Wild Horses

by Linda Byler

  The girls screamed, their hands going to their mouths, their eyes wide with fear. Aidan and Johnny grabbed the reigns of the horses, and they all huddled around the blazing fire. They watched in disbelief as the band of horses streamed past. Chester stood between the youth and the horses, his nostrils flaring as his sides heaved with exertion.

  The great black leader shook his head, reared, and pawed the air as if to warn them. They were in plain sight, the firelight identifying the colors, the heads, whipping manes, streaming tails. The snow obscured the feet and legs, but as one body they galloped in perfect rhythm.

  Sadie watched in wonder.

  The horses were not any old, scraggly, wild mustangs. They were not the usual stock that were a nuisance to all the ranchers in the area. These horses were different. Sadie had caught the wild-eyed look on a small mare. She was afraid. These horses were running scared and they were very thin.

  Something was not right.

  And, oh, that black stallion! His cry! She would always remember the sound in her worst dreams and nightmares of that night.

  After the last hoof beat faded, a general babble of voices broke out. The boys began talking at once. The girls came running to Sadie, asking a dozen questions. She sank weakly onto a bale of straw.

  “Now I’m telling you, this is the real thing! No one can even pretend these wild horses aren’t around!” Marvin Keim was yelling.

  “Good thing we had this fire!”

  “I mean, they were running!”

  “Did you see that big, black one?”

  A somber mood enveloped them. They knew they were extremely fortunate to have been by the blazing fire, all of them together. The sledding was over. No one felt like straying very far from the bonfire.

  Mark reached out to Chester and said they’d better stay as a group and all return to the Detweiler farm together.

  The walk back was quiet, the girls casting fearful glances in the direction of the trees.

  Mark walked beside Sadie and held her gloved hand in his. She was grateful and let her hand rest inside his strong one.

  “I’ll see you next Saturday evening.”

  “Oh, yes,” she breathed happily. “But try to get to my house fairly late.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, Reuben is… He’ll never go to bed if he knows you’ll be there. He’ll lie flat on the floor upstairs with his ear pressed against the floor and listen to every word we say.”

  Mark laughed his deep rolling laugh that Sadie loved to hear. It would be a very long time until Saturday evening.

  Chapter 18

  AFTER THE SLEDDING PARTY, the Amish community in Montana buzzed with the news of the wild horses. The women sat in their phone shanties and had long conversations about what had actually happened that evening. Mugs of coffee at the men’s elbows turned cold as they talked, visualized, and tried to come up with a feasible plan.

  Before church, when the men stood in the forebay of Jesse Troyer’s barn, the topic was wild horses. And after services, around the long dinner table spread with traditional church food—pie, homemade bread, jam, pickles, red beets, homemade deer bologna, and slices of cheese, all washed down with cups of steaming coffee—the talk was wild horses.

  Of course it was the Lord’s day, and the sermon was not about wild horses, but instead a good, solid lecture on forgiveness and the wonders of allowing ourselves to be freed from any grudges or ill feeling toward others. Still, no one could keep their minds from the events of the youth bonfire.

  Mothers shook their heads, children listened wide-eyed. It was not safe to be on the road after dark, especially alone with a horse and buggy.

  There was an undercurrent of gossip about that Jacob Miller’s Sadie as well. That girl had better slow down. What was she doing riding a horse with that stranger from Pennsylvania? Someone told Katie Schwartz that he had been raised Amish but that his parents were English. They clucked their tongues and shook their heads, saying nothing good could come of it, that Jacob and Annie better rein in their Sadie. She almost died in that accident. Her Ezra was gone, bless his soul, and here she was gallivanting about with this other man already.

  That’s what happens when someone is too pretty for her own good. Look at Aunt Lisbet. She ran off with the butcher from Clarksville, and if she hadn’t been so pretty, it likely never would have happened. But then, her mother hadn’t been very stable either so…

  Mary Miller shrugged her shoulders and said Jacob Miller didn’t look like himself these days. Someone mentioned Annie wasn’t doing so well, but she looked all right to her.

  They watched Annie as she brought more pies to the table, lowered them, then stooped to talk to little Clara Amstutz, patting her head and smiling so nicely. Nothing much wrong with her.

  Sadie stood against the counter in the kessle-haus and listened halfheartedly as Lydiann and Leah talked endlessly about the wild horses. She was hungry, tired of the restless chatter, and wished those fussy older women would hurry up and eat so they could have their turn.

  She skipped breakfast that morning, having overslept. She had tried to pull off looking tired and grouchy, although inside she was anything but that. She had lain awake, giddy with the thought of Mark Peight coming to see her. But her giddiness turned to concern when she thought of all the things that could go wrong between them.

  What did he want to tell her? Was it something so terrible that there was no possible way they could begin dating, let alone get married?

  She had slid out of bed, wrapped her warm robe around her, then stood at the window looking out over the snowy landscape with the stars scattered all over the night sky and prayed.

  She always prayed at her window, standing. She knew the proper way was to kneel beside her bed and clasp her hands, but somehow she couldn’t find God in the way she could when she stood by her window and saw the night sky, the stars, the whole wide world. She imagined God was just beyond those twinkling little lights, and he could see her from up there where he was. And so she prayed.

  She asked God to direct her heart and to help her remain a sacrifice so she could discern his will for her life. She already knew without a doubt that she wanted Mark Peight for her husband someday. She wanted to be with him, listen to him talk, watch his deep, brown eyes crinkle at the corners when he laughed. She had been amazed at the depth of her own emotions the first time they met, but she had tried to hold him at a distance. She had felt good when she was in his presence. He had been so kind, so sincere, and that was something.

  She would have married Ezra. She had planned on dating him. But God took him away. There was still a special part of her heart that was Ezra’s, but there was another part—a bigger part—that belonged to Mark.

  She ended her prayer.

  Thank you, God, for Mark.

  She had let the curtains fall, but caught them again when she saw a dark form moving slowly down the driveway. Surely it wasn’t Mam on a frigid night like this?

  The dark form continued forward, the head bent. Yes, it was Mam. Should she get dressed and go to her?

  Sadie’s heart beat rapidly as she struggled to suppress her fear of the unknown, wondering why Mam would roam the roads alone at night. Was she so troubled in her spirit that the freedom of the outdoors soothed her?

  Sadie had remained by the window, watching until her mother returned, still plodding quietly, head still bent.

  It was a pitiful sight. Love for her mother welled up in Sadie’s heart like the fizz from a glass of soda. Dear Mam. She had always been the best Mam in the world. It was just now … she was only a silent shadow. She went about doing mundane little tasks, but the bulk of the work fell on the girls’ shoulders.

  Sadie breathed a sigh of relief when the laundry room door creaked quietly, and she could be sure Mam had safely returned.

  At work on Monday morning, Sadie divulged her plans for Saturday evening. Dorothy’s spirits soared.

  “You got a honest-to-goodness date?” she yel
led above the high, insistent whine of the hand-held mixer.

  Sadie glanced at her happily. Dorothy clicked it off and tapped the beater against the bowl, streams of frothy egg running off.

  “Well, do ya or don’t cha?”

  “Yes, I do. He’s coming to our house,” Sadie answered as she sliced oranges, popping a section into her mouth.

  “Well, what are you gonna do? You don’t have a television set to watch an’ you can’t go to the movies. So how are ya gonna entertain this young man?”

  Sadie smiled.

  “First, I have to think of some kind of brownies or bars or cookies to make. I have to have a snack, of course.”

  Dorothy’s eyes lit up, her smile wide.

  “I can sure help you out on that one!”

  Dorothy turned to her eggs, poured them into a greased baking pan, and then got out the vicious looking chef’s knife. She held it like a professor about to begin a lecture with his wooden pointer.

  Sadie raised her eyebrows.

  “We played Parcheesi!”

  “What?”

  “Parcheesi! It’s the most fun game ya ever saw. I’ll bring my game of Parcheesi, and you and yer feller can play. Aw, that’s so sweet. Just like me and Jim. Now my Jim, he’s different from other rough cowboys. He’s a good man, my Jim. If he wasn’t so stuck on riding those horses and working at this ranch, we’d have more money. But then, ya know, Sadie, he wouldn’t be happy, an’ what’s money compared to being a purely contented soul? Huh? Tell me that. The whole world is moving faster and faster and faster tryin’ to make more money, and it ain’t bringin’ nobody no happiness. Jes’ look at my Jim settin’ on the back of a horse, his chaw stuck in his cheek, and his old hat covering his bald head. Why he’s happier ’n a coon in a fish pond. An’ me? I like it right here in Richard Caldwell’s kitchen cookin’ up a storm.”

  She paused for breath, threw a handful of mushrooms into the beaten eggs, and surveyed her breakfast casserole. Sadie looked over her shoulder.

  “That’s not very much food.”

  “This ain’t for the cowhands. It’s Barbara’s. Richard Caldwell’s taken to eatin’ with her upstairs in her bedroom in the morning. He says she’s feeling sickly. Well, it don’t hurt that woman to lose a few pounds, let me tell you. You done with them oranges?”

  Sadie nodded.

  “You didn’t tell me which recipe to make for Saturday night, yet.”

  “Give me time, give me time.”

  After breakfast was over, Sadie and Dorothy sat down together at the great oak table with a stack of dog-eared, greasy cookbooks. Dorothy wet her thumb and began flipping pages.

  “Okay, now. You gonna make these at home, or can I help you here?”

  Sadie looked at Dorothy.

  “Well, we’re getting paid by the hour, so it wouldn’t be very honest to bake something here and take it home. We’d be using their ingredients, and…

  Dorothy snorted.

  “So what? Richard Caldwell don’t care.”

  “I know, but…”

  “You Amish is strange ducks. Now whoever heard of being so painfully honest, you can’t even bake a brownie or two with a wealthy guy’s ingredients? Huh? Never heard such a thing in my life.”

  “But I’d feel guilty. Should I ask him first?”

  “Naw. He don’t care.”

  Sadie decided it would be condescending, perhaps even a bit self-righteous, to insist that such a minor thing be done her way. After all, Dorothy was the boss in the kitchen.

  “Okay, Dottie, if you say so.”

  A profound whack on her backside with the large rubber spatula was her answer.

  “Now, don’t you go Dottie’n me again! It’s just plain disrespectful.”

  “Okay, Dottie, if you say so.”

  They had a hearty laugh together, the kind of laugh that binds your heart to another person with pure good humor and friendship, the kind that keeps a smile on your face for a long time afterwards.

  They flipped through the cookie and brownie sections, finally settling on a chocolate bar swirled with cream cheese. Dorothy assured Sadie they were so moist and delicious that you couldn’t eat just one.

  “What else are you servin’ this guy?”

  “Oh, coffee likely. And something salty. I thought of making those ham and cheese thingys that you roll up in a tortilla.”

  Dorothy wrinkled her nose.

  “You Easterners don’t know how to make a tortilla.”

  They flipped pages, searching for more recipes, and the subject of the wild horses came up. Dorothy shook her head wisely.

  “They ain’t no mystery. If any of these highfalutin men had a lick o’ common sense, they’d know this band o’ horses ain’t wild. It’s them stolen ones. Poor babies. They’s runnin’ so scared, it ain’t even funny. Imagine now, Sadie. They lived in a warm barn, blanketed, fed, exercised, brushed, among trainers and people that treated ’em like kings and queens, and suddenly they’re exposed to the wild world, and they can hardly survive. I told Jim they ain’t gettin’ them horses until they build a corral and round ’em up with them new-fangled helicopters. You know what he said? ‘Pshaw!’ But I don’t care what my Jim says, they won’t get ’em.”

  Sadie nodded.

  “If Nevaeh had lived, he’d be a grand horse by now. He was no ordinary horse.”

  Dorothy nodded in agreement. “That he wasn’t, that he wasn’t.”

  There was a knock on the kitchen door, and Sadie hurried to open it, wiping her hands on her clean, white apron.

  Dat!

  Sadie blinked in surprise.

  “Why, Dat! What brings you here?”

  Dat’s face was pale, his eyes somber.

  “You need to come home, Sadie. Your mother is missing.”

  “Missing? You mean, you don’t know where she is?”

  Dat shook his head, searching Sadie’s face.

  What was it in Dat’s eyes? Humiliation, pride, fear, self-loathing, shame? It was all there. She knew this would be very hard for him if the Amish community found out.

  “But … she … she can’t have gone far. She walks a lot. She’s likely close by.”

  Turning, she told Dorothy she had to leave, getting her coat and scarf off the hook as she did so. Dorothy waved her hand, and Sadie followed Dat out to the car. He had hired a driver, so he must have been very concerned.

  The ride home seemed like 30 miles instead of the usual eight. Dat said very little, and Sadie’s heart pounded with fear as she thought of all the things that could have happened to Mam. She was so fragile, that was the thing. Her mind, her nerves—whatever they were—were like a banner in a stiff breeze attached to a solid anchor, but with a frayed rope. As long as Dat would not admit she needed help, who could keep the rope from snapping?

  “Oh, dear God, please stay with her,” Sadie prayed. “Wherever she is, just stay with her.”

  When they arrived home, Dat gathered his three daughters around him at the kitchen table. Anna and Reuben were still in school, but Leah and Rebekah had been summoned from their cleaning jobs.

  Sadie looked at her sisters, their eyes welling with tears.

  “Sadie, you know Mam better than any of us. Where could she have gone? And why?” Rebekah asked shakily.

  Sadie took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and looked directly into Dat’s eyes. His fell beneath her gaze.

  “Well, first, we need to have a long-overdue, honest, all-out talk about our mother. She is not well. She is having issues related to her mind. In plain words, she is mentally ill. And, Dat, you will not admit that. And as long as you don’t, Mam cannot get better.”

  Dat shook his head back and forth, vehemently.

  “No, she’s not.”

  “Then what’s wrong with her?” Sadie spoke quickly, forcefully.

  “Don’t speak to your father that way.”

  Sadie was on her feet, then, her hands palm down on the table. She leaned forward, her eyes bor
ing into his.

  “Dat! If it means putting some sense into your head, I’m going to disobey you. Mam is more sick than any of us realize. She’s living in an agony of depression and fear. She hears voices at night and sees things that aren’t really there. She’s hoarding stupid little things like handkerchiefs and barrettes. She’s not working. She’s much worse than any of us are even allowed to think she is. And it’s all your fault, Dat! Your dumb pride!”

  Leah and Rebekah looked on, horrified. No one talked to their father that way. Not ever.

  “Sadie!” Dat spoke in a terrible voice, rising from his chair.

  Sadie remained standing.

  “I’m sorry, Dat,” she said, her heart pounding. “I don’t want to speak to you in this manner, but you are not God. You cannot make Mam better. We have to let our pride go, Dat!”

  At this, she broke down, sobs engulfing her, racking her body.

  “Mam is so sick, Dat! Please allow her to go to the hospital for help. I think she’d go!”

  Rebekah and Leah were crying. Dat stood over them, his face grim, his eyes blazing. His daughters bent their heads.

  “She’s not as bad as you say, Sadie.”

  “Yes, she is! I will not back down. You need to let go of what people will say. Mental illness is no shame. She can’t help it.”

  Dat sagged into his chair, his eyes weary.

  “Well, what will they do at the hospital?” he asked.

  “Evaluate her. Talk to her. Get her on the right medication. They’ll explain it to her. To you. Please, Dat.”

  “If you don’t give up, I’m afraid Mam will do harm to herself—if she hasn’t already,” Rebekah said firmly.

  Dat’s head came up. His eyes opened wide with fear. “No!”

  “You’re seeing in Mam what you want to see, Dat, and not what’s actually there. She’s a courageous woman, and she’s doing her best to appear normal for your sake—she is—but she’s so pitiful,” Leah wailed.

  Sadie could see fear grasp her father. His breath came in gasps, and he stood up.

  “We need a plan to look for her now!” he ground out.