Ghost Medicine

by Andrew Smith

  I believe all things happen for a reason, then ripple like the surface of a pond once a rock has been skipped. And I believe in the medicine, the signals. Tom Buller had the snake medicine that brought change, the shedding of the skin, that ability to just crawl out of the past and be new. Nothing seemed to matter or leave a mark on him. That summer, we all had the ghost medicine that made us vanish and fade in ways we never thought, never saw. Anyway, it was what we wanted. And I guess that’s how all boys die.

  I spent a lot of days after that season of the ghost medicine, as I remember it all now, wondering how I ended up banging and scraping into so many troubles in such a short time, through such a young life.

  I remember sneaking to her house to meet her, the night after Chase Rutledge punched me; I can almost hear the faintness of our whispers, feel the warmth of her breath at my ear.

  “Luz?”

  She looked over at me. Her feet were bare; she didn’t want her father to hear her stealing through his home to meet a boy outside his front door. She stood on the second step, just tall enough there to look directly at my eyes.

  I took my hat off and held it at my side. I know she could see the sweat pasting my hair to my ears and neck. I should have been home, in bed. But I couldn’t sleep for thinking about getting punched by Chase, and considering all those things I should have done and didn’t; so I came to see her, my throat knotted tight, determined to say to her what I knew I had to.

  “You’re the most important person there is to me. We’ve been together since almost as long as I can remember and you’re my best friend. I know we’re supposed to be together for a long time. Don’t ever go. I don’t know what I’d do if he sent you away.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “Yes.”

  We were so close. I could feel the heat of our breathing mixing together, clothing us, connecting.

  “Don’t listen to him.”

  “I have to. I’m scared of him.”

  “He’s scared of you.”

  And I remember Tom Buller, standing in a pen at the ranch next to one of Benavidez’ breeding stallions, about to touch the horse’s nose, standing carefully beside him; and the stallion took a bite at his hand. We both knew how the worker Ramiro lost a finger to a stallion like that one; and then Tommy just went crazy on that horse, punching him right on the neck so hard it sounded like hitting a watermelon with a baseball bat and he flailed his arms and screamed and the horse leapt up and tried kicking at Tommy. And Tom just breathed right then, all calm, no more than two seconds later, and began talking sweet and soft to that stallion and walking up real slow with that same hand held out to his nose. And he told me, “I’m scared of him, but he’s terrified of me. So we’ll just learn to play brave around each other and see who quits first. Till he learns that I’m more important. Now you watch, Stotts. I bet this stallion never so much as pretends to nibble at me again.” And then he stroked the horse’s nose and walked away from him just like that. And that horse never bit again.

  Tom Buller was the best with horses I ever saw or will see.

  “It’s cold in here,” I said.

  It was the day after we tried chasing Rose’s wild horses. We drove the truck out there after work.

  “I know,” Rose said. “I just didn’t feel like getting out of bed today.”

  Tom spit, and then looked at me.

  “I’ll get that stove lit,” he said.

  “Thank you, boys.”

  “Here.” Tommy handed her three new cans of tobacco. “If you didn’t get out of bed, I bet you’re missing this.”

  Rose struggled with opening a can and then Tommy just took it from her, having gotten the stove lit, and made a circle around the wrapper with the edge of a fingernail. Then he swatted it down a few times and gave it back to her.

  “You boys are too nice to me.”

  “One of us is,” Tom said.

  I sighed. “Well, this isn’t good, Rose. What were you gonna do if we didn’t come by? Just stay there in bed?”

  “Haven’t you ever had a day when you just didn’t want to get out of bed?”

  “I haven’t had any other kind,” I said.

  “Will again in the morning,” Tom added.

  “Well, when you lived as long as me, you get to do it sometimes, that’s all. Ha!”

  I opened a can of soup and put it on top of the stove.

  “You need to eat something,” I said.

  “Never thought I’d hear Troy Stotts saying that to anyone,” Tommy said, then spit.

  “Eating in front of others is bad luck,” Rose said.

  “We wouldn’t want that.”

  “Well, I guess we could break it if you boys’d have a glass of wine with me. Ha!”

  “I’ll pour it,” Tommy said. “It’ll warm us up for that ride home.”

  I brought the can of soup over to Rose’s bed. Tommy brought her the wine and then we both sat down by the stove and drank ours. It warmed me up right away and Tommy quickly refilled all our glasses before I could suggest leaving after the first, but I didn’t protest.

  “How old is your girl?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Sixteen? Ha! When I was sixteen I was married!”

  “He practically is, too.”

  I shot a look at Tom, and he spit again.

  Tommy went on, ignoring me, “He doesn’t do anything without calling her first, just so she knows where he is all the time.”

  “But then I was a widow when I was eighteen and I went off to work making clothes for the movies and I never got married after that. Ha! Never wanted to, neither.”

  “You never had any kids?” I said.

  Rose looked at me, then out the window. I could see the light of the fire from the stove in her eyes. She looked tired and sad.

  “Never had no one,” she said. “But I have you two fine cowboys now. Ha!”

  “You don’t want us,” Tom said. “Believe me.”

  She smiled at Tommy and drained her glass, then went back to spooning the soup from that opened can.

  “Tell me about your folks.”

  “I only have a dad, he’s a schoolteacher. My mom died in June.”

  I never said it aloud before. It stuck in my throat. I felt naked.

  “Oh, that’s terrible. I’m sorry, Troy.”

  “So am I.”

  That was the only time I remember her calling me Troy. Then she turned to Tommy, sitting there in that cave of a steel house.

  “Well, how about your folks then, Tom?”

  That was the only time she ever called him Tom, too.

  And I saw Tommy lose his smile for just a moment. He turned his face and pretended to look at the floor, just like he did when we stood over that cat we’d killed.

  “I only live with my dad, too. My mom ran out on us when I was too small to remember.”

  “Aww… boys shouldn’t have it like that. And you still both growed up perfect anyway. And beautiful handsome, too. You’re both so lucky.”

  She stood up, a little wobbly, and moved over to where I was sitting across from the stove. Then she lifted my hat and kissed me right on top of the head. I looked at Tommy. I could feel myself turning red. And then she walked over to Tommy and he just about recoiled in terror.

  “Take your hat off, so I can kiss you, too.”

  “I don’t smell good.”

  “Ha!”

  And he was really embarrassed, too, when she kissed him.

  “You smell like chewing tobacco and horses. If they ever put that in a bottle, I’d drink it.”

  “They do bottle it. It’s called bug poison.”

  “Ha!”

  She sat back down and folded her hands on her lap.

  “I knew that about you, Tennis Shoes. I could tell the first time I saw you that you were extra sad about something. I could see it in your eyes. But this one—he’s always the happy one, isn’t he? You want to always have friends like that, so if you’re ever starving
to death or freezing in the cold, you know he’s gonna just say, ‘It ain’t that bad.’ “

  And we finished a third glass before I could make Tommy agree to leave, but I knew he had to pee by then so getting him out of the house was pretty easy.

  “She didn’t look very good,” I said.

  “Damn, Stotts. If she ever did we weren’t born yet. Our dads weren’t born yet.”

  I laughed.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “This time I do. I guess.”

  Tommy cleared his throat. “Stotts? I never said it, but I’m sorry about your mom.”

  “Okay.” I watched as Tommy raised a crumpled can to his mouth and spit, but he kept his eyes straight ahead, watching the road rushing beneath us. I remembered how Tommy was just “that skinny boy who doesn’t have a mom” when he and his father moved to Three Points so Carl could take the job with Mr. Benavidez. Tommy was eleven. He was the first kid I knew who didn’t have a mother.

  I said, “I’m sorry about yours, too.”

  And Tommy got real serious, like I’d never seen him.

  “Your mom got taken away,” he said. “Mine ran.”

  I looked out at the land, dimming, running past my eyes in the twilight.

  “I got mad about it,” I said. “You get mad?”

  “Nope.” Tom Buller looked over at me, showing the beginnings of that grin of his. “If the things that happened to me never did, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. Want some tobacco?”

  “Yeah.”

  ELEVEN

  The morning Chase stole that Ford truck right from out front of the Foreman’s house had a lot to do with all the trouble we kept causing for each other.

  It was a Monday morning, and I had been working at the Benavidez ranch pretty much every day. It was just before sunup. I was riding Reno up to the Bullers’ place when I saw what happened.

  The day before, Carl and Tommy had delivered a young gelding to a ranch about a half-day’s drive away. I guess when they got back that night Carl was so tired he just left the truck with the trailer still hitched to it about halfway on the dirt road leading toward the main house through the Benavidez property. It was one of those things that’s so unusual and unexpected that you do see it, not like rattlesnakes and mountain lions that just blend into the scenery. As the Foreman’s house came into view, I saw Chase Rutledge walk right up to the driver’s side door on that truck, get in, start it up, and drive away, trailer and all. And not just drive away; he sped off so fast the trailer fluttered behind like the tail of a tadpole.

  There was a part of me that didn’t want to say positively that it was Chase that stole the truck that morning, because it was too dark and I was too far away to see his face. But I knew it was Chase because of the way he walked and his baseball cap.

  And I also know now that Chase Rutledge did what he did to us because I saw him that morning.

  “Haw, Reno!” I nudged Reno with my heels and he took off running toward the Foreman’s house. Just as we got up to the front porch, Carl came out the door, buttoning a shirt over his T-shirt.

  “What the hell?”

  “I just saw Chase Rutledge take the truck!” I said.

  The lights turned on inside the house and Tommy came out onto the porch.

  “Jeez, it’s cold!” He was barefoot. “What’s all the noise, Stotts?”

  “Chase took the truck. Chase just peeled out with the truck and trailer and all.”

  “Well, let’s go get him,” Tommy said, and went back inside to get the rest of his clothes on.

  “Well, why in hell would Chase Rutledge take the truck from right here in front of the house?” Carl said.

  I didn’t want to tell him that it wasn’t actually in front of his house. “We should call his dad.”

  Carl looked at me, then out at the road as he fumbled for a cigarette. His hand was shaking a little.

  “You’re going to have to tell him what you saw, Troy. You sure it was Chase?”

  I looked at him as he lit the cigarette.

  “Maybe you’d better go on up to the main house and check with Art first. Maybe he knows what this is about. Anyways, you could always give Clayton a call from there. Better to be sure first before you go waking up the sheriff and telling him his son’s just stolen a truck.”

  I really didn’t want to call Sheriff Rutledge, but I was mad enough at Chase that it didn’t seem to matter much.

  “I better tell Mr. Benavidez, first then,” I said.

  “Hold on, Troy. You want Tom to come with you?”

  “Tell him I’ll be right back after I straighten this thing out. He can saddle up Arrow in the meantime ‘cause we might have to ride in to the sheriff ‘s.”

  The sun was just coming up when I got Reno tied to the hitching post in front of the Benavidez house. Mrs. Benavidez opened the door when I knocked. I knew I wouldn’t be waking anyone up; the Benavidez family always had breakfast together before the ranch work began.

  “Well, Troy, good morning,” she said with her displeased-sounding voice, a slight, choppy accent underneath it.

  “I’m sorry to be banging on your door so early,” I said, “but it’s real important that I speak to Mr. Benavidez. I think someone just stole Carl’s truck.”

  “Why don’t you come in, Troy. We were just about to have breakfast. I’ll have Luz set another place. Arturo’s in the kitchen.”

  I took my hat off and went inside. Mr. Benavidez always shook my hand when he saw me; hard, too, like he was trying to tell me something. Gabriel was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking milk. Luz made eye contact with me for just a second as she got up to fix a place for me. I hadn’t seen her in a few days, had only heard her voice on the phone, and I guess I kind of missed her because I just watched her move through that kitchen like some kind of spirit. But the presence of Mr. Benavidez reminded me that I was there for another reason, even if I wasn’t in a hurry to get to it.

  Mrs. Benavidez poured me a cup of coffee.

  “Hey, Troy,” Gabriel said as I sat down.

  Mr. Benavidez cleared his throat, impatiently.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Benavidez, but I just think I saw Chase Rutledge steal that truck Carl Buller drives for you. The truck and the trailer. So I came by to see if you gave him permission to do that before I go and call his father.”

  “Chase Rutledge?” Luz said.

  The coffee was burning hot; I almost spit it out. I guess my face was half-frozen from the ride down here.

  “Well, it was dark, but I’m positive it was Chase I saw take the truck.”

  “No,” Mr. Benavidez said, “I don’t know anything about that. What did Carl say?”

  “He told me to come check with you and then call the sheriff.”

  Mrs. Benavidez was heaping food on my plate.

  “Give him lots of meat, Mom,” Gabe said, a mean smile on his face.

  “Give him lots of everything,” Luz added, and I could tell she was looking to see if I was wearing that belt she had given me, which, of course, I wasn’t. And the fact that my T-shirt was untucked and I was wearing a denim jacket still didn’t hide the fact very well, either.

  “Thanks, Gabey,” I said. I looked at the plate his mother set before me. “Thank you, Mrs. Benavidez.”

  “I guess we should call Clayton,” Mr. Benavidez said.

  “As much as I don’t want to do it, I better make that call,” I said, “ ‘cause I was the only one who saw him do it.”

  I wasn’t too surprised that Mr. Benavidez showed so little concern for what had happened. It wasn’t like Chase could get too far driving a truck and trailer everyone knew belonged to Mr. Benavidez, anyway.

  “You might as well finish your breakfast first,” Mr. Benavidez said. “You know Clayton Rutledge’s not going to be ready to deal with a problem this early in the morning.”

  And I was relieved and grateful to be able to spend at least a few more minutes there at that table.

  “I
don’t like that boy,” Luz said.

  I looked at her and said, “Neither do I. Never.”

  “I wonder what he’s thinking—taking that truck?” Gabe said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s probly some stupid prank he’s pulling to look tough in front of his friends. I hope he causes a lot of trouble for his dad over this.”

  “I doubt he will,” Gabe said.

  I thought Gabriel was more than likely right about that. All his life Chase was getting into trouble, but never suffering the consequences. If anything around town ever was missing, broken, or set fire to and Chase didn’t do it, he probably knew who did.

  Then the phone rang and Mr. Benavidez left us there.

  “When you’re done working for the day, I’ll ride with you back home,” Luz said.

  Mrs. Benavidez looked up from her breakfast to see what I’d say.

  “I’d like that.”

  Mrs. Benavidez sipped her coffee. “Gabriel can go, too.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to,” Gabe said.

  I knew he was just trying to make his mom mad; I could tell by his smirk. Normally, he’d never say no to a ride out to my house. Mrs. Benavidez just exhaled through her nose and looked at the three of us.

  “I’ll be doing some grooming and clean-up work with Tommy, so I shouldn’t be too late unless this truck thing becomes a big deal.”

  Then Mr. Benavidez came back into the kitchen, looking grim.

  “Thanks for breakfast, Mrs. Benavidez,” I said, standing up, “I’m real full.”

  She eyed a measuring glance at what was left on my plate and scowled.

  “I think you should get on the phone to Clayton now,” Mr. Benavidez said. “There’s more to it than just the truck and trailer. Carl just called. He left five thousand dollars cash in the glove box from selling that gelding yesterday.”

  “Deputy Rutledge? This is Troy Stotts.” I always sounded stupid on the phone. I got nervous talking to people I didn’t really know. And all the Benavidez family were just standing there watching me, like I was a singer onstage.