by Brad Smith
“I’m still not done with him.”
“Oh yes you are. You can’t carry grudges in this game. It’ll just end up backfiring on you. You made your point, and now you just gotta let it go.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe about it. And I’m not just talking on the racing business here. It’s the same in life. You carry grudges around with you, and they’ll just eat you up. Half the time the person you’re grudgin’ against don’t even know it. You better learn to let things go.”
Chrissie cleaned a bit of manure off her boot with her shovel, then scooped it up and tossed it outside. When she came out of the stall she pulled her gloves off and stuffed them in her hip pocket.
“What are you, Mr. Culpepper—some cowboy philosopher today?”
“I ain’t no philosopher. I’m just somebody who’s been around about three times as many years as you. I’d be pretty goddamn dumb if I hadn’t learned something in all that time.”
“Well, if you’re so much smarter than me, then tell me what you’re gonna do now. Can we get one of those mares ready to run?”
“One of those mares is in foal.”
“I can see that. What about the other?”
“Those mares are all done running. I was hoping to get that bay bred in the new year. She throws a nice foal. But I don’t know what I’m gonna be able to afford when it comes to a stud.”
“So you’re done racing for the year?”
“I expect I am. Unless a runner falls out of the sky.”
They walked up to the house and had some lunch. Pete made an omelette with ham and onions and green peppers. When it had became apparent that Chrissie intended to stick around awhile, Pete’s first thought had been that she would come in handy at mealtimes. As it turned out, the woman could barely open a can of beans. She could do anything Pete could in the barn and in the fields, but putting her in the kitchen was like cinching a saddle on a milk cow.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you how to cook?” Pete had asked.
“My mother left when I was still wearing diapers.”
“What about your dad?”
“My old man couldn’t boil water if he had the recipe right in front of him.”
As they were eating their eggs, they heard a roar out in the yard. Pete got up and went to the window in time to see Bob Miller’s big corn harvester humping past the barn and heading down the lane.
“They’ve come to take my corn off,” Pete said when he came back to the table.
After lunch they climbed into the pickup and drove back to the east field in front of the bush, where the combine was working. One of Bob’s sons—they were twins, and Pete could never tell the one from the other—showed up, driving the five-ton grain truck. When Bob stopped to unload the combine’s hopper for the first time, Pete walked over.
“How’s it look?” Pete asked, meaning the yield.
Bob shrugged. “With the drought and all, probably about what you expected.”
“I guess,” Pete said.
“The price might scare you.”
“Oh?”
“It’s down under three bucks. It’ll probably go up after January, if you wanted to sit on it.”
“I got no place to store it. If I wait, whatever I gain on the price, I’ll lose on the storage.”
“Yup.”
Bob put the machine in gear and went back to work. When the truck’s hopper was full, Bob’s son drove it away. Five minutes later, his twin brother showed up with a second truck. Seeing him climb down from the cab, Chrissie did a double take. Pete laughed and told her they were twins, and then they watched as the harvester pulled up and dumped its load into the truck.
“I ever tell you about the old farmer had two horses he couldn’t tell apart?” Pete asked as the combine circled to go back to work.
“No, you didn’t,” Chrissie said.
“This old farmer had two horses he couldn’t tell apart,” Pete began. “Workhorses. So one day he decided to clip the top of the one’s ear off. So he did, and that was fine; he could tell ’em apart. But then the other horse got his ear caught in a threshing machine and clipped it just identical to the first horse. So the farmer decided to bob the first horse’s tail, and that solved his problem. But then the second horse backed into a hay mower and cut his tail off the exact same as the first. So he’s back to the same old problem. Right?”
“Right.”
“So you know what finally happened?”
“The white horse died.”
Pete fell sullen. “You heard it before.”
“I heard it before. It’s an old joke, Mr. Culpepper.”
Pete nodded and held his pout for a moment, and then he smiled. “It’s a good one though, isn’t it?”
“It is, you know.”
They watched the harvester for a while, and then they went back to the house. Pete allowed that he was feeling tired. While he went in the house for a nap, Chrissie saddled the bay mare and took her for a few laps around the hay field out front. The mare was eager enough, but she was out of shape and a few years past anything that might resemble racing condition. Chrissie gave her an easy work, then took her into the barn for a brushing. She’d been rolling in the barnyard and had about ten pounds of dirt on her hide. When Chrissie had her cleaned up, she turned her back outside.
She and Pete were sitting on the front porch, having a whiskey and soda, when the Millers finally finished the combining. The boy drove the grain truck out of the lane and down the side road to the highway without stopping. Bob came along a few minutes later. He turned the combine off in front of the house and walked over to the porch. When Pete asked if he wanted a rye, he said yes.
“You caught up then?” Pete asked when he came out with the drink.
“Hell, no,” Bob said. “Doing all this custom work, and I haven’t touched my own yet. Need another week or ten days of dry weather.” He took a drink and then looked at Chrissie. “So who’s this—your daughter, Pete?”
“Sorry—I forgot my manners,” Pete said. “This here’s Chrissie.”
“I’m not his daughter,” Chrissie answered.
“Oh.”
Bob’s tone, and the whiskey, were just enough to set her off.
“I’m not that, either,” Chrissie said. “Get your mind out of the fucking gutter.”
Pete Culpepper was smiling. “She’s just a friend, Bob. She’s a jockey at the Fort. She’s got a little rough on her.”
“To hell with you both,” Chrissie said, and she got to her feet. “I’m gonna go see to my gelding.”
“Your gelding?” Pete said as she walked away.
Bob sipped at the whiskey and propped his feet up on the railing. “Ain’t she a corker,” he said.
“You oughta see her when she gets her back up.”
The sun was dropping beneath the horizon and the temperature dipping fast with its disappearance. The cars on the highway, a half mile away, had their lights on already.
“So what do you want me to do with your corn?” Bob asked.
“Sell it,” Pete told him.
Bob nodded. “How’s the horse business?”
“Well, I only had the one runner left, and he broke his leg.”
“That’s not good.”
“No. I’m about to the point where I gotta make some sort of decision. It’s always been a rich man’s game and now more so than ever. I might be about at the end of my run here. Thinkin’ I should head back south.”
“What would you do with the place?”
“I couldn’t say for sure. I got Ray Dokes staying with me. I don’t know, but maybe he’d be interested in buying me out.”
“Ray Dokes is out of jail?”
“Well, he wouldn’t be staying with me if he wasn’t.”
“Aren’t you nervous having him around? Do you trust him?”
“Like the sun comin’ up.”
“I don’t think I would. Not after what he pulled on Sonny Stanton.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because if it was me, I’d have killed the sonofabitch.”
When Bob finished his whiskey he declined the offer of another and set out on the combine. He had thirty acres on the town line he wanted to get off before he quit for the day.
Ray came up the driveway in the Caddy as Pete was picking up the glasses to go inside. Ray parked behind Pete’s pickup and came up the steps.
“Having a party?” he asked.
“Bob Miller was here, took off the corn,” Pete said by way of explanation.
Ray followed him inside, put his lunch pail on the table. He sat on the bench inside the back door and pulled off his work boots. Pete put the rye away and then went about making a pot of coffee.
“Where’s Chrissie?” Ray asked, and before he was done asking it she walked through the door.
“Hey,” she said to him.
“Hey, yourself,” Ray said. “How’s the gelding today?”
“He’s doing real good. I think he’s kinda full of himself, like he’s the center of attention with his fancy cast and all. Those old broodmares will be wanting one next.”
She sat down at the table and propped the heel of her right boot on her left knee. She reached for Ray’s cigarettes and helped herself to one.
“So, what’s for supper?” she asked.
“That all you think about—eating?” Pete asked. “You’re gonna have trouble making the weight when you go back.”
“I never put on a pound,” she told him. “Got something to do with my metabolism, or so I been told. Anyway, what’s for supper?”
“Well, I thawed some hamburger; I thought I might make a meatloaf, unless you were thinking of whipping something up,” Pete said.
“You’ll end up in the hospital, the both of you, if I whip something up,” Chrissie said. “Meatloaf sounds good to me.”
Pete carried his coffee to the counter, where he began to fix the meal. Chrissie got a cup from the cupboard and poured herself some coffee.
“How’d the corn look?” Ray asked.
“Well, they won’t be writing me up in the Farmer’s Monthly,” Pete said. “The price isn’t gonna be much, either, from what Bob says. I guess I’ll be a couple of dollars ahead of not planting it at all.”
Ray nodded. He didn’t need any more elaborate explanation than that. Chrissie watched the two in silence. When she caught Ray’s eye he looked away. She splashed a little milk in her coffee and sipped at it. Ray looked at her again, and she watched him over the rim, saying nothing.
After they ate, Ray had a shower and a shave and then came out wearing clean clothes and smelling like Pete Culpepper’s aftershave. Pete and Chrissie were playing checkers at the kitchen table, and Pete was up three games to none.
“Old bastard’s cheating,” Chrissie said.
“How can you cheat at checkers?” Pete asked.
“If I knew how you were doing it, I’d stop you.”
Ray carried his lunch pail to the kitchen sink and took the thermos from inside and rinsed it clean under the tap. Then he lit a cigarette and leaned against the kitchen counter and watched the game. Pete won again, and Chrissie gave up.
“I was thinking I might drive into town for a drink,” Ray said. “You two up to it?”
“Not me,” Pete said. “I think I’ll turn in early. I want to plow that corn ground tomorrow, before we get wet weather and I have to leave it ’til spring.”
“I’ll go,” Chrissie said.
She lit a joint on the drive into town and offered it over to Ray, who declined. She took a couple of heavy pulls on it, then pinched it off with her forefinger and thumb and put it back in her shirt pocket. She was wearing her black jeans and one of Pete’s cotton work shirts. She looked good in the old man’s duds, but to Ray’s eyes she’d never looked anything but good.
They went to the Tap. It had been a country-and-western joint when Ray had been a kid. He and his friends used to go there and get into fights with the local crowd. One Saturday night Ray and two of his friends had ridden their dirt bikes into the place, causing a general uproar and a lot of broken glasses and bruised knuckles.
Ray and Chrissie sat at a booth across the room from the bar. The waitress was short and covered with more tattoos than a fleet of sailors. They declined menus and ordered beer.
The band was playing Merle Haggard.
“I guess this isn’t exactly your kind of music,” Ray said as they waited for their beer.
“Hey, I know every word to ‘Okie from Muskokee,’” Chrissie said. “My dad was a country freak; he played mandolin in a band called the Grand River Ramblers.”
The waitress brought two mugs of draft, and Chrissie insisted on paying.
“So you gonna dance with me or not?” she asked.
“Or not.”
“I figured that.”
Ray took a drink of beer and then leaned back and had a glance around the room. There was nobody there that he recognized. Glancing toward the bar, he caught a glimpse of himself and Chrissie in the mirror. A perfectly normal couple, out having a beer.
“So what’s the story on Pete—he’s broke, isn’t he?” Chrissie asked.
“I don’t know that he’s broke,” Ray said. “He’s had a stretch of bad luck, that’s all. He’ll be all right.”
“I wish I could help him out. I like the old guy.”
“He’s a good man.”
“So what can I do to help him?”
“There’s nothing you can do to help him. He wouldn’t let you if you could.”
“You cowboys are all the same.”
“Pete’s the cowboy.”
“Oh no. You are too; you just don’t know it.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“It’s both,” Chrissie decided after a moment. “Doesn’t matter; you’re stuck with it either way. What’d you think—you were just some normal guy?”
Which made Ray look in the mirror again. The couple was still there, but the image had somehow changed.
“I guess not,” he admitted. “What about you?”
“Shit. I wouldn’t know normal if it came up and bit me on the ass.”
* * *
Homer started the new medication on Saturday, and by Tuesday afternoon he was feeling well enough to go to the golf course and play nine holes. Harvey Jones picked him up and told Etta he’d have him home by supper.
Etta had worked the night before, and she was happy to have the house to herself for a change. She did some vacuuming and washed the bedclothes and cleaned out the fridge. Then she changed and drove into town to the bank. She spent a discouraging half hour with the manager and then bought a take-out coffee and headed out of town. As she drove she began to consider Father Regan’s advice to go back to teaching. She’d always suspected that at some point she would do just that, but that point had been rather indistinct, a dot on the horizon. She knew that she couldn’t run the farm and teach at the same time.
She hadn’t counted on Homer getting sick. He’d always been a bull of a man—not particularly ambitious or admirable or even responsible—but a strong physical presence. His weaknesses in other areas, however, had left him with an inordinate amount of debt, and now that debt had fallen into her lap like a lead weight.
Something else she hadn’t counted on.
On the way home she stopped at Pete Culpepper’s place. Driving down the lane, she saw Ray standing along the corral, his arms resting over the top rail. He turned when he heard the car tires on the gravel driveway. If he was surprised—or pleased, or anything else—to see her, he didn’t show it.
She pulled up and got out and opened the trunk. There were two glass gallon jugs of apple cider inside. She lifted them out and carried them over to Ray and set them down.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Appreciation for roof repair,” she said.
As she spoke a dark-haired woman came around the corner of the barn and into the corral, riding a bay mare at an easy lope. She came close to the fence where they stood and then at the last moment veered the animal off. The woman sat the western saddle like she was born to it. She took the mare around the corral once at a canter, then slowed to a walk. Etta watched her for a moment. She was a pretty girl. Etta raised her sunglasses briefly to give her the once-over, or rather to let Ray know she was giving her the once-over. She glanced at Ray before she let the shades drop back into place.
“Pete not around?” she asked.
“He went in to the bank,” Ray said. “He’ll want to make applejack out of that cider.”
“You can do what you want with it.”
Etta walked over and turned her back to the corral, leaned against the rail there. She made a pretense of looking out over the pasture field, but in truth she was looking at him. He was leaner than when she’d last seen him. He needed a haircut, and he had a couple days’ growth on his cheeks, partly concealing the fresh scar on his chin—the scar he’d received in jail, how she had no idea, but she was sure that it involved him standing up for something or somebody, railing against some slight that another man might have had sense enough to let alone. His hands where they hung over the fence rail were calloused and marked with small cuts here and there.
“Still in the roofing business?” she asked.
“Yup,” he said, looking at her. “How’re you doing, Etta? I see you got the old tractor for sale.”
“I haven’t had any buyers yet.” She gestured toward the corral. “So who’s Annie Oakley?”
“Name’s Chrissie Nugent. She’s a jock at Fort Erie, rides for Pete when he’s got a horse to run.”
“What’s she do the rest of the time?”
“Here she comes,” Ray said. “Why don’t you ask her?”
Etta turned to see Chrissie leading the bay by the reins to where they stood. She was long-legged and loose in her jeans and her boots, and she was watching Etta openly as she approached. When she got to them she gave the reins a half hitch around the top rail and then stepped back to unfasten the cinch on the saddle. Ray introduced the two women, and Chrissie offered her hand over the fence rail.