The Dawn of Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page B

the air. Instead, she placed a hand on his cheek and rubbed her thumb across it.
    “Stay calm and try not to move. I need to get help.”
    She studied her surroundings. A silhouette of massive trees was in the distance, a dirt road lay a few hundred feet away, and a fence line stood to the west. But where was the closest house?
    He raised a hand toward her. “Please …”
    He said something more, but she couldn’t hear him. She lowered her ear to his mouth.
    “If you can help me get up …”
    She started to put her hand in his, but something about it didn’t feel right, and she lowered her hand. “Not yet.”
    “Please.”
    “Stay still.” She took his hand in hers, and he clutched it firmly as she lowered it to his side, allowing him to hold it. “We’re doing this my way.”
    His eyes opened, staring at her with disbelief. Then his eyes closed, and his hand released its grip on hers.
    She patted his face. “Hello?” Nothing. Now what? While trying to think what to do, she saw his fingers moving. “Hello?” She slapped his face a little harder.
    “My …” The whispered word trailed off.
    “Do you know where we are?” She lowered her ear to his mouth again.
    “Phone.”
    “You have a phone?”
    He didn’t respond to her, and she got on her hands and knees, patting the ground around him.
    Nothing.
    A lot of unmarried Amish men and women carried cell phones. They weren’t forbidden from doing so until they joined the church, but even then more and more of the younger generation kept them close.
    She fumbled through the tall grass. “God, my most trusted friend, please, You know where his phone is. Help me, please.” With the darkness of the night and the height and thickness of the grass, she could be within a hair of putting her hand on it and never see it.
    Then a buzzing sound came from nowhere, and she focused all her senses on it. She followed the noise, going one direction and then another. She panicked. What if it stopped before she could find it? She listened intently.
Please, God …
    There! That’s where the sound was coming from! She hurried, thrilled as the buzz grew louder. She spotted a blue glow in the grass and ran toward it. After snatching the phone from the thick growth, she dialed 911 and then ran back to the man.
    After a few rings a female voice said something she couldn’t make out.
    “There’s a man down in a field.” Sadie knelt and nudged the man, hoping for another response, but he didn’t budge. “I think he was thrown from a horse.”
    “Is he conscious?”
    “He was for a few moments but not now.”
    “Is he breathing?”
    She knelt beside him and pressed her fingers on his neck again. “He has a pulse.”
    “Is he bleeding?”
    Sadie checked the ground around him. “I don’t think so.”
    “What’s your location?”
    “I … I don’t know. I’m somewhere in Apple Ridge, Pennsylvania.”
    “Is there a street sign near you?”
    “I’m in the middle of a field. There’s a road a few hundred feet away, but there’s no intersection with a street sign for miles. I’d have to ride my horse to find out.” She started to get up, but the man moaned.
    Sadie’s heart pounded. “When he woke, he asked me to help him get up. If he would wake up again, I could get him on a horse and get him to his family, a place with a known add—”
    “Ma’am,
do not move him!
Don’t move any part of him. If he begins to stir, you need to keep him still. Do you understand?”
    “I understand.” But what if he awoke and wanted to get up? How was Sadie supposed to make this man obey her?
    “If he wakes, try to keep him conscious, and do what you can to keep him warm. But he must remain lying exactly where he is. Can you check his pockets for identification without moving him?”
    What difference does it make who he is?
Cupping the phone between her chin and her shoulder, she did as the woman asked, but there was no sign of a wallet. She hovered over his face.