A Gentle Rain

by Deborah Smith

  The mare eased closer to me, exhaled, then rubbed her head on my elbow. Moving carefully, I stroked her nearest ear. "See there? When you give up your stubborn isolationism, when you actively open your heart and mind to new ideas and the possibility of friendship, the hostility and distrust all fade away."

  I gave her another pat on the head, then stepped back. "Now, think about what I've said, and then go share the lesson with Ben."

  I turned to walk away. Ben stood there. A little dusty, and smeared with cow blood. "I heard my name in all that," he said grimly. "And it didn't sound good."

  "Let's just say, I'm sure Bone Mizell would be proud of you."

  "I don't think you mean that in a good way," he said, as I walked off.

  I never meant to start a beefeating war. I swear. I was only toying with small agents of change while I tried to decide how best to help Ben save his ranch, not just for his sake, but for Mac and Lily's.

  "You're not hungry tonight, Lily?" Ben asked. "This pot roast is great."

  But Lily shook her head. "I'm eating salads now. And lots of fresh vegetables. And ... low gly ... gly-" she looked at me for help.

  "Glycemic," I said in a low voice, keeping my head down.

  "Low glycemic starches."

  She handed the platter of pot roast past her, to Cheech. But then Cheech shook his head and handed the pot roast to Bigfoot. Bigfoot speared a piece, then wavered, finally put it back on the platter, and passed the platter to Mac.

  Mac looked down at the pile of beef, new potatoes, carrots and onions with true longing, but passed the platter to Possum. Possum broke the pot-roast chain letter by raking a huge serving onto his plate. I sighed with relief.

  "Karen?" Ben said in a low, even growl. "Is there something I need to know about the pot roast?"

  "It's f-fine, Ben!" Mac said cheerfully. "But this 1-little girl here, she cooks lots of g-good things that aren't b-beef When I s-sat up with the m-mares in the foaling b-barn the other n-night, K-Karen brought me a f-fried squash sandwich. Fried. Squash. And it was g-good!"

  Fried squash sandwich. Ben's dark eyebrows flattened. Even the other non-pot-roast eaters gawked at me. "Nothing wrong with a squash ... sandwich," Miriam said uncertainly.

  "Aw come on, Miriam, that's just plain damned weird," Lula countered. "No man can spend a night helpin' birth foals with nothing but fried squash for a snack."

  Lily's eyes flashed. "Yes, they can! Karen says it's smart not to eat meat. She says it's bad for the world. And so ... let's eat fried squash, instead!"

  Silence.

  I groaned. Ben stabbed a fork into the pot roast and lifted it to his mouth. "Shut your eyes, everybody, I'm about to ruin the planet." He chewed and swallowed.

  "I didn't ask everyone to follow my lead," I said stiffly. "It's a personal choice, not a political statement. Please, all ofyou, eat your pot roast. Mac, please. Joey, it's all right." Joey frowned and poked his entree as if deciding a hard loyalty.

  Finally, he took another bite of beef, but then looked at me for approval. I nodded. But that was the only bite he ate. I stabbed a fork full of salad into my mouth and chewed defiantly, staring at Ben. But Ben was looking at Joey.

  And Ben was not happy at all.

  Immediately after dinner I stomped out to the back yard to scatter scraps on the kitchen compost pile, which was otherwise known as `the night crawler bed,' since Cheech and Bigfoot pulled fishing worms from it. I had instructed them to bring me all the edible fish they could catch in the creek.

  Ben followed me into the shadows. He held a cigar in one hand. The smoke wafted into a starry spring sky. "You got something against smoking an occasional hand-rolled cheroot," he growled, "or is that bad for the planet, too?"

  "You may smoke whatever you like. Moderate smoking of organic tobacco is a harmless and ritualistic ceremony, in my opinion. The problem is in smoking processed and artificially enhanced tobacco products that are designed to be highly addictive."

  "Hell, I don't know whether you just insulted my cigars or not. I need a translator."

  I slung my bucket of leftovers onto the compost then faced him angrily. "I'm not a threat, Ben. I'm not trying to convert you and your employees to some strange religion. You're already an environmentalist, whether you'll admit it or not."

  He stubbed the cigar on a post then flung it on the compost pile. "Let's just cut to the chase. Joey loves pot roast. He loves hamburgers, and T-bone steaks and beef tacos. He loves barbecue pork ribs and hotdogs and breakfast sausage with his biscuits. He ain't got a lotta things left to enjoy. Don't you scare him off the food he loves. Don't take that away from him."

  My anger faded. This explained so much. "Ben, I'm sorry. I didn't understand how seriously he and others would react to a few simple comments. I'll talk to him. I'll reassure him. I am sorry."

  "You think I'm a dumb cowboy? Because only ... only guys who went to college can understand the difference between good food and bad food?"

  "No! I would never elevate a college diploma over life experience and common sense. You have to understand, I've seen the genius of natural l i f e s t y l e s and native ... "

  "Those T-bones and blocks of ground beef stored under the junk food you hate in the freezer? They're from fat, happy cattle I raised with my own two hands. Some people call it `free-range' beef I call it my `livin'. I raised those animals, I cared for them kindly, and by God, I had the balls to admit they were meant to be food for me and my people. I killed `em quick and clean and said a prayer of thanks over their blood. And I butchered their meat, and I'm proud to eat it, and I'm proud it feeds the people who work for me."

  "Ben, please don't think-"

  "This country's full of people who never had to kill an animal to put meat on the table. Kids who think meat comes from a magic machine in the grocery store. Damn. I eat meat, and my people eat meat, and we don't ask nobody to look in the eyes of an animal for us and to kill it for us so we can pretend that steak on the plate wasn't ever part of a living, breathing, fellow creature. We know what it takes to live and eat and survive. And I ain't ever gonna apologize for that. Not to you or anybody."

  I held out my hands desperately. "I do respect the sustainable harvesting of animal resources. Fish, shellfish s h e l l fi s h..." "

  "Why just them? You think a trout don't want to avoid being somebody's dinner?"

  I groaned and shook my head. "You're missing the point. The mass production of large animals for meat is inefficient and ecologically unsound."

  "At the risk of sounding like Dale, that's not what Jesus said." He threw out a hand. "Hell, all those people in the Bible owned goats! And I'm pretty sure they are some of `em."

  "I'm not tryin' to challenge the entire Judeo-Christian tradition of meat consumption, all right? And I'm certainly not trying to belittle your livelihood."

  "Belittle it all you want. But don't go puttun' the wrong ideas in Joey's head or anybody else's around here. They tend to take ideas to heart. Kinda got tunnel vision. They think you're a wonder worker. They'll do what you say, and they'll mimic what you do."

  "You assume I have tremendous influence over people. I only wish I were such a force in the world."

  He pulled another half-smoked cigar butt from his dusty shirt pocket, started to light it, then cursed and threw it on the compost pile, too. "You want to take care of everybody's problems? Well, how about your own? Why do you cry in your bed almost every night?"

  "How could you possibly know-oh, no."

  "Yeah, Mac and Lily. They worry about you. They hear you."

  "Then I'll ... I'll put a pillow over my head." I started past him. He grabbed my arm. Gently. When I lasered his hand with my eyes, he lifted the hand quickly. His dark gaze held me in place, regardless. "You sure you don't have a problem I need to know about?"

  "I'm certain. And I promise you, I'm not going to disrupt your routines or bring any serious trouble to your life, here. I promise you. I'm only trying to help."

  "I
... dammit, maybe I could help you."

  "No, you can't." I wavered a little, looking up at him i n the starlight. "But thank you. You're a good man. Don't think I haven't noticed."

  "What planet are you from?" His voice was gruff, maybe even wistful. "I've never met anybody like you in my whole life."

  "I'll take that as a compliment." I hugged my slop bucket and headed back toward the house, then stopped and looked back at him. "Would you try a fried squash sandwich sometime?"

  "Not even if you paid me," he said.

  Chapter 9

  Kara

  After the infamous pot roast debacle, not to mention my complicity in the gray mare's cow assault, I felt as if I were a rich dilettante flailing about foolishly in the world of real people. Maybe I deserved my oval realty TV show. I could have made Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie look positively sensible.

  I could not change the past or my own misgivings, but maybe I could help an abused horse Mac and Lily cherished.

  "She still hasn't bit you even once," Miriam opined cheerfully. "B en's jealous."

  Lily, Miriam, Joey and I stood outside the mare's stall. She snapped at other horses, more out of worry than real anger, so she continued to live a separate life from the herd. "Jailbird," Mr. Darcy said to her from a safe place on a barn rafter.

  Maybe so, but the main horse barn was a lovely place in which to serve prison time. It had ceiling fans and skylights. The stalls were large and well-kept, and all faced a large, enclosed ring. The paddock was large enough for basic riding maneuvers, making a dry, sheltered area in which to train horses even on bad-weather days. A high wooden fence separated the ring from the alley fronting the stalls.

  Ben often turned Cougar, his breeding stallion, into the ring. Cougar was twenty years old, and had a touch of arthritis. He seemed happy to stay indoors, wandering the large ring and saying a rakish hello to various mares in his harem. They watched him like adoring spectators.

  Except for the gray mare. One morning I'd watched him meander over and crane his head at her across the ring's top rail. They could have touched noses if she'd liked. Instead she flattened her ears, snapped at him, then turned her rump to her stall door.

  And not in a good way, as Ben would say.

  "Ready for our daily conversation?" I asked her, now. She looked at me calmly as I snapped a lead to her halter. Once out of the stall, she nibbled carrots from Joey and Lily's palms. Then I led her into the ring, tucked the end of her lead into a back pocket of my hiking shorts, clasped my hands behind my back in contemplation, and began to walk. As usual, she walked alongside me as easily as a dog on a leash. I spoke to her in Portuguese, telling her my worries about being there, my sorrows, how much I missed Mother and Dad, how torn I was by the current circumstances. If I was good therapy for the gray mare, she repaid me by listening to my woes in return.

  Sometimes we would spend two hours or more just ambling in a large circle, watching my hiking boots and her front hooves kick small sprays of sand ahead of us. But not this day. I hatted. So did she.

  "I hear you're not ridable," I told her. "I am led to believe that you let me sit on your back that first day simply out of shock and shared antipathy for the Pollo brothers. Ben is of the opinion that I should not attempt to sit on your back, again. Are we going to listen to such nay saying? Yay or negh? How do you like my pun?"

  When she flicked her ears back and forth in answer, I eased the lead rope over her neck, tied the loose end in her halter ring, took a deep breath, grasped a large tuft of silver mane at her withers, and swung aboard. She wasn't quite fifteen hands tall, meaning the top of my head crested her withers by two inches, so I managed the feat easily enough. She flinched as I settled on her back, but didn't panic.

  I exhaled slowly and grasped the looped lead in my hands, palms down. Western-style riding-that is, one might say, cowboy style-relies on one rein hand, freeing the other for tossing a rope at a cow. Eastern style-as seen in jumping competitions, the Olympics, and other events-uses two hands on the reins. I squeezed my legs to the gray mare's sides. "Caminhada, por favor." Walk, please.

  She walked.

  "Everybody keep quiet," I heard Miriam whisper. "We're witnessin' a miracle."

  When I glanced over, she, Lily and Joey were frozen at the wooden fence, watching me in astonishment. Lily put a hand to her heart. I gazed forward again, pulled my impromptu reins a little tighter, and was impressed when the gray mare responded by tucking her nose slightly.

  I walked her in circles, first to the right, then to the left, making figure eights, squeezing and releasing with my legs, making the smallest moves with my hands. She flexed her head, collected herself like a dancer moving with controlled grace, and, in short, amazed me. Considering that she was being guided only by a lead rope and halter, her performance couldn't have been better.

  "I'm putting her through some very simple dressage exercises," I announced in a low, soothing voice, so as not to spook her.

  "What's dressage?" Lily whispered loudly.

  I thought for a moment, trying to distill centuries of intricate horse-and-rider communication. Finally I gave up and said. "It's horse dancing."

  "Oh!"

  "Like them Lipizzaners, Lily," Miriam pointed out. "You know, the white horses we watch on TV. They dance and hop. And the riders wear funny hats."

  "Oh, my! Karen, can the gray mare do what they do?"

  "Well, most healthy and reasonably strong horses can perform advanced dressage techniques, but it takes years of training, and only a few reach the level of the Lipizzanners."

  "She's walking real good," Joey called. "I bet Zipperlanners can't wall,, as good as her."

  Zipperlanners. I smiled. "We have a new breed, here. Miss Mare, I dub thee a Zipperlanner."

  The gray mare swiveled her ears. I grew bolder, gave her a nudge, and she escalated into a long, easy trot. Ben said she wasn't gaited, the way many Cracker horses are, but she did have a lovely, long trot. Again I guided her in large figure-eights. Another nudge of my heels and she went smoothly into a canter. Gorgeous. We circled. I nudged.

  She switched strides like a champion. Horses naturally lead with one front leg. For the sake of coordination and grace, the extended leg should always be on the inside when making a circle. A trained horse is ambidextrous and can switch in the blink of an eye, on command. The gray mare responded perfectly. I was entranced, enchanted, and fully caught up in the Zen of cantering.

  Until she threw me against the rail.

  Actually, what happened was not her fault. She saw Ben, who had walked into the barn and leaned against the fence, removing his hat as if in church, watching the stunning spectacle of the gray mare. His movement startled her, his presence enraged her. She flung up her head, lunged at him, and snared his hat with her teeth.

  And I, caught unawares in my trance, slid off in a neat arc. The ring's middle board stopped my momentum. I hit it on my left shoulder, bounced off, and landed, sitting upright, in the sand. The gray mare, white-eyed, galloped to the ring's far side, where she dropped Ben's hat. Then she stepped on it, in apparent hatred of straw cowboy hats everywhere.

  "Karen? Iren." Ben's hands cupped my face. My next clear thought surfaced as he squatted on his boot heels in front of me, holding my head, looking into my dazed eyes. "Godawmighty, I'm sorry."

  "I should have been more alert."

  "Naw. You were doing just fine. Beautiful. Count my fingers." He held up several.

  I took a deep breath. My head cleared. "Forefinger, middle finger, and a dusty thumb. You could use a manicure."

  "Good girl. What hurts?"

  "Nothing at the moment. I'm numb."

  "She's okay," he called.

  I was dimly aware of Lily huddling beside me, stroking my hair, and Miriam soothing Joey, who was wheezing loudly. "I'm fine, I really am," I lied. I looked into Ben's eyes. "The mare is ridable."

  "Well, not exactly. But maybe she will be, some day."

  "Ye of little f
aith."

  "Ye of scrambled brains. I'm gonna drive you over to the emergency clinic in Fountain Springs."

  "No."

  ep.

  "No." I turned toward Lily. She was crying. Her hand felt soft on my hair. "Lily, I'm not hurt."

  "Poor baby."

  "Lily, I'm ... don't cry. You don't know how resilient I am. Don't-" I stopped myself. My common sense returned with another deep breath. I looked at Ben. "Help me up, and I'll retrieve your hat."

  "Hat's a lost cause. It don't matter. I can get another hat. I'm not worried about the hat. I'm worried about . . ." He stopped himself. Common sense was a virus. I spread it to him. "Awright. Up you go." He stood, lifting me to my feet. Lily rose along with me, tugging at my arm as if she could bolster me. My mother, I thought. My real mother.

  I got my balance. Biological mother, I corrected. I brushed myself off, waved at Joey and Miriam, then took Lily's hand and patted it. "I'll get Ben's hat."

  "Be careful!"

  "You've had enough business with that mare for the day," Ben said.

  "Leave Karen to go," Miriam said. "She ain't no quitter."

  I looked up at him. "I ain't no quitter."

  He sighed and stepped aside. I walked toward the gray mare. She looked at me, her scarred head high and watchful. She snorted over my hair, at Ben. I spoke to her in Portuguese. Her head lowered, her eyes calmed, and she waited. I reached out carefully-she was extremely headshy, even around me-and put my hand on the looped lead rope. "Back up," I commanded gently. She backed away from Ben's hat. I slowly bent and retrieved it.

  Her eyes rolled but she didn't spook. I held out the trampled straw hat. She sniffed it. "He means you no harm," I told her in a whisper. "I know some man abused your trust and left you with that awful scar, but Ben Thocco is entirely trustworthy. I realize I haven't known him very long, but I believe my instinct and observations are sound. Can't you see that there isn't a mistreated horse anywhere on this ranch? Don't you notice how Cougar nuzzles him so sweetly?" I put the hat to my nose and inhaled. "He smells good, doesn't he? Sweaty and masculine and clean. Look how much I trust him. Watch this." I slowly lifted Ben's hat and placed it on my head.