The Letters (15 page)

Then Galen said he was grateful for the offer of dinner, but perhaps another evening might be best and he tipped his hat and took his leave. Naomi followed behind him.

Dinner ended up being a sad and quiet affair. The kitchen clock ticked loud in the silence. Only Chase seemed unaffected, checking under the table like he always did to make sure there wasn’t something left for him. Sammy didn’t understand what he had done that was so wrong. “I was just trying to help!” burst out of him once or twice. Her mother said they could talk about it later, in private.

Without Luke’s big ears and big mouth, was what she meant. Mim gave Luke a look of disgust and he returned it, crunched eyebrow to crunched eyebrow.

Bethany finally came down to eat but was, understandably, sulky. Sammy sat on the other side of Bethany, drawing up his small shoulders in a shrug as he sniffed back tears. Sammy meant well and Mim felt sorry for him. A few days ago, he had asked Mim a bunch of questions about courting. How did a fellow do it? What should he say? He was especially curious about the ages of people. Did they need to be the same age to court?

“No,” Mim had said. “Dad was a lot older than Mom.”

That knowledge was new to him and pleased him to no end. At the time, Mim thought he had a crush on Teacher M.K. A lot of the boys did. Not Danny, of course, but many others. Now she realized what was on Sammy’s mind. She wished she could have set him straight before he embarrassed both Galen and Bethany. But then, it was hard for anyone to figure out the reasoning a boy follows.

One thing Mim knew, she would never let
anyone
know all the thoughts she had swirling in her head about Danny Riehl.

By Wednesday, the skies had cleared, leaving the air washed clean and the earth saturated from rain. Rose had been up most of Wednesday night. Her young mare, Silver Girl, had dropped her foal early and the colt was too weak to stand up. Rose was determined to save it if she could.

The sun was barely climbing in the sky when Luke ran to her in the barn stall, tracking in mud from his boots. The mare startled.

“Haven’t I told you to walk up to horses?” Rose scolded.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Luke said, more excited than sorry. His eyes were fixed on the newborn colt.

“You were supposed to make up your bed before school,” Rose said.

“I never did understand that,” Luke said, eyes sparkling, “when I’ll just be getting back into it tonight.”

Rose frowned. “Seems like all you do is hang out the window looking for something to distract you from chores.”

Luke wasn’t paying her any mind. He had his palm laid out flat for the colt to sniff. The mare pinned her ears back in warning, not wanting him to mess with her baby, but Luke wasn’t minding her, either.

His recklessness almost stopped Rose’s heart at times—he was the kind of boy who would run out in the snow barefoot, bareheaded, oblivious to weather and risks. Sometimes, she feared for him, more than she ever did for Sammy. But she supposed most mothers shook their heads and worried about their sons. Boys seem to have to acquire common sense
through bad experiences. The mare made a sudden move toward Luke and he stepped back, sticking his hands in his pockets. He looked like a ragamuffin under his shaggy head of hair.

It was hard to believe a little boy could catch a day’s worth of play and dirty roughhousing by half past seven in the morning. “Luke, I need you to go get Galen next door. Tell him I’m having some trouble with a new foal.” Before Luke disappeared, she added, “And then you’ve got to get yourself to school.”

She heard Luke whistle for his brother as she walked over to the barn door. Sammy came flying out of the house, hatless, and raced to meet up with Luke to disappear through the privet. Sammy liked delivering messages as much as his brother.

A few minutes later, Galen arrived and eased his way into the stall, calmly and quietly, so the mare wouldn’t spook. He looked the colt over. “I think you’re going to need the vet.”

Rose had feared that. She wasn’t sure how she could afford it, but she didn’t want to lose this colt.

Galen went down to the phone shanty to leave a message for the vet. When he returned, he let Chase into the barn, and suddenly an angry streak of gray burned across the center of the barn, tore past Galen, and disappeared in the yard.

“What was
that
?” Galen asked.

“That was Oliver,” Rose said. “Fern Lapp gave him to Sammy. He’s an old gray cat who hates dogs. He doesn’t understand that Chase has no interest in cats whatsoever, even for chasing purposes.”

“Well, I suppose a barn cat always comes in handy.”

“Not Oliver. He’s useless. He can’t be bothered catching
mice and rats. He’s just a big sulking, gloomy presence.” She watched the mare nuzzle her colt. “Not unlike Vera.” As soon as the words popped out of her mouth, she wished them back. How could she have said such a thing? Thinking it was one thing, saying it was another.

She looked up, expecting to see Galen frown. Instead, she saw a big grin crease his face.

Galen returned home to finish feeding his stock, but later in the day he went back to check on Rose’s little colt, half expecting it to be dead. But no—there it was, standing on its wobbly legs. Rose said the vet had brought along some bottles with nipples designed for colts that had trouble nursing, along with some powdered formula. He balked at first, but then, Rose said, he guzzled that formula like sweet cream.

For a woman who had spent part of the night in the barn nursing a newborn foal, Rose looked wonderfully fresh, bright eyed, and beautiful. Her face was relaxed in a way Galen had never seen it. The strain that always showed—the strain of holding a household together, he supposed—had disappeared, making her look like a young girl.

Right now, although he couldn’t say exactly why, he felt uneasy.

Maybe he did know why.

He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Rose. It made no sense. He hardly knew her—just a few minutes here and there, as neighbors. He doubted all those minutes would even add up to hours. After those few hours with her, what could he know about her? It made no sense.

Random memories went flickering through his mind: the
delight in her laugh, her grace as she crossed the grass, and even the way she had picked up and held that little colt in her arms this morning. He simply couldn’t get her off his mind. What was happening to him? Now and then, he’d had a vague interest in a female or two, but he had never felt this way about a woman. This time it was different. Why was it different?

It was Rose. Rose in the rain.

He had a quick recollection of the first time he truly noticed her, as someone more than a neighbor. Last fall, a brief downpour had blown through Stoney Ridge without warning. Sheets of rain came pouring down, in biblical proportions, a nightmare on the roads. Someone was playing with the hose up there.

From his barn, Galen had seen Rose struggling with a flapping sheet on the clotheslines. Most women would have considered the wash to be a lost cause and run for the house, but not Rose. Her skirt was so wet it was plastered to her legs, and in the struggle, two or three pillowcases that she had already gathered up blew out of her hand and across the yard, which had begun to look like a shallow pond. Galen hurried to retrieve the pillowcases and then helped Rose get the wet sheets off the line.

Rose was soaked, as wet on the top as on the bottom, and the flapping sheets had knocked the pins out of her cap, causing it to come loose. The wash was as wet as it had been before she hung it up in the first place. She was taking sheets off the line that would just have to be hung back on in fifteen minutes, and it must have been out of pure stubbornness, since the sun was breaking through the clouds to the east of the storm. It baffled Galen as to why anyone would have
a penchant to fly directly in the face of reason. Even worse, Galen was helping her do it as if it all made some sense.

In a strange way, he completely understood her logic. This woman would not quit. He had never met anyone with as much determination. As much as he had.

By the time he helped Rose finish pulling down those drenched sheets, the rain was diminishing and the sun was already striking little rainbows through the sparkle of drops that fell. Galen had walked on home, water dripping from the brim of his hat. He couldn’t get that image of Rose struggling with the sheets out of his mind. He felt like a hooked fish, absolutely smitten. The thing was, Rose Schrock wasn’t fishing.

The day finally came when Galen left Jimmy in charge. It was a weekday, which suited Jimmy nicely because it kept those little Schrock boys contained in the schoolhouse. Galen wanted to see some new horses brought in from Kentucky before they went to auction on the weekend. Jimmy did the chores with will and skill, whereas Luke and Sammy had marginal will and little skill. Sammy, Jimmy had to admit, tried his best. Luke—not so much.

Jimmy was determined to make a success of this day and prove to Galen that he could take on more responsibility. Just yesterday, he was helping Galen work a three-year-old gelding that was ready to be sold. “He’s like me,” Jimmy said, watching the gelding ignore all kinds of distraction that Galen was tossing at it.

“How’s that?” Galen asked, waving a flag at the gelding. “Lazy, you mean?”

“Mature, I mean,” Jimmy said. “He doesn’t get excited about little things.”

Galen rolled his eyes.

“When are you going to let me train a horse, start to finish?” Jimmy asked.

“When you’re ready.”

“I am ready.”

Galen ignored him.

“Why are you so hard to convince?” Jimmy asked. “I can’t seem to convince you of a single thing.” His gaze was fixed on Bethany as she left Naomi at the kitchen door and crossed the yard, disappearing through the hole in the privet that led to Eagle Hill.

“That’s not true. You’ve convinced me of one thing for sure,” Galen said. “You’re foolish about women. I expect Bethany won’t have anything to do with you because she knows you’re too fond of ladies. Now, would you mind getting back to work?”

Now
that
was not necessary. Three things bothered Jimmy about Galen. First, he didn’t think Galen ever had any fun. Second, Galen didn’t do a single thing that couldn’t be predicted. Third, he wasn’t easy to talk to. Jimmy didn’t say anything more to him for the rest of the afternoon, though he didn’t think Galen even noticed.

And then Galen did something that was both fun and unpredictable. He told Jimmy that he would be putting him in charge of tomorrow’s training.
Nice!

Jimmy was not going to let Galen down. The day had been going well, almost perfectly, up until the moment when that blasted filly Galen was so fond of took a nip at his hand and drew blood. After he led the filly into her stall, he looked
through Galen’s workbench to find some bandages. The day was only half done and he needed something to wrap his hand. He thought about going to the house and seeing if Naomi could help, but felt she might surely pass out from the sight of blood. She was
that
frail. Jimmy would rather leave chores half done than tell Galen that he had caused his sister to faint.