The Amish Blacksmith

by Mindy Starns Clark

Her mouth dropped open, but she said nothing.

  “Here’s the truth as I see it,” I went on, knowing I had no choice but to continue. “You don’t want to face what really happened six years ago, and you don’t think you deserve to be happy. You hang on to the events of the past—which I’m sure are just a little bit different than what everyone else believes them to be—and you’ve guilted yourself into thinking you’re not worthy of a life with any kind of happiness in it.”

  She stared at me.

  “Tell me I’m wrong,” I challenged, softly, and with as kind a tone as I could muster.

  She was still staring at me, wide eyed, when a truck and horse trailer pulled off the road onto the gravel driveway.

  January was here.

  Priscilla brushed past me and started for the house, the question between us unanswered.

  SEVENTEEN

  Natasha stepped out of the driver’s side of the same truck that had brought me to her stables two days before. In the cab was a pair of little girls. After they climbed out, she introduced them as Hope and Samantha.

  “Samantha’s eight and Hope is six,” Natasha said, looking down at her golden-haired daughters. They had surely seen plenty of Amish men before, living as close as they did to Lancaster County, but I had the impression that they had perhaps not had the opportunity to meet and talk with one up close before. They stared at me with smiling eyes and shy grins. I had asked Stephen to help me once they got here, so as he emerged from the barn, I waved him over and introduced him to them as well.

  “Stephen is ten,” I added with a nod.

  They both gave him shy smiles in return, but then his dog, Comet, an eight-month-old Labrador mix, appeared too. The girls instantly left us and gravitated to the dog, who began to furiously wag his tail.

  “Don’t let him jump on them,” I cautioned.

  “I won’t,” Stephen replied, seeming offended that I’d even said it.

  “Mommy, look how cute!” Samantha cried.

  Both girls oohed and aahed at the excited pup as Natasha turned back to me. “I admit I was starting to have second thoughts about bringing January here. I hope this is a good idea, you know, putting her in a strange place when she’s already so anxious.”

  I could tell she wanted me to set her mind to rest, but I knew I couldn’t guarantee anything.

  “I hope it’s a good idea too.”

  Thankfully, Natasha got my sense of humor and gave a laugh.

  “Seriously, though,” I continued, “if I can convince January that she’s safe with me and can let down her guard, she’ll allow her pent-up tension to release and then she can move past it. I really do think this stay will help far more than it could ever hurt.”

  Natasha exhaled heavily. “Well, I guess it’s worth a try, right? Nothing else has been effective.”

  One of the girls squealed in delight as Comet licked her face.

  “Mommy!” Samantha called out. “We want a dog like this one! Please?”

  “Please?” chimed in Hope, the two sisters jumping up and down as if that might help convince their mother.

  “Girls. Quiet. Come on. I’m too busy with the horses. I don’t have time for a dog too.”

  They tried to object, promising to care for it entirely themselves, but she cut them off with a soft but firm, “That’s enough. Case closed.”

  The two little blondes looked like a pair of deflated balloons. But then Stephen asked if they would like to see his dog do a trick, and they were happy and giggly again.

  “Stephen, why don’t you and Comet take the girls over by the house a ways while we get the mare unloaded from the trailer?” I said. I didn’t think all this extra noise would be helpful.

  He nodded, whistled for his dog, and then the three of them plus the bounding Lab headed for the lawn in front of the house, away from the trailer and perhaps an agitated horse.

  “Shall we get her out?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  Natasha and I walked to the back of the trailer, a glistening, white contraption with the stable’s logo painted on both sides.

  “We’ll just take it slow and easy,” I said.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Natasha lifted the pin on the latch of the trailer door and raised the lever. She swung the door open slowly. January was parallel to the trailer entrance, but with the chest-high triangle-shaped gate in place, all I could see of her was her back end. She grumbled, moving in place. I could see the muscles on her flank tightening.

  “Want me to unlatch the gate or unload?” I asked.

  “I think I got her,” Natasha said as she stepped in with a lead rope in her hand.

  “You sure?”

  “She went in okay. Sort of.” Natasha bent over and maneuvered herself under the triangle-gate. I heard her speaking in gentle tones to her horse as I stepped inside as well.

  “You all set?” I said, with my hand on the latch.

  “We’re ready.”

  I lifted the latch and slowly fanned the gate to the side. January swiveled her head wide eyed and yanked on her lead.

  “Whoa. There’s my good girl,” Natasha said softly, but January wasn’t interested in tender words. She yanked her head again and took a step backward. Her rear end touched the trailer’s side.

  “Get her out,” I said, jumping away myself.

  Natasha swung the lead to the right and moved out of the way as January quickly jerked herself toward the open door. The horse took the step down too fast and hit the ground with a clatter that set her off. She reared up and the lead came loose from Natasha’s outstretched hand. I dashed forward to grab it, along with the nose ring on January’s halter.

  “Whoa. It’s all right, girl,” I said gently. “Nothing to worry about. You’re fine. You’re fine.”

  I let January walk a couple circles in the gravel as she tossed her head and grunted her disapproval at how her afternoon had turned out. Natasha stood watching, doing shoulder circles with her right arm.

  “Are you okay?”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve had a horse try to pull my arm out of its socket. I’ll be fine.”

  For the next few minutes I just let January walk and stop when she wanted. Several times she seemed as if she might bolt, but then she’d look at me almost as if she needed instructions on what she should do instead. From the lawn, I could see that Stephen, the girls, and even the dog were watching January. Just as I was about to turn the animal and attempt a slow walk to the barn, I caught a glimpse of Priscilla in an upstairs bedroom window. She backed away a step as soon as our eyes met but did not leave.

  She was watching too.

  I took a few steps toward the barn. January took only one and then stopped.

  “How about if you walk in front of us,” I said to Natasha.

  Natasha did as I suggested and clicked to her horse. “Come on, girl.”

  Again I took a few steps toward the barn, but January took only one and stopped.

  “Got anything from home with you?” I asked Natasha. “Something that smells like her own stable?”

  “Just some tack supplies and her feed.”

  I thought for a moment. “Maybe a horse blanket?”

  She frowned. “I didn’t think to bring one. That was dumb.”

  “How about the girls? Would seeing them make her think she’s at home?”

  Natasha cocked her head. “I don’t know. Maybe. The girls aren’t in the barn all that often.”

  “We could try it.”

  “All right.” Natasha turned to the girls on the lawn. “How about it, girls? Can you come show January how easy and fun it is to walk into the barn? Stay at a distance, though. She’s nervous and that makes her unpredictable.”

  The girls sprang to their feet and Stephen joined them. Soon all three kids and the puppy were standing at the entrance to the barn. They were close enough for January to see them but not so close that she could hurt them.

  Samantha clicked like her m
other had. “Come on, January! Come on!” She clicked again.

  And then to our surprise, January moved forward without a trace of dread.

  “She’s coming!” the girls squealed.

  They dashed inside, with Stephen and the dog following.

  “Get all the way to the back there and stand by the gate to the empty stall, ya?” I said. The kids dutifully obeyed. January willingly walked the rest of the way, the children easing backward as directed. We drew closer, her gaze roving between the girls and where I was leading her. I got her inside the stall, complimenting her the whole time, telling her what an amazing horse she was.

  I backed out and closed the door.

  “Let’s let her get used to the feel and smell of the place.” I said as I latched the door. The five of us stood and watched her.

  “I’ve never seen a horse with an imagination like this one,” Natasha said as she leaned against a rail. “It’s as though she thinks there’s danger lurking everywhere. And the more she thinks about it, the more she convinces herself all is lost.”

  “But she wasn’t this way when you bought her, right?” I asked, trying to remember the details of what Natasha had told me when I was out at her place on Saturday.

  “I sure didn’t see it. And I’ve talked to the owner since then. He said she was fine when she was showing. But he admitted he didn’t spend much time with her. He had professional trainers and groomers taking care of her. He checked all her medical and training records. Nobody noticed a behavior change before she left.”

  “And her transportation to you from her old home? That went well? No accidents or near misses or squealing brakes or anything?”

  Natasha shook her head. “No. Eric drove her for me himself. It was a long trip, but an uneventful one.”

  “Maybe she misses being in the shows!” Samantha said.

  Natasha smiled down at her daughter. “Maybe she does, sweetheart.”

  As if she knew we were talking about her, January swiveled her head around to look at the five sets of eyes trained on her.

  Then the kids ran over to Willow’s stall next and began trying to pat her on the head. From his pocket Stephen produced sugar cubes, and soon the girls were squealing and laughing at the feel of Willow’s velvety lips on the palms of their open, sugar-cube-bearing hands.

  “I hope I didn’t make a mistake buying January,” Natasha said as we watched them play. “I paid a lot for her, maybe more than she was worth considering her number of wins and her early retirement.”

  “Why did she retire early?”

  “Her scores started to taper off, and her owner felt it best to quit before the drop in her standings became noticeable to everybody. It happens all the time. She’s still a beautiful horse.”

  “That she is,” I replied, taking in the graceful line of her crest and withers.

  “And it’s not as though I plan to show her or anything. I bought her for breeding purposes.”

  “Right.”

  “Anyway,” Natasha said, suddenly all business again. “How long are you thinking this might take?”

  I shook my head. “As I said the other day, let’s start by giving it a week and then we’ll see. What I can tell you is that if I’ve made absolutely no progress at all in that time, I may not be the one to help her.”

  “But you think you will, don’t you? Make progress, I mean?”

  I smiled. “I’m optimistic. I’ve seen this kind of behavior in a lot of horses.”

  She turned her gaze to January again. “She’s such a lovely animal. And from good lineage. I just know she’d have beautiful foals.”

  We stood there a moment longer, but the girls became bored once they had used up all the sugar cubes. They scampered out of the barn, the dog happily barking at their heels, with Stephen following them. Natasha and I made our way back to the trailer, and together we unloaded the feed she had brought for January, as well as the tack supplies she had tucked inside a gray Rubbermaid tub.

  “Well, I guess that’s it then.” She cast a glance toward the barn where her troubled horse now stood out of her line of sight.

  “For what it’s worth, I haven’t met a horse yet I haven’t been able to help,” I assured her. “And I don’t mean to sound prideful. Horses will let down their guard when they trust the person in charge to be their protection.”

  Natasha brushed a strand of hair from her face and furrowed an eyebrow. “Not all horses, though.”

  I shrugged. I had meant what I said. “I’d say all horses.”

  She cocked her head and laughed, but there was no amusement behind it. “Clearly you haven’t met Duchess,” she muttered, almost under her breath.

  I was instantly curious to know more about the beautiful white horse that Eric wouldn’t elaborate about over the phone and that Ryan had said had issues. Whatever those issues were, my desire to fix was instantly on supercharge.

  “May I ask what’s wrong with her?”

  Natasha turned her head toward me. “She’s fine. She’s perfect—at home. It’s when I take her to competitions that she goes nuts. The crowds make her crazy. She’s a show horse, so that’s a huge problem. Huge.”

  I wanted to know more, but my follow-up questions stuck in my throat when I saw the look on Natasha’s face. Clearly, this was a topic not open for discussion.

  “Well, I would help you with her if I could,” I said, knowing full well she would never bring a horse worth more than two hundred thousand dollars to this place—nor that I would want her to.

  She cast another glance toward the open barn doors. “Tell you what, Jake. You figure out what’s bugging January, and I just may take you up on that.”

  I quickly replied that I was only kidding, but she swung her head around to face me. “Well, I’m not. I have to find a solution by the time the horse show rolls around in September or everything’s going to fall apart. And I mean everything.”

  Before I could respond, the girls came running toward us with Comet happily chasing after them. Stephen was not far behind.

  “All right, girls. Time to head home,” Natasha said brightly, as though we had just finished up a conversation about equine hoof health.

  The girls both frowned.

  “We want to stay and play with Comet!” Samantha whined.

  “You’ve been playing with the dog since the moment we got here. We need to get home, and these people need to get on with their day. Come on. In the truck.”

  Natasha’s daughters grudgingly obeyed.

  I suddenly remembered I had made an estimate of what I was planning to charge Natasha for January’s stay. I had settled on a hundred and fifty dollars for the week. That seemed like a fair price considering January had her own food and I wasn’t a professional. I was planning on giving Amos a third of that. I felt fifty dollars was fair compensation for the use of his stable and pastures.

  “Oh,” I said, pulling the sheet of paper from my pocket. “Here’s what I am suggesting as a fee for January’s stay here. I probably should have shown that to you first.”

  Natasha took the piece of paper and barely glanced at it. “That’s fine.” She shoved it in her pants pocket and then gazed back toward the barn, a slightly concerned look on her face.

  “I will do my best to help your horse, Natasha,” I said. When that didn’t seem to reassure her, I asked, “Would you like to see her one more time before you go?”

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to mess anything up. She was okay when we left.”

  “You can call anytime. We’re not always in the shop, but when we are, someone usually answers the phone. Or just leave a message if they don’t.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that. Okay, then.”

  “I’ll secure the trailer door.”

  As she got inside her truck, I closed the door, lowered the latch, and set the pin. I stepped away so she could see I was finished.

  “You have plenty of room to turn around,” I called. I moved to the edge of the b
arn to help her with clearance, and a few moments later the truck was making its way down the gravel drive to the street.

  Natasha honked once, and then they turned onto the road.

  EIGHTEEN

  It seemed best to let January have some time to recover from her trip from Chester County, so I didn’t attempt to work with her after Natasha and the girls left. The horse seemed a bit uneasy when I brought in her feed and tack, and she kept an ear trained toward the open barn door as though she expected something or someone to come running through it. I distracted her by offering her a few carrots, and then I took Patch out to the round pen for what I hoped would be my final session with him.

  This time instead of hats on stakes, I held one in my hand, waited for Patch to stretch out his neck to smell it, and then touched Patch lightly with its brim. I started with his neck, then moved down to his midsection, touching and releasing and waiting for Patch to stand perfectly still as I moved about him with the hat. When my hat-touching elicited a calm response, I rewarded him with a carrot chunk. When he startled, I waited and tried again. After an hour of this, he was allowing me to touch my hat to his face and neck with only a slight swish of his tail—a huge improvement and proof to me he was ready to go home. It would be easy to show Trudy how to do the same pressure-and-release technique with her father’s hat so that Patch’s “trust conditioning” could continue.

  I was getting set to lead him out of the round pen when Roseanna showed up at the rail. Judging by the basket of carrots on her arm, she’d been pulling up the vegetable component for tonight’s supper and had decided to check on our progress on her way back to the kitchen.

  “Looks like you won’t need another bucket of goodies for that horse,” she said, smiling at me.

  “You were watching, eh?”

  “It’s pretty amazing how you did that. I once saw Mahlon try to calm a horse spooked by its own blanket—but with completely different results.” Roseanna laughed. “He was running around behind that mare, trying to get close enough for her to see it was nothing to be afraid of. The horse wanted nothing to do with that blanket. It was pretty funny to watch.”

  I laughed too as I walked Patch toward the pen gate. “I can imagine. Guess Mahlon didn’t know that horses are more inclined to go toward something that’s moving away from them rather than coming at them, especially something they would prefer to avoid.”