by Karen Harper
“Not you. Keep quiet or go back inside the grossdaadi haus!”
“It wasn’t me!” Hannah cried. “Someone’s mistaken or lying.”
“Then that’s enough from all of you right now,” Nate said. “Here’s the deal. Hannah agrees to stay in the house—handcuffed to you, Sarah—while I search the grounds and her car. Is it at the cemetery again, Hannah?” She nodded.
“Do I have your permission to search it? If not, I’ll get a search warrant.”
“Yes, I don’t care. Look, I can understand it looks bad. I know you’ve been bugged by my lack of alibis, but I did not harm our barn or any other, let alone watch them burn. I did not!”
He unlocked one of her cuffs and, without asking for Sarah’s permission, snapped it on her wrist. “Let’s go inside the farmhouse,” he said, putting Hannah’s things back in her bag and handing it to Mamm while Sarah and Hannah got to their feet, not only cuffed together but holding hands. “Mr. Kauffman and I have a lot of ground to cover out here in the dark,” he said as they all trudged toward the farmhouse.
“Don’t waste your time,” Hannah told him. Her voice had slowly come to sound like her again, almost defiant.
“You going to tell me where your stash of fire starters is, then?” Nate challenged when Sarah had thought he might be softening.
“I’ve done a lot wrong in my life, Mr. MacKenzie,” Hannah said, turning to face him on the back porch, so that Sarah’s hand was yanked around and she faced Nate, too. “But you’re the one who’s wrong about this. Dead wrong.”
It was nearly dawn when Nate finally had to admit he’d found nothing to incriminate Hannah Esh. A few cigarette butts in the ashtray of her car was the closest he and Ben Kauffman could get to anything having to do with fire, though the interior of the old compact model smelled of smoke—incense, Sarah had said once—the same scent on Hannah’s clothes and in her hair. He could not see hauling her into the same small jail cell that held Cindee Kramer, because that would make three suspects locked up, none of whom he could prove were guilty of arson.
“Hard to believe anyone Amish or former Amish would do it, anyway, Nate,” Ben said as they dragged themselves into the farmhouse just before dawn and slumped at the kitchen table. “We know how precious the barns are. In the old days, folks would build a decent barn before they built themselves a good house.”
Mrs. Kauffman poured them both coffee and, without a word, pointed to her husband’s grimy hands. He and Nate got up to wash at the sink while she got bacon and eggs going on the stove.
“I haven’t heard a peep out of the girls for a couple of hours,” she told them. “But I heard them talking for a long time last night, not what they said, though. Always tight friends, those two, and Ella Lantz, they sure were.”
“I’d better go up and unlock their handcuffs,” Nate said. “I can’t see grounds for holding Hannah.”
“Her watching the raising will hold her here today,” Mrs. Kauffman said. “It’s fine with us if she watches from the barn window. I’m going to take your mamm over with us, Ben. I think it will do her good, but if it disturbs her, I’ll bring her back. She keeps muttering about burnings, so seeing the sheierufschlagge up close will do her good. As for Hannah, I’m just praying that Sarah will convince her to come home for good—and not the other way around.”
Taking a quick swig of his coffee, then pausing at the kitchen door, Nate said, “Sarah told me she’d never go to live with Hannah.”
Both of the Kauffmans looked at him. The silence, but for sizzling bacon, screamed at him. Were they still afraid he would take Sarah with him?
“I’m leaving after the barn raising,” he told them. “VERA’s needed in Columbus for other cases, and Stan Comstock’s back now. I apologize to you and your people for stirring the waters without forcing the arsonist to the surface.”
“We’ll still be watching the barn today,” Ben said. “Gabe and I will be taking turns, and we’re real glad you’re staying for the raising.”
Nate nodded and went upstairs. He knocked on Sarah’s bedroom door. “It’s Nate.” Like Siamese twins, bound together, when the door opened, both Hannah and Sarah stood there, looking tousled and bleary-eyed, still in the clothes they’d worn last night. Sarah wore no prayer kapp or bonnet, of course. Her long, thick hair spilled over her shoulders.
“Nothing was found,” he informed them, “so either I owe Hannah an apology or I missed the other sack.”
“There was no other sack,” Hannah said. Her face looked ravaged by tears. Sarah, too, looked as if she’d been crying.
He unlocked their handcuffs. “The Kauffmans say you can stay in the barn during the raising,” he told Hannah. “Either Gabe or Mr. Kauffman will be back and forth, and I might be, too. It’s my last day here, and I’m honored to help rebuild your family’s barn.”
“I know you need to do your job,” Hannah said, rubbing her wrist with her other hand. “I want whoever burned the barn found and stopped. Sarah tells me you’re to be trusted.”
Nate’s stare slammed into Sarah’s, just as it had that first time they’d met at the ruins of the Esh arson. “It’s because I’m trying to be worthy of trust that I’ll be leaving the Home Valley tonight.”
He wanted to say much more, but it was best that he didn’t. He hustled downstairs to eat breakfast with Sarah’s parents, planning to head for a swim in the pond, then get over to the barn raising as fast as he could.
A new barn in a day—amazing but doable. Catching the barn-burning arsonist—difficult beyond belief. Forgetting the unique woman he’d come to love—mission impossible.
25
LIKE MOST AMISH ENDEAVORS, BARN BUILDING was a community event—a miracle of cooperation and coordination. Just after dawn, Nate stood in awe at the number of people who appeared at the site of the old Esh barn. They kept arriving through the morning mist in an army of buggies, and some Englische neighbors came in cars. Vehicles filled the Esh side lot, lined the driveway and one side of the road, clear to the Kauffman farm. Peter Clawson was everywhere, taking notes and pictures, toting a big camera bag around.
The women watched the children and kept busy in and out of the Esh farmhouse, fixing what would be a big noon meal. Nate noticed that the older women either sat outside to watch or set the long tables that had appeared from wagons and buggies. Sarah’s grossmamm sat among them, seeming subdued today.
“Can you handle a drill?” Ben Kauffman asked Nate, and thrust a battery-operated one into his hands before he could answer. “Over there, holes in the boards we’ll pound foot-long pegs through to hold things together later. Just follow what the others do, teamwork.”
Nate nodded and bent to his task. Eli Hostetler seemed to be the crew boss for this swarm of laborers. He recognized several of the other Amish men. They all seemed to accept him with a nod or a brief word. When directions were given—perhaps for his sake—men spoke in English.
Nate looked up now and then, keeping an eye on the Kauffman barn and Sarah, but also just trying to cherish the moment, the feeling of acceptance, of working together. He wished—he prayed—he hadn’t failed them. Maybe when the arsonist saw how the so-called Plain People accepted tragedy and rebuilt from it, he or she would stop or move on to someplace else. But he’d give almost anything to get his hands on whoever burned the barns.
Later, he saw Sarah move among the men with a tray of water in plastic cups. It was still early morning—coffee time—but this was heavy, hot work, and water was best for that. Besides, Mrs. Kauffman had fed them well this morning, and her coffee was great. Sarah had come in partway through breakfast after delivering half-moon pies to the restaurant. Before that, Nate had been forced to try to make conversation with Hannah, and they had gotten along pretty well. As for Gabe, as ever, he had hung on Nate’s every word.
“Thank you,” Nate told Sarah when she extended the cup of water to him. “Thank you for everything.”
“You too, ausländer,” she whispered.
>
She moved on with a smile and a nod, blinking back tears. Ausländer, outsider. Was he an outsider here but also in his own world, not wanting to ever go near where his childhood home burned? Never letting M.E. and Jim Bosley adopt him or even get as close to him as they would have liked? To be so driven by his dedication to fighting arsons that he hadn’t taken time for a wife and family?
His thoughts were nearly drowned out by the banging of hammers, the sound of saws. He watched men drive joining pegs with their big wooden mallets into the holes he’d helped make. The tall wooden framing pieces for the barn, called bents, were secured to the foundation. The sides of the barn now lay on the ground in sections, being formed before they would be lifted into place. Nate sensed the unity of the effort; they were raising a barn, but everyone’s spirits, too.
How she would love to paint all this activity, Sarah thought, to capture the strength of her people, working together, separate lives, yet united. All for one and one for all, Ray-Lynn had called it the other day when they argued. Ray-Lynn was her dearest Englische friend—before Nate, anyway—and Sarah felt bad to disagree with her. Actually, she didn’t disagree, if she could just find the backbone, a sturdy one, like the beams of this barn, to go out on her own to paint precious scenes like this one.
She went inside to help peel potatoes, standing next to Ella. She longed to tell her that Hannah was home, at least as far as the next barn, but she’d promised to keep it a secret.
“I miss you,” Ella told her. “You come over sometime soon, ya?”
“I will. Just like old times, right?” Sarah said, but she knew that old times could never quite be captured again. How had the three of them grown apart? Ella had never forgiven Hannah for taking off, so what if Sarah decided to do something more radical than painting on barns someday? They bent to their work, only talking of distant cousins and other maidals’ autumn weddings.
When other women had the potatoes boiling in big kettles on the stove, Sarah went outside and checked on Grossmamm again. She seemed to be entranced by the builders, but that was better than living her nightmares.
A sudden hush descended on the rumble of men’s voices, then came the cry they all awaited from the master builder, Seth Lantz. “Take ’er up! Take ’er up!”
The women in the kitchen rushed outside to see the moment this big construction job was named for. Almost sixty pairs of hands seized one massive side section of the barn. It began to rise. Muscles strained, men grunted as it was lifted, first by hands, then by long poles while men sitting on the beams high above waited to secure the pieces and begin pounding them into place. Sarah’s heart lifted, too, when she saw Nate among the men. She hoped Mr. Clawson would put a picture of him among the Amish brethren in the paper, because she would cut it out and cherish it forever.
Like the huge beams Nate had helped to lift earlier, shoulder to shoulder with the Amish men, the weight of the sides of the barn was tremendous, yet up they went. He got splinters in his hands, but he had splinters in his heart from loving—yes, loving—then losing Sarah, having to leave her behind so he would not hurt her, hurt these people.
Again, behind them, came the men with long, spike-tipped poles to push each section higher into the blue sky. Men with ropes pulled them upright, a span of eight-inch-square timbers and two-by-fours. Four times they groaned, lifted, pushed and pulled so that the men aloft, straddling the sections, could connect the entire frame by the hand-hewn joints and wooden pegs.
“Everything will fit perfectly.” Peter’s voice behind Nate emerged from the cacophony of other sounds. “Quite amazing. Plan and cut ahead and everything comes out magnifico!”
“You mind if I email you later for some of the photos?” Nate asked.
“Pushing your luck, asking for favors, aren’t you? I’m still holding the story on that hellfire-and-damnation note, and you promised me some inside scoops I don’t see coming my way. Not about Jacob Yoder this time, but about Getz and his girl’s arrest.”
“Once again, they aren’t under arrest for ar—”
“Right, not for arson. Oh, there’s Ray-Lynn. I was hoping she could get away for a while.”
Nate watched Peter head straight for her, toting his camera bag and equipment. She was taking big coolers out of her trunk and clear plastic jugs of something pale like lemonade. Nate recalled that Jack had said she might start putting arsenic in his food. He hoped Jack and Ray-Lynn could patch things up.
As ever, Nate kept a good eye on the Kauffman barn whenever he looked up. He thought about Hannah over there, in self-made exile from all she loved, longing to come back, but unwilling or unable to. As much as he wanted to take Sarah away with him, he’d never put her through that. He also noted that every two hours, Gabe and Ben changed positions between guarding their barn and building this one. More than once, he saw Sarah glance over at their barn, too. At least with buggies parked as far as their property, a lot of eyes would be on that barn today as well as on this one. He’d heard her people admiring—or at least remarking on—the bold, newly painted quilt square there.
When the dinner bell rang, Nate was swept along with the men and wedged in at a long oilcloth-covered table—actually, several picnic tables shoved together—while the women served. It turned into a real gabfest with news of families, jobs, marriages and distant kinfolk the topics of conversations in both German and English. People kindly included him from time to time, but no one asked him how the case was going, maybe because they knew it wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t see his replacement, Stan Comstock, though he said he’d try to come. Did Stan like the Amish as much as he did? At least he’d never been nuts enough to fall for one of their women.
Pulled pork sandwiches, roast beef, chicken and too many side dishes to count went by, served by the women or just passed down the table. There was coleslaw, beet salad, chowchow, casseroles of corn and green beans, bean and fruit salads, homemade bread and rolls with a peanut-butter-marshmallow spread he’d come to like and, later, about ten kinds of pies and cakes. With bittersweet feelings, Nate tucked in to what he figured would be for him the Amish equivalent of the last supper.
After the men had gone back to work and the women had eaten, they cleaned up. So many hands made light work, so Sarah went out to check on Mamm and Grossmamm again. She need not have worried that her grandmother would be tired or upset, because she was asleep in her chair under the shade of a red maple tree. Mamm was nearby, sitting with others, a quilt stretched between them on separate hoops, stitching and chattering away.
Leaning against the tree trunk, Sarah watched the raising of the roof rafters while other men swarmed around the foundation, nailing on the wooden siding. The din was almost deafening, yet it was a good sound, steady and strong. Amazingly, it did not wake the babies or the older women who were nodding off in the early-afternoon sun. Such a perfect day for the barn raising, a beautiful day for most things, except saying goodbye.
That reminded her of Hannah again. Though Hannah denied it, Sarah had a theory that she would have tried coming back home except for Seth. Hannah’s come-calling friend had gotten another girl pregnant, then married her. Sarah could see him among those straddling the peak of the roof, a big, muscular blond, hammering away. He was a widower now, but that hadn’t softened Hannah’s anger at him. Seth and Hannah, Sarah and Jacob—how had things changed so much? With her binoculars, could Hannah pick Seth out, too? Now that Sarah had come to love and want Nate—now that he was leaving, though he hadn’t let her down like Seth had Hannah—she understood Hannah’s rebellion even more. Because today, more than ever, even amid this huge, happy community effort, Sarah had to admit that she herself felt like an ausländer.
Last night, Sarah had made Hannah promise that when she was ready to leave today, she’d hang the apron she had brought for Sarah in the loft window of the barn. Though Sarah hadn’t said so, when she saw it, she planned to rush over to say goodbye. Too many goodbyes…
“Hey,” Ray-Lynn said, s
tartling her. “Sorry I upset you the other day.”
“Forgiven if not forgotten,” Sarah told her as she accepted a paper cup of lemonade from Ray-Lynn’s tray. “It’s my heart’s desire to paint, but I’m needed here, too.”
“I understand,” her friend said. A long pause stretched between them. “I hear Nate’s leaving.”
“After this, heading back. His boss needs VERA and Nate.”
“Not just a painting career awaits you in Columbus, but him, too.”
Sarah sighed. “I do intend to do some drawings of this barn raising. I’m taking it all in. But don’t mention that to anyone unless I decide it’s time to.”
“I’ve overheard a lot of talk about the new quilt square on your barn.”
“Not all of it good.”
“If they’re not impressed by it, and still think it’s like a worldly decoration, that’s their problem. It stands out so you can see it from the road, the fields and hills. It’s great.”
Ray-Lynn bustled off, but her words snagged in Sarah’s soul. Not only it’s great but it stands out. That had probably been her problem from the beginning. Things she did stood out; she stood out, didn’t fit the pattern, the people. It stands out, and she wanted it to. She longed to draw and paint pictures where individuals stood out and yet were part of the Plain People. She hated to be a fence jumper, but she had to admit that she wanted her art to reach out to others, to stand out.
And then she saw the small white square in the loft window of their barn. Hannah was going away, not coming home.
“Mamm, I’m going to say goodbye to our guest,” Sarah told her, leaning over her mother’s shoulder as she ran a line of even, tiny stitches through pale blue cotton, her hand amid the others working on the quilt, a Sunshine and Shadows pattern.
“Your daad came back from there, so it will be just Gabe and our guest. If you catch her, you remind her she can visit us whenever she wants, and we’ll keep her secret she’s been there today,” she went on, whispering. “But she needs to think about coming home, all the way home.”
