Wild Horses (Sadie's Montana #1)(66)
She paused for breath, threw a handful of mushrooms into the beaten eggs, and surveyed her breakfast casserole. Sadie looked over her shoulder.
“That’s not very much food.”
“This ain’t for the cowhands. It’s Barbara’s. Richard Caldwell’s taken to eatin’ with her upstairs in her bedroom in the morning. He says she’s feeling sickly. Well, it don’t hurt that woman to lose a few pounds, let me tell you. You done with them oranges?”
Sadie nodded.
“You didn’t tell me which recipe to make for Saturday night, yet.”
“Give me time, give me time.”
After breakfast was over, Sadie and Dorothy sat down together at the great oak table with a stack of dog-eared, greasy cookbooks. Dorothy wet her thumb and began flipping pages.
“Okay, now. You gonna make these at home, or can I help you here?”
Sadie looked at Dorothy.
“Well, we’re getting paid by the hour, so it wouldn’t be very honest to bake something here and take it home. We’d be using their ingredients, and…
Dorothy snorted.
“So what? Richard Caldwell don’t care.”
“I know, but…”
“You Amish is strange ducks. Now whoever heard of being so painfully honest, you can’t even bake a brownie or two with a wealthy guy’s ingredients? Huh? Never heard such a thing in my life.”
“But I’d feel guilty. Should I ask him first?”
“Naw. He don’t care.”
Sadie decided it would be condescending, perhaps even a bit self-righteous, to insist that such a minor thing be done her way. After all, Dorothy was the boss in the kitchen.
“Okay, Dottie, if you say so.”
A profound whack on her backside with the large rubber spatula was her answer.
“Now, don’t you go Dottie’n me again! It’s just plain disrespectful.”
“Okay, Dottie, if you say so.”
They had a hearty laugh together, the kind of laugh that binds your heart to another person with pure good humor and friendship, the kind that keeps a smile on your face for a long time afterwards.
They flipped through the cookie and brownie sections, finally settling on a chocolate bar swirled with cream cheese. Dorothy assured Sadie they were so moist and delicious that you couldn’t eat just one.
“What else are you servin’ this guy?”
“Oh, coffee likely. And something salty. I thought of making those ham and cheese thingys that you roll up in a tortilla.”
Dorothy wrinkled her nose.
“You Easterners don’t know how to make a tortilla.”
They flipped pages, searching for more recipes, and the subject of the wild horses came up. Dorothy shook her head wisely.
“They ain’t no mystery. If any of these highfalutin men had a lick o’ common sense, they’d know this band o’ horses ain’t wild. It’s them stolen ones. Poor babies. They’s runnin’ so scared, it ain’t even funny. Imagine now, Sadie. They lived in a warm barn, blanketed, fed, exercised, brushed, among trainers and people that treated ’em like kings and queens, and suddenly they’re exposed to the wild world, and they can hardly survive. I told Jim they ain’t gettin’ them horses until they build a corral and round ’em up with them new-fangled helicopters. You know what he said? ‘Pshaw!’ But I don’t care what my Jim says, they won’t get ’em.”
Sadie nodded.
“If Nevaeh had lived, he’d be a grand horse by now. He was no ordinary horse.”
Dorothy nodded in agreement. “That he wasn’t, that he wasn’t.”
There was a knock on the kitchen door, and Sadie hurried to open it, wiping her hands on her clean, white apron.
Dat!
Sadie blinked in surprise.
“Why, Dat! What brings you here?”
Dat’s face was pale, his eyes somber.
“You need to come home, Sadie. Your mother is missing.”
“Missing? You mean, you don’t know where she is?”
Dat shook his head, searching Sadie’s face.
What was it in Dat’s eyes? Humiliation, pride, fear, self-loathing, shame? It was all there. She knew this would be very hard for him if the Amish community found out.
“But … she … she can’t have gone far. She walks a lot. She’s likely close by.”
Turning, she told Dorothy she had to leave, getting her coat and scarf off the hook as she did so. Dorothy waved her hand, and Sadie followed Dat out to the car. He had hired a driver, so he must have been very concerned.
The ride home seemed like 30 miles instead of the usual eight. Dat said very little, and Sadie’s heart pounded with fear as she thought of all the things that could have happened to Mam. She was so fragile, that was the thing. Her mind, her nerves—whatever they were—were like a banner in a stiff breeze attached to a solid anchor, but with a frayed rope. As long as Dat would not admit she needed help, who could keep the rope from snapping?
“Oh, dear God, please stay with her,” Sadie prayed. “Wherever she is, just stay with her.”
When they arrived home, Dat gathered his three daughters around him at the kitchen table. Anna and Reuben were still in school, but Leah and Rebekah had been summoned from their cleaning jobs.