He swallowed and said, “I’d better get you home.”
Etta realized she had gone a little crazy. She nodded and tried to deal with the desire roaring inside her. It was a stunning thing to realize she could feel so strong a desire. She could not recall ever feeling this before in her entire life, and all he’d touched were her lips and her cheek and the side of her breast, both of which were beginning to feel damp.
Latrice had forgotten to turn on the porch light, and Johnny was glad. He felt the need to stay in shadow.
He walked Etta up to the door, and he just had to kiss her again, but he touched her only with his lips. As she went inside, he thought that it should help that she wanted him, too, but it just made it all worse.
He had not intended what had happened this night. He had considered kissing her and told himself that would be unwise, and the next thing he had been kissing her. It was unnerving to have gotten so carried away. It made him think he was capable of something like killing a person and not even knowing it.
* * * *
The following day, when he and Obie went to sit in the shade after helping with the final load of Etta’s cattle into one of the two-ton trucks Bill Flowers had sent for them, Johnny asked the older man how long a woman had to wait after she had a baby. The most he knew about this were crude remarks he’d heard but had never taken as actual fact, and that a mare would be brought to a stud one week after giving birth to a foal in order to breed again.
“Wait for what?” Obie asked, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. He asked the question to tease; he knew exactly what Johnny was talking about and was experiencing both amusement and anger.
“You know . . . a man.”
Johnny thought Obie was teasing, but he figured he had better be specific, if he wanted a correct answer. Even so, he was embarrassed by his lack of knowledge, and also by revealing himself so much. Now Obie would know he was both uninformed and hot for Etta. He ducked his head and focused on getting a drink of water out of the hose.
Obie waited for him to finish and look up. “That’s Miz Etta you’re talkin’ about,” the older man stated.
Johnny didn’t say anything.
Obie said, “Well, the doctor’s general word is six weeks, but I knows a lot of folks don’t wait so long.
“My second oldest brother got impatient before three weeks, and I’m here to tell you he got his wife pregnant again, purely disprovin’ that old wives’ tale ‘bout a baby at the breast keepin’ one out of the womb. So, boy, you’d best be rememberin’ that, too, and make damn sure you do somethin’ about it. Miz Etta done had enough trouble without you makin’ more. I’ll go further and tell you, you get that gal knocked up and I’ll kick your ass from here to the river, and don’t think I can’t do it.”
Johnny believed Obie could whip his ass, and he found a tale about a nursing woman not being able to get pregnant awfully farfetched, considering mares. It hurt that Obie could think so poorly of him, too, after all this time.
He said, “Obie, I’ve asked Etta to marry me.”
Obie’s eyebrows went up, then his eyes narrowed. “Did you need to know how long to wait to get married?”
Johnny shook his head. “She didn’t say yes. It’s all pretty complicated.”
“I sort of imagined that, I guess,” Obie said wryly. “Miz Etta’d have a hard time lookin’ trustfully on another man, after Mr. Roy.”
“I suppose that’s it, but mostly it’s that she doesn’t want to leave this place, and I want us to move and build a place together.”
Obie gazed at him thoughtfully. “Well, son, gettin’ Miz Etta to move from here might be a pretty good job. You’d probably do better to just settle down and, well, concentrate on just what you were concentratin’ on before. You’ll get that afore you get her to move off from here.”
Johnny thought Obie could be right. He figured Etta cared a lot more about this place than she did him. Thinking drearily of it, he picked a blade of grass and began to strip it.
He wanted his own place, and at the same time he didn’t want to leave here. But the thought of marrying Etta and sticking here sort of chilled him to the bone.
Johnny figured he was in big confusion about the entire thing.
“Would you come with me, Obie? If I can find a place, will you come partner in buildin’ it?”
He thought if he could at least get Obie to come, Etta would think of following. And he just couldn’t do it alone, in any case. If he left here alone, he’d just be drifting again.
“Ah, John . . ." Obie shook his head. “I’m gettin’ old for that kind of physical work. And ‘sides, I ain’t got much of any money to contribute.”
“You got yourself. I’ll need help, and I’ll tell you, Etta sure isn’t gonna come without you and Latrice.”
Obie looked at him a long minute. “I’ll think about it. And I appreciate the offer,” he added, his dark eyes glowing softly.
He looked at the house. “But I have to tell you, Etta and Latrice stay here, I’ll stay here. Otherwise, I might get myself on up to Okie City. I’ve been thinkin’ on that. I’ve got a brother up there runs a good barbeque joint, and he’s been askin’ me to come help expand it. I can cook barbeque.” He added ruefully, “That’s my own damn recipe for that barbeque that my brother’s been usin’ for five years now, and he’s makin’ a pile from it.”
Johnny found the thought of them all going their separate ways depressing. It seemed to him that these people had become his family. He swiftly got so depressed over it that he almost could not move. He wished very much for a bottle of whiskey and thought that when he could find the strength to stand up, he would go and get one.
Then Obie took a foot and prodded him. “Get up, boy, and go bounce your balls around on one of those horses you’re supposed to be teachin’ some good sense. Bounce around on them enough today, and you won’t be worryin’ so much about what you and Miz Etta can be doin’ tonight.”
Not wanting Obie to realize the low state of his mood, Johnny shot him a grin and got to his feet. He spent the rest of the afternoon riding hard and fast, thinking there was merit in what Obie had said and hoping to be so tired and battered come nightfall that he wouldn’t be able to think about either whiskey or what he wanted to do with Etta.
Also it was truth that a horse could generally take his mind off anything else in this world. He was a horseman.
* * *
Chapter 21
At Overman’s Grocery and the feed store and in the newspaper, Etta posted notices of boarding services and the availability of a horse trainer. She calculated the alfalfa already baled, figured what the entire season would bring, and judged how much she could safely sell. A lot of this seemed pure conjecture on her part and quite risky business. Obie told her that was the nature of farming.
“When it comes to growin’ things, Miz Etta, a lot of it is just trustin’ it will work out. It’s just that way.”
It occurred to Etta that a lot of life was lived the same way, so she might as well get used to it.
Harry Flagg bought all the alfalfa she would sell him, and then he sent around a man who rented a section of land from her to run his cattle on. Fred Grandy brought a prospective buyer around, but the man did not make an offer, and Walter Fudge held his peace.
Obie, with Nathan Lee’s help—Nathan Lee was something of an artist—built and painted a very classy sign with the silhouette of a horse in the middle, the words Rivers Stables arched at the top, and Horses Boarded and Trained below the silhouette. Below that Etta had Obie paint Johnny’s name as trainer, and they saved this as a surprise on the day they erected the sign up near the road.
Johnny didn’t react as Etta had wished, though. She stood there with Lattie Kate on her shoulder, watching his face in anticipation. But he didn’t say a word and acted as if he hadn’t even seen. She kept waiting for him to see, but he just finished tamping the dirt in around each post, then gathered the shovels and unused bag of concrete
and threw it all into the back of Obie’s battered truck, where it fell with loud clattering and thudding.
It was hot, Etta thought, and he’d had to dig one of the posts and was now pouring with sweat. She wondered if perhaps he hadn’t seen his name, had simply stared without seeing, like a person could do when they were very hot.
“Did you read the sign, Johnny?” she asked.
He looked at her then. “I saw it.” He glanced at little Nathan Lee, who was staring at him. “It’s a real nice sign, too.” Then to Obie, “You ready? I need to get back for Miz English’s lesson.”
Obie looked at Etta.
“Y’all go on,” she said. “I want to get the mail. I’ll walk
The black truck chugged away up the drive, and little spirals of dust rose behind the back tires.
Etta took her eyes from the dust spirals and looked again at the sign. Obie had done four layers of enamel white, and it shone in the sun. The deep blue, not black, lettering came from stencils to get just the right shape. Etta’s eyes lingered on Johnny’s name.
He had not seemed to be in a good humor lately, she thought. She supposed she hadn’t either. She wanted what she wanted, and he wanted what he wanted, and there was only one thing they each wanted together, and this one thing had all kinds of problems attached to it.
Lattie Kate squirmed and emitted an impatient cry. Etta shifted her from one shoulder to another, thinking that it was nearing time for her precious angel to eat. Etta at times felt like an overworked cow, although Lattie Kate had extended her time between nursing to almost three and a half hours. At five weeks of age she was growing quite fat.
Etta turned to walk toward the mailbox, but upon seeing the white Buick approaching along the highway, she stopped and waited. She was fifty feet from the driveway, but she did not trust the woman behind the wheel of the Buick—it was the Miz English Johnny had referred to, who was really named Mrs. Winslow, and her daughter Amy, come for their riding lessons. Mrs. Winslow, a very prosperous woman, drove as if she owned not only the road but the universe. Etta was certain she could, and possibly had, mowed people down and never even known it.
The white Buick turned into the drive, one rear wheel narrowly missing the ditch, and sped toward the house, while hands came out the windows and waved. Etta waved back, but the car was already halfway up the drive by then.
In the two weeks since posting her notices, she had rented boarding space to Mrs. Winslow/English, the wife of an oil geologist from Pennsylvania, and Mr. Hornbuckle, a retired farmer.
Mrs. Winslow/English had ridden as a girl and wanted to introduce her daughter to the sport—English riding, to Johnny’s annoyance, and the reason he called her Miz English. To Johnny’s further annoyance, her horses were thoroughbreds, but he sought to accommodate her, as she was not only renting stalls and buying feed from Etta but willing to pay Johnny for lessons.
Etta felt a little sorry for the daughter, who was overwhelmed by her forceful mother and also quite afraid of horses. Etta would walk out and watch through the training pen fence, and in her new capacity as a mother, she would give the girl encouraging smiles whenever possible. Johnny was very good with the child, and within her first week of riding, he’d had her gaining confidence. By her third lesson she was experimenting with letting go the front of the saddle and had taken to grabbing the horse’s mane instead.
Johnny went around asking people what they knew about English riding, and each night he sat at the kitchen table, poring over books about it and discussing his findings with Etta, who was not a lot of help, for she knew nothing about English riding. She read with him, however, and sought to boost him as much as possible.
Etta glanced at the mail she pulled from the box. Right on top was an envelope from Mr. Hornbuckle. His first payment for boarding his old mare, Etta thought appreciatively.
Mr. Hornbuckle was an elderly man who’d brought his beloved gray mare to Etta’s stable when he recently sold his country home and moved into town. So far he came every couple of days to visit the mare but had ridden her only once out in the pasture.
They still had two stalls in the barn Etta would like to fill, and just that day a man had telephoned from up in Canadian County, asking to speak to Johnny about taking on a racehorse he had that had been crazed by a barn fire. It appeared that Johnny’s name as a trainer was spreading.
Etta was excited and pleased for Johnny, but she was rather unsettled for herself. It appeared that their relationship was in great question, neither of them certain of what move to make.
Twice more Johnny had brought her wildflowers, and she had baked his favorite peanut butter cookies. They had gone on short dates, into town to get ice cream or cold drinks, a drive to a ranch to see prospective colts for sale.
On occasion they would touch. His hand might brush hers as she handed him a glass of ice tea, or she would lay her hand on his shoulder when passing behind him at the table, or his shoulder would press hers when he came up beside her at the corral fence.
Once he had kissed her there at the fence. They had been standing and talking about purchasing breeding stock. Their eyes met, and Johnny leaned down and kissed her, swiftly and touching her only with his lips. Another time she had gotten carried away when they were alone in the kitchen, and she had leaned over his shoulder, looking at something in one of his books, and the next thing she had been kissing him.
They had not, however, spoken another word about getting married or what was going on between them.
Time and time again she would find him looking at her with his steely gray eyes. He seemed to be waiting for her. She knew he wanted her. She wondered if he still wanted to marry her. Was he waiting for her to say she would go with him? She wouldn’t, and this made her very sad.
That Johnny would leave had become one of Etta’s big fears. She had seen him scanning the real-estate section of the classified ads. One morning he had brought the paper to breakfast, and she’d seen an ad circled when he’d left the paper by his plate. It was for a small farm down in Cotton County, house and hay barn on a half-section of land. He had wanted her to see the ad, of course, and she had carefully pretended not to see it.
She realized, though, that if he did leave, she would be heartbroken.
Having her heart so thoroughly broken by Roy made her terrified; she thought she might die if she got her heart broken again. This fear had opposing effects on her, causing her at times to reject all her feelings for Johnny, and at other times causing her to want to throw herself at him, do anything to make him stay.
Then she would get hold of herself and realize she was reacting to the situation in a manner similar to the way she had with Roy. She knew that way she would lose herself. Much larger than the fear of Johnny leaving and causing her to have a broken heart was the fear of losing the self she was at last finding.
She walked up the tree-shaded driveway and let herself in the front door. It was cool in the living room, with windows providing a pleasant cross-breeze. She sat on the sofa to feed Lattie Kate and look through the mail. The bills were fewer these days. People were smiling at her now when she came into their stores, asking her how she and Lattie Kate and Latrice were getting along.
They were getting by, just barely, but they were not paying off the mortgage. Etta tried not to worry over it, most especially when she nursed Lattie Kate.
She came to a long white envelope—from Robert Lamb, the estate liquidator. She tore it open, and a check fell out onto Lattie Kate’s belly. The next instant the breeze lifted the check and seemed to wave it in the air in front of her face, before depositing it on the couch beside her. Etta smacked it with her hand, then lifted it and looked at it, then at the note accompanying it.
Clutching Lattie Kate to her breast, Etta jumped up and ran to the kitchen.
“The bedroom set sold,” she told Latrice, who was altering an old dress of Etta’s. “It sold for three thousand dollars!” She tossed the check down in front of Latrice.
&
nbsp; “Well, that Robert Lamb is a sweet-talkin’ man.” Latrice gave the check a highly approving look.
“Are you gonna put all the money on the mortgage?” Latrice asked, after Etta had dragged over the rocker to finish nursing Lattie Kate, who had properly thrown a hissy fit about her meal being interrupted.
“No.” Etta shook her head thoughtfully. “If I’m gonna start raisin’ rodeo stock, I’ve got to buy some.”
Latrice looked at her. “You take some of this and you save it in the bank for an emergency.”
“What do you think we’re livin’, if it’s not an emergency?”
“You put some aside, for the rest of your life, so that you don’t ever get stuck again,” Latrice said. “So that you can feel a slice of freedom.”
Looking at her, Etta said, “You’re right. I’ll put some of it aside . . . but I’ve got to buy some breeding stock.”
For an instant her thoughts flashed back to the day she had been told Roy had died. It seemed so long ago, much more than months she could count on her hand. She saw herself, how frightened she had been, cowering in her bed and fearful that her entire world was crumbling around her, which it was. It had crumbled and it remained that way.
Her position was not greatly changed. She was still trying to hold on to her place and provide a home for herself and her child and Latrice. What had changed was herself.
Latrice spoke of putting money away for a bit of security, but Etta thought the only true security a person had was in her ability to cope. One could not prevent sadness or tragedy from coming into one’s life, and one could not help but make mistakes, too, which seemed a quite frustrating fact of existence. One could, however, develop the ability to cope with it all.
Etta felt she was at last getting ahead in learning to cope. She rocked Lattie Kate at her breast, and Latrice finished her sewing and took up the Sunday paper, which she had not gotten to read on Sunday, and read aloud items of interest, which she and Etta discussed in soft voices, laughing now and again.
If Wishes Were Horses Page 30