And now here the mule was, at his place. Jake led the animal across the yard to the big pasture. Adolph, his best hand, walked ahead, opened the gate, waved the other three horses away, and closed the gate once Jake had the mule inside. Jake removed the halter. The mule stood still for a long second, then turned and broke into a wild extended trot toward the center of the pasture. The other horses trotted to and around him. He galloped away, then bucked and danced himself into a pronk. He leaped like a gazelle, all four feet together as he cleared the ground. He appeared to look around at the top of each leap.
“Wow,” Adolph said.
Jake nodded. “He’s pretty athletic.”
“You mean scary.” Though Adolph worked around horses all day, every day, he would never ride. He didn’t trust horses even a little bit. He thought mules were demons.
“Why do you say that?” Jake asked.
“Well, he scares me, anyway.”
“Scares me, too, Adolph.” Jake thought it would be foolish not to fear a twelve-hundred-pound animal.
“That Daniels woman is down by the arena,” Adolph said. “Probably has her horse out of the trailer by now.”
Jake nodded. Sarah Daniels had been bringing her fancy Hanoverian to his place for several months now and he was, frankly, tired of seeing both of them. The horse was over half a ton of brainless muscle, and the woman, nice as she was, eager as she was, could not admit that she was afraid of horses. She heard what she wanted to hear, not unlike most people. Of course Jake had never accused her or even suggested she had any fear of the horse. At hopeful moments, he imagined she would break through and become the horse person she wanted to be.
Jake took a short path through the garden. When he looked at the flowers, all he could see was work that needed doing. At the other side of the house he headed down the hill to the arena. Sarah had the horse tacked and was checking the cinch as he approached.
“It’s a beautiful day,” Sarah said. She scratched the horse’s belly. “I see you got yourself a new horse.”
“Mule.”
“Mule,” she corrected herself. “Well, Wynn here won’t pick up the turns,” she said. She had a habit of abruptly getting down to business. “And he’s picking up the wrong lead a lot.”
Jake nodded. “Lunge him a bit and get him warmed up.”
She walked over and took the lunge line and whip from the cabinet by the gate. Jake opened and closed the gate for her and she let the horse go. He kicked out and made some dust fly, then settled into a crazy trot. Jake watched his hindquarters. Sarah caught him staring.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head and waved her off. “No, he’s just loose in his caboose. Like an Arabian.”
“Is that bad?” she asked.
He was sorry he’d said anything. “No, it’s not bad.”
“Is it good?”
“It’s not anything. It’s just an observation.”
She reversed the horse’s direction. Jake watched for a while and told her that was enough. She took the lunge line off, bridled the animal, and led him to the mounting block. She walked clockwise around the arena.
“Lazy walk,” Jake called. “You’re sitting, not riding.”
The woman put her heels down and straightened her back. She exaggerated the straightening.
“You look like you’ve got a pole up your ass,” he said.
She relaxed her body, but reddened slightly. She asked for a trot. She posted around twice. The horse was big, strong, but not the most beautiful mover in the world. Sarah cranked him around again.
“You see,” she called out. “He’s late on the turns.”
As dumb as most horses are, they are never the problem, he thought. She rode past him once more.
“Tell me,” he said. “What are you doing?”
The question embarrassed her. “Trotting,” she said.
“No, he’s trotting. What are you doing?”
She stopped the horse on the far side of the arena and turned to face Jake. “What are you talking about?”
“Imagine you’re in your car, driving down the road,” he said. “Do you look at the road or your hood ornament?”
“What?”
“Sarah, you’re staring at his ears. His head is not going anyplace. It’s going to be right there at the end of his neck. You’re not watching the road. Listen, that animal can feel a fly land on his back. You weigh one hundred thirty pounds.”
“One twenty.”
“Anyway, he can feel every little thing you do up there, saddle or no saddle. He knows where you’re looking and where you’re not looking, but he cannot read your mind.”
“What are you telling me?”
“If you’re not looking for the turn, then why should he? Exaggerate it. As you come down the rail, fifteen yards before the turn, turn just your head, almost put your chin on your shoulder and see what happens.”
“I’m just trying to get his head set right,” she said.
“Forget that. Just try what I said.”
Sarah started the horse. She did what Jake had suggested and the horse smoothly moved into the turns.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“That feels great.”
“You don’t have to move your head so much. He can feel it all through your seat. Keep going.”
They finished the session and Jake left Sarah with her horse at the wash rack. He walked back to the pasture gate and watched the new mule. He had settled down and was grazing by the far fence.
Jake went inside for a cup of tea. He drank while he sat on his front porch. Beyond his garden, he could see the pasture and the mule. He looked at his poor, neglected roses. He could see the pale masses of aphids crowding the blooms from twenty paces. Sitting out here with tea seemed the only civilized thing he did anymore. He hardly ever listened to music, though he heard tunes in his head from time to time. He seldom read for pleasure these days, though he would buy an occasional book and add it to his stack. It wasn’t as if he had been devastated by his wife’s leaving or even by the fact that she had left him for another man. He was, in fact, in a way, quite relieved. They had both been unhappy, miserable, in fact, and he had been either too strong or too weak to end it, telling himself every day that he could make it right. In truth he knew it was the latter, that he was weak. The sad part was he’d become comfortable with the unhappiness, perhaps the unhealthiest of states. He was lonelier since she’d left, perhaps messier, in some ways at loose ends, but he was unquestionably happier. He was thankful to his ex-wife for that. At least she’d had the strength to leave. He did not feel the sort of shame or embarrassment his family and friends seemed to think he felt or maybe believed he ought to feel. He kept up with his work, his animals, but apparently not his garden.
“Jake,” Sarah greeted him from the bottom of the porch steps. She was wet from hosing down the horse.
“Packed up?”
“I put him in the round pen.”
“That’s fine,” he said.
She looked around the garden. “This is a great garden. I’ve always loved your roses.”
“I’m glad you do. Apparently I’m not loving them enough. I’ve got deadheading to do, powdery mildew, aphids.”
“You’re awfully hard on yourself,” she said. She sniffed a wide-open lavender bloom.
“That’s a Whisky Mac,” Jake said. “It’s the only hybrid tea in the place. That one smells just wonderful.”
“What’s wrong with hybrid tea roses?”
“Just a prejudice,” Jake said. “Like some people don’t like Appaloosas. I don’t like hybrid teas. You know why god gave Indians Appaloosas, don’t you?”
Sarah shook her head.
“He did it so they would be plenty good and mad by the time they rode into battle.”
She smiled.
“I know it’s not the best joke. Sort of politically incorrect, I guess.” He paused. “Pardon my manners. Would you like a cup of tea?�
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“That sounds nice, thank you.”
Jake left her on the porch and walked through his living room and into the kitchen. He put on the water and stood waiting. He glanced around. His ex-wife was now two years gone and still the place looked like her. He wondered briefly what the ranch house of a single man should look like. Army surplus forks and knives that didn’t match. Lots of leather, chairs and sofa. A Lucite table with barbed wire suspended inside it. He’d seen one once. The kettle called.
Back on the porch he found Sarah sitting on the top step. He sat beside her, handed her the mug. “It’s a warm day. Maybe I should have offered you something cold.”
“It’s never too warm for tea,” she said.
Jake looked at the hills beyond the pasture again.
She looked where he looked. “Not too shabby,” she said.
“I like it.”
“So, why do you like mules so much?” Sarah asked.
Jake sipped his tea. “They’re smart. I like them because they’re really smart. That trait makes them a challenge to train.”
“I thought they were stubborn.”
“That’s because they’re smart. You tell a horse to walk off a cliff, off he goes. You tell a mule to do the same thing and he’ll just look at you like you’re a fool. More, he’ll never listen to another thing you say.”
“So, what happened to your wife?”
Jake stared ahead. “That’s direct.”
“Sorry. It a nervous tic.”
“I don’t mind,” he said. “It’s refreshing. She left me.”
“Why?”
He nearly chuckled. “Because I wasn’t a very attentive husband. It seems I’m attentive in many ways to all sorts of things and not in some others. She left me because I was a lousy husband.”
“That’s redundant.”
“Perhaps.” Jake finished his tea and set down his mug. “So, what do you do when you’re not hauling that beast around and riding?”
“That’s the first question you have ever asked me that didn’t involve horses and it kind of did,” she said.
“I like horses.”
“I used to be a middle school teacher,” she said. “I got laid off. Laid off. Sounds like it should feel good.”
“And your husband?”
“How do you know I have a husband?”
“Wife? Partner? Associate? I don’t know. Somehow I imagined you attached to someone.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” she asked.
“Neither. A lazy assumption.”
“Construction. My mister is in construction.” She looked at her tea. “Do you think I’ll ever be a good rider?”
Jake shrugged. “What do you mean by good rider?”
Sarah didn’t like his answer; it was not the one she was looking for. He could tell by the way her gaze did not rise from her tea. Finally she looked up and across the pasture.
Jake glanced at his watch, measured his time for the day. “Come on, let’s go for a ride,” he said.
“What?”
“Let’s saddle up and pop some brush. A trail ride.”
“Wynn is no good on trails.”
“Sure he is. Let’s go.”
Jake rode a sturdy quarter horse he called Trotsky. He was a good hand shorter than Sarah’s big Hanoverian. They rode through the tractorway between the pastures toward the hills. The horses and the mule raised their heads to watch, then went back to grazing. They started up the slope.
“Last time I took this guy on a trail ride he balked at every little thing,” Sarah said.
“Well, it’s a different day. If he balks, he balks.”
She nodded.
“If it rains, it rains,” Jake said. “Has he ever run away with you?”
“No.” But the question unnerved her.
“That’s a good thing.”
They crested the ridge and looked down a little coulee. Trotsky sneezed. “Allergies,” Jake said.
“It’s beautiful.”
The trail was clear to see from where they stood. It meandered through low brush, disappeared into the trees at streamside, then showed itself again on the far side of the water and climbed steeply up the next ridge.
“So, what do you see?” Jake asked.
“The creek,” she said. “Wynn doesn’t like water.”
“You just sprayed him with a hose.”
“That kind of water. He hates to cross water.”
Jake stared at the creek with her for a few seconds. “How deep do you reckon that stream is?”
“I don’t know.”
“As high as my knee?”
“Not that high.”
“So, you mean to tell me that if there was a hill of carrots on the other side of that water, your horse wouldn’t cross it?”
“No.”
“He could and he would.”
“Okay.”
“Where are we looking to go?” He didn’t wait for the answer to his rhetorical question. “We’re going to the top of that next ridge.”
“Okay.”
“We’re not going to the edge of the creek. We’re not going to the downed log on the other side. I can sit here and find obstacles all day. And if I find them, so will the horse.”
“I understand.”
“I’m sitting on a behemoth with a brain the size of a Brazil nut. He can only process so much. All he needs to know is that I’m going over there.” He pointed with his chin.
“That’s easy to say,” Sarah said.
“True enough.”
He led the way down the trail. Sarah’s horse was of course more comfortable with another horse in front of him. Some clouds passed in front of the sun. They got into the trees and Jake pulled up ten or so yards from the creek.
“Let’s go around that way,” he said.
“Why?”
“Snake on a rock.”
Though she did not see the snake, Sarah’s body tensed up and the horse felt it. The Hanoverian hopped and kept hopping. Sarah lost one stirrup and nearly lost her balance. Jake watched her. He did nothing. There was nothing to do. She regained control of the horse.
“Let’s go,” he said, without pause, without acknowledging what had just happened.
Twenty yards downstream they crossed the water without incident. Jake still said nothing, but inside he was yelling at himself. He had been frightened that Sarah was going to have a wreck. Having a wreck was not a bad thing in itself, but it was a bad place to have one. He was content to let her think he thought nothing had happened. Her horse hopped a step and moved slightly to the side, but that was it.
They finished the ride without mishap. Wynn crossed the creek again on the way back. Sarah seemed better for the time on the trail. Jake helped her load her horse and watched her trailer bounce away down his drive.
He helped Adolph with the feeding and checking of the paddocks, then stood with him as he fell in behind the wheel of his truck.
“Out riding with the ladies,” Adolph said.
“I’m a player, what can I say.”
Adolph laughed.
“Is she nice?”
“I just took her out for a lesson.”
“A lesson,” Adolph repeated. “How much did she pay you?”
“You should be going,” Jake said.
“I’ll be late tomorrow. Gotta take my cat to the vet.”
Jake nodded.
In his kitchen he fried a steak the way he knew he was not supposed to and sat alone at his table to eat. He imagined he was indulging in very patient suicide. He thought about the day. He didn’t know what had gotten into him. When Sarah had said her horse was spooked on trails, he should have listened. It wasn’t the horse’s fault, what had happened. It wasn’t Sarah’s fault, nervous as she was. It was his. He’d been cocky and for that there was no excuse. He was confused by it. Perhaps he was lonelier than he imagined and so just showing off for the attention of a woman. He’d talked too much and had not thought en
ough. Luckily, nothing bad had happened. It was a bad day when you had to depend on luck.
Clouds crept in during the night and the pouring rain was a surprise in the morning. He fed the pastured animals under the sheds. He took the shovel and dug some channels to let water run out of the paddocks. The horses always managed to mound the dirt up under the pipe corrals and so the water would stand. He then went back inside to feed himself. He wanted to take the new mule out, lunge him a bit, but even if the rain let up, the round pen and the arena would be too muddy. It wasn’t possible anyway; the rain came harder. He listened to it on his roof. He ate his eggs and bacon, drank his coffee, and read the paper. He picked up a book he’d recently purchased at a discount bookstore. It was about Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. Jake had never had much interest in the Civil War, but he thought he might as well develop one. He had just understood the landscape of the battefield when the phone rang.
It was Sarah Daniels. “I’m sorry to call you,” she began.
“That’s not the best icebreaker I’ve heard,” he said.
“I know you’re busy.”
“It’s fine. I don’t know what it’s doing at your house, but it’s pouring over here. So, I’m not doing much.”
“It’s pouring here, too.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Not on the phone,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“Will you meet me?”
“Sarah?”
“I just need to talk.”
Jake looked out the window at the rain that was not letting up.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called.”
“No, no, it’s okay. Sure, you can come over.”
“No, I want you to come meet me at the Big Boy.”
“Bob’s Big Boy?”
“Yes.”
“Sarah, I don’t know.”
“I’ll treat you to an early lunch.”
Jake looked at the clock. It was ten. “Eleven okay?”
Jake hung up. He felt uneasy. He decided to combine the trip with a stop at the vet supply store so he could pick up deworming paste. Maybe he’d step into the tack store beside it and look at the saddles he would never buy.
At Bob’s Big Boy Jake sat in his pickup and watched the sun come out. He wanted to be at home instead, but things still needed more than a few hours to dry out. Later that afternoon maybe he could at least take the mule out for a walk. He glanced at his rearview mirror and saw Sarah enter the restaurant.
Half an Inch of Water: Stories Page 8