by Lucy Inglis
‘No, you haven’t. Forget it.’ He took a breath. ‘Look, Hope, I really like you but . . .’
She pushed to her feet, blanket abandoned, diary in her hand. He stood too. Buddy looked between them, confused.
‘How have we got to that from . . . I wasn’t being . . . I mean, that’s not what I was saying. And I never said I was interested in you.’
‘And I never said I wasn’t interested in you.’
‘Oh.’
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. ‘I’m trying to be realistic. You live in another country, for Chrissake! And you’re sixteen! How can I be involved with a sixteen-year-old after—’
‘I can’t help the age I am. Being sixteen isn’t a crime.’
‘Of course it isn’t. Look, I . . . I’ve got problems. After what happened to Tyler, things got crazy.’
Hope took a step back. ‘We’re miles from anywhere and you’re telling me you’ve got problems?’ She hugged her arms to her chest, diary tucked inside them. ‘You’re scaring me.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Don’t be scared. This is just something I have to deal with alone, that’s all.’
There were only the sounds of the mountain. Finally Hope spoke. ‘Alone is hard. Maybe I could help.’
‘I’m not sure anyone can. I made a big mistake. Huge. Stuff happened and . . .’ Buddy whined. Cal bent down to him, wrapping his hand around the dog’s muzzle. ‘It’s OK, boy.’
There was a long silence.
‘It probably isn’t that bad,’ Hope said, uncertain.
‘You really don’t know that.’ His voice was as dark as the night around them.
We left early the next morning and spent the following two weeks scouting for the Stanton railway, the five of us: you, me, Lucky, Clear Water and Rose. A more unlikely team cannot be imagined. During daylight hours, our group separated, coming back at night to Clear Water and the camp, which changed every couple of days. Sometimes, when there was work to do, I stayed behind with Clear Water and the extra horses. Lucky had acquired another two after the battle, bringing the surplus mounts to five, although you said Hart’s bay gelding’s mouth was ruined from bad handling, and you’d sell him on as soon as possible. I would rather have been with you but it didn’t seem right to leave Clear Water on her own all the time, even though there was precious little conversation to be had.
Clear Water was, however, intuitive: she knew before I did that I was about to be inconvenienced as women are, for I had never established any reliable notion in that department. Liza my maid had said it would most likely come after I had a child of my own, as if an infant were a magic watchmaker within my body, tick-tock. Clear Water took great care of me and showed me, with dignity, how Indian women dealt with such indelicate issues, making me bark tea for the discomfort and wrapping a fire-warmed flat stone in a leather cloth for me to hold against my middle. She also gave me one of her and Lucky’s blankets and made me a bed on the ground away from you – I found out later that native women live separately at that time.
You affected not to notice, and returned the blanket to Clear Water as we prepared to retire, ignoring both her surprise and then my over-heated and restless jolting in the night. Soon though, my time passed, and I wanted to be back on Tara. And with you. A few mornings later I came back from the river after an early start and fetched my saddle and bridle. You said nothing, just watched me tack up in silence, drinking the hot herbal tea Clear Water made each morning and smoking a cigarette.
‘Long ride today. Up to it?’
Instead of replying, I flipped the worn leather fender off my shoulder, straightening the stirrup and buckling the throat strap of Tara’s plain bridle. The pack I fastened behind the saddle now contained the hide of the buffalo who had sheltered us, presented to me as a gift when we left the Blackfoot. In the soft, thick skin were thirty-eight thumbnail-sized holes. Clear Water had spent much time and a huge effort in curing and smoking it over the past days, for which I was unable to express my gratitude. But I had asked you to thank her, and she had smiled her beautiful smile to me the previous evening.
You watched me finish. ‘Reckon we should be done by nightfall.’
I kissed Tara’s nose and scratched beneath her forelock. ‘And then?’
You stood and threw out the dregs of your tea. ‘Home.’
Soon, we were leaving camp. Lucky and Rose were coming out with us, as their portion of the scouting was done. We rode due west to look at the mountain range indicated on the map in your possibles bag. You and Rose spoke occasionally, but Lucky was mainly silent. The weather was clear and bright, and far away to the north a herd of buffalo dotted the landscape. By midday, we had reached the foothills of the range. You sat, leaning back in the saddle, looking at it for what seemed like an age. You got down and kicked at the earth with your bad foot. Looking up again, you bit the inside of your cheek.
‘What do you think?’ I’d let the reins slacken and Tara pointed her near-side hoof like a ballerina and scratched her nose against her leg, one side then the other.
‘Ain’t nothing coming through here, blasting or no blasting.’
I thought of the Stantons’ broker – the paymaster for this job. ‘Is that what you’re going to tell Mr Meard?’
‘Yep. Maybe Railroad can go further north, across the border into the British Possessions – your name for Canada – maybe further south, towards Missoula, but it ain’t coming through here to Spokane.’
‘Spokane?’ I asked. ‘That’s where we’re scouting?’
You nodded and gestured to the mountains. ‘Keep going dead west through them hills and you’ll get there.’
‘How long would it take?’
You looked up at me. ‘Why, English, fancy making another run for it?’
I said nothing.
You shrugged. ‘Well, you got Tara now, and all our food, so you’d probably make it.’
Looking out at the mountains, I still said nothing.
‘Rose goes as far as Spokane sometimes. Knows the trail. Could ask her to take you,’ you said slowly.
‘Stop it.’
‘Stop what?’ You adjusted the red horse’s bridle needlessly.
‘Trying to make me go.’
‘I thought you wanted to go. You could deliver your report to Railroad in person. Big romantic reunion. Wait, no, for a reunion you’d have to have met already.’
I could have kicked you. I might have, if the others hadn’t been there. But instead I decided to play you at your own game. For it was a game, Nate, I knew you well enough by then.
I lifted my chin. ‘I cannot possibly go anywhere looking like this. We’ll have to wait until you’ve been paid and there’s money for decent clothing and shoes.’
‘And then I’ll ask Rose to take you?’ You put your hand on the horn of the red horse’s saddle, not looking at me.
The die was cast; we both knew it. This was my life now. You, Tara and your family, for as long as they chose to stay with us. A family that would defend me to the death, though we could not even speak to one another.
I had thought to spin out my life in West Coast drawing rooms and the society pages, yet here I was, a player on a different stage in the theatre of a new America. I looked back towards the mountains and for the first time in my life felt a profound sense of belonging.
‘Then I may think about it,’ I said at last.
You hid a smile and lifted a hand to the back of your neck, as if you had been about to reach out to me and stopped yourself. Then you froze. I followed your gaze, but couldn’t see what you were looking at. Lucky had though, his farseeing eyes like slits. You spoke without looking at each other. Rose turned her grey, black-freckled mare to see too.
‘See that, English?’
‘No, I don’t see anything. Buffalo?’
‘Closer than the buffalo. He’s here.’
There was wonder in your voice. Then I saw him.
It was a horse. The horse. He was beautiful: astonish
ingly white, heavy with muscle, a deeply crested neck, broad chest and fine conformation. His mane and tail were long, blowing in the breeze, forelock covering one eye. Before you I had seen all horses as the same, simply a means to an end. Now I knew them for themselves: their strengths, weaknesses, and how they could show us the best of who we are. Only the wind moved on the plain as we, all five of us, watched him.
The horse of a lifetime.
You mounted up and your hand went to the coil of rope on your saddlehorn. ‘Big riding, Em. Be ready.’
I sat deeper into the saddle and waited, Tara tense beneath me. You and Lucky were talking, voices low, but not looking away from the horse. Rose was unfastening a rope from behind her saddle, slinging the loops around her neck.
‘Do you want Tara?’
‘No, this kid’s faster on the flat even if he is a little jumpy. And this’ll be all about the running.’ I could see, already, that you were anticipating the chase. You licked your lip, catching it in your teeth as your chest settled on a deep breath.
We set out, slow and easy at first, spreading out across the plain, trying to get as close as possible. The white horse wasn’t spooky though, and when the band split – me with you, Lucky and Rose to east and west – he carried on grazing, mane flowing over his neck with each snatch at the grass. You ignored me, in the main, your focus with the stallion, but at last, when we were no more than forty yards away, you spoke.
‘Em, when we go, we go. If you lose us don’t fret none, I’ll be back. OK?’
‘OK.’ I nodded, threading my reins.
‘And don’t tire Tara out trying to chase us. I don’t want her leg in some prairie dog hole and your necks broke for the sake of it.’
‘Yes.’
You lifted the rope from your saddlehorn and began to feed it out. Lucky was watching you, waiting for the signal. Rose was letting out her rope too. You unlooped the canteen and passed it to me. I put it over my shoulder.
The stallion raised his head, wary. He lifted his muzzle into the wind, scenting our approach. He watched, alert, as you and Lucky began to close in on him, Rose at the rear. Suddenly he wheeled and took flight across the plain, heading straight for the buffalo herd. Lucky let out a cry as you all bolted after him. I followed, Tara surging into her skating gallop as we drove the stallion and the herd ahead of us. The sun was hot on my face and the wind blew as I sat deep in the saddle, urging Tara on, reins over her neck. The combination of the herd’s presence and my lighter weight meant that we had no trouble keeping up with all of you, and I felt soaring pride as our little mare ran neck and neck with Rose’s magnificent grey. She looked across and grinned, all hair and teeth and russet skin, whooping with joy at life.
In the end, it was the stallion’s decision to flee into the herd that led to his capture. The buffalo were fast, but not nearly as fast as we, and their delay in reacting meant he was hampered considerably, although the dust storm they created as they began to stampede was quick to blight the air. Lucky rode him off, steering him directly into your path. There was a moment when I feared, desperately, that he would barge your red horse, throwing all your weight on to your weaker leg. But it didn’t happen and then your noose was dropping over his head in the cloud of dust raised by the buffalo.
Rose rode in from the other side, rope falling over the stallion’s crested neck. For a few seconds, I lost sight of you all, the dust was so thick. I reined Tara to a quick halt, coughing. We sat, immobile, in the fog. A buffalo calf cried out for his mother and she lowed in return. Tara and I moved away from the sound, not wanting to come between them. We shifted out of the dust, back the way we’d come. Cresting a small rise, we sat and waited, watching for you. It was only a few minutes before you appeared, leading the white stallion like a pony.
Your face was filthy and you were sweating, your shirt sticking to you in patches. Rose appeared, sneezing roundly, and then Lucky, his face as deadpan as ever but dust clinging to the sweat and clay on his chest. Tara and I fell in with you. Your eyes never left the white horse as we headed back across the plain. You’d given him plenty of rope, but he did not seem to be averse to being led. I could see you were frowning.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Ain’t supposed to be this easy is what’s the matter. This horse, supposedly uncatchable, is acting like he wanted to be caught.’
We walked on steadily. ‘But how is that a bad thing?’
You shrugged, still worried. ‘Don’t know. Maybe he’s sick or something.’
The horse followed on behind us all day, as we rode southeast. Ultimately we were heading for our mountain, but it would take us time to get there, perhaps as long as four days. You were confident the scout was done.
‘Told you, ain’t nothing coming through there.’ I could hear the satisfaction in your voice.
That night we struck camp by a shallow creek threading its way through the plain and ate a spare meal of pemmican and water. You had spent an hour or so getting close to the stallion, purely so you could restrain him by tying him to a tree. Yet the white horse remained perfectly still. Finally you stood at his head, speaking to him but not touching. His ears flicked backwards and forwards alternately, listening. Tara edged her way closer to him as she cropped the grass contentedly, and by the time we were preparing to bed down, they were standing together, blowing into each other’s noses.
You lay down next to me at the edge of the fire. Rose was nowhere to be seen, but Lucky and Clear Water were following our lead. Propping your head on your hand, you watched the stallion and Tara.
‘Your horse is a flirt, know that?’
I craned my neck on the blanket to see them. ‘A flirt?’
‘She sure is. Give it another day, she’ll have him eating out of her hand.’
We watched them in silence as Tara turned abruptly and walked off, leaving the stallion unable to follow. You shook your head, settling down. ‘Women.’
I elbowed you in the stomach but we were so close together in the bedroll there was no force behind it. You huffed a laugh.
‘Tara’s my horse now?’ I asked, settling my head on her blanket.
‘Guess so, English. Don’t girlfriends gang together?’ You said, drowsy, laying your hand against my face. Just for a second, your fingers touched my mouth before they moved to rest on the blanket.
‘I don’t know,’ I said some minutes later when I could breathe again, but you were already asleep.
It took us exactly four days to reach home, by which time I was considerably tougher, although very bruised and sore. It seemed to mean little to me now when it rained occasionally as we crossed the plain, or at night when we lay beneath our large oilcloth sheet, talking in the dark as the raindrops bounced and popped from the material above us, tented by the saddles. I no longer felt the cold, nor minded sleeping on the ground.
As we broke from the forest and the cabin appeared high on the mountainside, my heart lifted. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was full on the meadow, lighting up the shingle roof and the wild flowers. We rode up to it and you led the stallion into the corral. Rose and Lucky put the rails in place behind you, almost six feet high, then you ducked out between them with your peculiar slight of shifting your weight so your right leg didn’t buckle.
I untacked Tara at the porch rail, rubbing her down and thanking her for her service. As I slipped her bridle, she blew at me, then moved off towards the corral and the stallion.
Dropping the saddle over the rail, I hung up her bridle and eyed the washtub. It had never looked so inviting, yet I couldn’t take advantage of it with your family so close by. Clear Water was already making camp near the stream, just down from the cabin, setting up a fire pit and moving purposefully from one task to another. Lucky was sitting, cross-legged, looking at the view and smoking. Rose was watering the horses and preparing to tether them where they could rest and graze. You were already inside the house, getting the stove and the fire lit. Coming on to the porch, you saw me looki
ng at the washtub.
‘Want to take a bath?’
‘More than anything,’ I said, like a tired child. ‘But how can I with everyone here?’
You studied me for a few seconds. Disappearing inside, you returned with the quilt from the bed. Shifting Tara’s saddle, you draped it over the porch rail. You put her saddle blanket over the side rail, effectively creating a screened area. Filling the tub, you studied me over your shoulder.
‘Never say I do nothing for you.’
‘Have I ever said that?’ I asked honestly, shoulders slumping.
You straightened up, shaking off your hand. ‘Guess not.’
Going inside, I stripped and wrapped myself in a towel, taking the soap and the bottle of hair wash. I ached to be clean. On the porch I crouched behind my screen, yanking the lace from my braid and shaking out the thick, dirty hanks. I clambered into the tub, sat down with a bump and threw water on my face. It was wonderfully cold and refreshing. I realized I’d forgotten the jug. I hesitated.
‘Nate?’
‘Yep?’ you called from somewhere behind the cabin, near the woodpile.
‘I forgot the jug.’
There was a pause. ‘What use are you?’
I smiled against my bruise-spattered knees. ‘No use at all.’
You appeared on the step half a minute later, a piece of cut wood in either hand. I sat in the tub, hugging my shins. You shook your head, laughing. Returning with the jug, you made as if to pass it to me, then pulled it out of my reach as I was about to thank you. You put your free hand to your ear.
‘What did you say? I didn’t hear . . .’ You were teasing.
‘I said thank you!’
‘You did? Maybe I’m going deaf.’
I looked at you primly. ‘Maybe you are.’
Grinning, you stooped, filled the jug in the tub by my legs and tipped it straight over my head. I shrieked with surprise and laughter.
‘Nate!’ I tried to wipe my face and maintain my modesty: it wasn’t easy.
You dropped to your knees and rubbed my head with soap from the bottle, rough and gentle at the same time. ‘Do I have to do everything for you, English?’ you teased, laughing.