Wild Horses (36 page)

He looked at Sadie as if to say, “Come on. Duh.”

Sadie opened her mouth, and it instantly turned into a shaky mass like jello. Her nose burned and tears swam to the surface. She swallowed hard, tried to smile, but could only bite her lip as those despised tears slid down her cheeks.

Richard Caldwell knew Sadie and saw it all. Quickly he was at her side, his arm around her shoulders.

“It’s true, Sadie,” he said gruffly, his voice thick with emotion.

Sadie nodded, swiped at the moisture on her cheeks, and whispered, “Thank you.”

Harold Ardwin smiled then, a smile even the mustache could not diminish. He watched Sadie’s face, and a softening came to his eyes.

“You love those horses, don’t you?”

“Oh, my!”

It was all Sadie could say.

“And the sum still stands for finding my horses— $20,000.”

Mam put up both hands and Dat protested.

“That is
unfadiened gelt
—unearned money—and we cannot accept it. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Well, then, let Reuben have it,” Harold Ardwin said.

When the headlights of the silver SUV found its way back down the drive, the Miller household was in an uproar. Everyone talked; no one listened. Reuben leaped onto the recliner and tipped the whole thing backward. Mam scolded and Dat said, “Wasn’t that a fine kettle of fish, feeding three horses!”

Sadie said the reward money would pay their hospital bills so who cared if they needed to feed three horses, and Reuben said he wished Sadie would get married so her husband would have to buy horse feed and straw and hay and then there would be more room for the brown horse.

Sadie told him that if he didn’t stop talking about “the brown horse” she’d lose it, and Reuben said whoever in all the world heard of a horse named Butterfly, especially if a guy owned her. Anna shrieked and teased him about being a guy if he had just turned 11, and Reuben’s face turned red and he ate three cookies.

Sadie and Reuben helped load Black Thunder, as he was known now, into the luxurious red and silver horse trailer. Sadie brought him down from the field by the tree line, followed by Paris and the brown horse.

It seemed as if the horses felt the homecoming and welcomed it. Paris stood by Sadie as Harold Ardwin led the black horse up the ramp. She was watching with her ears pricked forward, but she remained quietly by Sadie’s side. Reuben sat on the brown horse, relaxed, his bare feet dangling out of his too-short denim trousers, his hair disheveled above his sun-browned face.

Black Thunder whinnied and rocked the trailer but, for the most part, settled back into his former way of traveling. It seemed as if he remembered everything and was ready to go.

Harold Ardwin thanked them both, shook hands, said he’d be back to visit his…their…two horses whenever he could, and was gone.

Sadie stood with her hand on Paris’ neck. She stroked the horse absentmindedly, her thoughts completely at peace. Finally, she had a horse—a real, honest to goodness horse of her own, fair and square, and a beautiful one at that. The added bonus was getting to share everything with Reuben and his horse. The rides, the grooming, the companionship—it was all a gift, and God surely had something to do with it.

Thank you, God, for Paris.

It was that simple for her, but heartfelt in a way she had never experienced.

Turning, she smiled at Reuben.

“Ready?”

“Sure.”

Sadie grabbed a handful of her horse’s mane and leaped expertly onto her back, which was a signal for Reuben to turn the brown horse and start galloping home immediately.

Mam was sitting at her sewing machine in front of the low double windows, working the treadle in a steady “thumpa, thumpa” sort of rhythm. It was the music of every Amish housewife’s heart. It melded with the soul when accompanied by favorite hymns, which was “Amazing Grace” for her.

Mam steadily watched the presser foot as she hemmed a pair of blue denim work pants for Jacob. When she came to the end, she stopped, looked up, and reached for her scissors. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a cloud of dust with two figures ahead of it.

The scissors clattered to the hardwood floor, her nervous hand knocking them off the sewing machine stand. The other hand wobbled to her chest and held her dress front in agitation.

“
Siss kenn Fashtant
,” she mouthed, “Sadie and Reuben!”

Oh, it wasn’t safe. Their speed!

The horses were running neck and neck, coming up the winding drive faster than most cars. Reuben was bent low over the brown horse’s neck. He was looking at Sadie and laughing, his blonde hair blowing across his face and mixing with the black hair from the horse’s mane.

Sadie was bent double across the honey-colored horse, her blue dress tucked down in front but billowing out the side. Her
dichly
was attached only by one pin, dangerously close to disappearing, but it was the last thing on Sadie’s mind.

The horses weren’t really galloping. They were lunging great, long leaps, their feet hunched beneath their powerful bodies to propel them up the sloping driveway. As they flew past the house, Mam laid her head wearily on her arms and sighed deeply to catch her breath. It would take patience and strength to watch her son and daughter with their prize horses.

Sadie sat up, slid off Paris’ back, and ran to open the barn door. Reuben was at her heels, running across the gravel driveway as if he had shoes on.

“Beat you!” Sadie said as she turned, her face red with exertion, her eyes stinging from the dust particles, her chest heaving.

“You did not either. Not for one second did you beat me!” Reuben yelled.

“I did, Reuben.”

“You did not. Paris did!”

With that, Reuben threw back his head and laughed just the way Dat did when something struck him as being really funny.

Charlie whinnied, then put on quite a show for his two new friends. He tossed his head and did a funny version of a graceful pirouette in the confines of his box stall, as if to impress them both with his ability.

Sadie and Reuben looked at each other and laughed in a shared comradeship none of them had ever felt for the other.

They groomed their horses, brushed them, cut their manes to perfection, and then at long last were able to shampoo, scrub, and rinse them with the water hose.

Sadie was in awe of Paris after she was finished. Her mane and tail were much lighter, her coat rich and velvety with an amber color that shone in the sun. Her small head and perfectly formed ears were the most beautiful things about her. Accompanied by the arch in her muscular neck, the horse was just too good to really be true.

“Just look at her,” Sadie said in a voice of amazement.

Reuben stepped back, eyed Paris, and nodded.

“You know what?”

“Hmm?”

“If your horse is named Paris, would it be stupid if I named mine something like that?”

“You mean, like ‘London’?”

“No,” Reuben said snorting. “I mean, do you think ‘Paris’ is so … well, you know,” Reuben said, clearly embarrassed.

“What?”

“Well, I think Cody would be a nice name for my horse. You know, Cody, Wyoming.”

“But Cody is a boy’s name.”

“I don’t care. I want to name my horse Cody, for Cody, Wyoming. Besides, you had a horse named Nevaeh, and he was a boy!”

It was all Sadie could do to keep from laughing. He certainly had a point.

She assured Reuben that Cody would be fine. In fact, Cody was a unique name, and she bet him anything his brown mare was the only one in Montana with the name Cody.

Reuben gave her a grin worth remembering.

At work in the ranch kitchen, Sadie sang loudly and twirled around the kitchen holding a wooden spoon until Dorothy told her—quite sourly—that it was all right to be happy, but surely a horse wasn’t worth all that adoration.

Sadie came to a stop beside her and announced, “I’ll calm down now and get to work, but I can hardly contain so much joy! And then, to simply make my cup run over, Reuben rides with me,” she chortled.

Dorothy shook her head.

“You know what? You don’t really fit the mold of what I thought an Amish girl would be like at your age. Aren’t you supposed to be gittin’ married? An’ here you are, as single as the day is long and don’t give two hoots about it.”

Sadie held up a large, shining kettle and scraped the inside with a rubber spatula. Slowly she set it down, turned, and said quietly and honestly, “Dorothy, you know I would love to be married. I’m just as unlucky in love as I am … was … with a horse.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Dorothy shot back.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Sadie put the leftover chili in a large Tupperware bowl and glanced sideways at Dorothy just to check her rate of approval or disapproval.

“Explain it to me,” she ventured, carefully.

Dorothy sat down with a tired sigh, taking the toe of one shoe to dislodge the heel of the other. Then she kicked both her shoes under the table, stretched her short legs, flexed her toes inside the white, cotton Peds she wore, and wagged a short, square finger at Sadie.

“Mind you, they don’t make these shoes the way they used to. I think the Dollar General is shifting too much of their work to China or Taiwan or Mexico or them other places. My feet hurt me awful. But they say they’re puttin’ in a new shoe store in town right next to the bank called ‘Payless’ or somethin’. Might try my next pair from there. Leastways if they have somethin’ similar.”

Sadie nodded sympathetically.

“Now, what was we talking about? Oh, luck or love.”

Dorothy rubbed one knee.

“It’s you pretty ones that have the biggest problems lots a’ times. Too many fish in the sea, and you know you could snag every one of ’em if you wanted to. But yer too prissy. Too pertickler, so you are. Now me, I never had much in the way of looks and was right glad for Jim to come a’ callin’. Told my Mom and Dad he ain’t much to look at, but he’s a decent, solid guy. Turned out I was right as rain, and he done me good for almost 50 years.”

“That’s all I want,” Sadie nodded, soberly.

“Don’t you have anyone at all?”

Sadie hesitated, then nodded.

“I do. His name is Mark.”

“Well, are you dating him now? Is this the same one we looked up those recipes for?”

“Yes. But my mother was ill, and he went back to Pennsylvania. It was sudden … sort of mysterious.”

“If it’s meant to be, he’ll be back.”

Sadie nodded.

“Did I tell you Eva’s coming for Christmas this year?”

“Naw! Go on!”

“Yes! She is!”

“Bless her heart.”

“Time to start the laundry, Dottie, “ Sadie said, glancing at the clock.

“Don’t you ‘Dottie’ me!”

S
ADIE BROUGHT THE CURRY
comb down across the honey-colored neck, finishing with an elaborate flourish. It was mostly to impress Reuben who was working on a tangle in Cody’s tail, his eyebrows drawn down as he concentrated.

“There!” Sadie said with a bright smile.

Reuben yanked on Cody’s tail before looking up, his eyebrows rising with the movement of his head. He gave a low whistle in a very grown up way, or so he hoped.

“She’s a picture!”

“Isn’t she?”

Reuben nodded, then voiced his exasperation. “Sadie, what do you do if a tangle just won’t come out?”

Sadie walked over, lifted Cody’s tail, and told Reuben to go get a pair of scissors from Mam.

“Make sure the scissors are old, not the expensive ones she uses to cut fabric, if you know what’s good for you.”

“You mean, you’re going to chop her tail right off—that far up?” he yelled as he dashed out the door.

Sadie answered but knew Reuben didn’t hear anyway, at the rate of speed in which he catapulted through the doorway.

When he returned, Sadie cut expertly through the coarse, black hair. The tail was shorter, but sleek and straight, and the stubborn tangle lay on the concrete floor of the forebay.

Stepping back, she surveyed the brown mare, then told Reuben to throw the cut hair into Paris’ stall.

“Oh, no, I’m not going to. This bunch of horse hair would be any bird’s dream come true—all this strong horse hair to build a good solid nest. Imagine the possibilities! Birds aren’t picky, you know. They use almost anything to build a nest.”

Sadie grinned, then told him to throw it out in the barnyard where the birds would find it.

They cleaned their saddles with an old piece of t-shirt and good saddle soap. Then they shook the saddle blankets over and over until the dirt and hair flew across the forebay. They wiped down the brown leather bridles, then began saddling up.

Reuben grunted as he swung his saddle up on Cody who lowered herself, bracing for the weight to land on her back. It was easier for Sadie who was taller and more experienced, but she nodded encouragement to Reuben.

“We wouldn’t have to use saddles,” he lamented.

“I know, Reuben, but it feels safer if we’re going to ride along the highway. What if a large rig would come flying around a corner, blow its horn, and terrify the horses? They haven’t been around much traffic lately.”