Wild Horses (22 page)

“I’m calling to see how you are doing. You sort of scared me there at the mall. Do you feel better?”

“Yes.”

There I go again. Yes. Why can’t I say something more?

Her heart was beating so hard and fast that there was the sound of the ocean in her ears.

“Did you know there’s a skating party at Dan Detweilers? On Friday evening?”

“Leah told me, but I can’t go with crutches.”

“When does your cast come off?”

“At least another two weeks.”

“I … what if I came to pick you up? You could stay in the buggy and watch for awhile. Your sisters could join us.”

“Mark, seriously, do you even have a horse and buggy? Where do you live? And are you Amish? For real? I mean, I don’t wish to sound ignorant, but suddenly you appear out of nowhere, not looking Amish like the rest of the young men in this area, and … well …”

She was floundering now, but she needed to know.

He laughed a deep, comfortable, rolling laugh.

Oh, she could imagine his face. She remembered every line, even the way little pleats appeared beside his brown, brown eyes when he smiled. And his teeth were so white and perfect. She could look at his face for a hundred years and never tire of it.

That thought struck her, slammed into her knowing, and she clutched the receiver tightly to steady herself. These thoughts were absolutely ridiculous.

He was talking again. She needed to hear what he was saying.

“Sadie, my life is a long story. I suppose to you, I’m a bit of a mystery.”

He paused.

She pulled her coat down over her lap, shivered.

“All right, I’ll tell you what I really want to say. I would love to sit somewhere with you and talk for a very long time. Sadie, I’m almost 30 years old. And to think of … well, I went to the hymn-singing just to see you.”

Sadie watched the afternoon light on an icicle through the phone shanty window. She straightened her covering and cleared her throat.

“I mean, I don’t really want to join the youth group. I’m too old. I’ve been through too much to … I don’t know.” His voice fell away.

And now she could not think of a word to say. Not one word.

“I guess I’m sort of messing up this conversation, Sadie.”

She loved the way he said “Sadie,” sort of dragging out the “e.” Her name became something fabulous when he said it, not just plain old Sadie.

“No, no, not at all. Are you really 30 years old?”

“Twenty-nine. I’ll be 30 in May.”

“Wow! That’s old. A lot of young men have four or five children by that time.”

He laughed again, that rolling, comfortable sound.

“Yeah. Well, not me.”

“I guess not.”

“How old are you?

“Twenty.”

“That’s good. At least you’re not 16.”

“Yes.”

“So … if I come by with my horse and buggy, which I happen to have, will you go with me to the skating party?”

Sadie searched frantically for the proper answer. Of course she would go! But what would people say? Who was he really? She hardly knew one thing about him, other than his astounding face. Well, not just that, everything about him was astounding. From the moment he had stepped out of Fred’s truck, she had been speechless and dumb around him. How could she sit in a buggy with him? She’d prattle away like a child, or else have nothing to say. Just yes.

“I better not go.”

“Why?”

“Well, I’m … not well, really.”

“Okay”

Don’t hang up. Don’t. She lurched into desperation.

“Mark, Nevaeh is missing. We … our uncles are here and they put their horses in the barn, and now Nevaeh is not in his stall. We have no idea where he is. And Mark, have you heard of the wild horses—the ones that presumably are running the ridges? The state game lands? I’m just afraid, I mean, what could possibly have happened to Nevaeh? He was in his stall this morning. Dat said he was. There is no gate broken down, no sign of a scuffle, nothing. I’m so terribly worried.”

“Do you want me to come over?”

“Well, where are you? What would Dat say? I mean…”

“I’ll be over.”

Click.

Sadie held the receiver away from her ear, panic rising in her throat.

Mark! No! You can’t come here. Nobody knows you. You’re English, sort of.

Sadie sat and stared out the window at the day’s disappearing light. Her hair was a mess, her nose a shiny red, no doubt, and she had stuffed herself with all that food! Groaning inwardly she got up, swung herself through the snow, and wondered how long before he got there.

Yanking open the door to the house, she hobbled through, banged her crutches against the wall, and shrugged out of her coat without bothering to hang it up. Now if she could just get upstairs without anyone noticing, she’d be all right.

“Sadie! Who was on the phone?” This from Dat.

She kept going, hoping he wouldn’t ask again.

“Sadie! Come here. Who was on the phone?”

Resignedly, her shoulders slumped, she turned obediently into the living room.

“It was Mark Peight.”

“Who?”

Her uncles stopped drinking their coffee, a chocolate-covered Ritz cracker held in midair.

“Just someone I know. He’s coming over to help look for Nevaeh.”

“He doesn’t need to. We’ll find him. We’re going to head out soon.”

“Well, he says he’s coming over.”

The men resumed their talking and she turned, grinding her teeth in frustration.

Parents! Nosey old things. Why did Dat have to act so
grosfeelich
in front of Samuel and Levi?

Panting, she reached the top of the stairs. Rebekah and Leah were in their rooms unpacking Christmas gifts. Sadie decided not to say anything—just go to her room and fix her hair.

Which dress?

Oh, my.

Just leave this one on? No, she spilled gravy on the front. Red? No, she had worn it at the mall. Blue? She had a gazillion blue dresses. Green? She looked ugly in green. Well, not the deep, deep forest green with nice sleeves. Anna said that color made her eyes look blue for sure and her skin a beautiful olive color. Anna was a bit dramatic. Whoever heard of olive skin? Well, forest green it was.

Her back ached and her arms slumped wearily as she put the final hairpin into her wrecked hair. She felt as if her strength would never return, sometimes being impatient with her lack of energy.

She had experienced trauma, she knew. Ezra was gone, and sometimes, at the oddest moments, she missed his kind face. Always she was glad she had planned on dating and marrying him. She would have. But in all things there is a reason. This is what she was taught.

God knew what he was doing from his throne on high. The ministers assured everyone in the congregation about this. God had a plan for each individual life and cared about each one. When things like the accident happened, you had to bow your head in true submission, saying, “Thy will be done.” It afforded a certain peace in the end, if you could mean it.

Sadie had gone through moments of self-blame. She wondered if she was false-hearted and if she should not have gone with Ezra that fateful evening. Her sisters assured her those thoughts were the devil trying to destroy her, and she needed to be watchful. What would you do without sisters? They were, indeed, the most precious thing God had ever thought about creating.

When two heads appeared at her door and two more nosey questions were thrown into the room, Sadie grinned.

“Oh, someone’s coming to help look for Nevaeh.”

Rebekah came in and plunked herself on Sadie’s bed.

“Let me guess. Mark Peight or Mark Peight or Mark Peight?”

Sadie whirled, throwing her hairbrush.

“Smarty!”

He showed up then, and in a horse and buggy, too. Sadie could tell it was not his team. It was an “old people’s” horse and buggy. The difference was plain to see. The youth had sparkling, clean, new buggies with lots of reflectors and pretty things hung inside the windows. There was brightly-colored upholstery on the walls and seats and matching carpet on the floor. The horse’s harness was usually gaily decorated as well, with shining collar hames, a colorful collar pad, and a bridle studded with silver.

This horse and buggy looked exactly like the one her parents’ had. It was clean but dull, with a black, traditional harness without silver or color—a very Amish team.

Just as English youth enjoy a nice car, so it was with the Amish buggies. Sadie often thought about that. Youth were youth, each one trying to be someone—nature’s way of calling for a mate. Wasn’t that true? She had never said that. It sounded too … well, sort of primitive or a bit vulgar perhaps, depending who heard you say it.

English people liked to think Amish people were elevated a bit or in a highly esteemed place, and so just a bit better than they were. Hopefully the Amish were good, although Sadie knew they were certainly also human. Sadie guessed, that some areas, their heritage was a God-given thing, a gift they had acquired at birth. She wondered if Mark truly had been born and raised in an Amish home.

Who knew?

He definitely was a mystery.

And then, he saw her standing hesitantly at the door. He waved and said he’d put his horse in the barn and be right back.

Sadie swung to the kitchen table and sat down a bit weakly, trying to appear calm and nonchalant—if that was even a possibility.

Oh, my!

Dat, Uncle Levi, and Uncle Samuel had the worst timing in the world. How could they? The exact minute Mark appeared in the kitchen hallway, they all crowded in, all talking at once, trying to come up with a feasible plan to find the missing horse.

“What I cannot understand is how that horse got out in the first place,” Dat was saying.

“Someone had to let him out,” Uncle Levi said, setting down his coffee cup and reaching for a handful of Chex Mix. He chomped down on the salty mixture, scattering half of it across the clean linoleum floor.

Sadie sighed. Mark stood in the hallway. Then Samuel turned and caught sight of him.

“Hi, there!”

Too loudly. Too boisterously. Sadie despaired.

“Come on in. Make yourself at home, whoever you are. One of these bachelors that feel the pull of the West?”

Oh, no! Sadie wanted to disappear through the floor, down into the basement, and through that floor, too.

Mark grinned, and said quietly, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Dat? This is Mark Peight. Mark, my father and his brothers, Samuel and Levi.

“You all live around here?”

“Oh, yes. We do. Been here for five years, almost six.”

Dat’s eyes narrowed.

“How do you know Sadie?”

Sadie tried to salvage her pride by telling them Mark was the one who came upon her on the road with Nevaeh before Richard Caldwell had the veterinarian nurse him back to health.

“Mmmm,” Uncle Samuel said, nodding his head in that certain way, his eyes twinkling.

Levi grinned outright. Sadie willed him to be quiet.

They talked loudly now about other horses who had gotten away, the size of the pasture, if anyone believed there were actual horse thieves in this day and age, and whether there was a band of wild horses. The conversation turned to the night of the accident.

Sadie caught a movement behind the bathroom door.

Mam!

What was she doing pressed between the door and the shower curtain? Listening? Why wouldn’t she come to the kitchen?

“I know that horse was there this morning. I know it,” Dat insisted.

“But if he was, someone had to let him out. Do you think there could be a horse thief in broad daylight?” Levi asked around his Chex Mix.

“Hey, they do anything these days.”

“Let’s go search the pasture.”

They got into their coats, smashed their wool hats on their heads, stuck their feet into boots, pulled on gloves, and were gone.

Mark turned back, searching Sadie’s eyes.

“We’ll find him,” he assured her.

“Oh, I hope,” she whispered.

She held his gaze. Too long. The kitchen was filled with nothing at all. It all went away, except for the look in Mark’s eyes. It was a look so consuming, she heard singing, sort of a tune in her mind, a speck of happiness in song she had never heard before in her life.

Was love a song? Sort of, she figured.

Boy, she was in dangerous territory now, letting that happen. But she could have no more looked away than she could have stopped breathing. It was so natural.

Oh, my.

She sat at the kitchen table, her head in her hands, turmoil in her heart.

An hour passed with Aunt Lydia and Aunt Rachel sitting in the kitchen with her. They drank coffee, sampled desserts, and talked of things women talk about—having babies, which laundry soap works best, how to secure towels to the wash line without the ceaseless wind tearing them off and away, whose teacher was strict, whose was incompetent, and so on.

Sadie was becoming very worried and uneasy. She tapped her nails on the tabletop. How long could it take to find a horse in a pasture? It wasn’t that big.

Finally she heard voices and stamping feet.

Mark came in first, his face grim, followed by Dat, Levi, and Samuel. Their noses were red, eyes serious.

Sadie rose, standing on one leg. A hand went to her throat.

“What? Did you find him?”

Mark looked at Dat. Dat shook his head, saying nothing. Mark cleared his throat and looked away. Sadie knew, then, that something was wrong.

“What? Did you find him? Someone tell me.”

They told her.

They got to the very lower end of the pasture where the alders and brush almost hid the fence. The fence was torn, even the post pulled out. Brush everywhere. Snow mixed with the dirt and brown winter grasses. Signs of a terrible struggle. Blood. Lots of blood.

The blood left a trail that was easy to follow. They found Nevaeh. He was down, a great gash torn in the tender part of his stomach. There was a pool of blood and he was holding his hind leg at a grotesque angle.

Mark’s head was bent, one shoe pushing against the baseboard.

“But…” Sadie stammered.

It was not exactly clear what happened, what caused Nevaeh to become so frightened he became impaled on the fence post. Perhaps there was a cougar.