If Wishes Were Horses

by Matlock, Curtiss Ann

  "Miz Alice has come to call,” she said.

  Etta surprised her by jumping right up and putting on the new dress Heloise had brought—the only one Etta could now fit into (Heloise was a very smart woman)—while Latrice put darling Kate into her best gown and booties. The three of them went downstairs, where Alice Boatwright waited regally in the tall, wingback chair.

  Etta stopped in the living room archway, gazing with sudden apprehension at the woman. She had not thought of anything but showing off her little princess; she had forgotten exactly who Alice was. Now their previous encounter came full-blown into her mind, bringing swiftly the anger and the shame.

  Then came a surge of confidence, however, with the thought: I am a mother now, sending Etta stepping out and crossing the room to show Alice the perfect treasure Etta herself had produced.

  “May I hold her?” Alice asked, her pale eyes looking upward with combined eagerness and anxiousness.

  Carefully, magnanimously, Etta relinquished her daughter into the older woman’s arms. She saw Alice’s hands with sudden clarity; they were finely drawn, veined by the years, and—most surprisingly—shaking. The lonely hands of a woman who had never held her own child.

  Etta backed up to sit on the sofa, on the edge. Beside her, Latrice propped herself on the arm, keeping one foot on the floor as if to be ready for any contingency.

  Etta watched a slow, gentle smile soften Alice’s pinched face as she gazed at Lattie Kate. She gazed at her for long minutes, rocking her back and forth, beginning to murmur baby things and actually seeming a little foolish, so that Etta and Latrice glanced wonderingly at each other.

  Alice finally said quite clearly, “She looks like my sister,” and looked at Etta. “What have you named her?”

  Etta told her, “Latrice Katherine . . . we call her Lattie Kate.” Latrice did not contradict.

  Alice tightened her lips, obviously disapproving. Looking again at the baby, she said, “Well, you will bear up underneath that, won’t you, Katherine Rivers?” She smiled. “Katherine was my mother’s name,” she added with some triumph.

  She seemed lost again for long minutes of rapture with the baby, then she said to Etta, “Won’t you please open the gift I brought her?”

  “Oh, yes . . ." Etta took the pink box. She opened it, peeled back tissue paper, and beheld a silver cup and spoon and rattle, all bearing the letter R.

  “You know you should have called me,” Alice said, her voice both wounded and accusing. “It was despicable to hear about the birth of Roy’s daughter by way of Leon Thibodeaux.”

  Etta gazed at her, thinking and swallowing each comment that came to mind, intent on keeping peace if at all possible.

  Latrice said, “Miz Alice, would you like some cake and coffee?”

  Alice’s eyes jumped. Then she said, “Yes, thank you,” and again looked down at the baby and swayed her back and forth. “You look like your daddy, too, sweetness . . . beautiful like he was when he was born. All of our family, the Richardses of St. Louis are a handsome people.”

  Observing her appreciation of Lattie Kate, Etta felt her heart grow more tender toward Alice. There were so many sides to people—a revelation that made her think of Roy and smile inwardly. She supposed she could learn to get along with Alice. She knew in that moment a sense of power over the woman. It came, she thought, from a fresh, and surprising, recognition of her own strength.

  Latrice brought coffee and chocolate cake she had just made, and Alice stayed an hour in which she alternately cooed at Lattie Kate and commented on what she had heard (apparently by way of Leon) about Etta selling the furniture and deciding to keep the house.

  “You have Katherine to think of now,” Alice said. “You really have to consider practicalities. Leon seems assured that you could get a nice profit from this place. And you can’t keep all this up by yourself, a woman alone. Besides, it would be better for Katherine in town.”

  She continued on about the better schools and the hospital being in town, and how her sister had never been happy this far from town, and that she herself believed her sister would have lived longer, if she had been closer to a hospital.

  “I think Lattie Kate will do well here,” Etta said.

  Alice’s eyes rested on her. “We own several nice rent houses in town. There’s one I think would be right for you—and Latrice, too, of course. I’m certain we can work out an arrangement where you can afford it.”

  Etta, somewhat stunned, said, “Thank you for the offer, Alice, but this is our home.”

  “You won’t need to worry about runnin' into Corinne Salyer. I had a talk with her and made her realize that it would be best for her and everyone if she moved away. Her mother agreed, and persuaded Corinne to go down to Wichita Falls to live for a while with Amy’s sister, I believe.”

  “I’m sorry you did that,” Etta said tightly. Her spine had gone suddenly rigid, her lungs compressed. “It was none of your business. Corinne had every right to remain where she was.”

  “Her rights weren’t at question. The best thing was. She would never really find happiness because people would always talk, at least for a number of years.”

  With great surprise, Etta saw Alice’s lips quiver. Then she breathed deeply. “I really was tryin’ to help. People talk for a long time about such juicy gossip, but without her around, it will all be forgotten. She’ll have a new start, and you will, too. Without Corinne there, you and Katherine and Latrice can move into town, and Edward and I would be able to help you when you need it.”

  Etta said, “I appreciate what you tried to do in my behalf, Alice. But this is our home and where we wish to live.”

  Alice simply blinked and said, “Yes . . . well, I imagine you’ll want to think it over,” and then returned her attention to cooing at the baby.

  When Lattie Kate began to fuss to be nursed, Alice finally took her leave. On her way out, she stopped and said to Etta, “Thank you for letting me see her.” Her eyes were blank as a blackboard, but there was something in her voice that touched Etta.

  “You can come out and see her anytime you like,” Etta said.

  Etta and Latrice, holding Lattie Kate, stood in the doorway and watched Alice’s Cadillac drive away—and Alice even waved out the window.

  Latrice shook her head. “Looks like Kate has turned that woman to butter . . . well, strong sour cream anyway.”

  Etta chuckled and waltzed Lattie Kate across the entry and through the house, singing, “Lattie Kate, sweet Lattie Kate, you melt hearts wherever you go.”

  * * *

  Part III -- Love Rides a Dark Horse

  Chapter 19

  Saturday came, and Johnny took Little Gus to a bush track he had heard of over in Caddo County. It was nothing more than a track scratched into a flat piece of ground owned by a farmer who also raised horses, where riders and owners gathered to race and bet and have a good time now and then. Obie went with him, and Woody met them there.

  Etta remained at home. She could not leave Lattie Kate for an entire afternoon, nor did she believe Lattie Kate, at only a week old, should yet be taken out and exposed to the sun and wind. Etta missed going terribly, though, and the instant she heard Johnny’s pickup coming up the drive, she raced out onto the porch.

  Johnny came tooting his horn, and Obie waved his blue ball cap out the window, instantly setting Etta’s heart thumping. Johnny stopped the truck, leaned his head out the window and smiled at Etta.

  “We won another, Miz Etta,” he said, his eyes twinkling like bright stars.

  This was good news. It appeared the most natural thing, too, as if the horse had been predestined for this winning, and Johnny awfully smart for seeing it.

  After putting Little Gus away in his corral, Johnny came into the kitchen for supper and waved bills at all of them, licked his fingers and counted out Etta’s share with exaggeration. She had given him twenty dollars to bet, should it turn out he could get a promising race for Little Gus. He put sixty dollars in h
er hand, so very proudly.

  “The boy’s in tall cotton,” was Obie’s expression. Etta just had to grin at him. She took his hat and put a cold drink in his hand and set a plate of pork chops in front of him. She didn’t know what she enjoyed most—that Little Gus had proved out again, or that Johnny was so happy about it.

  Obie was already telling tales of the afternoon, and Johnny jumped in with further elaborations as to how after Little Gus had won his race, a number of men had wanted to match their horses against him, but Johnny would not.

  “The less we race him, the more unknown he is, and I think we’ll do better to keep him that way. I want to save his best for some real races with good-sized purses.”

  With the added work of Harry Flagg’s four horses being stabled in the barn, Etta arranged for Obie’ s youngest nephew, who was actually named Nathan Lee Lee, to come clean stalls and help out after school each day. Johnny gave him free riding lessons, and Etta paid him a small salary, which she had to increase when Jed Stuart brought two three-year-old geldings to stable.

  Jed was the first man of the area who had given Johnny horses to break; after hearing of Johnny’s success with Little Gus, he wanted Johnny to train two of his geldings, who were bred of quarterhorse racing stock.

  “Jed told me to name a price, and I did—and he paid it,” Johnny said with such a sense of wonder that Etta had to laugh.

  “Of course he did. He knows enough to know that if he wants the best he has to pay for it,” she told him.

  He blushed bright red and looked down at the leather he was braiding.

  It was evening, the sun just setting and the warm breeze easing down. They were sitting on the porch, their feet on the top step. Etta had come out to join Johnny, leaving Obie and Latrice in the kitchen. While Obie held Lattie Kate, Latrice taught him words from the newspaper crossword puzzle. Latrice had embarked on a new project to improve Obie’s vocabulary, and Obie was set to please her.

  Etta had looked out and seen Johnny on the porch and known he was waiting for her, in the way women knew these sorts of things. As she sat down beside him and arranged the skirt of her summer dress (one Latrice had let out in the waist and tried to let out in the bosom) over her bent knees, she mused about how a woman simply knew some things and how just that day she had seemed to look up from Lattie Kate and see Johnny looking at her. She had looked right into his silvery eyes, and in that instant she had felt much more a woman than a mother.

  This had been disturbing, but not unpleasantly so. It was as if it had only just then occurred to her that she was both a mother and a woman.

  Watching Johnny’s strong, rough fingers work the leather, Etta said, “You know, I really need to start payin’ you for trainin’ Little Gus. Our deal was for you to break him. You’ve more than done that.”

  His eyes came up, and he gazed at her intently. “You start that, and I’ll have to start rentin’ corrals and stalls, and payin’ for my room and board, and then we’ll have to figure my hourly wage for doin’ occasional repairs, and it’ll just get all confusin’. I’d just as soon call it even, if you will.”

  Of course she was relieved to hear this, as she had no idea how she would pay him, but she had thought she should offer. Then she was gazing into his eyes so deep and silver, and they seemed to be saying a lot more than about the horse.

  She looked quickly away, out at the corrals.

  “Why is it so hard for you to let me do things for you?” he asked, his voice sharp and bringing her eyes around to him.

  “Because it’s frightenin’ to me,” she said at last while she smoothed her skirt tightly over her knees. Searching for the correct words, she glanced at him and saw his puzzled frown and his eyes so silvery.

  “I feel like I owe you so much,” she said. She gestured at the corrals and Little Gus with the golden sunlight shining on him. “I never would have him like he is, if you hadn’t come that day, and I’d likely be banned from Overman’s Grocery, and I wouldn’t have gone up to Oklahoma City to the pawnshops, and I sure wouldn’t have anything like it is around here—rentin’ stalls and makin’ a little money from Little Gus . . . none of it without your help. I owe you, and I’ll never be able to repay you,” she said, at last bringing her gaze back to meet his.

  He nodded, a softness coming over his face. “Well now, you’ve done a lot for me, too,” he said, thoughtfully running his gaze over to the door, up at the porch ceiling, out at the corrals. “You’ve given me a place. You and Latrice . . . well, I guess this is as close to a home as I’ve ever known. So you don’t need to let your pride get all bent. It’s even, like I said.”

  His gaze moved over her, lingering on her breasts, before returning to her eyes. Etta felt the strong urge to lean over, put her hand on his cheek, and kiss him fiercely.

  She looked away, resisting all that swelled and churned inside her. Emotions that could not be trusted—she had learned that well enough. She wanted to tell him how glad she was that he was here, and that she needed him, but that same need scared her socks off, and she wasn’t ready to trust him with her fear. She kept thinking that she would say these things, and away he’d go, or maybe come and go, or maybe stay and end up being not at all the man she had thought.

  It seemed that her newfound self-confidence was not quite so sturdy as she had believed, and this brought a gloom over her.

  She said, “I might not be able to hold on to this place, you know. Edward might force me to sell. He’s stretched the bank’s patience as it is. And likely he’ll say that I’m a woman and can’t be doin’ any of this.” The gloom deepened. If she could not hold this place, she and Latrice would be gone, and so would Obie and Johnny and his training.

  “There’s always another place to go to somewhere,” Johnny said after a long minute.

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to do that. And I wouldn’t ever get enough money to go elsewhere and get a barn like this and the corrals, and the pasture and alfalfa field.” She gazed at it all. “No, this is it.”

  “I think you might could,” Johnny said, “if we threw in together to do it.”

  Etta looked at him, startled. He kept his gaze on the leather he braided.

  “Together?” she said breathlessly, her eyes searching his tanned cheek.

  “It’s somethin’ to think about.” His voice was even and low.

  “It is?”

  He raised his head, looked at her, his silvery eyes sharp. “Well, we seem to want the same things—a house and barn and corrals, a place to raise and train horses. I’ve thought about that sometimes, but I just never had a reason to go to all the trouble, I guess. It’s not so important to a man alone.”

  “No, I imagine not,” Etta said, staring into his eyes. Her thoughts skipped around. She needed a man to help her . . . and she would lie naked with him in bed . . . He would continue to train Little Gus . . . He would make love to her . . . likely he would make decisions . . . She would have him to make repairs . . . She would have him . . .

  Johnny said, “I think we could make a go of it, both of us . . . and Latrice and Obie, too.”

  “And Lattie Kate,” Etta said.

  “That goes without sayin’.”

  Etta looked away at the corrals that were no color now as the evening got darker and cooler. Johnny returned to braiding, and Etta sat very still, feeling Johnny’s heat beside her. The scent of him, all male and musky, came strongly to her.

  After a long silence, she said, “I have this place, and this is where I want to stay. I think we might do just as well together here.”

  She listened intently and found it a little annoying that he did not answer right away. Then, to her surprise, he pushed to his feet. He looked down at her, and his face was shadowed with the twilight.

  He said, flat and hard, “This place is yours. I don’t know about fittin’ here.” Then he shook his head. “And I guess I haven’t never stayed in one place, anyway, Miz Etta, and likely you couldn’t count on me to. I gues
s it is sort of pie-in-the-sky talkin’, idn’t it?”

  And with that he walked away.

  Etta jumped to her feet and yelled after him, “Well, you seem to have been fittin’ here pretty good so far—you even said that!” and her tone was as flat and hard as his had been.

  When he didn’t stop, she went into the house, letting the screen door slam. Obie and Latrice looked at her in surprise.

  Pretending not to notice, she went to the refrigerator and pulled out a cold Orange Crush. As she opened it, she heard Johnny’s truck start. She went quickly to the door and watched his truck drive away. Turning, she saw Latrice eyeing her.

  “That was Johnny drivin’ off,” Etta said.

  “Well, I didn’t think it was one of the horses,” Latrice said.

  Obie looked edgy, as if feeling he must leave in the midst of whatever crisis had suddenly fallen, but casting regretful glances at Latrice. Etta did not think that she needed to spoil their time and told them both she was going to take a bath.

  “Would you please watch Lattie Kate while I go get a bath?” she asked Obie.

  “Well, of course, Miz Etta. I don’t want to give up this jewel until I have to.” Then he added, having become bold with Latrice’s recent attention, “I’m not as stupid as Johnny and runnin’ off from beautiful women.”

  He sought her smile, and Etta gave him one, touching his shoulder gently as she passed. When she got in the dining room, she found she was close to tears. She thought that was foolish. Tears were not going to solve any of her problems, and she really didn’t have energy for them, either.

  The entire time Etta bathed, she thought of Johnny and their conversation, which she began to wonder if perhaps she had misinterpreted. She had thought he had been asking her to marry him and move away. On further consideration, she became totally uncertain.

  He had not actually mentioned the word marriage—although she could not imagine what else he could have been saying. Two together, he had said, and he had not seemed to be speaking of a platonic partnership. He had not looked at her in a platonic fashion.