* * *
As Ella started out to the barn to hitch her horse Fern to her buggy, two of Aaron’s buddy-group guys pulled into the lane at a good clip. They were in a fancy courting buggy one of them must have borrowed, because at fourteen, they were both too young to own one. Two more bug-in-their-beans pre-rumspringa boys who were feeling their oats already, Ella thought. They couldn’t wait for their running-around time, couldn’t wait to court a girl.
“Hey, Ella!” Mose Raber, a distant cousin, shouted. “Where’s Aaron? We got to show him this buggy!”
“He’s in the barn. I’ll send him out!” she called back. Since Andrew seemed to want to steer clear of people, no use to get these excited kids chattering away at him too in their Deutsche dialect he wouldn’t understand. What if the bishop hadn’t been able to tell everyone in the church yet that they were harboring an Auslander for a while?
Ella was surprised to find that Aaron was teaching Andrew with her horse and buggy. “We knew you were going to the mill, so we thought we’d hitch up for you while I show him,” Aaron said.
That kindness didn’t sound like Aaron lately—or had Andrew suggested that? “Danki, but I can do it. Besides, Mose and Sol are outside to show you a courting buggy. It’s okay if you go out to say hi. I can show Andrew.”
Could it be, she thought, that the Lord had set this up with perfect timing? Andrew might not be going with her to the mill, but she had him to herself again. How she wished he’d tell her something about his real life.
“Aaron said your horse’s name is Fern,” Andrew said, interrupting her thoughts as he patted her mare’s flank.
“Right. See the little leaf mark on her forehead, like a fern? What else did he say?”
“That you always curry her before hitching up, but he’d skip that part right now. And that she used to be a champion pacer and could do almost eight miles an hour instead of just six, like the slower horse your dad lets him use.”
“Speed,” she said, giving Fern a few quick strokes with the curry brush. “Both my brothers like fast buggies, new leather and speed. I do too, and if I blow Fern a kiss she goes even faster.”
He smiled. “I’ll remember that. The love of speed sounds universal to me—something the Amish have in common with the world.”
“I know what universal means,” she replied, trying not to sound testy. “You had to leave behind a fast car, I bet.”
“Not a sports car, though. I went for a black BMW—corporate image.”
He had actually told her something personal. “Oh, I see.”
“I don’t mean to talk down to you, but I suppose you think I’m speaking a foreign language sometimes.”
“Like you think about us, I guess. And never the twain shall meet, my grandfather used to say.”
“But we are meeting, and I want to learn your ways. I admire much about your life.”
“Okay, then,” she said, tossing the curry brush onto a hay bale. She hoped Andrew didn’t notice she was blushing over a compliment as simple as that. She stroked Fern hard with the palms of her hands a couple of times where she’d brushed her, whispering, “Ser gut, ser gut, mein Fern.”
She picked up some of the tack Aaron had already taken from the pegs along the wall near the stalls. “Here’s what to remember to harness a horse and hitch him or her to the buggy.” She named the different parts of the tack while she used each, then reviewed. “Collar around neck, breast strap between forelegs, crupper under tail…”
“That under-tail stuff can be dangerous, right? Got to watch out on that back end.”
She turned to look directly at him for the first time since she’d started harnessing. “You mean, what we call horse apples? Mostly, that happens when they’re grazing in the field or especially on the road. It’s one of the things some English hold against us, that and they say these steel wheel rims on the buggy cut into the asphalt. But we have a right to be there too, and we put up with fumes and noise and the danger of being hit or run over.”
“I never thought about outsiders disliking the Amish for anything. Do they harass or retaliate against you? Could that be a reason someone would be looking in the windows—to plan something against your family?”
“There have been a few hate crimes. Some folks blame us for being pacifists, for turning the other cheek, not serving in the army, and they take advantage of that. You know, I’ll tell Aaron to ask around to see if anyone else has had people looking in their windows. It could be just someone curious. Okay, here now, let’s back her up to the buggy. These long, narrow hickory pieces attach the horse to the buggy and keep her in line with it.”
As he helped her, he said, “I was surprised to see the bishop’s buggy had a foot brake. I mean, can’t you just tell the horse to ‘whoa’?”
“Going fast enough, the buggy could slide into her. Did you notice all our wagons and buggies have reflective orange safety triangles on the back? Headlights too—a high- and low-beam switch on the floor with the battery under the seat. Now, whatever is keeping Aaron?” she asked, taking a step back when he came closer to peer into the buggy.
“I’m learning a lot from you anyway. So, does it matter which side the driver sits on if two are in the buggy?”
“Sure, rules for everything, though this is not in the Ordnung. That’s the big church rules, moral things. But, ya, the woman always sits to the left of her husband or any man in a buggy.”
“Sounds good to me. That means the man is always right—right?”
She turned to him with a little laugh. He still bent so close to look inside the buggy that her bonnet brim bounced against his cheek. Again, that strange, silent but oh-so-loud force crackled between them. They breathed in unison. His lower lip dropped slightly. Even in the dim barn, she could see her reflection in his narrowed, blue eyes.
“Guess what?” Aaron’s voice startled them apart as he hurried back into the barn. “That courting buggy cost Mose’s older brother almost twelve-hundred bucks! It’s got emerald-green carpeting! His father was against it, but he saved up ’cause he wanted it so bad! Oh—you did it without me,” he added as Ella climbed quickly up in the buggy and bent to take the reins.
“That’s okay, Aaron,” she said. “Let Andrew hitch the other one himself and you just watch this time. And then take him for a ride but just up and down the lane.”
“I know what to do. You, Grossmamm, Mamm and Daad don’t have to tell me everything!”
“Danki, Ella!” Andrew shouted after her. “Ser gut, ser gut!”
“She can be really bossy,” she overheard Aaron say as she blew a kiss to Fern to speed her up—or was it a kiss to Andrew?
* * *
As Ella headed home from the mill, the early afternoon sky clouded over and the wind picked up. The weather was important to her people, a big topic of conversation, but she hadn’t heard it was going to storm. She could feel the extra weight of the buggy from the four big bags of ground shells, or else she would have giddyapped Fern faster. To avoid getting caught in a downpour, she turned onto a farmer’s lane that was a shortcut home. It was only wide enough for a four-horse hitch or big work wagon, but if she met someone coming the other way, she could easily pull off on the grassy edge of the cornfield.
Her thoughts on Andrew, she didn’t hear the motor vehicle behind her at first. Too much of a smooth sound, not loud like an English farmer’s tractor or planter. She craned her neck and tried to look back through the thick plastic window,