Thomas Nye - Under the Heavens

Under the Heavens

Amish Horse Series

Book 1

Thomas Nye

Under the Heavens

CrossLink Publishing www.crosslinkpublishing.com

Copyright, 2013 Thomas Nye

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in reviews, without the written permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law.

ISBN 978-0-985289-65-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013949588

All scriptural quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide

This story is written as fiction. Any names, places, or situations are a result of the authors imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any comparison to actual events, or persons living or deceased is purely coincidental.

Contents

Foreword

R umblings of locomotive engines echo across the landscape of American history. These trains chug along through time, linking the decades of our past like boxcars in a long line connecting three centuries. Riding a train is a link to the past for modern Americans, and visiting Amish communities is a very similar connection. Both provide a window through which we can see something about our own past.

A sect that split away from Mennonites in the late 1600s chose to resist being one with the world. As a result, their lifestyles, dress, and farming methods are almost frozen in time, preserving for us a living record of our own past. Whenever I walk onto an Amish farm, I feel a very clear sense of what life used to be like in the old days in America.

I do not consider myself an expert on the Amish, or their religious beliefs. Rather, I am an ordinary guy who happened to move into an Amish community and got to know a few Amish very well. What I observed is very limited to one Amish group; other Amish groups have quite different rules, mannerisms, and viewpoints. My desire, as I wrote this novel, was to share my own observations and experiences through the eyes of a non-Amish boy, because that is what I was. Subsequently, my views are not meant to be a professional, exhaustive view of the Amish; however, my views are based on a very real experience.

I would love to have Amish people read this story and enjoy it. Although it may seem a little negative about Amish lifestyle at first they, will find, by the end of the book, that Under the Heavens is focused on all the positive aspects of Amish life. In fact, some readers will probably criticize this view and say that I have idealized the Amish and not dealt with some of the more controversial issues. My answer is that I am sharing my experience, which has been very positive.

Having had a lifelong love of horses and fifty-plus years of trial and error, I do have a certain knowledge of horses. At the same time, I am not a professional horseman. In fact, I am quite in awe of my Amish acquaintances for their horse sense and wisdom. For advice, I regularly go to my Amish friends, several of whom I consider to be horse whisperers. I will not mention any names of my Amish friends, who blessed me with great experiences and shared their wisdom of life and horses; you know who you are. Thank you for taking me in and know that you are the inspiration for this novel.

I also want to thank my family for their patience, over the past number of months, while I used every spare moment and more to work on this story. My wife, daughters, son, siblings, and even my parents read my manuscript and gave me advice and encouragement. Thank you all for listening to me pore over ideas; your input was invaluable. Thank you to all the horses I have worked with over the years, too many to list. You all have had an important role in making me who I am today, and your shadows are seen throughout this book. Especially my current team of Percheron mares Karma and Coke, you are the main inspiration for the horse characters in Under the Heavens.

Chapter 1

The Storm

A teenage boy named Lenny rode silently through pristine Iowan fields, gliding along on a set of tracks. He gazed out of the windows, enduring a continual rocking motion. With a whistle at every intersection, the iron horse chugged through small towns, clattering over bridges, snaking along rivers, and racing on to the next station. Fields in the background rolled by slowly, nearer fences moved by faster, and trees close to the tracks rushed past. Lenny happened to notice his blurry reflection on the windowpane. He knew it was his image; nevertheless, he couldnt recognize his own face. Those almond-shaped eyes and dark-brown hair belonged to him, yet, inside, he felt disconnected from his past, having never known his own father. The boy tried imagining what his biological father must look like by examining his own likeness on the window.

Lenny pushed his feet against the floor, almost as though he could slow the forward momentum of a locomotive; he dreaded his destination that much. He had never spent more than a day with his Amish relatives, and now he was going to spend a whole summer on their farm. He loved to look at their horses, but he was not comfortable being up close to them, or riding in a buggy. Grandpa had insisted, Leonard needs to come spend a summer at the home-place and learn something about farming.

The boy tried to talk his mom out of making him go. These arent my relatives, Mom. They are your husband Jakes family. They dont even like me!

She disagreed. Grandpa wants you to come to his farm. He likes you! Then, looking Lenny in his eyes, she told him, Sometimes the most difficult things in life make the best memories. It turned out to be useless to argue; there was no way out of it.

Rumbling to a stop, the train moaned and hissed. A little girl up front pointed outside and shouted, Hey, look, there are some Amish boys out there with really huge horses! Lennys face got hot as he realized she was pointing at his step-cousins. They were waiting for him, wearing suspenders and big straw hats. He lingered until everyone else had exited, hoping no one would see him leave with Amish people. Walking away from the train station and colorful modern people, Lenny felt as if all color were drained from his life. It seemed as though he had walked into an old black-and-white photograph.

Heres our wagon, one of the cousins pointed to an old, high-wheel wagon that looked like it belonged to a display in a museum. Taking Lennys luggage, the Amish brothers went to work adjusting their loaded wagon, disagreeing about how best to fit Lennys things in. The city boy stood eyes fixed on the massive black horses hulking before him, harness hanging in a confusing web over each horse. Lenny stepped cautiously toward their heads. Each wore a leather bridle with blinders so that the eyes could not be seen until a person stood directly in front of the animal. He had expected hard, cruel eyes to flash out from the beasts, but instead was stunned by their gentle expression. Shining black eyes looked back at him. One horse reached his thick head over, rubbing it on the other, and then shook it, as if to rid itself of the bridle. The other horse gently nibbled at its teammates harness. Both horses eyebrows arched, as if asking a question. Reaching a hand slowly toward the large head closest to him, Lenny wanted to pet it between the eyes. A voice from behind startled him. What are you doing?