The person in front of them seemed to take forever.
Katie Ann stepped to the right to look at a poster advertising an upcoming horse show.
Emma tapped her foot, impatient with the delay. Suddenly, she remembered the proverb she’d shared with Katie Ann. A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains. She resisted the urge to laugh. She thought she was a patient person, but when it came to waiting in Englisch lines, maybe she wasn’t.
She was thinking of all the things that needed to be done before dinner, and she had just tugged her purse up on her shoulder and turned toward Katie Ann when a loud explosion filled the air. It felt as though a giant hand pushed her forward.
Emma stumbled, hitting her shoulder hard against the counter, but she managed to right herself.
Glass shattered. People screamed. Smoke filled the air, making it difficult to breathe or see.
Emma’s sole thought was of her granddaughter. Her mind stumbled, tried to recreate what had happened, and failed. Someone coughed and pushed past her. A woman was sitting in the middle of the floor, seemingly unaware that blood was running down her face. Emma moved to help her, but an older man reached her first. He pulled her to her feet and pointed toward the back exit. Turning toward Emma, he shouted something and began waving his arms, but she couldn’t hear him or understand what he was trying to tell her.
The only thought that made any sense, the one pounding at her temples, was Find Katie Ann. Get her out of here. Take her to safety.
Tears streaked down her face as she blinked repeatedly, coughing from the smoke.
She felt the heat of fire and heard the crackle, but she couldn’t make out which direction it came from.
And what of Katie Ann? Where was she? The girl had been standing beside her.
Emma pushed to the left and then to the right. A stream of tears sprang from her eyes as the smoke thickened. “Katie Ann!” The scream was a cry straight from the depths of her heart.
But somehow the words barely sounded in her ears, which was when she realized she wasn’t hearing much at all.
Someone whose shirt was torn down the front seemed to be shouting for everyone to get out of the building, waving his arms and gesturing toward the back exit.
Emma turned the other direction. She wasn’t leaving. Not until she’d found her granddaughter.
Katie Ann had been looking at a poster with horses on it. Emma turned in a circle, moved to the left, and realized it was the wrong direction. Nothing was there now but ruin. Moving back to the right, to the inner wall, she spied the poster of the horses, now flapping in a breeze that shouldn’t have made its way into the building.
The poster over a counter of sorts.
Pushing aside debris, she dropped to her knees, digging with her hands until she’d uncovered the cubby hole beneath the counter. Huddled there, with her hands over her head and her eyes squeezed shut, was Katie Ann.
Forty-Four
Emma drew the girl to her. She could feel her granddaughter’s trembling and sense her cries, though her ears still felt as if they were clogged with cotton.
Emma pulled on Katie Ann’s apron, yanking it up so that it covered her mouth and nose. When she’d done the same with hers, she half guided, half carried Katie Ann toward where the front door should have been. It was gone. All that remained was the wall’s frame, fire, and smoke.
Katie Ann froze, staring at the fire. Emma wrapped her arm around the girl, using all her strength to turn them in the opposite direction. Katie Ann felt like dead weight, as if the thought of moving was too terrifying to contemplate. Emma persisted, pulling Katie Ann with one arm, and with the other pushing their way through the debris to the back door.
An Englischer helped her down the steps and pointed to the far side of the parking area.
Katie Ann seemed frozen, but Emma coaxed the girl on, moving them out of the smoke, skirting the front of the building, and stumbling toward the parking area.
And then Emma glanced back, and like Lot’s wife, she felt rooted to the spot, incapable of moving. She could only gape at the scene in front of her.
The cars nearest the front door had been pushed back, windows shattered. Another had tipped completely on its side.
Swiveling to look in the opposite direction, toward the parking area and away from the building, she saw a collection of Amish and Englisch, young and old, male and female. People sat in stunned silence in a small grassy area. Some had blood trickling down their faces. Others held arms or legs that had been sliced by flying glass.
She pushed Katie Ann farther away from the building, putting her own body between the girl and any additional explosions. They’d moved toward the back of the group when Katie Ann collapsed onto the grass and Emma sank beside her.
Suddenly aware of the scream of an emergency vehicle siren, she realized her hearing had returned. “Are you okay? Katie Ann. Look at me. Are you hurt anywhere?”
Katie Ann’s eyes were wide in fright or shock or both. She didn’t seem able to focus on any one thing. Emma put a hand on each side of her face and forced the girl’s gaze to lock with her own.
“Katie Ann. We’re fine. We’re safe here. Now tell me, are you hurt anywhere?”
For her answer, Katie Ann threw herself into her grandmother’s arms, sobbing and shivering and babbling about the explosion and the smoke and asking if Emma had seen the woman with glass pebbled across her face. Never completing a sentence before she began another, words tumbling over one another, it seemed her thoughts were attempting to come to terms with what had happened.
Then she grew silent, huddled there in Emma’s arms, trembling so hard her teeth were knocking together.
Katie Ann didn’t speak. She didn’t answer any of Emma’s questions, and her silence frightened Emma more than her incoherent cries had.
Emergency workers began to spread out through the crowd, handing out blankets and bottles of water, moving patients who could walk to a triage center set up in the adjacent parking lot.
A middle-aged woman wearing a paramedic’s vest crouched down in front of them.
“Is she hurt?”
“Not that I can tell, but she makes no sense, and she won’t answer my questions.”
The woman shone a small light into Katie Ann’s eyes. “She’s in shock.”
She pointed to a grassy section adjacent to the parking area. “Help me get her to the triage site.”
Though it was only thirty feet away, to Emma it seemed like miles.
The middle-aged woman handed them off to a nurse, who quickly slapped a blood pressure cuff on Katie Ann’s arm. “We need to lay her down. Can you hear me, honey?”
“Her name is Katie Ann.”
“Katie Ann, can you tell me how you’re doing?”
Emma put her hand across Katie Ann’s forehead and found her skin to be cool and clammy.
“What’s wrong with her? The other woman said she’s in shock.”
“Her blood pressure is very low and her heartbeat is rapid.” The nurse pulled a thin blanket from the tub of supplies next to them and placed it over Katie Ann, urging her to lie back in the grass and doing a cursory exam as she tucked it around her. “She doesn’t seem to be bleeding anywhere, but the body can go into shock for emotional reasons as well as physical ones.”
“Is that why she’s shaking so?”
“Yes. Make sure you keep the blanket on her. That will help stabilize her body temperature.”
“I will.”
Focusing on her granddaughter, Emma said, “I’m here, Katie Ann. We’re all right.” Under the blanket, she squeezed the girl’s hand as her heart cried out to God. Help her, Lord. Help her. Please help her.
The nurse raised Katie Ann’s feet, placing them on top of a Styrofoam block.
“Let’s give her a few minutes. I want you to stay right here beside her and call me if you notice any change in her condition.”
“Ya.”
“What’s your name?”
>
“Emma.” She swiped at the tears running down her face. “Emma Fisher. I’m Katie Ann’s grandmother.”
“You’re doing great, Emma. Katie Ann is going to be fine. I need to check on some other patients, but I won’t go far, and I’ll be back in a few minutes. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Emma couldn’t have said how much time passed after that. She sat with Katie Ann, keeping the blanket wrapped around her tightly, clutching her hand, and praying. The nurse returned twice to take her blood pressure. The second time, she patted Emma’s arm. “She’s improving. Let’s give her a few more minutes. We’ll send her to the hospital to be examined after we’ve transferred the more critically injured.”
Katie Ann’s eyes had been closed, though Emma didn’t think she was asleep. She seemed intent to shut out the chaos around her, and who could blame her for that?
In the distance, Emma saw buggies and cars piling up down the street. Police had blocked off the area and weren’t allowing anyone through.
The blaze seemed to have been extinguished, though the firemen kept pouring water on the building. Was that Sam on the top of a ladder, holding a hose? She thought it was, and the sight calmed her.
Another ambulance arrived. When paramedics helped two men up into the back of the vehicle, Emma saw one was Lewis, holding a piece of gauze to his forehead. Next to him was Abe, with a bloody bandage wrapped around his right arm.
She wanted to call out to them but didn’t dare leave Katie Ann.
Someone handed her a bottle of water, and she realized it was Douglas Rae, the young man who had passed them on the road and said hello as he was leaving the newspaper office.
“What… what happened, Douglas? Do you know?”
“Only that it was an explosion. Would you like another bottle of water?”
But Katie Ann’s eyes were still closed.
“I don’t think so.”
“Is she okay?” Douglas asked.
“Ya. She’s going to be fine. She’s shook up, is all.”
“Who wouldn’t be? Well, I guess I better hand out the rest of these.” He made his way through those who were hurt and those, like Emma, who couldn’t leave while people they loved were being attended.
Emma twined her fingers with Katie Ann’s and continued to pray.
Forty-Five
Henry squatted down in front of Emma.
When she glanced up, her mouth opened in a small o, and then she threw her arms around his neck, nearly toppling them both over. He patted her shoulder, giving her a minute to calm her emotions as he thanked God she was okay.
Finally, she sat back and wiped the tears under her eyes, which only succeeded in spreading more soot across her face. “How did you get past the barricade? I thought they had the road blocked off. What are you doing here?”
“I was in the newspaper office when it happened.”
“You were? Where? I don’t… I don’t remember seeing you.”
“I was meeting with a reporter in a back office.”
“You’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I’ve been checking those who are injured to see if I can be of any help.”
“Oh.”
“It looks as if someone has already attended to Katie Ann.” Indeed, it looked as if the girl was sleeping, which when he thought about it, was rather odd given their situation. “Is she okay?”
“Shock. Some low blood pressure problem. They want to transfer her to the hospital, but they’re taking the injured first.”
“Sounds as if the transfer would be precautionary.”
“So I should let them?”
“Ya, Emma. Let the doctors look at her.”
“But—”
“I know you want her home. I know you want—” He waved his hand to encompass the chaotic scene before them. “I know you want to take her away from this, but it’s important that she have proper medical care.”
Emma nodded. “Was anyone… was anyone killed?”
“Not that I’ve heard. Gotte was watching over us, for sure and certain. Several people were cut up badly. One employee of the paper broke her leg when she was thrown away from the blast. The editor was being checked for a heart condition.”
“Who would do this, Henry? And when is it going to stop?”
He didn’t even pretend to have an answer for that.
The nurse showed up, checked on Katie Ann, and said they were ready to move her.
“I will see to your horse and buggy, Emma. Go with her.”
Emma smiled her thanks and shrugged her purse over her right shoulder. For some reason that motion, something about the way she did that, jogged a memory in Henry’s mind. The purse was made of quilted fabric and covered in a busy pattern. It was burned in parts and covered in soot. How had she managed to keep hold of it?
They had begun moving away. Katie Ann was now on a gurney, with two paramedics transporting her. Emma was following in their wake when she turned to him and called out. “Please call Clyde.”
“Of course.”
“Could you… could you come to the hospital with him?”
“Nothing would keep me away.”
The look of relief that swept her features humbled him. He had very little wisdom to offer in a situation like this. The entire community was traumatized, having been hit too often in too short a time span. They, like Katie Ann, were in a state of shock.
Nothing he could say would help in any way, but he could pray. He could sit with those who were injured and try to reassure those whose relatives had been hurt. He could lead them, not because of any innate ability within himself, but because that was the task God had given him so many years ago.
Two hours later, Henry sat next to Emma in a waiting room while Katie Ann was still being evaluated in the ER. The place was filled with people from Monte Vista, including Clyde and his family, though the hospital itself was in Alamosa. Fortunately, news reporters were barred from this area of the building, which was helpful. They sorely needed a quiet space where they could wait together for news of their loved ones.
A shared tragedy.
Englisch and Amish sitting together, waiting together, hurting together.
He saw Meg Allen the moment she peered into the room. Her gaze swept left to right and then settled on him. She was across the room and in front of them before Emma noticed the woman had arrived.
“Mrs. Fisher. I’m sorry to hear about your daughter.”
“Granddaughter.”
“Your granddaughter. How is she?”
“The same. Still sleeping. The doctors assured us that with rest and fluids, she should be alert soon. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Shock presents in different ways for different people.” Meg glanced around the room.
Some people held open magazines but didn’t turn the pages. Others stared at cell phones. A few spoke in low voices.
“Henry, I need to talk to you—in private.”
“I’d rather not leave Emma.”
Meg studied the two of them a moment. Nodding, she stood, walked to the nurse’s station, and spoke with a person Henry thought could be in charge. Meg pointed down the hall, but the nurse shook her head. Meg reached across the counter, picked up the handset to the phone, and held it out to her. The nurse sighed—Henry could see that from where he sat—and dialed a number.
“What could she possibly want with you, Henry?”
“She thinks I know something, but I don’t.”
The nurse hung up the phone and nodded curtly.
Meg made her way back to them. “There’s a small private room down the hall for doctor-patient consults. The nurse graciously said we could use it.”
Henry felt his right eyebrow—what hadn’t been singed completely off—go up, and Meg smiled. Perhaps that smile did more to ease the worry in his heart than any other thing since they’d arrived.
“Mrs. Fisher—”
“Emma.”
“Emma, it would be help
ful if you’d join us.”
Emma told Clyde where she was going in case there was news about Katie Ann, and within minutes they found themselves sitting in a small room, probably no larger than eight feet by ten, being briefed on what had happened at the Monte Vista Gazette.
Forty-Six
The incendiary device was placed inside the front door, which is why the front exit was blocked.”
“Was anyone killed?” Emma asked.
“No. We got lucky on that count. Sixteen were injured. Of those, five received treatment on site and were released. Eleven were transferred here to the hospital. Doctors say all are expected to make a full recovery.”
“Even Katie Ann.”
“Yes.”
A doctor had already told them that, but Emma blew out a sigh of relief, and Henry reached over to squeeze her hand.
It was good news to hear again.
“So why this private meeting?” Henry asked.
“I need you to tell me what happened.”
“I wish I could, but truthfully I saw very little. I was in the back office with one of the reporters. He wanted to do a piece on the recent arson incidents and called asking me to provide the Amish perspective.”
“Which you were willing to do?”
Henry shrugged. “Better they bother me than our families who are busy putting in their crops. This whole thing has been quite the disruption, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
Meg started to respond to that, clamped her mouth shut, and then turned to Emma.
“How much do you remember?”
“Not a lot.”
“Anything might be helpful. Even the names of people you saw inside the front office.”
“Let’s see.” Emma rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “Lewis Glick was filling out a form to my left, as I was facing the counter.”
Meg pulled out her notepad and jotted something down.
“Katie Ann was to my right, of course. Oh, Douglas Rae was at the front of the line. He spoke to me as he left.”
“He’s Amish?”
What the Bishop Saw Page 18
