Word Gets Around

by Lisa Wingate

  The glimmers of triumph seemed incomplete without Nate.

  As the goat rubbed against Justin Shay’s leg, I backed away, allowing Lucky Strike to move closer … an inch, then another, then another, until Justin stretched out his hand. His eyes widened with a look of wonder as the horse breathed over his fingers. I imagined the little boy, abandoned by his mother in the cruelest of ways, finally reaching beyond his wall of self-defense.

  From across the corral, my father smiled at me and nodded his approval. I realized I’d looked his way because I knew he would do that. Leaving Justin and the horse alone in the round pen, I circled the fence, slipped my arm around my father’s waist, and laid my head on his shoulder.

  He squeezed me in the crook of his elbow. I smelled the faint scents of grease and leather, livestock and hay. “What’s that for?” he asked, his voice scratchy and rough.

  “Just because you’re a great dad.” It was an unusually tender admission for the two of us. Love between us, while seldom spoken of, had always been understood, but I realized again how fortunate I was to have him. How foolish I’d been to isolate myself from his care.

  “I think I got lucky,” he said, and cleared his throat, embarrassed by the sudden display of affection. We focused on the corral, watching the horse-horseman-goat bonding continue as Willie gave instruction and Amber offered quiet encouragement and the assurance that she knew Justin could do this.

  “I’ll be dogged,” my father said as Lucky Strike lowered his head and allowed the horseman to stroke his nose and scratch his ears. The horse blew out a long, contented sigh, nibbling tenderly on his goat’s itchy spot, which made the goat close her eyes and bleat softly. “You worked a miracle,” Dad added, as if he’d been worried it wouldn’t happen.

  “We’re still a long way from being able to impress some director,” I pointed out. For one thing, there was no goat in the script, and right now, the cooperation of the goat was essential.

  “We’ll get there,” Dad assured. “You hungry? Lunch’ll be ready soon.”

  “No,” I said, which wasn’t true, but I didn’t know who was bringing lunch today, and I didn’t want to risk running into Pastor Harve or Miss Beedie. “I think I’ll just stay out here and work with the horse.”

  Sighing, Dad scratched his boot back and forth on the bottom rail of the fence. The sound traveled along the metal, a dull echo preceding his words. “Harve and Miss Beedie asked about you yesterday.”

  “I’m sorry I missed them.” The words were tinny and false, like the sappy, electronic tune from a musical greeting card. “Tell them hello for me … if you see them, okay? Tell them … ” A lump rose in my throat, and I pretended to be choking on dust. I could feel my father watching me, his expectation heavy.

  “You might ought to tell them yourself.” One thing my father didn’t tolerate well was weakness. In the West, a man stood on his own two feet, even when the wind was stiff and the going was hard—likewise for a woman.

  Every muscle in my body tightened, knotted with the familiar tension that, for the past two years, had accompanied the idea of being home. I knew sooner or later the honeymoon would be over, the welcome-home barbecues would end, and everyone would expect the hard work of healing to begin.

  From the corner of my eye, I could see my father chewing his mustache, his jaw tightly set, his eyes narrowed against the sun so that they were barely visible, like pale blue marbles tucked amid crinkled old leather. “They’d like to hear from you.”

  “I’ll go by Caney Creek Church when I get a chance.” The lie tasted bitter coming out. That church was on the other side of the moon for me. I couldn’t imagine stopping by the little white church, trying to make the idle chit-chat of survivorhood—How are things? How are you? Are you feeling all right?

  Harvard was such a good man.

  How are your grandkids? I bet they miss their dad. …

  We could talk about O.C.’s football games at UT, and how much Harvard would have liked to be there to cheer him on. We could talk about Teylina’s college scholarship and how determined Harvard was that his kids would get out of Daily, go to college, work somewhere other than the Sheriff’s Department.

  Leaving the church, I’d pass the road to the cemetery, where the funeral took place as I lay in the hospital in Austin. Harvard’s funeral there, and Danny’s memorial service at his family’s church in Dallas, were like fiction to me, stories other people told that weren’t real, the details carefully manufactured.

  If you never went to the final resting places, it was as if the funerals never happened. In my mind, I still expected to see Harvard duck and take off his hat as he walked into the café, all six foot six of him blocking the light from the doorway. I still expected to see Danny rattle through town with a shiny new pickup truck we couldn’t afford, with a horse trailer behind. Danny never unhooked the horse trailer, whether he was hauling livestock or not. The trailer, boots, spurs, and cowboy hat were part of his identity. He valued being a cowboy more than anything.

  He would have loved the idea of The Horseman being filmed in Daily. He would have hated that the leading role was being played by some down-and-out superstar who knew nothing about horses. Danny liked horses better than he liked people. He was a good cowboy.

  I wished that had been the last thing I’d said to him. I wished my final words were something other than, I can’t do this anymore, Danny. I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of living this way. …

  If only I could erase it from my memory as easily as I’d struck it from the public record. Surrounded by the flowers, and the condolences, and the sympathy, I couldn’t reveal that our life had been falling apart before the flood. What would have been the point of letting everyone know that as Danny drove into the water, we were arguing about barbecue sandwiches and the fact that he’d signed the paperwork for a new pickup without telling me?

  Life changes in the blink of an eye, and all the things you thought were so important turn pale. You awaken to what’s left of the picture, trying to find something you recognize, something comforting.

  Only there isn’t anything. …

  I left my father and walked to the barn alone. He went to lunch with the crew, then came back with a sandwich for me, and Aunt Donetta tagging along with a giant glass of iced tea. She was worried that I wasn’t drinking enough and might become dehydrated in the heat. Dad pointed out that the Methodists had supplied lunch today. In other words, it would have been safe for me to go to the tent and partake with the rest of the crew.

  We concentrated on The Horseman because the rest was too difficult to talk about. As soon as the remainder of the group returned from lunch, we went back to work.

  By the end of the day, progress had been made, but I was boneless and exhausted. I had to give Justin Shay credit for his stamina and determination. After developing a rudimentary knowledge of how to move the horse around the ring, then bring him back to the center without the use of halters or ropes, he was like a kid with a new toy. Even when everyone else was ready to pack it in and head home, he wanted to keep going.

  Willie finally entered the round pen and talked him into leaving. “C’mon, son,” he said, resting a hand between Justin’s shoulder blades. “Let’s go to the house. You done a good day’s work. I promised Mimi I’d be back in time to take her to dinner. She’s pretty bored, settin’ out there at Frank’s place.” He slapped Justin’s back, and Justin seemed pleased. They wandered off shoulder-to-shoulder, Willie telling some tale about cowboys and chuck wagons, while I collected the horse and led him to the barn. The goat followed, snatching bits of grass along the way.

  I lingered in the stable until after my father, Willie, and Justin were gone. Around the house, the workers had finished up and either gone home or moved to the construction trailers in the back yard. The stablehand, Joe, retired to his apartment and began cooking something that smelled good. My stomach rumbled, and I found myself wondering what Nate was doing for an evening meal and how the s
cript was coming along. While she was watching us work the horse after lunch, Aunt Netta had mentioned (loudly enough to be sure I heard) that Nate was working back at the hotel, downstairs in the beauty shop, where the lighting was good and he could spread out his notes. She said she hoped he didn’t get lonely down there later on. I pictured Nate among three decades of hair equipment, old cartoons torn from Farm Bureau calendars, and Aunt Netta’s favorite mottos painted above the mirrors in her favorite color—red.

  God uses small things for great purposes. It was a powerful statement if you believed it, if you could have faith in it. Without faith, it was just a bunch of letters strung together, meaningless.

  I wanted to believe it again, to feel it.

  I didn’t know where to begin.

  When I got back to the hotel, Nate was still downstairs surrounded by stacks of papers. He was sitting in one of the old vinyl chairs with his feet propped up and a fifties-style cone-shaped dryer above his head. He smiled as I came in. “Well, there you are,” he said, as if this morning’s conversation had never happened. I was relieved when he didn’t bring it up, but in another way, I was disappointed.

  “It got kind of quiet upstairs,” he admitted in a way that hinted the script writing wasn’t going well. “I thought a change of scenery might be good.” He waved an arm vaguely toward the papers and sticky notes littering the room.

  “Can I help?” I asked.

  He studied me, seeming surprised, then smiled in a way that was open to interpretation. “I hope so.”

  “Let me see what you have so far.” I felt the warmth of his invitation as I crossed the room and stood looking over his shoulder.

  “Just a minute,” he said, rising from the chair to retrieve something from the other side of the room. I watched as he gathered notes and scraps, which were tucked among the chairs, dryer bonnets, and wall shelves according to some organizational system only he understood.

  Sitting down beside me again, he handed me the first newly rewritten scene, hastily scratched on notebook paper that looked like it had been in Aunt Netta’s drawer since I graduated from high school.

  “Don’t expect too much,” he said, seeming defeated.

  “I’m sure it’s better than you’re making it sound.” I looked up, caught the reflection of the two of us in Aunt Netta’s mirror, read the lettering overhead. Someone had stuck a Post-It note over the sm in small, so that now it read,

  God uses all things for great purposes.

  Chapter 18

  Nathaniel Heath

  A strange thing happened as the week went by. I started to feel at home in the quirky little berg of Daily, Texas. I developed a routine that felt comfortable, and for the first time in a long time I was actually productive, in terms of writing. I got up early in the mornings, worked on the script, then went for a run before breakfast. The postman and the old gents waiting for the café to open began to recognize me and call me by name. Shopkeepers waved as they made ready to open their stores.

  Once, a trio of little girls setting up a lemonade stand spotted me jogging past their house. “That’s the movie guy,” one of them whispered, then they got on their bikes and followed me down the street, asking questions about the film, but mostly, they wanted to know if there might be little girls in The Horseman. The inquiry was nothing new. Movie mania had gripped Daily. The postman, Harlan Hanson, thought there should be a postal representative in a scene or two. Donetta and Lucy thought a beauty shop would be good—everyone knew the beauty shop was the heart and soul of any Texas town with a population under two thousand. The principal at the high school offered to stage a Friday night football game, because it’s not small-town Texas without Friday night football. The girls in the hardware store thought the horseman should come in for nuts and bolts, and the man in the feed mill was certain that, like all ranchers, the horseman would stop by for feed.

  The Baptist preacher, Ervin Hanson, thought there should definitely be a church in the movie. Daily Baptist being the largest in town, it was the logical choice, of course. The sheriff’s deputy, Buddy Ray Baldridge, wanted me to know he’d starred in Daily High School’s production of Grease, and he’d be happy to arrest somebody on camera. Bob, the owner of the café and president of the Chamber of Commerce, was in favor of a café scene. The countertoppers even demonstrated their acting skills for Frederico when he went down to breakfast one morning. They wanted him to be sure to share the information with Justin, because Justin had started lying low after a few reporters passed through town in response to rumors of his presence there. To their credit, the Dailyians could keep a secret when they wanted to. They buzzed Justin on his cell when there were strangers nosing around, and everyone was careful not to talk Horseman talk if outsiders were near. When the coast was clear, the movie talk flowed like sweet tea at a Donetta Bradford picnic.

  Including requests for bit parts, the film would be about ten hours long, depending on whether or not we included Miss Lulu’s RV camp by the swimming hole at Boggy Bend and the Tonkawa cliff paintings. Lauren laughed when I told her that on one of our early-morning walks. She usually happened to be in the alley as I was coming in from my jog, and we power walked—more like strolled, really—while talking shop. We stayed away from Camp Nikyneck, though we did amble down by the river once or twice. We just didn’t stop to look at the petroglyphs.

  Lauren was hard to figure out. Given her reservations about The Horseman, she’d been surprisingly willing to take some vacation time from her university job to stay on in Daily to help. I tried not to take that as anything personal, but when we were together, we fit like Lucy and Ricky, without the romance. Every once in a while, in the middle of working or strolling and talking about horses and life, I’d look up and find her watching me. For a moment I’d be lost in the color of her eyes, the shape of her face, the smoothness of her skin. I’d never been lost in another person before, not even during the starstruck high school days of the Jennifer Pope affair.

  It was a strange feeling—a little creepy, but not unpleasant, except for the fact that she didn’t feel the same way. Occasionally, I thought she did, but she never gave any indication that she wanted to cross the just-friends line again. I could understand that, even if it was inconvenient. After something like what she’d been through, it would be hard to move on with life.

  All the same, I thought about her when we were together, and when we weren’t. When we were working, we’d laugh about something, she’d look at me and I’d think she was ready to let down the barriers. I’d gaze into her face, and I’d see her like Sleeping Beauty, locked in the tower. Then the window would close again.

  I recognized myself late one night on the Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth series. There was this bird of paradise strutting around with his feathers fluffed up, putting everything he had into the dance. Unfortunately, no one was watching. I empathized with the bird.

  I resolved to quit thinking of Lauren in anything other than friendly terms. Hot pursuit wasn’t my normal MO, anyway. I figured if a girl wasn’t interested, she wasn’t interested. End of story. Aside from that, what was I really going to do with some small-town Texas chick? Once Dane made his visit here and either rocketed The Horseman into reality or killed it, I’d be back home, and Lauren would be teaching anatomy to a bunch of college kids who probably would never know there was so much more than neck bone-connected-to-the-jawbone inside that pretty little head of hers.

  Lauren was smart—really smart. She had an insight into people, both the fictional kind and real kind. She understood the deeper motivations of the horseman, Sarah, the female lead, and Sarah’s autistic son. Sarah was a lot like Lauren—intelligent, perceptive, and beautiful but wounded after her gambling-addicted husband committed suicide and left her with nothing but a used-up racehorse and a mountain of debt. Sarah was trapped, afraid to look back, unable to move forward. The more I wrote Sarah, the more she became Lauren. Sometimes when we were working on the script, I thought Lauren noticed. Occ
asionally, when we were laughing about the latest Bigfoot sighting around town, and the growing volume of theories about the creature’s identity, I thought she remembered that night at the ranch.

  She was careful never to mention the kiss, even when Bigfoot came up in conversation. We talked, instead, about recent sightings from cars passing in the darkness on the rural road, twice by the postman on his route early in the morning, and once by Joe, the stablehand, who was burning candles near his Blessed Virgin statue and wouldn’t come out of his barn apartment at night. Even the construction workers staying in the camp trailers near the ranch house were keeping their spotlights and weapons at the ready, but the creature was elusive.

  Pearly Parsons had the distinction of having experienced the closest sighting. According to Pearly, “It was standin’ at the other end of the fencerow, near nine foot tall and covered all over with hair. It was tryin’ to push down the top strand of barbed wire.” Pearly went for his gun, but by the time he got it out and grabbed a flashlight, the beast was gone. Only a quiver in the wire remained to testify to its existence. Fortunately, a Pearly Parsons fence could withstand anything, even mythical man-beasts with a case of don’t-fence-me-in.

  “W-w-wonder how-how come it don’t jus-just climb over, climb over?” asked Doyle. “Be-bein’ nine f-f-f-foot tall.” The creature was growing each time a new story came in.

  “Maybe it ain’t too agile,” the Baptist preacher suggested. He smiled after he said it, to indicate that he was just playing along.

  “For heaven’s sake, all’a you hush up.” Imagene, behind the counter, had heard enough. “You’ll have Nate here thinkin’ he’s trying to make a movie in a looney bin.” Smiling at me apologetically, she wheeled a finger beside her ear. “I been livin’ not two miles across the field from the Barlinger place all my life, and never seen anything but farm animals, coyotes, jackrabbits, and once in a while a fox or a bobcat or two. If there was a eight-foot-tall hairy man livin’ around there, I believe I’d know it.”