Christmas in Apple Ridge

by Cindy Woodsmall

  “Then I’m glad God used you. Old Man Hostetler told us a few weeks back he wouldn’t be cutting that field again this year. I’m sure that’s why Levi was there too.”

  He looked down and wiped sweat from his brow. “I got to the hospital before sunrise and spoke with a doctor not long after. Since that conversation I’ve been haunted by how things could have turned out.” His brow furrowed. “When I returned home, I saw Amigo in the pasture.”

  “I tethered Amigo and rode my horse here earlier today, but no one was home.” She glanced out the screen door. “My driver will return in a few minutes, and I would like to see Levi before I leave Apple Ridge.”

  “He’s pretty groggy and not himself. He’s a little more … bold and outspoken about what he’s thinking and feeling.”

  “I can deal with that.”

  Tobias planted his feet and put his hands on his hips. “Uncle Levi’s sleeping, and he said not to wake him up.”

  “You should listen to your uncle.” Sadie touched the end of his nose, half expecting him to take a step back or complain. He didn’t. “But I’m going to wake him.” She looked at Andy. “Which way?”

  Tobias looked at his Daed, and Andy nodded.

  “Follow me.” The little boy took off running and skidded to a stop several feet from a bed set up in the living room. “Don’t touch the bed. Uncle Levi said to stay three feet away.” Tobias held his hands apart, looking as if he were telling a fish story. “That’s about this far. And he meant what he said.”

  “I’m sure he did.” She couldn’t believe how pale and stiff Levi looked. His left leg was in a full cast. A neck brace was fitted tight against his jawline. The base of the brace—a three-to-four-inch flat, circular piece—covered his chest and shoulders.

  She turned to Andy. “I didn’t expect this.”

  “It’s an odd injury. He has a tiny neck fracture, and the doctor said it’s the kind that can worsen until a person feels his arms and legs go numb. He could have done permanent damage. The kind that might have left him paralyzed from the neck down. As it is, Levi should be in a wheelchair in a week and on crutches later. He’ll have to wear the neck brace for three to six months. The leg cast should be off in six weeks.”

  Sadie remembered Levi’s pleas to help him up. God’s mercy had surely extended to both of them last night.

  Last night she’d seen that Levi was long and lanky with big shoulders. Now she could see his thick, curly hair, light brown with streaks of golden blond. It needed cutting—probably two months ago—but she liked his rugged, unkempt look. It meant that he, much like herself, wasn’t interested in keeping every Amish rule of thumb.

  His bed was midway between two double windows on opposite walls, inviting a cross breeze to cover him. But July afternoons weren’t much for stirring air. A sheet lay over his uninjured leg and covered his hips and chest, but he looked uncomfortably warm, even without a shirt.

  Levi shifted and groaned.

  Sadie leaned over the bed, staring into his face. “Every time I see you, you’re lying around and moaning.”

  His eyes remained closed, but a faint smile crossed his face. “Sadie.” His gravelly voice was barely above a whisper and told of his exhaustion and, no doubt, of whatever pain medicine he was administered. “You are real.”

  “Ya, but I’m no angel.”

  The lines of pleasure deepened on his face. “And for that I’m very grateful.”

  If she’d been as angelic as her Daed wished, she wouldn’t have been out last night or found Levi. Was he the reason she’d felt so moved during her prayers to saddle Bay and ride? Or had her own will been at work and stumbling across Levi was an odd coincidence?

  “Tobias.” Andy motioned to his son to leave the room with him. “Sadie, it was good meeting you.”

  “Denki.” Where was the man’s wife? In fact, now that she thought about it, it seemed odd Levi never mentioned his sister-in-law when they talked last night.

  Andy started to leave, then turned back to her. “We’re going to tend to the horses, but I’d rather Levi not be alone for too long. Just let me know when you’re leaving by having your driver toot the horn.”

  “Be glad to.”

  “Andy.” Levi’s hoarse whisper brought his brother to a stop. Levi scrunched his face and opened his eyes for a moment. “A woman helped me last night, not Sadie.” In the Amish community, one referred to people as Amish when they were such. The lack of that title would do exactly what Levi knew it would: indicate an Englisch woman had helped him.

  Sadie appreciated Levi’s sense of honor and his attempt to protect her.

  Andy nodded, but questions filled his eyes.

  Sadie shrugged. “I was grounded for the evening.”

  Andy’s eyes narrowed, possibly thinking the same thing she did—she was too old for a parent to ground her. “It’s not right for me to say it,”—Andy put his hands on Tobias’s shoulders—“but I’m with Levi on this. I’m grateful you’re no angel.” He and Tobias left the room. A few moments later the screen door slammed.

  His eyes still closed, Levi made a weak pat on the edge of his bed. She hesitated, but it seemed harmless with him injured and unable to speak much or keep his eyes open. They only had a few minutes to talk and were not likely to see each other again, so she sat.

  He drew a heavy breath. “I was sure you’d already left Apple Ridge and I’d have no way to thank you.”

  She realized he was right. As determined as he was to keep her secret, he wouldn’t have gone to her grandmother’s to find out where she lived or how to reach her.

  He tried to sit upright, and she helped by putting pillows behind him.

  “Now.” He eased back and waited for her to sit again. “Let’s see those eyes.”

  She opened them wide.

  “Hmm. You have big eyes.”

  “All the better to see you with.” She waggled her eyebrows.

  He laughed, then moaned. “No, not like a wolf. I meant they’re large and pretty, somewhere between pale green and golden brown.”

  Sadie knew they weren’t pretty, but she didn’t believe he was trying to flatter her. He was just grateful to her, and gratitude changed people’s views of everything they looked at. When she spent time in the Andes, soaking in the beauty of God’s creation and fully aware of how poor and yet content the villagers were, her heart overflowed with gratitude. She learned then that the Daniels of the world—the ones she’d thought were better than her—were really no better or worse. The only thing that mattered was the honor and joy of walking with God.

  Levi stretched his hand toward her face and ran his index finger across the bridge of her nose. “You have freckles.”

  Sadie found his observation a little amusing and intimidating. Her looks weren’t a favorite subject. But she had no doubt his boldness to touch her was due to the medication he was taking.

  He smiled, pinching her chin between his thumb and index finger. “You’re very cute in a ‘sunshine after the rain’ sort of way.”

  She didn’t know what he meant by that, but feelings fluttered through her, each tugging in a different direction. She’d grown out of being homely and horribly skinny. But she was no Aquilla. That was for sure. Still, she no longer felt she was less than other people.

  “If you keep up this inspection, I’m going to demand you close your eyes and go to sleep.”

  “I can’t help it.” His dark brown eyes spoke of approval and friendship. “I’ve spent most of my waking minutes and half of my sleeping ones trying to imagine what you looked like and hoping you weren’t an apparition.”

  She fidgeted, not sure she liked where this conversation was heading. Thankfully, she had to go soon. “It wouldn’t be such a bad thing for me not to have been human. It’d mean you received help from God.”

  “I did receive help from God. He sent you to me.”

  Her muscles tensed, and she moved, ready to stand and say good-bye.

  “Relax, Sadie.�
�� He put his hand on her arm. “You’re gonna have to trust me when I say I’ll be just as single when I die as I am today. We’re alike in our determination to avoid marrying, so don’t get your hackles up.”

  She took a deep breath. “Gut. You scared me for a minute.”

  He grimaced, looking hot and uncomfortable. Damp curls clung to his forehead.

  Sadie fidgeted with the blanket. “Someone called Mammi’s place today and said you had a concussion along with your other injuries.”

  “Ya, between that and the medicines, nothing feels real. But I want to get your address.”

  “Levi.” She brushed his hair back, hoping it made him feel a little cooler. “We’re saying all that needs to be said right now. I want to let it go at that.”

  “Knock, knock.”

  At the sound of a female voice behind them, Sadie pulled back her hand from Levi’s face and stood.

  Two young and attractive women stood at the open entryway of the living room, one holding a glass cake stand that encased a beautifully decorated cake.

  Sadie turned to Levi, determined to speak softly so the others couldn’t hear her. “Now that you’re too injured to run away or ride off, you may be engaged in time for the wedding season.”

  Levi chuckled and slowly motioned for the women to enter, a movement that indicated how drugged he was. “These are my cousins Beth and Mattie. And this is Sadie. She returned my horse.”

  Sadie shook hands with the women. Levi’s words were true enough. She had returned his horse. The odds were good that people who knew Levi had seen her on her trek to return Amigo. Levi had just given all the explanation anyone would need.

  He scratched his jaw where the neck brace rubbed it. “Beth is a Hertzler of Hertzlers’ Dry Goods.”

  Had they seen her sitting on Levi’s bed and brushing the hair from his face? She hoped not. “When I was younger, I came to your store a couple of times with Mammi Lee.”

  “Verna Lee? The toymaker’s wife?”

  “Ya.”

  “We used to carry your Grossdaadi’s goods.”

  “I remember.”

  Beth touched Mattie’s arm. “Mattie is working at the store now. She owned a cake shop in Ohio, so she’s running her own bakery section here. Our husbands built a small café for her inside the store.”

  “A dry goods store with fresh cakes?”

  “And sticky buns, scones, muffins, and lots of coffee.” Mattie walked to a side table and set the cake on it. “It’s about the size of a small bedroom, and I only have those other items as refreshments for the customers. The true heart of my business is using that space to showcase and take orders for decorative cakes. You know, for birthdays and weddings and such.”

  “Sounds as if Hertzlers’ has changed a good bit since I was there more than ten years ago.”

  “Definitely,” Beth said. “You should come by.”

  “Sadie knows a thing or two about stores, don’t you?”

  If Sadie could, she’d give him a glare for putting her on the spot. “A little, I guess. I help manage a five-and-dime run by a Mennonite couple. Aside from a few nonperishable items my two girlfriends and I make, the store carries the same things they did sixty years ago—including hayseed and shovels and such.”

  Beth moved to the foot of the bed. “What kinds of things do you make, Sadie?”

  “When time and money allow, I make an assortment of things. I dabble in wreaths, but my favorites are candles and soaps, and when I can collect enough scraps of material from the Amish community where I live, I make cloth dolls.”

  Beth pulled a business card from her hidden apron pocket. “If you ever have a surplus and are looking for a place to sell them, come see me.”

  “Denki.” Sadie took the card and touched the bed. “Levi, I need to go.”

  “Not without leaving your address and phone number.”

  Beth and Mattie looked at each other, a definite glimmer of interest passing between them.

  Mattie fetched pen and paper from an end table and passed it to Sadie.

  What could it hurt for him to have her address and phone number?

  Levi stood in the round pen. He held a thirty-foot line in one hand and a lightweight longe whip in the other. Despite the neck brace he wore, he turned in circles with the horse on the other end of the line, training the animal to understand and follow his commands. “Geh.”

  The horse picked up its pace.

  Even though Blaze hadn’t been training long, the colt moved more fluidly and even paced than Levi could. Still, it was far easier for Levi to get around now that the cast on his leg had been removed a mere two days ago. He moved like an old man in winter while he sweated under the grueling August sun.

  Levi needed to make up for lost training time. “Langsam.” Blaze didn’t slow a tad. “Langsam,” Levi repeated in the same even tone. The horse raised its head and altered its pace a little. “Gut … Langsam.”

  “Uncle Levi.” Tobias sat on the split-rail fence and pointed at the whip. “You gotta at least let him see that out of the corner of his eye.”

  “Who’s doing the training? Me or you?”

  Tobias clutched a hand to the top of his head. “But you’re not listening to me.”

  “You’re being impatient again.” When Levi had been on crutches, he’d had to enlist Tobias’s help to tend and train the horses. The boy had a knack for handling the stout and sometimes difficult creatures, but he lacked patience with the tedious process.

  “So who got throwed by a horse? Me or you?”

  “I have a better question, peanut. Who’s going to be sent inside if he doesn’t stop telling me what to do?” Levi knew that threat would carry some weight. Tobias liked being in his or Andy’s shadow at all times. Since Andy was in the barn tending to the other horses, if Tobias had to go inside, he’d be by himself.

  Tobias made monkey gestures in the air, touching the top of his head and flailing his arms, huffing and making mocking gestures—but in all his silliness, he didn’t say anything. For almost a minute. “Not everybody thinks you need to go as slow as you do with training horses, Uncle Levi.”

  “What’s their motivation for feeling that way? Because it’s what’s best for the horse and the buyer or because it’s what’s easiest and most profitable for the trainer?”

  Tobias frowned but seemed to mull over the question.

  Amigo had been five years old when Daniel bought him last spring from an auction. Levi didn’t know why the horse reacted so violently to the fireworks last month, but he’d learned some valuable lessons, ones that caused him and Andy to start training their horses differently. One brother fed the animal and soothed him while the other made an awful racket just outside the barn—beating a horseshoe against a ten-gallon tub, yelling and clapping, or sounding an old car horn. The technique seemed to be desensitizing the animals to loud noises, but it was too early to tell if that would translate to a calmer horse on a road.

  “Look.” Tobias pointed at the mailman pulling onto the gravel driveway. He hopped down. “Whatcha want to guess he’s got another package from your girlfriend?”

  Levi continued working with Blaze, but he hoped the man did have another package from Sadie. She needed money for her mission trip, and he wanted to do all he could to help her. He’d put some of the life-sized cloth dolls she sewed in his handcrafted cradles and highchairs. When the two items were combined, they sold like hotcakes at Hertzlers’.

  He also enjoyed the short letters that accompanied her packages. When he first came up with the idea of her making dolls to go with some of his toy furniture, he called her. But she wasn’t keen on the idea of partnering with him. It’d taken a few phone calls before he could sufficiently assure her that he was only interested in being a friend and repaying his debt to her.

  Dealing with her was like working with a spooked horse. At first he thought she’d been in a relationship that had gone bad. But after coming to know her a little better, he understo
od that her heart belonged to the people in a remote Peruvian village, and she was determined to stay the course.

  Tobias took the package from the man and held it up. “Ya, it’s from her.”

  “Gut.” He’d never known anyone like Sadie.

  Just as the mailman pulled out of the driveway, he saw another vehicle coming in. Daniel rolled down the passenger window and waved.

  Levi returned the wave. “Tobias, go put that on my bed before anything happens to it.” The dolls’ faces, arms, and legs were made of white cotton, and if they were smudged, they didn’t sell as easily.

  Tobias tore out running.

  Levi didn’t expect Daniel this week. Then again, Daniel may not have known himself until the mood struck him to head this way.

  The truck came to a halt, and Daniel got out. “A man without a cast on his leg.” Daniel shook Levi’s hand and patted his shoulder at the same time. “Still got that noose around your neck, I see. How you feeling?”

  “Lighter now.” Levi ran two fingers around the top collar of the brace. “And ready to be free of this yoke around my neck.”

  “Sure you are. You’re gettin’ there. It’s been a hot summer to have to wear that thing while working.”

  The screen door flung open, and Tobias ran outside.

  Daniel didn’t seem to notice the boy. He motioned to his driver, Tip. “I heard there are some good horses going on the block tonight at Toppers. I’d sure like it if you could join me.”

  “Your eye for buying horses at auction is much better than mine.”

  “Ya, but you’re better at knowing which one should go to which trainer.”

  Andy emerged from the barn. “Daniel, I didn’t know you were here … or even coming.”

  “I’m not staying. We’ll talk horse-trading another time. But I’m hoping to borrow Levi for a bit.”

  Daniel called it horse-trading, but what he meant was buying the animals at auction, bringing them to Levi to train, selling them to people throughout the region, and settling up with the Fisher brothers what was owed. Nobody worried about a timetable for the payments. Daniel’s word was good enough, and he was more than fair when it came to paying people for their services, but he did things in his own way and time.