Clouds without Rain. P. L. Gaus

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СКАЧАТЬ bikes and demanded money. Surprisingly large sums had been involved, and Sheriff Robertson now had his decoy in place. Professor Michael Branden, Civil War History, Millersburg College, a duly sworn reserve deputy, with a buggy, a costume of Amish clothes, a radio, an ample supply of handcuffs, and a very expensive camera. Also a revolver, just in case.

      As the professor rattled along slowly in his buggy, a pickup shot by in the opposing lane. In the cloud of dust left in its wake, two Amish teenagers passed from behind on mountain bikes. Branden took up his camera and fired off several frames on motor drive.

      Branden tensed a bit, wondering what he would actually do if the young bandits ever did approach him demanding money. He wasn’t at all certain that the sheriff was right about this one. Amish or English, they wouldn’t be that easy to apprehend. “They’re Amish, Mike,” Robertson had said. “They’ll just stand there when you show them your badge.” And if he took their picture or stepped down from the buggy to confront them? What then? They’d take off on their bikes.

      That’d be it, Branden thought dourly. They’d scatter, and he wouldn’t have a chance of chasing them down in the heat. The professor shook his head, laughed halfheartedly, and wondered about the ribbing he’d take from the regular deputies if the sheriff’s little game should play out as he suspected it might, with him giving chase through fields or over hills, losing them both.

      Chagrined, Branden rode the rest of his shift haphazardly back and forth along T-414, radio off so as not to give him away. As the supper hour approached, he headed south on T-412 to return the buggy to its owner. As he brought the buggy into the Hershbergers’ drive, one of the middle sons, Ben, stepped out of a woodshop at the side of the property, slapping sawdust off his long denim apron. He waved to Branden and came down the steps to a hitching rail beside the gravel drive. The drive curved gently around a well-tended volleyball court and dropped with the slope of the land into a wide valley, passing the north side of a weathered white house. Three stories and gabled, the historic building had a round sitting room and cone-shaped roof set at the corner, where a large covered porch began at the front and wrapped around the side. Grandmother Hershberger sat peacefully in an oak rocker on the elevated porch, a small mound of potatoes on the floor at her side, peeling long, curling skins into her lap. Branden tipped his hat, and she glanced briefly at him with reserved acknowledgment. As Ben came forward and took the horse by the bridle, Branden turned on his handset radio and heard Sheriff Bruce Robertson shouting, “Two ambulances. Maybe three! Hell, Ellie, send five.”

      “Fire’s on their way, Sheriff,” Ellie Troyer said, her voice frayed with tension.

      “It’s a mess, Ellie,” Robertson’s voice cracked staccato over the radio. “One buggy, maybe more. Can’t tell yet. A semi jackknifed. Cab upside down in the ditch. The trailer has taken out at least one car and it’s burning now,” followed by, “For crying out loud, Ellie, where are my squads?”

      “On their way,” Ellie said, managing to sound calm.

      “Schrauzer’s unit is up there right in the middle of the whole thing,” Robertson shouted into the microphone. “Can’t see him anywhere. Going closer, Ellie. Get those fire trucks down here NOW!”

      The mic clicked off for a minute or so and then Robertson called in again, more subdued. “Get the coroner, too, Ellie.”

      Branden pulled his buggy up sharply, set the hand brake, scrambled down onto the driveway, and took the radio off the buggy seat. He paced in a circle on the drive as he made his call. “This is Mike Branden. Over.”

      Ellie’s voice came back. “Signal 39.”

      “Township 412 at the Hershbergers.” As he spoke, he gathered his things from the buggy and walked quickly to his small pickup.

      “It’s right there, Professor,” Ellie said. “You’re practically on top of it. 515 south of Trail.”

      “Roger that,” Branden said and started his engine. “515 south of Trail. Ellie, I’ll be right there!”

      He pulled the door closed, fish-tailed on the gravel lane, waved at Ben, and heard Robertson come over the radio.

      “Mike, you come in from the north. South of Trail. That’ll put you on the other side. I’m farther south, the other side of the pileup, and I need someone on your side to stop traffic.”

      “I’m coming up on Trail now,” Branden said, steering with his left hand, holding the handset to his ear with the right.

      “Turn right at Trail, Mike,” Robertson said. “Slow. We’re down in a little valley and if you don’t come in slow, you’ll run us all over.”

      Branden dropped south out of Trail on 515, came around a sharp curve and over a hill, and saw a tall plume of black smoke beyond the next rise in the road. He came up to the top of the hill, stopped abruptly, stepped out of the truck, and leaned forward on the open door, shaken by what he saw some hundred yards below.

      A semitrailer rig sprawled across the road, the cab overturned in the right-hand ditch, the trailer laid across the road on its side, its rear wheels spinning slowly over the left-hand ditch. The truck driver lay twisted on the pavement beside the overturned cab.

      A monstrous gasoline fire engulfed a sedan pinned under the far side of the trailer, and dense smoke drifted up and trailed west over a field of stunted corn. The flames leaped from the road to the grasses in the roadside ditches and spread rapidly into the withered crops in the fields on each side of the road. Even at this distance from the wreckage, Branden could smell the smoke and the gasoline. He heard a car approaching behind him and turned to stop it with a palm held outward. A second car pulled up, and then a third. He took up a position to block the passing lane and turned back to view the wreckage.

      Just beyond the burning sedan was Phil Schrauzer’s cruiser. Something long and bulky had punched through the windshield. Further back there was a line of two pickups and a produce truck, all apparently uninvolved in the wreck. Two of the three drivers stood helplessly beside their trucks. The third had stooped to open a briefcase on the pavement. As Branden watched, the man took a cell phone out of the briefcase, stood sweating profusely while he dialed a number, and talked as he turned his head this way and that, looking with astonishment at the wreckage that lay around him. The man fixed his gaze on the house at the end of the driveway, spoke for a moment longer, switched off the cell phone, and dialed another call. He spoke for perhaps a minute, listened briefly, and tossed the phone into the briefcase on the pavement. Kneeling down, he closed the case, and stood to drop it through the open window onto the front seat of his pickup.

      The sheriff’s black-and-white 4x4 was stopped in the passing lane beside the produce truck, door hanging ajar. Another sheriff’s unit was parked at the top of the next hill, turning cars back toward Walnut Creek. A cruiser from the state highway patrol came past the roadblock and pulled in behind Robertson’s 4x4.

      Branden stepped over to his pickup, reached in under the seat, pulled out binoculars, and turned the dial back to a full wide-angle view. He turned momentarily to check on the line of cars and trucks that had stacked up behind him and saw that his roadblock was self-regulating, as some cars turned back to find another route.

      When he first held the binoculars to his eyes, black smoke filled the eyepiece. He trained right and found the bottom of the overturned cab, its front wheels hanging awkwardly in the air, the driver motionless on the ground. He moved the binoculars up and left and found Robertson waving the state trooper closer to the fire.

      Robertson pushed toward the fire with his forearm over his eyes and reached Deputy Schrauzer’s СКАЧАТЬ