by Alex Cord
She smiled and nodded.
“Mind if I watch?”
“No. I’m almost done.”
Uncoiling her legs, she moved smoothly stretching out on her stomach and reaching with her arms like a waking cat, on a thin rubber mat. She flowed from one graceful pose to another, breathing like the hissing of a giant reptile. He sat with the cup in his hand, his chin slack in silent awe.
She finished as the rooster sounded and a hint of sunrise began to lighten the horizon. From sitting on the mat, in a blink, she was standing tall, straight. She smiled in a tranquil face.
Jesse said, “That’s amazing. The strength it takes to do some of those things.”
“I’m pretty strong.” Grinning, she made a fist of her right hand and punched the open palm of her left with a resounding smack. “So don’t mess with me, boy.”
“I won’t. How about some coffee?”
He was waiting for her in the living room, looking at the shelf where Rabbie sat, Bunny Bunny now at his side, his arm around her shoulder. Holly came from the bathroom looking like she’d spent her life on the ranch. Cowboy hat, Wranglers, a wrinkled cotton work shirt, and roper boots. Her face scrubbed pink, no makeup and blazing blue-gray eyes. She came to his side, looking at the paired rabbits, pushed out her lips and said, “They’re happy now.”
Ricardo had groomed the front yard, with special attention to the flowers. Jesse introduced her. He bowed slightly, saying, “Con mucho gusto.”
She responded in perfect Spanish, telling him how beautiful the garden was. He was instantly enslaved. Jesse asked, “How’d you get to be so handy with Spanish like that?”
“I went to a school in Mexico for a while, when I was thirteen. I also worked in Spain.”
“Boy, I need you around here. I barely get by in English.”
Chauncy, the goat, showed up in the barn. “My mom’s got one just like him, Bingo. Only he’s white. He thinks he’s a dog.”
“Chauncy thinks he owns the place.”
“So does Bingo. Must be a goat thing.”
She watched Jesse work. He moved with practiced purpose to the light musical clink of spurs as he walked. All smooth and flowing, the lifting of horses’ feet to clean their hooves, the pull of his jeans against the tightened muscles of his thighs, the supple power in his shoulders as he swung the saddles lightly to their backs, the easy, soothing murmur as he walked behind them, constantly touching and stroking them, letting a tail slide through his hand and at the same time telling Holly what was going on. He showed her a point above the hoof that, when massaged for just a minute, could calm a nervous horse. As he put the bridles on, he told her the easy way to slip the bit into the horse’s mouth and how a bit should fit. She stood beside him as he handed her the reins. A humid scent blended with her light perfume and enveloped him like a warm breath and let loose inside of him a yearning. He tried to think of something else as he led his horse out of the barn.
They trotted under white clouds across green pastures, Blizzard at their feet, snapping at grasshoppers spurting from the weeds. He watched her posting easily at the long trot. “I still think you’re suckering me, you look like you’ve been doing this all your life.” They found the herd and gathered them up, Blizzard loving his job. Darting here and there, nipping heels, flattening like a rug but ready to spring at errant feet.
She was riding the lawyer’s paint, Concho, a cow-savvy little bugger who knew his way around a herd. A high-headed heifer tried to break away in front of Holly. The paint instinctively leaped to cut her off and damn near put Holly on the ground. “Whoa!” she hollered as she grabbed the horn with a white-knuckled grip and managed to stay aboard.
Jesse laughed. “Good job of keeping the forked end down. That’s the main secret of being a good rider, keeping the horse between you and the ground.”
Pale and wide-eyed, she smiled, saying, “Yeah, I can see how that would be important. And just when I had you believing I could ride.”
At one-thirty, Abbie’s bug chugged up in a flurry of dust. She hopped out and hustled to the arena. Holly was coming down along the rail at a dead gallop. Jesse stood with his arms along the top rail watching the horse gather speed. She sat up and sunk down slowly saying whoa as she lifted lightly on the reins. The horse melted into the ground and slid to a beautifully balanced stop.
Concentration furrowed her brow as she walked the horse along the fence. Suddenly the smile broke through the shining face and beamed at Jesse.
Jesse was grinning. “Good job,” he chuckled. “That was a good job.”
Abbie was standing there smiling. She came forward as Holly stepped down. “Looked cool to me.” She squared off in front of her, almost a foot shorter, and thrust out her hand. “Does this mean I’m out of a job? Hi. I’m Abbie.”
Holly beamed her klieg-light radiance as she bowed and took Abbie’s hand. “Abbie, I’m so happy to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Holly.”
Jesse watched Abbie melt under Holly’s sincerity. “I don’t know how much you can rely on what he says. He told me you were ugly and spastic. Nice guy.” He smiled at them yakking away in the tack room while he hosed a horse’s legs with cool water.
As Abbie was getting ready to leave for the day, she said goodbye to Holly and told her it was really nice to meet her. She reddened with surprise when Holly spontaneously embraced her and said, “Thanks for all the help, Abbie. Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Yep, I’ll be here.” As she turned and walked by Jesse, she muttered out of the side of her mouth, “Looks like you lucked out. She’s really neat.” She stuffed a five dollar bill into his hand and headed toward her car.
38
A Kiss
He wore soft, baggy slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was standing in the kitchen, slicing peppers and mushrooms. He’d poured a shot of Lagavulin and was sipping as he worked.
She’d been in the bathroom a long time. John Coltrane’s mournful, lonesome sax saturated the house.
He felt her presence and turned as she came into the room. He was sure that if he blinked she would vanish, that some act of God would remove this golden moment, the reason for his continued existence. She was as perfect as a snowflake. The tawny hair hung in shimmering coils around her face. The curving, provocative mouth was painted red. The long, fragile, innocent dress, lavender with delicate pink blossoms clung to the slow curving of her flesh underneath. A lacey border of slip hung just above her slender feet thinly strapped in bare sandals. She smiled a radiant tenderness that made him believe that all was well. “My God,” he said softly. He knew in that moment he had fallen hopelessly in love with Holly Marie Bassett. And he knew that he had never before in his entire life felt anything even remotely close.
His voice was a hoarse whisper, “You are the most beautiful…elegant…graceful woman I’ve ever seen.” He was entranced.
She realized the sincerity in it. This cowboy, this half-horse creature of the earth who listened to Mozart and Coltrane and had books of poetry next to a catalog of tractors, was coming to her. His brown hands were reaching for her face. As gently as he’d held an angel’s feather, his fingers touched her cheeks. He looked into the silver-blue depths of her soul, tilted his head and brought his lips to her mouth.
The kiss was wet, long, and hot, down to his soul. She brought her hand up his back, along his neck, sliding her fingers into his hair, feeling the hardness and the heat of him through the flimsy fabric and knew that she loved him.
It might have been easy to go on, to let his hands roam and clutch and claw and take her to his bed, but this was not a moment to let easily pass and become something else. They separated slowly and took the time to breathe. A warm tide of blood had rushed into her cheeks, her neck was flushed, and the pupils of her eyes were as big and black as a cougar’s.
“Is garlic all right with you?” he said, lost in the cougar’s eyes.
“I love garlic. It purifies the blood.”
“Wine…thank you.”
When he handed her the glass, he reached out and let his fingertips trail lightly down her cheek and across her lips.
Empty plates had been pushed back on the low plank table in front of the sofa where they sat sideways as they had the night before. Flamelight from the fireplace played across their faces. He knelt on the cushion and took her up into his arms and she flowed into his embrace. He felt the softness of her breasts against his chest as he stroked her naked slender arm. He stood, taking her up with him and held her close as he kissed her neck with small, light, sucking kisses up to her ear where his tongue flicked along its rim and her hair fell across his face. Then he took her hand and led her to his bedroom.
From the first moment of their meeting, she had positioned herself to know this half-man, half-beast with the searching eyes, and yet had armed herself to resist if he advanced. She had thought about him almost all the time, swinging back and forth between desire and curiosity and a need to preserve her isolated self. But now a strange and sudden thing had happened. All the armor and practiced coolness had dropped away from her and crawled back to their source. He seemed to have an uncanny instinct that told him just how far to go and exactly when to pause and wait and let a thing settle. It was the way he related to horses and dogs, to let his desires become their idea. He had swept her walls cleanly away.
Silver skeins of moonlight washed across the bed. She raised her hand slowly to his face and trembled as he stroked her arms and neck, then one by one undid the tiny buttons down the back of her dress. The frock slipped to the floor. Jesse felt that he had never seen a woman, before this moment. Her breasts, perfectly petite, rose lightly, powdered pale pink, on the faint sibilant intake of her breath her cocoa-hued nipples swelling.
He placed his hands just above her hips and sat her on the bed. Kneeling between her legs, he put his lips lightly to the top of her breast and like the flutter of a moth, circled slowly, the nipple waiting. A longtime, slow moving river of soft kissing.
He rose above her on the bed, arms and legs like braided ropes, molded by the mellow shadows of the moon, looking down at her. “I can’t stop looking at you. When I’m close to you, I can’t see you so well.” Slowly he lowered himself between her legs and taking the band of her panties in his fingers, slipped them down.
He wondered if there were words to say the things he felt. He wanted her to know him. If he could open his body, she would see all the hidden things in him; things he didn’t even know were there. He cupped her hips in his hands and lifted the hillock to his face.
On the edge of a precipice crumbling underfoot, she tumbled into space, spiraling down, leaving herself behind, and falling toward a Holly Marie she had yet to meet.
She saw him as a centaur as he rose above her and came down inside her with a gentle power that possessed and took her to the land of myths and magic where only legends dwell. He pressed against the length of her and felt her legs quiver against his thighs.
Deep inside her, his long, unconscious quest came to an end. His loneliness vanished like water spilt on desert sand. She wrapped him in her arms and pulled him into her and her into him. And in that last convulsive throb of consuming ecstasy, with the wick of her mouth between his lips, he poured milk and honey and foaming champagne into the warm sweet delta tide and knew he would never be the same again.
They lay entwined like tossed silken scarves. Her head cradled in his shoulder, he breathed into her hair. “I love you, Holly. I didn’t know that such a feeling could exist…” She felt him shake his head as if to deny it. “I’ve loved you from the first moment that I saw you…two thousand years ago.” He kissed the corner of her parted lips.
He was deep inside her again when all motion ceased. They lay absolutely still and focused all their energy to the place where they were joined. They put their breath together and laced their fingers and held right there for the time of two lives. They were silent but for catches in their breathing and moaning kitten sounds from Holly’s open mouth.
They made love the whole night through, talking, dozing, waking, whispering, and feeding from the centers of their souls.
Ricardo’s rooster trumpeted the dawn. Jesse woke inhaling the musky fragrance of their brewing in the night. Her breathing had the rhythm of sleep as he turned and cupped her perfect breast, the nipple, a berry between his fingers, instantly began to swell. His passion stirred. Soon they were lost in the pungent heat that, like a summer haze, had wrapped around them.
In the riverstone grotto of his bathroom, she stood under the water-spray while he covered her with lather and sat on the floor to do her feet. The water cascading over them, he looked up from where he sat and opened his mouth to catch the stream flowing from the delta. She shoved her fingers in his hair and pulled him to her.
39
Chaps
On an old cast-iron griddle, she made the best pancakes he’d ever tasted. He stuck his belly out, patting the exaggerated fullness as they walked to the barn. “Gonna let you ride a different one today. Got to keep you on your toes.”
They were ready to mount up when he said, “Wait a second, come with me.” He took her hand and led her to the end of the barn and up the stairs to Zack’s loft and let her in. It was warmer and slightly musty, having been shut for a while. “This was were Damien stayed…when he was here.” He walked to a window and opened it. A pair of chaps hung from a peg on the wall. “Try these on.” She hesitated with a look of doubt. “He would love it if you wore them.” She started to buckle them around her waist. He was still pretty waspy when I got them. They might be just about right.”
He knelt to fasten the zipper at the top of her thigh and felt the heat coming through the denim beneath his hand as he swept it up to caress her butt. He stood and pressed her to the wall. He kissed her long and deep and told her that he loved her. He moved his hand to just beneath her breast. “I want to make love to you right now.”
“No…no…” she giggled. “Let’s wait…let’s wait…we’ve got to ride…it’ll be fun to have to wait.” She puffed out her breath and led him to the door.
He smiled, groaning, checking her legs. “Pretty good fit. Just need to punch a hole in the belt.”
“You’re sure?”
“He’s laughing right now. I guarantee it. If he could see your butt, he wouldn’t sleep for a week.” He shut the door behind them and stroked his finger down her spine as she went down the stairs.
She could still feel his hand under her breast and the fingers down her spine as she watched him swing slowly into the saddle. She realized she was wet.
She loped the mare around the arena while he told her little things about horses. “They’re as different as people are. If you listen, they’ll tell you who they are. Then you’ll know how to get along.”
He noticed the shine on the pouty lip. “This mare is a little more aggressive than Concho. Her turns’ll be a little quicker. She’s got more snap to her. Just relax, trust her, and have fun.”
She nodded her head. Her tongue was sticking out and her eyes in a squint, focused on the herd.
“Put your tongue in your mouth. If you bite it off, Blizzard’ll eat it before I can get to it.”
She’d given him her camera. He talked to her as she entered the herd. She cut a cow like a longtime hand, and then she let the mare go to work. He clicked off a half dozen shots of her doing just right.
She rode out of the herd breathing hard, looking a flushed fourteen. Fugitive wisps from the thick braid were wet against her neck. It struck in him a tender lusty thought.
He was grinning and shaking his head. “I’ve seen people who’ve been riding cutting horses for ten years not have the feel that you’ve got. You ride that mare better than her owner does.”
“Thanks,” she said breathlessly.
Dr. Walter Nalls arrived in his dustproof aura in a sparkling w
hite pickup. “Passing by. Thought I’d stop and see how the mare is doing.”
He shook Holly’s hand and was instantly charmed. When no one but Jesse could see, he raised his brows over widened eyes and nodded with appreciation, admiration, and approval, all in one look.
But for Dozer, at their feet like a dropped coat, everyone had gone and left them alone. They sat on the porch, the sun seeping into the distant dun grass. The sky like the shimmering inner surface of an oyster shell darkened as night began to fall. A meadowlark flitted to a fence post and gurgled coupled notes. There was rustling in the grass, the warbles of the doves and crickets in conference under the porch. Ribbons of lightning curled down in the distant blackness and rain began to pelt the roof like tossed pebbles. She sat in a wicker chair, he at her side in one of plank and twisted willow limbs, silent in the thoughts the rain inspired.
40
A Sad Tale
The driving rain quit the laundered land and left it smelling of leaves, of wood, and of grass. The moon wore a veil of lingering clouds. Her hand moved to the arm of his chair. Her voice seemed to emerge from the night itself. “Do you think you could…tell me how he died?”
He took a deep breath and hummed it out. She could see him pull his upper lip between his teeth and move his jaw side to side. Then, as if to throw the phrase away for lack of import, he said, “It was drugs.” It seemed that might be all he would say, but then he went on. “He had the disease. For ten years, I tried to save his life. Had him in every rehab place in the state. He tried. I guess he just didn’t…I’d put him in the front door and he’d try for a while…and then he’d go out the back window. He was sixteen when I realized he had a serious problem. I remember I sat him down and told him if he didn’t get his life together, he’d either end up in jail or dead.” He tightened his jaw and bit down on his lip.
“Was it an overdose?” She asked as softly as a breeze.