Love Still Stands (3 page)

The sound of sirens in the distance interrupted his response. Just as well. She obviously
meant what she said. No helping. Elijah would find it hard to comply with that order.
Having spent the last few years caring for his parents made helping second nature
for him. Bethel’s pretty face wouldn’t make it any easier. Her disability didn’t touch
the loveliness of her eyes or her smile—even though she seemed so much sadder than
when he’d seen her at prayer services and the singings. Just as he was.

“Is that an ambulance?” She pulled herself from the shadow of the van and peered at
the car racing toward them. The uneven ground caused her to stumble. Elijah lifted
his hand to help her, but then let it drop. No helping. “Is someone hurt?”

“No. The semi driver called the sheriff’s office on his cell phone.” Elijah put his
hand to his forehead instead, cupping his fingers against the sun as he tried to see
the car racing toward them. “There’s more damage inside the house. The driver said
it needed to be reported.”

“What kind of damage?”

“It looks like someone tried to set fire to the place.”

Her audible intake of breath made him wish he’d softened the words a little.

The car slammed to a stop. A grizzled-faced man in a brown uniform and shiny patent
leather boots exited the driver’s side. He left the car running, the sirens blaring,
and the door open. Hand on the gun hanging from his hip, he strode toward them. “Who
are you people and what are you doing on the Johnson property?”

Chapter 3

T
he sound of a siren screaming pulled Luke from the depths of his disbelief. The destruction
inside the house made the spray paint outside seem inconsequential. He couldn’t believe
this was the same house he’d stood in only two months earlier, envisioning himself
sitting in a hickory rocker in front of the fireplace reading
The Budget
, Leah across from him darning the boys’ socks, and the kinner playing games on the
rug in the light of the pole lamp.

Someone, teenagers would be his guess, had used the living room for a party. A party
that included a bonfire, apparently. They’d ripped apart old furniture left by the
previous owners, torn out bookshelves and countertops, and then stacked them all on
the living room floor for fuel. The walls and ceiling were seared black. The house
reeked of burned wood, beer, and other things he didn’t want to contemplate. An empty
keg lay on its side in a tub with a few inches of water in the bottom. Broken beer
bottles, red plastic cups, cheese curl bags, and crushed corn chips were strewn across
the floor. The upstairs rooms were virtually untouched except for the occasional obscene
drawing, but every window in the house would have to be replaced.

Someone had drawn pictures with purple, green, and blue markers on the one wall that
still had discernible wallpaper, scenes that made Luke turn away. He chose not to
imagine what activities had occurred in the downstairs bedroom. They’d found dirty
blankets crumpled on the floor, more food and beer trash, a St. Louis Cardinals T-shirt,
one blue sneaker, and one green rubber flip-flop.

The siren whopped and whistled, then died away.

“Did someone call the police?” He forced his gaze from the mess to Silas. “We don’t
need them.”

“The semi driver called the sheriff’s office.” Silas lifted his straw hat and rubbed
his bald head with blunt fingers. “He made the call while Elijah came to get me.”

“Not your fault.” Luke kept his gaze on his friend, not wanting to look at Leah’s
accusing face. Her repeated sighs hung in the air all around him, like question marks.
Questioning his decision-making, questioning his leadership, questioning his love.
“Did any of the others find this…this destruction at their places?”

“
Nee
, as far as I know, but I haven’t heard from every family yet. Some, like you, are
just arriving.”

Luke squatted and peered at a brown blob on the charred floor. It smelled like rotten
hamburger. “Let’s talk with the policeman and then we’ll get started cleaning up this
mess.”

“I’m not sure it’s safe.” Silas frowned, the skin of his forehead wrinkling. “It might
not be structurally safe. We may need to raze it to the foundation and rebuild.”

“The fire didn’t penetrate to the load-bearing beams. The upstairs is still livable
as it is. It can be salvaged.”

“Let’s wait until Thomas and Benjamin get here.” Silas tapped the frame of the nearest
window. The remaining glass broke free and showered his boots with a tinkling sound.
“Benjamin’s a carpenter. He’ll know more about all this.”

“The children have to sleep somewhere tonight. What about the barn? Is it damaged?”

“No, but it’s filthy and filled with old equipment. It will take a while to get it
cleaned up. You could stay with us.”

“I remember the equipment. We thought we’d sell it at the first school auction.” Luke
realized he was tugging at his beard and stopped. “You have a full house already.
We’ll make do here.”

“I have our camping tents on the truck at our place.”

Luke swallowed his anger. It burned his throat and made his belly hurt. They also
had tents, purchased with the plan of taking the children camping in the nearby state
parks later, when they were settled in, the work of creating a district done.
Gott, help me to forgive
. “They’ll think it’s great fun.”

“I won’t. It’s clouding up out there. What if it rains? The nights are cool as it
is.” Leah pressed her lips together as if trying to corral her words. It didn’t help.
“I’ll not spend the night outdoors when there’s a perfectly good bedroom upstairs.”

“Give us time to make sure the stairs are sound.” Luke forced himself to soften his
tone. “You don’t want to put the kinner in danger.”

“I’ll get the cleaning supplies and trash bags from the semi.” Leah marched from the
room, Jebediah clinging to her neck. “William and Joseph can start picking up the
trash on the porch and in the yard.”

“Give them work gloves. I don’t want them cutting themselves on glass.”

“I’ll sweep it up.” The words floated behind her as she let the screen door slam.
“And anything else that might be…unhealthy out there.”

“I sent Martin to get the others,” Silas called after her. “My fraa and the girls
will help you. Emma and Thomas will want to help. They’re all on their way.”

No answer.

“She’s tired,” Luke offered as he straightened. “We all are.”

“No need to explain.” Silas stood with legs spread and arms folded over his chest,
his lined face stern. He reminded Luke of his own daed. “Did you spend any time in
town when you came out here?”

“You mean did we talk to people to see how they felt about a load of Plain folks moving
in next door?”

“Something like that.”

Luke reran the memories of his two visits to this area with the other men selected
by the bishop to lead the venture. The first time he’d been taken by the open tracts
of farmland for sale and the lack of development nearby. The second time he’d talked
with a real estate agent, a banker, and the folks who ran the restaurant next to the
motel where they’d stayed. The first two had been anxious for their business. The
cost of the farms had been in the price range needed based on what they expected to
get from selling Thomas’s farm with its oil reserves and the other properties in Bliss
Creek. The folks at the restaurant had served good food and minded their manners.
The most he’d garnered from them was that people in New Hope minded their own business
and liked to keep to themselves. Since that described Plain people as well, he figured
they’d fit right in. “The folks I talked to didn’t seem to mind.”

Silas looked like he would say something else, but the entrance of a man in uniform,
followed by Elijah and Bethel, stemmed the flow of his words.

“This is Sheriff Virgil McCormack.” Elijah’s hands tugged at his suspenders, his usual
easy-going smile missing. “He has some…questions…about the farm. And about us.”

“Questions?” Luke took the hand the man offered. The sheriff had a firm grip and a
cool hand. “I’m the new owner of this property.”

“Who exactly
are
you?” Sheriff McCormack let his gaze wander from Luke to Silas to Bethel in obvious
appraisal. He removed his hat and let it dangle at his side. “Some kind of cult or
something? No offense, ma’am.”

He directed the
ma’am
at Bethel, who looked exhausted as she leaned on her crutches. Luke took a second
to school his tone. He wanted to start off on the right foot with their new neighbors.
“Not a cult. Amish. I’m Luke Shirack. This is Silas Christner and his brother Elijah.”
He nodded toward the kitchen, left in shambles that matched the living room. “I’m
sorry I can’t ask the women to give you some tea or lemonade. We just drove up the
road.”

“You got proof of ownership then?”

“I have paperwork for the property if you need to see it.”

Sheriff McCormack surveyed the scene and sucked on a toothpick perched between his
front teeth. Finally, he removed the toothpick and stuck it his pocket. “That’s what
I figured. Too bad you didn’t stop by to talk to me and some of the other folks in
town before you decided to buy up the countryside here.”

“Why is that?”

“The good folks of New Hope don’t care much for strangers. Or religious zealots, for
that matter.” Without looking down, he stepped on a bag of barbecued potato chips.
They crunched under his heel. “We like to keep to ourselves. We’ve got no interest
in the kind of Amish tourist trade they do up there at Jamesport. We don’t need it.
Most of our folks are farmers who make a decent enough living. We don’t want a bunch
of city slickers traipsing around trying to get pictures of you guys in your suspenders
and straw hats and buggies that block traffic on the highway and cause accidents.
Just so you know. Not to be unfriendly or anything.”

Elijah made a move as if to break in. Silas shook his head.

“We like to keep to ourselves too. We don’t invite tourists to gawk at us. We’d rather
they didn’t. We simply do nothing to stop them.” Luke smiled in what he hoped was
a friendly way. He didn’t feel so friendly. Thanks to some of the good folks of New
Hope they had a big cleanup ahead of them before he could put his kinner to sleep
in their own beds.
Forgive them, Lord, and forgive me for being so surly today
. “We don’t plan to be any trouble at all to the good folks of New Hope.”

If the sheriff saw any irony in the repetition of description of the residents of
his town, he gave no indication. “I’m just saying, we got plenty of campers coming
through to go to the Ozarks and then we got the tourists headed to Branson. Our stores
are doing fine. We don’t need no more business. Not to be unfriendly or anything.”

“I understand.”

The sheriff looked as if he expected Luke to offer to pack up and head back to Kansas.
When he didn’t, the other man pursed his lips, the sun lines around them deepening.
“You got a bunch of kids who’ll be going to our schools? They’re pretty full already.”

“We build our own schools and teach our own children.” Their kinner wouldn’t go to
school with children who did things like build fires in houses that didn’t belong
to them. “No need to concern yourself about that.”

“I heard something like that. Be sure you get that school built right quick. Wouldn’t
want to send a truancy officer your way so soon after your arrival. Separate schools
are for the best. With those outfits, your boys will be eaten alive by our boys.”

“We’ll homeschool them until the building is ready.” He didn’t plan to have a discussion
with this man about the court case that gave Plain folks the right to educate their
children as they thought fitting. “We want what’s best for them.”

“The winters can be harsh here.”

“As they often are in Kansas.”

“True enough.” Sheriff McCormack poked at an empty brown beer bottle with the toe
of his boot. It rolled across the floor and clanked against a green one. “Someone
really did a number on your new place.”

“It seems so.” Luke forced himself to respond in the same even tone. “Our neighbors
are on their way. We’ll get it cleaned up and repaired in no time.”

“You don’t want to file a report then?” The sheriff touched a blackened wall and his
finger came away dark with soot. “You’ll need a police report to file for the insurance.
I can get a guy out here tomorrow to take some pictures, see if he can lift a fingerprint
or two.”

There was no insurance to collect. They were self-insured, but the sheriff would never
understand the Amish way of community care. Luke wouldn’t mind seeing someone punished
for this mess, but it seemed unlikely the sheriff would catch the culprits and their
punishment wouldn’t change the work that had to be done. Or give the newcomers goodwill
in the community. “We don’t need a report. Right now, I have five children who need
places to lay their heads tonight.”

“It’s your call.” The sheriff slapped his hat back on his head. “I’ll spread the word
y’all are here so the teenagers will find another place to entertain themselves.”

“This happens a lot?”