The Letters

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  He splashed cold water on his face and shaved so quickly that he nicked himself twice. He grabbed his shirt and took the stairs two at a time, stopping by the back door to jam his stocking feet into his boots. He hurried down to the barn, eager to check on Lodestar. As he came around the corner, he saw something that made his heart beat a little faster. The barn door was opened by about two feet. He gave it a push and walked inside. The sun was just rising on the horizon and cast a beam of light from the open door, down the interior aisle of the barn. Jimmy walked slowly down the aisle, holding his breath. When he got to Lodestar’s stall, the door was wide open. The stall was empty.

  The rising sun crested the tops of the hills that surrounded Galen’s ranch. It had turned the clouds around it a coral pink and cast a pale yellow light over the fields that were just greening with the first shoots of spring.

  Jimmy burst through the kitchen door of Galen’s house and found him seated at the kitchen table, sipping coffee. Naomi was dishing up scrambled eggs by the stove and offered him a plate. He shook his head. Too upset.

  “It happened again, Galen. I found Lodestar. Then he ran away again. I woke up this morning and he was gone. The barn door was open.”

  Galen chewed and swallowed a mouthful of scrambled eggs as if he had all the time in the world. “You latched the stall?”

  He scowled at Galen. “Of course!” Of course he did. “I’m sure of it.” He remembered latching it, then double-checking it. Didn’t he? Could he have been so conscious of it that he neglected to actually do it?

  “You’d be amazed at how wily some horses can be.” Galen finished off the rest of his scrambled eggs. They were just the way Jimmy liked them—buttery, sprinkled with salt and pepper. His stomach rumbled.

  Naomi brought over a plate of steaming waffles. “Didn’t Dad have a buggy horse that could unlatch a gate with its lips?”

  Galen laughed and helped himself to a waffle. “We had to get a combination lock, but that only worked until he learned his numbers. Finally wised up and got a key lock.”

  Jimmy wasn’t listening. Deflated, he was in no mood for jokes. That must have been exactly what Lodestar had done. He should have spent the night in the barn, watching him. How could he have had that horse in his grip a second time, only to lose him? What were the chances he would get him back a third time?

  “I’m going to get ready for church,” Naomi said. Before she left the room, she turned and said, “Jimmy, if you change your mind about breakfast, you just help yourself.”

  Galen poured warm maple syrup over his waffle. “Where’d you find him?”

  Jimmy watched the syrup run into the pockets of Galen’s waffle. Maybe he should reconsider breakfast. Naomi was a fine cook and it was hard for a man to think straight on an empty stomach. “The trader had him. Said the horse had made his way back to him.”

  Galen froze, fork suspended in the air speared onto a bite of waffle. He put down his fork and made a small sighing sound, as if he’d heard this story before.

  “What?” Jimmy took the plate of remaining waffles and poured maple syrup on top. Just the smell of the crisp waffle, smothered in melted butter and maple syrup, was lifting his spirits.

  “Jimmy, you’re never going to find that horse again. Even if you do, you’ll never keep him.”

  Jimmy finished swallowing his bite. “What makes you say such bleak and gloomy things? This is why folks are scared of you, Galen.”

  Galen lifted his dark eyebrows. “You need to start thinking less like a man blinded by love and more like a horse trainer. There are plenty of other horses in the world.”

  “None like Lodestar.”

  “I’ll help. We’ll find another. Might take some time, but we’ll get you a stud.”

  Jimmy finished off the waffles and eyed the bowl of scrambled eggs. He was definitely feeling more cheerful after eating something. If he had been smart enough to track Lodestar down a second time, surely he could find him a third time. “You are wrong, my friend, and I am going to prove it to you.”

  It was strange, thought Bethany, that you could go to sleep thinking one way, and awake the following morning thinking quite another. And so it was with her opinion about working at the Sisters’ House. “I’ve changed my mind,” she would say to Jimmy Fisher after church later today, if she could talk to him without anyone noticing. After all, she had her reputation to uphold. “I’ll work for those old ladies.”

  Seated in a swept clean barn across from the men on wooden, backless benches, Bethany happened to steal a glimpse at Jimmy Fisher and was struck senseless by those blue, blue eyes. But as Bethany was here to worship God, she tried not to think about the color of Jimmy’s eyes, or how he had rescued her last night from near disaster at the Stoney Ridge Bar & Grill and then acted like he was a knight in shining armor, which he wasn’t. Then he caught sight of her peeking over at him a second time and gave her an audacious wink with a smile dipped in honey, which made her blush despite her best effort to keep her composure.

  That Jimmy Fisher was no good and low down, with a bad character to boot.

  He just sat across the room grinning like he always did, prouder than ever that he had made her flustered.

  She lifted her chin a notch and turned her attention to the minister, who was preaching of days long ago, of a time when the Plain People suffered terribly for their faith. Sometimes Bethany listened to these old familiar stories. Sometimes she just let the words float around her while she drifted away on her thoughts. A barn swallow fluttered through a missing board to disappear into its nest in the rafters.

  The minister was preaching now of how some of their ancestors had been driven from their homes and chased across Europe. Some had been burned alive, others whipped or stoned. Tongues were severed, hands and feet. She shuddered. She couldn’t imagine feeling so passionate about something that she would be willing to be tortured for it, and that left her feeling guilty. Even today, the minister explained, there were hardships to suffer. Even in this land of plenty, the place where they had come to hundreds of years ago, to find freedom to worship God. Even here, there was pain, there was loss.

  That, Bethany understood.

  Her hands curled into a tight ball in her lap. Whenever she thought about her father, feelings of anger welled up inside. How could he? How dare he? He hurt so many people who trusted him. How could he have betrayed Rose and Tobe? And Jake too? All innocent people who cared about him. And then . . . he died. Rose insisted it was an accident, but Bethany had plenty of doubts. Death was an easy out. Her father was the very opposite of these martyred ancestors, who were willing to suffer for what they believed to be right and true. Her father . . . he was a coward.

  So was her mother, for that matter. They both vanished when life took a sharp turn.

  The minister’s slow, singsongy voice was winding down to an end. Much time must have passed while Bethany’s thoughts stayed on her father. She tried to shake off the unsettled feelings those thoughts left her with and push them away—that was why she didn’t let herself think about him very often. Her gaze fell to her lap. She put a pleat in her apron with her fingers, then smoothed it out with her palm. She could smell the coffee brewing for the fellowship meal after the service. She listened to the chickens clucking in the yard through the open window, to the baas of the goats and the bleats of the sheep out in the pasture. During the silent and solemn moments of waiting for the minister to dismiss everyone, Bethany pulled her thoughts and feelings back together, like cinching a rope. It was much more enjoyable to think about Jake. Jimmy too.

  After church, Bethany walked out of the cool darkness of the barn and blinked against the sudden wash of sunlight. Naomi waved to her to help serve tables. The women always served the men first. After the men had eaten, Naomi and Bethany grabbed a clean plate and sat next to each other at the end of the table. As Bethany spread church peanut butter over her bread, she asked Naomi if she had ever been kissed by a boy.

  Naomi held
her hands to her mouth, shocked. “Heavens, no!”

  Bethany handed her the slice of slathered bread.

  “Have you?” Naomi whispered.

  She nodded.

  “Oh, Bethany! Before you are married? Or even promised to someone? Oh my.” She looked terribly concerned.

  Suddenly, Bethany felt like a fallen woman. She often felt such pricks of conscience around her friend. Naomi was so pure and innocent and good and Bethany was so . . . tangled up and filled with doubts. “Well, it was the day I told Jake Hertzler that I was moving away. We were upset, you see, and didn’t know when we would see each other again.”

  Naomi’s face grew studious and she looked back at her plate. “Of course,” she said at last, and sighed with relief. “Of course, it was a terribly emotional time. You were both overcome with sorrow. I’m sure it wasn’t anything more than that. Just a heartfelt goodbye kiss.”

  Bethany nodded righteously, but she couldn’t look her friend in the eyes again. She wondered what Naomi’s reaction would be if she knew that she and Jake had kissed quite a bit, sometimes as passionately as if he was saying goodbye before heading off to sail the seven seas. As recently as a few days ago.

  Some things, she decided, were best left unsaid.

  13

  Barn swallows darted in and out of the ceiling rafters. Galen had a mare’s left rear hoof up on his thigh and was scraping caked dirt out of it with a hoof pick. Last evening, he noticed the mare looked a little lame and he wanted to check on her first thing this morning.

  “Hello, neighbor.”

  Galen straightened up at the sound of Rose’s voice. It was Monday, it was early, and he was in need of a shave. He wished he’d had a little warning that she was coming by.

  Then he checked himself. Since when had he started worrying about what he looked like? Rose had seen him plenty of times looking pretty bad. Why did it suddenly matter? It shouldn’t.

  But it did.

  He looked over the mare’s neck at Rose and wondered how she was able to look fresh and pretty at this hour. He had a bunch of sisters—they sure didn’t look like that at the crack of dawn. “Morning, Rose.”

  He could feel her eyes on him as he exchanged the hoof pick for a brush and began to run it over the mare’s neck and withers. “Something on your mind on this rainy morning?”

  “That coyote took down one of my sheep last night. An eagle was working on the carcass.” She was trying to sound matter of fact, but Galen saw her shudder. It was a gruesome thing, what a coyote could do to a sheep. “I was hoping Jimmy wouldn’t mind helping me move it before Sammy wakes up. It was his pet sheep.”

  Galen put down the hoof pick. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Isn’t Jimmy here?”

  “No. He’s too busy chasing a horse he’ll never catch.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Galen straightened. “Two Saturdays ago, Jimmy decided he was going to be a horse breeder. He bought a colt off a trader that he thought would be his foundation stallion. Just like that.” He clicked his fingers together. “No vet check. No paperwork about the colt’s bloodlines. Not even a bill of sale.” He shook his head. “My grandmother Jorie used to keep charts and graphs of her Percherons’ traits, trying to find just the right match.”

  “Jimmy’s learning a lot from you. Maybe it’ll all turn out just fine.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. The horse is gone.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Gone? What happened?”

  “Jumped the paddock and took off. That was the first time. The second time—he slipped out of his stall.”

  “Twice? The horse has gotten loose twice?”

  “Twice.” He lifted his chin. “Doesn’t that sound a little fishy to you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s an old scam called ‘The Runner.’ The trader sells the horse to a naïve buyer, but he’s trained the horse to return to him with some kind of signal—a whistle or a clicker. Then he scoops the horse up in his trailer and sells him to the next easy target.”

  She looked at him, eyes wide. “Poor Jimmy.”

  Galen rolled his eyes. “Save your pity. That boy needs to learn everything the hard way. This is a lesson he’ll never forget.”

  Disappointment showed raw in her face. “Galen.”

  “What?”

  “He needs you. You could help him.”

  “What?” The word came out as a tiny squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What? He hasn’t been asking for my advice.”

  “Still, he’s just a boy.”

  “He’s twenty-two. Maybe twenty-three. Plenty of Amish boys have married by that age.”

  Her head snapped up. “You weren’t.”

  Galen set his jaw at a stubborn tilt. “No. But I was entirely different—”

  “Boys need time to grow up and become men.” She ran a hand down the mare’s long neck. “Jimmy reminds me of Tobe.”

  Galen gave a hard, short laugh, which caused Rose to give him a sharp look. Tobe Schrock? Jimmy Fisher reminded her of her stepson? If that were true, they might be waiting a very long time. Tobe Schrock had never impressed Galen. The last time he had seen him was a few days before he vanished into thin air. Dean Schrock had brought a goat home for the little boys but hadn’t thought to buy feed for it, so he sent Luke over to borrow a bale of hay. When Galen reached the barn, he struggled to get the door open with the hay bale on his shoulder. Inside the barn was young Tobe Schrock, idle as usual, though there was plenty of work to be done. He sat on a wooden barrel playing a game of solitaire, using an upturned nail keg for a table. He glanced up at Galen, not even bothering to get off his duff to open the barn door. It evidently didn’t bother Tobe to play while others worked, a fact that annoyed Galen. He was tempted to kick the barrel and send him sprawling. He hadn’t, of course, but he had sorely wanted to.

  “You of all people should be able to understand Jimmy. He lost his father when he was young, and his mother, well, you know what Edith Fisher is like. He’s trying to become a man and he needs you in his life. You should be helping him find his way in the world, not feeling smug like he deserved what he got.”

  How was it suddenly Galen’s fault that Jimmy did something stupid?

  “Promise me you’ll talk to him.”

  Galen wasn’t about to make any such promise. Since when did the future of Jimmy Fisher become his responsibility? He was minding his own business when Deacon Abraham interfered—he hadn’t even wanted an apprentice in the first place. And now Rose made it sound like it was his job to be a father figure to the boy.

  “Sense gets wasted on people until they learn to ask for help. Jimmy has to learn. It’s part of life,” he said, knowing how callous his words sounded to her.

  “I just don’t understand you men. You won’t listen to anyone’s good advice, especially if it comes from a woman. You’re all alike. Stubborn and proud and independent and unbending. Just like . . .” She seemed about to say more, but thought better of it and clamped her lips shut. “Sometimes,” she added, “you have to keep talking until a person listens.”

  Her gaze met his over the horse’s head. The silence between them took on a prickly tension, like a strand of wire pulled tightly between two fence posts.

  As she turned to leave, Galen reached out and grabbed her sleeve. Her eyes were fixed on the hand that held her. In as gentle a voice as he could manage, he said, “I’ll make sure that coyote doesn’t trouble you again.”

  “It’s part of life,” Galen had told her.

  What part? Rose wanted to ask. The part where a sweet little sheep had its belly ripped open by a vicious coyote, where a mother-in-law turned into a child, and a boy lost his dream of finding the perfect horse? How difficult did life have to get before someone stepped in? To come alongside and make it better. So much for living the Plain life, where one never needed to face life alone, never needed to be afraid.

  Being Plain never meant being perfect,
she could hear Bishop Elmo’s voice say. Just yesterday in church, he had said it again. Only God is perfect.

  She didn’t expect perfection, but this hardness Galen had for Jimmy, for Tobe—it nettled her. How could Galen possibly understand? Rose thought. He wasn’t married. He wasn’t a parent. He hadn’t raised a boy to become a man, only to discover that he had turned into somebody else entirely.

  In many ways, Galen went out of his way to help her, as a neighbor, as a friend. But there was a part of him that remained aloof, separate, a little cold. It seemed nearly impossible for him to share his thoughts, his feelings. Sometimes, he seemed to her like a walnut that couldn’t be cracked open with a sledgehammer. When she tried, like she just had, she saw the expression in his face change in a flash—surprised, confused, then annoyed—before he stiffened up like wet leather left in the sun.

  It dawned on her that she didn’t know how old Galen actually was, that he might be closer to Jimmy Fisher’s age than to hers. Imagine that. Not all that much older than Jimmy Fisher. And yet, they were worlds apart.

  On Monday morning, a day full of problems stretched in front of Bethany. First, she was going with Naomi to the fabric store to get some material for a new dress. Naomi went straightaway to the solid colors, but Bethany stopped by a lightweight fabric of bright blue waves. She stroked the printed fabric and was amazed at how soft it felt, as soft as the velvet nose on Rose’s new colt. She felt a pang of longing.

  Normally, Bethany didn’t spend much time thinking about all the things she had given up after moving in to her grandmother’s home: cell phones, cars, and lights that flipped on and off with a switch. There was usually a way to get the same thing done, even if it took a little longer. But it was another story entirely when it came to printed fabric.

  Naomi came up behind her and said, “I can’t imagine why any woman would wear a fabric like that. Men would stop seeing the real beauty of a woman if she were dressed in that.”