Kitabı oku: «An Amish Christmas Promise», sayfa 3

Chapter Four

Michael quietly shut the door to the trailer he was sharing with his friends from Harmony Creek Hollow and stepped out into the cold morning. He didn’t want to wake Benjamin or James or anyone else who might be asleep in the other travel trailer parked behind the used car dealership. The two trailers had been donated for the workers rebuilding the homes. He hadn’t expected anything so comfortable when he’d volunteered.

Though describing the cramped trailer as comfortable wasn’t accurate. With three full-grown men trying to squeeze past each other as they got ready each morning and went to bed each night for the past three days, it was a tight squeeze. However, the narrow bed where he slept had a gut mattress.

He looked at his trousers. They were his next-to-last clean pair. The local laundromat had told volunteers that as soon as the business was open in a couple of weeks, they were welcome to come in anytime to wash their clothes for free. Something in the water had left a dirty line above the tops of his rubber boots. The scum might have been gasoline or fuel oil or some other chemical that had leaked into the brook after the flood swept cars and furnaces and everything else along it. He hadn’t seen the telltale rainbow sheen, but it might have dissipated enough so it was no longer visible.

The volunteers working in the flooded houses had been given white plastic coveralls as well as ventilating masks. Mold had begun growing as the water receded, so those workers had to be protected when they tore out drenched drywall and tossed the pieces into wheelbarrows that were then taken to big dumpsters sitting at a central spot in town. The plan, as he understood it, had been for the debris to be removed daily, but so far nobody had come to retrieve it. Stacks of reeking building materials and furniture and carpet were piled along the streets.

The rumble of generators came from the village. He walked past a collection of used cars marked with bright orange paint. When he’d asked why, he’d been told the cars would be destroyed. Water was as destructive to an internal combustion engine as it was to a wooden structure.

Michael counted more than two dozen buildings with visible damage before he stopped, knowing there were more with ruined interior walls and drenched contents. Grimacing, he guessed anything in those buildings wore the same dark sheen as whatever stained his trousers.

What a mess! Before he arrived he hadn’t imagined the breadth of the disaster.

There was one thought he hadn’t been able to shake out of his head as he stared at the brightly colored trees on the mountain beyond the village. If the storm had blasted its way up the other side of the Green Mountains, the settlement along Harmony Creek could have been washed away.

God, make use of my hands and my arms and whatever else You need to help these people regain their normal lives. Let my heart be as eager to help here as it would be to do the same for those at home.

He prayed something similar every morning when he went on a short walk before breakfast. He depended on the prayer to focus him on the work ahead of him. Talking to God also helped him clear his mind of thoughts that seemed to center around the enigma Carolyn was. She’d never explained why she’d reacted so vehemently when Glen spoke about an interview.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Michael continued toward the village. How had Carolyn coped with this day after day for the past week? Nobody could have been prepared for what had occurred, but except for the single outburst at the school, she’d been calm. He was a bit envious because he wished he knew how she managed the drama surrounding her. Maybe if he could learn how she did it, he’d be able to do it himself.

Michael didn’t meet anyone else as he walked past the library. The large two-story building was solid on its foundation, or at least the stone walls made it appear that way. He couldn’t say the same for the seafood restaurant next door. The whole building listed to the right, revealing the foundation had been compromised. Several other structures along the street were also off-kilter, one two-story house so tilted the eaves on one side were low enough he could have touched them without rising to his toes. Yellow police tape surrounded the house, a warning that it might collapse.

The odor of mildew strengthened as he continued along the street. Raw earth scents rose from where trees had been ripped from the ground, leaving gaping holes and thick fingers of roots torn apart. Broken flowerpots lay shattered by front steps, but he guessed they’d once been much farther upstream.

The nearer he got to the brook the worse the damage was. He slowed to stare at the remnants of one house where the first floor had vanished. The upper story sat on the ground about ten feet from the foundation. Another house was tipped over, every window and door intact, as if a gigantic hand had reached down and lifted it off its foundation before setting it on the ground. Not far away, a clock perched over a shop’s door. Its hands marked the time the flood had struck the building.

6:47.

As Carolyn had said, if the waters had arrived a few hours later, people would have been in bed and might not have had time to escape.

Michael sent up a prayer of thanks for the lives saved through God’s providence. Many villagers had lost everything, but they had their most precious possessions—their lives and their families’ lives.

What stopped him in his tracks, however, was the sight of the covered bridge on the north side of the village. One half hung precariously over the water. The rest of it had vanished except for a pair of boards. The top of each arch was more than twelve feet off the ground, and he tried to imagine water reaching high enough to tear the bridge apart.

Destruction spread to the horizon on both sides of a brook he could have waded across in a half-dozen steps. Trees were lying on their sides, on the ground or propped on top of broken roofs. Water pooled everywhere. He’d been wandering through this disaster for three days and still hadn’t seen the full extent of the destruction.

“Can’t believe your eyes, can you?” asked James as he came to stand beside him. His stained pants were stuffed into the tops of his boots. He held out a cup of kaffi to Michael.

Taking the cup with a nod of gratitude, he answered, “I can’t get accustomed to the randomness of it all.” He pointed along the brook toward where a garden shed sat on an island, separated from its house by ten feet of water. “Both buildings look fine, but Washboard Brook now runs between them instead of behind the shed as I assume it used to.”

“I’ve heard there are plans to put the brook back into its original banks.”

“I’ve heard that, too, but I’m not sure if the state will go to the expense of reconnecting a house and its shed.”

“Then it may be left to the homeowner to reroute the water.”

Michael arched his brows, knowing such a task would require excavating equipment and permits. Maybe some rules would be relaxed for the rebuilding, but he guessed most would be kept in place to protect the village and its inhabitants from a repeat of the disaster.

For the first time he wondered how long it would take Evergreen Corners to return to normal.

Or if it ever would.

At breakfast, Michael had had a chance to greet Carolyn and receive one of her pretty smiles, but he didn’t have time to say anything more before he had to move on to let others get their food. It was long enough for him to notice the dark circles under her eyes, and he wondered what had kept her awake. The kinder? The house? Something else?

Pondering the questions kept him silent through breakfast. He was quiet as he walked with James and Benjamin and the other volunteers toward where they’d be clearing debris from the site of Carolyn’s house. At least, he told himself, they could reassure her the project was moving forward.

Jose shared apples from his orchard. The man was one of the hardest workers at the site, and Michael wasn’t surprised to learn Jose had volunteered at other disasters throughout New England. Each day, he came with a treat to share. Though Jose said the apples had been harvested a few weeks ago, they had a crispness that put any apple Michael had ever had in Pennsylvania to shame.

“Our weather in Vermont is perfect for apples,” Jose said. “Warm summer days with cooler nights. When we get plenty of rain—” He scowled as if he’d found a worm in the core of the apple he was eating. “I mean regular rain, not flooding rain like they had along these valleys. When we get lots of nice, steady rain, the apples are juicy. After drier summers like this one, the apples aren’t as juicy, but they’re sweeter. Either way, they’re great for eating, cooking and making cider.”

Trisha, who’d worked with him in the past, laughed. “You sound like an ad for the Vermont apple growers’ association.”

“Hey, a guy’s got to be proud of what he does.” He turned to the other men. “Right?”

Michael hastened to agree rather than explain pride—hochmut—was seen as a negative among the Amish. He doubted the Englischers would be interested in hearing about plain life, and he didn’t want to cause any sort of gulf between the plain volunteers and the Englisch ones. He glanced at his friends and gave the slightest shrug. He got grins in return.

Noise met them before they reached the remains of Carolyn’s home. Generators rumbled, waiting for electric tools to be connected to them. The sound of circular saws battled the whir of gas-powered chainsaws cutting through the debris blocking the brook, creating pools where there shouldn’t be any. Small clouds of blue-gray smoke marked each spot where someone was slicing through wood that might once have been a house or a fence.

As they emerged from the trees separating her property from her neighbor’s, large land-moving equipment was being maneuvered toward Carolyn’s cellar hole. The tons of gravel deposited by the swollen brook onto her yard crunched under large tires and caterpillar tracks. Two skid steers, which looked like a kind’s toys compared to the massive vehicles, were shoving fallen trees into a pile near the brook. He knew they would be burned later but were being shifted out of the way so the massive equipment could do its work.

Glen Landis stood near stone steps that had led to the house. From there, he could supervise workers removing the debris, filling in the old cellar hole and laying out the new foundation. Michael and James were put to work marking the location of the new house with sticks and bright orange string while the others focused on finishing the cleanup.

When the evaluation had come back on Carolyn’s house the day before yesterday, the decision had been clear. The old house, as Michael had suspected, had been built too close to the brook. Though it’d been almost twenty yards away, the building hadn’t been spared during what people were calling a thousand-year flood. He didn’t have much confidence in their timetable. The flood caused by Hurricane Kevin had been the fifth in the past hundred years.

Michael wondered if Carolyn had been consulted about the new location, which would set the front porch a few yards from the road. She had around six acres on either side of the brook, but most was wooded, so putting the house near its original location seemed the best idea.

Though he was focused on his task of trying to make a perfect rectangle with James’s help, Michael knew the instant Carolyn arrived in the clearing. Some sense he couldn’t name told him she was nearby. He couldn’t keep from smiling. She had a white crocheted shawl over the shoulders of the pink dress that looked to be far too big for her. It had, he guessed, come from the bins of donated clothing. She’d cinched it with a black apron, accenting her slender waist. Her gold locket twinkled around her neck.

She scanned the work site and smiled. That expression softened when her gaze caressed his, pausing for a single heartbeat before moving on. Was it his imagination that her smile had grown a shade warmer when their eyes connected?

“Is this the spot for the next stake?” James asked in an impatient tone that suggested he’d already posed the question once or twice.

Michael concentrated on his task. As much as he enjoyed looking at Carolyn, he couldn’t let his attention wander. He squatted and placed a laser level on the ground so the red line marked where the next few stakes should be driven.

His sleeve was grabbed, and he struggled to hold his balance in the awkward stance. Putting his hands on the dirt, he pushed himself to his feet when he realized Carolyn must have rushed down to them.

“Was iss letz?” he asked. When she opened her mouth, he said in Englisch, “What’s wrong?”

A flurry of emotions stormed across her face before she looked away to point farther down the hillside. “Where’s the wood we pulled out of the brook?”

He squinted through the bright morning sunshine. “Right there.” As he was about to add more, a skid steer moved toward the stack. The forks started to slide under the wood. “Did you tell them to move it?”

“No.”

Running at a pace that threatened to send him falling face-first, he managed to slide to a stop before he reached the one-man forklift.

The man inside was so riveted on his task, he didn’t see Michael waving his arms. Michael leaped forward and grabbed the end of one of the boards rising on the forklift.

A curse battered his ears, but he ignored it as he motioned to the man controlling the skid steer.

“Are you crazy?” demanded the man, poking his head out of the small vehicle.

“The owner wants to hold on to these boards.”

“Why?” asked the operator. “She’s getting a brand-new house.”

“She collected them to rebuild her chicken coop.” He pointed toward where a half-dozen chickens were pecking at the ground near where an old tree trunk had been removed. A feast of bugs and worms must have been uncovered.

“Those chickens aren’t going to be long for this world if they keep wandering around here. Nobody’s going to be watching for them.” The operator gave a twisted grin. “They’re gonna be flat chickens in no time.”

Michael knew the guy was right. “I’ll take care of them.”

“They’re in the way.”

“Okay.” He held up one hand. “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

The man switched off the skid steer. “I’ll wait here.” His tone suggested Michael was wasting everyone’s time defending a pile of water-soaked wood and a few chickens.

Striding up the hill, Michael explained what the skid steer operator had told him.

“I’ll talk to Glen.” Carolyn walked away before anyone could reply.

Michael turned to his friends. “We’ve got a new job.”

“What’s that?” asked James, stretching as Michael had done a few minutes ago.

“How are you at catching chickens?”

Benjamin groaned. “Don’t tell us you volunteered us to round up Carolyn’s chickens.”

“All right, I won’t tell you, but let’s go. We need to get them before—” He grinned when a chicken let out an ear-splitting squawk as it flapped away from a bulldozer, leaving a cloud of feathers and dust in its wake. “I, for one, don’t want to explain to Carolyn and her kinder why their chickens have gone bald.”

With a laugh, the men went to capture the hens. It wasn’t the day Michael had planned, but he’d already learned, despite the plans Glen and his team had made, there were going to be plenty of surprises while rebuilding Carolyn’s house.

Carolyn scrubbed the last of the muffin tins from breakfast in the community center’s kitchen. She’d returned to work there after being reassured by Glen that her small pile of boards would be kept safe so she could build another chicken coop.

During the walk to the community center, she hadn’t been able to keep from smiling as she thought of Michael taking off at top speed to stop the skid steer operator from tossing them onto the pile with the rest of the debris. If the ground had been covered by snow, he would have looked like a reckless snowboarder on Mount Snow.

Yet, he’d saved the boards, and she appreciated his interceding on her behalf. He seemed to be a gut man.

But so did Leland when you first met him.

She shuddered at the thought of her brother-in-law and her own father, who’d derided her mother every chance he had. Others had acted as if they admired both Leland and her father. Others who hadn’t seen the truth hidden by charming smiles. She didn’t want to believe Michael was the same, but she’d be a fool to leave herself and Kevin and Rose Anne vulnerable to another man.

He wouldn’t be in Evergreen Corners for long—another reason not to get too close to him. She’d keep her distance.

Just in case.

“Hey! Guess what? There are more Amish folks here.”

Carolyn’s ears perked up at the words spoken by someone on the far side of the community kitchen.

More Amish? A shiver of dismay sliced through her. What if Leland had secreted himself among these plain people and come to Evergreen Corners with them? What if she was recognized as Cora Hilty from Indiana?

She put the last muffin tray in the drainer and squeezed out the dishrag. Draping it over the faucet, she said, “I’ll be right back.”

The other women looked at her in obvious confusion.

She gave them a wide smile and whirled to leave before someone could ask a question she’d have to evade as she had so many others. When she had embarked on this new life, she hadn’t given any thought to how hard it would be to protect the truth from those she called friends. So many times when she’d stopped to chat with Jenna in the library, she’d been tempted to spill everything.

But the burden was hers and hers alone until Kevin and Rose Anne were old enough to be told the truth. She tried not to let herself think about what their reactions would be.

When Carolyn emerged from the community center and hurried to the center of the village, she saw four plain people standing in the middle of the green and looking around as if they didn’t know what to do first. The three men, all wearing black hats, were bachelors because none had beards. The lone woman had a black bonnet over her kapp and wore a black wool coat, so Carolyn couldn’t guess which community they came from. A single suitcase and three paper grocery bags sat on the ground by their feet.

“Can I help you?” Carolyn asked as she reached the quartet.

“We’re here to help,” said the tallest man. “Do you know where we go to meet with the project director?”

“The high school.” She smiled. “I’ll show you the way. I’m Carolyn Wiebe, by the way.”

“Isaac Kauffman,” the tall man answered. “This is my sister Abby, and our cousins, Danny and Vernon Umble.”

Danny appeared younger than the others, not much more than a teenager, while Vernon looked the oldest of the foursome, probably in his early forties. He wore thick glasses that perched on the end of his nose. As Carolyn greeted them, he pushed up his glasses, but they slid down again when he reached for one of the paper bags.

The cousins fell in step behind Carolyn and the Kauffmans as she led them across the green. She kept her sigh of relief silent when they told her they were the only ones from their community able to spare time to help with the rebuilding.