What the Bishop Saw

by Vannetta Chapman

  Emma focused all of her energy on taking the next breath. On overcoming the next wave of pain. Enduring until she could lie down in her room, the shades pulled low, and a cool cloth on her head. She’d have the house all to herself for a few hours, and the idea of quiet and solitude gave her hope. Normally she preferred a full, active home. But not today.

  Henry turned into their lane. She wondered what they must look like—a bishop, a beagle, and a widow clutching her head. Not that it mattered. No one would see them.

  “Were you expecting company today?”

  “What?”

  “Was anyone coming by to check on the animals?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Barn door’s open.”

  Emma resisted the urge to slap her forehead. It would only cause her head to ache more.

  “Katie Ann,” she murmured. Her tongue felt thick, her words clumsy. “Sam brought back her… her back. She… she worried Clyde’s workhorse needed…”

  She fought to ignore the pounding in her head, to make some sort of sense. “Doc Berry told her to apply ointment… three times a day.”

  Emma felt more than heard Henry’s sharp intake of breath as the reins went slack in his hands.

  Lexi growled low and deep in her throat.

  Emma looked up and saw only a small cloud of dust coming from the side of the barn.

  Henry exclaimed, “It’s on fire!” He slapped the reins, causing Oreo to gallop down the lane. Lexi bared her teeth and stood up on her hind legs to better see out the front window. Emma clasped both hands to the sides of her head and prayed Henry was mistaken.

  Seventy

  Henry hoped he was mistaken. As he had turned into Emma’s lane, he’d noticed the dust. The thought crossed his mind that it had rained the day before, only a quarter inch but enough to wet the dirt lane. And then he realized it was rising, which dust didn’t tend to do, up and out like smoke from a chimney, like the fire from his own workshop. He’d slapped the reins against his horse, causing Oreo to toss her head and whinny. The ride was jarring, and the mare wasn’t keen on hurrying toward a fire.

  As they drew closer, Henry’s heart sank. Flames were spreading, licking at the western wall of Clyde’s barn.

  Emma leapt out of the buggy before it stopped, screaming for Katie Ann as she ran toward the barn. Lexi scrambled down from the seat and out of the buggy, barking ferociously and darting past Emma before disappearing into the smoke.

  When Emma staggered and dropped to the ground, Henry knelt beside her.

  “Katie Ann,” she groaned before retching violently.

  “Stay here. I’ll get her. Stay here and pray, Emma.”

  Henry hurried toward the barn, pulse racing, thoughts tumbling one over the other, and sweat already running down his back.

  Lexi had taken off toward the woods. He’d find her later.

  As he neared the door on the south side, one of Clyde’s workhorses bolted from the barn.

  Henry hopped back, stumbled on an uneven patch of ground, and lost his balance. He fell with a hard thud and pain shot up into his hip.

  Scrambling back to his feet, he dashed in to find Katie Ann slapping the rump of a Percheron that towered over her. The horse was jet black, at least eighteen hands, and no doubt weighed close to two thousand pounds. Despite Katie Ann’s efforts, the beast refused to move closer to the fire. As Henry ran toward them, Katie Ann scooted around and in front of the horse.

  The gelding tossed its head as she reached to grasp the halter.

  Eyes rolling, sweat pouring off its neck, the animal skidded left and then right, knocking into the stalls on either side.

  Henry managed to grab the lead and tug hard as Katie Ann ran behind the beast and slapped its rump again. “Get out of here, Duncan!” The horse reared up once and then bolted for the door.

  “The water spigot is at the northwest corner.” Katie Ann didn’t wait for him to respond. She’d grabbed an old blanket from the nearest horse stall, rushed over to the west wall, and began to beat at the flames.

  He was supposed to be rescuing Katie Ann. He’d promised he would. But the girl was intent on saving her father’s barn and had already saved his horses.

  Henry nodded and ran toward the door.

  The recent rains they’d had—more precipitation than any other summer since their group had moved to Monte Vista—had dampened the barn’s timber. Although flames were licking at the shelves, shelves Katie Ann was even now beating with the old blanket, the wall itself had not caught on fire. Henry hurried outside, around the corner, and turned on the faucet, but as usual the water poured slowly and gently into the bucket. Then he saw the horse trough, situated a few feet away and brimming with water.

  He grabbed another pail, ran to the trough, filled the pail with water, and threw it onto the outside of the wall Katie Ann was defending.

  By the time he ran back to the pump, the bucket he’d left there was full.

  He switched them out and ran back to the wall.

  On his fourth or fifth run, Emma handed him the bucket.

  “You should be—”

  “Go!”

  She grabbed the empty pail from him and ran back to the faucet.

  Henry didn’t realize the fire was out until Katie Ann stepped out of the barn, her clothes smudged with soot, kapp askew, hair frizzed, and frantically looking for the horses.

  “They’re fine. They’re…” Henry gulped for a full breath of air. He’d sweat through his shirt so that it was dripping. His hip had begun to ache from the fall, and his arms were trembling.

  But somehow he felt more alive than he had in a long time.

  “They’re in the west field.”

  Katie Ann rewarded him with a smile, then her eyes widened and she ran to Emma’s side. She was beside the pump, sitting in the mud created from the many buckets of water, and cradling her head. “Mammi! Are you all right?”

  For an answer, Emma groaned.

  “It’s a migraine,” Henry explained. “A bad one. It’s why I brought her home.”

  Emma didn’t attempt to raise her head, but he stepped closer and heard her ask her granddaughter. “Are you…”

  “I’m fine.”

  “And the barn?”

  “Gut. Shelves will have to be rebuilt, but we saved the wall. And the horses. Thank Gotte we saved the horses.”

  Henry overturned the pail he was holding and sat on it.

  Katie Ann collapsed into the dirt next to Emma and began rubbing her grandmother’s back in gentle circles. Exactly what Henry had wanted to do while they were walking toward the buggy, but then he’d felt foolish and settled for supporting her with his arm. It hurt him so to see her in pain, every bit as much as it hurt to see Clyde’s barn nearly ablaze. As much as it hurt him to see the terror in Katie Ann’s eyes when the horse had resisted going through the door.

  He realized in that moment how much he cared for Emma and for her family. All of his congregation was dear to him, but what he felt for Emma was different. He saw that now. Saw it as clearly as the Percheron cropping grass a few yards from him.

  Emma raised her head, squinted against the sun, and asked, “Lexi?”

  “She ran… ran toward the woods.” And suddenly he was remembering that other fire, in the darkness of the night, and Lexi holding on to the arsonist’s leg as he attempted to pedal away.

  Henry scrambled to his feet. “Whoever did this must have fled into the trees.”

  “Lexi went after him?” Katie Ann rose too, alarmed by the thought of the little dog being in trouble. “We’d better check on her.”

  Emma waved at them to go, and Henry started to.

  But what if the wall of the barn was a distraction? What if their arsonist meant to set fire to the house? What if this person was watching, waiting for them to go into the woods?

  What if he was looking for another person to kill?

  Henry couldn’t leave Emma alone. He couldn’t risk any harm coming to her.
r />   “Come with us.” He helped Emma to her feet, not bothering to explain his reasoning.

  With Katie Ann on one side of Emma and Henry on the other, they all walked into the woods.

  Seventy-One

  Emma wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing under the canopy of trees behind their home, walking between Henry and Katie Ann. She was grateful for the shade. Her head still felt as if someone had driven a spike into it, but she no longer felt waves of nausea. She longed to fall to the ground, curl up, and sleep until morning.

  Henry and Katie Ann had other ideas.

  “Tell me what happened,” Henry said to Katie Ann. “Describe exactly what happened before you saw the fire.”

  “Sam brought me home so I could check on Duncan. He has that place on his leg where he needs medicated ointment. Doc said three times a day, without fail, so I came home to take care of it.”

  “Wait.” Henry stopped so suddenly that Emma kept walking for a brief second and was jerked back because one arm was linked with Henry’s and the other with Katie Ann’s. She bounced back like a boomerang the boys had once played with. “Sam brought you home?”

  “Ya. Did you think I walked?”

  “How long did he stay?”

  “I don’t know. He hung around for a little while. We talked as I looked after Duncan’s leg. There was nothing improper about it.”

  Emma had been standing there, eyes closed, pretending she was in her bed. But she heard something in her granddaughter’s voice that caused her to jerk her eyes open and glance up. Katie Ann was blushing prettily. There was no doubt about it. Did she have feelings for Sam? Emma’s mind flashed back on the conversation with Rachel and her worries that Katie Ann and Sam might be courting. Were they courting? Wouldn’t Katie Ann have mentioned it to her?

  More puzzling than those questions, Henry was now scowling mightily, and his hands were clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.

  “I want you to tell me everything you can remember… every detail… before Sam left.”

  “I had already applied the ointment on Duncan, so I replaced it on the shelf where we keep such things. Sam walked with me, back toward the front when I did that. Then we said goodbye, and I returned to the back stall. I like to give Duncan a little treat after the ointment and a gut brushing.” She ran her fingers up and down her kapp string, and glanced left and right.

  Emma wanted to ask why Sam would leave Katie Ann alone with an arsonist on the loose, a man dead set against their community. Why didn’t he wait and take her back to the workday? Before she could ask either of those things, Henry urged Katie Ann to continue. “What happened next?”

  “Well, I was brushing Duncan, and he began to toss his head, and then I realized I smelled smoke.”

  Emma forced herself to meet Henry’s gaze. A wiggly line was running through her vision, but it didn’t diminish the look of angry determination on his face. It was an expression she wasn’t accustomed to seeing on her bishop, and she knew without a doubt what he was thinking.

  “Nein, Henry. You are wrong on this.”

  “Too many coincidences. It has to be.”

  “What are you two talking about?”

  “I think… that is, there’s a possibility… circumstances seem to point to the fact that Sam was involved with the fire.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “I wish it were.”

  Henry began walking forward, but Katie Ann remained where she was, standing next to Emma.

  “I’m telling you it wasn’t him. Sam wouldn’t do that. He cares…” She quickly rephrased whatever she was about to say. “He’s a gut man. He wouldn’t do such a thing.”

  Henry walked back slowly, no doubt weighing his words.

  The pain in Emma’s head had reached a dull roar. She’d been to the ocean once when she was a young bride. This aching reminded her of the waves that kept coming, relentlessly, one after another. The thought passed through her mind that this was no ordinary migraine, that she should go and see the doctor. But that was quickly followed by the realization that Henry had insisted she come with them into the woods. Was he afraid… for her?

  “I hope you’re right, Katie Ann, but we have to look at the facts. Sam has been in the vicinity of all the fires to date. He was either seen there by someone or admits to being in the neighborhood. Now you tell me he was with you, in the barn, minutes before the fire.”

  “It looks bad, Henry, I know. I do understand what you’re saying. But Sam wouldn’t do such a thing. I know he wouldn’t. He was supposed to take me back to the workday, but I convinced him I’d be fine just staying here with the horses. I didn’t know—”

  “If what you’re saying is true, then he must have left mere minutes before the fire. He’s a fireman, Katie Ann. He would recognize the signs of a fire. He’d be alert to the smell of smoke. He would have stayed to help you. But he didn’t. Why?”

  “I-I don’t know.”

  Emma realized her granddaughter was close to tears by the way her words trembled.

  She crossed her arms, frowned at her bishop, and said, “I don’t know the answer to that, but when we find him, we’ll ask him.”

  She pushed past Henry, and then she turned and asked, “Why are we here in the woods? What are we looking for?”

  “My dog.”

  “Right. Lexi. I forgot.”

  Henry looked directly at Emma and then reached to help her forward. Their hands touched, and warmth rushed through her as it had when they’d walked to the buggy. Perhaps her blood pressure was high, because she suddenly felt somewhat lightheaded.

  “I want to keep her away from the house,” Henry said in a low voice. “For a few minutes, until we’re sure whoever has done this has left. Let the Englisch authorities catch the culprit. My goal is to keep you and Katie Ann safe. Now, can you walk a little farther?”

  Emma nodded her head and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. She didn’t pay attention to where they were going. The woods behind their home were on a little less than ten acres. They couldn’t become lost, and if they walked north they would end up at the Kline farm. Of course, no one would be there. Everyone was still working on Henry’s workshop and porch.

  Katie Ann had walked ahead and was now a few yards to the north of them.

  When she shouted out and dropped to the ground, Emma tried to run, stumbled, and fell against a tree. Henry hurried to help her, but she pushed him away. “Go. Go check on Katie Ann.”

  Seventy-Two

  Henry didn’t want to leave Emma leaning against the tree, but the second time she insisted he turned and trotted toward where they’d seen Katie Ann go down. He found her kneeling next to Sam.

  “Sam! Talk to me. Sam, can you hear me?” She glanced up as Henry drew closer. “Help him, Henry. Please, help him.”

  Henry knelt beside Sam’s body, directly across from Katie Ann. Sam was lying on his side and blood was oozing from a wound on his head. Sam didn’t speak or even stir as Henry checked him for other injuries. He placed his fingers against the carotid artery in Sam’s neck and counted the beats of his pulse against a clock in his head. “Seems a bit slow, but it’s steady.”

  “So he’s alive?”

  “Ya, sure and certain he is.”

  “But he looks so pale, and he’s not waking up.”

  “Give him a few minutes.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. “Hold this against his head while I look around.”

  “Okay.”

  Henry was surprised Emma had managed to join them. She still looked pale, but she’d recovered her equilibrium. “Katie, take the bishop’s handkerchief and go and wet it in the creek. Get it gut and cold.”

  She’d pulled a similar handkerchief out of her apron pocket. After folding it in half and then half again, she placed it gently against Sam’s head.

  “He didn’t do this to himself,” she said.

  “Nein, though he could have fallen.”

  “Mo
st people fall forward.”

  “I suppose.” Henry was thinking of his own fall. When he’d lost his balance, he’d landed on his side. Even if Sam had fallen backward, there were no large rocks in the vicinity. How had he suffered the blow to his head?

  “The gash is on the top of his head, but near the back. Looks to me like someone snuck up from behind and struck him.”

  “Who? Who would do that?”

  Emma didn’t hazard a guess, but she did look up and meet his gaze.

  He’d been wrong. He’d jumped to a conclusion and blamed one of their own for a terrible crime. But Sam had not hit himself, and in all likelihood whoever had done so had also set the fires of the last month and had killed Vernon.

  “The authorities will catch him,” Emma said. “We only have to find Lexi, rouse Sam, and get everyone safely home.”

  Katie Ann returned with the dripping wet handkerchief.

  “Now wring it out,” Emma said.

  After she had, Emma placed it across Sam’s forehead. “Hold it for me.”

  She continued to apply pressure to the wound on the back of his head.

  “That’s a lot of blood.” Henry honestly didn’t know what to do. He had the feeling answers were here beneath the giant trees. And he still needed to find Lexi, but he didn’t want to leave Emma and Katie Ann alone, and he was worried about Sam. How Emma could possibly guess all the things he was thinking, he had no idea, but she did.

  “Head wounds bleed a lot, but this one seems to be superficial. He might have a concussion. The cold rag will probably help bring him around. In the meantime, go look for Lexi… and be careful.”

  He nodded once but didn’t leave immediately. Instead, he knelt beside them and put one hand on Emma’s shoulder and the other on Katie Ann’s head. They made a complete circle with both women ministering to Sam. “Father, watch over these, Your children. Protect them. Send Your angels to guard them. Give us strength, compassion, and wisdom. We ask these things in the name of Christ…”

  Three soft “Amens” rose up toward the birds singing in the trees.