Four Dead Horses

by KT Sparks

  Next, she proclaimed that her boss had granted her a month of leave so she could road trip with Martin to Elko. “Like the Chisholm Trail, but sideways,” she had enthused over Skype, while Martin slipped the selection committee’s letter back in his desk drawer. Soon after that, she called with the news that her boss, who Martin was beginning to think was going for some sort of Conifer Chamber of Commerce employer-of-the-year award, was lending her a brand-new Jeep Cherokee for their cross-country drive. And just last week, three seconds before Martin was going to confess, she revealed that she had arranged for “an incredible surprise” that was going to make their journey West “even more epic.” Martin fell into a daydream about stops at luxury spas and iconic National Park lodges, and Julie hung up before he could say more than “can’t wait.”

  Obviously, he’d let it go on too long. But he had been lost, so lost, since he received the selection committee’s letter in March. Endlessly freefalling from a rocky precipice, too bewildered to right himself, too terrified to look down. The worst of it was he had so enjoyed being her hero—the man whose bravery inspired her, whose confidence fueled her, whose poetry saved her life—that he couldn’t let it go, even after the ground beneath her adulation turned to mud. But that ended today. They were scheduled to leave the next morning to start their trip to Elko, and of course, he couldn’t let it begin. Lies of omission were one thing from a thousand miles away, quite another from three feet across a Jeep’s console

  And yet, he couldn’t tell her until he had his tickets to the Cowboy Poetry Hour in hand. He had to go to the show. Back in March, he had thought that he could walk away from cowboy poetry, since cowboy poetry had so blithely walked—no galloped—away from him. And he did stop practicing his orations. The last poem he proclaimed out loud was on the morning before he received the rejection letter, a rousing recitation of S. Omar Barker’s “Purt Near!” into his shaving mirror. But he still listened each Friday to the Cowboy Poetry Hour, out of habit, out of longing. Since January, the performances were all part of the Farewell Tour. Martin could hear finality in every syllable Vess Guffry spoke, demise in every fiddle lick a guest artist bowed. The shows were funerals, and Martin was a man who believed in paying one’s respects. Tonight, Martin would say his final goodbyes to cowboy poetry.

  Juan Palimino, the maître d’ at Emilio’s, greeted Martin from the reception podium. “Mr. Martin, welcome. Are you going to the cowboy show? We have a special pre-theater menu.” Juan had worked at the restaurant for fifty years, starting as a teenaged dishwasher and rising through the ranks to part owner and maître d’.

  “Julie’s joining me. We’re going together,” said Martin. Juan knew Julie. He knew every Pierrite or ex-Pierrite who had ever dined out—which was by no means all of them, sit-down restaurant food still seen as the equivalent of a private jet or an in-house masseur in some blue-collar circles. Martin dined here at least once a week. His favorite table was next to the wood-fired steak ovens, and Juan sat him there now. “What’s the pre-theater special?” asked Martin.

  “The same as always, but we cook it faster and earlier,” said Juan. “I’ll bring Miss Julie straight away when she comes. A cocktail, perhaps?”

  “Just a ginger ale for now,” said Martin. His stomach ached, though he doubted the soda would cure the malaise. A blast of heat hit Martin’s left cheek, he heard the sizzle of fat on flame, and he smelled lighter fluid and seared flesh.

  “A well-done T-bone is a waste of meat and fire,” said Orville, the steak guy, and poked what looked to be a chunk of charcoal into the three-foot blaze.

  Martin nodded back. Orville regularly complained to Martin about philistine steak orders, and Martin always agreed. Orville was about six foot seven inches and jabbed at his fires like the devil at his brimstone. Martin usually ordered vegetable malfatti so as not to further enrage the cook.

  He took the selection committee’s letter out of his back pocket and set it, still folded, on the table in front of him. He wouldn’t be able to enjoy the Cowboy Poet, knowing that Julie’s considerable rage would be unleashed on him after. So he would get the tickets from her, then hand the letter over. He hoped that, having toadied to Orville on all matters meat, he might come to Martin’s defense should her fury turn physical.

  “Howdy, cowboy.”

  For a minute, backlit by the fire from Orville’s ovens, Martin saw not Julie but a mirage of Ginger. She wore a brown lambskin jacket trimmed with hair-on cowhide and turquoise metallic fringe, with a turquoise camisole to match. Her jeans were tight, and her boots looked vintage, a hand-painted peacock feather design running the length of their outer edges.

  “Juan, you still got that Veuve Clicquot?” said Julie. “Bring us a bottle.”

  “You look great,” said Martin.

  “And you look like a podiatrist on his way to his first craft beer tasting. What happened to the clothes I bought you?” said Julie.

  Martin wore a forest-green cotton T-shirt under a black linen jacket, jeans, and Frye Venetian slip-on loafers. He had packed his cowboy gear in U-Haul boxes and stored them in the basement of Final Paws.

  “Let’s see those tickets,” said Martin once Julie had settled, and Juan shuffled off after the wine. “I know the theater pretty well. I’ll show you where we’ll be.”

  “Third row, center left, aisle,” said Julie. “They’re excellent seats.”

  “I guess I’ve wanted to go to a Cowboy Poetry Hour taping for so long, it’s like I can’t believe it’s really happening until the evidence is in front of me.”

  Julie laughed and opened a red leather handbag with Cowgirl spelled out in rhinestones on one side. She pulled out two printed pages and passed them over.

  “You ought to take a look at this too,” said Martin, and pushed the selection committee’s letter across the table. He tried not to mouth breathe. She unfolded it. A hush fell on the dining room, the only noise the sizzle of a steak.

  “What is it?” she said, and the meat crackled along with her falling voice. “Martin, it says they didn’t pick you.” She shoved her chair back. “This is from March.” She stood up. “You let me take time off work, borrow from Lee, get rooms, get tickets, pay for your fucking Howdy Doodie get-ups and your aborted riding career.”

  “That was not my fault,” said Martin. “The vet said Zach was a coronary waiting to happen.”

  Julie took a couple of steps back from the table. “This is like cancer all over again. You’re like cancer. You betrayed me.” She pointed at Martin. “You tumor. You carcinoma.”

  Martin stood too. “This is not like cancer. You don’t have cancer. Cancer kills people. Cancer killed my mom, a horrible, painful, unfair death. Cowboy poetry couldn’t save her, and it can’t save you. The only person it might have saved is me, if I’d been able to pursue it, if all you—” he almost said womenfolk, thought better of it, switched to easterners “—if all you easterners hadn’t needed tending to first. Cattle move only as fast as the weakest calf, and from day one, I’ve been stuck with nothing but downers in my herd.”

  Juan approached the table, a silver ice bucket stand in one hand, the champagne in the other.

  “Shall I open it?” he said, waggling the thick green bottle. “What are we celebrating? Maybe an engagement?”

  “Gimme that,” said Julie and grabbed the bottle. She unwired the top, gave one hard shake, aimed it at Martin, and fired the cork into his belly. He bent, gasping for breath, holding his sides, checking his fingers for blood. Julie slammed the foaming bottle on the table, wheeled around, and stomped from the room. The only sounds were of the steak overcooking, the champagne foam dripping onto the floor, and the subtle clicks of the other diners turning on their cell phone cameras. Martin kept his eyes down, trying to decide how much of this he deserved and to remember whether appendixes could be burst by outside force.

  “Surprise! Am I late? I see the bubbly
’s already opened.”

  Martin looked up. Before him stood an older, seedier, but definitely recognizable Bob Lattner, dressed in jeans, a straw hat, and a Jerry Jeff Walker T-shirt, Clicquot bottleneck in his fist, wine streaming over his bony wrist.

  “Where’s Julie?” he said, then raised the bottle and swigged.

  Where the Ponies Come to Drink

  by Henry Herbert Knibbs

  Up in Northern Arizona

  There’s a Ranger-trail that passes

  Through a mesa, like a faëry lake

  With pines upon its brink.

  And across the trail a stream runs

  All but hidden in the grasses,

  Till it finds an emerald hollow

  where the ponies come to drink…

  Down they swing as if pretending,

  In their orderly disorder,

  That they stopped to hold a pow-wow,

  Just to rally for the charge

  That will take them, close to sunset,

  Twenty miles across the border;

  Then the leader sniffs and drinks

  With fore feet planted on the marge…

  My old cow-horse he runs with ’em:

  Turned him loose for good last season;

  Eighteen years; hard work, his record,

  And he’s earned his little rest;

  And he’s taking it by playing,

  Acting proud, and with good reason;

  Though he’s starched a little forward,

  He can fan it with the best.

  Once I called him—almost caught him,

  When he heard my spur-chains jingle;

  Then he eyed me some reproachful,

  As if making up his mind:

  Seemed to say, “Well, if I have to—

  But you know I’m living single…”

  So I laughed.

  In just a minute he was pretty hard to find.

  Some folks wouldn’t understand it—

  Writing lines about a pony—

  For a cow-horse is a cow-horse—

  Nothing else, most people think—

  But for eighteen years your partner,

  Wise and faithful, such a crony

  Seems worth watching for, a spell,

  Down where the ponies come to drink.

  13

  Martin and Lattner rode to Theater-on-the-Lake in Lattner’s fire engine red ’71 Mustang coupe. Lattner steered with his knees and used his hands to fiddle with a Bee Gees cassette tape. Martin clutched his bucket seat on both sides and stared at the road racing towards his nose. Five inches lower, and his ass would be dragging along Myrtle Avenue. Lattner spent the first half of the trip explaining how Julie had brought him back to Pierre, and Martin spent the second half of the trip explaining how he had driven Julie away from Pierre.

  Telling her the truth hadn’t gone as he’d planned. And it wasn’t that he had expected her to be gracious or understanding. He knew she’d be furious. But to compare him to cancer? He was no hero, cowboy or otherwise, but he wasn’t a malignancy. He was just a crappy friend. And so was she. It had never been about him getting to Elko, it had been about her learning to live again. Even with his mom, it had never been about helping her die, it had been about Julie replacing Bitsy. Martin may have violated the spirit of the West with his lies and his failures, but at least he tried to live up to something bigger than himself. Julie lived for Julie.

  They skidded to a stop at a light, and the car shook and babbled like a stuttering sheep broadcast through a subwoofer. The smell of gasoline was so strong, Martin wondered if there was a spare can in the back seat. He peeked over at Lattner, who looked about to fall asleep. His eyelids fluttered, and a few stray wisps of white hair danced in time. A triangle of fuzz, a refugee from his morning shave, sat mid-cheek, pointing North. A greasy ring orbited a small tomato chunk on his collar.

  Here was a man who knew how to live. He was aggressively unmoored. He went where the most favorable wind blew him, not hero, not villain, not knowing or caring where he rode next. Martin could learn from this man.

  “She’ll get over it,” said Lattner. “You know how she is.”

  “Angry,” said Martin. “And this time it’s justifiable.”

  “The worse kind,” said Lattner. “She was lamentably overinvested in having you wow ’em at the confluence. Ergo, me.” Julie had begged Lattner to join them in Elko, arguing that he’d always been a mentor to Martin. Plus, Lattner could do PR for what she believed was going to be Martin’s full-time gig as a breakout cowboy poet. Accompanying them from Pierre to Nevada was Lattner’s idea.

  “So what are you going to do now?” Martin said.

  “Not stay around here,” said Lattner. “But I can’t go back to rehab in Tampa until I’ve been clean for a month.” He accelerated through the green.

  “Julie didn’t mention she was in touch with you,” Martin said as Lattner turned into the Theater-on-the-Lake West parking lot. “Did you know about Mrs. Trinkle?”

  “Irene. Never been another like her.” Lattner jerked the car into a spot.

  “Why didn’t you go to the funeral?” said Martin

  “Because I’m not obsessed with death, like you,” said Lattner. He chewed on the right side of his mustache and edged the Mustang up until it was bumper-to-bumper with the car opposite. “If they’re gonna to hit my baby, I don’t want them to get up any speed.”

  “It’s not really a rave sort of crowd,” said Martin, trying not to sound as morose as Lattner apparently thought he was.

  “But they do serve beer inside,” said Lattner. “I called ahead to check.”

  Up in Northern Arizona

  there’s a Ranger-trail that passes

  Through a mesa, like a faëry lake

  with pines upon its brink,

  And across the trail a stream runs

  all but hidden in the grasses,

  Till it finds an emerald hollow

  where the ponies come to drink.

  Martin blew a hoppy gust and wedged further into the Theater-on-the-Lake’s ungenerous but, thank God, padded seat. He winced as the ache in his knees travelled to his hips, and he silently ticked through the warning signs of a pulmonary embolism. He settled his Sam Adams on the crest of his belly and tried not to begrudge Lattner the aisle seat.

  The Cowboy Poet was starting the show with “Where the Ponies Come to Drink.” His pitch-perfect timbre rang through the theater, piped through the speakers, but the curtain remained shut.

  “Is this how it always starts?” Lattner whispered over his bottle, which owl-hooted harmony.

  “With a poem, yeah,” said Martin. “I don’t know when he shows up. I’ve only heard it on the radio before.”

  Was it a recording or live? Martin wondered and worried. Worried that perhaps the Cowboy Poet did not appear in front of audiences anymore, that he was reading from behind the curtain, or worse, that this was a track off one of his CDs. Martin worried because there were rumors—of physical decline, of mental frailty, even of death followed by a vast NPR conspiracy involving low stage lighting and dubbed-over archival material. But surely they would not go on this much-ballyhooed last tour if they only had a cowboy corpse.

  A cough and a pause and the voice of the Cowboy Poet continued to wrangle those ponies through the bunch-grass and the gramma and cross the little stream. A sign of life there, right? Wouldn’t someone have edited that out if this were anything but live, if the Cowboy Poet were anything but alive? Martin shifted in his seat and forced himself to thrill to the easy jog of the poem’s Western gait.

  “Where the Ponies Come to Drink” was one of Henry Herbert Knibbs’s poems. Martin was a Knibbs devotee; most lovers of cowboy poetry were. He was a pioneer, one of the most consistent and memorable voices yodeling at the turn of the twentieth century, the Golden Age of Cowboy Poetry. And yet, and perhaps this was why he had homeste
aded such prime real estate on Martin’s epicardium, Knibbs had never worked as a cowboy, never ranched, never roped the hell-bent bull from the back of a cayuse.

  Martin had recited “Where the Ponies Come to Drink” at his mother’s funeral, some thirty years before, primarily because guilt drove him to choose something horse associated. He could not bring himself to read “Chopo.” That night, as he had wandered the first floor of their house, collecting wadded napkins, crumb-infested paper plates, and fringe-topped toothpicks from the after-service reception, Frank’s Sony Walkman hooked onto the waistband of Martin’s black wool trousers, he had listened to the first Cowboy Poetry Hour broadcast live from Elko and the Second Annual Elko Cowboy Poetry Confluence. Mid-show, the Cowboy Poet, back then identified only by his given name, Vess Guffry, recited the same poem.

  But for eighteen years your partner,

  wise and faithful, such a crony

  Seems worth watching for, a spell,

  down where the ponies come to drink.

  Applause echoed around Martin and even Lattner pushed his bottle between his knees and wolf whistled. As the stomps and calls died down, the curtain rose, not on the great man, but on Caitlyn Jordan and her violin. She was a slip of an ingenue whose piping recitation, deft fiddling, and homeschooled sterility had won over gritty and whiskey-soaked veteran poets at Elko the year before. She had been on the show several times since, and Martin had not been impressed. Now, in person, he liked young Caitlyn even less. She stood so straight, spoke so cleanly, pointed her white, unblemished chin so bravely toward the upper stage lights. She had too much of the feel of someone, or something, who had spent too much time in the valley of the uncanny.

  Caitlyn raked out one more note of longing for the Montana mountains and homage to a dewy morning and praise for griddle hot biscuits, flashed a toothsome grin, and tripped off the stage. Lattner pointed at his empty beer bottle, then at Martin’s half-full one, and made to get up. The stage lights dimmed, and Martin heard the distinct clomp of a horse hoof, caught the scent of hay. He lay a thick hand on Lattner’s arm. Again, but this time without amplification, the voice rang clear: