The Letters (16 page)

“Some horse trainer you are.”

He whirled around and faced Bethany, standing by the workshop. He held up his hand. “That filly has an evil streak.”

“I was visiting with Naomi and saw it happen from the kitchen window. You’d better let me see it.”

That meant she’d been watching him.
Nice!
He held out his hand to her, unconcernedly, and told her it didn’t hurt, which it did. She scolded him and insisted on bandaging up his fingers. “It’s going to need some hydrogen peroxide. You’d better come with me over to the house.”

Jimmy followed behind her, pleased. He had a new appreciation for that diabolical filly. That was the thing about Thoroughbreds—hot-blooded, strong-willed, feisty, moody, breathtakingly beautiful, poetic in their movement. Most preferred warmbloods or drafts—they wanted a horse they could depend on. Steady, solid, reliable. But for all of the problems of Thoroughbreds, Jimmy liked their unpredictable, high-spirited nature.

He grinned. He could have been talking about women.

In the kitchen in Eagle Hill, Bethany cleaned the wounds on Jimmy’s hand and wrapped the fingers carefully.

“How do you like being an innkeeper?”

She kept her head down but glanced at him. “That’s the very thing I was talking to Naomi about when that filly took such a serious disliking to you. It’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Of course, we’ve really only had one guest. She is a grand lady, though. She taught me how to make genuine steeped tea the other morning. From loose leaves, not from a bag.”

“Have you given any more thought to quitting the Bar & Grill and working at the Sisters’ House?” Jimmy said.

She whipped her head around to see if Mammi Vera’s door was shut. “Lower your voice. Stop talking about that!”

“All right, let’s talk about something else. Have you changed your mind about going on a picnic with me to Blue Lake Pond?”

“I’d be delighted.” She smiled at him and he smiled back. “We’d all be delighted. Me and Mim and Sammy and Luke and Rose and Mammi Vera.”

His smile faded.

“You seem to keep forgetting that I have a boyfriend.”

“I keep forgetting because I’ve never seen hide nor hair of him.” He leaned back in his chair. “Now, what makes this bloke so much better than me?”

“Well, for one thing, Jake has ambition.”

Jimmy raised his bandaged hand. “What do you think caused this?”

“I’m not talking about hard work. Jake has plans for the future.”

“And I don’t?”

“Nothing that lasts longer than five minutes.” She tied the last bandage. A war whoop outside pulled their attention to the windows. “Luke and Sammy are home from school.”

“Those brothers of yours need a firm hand,” Jimmy said.

“Oh bother. What did they do now? No—never mind. I can’t handle any more complaints today.”

“That’s another reason you need a new line of work. Customer complaints. Wouldn’t happen if you worked at the Sisters’ House. They’re not the complaining type.”

She frowned. “Stop talking about my line of work.” She wrapped up the bandages. “Just how old are those sisters, anyway?”

“Pretty old. They’ve got their fair share of summer teeth.”

“What are summer teeth?”

“Summer in their mouth. Some are elsewhere.” Jimmy looked at her and made his eyebrows do that crazy up-and-down dance.

She covered her mouth but a laugh slipped out anyway.

“Maybe your brothers should work for the sisters. Maybe they could knock some sense into them.” He picked up his hat off the table and grinned that mischief-loaded grin of his, when his eyes sparkled like he’d charmed the hair right off a cat. “They’re wilder than the wind, and nagging them—especially Luke—does no good.”

“Well, I try not to nag them,” Bethany said, straightening her skirt.

“You nag,” Jimmy said. “Galen and I can hear you all the way over at his place.”

10

R
ain began at midnight and continued until dawn and then on through the day. All evening, Mammi Vera was reminded of the terrible blizzard of 1993, when it took days to dig out and find the road. She told Bethany the story twice.

“You say the same things, over and over,” Bethany told her, but her grandmother went right on repeating herself. Last night, reading to the older woman by the oil lamplight, Bethany held Mammi Vera’s rough, aged hand—webbed with blue veins and brown spots. She had such a fondness for her grandmother. She liked older people better than babies. Older folks had interesting stories to tell. Babies only cried.

She thought about Jimmy Fisher’s suggestion to work for the ladies in the Sisters’ House. She wondered why Jimmy was steering her away from working at the Grill. He had said, more than a few times, that she was playing with fire.

That comment struck her as odd. Jimmy Fisher seemed to be the daring sort—the type who liked to play with fire. After all, the job he loved best, he said, was gentling wild horses. Her thoughts drifted to Jake. Where was he? The letter he sent was so brief and unromantic, filled with complaints about
a minor misunderstanding with his cheap landlord. When would she hear from him again? Had he stopped loving her? For a moment Bethany wondered whether life was happier with men, or without them.

It was lightly sprinkling as Rose walked up the hillside behind the farmhouse, but she didn’t mind the mist. She enjoyed these quiet moments as the sun started to light the sky. She liked walking apart from the farm, listening to the sounds over the area. A coyote howled, and another coyote answered back. The sound made her shiver. She hadn’t given the sound of a coyote a second thought until she became a sheep owner. She knew what a coyote could do to a sheep—it lunged straight for the throat, so the last thing a poor little sheep saw was the spilling of its life’s blood.

She stopped for a moment as she saw one of the eagles pass overhead and soar along the creek. It was still too dark to see if it was the missus or the mister. Sometimes she wished she could be such a bird, just for a short time. She wondered what they saw, high in the sky with their night vision, and she envied them their freedom. Maybe it wasn’t as free as it seemed, she thought, when its sole purpose was to find food.

But her sole purpose lately didn’t feel too far off from that. She ought to get back soon. She had bread to bake, clothes to wash, and a million and one other chores that needed to be done. And then, of course, there was caring for Vera. Rose sighed.

Looking over the horizon at dawn never failed to fill her with a sense of her smallness, contrasted to God’s bigness.
Her problems and worries seemed to shrink under the dome of the sky.

A twig snapped behind her and she whirled around. “Galen!” She smiled.

“No moon this morning.” His greeting seemed quiet, intimate.

“What are you doing up here?”

“Checking traps. A coyote has been sneaking in and snatching Naomi’s hens.”

She looked around. “Did you find it? Or rather, did the coyote find the trap?”

“No. Too wily.”

They walked along the path, silent companions, each with their own thoughts. There was only the sound of Harold, the rooster, crowing that morning had arrived.

“How is Naomi doing lately, Galen?”

He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Same cycle. She feels better, then does too much, and she’ll get walloped with another headache and has to take to her bed.”

She could see he loved his sister in his unspeaking way—continually warning her about her health or trying to keep her wrapped up from the cold. Naomi’s migraines were a puzzle. Doctors couldn’t quite pinpoint what triggered them or how to avoid them. They started when her parents had passed.

Galen was the eldest in his family of three boys, three girls. His parents died awhile back, first one, then the other, and Galen stepped into the role of patriarch. The other siblings had married, moved on, started families.

“What about Vera?” he said. “Any improvement?”

“None.” Rose sighed. “If anything, she’s getting worse.
More confused, weaker on one side. She tries to hide it, but I’m awfully worried about her.”

“She’s blessed to have you.”

“I wish she thought so.”

He pretended to look serious, but his eyes gave him away. Sparkling green those eyes were, and crinkled at the corners. “One of my sisters used to say that every time she talked to Vera, she came away feeling like she’s eaten a green persimmon. You know how they make your mouth pucker up?”

That unexpected comment made her laugh, and him as well. But the quiet that followed brought an awkwardness with it, as if they both felt wary of the closeness their shared laughter had stirred. “Galen, I don’t know what we’d do without you. Teaching the boys about horses, helping me get the inn ready. You do a lot for us as a neighbor.”

“A friend, you mean.”

Down below, Rose saw the sheep wander in the fold, bleating. “I hope that coyote keeps its distance from my sheep.”

“Remind me again why you want to raise sheep.”

“I didn’t set out to raise them. Someone drove up in a truck one day and asked if we’d take them off their hands. Said they were tired of them.”

“And you said yes?”

“I . . . well. I was worried what might happen to them if I said no.” She looked down the hill at the fold with five fluffy sheep. Sometimes, she just sat and watched them. They slowly munched and dozed their way around the pasture, passing the time in the way they loved best. “They’re not the brightest, but they are sweet.”

He stared at her in that intense way he had, and she could feel the color building in her cheeks. Then the creases around
his mouth softened in a smile. “Well, everybody knows you are the lady to help people. And creatures.” He gave her a curt nod and set off toward his farmhouse.

As Rose made her way down the hill, Galen’s words came back to her.
You are the lady to help people.
It was pleasing to know what people thought of you, but worrying too. You couldn’t help everybody—nobody could—because the world was too full of need and troubles, a wide sea of them, and no one person could begin to deal with all that. And yet, even if you were just one person, you could do one thing. You could say yes to five little sheep and give them a home.