IN PLAIN View

by Olivia Newport

  Instead, wide tire tracks rutted through the grass—fresh tracks, prompting Rufus to signal Dolly to speed up. He passed a bicycle tumbled in the weeds. Annalise’s bicycle.

  Rufus had never heard a bomb, but he imagined it would sound just like the blast that split the air

  “Annalise!”

  Annie fumbled with her phone as she charged the last few yards up the incline. By the time she squatted next to Karl, splayed on his back, she had it open, but her thumb slid off the power button three times before the device began cycling on. For a few seconds, she was terrified it would not find a signal.

  “Karl!”

  No response.

  “Karl, can you hear me?”

  Finally her trembling finger pushed the buttons for 911. With her free hand, Annie thumped Karl’s shoulder, trying to rouse him. Her eyes scanned for blood—which seemed minimal. What she saw were burns. And beyond Karl, weeds smoldered and flared. Annie dropped the open phone, leaped over Karl, and stomped on flames. They spurted up in new spots as fast as she could kick dirt on them. A more heavily grassed area might already have been out of control. The wind was calm, though, and loose dirt abounded. Both factors worked in her favor. Annie shed her jacket and used it to smother bouncing sparks.

  “Karl!”

  Still no response.

  Rufus spotted Karl’s car, and terror welled. He thought he had made progress with Karl. Why would the man lure Annalise up here? Whatever story he had concocted had to have been good.

  Unless there was no story.

  Unless Karl had not lured Annalise at all.

  Unless Karl got the same sort of ambiguous, handwritten message that had drawn Rufus to this moment.

  Annie was far from certain the ground cover would not spark again when she turned back to Karl, who lay silent and still. Once upon a time, Annie had been certified in first aid. A for airway. B for breathing. C for…C for. Cardiac something. No. Circulation.

  “You have dialed 911.” A crackly distant voice bore into Annie’s awareness. “Do you have an emergency? We are unable to fix your location.”

  The phone! Annie snatched it up to her ear. “Don’t hang up!”

  “What is the location of your emergency?” the 911 dispatcher asked.

  Annie glanced around. “I don’t know the address. I’m out behind the Beiler farm, where they’re thinking about making the new recreation area.”

  “What is the nature of the emergency?”

  “An explosion. I think somebody tried to blow up the big rock.” Annie leaned over Karl and turned her ear to his mouth. “Karl Kramer is injured. He’s breathing, but he’s unconscious.”

  Annie pressed fingers into Karl’s neck to look for a pulse.

  “Help is already on the way,” the dispatcher said. “Do you have any reason to believe drugs or alcohol may have played a role in this incident?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so.”

  “Are any weapons involved?”

  “You mean other than the bomb?!” Annie’s heart galloped in her chest.

  “Please remain calm, ma’am. I have already dispatched an emergency team. The information you give me now will assist them when they arrive. Tell me about the victim and the injuries.”

  Annie took a deep breath. “Fortyish. White male, five ten, 180 pounds.”

  “Very good. Is he conscious yet?”

  Karl moaned again. Annie put a hand against the side of his face, and his eyes opened. Anger flared in them.

  “Yes,” she said into her phone. “He’s coming around.”

  “How long was he unconscious?”

  “From as soon as the bomb went off, I guess. Till now.” Had it been two minutes or ten? Annie had no idea.

  “Can he speak?”

  “Karl, can you hear me?”

  He groaned. “Whoever did this is going to pay.”

  Rufus threw down the reins and sprinted the final distance. Annalise was hunched over Karl Kramer. He squatted beside her and automatically put a hand on her shoulder. He expected trembling, but she was steady and strong.

  “Help is coming.” Annalise laid her hand on Karl’s chest.

  The burn marks on Karl’s arms made Rufus flinch. Who could have done this?

  Karl breathed heavily. “They blew me up with my own fertilizer.”

  “Shh. Don’t upset yourself.” Annalise’s hand moved in a soothing circle on Karl’s chest.

  “It’s too late.” Karl rolled his eyes.

  “What is he talking about?” Rufus asked.

  “It’s complicated,” Annalise answered. “I tried to stop him.”

  “You knew about this?”

  “Of course not. I just figured it out a little too late. I had no idea he would be here.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Karl is what matters. We have to keep him awake.”

  “I am awake.” Karl punctuated his words with hostility. “My arms are on fire. Somebody is going to pay.”

  Karl shifted his knees, as if to roll over and try to rise.

  “Don’t move,” Annalise said, the pressure of her hand deepening against Karl’s chest. “They said you shouldn’t move.”

  “Nobody tells me what to do.”

  Annalise glanced at Rufus. “They said he might have a concussion. He was unconscious for several minutes.”

  “They aren’t doctors,” Karl said. “They just answer the phone.”

  “They’re trained for emergencies. We have to follow their advice.”

  “They’re taking their sweet time.”

  A siren wailed in approach.

  “Karl, you listen to Annalise.” Rufus spoke more sharply than he had in years. He stood up. “I’ll run up to the road and flag them down.”

  Rufus moved through trampled weeds, dodging trees and small boulders and holes that could reach up and twist an ankle. He saw only what the future might have been if Annalise had been a few steps closer to Karl Kramer just moments ago, and its vacant blackness sliced through him.

  Thirty-One

  The next morning, Rufus walked out to the big rock. When His family first came to the valley and purchased hopeful acreage with a stunning view, it was not long before they discovered the big rock. They used to come for Sunday afternoon picnics. His brother Jacob was only a year old at the time of the move. One of the toddler’s first recognizable utterances indicated the rock, big as half a room and flat. The field below was low-lying vegetation for which they had not known the names. His sister Ruth found a book at the library, and gradually they learned to identify the strange plants distinct from anything they had known in Pennsylvania.

  Now Rufus stood on the rock and looked down on the scene. Yellow plastic tape cordoned off the space where he found Annalise with Karl Kramer yesterday.

  CRIME SCENE. DO NOT CROSS.

  A crime scene practically on Beiler land. Annalise was as close to being a Beiler as anyone else in the valley, and she seemed to be at the heart of whatever happened.

  No one was sure what transpired. The fire department had drenched the smoldering brush to ensure a gust of spring air could not revive the flames. And though officials would not issue their written report for several days, it was clear that an explosion caused the brush fire that left a black scar below the rock.

  Now everyone knew where Karl Kramer’s missing fertilizer had been. But why?

  And why was Annalise there?

  Rufus heard a truck motor and glanced up to see Tom maneuvering his red pickup as close as he could before getting out and taking the final stretch on foot. Tom stopped at the yellow tape. Rufus waved a greeting.

  “I suppose you’re here with the same questions I have.” Tom shielded his eyes as he looked up at Rufus.

  Rufus nodded. “The area has been carefully combed.”

  Tom asked, “Have they questioned Annie yet?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her today.” Last night had not seemed like the time to p
ress her for details.

  “She’s not going to work at the shop today, is she?”

  Rufus shrugged. “You know Annalise.”

  Tom exhaled. “Sometimes I wonder. How about you? Have they questioned you?”

  “Not officially. It’s not unusual for me to go past here. I promised to give a statement today, but I know nothing especially helpful.” Rufus was climbing down the side of the rock. “Do you see anything from down there?”

  “I heard they found remains of a cell phone. Bits of wire.” Tom kicked up dirt.

  Rufus maneuvered down to the ground and began circling to where Tom stood.

  Tom crossed his arms on his chest. “Someone planned this.”

  “But did they mean to hurt anyone? Maybe they got more than they bargained for.” Rufus ran his thumb and forefinger around the brim of his hat. “Karl’s being the victim—well, it is not good news for the project.”

  “Some would say he deserved it.”

  “And they would be wrong. No one deserves stepping into a bomb.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing for Karl that whoever made this bomb didn’t have a better idea what they were doing.” Tom put both hands on his hips, a familiar gesture. “Rufus, I know how much you hate getting involved in legal matters, but I don’t see how you’re going to dodge this one. Annie was here when it happened, and you were here moments later. The sheriff ’s office is not finished with either of you.”

  “One step at a time,” Rufus said. “I’d like to see how Karl is and what he remembers. Can you drive me to Cañon City?”

  Annie sat at her dining room table with a cup of strong coffee, a pad of paper, and a pen. She alternated sipping the coffee and chewing the top of the pen as she considered what she had jotted on the pad.

  Carter lost his phone. More than once. So what?

  What she overheard yesterday in the coffee shop was not incriminating without reading something into it.

  Someone sent a message to Karl, but she did not know who.

  Joel asked her to trust him. Several times. Why did she feel like she had made a mistake in doing so?

  But what action could she have taken? She had no proof of anything—especially after she deleted Carter’s Internet history before returning his phone.

  Annie dropped the pen on the pad. She could talk to Joel. She could talk to Carter. She could talk to Tom. She could seek out an Amish elder. She could talk to the sheriff.

  “Friesen, you’ve lost your edge,” Annie said aloud. “If you were capable of making a decision, you would have done it by now.”

  The knock on her front door provoked a gasp and spilled coffee. Annie scampered to the kitchen for a towel. “Coming!”

  Before opening the door, she looked out the front window. Sophie Beiler stood on her front stoop, a basket in her arms. Annie opened the door.

  “Mamm is so worried about you.” Sophie offered the basket. “She’s afraid you’re not eating.”

  Annie peeked under the edge of a towel. “So she made cookies?”

  “And blueberry muffins,” Sophie said. “She just wants you to be okay.”

  “Come on in.”

  Sophie set the basket on the coffee table. “Mamm also wants to know if you called your mother. She said to tell you that this qualifies as an emergency.”

  “Um, no.” Annie gestured that Sophie should sit down. “I’m not hurt. There’s not really anything to tell.”

  “That’s what Mamm said you would say. I’m supposed to insist. Where’s your phone?”

  Annie patted her jeans pocket. No cell phone bulge. “I’m not sure.” She glanced at an end table, then into the dining room. “I must have left it upstairs.”

  “Shall I get it for you?”

  “No. I’ll look later.”

  Sophie tilted her head and lifted her eyebrows.

  “Okay,” Annie said. “I’ll look now.”

  Searching the small rooms upstairs did not take much time. Annie returned empty-handed.

  “I lost my cell phone. That may be the first time in my life I’ve spoken that sentence.”

  “Maybe you left it at the hospital. Or in Tom’s truck.”

  “Yes. I’ll have to check around.” Annie sat on the sofa across from Sophie and lifted the lid on a small box at the end of the coffee table. She extracted a note card. “I think I will just write my mother. It will be less dramatic that way, less for her to worry over.”

  “You know your own mother best.”

  Annie’s hand gripped a pen and hovered over the card. “So what is everyone saying? I can imagine the buzz.”

  “Oh, we don’t have to talk about that.”

  “I want to know.” Sophie’s hesitation made Annie more determined.

  “Well, no one knows what happened. The English say it was the work of Amish, which is ridiculous. The Amish say it was obviously the work of the English. Amish are nonviolent, after all.”

  “But they do occasionally have to remove an obstacle in a field by force, don’t they? So they can plow and harvest easily?”

  “Yes, that is true.”

  “Amish can understand explosives without being violent toward other people.”

  Sophie said nothing.

  “You’re holding something back,” Annie said. “What is it?”

  Sophie raised her shoulders. “A couple of people may suspect you.”

  “Me!”

  “You were there. You understand these things. You could have made the call that…that…”

  Annie rescued Sophie from having to finish that sentence. “I was an expert in a lot of things before I came to Westcliffe, but I promise you explosives was not on the list.”

  “I don’t believe it, of course. No one at our house does.”

  “I should hope not. Do you know what happened to my bicycle?”

  Sophie grimaced. “Joel looked for it when he went for Dolly and the cart, but the police said it was evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?”

  “Well, maybe not evidence. But something to investigate.”

  Annie slapped her torso against the back of the sofa. “Great. Now I have no transportation. I suppose they have my book, too.”

  “Your book?”

  “I picked up a genealogy book at the library yesterday before everything happened. It came all the way from a university in Indiana. I’m sure it was in the basket.”

  Sophie removed the towel and nudged the basket toward Annie. “I do have one more question from Mamm.”

  Annie reached forward and pinched a wedge out of a large chocolate cookie. “Yes?”

  “Please come home with me. Lydia is shopping for a few things, so we have the buggy. Mamm wants to see for herself that you are all right.” Sophie paused for a breath. “She thinks of you as her own daughter, you know.”

  Annie’s throat thickened. She would be sure not to repeat Franey’s sentiment in her letter to her mother.

  “Please?” Sophie said. “We all want you to come. You can stay the night.”

  Annie shook her head. “No, I want to sleep in my own bed.”

  “Supper, then.” Sophie cocked her head. “Rufus should be there.”

  Ruth twisted her backpack around. Even though her phone was set on vibrate and tucked in a side pocket of the bag, she heard its distinct insistent tone above the rhythm of the bus pulling out of the stop. She did not have to look at the caller ID. It was Elijah Capp. This was the fifth time he had called in the last three hours.

  She pulled the phone from the pocket and wrapped her fingers around it, waiting for it to stop buzzing. Elijah deserved a face-to- face conversation, but so far she had not even been able to answer his last several letters. In her mind, she crafted phrases but was dissatisfied with every version. When she found the right words, perhaps she would have the courage to put them on paper. A letter he could hold on to might encourage him more to find his own path. Or hurt him more.

  The bus lumbered to the next stop. Ruth sto
od and slung the backpack over one shoulder, awaiting the sucking whoosh of the doors parting at the bottom of the rubber-coated stairwell. The bus driver, who had been letting her off at this stop for two years, nodded a good-bye into his enormous rearview mirror. Ruth took the steps lightly, as she always did, and the doors suctioned closed behind her.

  She could easily imagine what Elijah had to say. He had said everything before, after all. Perhaps she did not have anything new to say, either.

  Ruth put her key in the lock of her suite and leaned into the door with one shoulder, a motion of habit. Inside, as she slid a key into the door to her room, she listened for activity in any of the other three rooms. She tossed the backpack and the keys onto her bed, with a fleeting thought that Elijah might be surprised at how thoroughly she was acclimated to the assumption that someone would try to steal her belongings.

  “Boo!”

  Ruth spun around and grinned. “Hi, Lauren. How is your Tuesday going?”

  “I’m ready to blow this joint.”

  Ruth rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Do people really say that?”

  “I’m people. I say it.”

  “What’s the munitions report for the day?”

  “My dad Skyped my brother today, then called me. He hasn’t blown up anything even for practice in more than three weeks. He’s getting antsy.”

  What would Elijah think about this conversation? The peaceful plain people hardly had use for a word like munitions, but it tripped off Ruth’s tongue almost daily now.

  Lauren punched the air. “You said you were going to do this. Are you ready?”

  “Well, maybe—”

  “Oh, no, no, no. There will be no withdrawal tactics now. Bring your identification documents and cash for the fee. They don’t take plastic.”