Faerie Tale (11 page)

Gloria smiled at Phil’s proud-father act. “Well, let us commence with the victuals, sir. It’s the bottom of the ninth and Mighty Casey’s at bat and, win or lose, we’re about to have some hungry boys descend upon us.”

Phil laughed and put some hot dogs on the fire.

Gabbie rode past the shack. Above the door a neatly painted sign proclaimed
Doyle’s Appliance Repair.
She urged My Dandelion up over the dirt curb and past the shack. She knew that a few feet into the woods she would be on the corner of Aggie Grant’s property. She had never entered this way, but had ridden nearby with Jack a few times. She roughly knew where the path that ran to
her own farm was, and from there how to get to the Laudermilch farm. Besides, she didn’t want to chance meeting Jack by riding through town, and hacking My Dandelion back to Laudermilch’s place was giving her time to think.

Gabbie’s anger was fading, being rapidly replaced by a sense of loss. She’d never been this jealous in her life and the strange hollow pain in her stomach was something alien to her. Her only other serious relationship had ended badly, but even then she had felt outrage at being lied to rather than this terrible emptiness. Her cheeks were burning and her eyes seemed to tear without reason. She felt miserable. How could he? she asked herself. Easy, she answered. The little redheaded bitch was a knockout, big breasts without being chunky and legs that took a week to get to the ground. Tears gathered in Gabbie’s eyes and she descended into a thoroughly black despair.

Abruptly Gabbie became aware of an odd plopping sound and knew that one of My Dandelion’s shoes had worked loose. Before she could rein in, the horse faltered and her walking rhythm shifted. She was limping.

Gabbie was instantly off the horse, inspecting the left front hoof. A bent horseshoe dangled by one nail. Gabbie swore as she pulled it free from the hoof. Holding it up, she saw that the clench on two of the nails had pulled through the hoof, working the shoe loose. My Dandelion had then stepped on the back of the flopping shoe with her left rear hoof, ripping it away. Ignoring the smear of mud My Dandelion’s leg had left on the brocade of the dress, Gabbie inspected the hoof. There was one big crack where one of the nails had twisted away, and several small holes where the nails had pulled through. Gabbie swore again and considered the likelihood of a bruise. If the crack didn’t go too deep, it could be cross-filed or held together with a metal staple. Otherwise it would continue to split up to the coronet. “Ah, damn!” shouted Gabbie in frustration. “This is one shitty day, world. Thank you very much.”

She held the shoe in her right hand and grabbed the
reins with her left. She’d have to lead the animal, for to ride her on this rocky path was to risk further damage to the hoof. She looked back and was relieved to see the horse was not favoring her left front leg. At least there was no sign of damage at this point. Still, the path was hard, rocky dirt, and she’d have to be careful where she led the horse. She considered returning to the park, but taking the horse over concrete would be as bad as or worse than over the dirt.

There was a stony rise, which normally she would have ridden over, to reach the path to Aggie’s. Now she had to find a way around it. “Which way?” she said to herself.

Picking the left, she began circling. It shouldn’t be difficult to find the path, she judged. It just wasn’t that far around the rise.

A short time later, Gabbie began to feel the first hints of concern. The rise had been circled, she was certain, but nothing looked familiar. And night was falling unexpectedly fast.

She attempted to judge where the last early evening light was coming from. It was lighter to her right, which she figured had to be the last rays of the sunset and therefore west. She needed to continue south, so she was heading in pretty much the right direction. But there was a gully ahead she’d never seen before.

She led the horse slowly down into the gully and discovered a small rill of water gurgling over the stones. Gabbie halted while she thought. If she followed the gully, she’d be certain to find her way to the Troll Bridge, and from there home was a snap.

She led My Dandelion up the other side of the gully and began to follow it. Soon the shadows of the woods were turning opaque, and Gabbie felt her worry deepening with them. It was taking too long to find the bridge, she was certain.

Then she heard the sound. It struck at her, startling her. It was a clear, familiar ringing sound, one she couldn’t put a name to. It came from ahead.

She halted. The sound repeated several times in sue
cession, and she knew what she was hearing was impossible. It must be something else, she concluded.

She led the horse forward and followed the gully around a leisurely curve, past a sheltering stand of trees, so tightly placed they formed a screen. Beyond the trees a large wagon stood, with an old dapple-grey horse tied to one of the large front wheels. In the back a portable forge burned brightly while a tall man inspected a piece of metalwork he held before him with large tongs. He judged it near ready and plunged it back into the fire. He turned it in the coals and stepped upon something. The forge burst into bright light, and Gabbie saw that he had a foot-powered bellows connected to the bottom of the forge. He pumped the bellows until the coals burned white-hot. After a moment he pulled out his work, placed it upon an anvil resting behind the wagon, and began hitting it with his hammer.

Gabbie couldn’t believe her eyes. A farrier stood working in the middle of the clearing. She watched in fascination as he quickly turned the metal, a heavy pin of some sort. Gabbie regarded the horseshoe she held and wondered if she was going crazy.

She approached the blacksmith and he glanced at her. She faltered when she saw his eyes. They were so blue they were almost electric. The man was brawny but young-looking and, under the soot and smoke smudge, strikingly handsome. He stood easily six feet two or more, and his arms were heavily muscled. His beard was black, as was the hair that hung below a broad-brimmed hat. He wore an old-style linen shirt, with the long sleeves rolled up over his biceps. Black tufts of hair peeked over the top of his shirt and covered the backs of his arms. His trousers were held up by black suspenders. Suddenly Gabbie understood. There were Amish living over in Cattaraugus County. She’d seen a couple of them at one of the stores in town. They didn’t believe in cars or something, but she knew they still practiced arts and crafts like their forebears. And this portable smithy was something out of the nineteenth century.

The man inspected his handiwork and plunged it into
a barrel of water. Putting aside the tongs, he came over to Gabbie. He raised his forefinger to his hat and said, “G’day, miss. You havin’ some trouble, ’tseems.” Gabbie was also surprised by his accent. It was almost Scottish or from the north of England in tone and pronunciation, and she had thought Amish to be German or Dutch.

The man smiled, but Gabbie was struck by something powerful in his eyes. He glanced her over, in a cursory manner, but his gaze was almost a caress.

Gabbie flushed, suddenly wishing the gown’s decolletage wasn’t so deep. She could feel the blush going all the way down to her breasts. “Ah … yes,” she answered. “My …” Gabbie pulled her gaze from his blue eyes and looked at the horseshoe. “My horse lost a shoe.” She held it out. The farrier took it, inspected it, and then took the horse’s leg and examined the hoof.

“It’s little, though you did well t’lead the beastie. Many a lady would’ve ridden her regardless, and then complained t’the groom of a lame animal the next morn. We’ll have her right in a bit.”

“Thank you.” Gabbie followed after as he led My Dandelion to the forge and tied her to a rear wheel, slightly confused by the smith’s odd remark about a groom. “But what of your own work?”

“’Tis done, lass. I sheared a linchpin in the wagon tongue and had t’fashion a new one. Soon as we fixed your problem, I’ll be on m’way.”

Gabbie sat on a fallen trunk watching as the man expertly inspected the hoof again. “We’ll need file a bit, t’keep the hoof from cleavin’,” he said.

“Staple?”

“Think not, though were it a bit deeper, I’d do so.” He looked up from the hoof and smiled at Gabbie, and she felt a hot flush run through her. “You know horses, then, miss. Not many ladies do. Usually they leave such concerns t’their stable men.”

He put Gabbie on edge. She found her mind wandering unexpectedly. He was very good-looking in a brutish way, like a handsome wrestler or football lineman. Generally not her type. But damn it, he was sexy. She put her
hand to her forehead and it came away damp. Must be from the heat of the forge, and the day was muggy. She took a deep breath. There was something very odd about this blacksmith. “Excuse me for asking, but are you Amish?”

The man laughed and a chill ran down Gabbie’s back. The sound was both playful and threatening. “No, lass. I’ve not the honor t’member m’self with those fine folk. But they’re a lot t’understand and respect the old ways, keepin’ themselves plain as they do.”

The man stuck the shoe into the forge and moved to the horse. He took a large rasp and began to dress the hoof. “The shoe’s but a little bent. I’ll make it right in a jiffy.”

Gabbie shivered again, not knowing why. The woods were darker than she thought they should be by now, and she didn’t know where she was. Pushing down her uneasiness, she said, “I didn’t know there were itinerant farriers in this area, Mr.…?”

With a quick smile that brought gooseflesh to her arms and breasts, he said, “Smith, Wayland Smith. And there are a few of us about, though I’ve not always been—how’d you say, miss—itinerant? I’d a forge in White Horse, and for many a year I’d be known for being the fairest smith about, but times change and one must go where there’s work. That’s truth.”

She tried to gauge his age. He could have been in his late twenties or early thirties, but his manner made her think he was much older. And there was an aura of power surrounding him, basic, almost primitive, and very sexual.

“I’d have stayed in White Horse, I’m thinkin’, t’this day, but my master came for me.… I’d fled his service and not followed him.…”

His words seemed to fade and Gabbie wasn’t making sense of them anyway. Master? Service? He spoke as if he had been some sort of bondsman or servant. Still, whatever curiosity Gabbie felt was fleeting as she watched the smith.

Dropping the horse’s leg, he recovered the shoe from
the forge. He inspected it, turning it as if reading something in the dull glow. With a grin that made Gabbie shudder, he plunged the glowing shoe into the coals, and began to pump the bellows. He said something to her, but she failed to understand the words. She merely nodded. He pumped up and down in a rhythm, his eyes seeing what only he knew in the burning fire. Then, like a modern Vulcan, he pulled the shoe from the fire and purposefully turned toward the anvil. His right hand seized his hammer and he raised it high, bringing it down on the shoe with a ring that caused Gabbie to jump a little with the sound. Up and down the hammer went, and Gabbie found herself mesmerized by the sight and sound of it. The muscles of Wayland Smith’s arms bunched and flexed as he hammered and Gabbie found the sight fascinating. With each exertion he made a slight exhalation, almost a grunt, and Gabbie was reminded of the sounds Jack made when they kissed deeply. The smith grinned, as if amused, and his teeth shone bright and clean against his beard. He hummed a nameless tune and seemed to time the rhythm with his hammer blows, as if beating time to an unknown dance. Gabbie felt the rhythm seep into her soul and she became aware of a moist heat building deep inside her body. Her eyes half closed, as if in dreaming, and she saw that the smith was almost beautiful in his raw power. Images of his body, his skin covered in a sheen of sweat that reflected the firelight as he arched and moved above her, flooded her mind and she gasped. She shook her head, and a distant thought came to her: What’s wrong with me? It fled as it had come, quickly, and was barely remembered. She watched the smith.

Sweat gathered below the brim of his hat and ran down his cheeks. His shirt became damp and clung. Gabbie could not think of any man she had seen who had looked this strong. She was sure that he was stronger than any of the football types and weight lifters she’d seen on television. And this man’s strength was more basic, more primitive and natural, than that manifested by those who spend hours in the gym. A fleeting image of Nautilus machines and free weights crossed her mind.

She made a comparison that made her giggle. Pumping iron was nothing next to forging iron.

The man looked up at the sound of the giggle and smiled at Gabbie. She almost gasped at the force of his gaze. She felt her entire body flush and shudder. A tingling, hot awareness swept through her and coherent thought was elusive. She was becoming aroused as she watched Wayland Smith beat hot iron against the anvil. In a distracted way, she wondered if she was losing her mind. It only took a minute to hammer a shoe; she’d watched farriers since she was a child. But it seemed she’d been watching this man for hours. And with each pump of the bellows, each strike of his hammer, Gabbie felt her mind slip away and a primitive, urgent need rise up within.

Wayland plunged the horseshoe deep into the water barrel, and Gabbie gasped aloud, her eyes watering with tears of sudden sadness, as if her body rather than the hot iron had been plunged into the cold water. A cool breeze filled the glade and she shivered, all at once chilled. God! What is wrong with me? she wondered. Smith took the shoe to the horse, fitted it, and began filing the hoof. The rasp smoothed the cracked hoof, and the smith carefully measured each stroke, so the angle of the shoe would be proper. Pulling nails from his shirt pocket, he began fastening the shoe to the hoof.

Gabbie stood up, in anticipation of leaving, and her knees were weak. She took a step and found her legs rubbery. There was something wrong here, and she was confused and a little afraid. A scent of flowers blew by on the breeze, and Gabbie felt her head swim. There was an odd spicy quality to it that made her blood pound … like the rhythm of the anvil, she thought absently.