Free Keeping Secrets by Linda Byler Page B

understand everything.
    Did she understand anything?
    Why was Mark angry? Surely he would not have become so upset that he would shoot a horse? But Reuben said his home was filled with guns.
    He wouldn’t.
    Sadie stroked Reuben’s back, the only way she knew to comfort him, and when he stepped back, dug out a rumpled red handkerchief and blew his nose, he looked at her and took a deep breath.
    “I’ll be okay,” was all he said.

Chapter 6

    I N THE DAYS THAT followed, the whole family rallied around Reuben.
    Anna bought him his favorite candy bars, baseball cards, and red licorice from the store in town.
    Rebekah let him drive Charlie when she went to visit Aunt Elma who lived about eight miles away. Mam baked pumpkin whoopie pies and chocolate ones, filled with thick, creamy frosting and wrapped in Saran Wrap individually.
    Dat called the hide and tanning company. He traveled with the truck up the field lane to the field of wildflowers, where they loaded the carcass. He never said a word about any of it to Reuben, which had to be the best, leaving him to remember his horse as he loved her, alive and well, running fast.
    There was a huge controversy going on down at the ranch. Sadie busily pieced together snatches here and there, unable to come to a conclusion of her own. It was difficult pondering why any person or group of people would aim a rifle and shoot an innocent, unassuming horse in its own pasture.
    There were no tracks, no leads for the police. A few days of discussion on the news, then nothing.
    The Miller family did not report Cody’s death; it was their way of staying out of the public eye. They looked on the incident as something God allowed to happen. Whether it was evil or not, it had occurred. The family accepted it, mourned the horse, then everyone moved on, including Reuben.
    Only Sadie understood his pain. Really understood it.
    When he flopped on the recliner and stared into space, then picked up a hunting magazine to hide his face, Sadie knew he was biting down on his lower lip, blinking madly as he vowed not to cry.
    One evening, when dusk was settling over the back porch like a soft, gray blanket of comfort, promising rest to the tired occupants of the porch swing, Dat broke the silence. He was building a screened-in deck for a man who had an old buckboard he’d give to someone who would restore it.
    Instantly Anna sprang up, clapping Reuben’s shoulder.
    “There you go, Reuben!”
    Reuben snorted.
    “What would I want with a buckboard? I don’t know how to fix it up, and besides, I have no horse.”
    “Paris,” Anna countered quickly.
    “She’s not broke to drive.”
    “Charlie!”
    That was met with an unenthused snort.
    “Would you restore it, Dat?” Sadie asked.
    “I don’t know. It’s not really my thing.”
    “Who does that?”
    “I have no idea. Plenty of people in Ohio, but here… I don’t know of anyone Amish, anyway.”
    “Would you do it, Dat?” Sadie asked.
    “I don’t really want to.”
    “If Reuben and I help? If we get a horse that matches Paris, we could really have something neat. Maybe even drive them at horse sales.”
    “Or shows! Or rodeos!” Reuben shouted.
    “Now!” Mam said.
    That long drawn out “now” was always Mam’s way of reprimanding gently but firmly, sort of like pulling back the reins on a horse. You knew you had to stop and consider, not go so fast; there might be an obstacle along the way, and you needed to be aware of it.
    Still it was an idea.
    For one thing, it might help Anna. She desperately wanted to feel needed and to rebuild a kinship with Reuben, the way it was when they were younger. Sadie often felt guilty for taking Reuben from Anna the way she did. But unlike Reuben, Anna was not a rider. She was becoming quite chubby, her cheeks round and rosy with good health and lots of good food, and absolutely not a care in the world about it.
    Her face was very pretty and tanned, with greenish-gray eyes that looked blue when