by Billie Letts
“He’s a beauty, isn’t he?” Vena said.
Caney looked stunned. “Where’d you get this horse?”
“That field back of the school bus.”
“Well, whose is it?” MollyO demanded.
“That’s Brim Neely’s gelding,” Caney said. “Does Brim know you have one of his horses?”
“I don’t think so. At least not yet.”
“You mean you just took it?” MollyO’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “You stole Brim’s horse?”
“Guess I’m just living up to my name.”
“Why, Vena?” MollyO said, shocked by the enormity of the crime. “Why’d you take Brim’s horse?”
“Thought I’d take a ride. And I’m hoping you’ll go with me, Caney.”
“Why, Caney’s not able to ride!” MollyO put her hand on Caney’s shoulder, a protective gesture.
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, he can’t get on it.”
“Sure he can. We’ll help him. Bui and Life can lift him and I’ll—”
“And for another, he’s not well enough.” MollyO looked to Caney, as if for confirmation, but he was staring at the horse.
“What do you say, Caney? Think you’re up to it?”
“He most certainly is not!”
Caney pulled his eyes away from the gelding to look at Vena, his face grimaced with confusion.
“Vena, I… I told you…”
“You told me there was nothing out there you wanted.”
Caney made an almost imperceptible nod of his head.
“Well, that’s fine,” she said. “Because we’re not going after anything.”
Caney looked again at the gelding, tried to see himself settled on its back, but the image was blurred, the picture unfocused.
He closed his eyes then, worked to make his body remember the way it felt to ride, when the power of the animal beneath him had been his power, when the rhythm of its movement had been his rhythm. But that was alien to him now, as alien as walking.
“I don’t think I can,” he said, his voice strained and thin.
And I’m hoping you’ll go with me, Caney.
He thought he should offer her some kind of explanation, but he didn’t know what to say. How could he make her understand that in here his life had boundaries and borders. In here he didn’t need a compass to know where he was or a map to know where he was going.
… I’m hoping you’ll go with me…
He wanted her to know that in the Honk he didn’t need a watch to tell the time or a calendar to know the day. Mornings began with the first customer; nights ended with the last. Yesterday was the meatloaf special, today the liver and onion plate, tomorrow the chicken strip dinner.
… go with me, Caney…
In here he knew what to expect. The smell of hot grease and stale beer, the flicker of red and blue neon, the taste of ketchup on fries, the clink of spoons against coffee cups. Days as predictable as Life Halstead.
Suddenly, Caney grabbed the wheels of his chair, gave them a powerful jerk and popped the chair over the threshold. Clearing the door frame, feeling the heat of the sun on his face, he squinted against the glare.
“Don’t do this,” MollyO said as Caney moved out of her reach.
Just beyond the door, he hesitated, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, then wheeled slowly to the side of the gelding, breathing in the musk of the animal, the smell earthy, ancient.
When he put his hand on the neck of the horse, his palm pressed against flesh warm and solid, muscles quivering beneath his touch, he was filled with an old knowing.
And the gelding’s heart seemed to be beating in time to his own.
Vena didn’t know Caney had only opened his eyes twice since they’d left the Honk. The first time, they were crossing a shallow stream, their flank exposed to snipers crossing in the thick brush on the far bank. The second time he’d looked, they were passing between two sweet gum trees where he spotted the trip wire strung just inches off the ground.
But even with his eyes closed, Caney knew when the gelding carried them down a sharp incline that the valley below would be dotted with land mines. He knew, too, when the horse clopped across the wooden planks of a narrow bridge that shape charges would be wired to the supports beneath them. And he knew with certainty when they approached the top of a gentle rise that the NVA patrol would be waiting… watching and waiting for them to come.
Caney might have ridden sightless for the rest of the morning if it hadn’t been for the whirring of a distant sound coming from somewhere behind them, a sound that had followed him halfway around the world and, until now, had only been the black echo of his dark dreams. But here it was again, this time in the Oklahoma sunlight, this time real, vibrating in the hollow of his throat, exploding in the center of his chest.
Snatching the reins from Vena with one hand and slapping the gelding’s rump with the other, he sent the startled animal into a sudden gallop across a meadow where a herd of Guernseys had already started to scatter.
By the time Caney looked over his shoulder, the chopper had cleared the ridge no more than a quarter mile behind them, coming in low and fast. He snapped the reins and yelled, a strangled cry lost under the roar from the sky.
When the helicopter swooped just above a stand of pecan trees towering fifty, sixty feet in the air, Vena looked up and pointed to the words CARE FLIGHT stenciled beneath its belly; but by then the dark shadow was passing over them, the whop-whop-whop of the rotor blades flattening weeds against the ground, snapping tree branches, pelting the meadow with leaves and loose branches.
Vena could feel the shuddering of Caney’s chest against her body, tremors so violent that she reached back and hooked her arms around his waist, locking them together. The gelding, frantic now with the roaring above him, was streaking across the field, head up, ears back, body glistening with sweat.
And then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone, lifting over the eastern peak of the Winding Stair, disappearing beneath a soft bank of clouds.
Chapter Fifteen
CANEY DIDN’T MENTION the horse or the helicopter for two days following his ride with Vena. In fact, he didn’t talk at all if he didn’t have to.
As they rode back to the Honk that afternoon, Vena had asked a couple of questions about Vietnam, but Caney hadn’t answered. She wasn’t surprised, though. He’d been through an ordeal, and she figured he’d talk about it when he was ready.
The electricity was still out when they got back, but Bui, who’d stayed to help Caney get off the horse, was waiting for them when they rode up. He’d spent the time while they were gone putting together a makeshift ramp up to the concrete slab outside the back door. But as soon as Caney was settled in his chair, he wheeled onto the ramp and inside the cafe without comment.
Vena led the gelding back to the pasture, then removed the bridle and saddle and put them back in the barn where she’d found them.
Before she turned away, she stroked the gelding’s muzzle and said, “Sorry about the rough ride, boy.”
When she latched the gate and struck out across the field, the horse followed her to the corner of the fence-line.
Caney was in the bathroom when she got back. She could hear water running in the tub while she sat on the couch, brushing her hair. She thought about bringing him a beer but decided her best move was to leave him alone for a while.
She drifted into the cafe, to the kitchen, and watched Bui through the back window as he worked to improve the ramp, an attempt, she imagined, to gain Caney’s approval. She started to heat water to make herself a cup of instant, then changed her mind. Instead, she filled a pail with warm soapy water, then went to the utility room, scooped up the dog and walked outside to join Bui.
The dog had, in the past few days, started dragging itself out of the box for a few limping steps around the small space between the washer, dryer and hot-water tank by the door. Balance, it discovered, was hard to come by on
only three legs, but it was learning.
“Ah,” Bui said when Vena came through the door, “sun good for dog.”
“Thought I’d give her a bath. Might cheer her up a little.”
“I help.”
While Vena worked a sponge gently around the wound on the dog’s hindquarter, Bui rubbed its head, murmuring, “Không sao daû,” as if he were soothing a frightened baby.
“You know, Bui, there’s really no need for you to stick around here. Why don’t you take off, go on home.”
“I go to home at night. Day, I work for Mr. Chaney, much work to do.”
After the dog’s bath, Vena sat with it in her arms, the sun warming and drying its coat, while Bui went to work caulking around the back windows and relining the door with new strips of insulation. He worked silently, flashing Vena a smile from time to time, pleased to have her company, even without conversation.
As soon as the sun started to descend and the air began to cool, Vena took the dog back inside. The cafe was bright with light. The refrigerator and the deep freeze hummed and the sign out front glowed in the evening dusk. Electricity was once again zapping the Honk.
After she freshened the dog’s bed and settled it inside the box, Vena went to the bedroom. Caney, in his chair reading, didn’t look up when she stepped inside the room.
“You hungry, Caney. Want me to fix you—”
“No,” he said, his eyes never lifting from his book.
Vena went to the kitchen, made herself a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee, then sat in the dining room, eating alone.
When she saw a car pulling in, she called out to Caney. “Looks like we’ve got customers. Want me to let them in?”
She waited, then, unsure he had heard her, went to the bedroom door. “Caney, should I—”
“We’re closed,” he said, his voice flat and hard.
After she switched off the Honk sign and turned out the lights in the dining room, she watched the car drive away, then sat in the dark, wondering if she shouldn’t get back on the road herself.
She had a little money now, enough to head out. And when that was gone, she’d do what she’d always done. She’d land somewhere, anywhere, work a few days, a few weeks, then move on. Her life.
But the dog could use a little more time. Though it looked like she was going to pull through, there was still the danger of infection. Best to leave her where she was for now.
Another reason to stay, at least for a while, was to see if one of the calls she’d made would pay off. She’d left messages everywhere she could think of to try to locate Carmelita, and though she hadn’t had any luck so far, she knew if she left now, she’d have to start all over to find her. And Carmelita was the only one who might be able to piece together for her the last two years of Helen’s life.
But maybe, Vena thought, she was just fooling herself. Maybe she was just looking for an excuse to stick around the Honk. And if she was, the man in the next room had something to do with it.
Chapter Sixteen
BUI ENTERED the darkened sanctuary exactly as he had every night for the past week. But tonight was the first time he’d had an audience.
She was sitting in the center of the third pew, wearing a brown cloth coat and a gray cap lined with rabbit fur. She had been twisting the straps of a cracked plastic purse between her gnarled black fingers until she heard the wooden doors slide open behind her. When she turned toward the shaft of light and saw the dark figure of a man with a chunk of stone in his hands, her fingers tightened on the purse and she pulled it to her chest, her movement quiet and slow so as not to draw his attention.
But Bui didn’t see her there in the dim light, didn’t hear the quick catch of her breath or the rustle of her coat as she tried to make herself small inside it.
Silently and shoeless, he padded down the aisle past the pew where she was huddled, placed his Buddha on the altar table and lit the tall candles in their silver holders.
He might have completed his prayers, might have left the sanctuary without ever knowing she was there if he hadn’t heard the whispered voice coming from the darkness behind him.
“… the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me…”
She had thought she was praying inside her head, hadn’t even felt her mouth shaping the words until Bui whirled to face her. As his eyes searched the darkness at the edge of the flickering light, a taste like hot copper burned at the back of her throat.
Bui, still in motion when he saw her, went rigid. Neck twisted, limbs bent, body a figure of misangled parts, he looked like a child caught in a game of statues.
They stared at each other then, fixed and silent, two unlikely icons in a darkened church, each sculpted by terror of the other.
Then they watched. And waited.
Finally, the woman, clutching her purse with one hand, raised the other above her head, a gesture of surrender.
While Bui’s eyes followed her movement, her fingers lifting toward the ceiling, he tried to decide what he should do. He could run, but he had nowhere to go. He could explain, but he didn’t believe he could make her understand. So he did the only thing he could think to do. He raised his hand, too. And for a few moments, they seemed to be practicing a secret rite shared only by the initiated of some strange alliance.
“I have some money,” she said, “and a watch I bought at a garage sale for a dollar. It doesn’t keep good time, but I guess you get what you pay for.”
She inched forward, then, hitching her shoulders up, rolled her head from side to side. “I’m gonna have to put my arm down now ’cause of my bursitis.” Moving slowly, she lowered her arm while she shook her hand to restore feeling. Then she opened her purse, pulled out a few limp bills and held them out to Bui.
“I’ve got eighteen dollars and six quarters,” she said, “but I need the quarters for the laundrymat.”
Bui stared at the money, his face creased with confusion. Then he pulled his hand down to dig in his pants pocket, took out the twenty dollars Caney had paid him that evening and offered it to the woman.
“Why, I don’t want your money,” she said. “I thought you wanted mine. Isn’t that what you’re after?”
“I giving you—”
“Or did you come in here to bust things up? Come to defile this holy place?” Her voice rose and her eyes flashed with anger. “Well, I’ll tell you this, mister. You can take my money and my watch, but I won’t let you harm God’s house. No sirree!”
“No,” Bui said, uncertain of her message, but sure of her fury.
“Then what are you doing with that big rock?”
“Rock?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.” She pointed an accusing finger at the altar. “I can see it there on the table.”
“Ah,” Bui said with sudden understanding. “Not rock. Buddha.”
“What?”
“Buddha.”
“I’ll just see about that.” She stood, her face grimacing with the effort, then shuffled her way to the end of the pew and started up the aisle.
She was older than Bui had thought, older than the sound of her voice, a strong and steady voice. She was stooped so that her coat sagged lower in the front, almost to her ankles which were thick and misshapen, causing her to walk on the insides of her feet. And her hair, twisting from beneath her cap, was so white it gave off its own light.
She was careful to keep some space between herself and Bui when she reached the table and bent over the stone.
“Well, I swan,” she said. “I saw one of these in a Chinese restaurant once. They say if you make a wish and rub its belly, you’ll get what you asked for.”
Bui smiled and nodded, cheered by what he believed was an improving relationship.
Then the woman took a step toward him and in the candlelight saw clearly, for the first time, the features of his face.
“Why, I declare. You’re a foreigner, aren’t you?” She moved even closer
. “What are you? Mexican? Japanese?”
“I Vietnamese.”
“Vietnamese? Why, I’ve never seen one of you before, except on television when I watched the war over there.” Then, without hesitation, she reached out and touched Bui’s cheek, letting her fingertips examine the smoothness of his skin.
Bui’s breath quickened. He had not felt the touch of fingers on his face since he’d left Nguyet, and the soft, cool sensation made images painted in green and gold swim just behind his eyes.
Then the woman put her hand to her own face, rubbing the skin beneath her eyes.
“Now isn’t that something? We feel just the same,” she said, smiling at the pleasure of her discovery. “My name is Galilee.” She offered him her hand. “Galilee Jackson.”
“My name Bui Khanh.”
“Boo Can? Now that’s a new one on me. I knew a man called Boo Ray once, but he’s been dead more’n thirty years. A fancy man, a sweet-talking dancing man. Always smelled of lilac.
“Boo Ray danced with me one night at the Big Ten Ballroom in Tulsa. Danced every song and, oh, we looked fine. I wore a silk dress, blue… sapphire blue, and when he whirled me around the floor, the dress would slide around my hips and swish across my thighs and it felt like it was made of honey.”
She returned then, leaving the fancy man back in the Big Ten Ballroom still dancing with the girl in the blue silk dress.
“Boo Can, huh? Well, it’s an unusual name, but it seems to suit you. Suits you just fine to my way of thinking.”
“I thinking, too.”
“So,” Galilee said, turning her attention once again to Bui’s statue, “you’re a Buddha.”
“Yes, Buddha.”
“Well, I expect there’s room for all of us in heaven. I knew a Jewish man once, used to come through selling shoes out of his car. And my mother worked for a Catholic family a long time ago. They seemed like fine folks. I’ve got nothing against the Jehovah’s, either, or the Scientists or even the Baptists, though I had a run-in with one when I worked at the school cafeteria. A Baptist woman who decided my name should be shortened to Gal. But I can’t hold that against all Baptists now, can I?”