Wild Horses (Sadie's Montana #1)(89)

“Oh, my!”

It was all Sadie could say.

“And the sum still stands for finding my horses— $20,000.”

Mam put up both hands and Dat protested.

“That is unfadiened gelt—unearned money—and we cannot accept it. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Well, then, let Reuben have it,” Harold Ardwin said.

When the headlights of the silver SUV found its way back down the drive, the Miller household was in an uproar. Everyone talked; no one listened. Reuben leaped onto the recliner and tipped the whole thing backward. Mam scolded and Dat said, “Wasn’t that a fine kettle of fish, feeding three horses!”

Sadie said the reward money would pay their hospital bills so who cared if they needed to feed three horses, and Reuben said he wished Sadie would get married so her husband would have to buy horse feed and straw and hay and then there would be more room for the brown horse.

Sadie told him that if he didn’t stop talking about “the brown horse” she’d lose it, and Reuben said whoever in all the world heard of a horse named Butterfly, especially if a guy owned her. Anna shrieked and teased him about being a guy if he had just turned 11, and Reuben’s face turned red and he ate three cookies.

Sadie and Reuben helped load Black Thunder, as he was known now, into the luxurious red and silver horse trailer. Sadie brought him down from the field by the tree line, followed by Paris and the brown horse.

It seemed as if the horses felt the homecoming and welcomed it. Paris stood by Sadie as Harold Ardwin led the black horse up the ramp. She was watching with her ears pricked forward, but she remained quietly by Sadie’s side. Reuben sat on the brown horse, relaxed, his bare feet dangling out of his too-short denim trousers, his hair disheveled above his sun-browned face.

Black Thunder whinnied and rocked the trailer but, for the most part, settled back into his former way of traveling. It seemed as if he remembered everything and was ready to go.

Harold Ardwin thanked them both, shook hands, said he’d be back to visit his…their…two horses whenever he could, and was gone.

Sadie stood with her hand on Paris’ neck. She stroked the horse absentmindedly, her thoughts completely at peace. Finally, she had a horse—a real, honest to goodness horse of her own, fair and square, and a beautiful one at that. The added bonus was getting to share everything with Reuben and his horse. The rides, the grooming, the companionship—it was all a gift, and God surely had something to do with it.

Thank you, God, for Paris.

It was that simple for her, but heartfelt in a way she had never experienced.

Turning, she smiled at Reuben.

“Ready?”

“Sure.”

Sadie grabbed a handful of her horse’s mane and leaped expertly onto her back, which was a signal for Reuben to turn the brown horse and start galloping home immediately.

Mam was sitting at her sewing machine in front of the low double windows, working the treadle in a steady “thumpa, thumpa” sort of rhythm. It was the music of every Amish housewife’s heart. It melded with the soul when accompanied by favorite hymns, which was “Amazing Grace” for her.

Mam steadily watched the presser foot as she hemmed a pair of blue denim work pants for Jacob. When she came to the end, she stopped, looked up, and reached for her scissors. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a cloud of dust with two figures ahead of it.

The scissors clattered to the hardwood floor, her nervous hand knocking them off the sewing machine stand. The other hand wobbled to her chest and held her dress front in agitation.

“Siss kenn Fashtant,” she mouthed, “Sadie and Reuben!”

Oh, it wasn’t safe. Their speed!

The horses were running neck and neck, coming up the winding drive faster than most cars. Reuben was bent low over the brown horse’s neck. He was looking at Sadie and laughing, his blonde hair blowing across his face and mixing with the black hair from the horse’s mane.

Sadie was bent double across the honey-colored horse, her blue dress tucked down in front but billowing out the side. Her dichly was attached only by one pin, dangerously close to disappearing, but it was the last thing on Sadie’s mind.

The horses weren’t really galloping. They were lunging great, long leaps, their feet hunched beneath their powerful bodies to propel them up the sloping driveway. As they flew past the house, Mam laid her head wearily on her arms and sighed deeply to catch her breath. It would take patience and strength to watch her son and daughter with their prize horses.

Sadie sat up, slid off Paris’ back, and ran to open the barn door. Reuben was at her heels, running across the gravel driveway as if he had shoes on.

“Beat you!” Sadie said as she turned, her face red with exertion, her eyes stinging from the dust particles, her chest heaving.

“You did not either. Not for one second did you beat me!” Reuben yelled.

“I did, Reuben.”

“You did not. Paris did!”

With that, Reuben threw back his head and laughed just the way Dat did when something struck him as being really funny.

Charlie whinnied, then put on quite a show for his two new friends. He tossed his head and did a funny version of a graceful pirouette in the confines of his box stall, as if to impress them both with his ability.

Sadie and Reuben looked at each other and laughed in a shared comradeship none of them had ever felt for the other.