Anna's Healing (14 page)

Jacob nodded and tried to swallow, but his throat felt as if he'd drank a glass of sand. The rain was still falling, and he had the strange thought to tilt his head back and let the drops moisten his mouth. Instead, he swiped a hand across his face and moved to kneel beside a girl he had known for less than forty-eight hours.

“Hi, Anna.”

“Jacob. What happened?”

He looked to Brenda for permission to share about the tornado, but she shook her head. She helped Charlie to start an IV in Anna's arm and was again checking her breathing.

“Had an accident, is all. You're going to be okay.” He prayed those words were true as soon as they had slipped off his tongue.

“
Aenti
and
Onkel
?”

“They're here.” He glanced over toward the couple. Erin seemed to be pulling herself together, and Samuel's color was some better. They both hovered close, but Anna couldn't see them with the brace on her neck. She could only see what was directly in front of her, which at the moment was Jacob.

“I remember harvesting the corn, the storm, and then… then the horses running. I couldn't hold them.”

“You did well. The horses are fine.”

“
Ya?
”

“Sure. The harvester is broken, but it was old anyway.”

Erin pulled away from Samuel and sank down in the mud next to Jacob.

“Anna, are you okay? Are you hurting?”

“Only my head. Did I bump it?”

Instead of answering, Jacob said, “The paramedics are taking
gut
care of you.”

“Will you hold my hand? I'm scared.”

He reached for her hand, which seemed impossibly small and fragile. Now her grandmother knelt with them so that they made a sort of circle around the top of Anna's head.

“
Mammi
—”

“Don't worry, child.
Gotte
is going to take
gut
care of you.” She reached out a hand covered in wrinkles and spots. Her fingers caressed Anna's face. “He is your rock and your fortress. He is your deliverer, child—your
Gotte
and your strength. You can trust in Him.”

As she'd spoken the verse from the book of Psalms, Anna had closed her eyes, and it seemed she must have drifted off to sleep. Jacob was glad for that because the fear in her eyes had torn at his heart. He'd been
afraid he might break down and weep. He didn't mind crying in front of others, but he didn't want to frighten Anna more.

Then he remembered he was supposed to be keeping her alert and responsive. “Anna. Look at me, Anna.”

She opened her eyes and glanced left and then right without moving her head. “You won't leave me, will you?”

“
Nein
. I'll stay right here, but you need to keep awake.”

Mammi
continued to quote the Psalms, softly and tenderly. Behind them, Bishop Levi was leading those who were standing around in prayer. Jacob thought he heard weeping, but he couldn't be sure from whom. Brenda and Charlie continued to monitor her condition.

When they heard the
thump, thump, thump
of a helicopter, Brenda nodded toward the ambulance and told Charlie to “get the backboard.”

The family was moved out of the way as Anna was surrounded by medical personnel. Four paramedics transferred her to the backboard and placed the board on a gurney that they wheeled to the waiting helicopter.

“I want to go with her,” Erin said.

“You may ride in the helicopter with her.” Brenda stepped closer to Erin. “But you have to leave now. There's no time to go to your house for clothes or your purse. It might be better to—”

But Erin was already running toward the chopper. One of the paramedics reached down to help her up. For a moment, it looked as if her feet would tangle in her long, dark dress, but she jerked the fabric tighter around her legs and scrambled aboard.

A few moments later the helicopter rose into the sky, and then it was gone.

Jacob wondered what they should do next. How many other farms had been hit? Were there other injuries?

Samuel had moved to the side, halfway between the ambulance and where the helicopter had been. He stood alone, his shoulders bowed as if from the enormous burden that had been placed there.

While Jacob wondered if perhaps they should have one of the emergency workers look at him, Samuel squared his shoulders and turned
toward them. His face was grim, but his color was better than it had been.

“I'll need your help, Jacob.”

“Of course.”

“First we find the horses. Then we find a way to the hospital.”

“I'll take care of a driver, Samuel.” Bishop Levi stepped forward. “The horses will respond better to you, and it looks as if your home and outbuildings weren't damaged. Put them in the barn.”

“I can check on them morning and night, Samuel.” This from an older Amish man Jacob hadn't met yet.

The bishop nodded in approval. “By the time you're done, we'll have a car here to drive you to Tulsa.”

“I'll go inside and pack Erin and Anna a bag.”
Mammi
waved away the bishop's offer of help. “Go and find that ride, Levi. I'm fine.”

Jacob stared out over the destruction. He'd seen pictures of tornadoes and their path of devastation before—once or twice he'd read articles about such an event in the newspaper, and one of the books he had borrowed described tornadoes in the Midwest. Always they spoke of collapsed buildings and piles of debris. That wasn't what he was looking at.

Samuel's fields were clear as far as the eye could see. It was as if the tornado had whisked everything up but set nothing back down. “The horses were headed to the east last I saw them.”

They were walking toward the barn when Samuel stopped, turned, and went back to Brenda and Charlie, who were packing up their equipment.

“
Danki
for your help. For arriving so fast and helping with my niece.”

Brenda reached out and touched his arm. “You don't have to thank us, Mr. Schwartz. It's our job.”

“But you did it with kindness and compassion.” Samuel stared at the ground when he added, “If you would give the bishop directions as to where we should go, I would appreciate it. I… I want to be there with my family.”

“Of course.” Brenda pulled out a pad of paper and wrote down the name and address of the hospital.

Samuel nodded once to Jacob, and they left the little crowd behind. Would the neighbors go in search of Samuel's crops? But they could have been carried miles away. Perhaps they would check the surrounding farms to be sure no one else was hurt. Jacob had never been through anything remotely similar to this before. As they hurried in the direction of the barn, moving across the barren fields, it occurred to him that soon he would be leaving. There was no harvesting left to do. The work crew wouldn't be needed and neither would he.

CHAPTER 20

C
hloe was working on a story about the increased use of fracking to extract natural gas in the area when Eric appeared in the doorway to her cubicle. The expression on his face told her something was up. Eric had a police scanner in his office as well as a CB radio. He kept them both on all the time. Often he had reporters at crime scenes or accidents before emergency personnel managed to arrive. For Eric, it was all about the thrill of the hunt—always the never-ending search—for more and faster and better news. Turning to study him, Chloe realized that today his expression was an odd mixture of excitement and compassion.

Compassion? From Eric?

“What's up?”

“Accident reported. I want you to cover it.”

“All right.” Chloe picked up her purse and began shutting down her computer. “Any details? Where am I going?”

“Farming accident.” Eric cleared his throat as he stared down into his coffee cup. “Amish girl. It's the girl you have been using in your last couple of pieces.”

“Anna?”

“Yeah. Anna Schwartz.”

Chloe sank back down onto her chair. “What happened?”

“From what I heard on the scanner, there were several sightings of a tornado touching down. Anna was helping with the harvest when it
happened. According to the chatter, it must have spooked the horses of the team she was driving.”

“And she was thrown?”

“Apparently.” The somber look returned. “I know you're close to the girl, Chloe. Can you be objective about this? We need to get the details, and if you're fast enough we can include it in the next edition of the—”

“I'll send in something before the five o'clock deadline.”

“She's in Tulsa at Oklahoma Surgical Hospital.”

Why OSH? Why not Saint Francis or OSU Medical Center? Accident victims were often taken to St. John's as well. Chloe jumped up and then barreled out of her cubicle, but she realized she had left her phone on her desk and turned back. When she brushed past Eric to retrieve it, he put a hand on her shoulder.

“Get the story. Get the facts. Get out.”

Chloe wanted to bat his hand away. She wanted to stop and argue with him. More than anything she wanted to ask him what had happened to him along the way. Where had he lost his compassion? When had he forgotten that the people they wrote about were people they lived by, ate with, and shopped with? People they went to school and church with.

She flew out the door. Her hands trembled when she tried to put her key in the ignition of her car.

Anna. She was so young. How did this happen? Why did it happen?

Chloe didn't spend much time arguing with God. She'd seen and written about enough of the dark side of human nature to understand that some people simply turned bad somewhere along the way, like an apple left in the bottom of a basket too long. If that was a cold perspective, so be it. She'd seen the destruction that such people left in their wake, and it wasn't a pretty sight.

No, she didn't argue with God about those people or the people they hurt. It might be unfair, but the world was a harsh place. Her years on the newspaper staff had taught her that.

But a farming accident caused by a tornado? Why did things like that happen? And if they had to happen, why not take the bad people
instead of the good? People walked around as if life would always proceed as it had the day before, but often it didn't.

Because they were a county newspaper, their offices were located on the east side of Tulsa, a fair distance from the downtown area. Making a right out of their parking lot, Chloe accelerated onto 412 West, which would take her downtown. Glancing out the side window, she saw a busload of schoolchildren, laughing and talking. That was when she realized her thoughts were assuming the worst. There were many reasons a med flight may have been called in for Anna. Perhaps it wasn't as bad as she feared.

She turned on her radio in time to here an announcer give an emergency update.

Approximately one hour ago at least two tornadoes touched down in the small community of Cody's Creek. Multiple sightings report the funnels hopscotched through at least a dozen fields before going back up into the sky and heading east.

There have been several reports of injuries. Many Amish as well as non-Amish farmers were working outside in their fields at the time of the tornado's appearance. According to Dereck Hess with Cody's Creek Emergency Services, all but one of those injuries have been minor.

Because the storm has moved off to the east, the Shelter-in-Place warning has been lifted. At this point we'll resume our regular programming, but we will break in the moment we have additional details.

Chloe pushed her little blue car up to the speed limit. Usually she treated the engine gently. The car was old and needed to last her at least another couple of years, but worrying about the life of her vehicle today seemed trivial. Her friend was injured. Anna was on her way to Tulsa, maybe flying over her right at this moment. She glanced down at her gas gauge—it was on full.

Eighteen miles. She'd be at the hospital within the half hour.

CHAPTER 21

C
hloe had met Anna's aunt twice—the night she'd attended the corn maze festival and the morning she'd picked Anna up so they could go and look at quilts. The woman had seemed pleasant enough, if a bit subdued.

Today everything had changed.

As Chloe walked into the surgical waiting room, she understood immediately how serious the situation was.

Erin sat ramrod straight on the edge of her seat and barely glanced at Chloe when she rushed into the room. From the looks of her, she was still in shock as to what had happened. And where was the rest of Anna's family? An older
Englisch
woman was sitting beside Erin, dressed in black slacks and a light-blue blouse, her gray hair cut in a short bob. She was as round as she was tall, and she wore a name tag that said, “Dora Smith, Chaplain.”