Whispers from the Dead (Serenity's Plain Secrets Book 2)

by Karen Ann Hopkins

  The horse slowed to a walk just before we turned up Rowan’s driveway. I experienced a bubble of happiness for a moment at the prospect of a hot shower before I remembered that the simple luxury probably wasn’t an option.

  “Uh, does your family ever take showers?”

  Rowan looked surprised for a second at the drastic change of direction that the conversation had taken and then he laughed. “I’m sorry, but you will have to make due with filling a bath basin with hot water.”

  His eyes sparkled with good humor and I wondered if he was teasing me. I really hoped he was when I protested, “You’re kidding, right?”

  Rowan sobered and shook his head. “It won’t be as bad as you think. The girls will help you get the tub ready. It just takes a little bit longer than the instant shower that you’re so used to.”

  I was mulling his words over when the sound of shouting mixed with the pounding of splashing hooves suddenly met my ears. We both looked quickly up the driveway.

  Rowan stopped the buggy and waited for the rider to reach us. When the youth slid to a stop beside us, I guessed his age to be around thirteen. His chiseled facial features and dark brown hair told me that he must be Rowan’s other son.

  “Da, come quickly! It’s the new black cow…” I suddenly lost understanding when the boy’s words changed languages in midsentence, but I got the gist that there was a life threatening crisis going on with a cow.

  Orders fired from Rowan’s mouth in German as if it was an automatic weapon and then the boy was racing back up the driveway. The buggy lurched forward and I had to grab the door frame for stability.

  Rowan exclaimed, “We have a cow down with a breach birth.” He took a breath and glanced at me anxiously and went on, “We have to get the calf out, and it’s not going to be easy. We might need your help.”

  Still bouncing and clinging to the side of the buggy, I muttered, “Sure thing,” but I was silently thinking you have got to be kidding me.

  7

  When we finally reached the cow, she was obviously in great distress. Her black fur was soaked with sweat and the moisture that was rising from her wet body into the cold winter air was similar to steam that escaped from a sauna when you opened the door. She was vibrating with giant tremors of shivering and every twenty seconds or so, she’d whip her head around to her stomach and bellow out a shrill cry that made me clench my teeth. I certainly wasn’t a farmer, but even I could see that the poor cow was in a very bad way.

  The boy who had ridden to meet us in the driveway was now fast approaching at a dead run with a heavy, woolen-type blanket, while the older boy, who didn’t look at all like Rowan, with his mousy brown hair and light blue eyes, sat at the cow’s head. The boy on the ground was probably about fifteen or so, but with his wet cheeks and worried gaze, he seemed to be handling the scene worse than the other children.

  Mareena stood beside me stoically holding a coil of rope tightly in her arms. Lucinda and Cacey were nowhere to be seen and I imagined that they were in the house tending to other less life threatening chores.

  The sun had disappeared a few minutes earlier beyond the low hill line to the west and with its departure came a bone chilling wind that cut painfully through my jacket. I repositioned myself, turning my back to winter’s onslaught, and tugged my toboggan down tighter over my ears.

  I admired the way Mareena, in her black corduroy coat, could stand so straightly into the biting wind. The girl did have a thick, burgundy-colored scarf wrapped around her neck though, that completely covered her mouth. Her gaze was unflinching as she unemotionally watched the cow writhing in pain beside us.

  Rowan was in the process of backing up the horse, minus the buggy, to the hindquarters of the cow. It still had the harness secured over its back and across its chest, and my imagination ran freely about what was going to happen next.

  “Seth, cover the cow with the blanket and then go to her head. Gabe, come over here to help me,” Rowan instructed the boys. Even though the man had probably dealt with situations like this in the past, I was still impressed with the calmness of his voice. Hysteria in an emergency certainly wasn’t helpful, but unfortunately in my business, I encountered it all too often. I had to admit that when things got dicey, the Amish seemed to handle themselves better than most people did.

  “Is there anything you want me to do?” I asked.

  Rowan had the horse in position, and without specific direction, Mareena left my side to hand him the rope. He looked up at me as he tied a small loop at the end and said, “I need you at the cow’s head. You can help Seth keep her on the ground. We don’t want her to get up when we begin pulling.”

  Unfortunately, my assumptions had been right, I thought as I knelt beside Seth, taking the lead rope from his hands. My heart was pounding, but I focused on the cow’s large eyes as another contraction racked her. Terror was easily identified in their brown depths and the sudden pang of sympathy I felt for her made me swallow hard.

  When she tried to lift up, I held the rope tightly and leaned against her neck. Seth pushed in closer and placed his knee directly on her head to help me. She was incredibly strong and I began to fear that the two of us wouldn’t be able to keep her still enough while Rowan and Gabe worked to free the calf.

  “Take the reins, Son, and pull Dakota gently forward, just enough until the rope is taut.” When Gabe hesitated, Rowan said with more force, “Go on now, we haven’t got much time. You’ll do fine. Go slowly now.”

  Another gust of wind battered my back, but this time I didn’t feel the cold. I was too focused on the poor, exhausted animal beneath my hands. When the contraction passed, she laid down flat again and let out a great sigh. I had been with my sister when she delivered my nephew, Will, and the way this cow was behaving was not that much different than Laura’s reaction to each passing contraction. The main difference from when my sister had given birth was that I had been in a warm, comfortable hospital room, surrounded by several gray-haired nurses and a no-nonsense type of doctor. I was just a spectator for that event and it had ended with a beautiful baby boy and an elated woman. I was afraid that this delivery wasn’t going to turn out nearly as picture perfect.

  “Another contraction is beginning, Gabe. Go ahead and take Dakota forward. Don’t stop until I tell you,” Rowan ordered.

  The cow began to struggle to rise again and Seth and I used everything we had to keep her down. I even shifted positions and straddled her neck with my leg when she began to fight us in earnest. I knew that the pulling was really hurting her, but I didn’t waiver, concentrating on the task I had been given.

  “Good job, Serenity and Seth, we’ve almost got him out. Keep her down. This baby is huge and being breach, he’s wedged in there pretty well,” Rowan spoke with the edginess of an adrenaline saturated voice. The extra chemical rush was helping Rowan work quicker and more fluidly, and I began to feel a little hope that maybe all would end well with the cow after all.

  When the horse began to strain for an instant, I held my breath and I could feel Seth beside me, poised just as nervously as I was. We all held our breaths as Dakota took a jerking stride forward, and then the rope loosened. A sudden burst of steam rose up from behind the cow as the calf finally broke free into the cold, snowy world.

  “Mareena, hand me the blanket from the cow,” Rowan said as he began vigorously rubbing the calf with his bare hands. An excruciatingly long moment later, the solid black calf mooed and began kicking its legs.

  Rowan lifted the calf into a standing position and covered it with the blanket. “Seth and Mareena, please take the calf to barn and begin warming a bottle. Gabe, you can unharness Dakota and stall him for the night.”

  The kids immediately went about their jobs and Rowan came to kneel beside me. We silently watched Seth and Mareena struggle the large calf out of the field while Gabe lead the horse away. Gabe did pause for few seconds at the
gate to gaze back at the mother cow before he dropped his head and headed for the barn.

  “What about the cow?” I asked quietly, suspecting what he was going to say. Seeing the edges of the dark red puddle spreading out starkly into the white snow had already dashed my hopes.

  “Her uterus came out with the calf, along with way to much bleeding. She’ll never make it. The kindest thing to do is to put her out of her misery.”

  I nodded, understanding the situation full well.

  Rowan gazed at me with clear eyes and said, “I’m going to the house to get the rifle. I know that it’s cold, but do you mind staying with her until I get back?”

  I unzipped my jacket and reached into the holster that was secured at my side, pulling out my 9 millimeter Glock.

  “I think this will work.” I took a second for the surprised look to pass over his face before I asked, “Where do I shoot for the quickest death?”

  Rowan took a breath and then eyed me with speculation that quickly turned to a look of admiration. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  Without hesitation, I said, “It’s not about wanting to do it, but more about doing what needs to be done. It might take fifteen more minutes for you to return with your gun and there’s no reason to make the cow suffer that long when I can do the same thing right now.” Seeing him glance at the gun in my hand, I quickly added, and there’s no way that you’re firing this. Go ahead and show me where to shoot so we can get it over with.”

  Rowan pointed and said, “The skull is the thinnest right here.”

  I aimed at the cow that was now lying flat. Her labored breathing and the coppery smell of the pool of blood made me a little unsteady and I took my own deep breath, blocking out the sound and smell, and staring at the soft tuft of fur curling in front of her ear.

  A sudden memory of me being posed the same way, only instead of a cow, the gun was aimed at a person in a dim side street of Indianapolis, flashed before my eyes. The identical feeling of both clarity and surrealism rolled over me as my finger rested on the trigger. I had killed only once before, and it had turned out to be a teenage girl beneath an oversized Colt’s jacket. That time had messed me up for months, but this was different. This was only a cow, and I was putting her out of her misery.

  But when the blast of the shot echoed across the lonely field, I could admit only to myself that the act of killing the cow felt pretty much the same as shooting a criminal. It really sucked both times.

  8

  Rowan and I walked in silence toward the small white house that was my temporary home. Darkness had settled in, but the sparkling cover of snow was softly illuminating the barnyard and I had no trouble seeing where I was going. The calf had heartily finished the bottle of milk that Rowan had on hand for just such emergencies and it was snugly resting in a stall piled high with straw at the moment. Mareena had informed me that the little bull calf would be introduced to a cow that had lost her own calf during the bitter cold snap the week before with the hopes that the still grieving cow would adopt the orphan.

  I was weary with fatigue and chilled to the bone when we finally reached the steps leading up to the doorway. Anxious to be by myself, and get cleaned up with whatever warm water I could come up with, I barely slowed when I said, “We really need to sit down and talk about the case soon. I have so many questions for you, but I’m just too tired for that conversation tonight. Honesty, I don’t know how you do it. It’s bad enough to feed and water all those animals, but adding the freezing weather into the mix and the drama of having to put a cow down really makes farming a terrible profession to be in.”

  Rowan found humor in my dead serious statement and chuckled. “Farming isn’t for everyone, but I must say that you surprised me out there today. There’s a lot more to you than the average English woman, that’s for sure.”

  Gazing back at him to see if he was teasing, I discovered an earnest face. “It really is a tough life for your kind. Why do you stick with it?”

  I might have been overstepping my place with the question, but I was really curious why so many people chose to remain Amish and others, like Daniel, Asher or Naomi, couldn’t wait to be free from it.

  “Farming is in my blood. I’d be lost without it.” He paused and looked out at the wintry night and quiet barnyard, adding, “It’s about the community too. We are never alone. No matter how bad things get, there’s always a helping hand.”

  I nodded with some understanding.

  “The girls should have filled up the basin with hot water for you to wash up, but I’m afraid it might be only lukewarm by now,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll manage,” I said as I fidgeted in the snow, wanting desperately to get out of the cold.

  “We’ll have supper on in about an hour,” Rowan said.

  My stomach suddenly growled loudly at his statement and I hoped that he didn’t hear the rumbling noise. I really was starving, but I was also exhausted from the cow incident and just wanted to be alone. That’s when I heard the clip clops coming up the driveway. We both turned to watch the buggy that was being pulled by a gray horse approach.

  The buggy stopped in front of us and the door popped open. A young woman stuck her head out of the doorway and said, “When I drove by earlier I saw you all out in the field with the cow. How did it go?”

  Rowan took a few steps toward the buggy and replied, “The cow had to be put down, but the bull calf is robust and should survive.”

  I noted the soft, friendly tone that Rowan had used and was inclined to take a closer look at the woman. It was hard to tell from the long, black coat she wore, but she appeared to have a slender figure. Taking in her high cheekbones, oval face and large eyes, I realized that she was a pretty woman. A few wisps of blond locks that had escaped her cap were curling around her face and when she noticed me looking at her, she quickly moved her hand to hide them in her cap once again. When she raised her chin to gaze back at me, her cheeks were bright red.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Rowan said. “Serenity, this is Anna King. She’s our new school teacher.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  “Serenity is the sheriff from Blood Rock. She’s looking into the barn fires,” Rowan added.

  “Of course, I’ve heard all about you, Serenity. Thank you for traveling all the way here to help us figure out what’s going on,” Anna said with a reluctant smile.

  “I’m going to do my best,” I said.

  “That’s about all anyone can do,” Anna told me and then she turned back to Rowan, “I worried that with the trouble with the cow, you and the young’uns wouldn’t have time to prepare a proper dinner. I hope you don’t mind that I brought a pot of chicken and dumplings and some fresh baked bread over.”

  A wide grin broke out on Rowan’s face. “You’re an angel, Anna. Mareena was busy helping us with the calf and wasn’t able to get dinner started.”

  Anna beamed when Rowan added, “We’ll accept your hospitality on one condition—that you join us.”

  “I would be pleased to,” Anna glanced at me, “if it’s all right with the sheriff, that is.”

  About the last thing I wanted to do was to make conversation with an Amish woman, but eating her chicken and dumplings was another story all together. And it was obvious that Anna had a major crush on Rowan. This might be just the chance the woman had been waiting for to make her move. Her almost pleading eyes were hard to ignore and even my jaded self couldn’t help but inwardly smile at the woman’s clumsy attempt to get to know Rowan better.

  “Sounds like a great idea to me, but if you’ll both excuse me, I really need to get cleaned up.”

  “We’ll see you in a little while then,” Rowan said to me before he offered to take Anna’s horse to the barn.

  I could barely hear Anna’s bubbly response as I closed the door behind me. They are so hooking up someday, I though
t, as I pulled out my cell phone.

  I walked the room several times searching for phone service, before finally sitting down on the floor in the far corner of the room. I was grateful that the wood burning stove was still emitting heat and guessed that Lucinda must have added logs to the fire when she had arrived home earlier.

  Sighing, I unzipped my jacket and enjoyed the warmth in the tiny room while I waited impatiently for Todd to answer the phone.

  “Hey, boss, how goes it in the land of zero convenience?”

  It was funny how the sound of Todd’s voice usually irritated the hell out of me, but this time, the familiarity of it gave me some kind of weird comfort.

  “Besides having to shoot a cow in the head today, everything’s peachy.”

  “What the hell…are you joking?”

  “No, wish I was. I’ll tell you about it later. Right now, I need you to run a name for me.”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  “My cell phone and internet reception here are sporadic at best, call me back with anything you find out.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “Asher Schwartz.”

  9

  Rowan’s kitchen still had the unfinished look of a just built house and I glanced around, eyeing the cabinets without doors and the particle board floor. The place certainly needed a woman’s touch and turning to observe Anna hovering over the stove, I guessed that she was definitely up to the challenge.

  The scent of the warming broth from the chicken and dumplings was heavy in the air and I breathed it in deeply, very happy that Anna had been keeping a close eye on the goings on at Rowan’s farm.

  “Will you drink water or milk, Miss Serenity?” Lucinda asked.

  “Milk would be nice,” I replied.

  I felt a little guilty about sitting in the rocking chair beside the fireplace while Anna, Mareena and Lucinda swept around the room, setting the table and pouring the drinks. But they had all politely refused my offer to help, so I tried to push the awkward feeling aside.