Wild Horses (6 page)

“Sadie, come on. Take two minutes to eat a doughnut. There’s only one way to eat ’em—big bites with the cream filling squishing out the side.”

Sadie laid down her knife, wiped her hands on her apron, and smiled as she selected a powdered, cream-filled doughnut from the box Jim held out to her.

“Mmmmm,” she said, rolling her eyes as the first soft sweetness of the confectioners sugar met the taste buds on her tongue.

“No news of the horse?” she asked, wiping the corners of her mouth. Jim’s mouth was full of doughnut, so he shook his head.

“May as well have the vet put ’im down. Sorriest bag of bones I ever laid eyes on,” he said after chewing and swallowing.

Sadie said nothing.

“What horse?” Dorothy asked, slurping a mouthful of coffee, then grimacing and shaking her head at the heat.

Jim related the morning’s events, his heavy mustache wagging like a squirrel’s tail across his upper lip. His lower face was a dark brownish-red, etched with lines from the sun and wind, but it never failed to amuse Sadie the way his complexion lightened as it met his hat or the shade from the brim. The top of his balding head was creamy white with thatches of graying hair sticking out the way a hat causes hair to stick.

He’d look a lot better if he took off that Stetson sometimes, Sadie thought. At least long enough to tan that pearly, white head.

Jim slouched on a chair, and Dorothy moved over to pat the top of his head.

“Thanks, hon. That was so nice of you.”

Sadie felt quick tears spring to her eyes. The sight of those work-roughened, cracked hands so tenderly touching the bald head of her husband was a sight she wished she could portray on paper. They had been married at least 40 years, and Sadie had seen them at their best. She smiled as she watched the slow, easy grin spread across Jim’s creviced face.

“You better get that breakfast on. There’s a bunch of hungry men out there.”

“Jim, do you… do you think they’ll all agree to put him down?” Sadie broke in.

“What? Who?”

“The horse.”

“Ain’t none of their business.”

“Well, whose business is it? Who’s going to say what gets done with him?”

“I dunno, missy. Likely the boss.”

Sadie turned back to peeling potatoes, her shoulders sagging a bit. She stiffened as she felt Jim’s hand on her shoulder.

“Listen. That there horse is gonna die, okay? He’s on his last breath. Don’t even think about him ’cause he ain’t gonna live.”

“He wants to live, Jim. I saw it in his eyes.”

Jim shrugged. Dorothy caught his eye and shook her head, and the conversation was over.

Sadie put the potatoes on to cook, then began breaking dozens of eggs into a large glass bowl. She added milk, salt, and pepper, then set the mixer on low, preparing the huge amount of scrambled eggs. Great loaves of homemade wheat bread were sliced and put into the toasters, slabs of butter spread thickly across the bread, melting into the crusty slices. The grill was loaded with bacon sizzling into curled, darkened, salty goodness. Dorothy kept forking finished pieces onto a serving platter and replenishing the grill with more long, limp slices of raw bacon.

They worked quietly now, both concentrating on finishing all the food at approximately the right time. This was all routine work. Today there was just a larger amount.

The dining room was majestic. At least Sadie always thought of it as majestic. There was simply no other word to describe it. The ceilings were vaulted and the beams exposed with great chandeliers hanging from the lofty height on long, thick chains. The windows were huge, allowing a view that was one of the most beautiful Sadie had ever seen.

She never tired of cleaning up after the hungry cowhands had eaten. Just being in that room made her happy. But she hardly ever ventured in while the men were there eating, being strictly warned by her mother not to be gallivanting about while that room was filled with those cowboy “wannabes.”

Sometimes when Mam spoke in that derisive tone, Sadie could tell that she thoroughly disliked some aspects of the West, but her pride and her upbringing would not allow her to say it directly. When Sadie mentioned it to Leah, she was met with stony opposition.

Of course Mam loved the West. She loved her house and Dat, and why in the world would Sadie come up with something like that? Sometimes she was just disappointed in Mam, that was what.

Sadie carried the square, stainless steel pans filled with scrambled eggs, biscuits, sausage gravy, and all the food they had prepared that morning. She dropped them expertly between the grids of the ornate steam table, an oak table with lights above it and hot water beneath the shining, stainless steel pans to keep the food piping hot.

She checked the number of heavy, white stoneware plates, the utensils wrapped in cloth napkins, and the mugs turned upside down beside the huge amount of coffee in shining urns.

The long pine tables were cleaned and polished to perfection with long benches on either side. The floor was wide with heavy planks, worn smooth and glistening from the many coats of polyurethane varnish that had been applied years ago.

Two massive glass doors stood at the end of the dining room, and Sadie’s heart skipped, stumbled, and kept going as she spotted a white pickup pulling a large gray trailer through the blowing snow.

Could it be? Would Mark… No, they were in a red cattle truck. It would be months before she heard anything, if ever. Jim was probably right.

She retreated when she heard the voice of Richard Caldwell in even louder tones than was normal, leading his men to breakfast.

“Never heard anything like it!”

Someone answered in quieter tones. Then, “But a whole herd? How are you ever going to make off with a whole herd at one time? I mean, yeah, years ago when the range was wide open, but now people are going to notice a bunch of horses together. Come on!”

Sadie couldn’t go back to the kitchen. Not now. She had to hear this. She turned her back, which was much the same as not being in the room at all. A herd of horses stolen? She agreed with Richard Caldwell. Not in this day and age.

She cringed inwardly as the huge doors opened and the men began to file in. She busied herself folding napkin and replenishing the ice bin, being quiet and straining her ears to hear what the men were saying. She hardly breathed when she realized the conversation was very serious. The men never stood around like this when there was breakfast to be eaten, especially at this late hour.

“Did you watch it?”

“Nah. Don’t watch TV.”

“Well you should watch the news.”

“Bah!”

“Yeah, but listen,” Richard Caldwell’s voice was heard above the din. “This guy in Hill County is wealthy. His horses are worth thousands of dollars. Thousands and thousands. I mean, he has a very distinguished bloodline going on there. He’s been breeding horses for years and years. All of a sudden, this guy goes out to the stables, and ‘Poof!’ his horses are no longer there. It’s unheard of.”

“The work of some extremely smart men.”

“Terrorists.”

“Arabs.”

“Oh, stop it. Those people wouldn’t bother with our ordinary horses.”

“I can’t think of one single person in a thousand-mile radius that would be brilliant enough to carry this off. Not a one.”

The conversation became more animated, each acquaintance contributing his voice, until it was hard to comprehend what they were really discussing. And they thought women at a quilting were bad! They couldn’t be much more talkative than this.

Now she heard Jim’s voice.

“Yeah, it’s weird. But hardly much weirder than a starved and dyin’ horse jumping down a bank out of the woods smack in front of my truck bringin’ the Amish girl this morning. That thing appeared outta nowhere. Hit the brakes and skidded ’fore we hit ’im.”

“Did you kill ’im?”

“No. I got ’er stopped in time. But don’t think the horse’ll make it. Skinniest thing I ever seed. Ever.”

There was a murmur among the men, nods of agreement as each contemplated the scene in his own imagination.

Sadie knew Jim was well-liked and highly esteemed among the men. The few times he gave his opinion, the men considered, talked about, and respected it.

“Easy for a horse to git pretty skinny in this weather.”

“He weren’t just skinny. He was pretty bad.”

“What happened to him?”

“That Fred Skinner came along in his cattle truck. City guy with him was gonna call the vet.”

The snorts were unanimous.

“Spend a couple hundred for the vet when the poor miserable creature’ll go the way of nature anyhow.”

“Yep.”

“Them city people.”

“Looks as if breakfast is ready.”

Sadie slipped through the swinging doors into the kitchen, unnoticed.

Now that bit of news was something to think about. And…well, she may as well give it all up. Maybe that horse lying on the road was really just like a mirage to a person dying of thirst and walking in a desert. You thought what you wanted was there, but it never really was, despite the fact that you were absolutely convinced of its existence. Maybe instead of a look in a horse’s beautiful eyes, it was only her own emotions—all a fleeting mirage, her imagination run wild.

It was probably the same with Mark. Whoever he was. Of course, any girl would react to someone as good-looking as him. What did Mam say? Don’t go by looks. So there you go. It wasn’t real attraction.

Sadie tackled the pans, scraping their residue into tall garbage cans lined with heavyweight garbage bags, getting them ready for the commercial dishwasher. Thankfully, today she would not encounter “Her Royal Highness, the lofty Barbara Caldwell,” as Sadie was prone to thinking of her.

Sadie had long decided some people were wealthy and you would never know by their attitude. Only their clothes, the cars they drove, or their homes revealed their monetary value. And some people… Well, Barbara was a piece of work. If she could, she would clean the floor with a Lysol disinfectant wipe after Sadie walked on it. She had no use for those pious, bearded people, even refusing to speak the name “Amish.” Sadie had found it extremely hard at first, cringing whenever Barbara approached, but, after three years, Barbara actually addressed Sadie, though only on rare occasions.

One of her favorite put-downs was asking Sadie to pick up the dry cleaning in town. Then she would wave her long, jeweled fingers and say, “Oh yes, I keep forgetting. You don’t have your license.”

Each time, Sadie ground her teeth in an effort not to tell Barbara that if she did have her license, she wouldn’t pick up her dry cleaning anyway. In fact, she wanted to say to Barbara that she could just heave herself and all her excess poundage off to the dry cleaners and pick it up herself. But her upbringing, of course, denied her that wonderful luxury.

Jim said Barbara wasn’t like that when he was around. But Dorothy heartily disagreed and told him so.

“You can’t be peaches and cream at one person’s table, then turn around and be sauerkraut at the next.”

Sadie never said much, if anything at all. She was taught at home not to speak ill of anyone, and Sadie knew without a doubt that was one of the hardest things for human nature to overcome. How could you respect someone who so obviously viewed you with only contempt?

S
ADIE WAS ALWAYS HAPPY
to return to her home in the evening. She just wished Jim would push that old truck a bit faster and never failed to be amazed at how slowly he navigated the winding, uphill drive to the house. Tonight, though, the snow made the hill treacherous, so she was glad he didn’t accelerate around the bend.

The warm, golden square windows of home were welcoming beacons through the grayish-white evening light, and Sadie could almost smell the good supper Mam had already prepared.

“See ya!” Sadie said, hopping lightly out of the old pickup.

“Mm-hm,” Jim grunted.

Sadie swung open the door to the kitchen, which was awash in the bright glow of the propane gas lamps set into the ornate wooden cabinet next to the kitchen cupboards.

“I’m home!” she sang out.

There was no answer, no supper on the stove, no table set by the French doors.

“Hey! I’m home!”

Leah came quietly into the kitchen, making no sound at all, her face pale, but smiling a welcome in the way sisters grin at one another after an absence.

Sisters were like that. A grin, a look, a soul connection, a mutual knowing that one was just as glad to see the other, an understanding of “Oh, goody, you’re home!” but with no words.

Leah was only two years younger than Sadie, and, at 18, one of the prettiest of the sisters. Blonde-haired, with the same blue eyes as Sadie, Leah was always light-hearted, happy, and upbeat about any situation. Mam said Leah was the sunshine of the family.

But today there was a soft, gray cloud over her sister’s blue eyes, and Sadie raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“It’s Mam.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. She’s…” Leah shrugged her shoulders.

“She’s what?” Sadie asked, feeling a sickness rise in her stomach like the feeling she used to have in school before the Christmas program.