Keeping Secrets (2 page)

She wondered if Mark was seeing the sunset. Was he up on that old barn roof replacing the metal, or had he already finished the job? Was Wolf, his dog, lying at the foundation of the barn? Was Mark whistling under his breath, or was he quiet? More melancholy, morose even, when he was alone?

How did one go about forgetting a person? How could you ever get over the pounding beating of a heart in love?

He had held her against himself three times—once at the mall when she was fainting, spilling her drink all over the shining tile floor. Once at the death of Nevaeh, the beloved black and white paint she had helped nurture back to health at Richard Caldwell’s ranch. Once more … When was it? A few weeks ago? A few years? It was hard to tell the difference now.

Mark had gone out of Sadie’s life, back to Pennsylvania, after Nevaeh died, saying he was not good enough for her. He had asked to come see her, a genuine Saturday evening date, and then disappeared. Leaving a note saying only that he needed time to make peace with the past. To right wrongs.

What wrongs?

Then there was her dream. Mark as a small boy, a florid-faced man with a whip, the knowing when she woke up. Did she still know?

She thought Mark was her destiny, the man who should be her much sought-after will of God that Mam preached to her girls.

And now this.

Verboten
. Forbidden. If she saw Mark, she would be
ungehorsam
, a kind of curse clearly understood among her people. Parents were to be honored and respected. Above all, children were required to be obedient.

But at her age? Wasn’t she allowed to make her own choices now?

Her choice was Mark Peight, clear and defined. She loved him and would travel to the ends of the earth for him.

Sadie started when Dat came around the corner of the shed, almost bumping into her. He pushed back his straw hat, ran a hand through his graying beard, and smiled his slow, easy smile.

“Whatcha doin’?” he asked, mimicking Jim Sevarr.

“Oh, just standing here watching the colors change in the sky,” she replied easily.

Dat was like that nowadays. Ever since his pride had taken a crushing blow because of his Annie’s mental illness, he had only become a better father—more open, mellow, and slow to judge.

“You look a bit poorly around the eyes.”

Sadie laughed. “I’m not.”

“You sure?”

She poked at a small rock with the toe of her foot. “Well, maybe a bit. It’s Mam.”

The concern Dat carried in his heart instantly became visible. Sadie saw this look only when Dat’s confidence in Mam’s health and well-being slipped a bit off center.

“Is she…?”

“No. It’s about… Remember Mark Peight?”

Jacob nodded, his mouth a firm line.

“Reuben told me he’s back. Said he has a dog named Wolf.”

“Yes.”

Her father shook his head heavily, burdened, concern clouding his blue eyes.

“I don’t know, Sadie. Mam and I talked, and…”

“I know what you talked about. She told me. Twice.”

The anger started in her feet and propelled her forward, away from Dat. Then it spread. The tingling adrenaline lent wings to her bare feet, and she ran, racing past the house, down the long, sloping driveway, onto the dusty, country road. Her feet pounded the macadam, her hands pushing down the pleated skirt that flapped in the stiff, summer breeze, her breath coming in quick puffs.

Better to get away. Just run. Keep running.

She ran past the one-room, Amish schoolhouse, the split-rail fence around the schoolyard. She ran past the patch of pines that were forever swallowing the ball from softball games.

She once told Reuben that a dragon lived in those pines and ate the softballs for dessert.

Sadie smiled, thinking of Reuben’s indignation and his lecture reminding her that Mam and Dat had taught them not to tell lies. Now here she was, 21 and an old maid. Well, dangerously close to one, anyway, and still telling lies. There was no such thing as dragons.

S’hut kenn dragons.

Sadie laughed out loud. Her laugh became a hiccup, the hiccup caught in her throat and became a sob, and still she ran.

When she saw the moon climbing in the sky, she stopped beside the road, her chest heaving as she caught her breath. That felt better.

The exercise cleared her head, driving the anger away for now, but she knew it would be a constant companion. Yes, Reuben, a dragon of sorts. She would need strength to overcome it.

The unfairness of the situation was staggering. She sank to her knees beside the roadside, plucked long stems of grass, and bent them over and over. Still her eyes remained dry.

She saw Reuben, then. He was running, fast and low, his eyes wild. He was calling her name, and Sadie could tell he was afraid by the whites of his eyes.

Instantly she was up on her feet, waving her hands.

“Here, Reuben, here I am.”

Her brother slid to a stop, his fists clenched, his face white. His words tumbled over each other like gravel pouring out of a wheelbarrow.

“I mean it, Sadie. If you ever take off running like that again, I’m going to … going to … I don’t know what!”

“I was just…”

“No, you weren’t. You big baby. Dat is about nuts. Now get back to the house and stop acting like…”

A shrill, whining rang out. A distant, yet uncomfortably close crack of a rifle, the bullet emitting a deadly whine. Then another.

“Hmmm,” Reuben raised an eyebrow, mirroring Sadie’s wide eyes and lifted brow.

“Somebody must be practicing their aim.”

“It’s awfully close.”

“Let’s get back.”

Another shot rang out. The sound was not unusual in the Montana countryside. Ranchers were always on the lookout for predators, or chasing unruly cattle by shooting, or practicing their shots from horseback. “Cowboying around,” in Dat’s words.

“It’s sorta dark for ranchers to be after the coyotes.”

“Maybe it’s a lion,” Sadie said.

Reuben instantly turned his head to search the deeper shadows of the pines, chewing the inside of his cheek the way he did when he was afraid. “Ain’t any lions around.”

“Jim says there are.”

“He don’t know everything.”

“Almost.”

They walked back in silence until they came to the schoolyard. Sadie pointed to the pine woods on the opposite side of the split-rail fence. “How many softballs do you think that woods contains?”

“A bunch.” Reuben spoke quickly, his eyes darting from one side of the road to the other.

Suddenly, he turned to Sadie and told her in no uncertain terms that she better not try a stupid trick like this again. He knew it was all because Mark was back, and Mam and Dat didn’t like it one tiny bit. Why couldn’t she get over Mark and like a normal boy from around here instead?

Sadie nodded, her face devoid of expression. Better to let Reuben have his say. At his age, he didn’t understand matters of the heart.

“And, Sadie, not just that. You know when you were up there talking to Mark that day we saw him on the roof? Well, I went down to the barn and let myself into his living place. It’s sort of a room he built where he sleeps and eats. Well, that place is totally packed with guns and knives.

He lifted his arm, bringing it down in a swinging arc for emphasis, drawing out the “totally,” putting plenty of effort into the word “packed.” “I bet he has 50 guns. And 50 knives.”

“Mmm,” Sadie said, acknowledging this bit of information.

“I don’t know about him. He has English clothes lying around. And I don’t know what a whiskey bottle looks like, but he has some strange looking bottles in his little refrigerator.”

Sadie gasped. “Reuben, why did you go snooping in his refrigerator? That’s just awful bad manners.”

“I know. I … Well, it bothers me, Sadie. Your eyes turn to … I don’t know, stars … or something when he’s around. And he isn’t a real Amish person, I don’t think. I’m afraid of him, sort of. Even his dog is kind of wild-looking, even if he’s friendly as all get out. And, I don’t know, Sadie, but suppose you would marry this guy against Mam and Dat’s wishes, and he’d turn out to be somebody completely different than you think he is?”

There was no answer to this youthful bit of wisdom, spoken in the raw, innocent concern of a person not quite a child and not quite an adult. She knew his words were truthful, without malice or prejudice.

As they neared the house, they heard the sound of the porch swing, a high squeak that turned to a much lower one as the swing went back and forth.

Anna leaped up from the wooden porch rocker, slamming the back of it against the log wall of the house. “Where were you, Reuben?”

“Ask Sadie.”

“What in the world got into you, Sadie, taking off down the driveway as if someone’s house was on fire?” Anna asked, clearly perturbed.

“I needed the exercise.”

Dat cleared his throat from the swing, and Sadie prepared herself for a lecture, but it did not come. The swing kept its steady creaking, Mam’s feet sliding comfortably across the wooden floor of the porch.

“That’s not why,” Anna sputtered, intent on the truth.

“Let it go, Anna,” Mam said quietly.

“Well, I will, but they need to know it’s too dangerous to be traipsing all over the countryside this time of day. Hey, do we still have those Grandpa Cookies with coconut on the icing?”

“I put the last two in Reuben’s lunchbox,” Mam replied.

“Of course. Anything for Reuben,” Anna said, huffily, sitting down in the rocker again, hard, slamming the back of it against the logs of the house again.

“Pull that rocking chair out from the wall, Anna. You’ll knock all the paint off for sure,” Dat said sternly.

Sadie sank into the remaining rocker. Maybe she should include Anna in her life more often. Ever since Reuben had learned to ride, Anna’s jealousy had become so real, you could almost touch it. It was only natural. Reuben and Anna had been inseparable until he had accompanied Sadie to the ridge to tame the horses. They had tried to persuade Anna to ride, but she refused to even try to get up on a horse’s back, flouncing off in a temper every time.

Reuben confided in Sadie a few weeks ago, saying the reason Anna acted like that about riding was because she thought she was fat, and thought she’d look like a big elephant if she went riding.

Reuben had hissed the last bit of information as Anna strolled into the barn, peeling the Saran Wrap from a chocolate whoopie pie. “See? She’s always chewing or slurping something, and she’s
chunky
.”

Anna got up to pull the rocker away from the wall, and Sadie noticed the back of her dress stretched tightly across her shoulders.

“I’m hungry,” Anna announced.

“Well, what could we eat?” Mam said softly.

“Those cookies,” Anna said, the loss and sadness of not having them in her voice.

“I made fresh shoofly pies this morning.”

“Don’t like shoofly.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You don’t. Well, what else could you eat?”

“I know!” Reuben shouted. “Lucky Charms!”

“Lucky Charms!” Anna echoed as she leaped from her chair, slamming it against the wall once more, causing Dat to grimace.

Sadie rocked, the chair’s rhythm calming her agitation. She sighed, wishing she was the age when the thought of a dish of cereal accelerated your heartbeat. Her youngest siblings had no serious concerns, no pressing matters, other than achieving passing grades in school or dealing with Mam’s refusal to allow you to do some very important thing.

The door to the phone shanty swung open. A small, dark form emerged and walked slowly across the driveway and up to the porch.

“Who were you talking to?” Mam asked.

“Do I have to tell you?” Leah asked, her voice swelling with emotion.

“Kevin Nissley or Kevin Nissley?” Dat asked, teasing, as Mam laughed softly.

Suddenly, Sadie felt very old and very tired, too tired to fight the jealously that reared its ugly head.

W
HEN JIM SEVARR’S RUSTY
, old pickup wound its way up the drive, Sadie rose slowly from her kitchen chair, pushing back the untouched English muffin with peanut butter and strawberry jam. She forced herself to swallow a bit of grape juice, then went to the door when the truck stopped.

Mam looked up from the steaming wringer-washer as she lifted the clothes from the soapy water and fed them through the rollers of the wringer. The laundry room smelled of Tide and Downy, the detergent and fabric softener Mam always used. Piles of sorted laundry dotted the floor, Mam plopping them into the sudsy water one by one.

The compressed air, held in a large, round tank, was generated by the slow-running Lister diesel generator in the diesel shanty. When there was laundry to be done, Dat started the diesel so that Mam could fill the washing machine with the hose attached to spigots on the wall. Then she only needed to open the valve on the air line, and, instantly, the up-and-down rhythm of the air motor filled the house.

Some women still preferred a gas engine mounted on brackets beneath their washer, but Mam liked her air motor, so that’s what her daughters were used to as well. It was home, it was their way, and it seemed right to use that wringer-washer when they were there.