The Amish Blacksmith (47 page)

But
Daed
swung wide of the whole thing. We continued past the building and took a right at its corner by the barn, moving toward an outbuilding in which he stored buggy parts.

We stopped at it.

“I was thinking if you wanted, you could fix this up as your own blacksmith shop. We're far enough away from Amos's place that I don't think he could complain too much.”

I appreciated the offer, but I knew he was wrong about Amos. “Our agreement was ten miles at a minimum,
Daed
. You know this can't be more than eight.”

“So you go and you talk to him first. I think a couple of miles of grace is the least he could do.”

“Maybe so,” I said, doubting it, “but what about you? You need this building for your own business. All your spare parts are in here.”

“
Ya
, but they don't need to be. It makes more sense to keep them at the main building. Tyler's been saying so for a while. He's figured out a way to rearrange the inventory so we can fit everything in one building. And I know some of the materials in here are obsolete anyway, so it needs a good cleaning out. It's big enough, I think, for a small blacksmith shop. I've seen Amos's
setup. You could do the same thing here. It would just be a little tighter. One horse at a time instead of three.”

I didn't know what to say. Of course I appreciated
Daed
's offer, but there was still the matter of my needing more experience. I also didn't know if I was ready to admit my only option was to open a little side business at the buggy shop and hope that it would grow.

When I said nothing, he went on. “I know it's probably not your dream location, son, and it might take a while to fix up and get a forge and all that, but I know how much you wanted to focus on farrier work and how hard it must be to have all that disappear on you overnight. Both your
Mamm
and I are feeling bad about it. You don't deserve what happened to you. I can't front you any money to get things started, but I can offer you this building if you want it.”

“Thanks,
Daed
,” I finally said. “I really appreciate this. I'll think on it.”

And I did think on it for the next few days. At first, it was just a remote possibility, but with every blacksmith shop that said they weren't hiring and every classified ad that did me no good, my father's idea began to grow on me more and more. It still wasn't an ideal location, but at least it was worth further consideration.

On Wednesday evening,
Daed
and I sat down together with pen and paper, a calculator, and a stack of farrier supply catalogs. Together, we worked up a figure that realistically represented the investment required to supply and stock a fully functional blacksmith shop. It was higher than either one of us expected.

I could see the defeat settling into my father's shoulders. When we'd crunched the numbers for a third time and still came out too high, he sighed heavily, turned off the calculator, and slipped it into the drawer.

“I'm sorry, son. I've been thinking you could get something temporary, just to earn your seed money. But this much would take way too long. To reach that figure in a reasonable amount of time… well, that's just not going to happen. I don't know anywhere you could work and earn that kind of money.”

I stared at the number on the page. I thought about my other prospects. I calculated how long it would take.

Then I met my father's eyes and told him, “I do.”

I finally heard from Priscilla a few days later.

Dear Jake,

Thank you so much for the notes. I have enjoyed them more than you know. I was so sorry to hear about the job situation, but at least it sounds like you're doing okay.

In my Bible reading this morning, I came across a familiar verse I wanted to share. You know in Ecclesiastes, the part about how there's a time to every purpose under heaven? In the list of purposes, it says there's “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”

See? Even God is saying you should be fully aware of what your heart is telling you.

Blessings,

Priscilla

I wrote back to her that very hour, penning the note at the kitchen table and then taking it to the post office in Paradise so that it would be on its way to her the next morning.

Dear Priscilla,

It was great to hear from you at last. And thanks for invoking the Word of God to prove your point.

After zero success in turning up work as a blacksmith, I finally accepted a job with Natasha
Fremont that starts next week. It's not ideal, but it's only temporary. My goal is to earn enough there so I can open a shop of my own.

For now, the biggest hurdle with this job is going to be the commute, as you can imagine. Using the bus, it'll be about an hour each way, every day, including one transfer and walking a mile at both ends. Other than that, it should be okay. I look forward to seeing January and Duchess again, and at least it will be nice getting to know all of the other horses there too.

Sincerely,

Jake

The next note, short and sweet, arrived from her within the same week.

Dear Jake,

The best thing about long bus rides is that they give you time to think.

And because you have a lot of thinking to do, I figure this is just about perfect.

Blessings,

Priscilla

Tyler and Rachel came over for supper on Friday night, and it was great to see them. After two weeks of just me and
Mamm
and
Daed
, I was a little too overeager. In my mind, I'd been envisioning a long night of popcorn and brownies and a rousing game of Settlers of Catan, our favorite. But Rachel seemed tired, likely due to her condition, and they ended up leaving by eight.

As I stood in the driveway and watched them pull away in their buggy, I felt a pang of loneliness that twisted into a knot in my gut. I realized I was in a wilderness as far as my social life was concerned. I had already been feeling too old to be going to the singings and such with Amanda, and now that I was no longer courting her, I wouldn't have to worry about that anymore. But that was the only social life I'd had for a while. Most of my friends here in this district were already married. I didn't know what I was going to do with myself in my free time. In the past, I could have hung out with Tyler—hunting, hiking, playing board games or tetherball or whatever—but for the most part those days were gone. He had a wife now and a child on the way. I couldn't ask him for more than the occasional pity hike.

Later, I laid awake for quite a while in the bed that had been Tyler's in the room that had been mine. I kept thinking back to earlier in the week, to the morning
Daed
first offered me the spare parts building for my shop. His words to me as we'd stood there and talked began echoing in my head now.

How hard it must be to have all that disappear on you overnight.

How hard it must be to have all that disappear on you overnight.

How hard it must be to have all that disappear on you overnight.

The echoes wouldn't stop. I started to pray to silence them, but they seemed to only grow louder, as if the very walls of my childhood room were shouting them. A breeze from outside began to sing around the eaves, and it sounded like someone crying.

Someone crying.

I bolted straight up in my bed.

This room, that sound. A memory began to creep over me, indistinct and vaporous. I sat still as a stone as I waited for it to settle and materialize. But then, as quickly as it was there, it was gone.

T
HIRTY
-F
OUR

B
y the end of my first week at Natasha's, I had settled into a rhythm. A lot of my job consisted of the same things I'd been doing since I was a little boy—feeding, watering, and grooming horses. But I also worked with Duchess each morning and exercised the horses each afternoon.

Other than that, my biggest task was to be available to the boarders at all times for whatever they might need. When Ted, the stable master, told me that on my first day, I envisioned myself hitching up trailers and advising on equine hoof care and easing horses in and out of stalls. Instead, it ended up being mostly “Amish man on parade” as I answered what seemed to be a never-ending stream of questions from curious
Englisch
whose horses were stabled at Morningstar. Maybe I should just hang a sign:
Yes, the Amish do pay taxes and we do not have arranged marriages and there really is no such thing as an Amish Mafia.

Natasha was a busy woman, but she checked in with me near the end of my second day, just to see how things were going. I was frank with her, telling her they might want to rethink that part of my job description, considering how much time I was losing to matters that had nothing whatsoever to do with horses.

She just laughed. “Silly boy. Don't you get it? That's exactly how you should be spending your time.”

I didn't appreciate it, but there wasn't a lot I could do about it. Every time I wanted to call it quits and head out of there for good, I would remind myself of the size of my paycheck and the dream of owning my own shop. So far, that had been enough to make me stay.

Dear Priscilla,

I've been working at Natasha's for three days now, and so far it's going pretty well. At least I'm surrounded by all kinds of beautiful horses, and she's letting me have half an hour each morning with Duchess to see if I can help solve her issues with crowds and performing. Natasha is still determined to do that show in Devon next month, so I'm seriously hoping I'll be able to figure this out and fix it before then.

Other than that, the job is a strange mix of gruntwork and glad-handing, which I'll tell you more about some other time. Though I was hired primarily for my skills with gentling, so far the only problem horse I've dealt with is Duchess. Otherwise, Natasha seems to be holding me out like a carrot on a stick. Apparently, people want to board at her stables even more if her in-house Amish horse whisperer has no availability at this time and a long waiting list. Hah!

Till then, I just wanted to say hello and that I hope you are doing well.

Sincerely,

Jake

P.S. I think a lot about the night of the fireworks, and not just in relation to nervous horses.

Other than working with Duchess, the only one other task I enjoyed was exercising the horses, and all of them needed to be ridden daily. After seeing what was involved, I'd sought approval from the church. Once the bishop had given me the okay—apparently, horseback riding within the course of a job was fine—I'd been doing it since.

Ted often worked with me, and each time we put the animals through their paces, I thought of Priscilla and the ride she had taken me on the day before she left. It was again exhilarating to be on the back of a running horse, and I found myself amazed anew at God's creation of such a majestic beast.

I was also reminded that there had never been any fallout from that ride, which meant no one had spotted us after all—or, if they had, at least they hadn't said anything. For that, I was incredibly grateful.