Clouds without Rain. P. L. Gaus
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P.M.
CAL Troyer walked among the pews of his little church house, laying down one-page outlines for Wednesday night’s Bible study. He finished and sat down in the last pew, remembering earlier days when he had known Andy Weaver as a single Amishman from the Melvin P.’s, a prosperous district mostly to the north of Walnut Creek, in the Goose Bottoms and the hills beyond. Although many things had happened to precipitate a crisis in the district, the central problem had been, in Andy Weaver’s opinion, that Yoder was an increasingly liberal bishop, and Weaver hadn’t liked it then at all. As the new bishop, he surely didn’t like it any better now.
But such had always been Andy Weaver’s convictions—that a conventional, Old Order lifestyle was the best possible life for a family. Living close to the land. Far from a city’s temptations.
And so there had been a falling out when Bishop Yoder’s rulings had grown too liberal for Weaver. Lights. Electric tools. Printers and computers. Fax machines. All in the businesses at first, but inexorably moving into the homes as well. And when Andy R. Weaver had had his fill, he broke away and moved his family to a more conservative district in Pennsylvania.
Funny, Cal thought, how different the older brother had turned out. John R. Weaver had taken to modern things as if he were born to the electronic age. Land had been his obsession, and land aplenty he had. For him, it hadn’t been enough to tend a single farm. Or to raise a family. His business dealings had become a wife to him, and his land holdings were like his children. But that was all gone, now, with J.R.’s untimely death.
Two brothers, then. One enticed by Melvin P. Yoder’s flirtation with the modern world. The other repelled by it. Now, Andy R. Weaver was going to try to straighten out the whole sorry mess in his district north of Walnut Creek.
Cal pushed up from the wooden pew and gave a final look around the sanctuary. Everything was ready for Wednesday services. The lesson would teach itself from his outline. He walked out, locked up, and pulled the doors open on his truck, to let the heat out.
While he waited there, a plain black buggy pulled into the gravel parking lot, and Andy Weaver got out and tethered his horse to a light pole in the corner of the lot. He came slowly over to Troyer, lifted his hat off, and wiped his brow on his shirt sleeve. Cal closed up his truck and motioned Weaver into the little story-and-a-half brick parsonage beside the church. In the kitchen, cooler with the shades drawn, the two sat at a little formica table and shared a half pitcher of tea that Cal had made the day before. Cal waited for Weaver to make some mention of his troubles.
Andy fished out a wedge of lemon and bit into it, puckering as he chewed. “Lost a family this morning,” he confided after a pause.
Cal drained his tea, poured more for himself and Weaver, and waited.
“I had three of the men together to rule on electric lights, and one balked. I told him he could find a liberal group up east of Trail.”
Cal whistled.
“Make an example of one, you see,” Andy observed.
“You think the rest will hold tight?”
“I believe so. I had plenty of nominations from the people, and they all saw me draw the lot to become Bishop.”
“It’s almost asking too much, Andy,” Cal said without guile. “You’re taking them backwards, and most of them are sticking with you.”
“You’d have expected otherwise?”
Cal nodded quietly.
“You’re right,” Weaver sighed.
“If you can keep 80 percent, that will be good.”
“This morning I am only two for three,” Weaver said, distantly.
“There’s still the two men who stayed with you,” Cal encouraged.
Weaver managed to produce a wry smile. “They came into town with me this afternoon. Down at the light company, telling them to take out the electric wires.”
“A victory, then,” Cal said.
“For now.”
“You knew you’d lose a few, Andy.”
Andy paused and changed the subject with a distasteful look on his face. Heavily, he said, “I’ve made no progress identifying our cultists, but some families seem afraid of their teenagers.”
Cal’s forehead wrinkled as his eyebrows lifted questioningly. To lighten the mood, he asked, “You remember Mony Hershberger’s Ben?”
A brief smile broke out on Weaver’s face, and he laughed softly. “Mailboxes.”
“I’ll bet he busted up twenty before they caught him,” Cal added.
Grinning, Weaver said, “Mony’s Ben was always a little ‘touched in the head,’ Cal.”
“Just a little?”
“You remember that barn fire Big Daddy had?”
“That was Ben?” Cal asked, surprised.
“He didn’t mean it. Just trying to light a pipe, was all,” Weaver said. He smiled, looked out the kitchen window for a spell and then appeared to slump in his chair. “You know my older brother died Monday in a crash in front of his house?”
“J.R. Yes. I’m sorry,” Cal said.
“I wish I could say the same,” Andy blurted. “I didn’t mean that,” he added instantly. His frown was heavy, and he shook his head slowly back and forth.
Cal sat motionless.
Weaver peered directly into Troyer’s eyes and said, “It looks like my brother swindled eight of my men, Cal.”
Cal appeared skeptical.
“Truly,” Weaver asserted. “Eight men got letters yesterday canceling the notes on their farms.”
“That’s not possible,” Cal said.
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