Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds Read Free Book Online Page B

because Laura wasn’t even ten years older than me, not even eight years older, and I didn’t want that to happen to me. Not ever.
    And I was embarrassed that God had never shared with me his language, had never given me special words, his almighty baptizing wind.
    And I was embarrassed to think that I might find it in some other place.
     
     
     
    S ometimes if we’d finished our chores and there was still a little bit of daytime left, the children could get permission to go horseback riding. We rode two or three to a horse even though there were usually enough horses to go around. It was easier to talk that way.
    One afternoon we were out in the woods, with me and Mustard and James on one horse and Barley and Pammy and John on the other. It seemed like the girls always got sandwiched between the boys, and that day, I was protected by Mustard from the front and James from the back.
    We’d already crossed the creek and had ridden to a hilly place with trees on either side so that I had to keep ducking to avoid being swatted by the tiniest branches. We’d gone farther on the horses than we usually went, and I was secretly hoping we’d end up at the pond where the boys went swimming sometimes but the girls were only allowed at baptisms since the water was rumored to be dangerous. I was hoping I’d get to explore.
    “Let’s take them to the top and run down fast,” Barley called, and buried his heels in his horse’s sides to make him go.
    “Don’t do it, Mustard,” James warned from behind me.
    But Mustard kicked the mare we were riding too, and she took off unexpectedly, making me hold tight onto Mustard, who was holding the reins, and making James grab onto me like I was sturdy as a pine, even though I wasn’t.
    When I shifted back, I was closer than I’d ever been to sitting in his lap, and after I’d gotten used to the feeling of traveling steep uphill, I kind of liked the new sensation of his nearness. I tried to tell myself that it was no different from sitting next to him in church, but it was different.
    “Mustard, don’t do it. The ground’s too uneven,” James hollered in my ear as we got closer to the top, and I yelled, “Ouch,” even though his voice didn’t bother me at all.
    “It won’t hurt them,” Mustard said. “Hang on.”
    “Ninah, tell him to stop,” James demanded, like I could make him listen.
    But I didn’t want him to stop. It wasn’t that I wanted the horse to get hurt. I just didn’t want to shift directions. I was too busy trying to memorize the way James’ legs felt around my backside, hanging on, the way his arms felt buckled around my middle. I’d already forgotten about wanting to go to the pond.
    From the top of the hill, Barley hollered out, and Pammy did, and John squealed as they held onto the galloping horse. We stopped and watched them soaring downwards, the horse’s brown tail flicking as his front feet pounded the ground, then his back feet.
    Then the horse stumbled over a hole, and all I could see was a tumbling of bodies, somersaulting clothes, and Pammy’s red hair. But the horse neighed out, got up, and kept running. It was Pammy who grabbed his tail, and then we were watching her being pulled behind him, with Barley running hard to catch up and grab the reins. It looked like the horse’s back hoofs were kicking Pammy in the belly even though later she said they weren’t.
    John was crying, so Mustard began walking our mare slowly down the slope. We could still hear Barley yelling “Whoa, boy, whoa” in the distance.
    “Be careful,” I warned Mustard.
    “But hurry up,” James said. “You got to get to him. I told you it was a bad idea.”
    Then we were down from our horse and checking on John.
    “You okay?” I asked him. But he just moaned and showed us his scraped hands.
    “Stop being a crybaby,” Mustard yelled. “We gotta catch up with Barley and Pammy.”
    “Leave him alone,” James screamed. “Go on ahead.”
    So Mustard climbed