Clouds without Rain. P. L. Gaus
get rid of it all, if you tell them to.”
“The old ways are disappearing, Cal. It’s the kids more than anything. They won’t have farms the way things are going. Right now, there are at least nineteen of them working in shops or stores. Some restaurants, too. For as long as six years in some cases. They’re not going to be able to farm. Probably not marry in any traditional way, either.”
“Shops seem to be the way to go, these days,” Cal offered.
“They’ve got too much idle time on their hands,” Weaver complained.
“Are you going to go to the sheriff with those other bishops? About the drinking parties?”
“The sheriff can’t stop our young people from drinking, Cal.”
“It’d be a start,” Cal offered.
Weaver shook his head soberly. “It’s the cult, Cal. After all these years, it’s still that cult.”
Cal nodded, cast his eyes at the ground, and kicked up dust angrily, remembering the problems he had faced in his own congregation, when the thing had first gotten started. He and Andy Weaver had crusaded against it throughout the county. In the end, all they could do was to expose it, and keep their own people from mixing in. After that, Andy had moved away, Cal had tended to his own congregation, and the cult had grown quietly to the point where it seemed that everyone in Holmes County knew about it, without feeling the need, in these more liberal times, to stand against it. Live and let live, is what they all would say. Who’s to judge, anyway?
“I judge it,” Cal thought to himself, and looked back sternly at Weaver. Revulsion for the cult sank deep furrows into his brow.
Andy peered into Cal’s fierce, narrowed eyes, laid a hand on his shoulder, and said, “It’s bigger now, Cal. More powerful.”
“And you think some of your people are mixed in?”
“Don’t know yet, but I’m afraid so.”
“Mike Branden is working on some robberies that might tie in with this.”
“I know. I’m going to ask for your help again, Cal, when I know more.”
Cal fell silent and thought about the difficulties they would face. “This will prove dangerous. Busting it up altogether.”
“I don’t intend to take on the whole of it, Cal. Just get my own people out. We don’t stand a chance of getting back to true Old Order until I accomplish that.”
3
Monday, August 7
6:30 P.M.
SHERIFF Robertson was laid out, face down, on one of the metal hospital beds in the emergency room of Joel Pomerene Hospital in Millersburg. His large chest and belly sprawled over the white sheets, and his shoulders bulged over the metal railings on either side. His burned arms hung limply down and his shins hit the metal bar at the foot of the bed. The nurses had stacked two pillows there to soften the edge.
The nurses had also re-hung the IV lines that the paramedics had started, and now a regulator box clicked on a pole next to the bed, as fluids were pumped into Robertson to combat dehydration. They had also strapped his face with a clear blue plastic oxygen mask, and Robertson’s head hung over the front edge of the bed, mask down.
When he had first arrived, Robertson had insisted on sitting upright on the edge of the bed while they scrubbed the tattered and melted strips of his uniform shirt out of the second- and third-degree burns on his back and on the backs of his arms. He had made a nuisance of himself by taking his oxygen mask off to give orders to the nurses about who’d be coming in to see him and how soon he’d be needed back at the accident scene. Then the first doses of morphine had begun to wear off, and the nurses had convinced him to lie down on his stomach so that the doctors could tend to his burns. One of the doctors had called for another dose of morphine, and the nurses had pushed enough to sedate an average-sized man. Still, he lay awake on his stomach, grumbling about the procedure through his mask. He tried to sit back up, but an ER nurse kept him pinned on his belly. When Lieutenant Dan Wilsher arrived, Robertson was fighting with the nurse to remove his oxygen mask again.
Lieutenant Wilsher pulled a metal chair up to the head of the bed and sat to face the sheriff. He took one of Robertson’s hands, partly to help the nurses, and also to let the sheriff know he was there. Wilsher was dressed in street clothes, but his badge was out on his belt, and his face and white shirt were smudged with soot.
Robertson immediately asked, “How’s Schrauzer?”
“I’m not sure,” Wilsher lied.
Robertson scowled and said, “Get me a report, Dan. I’ve got to know.”
Wilsher answered, “I will, Sheriff, but you’ve got your own problems to worry about here.” He looked back and winced at the scrubbing that was underway on Robertson’s back and arms.
A doctor had a scalpel out, cutting skin loose where it was stuck to bits of tattered cloth. One nurse kept a flow of cool saline on Robertson’s burns, and another applied ice packs to those areas where the skin was only pink. The darkened skin on Robertson’s back had swollen considerably, and near the ugly splotches of third-degree burns, another doctor was cutting shallow lines into the flesh. A third nurse dabbed with a saline swatch at the open wounds to clean them.
Wilsher grimaced and said to Robertson, “We can handle this, Bruce. You’re gonna have to stay here for a while.”
Robertson groaned and shook his head. “Going back out there tonight. Something’s not right.”
Wilsher said, “It’s OK, Bruce. We’re doing everything that can be done. Even setting up portable floodlights for night work if that’s what it takes.” Relenting slightly, he reported, “The car is a total loss.”
Robertson asked, “Casualties?” His voice sounded muffled through the mask. He tried to lift his head to see Wilsher more directly, but couldn’t quite manage the angle.
“A young fellow died in the car,” Wilsher said. “He’s local. We’ve got some identification from the license plate, and the family is being asked to come in.”
“Won’t have a solid ID until Missy Taggert has a look,” Robertson said. He shook his head lightly from side to side, remembering the smoke and tremendous heat from the flames.
Wilsher opened a small spiral-bound notebook and said, “There were three others there, besides Schrauzer. Jim Weston in one truck, a Mr. Robert Kent in the second pickup, and Bill MacAfee driving one of his produce trucks. We’ve got preliminaries from all three.”
“Jim Weston owns a surveying company,” Robertson said.
“He’s surveying those high-end housing developments,” Wilsher added.
Robertson grunted. “How about folk in the buggy?”
“Only one, a something ‘Weaver.’ Taggert pronounced him at the scene. He was turning left into his own driveway when the buggy was hit. The truck driver is dead, too.”
“You figure it was the semi?” Robertson asked. He gave out a couple of groans and asked, grousing, “Hey, Doc. You sure you’re using morphine?”
The doctor came around to the front of the bed, leaned over, and asked, “You’re not comfortable?”
Robertson barked, “No!” and tried to lift his arms to register his dismay.
“We’ll push some more,” the doctor said and gave the order to the nurse.
Because of his large size and the intense pain, Robertson had worked through the initial doses of morphine quickly. Now the latest dose added its effects, and Robertson began to grow drowsy. Deputy Ricky Niell arrived in a neatly pressed uniform, eyed the sheriff’s back, made a pained expression for Wilsher, and took a seat next to the lieutenant. Robertson noticed