Upon A Winter's Night

by Karen Harper

  29

  Staring toward the lighted garage, Lydia squinted to see who her rescuer was. Josh? But to have struck Connor so hard, even to help her... Dizzy, she was a little dizzy. Was it— No, not Daad.

  Oh, Gid! Gid rushed up to her. She started to say she’d been wrong about him, but he hauled her up hard by her arm and dragged her nearly off her feet into the garage. Pain shot through her ankle. She must have twisted it when she’d jumped from the buggy.

  “You had it all,” he ranted, “and threw it away. You had your chances with me, even after you turned into an icicle.”

  Blood! She saw blood under Connor’s head on the concrete floor. But didn’t Gid want to impress Connor, work with Connor?

  “Why did you have to hurt Connor?” she cried.

  “I regret that, but he’s been asking around about who put that newspaper man, Roy Manning, on to his doctoring the trees. If he came under fire for fraud, I thought he might ask me to help manage this place. It’s amazing what one can learn by lurking around this area. But then I was afraid he’d trace an unsigned note I sent to Manning’s office in Cleveland.”

  “You told Manning! Your entire life is a lie.”

  He gave her a hard shake. “So,” he explained, “here’s the story people will figure out—with Roy Manning’s articles—about all this. Connor was furious when he found out you sent that note to Manning. Besides, Connor wants your land, so you two got into an argument after his family left. He threatened you, and you hit him with this pitchfork. Somehow he knocked you down with his car engine running and, well, both of you died, such a tragedy. Lydia, except for losing you, this has worked out so well it has to be the true plan for my life—not a lie.”

  Gid was crazy! If he’d known what she and Connor were really arguing about, he’d have been able to blackmail or ruin Bess and Daad. While she tried to yank free from him, he went on and on. About following her to Amity, about taking the camel saddle, about honey in her bed and ice in her drawer and in her heart. But—was he going to hit her with the pitchfork, too? He’d said she would die with Connor.

  “Years of planning, months of courting,” he muttered. “So perfect for both of us to have the store, and then that female friend of Yoder shoves her nose in, tries to discover your real father and mother. That’s all I need, that the store doesn’t come with you. But you didn’t even take the hint. You didn’t stop pushing even when she died, did you? Started playing detective on your own, just like her.”

  “You’re embezzling from the store—big accounts. And you killed Sandra!” she cried as he pulled her farther into the garage.

  “And Sol was starting to catch on about the money, wasn’t he? I’d guess you’re the one who left the flashlight in my office when I went to remark some price tags. As for Sandra...I have a lot of work to do before we talk about that. But I want to thank you for finally giving me the perfect way to stop you. I’ve been losing sleep for weeks, keeping an eye on you and Yoder late at night, despite the demands at the store, waiting to find a good way to get rid of you or both of you—and your father. I regret Connor has to go, too, but it just happened. It’s necessary.”

  She glanced back at Connor, sprawled, unmoving. Her half brother. Was he dead? If she screamed, even here in the depths of this huge garage, would the sound carry clear down to Christmas tree workers or customers below?

  As if Gid had read her mind, he hit a button that noisily closed the garage doors, all three of them inside while Connor’s car, still running, spewed out fumes. To her amazement, Gid dragged her to the back of the car. Did he mean to put her in the trunk? Did he plan to actually drive Connor’s car somewhere, stage an accident like the one that had happened to Ray-Lynn when she was pushed off a cliff?

  But he shoved her to her knees behind the car’s fender, forced her head low so she looked and breathed directly into the exhaust pipe. Then from a backpack she hadn’t seen he wore, he produced the oxygen mask he sometimes used in the store’s back workroom when the smells of shellac and wood stain were strong. He’d always kept it in his buggy in case cars that passed him smelled bad. One-handed, not letting go of the arm he’d twisted up her back, he lifted the straps of the mask behind his head and turned on the flow of air so the mask began to hiss. A cord connected the mask to a small canister in his pack.

  And then, though she knew almost nothing about cars, she remembered reading how a local Englische family—it had been parents and a young brother and sister—had died from carbon monoxide poisoning because their bedrooms were over the garage and their car was left on. And how a space heater of some sort had taken the lives of an elderly couple because it wasn’t vented right.

  “No, Gid!” she cried, again trying to yank her arm from his bruising grasp. With her free hand, she clawed backward at him, but his grip didn’t loosen one bit. She screamed, “Let me go!”

  “Your old theme song, right? Let me go, I want Josh, not you. You think he can keep the store going when your father’s gone? I’m an ambitious man, who can do a lot of good with my money. Soon your father won’t be the richest Amish person in these parts.”

  She gasped and started choking, but more of the pieces fell together. Gid must have switched Daad’s pills at work...because he knew Daad suspected him of embezzling, or maybe Gid wanted control of the store sooner. Gid followed her here tonight, saw her buggy and his chance to blame Connor for her death...or would it be the other way around?

  “You— Did you hurt Victoria Keller?”

  “That old woman? No. Why would I? I didn’t even know about her.”

  At least he hadn’t killed her, too, but he might have wanted to if he’d known how the old woman’s—her aunt’s—note had set all this in motion. But now...so dizzy from hitting her head, she felt out of it, like Victoria. And this poison smoke. That poor widow she had visited to find out about Victoria, the woman’s house was filled with the bitter smell of smoke... And Daad always built a fire in the fireplace at Christmas, like the old days, Mamm always said. But Lydia loved Bess, too, wanted time with Bess...

  “Sorry, Lydia,” Gid said, the oxygen mask distorting his voice and making him look like the monster he was. “Ya, I confronted Sandra, but it was her fault. I was watching Yoder’s barn. In she went, so I thought I’d settle things with her, tell her to lay off, shut up about you maybe being the child of some dead tree trimmer, like she claimed, and not Sol Brand. In the loft, I only pushed her. She stumbled, she killed herself.”

  Lydia tried to concentrate on his words so she could argue, but her thoughts were so very floaty, so smoky.

  “Don’t fight me now,” he said. “I read this kind of death is like going to sleep. It just sneaks up on you. You know, Bess Stark may want to invest in the store when I volunteer to oversee the tree farm now that her son will be gone. I can handle the store and that, too. You never knew, did you, how clever I can be? I have the perfect alibi because I’m going to that Stark party where Bess and the sheriff will see me tonight...”

  Her thoughts were shutting down, her life drifting away. Maybe if she pretended to be limp...unconscious, he would let her go, walk away, away...

  His words rolled past her, around her like the fumes. Bess was her mother and had loved her father... She pictured the three of them together in a different life, playing Andy-over where the ball bounced on the roof and went clear up to Heaven. Aunt Victoria was flying like an angel, and there were her nephews, Connor’s twins, playing in the snow, and Connor didn’t hate her anymore, and Mamm forgave Daad and gave Lydia a lovely Christmas quilt with the words Forgive Mother all around the edge of the heavens with white clouds like smoke.

  “And if you think I’m letting Yoder off the hook for seducing you away from me—no way. He and that animal barn are going up in smoke!”

  Above all, that infuriated her. The barn, Josh, those animals—her animals. A surge of strength rolled through her, but she knew she had to seem to faint, even to die.

  She slumped against t
he car’s fender, deadweight. He lowered her to the ground right where she was.

  Thank the Lord, Gid dragged her away from the back of the car, put her over by Connor. She kept her eyes closed, though he left her facedown.

  Lydia fought hard to stay awake but to stay limp. “Leave!” she wanted to scream at him. “Get away from me!”

  An eternity passed. She had a terrible headache. He dared to pat her on the back, and then she heard him get to his feet. He moved away, but left the car engine on, the exhaust pouring out.

  Finally, she slitted one eye open and watched his feet move away, much as she had seen him at the warehouse earlier tonight. He hit some button that lifted one garage door. She longed to run out after him, suck in fresh, cold air, but she stayed put until he closed it again. Then she crawled the short distance toward Connor.

  Was he dead? He’d hated her, but he was her brother, and more important, Bess’s beloved son. She felt at the side of his neck. Yes, alive. She stumbled to her feet and opened the car door, driver’s side. If she turned the key, would the car engine stop? Oh, ya, it did, but she had to get Connor out of here and call for help. And, get the volunteer firemen to Josh’s barn in case Gid meant he would burn it down right now.

  But what if Gid was still outside? He was stronger than her even when she wasn’t weak and dizzy, nauseous, too.

  She got out of the car and stumbled to the door that went into the house. It was four steps up since the house was built on the hill, so could she carry Connor into the house?

  She tried that door but it was locked. She had to open the garage door, get rid of the fumes, scream for help.

  But as she shuffled toward the door to find the button Gid had used, it opened, and there she stood, sucking in fresh air, preparing to face Gid again.

  * * *

  Josh wished the sheriff would get back from the party at the restaurant. It felt as though he’d been gone longer than an hour, but then no one could cross Ray-Lynn. Josh hoped Lydia and her parents were getting along tonight, and that her mother would receive some mental counseling. The Amish didn’t put their trust in such worldly doings, but he’d been convinced she needed something she wasn’t getting among the Plain People. No, Susan Brand needed worldly help.

  And that’s what Jack Freeman was to him, worldly help. Josh didn’t doubt the man’s sincerity. He even liked him, despite it all. He and Ray-Lynn had been supportive of many Amish Josh knew, including his Lydia. He could only hope, by Christmas, eleven days away, he could see his way clear to ask Lydia to marry him. Even if they had to buck her parents, even if Gid Reich turned hostile, even if—

  Was he crazy, or did he smell smoke?

  He got up from his cot, checked the two kerosene lanterns he had inside then made a jogging circuit inside the barn. Nothing, but the smell was strongest in the old wing of the barn where they used to milk the cows. There must be a fire outside, and the smoke was drifting in here, but a fire in all that snow?

  He grabbed a pitchfork, went out the camel door. The Beiler boys had boarded up the door in the milking wing where the intruder had broken in. As he ran along the back of the barn, he skimmed the walls for a newly painted threat. Was this yet another ruse to get him outside? Still, smoke meant he couldn’t stay put inside but had to check.

  Josh turned the corner into the slap of cold wind. He ran toward the spot where his young neighbor Amos had claimed he’d seen someone that panicked the mule he was trying to ride. Josh’s thoughts raced as fast as his feet. If there was a fire nearby, his watering hoses were coiled in the barn. And other than an iced-over drinking trough and the pond way out back, there was no usable water or firemen for miles and long minutes away.

  As he turned the next corner, he gasped. Light and heat blasted him from a burning pile of hay, shoveled and shoved up against the door. Although the fire hadn’t spread far sideways, the door and the eaves above it were already aflame.

  * * *

  Car headlights blinded Lydia. Bess! It was Bess!

  “Lydia, what happened? I came back because I shouldn’t have left you like that, shouldn’t have left you ever. I don’t care what they think of me at our party or anywhere else, we need to talk more. And I know Connor’s got a temper, so—”

  Lydia lunged into her arms, then pulled her into the garage toward Connor. “Gid Reich hit him—left Connor’s car on—door down to kill both of us. We have to get him out.”

  Together they pulled him outside. Bess got on her phone, called 9-1-1. Connor wasn’t breathing. And, though Lydia had never done what they called CPR, she gave Connor three quick breaths, then tried to push on his chest the way Josh had saved her mother.

  “Tell them to get the volunteer firemen to Josh’s barn!” Lydia called to Bess. She was so dizzy she was going to keel over on top of Connor, but she had to keep going. It was hard to keep her arms stiff since she was shaking so hard. “Gid said he planned to burn his barn. I have to run over there.”

  After Bess called the fire department, she kneeled next to Lydia and took over pressing Connor’s chest. Lydia knew she couldn’t use her buggy, so she’d have to run to the tree customers below to get some help. She’d ridden horses as a girl, just not Flower. But it would take time to completely unharness her. Despite her twisted ankle, she had to run to Josh, warn him, even if she had to face Gid again.

  “Help me put Connor in my car,” Bess said. “This is taking too long. I’m driving him to the hospital, and I’ll drop you off. Try to lift his legs.”

  They got him in Bess’s car. Maybe their attempts at CPR or maybe moving him worked, but he began to choke and haul in huge breaths where he lay on the backseat. “What in the—” he hacked out. “Gid Reich, got to stop him.”

  “Just lie there,” Bess said as Lydia got in the front passenger seat. “On our way to the hospital, Lydia and I are going to warn Josh that Gid means to start a fire over there.”

  “I overheard you talking,” Connor choked out. “About Lydia...my half sister...”

  “Blame me if you want, but not her,” Bess insisted as she turned the car around and started fast down the hill. “She was trying to save you in there.”

  Without even slowing down when the car neared the Christmas tree workers, Bess continued down the driveway and did a sharp, squealing turn onto the road. She pushed a button that put all four windows down to let the fresh, cold air in. They roared past Lydia’s house. She was not so dizzy now, not nauseous. Power poured into her body. She was with her family. She had to warn Josh.

  But as they approached the Yoder barn, they saw the old milking wing was red with leaping flames.

  “Stay in the car, Connor,” Bess ordered as Lydia opened her door and got out.

  “You kidding?” Connor said, though his words were still slurred. “He’s gonna need help!”

  Limping but ignoring the stabs of pain in her ankle, Lydia tore toward the closest gate. It had been padlocked since the intruder had scared Amos Baughman there. She hiked up her skirt and climbed it. To her amazement, Connor shoved himself underneath it. She saw he had a lot of dried blood in his hair and on the back of his jacket. He threw up on the ground, then just crawled on and hauled himself to his feet.

  “Connor, go with Bess to the hospital!” Lydia shouted.

  “Don’t start bossing me around just because you’re my sister!”

  It looked to Lydia as if Josh had almost all the animals in the back holding area, but no one was fighting the fire. She grabbed a nearby pail and went to crack through the ice on the drinking trough, but saw he’d already done that. She dipped the pail into the icy water and threw it as high as she could, until Connor took it from her and filled the next bucket himself.

  Despite her fear for Josh and the animals, her eyes teared up with thanks that Connor was helping. And that Bess—her beautiful coat and dress now a mess—had crawled under the gate, too.

  Lydia ran to find Josh and saw him bringing the last of the braying mules outside. It was chaos
with the entire menagerie crowded in the fenced animal yard, especially because, snorting, braying and baaing, they shied away from the flames racing along the roof of the milking wing, and crowded around Josh. Lydia counted the camel heads in the flickering light. Ya, Josh had them all out, and, no doubt, at the expense of time to fight the fire.

  She worked her way toward him. Several sheep, evidently recognizing her, cuddled closer. “Gid Reich did this!” she shouted to him over the noise of animals and crackling flames. “He tried to kill Connor and me and said he was going to burn the barn! Bess is my mother, and Daad is my father.”

  Josh looked doubly shocked as he took that all in, but he pushed a donkey away, and as he grabbed her hard, they heard the distant wail of sirens. They stood with their arms around each other while sheep bumped them, and Melly appeared from the crowd to snort a kiss on the top of Lydia’s head.

  “It’s the sheriff and the fire truck,” Josh yelled as they looked down the road at the approaching, pulsating lights. “With these flames, they don’t need me to show them where the fire is. And I see the mayor and our state senator—your other family—throwing buckets of water. They’ll tell them where to park.”

  Despite the danger and the din, the two of them stayed among the animals—their animals—that smoky winter’s night and held on tight. They would lose the milking wing of a barn, but, Lydia thought, it was the one Bess had given money to rebuild. Despite all that she’d been through, she felt inwardly calm, content and so in love. And that she had finally come home.

  30

  Mamm had started weekly counseling sessions with a psychiatrist, whom she’d gifted with friendship bread. And Lydia had told her that she knew who her birth mother was. Still, she and Lydia managed to put a feast on the table for Christmas Eve: turkey with cranberry sauce, tomato pudding, candied sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, Mamm’s bread, as well as the traditional side dishes of fudge and peanut brittle. Lydia thought she would burst with the meal and with gratitude and joy.