Fire in the Night

by Linda Byler

  He had to bend his head to hear her voice. “I won’t admit this to myself, hardly. But you…you are making this whole Matthew thing easier. Can you understand that?”

  As he had never known the depth of his feelings for her, so had he never known the steely resolve, the desperate control he now needed to exercise over his desire to pour out his long-awaited love in a crushing embrace, just once touching his lips to hers, to allow her to feel his love. Just once.

  When she stepped back, he gripped his hands behind his back to keep them from reaching for her, the emptiness unbearable now.

  “I’ll be honest, Sarah, okay? If you say it makes it easier, do you mean I may have a chance someday?”

  She was going to say, “Don’t wait for me, Lee.” She really was. What she said was, “Your eyes are so blue. They remind me of a…a… This is dumb, Lee.” She gave a low laugh. “Your eyes make everything easy. They’re calm.”

  “Thank you, Sarah.”

  He decided he’d never care much for Ike Stoltzfus from that night on, appearing from nowhere like that, followed by a gaggle of market girls wanting to witness the latest devastation in their community.

  The farm was owned by Reuben Kauffman. Everyone called him Reuby. He was a short, rotund fellow with vibrant blue eyes set in a ruddy, glowing face and a benevolence toward his fellow men creating a kind aura about him.

  He lost everything. The house was almost completely ruined in addition to the barn.

  The vinyl siding had buckled and crumpled as windows shattered into thousands of pieces from the heat of the gigantic tongues of flame. The force of the late autumn gusts that had brought the first serious cold from Canada down to eastern Pennsylvania propelled the fire. They said the plastic pots containing African violets melted down across the shelves straight onto Reuby sei Bena’s clean, waxed kitchen linoleum. It was an awful mess.

  They should have let the house burn to the ground, Mam said. They’d never get the smell of smoke out of the furniture, the rugs, and the clothes.

  The following week, Sarah and Priscilla sat on either side of Levi, and Mam sat beside Dat in the spring wagon on the way to the Kauffman farm. The air was calm, harmless, almost an apology in its stillness. As Fred, the family’s new driving horse, trotted briskly, the heavy woolen buggy blankets kept them warm against a late frost. They smelled the dry, dusty odor of corn fodder being baled in Jake King’s corn field—or what remained of it.

  The spring wagon hauled cardboard boxes and bags full of food from Mam’s shopping spree. She had been busy visiting her favorite stores, and she beamed with the charity that bubbled from her heart for Reuby sei Bena. Poor woman. The poor family, losing everything like that, and they’d never hurt a flea.

  Mam bought towels and sheet sets at JC Penney because they ran the best sales. She bought fabric and housewares at Country Housewares and a set of cookware at Nancy’s Notions in Intercourse. She wished she’d known the children’s sizes, but she bought black coats and bonnets of various sizes at Teddy Leroy’s shoe store.

  This would all be carried discreetly into the shop, placed quietly with the mound of charitable contributions, and no one would ever know that Davey Beiler sei Malinda had spent the more than eight hundred dollars her husband had given her, his heart overflowing with sympathy, driven by the need to help poor Reubys.

  Hadn’t they been through the same terrifying ordeal? How could they close their hearts or their pocketbooks now, when yet another family suffered an even greater loss? And most unsettling, what new troubles would this barn fire stir up?

  David Beiler’s heart quaked within him. A twitch began in the corner of his right eye when he drove past the knots of Amish men talking intensely, their beards wagging and hands gesticulating.

  A horde of trained personnel came to the family’s assistance. State police, some in unmarked police cars, the fire marshal, and the press were all trying yet again to make sense out of an unthinkable deed.

  The arsonist, who had now struck three times in less than a year, was determined to create significant damage. He—or they (perhaps it was a group of individuals)—had swept a storm of fear, chaos, and havoc across the Amish community. Anyone starting a fire on a night like that, the wind howling and screaming through the darkness, meant serious harm.

  David got down and put the reins through the black ring in the harness. He was not surprised that his hands were shaking. Sarah and Priscilla, surveying the damage, inhaling the smells of leftover smoke and soaked debris, remained seated until Levi said he wanted down off that spring wagon, even if they were going to sit there all day.

  Chapter 20

  EAGER HELPERS HAD WALLED off and insulated a corner of the implement shed. They would eventually install water lines and lay sturdy carpet over the power-washed cement. Reuby and his family would live there until their new home was built.

  The women hosed down the furniture and washed it with a solution from the fire company. Then they washed it again with Pine-Sol or Mr. Clean or whatever the ladies of the surrounding area had brought. Then they polished it, but some of it would have to be refinished. They washed all the dishes, but very few of the fabric-covered items, clothes, or curtains could be salvaged.

  The men had deliberated, but in the end, Reuby waved an arm and said, “Bring it down!”

  It was hard for Bena to give up her home and possessions, Mam said. She’d hoped they could salvage the house and more of the belongings, but Reuby said the dry wall was wet, and the two-by-fours were charred and weakened, even if they were standing. There wasn’t a window they could use.

  So Bricker’s Excavating had gone to work. Bena, short and squat, stood with her children gathered around her like homeless peeps, their faces aged with childish concern. They watched as immense yellow dozers with deafening diesel engines razed their home. Bena lifted her apron and found the white handkerchief she kept tucked away, held it to her nose, blew efficiently, and blinked back the small number of tears she allowed herself. She sniffed then turned, replaced her schnuppy (handkerchief), and herded her flock of children toward the implement shed. It was time to get to work.

  Sarah, Priscilla, and their sister, Anna Mae, worked with Ben Zook sei Anna sorting half-burnt items still dripping from the water of the fire hoses. A large blue barrel marked “trash” stood to their right and cardboard boxes marked “kitchen” or “closet” or “bedroom” to their left.

  One of the women filled a wringer washer with steaming hot water and powdered laundry detergent. Another filled the rinse tubs with warm water and Downy. They washed and rewashed the salvaged clothes only to raise them to their noses, sniff, and shake their heads. It was hopeless, so they sent for Reuby sei Bena.

  “It’s just so hard to part with some of these things,” she said dully as if she was far away, in a world where she knew nothing of that terrifying night of howling wind that had sent dragons of flames onto her good sturdy house. She had imagined the house would always stand, keeping them safe and protecting them against the elements. She used to think nothing could destroy those four walls and the shingled roof.

  Repeatedly, then, the women tossed wet items into the mouth of the blue plastic barrel marked “trash.”

  Anna looked up from the charred remains of a wooden toy box, the remaining toys lying soaked and blackened, a pile of innocence destroyed.

  “Come here.”

  Sarah went over, looked into the toy box, and shivered. There were the usual plastic rings, trucks, a few Matchbox cars, and a stuffed horse, all shifted to one corner, blackened and gray with soot and soaked with water. A doll stared up at them, one eye opened, another one closed, in an eerie wink, the hair blackened and dirtied by the water, the little Amish dress and black pinafore apron sodden.

  Sarah shivered again.

  “It plain down gives me the creeps!” Anna said forcefully.

  Sarah nodded then gazed out toward the steaming remains of the barn. Small pockets of blames continued to break out,
stubbornly refusing to be quenched. In that moment, Sarah realized the Amish community was under siege and needed help from the English world. The danger had been grave before, but now, it was grim. Her beloved Dat could not sort this out alone. A whole band of Amish ministers and laymen could not keep this evil at bay.

  Yes, they would pray and place their trust in God, the way they always did, but God was in heaven, and they were down here. And unlike the sparrows, they couldn’t just sit on the fence. They needed to use the wisdom that God would provide.

  Sarah wondered if this was how people felt in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever it was that the war was still being fought. It was the falling away of normalcy, the community thrust into uncertainty by the power of barns burning at the hands of an arsonist, a monster without mercy who did not value human life or the lives of faultless animals. Someone who wanted the Amish people to experience horror and fear, ridding them of the only safety they’d ever known: God and each other. For, really, how could God be trusted, if He allowed such tragedies one after another?

  “Sarah, come on. Stop standing there like a statue with your eyes bulging out of your head!”

  Anna Mae grabbed her arm. Sarah turned and shook free of the whirling mass of fear and doubt.

  Ben Zook sei Anna straightened her ample body, rubbed her lower back, and asked if there was going to be a coffee break today or what. She was starving. They’d had a fresh cow that wouldn’t accept the little bull calf, and she’d had an awful time of it, trying to get the silly thing to drink out of a bottle. Then she had no time for breakfast except a few potato chips while she was packing lunches.

  “I’m so hungry I’m going to fall over,” she announced, her eyes mirroring her genuine distress.

  “Maid! (Girls!)”

  Anna whirled eagerly to the sound of Hannah Stoltzfus’s voice.

  “Kommet, maid! (Come, girls!)”

  Anna dropped everything immediately, slid one arm through Sarah’s, and propelled her along. Anna Mae and Priscilla followed, laughing at the round Anna with her arm through Sarah’s, tall and thin beside her.

  They waited politely as the men served themselves first, grabbing large Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee and a handful of cookies or doughnuts or a granola bar or a chocolate whoopie pie or a slice of coffee cake.

  Anna was beside herself with glee. She planned what she would eat long before she could actually help herself to all the baked goodies spread in wonderful array on the plastic table, a dream come true, calories without worry. She’d have a blueberry doughnut first. Dipped in coffee, they were absolutely the best thing ever. But she would have to use a plastic spoon, the way they went to nothing so fast.

  Then, after the doughnut, she would have a chocolate whoopie pie. She knew who made them, and she was talented. Not everyone made good whoopie pies. Nudging Sarah, she asked if she’d ever tasted Elmer Lapp’s whoopie pies. The ones they sold at their produce stand? Well, she guessed if those tourists from New York City, the ones in the big buses, if they thought that’s what whoopie pies were supposed to taste like, no wonder you couldn’t buy them in their big city.

  Anna was the first in line, chortling and smiling, stirring creamer into her coffee, when someone approached Sarah from the right, a large being hovering at her elbow.

  Turning, she was pleasantly surprised to find Hannah, or Matthew’s mother, as she always thought of her.

  “Sarah, can I have a word with you?”

  “Sure!”

  They stepped away, Sarah trying desperately to hide her eagerness, her complete willingness to comply with any of Hannah’s wishes.

  “Sarah, did you talk to Matthew this weekend?”

  “A little. Why do you ask?”

  Hannah’s eyes were feverish in their intensity.

  “How did he seem?”

  Sarah could not give her the answer she sought, knowing instinctively what Hannah wanted to hear, so she shrugged, turned her face away.

  “Sarah?”

  She was alarmed to hear the unprotected panic in Hannah’s voice.

  “Was he happy? Was he himself? He doesn’t seem a bit heartbroken, now, does he? Huh? Does he?”

  Without saying a word, Sarah shook her head from side to side, supplying the answer Matthew’s mother wanted to hear, which wasn’t really lying, just helping to soothe the poor woman’s worries. How could she tell her of the devastation in his eyes? How could she stand here and tell his mother of the misery he carried like a shroud, enveloping himself against any overtures even she attempted?

  Her face flamed now, thinking of the subtle ways she’d tried and failed. For without a doubt, Matthew was clearly heartbroken, the youthful exuberance gone, replaced with a lethargy, a sick pallor on his normally tanned face. He was hurting far more than Sarah had imagined.

  “Well, if he’s alright, then, I doubt if he’ll ask her again, do you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  When Sarah spoke, it felt as if her tongue was covered with a woolen fabric that had thoroughly dried out her throat, and her words croaked, like a frog.

  Hannah looked at her sharply.

  Sarah cleared her throat.

  “You’re not telling me the truth,” she hissed.

  In response, Sarah turned and walked away as fast as she could, her eyes seeing nothing, her face revealing everything. She grabbed a cup of coffee, the array of baked things sickening her now, and rejoined Anna, was too busy dunking another blueberry doughnut to see the expression on Sarah’s face. Looking up, she caught only a glimpse the fading anger.

  “What got into you?” she asked in the forthright manner Sarah had learned to appreciate.

  “Oh, Hannah.”

  “Hannah? Matthew’s mam? Oh, I can only guess why, huh?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “She’s probably hurting with poor Matthew. Ach my. That’s so sad. I hate breakups. Hate them. They’re mean and cruel and dumb.”

  The passion in her voice surprised Sarah. Turning, Anna went back to work, forgetting her heavily creamed coffee with the blueberry doughnut crumbs floating on top. Reuby’s daughter, who was only two years old, ambled up to the cement block where Anna had left it, lifted the cup to her mouth, and drank every drop. She took the cup back to her mother and said very clearly, “Ich vill may coffee (I want more coffee).”

  Anna remained closemouthed, her nostrils distended enough that Sarah knew she was still upset. Why would she be so worked up about Rose and Matthew’s break up? What was it to her?

  Her mind was taken off the prickly subject by the sight of her father standing with a group of men, his head bent in submission, as he listened to the voices around him. Sarah knew he wouldn’t say much. It was her father’s way. He’d listen, cultivate what he’d heard, think it through, and talk it over with Mam.

  On the way home, the November sun seemed weak and ineffectual as it neared the line of trees to the west. The air was cold, and it would likely be colder tomorrow. She winced as a huge tractor trailer roared past, sending in a draft of frigid air that crept up under the woolen buggy robes, causing Priscilla to shiver.

  “Poo!” Levi exclaimed.

  “We’re almost home,” Mam answered calmly.

  “They want to hold a meeting,” Dat said quite unexpectedly.

  “Who does?”

  “The men of the surrounding districts.”

  “What about?”

  “The barn fires.”

  “What are they going to do?” Mam’s voice rose an octave, and her bonneted head turned toward Dat, who stared straight ahead, avoiding her intense gaze.

  “I don’t know. Something, they said. They think we should fight back.”

  “How?”

  Dat shrugged.

  “Oh my, Davey. This is very upsetting. How can anyone fight back? There is not much we can do.”

  “Levi’s Abner wants to hire private detectives.”

  Mam lifted both hands and slapped them down in complete disbelief
, sending up a few puffs of dust.

  “But even an English detective wouldn’t know where to start.”

  Dat nodded in agreement.

  “I’ll go to the meeting, likely. I just hope enough of us can come up with a peaceful solution to win over the hotheads.”

  He pulled on the left rein, an unnecessary maneuver, as Fred leaned toward the driveway without being told. They rode the remainder of the way in silence, then climbed off the spring wagon and walked into the house, each one separated by their own thoughts.

  Levi’s cough returned after the ride in the cold air, so Mam decided to stay home from the barn raising on Thursday. Emery Fender, the lumber-truck driver, would pick up Dat, so Sarah decided to drive Fred by herself.

  Levi was terribly upset about staying home because of his cough. He cried, threatened, and pleaded with Mam, who stood her ground and said there was no way he was allowed to go, and that was that. To ease the pain, she promised him a pumpkin pie if he’d drink his tea with lemon and honey in it.

  That evening Matthew walked up to the front door and asked Sarah if she wanted to ride with him the next day. After this unexpected piece of good fortune fell in her lap, she sang, smiled, and whistled her way through the rest of the evening.

  Priscilla would go along, but she’d be in the back seat, and that was alright with Sarah. Oh, again, God had smiled down on her and blessed her with Matthew’s presence, she thought the next morning as she combed her hair, hovering within inches of the mirror.

  Mam asked both girls to mind their business, watch to make sure the men had enough water to drink, and to please stay away from photographers and reporters. She sized up Sarah’s hair and covering, her eyes narrowing.

  “Sarah, do you have on your good covering?”

  Caught, Sarah thought resignedly. “Afraid I do,” she trilled, trying to lift her mother to a lighter mood.

  “Afraid you’ll leave it here,” Mam said dryly.

  “Please, Mam. My other one fits so stupid. One side leans forward, no matter what I do with it.”

  “Sarah.”

  Oh, so she was going to treat her like she was still in first grade, then. Instant rebellion sprang to life, like boiling water poured on coffee granules. “Mam,” she said, fast and hard, “You are just mad that I’m going with Matthew. That’s the only reason you don’t want me to wear my best covering.”