Karen Harper - Fall From Pride

“At the firemen? That doesn’t make sense, Amish or English.”

“It’s the so-called dirty little secret of firefighters. A few of them want to fight fires because fires mesmerize them, make them feel powerful, release pent-up feelings. They revel in being the first one into a fire, the hero, or, if they’re injured, even the victim who gets the glory or sympathy.”

“So that means you’ll even talk to the two who were hurt and not just to see how they describe the blaze? They were the first ones in.”

“Exactly.” He held the half-eaten, small pie up to his mouth and stared at her again. He was surprised she didn’t protest that, if an arsonist burned the barn, he—or she, though a female was unlikely—could be Amish, even one in good standing, especially if they thought both the bishop and the artist had overstepped with “just for pretty” painted quilt squares. He hadn’t mentioned that directly, but he couldn’t afford to ignore any possibilities.

“The Eshes can prove where they were before the fire, and our people don’t believe in insurance, so no one would burn his own barn for that,” she said, anticipating his next line of questioning.

“The Eshes have an alibi, but in the modern world, as you call it, sometimes people do burn their own property to get the money for it.”

He almost choked on the bite of half-moon pie he took to cover up the catch in his voice. What he’d just said hit too close to home—his own lost home and family. All he needed was that old nightmare he had buried deep to resurrect itself. But what scared him even more was his gut feeling that it would be so easy for someone to burn another isolated, unprotected barn. He had to act fast to stop that from happening.

“Are they burning our people again?” Sarah’s grandmother, Miriam Kauffman, asked her the night after the barn fire.

Her voice shaking, her expression distraught, the old woman stood in the doorway to the bathroom with her toothbrush in hand and her white hair in a long braid, ready for bed. Sarah told Martha, who had stayed last night in the small grossdaadi haus, that she’d take over. But Martha had wanted to hear every last detail about the fire and the fire marshal’s arson investigator, so she was waiting in the living room. Grossmamm and Martha had watched the fire from the kitchen windows, until Martha had convinced her charge to go to bed, but talk of the fire was what had probably set Grossmamm off right now. That, and the fact she insisted on reading a few pages from the Martyrs Mirror every night before she slept. “No, Grossmamm, it’s all right,” Sarah assured her. “No one is burning our people.”

“Ya, the authorities are coming again for us!” she insisted. “They tried to burn the Eshes out, and they’ll be here next! Soldiers like that man you were talking to outside today are going to slaughter us again.”

“That man is here to help us,” Sarah promised, putting her hands on the old woman’s shoulders. “We are safe here on the farm, in America.”

Sarah had considered taking the Martyrs Mirror away from her grandmother more than once. But that precious book had come down through her family, an heirloom. Poor Grossmamm, afflicted with Alzheimer’s, sometimes thought the Amish were still under siege as they’d been in Europe, hundreds of years ago.

Sarah kept talking, slowly, calmly. “That man was sent by the state government in Columbus to find out about our neighbor’s barn, why it burned. No Amish were burned or will be.”

“I was afraid you would be lost in the fire.”

“Me? No, I’m just fine. All I lost were some paint cans, my scaffolding and two ladders.”

“They killed our people on tall scaffolds as a warning so all could see. They tied women to ladders, then tipped them into the fires just because they disagreed with the state religion.”

“That’s all in the past. No one is going to burn. Even the horses were safe from that fire. Now brush your teeth, and I’m going to read to you from the Budget, all kinds of news about our people visiting and how well things are going.”

“Except for Amish martyrs being burned,” Miriam Kauffman mumbled as she thrust her toothbrush in her mouth and bent over the bathroom basin where she’d left the water running.

Sarah sighed. She knew she resembled her grandmother in her height and coloring, so she sure hoped she wouldn’t inherit the mental hauntings that plagued her. She’d been better lately, but seeing that barn fire across the fields had obviously set her off again. The Martyrs Mirror, with its lifelike etchings, was in almost every Amish home, along with the Holy Bible, of course, and the Ausbund, which contained the words to the traditional Amish hymns sung in the regular church meetings every other Sunday. As for the Budget, that newspaper was the Amish community glue that held the Plain People together wherever they lived. Births, deaths, marriages, horse sales, new addresses or endeavors and chatty tidbits were listed on page after page. Yes, she was going to spirit away the Martyrs Mirror and substitute it with the Budget right now.

Later, Sarah was glad she did. Not only did the chatty items in the Budget calm the old woman, but Sarah noted one about the Eshes that explained why they might have been out last night. Mattie Esh’s niece had just given birth to triplets, and they probably went to see them. As usual, Grossmamm fell asleep quickly, and Sarah took the kerosene lantern with her down the hall and into the living area. Most Amish farms had a grossdaadi haus for the older generation. When the grandparents who had worked the farm and raised their children were ready to retire, they voluntarily turned over the big house to the eldest married son, or the one who wanted most to keep the farm going, and moved to the smaller place on the property. No rest home, retirement village or shuffling off the older generation among the Amish. They cared for their aging parents or grandparents on-site and included them in as much of life as they cared to be a part of. After their grossdaadi, Gideon Kauffman, had died five years ago, his widow had started to slip into another world. Alzheimer’s, sure, and she’d had a doctor’s care, but they were still going to keep her here and look after her themselves.

Sarah found Martha sound asleep, sprawled on the sofa, breathing heavily. She covered her up with a quilt. That sofa made into a double bed, so where was she going to sleep? They both had their own rooms in the big house, but it was Sarah’s turn to stay here tonight. Should she wake Martha and send her away so she could have the hideaway bed?

She sat down in her grandfather’s big rocking chair very carefully, because she knew it squeaked. Her eyes were so heavy. She hadn’t slept last night…was dead on her feet today, except when Nate MacKenzie was around twice because he seemed to give her energy.

When her lids drooped, she saw fire, saw Nate’s intense gaze. She wondered how he was doing living in VERA down by the pond on the woodlot…. And what if the woods, all those trees around the pond, caught fire and the blaze burned him, burned her, too, crackling…popping…

She jolted alert. Her heartbeat pounded. That sound! Gravel against glass, against the window? That was the signal she and her friend Hannah Esh had always used during their rumspringa years to get each other up at night when they wanted to sneak out. Not to meet boys like some did, but to go for a night swim in the pond in the summer or just stuff themselves with candy or listen to a transistor radio until dawn while Sarah sketched pictures and Hannah sang along with every Top Ten hit. They knew better than to get their friend Ella from the Lantz farm for such goings-on. No way Ella, as much fun as she could be, would take a risk sneaking out like that.