Amish Country Arson (11 page)

There now, this will just look like an
accident. It will be told by all Nurse Hal met her death in her own
barn, settling a fight between her goat and her turkey.

In the far dark corner of the milk room, the
turkey came out of his roosting stupor. His head went up at the
strange sounds of step, slide, step, slide. He sighted in on the
dark shadow which was larger than the goat and didn't like what he
saw or heard. He rose to his feet, lowered his head and rushed the
strange sounding human that was invading his territory.

It came as a surprise to the arsonist when
the dragging leg was hit full force by the large turkey. The blow
caused the surprised grunt to be loud. The arsonist staggered
sideways and landed forcefully against the barn wall.

With victorious gobbles much like war whoops,
the turkey stuck his claws through the trousers and into the
wounded leg again while he pecked hard.

More grunting and cries of pain came from the
victim of Tom's flogging. The scoop shovel became a weapon again as
the arsonist raised it above the turkey. The shovel smacked down
hard on Tom, and the turkey sank into a feathered heap on the milk
room floor. The wobbling arsonist scrambled out the back door,
using the scoop shovel as a cane to stay steady.

The nervous cows and horses sniffed and
snorted at the sight of a stranger. Their nervousness turned into
fright. The bellowing cows kicked up a cloud of dust as they rushed
off. The horses bucked and nickered as they mingled together and
pushed each other in a circle.

Biscuit smelled the smoke as it billowed out
around the door. He let go with his best coon treeing howl. The
milk goat bleated and coughed as she filled up with smoke. When the
cattle mooed, and the horses whinnied as they tromped back and
forth behind the barn, Biscuit raced along the outside fence by the
barn, yapping.

Noah and Daniel slipped their trousers on and
woke up John. Noah said, “Daed, something is wrong at the
barn?”

Daniel saw the empty side of the bed and
panicked. “Where is Mama Hal?”

“
She must be in the barn yet,” John
cried as he leaped out of bed to dress.

The boys took the stairs two at a time and
rushed for the door. On the porch, they smelled smoke and saw the
flicker of flames through the barn window.

Daniel hollered back in the house, “The barn
is on fire.”

He rushed to the barn. Noah headed to the
back barn yard.

John was at the front door when Jim and Nora
came to the head of the stairs.

“
What can we do to help?” Nora
said.

“
Use your phone to call the fire
department,” John ordered. “We've got to hurry, Jim. Hal went to
check on her goat. She is in the barn.”

Aunt Tootie burst from the clinic with her
nightcap cocked on her head over one eye. “What do we do? What do
we do?”

“
Calm down, Tootie. I'm calling the
fire department now,” Nora said as she poked the
buttons.

The men made it to the open barn door with
smoke billowing around it just after Daniel went inside. Noah
jumped the fence and let the scared livestock out into the pasture.
He heard the racing hooves of a horse in the distance and squinted
to see across the pasture. He was sure a rider just left, but
because of the fog, he couldn't see as far as he could hear the
sounds.

Jim ran behind the house to pump buckets of
water while John stepped in the barn. Daniel came to meet him with
Hal in his arms.

“
Hal,” John shouted.

“
Mama Hal is alive but not awake. She
is full of smoke,” Daniel said, coughing. “I will take her to the
clinic.”

Jim arrived with two buckets of water. He'd
left Nora pumping more. Aunt Tootie came across the yard with two
more buckets. As John took one bucket, he said, “Aendi Tootie, will
you go tend to Hal? She is hurt. Have Nora call the ambulance.”

The men waded through the smoke to throw
water on the flames. The fire was burning the horse stall wall
above the bale. Noah brought filled buckets and threw water on the
fire.

The goat was bawling frantically as she raced
around her pen.

“
Get the goat out of here, Noah,” John
said. “Tom, too.”

Noah opened the pen door and grabbed the milk
goat by the neck. He held onto her to keep her from balking as they
passed the fire. It didn't take much to shoo her outside when she
smelled the cooler air.

Noah searched for Tom but didn't find him.
The back milk room door was open which it wasn't supposed to be.
Maybe Tom went in there to get away from the fire. He was smart
enough to fly over the back door half door.

They formed a bucket brigade up until they
heard the fire trucks coming. Biscuit set up a howl as the firemen
pulled their hoses into the barn and doused the flames. Daniel
wrapped his arms around the dog's neck. As he pulled Biscuit away
from the barn, the dog dragged all four feet.

The excitement was too much for the goat.
Gano left her hiding spot in the lean to and raced passed Biscuit,
looking for a safer place to hide. The dog wrestled out of Daniel's
arms and raced after her. Daniel let him go. At least, the two of
them would be be out of the way.

The ambulance pulled in behind the fire
truck. Aunt Tootie paced back and forth on the porch, waiting for
the three paramedics to get to her. “Over here,” she cried as she
opened the clinic door for them and the gurney.

Aunt Tootie led the medical personnel to the
bed. They took in the situation with a practiced eye.

“
What happened to her?” Daryl asked
Aunt Tootie.

“
I don't know. Daniel carried Hallie in
here from the barn, and she was unconscious. She hasn't woke up
yet.”

Hal moved slightly at the sound of familiar
voices.

“
Nurse Hal, it's Daryl. How you doing?”
His demeanor was serious as he studied and assessed her.

“
My head hurts,” she said
weakly.

Daryl knelt beside the bed and put his hand
under Hal's neck to lift her up. He saw a swollen lump with a gash
running through it on the back of her head.

Steve took her vital signs. “Blood pressure
and pulse on the low side.”

“
We'll put oxygen on her. Hal, you hang
in there. We have to lift you up to the gurney. As fast as the
ambulance can go, we'll get you to the hospital to be checked out,”
Daryl said, patting her shoulder as Ivan and Steve rolled the
gurney beside the bed.

The three paramedics lifted the sheet under
Hal and hoisted her on the gurney. The quick movement was painful.
Hal passed out again. The attendants rushed her down the steps and
to the ambulance.

John called from beside the barn, “How is
she?”

Daryl said, “We can't be sure. Hal has an
abrasion on the back of her head. Looks like someone hit her from
behind.”

Nora said, “I'm going with her, John. You
come when you can.”

With the siren blasting, Daryl headed for the
hospital with Nora in the front seat beside him. As soon as the
ambulance pulled out on the road, another fire truck pulled in and
parked by the house. The two firemen climbed out of their truck and
walked over by the barn. One of them called in the door to the
chief to see if they were needed.

As soon as the firemen thought the burn area
was wet enough they turned off the hoses. Fire Chief Charlie Miller
came to where John and the others stood in the house yard.

“
We've got the fire out. You're lucky
you didn't lose your barn like Mr. Stolfus did,” Charlie
said.

“
That is for sure,” John
agreed.

“
I take it the phone shed was still all
right when you made the call about the fire?” The fire chief
asked.

John looked puzzled. “We did not use the
phone shed. My mother- in-law has a cell phone. She called from
here.”

“
I see. The last fire truck that just
pulled in had to stop and hose down a fire in the phone shed,”
Chief Miller said. “The guy sure had a busy night this time,
lighting his fires. We found the remnants of a lantern on burnt hay
ashes inside the barn. The fuel from the lantern helped spread the
fire.”

“
Jah, Hal took a lantern with her to
see in the barn to check a new goat she bought,” John
explained.

“
Where was Mrs. Lapp when you found
her?” The chief turned to Daniel when he spoke.

“
Over by the wall where she would have
hung the lantern.”

“
The medic said she was hit on the
head,” John said.

“
Quite a distance between the fire and
where Hal was found, don't you think, Chief?” Jim asked.

“
My guess is someone wanted the fire to
look like an accident. With Nurse Hal out cold, we'd find the
lantern and her after it was too late,” the chief said.

“
Sure enough, someone else had been in
the barn. I heard a horse gallop across the pasture, but I could
not see anything for the fog. I do know it was not one of our
horses. I was just turning them loose,” Noah said.

“
If it is safe to leave now, we need to
go to the hospital to see how bad hurt my wife is hurt,” John said.
“I want to be with her.”

“
Go ahead. We'll watch the barn for a
while yet. We're going to fork some of that smoldering hay and
pitch it out the back door. I'll notify the sheriff when we get
back to town to come look around in the morning so don't move the
lantern or anything else,” the chief cautioned.

Jim drove his car to the hospital. Smoke had
settled on them and soaked into their clothes, but none of them
wanted to take the time to clean up. Hal's family rushed through
the hospital emergency doors and stopped at the nurse's
station.

The night nurse came down the hall to them.
“You related to Nurse Hal?”

“
Jah, I am her husband. These are her
sons and father,” John said. “How is she?”

“
Awake, but she has a whale of a
headache. Mr. Lapp, you can go see her.” She pointed to the waiting
room. “The rest of you go in that room. I'll send Nurse Hal's
mother to talk to you.”

John walked briskly down the ER hall with the
nurse. “Nurse Hal has a concussion. She'll have to take it easy for
a few days and stay in bed. She'll be dizzy if she tries to get up
and might fall. Going to the bathroom will be about it until she
sees the doctor again.”

“
Sure enough,” John said. “We will take
gute care of her.”

Hal was dozing when they entered the exam
room. Nora rose from her chair and came to them. She said softly,
“Hal went to sleep a few minutes ago. She has a bad headache.
Resting is the best thing for her.”

The nurse asked Nora, “You want to go out to
the waiting room and talk to the worried men waiting for news?”

Nora looked at John. “Jim and the boys came
with me. Aendi Tootie stayed with the girls.”

“
Tell them the doctor said Nurse Hal
will be fine after she rests,” the nurse said to Nora. “She will be
moved to a room soon. After the doctor makes rounds in the morning,
he'll probably release her.”

John spent a few minutes watching Hal sleep.
Satisfied she was resting all right, he walked to the waiting room.
“We might as well go home now.”

When they arrived back at the house, Nora
went into the clinic to wake up Aunt Tootie to tell her Hal would
be home in the morning. Aunt Tootie had the girls behind her in
bed. They were sleeping soundly. Nora debated waking Aunt Tootie
and decided to wait to talk to her until morning. She didn't want
to wake the little girls. They might have trouble going back to
sleep.

John wasn't sure any of the rest of them
could rest easy after such an unsettling night, but he was sound
asleep the minute his head hit the pillow.

The next morning as soon as breakfast,
devotion and the chores were done, John sent Noah to Emma's school
to tell her what happened to Hal.

Jim and Nora took John to the hospital to
pick up Hal. Doctor Christensen said she was to have bed rest for
two days. Her equilibrium might be off for at least that long from
such a hard blow to the head. After two days, Hal should come back
for a checkup before he'd release her to go back to her regular
routine.

Back home, John helped Hal out of the back
seat. He put his arm around her waist to help her up the steps and
into the house. She headed him toward the couch and eased on to
it.

Nora scolded “That won't do, Hal. You heard
the doctor's orders. You're to lie down.”

Aunt Tootie clucked like a setting hen. “Home
a whole minute, and she's not minding right away.”

“
One thing I'm not doing is get stuck
in my bed upstairs like I was the last time I had a concussion. I
want to be down here with my family,” Hal demanded as she laid her
head on the back of the couch.

“
All right, I'm going upstairs to get
your pillow and a quilt to cover up with. If you're staying down
here, you're going to stretch out on that couch,” Nora insisted as
she headed for the stairs.

“
Don't take a quilt off the bed. John
will need the cover. Get one out of the quilt chest sitting by the
window. There's plenty of quilts in it,” Hal said.

John backed up beside Jim while Nora and Aunt
Tootie scolded Hal. After the matter of her resting on the couch
was settled, he put his hand over Hal's and squeezed. “Now that you
are all settled in, I want to look around in the barn again.
Charlie Miller and Sheriff Dawson will be here soon to check the
barn, then we can clean the mess up.”