“Oh, for God’s sake, that about cuts it. I’m turning back.”
“Now, hang on a minute. I’m working into it slow.”
Her grip on the reins tightened. Hugh had taken them to the spot where she’d stood crying a year ago, finally deciding to scatter Fats’s ashes here, a place traversable only by horseback, a place she thought he’d feel most at home. “He’s dead and gone, Hugh. Nothing you can say now will accomplish anything unless you’re hell-bent on making me cry.”
“Stop being dramatic. You women—think it don’t pain a man’s heart to lose his friend? That you have to sleep with a man to feel the grief when he dies?”
Chloe gave a dry laugh. “Well, it sure can put an edge to it.”
“Don’t play with my words. Fats was like my big brother. I watched him commit a long, slow suicide. Maybe I was too pissed off at him when he died to feel sad just then. But you never got angry, did you?”
She turned in her saddle to face him. “I forced him to eat when he didn’t want to. I drove him kicking and screaming to the hospital a million times. I watched him pickle himself until his skin stank of the stuff. He fucking bled to death all over me. Don’t talk to me about anger.”
Ahead of them, low brush rustled and Hannah took off at a lope. “Hannah!” Chloe screamed.
Ringer crow-hopped, and Hugh sidled Lucky up next to him. “Easy,” he said, pinning the horse with his own. “There’s a good boy. Dammit, Chloe, are you looking for a broken neck? Let the dog flush quail, will you? She knows where her supper dish is. She’s not going to run off every time you turn your back.”
She couldn’t speak.
He nosed Lucky forward. “There’s some people who would eat me alive for saying so, but I think you and Fats saved each other’s lives when you were together. You could have hooked up with somebody who’d use you and throw you out. I see these young girls whoring today, all the drugs and nonsense, well, that’s a sensitive subject for me, as you know. My own children consider me something of an embarrassment, think whatever I say is nonsense. But I’ve been around awhile, and I know money can look downright golden when it’s in easy reach. Fats wasn’t immune to that. I credit my friend, all he did was love you as much as he knew how. Maybe it wasn’t enough, but you gave him your heart and soul, admit it.”
“I’m not ashamed to.”
The wind blew by them, spreading a fine layer of grit over their faces. Chloe turned her face away. Hugh reached up to secure his hat. “Chloe, you can’t sleep with a dead man the rest of your life. You’re young. That professor may not ride, but you could teach him. He thinks you hung the moon. Go on back to him. Get yourself knocked up. Give him some good years. Don’t hide away in the hills and expect horses and dogs to take up the slack.”
“Fuck off, Hugh.”
He chuckled. “Such a ladylike mouth. I been trying to for years, darling. But I keep waking up the next day, hard as ever, wanting another go-round.”
She rode ahead for the next five miles through the tall grass that grew high on the slanting slope, so steep in places the cattle could reach it only by kneeling. She kept her outside leg on Ringer so he’d pay attention to the uneven ground underfoot. Hugh was one to talk—all those failed marriages under his belt, children who changed their names legally rather than be connected to him. Edith was a casualty herself, and when Hugh’s back was turned, she’d been known to do a fair amount of catting.
It was quiet except for nameless birds chattering in the oaks, celebrating the late spring glut of grasses and seeds. No palomino anywhere. Her heart wasn’t buried alongside Fats; that was utter horseshit. It’s just that it was true love with Fats, love without fear, love from two damaged people who had no expectations other than what might fill the moment. Love didn’t bless you but once in a lifetime; it was asking for trouble to think otherwise. What reason was there to explain that to a broken-down old man who got a hard-on listening to the sound of his own voice? Riding fence, my ass—he wanted to get me alone in the middle of nowhere so he could give me a lecture.
She stopped her horse, waiting for Hugh to catch up. “Just because you’re older you think you can talk to me like you’re my goddamned daddy,” she said when he was alongside her, the roll of baling wire bouncing on his saddle horn. “Well, I have news for you, Hugh. Somewhere along the line I had a real daddy. Maybe he didn’t stick around and teach me my ABC’s, or wrong from right, but nobody—not you, not Fats, not some goofy lying son-of-a-bitch teacher or anyone else—needs to put their two cents in on how I live my life.”
Hugh secured the baling wire and nodded. “You been searching down your roots, have you?”
“No. And I don’t care to. Say my parents are dead—maybe everybody good is already dead.” She stopped to mop the sweat from her face. “Whoever my daddy was, he was my daddy, and I don’t need a replacement.”
Hugh rubbed his chin, and his lined flesh seemed to sag. “Well, sure. I didn’t mean to imply nothing. Sometimes I just get carried away….”
She grabbed his arm. “Aw, Hugh, don’t look at me like that. You and Wesley are my favorite people in the whole world. I’d lay down my life for you two. I just want you to get off the subject of Fats, okay?”
Hugh shifted his reins to one hand and scratched his neck. “I guess you’d have no interest in hearing that Hank’s back at my place. He’s been there half the night. He about begged me to talk to you, sweetie, so I’m talking.”
“Christ.”
“Whatever happened between you two, he’s damn sorry about it and wants to make it up to you.”
“Fine. You talk to the bastard.” She legged Ringer into a gallop and left Hugh swatting dust.
As she tied Ringer to Hugh’s hitching rail, Hannah limped up behind her and sat down, panting. Chloe was so intent on making her slip knot that she didn’t notice Pilar, Francisco’s daughter, until she tugged at Chloe’s jeans.
“Chloe, she’s bleeding.”
“Who?” Chloe turned away from the horse to look. Pilar pointed a finger at the dog, who held up a dripping paw. “So she is.”
Pilar hopped on one foot, clutching a naked baby doll. Chloe stripped tack from the panting horse and set it over the rail, haltered him, and prepared to walk him down until he was cool.
“Aren’t you going to take her to el doctor?”
Damn Hugh and all men, particularly the one who thought he could wait for her at Hugh’s house, and further, that she would come, as if his presence, was some almighty magnet. Chloe strained to keep her voice even. No use snapping at an innocent child. “Oh, I don’t know. Doesn’t seem that bad. Can you find me a long strip of clean rag to tie around her paw?”
“Mama can!” Pilar grinned and ran back to her trailer.
“All right. Let’s see what you’ve done to yourself, Han.” Chloe retied Ringer, bent down, and lifted the dog’s paw, wiping blood away with her thumb. The cut was jagged, stretching all the way across the palm-shaped pad, probably from a hunk of broken glass, a little deeper than she would have liked to see, but a clean wound. Did it need a stitch? No, it could mend just fine. She turned on the hose and washed it out, then took the clean rag from Pilar, and wrapped up the paw, Red Cross-style, tying the bandage off in a square knot well behind the joint, where she’d have the most difficulty chewing it off.
“No doctor?” Pilar said, her brown eyes wide.
She patted the girl’s cheek. Pilar was healthy now, but likely she’d remember her winter hospital sojourn for the rest of her life—all those men in white coats who didn’t speak her language, her mother’s panic, Francisco’s rage when the social worker tried to “place” Pilar in custodial care. “Not right now, sweetie. I have to cool the horse out. We’ll see, later. Doctor Hubbard takes care of Hannah. You know him?”
Pilar put her hands on her hips and did a little bump and grind “Mama says, Dr. Hubba Hubba.” She burst into giggles.
“He has that effect on some women,” Chloe said. “But he�
�s just a man, no matter how pleasant he may be to look at. After Ringer’s cool you want to help me get him brushed down and into the corral?”
She could have been offering the girl a porcelain doll in a bridal gown with ten other outfits. “Can I?”
“Sure.” Foolish horses, Chloe thought. No, foolish women. Loving horses, it’s a disease that has no cure. But horses have men beat. They break your heart all right, the day they fracture a metacarpal or a sesamoid, or unwittingly chow down on bad feed. Sooner or later, you’re faced with a big brown eye asking you to make the pain go away, to shut off the lights. In her mind’s eye she saw Absalom with braided mane and tail, the glow of Show Sheen defining each muscle. When they entered the show ring, his attitude shifted. He knew how to hold himself, knew who it was important to strut by, knew better than to waste any of what he was mixing things up with strange horses. Fats had taught her to run a thin finger of Vaseline down certain muscles to make a horse more attractive to the judge, but grease wasn’t what made him a winner, heart was. Had he ever refused her? He’d earned enough blue ribbons to transform his stall into royal blue wallpaper. Did horses go to heaven? No, they were heaven, the only viable piece of it left on earth. She swiped at her eyes, gave Pilar a boost, and lifted her up to ride on Ringer’s bare back around the stalls before she led him to the corral. She placed the girl’s small hands on the dark mane and clicked her tongue to move the horse forward. She focused on a patch of sky visible between the rotting stall rafters. Rest well, Ab. Let there be timothy, rolled oats, and an abundance of molasses.
“Someday,” Pilar said, sitting up straight on the gelding’s back, “my papa’s going to have his own ranch. And we’ll ride all day on strong white horses, and our saddles will have silver conchos.”
Chloe smiled and rubbed her hand across the girl’s small back. “I’ve no doubt.”
“And I’ll teach the lessons.”
“Maybe I’ll take lessons from you,” Chloe told her. “Will you teach me to jump the high fences?”
Pilar raised one hand and pointed to the sky, now a cloudless expanse that promised a hot day. “Chloe, I teach you to fly.”
“I look forward to it. But right now I’ve got to go to work, so what do you say we get this pony his oats?”
“You have a couple new students,” Diane said when Chloe hung up her keys when she reached the stable office. “A little girl who used to ride hunters at Sycamore under Casey. Wants to be a stable brat in trade for lessons. Guess Dad must have lost his wad in the market and they’re scaling down. She’s out there drooling over the Hanoverian in the box stalls.”
Chloe glanced out the window. The girl was twelve or thirteen, tall and skinny, with long athletic legs fitted into white sueded Harry Halls that cost at least a hundred and fifty big ones. She was built to ride. Her long ponytail flowed over her shoulders. No doubt she spoke the language and rode like a fearless angel, dusting herself off after getting thrown as if it were a small price to pay for communing with the gods. If there was a myth in Hank’s books about women and horses, this girl was born to star in it, would have dozens of porcelain statues of horses on a shelf in her room. Looking at her was almost like looking into the past and seeing herself at Whistler’s Stable, Fats Valentine just around the corner, waiting to change her life. Of course she’d zero in on the priciest horse; the kid knew her stuff. The only job Chloe had was Kit’s, and Kit needed it more than this little princess. “You want her?” she asked Diane.
“Are you kidding?” Diane grinned. “I’ll work her wealthy butt down to bone.”
“Be my guest. She probably never made her own bed in her life. You said there were a couple? Anybody paying real money?”
Diane smirked.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. He’s an older guy, kind of cute, really, if you like that pale, bookish type. Brand-new Nocona boots. Woo-woo. At least they’re not snakeskin. Says he rode years ago. He sounded halfway humble about it, and he paid for a block in advance.”
“A block? Those are the ones I like—the ones with bucks.”
“Asked for you, personally. He said he’d take whatever opening you had. I told him to tack up and meet you in the middle arena. He’ll fit into that slot in your beginning class unless he’s a better rider than he lets on. I gave him Molly.”
“Poor old Molly. Gets to break everyone in. Thanks. Remember, the next two that come in, you get first dibs.”
Diane nodded, then got up from the warping desk to go talk to the girl in the box stalls. “Hey, Chloe?”
“What?”
“Congratulations about court. We were all pulling for you.”
“That’s nice to hear.”
“And sorry about Absalom. He was a wonder.”
Chloe closed her lesson book and looked up. “He was. Thanks. Anybody else lose one?”
“Not that I’ve heard. They pulled the cubes statewide, and we’re about to abandon our twenty-four hour watch. You know Lorena’s bay down at Serrano?”
“Big Fella?”
“Yeah—he pulled through. Dr. Hubbard and his amazing antiserum. The stuff worked.”
“That’s great.” But it hadn’t worked for Absalom. Chloe’d been avoiding looking at that empty stall. Didn’t want to keep that appointment with grief. Diane left. Chloe touched the bracelet Kit made her from Absalom’s tail. Tight black weaving with a silver catch. There was no bandaging the wound now. She lifted it to her nose and sniffed, hoping to catch a scent of him, but it smelled like soap, the morning ride, coffee grounds from work. She’d simply have to carry his memory inside—why not? It had plenty of company. She lit a cigarette, her first one of the day, and inhaled deeply, allowing the dizzying smoke to travel down into her lungs. Maybe that would relax her, erase the itchy feeling. But it tasted sharp, made her cough, and she tamped the cigarette out on the picnic table outside the office, then tucked it back into her pack. Between the pipe arena and the covered breezeway, Rich was dropping Kit off, his little car shining with a new wax job. Beside him, straddling the gear box, wearing a scarf tied around her hair, sat Lita. She waved. Chloe waved back. Kit hurried over lugging her backpack.
“Sorry I’m late. Trying to get those two to stop smooching in the kitchen, Jesus H. Christ. You’d think they invented sex.”
“I’m sure the good Lord had nothing to do with it. We got a full class this morning, Kit, so I want you in the ring. I’d like you to spot my new student, some rich guy in Noconas. Probably been watching old Western movies and wants to find himself on horseback. Well, we’ll take his money along with everyone else’s. He’s all yours. Let me know how he chalks up. In exchange, I’ll give you another private lesson.”
“Can I have it on Midnight?”
“If you think you’re up to him.”
“I am. Notice anything different?” She twirled around in her rust-colored breeches, her fat rolls defining the spandex.
“You got new pants?”
“Last week! Something else, you dunce. I lost fourteen pounds.”
“Really? That’s great. That’s terrific. How did you do it?”
“I quit eating shit food a hundred years ago and switched to Diet Coke. I was waiting for you to notice.”
She gave Kit a hug. “I’m sorry, honey. I’ve been so preoccupied. Hey, listen. You want to say hello to an old friend?” She whistled and Hannah came bounding out of the Apache, where she’d been working her bandage.
“Hannah? Oh, my God! Where were you, girl? Don’t you know how worried we were? Get over here and give me a love.” Hannah jumped up and planted dusty paws on Kit’s T-shirt; Kit took hold of her paws and danced her around. She sat down on the ground and let the dog lick her face, squealing when the dog’s tongue tickled her neck.
They were a sight, Chloe thought, watching them cavort and wrestle in the dirt. Kit’s ponytail came loose and her red hair made a cloud around her pale, freckled face. Hannah flattened her ears against her head in joy and w
agged her tail so furiously her back end was swinging like a kite. If a dog could laugh, she was doing it. No teenage worries about how it looked, or what it might do to her makeup, Kit let the dog kiss and lick her until she was sated. She’s too much like me, Chloe thought. Her road’s going to be endlessly bumpy, with time-outs only for heartbreak. Still, new breeches and fourteen pounds—the horses were working.
Her leg ached; she rested every other step on the cane, making her way down the slight hill to the middle arena. Her group lesson was waiting: the newly married couple who were convinced riding horses together constituted just about the most romantic notion possible, and elderly May, who had said to Chloe when she signed up, My husband’s just died, but don’t bother saying I’m sorry because he was a stingy bastard who stole all my good years. Now that he’s buried, I plan to spend the insurance on a little hair-raising fun. My goal’s to be the oldest lady jumper in California, think you can help me out? May was turning out to be a fine rider, but the six-foot fences were still a ways down the line. Sometimes she was just so tired all her students blurred together, and she had to write their names on the palm of her hand to keep track of them. It was important to let them know you remembered them, to ask about personal stuff, no matter how worn out or blue you might be feeling. Part of good teaching was listening to their life stories, listening for what clues they might drop as to what scared them. Damn, she’d forgotten to get the new guy’s name from Diane. Kit would just have to ask him.
But there would be no need for that, she saw now, because he was turning in the saddle, making the east corner of the arena as he warmed up Molly, the gentlest, pig-eyed, ugliest strawberry roan God ever put into horseflesh, utterly safe, taller, maybe, but just as bomb-proof as Elmer the pony. She would remember the man’s name because more than once she’d cried it out involuntarily, as if her voice might travel into his flesh and lodge there for a lifetime. She’d felt her own tears dampen his shoulder, mingling with his, and realized as they came to rest that they were saying a wordless good-bye.
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