Wake of Vultures

by Lila Bowen

  That stranger—he had been all kinds of wrong. And the way that he’d wanted to touch her—that felt wrong, too. Nettie couldn’t recall being touched in kindness, not in all her years with Pap and Mam. Maybe that was why she understood horses. Mustangs were wild things captured by thoughtless men, roped and branded and beaten until their heads hung low, until it took spurs and whips to move them in rage and fear. But Nettie could feel the wildness inside their hearts, beating under skin that quivered under the flat of her palm. She didn’t break a horse, she gentled it. And until someone touched her with that same kindness, she would continue to shy away, to bare her teeth and lower her head.

  Someone, surely, had been kind to her once, long ago. She could feel it in her bones. But Pap said she’d been tossed out like trash, left on the prairie to die. Which she almost had, tonight. Again.

  Pap and Mam were asleep on the porch, snoring loud as thunder. When Nettie crept past them and into the house, she had four shiny teeth in one fist, a wad of cash from the stranger’s pocket, and more questions than there were stars.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Nettie barely slept a wink that night. Every time her eyes blinked shut, she imagined the stranger pulling himself together, the sand shifting back into the shape of something like a man and slithering into the house past Pap sleeping on the porch. One eye dripping black, he’d rise up like a rattler, snatch his teeth from inside her boot, poke them back into his gums, and rip her throat out.

  After the third time she jolted up with a fright, alone in the dark with a stick-knife in her fist, she figured to hell with it and just got on up. Despite the drenching Durango heat, she’d taken to dressing like a bandito’s grandmother with one of Pap’s old, faded shirts over her bound chest, baggy pants held up by a rope, and a moth-gnawed serape over that. The less the folks of Gloomy Bluebird could see she was a girl, the less trouble they gave her.

  Mam and Pap had taken to sending her on all their errands into town, considering they owed so many debts. Nettie’d learned that if she kept her head down and sucked in her cheeks, folks usually took pity and gave her the tail end of a sack of cornmeal or their most pitiful, nonlaying chicken. At first, she’d been embarrassed. But then she’d overheard two of the old biddy church ladies whispering about how shameful it was for Pap to send his half-breed slave pup around to beg, and she realized that they counted her for less than a dog and Pap only slightly more than that.

  Mam and Pap Lonesome were of old East stock, pale as salt fish and just as odorous, with matching hay-colored hair and blue eyes that seemed ever confused thanks to eyelashes and eyebrows as light as dandelion fuzz. The pair were shapeless and old enough to look like someone else’s aunt. Nettie couldn’t have been more different, with medium brown skin that could’ve been called liver chestnut, if she’d been a horse worth noticing. Her hair was thick and frizzy, a dead giveaway to anyone trying to puzzle out her breed. Half black and half Injun, or maybe Aztecan; any way you added it up, the end result was somehow less than the individual components. She was built tall and narrow like a half-starved antelope, with eyes as dark and thick as a storm-mad creek and high cheekbones framing a mouth that had little reason to smile. She was ugly, was all they’d told her. But she didn’t find them beautiful, so what did it matter? The entire town was an eyesore.

  It was widely agreed that Gloomy Bluebird was a stupid name for a town, especially considering Old Ollie Hampstead had shot the only bluebird they had back in 1822, right outside what passed as a general store. The damn thing had been stuffed and posed with little skill and now sat proudly on the storekeeper’s counter as a reminder of what looking cheerful and bright would get you in a town as dusty as an old maid’s britches. Nettie herself had seen a bluebird when she was just a little thing, hunting lizards out by the creek. When she’d run home to tell Mam, she’d been told to go fetch a switch for lying. Over time, she’d come to believe she must’ve seen a crow. But crows didn’t have red bellies, did they? At least the town lived up to the gloomy part.

  The excitement of last night had burned off, and Nettie was feeling downright gloomy herself, like some part of her had blown away with the impossible, sparkling sand. A strange thing had happened, and she had no one to tell, no one she trusted enough to question. Being alone wasn’t so bad when nothing ever changed, but now Nettie didn’t trust herself, and she was generally the only person she could trust.

  Although Pap handled most of her punishment, Mam had once thrashed her for lying about a bluebird, and then thrashed her again when she’d started her monthlies and ruined an old striped mattress and screamed that she was dying. How was she supposed to know that was what women did? Nettie didn’t reckon much about the world, but she knew that what happened last night had changed things as much as her flux blood. The world was suddenly more dangerous, but she had no idea why or how to protect herself from it. Seemed like the best way to keep her skin was to get on with breakfast and not say a danged thing, to hide it like she hid everything else.

  When she went to shake her boots for scorpions, it was four pointed teeth that fell out. Considering no crevice of the shack was safe from Mam’s quick fingers, Nettie shoved them into the little leather bag she kept tied around her waist with what few precious things she’d found over the years. A glittery white arrowhead, hardly chipped. A shiny gold button with a bugle on it. A wolf claw, or something like it. A penny given to her once in the town when she’d been kicked in the leg by a frachetty horse. She’d kept a piece of dirt-dusted ribbon candy some town brat had dropped in the pouch for two weeks once, allowing herself one suck a day. The four teeth added a weight barely felt, but she stood a mite taller. Whatever that stranger had been, she’d won. And that felt pretty goddamn good.

  Mam and Pap weren’t up, of course. They gave the sun time to stretch and get cozy before they stopped snoring. It was almost peaceful, setting up the porridge in the pot and watching the skillet shimmer with fatback grease. She always loved snatching warm eggs from under the scrawny, sleepy hens; this brood was the result of Pap’s once-a-year victory at the poker table. They’d definitely seen harder times, although Nettie didn’t much get to enjoy the bounty herself. If Mam and Pap left any eggs on their plates, that was usually treat enough.

  The sun came up so fast that if you weren’t watching careful, you’d miss it. For just a second, it was a flat circle, hot-red and bleeding all over the soft, purple clouds. Nettie stared at it as long as she could, not blinking, then leaned over to turn the eggs, and when she looked again, the sun sat high and white, relentlessly beating down on the endless prairie. Sunset, at least, took its time, nice and lazy. She liked the colors of it, and the way that no one could own the sun. It couldn’t be compelled, couldn’t be roped. You could yell at it all day long, threaten and plead and cuss, and the sun would not budge a goddamn inch. It was what it was, and it took its damn time about it.

  But Nettie had fewer choices, so she quickly bolted down her small share of the porridge. Not only because Mam and Pap would give her an earful if they woke up with her in the house, but also because she wanted to mosey over to the Double TK before the surlier of the cowboys were awake and taking out their hangovers on whoever happened by. The ranch next door was far richer than Pap’s, considering they had more than a one-eyed mule, two nags for renting, a herd of cattle too thin for the butcher to carve, and one milk cow that barely squirted enough milk for weak porridge. Mam had sent her toddling over to the Double TK for the first time to have a knife sharpened when she was just five years old, and Monty had taken her on like a lost pup. The old cowpoke had told her, years later, that they’d figured her for a boy at first, as she’d been in britches and had a shorn head. But since she’d been mannerly and offered to help the wranglers by sweeping out the pen or tossing rocks at vultures, they’d generally tolerated her presence.

  Over the years, she’d learned by watching Monty and had figured out better ways to work a colt than using Pap’s whip. She
was awful shy of the other cowpokes and never went near the ranch house or Boss Kimble, but Monty said he was right glad for her calm hand with the horses and general quietude. He was still thin and tough as leather, with a luxurious mustache, but she’d noticed that in the last couple of years, Monty had saved the wilder horses for her visits and chosen gentler mounts for himself, and that his mustache had gone to gray.

  On her way to the Double TK, she stopped to feed the few critters Pap hadn’t used up yet. Blue greeted her with his usual hollering, and she gave him a once-over and a fine scratch and fed him a precious handful of grain, plus a bite she’d held back from the porridge. He pressed his big, ugly mule nose over her shoulder, and she leaned into his skinny chest and breathed in his good horse smell. He didn’t know he wasn’t a horse, and he didn’t know he was ugly. Pap’s swayback mare, Fussy, took the grain and turned her tail, just as sour as her owner, and the aged nag they called Dusty refused to get up off the ground. The wild black mare was still gone and the water trough still clean, thank heavens. Nettie had already fed the cow and scattered the morning’s corn for the chickens, but the poor things crowded around her with hopeful clucking. It was a sad joke, calling it a ranch.

  Before heading off, Nettie snuck into the other barn to see if the stranger’s clothes were still there. They were, rolled up tight on the old rig’s seat beside his hat, which was rugged and new and featured cunning strings to keep it on a feller’s head. For a reason she couldn’t explain, she tried it on and found it a good fit. With the wide brim pulled down and her pigtails tucked up underneath, maybe people would notice her even less. If asked, she could just say she’d found the hat floating in the creek. By the time she’d walked past the fence and Pap’s ranch was just a shimmer on the horizon, the hat felt like it was part of her body and always had been.

  Slipping under the fence to the Double TK, Nettie felt instantly calmer, almost at peace. It was business as usual on Boss Kimble’s land, just a passel of grown men doing men’s work, and she liked the feeling of being part of the simple but effective machinery. She headed toward the colt pens, where Monty and Poke sat on the rail as Jar clung to a bronc’s back, and poorly at that. Monty shouted easy encouragement while old Poke leaned out and hollered through cupped, stubby hands about how Jar rode like a one-legged frog. Which he did, a little, as the young cowpoke was fine on his feet but all knees and elbows in the saddle. As Nettie got closer, she admired the bronc crow-hopping around the round pen—a big, bone-white stallion. No way a proud, uptight feller like Jar could break a mustang like that, especially not with his saddle cinched so tight. She couldn’t help smirking.

  “I got a penny says he falls off within a minute,” she called, feeling lucky and reckless in her fine new hat.

  Monty and Poke turned with good-natured smiles. Poke pulled out his dented watch while Monty fetched up a penny out of his disreputable pants, which looked as though they’d been made out of the curtains in a whore’s bedroom, all velvet with gold curlicues.

  “I’ll take that bet, Nat,” Monty hollered.

  He never called her Nettie or treated her like a girl, even though he knew well enough what she was. When she’d started her monthlies, Mam had tried to set her up in skirts, but she’d ripped the hated things into strips and used them to bind her growing chest instead. Mam had given up and wished her quietly to Hell, so long as she kept cooking and cleaning and breaking colts. Monty had called her Little Lady once around that time, and she’d whipped out her jackknife, all fierce and cold, and told him that she was no girl, and he’d nodded, all thoughtful, and started calling her Nat instead. It was one of the many reasons she all but worshipped him.

  Just now, he was looking at her with his head cocked and a friendly grin. “Nice hat. Who’d you kill for it?”

  Goose bumps rose on her arms, and she pulled the hat down lower. “Nobody you know. Found it in the creek.” Hitching up her too-big britches, Nettie climbed to sit by Monty on the top rail of the round pen. She’d always admired the clean, white boards of the Double TK’s fencing. Of course, you couldn’t stab a stranger in the heart with one of their fence boards, but they sure looked nice.

  “How long’s he been working that white stallion?”

  Monty rubbed the curled end of his gray mustache between two fingers. “Not long. Big fellow came in with the raid last night. Boss wants him broke right fast. Might keep him for himself, if he has a gentle gait. Otherwise, he’ll be the nicest fancy in the territory.”

  Jar flew off said horse in a graceful arc and landed, spread-eagled, in the dust. He rolled to the side right as the big bronc’s dish-sized hooves hammered the dirt where the boy’s so-called handsome face had been just seconds ago. Before the bronc could stomp again, Jar had skittered back to the edge of the round pen and rolled under the boards to safety. Monty held up a shiny penny and winked at Nettie.

  “You beat his time, Nat, and I’ll double your winnings. Hell, I’ll give you a nickel.”

  Nettie admired the big bronc trotting around the pen, always keeping a sharp, intelligent eye on the four folks watching him back. Jar climbed up next to Poke and mopped off his face with a hanky that had seen better days.

  “Big white bastard. Boss deserves him,” Jar said.

  Nettie slipped off the fence, wriggled out of her serape, and stood to face the bronc, watching him watch her. Poor feller’s saddle was too narrow for his withers, his girth was too tight, and his bridle pulled at his lips, giving him a meaner look than she liked.

  “Gimme a rope, Poke.”

  Poke threw his lasso to her, and she caught it in midair. The bronc stomped a foot, but before he could decide what sort of gangly, dangerous critter she might be, she’d looped him around the neck with a gentle toss. He reared back, first off, but she held tight and gentle, like Monty had taught her. When he stepped back, she went with him. You can’t force a horse, but you can’t let him force you, neither, the old cowpoke always said. As she approached the stallion, calm and murmuring sweet words, she looped the slack from the rope and watched for him to lick a little. The wranglers on the fence whispered, and she heard the clank of coins as they placed their bets.

  When she’d got up to the bronc’s side, she reached to stroke his neck. His white skin shivered, and dust came away on her fingertips.

  “Ho, big feller. We’re gonna be friends.”

  The horse’s ears flickered back and his eye stuck to her as she undid the cinch and knocked the saddle off his back, leaving a sweaty stain. The bronc bowed his head and danced in place as he shook and blew air. Nettie smiled and touched him all over. When she got to his face, she went straight for the throat-latch and then slipped the whole bridle off his ears. Once the reins were over his head, the horse stretched out his neck like he’d grown two sizes.

  “Thought we taught you how to break a bronc, Nat. Nobody gets paid for settin’ ’em free,” Jar hollered, but Monty only snickered.

  “Somebody else taught me you’ve got to loosen a creature up to get what you want,” she whispered so only the bronc could hear.

  A rope halter hung on the other side of the round pen, and she walked the bronc over there with Poke’s lasso loose around his neck. He followed, not like he really wanted to, but like he was willing to see what her next idea might be. With fingers gentle as last night’s rare breeze, she slipped the halter over the bronc’s nose and ears and tossed down Poke’s lariat. The horse let her pull his face close, and she blew into his twitching pink nostrils. Murmuring all along, she walked him a bit, turned him, got him to cross over his back hooves so she had control of his haunches. That was where all the power was—in the rump.

  And when the horse had mostly got used to doing what she wanted, she slipped off her boots, grabbed a handful of mane and rein, kicked up off the fence boards, and launched herself onto the white bronc’s broad, sweaty back.

  Nettie had rarely been so high up, but she only had a second to enjoy the view, as the surprised bronc crow-hoppe
d sideways. Still, it was nothing like the bucking he’d put Jar through, so she just tightened her knees and held on while he tried to puzzle out what was clinging to his back. The cowpokes took up hollering, trying to excite the horse into dumping her, but she clung tight and let the bronc wiggle out his worries. She knew the exact moment the fight drained out of him—when he realized she wasn’t trying to fight him at all. She was just trying to go with him. His front hooves hit the ground, and he shook his head and craned his neck around to stare at her.

  Patting his thick neck, Nettie murmured, “Good boy.”

  The horse blew air, and the wranglers on the fence clapped and hollered. She gave the stallion a squeeze and urged him into a walk. He’d be a fine horse with a little care, and not the kind a puffed-up feller like Jar was likely to give him. The bronc still looked like he wanted to take a chunk out of Jar’s side as they passed the cowpokes seated on the fence. Poke’s wide pumpkin face had cracked into a jack-o’-lantern grin, and Monty held up a nickel, a rare sight for Nettie Lonesome.

  “Get him under saddle today, and I’ll give you a quarter more.”

  Nettie just nodded and nudged the bronc into a trot. She’d never imagined such riches as a nickel, much less a whole quarter.