Sadie’s Montana Trilogy

by Linda Byler

  The slanted evening sunlight brought out the rich gold of Paris’ coat. She was the color of honey, the good, rich kind that came straight from the hives. Her mane and tail were a lighter shade of gold, almost off-white, the tone of some people’s living room walls.

  Paris whinnied, her nostrils making that funny rollicking noise that sounded like laughter. Sadie watched as she swung her head, then turned to make her way delicately across the pasture. Her head bobbed slightly as she walked up to the gate, prodded on by Sadie’s gentle coaxing.

  Nuzzling her skirt, Paris looked at Sadie as if to ask her how her day was.

  “Hello, girl.”

  Sadie slid off the gate, her arms going around her horse’s neck, and she squeezed tightly.

  “Good, good girl. You’re so beautiful in the springtime, Paris, you know that? You want to go for a ride? Hmm? Let’s get some exercise, and I’ll tell you about my day.”

  Paris’ ears flicked forward, then back. She lowered her head to look for an apple, sniffed Sadie’s palm, and followed her obediently into the barn and through the door of her pen. Her hooves clattered on the concrete as she went to the water trough.

  Sadie lifted her saddle off the rack, then set it back down. She forgot the blanket. It was not on its usual rack, so she went to look for it in the harness cupboard. Turning the wooden latch, she checked the interior. No saddle blanket. Hmm. That was weird.

  Reuben came sliding across the gravel, making the sound of screeching brakes, almost colliding into his big sister.

  “Reuben, where’s my saddle blanket?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Nobody else uses it.”

  “I didn’t use your saddle blanket. I’d never ride with a pink one, you know that.”

  “It’s not pink.”

  Reuben turned his head to one side, then said loudly, “Phone!”

  Sadie listened, heard the insistent ringing, and dashed to the phone shanty.

  The sound of a phone ringing was a bit mysterious. If somebody was fortunate enough to hear the phone in the shanty at all, that person dropped everything and ran to answer it. That’s because you never knew if the ring you heard was the first one or the tenth one, and you wanted to grab it before voicemail kicked on.

  Breathlessly, Sadie lifted the receiver and said, “Hello!”

  “Hey.”

  There was no mistaking that low, gravelly voice. She steadied herself for the usual plummeting of her heart, and the racing pulse that followed, before saying warily, “Mark.”

  “Hey, Sadie. I … should have stayed in the barn down at the ranch today instead of coming out to talk to you. I guess the sight of those children… I don’t know. I overreacted. Now you probably won’t talk to me again.”

  Sadie smiled. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Well … I dunno. I guess…”

  There was an awkward silence, then, “What are you doing?”

  “Getting ready to ride. I was actually looking for my saddle blanket, which evidently sprouted legs and ran off.”

  “Can you… Come over to my place?”

  “I can’t.” Sadie said the words automatically, without considering whether she could or not. It was late, but…

  “Why not?”

  “I shouldn’t ride clear over there by myself. It’ll get dark and it might not be safe for me to ride back.”

  “I’ll meet you halfway.”

  Sadie bit down on her lower lip with indecision. She was dirty and unkempt from planting flowers in the sun and relentless wind, her stomach was much too full of pizza, and she had the start of a glaring red pimple on her chin.

  “No.”

  There was a silence, dead and cold, before an exasperated sigh finally reached her ears. “Okay.”

  “Wait. Mark I don’t want to be… Well, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. Do you want me to be honest?”

  She felt the humor rise in her chest and she stifled a giggle. Why not? She had already told him she loved him just this afternoon! “I ate way too much pizza with my family, and I have the start of one very large, very sore pimple on my chin.”

  There was the space of one heartbeat, then a loud, rolling laugh, pure and real and completely uninhibited.

  Finally, “Oh Sadie. That is why I … came back to Montana. It is. I think once we know each other better, so many things are possible.”

  “I’m not coming over tonight, though,” Sadie said firmly.

  “Then I’m coming over there. Right now. Would your parents disapprove?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.”

  “Give me a half hour.”

  “All right.”

  Sadie slammed down the receiver and raced across the driveway and into the house while an exasperated Reuben closed the door to the phone shanty, shaking his head.

  It was the quickest shower Sadie had ever had, and there was no time for making serious decisions about the color or fabric of her dress, either. At least she was more presentable, she thought, as she dabbed concealing lotion on the hateful protrusion on her chin. She hastily jabbed hairpins into her hair and plopped her covering on top, spraying cologne wildly across her wrists and collar as she heard a truck approaching.

  A driver! He had asked someone to bring him over!

  Her sisters plied her with questions, Mam looked worried, and Reuben was yelling something about Paris from the barn. But Dat just slept in the recliner, his glasses sliding down his nose, the newspaper spread across his stomach.

  Sadie opened the door and was met by Mark coming up on the porch. His hair was disheveled, and he wore a blue denim work shirt.

  “Sadie!” Reuben was screeching.

  “Hi, Mark. Would you mind going with me to the barn? Reuben is seriously perturbed about something.”

  “Sure.”

  “You forgot your horse,” Reuben said when they got to the barn.

  Sadie had forgotten all about Paris. Her halter was still clipped to the chain by the water trough, and Sadie could tell she was not happy. She was throwing her head up, then back down, rattling the chain in the process.

  “Sorry, Reuben.”

  “Hi, Reuben,” Mark said affably. “How are you?”

  Reuben was still scrubbing his rabbit pens, but he straightened his back, blew his bangs out of his eyes with an expertly protruding lower lip, and smiled. His eyes danced with mischief.

  “I’m good. As soon as these rabbit pens are cleaned, I’ll be better yet.”

  Mark bent to peer inside the hutches.

  “Don’t you like your rabbits?”

  “Not really. I’m getting too old for these guys.”

  “Do you want to sell them at the livestock auction? I’ll take you. Maybe Sadie could come, too. It’s every Friday night in Critchfield. They have donkeys, horses, mules, geese, chickens. Everything.”

  Reuben’s face was illuminated with excitement.

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll go! I’ll sell all these rabbits and buy a donkey instead.”

  Reuben laughed at the very idea, and Sadie couldn’t help but laugh with him, meeting Mark’s eyes in the dim interior of the barn.

  His eyes were laughing, too, but they contained so much more. It was as if her laughter opened the floodgates of his feelings for her.

  That was the danger of being with Mark, Sadie thought later. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes contained the depth of his… What was it? Did he love her at unguarded moments? Was he too shy or too proud to say what he felt? All she knew was that when the laughter had fizzled away, they were looking deeply into each other’s eyes, a sort of assurance between them.

  Reuben looked first at Sadie, then at Mark, shrugged his shoulders and returned to his rabbit cages. Sadie acted so odd when Mark was around, he thought.

  They went for a walk, then, after releasing a miffed Paris back to the pasture.

  Mark talked about everyday, pleasant subjects. He spoke easily and unhurriedl
y while Sadie bantered lightheartedly in return. He told her of his plans to remodel the old house and just how much work needed to be done. He worked on it every evening and all day on Saturdays.

  Then he turned to her and asked her what sort of house she liked. It was so sudden that Sadie became scatterbrained and said something stupid about Richard and Barbara Caldwell’s ranch house. She knew perfectly well that Mark could never afford a house half as big as their ranch. What was she thinking?

  He steered her into the empty schoolyard, seated her on the cement porch, and sat very close beside her. He positioned his arm behind her and propped his shoulder on one hand, making her so nervous and confused that she didn’t know what to say anymore, so she fell silent.

  Then, easily, he began to talk. Really talk.

  “Sadie, do you want to hear the beginning of my story? Do you know why I got so upset today? I’m sorry. I went a bit overboard. I’ll try and do better from now on.”

  “It’s okay,” Sadie whispered.

  “My first memory is being carried to a horse and buggy and sitting in the back seat with other children. They must have been my brothers and sisters. They say there were five of us.

  “My father was a farmer, of sorts. I remember my parents milking cows by hand. I remember the sound of the milk hitting the steel pail, then watching the foam rise up as the pail filled. I remember cats drinking from a dish that my mother filled with the warm milk.

  “The milk was stored in milk cans. You know, those big steel ones with handles? We stored them in cold water and then took them to the cheese house.”

  Sadie shook her head. “I wouldn’t know. Dat was never a farmer. I think the farmers in Ohio, at least in our church, had milking machines and bulk tanks.”

  “Oh. Well, I told you I was raised in a very plain sect.”

  “Yes.”

  “Our house had no running water. We went to the wash house to pump our water, and then carried it to the iron kettle and heated it on a wood fire. My job was to carry the wood. We were poor, Sadie, painfully poor.”

  He stopped, shifted his position, and ran his hand through his black hair. Sadie watched the veins in his large, brown, perfect hands. She wanted to trace them with her fingers, just touch them to see if they were as secure and strong as they looked.

  “My mother was a beautiful woman. They said she looked like an Indian from the southwest.”

  “She must have been,” Sadie murmured.

  “I remember her hair. When she washed it, it hung way down her back and was thick and sort of coarse. It was straight as a straw broom and swung back and forth when she walked.

  “Her name was Amelia, but they called her Meely.

  “I was the oldest, then Beulah.”

  “Beulah!” Sadie said, astounded. “That’s not an Amish name.”

  “I know. I think my mother was a bit of … maybe rebellious toward the strict laws of the church. She named her children Beulah, Timothy, Diana, Rachel Mae, and Jackson.”

  “But that’s six children counting you, Mark.”

  “But … I was told there were five. Well, whatever. Those were the names of my siblings.”

  “Why do you say ‘were’? Where are they? Are they all … dead? What happened to them, Mark?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Wait, Sadie. Let me go on. We must have been trouble for the church. I remember my mother asking my father many questions. She wanted out of the church. She wanted to move. She wasn’t afraid of bann and meidung. I always thought she said “bone” or “bean,” and I could never understand what a bean had to do with leaving the church and moving away somewhere.

  “My father must have become despondent. Despairing, whatever. Our cupboards contained less and less. One time I was so hungry that I ate cornmeal from a white paper sack and drank water to wash it down. I shared it with Beulah and Timothy. Diana cried and cried. Her bottle was empty, so I put water in it to keep her quiet. She cried anyway, and I couldn’t find my mother.

  “I remember the smell of soiled diapers. I quickly learned how to open the large safety pins on the cloth diapers and change them. Sadie, this is one of the most painful things about my childhood. There weren’t always clean diapers available, so my little brothers and sisters had to go without. I would watch, though, and clean up after them the best I could. I used a rag that I washed out over and over.”

  Sadie bowed her head, the knowledge of Mark’s childhood pressing down on her very soul.

  “I still don’t know where my mother went. I just know she wasn’t there for long periods of time, and neither was my father.

  “I learned to keep the house fairly warm by adding wood to the range in the kitchen. I would get a piece of wood and lay it carefully on a chair. Then I would climb up on the chair, remove the heavy lid on the top of the range, and put the stick of wood into the firebox.

  “Sometimes some women would come, and they’d be angry. Their black skirts swished all over the house while they cleaned with Clorox. I guess it was Clorox. It smelled very strong. The women used the wringer washer all day long and filled our cupboards with bread and cheese and cookies and apples. My mother usually cried when they did that. I don’t know if it made her happy or angry or if she just felt ashamed of the way we lived.”

  “Well, where was your mother, Mark? Did she have to go to work, or was she out running around, doing things she shouldn’t have been doing?”

  “You know, I can’t tell you, because I really don’t know. She just sort of came and went. I was six or seven, so how much would I really know at that age?”

  “But surely she could have explained and hired a babysitter?”

  Mark shrugged his shoulders. “My father became increasingly quiet. Actually, he was sort of like a shadow in my life that came and went. I don’t remember very much about my father. Only once … no, it’s too awful to say.”

  Sadie lifted her head, found his gaze. “Trust me.”

  “No. That can stay buried. I think my father was a man with no hope. Men of the church tried to help him, they must have. They would drive in with their horses and buggies and wide black hats, and stand in the barn for hours. They would talk and wave their hands to emphasize the force behind their words. My mother hated them.”

  Sadie drew in a quick breath. “Not hated.”

  “Yes. She hated them. She spat out the door once. It was a horrible sound, one I will always remember. I guess a little boy can absorb lots of things that seem evil, and it never really goes away. It’s… I don’t know.”

  Mark shook his head slowly, his eyes burning.

  Sadie sighed, a quick intake of breath, then laid a hand on his arm as softly and gently as she could.

  “There’s healing, Mark. There is.”

  Chapter 5

  THE WHOLE RANCH WAS BUZZING WHEN SADIE walked into the kitchen the following morning.

  The television set in Richard Caldwell’s study was turned up louder than normal as ranch hands huddled around the desk, sitting on the arms of the sofas and standing at the door. They shifted uncomfortably when Sadie walked into the dining room, casting furtive glances in her direction, shifting their snuff, tucking in shirttails, and clearing their throats nervously.

  She wondered what was going on, but of course, she would never ask the men. The important thing at this point was to get the steam table ready for the large, square containers of hot breakfast food. She would drop the pans into the grids so the hot water underneath would keep the food warm, even for the latecomers.

  Setting her plastic bucket of soapy water on the table, she added a dash of Clorox and went to work washing the sides and bottom of the table’s long, shining enclosure. She wiped down the grids, the top, and the front, rinsing the rag every few swipes.

  She stopped, her hearing strained, as she heard a yell of disbelief followed by exclamations of anger or dismay from a few of the most verbal ranch hands. Richard Caldwell was yelli
ng too, his thundering voice bellowing above all the others.

  “Aww! It ain’t right! This is an outrage. Who in his right mind would do something like that?”

  Sadie stood positively motionless.

  “He’s dead! A magnificent animal! I saw them load him in the truck. He was absolutely huge. Aw! It ain’t right.”

  Sadie heard every word.

  What? Which animal? It was all she could do to pick up the plastic bucket and return to the kitchen. She lingered reluctantly before opening the swinging oak doors.

  Dorothy looked up from her post at the stove, viciously stirring a large pan of scrambled eggs. She was wearing an electric pink shirt over a brown, pleated skirt. The skirt rode up on her ample hips, leaving a few inches of her white, nylon slip exposed beneath the hem. Her hair was in a state of static profusion, held back by two very pink barrettes. Her eyes flashed blue amid all the pink surrounding her.

  “It took you long enough!”

  “I was listening. The men are all piled around the TV. Something about a dead animal on the news. Richard Caldwell was really yelling this time.”

  Without a word, Dorothy marched over to the small television set perched on a stand in the corner and turned it on, expertly pushing buttons on the remote control until she found the channel she wanted.

  Sadie picked up the forgotten spatula and stirred the eggs, turning sideways to watch the flickering screen. Dorothy positioned herself directly in front of the TV, obliterating any action from Sadie’s view. Muttering to herself, Dorothy clicked the button, then turned around as the television screen went black.

  “Nothin’ much I can see. Some crazy person shot a horse. What’s so strange about that? Horse likely had a bone broke. Those animal-rights people is plumb nuts. You ain’t even allowed to dispose of a stray cat. You know what kills a cat so fast it ain’t funny?”

  Sadie lifted the heavy pan with both hands, and a golden yellow avalanche of scrambled eggs tumbled out of it and into the square container on the counter. She shook her head at Dorothy’s question, biting down on her lower lip with the effort of lifting the heavy pan.

  “I ain’t gonna tell you.”