We walked toward the city together, perhaps to our death. The sun warmed our back and the wind sang in our ears as we did.
Chef 's Choice
The Blood Bay
Edward M. Erdelac
Jonas stood with his foot on the bottom rail of the breaking pen fence between Clem and Panos, watching Henry bust a three-year-old appaloosa the afternoon his daddy, Famous Fallon, rode up with the bay mare strung behind.
Famous had run out on Jonas’ mama when he was four years old and it drove her to drink. She’d often told him this, and his Grandma said it was so.
They’d lived at Grandma’s outside of Bisbee after that. Whenever Jonas and his mama went into town for sundries, Grandma gave them extra money to buy two cans of peaches to sip. Peaches were mama’s favorite. Jonas never did get to taste them though, as mama always spent all the peach money at Skinner & Dunn’s Saloon while he waited outside on the boardwalk.
Davey Murdock at school said two cans of peaches didn’t buy half the whiskey Jonas’ mama drank. He said things about how she paid for it. The teacher hided Jonas with a switch for blacking up Davey’s eye.
Sober or drunk Jonas’ mama never missed an opportunity to badmouth Famous Fallon. Grandma said Famous had left mama for a whore soon as his business begun to pay off, trading her away like a steady mare for a flighty show filly. It was an apt expression, him being a horse trader and all.
Last March when Jonas turned eleven, his mama left him dozing in the shade in front of Skinner & Dunn’s. He woke to find her chasing a man, cussing him in the foulest language he’d ever heard.
The man didn’t turn around and mama went after him into the street, heedless of the mail- man’s buckboard that ran her down, mashing her up till only her blue striped dress held her together.
Jonas’ Grandma toted mama’s share of hate for Famous after that. She cursed him as they knelt at their bedtime prayers and whilst saying their grace, clutching Jonas’ small hand till her horny fingers left white marks on his knuckles and ireful tears washed the deep lines in her cheeks.
Grandma told Jonas that Famous had hired that mailman to run mama down. She said the drunkard mama had chased into the street used to pimp that yellow headed whore Famous had married.
"They planned it," Grandma would wail in a cracking voice. "They planned the whole thing." Hate ate Grandma up, some said. Jonas found her lying gray and stiff on the floor of her bedroom one cool morning two months later, a little spider spinning in her ear.
A neighbor wrote Jonas’ daddy and Famous came to get him.
Jonas and Famous sat across Grandma’s kitchen table where they had prayed his stock would die. Famous told Jonas he had stayed away on account of mama and Grandma, not out of any lack of affection for him. He told Jonas he was taking him back to his ranch, that he was going to do all he could to "shore things up betwixt them."
Jonas just sat there, the edge of the tablecloth bunched up in his fist, hating him enough for three.
So Jonas came to live on Famous’ horse ranch on the outskirts of Delirium Tremens, in the San Pedro River Valley. Famous’ pretty yellow headed wife, Claire, was as kind as could be to Jonas. Jonas figured she had learned courtesy in her whoring days.
No question, Jonas hated Claire and Famous Fallon.
He liked the ranch, though. He liked the open air, and he liked school and the preacher’s daughter, Carrie Shallbetter. He liked the men who worked for Famous, Clem Dobbs, Henry DuMotte the flash rider, and the old Greek stable hand, Panos, whose three gold teeth twinkled when he laughed. And he loved the horses.
Because he took to his new home so much, Jonas felt guilty when he thought on mama. She was over him always, like the spider in Grandma’s ear. At night his dreams were full of iron tires, blood and blue stripes.
"Here comes your papa," Panos said to Jonas. "Lady Missus!" he called to the house.
Claire emerged from the doorway, rubbing her hands on her apron and kicking dust across the yard.
Jonas’ stepmother was prettier than his mama, he had to admit, with her sunny smile and spun gold hair, and her buttermilk white skin dashed with freckles. He had never heard her cuss, nor seen her take a drink. For an ex-whore, she was pretty virtuous.
Show filly, he could still hear his Grandma hiss, like a nagging ghost. Planned it.
Famous’ gray, Lily Belle, was unusually skittish. She frog walked through the gate, snorting the whole time.
Famous swung out of the saddle and passed Clem the rope of the strange horse he was leading.
"Watch this one," he said, meaning the bay. He stooped to kiss Claire’s cheek. "She took a nip at Lily Belle’s tail on the road."
"Where’d you get her?" Clem asked.
"Up at Nearly’s," said Famous. "’Wandered out of the desert so far as Jane can figure. She couldn’t get her to eat and the stage ponies won’t take to her."
Jonas looked at the horse appraisingly. He feigned only mild interest, as he did whenever
Famous was talking.
She was a dappled blood bay fifteen hands high with black points and strong slate hooves. She had a broad white blaze across her nose and a skunk-like rabicano salting of white hairs in her mane and broom tail. Her right eye was pale blue, the other coffee dreg brown. She was no youngster, but she seemed spry, if a little bony.
"What do you figure on doing with her?" Clem said. "She’s too old to sell."
"Dunno about her being that old," said Famous. "She’s ornery as all hell." He looked at Jonas. "I thought I’d give her to you, if you can get her to eat."
Jonas looked at Famous. Clem, Claire, and Panos swapped glances over his head and then did the same.
"Well, why not?" Famous said to them."He’s frying size. ‘Bout time he had a horse of his own.
‘Be good for you," he said to Jonas.
Jonas looked at the mare with new interest. Her head loomed over him, rendered a shadow by the noonday sun burning between her ears like a saint’s halo. It flushed the black from her salt and pepper hair, painting it glorious gold. The thought that she might be his twittered him up.
When Famous and Henry had eased a steaming new colt out of one of the mares last spring, Jonas had expected that colt would be his, but it caught the strangles and Panos had to put it down along with the mother. He hadn’t thought much about having his own horse since then, figuring the opportunity wouldn’t arise again within the year.
"You sure that’s a good idea, Mr. Fallon?" Panos asked, looking at the horse."You said yourself she’s part outlaw…"
"Well, I figure Henry’s at hand to break her of any bad habits. Anyway, its better the boy’s first horse knows a little more than he does."
"Who was her last owner?" Claire asked. "Do we know?"
Jonas could hear the motherly concern in her tone. It wore on him. "I don’t think anybody’s gonna come lookin’ for her," Famous said.
"Why not?"
"Well," he said, rubbing his own ribs as if to work out what came next, "there was a saddle on her when they found her. It was bloodied up pretty bad."
Claire sucked in her breath. Jonas gaped at the horse.
"I figure ‘Paches done for her last rider," said Famous. "That bother you, son?"
Jonas stared into the horse’s bright eye, wondering whether she had seen her owner die same as he had seen his mother go.
"She’s still a good horse, Jonas," he went on. "But if you’re not keen on the idea…" "I ain’t afraid," Jonas snapped.
"No reason you should be," Famous allowed. "Honey…," Claire began, in a worrisome manner. Famous rubbed her shoulders and winked at Jonas. "It’ll be alright, sweetheart," he said.
Henry was trotting around the pen on the tame appaloosa, all broad smiles beneath the brim of his Stetson.
"I didn’t put on enough of a show for you all?" he called. "Next time I swear I’ll fall and bust my arm at least."
"You’d do that just for the attention wouldn’t you, Henry?" Clem said.
"Don’t be sour, Dobbsy," Henry said. "Anytime you want a lesson in peelin’ I’ll be happy to oblige."
"Come over here, Henry," Famous called. " Take a look at this horse I brang Jonas."
Henry clicked his tongue and eased over toward the fence. The once feisty three-year-old rode docile as a dog now. Henry took off his hat to wipe the sweat from his bleach white forehead and guided the appaloosa with one hand. Had he been using a surer grip, he might have saved himself.
As the horse reached the fence, the bay mare turned her head to regard it. The appaloosa snorted and fought the bit with a wild shake of its head that jerked the reins from Henry’s hand. The next minute he was scrambling for the saddlehorn as it wheeled about and bolted, bucking wildly.
Henry strained to reclaim the reins, but the crazed horse hit the snubbing post in the middle of the pen with a crack, so hard blood spewed from both nostrils and ears.
Henry sailed over the horse’s poll, his neck snapping when he hit the ground. He lay twisted like a wrung rag, just as Jonas’ mother had looked when the dust settled in that Bisbee street. The appaloosa slumped to its knees, its brains glistening through the fissure split behind its forelock.
Claire screamed and clutched at Jonas protectively. He pushed her away.
Everybody blamed the bay mare except for Jonas, who wanted her, and Famous, who wanted him to have her. Jonas was too young for such a wild animal, Claire said. Panos said the horse was bad luck, and pointed out some ill omen whorls under her neck, saying they were a sure sign of it if Henry’s death wasn’t. He said he would have nothing to do with her and made it plain he hoped she would starve. Clem allowed that it was just a bad accident, but agreed that the mare would have a stigma on her as everybody liked Henry. Word traveled fast how he’d died.
It was the biggest funeral anybody in town had ever seen, full of weepy women in black mantillas and bleary-eyed nighthawks from outfits nobody had heard of. It made Jonas think of his mama’s service. The sole mourners there had been himself, his Grandma, and the minister preaching the evils of whiskey over her shoddy coffin. Famous hadn’t showed. Not even the mailman or the fella she had chased into the street ("’Proves what I told you," his Grandma had whispered to him during the hymn, squeezing his fingers numb.).
Carrie Shallbetter made eyes at Jonas across Henry’s grave while her daddy read from the Book, but all Jonas could think about was getting home to see the bay mare. She hadn’t eaten any of the feeds they’d tried to give her. After two days of nothing but water she was wasting away.
When they had left for the funeral that morning, the mare had been tied to the snubbing post. While he stood waiting for Famous and Claire to come out, Jonas had heard a scraping sound, and turned to see her stroking the post with her tongue, licking at the dark spot of dried blood where Henry’s appaloosa had knocked its brains out.
After the service, Jonas took the bay mare into the stall in the bronc stable and tried licks, thinking maybe it was salt she was after for some reason, but it was no use.
"Eat something," he moaned. "You gotta eat something, girl. You’re the only friend I got here." He meant it just then. He felt betrayed by Clem and Panos for wishing his horse dead and he sorely missed Henry. A lot of times when they’d walked the horses around the corral to get them used to the bit, Henry had promised he would teach him to break outlaws one day. That would never happen now.
Jonas felt bad for not crying at Henry’s funeral. He’d been too wound up about the mare. He hadn’t cried at his mother’s funeral either. Though his Grandma had been fit to be tied, Jonas had buried his face in her shoulder and only pretended to weep. When they threw the dirt over her, he’d been thinking of the minister’s words against whiskey and the man she’d chased into the street and the things Davey Murdock had said about her. In that moment, Jonas had almost hated her.
He kicked one of the pails of water and sent it crashing against the wall. "Stupid goddamned horse!" he hissed.
Where the pail landed in the corner, a lean rat had been hiding under a pile of straw, hungrily ogling every grain of uneaten oat. Since the pail cut off its escape route along the wall, the rat dared the middle of the floor, taking a direct path to some hole it’d had the foresight to gnaw in the back of the stall.
The darting rodent scuttled across Jonas’ boot and under the stall gate. Jonas was afraid it would startle the mare into hurting herself, but when she sighted the sharp nosed rat, her left fore hoof came up and stomped it squarely in the middle of the back. It convulsed and squealed. The mare kept her hoof planted firmly as a cat’s paw and the rat squirmed pitifully.
Jonas had never seen anything like it. The mare pinned the rat until its flopping and squeaking gradually waned. In about a minute it was dripping pellets, dead. Then she lifted her hoof and anxiously moved about the confines of the stall, alternately bumping her rump on the wall and banging the gate with her head.
Jonas thought she was trying to dip down and nose the dead rat out, or kick it away. Panos had told him horses didn’t usually care to keep company with dead things.
"Here," he coaxed, grabbing the pitchfork and getting on his knees. "I’ll get it."
The mare laid her ears back and snorted. She whinnied and worked herself into a frenzy as Jonas gingerly tried to get hold of the rat. A few times her hooves struck aside the prongs, but he managed to drag it out.
He laid the pitchfork against the wall by the door and picked the rat up by its tail. He was about to toss it across the yard for one of the stray dogs when the mare began to batter her head so violently against the gate that it rattled on its hinges.
"What is it, girl? What do you want?"
The mare only shrieked and bucked all the more, straining against her confinement. Panos and Clem were right. She was too crazy to be ridden. She’d never be his. Angry tears leaked out of the corners of Jonas’ eyes.
"You stupid jughead! You know what’s gonna happen to you now? You know what they’ll do?"
The horse’s multicolored eyes bulged. She rammed the gate again, and her stripy mane whipped about like long grass swept up in a tornado of fire.
"They’ll butcher you up for glue and bar soap!"
The mare banged against the stall door again. A thin cut opened in the middle of the white blaze, red as a new day rising.
Jonas felt something warm on his leg. The rat had bled out onto his jeans while he held it. "Goddammit!" he cussed, looking at the dark stain.
The horse looked about to explode, her neck stretched over the gate, straining. Blood was dripping down her nose now.
"Here!" Jonas screamed. "Here, you stupid bitch!"
He whipped the rat straight at the horse’s face. Instead of bouncing off her broad forehead, the mare threw back her neck and caught it in her teeth like a dog snatching up a cast off soup bone.
Immediately she stopped thrashing and her mouth began to work, noisily grinding the rat to meal between her big teeth. Blood spilled over her smacking lips.
Jonas watched, fascinated. She wolfed the whole thing down in a matter of seconds, tail and all.
Famous and Clem came rushing into the stable. They had been across the yard cutting out a string of ponies they were taking to the Bisbee auction in a couple days.
When Famous saw Jonas’ leg and the blood on the bay’s muzzle, he told Clem to get his gun. "No!" Jonas said, his brain working fast. "No, there was a rat! It scared her, is all! She banged her head on the stall and cut herself up."
"What happened to you?" he demanded, coming over. "Nothing," he stammered. "She didn’t bite me. It’s rat blood."
Famous crouched down and checked his leg. Satisfied there was no tear in his pant leg or a wound beneath, he ruffled Jonas’ hair and looked back at the horse.
"Jonas," he started, "this horse…." "I got her to eat."
Famous looked at him sideways.
"Really. I did. She just needed to calm down. She was doin’ fine till the rat showed up.
" Then, taking a breath, he started toward the stall. "Look."
Famous drew him back by the wrist. Jonas pulled away.
"No, look!"
He went to the stall gate, staring into the wild blue eye of the mare.
If you’re gonna be mine, it’s got to be now, he thought. If you just wanna be an ornery bitch, I can’t help you.
There was another pail of water nearby. He dipped a rag in and raised his hand.
Don’t you bite me!
He slowly, gingerly touched the cut on her forehead with the rag, dabbing the blood.
She submitted to the attention, and even went so far as to make a pleased sound deep in her throat and nuzzle his hand.
"Well goddamn," Clem said, shaking his head.
Famous smiled and looked at Clem as if to say he had told him so.
"Alright," said Famous after a bit. "Claire’s just about got supper on. You come into the house and get washed up. Clem’ll finish up with that."
"I wanna do it," Jonas snapped over his shoulder. Then, easier, "Please…daddy?" It had the effect he wanted. He could practically feel the man glowing. "Alright…son. Don’t take too long. Come in when you’re finished."
"I’ll bring you something for that cut," Clem said. The two men turned to leave.
Famous stopped.
"How’d you manage to do it?" Jonas shrugged.
"She just needed time."
"I guess," said Famous, nodding to himself as he left. "Sometimes the horse picks the rider."
~
Every night afterwards, Jonas dreamed of the bay mare.
He dreamt she was one of three who pulled the rich chariot of an old time king. The king dropped tangles of wailing babies, the children of his enemies, into a bloodstained manger. Their mothers screamed as the ravenous horses dipped their long faces like pigs at a trough.
He saw a man all in lion skins pull the king down and throw him to his own horses. He awoke screaming, feeling the horses gnawing his own guts.
Another night he dreamt he saw the animals galloping free across wide, green hills. He saw, or he was, a soldier in bright bronze and leather, picking out the bay mare as the best of the bunch, roping her for his own. She pulled his chariot then. He dragged the bloody body of a hated enemy (in Jonas’ dream, it was Davey Murdock) around and around a corpse-strewn battle- field before a huge, walled city.
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