Chapter 9: A Robot in the Night
On the Thursday after the dinner party, Kaybri informed Noah she wanted to visit the Stoltzfus farm that night. As Noah started to protest, Kaybri cut him off and stated that she intended to leave the clinic at ten and needed him to show her how to get to the farm.
When the hour came, Kaybri picked him up in her truck and they drove the fifteen miles to the farm. Despite the intense blackness of the moonless night, Noah easily found the driveway. He told Kaybri to keep going slowly past it and cut the headlights. After about a thousand feet, he told her to stop the truck and kill the engine.
“My father, like all the Amish, knows every inch of his farm and what sounds should and shouldn’t be there. We’ll need to be careful.” He spoke in a whisper even though the doors and windows were closed.
Kaybri looked out the window into the black void, trying to see what was around.
“Welcome to the Stoltzfus farm, Kaybri. We’re in the middle of 200 acres of corn, which will be harvested about a month from now. There’s not much other than corn to see out there.”
“Hey, let’s get on with our mission,” she said.
The two got out of the truck and walked down the road to get closer to the driveway. Kaybri unloaded a track-driven robot the size of a toaster from her backpack that she had ordered from Amazon earlier in the week. She directed the device with a joystick while watching its progress on a small video screen. They both put on headphones so they could hear whatever sounds the robot's microphone picked up.
“I’m concerned about the robot’s speed,” Noah said. “I think it will take twenty minutes to reach the barn and an equal amount of time to return. We won’t be able to see much in this darkness. At best we’ll see the outline of the dogs and their eyes.”
“If we need to, we can turn on the robot’s light for a few seconds. We need a clear shot of the pens and the dogs.”
“That will make the dogs bark,” Noah responded nervously.
“It’s a chance we will have to take. I want more evidence than the sick dogs we have in our possession. I want to see for myself how bad the situation is.”
They stood in the dark on the side of the road and waited for the next twenty minutes surrounded by spooky-looking cornstalks. There was a gentle breeze, and the stars above were brighter than any Kaybri had ever seen. For the first five minutes, they stayed silent.
“Did you find it lonely growing up here?” Kaybri finally asked.
Noah shook his head. “It was all I ever knew. No, I never felt lonely.”
“But it’s so isolated from the world. No news. No movies. Not even music?”
She could see a little smile take shape on Noah’s face. “It’s hard for outsiders to understand. There is a certainty and a peacefulness to the farm and to the Amish community. The farm has barely changed since my great-grandfather’s day. Also, the Amish aren’t as isolated as you think. There’s a strong sense of community here, church every Sunday, lots of helping your neighbors. Everybody knows everybody else. There’s much that I miss about it.” He shook his head sadly. Then he looked intently at Kaybri. “But I could never go back.”
Kaybri was moved by his reaction. She realized it had to be an emotional experience for him to be back on this land where he had grown up. He had probably played in this cornfield when he was a child. He’d had a sense of belonging here, something she had never had in her entire life. And he had given it up. But there was something else. She wondered about the way he looked at her when he said he could never go back. Something stirred inside her that she didn’t recognize.
Turning her attention back to the robot, she saw it had finally passed the corner of the barn. On the screen, Kaybri saw a darkened two-foot vertical opening where the barn doors should have met. She started to maneuver the robot to turn into the barn when she heard the thump of a heavy boot and the crunching sound of the machine being flattened. Just before the robot died, she heard the rattle of chains hitting the floor of the barn and the sounds of two dogs barking like mad.
“What was that? What do we do?” Kaybri whispered as the screen went blank.
“We run back to the truck,” Noah answered as he threw the headphones away and pushed the control unit from Kaybri's hands.
“We what?” Kaybri said, no longer whispering.
“We run! Now!” Noah yelled. He grabbed her hand and started pulling her toward the truck.
Kaybri could hear the dogs bounding through the cornstalks. Despite having run track in high school, Kaybri knew she wasn’t fast enough to outrun a dog. She and Noah got only a hundred yards or so when two dogs were on their heels barking and growling. Noah yelled for Kaybri to keep running as he turned to face their pursuers.
Kaybri could feel the dog right behind her. Within seconds, it bit into the heel of her work boot, making her fall forward onto the roadway. Using its powerful jaws, the dog wrenched the boot back and forth until it came off. While she was on the ground, she saw the other dog circling Noah as he fought it off.
Kaybri was finally able to stand and stumbled toward the truck wearing only one boot. She managed to cover half the distance to the truck when the dog dropped the boot and began to charge again. Its teeth were inches from her calf when she heard it yelp. She looked up to see Noah clutching the animal to his chest with one arm, the other around its neck.
Kaybri cried out, “Get that vicious monster away from me.”
“Walk to the truck,” Noah said calmly. “Open the passenger-side door and then walk to your side. When you are inside, I’ll push the dog away.”
She followed his instructions. Noah then hurled the dog away from the truck, jumped into the passenger seat, and slammed the door shut. A few seconds later, the animal had found its footing again and charged into the side of the truck.
“Drive,” Noah said. Kaybri saw that his right hand was bleeding profusely. She couldn’t believe how calm and steady he was.
“Are you okay? Where is the other dog?” Kaybri asked.
“I was able to compress its windpipe. It’s in the middle of the driveway, unconscious but hopefully not dead. I want to check on it.”
Kaybri turned the truck around and drove back toward the farm.
“Go slow. We don’t want to run the dog over.”
They crept along until she could see the motionless body of the dog lying in the middle of the road. She slammed on the brakes at the sight of a large, bearded man wearing an Amish straw hat standing next to the injured dog.
“I was hoping to avoid this,” Noah said. He took a deep breath and got out of the truck.
Kaybri glanced around to try to locate the dog that was still running around. Then she heard the large man yell, “Angel, come!” Having been in a frenzy a moment before, the dog, apparently named Angel—not the name Kaybri would have given it—trotted immediately to the man’s side and sat.
Meanwhile, Noah went to the unconscious dog, picked it up, and placed it gently into the back of Kaybri’s truck. Then he turned to face the man who stood twenty feet from him. “I’ll fix him, Father.”
“I know you will. And take care of that hand.”