by Alex Cord
Jesse nodded.
As Ruby told of the violent act that took their son, Bear sat silent, sad-eyed, pain-wracked stone, till he caught Jesse’s glance and smiled wanly. Ruby went on to express their gratitude for having had their son for the time that they did, and to tell how fortunate they were to have “the most beautiful and talented daughter. And she’s just come home from her life in the big wide world to be with us for a while.”
16
Larry Littlefield
He turned off the paved road at Florissant into a dirt road maze through the alpine mystery of the Front Range. Round a bend, a lush meadow billowed where a band of horses arched grazing with a pair of mule deer does and a fawn. At the distant end of the valley, Pike’s Peak, snow-capped and bronzed by sun-wash, jutted toward the heavens.
Barely discernable among the thicket of conifers and aspens stood the beginnings of a Gallus gate, two peeled upright cypress poles, ungated and wanting a crosspiece at the top. He turned in through a forest corridor bordered by an incomplete cypress fence. About an eighth of a mile through the trees, things opened up. He could see the house and barn. The pond across from the house mirrored a stand of black, spear-pointed spruce, a flock of ducks painted on the still water. A pair of tepees stood white against the green meadow next to the pond.
Larry was at the hitch-rack in front of the barn pulling a saddle off a horse as Jesse walked up. He turned smiling, flung the saddle on a rail, and came to Jesse. He shook his hand, eyes atwinkle, saying, “Goddamn, it’s good to see you.” He introduced Jesse to young Roxanne. She was tall, strong, kind and gentle and was to Larry pretty much what Abbie was to Jesse. Reaching for a snaffle bridle, he said, “Why don’t you get on that buckskin there. I want to ride this colt up in the hills a little bit. This ol’ vet I know bought him and he’s a little too much for him so he dropped him off here for me to work him for a while. I’d like to trade him out of him. This is a pretty nice colt.”
That was non-stop Larry—riding horses, training, trading, running a business, emceeing a charity event, and hosting people he didn’t even know, and he did it all with a kind of offhanded ease. His wife, Rosie, and their ten-year-old daughter, Linda, were in the house cooking for the twenty or thirty people who were expected tomorrow.
Larry led the way at a trot across the meadow behind the barn. They rode over a rise through a stand of aspens and sage, then down a slope alongside another alpine tarn dotted with ducks. They kicked up into a lope. The colt flung his heels in the air like a whipcrack. Larry looked back at Jesse and laughed. Hell, he was six times world’s champion cowboy; this colt would have to get up pretty damn early to worry him. The trail stretched out in front of them for quite a ways over rolling meadows. Pretty soon they were side by side at a canter, then a gallop, and then the race was on. The buckskin was big, powerful, and could damn sure cover some ground. The colt, light and airy, possessed the competitive aggression of youth, and plumb refused to let the big buckskin nose ahead. Jesse gave himself up totally to the charge until he could no longer tell where he ended and the horse began. They breathed as one. The same pounding heart seemed to serve them both. Jesse was rooted in the buckskin’s being. He glanced down at the spinning grass and flashing hooves reaching forward pulling the earth to him as if to accelerate the rotation of the planet. They flew over the trail like warring Comanches whooping and hollering, laughing like loons, wind whipping tears from the corners of their eyes.
They cut off the trail and crossed country where the footing became less commodious. Still blowing from the run, they picked their way over the rocks to a promontory overlooking the ranch. They stepped down and loosened the cinches. The horses took up the slack with swelling sides and lowered their heads to the slim pickings between the rocks. Jesse and Larry hunkered on the gray ledge.
The silence of the woods and the valley below was deep. They sat without words till a wind rustled and a cloud mass blotted the lowering sun casting streaks of bronze and purple through the trees. Jesse spoke, as if his voice had rusted, “Every which way you turn on this place, you’re lookin’ at a postcard.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a real fondness for this country,” answered Larry as he reached into his stained vest pocket and came out with a thin silver flask.
Jesse pointed off at the distant mountains. “Look at that light.” A thin silken sash of violet strung between two peaks binding them one to the other. “Makes me wish I could paint.”
“You could paint my barn.” Larry held out the flask. “My dad brought this up from Arizona. Some old teamster makes the stuff in his barn. Tell you what, I think it’s better than Wild Turkey.”
Jesse took a mouthful and swallowed. “Damn.” He handed it back to Larry who did the same and then gave the flask to Jesse again. And so it went. There seemed to be in the silence between them a license to communicate in thoughts and feelings as roadmaps for words. Larry pulled off his sweat-darkened hat and scratched in his hair that was longer than cowboy culture would dictate. Larry was always his own man. Finally, he spoke. “So how you doin’?” He turned his head and peered with ice-blue eyes, inquisitor-like, straight into Jesse’s face. “How are you really doin’?”
A huge feeling had been gathering in the privacy of Jesse’s heart. It took a while, but before he knew it he was talking like he’d never done before. “You know what…Meeting those folks Bear and Ruby. She got me going, telling me about her son…she talked about it so easy. Made me realize what I’m holding inside. Sometimes, I feel like I’m gonna explode… other times, I feel like I’m dead.”
Larry handed him the flask. “I left you a drop, hell, you’re a guest.”
Jesse emptied the flask. “I have to remind myself to breathe. Sometimes I just quit breathing.” He filled his lungs with Colorado Rocky Mountain air and slowly let it out. He turned over the flask and absently shook it. “I can’t help thinking I could’ve been smarter. Seems like I should’ve been able to…prevent it.”
“Well, you know that’s not true.”
“Still it seems like I…like I could’ve…done more…” He laid back, adjusted his head on the rock, pushed his hat over his face and spoke into the hat. “I used to smile a lot. Now, I have to remind myself to smile. I’ve lost my fire.”
“It’s gonna take time…you probably never get over it.”
“I swear to God, sometimes I feel…sometimes I feel like I could just fold it all up…real easy.”
“How do you mean?”
He handed the flask back to Larry. “I don’t know. Just…kinda quit. It’s like I lost that fighting edge. And yet let some son of a bitch look at me about halfway cross-eyed and I’m likely to offer to tear his head off. I’ve never been like that. I’m gettin’ to be a cranky bastard. It’s a mighty wonder anybody’d want to be around me.”
“Well, you know I never did care for you much myself. So I can’t say as I see all that big a change. You got a woman in your life?”
Jesse shook his head.
“You got too much venom in you, son. You need to do some horizontal two-steppin’. A man can’t live on floggin’ yer mutton alone.”
“I’ve been around for more than half a century…and I’ll tell you what. I don’t believe I’ve ever been in love. Not really. No, sir. And you know what? I don’t believe I’d know it if it bit me in the ass.” He uncovered his face, sat up, and squinted off at the changing light. With the flamboyant paintbrush of sunset came a sudden brief downpour to rinse the day.
17
Holly Marie Bassett
Larry was out of the tepee pissing before the sun came up.
“Goddamn, son. You gonna sleep all day?”
Jesse knotted up in his bedroll. “Hell, man, it’s dark out there.”
Under a marbled sky in a chilled morning mist, they gathered a mixed herd of Herefords and Brahmas and drove them into the pole-fenced arena that looked like it’d been there since 1896. Roxanne rode down from the barn trailing a string of horses to
be worked and some for the guests who wanted to ride
Larry was a warm and generous host, just not long on formality. He’d ride over to the fence and shake hands, then go back to cuttin’ or turning back cattle for Jesse as they worked several horses.
Bowls of pasta, salads, beans, bread loaves, and rolls covered the big wooden table in the house. Out on the porch, a home-welded barbecue spewed plumes of chicken and beef-scented smoke rising to the rafters. Among the porch group scattered around tables, benches, and railings were the CEO of an airline sponsoring the event and his young son, neighbor ranchers, a veterinarian and his cowgirl wife, a TV star and his actress wife, two more actors, a lady country western star, and Bear and his wife Ruby. Digger and Brantley, unshaven Texas Rangers who’d stopped on their way back to Texas from a hunting trip, were tending the meat.
A galvanized tub filled with beer, soda pop, and ice stood against the wall. Larry fished out an armload of Coors and passed them around. Jesse and Larry greeted Bear and Ruby who jumped up and gave them each a hug, shining her smile on them.
Jesse was standing at the barbecue with Digger and Brantley when he heard the screen door behind him open and shut. He made the slightest movement with his head and turned. Then he turned back to the fire. His head snapped back to the door again. She was carrying a plate of food and looking for a place to sit. She wore Wranglers, boots, a good black hat, and a pale blue silk shirt, shy and tentative about the way it contacted her body. With the help of a light breeze it would touch her breasts, cling for a second, then flutter away. She focused on Bear and Ruby and walked toward them. Even in the smallest movement there was something hauntingly familiar about her and yet he knew he’d never seen her before, or anyone remotely like her.
She squeezed in next to Bear who was in an intense discussion with the airline executive, and balanced the plate on her knees. Bear stopped to introduce her with customary paternal pride. She smiled and nodded politely with genuine interest in whatever he was saying. As she turned toward Ruby to answer a question, she caught Jesse staring at her and smiled at him, then spoke to her mother.
He felt immediately clumsy but his eyes would not leave her. He took in every point of her. The face, the figure, the honey-colored hair, the way she was dressed. He could smell her from where he stood. He took it all in and stored it as quick and keen as lightning. Under the black brim of her hat, the smoky blue-gray eyes caught him again and for the briefest part of a second she smiled easily while turning from an inquiry by Rosie about the food to something Bear was saying about the upcoming event.
“Jesse!” It was coming from behind him and finally broke through his trance. He turned to see the unshaven, unbreakable jaw of Digger saying, “You want ribs, a burger, or ‘gospel bird’?”
“Gospel bird. Thanks.”
“Chicken?! You’re a Texan, aincha son? You need to eat beef. We’re in the cattle business in Texas. We don’t raise no damn chickens.”
“Tell you what. I’ll eat whatever you put on that plate.”
Jesse had turned back to what drew him like the moon draws tides. What was it that haunted him? Yes, he could see her mother’s smile and the cheekbones and that she got her tallness from Bear and the fineness from Ruby. But there was something in the way she moved.
He was depositing bones in a trash bag when Bear stood beside him popping a Coors. “Have you met my daughter Holly?”
“No, sir.”
They moved to where she stood in a circle. Bear put his arm around her and puffed up. “This is my daughter Holly Marie. Holly, this is Jesse Burrell. Larry says he’s a great horseman. Holly has just come in from New York. She’s been working back there as a fashion model. Holly wants to learn to ride a cutting horse.” It was something Bear had done ever since she was a child, get his children right out there. “Go and shake that hand. Look ’em straight in the eye.” Holly was used to it, but what was natural for Bear wasn’t always easy for her.
She took his hand in hers and held it warmly. Smiling the brood mare of all smiles, she looked into his eyes. “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Burrell.” She bowed slightly at the waist as a yogi or Buddhist might.
No one had ever said it’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Burrell. He felt his face flush and found it almost impossible to look at her directly. “Please, call me Jesse.” And in that instant he was seized by a fever of the flesh he had never in all his life experienced. How could such a thing happen? She was probably younger than Zack would be. But this was a feeling over which his mind had no power. She let loose a flight of elaborate bright balloons in his heart.
“Well, we’re gonna ride some more. Maybe rope a little bit. C’mon down to the arena, we’ll get you on a horse.”
It was ever so slight but her face pinked a little and she felt an agitation inside of her as the molecular structure of the space between a man and a woman was altered. She hesitated for a second then said, “Really?”
“Sure. Have you ridden at all?”
“As a girl in the Midwest, I used to ride hunters.”
Bear had gone back to discussing the event with a circle of supporters. Jesse and Holly started down the steps to the path that led to the arena. “I think riding the hunt seat is about the best foundation there is. Lot of cowboys are scared to death of a flat saddle. If you can ride that, you can ride anything.” He suddenly realized he was talking about three times more than he normally would and was sure he sounded stupid. Yet he couldn’t seem to stop his mouth. “I’ll tell you one thing. You look the part.”
She may not have been on a horse in a while, but it didn’t appear that way. She was tall and lean with the unflared hips of a teenage boy. She sat up straight but relaxed, an extravagant natural arch in her back lending an air of elegance. Jesse sat the big buckskin and trotted alongside giving small hints and elaborate praise as they went, his mind a chaotic blizzard of thought.
Holly knew well how to suppress nerves and function under stress while appearing cooler than a glacier. She tried to concentrate on what he was saying but found distraction in the easy rhythm of his flowing with the horse. And there were his hands. Large, longfingered, as articulate as a guitarist’s, the reins draped loosely between them, as he seemed to command the big horse easily by virtue of his will.
As she watched the horse move, an image came to her of the huge heart pumping within the vaulted cathedral of ribs between his knees and blood pulsing to muscles and sinews that articulated the legs and drove the hooves to imprint the earth.
His glances were quick, furtive, like a child hoarding contraband sweets. A pearlescent sheen appeared beneath the down along the pout of her upper lip and caused his tongue to moisten his own. He trotted close beside her feeling the warmer air. For an instant his knee brushed hers. They were both aware.
She had a light touch, a willingness to be soft. She was balanced and poised as they cantered a big circle around the arena. He showed her how to ride for the hard stops that were a big part of a cutting horse’s defensive maneuvers. Jesse said, “You wouldn’t be putting me on, would you? You look like a ringer to me.”
“It’s been more than fifteen years since I was on a horse.”
He shook his head. “Let’s get you in there and cut a cow.”
“You think so?”
“You’re ready.”
“Oh, my God. I can’t believe I’m going to do this.”
She rode into the herd with a white-knuckled grip on the saddle horn. Jesse said, “Relax, concentrate on the cattle and trust the horse.”
She did a helluva job for a first-timer, and delighted in Jesse’s praise. She could barely contain herself as she glanced toward the fence to see Bear and Ruby, beaming and Bear giving her a thumbs-up.
In high spirits, she extended her hand. “Thank you so much, Jesse. That’s the most fun I’ve had…” She puffed out her plump pink lips and blew away some tension as he took her hand and held it for what seemed a week. He was the first to let go. “That was ju
st great,” she said. “Thank you so much.”
“You did a good job.”
“Well, thank you.” There was something unique about the way she said thank you, an uncommon dimension of sincere connection and appreciation. “Bear’s got a couple of horses at our house but he and my mom never seem to have time to ride lately. You got me started now. I’m going to have to go out there and get the old gray mare back to where she used to be.” Then she gave him a look he could have poured on his pancakes. It wasn’t playful and it wasn’t designed. It just was.
He felt that his life had just doubled in value. A bolt of fear shot through him. Then a part of him wished he hadn’t met this woman, that she hadn’t looked at him like that. Like what? Maybe there was no like that. Maybe he’d added that.
Larry called him. They were ready to rope. When Jesse got his horse backed into the box, Larry grinning across at him said, “You better catch. She’s watching.” The young longhorn fired out of the box and damn near outran them, but they cowboyed-up, caught the steer, and made a hell of a run out of it.
After a few runs, Bear called across the arena saying they had to get back to town. Larry and Jesse rode over to say goodbye. Bear said, “We’ve still got to play host to some of the celebrities and press at the hotel. Thanks for a great day. We’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
Holly reached her hand over the fence toward Jesse. “It was very nice to meet you. And thanks again for the lesson. That was so much fun.”
“Will you be at the rodeo tomorrow?”
“Oh, yes. Bear’s got me working. We’re doing a video on the whole thing. So I’m the official interviewer and camera operator. Maybe you’ll let me interview you?”
“I’m not real good at…”He saw a look of disappointment at the thought of him refusing and immediately said, “okay, why not. If I make a fool of myself, you can always cut it out, right?”