Keeping Secrets (19 page)

Now the shot, Sadie thought. I’ll be shot just like the horses.

The truck moved on around the bend in the road, disappearing into the warm night.

She had to get out of this tree. Every muscle of her body was cramped. She twisted first one way and then the other, the rough pine bark digging red brushburns into her arms and legs.

Redoubling her efforts, she twisted, turned, and wriggled, but with no luck. Her arms were becoming quite painful, her hips wedged tightly.

She needed to stop panicking, think clearly.

Okay. If no amount of twisting would get her out of here, her best bet would be to find a firm handle somewhere, anywhere. Then using her hands as a lever, perhaps she could pull herself up and out.

Flailing her arms on both sides, her fingers found a branch to the left, but was it too far away? She twisted her upper body again as hard as she could and was rewarded by the feeling of a good, solid, pine bough. She grasped it firmly and heaved with every ounce of strength she possessed.

There was a ripping sound as her skirt caught on a broken knob, but slowly she pulled herself upright.

Glory, Hallelujah! She was out.

Still shaking, she climbed down from the tree, branch by branch, until her feet hit the soft, spongy, pine-needle-laden soil beneath the tree. She felt like kissing the ground, like weary sea voyagers of old had done.

She assessed her situation. Her muscles groaned and her back hurt, but she could move both legs without too much pain. She scrambled down the embankment and began the walk up the seemingly endless driveway.

What if the truck returned? What if it was filled with those horse-killers?

Her feet pummeled the earth now, as she raced up the driveway. Clattering onto the porch, she flung herself on the swing, her breath coming in hard, short whooshes of air. She imagined that this was how Paris felt after a race with Cody through the field of wildflowers.

No wonder she was so grouchy at work the following day. Her back hurt, her head hurt, her arms had bruises on them, stinging horribly when she lowered them into the dishwater.

She was sure she had torn a ligament in the calf of one leg. She hobbled all day about the kitchen, her eyebrows lowered, speaking to no one unless absolutely necessary.

Dorothy hid her smiles of enjoyment as she ate one leftover dish after another. That was the thing that really irked Sadie to start with: the sight of Dorothy at the kitchen table with a dish of cabbage slaw, a slice of carrot cake, and a large mug of coffee at six o’clock in the morning. Watching Dorothy nauseated Sadie. No wonder Dorothy had trouble with her constitution.

Finally, when the tension in the kitchen became so thick it was unbearable, Dorothy clapped a hand on Sadie’s aching shoulder, lifted her chin, closed her eyes for emphasis, and said, “Sit down!”

“Ouch!” Sadie said, rubbing her sore shoulder.

“Sit down, I said, Sadie darlin’.”

“Why would I sit down? Can’t you see this place is a horrible mess? And all you do is eat all morning.”

Dorothy’s answer was a tilted head and a great guffaw of sound.

“Sit down, Sadie. Either a bear got ahold of you, or you fell out of a tree, or I’d say you got heart problems. And them heart problems ain’t the physical kind, now is they?”

Sadie lowered her head into her arms and groaned. Dorothy went to the coffeepot, filled a mug, and set it firmly on the tabletop in front of Sadie.

“Drink this. And here.”

She went to the cupboard, came back with a bottle of Advil, and shook out two pills.

“Not with coffee,” Sadie said, peering out of her arms with one eye.

“Oh, take ’em. Go on. Won’t hurtcha.

“Now, tell me what happened. For one thing, if’n you’d wear better shoes, ’stead of traipsin’ around in them there sneakers of yours, if you’d go to the Dollar General and get a pair like mine, you wouldn’t be hobblin’ the way you are. You go for looks instead of good, solid quality. I have a hunch you’re doin’ the same thing with that heart o’ yours. Ain’t nothin’ gonna match good, solid, down-to-earth men. Same as shoes.”

Dorothy paused. “Ain’t you gonna tell me what happened?”

Sadie lifted her head, swallowed the pills with coffee, and grimaced.

“No.”

“An’ why ever not?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Has nothin’ to do with that Mark guy, now does it?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

Sadie stared miserably into the distance.

“He’s quite a looker,” Dorothy continued. “Even Barbara commented on it. Caught that doctor’s wife checkin’ him out, so I did. Jes’ shook my head to myself and thought, he can’t be easy. He’s got that brooding look about him. Too quiet. Never smiles right. Just one of them there plastic smiles he hides behind. You love him, don’t you?”

“I did.”

“You don’t now? You want some more of that carrot cake? I’m havin’ me another slice. I run my feet off last night. Not that I minded it, not that I minded it. Not with my Dollar General shoes, mind you.”

She cut herself a generous slice of cake, scraping the cream-cheese frosting from the wide knife with her tongue as Sadie watched, swallowing her nausea.

“So, what happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Now don’t give me that. You come to work looking like you got run over by a truck, and you say nothing happened.”

Sadie eyed her warily, sighed, then told her everything, ending with her stay in the pine tree.

“I mean, suppose Mark is the shooter, going around killing horses? And what about Louis and Marcellus? It could have been them, all these mysterious goings-on. We don’t have any idea where they come from either. For all we know, they’re little spies or something, planted here to find out where the horses are.”

Dorothy snorted so loudly, Sadie jumped.

“You ain’t got a grain of common sense, girl. Now don’t you go belittling my Marcelona or Louise. Them kids is definitely victims of domestic abuse. Rich kids. Their parents likely involved in some illegal mess. We know their names now. Police contacted ’em, or tried to. Couldn’t come up with nothin’. They evidently skipped the country. No, that pickup you saw. Likely some dad cartin’ his kids around and one of ’em had to go potty. Your mind blows everything way outta line.”

“Huh-uh, Dorothy.”

“Oh, yes it does. Even with Mark, it does.”

“What do you know about Mark Peight?”

“Probably more than you think.”

Sadie blinked and looked away. Now she was curious. But she was too proud to ask Dorothy what she meant by that remark, so she dropped the subject.

They served leftover steak and fried eggs for breakfast. They made toast with store-bought bread and pancakes from the big commercial box of mix. Since everyone had overeaten the night before, they figured breakfast could be scant. Besides, they had the whole flagstone patio to hose down and chairs and tables to wash and put away. The work loomed before them.

Jim brought Marcellus and Louis, who were each set to work with a plastic bucket of hot soapy water and a rag, and promises of a swim in the pool as soon as the job was completed.

The children were blossoming under Dorothy’s care. They loved to help around the ranch when they could. Jim hovered over them, seeing to it that the job was done properly. Bertie came to the patio, engaging Jim in a long, heated conversation about politics, which made Dorothy hiss beneath her breath until she was fairly steaming. She told Sadie if that old coot would get off the porch and let Jim go, he’d get more work done.

An hour later, the men were still standing at the exact same spot, and Dorothy’d had her fill. Marching up to the grizzled old gardener, she placed her fists on her hips and told him if he’d shut his trap, her James could get something accomplished, but she guessed people who worked for the government didn’t need to worry about working to earn their money.

Bertie waved his arms and yelled. Then he stomped off the porch and went to find garbage bags, while Dorothy turned on her heel and marched self-righteously back to her domain, the kitchen.

Sadie turned the garden-hose pressure nozzle on high and washed down the flagstones from the previous night’s party. She was sleepy, the flies were pesky, and her leg hurt worse as the forenoon wore on. She had never felt quite so depressed in her whole life.

What was the point of hanging on to Mark Peight? He obviously was not an easy person to understand. What made him say those unkind things one minute, then become one of the nicest people anyone could ever hope to meet in the next?

Her mind was a million miles away until she saw Richard and Barbara Caldwell come out of the house, walking purposefully toward her. Sadie let go of the lever that powered the water spray and turned to greet them with the respect a boss required.

“Good morning,” she said evenly.

“Yes, it is a good one. How are you?” Richard Caldwell boomed, his wife smiling at Sadie.

“You have dark circles under your eyes,” Barbara observed.

“Do I?”

“We’re being too hard on you, right? You’re overworked.”

“No, no,” Sadie demurred.

They told Sadie what was on their minds. More horses had been killed the evening before. There was a serious threat in the area, and the local police needed telephone numbers to leave messages and warn the Amish.

This time, a full-blooded Tennessee Walker, the pride of the Lewis Ranch, the LWR, had been gunned down in broad daylight, along with a prize mare. And as an afterthought, three miniature ponies had been killed also, all in a drive-by shooting. They had, however, one vague clue. There was a truck, a blue diesel, seen in the vicinity, driving by slowly about the time of the shooting.

Sadie’s shoulders slumped as color drained from her face. She plucked at a dead geranium without thinking, trying to bide her time before lifting her face to meet the piercing gaze of Richard Caldwell.

“Sadie? Do you know anything at all?”

Sadie sank weakly into a lawn chair, then met their questioning gazes. She told them honestly everything she knew, including the shot ringing out when she was with Daniel King and the truck the evening before.

Richard Caldwell fairly shouted at her, the veins protruding in his thick neck. What she was doing, traipsing along the road in the dark like that? Barbara placed a well-manicured hand on his arm and patted it a few times to calm him.

“The police have to know this,” Richard Caldwell bellowed.

“They do,” Barbara agreed.

“Everything? Even last night’s incident?”

“No. There’s more than one diesel truck in this area. Likely a kid needed to go to the bathroom, as Dorothy said.”

As the Amish people listened to the phone messages from the police, fear settled over the community like a cloak of heaviness. Parents feared for their children’s safety. They kept their horses in barns, and children no longer rode on carts hitched to ponies. Local drivers took them to school in vans.

Families walked whenever possible. When distances were too great, they drove their teams cautiously, glancing furtively to the left and right, never relaxed, goading their horses to a fast trot.

Dat shook his head and said Fred Ketty may be on to something when she said the end of the world was nigh with so much evil in rural Montana.

Then two of Dave Detweiler’s Belgians were found below their pasture. The fence had been cut with wire cutters, and the great horses had been chased out, then gunned down. There were no footprints or any trace of the killers left behind.

The Amish people were shaken but took the news stoically, as is their way. No use crying over spilled milk, they could have been struck by lightning, and God would not be mocked. These men would be brought to justice.

Sadie was afraid for Paris, so she kept her inside the barn. Dat said he wasn’t keeping Charlie off that good pasture. He guessed if they got the horse, they would. That comment made Sadie so angry she felt like telling Dat a thing or two, but she knew she shouldn’t.

Paris hung her head over the door and whinnied all day, while Charlie stood in the pasture and whinnied back. Reuben got so tired of it he brought Charlie into the barn and closed the gate. The whinnying stopped, and Dat never did anything to change it.

Reuben claimed aliens were hovering over the pastures in green flying ships and shooting horses for revenge. Mam scolded him thoroughly. She said there’s no such thing as aliens, and he better watch it or he’d have to go work in John Troyer’s truck patch, helping to clean it up as fall approached.

That shut Reuben up.

Sadie was afraid to ride. Still, when summer breezes turned into the biting winds of autumn, when the frost lay heavy in the hollows and the brown leaves swirled among the golden ones from the aspens, she could no longer hold back.

She asked Reuben to accompany her on Charlie. He looked up from his word-search booklet, his eyes round with fear.

“If you think for one minute that I’m going riding with you, you’re nuts. Charlie isn’t a riding horse. It’s like riding a camel. He trots, and you bounce up and down, rattling all your teeth loose. I’m not going.”

“Reuben!” Sadie wailed.

“Nope. Go by yourself.”

“Okay. I will.”

“You’re crazy.”

With that, Reuben went back to his word search, shaking his head wisely.

Mam was down in the basement, rearranging jars of canned goods. Sadie contemplated asking for permission, but she knew the answer would be a dead no. So she just left, though she felt a bit guilty.

Dat was at a school meeting and wouldn’t be home until later. But she met Anna coming down the stairs from the haymow, holding a black cat who was struggling mightily, clearly displeased at being removed from the warm, sweet-smelling hay.

“Whatcha doing?” she asked innocently.

“Riding.”

Anna shrugged her shoulders, hanging on grimly to the cat struggling to be free.

Sadie laughed, then whistled happily as she caught Paris’ chin, kissed her nose, and began brushing the sleek, golden coat.

“We’re going riding, Sweetheart, for better or for worse. Here we go!”