The Buffalo Soldier

by Chris Bohjalian

  I guess.

  I taught him, which is probably a mixed blessing, Paul added.

  How so?

  I’m a good teacher and I ride pretty well for an old man. But I wouldn’t even know where to attach a lead line to a bridle.

  You ever been on a lead line, Alfred?

  The boy looked up at him. Have I?

  Nope.

  Well, let’s get you started and see what you know. She turned to the girls at the hitching post and called out, Are Delta and Thomas ready?

  One of the girls stopped laughing long enough to tell her that both horses were saddled, and then ran toward a line of animals at another hitching post at the edge of the ring. They’re over here, she called back over her shoulder.

  You’ll be on Delta, she said to Alfred after they’d started toward the two mounts, and, Paul, you’ll be on Thomas. Neither horse is going to set any land speed records these days, and you never know whether Delta will just decide to go to sleep on you. But I think the biggest difficulty you’ll have is that they’re friends, and sometimes the pony brain gets more interested in his pony pals than the fact there’s a human on his back and he has a job to do. Got it?

  He watched her turn to get the mounting block, which was about a dozen yards toward the center of the ring, but Alfred hadn’t realized he was expected to wait. The girl who’d run ahead had already taken off Delta’s halter and tightened her girth, and so Alfred had gone ahead and climbed into the saddle. For a moment Heather paused with the block in her hands when she saw that he had swung himself up onto the animal—she was surprised and she chuckled—but then Paul saw her turn her attention to him.

  Think you’ll need this? she asked.

  I’ll never turn down a device that makes my life easier, he said, and she laughed once again in a way that made him happy.

  HE AND EMILY had dinner that night at Laura’s for a change, and he told Laura how well Alfred had done. The boy had spent about a minute and a half on the lead line before Heather had determined he was well beyond needing one, and though she said his form could use work when he posted, he was cantering by the end of the hour. The girls who hung out at the ring after school had watched him with curiosity, and then, Paul decided, grown to respect him if only because he was a boy and he was there. None of the girls, Alfred had told him, went to his school.

  In bed that night, Emily’s head on his shoulder, they talked about the wounded couple across the street, and they discussed whether the pair would consider counseling. They agreed both that those younger people should and that it was unlikely. Terry was involved with someone else, Laura had told them when Alfred wasn’t in the room, and in her opinion he had little affection for the child.

  What do you think would happen to Alfred if they got divorced? he asked Emily now, allowing a book he’d been reading to fall closed on the mattress beside him. She was wearing a red nightgown they’d bought at the Corn Palace in South Dakota—emblazoned on the front was a picture of a smiling ear of white and yellow corn with husks for arms and a wild mane of hair made from its tassels—and he noticed that she’d managed to get the smell of bird feed out of the material. The first time she’d tried it on it had looked nice on her, but it had also stunk like the Krazy Korn brand pellets that had been merchandised in great display silos that day beside the official Corn Palace nightshirts and sweatshirts and socks.

  You mean logistically?

  I guess.

  Nothing, I hope.

  He wouldn’t be taken from Laura?

  I doubt it.

  But you never know, do you?

  No, but I have to believe that people like Louise can see he’s better off with Laura than anyplace else he’s been lately.

  True, true. And Laura wouldn’t feel overwhelmed to be raising a young boy alone and decide to give him up, he said. Right?

  Good Lord, Paul, of course she wouldn’t. She views herself as his mother now. She is his mother now!

  Oh, I know how much she cares for him. But I worry...

  She’s a little better every day. Why, she’s much stronger now than she was three or four months ago.

  She is, isn’t she?

  Certainly. She’s had to care for someone again, and I think that’s the best thing that could have happened to her.

  He thought about that for a moment, recalling Laura and Alfred as they stood in their doorway when he and Emily were saying good night to them after dinner. I would miss him if he left, he said, a remark he made without thinking, and one that surprised him when he heard the words in the air in their bedroom.

  Alfred, you mean.

  Yes, Alfred. I would—I will—miss Terry, too, if he and Laura don’t get through this. But I was speaking of Alfred.

  I think Terry needs...oh, I don’t know what Terry needs. He hasn’t been himself this whole winter.

  He didn’t say good-bye when he left, you know.

  You sound hurt.

  No, not really. Surprised is all.

  Maybe he didn’t think he’d be gone all that long.

  It just wasn’t like him. It seemed so out of control. Here’s a man who’s seen an awful lot over the years, but he’s always been nothing if not in control, he said, and he recalled an August evening some years ago after Terry had spent the day watching the mashed bodies of two mountain bikers pulled from beneath some out-of-state SUV (the driver had died, too, Paul believed, but he wasn’t quite sure), and how Terry had come home and mowed the lawn as if it had been just another day on the road, and chatted with Emily and him for ten or fifteen minutes about how much his girls were enjoying some circus day camp in the village.

  I wish I knew about this other woman, Emily murmured.

  Why?

  She sighed and ran her hand over his chest. Because I like Laura. I want to know what he sees in somebody else.

  He took her hand and held it: He felt a soreness along his upper thighs and his lower back. Heather had worked him harder this afternoon than he’d worked himself throughout the last month, and he was going to pay the price, he could tell, for at least the next couple of days. He stretched his legs and arched his back ever so slightly, hoping to mitigate the pain; he didn’t want to have to get out of bed to get an aspirin, and thereby admit to Emily that an hour on a horse with a real teacher could make him feel so badly beaten up.

  “...and so I may not re-up this fall. I think I need a change.”

  SERGEANT GEORGE ROWE,

  TENTH REGIMENT, UNITED STATES CAVALRY,

  LETTER TO HIS BROTHER IN PHILADELPHIA,

  MARCH 15, 1877

  Terry

  Russell took off his boots and his socks—white once, but now the color of a T-shirt that’s been left out on the street in the rain—and rested his feet on one of the other wooden chairs that sat around the table near the sliding glass doors.

  So this place belongs to Henry’s parents? he asked his brother.

  Terry counted the beers in the refrigerator, relieved they were down to three, and then pushed the door shut. If he himself drank one more, he decided, then that would limit Russell to another two. Of course, there was also the one that Russell was drinking right now, and the one he’d said he had at a bar in Vergennes on his way here, while waiting for Terry to finish his shift. And so even if his brother had downed two or three cold ones before leaving the tavern, which was altogether possible, he wouldn’t have drunk more than a six-pack tonight. He guessed Russell could handle that.

  Yup. I called Henry and expected to sleep for a night on some foldout couch in the living room, but he set me up here.

  Man, don’t leave. Patch things up with Laura, and bring her out here, too.

  You really think I should stay? he asked. The moon was completely covered over by clouds tonight, and so the lake and the mountains across the water were invisible. For all Russell could see, outside the glass doors and beyond the wooden deck there might have been nothing more interesting than a parking lot.

  I do. Become
a squatter. This place is mighty nice, I can tell, and I haven’t even gotten to see it in daylight yet.

  The views are pretty special, I have to admit.

  Laura seen it?

  He sat down in the chair opposite his brother’s feet, relieved that Phoebe had been gone since Friday morning and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow night. Wednesday. He had Thursday and Friday off this week, and their plan was that she would stay here at the camp with him those days.

  No, she hasn’t been out here yet, he said.

  I bet she’d like it.

  Probably.

  You seen her?

  I saw her last Friday. We had lunch. And we spoke on the phone yesterday. I called her.

  Russell drained the beer and then rested the bottle on the floor beside him. She’s a mighty nice woman, and you two got a lot of years together. A lot of history. I ought to go up to Cornish tomorrow and fix you two back up. Be the peacemaker.

  I don’t think so.

  You don’t want your sweet-tempered younger brother to be your marital ambassador?

  No. I don’t want that.

  Well, I presume you know what you’re doing.

  I’m not doing anything. She kicked me out.

  With reason.

  Point noted.

  Really, this is a woman who takes in all kinds of strays for a living: Dogs. Cats. Now kids. It’s just what she does. You must have fucked up in a truly major way for her to kick you out.

  When Russell had called from Saint Johnsbury and said he thought he’d use his day off to come see how his older brother was doing, Terry had supposed that he was being sent here by their mother. She remained worried about him—him and Laura, to be precise, given the reality that she’d called Laura at least as many times as she’d called him since New Year’s Day—and he guessed that she wanted to get a sense both of where he was living and whether he and Laura might reconcile.

  Thank you, Russell, for that analysis.

  You want to give me the details?

  Not particularly.

  Shit, we all know you’re seeing someone. I’d bet my truck it’s that girl you met up at deer camp.

  You’d be risking a lot on a gut feeling.

  Laura told Mom you fessed up the other day! And unless you been screwin’ around far more than anybody ever realized, it has to be that girl. What’s her name? he asked, and he snapped his fingers twice as if that would help him remember.

  Phoebe.

  Phoebe what?

  I really don’t want to talk about this, Russell, okay? There’s more to it than you know—or anyone knows.

  Suit yourself. It seems to me—

  It seems to me the last time we talked about this was at Mom’s on Thanksgiving, and that conversation did not have a particularly good end.

  Hey, I’d had too much to drink that afternoon.

  I understand.

  I’m sorry.

  I know you are.

  Want to know what I was going to say—or do you know that, too?

  Fine, go ahead.

  I think this has something to do with the boy.

  Alfred? Why in the name of God would you think this has anything at all to do with Alfred?

  He shrugged. You drop a new element into a relationship, and who the hell knows what will happen. Look at me and Nicole, he said, referring to the young nurse he’d been dating for close to half a year.

  What about you and Nicole?

  She got a puppy, and it’s made things a hell of a lot more difficult. Her apartment always smells like puppy shit, and she constantly wants to take the thing outside and walk it. She won’t even spend the night at my place these days because of that damn little dog, he went on, before glancing toward the kitchen. You got more of these? he asked, and he motioned down toward the bottle on the floor.

  In the refrigerator.

  He rose from the chair and said, Incidentally, you’ll be happy to know it’s a shelter dog. Hound dog and beagle, I believe. Pretty cute, even if he has screwed up my sex life.

  A puppy and a little boy are not the same thing.

  No, a little boy is a much bigger deal. That’s my point. You see the chaos a dog has caused? Well, just imagine what a kid can do. Especially that kid.

  He rubbed his eyes for a long moment and pressed his fingertips against the bridge of his nose. His head hurt, at least in part because the clouds hadn’t rolled in until mid-afternoon, and so he’d spent the day squinting against the snow and the sun in his cruiser. But Russell, he knew, was making his headache worse. Almost automatically he wanted to defend the boy and defend his wife, but he lacked the energy tonight and so he said simply, Laura’s and my problems have nothing to do with Alfred. Okay?

  You seen him since you left? Russell asked from the kitchen, after opening the beer and tossing the cap into the metal wastepaper basket.

  I’m going to try and see him next week. Go watch a riding lesson or something.

  Big of you.

  Give me a break, Russell, when would I have seen him lately?

  People figure these things out. Divorced dads—

  Laura and I are not divorced. And I am not the boy’s dad.

  You got that right.

  Now, what does that mean?

  I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that you treat him like he’s Laura’s kid. Not yours.

  I believe you’ve seen the two of us together exactly one time.

  Russell wandered around the living room, picking up the Hummel figurines and putting them down, and gazing for long moments into the blackness outside the large windows and the sliding glass doors.

  And he was too quiet. That wasn’t like you, either.

  You make it sound like you’ll never see him again.

  It seems to me if you and Laura split up, the boy goes back to wherever it is he came from. Don’t you think so?

  I don’t know.

  Well, I can see you’re all broken up by the possibility, Russell said, and he turned toward him with a smirk on his face. Of course, it’s probably no big deal to the kid, either. Right? He’s probably used to being dumped.

  You are one prize asshole when you drink, do you know that? Do us both a favor and don’t finish that one, okay?

  Russell looked at the beer, saw it was still two-thirds full, and chugged what was left in a couple of seconds. I got some news for you, he said when he was done, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel shirt.

  I can’t wait.

  Tomorrow’s not really my day off.

  Don’t tell me you were—

  Nope. I quit.

  Quit.

  Well, fired, too, maybe. I guess you could say it was a mutual thing. The dispatcher claimed I had beer on my breath yesterday when I brought in my truck—

  You were drinking while you were driving? Are you crazy?

  I had one beer when I was done with the route.

  Yeah, right.

  Truly.

  This the first time they ever catch you drinking?

  They didn’t catch me doing anything.

  This the first time they ever accuse you of drinking?

  Nah. They’ve been all over me for a couple months now.

  Second time? Third?

  He wandered back into the kitchen and left the empty bottle in the sink. I think I will have another one, thank you very much.

  This the second time they nail you? he called into the other room, raising his voice a notch to be heard.

  Third. But who’s counting?

  Apparently they are, Terry said when his brother returned to the living room. Mom know?

  Nope.

  Nicole?

  Yup.

  What does she think?

  Russell took a long swallow and then puffed out his cheeks. Sometimes, Terry thought, his brother looked like the vast majority of people he busted: unkempt, uncivil, and just a little bit dangerous. I don’t care what she thinks, he said.

  She dump you?

  He grinne
d again. What was it you said to me a couple minutes ago? Let’s see: There’s more to it than you know. I like that, I like it a lot. So let’s try it out: Terry, there’s more to it than you know. How’s it feel?

  I didn’t mean to be evasive. I just didn’t want to talk about it.

  Well, neither do I, Russell said, and he sat down across from him at the table.

  You keep this up, and someday you’re going to run out of places to work in Saint Johnsbury, he told him. He thought the job with the bottler was his brother’s third in five years.

  Then maybe I’ll move here. Join you in this fine corner of the state. It’s warmer. A little less snow. And I’d get to be near you, he said, his voice dripping with feigned sweetness. Maybe I’ll even hang around here for a couple of days. Spend some quality time with you.

  Terry quickly reminded himself that his brother wasn’t a bad sort when he was sober: a little irritating and a tad insecure, but he certainly wasn’t malevolent. It was only when he started to drink that he went from slightly annoying to completely detestable. Consequently, he figured the best thing he could do right now would be to get some real food into him and keep him from getting any more drunk than he already was. The last thing he wanted was for his brother to decide to dig in his heels and stay here any longer than necessary—especially with Phoebe arriving tomorrow night.

  I have some pork chops and barbecue sauce in the refrigerator, and there’s some Minute Rice in the cabinet, he said, consciously ignoring his brother’s last remark. Why don’t we make ourselves some dinner? You can set the table.

  I can, can I?

  You can if you want to eat, he said, and he stood. Russell took a long swallow of his beer and then pushed himself to his feet, too. He wondered if he should call Nicole the moment Russell passed out, and insist that she reconcile with his brother: He wouldn’t, but that didn’t stop him from wishing there was a way he could be sure that Russell would get lost in the morning.

  IN THE NIGHT he dreamt of Laura, and he was with her in Cornish and they were happy. When he awoke he was briefly disoriented, unsure where he was and unaware that his children—his daughters—were dead. Then he saw the placement of the windows in the room and he remembered, his contentment withered, and he wanted nothing more than to hold Laura and be held by her.