Clouds without Rain Read Free Page A

darted here and 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 gray 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, 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 two feet abreast and a foot high lay on the open door to the oven.