by Jessie Haas
Mother’s face looked brave and happy. Father’s looked …
What if she had trapped him? What if she’d said, “I’m going to have a baby. You have to marry me?”
What if she did ruin his life?
He didn’t have much life left when he met her. But he could have spent it at peace with Aunt Sarah, who raised him from a baby. He could have spent it in the house where he was born.
I put them away in the cigar box.
That afternoon the haying on Vinegar Hill was finished. They came in streaming sweat. The day had heated up beyond anything we’d seen yet this summer.
“It’s a weather breeder,” Uncle Clayton said. “I’ll wait for a change before I cut the homeplace.” Truman went home, expecting the haying to come to him in a few days.
But the heat increased, smothering us. A dress left on the floor formed wrinkles overnight, as sharp as if they’d been ironed into the fabric. Paper was limp. Milk soured quickly.
My attic bedroom was stifling, even after the thunder-storms that blew up each afternoon and cooled the air outside. Uncle Clayton waited for a big storm and wind to bring in fresh air. After each rain he listened, smelled, tasted the air, and shook his head.
Meanwhile we churned and washed and baked, weeded, shelled beans, canned vegetables. I presented myself for each task as it arose and was shown how to do it. We didn’t talk, Aunt Sarah and I, but I knew what she was thinking. I’d overheard her tell Uncle Clayton. I know she meant me to hear; I’d never once overheard her say anything about me before, and I’m sure she said plenty.
“I’m to house this child, but nobody believes I’m fit to raise her! That folderol about John Gale’s heirs! That was cooked up, so I’d have no say in what happened, and look at her now! Not a word to say to any of us. Thinks she’s too good, I suppose, with all that money laid out for her!”
A murmur from Uncle Clayton.
“I raised four children! I don’t think I made too bad a job of it! But the way Andy Vesper acts, you’d think I’d just gotten out of a home for the feebleminded!”
Murmur.
“Well, let her get herself down there then! Though I have yet to see an inch of progress with that horse that’s eating us out of house and home—”
“That horse’s too young,” Uncle Clayton said. “And she is, too. Y’ought to put a stop to that, Sairy, before she breaks her neck.”
“Oh, yes, and I can just see that Barrett crowd if I did! They’d probably have me in jail for cruelty!”
She was right. I was making little progress. The scenes repeated so often, they formed an eternal present. On the long rope, I tell the colt to walk. He keeps trotting. I yank the line.
Leading him, I say, “Whoa.” He bobbles toward me and steps on my foot. I push him with my elbow.
Passing the new pigpen gate, he stops and snorts and backs up fast. I put my hand up to soothe him, and he bites me. I slap him.
I ought to have begun riding him. At home I would have, in the little pasture by the river. Here I didn’t dare. The pigpen gate frightened him day after day, and what if I was on his back when that happened? What if we met a car, a rooster, a farm wagon, out on the road? Before that happened, I had to drill the commands into his head, so whoa meant “stop” every single time.
But it was hard to keep going. It was no fun for either of us, and why was I even doing it? He would fetch more money if he were trained, but did I believe I was going to sell him? Did I believe I’d run away to the city and vanish? Not really. I didn’t believe anything anymore.
The second hot Thursday I was in the pasture when Truman drove up. The colt had been evading me, slipping away with sour ears whenever I got close. Now he brightened and trotted to greet Jerry. I followed.
“Hello, Harry!” Truman’s beard looked limp and more tea stained than usual. Sweat trickled down his face and lost itself in the yellow-white fringe.
“Hello.”
“Been expectin’ you every day. I s’pose the weather’s kept you home.”
I nodded. My mouth felt tight and small. I snapped the rope into the colt’s halter. He flicked his ears back angrily, and I felt an inner flick of anger in response.
“Been workin’ him hard, Harry?”
“Not hard enough!” I pulled the colt’s head away from Jerry and led him through the gate.
“Looks like you could both use a day off,” Truman said when we caught up with him. “Why don’t you come visit me? Haven’t seen your bird in a spell.”
“Maybe.” Just what I need! I thought. One more person who thinks I can’t train this—
Thunk! on the top of my head. Roman candles shot off behind my eyes. “Ouch! Oh!” Clunk! again, from behind. I saw the colt’s head swinging.
“Darn you, cut it out!” I slapped his neck, as hard as I could. He flung up his head, mouth pinched tight.
“Harry!” Truman said. “He didn’t do that a-purpose! He was bitin’ a fly!”
“Well, it hurt!”
“The fly hurt him. Put him up for the day, Harry. You’re in no mood to handle a horse.”
“He has to learn!” Now my hand hurt, too. “I don’t care if a fly does bite him; he has to behave!”
Truman started to speak and stopped. He sat looking at me from under the shelf of his brows. “Well,” he said after a minute, “guess I’ll take my own advice and leave you be.” He flicked the reins at Jerry’s rump. Jerry walked faster, a bumpy gait that seemed stiff in some joints, too loose in others, and that left me ever so slightly behind.
I had to hurry now beside the colt, who urgently wanted to keep up with Jerry. Already I felt greasy with sweat and bad inside. I had been disrespectful to an old man who loved me. Mother would be ashamed.
I’m ashamed of you, too! I retorted in my mind.
Even as I brushed the colt, the deerflies bit, and the bright blood welled up. I couldn’t blame him for jumping and squirming.
It was the craziness I blamed him for, the frantic stamping at the lightest touch on his legs, even a housefly or a grass stem. It was the foolishness that made him jump and look resentful when I smacked and killed a fly on his flank. “You’ll just have to put up with it!” I said through clenched teeth. “Other horses manage.”
I clipped the long rope into the halter and unsnapped his tie rope. The colt ducked his head into my shoulder.
Automatically my hand came up to rub the glossy bulb of his ear. I hadn’t done that, or scratched his neck, or hugged him in a long time. All I’d done was boss him, smack him, yank on his halter.
Had I been too harsh? It wasn’t his fault he was only two. Maybe Truman was right. I would just work the colt briefly, and as soon as he did one good thing, I’d praise him and put him away.
I led him up to the flat hayfield above the barn. I could see Uncle Clayton and the team, small at the far end of the bean rows. Aunt Sarah and Truman were in the garden, Aunt Sarah like a big stump in her brown dress, Truman thin and angular as a heron. They were talking, about me, I thought. I turned to the colt.
“Walk.”
He didn’t budge. I waggled the buggy whip; he flattened his ears and obeyed, circling me at the end of the rope.
“Good— No!” He’d ducked his head, shaking it angrily, and now he started to trot. I pulled on the rope.
“You walk!” He kept trotting, the mincing jig Belle used to do when nervous, which had always given me a stitch in the side. I jerked the rope hard. “No! Walk!”
The colt stopped in his tracks.
“Walk!”
He lashed his tail, bit a fly just behind his elbow, and at last did walk. His mouth was pursed, and his eye narrow. “Good boy!” I said when he’d walked a complete circle. “Now trot!”
He shook his head heavily, on and on, trying to dislodge a fly. The deerflies favored the ears and didn’t shake off easily.
“Trot!” I said again.
He stopped, rubbed his head against his foreleg, snatched a bite of grass.
“Now darn you, trot!” I snapped the whip.
The colt let out a deep, angry squeal, plunged into a gallop, and lashed out with both hind feet, all at once. He began to race around me, his body slanted toward the center of the circle, his head carried high like a lance. The rope pulled hard against my hand. I dropped the whip—it seemed to cling to my fingers—and grabbed the rope in both hands.
“Whoa!”
But the colt saw the team down in the bean field. The circle became a straight line as he charged toward them, and my braced feet lifted off the ground.
For a moment I was flying. Then I hit the grass and was raked across it, across the bumps and stubble. The rope slid through my hands. I couldn’t seem to let go, until the knot in the end of it slid past my face, banged like a hammer at the base of my hands, and they opened.
I saw a bruised leaf of clover and a bare quarter inch of ground amid the stubble. The earth drummed, and slowly I knew that for the colt’s hoofbeats.
I didn’t want to move. The yellowed field spun and sank slowly, one quarter turn, another …
Something prickled my cheek. I lifted my head a fraction. Nothing moved on the broad grass horizon, but I heard voices.
The sun was hot on my back. I started to push myself upright. The ground burned my palms, and I fell flat.
I drew my hands toward me across the grass, palms up. I didn’t dare look at them. I propped myself on my forearms, rolled over, and sat.
Far away the colt raced across the bean field. The long rope flew behind him. Dirt and bean plants erupted in the air.
Uncle Clayton strained his reins tight. His hatbrim tilted as he looked uphill.
“Harry! Harry, are you all right?”
How could I be hearing him? He was so far away.
Not him. I turned my head, slowly. It felt huge and light, as if it were made of cork.
Aunt Sarah, running, almost here. Her face was mottled, red and white. Truman struggled far behind her, the stub of his arm jerking and flapping like a broken wing.
“Harriet!” She fell on her knees beside me. Her breath came in great gasps. “Say something!”
She looked so strange. I turned my eyes away from her. The colt had made a spiral of broken, trampled bean plants. Now he pranced around the team. He’d tangle them in the rope.…
“Where are you hurt?” Her big, hot hands pressed my head. I winced as she found the places where the colt’s jaw had whacked me. She passed one hand down my spine.
Truman collapsed on the grass beside us. He was pale, and his breath trembled, his hand trembled, as he gently reached for one of mine and turned it over.
It looked like raw meat.
eighteen
My stomach heaved. I ducked my head onto my knees, pressed my mouth against my skirt.
“Rope burn,” Truman said.
I’d had a rope burn once. It was just a pink-glazed line across my arm.…
They were turning both hands over now. I heard Aunt Sarah’s breath hiss through her teeth. After a moment Truman said, “Not as bad’s it looks.” Truman has seen people shot with cannons, I thought.
“Are you hurt anywhere else, Harriet? Look at me!”
I raised my big head. I felt dreamy somehow. I didn’t want to speak. Aunt Sarah felt along my legs and arms. I stared off at the little, distant figures in the bean field.
“Well, Harry? You satisfied?”
I jerked all over. Truman’s beard was sucked down into the hollows of his cheeks. His eyes sparked. “Y’drove that horse and drove him till you finally made him hurt you! I just hope—”
“Truman!” Aunt Sarah said, in a voice that was large and deep and soft. “That’ll do! When this girl needs a scolding, I’ll tend to it!” Her voice was so different it didn’t seem like hers. It was changed the way Belle’s voice changed when the colt was born, as if her labor had changed the shape of all her organs. I felt Aunt Sarah’s hands, firm under my elbows. “Can you stand up, Harriet?” My name was musical in her mouth.
“I … think so.”
As soon as I stood, the blood sank and throbbed in my hands. I had to hold them up in front of me, and then I couldn’t help seeing.
“Close your eyes,” Aunt Sarah said. “Looking makes it worse.”
No. I felt better, now that I could see the skin in little crumbs and tatters, the blood trickling. This was no horror. It was like a skinned knee, only more so. A lot more so.
“Can you walk?” Her hot arm felt good around me. We stepped slowly together over the uneven ground. My legs were strong enough but seemed loosely connected. I was glad to reach the shade of the barn and sit down on a crate.
Uncle Clayton drove up, half standing on the cultivator and leaning back on the reins. The team pranced and huffed, ears flat, nostrils red. The colt trotted beside them. His rope was garlanded with bean plants, and brought along a bruised green smell.
“Whoa!” Muscle and tendon stood out on Uncle Clayton’s forearms. “Harry, ye all right?”
“She’s hurt her hands, Clayton,” Aunt Sarah said. She was, for some reason, untying her apron.
Truman went past her, toward the team and the colt.
“Don’t …” I said.
Truman held his hand out. He looked both commanding and ridiculous, thin and old and one sided, still, straight, and calm.
The colt shuddered away from him, blew out a fluttering snort, and snatched at grass. But when Truman didn’t move, his interest seemed to sharpen. He pricked his ears and pushed his muzzle toward the hand, sniffing.
Calmly Truman wrapped his fingers into the loose noseband of the halter. The hand looked huge against the colt’s delicate profile, against the great porcelain nostrils and the tracery of veins in the face. The colt’s eye rolled for an instant. Sinews stood out in Truman’s wrist, and the colt seemed to wilt.
“Help me with the gate, Sarah?”
They hurried down the yard, the colt sidling to avoid the dragging rope. He looked small to me, weedy and undeveloped.
Uncle Clayton got off the cultivator. He looked different, too; I couldn’t say how.
“I’m sorry … your beans.”
He pushed the apology away. “Won’t miss ’em. Want some water?”
I did. He reached inside the barn for the tin dipper and held it under the stream that flowed continually from the soapstone pipe into the water tub.
When he brought the water back, I almost reached for it. I would have sworn I caught myself in time, that I never even twitched, but it hurt anyway. My face heated with it. I felt sweat on my temples.
“Here.” Uncle Clayton put one hand on the back of my head. With the other he held the dipper to my mouth. He tilted it gently and accurately as I drank.
I looked up at his face, closer to me than it had ever been. A spiderweb of lines surrounded his eyes: squint lines and smile lines. His mustache had a kindly sweep.
The colt began to neigh. Aunt Sarah appeared, half running and pulling Whitey behind her. He plodded, and all her hurry only stretched his neck.
“Clayton, harness this horse for me!”
I didn’t like to have Uncle Clayton bossed like that. But he snapped to the task while she hurried toward the house, half running again, with an extra little skip every few steps as if she couldn’t bear her own weight and slowness.
I let my head tilt back till it rested on the hot barn boards. The world had slowed down and come into unnaturally clear focus. I saw Truman coming. I saw how old he looked, how his gait was loosened.
He went into the barn, brought out the milking stool, and placed it beside my crate, arranging it with some care. Then he sat down.
“There! Floatin’, Harry?”
I didn’t even want to nod. “Mmm.” Truman knew all about being hurt.
“You’ll be all right.”
Some quality in his voice made me wonder, and I found that by gently rolling my head to the side, I could see him.
He was smiling. D
eep in his beard, hidden under the straw hat that had tipped down over his eyes, he undoubtedly smiled. I saw his thin chest rise and fall, the undershirt limp with heat. Short white hairs curled at the base of his throat. He looked … satisfied. Amused and satisfied.
We didn’t speak. The sun pressed on our fronts, and the hot boards burned our backs. Uncle Clayton harnessed and hitched Whitey. The team ducked their heads into each other’s necks and stamped at flies.
The kitchen door banged. Aunt Sarah came carrying a carpetbag and thrust it under the buggy seat. “Can you two manage here? Take care of the milk right away, Clayton, and you’ll have to churn tomorrow. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Harriet, let me help you.” She put her arm around me, and we went to the buggy.
I couldn’t get in. Truman at least had one hand; I had none.
“I’ll give you a boost,” Uncle Clayton said. I was lifted from the waist, as I hadn’t been lifted since I was a little girl. I bumped my elbow on a strut and fell awkwardly on the seat with my hands tucked up near my chin.
The buggy sank as Aunt Sarah climbed in. She clucked to Whitey, and he heaved himself into a trot.
I couldn’t help gasping at the jolt. Aunt Sarah slowed him, and that was better, until we hit a rock. Then all the blood in my body hammered into my hands. I bit down on my lower lip. Aunt Sarah noticed even that and made Whitey walk. I held my hands up out of my lap; it seemed to keep the bumps from transmitting to them.
The main road was even rougher and did away with the floating sensation. I was right down inside my body, inside my hands and sweating brow. When I swallowed, my tongue made a sticky sound.
“Fool!” Aunt Sarah said. “Why didn’t I bring some water?” She stared intently at Whitey’s slow haunches. She could have picked me up and run with me faster than this.
We crawled down the fence line of the big pasture. I could see the house and barn, the bright copper spot that was the colt flashing back and forth, the little toy team and the toy old men. Watching, I forgot to hold in my gasp when we hit the next washboard on the road.
Aunt Sarah reached under the seat and pulled her carpetbag forward, without slowing the buggy. I watched her hand fumble with the catch. She felt inside and drew out a flow of white muslin: my nightgown and hers.