The Horseman's Graves

by Jacqueline Baker

  “Then why do you talk like that?” she said. “Sort of funny. Like your tongue is swelled up or something. Is something wrong with your tongue?”

  “I should go,” he said.

  “Why?”

  He looked over his shoulder. But Lathias was not there.

  “Because,” he said. “I just should.”

  “No. Why do you talk like that? What happened to you, that scar there?”

  He scratched the back of his neck, almost lifted his hand to brush across his forehead, dropped it instead. Then stuck it back in his pocket.

  “Did you get kicked by a horse or something?”

  He shook his head.

  “What, then?”

  He squinted at the horizon. “It was a horse,” he said, knowing he was lying but not knowing what else to say. Not wanting to speak the truth of it, maybe, not even to her. Especially to her. “A horse did it,” he said. “A white horse.” He shrugged.

  “How old were you?”

  “Four. Or five.”

  She stared at him. “Were you four,” she said, “or were you five?”

  “Four.” Was he?

  “Do you remember it?”

  “I should go.”

  “If something like that happened to me,” she said, “I would remember.”

  “I remember,” he said.

  He did not. He had been told what had happened, that he had been caught under the wheel of a wagon, that is what his mother had told him, without any more of the hows and wheres, just that, caught under the wheel of a wagon. Sometimes he said it to himself, over and over, like a chant, as if he might find sense or meaning in its repetition. Relishing the coarseness of it, the stupid horror. The banality. Caught under the wheel of a wagon. He knew that much, but he did not remember it himself, did not remember any of it, not the before, not the after. And maybe because he did not remember, maybe because to tell her anything, he must make up something, maybe because of that, he thought, If I have to make some up, why not all? Why not kicked by a horse, why not thrown from a horse, why not struck by lightning? Why not?

  And so he said, “I remember. It was a horse. I was hiding. In the stable.” Had he been? Now that he said it, it seemed true.

  “Why?”

  “It was a game. Just to see would anyone miss me.”

  “Did anyone?”

  “No.”

  “No.” She nodded. Then she said, “Not your mother?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t guess she did.”

  “I bet your father missed you. Fathers always miss their sons. If you are a daughter, they don’t miss you, only if you are a son. That’s how it is.” She pulled a blade of speargrass at her side and stuck the tender end into her mouth. “So what happened?”

  “There was a horse,” he said, feeling that, in fact, he had been there, that the horse had been there, huge and pale and shifting in the darkness. He could smell the sweet, hot, green smell of that horse, could hear it huffing into the cold air of the barn. “I was hiding there in its stall, it’s warm there, in the winter, you know. If you put your hand up by the horse’s nose it will snuff out steam and warm your hand. Kind of wet-warm, you know that feeling? And sweet, like hay when it’s fresh cut. That’s what I was doing. I heard my mother calling. It wasn’t my father, it was my mother. I thought I heard someone coming. I peeked out under the rails and there was someone, I thought there was someone out there. I backed up, so they wouldn’t see me.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then I woke up. I was in bed. There was bandages all around here.” He pointed in a circle around his head.

  “And?”

  “And … the … braucha was there.”

  “The braucha?”

  “The healer—”

  “I know what a braucha is. Didn’t you have a doctor?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. I think later a doctor came. I think he gave me some medicine. It was brown. Brown medicine. In a brown bottle. It tasted—” he almost said brown, but stopped himself in time, knowing it was stupid. “Bad,” he said.

  “You remember all that?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” He almost turned to look at her, but caught himself again.

  She frowned at him. “Okay,” she said then, something shifting in her tone—a softening, the boy thought. Was it? “All right,” she said, and stirred with one finger the pile of shards in her lap.

  She didn’t believe him, he could see that much, and it annoyed him. Why shouldn’t she believe him?

  “That’s a pretty bad scar anyway,” she said, without looking up. “Is that why you talk like that?”

  But he just stood there, wanting to leave now, but still, in spite of himself, not wanting to, either. Why couldn’t they talk of something else?

  “What are you going to do with all that glass?” he said.

  She pursed her lips and sifted a palmful of shards through her fingers.

  “Some of those look pretty sharp,” he said. “You might cut yourself there.”

  “I might,” she said, scooping up another handful. “But I doubt it. I never get hurt. Not that way.”

  “But,” the boy said, “your foot.”

  “I never get hurt,” she said again. And then, as if to prove her point, she closed a fist viciously around the shards.

  “Don’t,” the boy said, but when she released the shards and turned her palm to face him, there was no mark there, she might as well have been gripping a fistful of dandelion clocks.

  “See?” she said. Then, standing, she scooped up all the shards and flung them out to the brown summerfallow, and they both stood and watched them land in little, soft puffs of dust.

  “I should go,” the boy said, wondering what had changed, why she seemed somehow angry.

  “Go,” she said.

  “I’ll see you, I guess. On Sunday,” he said.

  “I guess.”

  “Are you getting baptized?” “No. Why would I?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why do you talk like that?”

  “I should go,” he said.

  “So go.” Then she added, “What’s in that sack, anyway?”

  SIX

  Lathias had wondered if it was a good idea, letting the boy go over there like that. Who knew how the girl would react to him? And though he’d seen Leo lurch past behind his old mule earlier that afternoon, he could return at any moment. Lathias kept one eye on the road, thinking he could ride over and get the boy if he saw Leo heading home. And, then, he did not know the mother, either. As the morning wore on, he periodically walked to the edge of the yard and looked out toward Krausses’ until, around noon, he spied the boy coming back across the field, dragging the empty sack behind him. Then he busied himself with the chores, so as not to appear as if he had been waiting, as if he had been worrying.

  When the boy walked up behind him, he said lightly, without turning, “Oh, so you’re back. Well, and how were the horses? Blackie still favouring the front left? Might have a look at him later.”

  “She wants to come with us.”

  He turned and studied the boy. “Wants to come with us where?”

  The boy looked down at the sack twisted in his hands, and then back up at Lathias.

  “To the river,” he said, and grinned.

  ——

  All week Lathias tried to think of excuses, reasons, why she should not join them. All week he watched the skies, hoping for bad weather, a sudden storm. And all week he had been picturing the boy’s face, just how he had looked, all lit up from inside, when he’d said, She wants to come with us.

  They weighed upon him heavily, those words. He felt sick to his stomach at the prospect of it, of her. And that look on the boy’s face, the pure joy. It alarmed Lathias—yes, he had to admit it—to see the boy so happy. Who knew what this girl was about? Already the boy put so much faith in her. Or, not faith, hope. She was all he talked about. And what could she want with the boy, anyway? That is what
he wondered, hating himself for wondering it. But, he reasoned, she must be lonely too, it is just company she wants, alone there at Leo’s place. And, then, they could not be so far apart in age. A year, two. Three maybe. The boy always seemed so much younger than he was. It was vaguely disturbing to Lathias to realize the boy was going on thirteen already. Almost a young man. And the girl was what, fifteen? Not sixteen yet, surely, though it was difficult to tell. So it made sense, didn’t it? It was only natural. That is what he told himself. But still, he wondered, in spite of himself, knowing it was a judgment against the boy. He was not slow, not stupid, that was for sure, but he could seem that way if you didn’t know him. The way he talked, his habit of ducking his head, looking askance at people, as if he could hide the scarred half of his face. But he was not stupid, no, far from it. Did the girl know that, could she know it?

  Already, Lathias disliked her; or if not disliked, certainly distrusted. He had half a mind to walk over to Krausses’ and see for himself what she was about. But it would be worse than inappropriate. Totally unwarranted. Absurd. And then, too, what if the boy found out he had done so?

  That is how the week passed for Lathias, going back and forth with himself, trying to dissuade his head of what his gut was telling him.

  And then it was Sunday morning and she was there in church, directly across the aisle from him. And he sat behind the boy and watched him turning to look at her every few moments, not even trying to hide his stare. And then Lathias felt he must look, too. He sat fighting it, rubbing furiously at the calluses on his palms, until at last he did look. And there she sat, face turned forward, bland and expressionless, all that red hair tucked into the collar of her dress, as if to hide it. She sat there beside Leo and did not turn to look at either of them, until, as Lathias walked back from Communion, she lifted her eyes once, so briefly he wondered later if she had really done it at all, and looked directly at him. And he said to himself, Is it for the boy’s sake that I am worried? Is it for his sake, or for my own?

  ——

  After breakfast, Stolanus leaned back in his chair and said, “And what will you two do today?”

  “We’re taking her to the river,” the boy blurted. “To the fort there.”

  Helen raised her head sharply. “Who?”

  “Neighbour girl,” Lathias put in, casting a glance at the boy. “Krausses.”

  “Krausses?” Stolanus said.

  “That one Leo brought back?” Helen said. “Do you know her name, even?”

  Lathias looked at the boy. “Rusalka,” the boy said.

  “Rusalka?” Helen frowned. “What? That’s a witch, not? Rusalka?”

  “Ach,” Stolanus said, “that nonsense.”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t nonsense. But what kind of name is that for a girl? What kind of people they must be. Rusalka.”

  “No,” the boy said, alarmed at his mother’s reaction. Would she not allow him to see her now? Rusalka. He had not known it was a witch. “No,” he said. “I was just joking. Her name, it’s Elisabeth.”

  “Well, which is it,” she said, “Rusalka or Elisabeth?”

  “Elisabeth,” he said, looking to Lathias for help now.

  Helen narrowed her eyes. “How do you know her name?”

  “I told him,” Lathias said, glancing again at the boy. “I heard. In town.”

  “And Rusalka, why did you say that, then? Where did you hear it even?”

  “From me,” Lathias said. “A story I was telling him.”

  Helen tsked, but gently. “I wish you wouldn’t do that, those stories.”

  “Yes,” he said, “you’re right.”

  “They scare him—”

  “Ach,” Stolanus interrupted. “It’s good for the boy. Put some hair on his chest.”

  “Elisabeth,” the boy said. “It’s Elisabeth. She’s not seen the old fort. She’s not even been down to the river.”

  “I don’t like you boys down there, at the river,” Helen said, as she always did, and Lathias allowed it, as he always did, though he was twenty almost, a man. “You stay away from the water. And that old fort. I don’t like it. All those rusty nails, what if he should step on one? What if a building should collapse on them?”

  “Ach, Helen,” Stolanus said.

  “There’s no buildings any more,” the boy said.

  “Then how can you tell there was a fort?”

  “There’s some timbers still,” Lathias said. “Foundations. And other things.”

  “Well.” Helen frowned. “I hope you’re not thinking of going over to Krausses’ to get her.”

  “No.”

  Helen studied them.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Sure,” Stolanus said. “And why not? She’s our neighbour. We see her in church. We know enough. She’s not a stranger.”

  “She is a stranger.”

  “And so what? What does stranger matter?”

  “I don’t like the idea of them going over there, to Leo’s.”

  “He’s not going there. Didn’t they just say that?”

  “She said she would come here,” Lathias said. “She said she would walk over.”

  “It’s good for the boy,” Stolanus continued, “get to know some other young people.”

  “Why? What is good about it?”

  “We should wait for her outside,” Lathias said to the boy.

  “That’s right,” Stolanus agreed. “She might be too shy to come to the door. You know girls.”

  “Rusalka,” Helen muttered after them, “I’d like to know what kind of a name that is, that’s what I’d like to know. You ask her. If she shows up even.”

  And Lathias thought, That’s right, she might not come at all. Why would she?

  But when they stepped out of the dim kitchen with its perpetually closed curtains, out into the overwhelming spring sunshine, she was already there by the barn, waiting.

  SEVEN

  Hair of the devil, hair of the witch, that’s what Lathias’s mother had always told him.

  “Don’t you never touch a girl with red hair,” she’d warned.

  “I don’t want to touch nobody,” he’d said.

  “Well, when you are touching nobody, make damned good and sure she doesn’t have red hair. She will put a mark on you. That is how they do it. Tools of the devil. Whores they are. And wicked as a six-clawed cat. You make damned good and sure.”

  He’d just turned away and said, “I don’t want to touch nobody.”

  That seemed like a lifetime ago now. He had no recollection of his mother’s hair being other than grey; to him, she’d always seemed old. He’d asked her once, while she sat with her sewing in the evening, a time when she always seemed more peaceful, or as close as she ever came to it, not flying around as she did during the day from child to child, chore to chore, on the cusp of a rage, asked her, “What colour was your hair?”

  And she’d stopped a minute and stared at him as if she had no idea what he could be talking about.

  “Your hair,” he said again, faltering under her black stare, “what colour was it?”

  She frowned at him and pulled a long strand from the bun at her neck, turning it slowly in her fingers by the dim light of the kerosene lantern. In that light, it glowed prettily, more silver than grey. He longed to reach out and touch it with the tip of his finger, almost lifted a hand to do so.

  But then she said, slowly, “Well. Would you look at that.” And she sat staring at it a moment. Then she put her sewing aside and looked up at him, as if she might say something. But she didn’t; she just stood and said, “It’s late. You should be in bed,” and disappeared into her own bedroom, pulling the burlap curtain shut behind her.

  Lathias never did learn the colour of his mother’s hair. Never would now. For all he knew she was long dead in her grave, ungrieved by him except indirectly, prematurely. She had died for him long ago, upon the moment of his leaving. That was how it
was when you walked away from something, from a place, from people—no bouts of mourning, just a perpetual state of grief, beginning with your leaving, with your decision to leave. Grief, though it is you who have died, and not the ones you have left behind. They go on, without you. And what is life, anyway, but one long grieving? That is what his mother had once told him. Loss after loss after loss.

  He looked across the yard to where the girl waited without seeming to wait, her long hair throwing sparks in the sunshine, and he thought, But Mother would be turning over in her grave if she knew. And then, startling himself, Knew what?

  “Come on,” the boy said, waving him over, and he realized he had been standing in the middle of the yard, staring, like a schoolboy.

  She looked up as he approached, but he barely glanced at her.

  “This is Lathias,” the boy said to her, and Lathias nodded and she nodded and then, not knowing what else to do, Lathias stepped into the corral and began saddling the two horses, the boy’s and his own. When he was finished, he led both mares into the yard where the boy stood beside Elisabeth, not speaking, just waiting, his hands jammed down into his pockets.

  “What about Elisabeth?” the boy said to him, eyeing the two horses.

  “What about her?”

  “What will she ride?”

  She stood with her arms folded across her chest, seeming not to listen, as if the conversation could not possibly have anything to do with her.

  “You ride?” he said to Elisabeth.

  “I can walk,” she said.

  Lathias handed the reins to the boy. “She can ride on with you,” he said.

  “I can walk,” Elisabeth said. “It doesn’t matter to me.”

  “Pretty far,” Lathias said.

  She shrugged.

  Lathias put his boot into the stirrup and swung himself up. “Walk, then,” he said pleasantly, and pressed his heels to the mare.

  Before he was out of the yard, he glanced behind him, to where the boy sat in the saddle, reaching down to give Elisabeth a hand up, and her ignoring the hand and hoisting herself up by putting her foot in the boy’s stirrup and gripping the cantle awkwardly with both hands. Lathias waited until they were caught up behind him and then they rode on that way, and Lathias thought, All this open land stretching out on either side of us and we ride as if we are following a path through the woods. And he thought, This is going to be a long afternoon.