“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 mean
t 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.
It could be she sensed his attraction to Carlyn and worried he’d tempt Carlyn away from the village. She’d probably seen many young women desert the Shaker way for a more normal life.
But if Carlyn was feeling any temptation to leave the Shakers, she didn’t show it. She had washed her face and changed clothes since they talked that morning. Now he was the one with the black smudges on his face and the odor of smoke clinging to him.
She still wore a Shaker dress with the wide white kerchief draped around her shoulders and lapped across her front. No unruly strands of hair escaped her cap. With her head bent and her hands folded in her lap, she didn’t look anything like the girl he carried in his thoughts. It was as if the Shakers had gathered her spirit and stuffed it out of sight somewhere the same as her hair hidden by her cap.
He wanted to reach across the space between them to lift up her chin and make her look at him, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Even if the old Shaker sister and Elder Derron hadn’t been there beside them, he couldn’t. She was yearning after her missing husband, not him.
He needed to rein in his imagination. It could be he was simply moved by her admirable faithfulness after the way Hilda so quickly forgot her promise to wait for him when he marched off to war. His heart was bruised by Hilda’s betrayal and by the war. Something about running toward death in battle after battle made a man dream of a wife and children around his supper table or sitting beside him on a church pew. He’d gone through the war certain that woman would be Hilda, but now when he thought about it, he couldn’t imagine her being the wife he’d dreamed about in those army camps. If they had married, they would have both been miserable.
His foolish imaginings about Carlyn might be every bit as delusional. She had spirit. They both liked dogs. That was hardly enough reason for him to want to take her hand and lead her away from this place.
He needed to look for the answer to his dreams elsewhere. There were women who would welcome his attentions. Women other than Mrs. Snowden’s Florence, who was definitely not in his dreams.
Did he reach for the unattainable on purpose? A way to protect his heart. He could stop that. He could put Carlyn out of his mind.
Then she raised her head and looked directly at him. While every inch of her posture suggested submission to the Shaker rules, her eyes were still that woman he’d first seen standing in her doorway, a gun hooked over her arm. And his heart beat a little faster.
Elder Derron cleared his throat and broke the odd silence in the room. “I believe you know Sister Carlyn and Sister Edna.”
Mitchell pulled his eyes away from Carlyn but not before he caught the ghost of a smile on her lips. Strange how easy a man’s hopes could be lifted.
He pushed that thought aside to turn toward the elder. The man’s cough was gone. Also gone was the trembling weakness Mitchell had noted at the site of the fire. Here at his desk, the elder looked in control, very capable of attending to the business of the Shaker village.
“Yes. Mrs. Kearney brought me her dog when she found out she couldn’t keep it here, and I talked with Sister Edna earlier today.” He smiled over at the old sister. Her face tightened into a fiercer scowl. “I apologize, Sister Edna, if I upset you this morning.”
Her face didn’t soften. “It’s my duty to protect the young sisters in my charge from those of the world.”
“I meant no harm.” Mitchell tried to look as sincere as possible, but there was no way he was going to win Sister Edna over. Not unless he joined the Shakers and began wearing their costume and probably not even then. She didn’t seem much happier with Elder Derron than she was with him. In fact, her frown darkened when the elder spoke.
“I’m sure Sister Edna knows that.” The elder turned toward Sister Edna.
The woman wasn’t silenced by the elder’s words. “Whether he did or not, someone meant us harm and our brother is dead because of it.” She stared straight at Elder Derron until he looked down at his hands spread on his thighs.
“Yea, Sister, you speak truth.” The elder pulled in a breath. “Sorrowful truth.”
The old sister narrowed her eyes and stared at the elder’s bent head. “The truth is what we need to discover.”
Mitchell had heard the sisters had as much say in the Shaker Society as the men. Even so, he was surprised at how Sister Edna addressed the elder. Then again, that might be her usual manner of speaking. It was certainly how she’d spoken to him that morning when she’d accused him of being the devil.
He waited for the elder to speak, but instead another uncomfortable silence fell over them. Mitchell decided to take the bull by the horns. It was getting late in the day, and he needed to get back to town in case something there needed his attention. Problems didn’t take turns. Instead they often came in bunches.
“I asked Elder Derron to let me speak to you about what you said this morning, Sister Edna. About Mrs. Kearney witnessing an argument between Brother Henry and someone.” Mitchell let his gaze drift from Sister Edna to Carlyn. She was gripping her hands so tightly in her lap that her knuckles were white.
“Sister Carlyn reported such to me.” Sister Edna stressed the Sister Carlyn as though Mitchell calling her Mrs. Kearney brought the idea of matrimony too much to mind.
Mitchell didn’t care. Carlyn wasn’t his sister. “Tell me what happened.”
Carlyn looked up as though ready to answer, but Sister Edna pushed her words out first. “Our sister says she took a wrong turn yesterday on her way back to work in our Gathering Family gardens. She had been confessing her sins to me and was somewhat distraught due to her failure to conquer such wrong behavior. At least that is what she claimed. Is that not correct, Sister?”
“Yea,” Carlyn murmured, but there was little conviction in her voice.
“It might be helpful if Mrs. Kearney speaks for herself, Sister Edna.” Mitchell turned in his chair to face the women directly and used his most official voice. “Then once she has told her story, you can add what you feel necessary.”
The Innocent Page 15
