Wild Horses (Sadie's Montana #1)(3)

“Poor baby,” Sadie murmured.

Their eyes met then, Sadie declared to her sister Anna, and Paris sort of stood aside and her tail stopped swishing. A trust was born between Sadie and Paris, a very small one, of course, but it was born nevertheless.

Sadie didn’t try to ride Paris for three weeks. She brushed her and bathed her with a bucket of warm, soapy water. She bought equine shampoo at the local harness shop, a new halter, a rope, and brushes.

When she wasn’t with Paris, Sadie mowed grass, raked the leaves, watered flowers, worked in the neighbors’ yard—anything to earn five dollars. Then she was finally able to buy a nice brown saddle, secondhand, of course, but a saddle was a wonderful thing to own, no matter how used. She put the new green saddle blanket on Paris, whose coat was now sleek and pretty. Her ribs were still quite prominent, though, but they would take time to fill out.

When the day finally arrived when she could put the real saddle on Paris’ back, Sadie’s heart pounded so loudly, her ears thudded with a dull, spongy, bonging sound.

She didn’t tell anyone she was riding Paris. Not Mam or Dat, and especially not her pesky little brother Reuben, or any of her sisters. It was better to be alone, unhurried, quiet, able to talk to Paris in her own language which everyone else would probably think was silly.

She would never forget the thrill of trusting Paris. Oh, the horse danced sideways awhile, even tried to scrape her off, but Sadie sat firmly, talking, telling Paris all the things she’d like to hear.

It seemed that Paris loved it when Sadie told her she was beautiful and her best friend. Her eyes turned soft and liquidy, and Sadie knew she lowered her lashes, those gorgeous, silky, dark brushes surrounding her eyes.

Sadie and Eva spent many days galloping across the rolling farmlands of Ohio. Eva never used a saddle, so Sadie learned to ride without one as well. They walked their horses, they talked, they rode to the creek on hot summer days with a container of shampoo, swam with their horses, washed them—and their own hair—with the soapy liquid. This was their favorite activity when the August heat flattened the leaves against the trees, the sky grew brassy yellow-blue with heat, and crickets, grasshoppers, and ants found cool leaves to creep under. Sometimes storms would come up in the northeast and drive them home, dripping wet and clean and filled with the joy of their youth, their girlhoods, their innocence.

They raced their horses in freshly-mowed alfalfa fields. Sometimes they became competitive—and a bit miffed—when one thought the other got an unfair start to a race. They asked Reuben to call “Go!” then, but he was too busy playing with his Matchbox cars in the dirt under the silver maple tree where the grass didn’t grow well. He pushed the dirt with his tiny bulldozer and backhoe for hours on end. The girls and their horses bored him completely, and he told them so, glaring up at them under his strubbly bangs, his shirt collar rimmed with dust, his hands black from the fertile soil around the base of the tree.

It was a wonderful summer for two 15-year-old girls.

Then, one night, when the whole house was settling down with a creaky sort of sigh, the way houses do when darkness falls and the air cools and the old siding expands and contracts, Sadie heard her parents’ voices rising and falling, rising and falling. Their sounds kept her awake far into the night. She plumped her pillow, tossed the covers, turned to a more comfortable position, and finally put the pillow over her head to shut out her parents’ voices.

The next day, they made the announcement.

Dat and Mam asked Sadie, Leah, Rebekah, and Anna to come sit in the living room with them. They looked extremely sober. Reuben was still out under the maple tree with his Matchbox toys, but they let him there undisturbed.

Sadie remembered hearing his faint “Brrr-rrrm, Brr-rm,” as Dat cleared his throat and dropped the bomb, as she thought of it ever after.

They were moving. To Montana. Sadie felt like she was being pulled along by a huge, sticky, rubber band made of voices, and she had no scissors to cut it and get out from under its relentless power.

Montana. An Amish settlement. Too many people. The youth misbehaving. Sadie soon 16.

Mam looked happy, even excited. How could she? How could she be swept along, happily putting her hand in Dat’s and agreeing?

The rubber band’s power increased as Anna clapped her hands, Leah’s blue eyes shone, Rebekah squealed, and Dat grinned broadly.

David Troyers would be going, too. And Dan Detweilers. Sadie sat back on the sofa, creasing the ruffle on the homemade pillow top over and over. The noise around her made no sense, especially when Leah shrieked with pure excitement about a train ride.

What train?

“You mean, we’re traveling to Montana on a train?” Sadie managed to croak, her mouth dry with fear. “What about Paris?”

It was all a blur after that. Sadie couldn’t remember anything clearly except the pain behind her eyes that carried her out of the living room and up the stairs and onto her bed. Sadie dissolved into great gulping sobs, trying to release the pain near her heart.

She could not part with Paris.

But she would have to. Dat said she had to. That was that. There was no livestock being moved all those miles.

“Livestock?” Where in the world did he find a word like that to describe two horses, eight rabbits, and a bunch of silly hens? Paris was no “livestock.”

The only consolation Sadie had was that Uncle Emanuel found a home for Paris on the local veterinarian’s farm. The vet’s daughter, Megan, an English girl who loved horses as much as Sadie, was ecstatic, Sadie could clearly tell.