Clouds without Rain. P. L. Gaus
there among the wreckage, taking photos with her black Nikon. Up on the hill behind the wreck, the professor trained his binoculars on the ground at Robertson’s feet, then in wider circles on the ground in front of the semi. In every direction on the opposing hill, both on the pavement where Robertson stood and sprayed over the vehicles and terrain not directly damaged by the impact of the crash, Branden saw a vast scattering of black fabric and wooden splinters. Back up the hill there lay a thin axle. Smashed and twisted buggy wheels lay in the ditch beyond, two of them still attached to a second bent axle. The largest fragment of the buggy lay in the field at the edge of the road, some twenty yards away from the cab of the semi. In its tangled mass, Branden made out the torn and twisted fabric of Amish attire. Nancy Blain’s slender figure came into view, as she aimed her camera at the buggy. She lingered for several shots there and then stood and began firing off frame after frame as she pivoted full circle in place.
A second pumper arrived on the scene. Having extinguished the fires at the car, the firefighters ran their heavy hoses out into the burning fields and sprayed a broad arc of water on the outlying ridges of fire burning through the crops. Branden looked again for Robertson, and found him kneeling beside the road, near the overturned cab of the truck.
He was holding the head of the downed horse by its bridle. The horse’s back legs had been mauled by the impact, and the right hind leg was torn loose at the hip. The horse’s coat was matted with blood and its flesh was ripped open, exposing the bowels. The front legs of the horse pawed uselessly at the air. Branden saw Robertson draw his sidearm and point it at the head of the horse. There was a puff of smoke at the muzzle, followed abruptly by the report of the gun, and the horse lay immediately still.
2
Monday, August 7
4:30 P.M.
PASTOR Cal Troyer crested a hill on a gravel lane south of Walnut Creek and turned left into a crushed stone driveway, where a two-story white frame house with a green roof stood in the lee of a mature stand of blue spruce mixed with wide oak and tall hickory. He parked his old white truck off to the right of the drive, where a small patch of gravel normally was occupied by a buggy. Out of the barn to his right, two teenage boys drove a pair of draft horses hitched to a manure spreader, waved briefly, and turned toward the field beyond the trees.
On the lawn at the side door, Cal greeted two small children, a boy and a girl, about four or five years old, splashing in full Amish garb in a round plastic toddler’s pool. They stopped when he spoke to them, but, obedient to their teaching, they did not reply.
He stepped up onto the small porch, rapped his knuckles on a wooden screened door, and was admitted by a young girl in a long purple dress and a white cap, who let him in and kneeled immediately to sweep a small mound of dust into a dustpan on the gray wooden floor. Behind her, the floor into the kitchen was bright and clean, and before Cal took another step, she caught him gently by the sleeve, produced a weak smile, and pointed to his shoes. Cal nodded reassuringly, untied his white cross trainers, and slipped his feet out of them, saying, “Is Andy Weaver staying here?”
The girl stood up with her dustpan and broom, said, “For a spell,” and pointed the end of her broom handle toward a door on the other side of the kitchen. She had never met Cal Troyer, but recognized him from stories of his long, white hair. Like everyone in her community, she knew of the preacher’s reputation as a friend to her people. She stood respectfully and studied his powerful arms and large carpenter’s hands. He thanked her in a gentle voice and stepped over his shoes.
In the kitchen, uncomfortably warm from the wood stove, a mountain of rising dough nearly three feet abreast and a foot high lay on the open door to the oven. In a corner behind an icebox, another daughter was scrubbing the floor with a damp towel wrapped around a pine two-by-two board, switching from one side of the board to another as each became soiled.
Cal asked again for Andy Weaver, and the teenager said, “On the back porch.”
Cal pushed through the heavy walnut door the first girl had indicated and entered a large dining room with several china cupboards and a round dinner table with ten chairs and one highchair. The only other door in this room led to a moderately sized sewing room, where three women, eldest daughter, grandmother, and mother, Cal guessed, sat leaning over a square wooden quilting frame. As they took small stitches in the ornate patchwork of cloth, only the mother looked up from her work.
Cal asked, “Andy Weaver?” and she wordlessly nodded toward a screened door behind her.
The door led Cal to a long concrete walkway connecting a Daadihaus to the main house, and on the porch of the little house, Cal found Bishop Andy R. Weaver sitting on a three-legged stool, mending tack, or rather holding it in one hand while he gazed, lost in thought, at a distant fence line. Weaver’s hair was pushed down over his ears by a battered straw hat. His shirt was dark blue, and his trousers were of denim. His long gray beard fell loose and uncombed on his chest, and he was shaved around the mouth, though some stubble was evident.
“Andy!” Cal said, and approached. Weaver turned, saw Cal, and rose to offer his hand happily, saying, “You’re white, Cal,” indicating Troyer’s shoulder-length hair and full beard.
“Been a long time, Andy,” Cal said. He shook his old friend’s hand and added, “So it’s Bishop Andy, now.”
Weaver nodded self-consciously and said, “Thought I had gone to Pennsylvania for keeps, Cal. Take a walk?”
Cal retrieved his shoes, and the two strolled through a swinging iron gate and along a rusted fence bordering a sunbaked field of hay. The bishop’s old straw hat was broken open at the front of the crown where he had pinched it so often, putting it on and taking it off. His vest hung limply over rounded shoulders. The leather of his boots was split and scuffed, encrusted with patches of dried manure.
Cal drew a pair of sunglasses from his shirt pocket and put them on. After they had walked a ways, he said, “What made you decide to come home, Andy?”
Weaver stopped, stuck his thumbs in his suspenders, and studied his boots. He kicked at some dirt, looked at Cal somewhat ambiguously and said, “They’ve all promised to change.”
“And your brother?”
“So, you remember.”
Cal nodded and Weaver said, “He’s been out for a long time, now.”
“Bishop Melvin P. Yoder kicked him out?”
“Should have,” Weaver said, passing judgment.
Cal’s fingers toyed with his long white beard. He stood thinking silently in the bright sun about the old days, about the crusade against cults that he and Weaver had organized some years ago. After a moment, Cal shook loose from his memories and asked, “They’re all going back to Old Order?”
Weaver shrugged unhappily. “Not all. I lost one family already.”
“I doubt you’ll lose that many more.”
“The rest are waiting to see how I’ll rule on various things.”
“They asked you back to help after Yoder died?”
“The most of them did. A few holdouts, I suppose,” Weaver said.
“But you’re bishop now. They’ll align themselves under your authority.”
“People here have gotten too far along into modern ways, Cal. Getting back to Old Order will be hard.”
“They all knew you well enough before you quit for Pennsylvania. Wouldn’t have asked you back if they didn’t mostly want Old Order.”
“You don’t know how far gone Yoder let the District get.”
Cal reached down, plucked some dry alfalfa, and stuck it between his teeth, waiting for Weaver to continue.
“Think about it, Cal. We’ve got at least three neighborhood phone booths out by the roadsides where no one person can be said to actually own the things. Some have secret phones in their