Karen Harper - Fall From Pride

“Their plow team’s in the south field!” someone yelled. At least that was a blessing. The six big, blond Percherons that pulled the farm equipment were safe.

“The Eshes must not be home!” Sarah shouted, ignoring Jacob, speaking to her brother and the other boys.

“I called the fire department on my cell,” Jacob yelled, coming closer. “They’ll be here ASAP.”

She wasn’t sure what “a sap” meant, but she asked him, “So there are no buggy horses inside, either?”

“Naw or we’d hear them, even over the roar, that’s sure!” he shouted as he came closer. She hadn’t seen him for months and she couldn’t see him well now, only his bulky, black silhouette etched by leaping lights. The fire made a deafening roar. Inside, something heavy fell and little golden lines ran madly between the old, weathered boards. Barn swallows from under the eaves circled madly around the increasing clouds of ash-and-cinder-laden smoke.

It seemed an eternity before the fire engine pumper truck screeched in from the closest town of Homestead with six volunteer firemen, three of them Amish. When Sheriff Freeman’s car pulled in with the siren sounding, several other firefighters spilled out to help. They pumped what water they had in the truck through two hoses, then, when that was quickly gone, rigged a hose to draw water from the pond. It was too late to save the barn, so they watered down the roof of the house and outbuildings to keep flying debris from burning them, too.

As word spread or they saw the seething sky, other Home Valley Amish arrived in buggies, some Englische neighbors in their cars. Even before the Eshes raced up the lane in their buggy, back from visiting Mattie Esh’s sister on the other side of the valley, even before the local newspaper editor, Peter Clawson, started taking pictures, the big, old barn with Sarah’s bright painting on it had burned into oblivion.

Nathan MacKenzie took the call on his cell phone. His digital clock read 3:24 a.m. Something terrible must have happened, and he hoped it wasn’t bad news about his foster mother. His heartbeat kicked up. It was his boss, Mark Lincoln, the state fire marshal of Ohio.

“Nate, I need you to check out a big fire in Amish country, pronto. I want you there shortly after dawn.”

“Amish country?” he said, raking his fingers through his short hair. “Northeast but south of Cleveland, right? That’s Stan Comstock’s district.”

“Our northeast supervisor’s in Hawaii for his daughter’s wedding and won’t be back for about ten days. It’s a barn fire, Nate. Went to the ground—no one inside but for them a huge loss. Two volunteer firefighters were slightly injured when a beam fell. They should have been outside at that point, and I’m not sure how much correct protocol was followed. I just got calls from both the county sheriff and the local newspaper editor. I’ll input what I know to you online including GPS specs for getting there. It’s in a rural area called the Home Valley outside Homestead, Ohio, in Eden County. Real pretty rolling-hill country.”

“And it was arson?”

“We won’t know until you take VERA up there and get a good look. But the thing is, the newspaper guy says the Amish in Pennsylvania had a rash of hate-crime barn arsons a couple of years ago, and we can’t take a chance with this. You’ll have to handle things with kid gloves, not go in like gangbusters, even with VERA, you hear?”

“Of course,” Nate said, fumbling in the dark for his jeans. VERA was one of the two expensive, state-of-the-art technology-laden vehicles that served the state Fire and Explosion Investigation Bureau, usually called the Arson Bureau. And VERA was Nate’s idea of the perfect date to investigate arson on the road.

“You know much about the Amish?” Mark asked.

“Good food, handmade furniture, quilts, buggies, black clothing, no electricity, old traditions. How’s that?”

“When you get a chance, research their belief system or find someone Amish you can trust there to translate their ways for you. Whatever you turn up, they’re going to tell you this was God’s will. They’ll rebuild and forgive the arsonist—if that’s what it was.”

After Mark hung up, Nate muttered, “They may forgive, but I won’t.”

SARAH GLANCED OUT THE WINDOW OF THE Esh farmhouse again. The beast that had devoured the barn left only a pile of blackened bones. The emergency vehicle carrying the two injured firefighters—Levi Miller, Amish, and Mike Getz, Englische—to the regional hospital had pulled away. Both had been struck by debris when a flaming beam fell and temporarily trapped them before they were rescued. Word was that, despite broken bones, both were expected to recover just fine.

Jacob had been asked to go, but other than that, no one had left. It was as if the circle of Home Valley neighbors were mourning a mutual, fallen friend. Since the Amish held worship services in their homes or barns every other week, and it was an off Sunday, many had buggied in. Others had arrived, including Ray-Lynn Logan. The owner of the Dutch Farm Table Restaurant in Homestead had parked next to the sheriff’s car and was handing out doughnuts and coffee. Ray-Lynn was Sarah’s friend and an outspoken admirer of her painting skills.

Sarah was exhausted and filthy, but to please her devastated hosts, she sat at the Eshes’ kitchen table to eat. Mattie Esh and her two oldest daughters, Ida and Ruth, both married and living nearby, were turning out scrambled eggs and bacon to be washed down by hot chocolate. Sarah had been thanked repeatedly for spotting the flames and for rushing here to warn the family. But she still felt as if someone had died, not only the old barn, but the painted square that had meant so much to her.

“Still can’t figure a cause,” Bishop Esh muttered to his wife. “No kerosene lantern out there, no green hay to smolder in the bays or loft, no lightning storm, and at night.”

“God’s will,” Mattie told him, tears in her eyes. “We may not understand His ways but must learn to accept.”

“So who’s the preacher now?” her husband said, his voice tired but kind. “We’ll rebuild, Lord willing.”

Sarah offered to help clear the table, but they wouldn’t hear of it, so she went outside again. She wanted to head home to wash up and relieve Martha from taking care of their grandmother, but she just couldn’t leave yet. If—when—the Eshes rebuilt, would they want another painted square? It had gone a long way that the bishop had let her put one on his barn, even though it was fairly small at first. What was worrying her most was that some of Gabe’s friends at the danze last night had been smoking around her family’s barn. It was a fair distance across the field, so surely none of them had sneaked over here to get more privacy for their doings, then carelessly thrown a butt or match down. The Amish never locked their barns, even if, in these modern times, some had begun to lock their homes.

From the back of her van’s tailgate, Ray-Lynn, still handing out coffee in paper cups, motioned Sarah over. The Kauffman women, Sarah’s mamm and married sister, Lizzie, made the half-moon pies for Ray-Lynn’s restaurant, and Sarah delivered them fresh daily in her buggy. Like most everyone else around, she loved to talk to Ray-Lynn. Even in the grief of this morning, she was like a spark of sunlight.

The shapely redhead was about to turn fifty, a widow whose dream had always been to have her own good homecookin’ restaurant in Cleveland—that is, before she’d fallen in love with Amish country. Her husband had suffered a drop-dead heart attack six years ago, just before they were to buy the restaurant, once owned by an Amish family who couldn’t keep up with the state’s increasingly strict health inspection codes.