Hell of a Horse

by Barbara Neville

  Eerie, snow at night; under lighting the world.

  It lights the night sky, too, which is a seething mass of bulging grey clouds that’s still dropping big snowflakes on our world.

  “I bloody well promise not to use it against you,” Zastee elaborates. “We need each other to survive. One can’t expect little Góshé there to save us both.”

  I glance over at the sleeping boy. I’m not a kid person, but this particular one is damn cute. Maybe my mothering hormones are finally beginning to appear.

  I hand her the knife and watch as she expertly splits some straight-grained cedar.

  “I’ve got snow knowledge. Horse knowledge. A gun and knife to hunt with. I’m a dead shot,” I say. “What do you bring to the table?”

  She looks up from her work, tilting her head.

  “Once your ammunition is gone, or any time before, I can bloody well run down a deer. Or a horse. Even a human. I can build a bow and steam straight arrows for silent hunting,” she says. “And, I have a bloody knife, too. But we need to save its razor edge for skinning. Yours is thicker and already dulled.”

  “Yeah, bows and arrows,” I say. “We make our own, too. Wish I’d had mine with me last night.”

  “To shoot me?”

  I shrug.

  She says, “It’s hard to always be prepared.”

  “True, carrying whatever one might need for every eventuality would take three, maybe four, packhorses.”

  She smiles and says, “Why the knife is the most important tool in the kit. With it, all manner of survival tools can be manufactured.”

  I nod, poking at the logs with a green stick to stimulate the fire.

  She also has a tiny five shot hideout, maybe a .32-20. A gun in any case, which she has chosen not to declare. Unless she wasn’t carrying it the other night. Or maybe those guys that beat us up took it. But, they didn’t take our knives. I’ve thought on that, can’t figure it out. Didn’t take Nelly neither. Most of our stuff was there in that black room with us. The rest was on Ten Spot.

  Guess they never figured that we’d get away.

  Anyhow, I won’t stake my life on her not having it.

  “Okay, but I can sharpen my knife on the meteorite or any other hard rock,” I say. “Or make a stone blade from scratch.”

  “I bloody well can too,” she says. “I have wilderness skills. I can make anything I need from next to nothing. It’s just the snow that’s new to me, eh?”

  “Even a six shooter?”

  “Blasted guns, I don’t like them.”

  “Maybe you need practice,” I say.

  She ignores that.

  “I know from when you tracked us in Arizona Territory,” I say. “You must have skills to have survived alone out there all those weeks. You outfoxed Ma'cho in the bargain.”

  “Too bloody right,” she says. “He’s quite the tracker. It wasn’t all me. He let me live, you know.”

  “I kinda figured. He and Táági talked me out of killing you on the train.”

  “They did?” She’s surprised.

  “They argued that tall, beautiful women were too valuable to kill,” I say. “They said that the world needs more tall gals to pair up with the extra tall guys. Like them. I disagreed. Shit, you’d just threatened to kill us.”

  She looks at the floor.

  “Yore blushing,” I say.

  “You can’t bloody tell.”

  “Sure, I can,” I say. “I can tell when Ma’cho blushes.”

  “He’s almost white compared to me,” she says.

  “Hardly,” I say. “He’s a dark mahogany brown. Hard, too. Like an Arizona black walnut. Still blushes.”

  She scoffs.

  We sit quietly for a while. Mesmerized by the flickering flames.

  “Really?” I ask, tossing in another log. “Run down a deer, huh?”

  She nods.

  “Wow,” I say. “Ma'cho wasn’t kidding.”

  She grins at the fire.

  “Man, when he told me that yore people could run that fast, that long, I thought he was pullin’ my leg.”

  “We bloody well can. I can run fifty miles a day, easy. A hundred if need be.”

  “’Cept through knee deep snow,” I say.

  She grins. “T’would be a hell of a challenge.”

  The moon is high now and the sky has cleared, so I can see better. The landscape is bright with reflected moonlight.

  We gather a few more green branches to lay over us. We find some spruce, too, which don’t have dagger tipped needles, and put them on top of our makeshift mattress for cushioning.

  “Looks good,” she says, hands on hips, surveying our work. “Assuming the whole bloody thing doesn’t catch fire and barbecue us in our sleep.”

  “Yeah, this pitchy pine makes too many damn sparks,” I say. “I’m bettin’ we’ll wake up before our skin starts to crackle.”

  “I bloody well hope so,” she says, nodding. “We need to sleep on each side of the child, keep him warm, eh?”

  “Thanks,” I say. “I’d sure hate to lose the little guy. He traveled a long way to find his family.”

  “I’ll not forget that he saved my bloody life,” she says.

  “Come on, it must have been you that saved his.”

  She’s shaking her head.

  “I mean, seriously,” I say. “A six-year-old?”

  “I was too sick to even get water,” she says. “Without that little bloke, I’d be a dried-up skeleton now.”

  “He’s somethin’, alright,” I say, looking around. “Must take after his Pa, not wimpy ole me.”

  Her eye’s flash. Maybe thinking of Güero, but she makes no comment. I wonder what she thinks of him. Of all of us. We aren’t your usual folk. But then, neither is she.

  “I’m gonna have Ten Spot lay down on this side,” I say. “Your choice is to lay on the fire side of the dog boy and feed wood in ever’ time it dies down. Or lay over here between him and Tenner. Sleep undisturbed.”

  “What if the bloody horse gets up and tramples us all?” she says.

  “He’s a trained Injin battle horse. He’ll lay still until I say otherwise,” I say. “Short of a bear attack.”

  “Blimey, don’t even mention that bear,” she says.

  “Kiddin’, they’re asleep this time of year,” I say. “’Cept fer the starved out old outlaws.”

  “Bloody bollocks,” she says. “I hope our neighbor in that damned cave is a heavy sleeper.”

  “Me, too,” I say.

  She nods assent.

  “Happens, though, they all wake occasionally,” I say. “There’s cougars, wolves, and wolverines, too. A pistol could come in handy.”

  “Whatever. We have the fire. You can have the bloody horse,” she says.

  “Mighty kind of you, miss,” I say, doffing my hat. I sit on the bed and wiggle my hips to make a hollow.

  I bring Tenner around and have him lay down. He complies easily. His broad back toward the bed.

  “Hell of a horse,” I say, petting his neck.

  I carry the sleeping boy over and lay him on the bed. We lay down and spread the blankets across the three of us. They cover all of Góshé. We have Hoss lay next to his booted feet. Zastee snuggles her toes into her thick white fur, too.

  We pull a few branches over the rest of our long lady legs and try to lay still, so the whole conglomeration doesn’t fall apart.

  I got the best of the deal. Ten Spot’s back is a damn good heater.

  The shelter holds heat so well that partway through the night I let the restless Ten Spot stand up. He goes out into the moonlight, rustles around a long while, ripping off vegetation and chewing noisily. Eventually, he lowers his head and cocks a leg. Belly at least partially satisfied.

  30 Kabósari: Ohuí

  Kabó waits a ways down the tunnel, listening, until the sounds from their little camp die down. He waits another half hour, just to be sure.

  Then, emerges silently and watches them s
leep.

  They’ve made a good warm camp.

  He carefully steals a burning brand from their fire, and a few dry branches; to take into the cave and light a small one of his own. Even the light of a few coals will help him keep an eye out for the injured criminal he fought with.

  As Zastee rolls over, he uses the sounds she makes to melt back into the cave, entertaining the foolish fantasy of cuddling with the hibernating bear.

  He remembers killing a she-bear as a teenager. Helping his father do it anyway.

  The family was outcast from the community because of their mixed-race heritage. His sister’s black skin, especially. They called her a golliwog. Looked down their noses at his father’s brown face, too.

  It was a white town. He and his mother were white. That only made things worse. Mixing cultures was a big no-no there. So, the young teenagers and their parents worked out a plan to get by without help from town.

  The family moved into a cave out in the mountains. No one in town knew where. They lived off the fruit of the land.

  They were happy and safe, ensconced in warmth and comfort. They cut down trees with a two-man crosscut saw. Built a saw pit and hand sawed their boards and timbers, too. Built a door on their cave. Made comfortable furniture. Ate like kings from the fruit of their garden, wild gatherings and successful hunts.

  A few years later, mother nature intervened. It was a dry, hard winter. Game was scarce, their summer garden had been beset by grasshoppers. Mice got into the grain. Pack rats got into everything. Thieving bastards.

  They hunted and hunted, but the game seemed to have evacuated the country, also. The supply of grain fed mice and rats ran out. The little family was on the verge of starving.

  So, they switched tactics. Decided they needed to stop hunting so hard. Make the game come out and beg to die. Such a silly old-fashioned idea. Superstition really.

  One day the boy and his father took the ax and crosscut, and went high into the mountains, searching for a good, big douglas fir tree.

  Ostensibly, not hunting, just armed with a pistol for defense.

  They were just looking to make a porch swing to overlook the garden. That was all.

  And half laughing at themselves for thinking that they could fool the spirits with such a flimsy excuse.

  They didn't see jack shit worth of tracks all the way up there. Or any good trees. It was a long hike from their cave home. And thousands of feet higher in elevation.

  The crosscut saw was biting into Kabó’s shoulder. He shifted it to the other side. His father offered to take it next.

  It was his first time up into the snow on the high ridges. Pretty cool was snow.

  Miles and miles up later, back down in a bare ground valley just below the snowline they finally stumbled onto some old tracks.

  The autumn trail of a bear. The porch swing project was forgotten.

  Following the tracks led them to a fall dug den, where the bear had settled in for the winter. His father climbed to the top.

  Kabó offered to do that job, but his father said no, that was his job. They would work together.

  His father axed the breathing hole, tearing out the roots and rocks, until it was almost big enough for him to drop in. Ohuí was the name his father earned during that entry.

  Listening was Kabó’s job. He sat by the open entrance, listening with all his might.

  The bear got restless at times while Ohuí worked. They would retreat if Kabó heard the bear snort, grunt or move at all. And stay away until the bear settled down.

  It had taken many hours. Ohuí said that surprise was the key.

  And it worked, in a back assed sort of way. As Ohuí cut and ripped off the last big root, so there would be room for him to lower himself in, the bear groaned.

  Kabó hissed a warning, but it all happened too fast.

  The ground gave way under his father. Worse yet, Ohuí dropped the ax as he fell into the den.

  His father told the story later. How he grabbed his pistol out it’s holster as he fell into the dark den. It was all he had with him, other than a small pocket knife. All the light came in through the ax cut slash. Most of the den was pitch black.

  He landed on his knees barely three feet in front of the sleepy bear’s face.

  The bear was as startled as he. He saw a cub move.

  When she opened her mouth to roar, the light penetrating the hole in the roof caught her teeth and his face.

  He could see her and she could see him.

  He had no choice. He scrambled close on hands and knees, stuck the barrel in, aimed up toward the brain, and pulled the trigger. She fell dead on the spot.

  There were two tiny cubs.

  They took the cubs home. Raised them on their goat’s milk.

  The kids had new playmates. They and the cubs would play together all day and sleep in a furry huddle at night. Until they got too big and rambunctious.

  They moved the cubs outside, building a big thick nest for them.

  The kids each had a few claw scars to show from that experience.

  As they grew bigger, Kabó and his sister would go out with the cubs to dig for roots. They’d even shoot game to share.

  Until one day, at about a year and some of age, the fast-growing cubs left home. They only came back a few times after that.

  It was the story of a lifetime. Not that anyone ever believed it.

  Kabó told it anyway. Hoping for adulation, not derision. He was proud to have such a brave father. Ohuí, the bear.

  31 Cha’a: Majesty

  I wake up in the dark. Ma’cho haunted my dreams. What is it about? Where is he? Why didn’t we make love? The vision was comforting, but also scary.

  What is he trying to tell me? I close my eyes and try to return to the dream, but can’t.

  I shiver. It’s cold. Fire needs wood.

  I get up not just to escape his ghostly presence, and the frozen air, but also to take advantage of the frozen crust on the surface of the snow for as many miles as possible.

  I need to burn off the remains of lust. My body yearns for his savage touch.

  I throw another couple of logs on and have a quick, cold snack of Güero’s homemade granola bars.

  A short walk reveals that the night spirits have done us the favor of clearing the clouds away early on. The frozen crust supports even the tiny hoofed Ten Spot, who is out scavenging already. I leave him to his breakfast.

  It’s beautiful out.

  In the moonlit dark, the austere majesty of the alpine peaks stirs rumbling thoughts of awe-inspired trips from my past. Those trips, scary as hell some of them, seem truly magnificent in retrospect.

  The knife-edged ridges. The cliff encircled cols. The huge windblown cornices. The glaciers and permanent snowfields hiding who knows what of our history.

  Something catches my eye. I walk over to find a torn holster, chewed by a porcupine. The belt buckle is still intact. No sign of the gun. I look around a bit in the dim light; don’t see anything else manmade.

  I once found a centuries old skeleton in a permanent snowfield. Pack, clothing, food remnants, weapons and all. A piece of the history of humankind preserved in a frozen nutshell. It was really something.

  I wonder how often it has happened over the millennia. Most wouldn’t know what it was. How could you? Something old, beyond a certain point, just looks old.

  My first clue was the royal blue vivianite. A crystalline mineral which forms on corpses in very wet environments with lots of iron mineralization nearby.

  I could also tell from books I had read about it. The exquisite drawings I pored over. By the knapping pattern on the tools he carried. The sewing of the pack. He had very primitive stone tools.

  It sure was interesting, in any case. I always wonder when I find something like that out in the middle of nowhere. Who else was there? What were they doing? What was their life about, their hunts, their family?

  I always touch those objects with reverence. Old things have
power. Not the praying type normally, I said a prayer for this man to the gods of olden times.

  The slope steepens. I have to kick steps and handholds into the hard snow, making a finger and toe step ladder.

  Soon I’m hot. Fingers and toes working to hold me on what feels like a near vertical hillside. Stopping every few steps to catch my breath due to the elevation.

  After while, the slope shallows up and I can walk.

  The sun tops a nearby hill and voila; the freshly blanketed slopes all around me are pristine in the first light of day. Shimmering white. Blindingly so.

  I tilt my hat brim down and climb a last long slope to the high ridge. And scope out the country for a while.

  I spot a road switchbacking through the trees far below. And far, much farther down, bare ground.

  The road must lead to civilization.

  I decide to make the bare ground, with fresh green grass for Ten Spot, our target for the day.

  32 Harley: Daze

  Harley awakens with a start. He rubs his bleary eyes, has a sip of water, and shakes his head, trying to jump start his inner strength.

  He works his way slowly to his feet. His back, hips and knees are all cramped from a long night of hugging hard, cold rock. His slashed arm is swollen, stiff, crusted and weeping blood.

  He gets his shit together, levers himself erect, pulls the revolver awkwardly with his left hand and creeps quietly around the curve in the tunnel.

  His quarry is gone.

  Damn.

  He heads out into the trees to take a leak.

  33 Cha’a: Shadow

  I turn back toward camp, intent on taking advantage of gravity. As I stride toward the edge of the steep hill, I see movement in the trees just outside the tunnel entrance.

  A shadow among other long morning shadows; moving out of sight into the snow-covered branches. I watch for it to reappear.

  Must be Zastee out for a morning piss. She’s definitely a shadow.

  Or, cripes, the bear. I only got a quick glimpse.

  I head for a steep area, sit on my ass and slide down, almost all of the way to our little camp.