Wild Horses by Linda Byler Page B

his horse.Wasn’t there an old saying—The way a man treats his horse is the way he will treat his wife.
    The moon was full. It made the stars seem tiny and insignificant, like afterthoughts. Each one twinkled bravely in spite of being outdone by the moon.
    The pines on the ridge seemed so dark, they were black and ominous-looking. Sadie thought they were beautiful in the sunlight, each dark bough harboring glints of light woven with deeper shadows. She loved the smell of pines, the sticky, pungent sap that seeped from their rough trunks, and the soft carpet of needles that covered the ground beneath them.
    The lulling sound of the wind through pine branches was like a low, musical wonder—like a song. There was no other sound on earth quite like it. It was haunting and inspiring and filled Sadie with a deep, quiet longing for something, but she never understood what. Perhaps the song was God—his spirit sighing in the pine branches, his love for what he had created crying out and touching a chord in Sadie’s heart.
    From earth we are created, and to earth we return, she thought. She supposed it was a melancholy kind of thought, but it felt comforting and protective. But the sound of wind in the pines reminded her that life is also full of unseen and unknown forces.
    Down in the valley, valley so low,
    Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.
    Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow,
    Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.
    It was an old folk song that Sadie often heard Mam humming to herself as she went about her daily chores. It was a kind of spiritual for Mam. She always said she felt the same passion her “foremothers” felt in that song. Women were like that. They heard many beautiful songs in the wind that no one else could comprehend. Subject to their husbands, women often hung their heads low. Many of them—Mam included—had to. It was just the way of it.
    So, that’s what’s wrong with me. I go off wearing a light pink dress, yearning for a horse of my own, not submitting to kind, conservative Ezra because I can’t hang my head low.
    Sadie caught her breath. She pushed the curtain back farther with unsteady fingers, then leaned into the windowpane. It seemed as if the pines became alive and did a kind of undulating dance, but only the lower branches.
    What was that? What was running, no, merely appearing and disappearing on the opposite ridge?
    Sadie strained her eyes, her nerves as taut as a guitar string.
    Wolves! There were wolves in the pines. But wait. Wolves were not as big as … as whatever … that was.
    Sadie gasped audibly and her hand came to her mouth to stifle a scream as the dark shadows emerged.
    Horses! Dark, flowing horses!
    Like one body, the horses broke free of the pines that held them back, and in one fluid movement, streamed across the snowy field, disappearing again in a matter of seconds.
    Whose horses were loose? Who owned so many? It was like a band of wild horses. And yet… Had she really seen them? Or was it a mirage of wishful thinking?
    As if to bring her back to earth, the yellow glow of two headlights came slowly around the bend in the driveway, making steady progress up the hill.
    Ezra.
    I cannot imagine what possessed me to try this again, she thought, suddenly face-to-face with reality.
    Her eyes turned back to the black and white serenity of the moonlit ridge. There wasn’t a trail or dent, not even a shadow, in the snowy hillside to show her if what she had seen was actually real. Tomorrow! Tomorrow she would climb the ridge and see if she could find anything.
    Tonight, however, belonged to Ezra.
    Sighing, she shrugged her shoulders into her black, wool coat, grabbed a pair of warm gloves and her purse, and went slowly down the stairs.
    “Ooooo!” sighed Rebekah, clasping her hands.
    “Pink!” Anna yelled.
    Reuben looked up from his book and grinned toothily.
    “Pink! For Ezra!”
    Sadie wrapped a cream-colored scarf around her neck, adjusting it just