A shadow appeared at the screen door, and Obie Lee’s voice said softly, “Miz Etta . . . Miss Latrice.”
“Hello, Obie.” Glad for the interruption, Etta sprang up and went to the door, eagerly welcoming Obie inside.
Lately she had been having the absurd urge every time she saw Obie to put her arms around him, to hug him either because he looked so forlorn or because she needed to feel a hug, she wasn’t certain which. She longed terribly to throw herself at Latrice and have Latrice cuddle her as she used to do when Etta was a child. These days, if Latrice suspected Etta might hug her, she pulled back and acted strung out about it, as if that sort of physical contact was foolish.
Etta thought she might be having a sort of craving for physical contact, as she was used to it. What had been wonderful about Roy was that he was naturally affectionate and had embraced her several times a day.
Actually Roy had been given to embracing just about anyone any chance he got. Even if that was why he was at women all the time, Etta had loved his affectionate nature. She suspected Obie was the same way and would easily return her hug, but she held control of herself, afraid she might terrify him right back out the door.
Obie carried a bulging pillowcase. “I come across some down feathers, Miss Latrice. Good clean ones—my cousin give them to me. You been sayin’ you wanted a pillow for your rockin’ chair, and I thought these would make up real fine.”
His craggy face looked hopefully at Latrice. It was the third present he had brought her that week, the first being a whole ham and the second a basket of mushrooms he had taken an entire morning to hunt. Each time Latrice said nothing more than, “Thank you, Obie,” and that’s all she said now. She didn’t invite him to stay for lunch, or to at least to sit down and have coffee or a cold drink.
Etta stepped in and said, “Obie, would you like an RC? We still have quite a few.”
He shook his head, casting a glance at Latrice. “No, thank you just the same, Miz Etta. I promised to help my cousin with preparin’ his cotton field. I’d best get over there.” His lanky body seemed to fold down as he went out the door.
Etta turned on Latrice, “Why are you like this to him? He is wearin’ his heart on his sleeve for you, and you are rippin’ it right off. Can’t you be a little nicer?”
“I’m nice,” Latrice said. “I thanked him. That’s enough.”
Etta stared at her. “Obie’s a good man and would be good to you.”
In that instant she thought of Latrice going off with Obie, and her chest grew so tight she could hardly breathe.
Latrice looked at her a long moment, averted her eyes and said, "He's a good man, but he’d take too much right now. I don’t need that.”
Etta could practically see Latrice thinking: And what about you? It is one thing, you and I together. It is another to bring a man into it. See what happened before?
Etta was thinking all of that herself. She could not imagine her life without Latrice, and she was thinking: What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?
Latrice said, “I don’t want to encourage him, when I don’t know where I want it to lead. And he is a man who needs a bit of leading,” she said ruefully. “Most men do, when it comes down to it.” Then she added in a practical tone, “Besides, he is happy in his pursuit of me. It would be a disappointment to him if I began to give in.”
“Latrice, you have wasted enough time with me,” Etta said. “I don’t want you to waste any more.”
She knew, though, that she could not make it without Latrice.
“And who says I do it just for you, honey?”
Etta shook her head, while feeling relief near tears. She pushed aside the name Zetta, realizing it was only one letter away from her own name. That being the case, she doubted that it would be suitable as the name of a woman strong enough to handle needy men.
* * * *
Johnny was nipping a bit of whiskey, when Etta came out and caught him at it. That’s how he always felt—that she caught him at it—because of the way she would look at him, like she had caught him doing a disgusting deed. It seemed like every time he got ready to take a fortifying nip she appeared just to catch him.
That this time she also caught him with his pants down didn’t come to him until a few seconds later, when he noticed her blushing. He was sitting on a bale of hay, with one leg out of his pants, trying to wrap his bum knee, with time out for a sip of ol’ Jim Beam.
When he saw her, he slipped the bottle down beside him, but he didn’t know what to do about being out of his pants. He figured it would not help to jump up and try to get his leg back in and be dancing around there in his underwear and everything jiggling.
“I’m sorry,” she said, whipping her eyes straight ahead. “I came for a halter.”
“No problem.” He returned to wrapping the bandage tight around his sore knee. He imagined she had seen a man in his underwear before.
He wondered if she noticed he had rock-hard thighs.
“Maybe Latrice could help you with that. She has some good liniments.” She was looking at him again, her blue eyes wide and round.
“It’s okay. I’m used to doin’ it.”
She raised a doubtful eyebrow but nodded and left. He watched her go, walking in that way she needed for balance now, feet apart and moving from side to side in a sway that for some strange reason always drew his eye and made him quicken a little.
He jerked his gaze back to wrapping his knee, although his mind remained full of the woman he could hear speaking to the gelding in the corral.
His reaction to Etta Rivers confused Johnny a great deal. He had fallen to calling her Miz Etta, like Obie did, but in his mind he thought of her simply as Etta. Etta with the blue eyes. Etta with the silky hair the color of raw honey. Etta with the righteous temper.
The clothes she wore—sometimes a flannel shirt, sometimes a blue chambray, and always the big worn overalls and brown hat and boots—made her look like a short pudgy man from a distance. But when you got up close enough to see her face, all peaches and cream, and those big blue eyes, and smelled her scent that was like Ivory soap and sweet flowers, you could tell she was thoroughly a woman, which was the first strong thought that always came to Johnny, then was followed by something that went like: By God she’s pregnant.
Every time he looked at her, something just started squirming inside him, so that he would have to look away. The feelings he was having did not seem proper feelings to have for a pregnant woman. Most especially one newly widowed.
Johnny didn’t care to look at her belly, because he kept getting embarrassed and curious about the whole thing all at the same time. He had flashes of imagination of what caused her to get that way, and that unsettled him considerably.
Etta put him on edge, and he bet she knew it and enjoyed doing it, too.
* * * *
Each day Etta came out and watched him while he trained. Johnny found this both flattering and disconcerting. He found himself anticipating her arrival, and worrying about her sitting up on the fence in her condition. He worried that her belly might cause her to pitch forward, or backward, or that she would go into premature labor, and he would be forced into action of a sort he might not care for. Or that in his preoccupation in worrying about her, he would make an error in judgment with one of the horses and get stomped on and thereby make a fool of himself.
Over the weeks at the Rivers farm, he learned that Etta had a fondness for coffee and warm cola, didn’t read much but liked music, country and blues, that she noticed things like flowers, birds and cicadas chirping, that she liked to walk out at night—he’d watched her do this—and that she wasn’t squeamish and could handle a horse.
During his sessions of working the horses, he learned a bit more about Etta’s life, and he guessed that she learned a bit more about his.
“You ever been married, Johnny?” she asked him once.
“No, ma’am, never have.” He added, “I’ve had girlfriends.”
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br /> “Well, I imagine you have.”
There was amusement in her voice, and he felt embarrassed for having said something silly.
He adjusted his hat and walked over to rest near her in the shade of the fence. “I guess I’ve just never settled down enough to get into a position of marriage. Man who rodeos and cowboys never really is set to get married. If I had the money, I didn’t have the time to settle down. If I had the time, I never had the money. And I guess I just never met anyone I wanted to marry—or anyone who wanted to marry me,” he added.
“How long were you and Mr. Rivers married?” he asked, not certain that he should, but feeling it was rightly his turn.
She looked downward. “Six years.”
That seemed a long time to Johnny.
“Do you have any family?” she asked. “Brothers, sisters?”
“Nope . . . none.”
“I don’t, either,” she said, “except Latrice.” She added, “And soon I’ll have a daughter. Latrice says I will have a girl, and she knows these things. She has never been wrong.”
Reference to her pregnancy made him uncomfortable, so he turned his attention back to the horse he was working.
Another time when he was fixing a fence, she brought him out a glass of ice tea. He saw her coming, although he pretended surprise when she got close. He was conscious of his shirt sticking to him, and of warm thoughts about her.
“Well now, I sure appreciate you bringin’ this,” he said, taking the glass from her and careful not to look her in the eye.
“I appreciate you fixin’ the fence. You don’t have to do all that you do. That wasn’t part of the deal.”
He looked down into her blue eyes. They gazed intensely at him, seeming to ask intimate questions he wasn’t prepared to answer. He looked away across the corrals.
“Well now, you and Miss Latrice do a lot for me that wasn’t in our deal, either,” he answered. “And I guess I just like neatness. It seems a shame to let such a fine place run down. Not meanin’ any disrespect,” he added, afraid he had sounded critical of her husband.
“None taken.” She sighed and looked around. “It is a shame that it got so rundown. Roy just wasn’t much for keeping things fixed up. He liked them fixed up, but he wasn’t handy, and the past year he had trouble affording getting it done.”
She stated fact, not criticism of her husband, and Johnny appreciated this.
“Guess I’d better finish this up so I can get back to workin’ the ponies,” he said, handing her the empty glass. As he finished fixing the fence, he thought about why he was doing all this. He guessed he’d sort of been sucked into this place and the women’s lives. They had him to their table and did his laundry, and he felt he owed them something.
They needed him, and for the first time in his life, Johnny wanted to be needed.
He thought of how he’d quit going out so much nights because he’d begun to be afraid of leaving the women here alone. They had no car, for one thing, and Obie had brought that up to Johnny, as if he should keep it in mind.
“I just cain’t get Miz Etta’s car goin’,” he said and pointed out that an emergency could arise where Mrs. Rivers might need to get to the hospital. Miss Latrice maintained that they did not intend to use the services of any doctor or hospital, since she was a fully qualified midwife, but Obie contended that something could go wrong, and they might need a vehicle.
Since he did not have a telephone, Obie brought Miss Latrice a bugle. “You blow on this if’n you need me,” he told her, “and I’ll come directly.”
“We had better hope the wind is favorable should I have to use this,” Miss Latrice had said. She could have a pretty caustic tongue, in Johnny’s opinion. Obie said he liked her sass.
Johnny thought the bugle a good idea, if Obie heard it, but there was the problem of Obie’s old truck, which did not go over thirty-five on a good day. That left Johnny and his truck, and no matter how much he told himself that they were not his responsibility, he just couldn’t leave the women flat.
Besides, he didn’t really have anywhere he needed to go. Finished with the fence, he began to gather up the old planks. There were several lengths of good wood, which he intended to save. As he was passing the training pen, he had an idea.
When Etta came out a few minutes later, ready to watch him train on the horses, he was hammering in the last nail. He turned to her with a satisfied grin.
“There you are, Miss Etta. A seat ought to be more comfortable than balancin’ on that fence.”
He was satisfied that he had handled one big worry.
* * * *
Johnny walked out to where Etta was fooling with the red gelding. She was looking his way, and she watched him come, even if she did try to pretend like she wasn’t watching.
He leaned on the fence rail. This attracted the horse, who had come to learn he could get a treat of a pinch of tobacco from Johnny. Etta tugged on the lead rope to get the gelding’s attention to return to her. She forced him to circle on a longe line, snapping the end of the line to get the animal to lope.
This worried Johnny. He was afraid the horse would pull her down or maybe get excited and run over her. He didn’t know how to go about saying any of this, though. He didn’t think Etta would accept any cautioning remarks from him.
He set about rolling a cigarette but didn’t do a very good job of it, because he got so nervous and annoyed over her working with the horse that he wanted to walk off, but he couldn’t go because he was afraid something might happen as soon as he turned his back.
Finally she quit with the horse and released him. He came instantly to the fence, sniffing Johnny’s pocket for tobacco. Etta came more slowly.
“You ever gonna let me train this son-of-a-buck?” Johnny asked, feeding the gelding a bit of the tobacco. His gaze met Etta’s, and he had to grin at the mischievous light in her blue eyes.
“Maybe,” she said.
“Why?”
“What?” she said. He could tell he’d set her off balance by pushing it.
“Why won’t you let me?”
She shrugged. “Why should I?”
“Because I’m a damned good trainer, and you know it, and if you pass up my offer, you’re passin’ up a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make somethin’ out of this cob.”
“Maybe,” she said, her eyes sort of defiant.
He felt himself held by those blue eyes peering out like lights in the shade beneath her hat. Then she looked away at the horse that stood between them and stroked the animal’s neck. Wisps of hair not caught by her hat brushed her soft cheeks, and Johnny stared at them, watched them flutter against her creamy skin.
Before he even knew what he was going to do, he lifted his hand and brushed the hair back. His knuckles touched its silkiness and felt the warmth of her and it went clear through him.
She jumped and looked at him, and he didn’t know what to say. She stared at him, and he stared at her, and they were both thinking things they probably shouldn’t have been.
Then there came a shout, drawing their attention. Latrice stood on the porch, and two men in dark suits stood beside her. Latrice hollered again; she had a carrying sort of voice and a manner that made a person pay attention.
Etta waved that she’d heard. Johnny opened the gate for her, and closed it behind her. He went about the corrals, checking the water troughs that really didn’t need checking and touching the horses, while he saw Etta disappear into the house with the men in suits. He suspected at least one of them was a prospective buyer for the farm. This suspicion was confirmed when Etta and the two men came out to the barn and corrals.
Etta politely introduced the men to Johnny—a Fred Somebody, and a Somebody Fudge. Johnny wasn’t particularly interested in their names, although the second one stuck, it being so unusual. Also, this Fudge fellow looked a little more like a worker; he was a bit uncomfortable in his suit, and his hands were tanned and work-hardened.
Both men were looking
Johnny over good, and he imagined they were having all manner of thoughts about him being there, living in Etta’s barn, which they surely could see where he was sleeping.
Mr. Fudge fellow said, “You train horses?”
Johnny thought: No, I’m a rocket scientist vacationing here. He said, “Yes, sir.”
“I’ve got a few head. Might could use you.” The man was really giving him a looking over.
“I’m rentin’ this space from Missus Rivers for the time bein’,” Johnny said, wanting to make the situation clear. “If you have space, it might be best if I come over there.”
“Yes . . . well, I’ll let you know. Good to meet you.”
They went out and walked around the corrals and looked at the horses like they knew something, then the Fred fellow brought a pink and white Plymouth around from the front, and the three of them drove off down the pasture road to look at the land.
Watching the big car bounce off over the rutted road, Johnny felt low.
It wasn’t any of his business, he told himself. Wasn’t like this was his place. Maybe he had a few thoughts about it, like this would be a good place to build up a good horse outfit and a rodeo stock company. He’d thought of doing that from time to time, always at some future time down the road, when he found a place that suited him to settle down.
He would be moving on from here, though, just like he always did. He’d begun to feel restless already. Damn if he knew why he’d stayed up here this long.
These thoughts propelled him to go into the barn, where he checked out his tack. He’d been using some of Roy Rivers’s halters to have enough to go around, and they’d gotten all mixed in with his own. He sorted them and then admired how nice everything looked hanging on the walls. He really appreciated an organized tack room.
Etta was still off with the men in the Plymouth when Obie Lee drove up. He had a new-old carburetor that one of his nephews had come upon in a pile of junk cars along the bank of the Washita River. Obie went right to work on the car, and Johnny hung around to help, handing over tools Obie called for.
If Wishes Were Horses Page 13