The Witnesses

by Linda Byler

  The word spread among the women and from the Widow Lydia to Melvin, her beloved friend, her betrothed. Sarah’s garrulous, big-hearted, twenty-eight-year-old cousin—with a personality that was larger than life—immediately carried the long-awaited news to the men.

  When it reached Lee’s ears, he was bent over a cement block, cutting it with the edge of his block hammer. He stayed in his bent position, hoping no one could see, no one could gauge the intensity of the relief that flooded through him, leaving him light headed, his face blanched, his eyes dilated with feeling.

  Melvin waved his hands and said he’d heard of Crozer-Chester. Wasn’t that the place Abner’s Joe was taken that time when he cut into an electrical cord and could have died?

  Yes, yes, it was.

  The sun was warm on their backs that day, the first serious promise of a gentler time ahead, and hearts swelled with gratitude that the winter would finally be over, without fail.

  At lunchtime, Matthew Stoltzfus appeared at the doorway. His hunger drew him, and he was eager to fill his plate from the great kettles containing the variety of home-cooked dishes he had missed so much in Haiti. He didn’t care if he never saw another piece of broiled fish in his life. He had been raised on good grass-fed beef and homegrown chicken, fried with flour and butter, with thick gravy on mounds of white potatoes. He considered it a privilege to join his mother now, at the lunch hour.

  He figured seventy-five percent of the people he met would treat him respectfully, so he responded in a like manner. He met curious stares, smiled back when someone smiled at him, and answered inquiries in a level tone, being careful, wary, not disclosing more than he had to.

  Hannah filled his coffee cup repeatedly, hovering close by like an annoying wasp. That was most of the reason for his being tight-lipped. He knew how desperately she wanted to sweep him back into the fold, and she wasn’t going to accomplish it.

  He watched the women and single girls, missing Sarah. She had always been at barn raisings, her bright expression and wavy hair a familiar sight, like a white fence freshly painted or a red barn beside fields of waving summer cornstalks, pleasant, a piece of home.

  He wondered where Rose was, wondered how he’d feel if she was to arrive here, on this day, and find him back in his old neighborhood.

  Digging into his second slice of chocolate cake with a mound of peanut butter icing on top, he chewed, then slid over on the bench to make room for Omar Esh.

  Eyeing the Widow Lydia’s oldest son, Matthew thought he was a looker with those black eyes and impressive height. He had grown at least a foot taller. Matthew remembered him as a pesky little eight-year-old, his father batting him around in church when he refused to behave.

  “Hey, Matthew.”

  “Hey, yourself, Omar.”

  “Good to see you.”

  “You too.”

  “Sorry to hear about your wife.”

  “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.”

  Omar was unsure how to answer this, so he didn’t. People like Matthew were fer-fearish (deceiving), and his mother had often warned him not to become entangled in a discussion with someone like him. He didn’t fully understand what the big deal was, but he figured he’d better listen to the voice of his mother.

  “Looks like the Lord chose to take from you as well. This second time around you really must admit you’re doing something wrong.”

  Omar shifted uneasily, lowered his head, and slurped his coffee.

  “You know you Amish should not be hiding the fact that you are being punished for your weak faith, which is a sort of disbelief in the Holy Scripture. If you took God at His word, you wouldn’t need to justify your life by works, dressing that way and driving a horse and buggy.”

  Matthew stopped and looked up when there was a tap on his shoulder. Infinitely pleased, he scrambled up from the bench and walked outside with a blushing Rose Zook beside him.

  Everyone saw it. The older women narrowed their eyes and compressed their lips. The younger ones whispered behind extended palms, “My, what a couple they still make.”

  Lee was chewing a toothpick absentmindedly. He heard the familiar high-pitched giggle and watched Rose talking animatedly with her former boyfriend. He showed no outward sign of emotion at all. He simply extracted the toothpick from between his teeth and threw it in the plastic garbage bag hanging from a nail on the porch.

  Not much had changed, in his opinion.

  When Friday’s paper arrived at the David Beiler residence, Eli’s Sam, or Sam King as he was known, brought it in with the rest of the mail, laid it on the counter by the sink in the kesslehaus, and forgot about it for a minute. Joe Kauffman, coming to do the milking, had distracted him with his speedy entrance into the forebay, his horse rearing and fighting the restraint on his bit.

  Levi was by the kitchen window, mixing some powdered Tang with lukewarm tap water, and almost had a fit, the way Joe couldn’t hold his horse. Joe was a bit of character, he thought, but Sam King was a good chap to have around, and Levi enjoyed his company immensely. An extra bonus was the fact that he was allowed to have that second slice of shoofly when Sam was there.

  Levi pitied Sarah, felt sorrow for Davey and Malinda, and understood the events that caused their suffering. He was kind and considerate of Priscilla and Suzie, glad to see the arrival of his three brothers, and just as glad to see them go to the burn center. Davey liked those three—Abner, Allen, and Johnny. They’d make their father happy, for awhile.

  So in his own simple realm, his life was upset, but not by too much, with Sam playing checkers with him and Priscilla to do the cooking.

  Levi never bothered much about the mail. Unable to read, he sometimes looked at bright flyers and glossy advertisements and enjoyed the magazines, but deciphering the articles printed in the paper was beyond his limited ability.

  Joe and Sam entered the house together. Sam scooped up the mail, unfolding the paper as he settled on a kitchen chair.

  “Joe, you want a cup of coffee before you start the milking?”

  “No, thanks. I’m a bit late as it is.”

  He turned, his kindly face breaking into a smile at the sight of Levi coming to join them.

  “How’s it going, Levi?”

  “Real good, Joe. Real good. Sam is really good to me, a nice chap to have around. Priscilla made soft pretzels last night.”

  “She did?”

  “Oh yeah. Were they delicious? Yes, they were. Did you know I don’t use mustard to dip them in?”

  “You don’t?”

  Levi shook his head, his eyes narrowing.

  “I use ketchup!”

  Joe opened his mouth to answer Levi when there was a decided yelp from Eli’s Sam.

  “What the world?! Joe, check this out!”

  Spreading the newspaper on the tabletop, Sam started reading aloud, his gnarled forefinger following the newsprint.

  There was a young man in custody—a Michael Lanvin. He was the suspected arsonist in the barn fires and was being held in the Lancaster County jail on $75,000 bail.

  “Oh my goodness,” Joe said, very soft and low.

  Sam read on. He had been taken into custody at the David Beiler residence.

  “Which David Beiler? There are dozens of them here in Lancaster County.”

  “Here!” Levi shouted.

  They turned in unison, disbelief stamped on their features, mouths agape.

  “What?”

  “Here!”

  Levi stood by the table, his wide girth lengthening as he pulled himself to his full height, hooked a thumb beneath his suspenders, and snapped them against his great chest.

  “It was me.”

  “Come on, Levi.”

  Sam shook his head.

  “Do you know this guy?”

  Levi walked around the table, bent over, and cocked his head to peer closely through his thick bifocals at the paper. He began nodding his head.

  “Oh yeah, that’s Mike. That’s the long
-haired young man that cried at the pretty girl’s funeral, and my dat, Davey, gave him a long hug, and he talked to him with nice words. He didn’t know that Mike was the same man that drove his car in our drive that night, the time when our barn burned. I didn’t either, for sure, but sort of. Then he came to our house, when the widow’s barn burned. He wanted to talk to my dat, you know, Davey. And . . .”

  Here, Levi paused for a moment, taking in the two men’s undivided attention, reveling in his self-appointed position as conveyor of wonderfully astounding news. He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing with conspiracy.

  “I told Mike to sit down, and he did. Then I told him I had to go the bathroom, which . . .”

  His voice trailed off, making sure the two men were on the edges of their seats, as he played the drama to its fullest extent.

  “I didn’t really have to.”

  He almost hissed the words. Sam’s and Joe’s eyes opened wide in bewilderment.

  “I just said so. Then I went quietly out the kesslehaus door and to the phone shanty. I ran. I can really run if I have to. I know my numbers. Did you know that? I punched the 9 and the 1 two times, and I told the lady I needed the policemen. They came, but not before I asked Mike if he wanted shoofly or whoopie pies. My mam had just made them.”

  “What happened when they got here?”

  “Mike tried to get away, but he couldn’t very easily do that. The kesslehaus door was locked.”

  Incredulous now, Joe Kauffman slowly shook his head.

  “Levi, you are something. May God be praised.”

  “It wasn’t God. It was me,” Levi said, scowling at the thought of his rightful honor going elsewhere.

  Eli’s Sam threw back his head and let out a great roar of delight, and he and Joe laughed until they had to wipe their eyes with their navy blue handkerchiefs.

  Clearly, that set everything right. Levi grinned widely, happy to be able to produce that sort of reaction.

  “You know, they were saying at the barn raising that someone heard somewhere that they had caught the arsonist, but we’ve heard it dozens of times, and it’s never been true—just a rumor,” Sam said.

  Joe nodded, then glanced at the clock above the sink.

  “I have to begin milking right now. Levi, would you send Priscilla out to feed calves?”

  “Suzie can help her.”

  “Alright.”

  Joe went out, the keeper of his neighbor’s cows while they were at the distant hospital with their suffering daughter, and his heart twisted within his chest, keenly aware of their pain. He’d have to set up a trust fund at Susquehanna Bank tomorrow. They had some staggering medical bills coming their way.

  But wasn’t that Levi a corker?

  Ah well, the least of these my brethren, and who would have thought he had it in him?

  CHAPTER 6

  THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE SET UP A GREAT CLOUD of speculation, suspicion, and disbelief that hovered over the Amish community. It reached for many miles as housewives chatted at quiltings or sisters’ days. Men working on construction sites tipped their hats, put down their nail guns, and gave their opinions. Many of them were likeminded, their voices laced with exasperation. They were just plain fed up, weary of the barn fires and their aftermaths.

  What if someone was in custody? That didn’t hold much clout, in their opinion. He’d lie his way out. No one had caught him actually setting fire to a barn. If the courts tried this Mike in a few months, who would testify? Who would press charges? Very likely the ministers would not allow it, so there was no point in getting excited about this guy’s picture in the paper.

  And now there was the minister’s daughter, completely disfigured, some said, and Davey was the main one who had held back, not allowing the usual investigation.

  Some said this would bring him round. Others said maybe this really would put a stop to the fires. And didn’t Davey Beiler’s Levi have Down syndrome? You just couldn’t believe everything you heard.

  Sarah was fully awake, her wits about her after that horrible battle to summon enough willpower to withstand the sensation hovering mostly on her right side.

  She could not turn her head, and her vision was limited by that as well as the swollen lids of her eyes, but she could see the room and her parents’ faces, briefly. She knew she was badly burned and had come to grips with it, sort of.

  Each day, in the forenoon, they unwrapped the bandages, and the taking away of the dead tissue would begin—the debridement.

  It was beyond anything Sarah had imagined the human body could withstand. She shook with uncontrollable spasms of fear and pain. She clenched her teeth to keep from crying out, but in the end, she gave up trying and begged them to stop. She cried and pleaded, thinking she would surely die.

  Always, the nurses and doctors were kind, explaining over and over how absolutely essential this procedure was for the healing.

  When she tried to tell her parents about it, after that first time, her hoarse voice caught on a sob, and she couldn’t convey the overwhelming pain. Her father’s face became grim, and he said he had to leave—he was going home to see to things.

  His wife’s eyes questioned him, and when she saw the raw agony in her husband’s eyes, she became very afraid. Reaching out, she placed a hand on his trembling arm.

  “Davey, are you alright?”

  “No, I’m not alright,” he whispered. “Who would be? Who could stand to think of their own children being tortured? Who?”

  Turning on his heel, he left and stalked down the hallway, the soles of his high-topped black Sunday shoes ringing on the glossy blue and white tiles. His shoulders, clad in the black mutza (Sunday coat), were held stiffly, his face white and set, like granite.

  The driver, Wesley, told old Dan King that he’d never seen Davey Beiler like that. He was afraid, so he was.

  When Sarah woke up that afternoon after her father left, she found her mother dozing in the vinyl chair beside her bed. She called her name hoarsely, then cleared her throat and tried again.

  “Mam.”

  When there was no answer, she lay back and closed her eyes as warm tears coursed down her cheeks, soaking the fresh bandages that covered her face. She felt alone, defeated.

  How badly was she burned? Why wouldn’t they let her have a mirror? Was she hideously disfigured, or could the doctors fix the worst of it? Surely she still had a nose and ears. And she had her eyes.

  Sarah tried raising her left arm, but instantly felt a stinging sensation across the muscles in her upper back, so she let it go.

  Every twitch, every slight movement sent shivers of pain through her body, like a million stinging needles pricking her skin.

  She’d probably have to get used to that, wouldn’t she? She’d have to work up some kind of resolve against the pain. She thought of her cousin who had a severe case of juvenile diabetes, plunging a needle into her stomach every day. She’d said that after awhile she hardly felt the gix (needle), and Sarah believed her.

  She’d try hard to bear the pain the best she could, which wasn’t the worst of it at all. The worst was the fear of disfigurement. The realization of it rolled into her consciousness like a fog on a wet spring morning, obscuring any hint of hope or encouragement.

  She was accustomed to the stares of curiosity whenever Levi went somewhere with the family, but he was born with his disability. His features from Down syndrome and his tendency to be overweight drew looks, but his mind was immature enough to allow him to live among his beloved friends and family with a childlike innocence. Levi was genuinely happy.

  Sarah felt trapped, not knowing her fate. She hung suspended between anxiety and acceptance.

  And what about Matthew?

  She groaned within herself, sharply aware of his dark good looks, his tendency to seek perfection in others. He’d never look at her again.

  His perfect features were etched into her brain. She could conjure up any picture of him she wanted, anytime she wanted. Laughing, scowling
, moving away, walking toward her, playing volleyball or baseball, or sitting beside her in the buggy, his profile was as handsome as that of any model she’d ever seen.

  Oh, Matthew. You’ll never want me now.

  Closing her eyes, she prayed, asking God for one more chance, one more time to be with Matthew. Perhaps her injuries would soften his heart.

  Alone in the confines of the small shed storing wood and coal, David Beiler fell on his knees, the rough bits of bark and chunks of coal biting into them through his denim trousers.

  He reached up, removed his straw hat, and bent his head above his calloused hands, which were clasped in prayer, but nothing, not one word, could he utter. He felt infinitely alone.

  Puzzled, he remained on his knees, the futility of being there slowly seeping into his mind.

  He could not pray. The words, the lifting of his spirit, would not come, so he rose stiffly, brushed the bits of dust and dirt off his knees, and turned to go. Opening the door of the woodshed, he stopped. He leaned against the dusty doorframe and looked out across the night sky. The soft glow of lamplight from the upstairs windows, the neighboring lights, the silhouette of the new barn and outbuildings against the twinkling stars arrested him and he held himself still. Perhaps if he waited, God would come to him and peace would be restored, along with the ability to communicate.

  The only emotion he felt, after a long while, was anger. Unresolved, boiling anger, as hot as the falling beam that had hit Sarah. It had scraped and burned her shoulders and back raw, like ground beef. Now, she lay in that hospital, tortured every bit as badly as the Anabaptists had been tortured, as told in Martyrs Mirror.

  It was his fault. He’d clung to the old ways. How much of it was tradition, how much was pride, and how small was the slice of heartfelt conviction?