The Highest Mountain by Adina Senft

Author:Adina Senft
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939087720
Publisher: Moonshell Books, Inc.

10

One of the many things for which Joshua gave thanks to der Herr each day was the fact that he and his father were able to provide for their family. Such a basic thing, but these days not everyone could say the same. Back in Kansas, there had been the farm, but even there, some years they were barely able to scrape by, even with the help of other family members. And finally it had failed altogether.

Here in Colorado, though, he’d been able to master a useful trade, and in time open up his own butcher shop. Dat kept the books and manned the retail register, while Joshua did the actual cutting and the deliveries. It was a system that suited them both, and being able to apprentice his brothers suited him even better. King Cuts and Meats had three restaurant accounts now, along with the Lost Creek Ranch, and those accounts were in a fair way to being able to cover the mortgage just on their own.

The boys jumped out of the family buggy and swung their sisters down, and then Joshua backed it into the barn and unhitched Rusty. Pride of Rustico had been his racing name, but now the black gelding’s running was limited to the fields out back and the ground-eating trot that took him into town and to church.

“What do you think, Rusty?” he murmured as he curried the animal. “I should have done it when I saw her, shouldn’t I? Should I phone up there now and invite our new friends to lunch on our off Sunday this week?”

Better he ask Grace Ann and Mamm than the horse. But somehow saying it out loud made it more possible that Amanda Yoder might agree to come. She had said she wanted to meet the folks in the district, so it would only be neighborly to give her an opportunity.

When he brought this up to Mamm and Grace Ann a little later on, when he looked in on his way over to the butcher shop at the front of the property, one stopped her stitching in the big chair while the other stopped rolling out pastry dough. He’d never realized before how identical their gazes were, how similar their eyes.

“Company for lunch on Sunday?” his sister repeated. “From Lost Creek?”

“You remember Simon Yoder,” he said, trying for a casual air. “His aunt is there this year, along with…” He paused. “Hannah Riehl.”

Grace Ann merely looked puzzled, but Mamm’s eyebrows rose as realization hit. “Hannah Riehl, from out East—one of those girls who were kidnapped?”

“The very one. I’m not sure where her sister is, but the point is, it would be neighborly to have them down here for lunch and some fellowship.”

“This aunt, then—she’s some years older than Simon?” Mamm went on, clearly trying to recover from the surprise. “What’s she doing out here? Doesn’t she have a family of her own?”

“I don’t know.” Mischief seized him as he realized both of them thought Amanda was some years older than she actually was.

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