Disappearances
Authors: Linda Byler
Sadie’s Montana
Book Three
Linda Byler
Chapter 1
N
OW THAT THE SNOWS
had come, Sadie missed Reuben the most. Oh, it wasn’t that she was lonely or discontented. After all, she could go home whenever she wanted, as long as the snow was not too heavy.
It was just Reuben, his guileless blue eyes, the way he tossed his blond-streaked hair away from his face, that often brought a lump to her throat.
She was a married woman now. Somehow, she felt no different than she ever had, except for the love that had come to fulfillment with Mark Peight, her husband of exactly two months and five days.
Sadie Peight. Or Sadie Anne Peight. Sadie Miller no more.
In the Amish world in which she lived, that close-knit community of plain people in Montana, she was “Mark Sadie” now — not “Mark’s wife, Sadie,” in the proper way. Just plain “Mark Sadie.” No last names were needed. Everyone knew who “Mark Sadie” was.
Her family, the Jacob Millers, had moved to Montana when she was 15 years old. She had had to give up her beloved palomino riding horse, Paris, as well as her best friend and cousin, Eva, moving thousands of miles away from her home community in Ohio.
In time, she came to love Montana, working at Aspen East, the huge ranch that employed dozens of men, cattle drivers, farmers, horsemen, the list went on and on. She cooked large meals in the kitchen with Dorothy Sevarr, whose husband, Jim, transported her to and from the ranch. The Sevarrs came to be beloved friends, as well as Richard and Barbara Caldwell, the wealthy owners of Aspen East Ranch.
Sadie had met Mark when a horse appeared from seemingly nowhere in a snowstorm, falling sick and disabled in front of Jim Sevarr’s pickup truck. Sadie opted to stay with the horse, a beautiful but dying paint, while Jim went for help. Mark Peight and his driver found Sadie in the snow with the dying horse. There was an instant mutual attraction between Mark and Sadie. A long, imperfect courtship followed, imperfect due largely to Mark’s troubled, unusual past.
Wild horses had been a danger, running uncontrolled through the isolated areas, terrifying the Amish community. The large, black leader of the herd threatened unassuming horses and buggies traveling the countryside.
Sadie and her brother, Reuben, had spent many weeks on a grassy hill taming the few remaining horses. Among them was the outstanding palomino mare Sadie now owned, which she named Paris, in memory of her beloved horse from Ohio. The palomino had been given to Sadie as a gift of appreciation from the owner of the wild horses, which turned out to have been stolen by clever horse thieves in Laredo County. After the thefts, someone started going around the county randomly shooting horses, Reuben’s among them. Paris and Sadie managed more than one harrowing narrow escape. But the sniper—or snipers—remained at large and the motive for the shootings a mystery.
She felt safe now, snug and cozy in the house Mark was renovating. There had been no sniper activity for almost four months. The Amish community breathed a sigh of relief. People went on with their lives, shaking their heads at the seeming incompetence of the local police, but, in the Amish way, taking it all in stride.
The home Mark had bought before the wedding had been a forsaken homestead nestled at the foot of Atkin’s Ridge. The buildings were covered in old, wooden, German siding, the framework amazingly sturdy, but almost everything else was crumbling with age.
When you came in the driveway, the unique shape of the barn, with its series of gable ends and various roof slopes, was so completely charming that you forget to look for a house, which was farther up the slope in a grove of pine trees. Despite its lamentable state of disrepair, the property was as cozy and attractive as a nursery-rhyme house.
There was an L-shaped porch along the front, dormers on the roof, and a low addition on the right side. Besides the broken windows, sagging porch posts, and torn floor boards, sparrow nests were built into every available crack of the decaying lumber, the floors littered with their feces. Bats flew in and out of the upstairs dormer windows at will, and mice scurried in terror at their approach.
Mark had put in long hours repairing the barn first. His hard labor resulted in a remarkable building with a beautiful forebay, horse stalls on either side, wide enough to drive a team of horses attached to a manure spreader through it, for easy mucking out. There was a workshop in another section and room for the carriage, spring wagon, and various lawn tools in another, all on top of a solid, new, concrete floor.
The barn was their pride and joy, especially when Paris adapted so well, becoming quite sleek and flirtatious with Mark’s horses.
Sadie would stand at the wooden fence, her arms propped on the top board, one foot on the bottom, watching Paris nip at Truman, the new horse, then squeal and bound nimbly away.
She still loved Paris and rode her as much as ever. But whenever she went to visit her parents, she drove Mark’s steady, brown standardbred driving horse hitched to the shining, black carriage. Since the sniper incidents had quieted down, she felt safer and often returned home with the back seat of the buggy full of items that had been left behind after the wedding.
The house was not finished; only the lower floor was livable. Mark’s original plans changed after his mother passed away from bone cancer, leaving them a substantial amount of money to be shared with his five siblings when they had been located.
Mark hired a cabinetmaker and a crew of carpenters to finish the main floor, resulting in a well-crafted home.
The kitchen was all done in oak cabinets, with wide plank floors also made of oak. The countertops were a speckled black and gray, so Sadie had chosen to paint the walls a gray so light it was almost white. Three windows side by side provided a full view of the driveway, the sighing pine trees, and the barn.
Sadie placed her furniture where she wanted it in the house, then told Mark she was unworthy to be the housekeeper of such a beautiful home. Mark ran a hand through his black hair. He said nothing, just grabbed her and swung her around. His glad brown eyes and perfect smiling mouth told her everything he thought she should know. Their love was an all-consuming flame, their marriage a union of God—a blessing that, after all they had been through together, they would never take for granted.
Oh, they had their times, like Mark’s sliding into his silences, becoming absorbed in a sort of blackness when she least expected it. She would always revert to self-blame, her shoulders tightening, a headache developing, watching his morose face with a sort of hopeless intensity. What have I done? What have I said to bring this on?
She would be completely miserable, afraid to approach him, until she remembered his past and the awful times after his mother left with a real estate agent, leaving eight-year-old Mark to care for his five younger siblings.
The slightest put-down, often going unnoticed by Sadie herself, could bring on those quiet times. A dark fog, as impenetrable as the proverbial pea soup and about as messy to clean up, surrounded him.
Sadie had been raised in a secure, loving home, imperfect perhaps, as most homes tend to be, but completely normal. Her three sisters, Leah, Rebekah, Anna, and one brother, Reuben, all younger than herself, had been loved, disciplined, and nurtured.
Their mother, Annie, endured mental illness that resulted in hospitalization. In the end, it only bound them closer, enveloping the family in a shroud of thanksgiving for Mam’s well-being.
Sadie was often quick to speak her mind, the words tumbling out happily before she thought of their consequences. Mark would be hurt, returning to that place where only he knew, leaving her floundering, reeling from the rejection in his eyes.
The latest bout had been brought on by her happy evaluation of the oak kitchen cabinets. Sitting back in her chair, wrapping her soft, white robe securely around her waist, she crossed her legs, kicking her slipper-clad foot, shaking back her long, dark ponytail, saying simply how no one could build cabinets the way a cabinetmaker could.
“They just know exactly what they’re doing, don’t they? Such perfect raised panels on their doors!” Forgetting, like a dummy, that he had built the ones in the office and had been terribly proud of his accomplishment and the money he had saved by doing it himself.
He had nodded his head, agreed, using words to that extent, finished his coffee, and abruptly left the table, returning to the recliner. He stayed there without offering his usual Sunday-morning dish-drying assistance.
Amish people hold church services in a home every other Sunday. This is an old tradition, allowing the ministers and deacon to visit other communities if they feel so inclined. Church members have an in-between Sunday, allowing long sleep-ins, leisurely breakfasts, a day for resting, visiting, Bible-reading, studying German, or, as is often the case, simply relaxing and doing nothing.
Which is exactly how that Sunday turned out. Doing nothing. Not one thing. Finally her insides were in knots. The book she was reading gave her the creeps. Her legs became so restless she thought they might run away by themselves. She wished she had never married Mark Peight. She wanted to slam doors and spill a whole container of water over his head or pound her fists into his chest.
What she did do, finally, was kneel by his recliner and beg him to tell her what was wrong. But he feigned sleep, grunted, stuck up an elbow as if to shake her off, rolled on his side, smacked his lips in the most disgusting way, and resumed breathing deeply.
Sadie got up and walked blindly to the kitchen, then stood in the middle of it. She wanted to go home. She wanted to lay her head on Mam’s shoulder and, smelling the talcum powder that always wafted from her, cry great big alligator tears and ask Mam why she hadn’t warned and better prepared her little girl?
She felt like a buoy anchored to the sea floor, tossed about by the waves. But she stayed right there in the middle of her kitchen, anchored to the beautiful floorboards by her marriage to him. Oh, he made her so mad!
It wasn’t right, this anger. All her life, she had been groomed to be a submissive Amish housewife. The husband is the head of the house, and his wishes are to be respected. Your life is now no longer your own.
No doubt.
Your life is doled out in portions by his moods. If he falls into a black one, your life could be measured by the tiniest measuring spoon. Approximately one-eighth of a teaspoon. Barely enough to keep a person going. No cup runneth over here.