “Give me your hand to cross the street. People will think we’re a couple,” he said, grinning at her.

  Who could be unhappy in Melvin’s company?

  He ordered a
banana split with two spoons, and they sat outside in the waning summer light. The ice cream melted and dripped while he went back for napkins. He met a friend and talked so long that Sarah had to keep scraping the melting ice cream into her mouth.

  When he finally sat down again, Melvin paused for a long moment of indecision about which side would be his, the strawberry or the chocolate, and wondered which one she liked best. He didn’t include the vanilla with the chocolate syrup as he hoped he could eat that all by himself. He finally reached the conclusion that she could have the strawberry side; it was girlish.

  “You know, like Strawberry Shortcake. That coloring book and doll character. It’s for girls, so you have the strawberry.”

  “You know what? I wouldn’t tell just anyone this, but I love strawberry ice cream. Mommy buys it all the time from the Turkey Hill down the street. Their ice cream is the best—better than Schwan’s.”

  Clapping a hand to his forehead, Melvin squinted and rocked from side to side with pain in his eyes. He said he didn’t know why, he never got a brain freeze no matter how fast he ate ice cream. And he also just remembered he had forgotten his volleyball.

  Sarah watched him and then burst out laughing. She spluttered and pointed her plastic spoon at him and said he could just quit that.

  Melvin laughed and laughed and said yes, he had a horrible case of brain freeze. They finished their banana split and ordered French fries, loading them down with ketchup and salt. They ate every last one and even dipped the tips of their fingers into the white cardboard container and licked off the salt.

  They talked until the lights blinked and wavered and cast their steady blueish glow into the night. Clouds of insects swarmed around the hypnotic light, smacked madly against the hot bulb, and fizzled to their deaths.

  Melvin said she could hide nothing from him—that she never got over Matthew. She said no, she didn’t, that she was exactly like one of those insects and Matthew was the pole light.

  Melvin snorted and said he wished Matthew was a pole light. He’d smack his bulb out.