Wounded

by Percival Everett

  I didn’t say anything.

  “What’s he want from me?” he asked.

  “I told him I’d call you.”

  “Well, thanks for callin’. You have a nice day now,” he said and with that he was off the phone.

  I looked at the dead receiver and placed it back onto the cradle.

  Gus had come to the doorway. “So?” he asked.

  “That boy’s floating on a river of lava in a rubber raft.” I stood and locked my rifle back in the cabinet. “But you know what?”

  “What?”

  “It’s none of my business.”

  Duncan Camp drove into my place with his single-horse trailer in tow behind his pickup. The trailer was open topped, a white affair with a broad green stripe, and in it stood a truly monstrous palomino.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked as Duncan pulled himself out of his truck.

  “It’s a horse, John,” Duncan said. “I’m surprised at you. Equus caballum.”

  “Caballus,” I said.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “A horse. You sure?” I asked.

  “Pretty sure,” Duncan said. “He’s got a horse brain, I can tell you that.”

  “You want him for riding or picking apples?”

  Duncan coughed into his fist, then took out a cigarette. “He’s a big one, all right.” He lit up. “Fifteen hundred pounds of dumb muscle and bad attitude.” He looked at the burning cigarette in his hand. “Doctor said these things are going to kill me. But he didn’t say when. I can’t work with imprecise information.”

  “So, he spooks,” I said.

  “Did I mention that he’s hard to catch?”

  “Not until now,” I said. “He trailers okay, though.” It was more a question than an observation.

  “He has his moments.”

  “My daughter named him Felony.”

  “That’s charming.” I looked at the horse’s eyes. Felony looked frightened and he was snorting and prancing in place. “We’d better get him out of there. I want you to stick him in the round pen. Take off his halter.”

  Duncan backed the horse out of the trailer; the animal swung his hindquarters around sharply before he was clear of the ramp. The big man lost his balance, but he didn’t fall.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m just getting old.” Duncan turned the horse and walked him toward the round pen. “You gonna start with him now?”

  “Might as well see what I’m getting myself into,” I said.

  Duncan walked the horse into the pen, removed the halter as I had instructed, and came back out. He stepped onto the observation deck with me, and we watched the animal trot and canter around the circle, one way and then the other.

  “He’s a pretty mover,” I said. “Big cus.”

  Duncan didn’t say anything.

  “What’s he do when you try to catch him?” I asked.

  “You might say he can be a little chargey,” Duncan said.

  I laughed and looked Duncan in the eye. “How chargey?”

  “Oh, he’ll come right at you sometimes. Mostly, though, he just gives you his butt.”

  “How hard?” I asked. “When he comes right at you?”

  “Varies,” he said.

  “So, he spooks under saddle and attacks when he’s not.” I took Duncan’s silence as agreement. I said, “I say we shoot him.”

  “He sure is pretty,” Duncan said.

  “Okay, we shoot him and stuff him.” I blew out a breath. “Well, I guess it’s time to see what we’ve got in there. Let me have the halter and lead rope.”

  Duncan handed them to me. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “Call nine-one-one.”

  I climbed down the steps and walked into the pen, holding the halter in my right hand and I held the tail end of the cotton lead rope in my left. The other end was still fastened to the halter. The horse pulled up on seeing me and sped away in the opposite direction. He kicked up more dust and when I was in the center of the circle, the horse started storming clockwise around me. I picked a spot on the wall opposite the gate. When the horse approached that spot, I tossed the halter out, hanging on to the end of the rope. Felony put on the brakes, rolled back, and tore off anti-clockwise. When the animal came to the same point on the circle, I tossed out the halter again. This time the horse paused and trotted by it. I talked to the horse the whole time, calling his name, making soothing sounds.

  “You okay?” Duncan asked.

  “Yep.”

  Every time the horse came to that spot, I tossed the halter. Soon the horse was slowing when approaching the spot. After a couple more tosses, he was stopping at the spot and turning to face me. That was what I wanted. I then pushed the horse away with a large gesture of my arms. When he stopped again, I turned my back to him and took a step away. Felony followed me across the pen. I turned and let the horse sniff the halter. He let me stroke his neck. I left the pen.

  “That was great,” Duncan said, coming down from the platform.

  “I can work with him,” I said. “Is there anything you know that he’s particularly afraid of?”

  “John, he’s scared of everything. A squirrel spooked him. Once he caught sight of his reflection in a truck window and took off. Who knows? All I know is I don’t have many wrecks left in me at my age.”

  “Well, I’ll work with him for a few weeks.”

  Duncan looked at his watch. “I’m late. Hell, I’m always late. I didn’t expect you to start right away.”

  “I’ll give you a call when I know more,” I said. We started walking back to his truck. “Are you going to be the one riding him?”

  “Mostly,” Duncan said. “Unfortunately, my daughter’s in love with him. She’ll want to ride him. I would like to put other people on him.”

  “We’ll see,” I said. “We might have to have Ginny come over and ride him here some.”

  “She’ll like that,” he said.

  Duncan opened his truck door. “That was great.”

  “Well, we’ll see how it goes,” I said.

  In my dream, I was working a string of seven green horses. It was too many and I knew it. I didn’t have enough time to train them correctly. Every horse bucked and I found myself resorting to popping the animal I was riding with a quirt. Every time the horse bucked, I’d reach out and whip him on the snoot. But he wouldn’t stop bucking and when I looked over at the hitching post I saw the other six horses, saddled, tied, waiting and bucking in place.

  All day long woolly, white clouds had clumped together over the mountains and I expected rain, so I worked like mad trying to get my hay in. But there would be no rain that night. The clouds had already rolled past and so I left off with the last of the hay and saddled my Appaloosa. I packed a canteen and a little food and rode out the south gate and toward the creek. I had to admit to myself that I was bothered by my failure with Wallace’s brother, but I had only said I would call, not that I would get him to come. I was also bothered by my decided lack of interest in Wallace Castlebury’s predicament. I am by nature loyal and it felt bad simply to abandon the man, despite his brief presence on the ranch and despite the fact that I found the man generally objectionable. I didn’t know if Wallace was guilty or not and I didn’t care. He was nothing to me. I wasn’t his lawyer or a cop. I’d made the call and that was it. I hoped the ride would clear my head. Zoe trotted some yards ahead of me and darted off after the occasional rabbit.

  The creek was late summer low, a couple yards wide. The Appy crossed it without hesitation, which was unusual, and I took it as a good sign. I had an hour of light left and so I decided to ride all the way to the mouth of the cave and ride back in the dark. I’d discovered the cave several years into living in the area. I happened on it while chasing down a cagey bull back when I ran cattle. The cave was deep enough that I didn’t know how deep it was. Susie and I had taken picnics and camped there regularly for a while. She’d never liked it.

/>   “I don’t want to go any farther,” Susie said.

  I turned to her. She was backlit by the entrance to the cave. Still, I could see the fear, if not on her face then by her posture. A chipmunk had found the picnic we’d set up some yards outside the cave.

  “I don’t like it in here,” she said.

  I pointed the beam of my flashlight into the darkness, showing a twist of passage. I realized that once we made that turn, the outside light would be lost and Susie would really become frightened. “You go on back, I’m going to look a little deeper,” I said.

  “No.” She shook her hands at her sides. “This makes me so nervous.” Her voice broke. “I’m scared.”

  I went back to her. “I’m sorry, Susie. Come on, let’s go back and have some fruit. If that chipmunk left us anything.”

  “I don’t mean to be such a baby,” she said.

  We walked out and Susie sat cross-legged on the blanket.

  “If it scares you, it scares you. That’s pretty simple. There’s absolutely nothing to apologize about.” I sat and leaned back against a large rock. “I can come back here some other time.”

  “I don’t want you to,” she said. “Just the idea of your being in here terrifies me. Really, I’m not making it up.”

  “Okay, honey.”

  Susie stood. She trembled as she looked down the slope then out over the Red Desert.

  I got up and put my arms around her. “Everything’s okay,” I told her. “Everything is just fine.”

  “No, it’s not,” she said. “Can we go back to the house now?”

  “You bet.”

  “I’m sorry, John.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. “We’ll go back home. What’s the big deal? Come on, let’s pack up.”

  Zoe was back from chasing a rabbit, heeling to the App. I had sneaked back to the cave many times while Susie was alive. She must have known, but she never said anything. I stopped going shortly before her death, feeling that somehow I was cheating on her by being in the cave.

  The sun was gone by the time I reached the entrance. I still hadn’t been back in. But I wanted to explore it. I got off and looked into the dark mouth while my horse rested. Then I mounted and started back.

  It was good and dark when I loosened the horse’s cinch and walked him the last hundred yards to the hitching post beneath the flickering vapor lamp on the barn. A hatch of white flies darted in and out of the glow well above me. I took off the saddle and took my time brushing the horse. I had started cleaning out a hoof when I noticed a car parked in front of the house. It was a light-colored convertible, seemingly new, that I didn’t recognize. I cleaned all the hooves, led the horse to her stall, and walked to the house. My body felt creaky.

  “Who goes there?” Gus called as I stepped into the kitchen.

  “Who does the fancy chariot belong to?” I asked.

  “That would be mine.” It was Morgan Reese from the neighboring ranch. She was a frequent visitor.

  “Hey there, Morgan,” I said. “What’s up with the new wheels?”

  “I got sick of driving a truck to Billings,” she said.

  “How much will it tow?” I asked.

  “Who cares,” she said, “it’s a guy magnet. So where were you? Scaring cougars or kissing elk?”

  “A little of both.” I moved to take a seat at the table across from her, but I remembered and felt how dirty I was. “Are you going to stick around and have some dinner with us?”

  “Gus already asked and I said ‘you bet.’”

  “Well. If you two will excuse me, I’ll go upstairs and try to get cleaned up. It’s one thing to come in after a ride and settle down to chow with a scraggly old geezer, but it’s something else to sit down to a meal with a spiffy cowgirl who drives up in a white convertible.”

  I walked up the stairs, undressed, and left my clothes on the bathroom floor. I stepped into the shower and found myself thinking about Morgan. She was around a lot. I wasn’t stupid or blind and so I knew she had a crush on me. I didn’t mind her presence, in fact, it was sort of nice, and I tried to rationalize that by recognizing her as a good friend for Gus. Susie had been dead for six years and I know that most people would have moved on in that time, but I couldn’t seem to. I missed my wife and I knew that wouldn’t go away; I honestly didn’t want that feeling to pass. But I had trouble imagining myself close to anyone again. My clumsiness around Morgan made me feel tense, uneasy, and my defense was to step away and the step away made me feel bad and so I felt more awkward still. While I dried, staring at my face in the mirror, I was amused by my all too apparent observation that I wasn’t getting any younger.

  “Hey, Hunt!” Morgan called up the stairs.

  “What do you want?”

  “Get your fanny down here!”

  “I’m coming. Just let me put some pants on.” I pulled on a clean pair of khakis and a white shirt and walked down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  “You clean up real nice,” Morgan said.

  “Thank you ma’am,” I said.

  Gus shook his head over by the sink. “Don’t lie to the poor bastard. He’ll start to believe it, then he’ll think he can stop trying.”

  “What’s to eat?” I asked.

  “Meat and taters,” Gus said. “And a leek, watercress, and endive salad.”

  I sat down at the table with Morgan. “You’ve been reading the magazines at the doctor’s office again.”

  “What if I have?” he said. “Anyway, this just happened to be one of my favorites when I was in prison.”

  Morgan laughed.

  Gus was not shy about the fact that he’d been locked away for a while. He didn’t broadcast the information, but he never hid it.

  Morgan drank from her water glass. “That Castlebury is going to get more than prison.”

  Gus put the rest of the food on the table and sat down.

  “I guess somebody saw him kill that boy,” Morgan said. “That’s what I heard anyway.”

  “What else did you hear?” Gus asked.

  I took some potatoes from the dish.

  Gus gestured toward me with his fork. “Mr. Above-It-All over there thinks it’s none of our business.”

  “It is now,” Morgan said. “The boy he killed was gay and the word is Castlebury got mad when he made a pass at him. We’re in the news because of all this. It’s awful. Imagine that poor boy.”

  Gus whistled. “It’s a terrible thing, killing somebody.” Gus was quiet and we gave the moment its head.

  Morgan looked at me. “Hunt, how would you feel if a man made a pass at you? Would it get you upset?”

  “Never thought about it.”

  “Well, think about it,” she said.

  “I guess I ought to be flattered,” I said, shrugging.

  “What would you say?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’d say the same thing I’d say to a woman who made a pass at me. ‘No, thank you.’”

  Morgan tore some bread from the loaf and put it on her plate.

  Gus cut me a hard look.

  I hadn’t meant to shut any gates, but damn if I hadn’t by accident. “I forgot the wine,” I said. “Can’t have dinner without wine.” I got up and went to the small rack across the kitchen. “Now, I think a nice Syrah would wash down a size-twelve roper just splendidly.”

  Morgan softened somewhat. “Okay, cowboy, that’s what you’d say. How would you feel?”

  I stood at the table, twisting the corkscrew. “I don’t know, to tell the truth. It’s never happened. I don’t know any homosexuals. Well, if I do, I don’t know that they are. Hell, I don’t know if half the people I know are heterosexual. I don’t want to know.” I pulled out the cork. “Anyway, to answer your question: I don’t know. Like I said, I guess I should feel flattered.”

  “I knew some in prison,” Gus said. “They scared me.”

  “Gus,” Morgan complained.

  “Hell, Morgan, everybody scared me in prison
. Besides, that was a different thing anyway. That raping and stuff that happens in the lockup, that’s not sex or love, that’s fighting. It’s all about power, all that macho stuff. Well, anyway, that’s how it seemed to me.”

  “Speaking of macho,” I said, “how’s your mother?”

  “We’re burying the battle-ax on Wednesday,” she said, sipping her wine. “She’s alive and all. I just don’t know what else to do with her.”

  “Bury me next,” Gus said.

  “You expect me to dig a hole in this heat?” I said. “Think again.”

  “Mother’s fine,” Morgan said. “She’s as wild as ever. I was going to bring her tonight, but wrestling is on television. You know, she’s seventy and she still rides that crazy horse.”

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “Crazy Horse.”

  “Oh, yeah. How old is he?” I asked.

  “Thirty-six,” she said. “Can you believe that?”

  I loved it. “That’s great. Senior food and what kind of hay?”

  “Alfalfa and timothy. It’s expensive, but she doesn’t eat all that much. Everybody else gets straight alfalfa.” Morgan paused and studied me. “Gus, you ever notice how comfortable this man gets when the subject is horses?”

  “Now that you mention it,” Gus said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “Watch this,” Morgan said. “Hey, Hunt. Women.” She stared at me while she said it.

  Gus laughed.

  “What?” I put a bit of antelope steak in my mouth. “What?”

  “Sex,” Morgan said.

  “Very funny,” I said. I didn’t know where to look. I drank some wine, sat back and crossed my legs.

  “Look at him,” Morgan said. “He’s tenser than a Republican with a thought of his own.”

  I looked at Morgan, frowning a smile. “Where’d that come from?”

  “Been waiting to use it.”

  “It’s true, though,” Morgan said.

  “Anyway, Duncan Camp dropped off his extremely large, insane, and might I add, dangerous horse today.”