Wild Horses (Sadie's Montana #1)(11)
“Hmmpfhh.”
Chapter 4
SADIE IMMEDIATELY FELT THE pressures of her job, which were unusually demanding today. Dorothy had not arrived at her usual early morning hour because of the snow, which meant there were no potatoes cooked for hash browns, no sausage gravy, and no biscuits made for a count of 44 men.
Sadie grabbed a few tissues from the gold box by the food warmer, blew her nose because of the cold, windy morning, and turned to wash her hands with antibacterial soap from the dispenser mounted on the wall. Then she rolled up the sleeves of her green dress and compressed her lips, ready to start in.
She was starving, having skipped supper the evening before. Mam had made fresh shoofly pie yesterday morning, and when Sadie came home from work a bit early, ravenous as usual, she had eaten two slices. She doused them in fresh, creamy milk from the doe-eyed Guernsey in the barn—completely spoiling her supper.
Shoofly drowned in milk was simply the best, most comforting taste in all the world no matter whether you lived in Montana or Ohio. Mam made huge, heavy pies piled high with rich, moist cake, then covered with sweet, crumbly topping. The brown sugar, molasses, and egg mixture on the bottom complemented the top. Eaten in one perfect bite, all three layers combined to give you the most…well…perfect taste. It was wonderful.
Mam’s pie crusts were so good you could eat them without the filling. She always made some schecka hauslin when she made pies, and Sadie thought they were better than the pies themselves.
Schecka hauslin were “snail houses”—little bits of pie dough rolled around brown sugar and butter, then popped in a hot oven for a few minutes. Sadie always burned the tips of her fingers and her tongue tasting them, but it was all worth it.
“What do you want me to do first, Dottie?”
“I’m Dorothy. Now don’t you go Dottie’n me all morning.”
That voice came from the interior of the vast, stainless steel refrigerator, and Sadie turned to see Dorothy’s backside protruding from it.
Sadie never ceased to be amazed by the size of this little person and her stamina. She practically ran around the huge kitchen on short, heavy legs clad in the “good expensive” shoes she knew Dorothy had purchased at the Dollar General in town.
“They only cost $29.99!” she had told Sadie proudly. “Them shoes is expensive but they’re worth it. Good arch support.”
She had them worn down on one side in a few months but still bustled about the kitchen, never tiring, saying it was all because she wore “them good shoes.”
Dorothy turned, her face red from bending down.
“Go ahead and make that sausage gravy. I’ll tend to the biscuits.”
Sadie smiled to herself, knowing Dorothy would never allow anyone else to make the biscuits. She never measured the ingredients—just threw flour, shortening, and other ingredients into a huge, stainless steel bowl, her short, heavy arms flapping, working the dough as if her life depended on the texture of it. She talked to herself, whistled, sang bits of a song, and pounded away ferociously at the biscuit dough as if each new batch she made had to be the best.
And it always was! Dorothy’s biscuits were light, yet textured with a velvety solidity. They were unlike anything Sadie had ever tasted. They were good with butter and jam or honey or loaded with gravy or, like Jim did, eaten cold with two thick slices of roast beef and spicy mustard.
Sadie reached up to the rack suspended from the log beam above, grabbed the 12-quart stockpot and set it on the front burner of the commercial stove. Reaching into the refrigerator, she unwrapped a stick of butter, deposited it into the pot, and turned on the burner beneath it. After it had browned nicely, she scattered an ample amount of fresh, loose sausage into the pot. The handle of the long wooden spoon went round and round, keeping the sausage from sticking to the flour and butter. Her thoughts kept time.
Surely the horse was someone’s pet. Why was it out there in the deserted forests and vast empty acreage if it couldn’t feed itself? Was there simply nothing there for it to feed on, or was it too sick to search for food? Was it neglected at the home it had come from? Why was it loose and alone?
Wild horses were not uncommon in the west, though they were centered mostly in Wyoming. Bands of them roamed free, but the government kept them from becoming a threat or nuisance to the ranchers and farmers in the area. Helicopters would herd them into man-made ravines and corrals, always met with outrage by the animal-rights activists. But to Sadie’s way of thinking, it was a necessary evil. You couldn’t let wild horse herds grow too large. They could do lots of damage or graze areas meant for cattle, which was almost everyone’s livelihood here.
But, oh, horses were so beautiful! There was no other animal on earth that Sadie could relate to quite as well. She could lay her cheek against a horse’s, kiss its nose, smooth that velvety skin beneath the heavy waterfall of mane, and never grow tired of any of it. They smelled good, were intelligent, and came in all different shapes and colors. There were cute, cuddly ponies and tall, big-boned road horses, as the Amish referred to them.
The steady, brown or black, Standardbred driving horses were the backbone of the Amish community. They obediently stood in forebays of barns while heavy, leather harnesses were flung across their backs and then attached to thick, heavy collars around their muscular necks and shoulders. A horse allowed itself to be led to a carriage, backed into the shafts, and attached to the buggy. They waited patiently while family members clambered into the buggy, then trotted off faithfully, pulling them uphill and downhill in all sorts of weather.