"You don't mind?"
"No."
As if she had heard them deliberating her fate, the whitetail lifted her head off the ground and focused her bewildered brown eyes on them. She made a last effort to right herself, pawed at the hard earth with a hoof and struggled to get her footing, then collapsed back into the snow.
They saw the very moment death came over her. It swept across her body just as a gust of wind blew a cloud of fine dry snow past them, and when the wind had died the doe lay still.
Sarah snapped off the flashlight, but they lingered beside the animal, stunned by the abruptness of death and the puzzling vacuum that follows. John reached out and placed his hand over Sarah's where it still rested on his knee. They could hear the wind in the distance, moving toward them over the prairie like waves on the sea, moaning low and growing louder as it approached. A strong gust swept over them and Sarah shivered. John took her hand and they rose and slowly made their way down the hillside back to the car.
With the heater running they sat for a while, but Sarah was still shivering so John shrugged off his coat and laid it over her lap.
"I'm fine, really," she said. But she did not refuse the gesture.
They pulled back onto the road, and for the longest time neither of them made an effort to speak. The warm car, its steady motion and thrumming engine, lulled them into silence, yet all the while they were thinking about what they had witnessed. It was not so much the event itself that had affected them, poignant as it had been, but their shared reverence for the moment, the way both of them had seized upon something wordless and simple and eternal.
He wanted to see her to the door. Sarah told him it wasn't really necessary, but she thanked him all the same. Inside the house she waited, listening to the sound of tires on the gravel as he backed out. Then she bent down and removed her boots, and, carrying each in one hand, she climbed the stairs in the dark to her room. She lay in bed that night and thought about it all, and her thoughts kept returning to the dark outline of a doe against white snow, and the feel of his warm hand around her own.
CHAPTER 15
Although he was firmly grounded in the ways of rural living, Billy Moon was a man of thoughts and ideas. He had been born and schooled in Oklahoma, but that didn't stop his imagination from strutting down the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles and stumbling over bodies at the Battle of Agincourt, and doing his absolute best to drag his students along with him. He paced the aisles of his classroom in a caged walk with his fingers splayed on his hips, engaging the sons and daughters of wheat farmers and feedlot owners in critical thinking about things far removed from their daily lives, things their parents ignored or ridiculed.
Sarah admired this about him, admired many things about him, but even after Maude died she never dreamed he would see anything in her but the girl she had once been, a solitary kid at the back of the class who never raised her hand and never looked him in the eye.
It was the tutoring job that moved them into new territory. Sarah had begun volunteering the previous September, and soon both of them began to anticipate those Tuesdays when she came to school. Sarah got into the habit of dropping by Billy's room between classes to say hello. If one of her students was out sick or taking a test and she had some time on her hands, she would settle herself at the worktable next to his desk and enter scores into the gradebook or grade some of his quizzes. Then one Tuesday she came early and brought him a pastrami sandwich, and then lunch just became a part of the order of things.
And then there was that day when Sarah wore pink.
It was lunchtime, and Sarah had arrived at his door with a plastic bag slung over her wrist and her coat buttoned up the front.
"Lunch is here!" she called out as she stepped into the classroom.
"Be right out!" cried Billy from the storage room at the back. "Lock the door, will you?"
She turned the lock and wended her way through the chairs toward his desk. Billy's classroom was like a world unto itself, and walking in there always gave Sarah a rush. There was not one square inch of wall that wasn't covered with a poster or a piece of trivia scavenged during the trips abroad he organized for his European history students every two years. Strung across one wall was a blue, white, and red Tour de France banner snatched from the finish line on the Champs Elysées after the last cyclist had cruised by. Stick-pinned to the back wall—straddling a Salvador Dalí poster and a Coca-Cola advertisement in Spanish—was a blue and yellow jersey he swore he had bought off the captain of the Leeds rugby team. The kids' favorites, however, were the few scattered photographs of a much younger Billy riding the bulls, caught in the boneless attitude of a rag doll, one hand gripping the cinch, the other flapping overhead.
She turned around to see Billy in the storage room doorway with a couple of paper plates in his hands.
"What do you want to drink?" he asked.
"What do you have?"
He turned his back to her and swung open the door of a small refrigerator.
"Got some 7UP and orange juice. Couple of Perriers been sitting in here for months."
"Then let's knock off the Perrier."
When he came out she was removing her coat and the look on his face made her blush and clasp the coat back around her as if she were naked.
"Oh, don't, Billy." She laughed nervously.
"Don't what? Don't look at you?"
"Yes."
"Sarah, you were made to be looked at."
He said it so darn seriously, gripping a Perrier in each hand, his legs squared like a boxer.
"Oh, don't start."
"Start what?"
He was so intent, forcing her to heed that stance of his, and she saw there was no laughter in his eyes; but then he broke free and set the bottles on his desk.
"I know you don't like to be looked at," he said.
"How do you know that?"
"I watch you. And I think I've gotten to know you pretty well these past few months."
"Have you now?"
"And I think you haven't changed a whole lot since you sat at the back of my classroom—what?—twelve years ago?... and drew caricatures of me."
"Not of you. I never did that to you."
"You did a great one of... What was her name?"
"Kathy. That little witch who sat right in front of your desk."
"But not me?"
"I would never have made fun of you."
Abruptly, he popped the lids off the Perriers, and his mouth was hidden behind the dark mustache, but she could see he was pleased.
"Let's eat these things while they're still warm," she said. She removed the foil from the ribs and dropped a slab onto each plate.
Now, Billy Moon had a knack for storytelling, and as they sat at the worktable and savored Joy's baby back ribs, Sarah was treated to a few of Billy's observations and theories on the interaction of the sexes at Chase County High. Sarah listened to him that noon and watched the way he hunkered down over his ribs and blotted at his mustache with a napkin, watched the way his eyes twinkled and thought maybe she was falling in love.
Billy expounded the theory that Chase County High's teachers' lounge was a microcosm of interpersonal interaction, that in many ways it was an accurate reflection of the social fabric of Chase County at large. The two sexes were not all that fond of one another, he claimed. The women wanted to be like the men but couldn't, and the men were a lot more like women than they wanted to admit, and this confusion led to a rather ugly animosity that slunk around most days with its tail down and its hackles up just waiting to be provoked. Inevitably someone would say something—the menfolk would express their humor in terms of women's morphology, and then the womenfolk would take offense— and then everyone would see how that critter could show itself downright nasty, with a front lip that pleated up as neatly as Venetian blinds to show a finely aligned row of butcher-sharp teeth and vocal cords that rumbled in Dolby stereo. On these occasions of ruptured civility, which occurred as they did fro
m time to time in the teachers' lounge, the two sides settled like foot soldiers into their respective trenches, with occasional defectors slipping out under cover of dark and forming compassionate and human bonds—Miss Morgan of home ec and Mr. Fleming in the math department, for example— and then slipping back to their own side at dawn to prepare themselves for the daily battle.
Billy had long observed this segregation of the sexes during the lunch hour. The men always sat in a lineup along the wall in, as the ladies had often noted, the most comfortable facilities in the lounge, a long orange Naugahyde sofa flanked and faced by several chairs of the same fabric in faded avocado and citron—a formation that bore a remarkable resemblance, Billy noted, to the old Conestoga wagon-train circle of defense, with a newspaper-cluttered coffee table where the campfire would have been. The women camped on the other side of the lounge in a huddle of small circular tables surrounded by upright chairs, a formation that revealed their natural inclination toward communication and signaled right off their skills in synthesis and cooperation, all of which—Billy knew for a fact—the menfolk lumped into the general category of gossipmongering. A few women on occasion would brave the male defenses and sit for a few moments around the campfire with the fellas, but it was usually when a bit of official business was taking place, and the incident was viewed as a pleasant anomaly. But under no circumstances, never, ever, did a man who saw himself as a man wander into that female labyrinth, settle himself down among the plentiful designing Ariadnes with their skeins of threads they were constantly rolling up and unrolling, knotting and unraveling.
Sarah's amused laughter had rallied him on, and Billy lost track of the time. Before they knew it the bell had rung and the halls were full of students rushing to class.
Billy sat back and wiped his hands on a paper towel. "How'd you like to come over and ride Warlord this weekend?"
Sarah paused with her thumb in her mouth. Warlord had been Maude's horse.
"He hasn't been ridden all summer," Billy added. "Gettin' wild."
"He was always wild."
"Yeah. Maude was always a little scared of him."
"I can see why. He's young and he's a stallion."
"You used to own a stallion."
"That was when I was a crazy kid."
"Want to ride him?"
Sarah dabbed a bit of sauce from her mouth and lifted her eyes to meet his. Her smile held a faint air of challenge.
"I'll give it a try."
Billy began to clean up the clutter, folding up their paper plates and tossing them into the trash. He was standing there, looking down at her as she cleaned her fingers, when he said, "Take off the damn coat, Sarah."
It was a startled look she gave him. But she did as he asked, slipped the coat off her shoulders and let it fall onto her chair. He thought she looked a little like a virgin disrobing before her first lover, but he knew better.
He had never seen her wear anything like that before. It was a stretch top that molded her breasts, cut low enough to reveal cleavage. And the color put roses in her cheeks.
"Why are you so embarrassed?" he said gently.
"I'm too pink." She grimaced. "Joy talked me into buying it. I should know better than to listen to her."
"Joy was right."
Sarah shook her head vehemently, flinging her corkscrew curls from side to side.
"I'm too pink."
"No. You're not too pink," he said, and he turned away quickly before it had an effect on him.
That weekend she went out to ride Warlord and stayed for dinner. The following weekend she was invited to dinner and ended up staying the night. At Christmas Billy tied a big red bow on Warlord's saddle and set it under his tree with a note to Sarah saying the stallion was hers.
CHAPTER 16
It was a bright March morning and Sarah was in the stall thinning out Warlord's mane when she heard the stable door creak open and felt a rush of cold air. She heard Billy approach, the sound of his boots muffled by scattered straw, and she peered over Warlord's withers.
"Morning," she said, then disappeared behind the horse's long neck.
"Hi, stranger." His voice was still a little gravelly, not quite awake.
He ducked under the rope and stepped up beside her to give Warlord a firm pat on his neck. He wore a sleeveless down vest over a wool shirt and he smelled like soap.
"Sun wasn't even up when I heard you drive in."
"Sorry. Hope I didn't wake you."
Sarah wound a section of mane around her comb and tugged hard, loosening a strand of horsehair.
"You gonna ride him?"
"Planning on it."
"That's good."
"It's just been so cold."
"He still needs to be ridden."
"I know."
"And so do I."
She avoided his eyes, then, abruptly, dipped under Warlord's neck and disappeared on the other side of the animal.
"I'm sorry," he said then, and there was honest contrition in his voice. "That was crude."
"Yes. It was. And not at all like you."
He laid his hand on the chestnut Arab's muzzle and stroked him fondly. "You've been avoiding me."
She had moved around to the horse's rear and had begun combing out the tail.
"Sorry."
There was a pause, and Warlord turned his big head around and eyed the two of them.
Billy answered, "Would you like to elaborate on that a little?"
She paused, then came around to face him.
She looked down at the comb in her hands. "Maybe it's just, well, things got off to such a quick start..."
"You didn't seem to feel that way a few months ago."
She was still avoiding his gaze.
"What is it? Be honest with me. You been seein' somebody else?"
She shook her head emphatically.
"No."
"Where you been evenings? I call and your grandpa says you're gone."
She shook her head again.
"I'm there. I'm just up in my room."
"I thought so."
She shrugged. "It's not that he's lying, it's just he knows I won't answer if he calls. And so he says I'm not there."
"You're too withdrawn, Sarah."
"It's just winter. Winter does it to me."
"What better time than winter to come to my bed?"
He did not try to touch her, but when she looked up she met his dark eyes and felt the passion surge again, and she was so relieved that tears came to her eyes.
"Oh, Billy..."
She reached out and stroked his jaw, and he kissed the palm of her hand.
"Come on," he said gruffly, and she dropped the comb onto the stall floor and followed him out of the barn.
But after they made love, she was in a hurry to leave him. He mistook her impatience for enthusiasm. The sun had come out strong, and the March wind held just the faintest hint of spring, and she was eager to ride.
She warmed up Warlord in the arena, and then, against Billy's advice, took him out on the open range. He was strong and full of pent-up energy, and she had to work to keep him contained; but the struggle did her good, and she wore him down and wore herself down, and came back in the afternoon, both of them exhausted. Billy was furious at her, told her that even though the horse was hers now, and he wouldn't go back on his word, if she did that again he'd never let her up on his back. But she only laughed and said she'd come in the dead of night to ride him if she had to.
CHAPTER 17
When two particles interact with each other, they exchange energy and/or momentum.
K. C. COLE, FIRST YOU BUILD A CLOUD AND OTHER REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICS AS A WAY OF LIFE
It had been three weeks since she had closed the door on John Wilde, but he had struck a presence in her heart that she could not erase. There had been only little Will to bring them together, and Will had been put back in the hospital for an indefinite period. She knew there would be no continuation of what had begun, t
hat the stirrings in their hearts would be left to slowly wither and die with time. And yet the days passed by with a kind of renewed hope for some vague, undefinable happiness, and what had manifested itself on that wintry night traveled on through the core of her being like a deep tremor.
During this time, during the nights, she stayed awake to paint in oils, and she watched new things appear on her easel—landscapes of lonely houses perched among fierce hills and peopled with elongated shadowlike forms. Minimal, barely more than silhouette, but they were there, easily distinguished as man and woman and child. It had been many years since she had painted even the faintest abstraction of the human form.
Her restlessness was not easily appeased. The familiar faces that made up the tapestry of her days, the routine amusements and distractions, appeared now to her like a pale, wintry world. Everywhere she turned there was a blinding sameness. She could no longer distinguish one moment of her life from another, and the events of each day were forgotten as soon as they had passed. She began to take short trips up to Lawrence, where she had once gone to university. She had always loved Lawrence from the first time her grandfather had taken her for a visit as a little girl and they had wandered hand in hand through the campus, along footpaths winding between stately old halls of cream-colored stone. The town itself was a lively place, animated by a peculiar mix of academics, artists, cowboys, and old hippies, and Sarah never grew tired of it. And so, that spring, she began spending her days off up there. Removed from prying eyes, she would take her sketch pad with her and sit on a bench with the March wind scattering dead leaves at her feet. Here she could make believe life held hope and promise.
When John was in Lawrence he generally ate a late lunch, if he ate at all. He avoided the funky old cafes on Massachusetts he had frequented as an undergraduate; even more fastidiously, he avoided the affluent West Lawrence neighborhood, steered clear of the shops and restaurants enjoyed by his parents and their friends. There was a new bakery and deli on Louisiana Street that he liked, a clean, sunny place called Wheatfields that reminded him of his favorite bakery in Berkeley. He usually tried to time it so that he missed the lunch crowd; it was generally quiet then and he could find a booth to himself and spread out his work and read while he downed a sandwich and a salad. He liked the ambience, the lack of pretense and the way the sunlight angled through the slats of the Venetian blinds.
Sarah's Window Page 8