A Horse for Elsie Read online

  As they approached the town of Ephrata, Elam turned his horse south. Here the houses thinned some, open farmland turning to patches of woods and narrow township roads with decidedly cheaper, older dwellings. There were mobile homes and double-wides with cars parked in unmowed sections of lawn, weeds growing around them like unkempt fur.

  Elsie thought it might be just a short section of these types of properties. Soon they’d emerge into an open vista of level farmland, an area where the land was cared for, well-maintained horse farms.

  A German shepherd lunged on the end of a sturdy chain, barking in short, angry barks, his collar tightening. A small dog tumbled off a set of steps, flew across the yard with furious yips, his legs churning beneath him. A heavy, balding man lowered his bare feet from the porch railing and set up an awful volley of commands to both dogs, who went on with their insane howling and yelping. They traveled past that canine threat, only to find themselves surrounded by another pack of dogs of unrecognizable breed. Large brown dogs with matted coats, their ribs showing like teeth on a large comb, tails hairless with skin diseases.

  Elsie couldn’t help herself.

  “Where are we going? These poor dogs. Surely the horse isn’t here, in this … this area.”

  “Actually, he is.”

  He wished he’d never come, wished he had never set foot in this place. Thinking of Elsie had all been a horrible mistake.

  They turned right, down a steep gravelly incline, fissured with deep, washed-out ruts, patches of weeds down the high center. The buggy tilted and lurched, threw Elsie against Elam’s shoulder. The horse picked his way down as gracefully as he did everything else.

  The passed a patch of woods to the right, a brown field to the left, overrun with spots of brambles and overgrown millet stalks, an old golf cart with one tire removed, holes in the roof and tufts of white insulation protruding. There was an array of rusted vehicles, like gloomy harbingers of worse times to come. A crumbling shed that had been red at one time but was brown now, with only a hint of pink between the rotting boards.

  Elsie fought back despair.

  What had Elam been thinking? How had he ever found this derelict place? No horse coming from this barn would be worth even a hundred dollars.

  He stopped the horse, handed the reins to her, and said he’d go talk to Mr. Harris, the owner. Elsie watched him climb from the buggy and walk through the assortment of used kitchen appliances that lay half hidden in a growth of weeds. She thought this must be some cruel joke someone had thought up.

  Chapter Six

  To hold the reins that led to the mouth of this wonderful creature diverted her thoughts as Elam returned with an aging man, stooped at the waist, shuffling through the weeds with a pair of shoes like rowboats, laces riffling along, untied.

  Without speaking, Elam led the horse to a fence, placed his hand on the post to check for sturdiness, then unhooked the rein, allowing the horse to lower his head, stretch his neck. He came back to the buggy, reached below the seat for the neck rope, tied the horse, and motioned for her to come with him.

  “Elsie, this is Charlie Harris. Charlie, a friend of mine. Elsie Esh.”

  Elsie was sized up by a pair of rheumy eyes that still held a brilliant blue color. He wore no eyeglasses, and his nose was crisscrossed with purple veins and pockmarks like the moon’s surface. A yellowed moustache hung above his puckered lips, the coarse white hair tangled and ungroomed.

  “Hello, Elsie Esh. Pleased to meet you, I am.” His voice was soft and whispery.

  “Hello. I’m pleased to meet you, too.”

  “Well, good. Then we’ll go see the horse.”

  Together they waited while the old man unhooked a two-by-four from a cast-iron brace, the only thing that held the door in place. When he swung the door back, the stench was overpowering, burning, an acidic odor of old, stale manure and fresh urine.

  Elsie coughed, brought a hand to her mouth.

  The light from the door was thrown unmercifully on the most pitiful sight Elsie could imagine.

  “He’s only four years old. A magnificent palomino. My granddaughter’s. Barrel raced. Rode him at the Ohio State Fair with the Angels. He’s a wonder, this horse.”

  The soft, breathy voice went on, explaining the loss of his granddaughter, the many events where she had shown the grand horse. Bewildered, Elsie tried to imagine this horse being ridden anywhere.

  Elam stood, his thumbs hooked in his trouser belt, nodding, his eyes taking in everything.

  The neck. Elsie had never seen a neck so thin on a horse. His head was much too large, like an oversized lollipop on a stick. Coarse hair hung from his skeletal body in long, loose tufts. His thin mane hung in sections, with burrs parting the small amounts, cruel barrettes of nature.

  “His name is Gold,” the old man whispered.

  Elsie looked at Elam, his face half averted, the light from the open barn door illuminating the pity in his eyes.

  “Are you serious?” she whispered to him.

  “Oh, yes. He was gorgeous.”

  “But he’s not now.”

  “Do you know what can be done with a horse like this? It’s why I brought you!”

  He turned to face her, his eyes meeting hers squarely. She questioned. He answered with his sympathy.

  Because we’re poor, she thought. You brought me here to show me this was all I could afford. That this place reminds you of ours. I have almost two thousand dollars. I can afford a nice horse.

  She swung her arm in the direction of the opened door. “You know I don’t have the means to pay a veterinarian, or expensive minerals and top-of-the-line horse feed. So why think you can pawn this half-dead thing on me?”

  Elsie was close to tears, and Elam was caught off guard. Misery piled on misery. It had begun badly and was ending worse. Old Charlie Harris, hard of hearing and blissfully unaware of anything amiss, kept talking in his soft breathless voice of the blue ribbons and prizes, the photographs.

  When the granddaughter passed, victim of a fiery auto accident, he had taken on himself the well-meant responsibility of keeping the horse. He thought he could do it, but had fallen ill, his mental capacity deteriorating along with the aging body. The results were one broken horse who was fortunate to receive hay and water once a day, the floor of his stable rising higher with his own waste, piled in corners, turning acrid, liquid without bedding. Clots of dirt and manure stuck in his overgrown mane and tail, his beautiful legs were stained and discolored with the filth.

  Elam looked at Elsie, saw the heaving chest, the passion in her green eyes, and understood. He’d had no intention of reminding her of her parents’ lowly station—and what was lowly, really? Did this girl measure everything around her by the material wealth of others? Compare her own life to every situation that arose?

  “Elsie.”

  She swung away from him, walked through the door, out of sight.

  Well, nothing to do but the reasonable alternative. Turning to Charlie Harris, Elam made him an offer, which was accepted.

  “Now, I know the horse needs some care. I must have forgotten to feed him a few times. Don’t have the strength for the mucking out. Yes, yes. You’ll do him justice. The young lady doesn’t want him, then?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s all right. Quite all right. You’ll do right by this horse. He’s a winner.”

  Elam nodded.

  The ride home was painful for them both. Quiet attempts at conversation died before they could be ignited, leaving them with a keen sense of having failed. He berated himself for the oversight. She blamed herself for having been gullible enough to be led like a blind sheep.

  Before they arrived home, she had to know.

  “Are you buying him?”

  “Yes.”

  “For … for yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  She stepped out of the buggy before he had a chance to make amends. Never looking at him, she mumbled a goodbye and stalked into the hous
e on legs like stilts, slapping the screen door behind her.

  She went to her room and sat down hard on the edge of her bed, releasing an expulsion of pent-up frustration.

  She’d always be poor Elsie, who had no taste, no smarts, not even a mind of her own. Dumber than a box of rocks. Good for nothing but winning baseball games for him. All this being “asked” was the same thing. Every young man wanted a meek and submissive wife who would hold her husband in high esteem, calling him Lord. And lordly he was, this Elam Stoltzfus. Even Benny of the smashed hat looked up to him in constant hope of being acknowledged and accepted.

  Well, this drive with him had uncovered what Elam truly was, which revealed the fact that he had never changed. The same kid who wouldn’t allow her to drive the Shetland pony. So arrogant. Look how he sat in that classy buggy with his wide shoulders and those solid, tanned arms covered in dark hair. She wondered what they felt like.

  What? Why was she thinking about his arms? Elsie began to cry. Her face puckered and large salty tears trickled down her cheeks. She cried for every day in school when she’d eaten her cheese sandwiches facing the blackboard so no one would see. She cried for all the times she’d known the answer to difficult questions but was much too inhibited to speak up in a classroom ripe with superiority. Mostly she cried trying to figure out why Elam’s arms affected her so deeply. Young men simply did not do that to her. None of them. So why now, when it was so obvious he thought of her as nothing but the poor girl down the road who could only afford a half-dead horse?

  It was his nose that set her into fresh, subdued wails of wretched feelings. His nose was wide and short and blunt. It was a perfect nose set above a wide mouth with lips that were not too thin and not too full, dry, and masculine, and—oh no—really nice. She couldn’t allow herself to think of his eyes that were not brown or blue or green, but the color of dried oak leaves in the fall. When an oak leaf got rained on, when it became wet, it took on a chestnut hue, a color that was not the color of anything else.

  This thought brought on a fresh river of tears, until her eyes were rimmed with red and her cheeks looked like a map of the world, splotched with red and pink and purple.

  She honked into a wad of toilet tissues, threw it on her nightstand, and thought of his even white teeth when he smiled. She went to the mirror above her dresser and pulled back her mouth in a grimace, her front teeth protruding like a—well, those of a horse. She broke into fresh sobs.

  She sat in church with her eyes still slightly puffy, watched the long line of young men and boys file in and take their seats on the long wooden benches, Elam among them.

  Determined to change everything she felt the previous day, Elsie opened her Ausbund with the rest of the girls and kept her face lowered as she sang, never once looking up. The fact that Elam was far too close, facing her way, made it almost impossible to raise her eyes. He must never know how much she had suffered. Was suffering.

  Did he have the horse in the barn at his home? She wished she could be a hawk or an owl, to glide across the barn or perch on a window ledge, to see if the sad horse had already found a new home.

  And if he was there, was he happy? Surrounded by all those high-steppers Elam’s father owned, how could he be?

  She knew he’d feel like her, eating her cheese sandwich, staring at the blackboard. The horse would be much more comfortable alone with Fred in their humble barn.

  Horses had feelings, too. Elam wouldn’t know that.

  Now she was more confused than ever. If the horse was so pitiful, and she had refused to take him, how could she hope to save him except by swallowing her pride and asking Elam?

  Now she had gotten herself into a gigantic, irretrievable mess, and to extricate herself meant admitting it was all her pride that had made her refuse him in the first place. She would never let Elam see this. The horse would just have to learn to be happy where he was.

  She couldn’t stop herself from visualizing the poor, broken-down horse, standing on three legs, the hip bones protruding like clothes racks, one leg bent, neck outstretched, that long, thin neck that just grabbed you, with the long, hard face of a much older horse, his eyes half closed in shame as the other horses kicked and stamped and whinnied, eyeing him with bold unwelcoming eyes.

  Elsie tried hard to put it all behind her, to focus on the minister’s face, to take in the surroundings. But everything blurred, colors running together in otherworldly chaos. When the minister spoke of kindness, she thought of the horse. When he spoke of the crossing of the Red Sea, she thought of the poor horse’s inability to keep up with the throng who walked on dry land to the other side.

  Then, to complicate matters even more, Elam’s sister, Barbara, invited a group of girls to her house for the afternoon, Elsie among them. There she would be, not far away from the barn, unable to see for herself. If she remained quiet, perhaps Barbara would say something about the horse, and no one would ever know what had occurred.

  They made soft pretzels, dipped them in cheese sauce, drank iced meadow tea, and giggled and talked before taking turns using the shower before they dressed to attend the youth gathering a few miles away.

  Elsie had just stepped out of the bathroom, a white towel like a turban around her head, the cape pinned to her dark gray dress, barefoot, carrying her small piece of luggage. She felt the handle loosen and sag, looked to see if she had remembered to zip up the outside pocket, while walking hurriedly. There were more girls who needed to use the shower. That was why she plowed into a solid form, bumped the towel against it, releasing the twist on top of her head, resulting in a loose towel that slid sideways, followed by a thick, heavy ripple of gleaming wet hair.

  Annoyed, she drew up short, straightened, dropped her bag, and caught herself by grasping two heavy arms covered with silky hair.

  “Oh.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I …”

  “You …”

  She meant to let go of his arms, but she didn’t.

  Elam’s face was very close and the hallway was in shadows. There was no one else around and everything, everything was filled with possibility. Flowers and butterflies could grow out of the walls and music could waft up from the floor.

  “Elsie … I …”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She let go, picked up her bag, and tried to push past him, but he caught her. Slowly he brought his hands up to touch both sides of her face, touch the wet hair that cascaded on either side. There were no misunderstandings, no divide of poverty or wealth, no broken horse named Gold, only two young people on the cusp of a strong attraction but kept at bay by their upbringing, by their parents’ admonishing of right and wrong, and most of all, what was conventionally acceptable.

  With a small cry, Elsie broke away and dashed past him and into Barbara’s room, her face ashen, the wet towel lying on the hallway floor.

  “What happened to you?” Florence asked.

  “You’re white as the walls.”

  Elsie laughed, a quick, breathless sound foreign to her own ears. “Guess the water was too hot. Sort of felt like passing out. Happens sometimes.”

  “Yeah, it can.”

  They went back to their hair brushing and spraying and clipping back with bobby pins and barrettes, capes pinned to a perfect V on their necklines, aprons pinned snugly around slim waists. The smell of girls’ cologne stuck in the air as thin stockings were wriggled into.

  Barbara walked down the hallway to the bathroom, saw the crumpled towel, found Elam lounging in the doorway of his bedroom with a slack jaw and a vacant expression, and thought, Aha. Shower wasn’t that hot. Something going on here or I’ll eat this towel.

  She knew about the horse, had noticed Elam like a midwestern tornado ever since he’d taken Elsie for a ride to see him.

  She’d have to help God along a bit, here. Elam had a strong admiration for Elsie now, same as he had in school. He’d told Barbara she was quite an athlete, for an Amish girl. He’d bet anything that if she w
asn’t Amish she’d be professional in baseball or volleyball. If she had a chance.

  Which she didn’t, Barbara had reminded him.

  But she had forgotten all this, till now. Elam had basically lost track of Elsie over the past few years. Didn’t even belong to the same group of young people.

  You watch. You just watch, Barbara chortled to herself.

  After the episode in the hallway, the youth gathering held no charm for Elsie. It felt like a bowl of Corn Flakes without sugar or milk. A jigsaw puzzle with no border pieces. The sun without the moon, the moon without the sun. A land without rain.

  The whole atmosphere was drained of vitality. It was hard to understand, this sudden loss. If she had never known Elam, there would be no loss. But she had always known Elam. Elam and Benny. Cookie and his new horse. But that was a different time.

  How could you link the two times? This Elam was like a warm campfire in a dark, cold forest. This Elam took up all your senses and threw them into the sky, where they turned to stardust, little pinpricks of dazzle in a dark sky you didn’t know needed light. And having seen this transformation, you could never think of Elam as the same person driving Cookie, with Benny beside him.

  She felt helpless, carried along by a deep, churning current headed straight for a high waterfall. She cried when she found a dead kitten by the side of the road. She didn’t like cats, never had. But the kitten was so little and so thoroughly dead.

  Her work at the bakery was like a speeding train threatening to derail. One moment her rolls were light and buttery, the sweet dough turned out to perfection. She loved her job, her coworkers. The next minute she wanted to hurl a mass of dough out a window, watch the glass split and break, tinkle to the ground in dozens of sharp sections, the dough coming to rest on top of it.