The Revealing (23 page)

“What happens now?” Bethany asked the men.

“We’ll post a warning on the door to the house. If we don’t hear from the owner in a few days, we’ll return and post another.”

She turned to the farrier. “What do you know about the owner?”

“I only met him one time, when he asked me to come shoe the horse every eight weeks. There was something odd about him.”

Galen’s head snapped up. “What was it that struck you as odd?”

“He only carried a one-hundred-dollar bill. Wanted me to break the change for him, and when I couldn’t, he said he would have to pay me next time. I’ve been on the wrong end of that before, so I told him I only work if I’m paid in advance. It made him mad, but he ended up paying me for two shoeings.”

“Do you remember what he looked like?” Bethany said.

“Thirty or so. Nice looking. Clean shaven. Seemed to care about the horse.” His lips hardened as he glanced around the paddock. “Nothing like this.”

“Was the man pleasant? Charming?” She wanted to know.

“Very. The kind of guy who could charm the spots off a leopard.”

It
had
to be Jake Hertzler. It had to be! But Bethany could see the run-down house was empty, deserted. Jake must have left awhile ago, abandoning Lodestar. “What happens if you don’t hear back from the owner in a few days? If he never does come back?”

“Then we’ll return with law enforcement and confiscate the horse.”

Galen’s gaze was fixed on Lodestar. “What’ll happen to the horse?”

“He’ll be taken to a rescue center and rehabilitated. Then he’ll be put up for adoption.”

“How long could that take?” Bethany said.

“Six months. Maybe a year.”

Bethany couldn’t bear the thought of this pathetic beast left in this filthy pasture without food and water for another week. And hobbled! One of the men from the Equine Rescue apologized to Galen but told him he would have to put the hobbles back on so they could photograph the condition the horse was in, while the other one wrote up a warning and posted it on the door. Galen looked sadly at the hobbles in his hand and gently replaced them on Lodestar’s back legs. The horse turned his head from the hay to stare at Galen, as if betrayed.

As they left the pasture, they reminded the farrier to turn the electric fence back on. “By law, we have to leave everything just the way we found it.”

Bethany sidled up to Galen to whisper to him. “We can’t leave him hobbled. At the very least . . . not hobbled.”

He gave her a slight nod. “Distract them as they walk to their cars,” he whispered.

Bethany put herself in front of the men, walking backward, asking them every question she could think of about their work. Behind them, she saw Galen quickly unbuckle the horse’s hobbles and hurry across the pasture to join them before they reached the gate and the farrier flipped on the switch to the electric fence.

As they climbed back in the farrier’s truck, Bethany said, “Wait! I dropped something by the pasture.” She jumped out of the truck and hurried over to the gate. She dropped her handkerchief and leaned over with one hand to pick it up, waving to the farrier and Galen to show them she found it. With the other hand, she flipped the electric fence power switch off. The horse looked at her with sorrowful but mildly curious eyes, munching on the hay. “Okay, Lodestar. I’m giving you a chance. Don’t disappoint me.”

No one said much on the ride home. They were almost back to Eagle Hill before the farrier broke the silence. “I don’t know if that horse will ever be the same.”

Bethany looked to Galen for that answer.

“He’s young,” Galen said reassuringly. “It’s amazing how quickly an animal can heal once he’s got good food, good shelter, and a little loving care.”

With all the excitement of the baby’s birth, no one had remembered to check phone messages or pick up the mail. While Naomi was feeding the baby her bottle, Rose walked to the mailbox and pulled out three days’ worth of mail. Three days! She shook her head. Then she stopped by the phone shanty and listened to messages.

She hunted for a pen to write down names and numbers
as she listened to three different messages from guests who wanted to book reservations in April and May. Her pen fell on the floor, and as she bent to get it, she almost missed the last message. “Rose, this is Tobe. I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you but there’s a reason—I’m getting released this week. I’ll be home on Friday. I’ll explain about, well, about everything, when I get home.”

The first thought that ran through her mind was: Tobe was coming home! Alleluia! And then: Friday? Friday! That’s tomorrow! And of course, so like Tobe, he didn’t say how he would be returning, or what time. But the important thing—Tobe was finally coming home.

14

B
ethany hurried over to Naomi’s. They were planning to go to the Sisters’ Bee at Edith Fisher’s and she was running late, as usual. As she slipped through the privet, something caught her eye. Outside the far fence, near the road, she noticed a loose horse, unbridled, grazing on shoots of new spring grass. She looked in the barn for Galen but couldn’t find him, so she grabbed a handful of hay, tucked a rope under her arm, and walked slowly, slowly toward the horse.

The horse shied but was too weary, too thin, to bolt. “Don’t tell me . . . can it really be . . . is it you?” She held the hay out to the horse and gently slipped a rope around his neck. She reached out and rested her hand on the horse’s nose. The horse bumped her with his nose, a sign of recognition. “I know someone who is going to be pretty excited to see you.”

Bethany rubbed the horse’s long neck, looking him over for injuries. The horse seemed completely calm. Ears in the upright position.

She ran her hand down each leg, the way she’d seen Galen do, looking for swelling or bruising or cuts. Then she led the horse into Galen’s barn and into a large box stall, customized
with extra latches especially for a certain horse who liked to escape, but she had a feeling that wouldn’t be a problem any longer.

Jimmy Fisher’s Lodestar had come home.

As soon as Bethany arrived at the Fishers’ farm for the Sisters’ Bee, she made a beeline to find Jimmy in the pullet barn. It was ten times as large as the henhouse at Eagle Hill. She had never been in it before and cringed at the loud sound of the hens, cackling and clucking in their nesting boxes. The air was pungent, fusty and sour, nearly overwhelming her, though it was a well-kept barn with plenty of ventilation. One or two of the hens flapped their wings and pecked at her as she walked down the narrow aisle.

No wonder Jimmy couldn’t stand being a chicken boss! These birds were downright ornery.

She found him cutting up apples at a workbench in the center of the barn, tossing the apple slices in a bucket to feed to the hens. When he saw her, he startled. “Bethany, what are you doing here?”

“Jimmy, I found him! Well, Galen helped too.”

“Who?”

She paused, unable to hold back a grin. “Lodestar.”

He cocked his head and looked at her as if she might be sun touched. “Bethany, are you feeling all right?”

She laughed. “It’s really him. Lodestar!”

Jimmy didn’t move for a moment, didn’t breathe. Then he threw the apple knife down on the workbench so hard it stuck upright, point in the wood. “Where?” His voice made a funny, choking sound. “Where is he?”

“He’s not in great shape. He’s been mistreated pretty badly. He’s lost a lot of muscle mass. But Galen thinks that with
good food, good care, love, and kindness, he’ll be as good as new.” She bit her bottom lip. “Hopefully.”

He took a step closer to her, impatience on his face. “Bethany, where is he?”

“In Galen’s barn, of course.”

Jimmy tossed his worn leather gloves on the ground and blew past her, leaving her alone in the stinky chicken barn.

Micky was getting too old for all the silly games he played like a puppy, but he didn’t know it, which was why Rose ignored him when he woke her in the middle of the night with his cold nose on her hand. He hunkered down on the ground and made a whimpering sound, then he ran around and around in a tight circle, jumped up on the bed, jumped off, only to do it all over again. Something was up, so Rose got out of bed. She heard a sound outside and went to the window, just in time to see Paisley’s car start up, cough, and sputter down the driveway.

Rose flew into action and bolted down the stairs. “Stop her, stop her! She’s leaving! Paisley’s leaving!”

Bethany burst out of her bedroom, down the stairs, and ran past Rose to go outside, waving, trying to catch up with the car. At the end of the driveway she gave up and walked back to Rose, furious. “I can’t believe she actually left before Tobe got home. I can’t believe it!”

All kinds of feelings ping-ponged in Rose’s head. Relief that Paisley was gone, that the family would no longer need to walk on a knife-edge of anxiety, that Tobe wasn’t home yet to be caught in a quandary about whether to go with her or not.

Then, panic! The baby. The baby was gone! How dare Paisley take that baby away! Rose felt devastated. She was already falling in love with little Sarah.

Suddenly a familiar wail floated down the steps.

Bethany looked at Rose, puzzled. “Paisley didn’t take the baby with her?”

The baby’s wail grew louder.

“Apparently . . . not,” Rose said in a thin, unsteady voice.

In the morning, Rose told Vera that Paisley had vanished. Vera’s face suddenly grew gray and wrinkled, as if she had turned a hundred years old.

“The less said about that Parsley woman, the better. The English are very unreliable.” Vera’s face was in that sharp straight line again. There would be no more said.

When Naomi received Tobe’s call that he was coming home, asking her to meet him at the bus stop at three o’clock and to come alone so they could have time to talk, she found herself deliberating over which dress to wear to make her look most appealing—the rose or the teal green—then she pulled herself up sharply and was ashamed to realize how vain she sounded, even to herself. But she wore the teal green one that gave her more color and didn’t make her look wishy-washy. She could barely wait to see Tobe. No day had ever seemed longer.