The Amish Cowboy's Letter by Adina Senft

Author:Adina Senft [Senft, Adina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781950854639
Publisher: Moonshell Books, Inc.

With the windows open to catch the last of the day’s warmth before the sun dropped behind the pines, Naomi and Sadie Wengerd heard the approaching cavalcade long before they saw them.

“Here they come,” she said to her friend. “Dinner in an hour?”

“I think so.” Sadie opened the door of the propane oven to check the ranks of baked potatoes, oiled and salted and wrapped in foil. “These need another fifteen minutes, and they’ll stay warm a long time.”

In keeping with tradition, Naomi’s trademark elk stew once again bubbled outside on the deck on a big, one-burner propane cooker. With the potatoes baked and “smashed,” as Joshua put it, her hungry guests could ladle stew over them and fill their plates with creamed corn and green bean casserole with bacon and onions, plus all the pickles and jellied salads their stomachs could hold.

No one ever went hungry at the big dinner after turnout. The gut Gott provided with a generous hand, and every family brought something to contribute along with their labor.

And here they came, riding across the big home field and into the barn through the back gate. The guest horses were turned out into the paddock, still tacked up but free to graze and rest after their exertions. She could picture her family, weary and covered in mud, but still taking the time to remove saddle and tack, and brush their horses down before turning them out to graze on the sweet grass of the meadows.

Denkes, mei Vater, for bringing them safe home again.

Kate Weaver climbed the stairs up to the deck, already part of the crowd even though she hadn’t yet been here a week. Naomi took in her stiff gait, the taupe dress nearly unrecognizable with mud and sweat, the hair escaping from under her Duchly. But before she could cross the wide deck and suggest a change of clothes, Malena and Rebecca, both in the same disarray, hustled her inside.

Her gut Dochsdere. They would look after the greenhorn.

And here was her husband, looking tired but still with the spark of pleasure in his eyes as he caught sight of her. He made his way over to her through the crowd dispersing itself on the picnic benches and along the railings. He didn’t kiss her, but she could see perfectly well he wanted to.

She brushed dried mud off the shoulders of his shirt like a caress. She never permitted herself to think of everything that could go wrong in the high country during turnout. Calves stuck in barbed-wire fences. Horses losing their footing on crumbly scree and tossing a rider. Inexperienced help not latching a gate securely and cattle streaming onto someone else’s land. Calves and horses darting out into traffic on the highway.

Since she could do not one thing to prevent any of that, she left it all in Gott’s capable hands, and gave thanks to Him when Reuben and her children returned to her, muddy but unscathed.

“How did it go?”

Reuben’s cheeks creased in a smile.

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