Wild Horses (Sadie's Montana #1)(43)

“I wanted Ezra to stop. I … we would have been safer out of the buggy.”

Dat sat up, then got to his feet.

“Sadie, you don’t have to put yourself through this.”

“I’m all right, Dat. Really.”

Calvin Yutzy was on his feet.

“Hey, if this stuff is true, we have got to do something. Simon may be on to something.”

“Sit down,” Dat said smiling.

Calvin’s wife, Rachel, holding her newborn son, smiled with Dat.

“Sounds like some real western excitement to Calvin,” she said.

Old Eli Miller shook his head.

“Sounds a bit mysterious to me.”

He turned to Sadie.

“Not that I’m doubting your word—I think you do remember some of what happened—but if there are horses out there, whose are they?”

“Where do they come from?” Calvin asked, almost yelping with excitement.

Everyone laughed. It was the easy laughter of a close-knit community, a comfortable kinship. It was the kind of laughter where you know everyone else will chuckle along with you, savoring the little moments of knowing each other well.

“Mam and I both saw them a few weeks ago.”

“Seriously?” Calvin asked, his voice breaking.

Laughter rippled across the room. Men winked, women cast knowing glances as comfortable and good as warm apple pie.

“Sadie, tell them about the … your horse.”

“Go ahead, Dat. You tell them.”

Immediately Dat launched into a colorful account of her ride to work with Jim Sevarr, the snow and cold and the black and white paint. He described how Richard Caldwell kept him at the stable and what an unbelievable horse he would be, if he regained his health.

Calvin sat on the edge of his chair, chewing his lip.

“I bet you anything this horse of Sadie’s is connected.”

“Huh-uh.”

“Aw, no.”

Sadie sat back then, the room whirling as a wave of nausea gripped her. It was time to return to her bedroom, although she didn’t want to. The weakness she felt was a constant bother, and she still faced weeks of recovery.

Rebekah and Leah helped her to her bath and finally to bed as the buggies slowly returned down the drive. Anna and Reuben would be helping their mother clean and wash dishes while Dat went outside to sweep the forebay where the horses had been tied.

Lights blinked through the trees, good-nights echoing across the moonlit landscape accompanied by the dull “think-thunk” of horse’s hooves on snow.

And now Christmas was a week away.

Sadie sat at the breakfast table, her foot and cumbersome cast propped on a folding chair. The bandage was gone from her head, leaving a bald spot showing beneath the kerchief she wore, although, if you looked close enough, new growth of brown hair was already evident. Her eyes were no longer black and blue, but the discoloration remained and cast shadows around them.

It was Saturday, and Rebekah and Leah were both at home, a list spread between them on the table top.

“Where’s Mam?” Sadie asked.

“Still in bed.”

Leah rolled her eyes.

Rebekah sighed.

“Are we just going to go on this way? Just putting up with Mam?” Sadie asked. “I could spank her. She acts like a spoiled child at times.”

“Sadie!”

“Seriously. She‘s been driving me nuts since the accident. She’s not even close to being the mother we remember back in Ohio. She does almost nothing in a day. Just talks to herself. She irritates me. I just want to slap her—wake her up.”

“It’s Dat’s fault.”

“Her own, too.”

“Why won’t they get help? Sadie, it wasn’t even funny the way she caused a scene at the hospital when you got hurt.”

“Someone should have admitted her then.”

“How?”

“I know. The rules are so frustrating. As long as Dat and Mam insist there’s nothing wrong, and she doesn’t hurt anyone or herself, we can’t do anything.”

“In the meantime, we have Christmas coming,” Leah said, helping herself to another slice of buttered toast and spreading it liberally with peanut butter and grape jelly.

“I hate store-bought grape jelly.”

Leah nodded. “Remember the strawberry freezer jam Mam used to make! Mmm.”

“I have a notion to get married and make my own jelly if Mam’s going to be like this,” Rebekah said slowly.

Sadie howled with laughter until tears ran down her cheeks. Her face became discolored and she gasped for breath.

“And, who, may I ask, will you marry?” she asked finally, still giggling.

Leah and Rebekah laughed, knowing the choice was a bit narrow.

It was a Saturday morning made for sisters. Snow swirled outside, Dat and Reuben were gone, Anna was working on her scrapbooks in her room, the kitchen smelled of coffee and bacon and eggs, the cleaning was done, and laundry could wait until Monday.

They were still in their pajamas and robes, their hair in cheerful disarray, all of them feeling well rested after sleeping late. Rebekah was trying to think of things they could buy for Reuben and Anna and the person she got in the name exchange at school.

“Gifts, gifts, gifts. How in the world are we ever going to get ready for Christmas if Mam isn’t in working order?” Rebekah groaned.