The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope

by Rhonda Riley

  Addie glanced at Rita then back at me. “Does your momma really call it a doolywhacker?”

  “Yes!” Rita and I crowed. Then we all exploded, laughing till we cried.

  Later, I watered the horses as Addie and Rita finished the evening milking. Addie, squatting at Maybell’s side, muttered, “Doolywhacker!”

  From the side of the other cow, Rita giggled.

  From then on, if Rita was in one of her glum moods, Addie could make her smile by simply mouthing the word “Doolywhacker.”

  Addie eventually had more personal questions about sex. When I first told her I had slept with Cole, she’d simply shrugged and raised her eyebrows as if to say “of course.” But weeks later, as we pumped water for the livestock, she asked, “What was it like with Cole? What was different from being with me?”

  I waddled to the hog’s trough, the bucket of water sloshing at my side. Addie followed with a second bucket. The morning was crisp with the first hint of fall, but sunny as midsummer.

  Talking about sex so directly made me uncomfortable. I laughed. “I can’t slop a hog while I think about doing that. With you. Or Cole.”

  She waited patiently, her face serious.

  “Well, you and Cole are very different from one another . . . I don’t know, Addie. Other than the different body parts, everything else is sort of the same. Kissing. Touching. But all I know is him and you. With Cole, it was always over pretty fast. You and I have so much more time together. You smell different. You touch me differently. You fill up the whole room. And when I touch you, I know what it feels like to you. We’re alike.”

  She had been tapping her chest lightly as she listened to my answer.

  I stopped her hand. “Except for that. No one else has a voice like yours.”

  She glanced down at my hand on her breastbone. “I can see how I’m different from Cole. And you’re right. I don’t think anyone else can do this.” She covered my hand with hers. “You inspire me.” She smiled as she drew me close, but I thought I saw a spark of sadness in her eyes.

  I didn’t pursue that spark. But I wondered how she bore her gifts, her differences. What costs there might have been for her. I had no means to measure my choice in turning Cole from my bed, from a possible future. I had no scale, no map for the territory I found myself in.

  It was Addie’s gift—not the private gift of her voice or her origins, but her gift with horses—that brought Cole back to our door with his own question. A few days after his daddy gave Darling to Addie, he rode up into the yard on his daddy’s mild old gelding. I waved him down from the garden before he got to the house.

  “I came to find out how Addie got the mean out of that horse. I can’t figure it,” he called as he rode up.

  “She’s in the barn. Ask her.”

  He glanced at the barn, but did not leave. His hat shaded his face.

  I squinted up and shielded my eyes against the sun. “How’re you doing, Cole. How’s your leg?”

  He dismounted, smoother, more confidently. “Anything changed?”

  “No.”

  “She still sleeps in the same bed as you?”

  I nodded.

  “Just checking.” He gave me a long look, his mouth in a grim line. “My leg still gives me some trouble, but it’s healed.” He squared his shoulders and strolled away, his leg stiff as he tried to hide his limp.

  When I finished cutting the okra, I joined them in the barnyard.

  Addie had led Darling out to him. “She handles real smooth now. Be firm and gentle with her and she’ll do what you want. She’s like new now. Don’t think about what she was.” Addie handed him Darling’s reins.

  “I’m ready,” he said softly, his face still and determined, the same expression I’d seen when he showed up at my door months before. He vaulted into the saddle and walked her in a slow, broad circle.

  “Take her out,” Addie called. “She’s easy now. Talk sweet to her. Stay loose. Don’t clinch. Don’t pull.”

  Cole waved his hat and urged Darling up to a trot along the field.

  Addie smiled at me. “He’ll be okay. I talked to her.”

  “Talked?”

  “Like I do with you only . . .” her lips parted. “Hear anything?”

  I heard Becky paw in the barn. Hobo barked a single sharp response from somewhere behind me.

  “No. But the horse does. Hobo, too.”

  “Feel anything?”

  I closed my eyes. The basket of okra I held dug into my hip.

  “No.”

  “Keep your eyes closed. Now?”

  I felt a faint hum in my chest and face. Becky nickered loudly from the barn. I opened my eyes.

  Addie winked at me and took my hand, pressing my palm to her sternum. Warmth shimmered up my arm, a barely perceptible tingle. “That’s what I did with Darling before I led her out. So, he’ll be fine.” She nodded toward Cole, who galloped back to us, a wide grin on his face.

  I felt a twinge. Would she, like me, find him attractive?

  Cole dismounted smoothly. “You musta found some Goody headache powders for horses. She was some kind of headache before. She’s smooth as silk now.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “Addie, I wasn’t talking, I was praying. If I hurt my leg again on the same damn horse and couldn’t work, my daddy would shoot the horse and me. You’ve got to show me what you did to get her this way.” It was good to hear him laugh again.

  Cole’s questions about our sleeping arrangement bothered me. Although people did not make the assumptions they do today about two women sleeping in the same bed—it truly was the love that dared not speak its name—it seemed logical that he would know, that his intimacy with me, however brief, would make him privy to my desires. We needed his good will, his friendship.

  The next time Cole dropped by, I invited him to supper. He sat stiffly at the table, like a boy in church, while I set out the dishes. Addie watched us a moment, then said to Cole, “I’ve got a question for you.” She pointed at the barn. “About Darling. Can I show you? She doesn’t like the bridle we have.”

  His posture softened immediately and he turned to her with genuine interest when he heard Darling’s name. She led him out to the barn, both of them talking excitedly about bridles and horses.

  After that, they talked horses and went riding whenever they had a chance. At first, I thought he might have been making a play for her, perhaps some ploy to make me jealous, but I soon realized they simply shared a philosophy and an ability to talk nonstop about horses. Gradually, I saw that Cole treated her like she was one of the boys. For him, her skills seemed to override any sexual tensions. Through Cole, others began to hear about Addie’s touch with horses.

  The day she went to watch his father break a new horse she came home at dusk, riding Darling. She slammed the door on her way into the house. “I never want to see that again!” she announced, her face dark with outrage, and she marched out again.

  She paced the hall until she was calmer, her gait normal. Then she came back into the kitchen, where I sat reattaching a shirt button. She picked up the lantern that sat next to me and held it out at arm’s length. “If I drop this and break it, I don’t have a lantern anymore. It is broken. I’ll have light, but not the kind of light I want. Just fire. When they break a horse, they break it. The horse is gone. Gone.”

  She was magnificent, her face flushed, her arm steady. Gently, she lowered the lantern back to the table. “They go around on horseback, but they are not with the horse. The horse is gone. Conquered, not led.” Her voice was low, normal now.

  That was the beginning for her. She read everything she could find on horses. She rode every chance she had. For weeks, she carried around a book, old and yellowed even then, written by an Englishwoman, on gentle methods of “sweetening” horses. She and Cole spent hours that fall discussing the best ways to train a horse. They went to horse shows and auctions, much to the chagrin of his new girlfriend, Eloise, who tagged along wit
h them.

  They talked long and hard to convince me to move the kitchen garden and make way for a new corral adjacent to the barn. As soon as they finished building the corral, Cole brought a colt over to sweeten, away from his father’s watchfulness. Within a day, they were on its back.

  One Sunday, an old farmer from Stanley showed up with a tall, lean white mare. “Some damn geese landed last spring when I was turning the field. Whole cloud of ’em landing all of a sudden. Not more than twenty feet away.” The old man swept his hat through the air. “She nearly dragged me to my death getting away. Now she won’t go near fowl of any kind and I got forty laying hens. When the rooster starts in the morning, no one can get near this one.” He stroked the horse’s mane. “The coop is near the barn. She won’t go near the barn or take the harness now.” His shoulder was bandaged and the horse had fresh whip marks. His wife wanted the horse shot, but he couldn’t bear to do it, he admitted.

  The mare became the first test of Cole’s and Addie’s new methods—their first job, though there had been no discussion of payment. They agreed that the horse would stable with us and Addie would do the initial daily work with the mare, “sweetening” her to the chickens. Cole would advise and cheerlead until the horse was ready for a test rider. I knew Cole needed to be careful with his bad leg, and it made sense that he be the second rider. But I knew plenty of young men who would not have been so comfortable letting a girl take the lead, regardless of their admiration of her skills.

  Addie did not force the mare into the barn or near the chickens, but rose earlier every morning to turn Becky and Darling out into the corral with her so she would have some calm company when the rooster crowed. During the day, Cole and Addie groomed and rode her as much as they could.

  The third morning, Addie saddled the mare for the big dawn event and leaned over the mare’s neck, soothing her in the predawn darkness. They were barely visible in the middle of corral. I heard, then very faintly felt, that familiar low drone vibrate from Addie. My part was to rouse the chickens and get the rooster going. He was on his third morning chorus when I made it back to the corral. The mare flinched and tossed her head, but did not buck or pull back.

  “Cock-a-doodle-do!” Addie crowed and laughed.

  After that, Addie wore one of Eva’s big aprons when she was in the barn or the corral, a couple of chirping biddies in each pocket as she combed the mare down.

  By the end of the week, it was Cole’s job to hold one of the chickens as Addie rode the horse around the corral, passing within a few feet of him. I contributed by providing Cole with hot coffee.

  “I sure feel stupid being the chicken-holder,” Cole said. “But it’s working. Look at her.” Addie and the mare trotted, steady and calm, bright in the first of the day’s light.

  When she reached the opposite side of the corral, Addie gave a signal and Cole held the hen up and shook her so she squawked and flapped. The horse’s hide went tight and she complained, but kept moving very slowly toward the hen. Addie leaned low, whispering. I knew what the horse felt, that sweet harmonic blossoming through her bones.

  If Cole sensed anything unusual beyond the ruckus of the chicken, he gave no sign. He held the angry hen at arm’s length. His eyes followed Addie intently, ignoring me, ignoring the chicken shit on his sleeve. I saw the admiration on his face and wanted to say, “She’s cheating, she has something you don’t know about.” But all I got out was his name.

  He turned, the excitement still on his face, then it changed. It wasn’t the usual guarded expression he’d had since I’d stopped sleeping with him, but there was still a small hesitancy. Part of me wanted him to look at me with the same admiration. But I was happy to see them working together, excited about what they were doing. He tucked the chicken back up under his arm, held his hand out for the coffee, and mouthed the words “thank you” with such a broad smile that I felt forgiven for whatever potential future I might have taken from us. He raised the cup high in a toast.

  Within a couple of days, the horse could pass the chicken without hesitation even as it bobbed furiously in Cole’s hands. Getting the mare to take the plow harness went easily after that.

  When the old farmer returned, Addie asked him to wait in the yard. She rode the horse out of the barn and Cole brought out a hen, which he handed to her. She rode the horse around the barn, past the chicken coop to the corral, holding the clucking hen in her arms. The farmer jogged behind them, shaking his head.

  When they got to the corral, Addie signaled the old man to follow them in as she dismounted. “She’s going to have to trust you as much as she trusts me. Last she knew, you were the one who whipped her. You can’t whip her again. Ever again. Now she needs to know something of you that is not the whipping.”

  The old man nodded and wiped his eyes. “That chicken next to her. Good Lord, that was a beautiful thing.”

  Addie led him to the mare. She reached for his hands. The old man obviously wasn’t used to young women holding his hands. His arms stiffened and he stepped back.

  I couldn’t hear what she said to him, but he let Addie take his hands again and they slowly circled the horse, touching her all over. Then they walked away together, letting the horse follow them to the chicken coop. The farmer spit his tobacco juice and cackled.

  Addie and the farmer took short turns plowing. The mare pulled steady and straight. The poor hens released in her path fluttered to the ground and strutted in confused circles.

  The old farmer bought his feed at Rayburn’s feed store downtown, and the story of his ornery, chicken-scared mare and Addie’s “cure” spread fast.

  A few weeks later, a bright new truck pulled up, hauling one of the fanciest horse trailers I’d ever seen. A big girl wearing an English riding outfit that probably cost more than a year’s groceries for us tumbled out of the driver’s seat and told us she was from Charlotte. I don’t know how she’d heard of us or found us.

  “My daddy gave me this horse, but I can’t ride him. He won’t let me,” she announced. “I’ll pay you. A hundred if you can get him so I can ride him and show my daddy when he gets back.”

  I sucked in my breath. A hundred dollars was an enormous sum then.

  Addie went to the horse and stroked his neck. She let him mouth her hand inquisitively as the girl watched, keeping her distance. “Two.” Addie held up two fingers. “I have a partner and I’ll need his help on this. One hundred dollars now and one hundred when you can ride out of that corral, happy and easy, on this fellow.” The girl nodded and took out her wallet.

  I was in shock. We were in business.

  It turned out that the problem was the girl, not the horse. Her father loved horses. She wanted to please him, but she was terrified of them. We boarded the horse while the girl’s father was out of town. Cole and Addie required that she come several times a week to feed and groom the horses. And they took turns riding with her on her horse, a gentle, jet-black gelding. The girl’s face would go soft when she rode double with Addie. I knew what she felt, Addie’s arms around her, that glow at her back.

  But Addie talked, too. She honed her philosophy and developed the vocabulary she would take into decades of working with horses and people. “Make it true. True yourself and the horse will go with you,” she urged the rich girl. “Willingness, calm, and balance.” Addie waved her hand across the horse’s shoulders and down his spine. “For both of you.” She tapped the girl on the chest, then lightly pulled her shoulders back.

  Gradually, the girl’s spine became more supple and she began to look like she belonged on a horse. The day before the girl’s father came back to Charlotte, Addie slid into the saddle behind her and tied a blindfold around the girl’s face. The girl dropped the reins in protest, and a shiver ran down her legs and into the horse, who whinnied and shook himself. Addie reached behind with one hand and touched the horse. With her other hand, she gently returned the girl’s hands to the reins. After a long moment, the horse and the girl were calm and waiting.


  “Your final test. You know this farm well enough. Think of where you want to go and tell him from here.” She patted the girl’s thighs. “No words. I’m here with you.”

  The girl’s brow furrowed, but she nodded, took a deep breath, and they took off. Later, I found the girl in the stable, brushing her horse down, singing softly to herself. I’m sure she got her money’s worth. Addie and Cole got that second hundred dollars.

  I never fully understood what Addie did with the horses. She just seemed to be with them, to sweeten and socialize them with patience, contact, and good grooming. She never used any force. She just glanced at them and talked to them and soon they followed her like lovesick pups, nosing her shoulder. I know, when no one else was around, she soothed them with that strange voice of hers.

  I watched Addie and Cole working together with an odd combination of emotions. I was glad that Cole was comfortable coming to our house. Though some awkwardness remained between us, he was a kind man. I regretted having hurt or disappointed him, and wanted him to understand that I hadn’t left him on a whim. I longed to tell him who and what she really was, to have him see what I saw, to know what I knew. I was also a little jealous of the attention they gave each other. He was, in his own way, as seduced by Addie as I was. But I could also see that he was smitten not by her touch or her voice, as I had been, but by her skill. He flat-out bragged about her horsemanship to anyone who would listen.

  They both had an easy, apparently effortless grace on horseback, but my eyes always returned to Addie. On horseback, she was part of the horse. I’d never been interested in horses, but I began to admire them. I loved seeing her so engrossed in her work with Cole and the horses. I followed her hands as she groomed the horses, humming to them, her hands sliding over their shoulders and down their legs.

  I loved how she took things into her hands, holding and touching everything—food, Hobo, horses, the stove handle, the ax, me—in a way that seemed more than mere contact or simple utility. There was gusto, intent, knowledge. At night, when she touched me, I felt the difference between her and others. The horses felt it, too. They turned toward her, sniffing her, licking her.