by Karen Harper
“But if you make confession and change the behavior in question—”
“The sin in your life.”
“Right. Then you can be taken back?”
“With confession and a restoration process. There is so much joy when a lost soul returns to the flock, the prodigal son or daughter.”
“What are some of the things deemed shunnable?”
“Well, of course, aiding and abetting a car theft ring—that could have sent Jacob to prison. Adultery, of course. Premarital relations—which does happen, though usually the couple makes confession and weds and is taken back in good faith. We’re not saints. That’s a wrong idea ausländers have of us sometimes. Also, cheating in a business transaction, using banned technology without permission, marriage outside the faith, owning a car, flying in an airplane—anything that is jumping the fence of our ordnung, the rules.”
“But Mrs. Miller won’t be banned for going with Noah in the medical chopper?”
“No. The ordnung might sound strict, but it is open to interpretation, and mercy rules judgment at times, like with Noah. He might be banned for a while but when he’s taken back, he’ll be stronger for the separation.”
“Isn’t there any hope against shunning for someone who decided to pursue her artistic talent to paint pictures and then sell them?”
She hesitated a moment. “There is an Amish artist in Pennsylvania, Susie Riehl, but she does mostly still life, quilts or buildings and, if she does a person, she makes him or her faceless. And she stays at home, never goes to shows of her work or promotes her own work. Considering the challenge I had just getting permission to paint quilt squares, my guess is that the meidung would be pronounced on me. Nate,” she said, her voice trembling and hurried, “I’d have to go live in the world, and that would mean shunning, too. It’s almost like being dead to your family and friends—to be dreaded as much as…as much as being burned.”
“Don’t talk like that. You sound like your grossmamm. I believe your artistic talent is a God-given gift and shouldn’t be hidden or stifled. Just remember that, if your own people ever try to bring you up on meidung charges.”
Sarah had to smile at the way he’d put that, law officer that he was. He still could not grasp the impact of an Amish person being cut off. Good old American individualism and independence made it so hard for the Englische to really grasp their ways. She let him help her get the night goggles adjusted once again and settled in the chair. Without turning her head, she knew he lay down on her bed. But then—
Her heart almost leaped into her throat. A man out there! A man walking past the barn, looking up at it….
She saw it was Daad, coming back into the house for something, not hurrying. It must not be an emergency. It didn’t seem as if he had seen anyone. If only one of them had seen who put that last note in the sack with the paint, but she’d asked the whole family. It would be pointless to ask Cindee. If she and Mike Getz wrote the note, she’d deny it. If they had nothing to do with it, the cat—like the note—would be out of the bag.
Grateful she hadn’t scared Nate with a false alarm, Sarah leaned her elbows on the windowsill and stared into the darkness outside and that within.
22
“THIS BAD WEATHER IS GOING TO RUIN YOUR surveillance plan tonight,” Sarah told Nate the second night of their vigil.
They stood inside the screened door of the farmhouse, watching the rain slant sideways so heavy they couldn’t see the barn. The wind howled, and trees thrashed in the gusts. It was coming from the other direction, or they would have been soaked with just the screen between them and the force of the storm. But Sarah was so aware of another force of nature standing behind her, close but not touching her. She wanted to lean back against him but she stayed rigidly where she was.
“Bad weather is God’s will, right?” he asked. “Maybe He thinks I need more than three hours’ sleep, but I can’t imagine sleeping during this.”
“It’s a good thing I didn’t paint more today, or it might have washed away or been peeled off,” she told him, hoping he realized she was joking.
She hadn’t admitted that she was really torn about working on her quilt square. The more progress she made, the more she felt she was endangering her family’s barn, and yet they wanted to lure the arsonist out in the open. But on a night like this, they’d never even see him, let alone catch him.
“How do your people prepare for a weather emergency, if they don’t know it’s coming?” he asked. “No internet, no TV…”
“Sometimes word of mouth, but mostly battery-operated radios for weather emergencies. Daad has one upstairs, so I suppose that’s where he’s been since the others are in the living room.”
Sarah knew Nate had been talking on the satellite phone to the fire marshal supervisor, Stan Comstock. From him, Nate had learned the storm was widespread.
They both jerked as a flash of lightning blinded them and a horrific boom of thunder resounded somewhere close. He put his hands on her shoulders, tight.
“All we need is lightning hitting the barn tonight,” he said. “It’s a good thing some of the trees by the pond are tall, because maybe they’d draw the strike. Stan says there are tornado warnings south of here, too, but you never know where those might hit.”
“And that’s why—” Daad’s voice came from behind them “—we trust in the Lord who giveth and taketh away. But I still agree we can call the arsonist the Beast now, since that last threatening note. You two get out of the doorway, ’cause I’m going to have to go on out to the barn and look around after that strike. Nate, you want to come with me?”
“Sure. With this storm, no one’s going to start a barn fire tonight.”
Although lately they had kept the horses in the fields in case the arsonist struck, they had been forced to move the four big plow team Percherons and the three buggy horses inside. Not only did the animals get nervous outside, but they could be struck by lightning or hit with flying debris. “Daad,” Sarah said, “you know Sally always gets off her bean over thunder. I’ll go, too.”
“You’ve changed, my girl,” Daad told her. “Just two weeks ago, you would have asked if you could go along.”
Nate had taken his hands from her shoulders the minute they heard Daad’s voice. Her father looked at her, then at Nate. He turned and went into the living room. Sarah assumed he was talking to her mother there. When he came back, he carried three coats and two large flashlights, one of which he handed to Nate. Nate had to fuss with the backpack he wore. Since Amish clothes had no pockets, he carried his satellite and cell phones in there. Even if they’d had an umbrella, Sarah thought as they stepped out, it would be turned inside out or ripped away.
On the porch, they waited for a slight lull in the rain. Finally, after Mamm came into the kitchen to see if they had gone, Daad led the way out.
The wind hit them hard, ripping at their clothes and hair, whipping leaves and grit against their skin. They squinted their eyes almost closed and stumbled along through puddles. Nate pulled her to his side, and they bent into the blast together right behind her father.
“Forty, fifty miles per hour,” Sarah thought Nate said, but she wasn’t sure in the shriek of the wind. In the leeward shelter of the barn, under her partly painted quilt square, Daad and Nate worked together to slide the door open enough that they could dart in, then slide it closed behind them.
Within was a cove of quiet; however, the wind howled outside. Each rumble of thunder made Sarah think this vast building was clearing its throat or its belly was rumbling, giant that it was with them inside. In the drafts and wind, the entire barn seemed to gasp for air. It looked so different at night without the wan, golden glow of a lantern or two. The depths of darkness seemed to swallow their flashlight beams. As silly as it was of her, she almost felt she’d never been here before. How did the arsonist feel when he decided to murder a barn? Nate and Daad played their beams along the floor so they could see as they made their way toward the snort
ing, stomping horses in their stalls at the back. Something was creaking, something else was banging, just as that day during a lighter rain in the Miller barn before it was burned.
Daad went to pat and talk in German to his work team, big, blond babies that they were. Sally tossed her head and showed the whites of her eyes in the reflected light of the flashlight Nate held.
“Will she be okay in the dark with you?” Nate asked as Sarah petted and crooned to the mare. “I’d like to go up in the loft and check around the interior perimeter—see and smell if that lightning strike hit anything. Something like that can smolder for a long time before bursting into flames.”
Their gazes snagged and held. When he looked at her like that she could almost feel heat between them.
“Sure, we’ll be fine. Won’t we, girl?” Sarah said, and looked away.
Soon she could tell that her father also walked around the barn, darting a beam of light into corners. Sarah inhaled deeply, hoping she didn’t smell smoke. No. She was just imagining things, letting the sounds outside shake her up as much as they had Sally.
It seemed an eternity before Nate and Daad came back to her. When they held their flashlights low, the shadows on their features made them look scary.
“Until it lets up a bit, I’m gonna stay out here. Nate, you want to go back to the house or the grossdaadi haus?” Daad said.
“I don’t think any of us could so much as see the barn tonight from outside of it. We’ve learned the Beast is clever, so he or she must know it would be crazy to try an arson tonight. You want me to get Sarah in the house, then come on back? She can tell them what we’re doing.”
“How about bringing out some coffee and cookies or half-moon pies?” Daad said, and turned back toward the horses.
Sarah wanted to stay, too, and tend her horse, but since her father had made that earlier comment about her not asking for permission, she kept quiet. Besides, she still felt more skittish out here than poor Sally.
She and Nate waited for another little lull and, holding hands, made a dash for it toward the porch of the house. When they almost slipped in a mud puddle, she held him up better than he did her. She wanted to cry, to laugh. She wanted all the dangers to go away so she could just be here on a calm early June night with Nate. She wished he’d come calling, wished he was Amish—but then he wouldn’t be Nate.
“Mamm,” Sarah called when she saw her mother’s silhouette behind the screen door, “Daad and Nate are going to stay in the barn for a while, but can you put some coffee in a thermos and pack some snacks for them?”
Without a word, Mamm turned away. “You should get some dry clothes,” Sarah told Nate as they stood on the porch. Hers stuck close to her skin, and, after she took off her jacket and shook it out, Nate kept looking her over.
“I only have one outfit—one chance to be Amish,” he told her. “You tell everyone not to worry about your dad and me out there tonight.”
He tugged her away from the door. Between it and the window, he pulled her to him, holding her tight. They pressed together knees to foreheads in a hard hug. They didn’t kiss, just held each other up in the sweep of the storm, but it sent her head spinning as if he’d kissed her silly. And she had the strangest thought. Although Nate was the outsider here, she suddenly felt she was, too. At that moment she felt closer to him than to her family or her friends and community.
They jumped apart when they heard Mamm’s quick footsteps in the kitchen, then her voice, “Here, double-bagged.”
“Get some sleep,” Nate said, talking to both of them.
“As if, in this noise,” Sarah told him.
He waited on the porch a moment, picking his time, then darted into the wet, devouring night.
Mamm held the door for her, and Sarah stepped inside, dripping wet. “We have to be strong,” Mamm said, and put her arm around Sarah’s wet shoulders, “but then not be too bold, either. Keeping on the straight and narrow, that works the best.”
“Maybe so,” Sarah said, “but that’s pretty hard in a big storm, one I didn’t ask for, one I can’t see through.” Did her mother know she was talking about Nate? That’s what Mamm had meant, hadn’t she?
Mamm looked like she’d say more. Little worry lines like birds’ feet crowded the corners of her eyes. “Nate’s a good Englische man, and I like him,” Mamm said. “But he can’t be for you, Sarah. I’d burn that barn myself and confess to the other burnings if it would make him leave,” she blurted, and then fled the kitchen.
“I can see you and Sarah are getting close,” Ben Kauffman told Nate as they sat on hay bales in the barn. The lightning and thunder were getting more distant, but now this—a talk Nate did not want to have.
“She’s been a tremendous help. Because of her barn paintings, finding the arsonist is personal to her, too.”
“But you two been getting that way—personal.”
Ben’s voice was not raised. It was barely discernible above the rain on the roof. Nate knew the Amish man would not confront him in a worldly way. Somehow, that made it harder than if they could argue or fight it out. He didn’t even know how to confront himself about his feelings for Sarah.
“She’s a very special woman,” Nate said. “Bright and talented.”
“And tempted by things she can’t have, a worldly art career and an outsider, however kind a man he is.”
“Her God-given talents to draw and paint—why can’t she have that? Some Amish build barns, some quilt, some grow and sell lavender, some bake, some build birdhouses and gazebos and farm, too.”
“I was hoping you could understand what keeps the Plain People going after all these years is unity of purpose, tradition and beliefs.”
“I see that. But individual differences within the group are to be cherished and encouraged, too, aren’t they?”
The older man took a gulp of coffee. He leaned over and put his hand on Nate’s shoulder. “Once you’ve found the barn burner, we want you to leave with good memories of the Home Valley and the Kauffman family, Nathan MacKenzie. But we don’t want you to leave with our Sarah.”
“If she leaves, it would be her decision, not mine. That much I can promise you. You’ve let me put a lie out to the community that I’m not here right now and for a good purpose. But I can’t lie to someone who has been such a good host as you, Mr. Kauffman. I care deeply for Sarah and can promise only to support her decisions as best I can, whatever she does or doesn’t do.”
“Then let’s agree the decisions will be hers.”
“Fine. But if not mine, not her parents’ decisions, either. Hers alone.”
Ben Kauffman nodded, and they shook hands. It was quiet between them after that and not because of the whine of the wind and roar of the rain.
“You didn’t have to stay at the restaurant until I closed up,” Ray-Lynn told Jack as he walked her to her car. She didn’t see his, so it still must be parked at the police station. “I’ve driven home in bad storms before, and the worst seems over. It’s barely sprinkling right now. It sure smells fresh and clean out tonight, doesn’t it?”
“You get free bodyguard protection, you better take it, Ray-Lynn. This isn’t exactly a mecca for crime, except for our arsonist, but you can’t be too careful going to your car at night. Unfortunately, the evils of society are creeping out of the city and into the country more and more. Here, let me hold that umbrella over both of us. You want to take a little stroll?”
“Sure. It’ll be like that old movie, Singing in the Rain. We’ll splash in the puddles and dance.”
“We could go dancing some night if you want.”
She took his arm, and he held it tight to his side. “You do a great job around here, Jack, but I can’t believe Nate’s left this all to you right now. He hasn’t called from Columbus, has he? Shouldn’t he be here, keeping an eye on things?”
It seemed to her he was going to say something, then thought the better of it. “He’ll be back for the barn raising Saturday,” he told her.
“Just don’t you worry yourself about any of that. Now, if you would have gotten that quilt square painting of Sarah’s done on the front of the restaurant or even a mural inside, I might have told you different. We can’t tell if the arsonist is targeting barns of Amish church leaders or her art.”
“I wonder if Nate knows about the storm, at least. I actually saw some of Peter’s precious newspapers being swept down the street as if they were tissues. He’d have a conniption if he looked up from his work long enough to see it, and now he’ll have to cover the weather as well as the arsons and the barn raising.”
“Like I said, he so much as hassles you over his coffee getting cold, you let me know. Hey, see the light on in the hardware store? It’s gonna do a land office business selling chain saws and such tomorrow to cut up fallen limbs. I wonder if Mr. Baughman’s getting ready for the onslaught,” he said, “’cause it looks like they stayed open late. For once, not just Peter’s office but the hardware store’s all lit up.”
“But it’s usually brighter than that when they have the store lights on,” Ray-Lynn said.
“Good observation. That light’s pretty dim. Mr. Baughman should have told me if he decided to start leaving a safety light on. I’m gonna get you back in your car and go check it out.”
“Not when we’re almost there, you’re not. You just go peek in, and I’ll wait here.”
She stayed in front of the Amish Antiques Shop—some of their stock wasn’t Amish and some wasn’t antique—while Jack strode across the street. On the far edge of town she could see the lights from the McDonald’s and the Wendy’s that she once feared would ruin her business. Lately, they hadn’t made a dent. Except for locals, the non-Amish eating places held little allure.
