Disappearances

by Linda Byler

  “He’s as bad as his wife,” Mark finished.

  Sadie instantly changed the subject. “But, Mark, you know what? If Neil would just stay away now, I think Merv would have a chance. But I’m afraid when Anna is better, she’ll return to the youth’s events, the singings and suppers, and then what? Huh?”

  “Oh, don’t worry yourself about it. As I said, that Fred and Ketty are something else. But, you know how goot-manich that David Detweiler is? Of course, he said it’s all right with him, they voted on it, and old Fred got his way. Sure would have liked to see it go the other way, but who am I to say? We don’t have any children yet, so, of course, it’s all right. Whatever the older men decide.”

  “And, Mark, you know what? If someone could put a bug in Merv’s ear, he could just ask her for a date. Anna, you know, she might say yes. She just might. Neil isn’t going to ask her. Do you think Neil will ask her out? I mean, for a real date?”

  “I don’t know, Sadie. But the thing that gets me, look how many families will have to pay transportation now. Even at five or six dollars a day for each family, at 130 days, that’s over a thousand dollars. Fred should have thought of that. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if we have another meeting.”

  “Probably. Why do you think Neil doesn’t come visit Anna?”

  “Likely because he drives that old clunker around.”

  When they turned into the driveway, the deep barking of Wolf welcomed them, a sound Sadie had grown to cherish. He was such a good, faithful dog, so devoted to Mark, easily adopting Sadie as his second master.

  Sadie hopped off the buggy and went to say good night to Paris, after helping Mark unhitch Truman. He had a nasty habit of running out of the shafts before the britchment snap was released, which could result in a bucking horse and broken shafts, among other things.

  Where was Paris?

  “Hey, Paris. Are you lying down already?”

  Sadie walked to her stall, peering through the vertical, steel railing, certain of seeing Paris standing in the darkened area. Only the headlights gleaming through the door illuminated the forebay, but it was enough light for Mark to unharness his horse and put him in his stall.

  “Paris?” The fear began in the pit of her stomach, taking her breath away. No. It couldn’t be. The horse thieves were caught. It was all over. This could not be.

  Chapter 9

  BUT IT WAS. PARIS had been taken out of her stall, the door closed and latched behind her. But what really broke Sadie’s heart was imagining how obedient Paris would have been, her large eyes questioning, unsure but obedient. She was gone. No amount of consolation did any good. Absolutely none.

  The next day Mark went to work weary from a restless night, the endless searching, Sadie’s questioning, his inability to make this right for his beloved wife. They called the police, of course, but were received with a sort of tired disbelief, as if this surely had to be a joke, which made Mark angry. Banging the receiver down into its cradle and stalking about the phone shanty muttering to himself brought a fresh onslaught of tears from his stricken wife.

  In time Sadie accepted it, gave herself up to it, in the Amish way. Paris was gone. The neighboring community kept an eye out, watched their own horses, but knew she was an extremely valuable horse, and perhaps it wasn’t the will of God that Sadie had her at all.

  Hadn’t Sam Detweiler preached last Sunday about where our treasures are, there will our hearts be also? Sadie better watch out; that palomino horse was taking the place of God. This the grandmothers discussed at the quiltings without malice, certainly not wishing any evil on Mark Sadie, just stating a fact. She surely had a streak of bad luck, that girl and her horse. They felt so sorry for poor Mark Sadie. But you know, she’ll be in the family way before long, and then what good will the horse do her? All these discussions of wisdom, wise in the ways of life, were spoken out of love and concern for Sadie’s safety.

  Sadie persuaded Mark to till the soil so she could start a garden. He thought the ground was too wet, but Sadie remained adamant, remarking that Mam already had planted her peas and onions. So Truman pulled the plow, and they evened the ground with a harrow and an old bedspring, which worked just great. Sadie was ecstatic. Mark put in stakes attached to a heavy string, and she planted a pound of peas in perfectly aligned rows.

  They bent side by side, poking the papery, yellow onion sets into the damp soil, covering them loosely with the hoes they had been given as wedding gifts. When Sadie insisted on planting the red beets as well, Mark gave in, shaking his head in disagreement, saying it was too early. They would need them pickled, preserved in quart jars for church services at their house.

  “Oh, imagine, Mark! We’re an old married couple. We’ll have church services at our house. The deacon will announce in services that church will be at Mark Peight’s, and all the women will offer to bring something!”

  Mark grinned.“We’ll have to have church in the basement.”

  “I figured.”

  She told Dorothy that sometimes she heard Paris whinny from the barn and ran down to see if she was back, but she never was. Dorothy shook her head.

  “I’m tellin’ you, though, yer better off. That Paris is a peck o’ trouble. Ya don’t need her.”

  Not even Erma Keim understood. “Why a horse? Why trouble yourself? She’s gone. Good riddance. You’re still alive, and, you know, you could be dead.”

  Dorothy said Erma didn’t have a very nice way with words after she went out to rake the lawn of its winter debris.

  “I mean, she has about as much tact as a steam engine. It’s why she don’t have no husband. Imagine the poor guy’s life?”

  “I know.”

  Sadie was snapping green beans to cook with new potatoes and ham. She sat by the window, watching Erma’s long, powerful strokes of the rake, her red hair a veritable flame in the strong sunlight, her covering blowing off repeatedly, which she dashed after and pinned back on her head.

  Sadie was almost finished when a dark figure approaching Erma Keim from the barn caught her attention. He wasn’t wearing a hat, which wasn’t unusual in the Montana wind, which caught hats in its grasp and whirled them away without warning, tore off coverings, and made a complete mockery of hairspray.

  Steven Weaver! The man from Indiana!

  “Oh, my word! Come here, Dorothy!” Sadie hissed excitedly.

  “Can’t!” Dorothy called, stirring her famous white sauce for baked macaroni and cheese.

  “Turn the burner off!”

  Dorothy complied, walking heavily to stand by Sadie’s chair. Slowly she breathed in, then out. Steven walked up to Erma, stuck out his hand, a broad grin on his friendly face. Erma looked at him, then brought her arm back, her elbow protruding under the sleeve of her red dress and met his hand with a solid smack.

  Sadie winced, and Dorothy shook with a deep belly laugh.

  “What a giraffe! She don’t even know how to shake hands! Especially with a man.”

  When Steven dropped his hand, it didn’t look as if he minded how firm her handshake had been. He looked delighted, if anything. Their tall forms stood in the middle of the lawn, talking, the wind whipping his hair and the legs of his trousers, her skirt twisting and flapping and her red hair a complete disaster, the pins sliding out yet again.

  She was laughing when her covering went flying off. She grabbed desperately for it but could not catch the elusive object. Just then Reuben came dashing by at his usual unsafe speed on the riding mower, caught sight of the rolling white object and slammed on the brakes, leaned back, his arms stiff as a board to the steering wheel, as he brought the mower to a halt, inches from the white covering. Reuben swung his legs over, hopped off, grabbed the covering, and brought it to Erma.

  Steven was bent at the waist, slapping his knee with pure merriment, watching intently as Erma tried to pin it back on, taking extra pins from her belt. She had to turn her back to Steven, the wind coming in that direction, as she struggled to pin it in place.

>   “Come here!” Sadie hissed.

  Dorothy had been on her way back to her cream sauce, but she turned immediately, peering eagerly through the window just as Steven reached up to hold her covering in place so Erma could pin it.

  “Oh, my lands!” Dorothy breathed.

  Sadie watched, spellbound, when she saw how flustered Erma became, picking up her rake, catching her covering strings, looking down to her shoes, then to Reuben, who stood observing them both with innocent curiosity. He said something, and Erma slapped his back so hard he took a few steps forward, then laughed.

  “Oh my, she must be really worked up,” Sadie said. “She almost knocked Reuben on his face!”

  “What’d I tell you? If that Indiana chap knows his good, he’ll hightail it right back to his home state. She’ll make his life miserable. Mark my words! Miserable!”

  But she had a light in her eyes and was humming a silly little love song when she returned to her cream sauce, dipping and waving her spoon in time to her song.

  Sadie’s life remained completely peaceful, except for the ache in her heart about Paris, who had disappeared that night leaving no trace, much the same as so many horses before her. The sun gently drew the seeds into sprouts that pushed their way up through the hard, wet soil in late spring. The nights were still crisp and cold, the air brisk and snappy when Sadie hung laundry on the line in the early morning, that unceasing Montana wind tugging at the heavy towels and dresses as she pinned them securely, sometimes needing more than one clothespin on each corner to ensure her peace of mind while she was at work down at the ranch.

  Erma Keim remained a constant source of entertainment, spicing her days with a dash of peppery comments, clashing with Dorothy’s bristling wit like a bad summer thunderstorm.

  In the evening Mark would lean back and howl with laughter when Sadie related an especially bizarre incident, but of late he had become increasingly withdrawn yet again. It was always the same. First she would blame herself. Scouring the past days, even weeks, for a certain thing she had said or done, enabling the black cloud to hover over his head, raining down the sadness, the dissociation, that extracting of himself to another, darker place. She dreaded it.

  She prattled senselessly, as incapable of changing the descending cloud as changing the horizon or the order of nature. Still she tried to bring him back, knowing it wouldn’t work, then went about her work with a lump in her throat, knowing she had let him down yet again.

  It was especially bad this time. He slept on the couch, his face to the back, his knees drawn up almost to his chin. His dirty work clothes reeked of barns, horse manure, and other scents that Sadie could only describe as dirty.

  No amount of wheedling would make one stitch of difference. First, after her shower, she sat on the space where his knees left an indentation and put an arm across his wide back. Slowly she began a relaxing massage, asking him softly if he felt ill, or if his head hurt, willing him to break the silence and tell her what had happened to bring this on. A rude shrugging of the shoulders, a grunt, a burrowing into the couch cushions, followed by a long drawn-out sigh was her only answer.

  So she got up, went to the bedroom, groped around till she felt her box of long matches, struck one along the side of the box harder than was necessary, took off the glass lamp chimney, turned up the wick, and lit it. Tears dropped onto the surface of the nightstand. Replacing the chimney, she pulled back the quilt and top sheet and slid into bed with her book of the week. Swiping viciously at her eyes, she opened the book, but all the words swam together, a black-and-white blurb of unreadable nonsense that only made her cry harder.

  Was it the lack of a good, hot supper on Thursday? Had she become too snippy about leaving his soiled boots beside the stove on Wednesday? That was likely what it was. She would have to remember next time. Place a rug along the back of the stove for his boots, then shake out the accumulation that hardened on the soles afterward. She’d have to be more careful.

  Having reached a reasonable conclusion for herself made all the difference, so she laid her book down, blew out the lamp, and soon fell asleep. You just had to know how to work at these things. Didn’t even the experts say marriage wasn’t easy?

  When Mark disappeared on Saturday morning, she presumed he went to town, or forgot to tell her he had a few horses to shoe, or went out back to chop more firewood. She cleaned her house all morning, starting in the back, throwing open every bedroom window, allowing the spring breezes to enter, filling the room with the sweet smell of new growth, rain-washed earth, and spring flowers. She swept the wide-plank oak floors with the soft broom she had just purchased at Fred Ketty’s new dry goods store. All Amish women had to have a Soft Sweep broom. Inexpensive, the bristles so soft and pliable, it allowed a much cleaner sweep than those stiff bristled ones at Walmart.

  The thing was, English women used vacuum cleaners, which whirred across the floor and sucked up the dirt and dust and household accumulation of questionable things, like pet hair and dander and bugs and spiders. When she cleaned at the ranch, she dusted first, then ran the powerful vacuum cleaner across the carpeting or hardwood floors.

  At home she swept first, raising little puffs of dust and woolies from under the bed, making a pile outside the bedroom door before collecting it in a dustpan, then liberally spraying her cloth with Pledge furniture polish. She removed the candles, lamp, tray of lotions and colognes and worked the cloth energetically across the surface. When everything was replaced, she used the Swiffer, picking up any dirt and dust the broom had missed.

  There. Now for the bathroom.

  At the ranch, she had to dry the huge garden tub, then spray it with Tilex. Never anything else. Barbara Caldwell considered it the best product, so Sadie used it and never said a word. It was Barbara’s bathroom, and if she was happy with the result of her cleaner, it was good.

  But at home Sadie used cheap old Comet. The dry stuff you shook out of a tall green container, wet a cloth, and scrubbed away. It never scratched anything she knew of and had a cleaner, smoother finish. No water spots.

  She was on her hands and knees, scrubbing happily away at her new white bathtub, the water running, when she thought she heard someone calling her name. Quickly, she yanked down on the lever, stopping the flow of water. She stepped outside the door, looked left and right, but couldn’t see anyone. Wolf hadn’t barked, had he?

  “Sadie!” There. Someone was calling.

  Wiping her hands on her apron, she hurried to the front door and was gratified to see Mark standing by the barn door, waving a piece of paper.

  “What?” she called, so glad he was talking to her.

  “I’m going to the ranch.”

  “Okay.”

  She stepped back, eager to finish cleaning the bathtub. Why did he let her know now? He had been gone all morning without letting her know of his whereabouts. Pushing back the resentment, she tried to think of more pleasant subjects. She wished he’d finish the porch steps so she could wrap up her landscaping project. She could hardly wait to plant shrubs and flowers, especially since Dorothy had offered to take her to Rhinesville to a huge nursery and greenhouse combination. She promised the use of Jim’s truck so she could buy anything she wanted, even trees.

  The thought of Dorothy weaving that rusted pickup truck in and out of traffic, her short legs and arms barely able to reach the pedals or the steering wheel, driving the same way she did everything else—as fast as possible—talking all the while, definitely caused Sadie a few misgivings. If only she wouldn’t maneuver the turns like that—seemingly on two wheels, sometimes spinning gravel from under the tires when her foot hit the gas pedal too firmly. But still, it was a free trip.

  That was an awful bunch of dust and woolies on her broom. Stepping outside, she whacked it down on the porch railing to loosen them, and after a distinct crack, was left holding half a handle, the remainder of her broom lying in the mud below. Oh, no. That was the only broom she had except a porch broom, and she certainly
did not want to use that. So she decided she needed a few dresses for summer, and she’d hitch up Truman and drive to Fred Ketty’s store. The cleaning would have to wait till she returned.

  Smoothing back her hair, she pinned on a clean, white covering, grabbed her purse, and was out the door.

  The loss of Paris was always worse at the barn. She hated going there and struggled to keep her eyes from wandering to the empty stall. The currycomb still contained honey-colored hair from Paris’s coat. She raked it out with her fingers, savored the softness as she sifted it between her thumb and forefinger, slowly letting it fall to the concrete floor of the forebay. Setting her mouth determinedly, she brushed Truman hard, willing the dark brown horsehair to drive away the endless longing for Paris.

  She knew, now, that Paris was a very valuable horse, so perhaps it was for the best. She’d be in good hands, likely making some rancher wealthy with that bloodline of her past. She’d have to give up. Wasn’t that the way of it? What you couldn’t change, you had to accept.

  Throwing the harness across Truman’s back, she adjusted it, fastened all the snaps and buckles, the collar riding well on his thick neck. Leading him to the buggy, she told him to stay, then hurried back to lift the shafts. There was always that small space of time when you were never sure if the horse you were hitching up would stand obediently until the shafts were lifted. Even then, if he had a mind to, he could have gone running and kicking, free of doing his duty of pulling the buggy. Truman was well trained and, with a slight tug of the britchment strap and a command of “Back,” he responded, stepping back lightly, fitting between the shafts neatly.

  Truman was in high spirits, and Sadie’s arms felt as if they had quite a workout by the time Fred Ketty’s store came into view.

  That Fred. Sadie smiled to herself as she noticed the gray siding on one side of the building, white on another, and beige-colored siding on the front. Likely he’d been scavenging the local lumberyard to build his wife her dry goods store. The dubious-looking stainless steel chimney poked its way out of the black shingled room, a thin, white column of smoke whirling away on the breeze. Why a fire in the stove? Sadie barely needed her sweater. The door stuck, so Sadie shoved harder, entering the store with a bang and two quick steps.