Wild Horses (Sadie's Montana #1)(64)

“Mark! Mark! It’s them! It’s… It’s… They’re in there!” she screamed in a hoarse, terrified cry.

“Get up! Now! Sadie, you have to listen to me. Let me put you up. Whoa, Chester! Good boy! Hang on!”

She was picked up firmly and dumped unceremoniously on the leather saddle. Chester was prancing frantically beneath her and she hung on, grateful for all the skills she remembered. In a flash, Mark was behind her, turning Chester, goading him back the way they had come.

Sadie leaned forward, the wind nipping her scarf, her hair. The air was frigid. She felt Mark’s solid form behind her, felt his breath.

The line of horses was moving with them. They weren’t visible except as undulating shadows among the trees. Chester was galloping steadily, his powerful strides covering the slopes easily. Sadie turned her head and screamed as she saw the dark forms emerging from the tree line. Mark saw them at the same moment and called to Chester.

“C’mon, boy! C’mon!”

Chester responded with a gathering of great, powerful leaps. Sadie’s mind turned to the night with Ezra. She fought off the panic and fear from the accident.

The black leader called his terrible stallion challenge, a scream of territorial rights. It lent wings to Chester’s feet, goading him across the snow. Speed was their only chance, and Mark urged his horse on.

The bonfire!

Brightly it blazed, like a beacon of rest, of safety. Sadie could see the two horses, the youth seated around the blazing light. Sadie felt Chester relax, loosen his gait. She saw the youth scatter, calling in alarm as they slid up to the fire.

Mark was down before Chester stopped, and he lifted Sadie off in a blink.

“Get the horses and stay by the fire!” Mark yelled in an awful voice.

The girls screamed, their hands going to their mouths, their eyes wide with fear. Aidan and Johnny grabbed the reigns of the horses, and they all huddled around the blazing fire. They watched in disbelief as the band of horses streamed past. Chester stood between the youth and the horses, his nostrils flaring as his sides heaved with exertion.

The great black leader shook his head, reared, and pawed the air as if to warn them. They were in plain sight, the firelight identifying the colors, the heads, whipping manes, streaming tails. The snow obscured the feet and legs, but as one body they galloped in perfect rhythm.

Sadie watched in wonder.

The horses were not any old, scraggly, wild mustangs. They were not the usual stock that were a nuisance to all the ranchers in the area. These horses were different. Sadie had caught the wild-eyed look on a small mare. She was afraid. These horses were running scared and they were very thin.

Something was not right.

And, oh, that black stallion! His cry! She would always remember the sound in her worst dreams and nightmares of that night.

After the last hoof beat faded, a general babble of voices broke out. The boys began talking at once. The girls came running to Sadie, asking a dozen questions. She sank weakly onto a bale of straw.

“Now I’m telling you, this is the real thing! No one can even pretend these wild horses aren’t around!” Marvin Keim was yelling.

“Good thing we had this fire!”

“I mean, they were running!”

“Did you see that big, black one?”

A somber mood enveloped them. They knew they were extremely fortunate to have been by the blazing fire, all of them together. The sledding was over. No one felt like straying very far from the bonfire.

Mark reached out to Chester and said they’d better stay as a group and all return to the Detweiler farm together.

The walk back was quiet, the girls casting fearful glances in the direction of the trees.

Mark walked beside Sadie and held her gloved hand in his. She was grateful and let her hand rest inside his strong one.

“I’ll see you next Saturday evening.”

“Oh, yes,” she breathed happily. “But try to get to my house fairly late.”

“Why?”

“Well, Reuben is… He’ll never go to bed if he knows you’ll be there. He’ll lie flat on the floor upstairs with his ear pressed against the floor and listen to every word we say.”

Mark laughed his deep rolling laugh that Sadie loved to hear. It would be a very long time until Saturday evening.





Chapter 18




AFTER THE SLEDDING PARTY, the Amish community in Montana buzzed with the news of the wild horses. The women sat in their phone shanties and had long conversations about what had actually happened that evening. Mugs of coffee at the men’s elbows turned cold as they talked, visualized, and tried to come up with a feasible plan.

Before church, when the men stood in the forebay of Jesse Troyer’s barn, the topic was wild horses. And after services, around the long dinner table spread with traditional church food—pie, homemade bread, jam, pickles, red beets, homemade deer bologna, and slices of cheese, all washed down with cups of steaming coffee—the talk was wild horses.

Of course it was the Lord’s day, and the sermon was not about wild horses, but instead a good, solid lecture on forgiveness and the wonders of allowing ourselves to be freed from any grudges or ill feeling toward others. Still, no one could keep their minds from the events of the youth bonfire.

Mothers shook their heads, children listened wide-eyed. It was not safe to be on the road after dark, especially alone with a horse and buggy.