The Amish Cowboy, page 5
“And tonight?” Lovina asked. She had spent the last couple of hours in such terrible fear that the thought of eating made her ill. But Joel must have something.
“I don’t need to eat,” Daniel said, busy on the other side of his horse. “But I have half a sandwich in my pack that you and Joel are welcome to.”
“No need,” Reuben said. “When has your mother ever let us go on roundup without a backup plan? We have trail packs with tents and sleeping mats. And she has put enough food in my backpack for a gut supper. Joel, I will take care of your Bachelor Button if you will collect firewood and kindling. The fire ring and camping place are over there, in that level spot.”
In the last of the light, they set up camp, putting the tack inside the tents in case the weather kept its promise, and the horses in the corral. And while the chicken salad sandwiches were squashed and a little watery because of the pickles, they and the slightly flattened apple cake had never tasted so good to Lovina. Or perhaps it was that Joel was leaning against her, safe and warm, the firelight flickering over his dear features. It wasn’t long after he’d finished his last bite that his weight grew heavy and it was time to carry him the few feet to the tent and put him to bed.
Daniel had zipped two down sleeping bags together for them. “It’s going to be cold,” he’d said simply, but she wondered if somehow he had known that she would need to hold her boy through the night, reassuring herself every time she woke that he was safe against her chest.
Reuben followed suit soon after, in the tent he would share with his own son, leaving Daniel and Lovina with cold backs and warm fronts as they huddled on stumps, so close to the flames that the toes of their boots nearly rested in the ashes. She should go in the tent, too. But she had something that must be said before she lost her nerve.
“Reuben,” she said in the direction of his tent, “denkes for bringing my son back to me.”
“No thanks needed,” came the gruff voice from inside. “The boy did well, waiting at the gate with the calf where it had been grazing, instead of dragging it up the trail to try to find us.”
“Just as Daniel thought he might.” Lovina glanced to the side, where Daniel was gazing into the fire.
“Guder nacht,” Reuben said pointedly, and they heard the scritch of the nylon bag as he burrowed, fully clothed, into it.
“Will you laugh at me if I wear my down coat when I sleep?” she said in a low tone to Daniel. “I want Joel wrapped inside it, like a baby kangaroo in its mother’s pocket.”
“I was going to suggest that you do,” he said. “Dat probably has his on, too. I’ll put mine over me like a quilt. I’m a pretty warm sleeper.”
She had no business thinking about that at all. She turned the subject instead. “Even when it’s nearly freezing?”
“The bags are warm. No one is going to freeze tonight. Just keep your head covered.”
“I’m beginning to believe that when you say something, it’s usually right.”
He chuckled. “Not always.”
I thought you loved me.
Like an echo, the words he’d said the night he proposed came back to her. Even all these years later, she felt herself blush. He had been right, then. She had loved him. But there were things that overrode love, that made the sacrifice of it necessary, though nothing had ever hurt so much.
Suddenly it seemed important that he know about those things. Especially since the sound of his father’s breathing told her he had fallen asleep almost at once.
“Daniel, that night on the bridge—”
“This is no time to talk about it.” He got up and turned his back to the fire.
She rose and did the same. Maybe this was better. Her low voice would go out into the dark, not toward the two tents.
“There were things—reasons—for my saying what I did that I never had the chance to explain.”
“I don’t think those things matter now, Lovina.”
“But I think they do,” she said urgently. “I’ve let you believe whatever you believe for all this time. I want to make it right. So that at least you believe the truth.”
“You didn’t tell me the truth that night?”
She hesitated. “Not all of it.”
His shoulders heaved in a deep sigh. “Whatever either of us believes doesn’t change anything. You made the choice you thought was right, and I accepted it. End of story.”
“But it isn’t the full story. Please, Daniel.”
He turned back to the fire, which had burned so low all he had to do was kick it down and it would go out with no danger of spreading out of its shallow pit to the grass.
“You’ll be going back to the Wengerd place tomorrow, and catching a train after that, if it doesn’t snow. It’s not likely we’ll see each other again. Let’s just leave the past in the past, where it belongs.”
She wanted to protest, to grab his sleeve and shake it until he listened, but that would wake Reuben. So instead, she wished him good night, ducked into her tent, zipped it up behind her, and slipped into the sleeping bag next to Joel. He murmured and snuggled against her in his sleep.
No matter how much she wanted to speak, to make Daniel believe her reasons had been just, she would just have to accept that he didn’t want to hear them. And really, what would have happened if she had said yes that night instead of no? The gut Gott would not have given her Joel, and what would her life be without him?
He was her comfort and her joy.
But even with that knowledge, it was a long time before Lovina could get comfortable enough to fall asleep. And if the soft sounds of a man turning over again and again next door were any indication, she wasn’t the only one.
Joshua could have taken off and hightailed it away from the ranch the moment the mother-and-calf pairs were safely in the home field and the gate closed behind them. With the clouds of dust, the bawling cattle and the crowd of shouting, whooping neighbors, it would have been easy to put his heels to his horse and head out through the woods to get the night started.
Dat was up on the mountain. He’d never know. But Josh did owe his horse better than that.
He finished his work, helping the other cowboys funnel the rest of the animals into the big field. Then he took the time to untack Sandy (he was not going to call him Chrysanthemum in front of the other guys) and give him a rubdown and a bucket of oats before he turned him out in the horse pasture to enjoy a good graze after all his labors.
Josh was done with labor and ready for a good graze himself, and it wouldn’t be at the house with the half Amish, half Englisch crowd, either. On the good side, the chaos at the Circle M concealed his escape. On the bad side, he couldn’t go into the house to take a shower and clean up. One of his sisters or Mamm would catch him for sure, and he’d be stuck with yet more chores. Luckily his friends helped each other out in that department.
As the guys from the Rocking Diamond dude ranch rode into the yard, as dusty and covered in manure and mud as he was, he caught Chance Madison’s eye. Chance gave a subtle nod and a grin as he and his dad’s hands rode down the lane. Most of them would be back in an hour, showered and spit shined, for dinner. Mamm’s cooking was legendary, and none of the cowboys missed the big roundup dinner on the Circle M if they could help it. Not even the fancy chef at the Rocking Diamond could hold a candle to her, though they paid him a fortune and the folks from New York and Los Angeles raved.
But there was more to life than cooking.
On foot, he shouldered his little backpack with his Englisch clothes in it and cut through the woods to the county highway. In just a few minutes, he heard the Rocking Diamond horses, ambling along and probably ready for their own barns. Chance came up behind him, offered him a hand, and he swung up to ride postillion for the mile or so they had to go.
The dude ranch was massive, bigger even than the Circle M. Josh supposed that in order to pay the equally massive mortgage, the Madisons had to diversify. The place was a working ranch, a retreat center, a dude ranch, and if none of those suited, you could rent yourself a cabin just to sit out on your little porch and enjoy the view and the chef’s two-course breakfast, delivered to your door. But at ten thousand dollars a week per couple, the ranch made most of its money on folks who wanted to learn ranch work. Some were serious about it. Some just wanted something different to put on their Instagram feeds. And Chance had even mentioned the other day that a movie company had called wanting to know when the tourists tended to clear out. Some actor wanted privacy to learn how to rope and ride so he could do his own stunts for a movie.
“My sister says the folks in Morgan checked out and Housekeeping hasn’t been in yet,” Chance reported after they dismounted, his phone in his hand. “You go clean up, while I put this good boy away.” He patted his horse’s neck.
All the cabins were named after breeds of horses, though Josh doubted there was a Morgan horse in all of Lincoln County. But he wasn’t fussy—the water was hot and there was lots of it. Even a clean white bath towel that hadn’t been used. Chance, of course, showered in his own room at the big house. But the fewer people who saw Josh here, the better. Fifteen minutes later, he had hiked over the shoulder of the hill and was back on the highway, where the rumble of Chance’s big Ford F450 caught up to him.
He vaulted inside and they were off.
“Where to?” Chance straight-armed the wheel and asked the question like there was any other answer.
“Whitefish,” Josh joked.
“You wish. Talley’s it is.”
Talley’s was the bar in Mountain Home where a lot of the guys from the ranches hung out after their work was done. It was dim and loud and the beer was crafted right there. It was the best-kept secret in the county, and the cowboys aimed to keep it that way. The girls came over from Libby and some of the other towns and between shooting the breeze and dancing and playing the dozen different kinds of video games they had ranged along the walls, you could spend half the night there without even trying.
Josh rarely tried. It just happened.
Tyler Carson already had a table saved, big enough for them and a trio of girls who had become regulars since the youngest one had turned twenty-one. Chance was twenty-two, and Ty had had his twenty-first birthday in the summer, so he was still in the honeymoon phase where he got blasted by nine o’clock. No self-control, that was Ty’s problem. Which was usually when Josh pried the keys to their car out of his hand and became the designated driver for whoever could cram into the car and go back to Ty’s to party. His parents never cared who came over, and as long as you could still walk a straight line when you got in your car, they didn’t care how much of their stock you drank, either.
Josh had scrimped and saved for three years to buy this car. He rubbed the steering wheel affectionately as they drove back to the Carson house. It was a beauty—a 1969 Dodge Dart, the one they called the Swinger. Okay, it was more Bondo than metal, but the motor ran like a champ and it could blister a trail of rubber down the highway better than Chance’s truck, even. Josh had studied for the Montana driver’s test, hiding the booklet out in the tack room with the rest of his stuff, and passed it the first time. Their agreement was that he’d buy the car, and Ty would pay for the insurance, store it, and keep it maintained. He worked at the auto parts store in Libby, so he got a good discount on parts.
Chance and the other guys from the ranch had gone on to Libby, being as it was Saturday night. Now, Ty was trying to sing “Red Solo Cup” in the backseat, his arms around a girl on either side and some kid one of them knew crammed up against the window. Josh drove as carefully as his buzz would let him while he tucked the youngest girl against his ribs. She smelled good. Not as nice as Carey, who smelled like wildflowers. He hadn’t seen her in a while. Since summer? He tried to think, and couldn’t remember.
He remembered her scent, though. And how soft her skin was. How loud her laugh and how she called him Joshie.
“Where’s Carey these days?” came out of his mouth in the middle of the girls’ conversation about some science fiction series that was streaming, to which he couldn’t contribute much. They all agreed that they were crazy about the lead actor, whose name meant nothing to him.
“Carey Lindholm?” The girl beside him yawned. “I heard she got accepted to U of M in Missoula. Starts in January.”
“Overachievers Anonymous,” one of the girls in the back said. “I hate her.”
“Yup, she’s too good for us now,” the third one said. “Haven’t seen her for months. Shut up, Ty. You sound like a sick cow.”
“Hey,” he said, hurt. “My grandma says I’m a great singer.”
“Your grandma isn’t here,” she said, crushing him into silence.
His parents weren’t there, either, Joshua saw as he pulled into the yard. “Where’s your folks, Ty?”
“’S a long weekend, Amish boy,” Ty slurred. “They went to the cabin.”
“Lucky them. I’d love a cabin on Flathead Lake.” The girl beside him slid out as he put the Dart in park. “C’mon, let’s see what’s in the liquor cabinet so Joshie can have a good time, too.”
“Don’t call me that,” he said, frowning.
“Joshie—Joshie—Joshie needs a washie,” she sang, and fell up the porch steps.
He rolled his eyes and hauled her to her feet. He remembered now why he’d preferred Carey to her friends. But once he’d lowered the level of the bottle of Canadian Club a little, he didn’t care anymore, and soon he and she were tangled up on Ty’s sofa downstairs and nothing mattered at all.
In the morning, the sun had barely lit the rocky peaks of the mountain behind them when Daniel had Del and Marigold saddled and Dat had taken down their tent and stowed everything in the trail bags. The clouds had kept their promise and the snow had started sometime in the night. Already there was an inch in the meadow, crisscrossed with bird and animal tracks, and trampled to mud in the corral where the calves crowded the gate at the sight of them.
Joel popped out of the tent, looking rumpled and alert, jamming his hat down over hair that stood on end. Lovina climbed out behind him, her hair hastily wound up under the Duchly and her skirt wrinkled. He had never seen her first thing in the morning, and it took him a moment to recover from eyes that looked larger because of her pale cheeks. She hadn’t slept much, either. His fault, probably, since he’d been so ungracious last night, cutting her off and walking away. But hearing her talk about the night on the bridge over Willow Creek, when the fireflies had made constellations of beauty in the fields on either side and the sound of the water rushing below had whispered, Ask her—ask her ... ach, it had been too much for him to take.
“We need to get these calves back home to their mothers,” Dat said. “While it is the Lord’s Day, I don’t think He will fault us for finishing our task. However, we will take a few minutes to give thanks to der himmlischer Vater for keeping us through the night.”
Daniel schooled his jumbled thoughts to stillness, focusing on his breath condensing on the chilly air and how thankful he was that God had preserved them, their horses, and these last calves from the dangers of the night. Reuben offered up his prayer as solemnly as he might have in church, where he was deacon, and not standing in a partially frozen field with curious horses looking on and hungry calves bawling in the background.
When Reuben had concluded, he lifted his head and said to Lovina, “Daniel and I will help you tear down and saddle up, and then we’ll let the animals out. You and Joel will lead, and we’ll close the gate and come behind.”
The trail under the belt of pines downslope had no snow yet, but by the time they’d ridden the last mile and emerged through the final gate on to the county road, another inch had accumulated in the open spaces. The road itself was still clear, but it wouldn’t be long. Rosie and Button set a good pace, no doubt anxious to get back to their warm barn and a good meal. Daniel watched Lovina’s straight back and marveled that a woman who had never ridden a saddle horse could now look almost comfortable. Then again, her whole being seemed at ease now that Joel was riding beside her.
Could he have given her even more peace by taking the time to listen to what she had to say last night?
Never mind. What was done was done. And if he had regretted it between brief snatches of sleep, well, he would keep that to himself.
Joel whooped as they drove the calves in through the gates of the Circle M, and while Reuben and Daniel moved them into the field where the other pairs grazed and helped them mother up, Lovina and Joel rode to the barn. By the time Daniel and his father had put their own horses away and double-checked that all was well with Rosie and Button, Lovina and Joel had bathed and changed and Joel was regaling the rest of the family with the story of their night in the wilderness.
Though they would have eaten breakfast hours ago, Naomi and the twins had wasted no time in getting another on the table for them. Daniel wolfed down waffles covered in syrup, sausages, eggs, and good, old-fashioned scrapple. And all the while, he watched the color return to Lovina’s face and the sparkle to her eyes as she laughed. Adam was in the middle of telling Joel the story of the blizzard four years ago, which had snowed them in for several days before the county could clear the roads out this far, when the kitchen door opened and Joshua came in looking as though he had spent the night on the mountain, too.
“Is that breakfast?” he said as though he couldn’t believe his luck.
A faint whiff of something that could have been either bad breath or a mix of cigarettes and alcohol—or all three—wafted past Daniel. Their mother’s face scrunched up in distaste, and Reuben’s enjoyment of his meal appeared to sizzle away.
Josh took his place and began loading his plate, shoveling in the food as though he hadn’t eaten since breakfast yesterday.
“Are you just getting home?” Daniel asked in disbelief.
Joshua looked up from his waffles. “Aren’t you?”
“We spent the night at the corral. Were you chasing runaways?”
