The Amish Spaceman

BY THE TIME they walked back to the pasture, Emerson’s teeth chattered from the cold. The sight of his parachute on the ground gave Dean an idea. He used the sharp barbed wire of the nearby fence to rip the white material into a smaller section, which he put over the head of the shivering girl.

  “But I can’t see.”

  “I’ll soon fix that.”

  Dean ripped two small holes in the center and handed it back.

  “This is a strange thing to wear,” Emerson said, after sliding the white material over her head and body.

  “At least you’ll stay warm. I’ll wear one, too, just so you don’t feel strange.”

  He ripped holes in another large section of parachute and covered himself. As Emerson followed him across the cow pasture, Dean glanced back and thought that yes, she did look a bit odd, but he adjusted the eyeholes in his sheet and kept walking.

  Their feet crunched on grass stiffened with early October frost, an icy shroud that transformed harvested stumps of corn into a field of brittle bones. Many of the night birds had flown to warmer lands so the night was quiet. They saw no wildlife, apart from a handful of deer trotting through the dead corn and a great-horned owl that glided noiselessly through the forest.

  The barbed wire guided them to a dirt road, which led to an asphalt road and a farmhouse. A shaggy farmer in his pajamas opened the door and promptly slammed it shut again. His shouts about finding a firearm in the house made Dean think that these were not very hospitable folk. He and Emerson quickly moved on.

  This identical scenario played out at the next three farmhouses.

  “They’re all escaped mental patients,” puffed Dean as they ran from the last house, where the resident had accidentally discharged his shotgun in their direction three times. “Or there’s been a chemical leak. I’d call for a HazMat team if I had a phone.”

  Emerson pulled off the white parachute material as she ran and dropped it by the side of the road.

  “I’m very warm now,” she said. “It is the exercise.”

  “Good point,” said Dean, and tossed his sheet into a ditch.

  After another mile of walking along the road and past fenced pastures, a cluster of white buildings appeared over a rise.

  “I hope we meet nicer people this time because I’m exhausted,” said Dean. “Strange that they don’t have any lights.”

  “Maybe it is vacation.”

  “Dear girl, farmers don’t go on vacation.”

  The buildings appeared to be part of a business and more organized than the family homesteads they’d encountered so far. A massive two-story structure of white-painted clapboard stood in the middle of a meticulously cut lawn. Dean counted so many darkened windows that he guessed the house had at least thirty rooms, maybe more. White wooden fencing protected the lawn, something Dean hadn’t seen for thirty years. Most farmers and companies had gone to treated lumber or plastic because of the constant repainting. Behind the house stood several large barns and a collection of smaller white-painted buildings. The faint musk of horses floated on the breeze.

  A large wooden sign spanned the gravel driveway, with Ins Weltall oder der Tod painted in black gothic letters.

  Emerson pointed to the sign. “Do you understand?”

  Dean shook his head. “Probably means ‘The Inn of Todd Weltall’ or something. A bed-and-breakfast would be fantastic right now.”

  He led Emerson to the darkened porch and knocked quietly on the door.

  “The lack of lights is very odd,” he whispered. “I wonder what time it is.”

  Emerson giggled. “It is time for you to go to commissar and ask for a ticket to buy watch.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  “Yes, of course. It is Russian.”

  “Good job, but don’t use it too often or people will stop laughing.”

  He knocked again, harder this time, and heavy boots thumped inside the house. Dean and Emerson backed away from the door, knees bent in case firearms were mentioned.

  A tall man opened the door, a candle lantern in one hand. A white dressing gown that dragged on the floor made the muscular figure less fearsome than he would have been while wearing a football uniform or pointing a shotgun. A black chinstrap beard with no mustache framed his tanned face and short, rumpled hair. He peered at them with brown, almond-shaped eyes.

  “Car run out gas? Hit a deer? Stranded by your meth dealer?”

  The man spoke with languorous confidence and his vowels were drawn out: not a typical Southern accent, but a throaty whisper from the high plains.

  “Um ... none of those things,” said Dean.

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “Are you from Amway?”

  “No, of course not!”

  “Well, what happened? You didn’t just fall out of the sky, did you?”

  “That’s it! How did you guess?”

  The tall man frowned. “Luck of the Irish, I suppose. We don’t have a phone, so you can’t call anyone to pick you up. Try the Wilson’s down the road.”

  “Wait! Mr. Weltall, we’ve already tried that house, and they wouldn’t even talk to us. My wife and I are freezing to death here––can’t we at least stay in your barn?”

  The man lost some of the hardness in his face and gave the pair a wry grin. “I’m sorry. It’s late and I’ve been very rude, probably almost as bad as that skinflint Ernest Wilson. Of course you can stay here for the night. Please come in and rest in my living room.”