by Linda Byler
“Ardwin.”
“… Ardwin is, he must be very wealthy. And now he is going to enter our humble dwelling. Richard Caldwell, too. If an important person arrives, we offer him the highest seat, and if a poor one enters, he always gets the lowest, but this is not good in Christ’s eyes. So we’ll not get flustered, and instead we’ll light our propane lamp and serve them these apricot cookies and coffee, same as if Jack Entan arrived.”
Sadie glanced at her mother, caught her glint of humor, and smiled wryly. Jack was the town’s junk-hauler who lived in a less than appealing environment, in spite of everyone’s best efforts to reform him.
“Mam!”
“I’m serious. They’re only human beings, wealthy and important or not.”
Sadie frowned. She straightened her legs, stared at her frayed denims and dusty boots, and stood up abruptly.
“I’m going to my room.”
“Oh, there’s a letter for you. It’s on the hutch.”
Mam returned to her baking, and Sadie went to the cupboard for the letter. She recognized the handwriting instantly.
Eva.
Oh good, she thought.
Sadie and Eva wrote constantly. Letters were their regular way of communicating. It was always a joyful day for Sadie when one of Eva’s letters arrived.
Sometimes they would plan a time to be at their phone shanties and have a long conversation, but that had its drawbacks, especially in winter. Phone shanties were cold and uncomfortable, so telephone conversations were kept to a minimum. Sadie supposed the whole idea for having that church rule about phone shanties was because women were prone to gossip, and telephones were definitely an aid to that vice. Therefore, the less convenient a phone was, the less women would be gossiping on it.
Sadie ripped open the plain white envelope, unfolded the yellow legal pad paper, and eagerly devoured every word.
Dear Sadie,
You will never guess what! My darling husband-to-be is allowing me to travel by train to spend a week with you. Are you sitting down? So I’m thinking of spending Christmas with you!!! Are there enough explanation points for that sentence?
Our wedding is not until April, and he really wants me to do this before the wedding because he knows how close we are and that we haven’t seen each other in years!
Oh, Sadie! I am so excited. I won’t be traveling alone because Dan Detweiler’s parents are coming, too. Maybe if we can get enough people to come, we’ll hire a van and won’t need the train.
Sadie chuckled at Eva’s two sheets of questions about the trip. It was so typical of Eva and so dear. They shared everything, every little detail of their lives, including Mark Peight, the ranch, Dorothy, Richard Caldwell, Mam’s mental illness. They held nothing back, which was why they had a continuing friendship that began when they were little first-graders in the one-room school they both attended.
Sadie sighed as she replaced the papers in the envelope. It was a long time to wait. Christmas seemed far away—another time, another world.
She heard Reuben unlock the bathroom door and walk into the kitchen to Mam.
“Why, Reuben, where were you? I had almost forgotten about you.”
“In the bathroom,” Reuben said in the gruffest, manliest voice he could possible muster.
“You’ve been in there awhile then.”
“Yeah. You know we’re getting company tonight?”
“Sadie told me.”
“They shouldn’t come here. All they want is our…those horses anyhow.”
Mam nodded.
“We’ll see, Reuben.”
Mam tidied the kitchen while Sadie and Reuben informed Dat about the company. Mam made a pot of coffee and arranged her famous apricot cookies on a plate. The cookies were not filled with apricots but with apricot jam mixed with other things. They were soft and sweet and crumbly and delicious, and no one made them the way Mam did.
Eventually a large silver SUV wound its way up their driveway. No one was very thrilled at the sound of its tires on crunching gravel, although no one said as much. It wouldn’t be polite, and certainly not a Christian attitude to be inhospitable to company.
Dat greeted the two men at the door, invited them in, and introduced them to Mam. She shook hands with them, welcoming them into their home.
Richard Caldwell was even louder than usual, nervously talking nonstop, his face flushed, his eyes bearing a certain excitement. Harold Ardwin was very professional, smiling only enough to be polite. Mustaches did that to a person, though. A heavy mustache just sort of lifted up or settled back down, covering any smile that might be underneath it. An Amish man’s beard wagged a lot when he talked, and his smile was bare and unhampered so you knew if he was sincere or not.
“Where are Sadie and Reuben?” Richard Caldwell thundered.
Sadie imagined Mam wincing, not being used to those decibels of sound.
Sadie moved out to the kitchen. She had showered, changed clothes, combed her hair neatly, and pinned her white covering perfectly in place. She had chosen a navy blue dress, which she fervently hoped would make her seem older.
“Hello,” she said quietly.
“You clean up well, Sadie,” Richard Caldwell said, laughing.
Harold Ardwin said nothing.
They talked about the weather, the price of beef, the logging industry, the carpentry trade, anything but the horses.
Dusk was bringing shadows into the room, so Sadie got up and flicked a lighter beneath the mantle of the propane gas light. With a soft pop, it ignited, casting the room into a bright, yellow light.
Richard Caldwell was impressed, telling Dat so, but Harold Ardwin watched the soft hissing mantles carefully. He was clearly uncomfortable with his first encounter in an Amish home without electricity. Sadie stifled a giggle as he moved his chair farther away from the oak stand that contained the light.
After the light was lit, Mam and the girls served coffee. Both men drank their coffee hot and black and ate a countless amount of Mam’s cookies. Richard Caldwell was profuse in his praise of her.
Then, as suddenly as the light popped on, Harold Ardwin said, “We watched your son and daughter this evening—late afternoon, really—riding the wild horses, which …are mine.”
Dat blinked, listening carefully.
“I’m sure you know plenty of the local people have always felt these horses weren’t mustangs.”
Dat nodded.
“Horse thieves are notorious in our region. We still don’t have all the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle, but I do know that Richard Caldwell here contacted me, told me the story of your daughter and her wild horses, and led me to her. It’s impressive, what she’s done.”
There was a pause. No one breathed, it seemed.
“So, as a reward to her—to all of you—for finding Black Thunder, I give Butterfly and Sasha to you. One is for Sadie, and one for Reuben.”
Sadie wanted to say something but couldn’t. She tried. She even opened her mouth, but it sort of closed on its own and not one word escaped. She was shaken back to reality by Reuben’s very loud and very sincere, “Thanks a lot. Thank you!”
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 s
till 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!”
Chapter 25