He barely walked in from feeding the stock when Naomi met him at the door with a fresh shirt and told him to clean up, because the neighbors were expecting them. He knew she was enamored by the Schrock girls, especially the eldest one, Bethany. Galen didn’t see the need for friends, but he understood that Naomi had a different point of view. “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” she said, bossing him around like he was a child and she was the parent.
Next thing he knew, they were on their way to the Schrocks’. No sooner had they arrived, and Naomi and Bethany had put their heads together and twittered like little chickens.
Galen was relieved to see Jimmy Fisher, his new apprentice, at the house. Jimmy talked such a blue streak that Galen hoped he wouldn’t be expected to say much.
A month or so ago, Deacon Abraham had dropped by to ask Galen if he might consider taking Jimmy under his wing.
“And why would I do that?” Galen had asked him. He knew Jimmy Fisher, had known him for years. He was known as a fellow with a fondness for the ladies.
“I’m worried about the boy,” Abraham had explained. “He’s at a crossroads and I’m not sure he knows it.” Jimmy’s mother, Edith, had gone to visit her cousin in Gap while she happened to be in an off period in her on-again, off-again courtship with Hank Lapp. She met a widower in Gap and up and married him. Jimmy’s brother, Paul, was finally engaged and would be taking over the family chicken and egg business. “Jimmy Fisher is a boy with a lot of potential, none of it realized.”
“Why me?” Galen had asked.
“Haven’t you seen that boy’s love of horses? If you could give the boy some training, shape him, give him discipline, why, Jimmy Fisher might just amount to something.”
It took Galen quite a long time to get his head around the thought of taking on an apprentice. Especially Jimmy Fisher. But you didn’t say no to the deacon.
Galen had plenty of misgivings. Then he found out Jimmy had used firecrackers to flush out the snow geese from a wheat field and felt the first hint of interest in the boy. Most of Galen’s work with horses was to train hot-blooded, just-off-the-track Thoroughbreds to buggy work, and that included desensitizing them to the unexpected. An apprentice who knew about firecrackers might be useful—assuming Jimmy Fisher had enough sense to know when and when not to use them. That was his main worry about Jimmy Fisher. Did the boy have any sense? Until Galen had confidence in him, Jimmy would be carefully supervised.
When he was seated at the Schrock table, Galen was faced with more choices to eat than he had seen on a table for quite some time. His gaze swept down the table and stopped at Rose.
“This is my vermin stew, Galen,” Rose said, dishing a spoonful of vegetables for him.
“Oh?” he said politely. “What kind of vermin?”
Rose didn’t miss a beat. “Whatever the boys caught today in their traps.”
“It was a polecat,” one of the little boys said. He seemed as full of mischief as his mother.
“Now, Luke, don’t be giving away my recipes,” she said.
“I happen to love polecat,” Galen said, trying hard to be sociable. It was an unfamiliar labor, since he mostly worked at avoiding it. But he knew Naomi would be giving him the what for if he didn’t at least try to be friendly. Besides, she had promised they could leave as soon as dinner ended.
He thought it might have ended abruptly at that awkward moment when Vera snapped at Rose and called her a future bishop. Vera Schrock was known to salt her speech rather freely with criticism. There was nothing hard about Rose—in fact, it was obvious to him that she was far too soft for what she had to cope with. She had tender expressions when she looked at her children, or at the stable of animals she kept. She could never quite get a lock of hair to stay fixed, and was always touching it nervously with one hand. “It won’t behave,” she would say, as if her hair were a child.
After dinner ended, Galen didn’t get to his feet right away. The sense that he needed to hurry, which had been with him most of his life, had disappeared for a space.
8
The next day, Monday, responsibility descended upon Jimmy Fisher with a weight far beyond anything he had ever felt. He wondered what had possessed him to agree to work for Galen King, of all people, though he knew the answer to that. The work ethic of the Plain people was legendary, but Galen took it to another level. He never stopped working. He was a single-track man, all business. Jimmy held to a more leisurely philosophy about work.
Most people in the church were intimidated by Galen, but not Jimmy. Galen was perceived as a little unusual. He didn’t say much, didn’t socialize much, had a skill for avoiding various single women who did their best to lay a trap for him. The funny thing about Galen King was how hard he was to keep in scale. He wasn’t a big man—in fact, was barely middle-sized—but when you walked up and looked him in the eye, it didn’t seem that way. Jimmy was a few inches taller, but there was no way you could have convinced him that Galen was the shorter man. Galen had that effect on everyone. Jimmy had seen men straighten up when Galen walked past. He’d seen women tuck their hair in their cap. Even children quieted around him. Not that Galen had ever noticed he had such an effect on others. It would have meant losing five minutes off whatever job he had decided he wanted to get done that day.
By the time the sun was overhead, Jimmy had sweated through his shirt. The first breather of the day came when Naomi brought some gingered lemonade out to the barn. Early that morning, a new lot of horses had been delivered to Galen from Saturday’s auction in Leola. Galen wanted to start buggy training them straightaway. Jimmy thought Galen should let them settle into their new surroundings. These two- and three-year-old colts came right off the racetrack in Kentucky and were skittish as foals. He said as much to Galen, but his helpful suggestion was ignored. It didn’t bother Jimmy. He kept on making helpful suggestions and Galen kept on ignoring him. Jimmy would rattle off five or six different questions and opinions, running them all together.
After lunch, Galen led a chestnut mare, the one with white stockings and a blaze down her forehead, out of the stall and into the yard. Jimmy walked over to the fence to watch Galen work the mare. Galen considered her to be the prime of the lot he had just purchased.
Jimmy couldn’t see why. “She’s not the best-looking horse I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“I’m not interested in her looks,” Galen said.
She had her ears pinned and her eyes turned so she could watch him in case he got careless. “You ought to blindfold her.”
“I want her gentled, not broke.” Galen got her to accept the weight of the buggy shaft, but the minute the shafts touched the sides of her belly, the mare kicked as high as she could get. Jimmy got a big laugh out of that.
“There’s plenty of fine horses to buy in this world, Galen. Why would a man like you want to waste time with a filly that ought to be hobbled and blindfolded?”
Again, Galen ignored him. The mare tentatively lifted the near hind foot with the thought of kicking whatever might be in range. When she did, he caught the foot with the rope and hitched it around a post. It left the mare standing on three legs, so she could not kick again without throwing herself.
“Look at her watch us,” Galen said. The mare was watching them—even had her ears pointed at them. She was trembling with indignation.
“I wouldn’t take it as much of a compliment,” Jimmy said. “She’s not watching you because she loves you.” He didn’t know why anyone would bother with such an ill-tempered horse.
“Say what you will,” Galen said. “I’ve never seen a more intelligent filly.”
“Maybe a little too smart for her own good.”
“Like my apprentice.”
Ouch. That stung. Jimmy had a love for horses that went bone-deep. Most folks assumed he was nothing but a flirt—but he took horsemanship seriously. There was a time when he toyed with racing and that ended badly. He learned his lesson. But he had never stopped loving Thoroughbreds. That’s why
he accepted Galen’s out-of-the-blue offer to work for him. No one in Stoney Ridge knew Thoroughbreds like Galen King. It was part of his blood, his heritage. His great-grandfather had raised Percherons. The Kings were known far and wide for their horse-savvy, and Jimmy wanted to soak up everything he could from Galen.
Late in the afternoon, Sammy Schrock slipped through the privet to watch the horse training in action. Unlike Luke, Sammy was a silent, small boy. He stood apart shyly and stared at the mare. After a while he couldn’t stand it any longer and his words wrestled their way through his shyness. “If you’ll let me help, why, I’ll do anything. I’ll muck stalls, saddle soap harnesses, sweep the barn.” He sounded hopeful, a boy who loved to be useful.
As Galen hesitated, Jimmy could see the boy’s disappointment. “Give him a try, Galen. After all, the boy’s only chance for learning how to gentle a horse is by watching me work.”
Galen let that float off. “Sammy, you need to ask your mother if it’s all right.”
The boy ran home at once.
“Now, Galen, that was downright charitable of you. I wonder if you’re getting soft.”
Galen snorted. “His mother will say no so I won’t have to.”
Jimmy thought about that for a while, not at all sure Galen had called that right. Rose Stoltz didn’t strike him as a smother-mother type. He watched her the other night and she almost seemed too good-natured to be true. It was clear she was older—she had fine wrinkles around her mouth—but her skin was still soft and her face, as she bustled around feeding people, was quite lovely.
If he were only a decade or so older, Jimmy thought, grinning, then shook that thought off. Besides, Jimmy was finding himself besotted—yes, besotted—with Rose’s stepdaughter, Bethany. As usual, love fell out of a clear blue sky—as fine a day as one could want, with the creek sparkling and sun shining and hints of spring in the air.
But even Jimmy had to admit to himself that he found himself besotted with girls on a regular basis. He reminded himself that he was turning over a new leaf and becoming a horse trainer. Getting besotted with ladies on a regular basis would have to be reckoned with. It was time to get serious about life.
No sooner had Jimmy taken one team in and brought another team of horses out to the yard, and Sammy was back, puffed up and proud. “She said yes! She said Luke could come too, if it’s all right with you. Not today, though. He’s in trouble and can’t leave the house.”
Galen was shaking his head, but he didn’t look nearly as upset as Jimmy might have thought. “What’s Luke got himself in trouble for?”
“Teacher M.K. told everyone it was ‘No Complaining Day’ and Luke complained about it.”
Jimmy laughed, then he noticed that Sammy was bareheaded. Jimmy had brought his old black felt hat with him and put it in the barn. It was hanging on a peg, and he went back in and got it for the boy.
“Here, you take this,” Jimmy said, surprised at his own generosity.
When Sammy put it on, his head disappeared nearly down to his mouth, which was grinning.
It was almost time to make supper and Rose was already a day behind in her tasks. She had linens to change in the guest flat, two pies to bake, and a pile of clothing to iron for Sunday church. Seated by the kitchen window, Vera watched Bethany walk back slowly from the mailbox, absorbed in a letter she was reading. “Bethany is spending too much time mooning over that boy.”
The iron hissed as it slid over a dampened prayer cap that Rose was ironing, leaving behind a knife-sharp pleat and the smell of hot starch. “Jake Hertzler?”
“Yes. She fancies him far too much. He’s Car Amish,” Vera said, as if that explained everything. “What if she falls in love with him?”
Vera didn’t seem to realize that Bethany already thought she was in love with him. At least, as in love as an impulsive, shortsighted nineteen-year-old girl could be. Rose set the iron upright on the ironing board to give herself time to think. She could only imagine what Vera would have to say if she heard that Jake Hertzler had pinned blame for Schrock Investments’ downfall on Tobe, her precious grandson. Fur would fly! She still couldn’t believe it herself. She didn’t want to believe it—she preferred to think that Allen Turner’s job was to be suspicious about everybody.
Vera coughed and Rose’s thoughts returned to her ironing. She carefully lifted the freshly pressed cap off the ironing board and set it on the counter, then plucked a white shirt of Sammy’s out of the laundry basket. “I don’t deny that it’s troubled me how devoted Bethany has been to Jake. Far more devoted to him than he is to her. I worry she’ll end up with a broken heart.”
“Then you should do something about this,” Vera said. “Soon. Before that boy realizes what he might be missing and comes calling. Dean would have nipped this. Nipped it in the bud. You don’t want grandchildren who aren’t truly Amish.”
Grandchildren who would never know Dean. That familiar sadness about Dean swept over Rose. It surprised her to realize that the sadness was only a visitor now. Not a permanent guest.
“A fish and a bird can’t fall in love.”
Rose sighed. It always, always circled back to this. Vera blamed Rose for the path Dean chose: leaving the Old Order Amish church to marry Rose, raising the children with the use of electricity and cars, pursuing higher education and getting his broker’s license.
What Vera refused to believe was that Dean had quietly passed his GED and was taking accounting classes at the junior college—that was where Rose met him. At heart, he was not a farmer nor a craftsman. He was a man who liked to use his mind, not his hands. It was just a matter of time, he had told Rose, before he planned to leave the Old Order Amish church, especially after his first wife had abandoned the family. He couldn’t remarry if he stayed in the Old Order Amish church, even though he hadn’t initiated or wanted the divorce.
To be fair to Vera, Rose acknowledged that Dean let his mother believe what she wanted to believe. It didn’t bother him that Vera blamed Rose for everything. Or his first wife for everything else. One thing she had quickly learned about Dean—he wanted everyone to think well of him, especially his mother.
As she picked up the iron and started on Sammy’s white shirt, she remembered a time, soon after they had bought their first home and didn’t have much money to spare, when Dean volunteered to pay for a new roof for the church they had just started to attend.
Rose had been raised in an Old Order Amish home but had left, disillusioned, after an acrimonious split occurred in her church. Soon after—maybe too soon, she later wondered—she met Dean, was dazzled by him—he was dazzling!—and married him. As she navigated her new role of stepmothering, she knew it was time to return to church. Since Dean had been divorced and remarried, they couldn’t return to the Old Order Amish church. They found a Mennonite church that welcomed them in.
One Sunday morning, Dean had stood up in church and said he would take care of the entire amount of the roof.
“Why did you do that?” she had asked him on the way home from church. “They were asking everyone to make donations. They never expected one person to pay for it all.”
He shrugged. “I wanted to.”
“But we don’t have the money to make the next mortgage payment. We don’t have enough to buy food for the week!”
He gave her a hangdog expression. “I know.”
How irresponsible! she thought. He did it to impress the minister. To deflect the unhappy fact of his first marriage.
Then, softening, because there was something about Dean that always made her excuse him, she decided that he did it because he couldn’t help it. He was a generous man and enjoyed making others happy.
She did not think at the time, though she did think it now: He wanted the entire congregation to admire him. He wanted to be a hero.
Through the kitchen window, she saw Bethany walking slowly, head tucked, engrossed in reading a letter. Was it from Jake? Oh, she hoped not.
“Our neighbor Galen Kin
g is sweet on Bethany,” Vera said.
“What?”
“I’ve suspected for some time now that his feelings for Bethany went beyond neighborly interest.” Vera smiled her crooked smile, delighted to upstage Rose with news. “The signs are all there—think how often he’s been coming by. He shows up looking Sunday-scrubbed with a lilt in his step. He’s happier than I’ve ever seen him.”
Rose finished ironing Sammy’s shirt for Sunday church and hung it over the back of a chair. “I think you’re confusing him with Jimmy Fisher.”
“Who?”
“Jimmy. He was here for dinner the other night.” And if you’d been paying attention, Rose thought, you would have noticed a change in Bethany. She was glowing, awash in some internal light, wonderstruck, glancing in Jimmy’s direction whenever she thought he wasn’t looking—which was seldom.
“Oh! The one who kept waggling his brows. Well, handsome is as handsome does.” As Vera mulled that over for a while, her eyes grew droopy and soon she nodded off.
Rose spread Mim’s Sunday dress, a deep blue, over the ironing board to spray starch all over it. She didn’t know what to make of the crazy notions that flitted through Vera’s mind. The thought of Bethany and Galen was ridiculous. Bethany was a beautiful young woman, but in so many ways, she was still a child. Galen was a man who had never been young.
Vera might be talking about other people, but at its heart was always a concern for herself.
9
Spring had appeared violently, rain and sun and rain again. The earth was muddy and Bethany’s feet sank into the front lawn as she walked back from the mailbox with Jake’s brief letter in her hands. Her last letter to Jake had been returned with a red stamp on the envelope: OCCUPANT MOVED. NO FORWARDING ADDRESS. It upset her to no end because he didn’t have a telephone or cell phone. Letters were their only means of staying connected—what would happen to them? To their future? So when she saw his handwriting on an envelope in today’s mail, she was thrilled and relieved, delighted to discover that he had to move to another apartment and had forgotten to tell her. That was all. Perfectly understandable! Then her smile faded. There was no return address on the envelope.
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