The Amish Blacksmith (8 page)

She just stared at me, and even from that distance I could see the deep lavender hue of her eyes.

“I'm sorry I messed up your schedule this morning,” she said, though her tone wasn't exactly repentant. “Uncle Amos told me you usually start in here. I didn't mean to be in the way.”

Though her words contained an apology, her voice sounded strangely accusatory. I believed her about being sorry for having messed up my routine—something I honestly couldn't have cared less about—but underneath the apology was a layer of near hostility. I didn't see how she could be mad at me. She hadn't been back long enough for me to do anything wrong. But anger was what I sensed under her confession.

“Uh, it's no trouble. And you didn't have to do what you did. Really. It's not a big deal.”

She looked behind her to the cleaned-out stalls. Each horse lifted its head and glanced at her, munching as they did. She turned back to me.

“But I put you behind schedule. I'm sorry.” Again, the tone was no match for the words.

I forced a smile regardless. “I am not that tied to a schedule. Honestly. It's no big deal. And even if I was, you wouldn't have set me that far back. There are only seven horses to care for here. It really doesn't matter in which order they are attended to.”

Priscilla stood there for a minute, weighing my words, so it seemed. Testing them to see if I was being sincere, maybe? Or perhaps gauging them in light of her subtly discernible anger toward me.

I was annoyed that she was mad for no reason I could tell. I barely knew her.

My mind raced as I tried to figure this out. Clearly, her anger had something to do with the horses. Then it came to me. Perhaps the stalls where they now stood eating their breakfast were once the very same stalls used by
her family when they lived here all those years ago. Maybe somehow it felt to her that I had taken over the place that should have belonged to her father's old horse.

“Look, if this is about Shiloh, I just want you to know… I mean, they didn't sell him because of me. He's been gone a long time. Years. Since a few months after you moved to Indiana.”

Any veiled evidence of anger fell away and was instantly replaced with incredulity. She looked at me as though I were crazy.

“What are you talking about?”

A few moments of silence stretched between us.

“Uh. What are
you
talking about?” I asked.

“I wasn't talking about anything.”

The next few seconds of silence were truly awkward.

“My mistake,” I finally said. “I… I thought you were… you seemed upset, and I thought maybe my horse being in this particular stall was… ” I let my words drift away because none of them seemed to be accomplishing anything.

She exhaled heavily and shook her head in what seemed like disbelief. In the mellow light of a cloud-covered daybreak, it was hard to discern which emotion she now wore. I had the feeling I'd disappointed her somehow. For some reason, I wanted to fix that, right then, at that very moment.

I took a deep breath and blew it out. “Amos told you that you'll be getting a new horse today, right?” I said, forcing my voice to take on a lighter tone. “There are always some good ones at Stone Road.”

“So I hear.”

“You've never been?”

She shook her head.

“How about the auction at New Holland?”

“Nope.”

“Hoover's?”

“I've never been to a horse auction, Jake. Never had a reason to.” She turned to Patch, who was still feeding. “Is this one yours?”

“No. He belongs to a customer. He's here for some therapy.”

Priscilla whipped her head back around. “Therapy?”

“Sorry. That's what I call working with horses that need to be gentled. I—”

“‘Gentled?' And what exactly do you mean by that?”

“You know. Taught to cooperate. To obey.”

“I see,” she replied, her tone clipped and tight.

“Anyway,” I continued, “call it ‘therapy' or ‘gentling' or whatever, it's one of my specialties. I suppose I have a way with horses—at least, that's what other people say. And I really like doing it.”

“Really.” Her tone suggested I couldn't possibly know what I was talking about.

“Yes, really,” I answered, and with enough emphasis to assure her I certainly did know what I was talking about.

“So he's not yours.”

“No.”

She placed a hand on her chest, her expression one of deep relief.

“Thank goodness,” she said as we heard the bell calling us to breakfast from outside. “ 'Cause I was going to punch you if he was.”

I laughed. “Punch me?”

Her face grew more serious again. “He's been abused, that horse,” she said as she moved past me. “By a man. Don't wear your hat around him.”

Priscilla stopped just inside the barn door and looked at me for a moment, perhaps making sure I understood. Then she turned and began running through the rain back to the house.

I remained where I was for several long seconds, watching her go, dumbfounded.

Then I grabbed my hat from the nearby hook, slapped it onto my head, and took off running as well.

F
IVE

T
he rain tapered off during breakfast, giving way to the sun. Radiant beams spread over the wet landscape, turning every corn and alfalfa shoot visible from the kitchen windows a glistening green.

I left the table first, grabbing another slice of apricot coffee cake to eat as I set off toward my cottage. I changed out of my muddy shoes, grabbed my wallet, and then headed over to the barn, where I set about hooking up Amos's primary driving horse, Big Sam, to the family buggy.

Despite my odd interaction with Priscilla earlier, breakfast had been a pleasant enough affair. Roseanna had asked her how she slept—because mothers and aunts always ask that question of houseguests—and Priscilla answered that she slept better than she thought she would. It was an honest answer gently given, I thought. The only uncomfortable part of the meal was when my gaze kept settling on the striking young woman across from me. It happened more than once without my really being aware of it, which wouldn't have been bad except that she caught me. The only thing worse than being caught looking at someone is frantically darting your attention away from that person as soon as they do, which of course, he or she also sees.

The thing was, I just kept wondering what she had been doing with Patch earlier, when I'd first seen her at his stall. Not only was I intrigued, but I felt I deserved to know. Trudy had left Patch in my care. I had a right to ask Priscilla
what she had been up to. I also very much wanted to know why she thought Patch had been abused, not by just anybody, but by a man specifically.

Those were the two reasons why my attention drifted toward her while we ate. But I hadn't felt right asking her with Roseanna and Amos there, because that would have revealed that not only had I seen Priscilla in the barn, but that I'd stayed and silently watched her for at least long enough to wonder what she'd been doing.

Awkward.

Instead, I'd just finished eating as quickly as I could and left. Now, as I was looping the last harness buckle in place, Amos and Priscilla emerged from the house.

“How about if you drive, Jake?” Amos said as they neared the buggy.

Without a word, Priscilla climbed into the backseat, and then Amos and I took our places up front. Though it was just a little after eight, now that the rain had stopped the morning was already growing warm. I signaled the horse to go and then opened my window as Amos rolled down his and Priscilla fiddled with the one in back. As the breeze swept through, we made our way onto the macadam, shiny from the rain. Our destination was about ten or eleven miles away, depending on the route we took. That was about as far as Amos liked to take Big Sam, who at twenty-two was getting on in years.

If we bought a horse for Priscilla today, I realized as we began to pick up speed, Amos would likely hire a delivery service to bring the animal home. That many miles on narrow two-lane streets populated not just by other buggies but cars and trucks as well was a long way to tow a horse you didn't know much about. Too bad Amos hadn't wanted to wait for the next auction at New Holland, because that would have been a lot closer and easier.

Regardless, we were on our way now. The drive would take about forty minutes, so I was glad when Amos found stuff to talk about. I didn't have to come up with anything and neither did Priscilla, who probably wouldn't have said a word anyway.

Amos mostly filled the time by updating Priscilla on the goings-on of every family from Ronks to New Holland and all places in between. He didn't talk about local life the way Roseanna would have, with news of weddings and births, but instead shared highlights of the good farm years and the not-so-good, new businesses and new schoolhouses, weather phenomena, who had been sick, and who had brought in interesting welding projects. By the
time we reached the outskirts of Ephrata, Amos had covered nearly every month of the six years Priscilla had been away.

Once we arrived at the auction, I directed Big Sam past the cars, trucks, and trailers belonging to the
Englisch
and the Mennonites to a long rank of Amish buggies out back. We found an empty slot and pulled in. I climbed out first, and as I turned to help Priscilla down, I saw that her eyes were already busy scanning the horizon, which was bustling with activity.

“
Die Geil Vendyu,
” she whispered, more to herself than to me.
The horse auction.

Amos and Priscilla stood nearby as I tied up Big Sam, gave him a couple carrots as a reward for the long trek, and then wiped down the lather on his body so he wouldn't draw flies while he was out here waiting for us. As I worked, I sensed Priscilla's focus on me, and I had the distinct impression she was making sure I was treating Big Sam well, especially after our earlier conversation regarding my skills as a horseman.

When I was finished, the three of us headed toward the auction grounds, which were already packed with people. Stone Road typically started off by auctioning tack at eight and then switched over to horses at ten. It was probably a little after nine right now, which meant we still had some time to check out the offerings before we would have to take our seats at the ring.

As we neared one of the holding pens, I gave Priscilla a glance, but I couldn't tell if she was excited or nervous or what. Mostly, she seemed distracted, which I supposed wasn't all that surprising. There was a lot to take in here, and for a first-timer it could be a bit overwhelming. She asked Amos about the general layout of the place and then said she would meet us in half an hour at the entrance to the stands.

“Don't you want to help pick out the ones we'll be bidding on for you?” her uncle asked, clearly startled.

She didn't answer. She had already wandered away.

Amos gave me a perplexed look, but I was as surprised as he. For a girl who was about to be given a new horse, she certainly didn't seem all that grateful.

Regardless, he grabbed a program and the two of us stepped up to the rails to get a look at the horses on the day's listing. We saw some Standardbreds that seemed healthy and weren't too young or too ancient. We decided on six good possibilities, and then we went inside the holding pen to give each of
them a quick going-over. There wasn't the room or the time to do a full exam, but I was able to check their hooves, fetlocks, and knees while Amos looked at their teeth, ears, and eyes. Together, we narrowed our list down to four solid choices, and then we came back out and moved toward the bleachers.

The tack auction wasn't quite finished yet, so I offered to buy Amos some coffee while we waited to go in. He declined, turning and giving a hearty greeting of “
Hoe gaat het?
” to a familiar face, an Amish man I recognized as a welding customer. I headed off to get a cup for myself.

I wasn't sure whether Priscilla might want some too or not, so I scanned the crowd on my way to the food stands. I spotted her near a large cluster of men, most of whom were holding clipboards and chatting among themselves as they waited to go in. I'd expected to find her communing with the horses, so the sight of her standing there with actual people instead was odd, to say the least.