Karen Harper - Upon A Winter's Night

As Lydia trudged back toward the barn, praying she’d find her favorite camel, she stumbled over something low, sprawled under the white shroud of snow. She let out a little scream. Thank the Lord, it was too small to be Melly. She backed away. When the person—it was a person—didn’t move, she bent over it—her—then fell to her knees.

The woman lay facedown. Lydia started to speak to her in Amish Deutsche, then saw by her short, curly hair—blond hair iced with snow—that she was Englische.

“Wake up. Hello? Are you all right? My name is Lydia Brand. I want to help you, ya, I do.”

No answer, no movement. Unconscious? Dead? Had she opened the gate and come in? But from where? A narrow dirt lane, woodlot, fields and hills lay behind.

Lydia dusted off the woman’s face as best she could and put her own nearly on the ground to get a better look at her. She didn’t recognize the woman, wasn’t even sure how old she was—sixties? Older? Ripping off a mitten, Lydia touched the white, icy face with two fingers, then fumbled for a neck pulse. Couldn’t tell. She had to get help soon—now. She’d never be able to carry her. And if she dragged her through the snow, she might hurt her more.

The woman was not even wearing a scarf, hat or gloves, so was she off her bean? Clutched in her hand was a small, square piece of paper, like those sticky notes. Maybe it had her name on it or a message for someone. Lydia took it and held it close to her face. Words written in blue ink smeared the sodden paper. Not able to read it through the scrim of flakes, Lydia thrust it into the mitten she’d pulled back on, so the paper lay damp against her palm.

Panic pulsed through her as she took off her warm woolen cape and draped it over the woman, as if tucking her into bed. Josh would have to go for help in his buggy to the Stark family down the road, since they were Englische and had cars and phones. They could call the volunteer emergency squad and Sheriff Freeman.

Despite sweating in her frenzy, Lydia felt the gnawing cold even more without her cape. Could that woman have frozen to death? Fearing the flakes were turning to ice pellets, Lydia skimmed her hand along the wire fence, and calling out, “Melly! Melly!” stumbled through the deepening snow toward the barn.

* * *

Josh Yoder breathed a sigh of relief when the last camel, Melly, ambled into the barn, blinking ice crystals from her two-inch lashes and shaking the snow off her shaggy fur. He put her in her stall on camel row, then realized Lydia had not followed the big beast into the barn.

He ran back to the single tall door the camels used and pulled it back open. The wind howled at him, and snow fell like wool at shearing time. He had partly inherited this big, old milking barn from his father and had bought his brothers out. But it was no longer the Yoder Dairy. He’d kept four of the cows and acquired other animals to breed, but mostly he hired them out for living Christmas tableaux or holiday pageants in December. Spring through autumn, he ran a petting zoo, and a wagon pulled by his big Belgian horses took tourists on a ride so they could see and feed, and, of course, pet, the tamer animals in the back fields. But in wintertime he kept them inside.

Still no sign of Lydia. Surely, she’d have come in with Melly if she’d brought her back here. The barn was a shelter from the storm, a lofty, wide place with one long wing that held the old milking stanchions and rows of cattle stalls he planned to replace soon. The main building boasted two spacious haymows above the barn floor, one for fodder and straw and one to store other food supplies. He and his workers tried hard to keep the place clean. It actually managed to smell sweetly of straw, hay and warm bodies most of the winter. He only wished he’d known this sudden storm was coming.

Squinting against the spin of stinging snow—ice pellets now—and cupping his hands around his mouth, he bellowed out the door, “Lydia! Get in here! Don’t you walk home in this! I’ll take you in the sleigh or your parents will have my head. Lydia, get back here!”

Ach, that woman was willful, always had been. But she was sure-footed and bright, too. At age twenty, she was a maidal who had blossomed into a beauty from the pesky, skinny tomboy she used to be. She was a distraction sometimes, bending over to feed the animals, humming, shooting those quick smiles at him. In the four years he’d been away from the Home Valley, she’d become a desirable woman, though one who would be a lot of trouble for the man she married. She was being courted by Gideon Reich, who worked for her father, so there was probably a wedding in the offing. Gideon was a widower, so maybe he knew a thing or two about women, but good luck to him taming Lydia Brand.

Really worried now—could she have fallen or twisted an ankle out there?—Josh grabbed his heavy coat and flap-eared hat. Should he just run outside, yelling for her? Harness Blaze onto the sleigh and try to catch her before she went into the thick woodlot that lay between his place and the Brand house?

Then he saw her emerge from the curtain of snow, half stumbling, half running. He rushed out and put an arm around her shaking shoulders. “What happened? Where’s your cape?”

Her cheeks were pink with cold, her lips blue, her teeth chattering. At least she still wore mittens and boots. He picked her up and carried her toward the barn. Despite her trembling, she held tight to him.

“C-c-cape c-covered a woman, lying in the s-snow. By the back g-gate,” she stuttered through chapped lips. “It was open, but I closed it.”

He sat her at his worktable and put his coat around her. He poured hot chocolate from his thermos into a plastic cup and held it to her lips until she took a swallow and brought her mittened hands up to hold it. A woman out in the snow? And it upset him about the gate because he didn’t need more rumspringa kids sneaking in to ride or scare the animals. The animals could get hurt and the kids, too, but what had happened to the woman?

“Not sure whether to take the sleigh for her or go to the Starks to get help,” Josh muttered as he ran to harness his mare in the nearest corner of the barn.

“I’ll g-go with you either way,” she called after him.

“No, you stay here. Is she hurt? Alive?”

“Not sure. F-frozen, I think.”

“You didn’t recognize her?”

“No. Not Amish.”

“No one else lost out there?”

“Don’t know. I’ll help you harness B-Blaze, then—”

“Drink that. Stay put.”

It would be quickest to take the sleigh. He’d refused to rent it out recently for a Santa pageant. When he’d returned after four years of working at the Columbus Zoo and joined the church, he’d promised Bishop Esh that the animals would be rented out strictly for religious events. He could go find someone to help. But no, he’d go check on the woman first.

He heard knocking and a shout at the far end of the barn, closest to the road. If only it was someone with a car or a cell phone! He paid his Englische friend Hank to do his bookings on his cell, but Josh wished he had his own now.

He sprinted the width of the barn, past the donkeys braying at the intrusion, and swung the door open. Lydia’s father, Sol Brand, stood there. Snow etched his brimmed hat, narrow shoulders and graying beard. He was a head shorter than Josh. If any Amish man could be considered a loner in their friendly, tight church community, even though he worked with many people every day, it was Solomon Brand.

“Liddy here?” he asked, frowning, as he stepped inside. “Hope you didn’t let her walk home in this.” Beyond him Josh saw two horses hitched to a big buggy.

“She’s here, Mr. Brand. She was out in the snow, but she stumbled on an injured or dead woman on her way back, and we need to get help. Since you’re hitched up, could you go down the road to the Starks’ and have them phone for help? I’ll go out for the woman and, if she’s alive, bring her back to the barn.”