Sadie’s Montana Trilogy

by Linda Byler

  “See, she can’t even drink a soda properly. Now I ain’t Amish, but there’s a big difference in your hair and that white thing on your head. Hers looks as if she was in a hurricane.”

  Sadie laughed, agreeing, and decided to drop the subject.

  Spring breezes did their best to lift everyone’s winter blahs. New green weeds poked their way through brown, dead growth, but the patches of snow and the cold rains were persistent into April.

  Mark and Sadie were on their way to church, the cold spring rain splattering the windows of the buggy, leaking through the small rectangles cut into the window frame to allow the reins to pass through. The top of the glove compartment got wet. Mark wiped it off with a clean rag whenever he thought about it. Truman’s hooves splashed through the puddled water, the wheels slicing through it, but everything was dry and cozy inside the buggy, with a light, plaid blanket across their legs just to keep the chill off.

  Sadie pinned a black wool shawl securely around her shoulders, and she wore a black bonnet on her head. The shawl was usually only worn to church. At council meeting they were encouraged to wear the garment wherever they went, but very few of the young women did. It was cumbersome, knocking things off shelves, and not very suitable for shopping. But it was warm and perfectly suited to a chilly Sunday morning buggy ride.

  Mark looked so handsome, his new beard in perfect symmetry, his jaw line in sharp relief against the whiteness of his shirt collar. He was in a quiet mood, which was normal and comfortable when not accompanied by the blackness and anger that devastated Sadie.

  They had forgiven, forgotten. Life was smooth and so good.

  “A penny for your thoughts.”

  Mark smiled. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Mm-hm. Yes, I do.”

  “I’m thinking of my mother’s dying wish. She wants me to find my siblings. Do I want to honor that? Or wouldn’t you do it?”

  “You won’t have any closure, rest, whatever you want to call it, if you don’t.”

  “I know. But … I’m scared.”

  “You have reason to be.”

  The best part of attending church services was seeing her family. Her excitement at seeing all of them lent wings to her feet. She walked swiftly to the washhouse door.

  All the joy of her morning evaporated when she saw Anna, a wan reed, her complexion blue-white, her eyes enormous in a face almost skeletal, sagging weakly against the wall, her feet propped against the cement floor as if to keep her standing erect.

  Summoning all her strength, Sadie desperately tried to appear normal. Anna’s smile was mocking, a pulling away of her mouth setting her teeth free. Her eyes were hard, boring into Sadie’s, a challenge.

  “How are you, Anna?”

  “Good.”

  A thousand questions screamed in her mind. Where was Mam? Dat? Her sisters? Why was no one trying to help? Surely this was evident to the entire community. It was so different and yet so similar to Mam’s illness. These things could be hereditary.

  When Neal Hershberger walked in, his hair cut in the English style, chewing and popping his gum, his eyes brazenly searching the girl’s bench, a hot anger welled up in Sadie’s throat, a bile threatening to choke her.

  Oh, my. Dear God, I have forgotten to pray. Wrapped in my own problems, I am not being watchful. Am I my sister’s keeper? Please answer me. She bent her head to hide her tears from the men and boys facing them.

  When she saw Neil Hershberger openly flirting with Suzanne Stutzman, saw Anna cringe backward in desperation, Dat sitting sound asleep in the front row as the young preacher droned on, she felt as if she had to do something.

  Dat and Mam were so dear. Sadie’s love for her parents had only increased with her absence, but they were by all means sticking their heads in the proverbial sand, either unwilling to face the disaster that was Anna, or just tired and optimistic, hoping it would all get better soon. She had to do something. Anything. She bet Anna weighed a hundred pounds, if that.

  Asking Mark’s permission after services, she invited her parents, sisters, and Reuben for Sunday supper, especially including Anna.

  “I can’t. I’m going away,” she countered.

  “Where?”

  “The supper crowd.”

  “Can’t you skip? This once?”

  “No.”

  Anna wouldn’t budge. Sadie gave in, glad to have her parents and Reuben even though her sisters were with the other young people. Mark was jovial, talkative, keeping Dat entertained, while Sadie prepared meat loaf, scalloped potatoes, and a salad of lettuce, bacon, sliced hard-boiled eggs, thinly sliced onion, and shredded carrots, with a homemade mayonnaise dressing.

  After the meal as they sat around the table, full and content, Sadie braved the subject of Anna, a forbidden one, she knew. Her desperation, her only strength, grabbed at straws of reassurance.

  “Dat?”

  “Hmm?”

  She had his attention; his eyes were kindly upon her.

  “Does Anna even weigh a hundred pounds anymore?” she asked, her eyes giving away her fear.

  Mam looked startled.

  “Oh, of course. She isn’t that thin.”

  “Do you realize she is sick, Mam? She needs help. Someone should at least talk to her about her … Mam, now come on, you can’t tell me otherwise. She is definitely going through an eating disorder.”

  Dat burst out, quite uncharacteristically.

  “That eating disorder you’re talking about is named Neil Hershberger!”

  Reuben was eating his second slice of chocolate layer cake, soaked with milk and shoveled with a small tablespoon into his mouth, which was opened wide to accommodate the entire mountain of cake. He chewed, swallowed, and shook his head up and down.

  “That’s for sure.”

  “Anna is completely obsessed with him,” Dat continued. “I hardly know how to handle it. I’m afraid if we get too strict, she’ll do something … completely crazy.”

  Mark nodded.

  Sadie shook her head.“She’s way, way too thin. Do you think she’d come live with us for awhile? I think I could at least get her to talk to me. She’s pathetic.”

  “I’ll come live with you,” Reuben shouted, waving his empty spoon before digging into the soaked cake for another round.

  “Nothing wrong with you!” Mark said, laughing.

  “Nothing cake can’t fix,” Reuben grinned.

  After much coaxing, begging, pleading, and numerous phone calls, plus the promise of going to the mall in Chesterfield, Anna relented a few weeks later and agreed to stay with Sadie for awhile. Sadie welcomed her with open arms, fighting tears as she gathered the skeletal frame against her body. Leah and Rebekah accompanied her, turning the day into a sisters’ day, helping Sadie houseclean the kitchen cupboards. Leah was dating Kevin, with plans of becoming his wife in the future, and Rebekah had just begun dating Jonathan Mast, a shy personable young man of 22.

  As Sadie knew she would, Anna stayed in the background, listening, very rarely taking part in the conversation. She ate almost nothing all day, maybe a half of an apple, a few bites of cracker, a few sips of water. When Leah and Rebekah hitched up Charlie, waving their way out the driveway, Anna turned to Sadie.

  “So start right away. Start lecturing me. That’s all you want me here for, anyway. You want me to tell you something, Sadie? I’m just here because Neil can pick me up in his car. Mam and Dat won’t let me go away with him. I sneak out. So get used to it, sister dear. I’m going away with Neil.”

  If Sadie would have acted on impulse, she would have smacked her sister’s sneering face. Sadie’s anger boiled, but not to the point she couldn’t control it. So to bide her time, she kicked at a pile of dirt, absentmindedly extracting small rocks.

  “What makes you think I’m going to lecture you, other than your guilt?” she ground out evenly.

  “I’m not guilty,” Anna said, pushing one hip out impatiently.

  “Okay.”

 
Sadie pretended to lose interest, changed the subject, and walked back to the house. Chattering about mundane subjects now, she put clean sheets on the guest bed upstairs, helping Anna hang her brilliant array of dresses in the closet. They did chores together and fed Wolf, who Anna seemed to bond with immediately, throwing a small stick for him to retrieve over and over, a thin color showing in her wan cheek from the exertion.

  “He is so cool!” she cried, her eyes alight.

  Quite clearly Anna adored Mark, his dog, his horses, his barn, everything. That was a good thing, Sadie decided, keeping her happy to be here. She even got Anna to try on the trousers she always wore to ride Paris. When Anna couldn’t walk in them without losing them to a puddle around her ankles, Sadie looked genuinely surprised.

  “But … ”

  She looked up, floundering now.

  “You’re not fat,” she said, completely bewildered.

  “No, I’m not.”

  Sadie decided to leave it at that.

  Anna had her dress tucked under her chin, bent over, unable to grasp the fact that she would not be able to keep the trousers from sliding down over her hips.

  “But I’m not … I’m not this skinny.”

  “Yes, you are, Anna.”

  “Well, good! Neil loves skinny girls. He doesn’t like fat.”

  “Who is Neil?”

  “Neil Hershberger.”

  “Oh. Him.” Then, “Are you dating?”

  “No, not really. Well, we go out.”

  “You go out. Where do you go?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  Sadie walked out the door, down to the barn, with Anna following in silence. It was one of those spring evenings in Montana that was achingly beautiful, every slope and plane of the land in contrast with the majestic sky, the colors so vivid, it made you want to fling your arms out and take off running, the way six-year-olds did quite regularly. Anna helped Sadie saddle up, brushing Paris’s long mane and tail, her thin, white face pensive.

  “Do you have any idea how much I wanted to be you already?” she asked suddenly, angrily.

  Sadie stopped, eyeing her sister closely before returning her answer.

  “Why does it make you angry to want to be me?”

  “It doesn’t. I’m not angry. Just forget I said that.”

  Sadie bit off the words of rebuke, knowing there was no sense pushing her point of view. Shrugging her shoulders, she turned to throw the saddle blanket across Paris’s back, followed by the well-polished saddle. There was just something about throwing a saddle on a horse’s back that made the horse lower herself ever so slightly, without actually seeming to do it. A certain readiness, a locking of her knees, perhaps. As if she knew the weight of it would settle solidly on her back and was prepared.

  Nothing was said as Sadie tightened the girth, then tightened it again after Paris let out the air she had used to stretch her stomach, the way she always did. As she slipped the bit into her mouth, with that satisfying chunk that meant it had slipped between Paris’s teeth, adjusted the leather strap over her ears, buckled the chin strap and threw the reins across her neck, Sadie ground her teeth to keep from spewing unwelcome words at her sister.

  She was as delicate as a spiderweb and as strong as one. If you took a hose with the nozzle turned to jet and squirted a fragile-looking spiderweb, you still could not loosen it from the object to which it was attached. You just couldn’t.

  How to help her? That was the thing. Force was certainly not going to do it. Or was there a time coming when force would be the only way?

  Love would be the answer. Build up her character, bolster her self-esteem, slowly allowing her to see herself as she really was. Who knew?

  “Okay, Anna! Up you go!” The words were spoken brightly, with too much enthusiasm, her thoughts cloudy with distraction.

  “I’m not riding.” With that, Anna stalked off, her shoulders squared.

  “And just why not, after all the trouble I went to, saddling her up?” Sadie yelled after her.

  “I can’t ride,” Anna called back, breaking into a run.

  Her mouth pressed into a straight line boding no good, Sadie threw the reins over the hitching rail, jerked them into a knot, and raced after her sister, her feet sliding in the watery slush in the driveway. She soon caught up, jerking Anna backwards by her shoulders, bringing her to a stop. She was appalled to see how fast Anna was breathing after that short sprint.

  “Oh, no, you don’t, Anna. You’re not going to manipulate me with your moods. You are going riding.”

  “I don’t want to. You can’t make me.”

  “Yes, you are. You wanted to go riding, now we’re going.”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  Anna sighed, dropped her shoulders, relented, handed over her resistance.

  “Good. C’mon.”

  She saddled Duke, swallowing her misgivings about him. He lifted his head obnoxiously, making Sadie stand on her tiptoes to attempt an entry with the shining steel bit. Instead of losing her temper, she went to the cupboard where the harness was kept, extracting a box of sugar cubes and a carrot, offering them on an open palm, stroking his neck, crooning to him, rubbing his face. Anna watched, her arms crossed tightly around her middle.

  “Boy. I’d never go through that to get him to put the bit in his mouth,” she observed dryly.

  “Only thing that works.”

  After letting Duke savor the carrot, allowing him to nuzzle her hand, Sadie made another attempt at inserting the bit. After a moment’s hesitation, he willingly took it.

  With Anna on Paris and Duke beneath her, hopping, sidestepping, doing anything he could to make it hard for Sadie, she had to concentrate on keeping her seat, trying to control him as best she could. He lifted himself off the ground, his front feet flailing the air, then came down crow-hopping, bouncing sideways as Sadie tried desperately to perceive her next move. He was a handful.

  “He’s gonna buck you right off of there,” Anna shouted.

  “I hope not!” Sadie yelled back.

  After he settled down, they rode together, Paris walking sedately as if to remind Duke what a loser he was and to show him how it really was done. The pasture was green and brown, with the only patches of snow on the north side of dips and hollows or beneath low spreading pine trees. The ground was wet, the earth still absorbing the piles of winter snows, so they rode slowly, carefully. The smell of the earth and sky, the woods, the wet rotting leaves, the calls of the jays, the mockingbirds’ warbles of mimicry all lifted Sadie’s mood. Anything was possible on an evening like this.

  Sadie looked over at Anna. Her face was set in stone, her mouth grim, her eyes darting from Paris’s ears to the ground below, alternating between pulling back on the reins and holding the saddle horn. She was afraid! So very afraid! Oh, my goodness! Is that why she never rode? She was terrified.

  The trail across the pasture took a steep downturn, wound around a grove of trees, the shadows looming long and black. Anna’s eyes opened wide as she grabbed the saddle horn, bracing herself for the descent, her face whiter.

  “I’m not going down there,” she said softly.

  “Come on, Anna. Paris is used to it.”

  Sadie led the way, Duke prancing and sidestepping, unwilling to be completely controlled.

  Paris followed daintily, Anna’s expression inscrutable. When the trail evened out, Anna breathed a notable sigh of relief. Sadie grinned at her.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it? You’re doing great. Straighten your back now. Relax. You’re doing great.”

  “I am?”

  “Of course.”

  They rode on, the horses’ hooves making a dull, sucking sound in the mud. Then, suddenly, Anna spoke.

  “Sadie?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Does…does it mean a…a…boy, a guy, loves you if he wants to take you out in his car?”

  “His car
? A vehicle?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re surely not seeing an English boy? Guy?” Sadie mimicked, smiling genuinely.

  “No. But…Neil…you know. Neil Hershberger bought a car. He doesn’t want to be Amish. He…sort of hates his dad. He says I don’t love him if I don’t ride with him in his car.”

  Oh, boy. Problem number 162, Sadie thought wryly. How to answer?

  “You really like Neil, don’t you?”

  Anna nodded, her expression containing so much pain, it was like a contortion of her features, a clouding over.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “He’s cute.”

  “He definitely is that,” Sadie agreed.

  Chapter 8

  “HE’S WILD, BUT … I THINK HE’LL CHANGE. ONCE we start dating, he’ll … change. He just says … I think if I agree to go places with him in his car, he’ll ask me for a date, because that will show him that I love him, right?”

  Oh, boy. Literally walking on eggshells now. How to correct her without tearing down the frail stepping-stone they had placed so inefficiently a few minutes before?

  “Well…,” Sadie breathed. She was at a loss for the correct words now.

  “I think he loves me,” Anna blurted out, her voice abrasive in its desperation.

  Paris whooshed air through her nostrils, lowering her head. Duke responded with a snort of his own. They came to a knoll, a sort of elevation, between two lines of trees. The rolling Montana landscape unfolded before them, dressed in the dull greens and browns of the time between winter and spring. Sadie knew a few weeks of sunshine would make all the difference, coloring the earth in those wonderful shades of green, like an artist who decides his palette is depressing sets about correcting the dullness with broad, bold, tumultuous strokes.

  “Look, Anna!” Sadie said, pointing.

  “What?”

  “How beautiful it is!”

  “Oh, yeah. But, Sadie, if I refuse to go with him, he’ll tell me off. Our friendship would be over before it even got started.”