Wild Horses

by Linda Byler

  Now, however, Sadie was uncertain. Should she ask Mark to come into her bedroom at a time like this? He might think her extremely bold, but where else could they go to talk about Mam?

  “Is … is it all right to … go to my room?” she whispered.

  “If you’re okay with it.”

  She entered her room and lit the kerosene lamp with the lighter beside it, replaced the glass chimney, and turned it up to brighten the room.

  Mark stood inside the door, waiting until Sadie asked him to sit down. His large frame seemed to fill the entire loveseat, so Sadie sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, her body tense, the pulse in her temples pounding. She pleated the fabric of her skirt over and over, her long, thin fingers never ceasing their movement. Her head bent, her voice barely audible, she related Mam’s disappearance and the shameful, sad history of her parents’ relationship.

  “I think Mam is in a much more serious depression than any of us realized. The only person that had any idea was Dat, and he is much too stubborn or proud to admit anything is ever wrong in our family. As long as he can present a smiling group of good Christians to the Amish community, he thinks everything is just great.”

  Mark nodded. “Do all of you want to live here in Montana?” he asked after a respectful silence that was so typical of him.

  “I have no choice, so this is home now. But if I was allowed to choose, I’d probably go back to Ohio.”

  “Why?”

  “I miss family. I miss Eva most of all. We’ve been here for almost six years now, and I’m used to Montana. But…” she broke off, timidly.

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s just that ever since the accident with Ezra and those wild horses, I sense a bad omen. It’s as if fear is alive and haunting, and that black, devilish horse … and then Nevaeh … I don’t know. Is there such a thing as an un-blessing? You know how the ministers say, an unsayah.”

  Mark was silent.

  The small heart-shaped alarm clock ticked steadily. Only their breathing could be heard above it.

  Then there was a great shout from the kitchen, followed by a hubbub of low voices, high ones, and everything in between.

  Sadie jumped to her feet and dashed to the door. Mark following closely. As she pulled the door open, was it only her imagination, or did Mark place his hand on her waist, as if to steer her through the door like a gentleman?

  Reuben’s tousled head appeared.

  And then Leah was pounding up the steps, calling her name, nearly colliding with all three of them.

  “They found her! Oh, Sadie! She’s been found!” Leah burst into sobs of relief.

  “Where, Leah?”

  “In an airport somewhere!” Leah said between her sobs.

  “A what? Are you sure?”

  They hurried down the stairs and into the crowd of people rejoicing and crying. So much relief. So much happiness. It was hard to grasp this joy when only moments before the despair had been so real.

  Finally someone clapped their hands and the room grew silent. All heads turned to the aging, white-bearded gentleman who stood just inside the door. His eyes were kind but stern, and he was flanked by two policemen in heavy coats.

  “Annie Miller has been found. She is extremely disoriented and her speech is totally incomprehensible. We need Mr. Miller and any of the immediate family who wishes to accompany us.”

  Dat’s sad eyes searched his daughters’.

  “I’ll go,” Rebekah said immediately.

  “I’ll stay with Anna and Reuben,” Leah volunteered.

  “Come with us, Sadie,” Dat said, a pleading note in his voice.

  Sadie’s heart melted. Forgiveness like a soothing balm ran joyously over her heart, coating it solidly with love for her father. He had only been doing what he felt was best for his family, regardless of how foolish it seemed now.

  It was all surreal, the long ride through the night, the winding country roads turning onto the interstate highway, the kaleidoscope of bright lights, hissing tires, neon signs blinking. It seemed as if they had left the state of Montana.

  Finally the car slowed onto an exit and circled the ramp to a red light. Turning left, they came onto a steady stream of vehicles and more red lights.

  Sadie wondered what all these people were doing out in the middle of the night. She had no idea the world didn’t sleep at night. How would they ever be able to get up and go to work the next morning? No wonder people were fired from their jobs. They should all be at home in bed getting their much needed eight hours of sleep.

  The car slowed again and turned left into a huge parking area. The building ahead of them towered like the buildings in New York City. Well, almost.

  Sadie counted eight stories.

  Toshkoma Medical Center.

  Mam was at a hospital!

  Acceptance settled across Sadie’s shoulders. It was a yoke to bear—a heavy, sad feeling—but it was coupled with joy. There was finally help available for poor, dear Mam.

  They found Mam sitting on a chair in a large, blue waiting room. Her cumbersome luggage was by her side. Her head was bent, her hands twisting and turning in her lap. She was wearing her black bonnet and her Sunday coat with the new buttons she had sewed on herself. Her woolen shawl was folded neatly on top of her big suitcase. She was mumbling to herself and didn’t see them until Dat stood close to her, touched her shoulder, and said, “Annie.”

  At first, Sadie thought she would not recognize them. Her eyes were so clouded and she seemed a million miles away. She was talking in mumbles, laughing hoarsely, then crying.

  Cold chills crept up Sadie’s spine, the icy feelings of fear and dread.

  Mam! Have we lost you completely through our neglect?

  White-coated doctors joined them. Psychiatrists, nurses, men in authority, talking, talking. They could not admit Mam without her consent.

  Mam sat so bent, so hysterical. Now she was saying, “Sadie, Sadie.”

  “Which one is Sadie?”

  The little man with the bald head and black mustache reached for her, escorted her toward her mother.

  Blindly, Mam reached for Sadie’s hand.

  Sadie fought back panic for a moment. This is your mother. Relax. She’s just sick. She’s not wild or dangerous. Just help her. Listen to her.

  “Sadie, Sadie.” It was all Mam could say, over and over.

  Sadie bent her head to hear the garbled words. She tried to still her mother’s restless hands, then bent closer. “What?”

  Mam spoke in Pennsylvania Dutch.

  “Halt aw. Halt aw. Halt um gaduld aw. Gaduld.”

  The voice went on, jumbled, begging for patience.

  “Ich do, Mam, Ich do.”

  Then suddenly Mam lifted her head, looked at Sadie, and said in an articulate voice, “It was me that left Nevaeh out.”

  She began sobbing so heartbrokenly that Sadie was on her knees immediately, holding her mother as her shoulders heaved. Murmuring brokenly now, she told Sadie that she needed help.

  Sadie stood up, nodded to the doctors, and told them Mam was willing to be admitted. Dat stood beside her uncomfortably, nodding his assent.

  “Oh, yes. Yes. She most certainly will be admitted. Thank God. If that is what she wants.”

  Sadie nodded. Rebekah rushed to her mother. Together they guided her off the chair and into a waiting wheelchair. Dat grabbed the suitcase, and they all loaded into an elevator that clanged and pinged its way to the floor where Mam would be treated.

  The doctors talked and asked so many questions that Sadie thought it must surely be morning when the last form was signed and completed. Dat turned hesitantly, not sure what he should do as they finally wheeled Mam to her room.

  “Come, Dat. I think it’s time you and Rebekah and I had the largest sized coffee this hospital’s snack bar has to offer. Everything is going to be all right now. They’ll adjust Mam’s medication until they get it right, and she’ll soon be okay.”

  Only now did Sadi
e have a chance to absorb what Mam had said about letting Nevaeh out of the barn. In this moment, Sadie felt that her beloved horse was a small price to pay for the stability of her mother’s mental health.

  Chapter 20

  SPRING CAME LATE THAT year. It was always later than Ohio springtime, but this time it was almost the end of May until the last chilly winds died away.

  Sadie climbed one of the steep ridges surrounding her home. She was alone. The house was suffocating her, even with the windows open a bit at the top to allow the sweet smell of the earth to circulate about the rooms. So she decided to go for a walk.

  Her breath came in short gasps, the calves of her legs ached, and she could feel the soft fabric of her robin’s-egg blue dress attach itself to her perspiring body. The sun was warmer than she thought it would be, and she realized with great joy that they could be planting the garden soon.

  Another spring, another garden, and here I am alone in Montana, she thought wryly.

  It was when she was alone, and especially on days like today, that she thought of Mark Peight most.

  Why had he done that? For the thousandth time she asked the wind, and, like always, there was no reply.

  Even with Mam hospitalized, she had planned for that special date, that awaited Saturday evening when he would open his heart and tell her his life’s story. Instead, a flat, white envelope had arrived in Friday’s mail with small, neat handwriting addressing the letter to “Miss Sadie Miller.”

  Her life had not been the same since then. He had written on a yellow legal pad and minced no words in his flat, round script.

  Dear Sadie,

  I’m going back to Pennsylvania. I can’t write that I’m going home, because I don’t necessarily have a home. I’m just going back.

  I simply can’t be with you anymore without telling you the truth about myself. I apologize to you for being a coward. I’m not good enough for you and never will be.

  This is good-bye.

  Mark Peight

  That short letter literally rocked her world. It was as abrasive as steel wool on a smooth surface. It had hurt as badly as falling off a bike on a poorly paved road, tearing her skin into rough, raw patches. There was no way around the desolation of that letter. But she just had to give up and endure the pain without cringing or crying, which she did during the day. At night, she cried.

  Who was he? Why did he run without leaving as much as an address or a phone number?

  The wind had no answers. It caressed her warm face, played with the brown hair that straggled loose from her white covering, sighed in the branches of the pines, but had no answers for her as usual.

  God was in nature, or so it seemed to Sadie. He spoke to her of his love when she saw twinkling stars, new wildflowers, fresh-fallen snow. Sometimes his voice in nature was soft and warm like today’s gentle breeze. Other times it was strong and powerful like in thunder and torrents of rain. But always, God was there.

  She had much to be thankful for. She knew that sounded like an old cliché, an overused Amish phrase, but it was true.

  She was thankful for her mother first. Dear, dear Mam. She had made an amazing comeback, but the struggle had been heartrending to watch.

  After the doctors had observed, adjusted medications, and counseled, Mam finally underwent extensive thyroid surgery.

  Her problems had been real, not imagined. A serious chemical imbalance, coupled with a diseased thyroid gland, had taken a horrible toll on Mam’s mind, on her well-being. She had become so confused and was hallucinating and hearing voices which were very real to her.

  The final straw, the one thing that had pushed her over the edge, was the cost of Sadie’s hospital stay. Somehow, in her poor, twisted mind, she had linked this with the cost of keeping Nevaeh. That pressure troubled her so much that she released the horse, believing this was the only thing she could do to help pay the cost of Sadie’s bill.

  After her confession and complete breakdown, she began to heal with Dat’s support. He had long conversations with the physicians and therapists, nodding his head, listening, observing, and being completely supportive of Mam’s care. It was wondrous to behold.

  Mam smiled now. She ate healthy meals. She cooked and baked.

  Dat offered to move back to Ohio. He told her it wasn’t right that he had dragged her out to Montana against her wishes. Mam had a faraway look on her face—an unveiled glimpse of her homesickness. Then she had turned to Dat.

  “But, Jacob, I don’t think I could go back. I don’t know if I could be at home there. This is home.”

  And Sadie knew she meant it.

  She had laid a hand on Dat’s arm, and her eyes were pure and clear and honest without a trace of malice or ill will.

  “I love Montana now, Jacob. I haven’t always. Sometimes I miss the folks in Ohio, but you know, whithersoever thou goest I will go.”

  She had smiled such a beautiful smile, her gray hair shining exactly like a halo about her head, that all the girls agreed she looked like a middle-aged angel.

  Sadie still loved her job at the ranch. It was the one thing that kept her grounded, kept her sane. She could always stay busy cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry. Sometimes she rode the fine horses from Richard Caldwell’s stables. But she never connected with another horse like Nevaeh or Paris. Horses, like life, were too unpredictable, so it was safer to stay away and not lose your head or your heart to a horse or, for that matter, to handsome Mark Peight either. You just got hurt or bruised.

  Sadie flopped down in a meadow of wildflowers, wiping an arm across her forehead to dry it.

  Puffy, white clouds trailed across the blue sky as Sadie lay on the soft carpet of flowers. An eagle soared across the treetops, riding the current with a natural ease. His head was white against the dark color of his outstretched wings.

  She wondered what had happened with the herd of wild horses. There had been a great public outcry with posters tacked to the wall of the post office, the bank, and the local grocery. It was the main subject on Sundays after church and when visitors came to see Mam, but no one had a solution. Helicopters were never brought in because no one could prove the horses had ever damaged anything. As Dat said, it didn’t amount to a hill of beans. And then the subject died off and everyone moved on to other topics.

  The horses had been responsible for Nevaeh’s death, Sadie felt sure, although she never spoke of it, not even to Leah or Rebekah.

  She could feel her body relaxing with each intake of the sweet smell of wildflowers. Her eyelids felt heavy. God was, indeed, so good. How could anyone ever doubt his presence lying on a flower-strewn hillside in May?

  She wasn’t sure if she heard something first, or if she only felt it. She just knew the earth vibrated a bit, the way the hardwood floor in the living room did when Dat walked across it in his big boots.

  She stayed still, every nerve tense, listening.

  There. That sound.

  It wasn’t a rushing, scurrying sound. It was a stumbling, sliding sound.

  Should she be afraid?

  Strangely, she felt no fear. Surely the band of wild horses had gone. No one ever spoke of them anymore. Oh, the men snorted and said how incompetent the law was, unable to solve a mystery that was quite obviously under their nose. But who were they to say?

  Amish people were a peaceable lot, driving their horses and buggies at a slow trot on the winding, country roads of Montana, taking care of family and friends, loving their neighbors—for the most part. If the law chose to ignore the obvious, they were in authority, and the Amish abided by their rules. No use fighting. It wasn’t their way.

  So Sadie listened, her pulse quickening, but not with dry-mouthed, raw fear. Instead she had an inquisitive feeling.

  There now. It had stopped, so likely she had imagined it in the first place.

  A jay called from the pines. Another one answered. They screamed the way blue jays do when they’re disturbed. Then she heard a tearing sound like when a cow wraps its
tongue around a tuft of grass and pulls or bites. The grass makes a soft, breaking sound. Perhaps someone’s cows wandered up here.

  Sadie sat up slowly so she wouldn’t spook the cattle. They were amiable creatures for the most part, so she wasn’t afraid, although she didn’t want to start a stampede if she could help it.

  She blinked.

  She ran the back of her hand across her eyes and blinked again.

  A horse!

  Three!

  Her hand went to the front of her dress to still her beating heart. The horses had not seen her. Slowly she turned her head just enough so that she could see them out of the corner of her eyes.

  Her mind could not fathom the sight of the black horse. She knew he was there grazing, but it seemed like a dream. He was so gorgeous and much bigger than any driving horse or any horse in Richard Caldwell’s stables, that was sure.

  Was she in danger?

  She shivered.

  To get up and run would only show fear, and she desperately wanted to observe them, if even for a second.

  Along with the black stallion, there was a brown mare. She was small and compact with a beautifully arched neck. Her mane and tail had been luxurious at one time but were unkempt now. They were matted with burrs, and the forelock needed a trim.

  And then…

  Sadie didn’t remember opening her mouth, she just knew it had been open for some time because her tongue felt dry when she closed it again.

  Paris!

  It was Paris!

  It couldn’t be Paris.

  The horse was exactly the color of Paris after she had lost her winter coat. Paris was honey-colored then, a rich, amber color that was complemented by the beige of her mane and tail.

  This horse was that same color, and it, too, was a mare. She moved behind the black horse as he grazed slowly, clipping the grass with a crunching sound. There was only one thing better than hearing a horse eat grass and that was to hear him eat oats and corn from a wooden feed box. Horses bit deep into the oats, then lifted their nose a bit and chewed. Most of the oats fell out of the side of a horse’s mouth when he did that, but he chewed them later until the feed box was completely clean.