A Wedding for Julia (46 page)

“I will lift up my eyes to the hills…”

Julia opened her eyes and glanced to the windows that were nearly covered with snow.

“From whence comes my help?”

At this very moment first responders were traipsing through debris and wreckage and snow. But who sent them? Who would guide them to her, to this basement, to this roomful of people? Who would keep Tim safe as he sought a way out of the wreckage? Who would care for Caleb and Aaron and all the others at the cabins?

“My help comes from the Lord.” Ada’s voice was a caress, more welcome than the cloth on Julia’s brow. “From the Lord.”

The truth filled her with peace, and the peace was followed by a new courage.

God had brought Caleb to her in the first place. He had kept Ada alive when she might have passed long ago. He had joined Sharon to their family to remind them what second chances were about and to unite them in a special way.

Their help always came from God, even when it came through the hands of men and women.

“Let me speak with him.” Julia coughed and wondered if they were all going to be sick with pneumonia. Yet pneumonia could be cured. They had survived the worst.

A look passed between Jeanette and Sharon. Julia had one terrible moment when she was sure they meant to keep Tim away from her. Perhaps they were afraid she would try to talk him out of what he meant to do. But then Sharon rose and hurried across the room.

In a moment she returned, and Tim knelt by her side. Bandit woke, shook himself, and pushed himself into the middle of their small circle. Tim was wearing a black leather jacket. Sticking out from under that she could see someone’s Green Bay Packers athletic jersey—the hoodie portion was up and over Tim’s ears. A woman’s flowery silk scarf was wrapped around his neck.

Staring into his eyes, Julia knew he understood the risk he was taking. All of the layers combined weren’t heavy enough to protect him against the cold outside.

“I’ll be back soon, and I’ll bring help.”

She wanted to reach up and touch his face, which was filled with such concern. Suddenly she was too tired. She wasn’t sure she could even tell him what had been so important.

What had been so important?
My help comes from the Lord
.

The window. The snow.

“Snowshoes. Cabinet next to the washer.” She attempted to reach out and point to where they were stored. There were two pairs. If the strings weren’t rotten, they would help him through the drifts.

She tried to point to the area, but she couldn’t lift her arm. It was too heavy. She had to struggle to keep her eyes open. It felt as if two strong hands were pushing down on her, urging her to sleep, to rest. Had Tim found them? Would they work?

Her eyes closed and she was down by the creek, watching the fish and laughing with Caleb.

When she opened them again, Tim was standing on the top of the shelves, half out of a window. A cold wind was blowing in, and he’d nearly caught the pack he’d made out of assorted items on the window latch. Reaching back, he freed himself, and that was when she saw the handle of the snowshoes attached to the pack.

He’d found them.

As he disappeared into the branches and snow and then pushed the window shut behind him, it occurred to Julia that he had rather large feet. She had never noticed his feet before.

Unable to hold her eyes open a moment longer, she allowed herself to drift until once more she was beside Pebble Creek. The day was warm—hot, almost—and she was so sleepy that she longed to lie down in the grass. Caleb laughed, took her hand, and assured her that a short nap would be fine.

“I’ll sit beside you.”

“Until I wake?”

“Yes, dear. Until you wake.”

“But I wanted to talk to you. I need to tell you so many things.”

He kissed her. “I know what’s in your heart, Julia. Words are
gut
, but they can wait. For now you should rest.”

“You won’t leave?”

“I’ll never leave you again. Now sleep, and when you open your eyes, we’ll speak as long as you like.”

He smiled then, and she knew all was well between them. So she allowed herself to relax and to give up her burdens, with her hand safely tucked in his.

Caleb wanted to leave alone at first light, but Brenda wasn’t having it.

“People might be hurt out there,” she said obstinately.

“People are hurt in here.”

“And I’ve done what I can. I’m going with you, Caleb. We can stand here and argue, or we can start moving before that door freezes shut again.” She stared at him with her dark brown eyes, and Caleb knew he was wasting time.

He should have guessed that
Englisch
women were as stubborn as Amish women. Tim had hinted as much.

They had decided to leave the horses, at least until they could determine how deep the drifts were. Their first goal was to construct a safe path from the barn to the office, if it was possible to do so. At least the office had a woodstove, as did each of the cabins.

“All right. We’ll go together, but we tie one end of the rope to the door. You keep your hand on it at all times. I’ll have the other end and go in front. You give it a good hard yank if you’re having trouble.”

“Agreed.”

Scrounging through the supplies usually kept in the barn, they had found gloves, and two of the women had scarves they had wound around their necks. Coats weren’t a problem because a couple of work coats were always in the back to be used when mucking out stalls or caring for the animals. They had been extra covering for the children on top of the blankets, and though he wasn’t happy about taking them, there was nothing he could do about that.

One woman looked up at him with fear and hope in her eyes. “Thank you for trying to find us a way out of here.”

Studying Dr. Stiles as they waited for Rupert and Eddie to open the door, Caleb realized they weren’t dressed for subzero weather, but they had done the best they could. At least none of their skin was directly exposed. They would be all right long enough to assess the situation.

The path the men had been shoveling all night was long and narrow. He had the sensation of being underwater, what with the pale and cloudy sky above and the white drifts of snow on all sides. Caleb’s boots made no sound against the snow, though he did hear the door slam shut behind them.

Holding a long pole in his left hand and the coil of rope slung over his right shoulder, he allowed it to unwind as he walked up and out of the ramp where they normally steered the wagons to offload hay and feed. He’d cautioned Brenda to keep a few feet behind him, thinking it might be safer if he fell into a hole or came upon something that perhaps she shouldn’t see.

But she was a doctor, wasn’t she? What would he see that she wouldn’t be prepared for?

Caleb thought he’d steeled his mind and his heart against whatever had happened the afternoon before. After all, he’d almost been crushed by the front half of the barn as it collapsed. He wouldn’t have been surprised if all of the cabins had been demolished. He had read news reports of what tornadoes could do and had even seen photographs in
Englisch
newspapers.

Yet none of that prepared him for the sight that met his eyes when he walked around the corner of the barn. Reading something and experiencing it was not the same.

He stood in the aftermath of such destruction and felt his world tilt. His legs refused to move. His mind stalled as he looked out on a scene that made no sense at all.

Mouth open, the rope dangling from his right hand, he might not have moved except that Brenda bumped into the back of him.

“Definitely an F4,” she whispered.

Half of the shop was gone. They could see into it, giving Caleb the absurd impression that someone had taken a chainsaw and cut the building in two. Its contents were strewn across the grounds as if a child had decided to play with all of the items and left before putting them away. One of the rockers was in a tree, a quilt was hanging from the chimney of cabin three, and a child’s toy sat on top of the remaining half of the roof.

Some of the shelves in the shop had items still in perfect arrangement—untouched, unscathed.

The office had taken a direct hit. The porch where they had first sheltered was gone. There was nothing left at all. It had been sheared off at the wall. The doors and windows were blown out.

“You can see the path it took.” Brenda pointed past the shed, the office and toward the cabins. “Barn, store, office—”

“Cabins.” Caleb counted and then counted again. “Two are missing.”

“You mean—”

“Two of the cabins. Numbers five and six. They’re just…gone. And number four is—it’s been moved.” He pointed to the blank slab where the cabin had been. Shuffling forward, he spied the small building down by the creek, looking as if it had always been there.

He turned in a circle, and that was when he actually focused on the front of the barn. Being inside it, he hadn’t realized the full force of the destruction. The structure had collapsed like a house of cards, blown over on itself.

Caleb shook his head. The barn structure looked less safe than it had seemed while they were in it. And he could see that as the snow was building up on top of the wreckage, the weight was pushing down on what remained of the roof.

They needed to get everyone out of there. They needed to move them before the rest of the barn collapsed.

Chapter 38

B
renda shuffled closer to his side. “I’m no farmer, but it doesn’t look as if that roof can support any additional weight. Do you think it’s going to snow more?”

“Could.” Caleb glanced up. The last thing he wanted to do was move the group currently inside the barn out to the cabins. He was having trouble focusing on any one problem. If Aaron’s property looked like this, what did his own house look like, his and Julia’s home? “Stay here.”

Moving forward, he tested the snow with the pole he’d brought from the barn, jamming it into the drifts until he found a solid path to cabin one. There was enough rope to tie it around the corner post of the porch. Miraculously, the entire structure was unscathed.

By the time he made it back to Brenda, he noticed she was shivering. “Go into the cabin.”

“I’m f-fine—”

“Please go into the cabin and check each person as they arrive. I’ll send Reuben and Eddie out first—one for the middle of the line and one for the end.”