“Come on, Priscilla. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
She took a step toward me and looked me straight in the eyes. “You’re the one who doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes. Really.”
“All right. How about this then? How about I tell you what I’ve figured out and you tell me how far off the mark I am? How about that?”
I expected her eyes to fill with dread at the idea that I’d put the puzzle together, but she just crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Fine. Tell me.”
The few times I had envisioned having this needed conversation with Priscilla, I had imagined it being a little less fractious. A lot less fractious. I had pictured my gently telling her what I’d come to surmise about the day her mother died, and her crying softly as the weight of six years of holding it in fell off all around her. I never guessed we’d be standing in a horse barn with arms crossed, voices raised, and tempers flared.
Nonetheless, I prayed a silent prayer for favor and hoped God would grant it. In that second of prayer, I sensed my anger subside a bit, thankfully.
“I am not trying to make this worse for you. I’m really not. I just think you need to face the truth of what happened here and move past it.”
“Tell me,” she repeated, with only slightly less rancor.
I hesitated. “Your family thinks you couldn’t hear your mother calling for you and that you’d slipped out to the barn but forgot to tell her. That’s why they think you’ve no reason to believe it was your fault. But I think maybe you did hear her calling for you. I think maybe you and your mamm had an argument that afternoon. That’s why you were supposed to be up in your room, right? Any other fourteen-year-old girl would have been in the kitchen with her mother while she was canning, but the argument ended with you being sent to your room, and you were angry, so you snuck out to the barn. And you did hear her calling for you, but you didn’t answer because you were still angry and didn’t want to talk to her then. You didn’t know the reason she was calling for you was because she’d cut herself and needed help. So you didn’t go in. She stopped calling for you, and you just stayed in the barn, didn’t you? You didn’t know she’d fallen down the stairs until you heard Roseanna. That’s why you think it’s your fault.”
While I spoke, Priscilla’s facial expression did not change. I saw her eyes widen only slightly when I said I believed she and her mother had argued.
After I was finished, I waited for her to respond. I expected either outright denial or tearful confession. I was confident I had hit the nail on the head.
She didn’t respond, so I spoke again, my tone as gentle as I could make it. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
She looked away for just a second, as though to gather her thoughts. When she turned back to me, her words were even and low and without a trace of anger or anguish. “Not exactly, no,” she said, but then her face took on an oddly determined expression, her eyes hard, her chin firm. “You want to know what really happened that day?”
I nodded once.
She grabbed Voyager’s halter and began to maneuver him out of the stall. “When was the last time you rode Willow?”
“What?”
“Can you ride Willow? Can you ride her bareback?”
I hadn’t ridden Willow since I was a teenager. It just wasn’t something Amish men did. “I suppose so.”
“Then come with me and I will show you.”
TWENTY-SIX
When we were outside on the gravel, Priscilla led Voyager toward the back paddock. I followed with Willow, who naturally gravitated toward the railing the closer we got to it, thinking she was being led there for a late afternoon stretch. I eased her away, only to have her nose me toward the gate when we were about to pass it.
“Hang tight, girl. We’re not going into the paddock today.”
Willow nickered a response that was hard for me to read. She was either excited to be doing something unexpected or wary of a bend in routine.
When we passed the paddock fencing and she could no longer see it, Willow settled back into an easy walk again. I could tell we were headed toward a dirt trail that ran through the Kinsingers’ back cornfields. Amos, Mahlon, and Owen grew these acres for silage only, thank goodness. Picking season wouldn’t kick in for a few more weeks, which meant there probably wasn’t anyone out here right now to observe what we were doing.
“Have you ridden Willow before?” Priscilla said, as the Kinsinger houses and buildings fell away behind us.
“It’s been a while.”
“She won’t throw you?”
I honestly didn’t know what Willow would do if I attempted to ride her. I sure hoped she would remember the last time we had done it, and that it had been fun. But that was back in my rumspringa days, when some buddies and I had started riding our horses into the back country using a couple of old saddles we’d bought at a mud sale. We just did it for sport and to sample one of those friend’s uneducated attempts at brewing his own beer. It was stupid, riding off as though we were cowboys out West, drinking beer and pretending we liked to smoke cigarettes. Whenever I thought of the last time I rode Willow, I thought of how foolish we had been.
“I don’t think she will. The last time was with a saddle, though.”
“You don’t need a saddle,” Priscilla responded quickly. “You just need to know how to sit. Do you?”
“Sure.”
The Kinsinger farm buildings were no longer in view, but farm buildings belonging to other people—albeit from a distance—were. When we got on our horses, anybody out in their garden or field who had good vision would be able to see two riders on horseback. Two Amish riders on horseback. Nervousness began to creep over me at the thought of someone recognizing me with an Amish young woman, on our way to apparently nowhere civilized. What was I doing?
The Amish frowned on riding horses for several reasons, beyond the fact that buggies were more practical for families and for toting things around. Horseback riding was also considered by some to be a worldly form of sport, not to mention an area for pride and—for Priscilla at least—immodesty. Bottom line, as a church member, I shouldn’t have been out here.
And yet, given the extenuating circumstances, this could be considered a sort of gray area—or at least that’s what I was telling myself now. As Christians, we were to love one another and bear one other’s burdens. If this was what it was going to take to get Priscilla to share her particular burden with me, then maybe it was a risk worth taking. At least my bishop was a good and reasonable man, the kind who listened to every side and took in all the facts before acting on accusations.
But that didn’t mean Priscilla and I shouldn’t be careful.
I considered suggesting that she and I wait a few hours, when we could do this under cover of darkness. I held my tongue, though, fearing that any delay might cause her to have second thoughts about sharing the truth with me. Better to risk being seen on horseback than to lose out on this opportunity entirely.
A bend in the farm trail led us to a grove of ancient sycamore trees, mostly living, though a few had succumbed to lightning or wind storms. Several limbs lay strewn about, and sawn off trunks revealed that someone had harvested the fallen trees for firewood. Priscilla stopped at a sizeable stump. She led Voyager alongside it. Then she kicked off her shoes, stood barefoot on the stump, and hiked up her dress past her knees. I started to turn away but then realized she was wearing cut-off trousers under her skirt. She saw me looking at her.
“Owen gave them to me.” She lifted herself easily onto Voyager’s bare back, swinging her right leg over as though she had done it a hundred times before. She probably had. Maybe not on Voyager, but on other horses. He tossed up his head and pawed the dirt a few strokes.
“Easy, boy,” Priscilla said gently as she leaned her head toward the horse’s long neck and stroked him. “Let’s wait for Jake.”
“Does Owe
n know you made riding britches out of his old trousers?” I asked with a nervous laugh, not sure if that solved the modesty issue or not.
“Owen doesn’t ask such personal questions.” She lifted the reins into her lap, pressed her legs gently to Voyager’s side, and eased him away. “Use the stump if you think Willow’s going to balk at your climbing onto her back.”
Without stirrups or a recent experience of me hoisting myself onto Willow, I decided that was probably a good idea. I led her to the stump, breathed a prayer for protection, told Willow what an amazing gal she was, and heaved myself on her back. She immediately swung her head up in surprise and danced a few steps toward Voyager and Priscilla. I cinched the reins to gain more control.
“Whoa, there, Willow. Whoa. Whoa,” I said as she pranced about in a circle, obviously needing a moment to familiarize herself with the feeling of having a man on her back.
“Don’t press your legs to her side to stay on. She’ll think you’re telling her to go,” Priscilla said as she and Voyager calmly watched Willow and me. “Feel her beneath you. Let her feel you. When we start to canter, rock your hips forward toward her ears to absorb the bounce of her trot. If you squeeze your legs, she’ll take off.”
“I know how to ride a horse,” I said, more defensively than I wanted to.
“Okay, but right at this moment you look as if you don’t trust her. You need to relax, Jake. She can tell you’re wondering what she’s going to do. If I can see from ten feet away that you’re uptight about her, then you can be sure she senses it too.”
“I’m not uptight!” I shot back.
“Right.”
I hated to admit that she was correct, but it had been too long since I had ridden Willow. I had lost my confidence, not just in myself to ride, but in her to carry me.
“Okay, you win,” I sighed as I attempted to loosen my grip, my legs, my sit, my control.
“It’s not a competition,” Priscilla responded. “Feel Willow beneath you. You will sense when she believes you are ready.”
“When I’m ready?” I retorted and Willow yanked on the reins in my hands. It took a stretch of seconds, but I finally realized what Priscilla meant. As I allowed myself to think of Willow as my partner and not my vehicle, I also began to sense she was starting to treat me as less her rider and more her companion. I had never really considered Willow as an equal when it came to riding. She had been my chauffeur too long. My employee. But now, sitting atop her bare back, I could feel my horse’s strength and power. I also sensed her vulnerability, her desire to be safe.
In that sense, she was no different than any of us. No different than me.
“Good girl,” I said, as the connection between us strengthened and Willow settled into her reins.
I turned to Priscilla. “I think we’re ready.”
“Do you remember what I said about sitting the canter without a saddle?”
I didn’t.
“When Willow starts to canter, rock your hips forward toward her ears to absorb the bounce. You’ll hurt her if you don’t. And don’t squeeze your legs to keep your balance. She won’t know what you want, especially if you pull back on the reins at the same time.”
“Okay,” I said, hoping I could keep my balance after so long a gap between rides.
“Do you know where Blue Rock Creek is?”
I looked up and toward the rolling landscape in front of us. Owen had taken me there to hunt crawdads when we were kids. It was a good two miles away and nestled in between farm holdings. The good news was that it hadn’t been hard to get to if you stuck to the trail, sight unseen. I hoped it was still that way now.
I nodded.
“Can you find it if we get separated?”
“Separated? It’s not that far.”
“Ya,” she said, grabbing the strings of her kapp and tying them in a quick bow under her chin. “But Voyager’s going to gallop there.”
I laughed. “Can’t control your horse?”
“He knows I like it. And I know he does too.”
And with that, Priscilla clicked her cheek and pressed her legs to Voyager’s side. He took off without so much as a whinny. In seconds they were a hundred yards away.
“Great. All right, Willow. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
I tapped her side with the heels of my boots, and she reared up a bit and then cantered off, like a little steam locomotive puffing out of a train station. At first I had my rhythm all wrong. I was sitting her too tight and our bodies weren’t in sync. She was hurting me and I had to be hurting her. I made a concerted effort to do what Priscilla said and timed my upward hip movement to coincide with Willow’s. A few strides later, we seemed to find each other. She increased her speed, and at once I could tell that she longed to run. What horse didn’t if given the freedom to? I could see Priscilla on the trail ahead, her kapp flopping at the back of her neck by its ties, her bare feet comfortably at Voyager’s sides. The two of them looked like one seamless creature. They would soon be a speck if I didn’t let Willow gallop to keep up.
I pressed my legs to her flanks and said the words she was probably itching to hear. “Giddy up!”
My horse joyfully obeyed, and though it took me a second to recalibrate my hip movements with hers, soon we were flying down the trail in pursuit of our companions. I felt my hat lift off my head and dance away, but I didn’t look back to see where it landed. My lungs filled with the sweetness of the rushing air around me as Willow ran, her neck stretched out in front, the dirt at her pounding feet flying up like powdered snow in winter.
I couldn’t remember ever having felt so invigorated and alive. It was as if everything around me and within me was suddenly charged with energy and clarity. It almost took my breath away, and I wondered as we flew down the path if it was wrong somehow to feel so refreshed to the depths of my being. In truth, it was nearly intoxicating.
Yet all Willow was doing was what she’d been enabled by her Creator to do. Run. And I sat a willing passenger, in awe of this animal’s speed and power, both of which had been given to her by God. It felt like praise, rushing down the path like that. There really weren’t adequate words to describe it any other way.
In far too quick a span of time, we were descending the trail to a little valley and Blue Rock Creek. Ahead of me, Priscilla slowed Voyager to a canter and then a trot. I grudgingly followed suit. She looked behind and seemed pleased I had been able to keep up.
The creek meandered across the county, branching off here and there and changing names from mile to mile. Here, where the water was at its widest, was known as Blue Rock Creek.
As we slowed our horses to a walk, we led them closer to the banks. The creek below us was a good thirty feet across and deep enough to go wading, although I was glad no one was enjoying the cool of the day here. Trees of various types lined either side of the creek, and reeds and cattails had sprung up in the marshy patches where the water was the stillest. Dragonflies darted about, and a pair of wood ducks quacked their annoyance at our intrusion. The sun behind us had dipped low in the sky, casting golden light on the pastoral scene. The trail was just barely wide enough for me to bring Willow alongside Voyager.
“You lost your hat,” Priscilla said, turning her head to look at me.
The pins in her hair had loosened, and her kapp straggled across her back like a downed sail.
“You barely held onto yours,” I returned.
I expected her to realize then that her hair had practically fallen around her shoulders and to reach back for her kapp and hastily replace it on her head, but that’s not what she did. She just let it continue to hang by its strings, which remained tied at her neck. And as for her hair, she merely swept away a dark long lock that framed her face.
“You can probably find it on the way back,” she said.
We continued to walk our horses at a gentle pace along the top of the bank so they could cool down.
“There’s a place up ahead in the birch grove where they
can drink,” Priscilla offered.
“You’ve been here before,” I said, partly in jest. It was obvious she had been here before. Lots of times.
“I used to come here with my daed. We’d ride here on Shiloh. He’d put me in front and hang on to me with one arm and guide his horse with the other. Mamm never knew Daed let Shiloh gallop here. She thought we walked him.”
I looked at her face, wrapped in the memory of a wonderful time in her life. She seemed serene, though, not pained. I said nothing. I just wanted her to continue.
“And I came here a lot after he died, which unfortunately Mamm did know about. She didn’t like it. She was sure I would get hurt, that Shiloh would throw me or I’d fall off or I’d drown in the creek or I’d get struck by lightning or the earth would simply open up and swallow me whole.”
I waited.
“And she was pressured by other people to tell me it wasn’t right that I was riding a horse like that, like a boy, like a rebel. A respectable Amish girl didn’t ride a horse. Certainly not like that. And not bareback.”
She looked out over the landscape and was quiet for a moment. The creek here had become more of a brook. It moved below us and past us with speed, bubbling over boulders and stones as though there was somewhere it needed to be.
“I was forbidden to come here, at least by horse,” she said, and she turned away from the water to stare at the trail ahead and the copse of trees we walked toward. “I tried to obey, but sometimes I just couldn’t. On full moons, when there was light enough to see, I would come here. I knew it wasn’t right, but I thought I’d go mad if I didn’t. Mamm was so protective of me all the time. I was suffocating in that house. I didn’t have friends to talk to, and I felt so alone.”
“Amanda tried to be your friend then,” I said gently, after a moment’s pause.
Priscilla shook her head. “You’ve told me that before.”
“Are you saying she didn’t?”
“I don’t mean to insult your girlfriend or anything, but she and the other girls thought I was weird. I know they did. And they were right. I wasn’t like them. And I guess if that’s what weird is, that’s what I was. I didn’t like their gossip and their little games and the way they talked about boys—and yes, Jake, they started noticing boys at ten—or the way they thought of everything as a game. They seemed so superficial.”
The Amish Blacksmith Page 25