by Lynne Hugo
None were in sight. Carley’s eyes narrowed, and prickles of unease rose along her arms as if the wind had shifted, carrying weather, which it hadn’t. It made no sense. No way had Cal called those horses in, nor Eddie. Her grandfather? No way. He relied on her to take him out of the house. Oh my God, Carley thought, panicked. Mom’s here. And she’s gotta be looking for Red. I’m so busted.
She pulled Red up short. He was cool; that was good. It was worth a try. She dismounted, uncinched the saddle, and pulled it off him. She used the saddle blanket to rough his coat the wrong direction. About twelve feet away there was a bare spot on the ground, and from it she got some dirt to rub on him in several places. Maybe if Jewel hadn’t been there long, she’d think Red had just found a nice spot and decided to roll. He was one to do that more than the others. Probably, though, her mother was frantic and on her way out here right now. She might well be saddling one of the other horses or, more likely, would just climb on bareback if Red didn’t come in.
Carley slid the bit out of Red’s mouth and lifted the bridle over his ears, setting him free. She slapped his rump to encourage him. “Get going, boy. Go home, go home!” she said, flapping her arms at him. “Go on!”
Red startled and cantered a few steps but then hesitated, slowing to a trot. He looked back at Carley. “Go on, get home boy!” she shouted, flapping her arms again, and he turned and headed home.
I told Helen in personnel I had a migraine and had to leave early today. I lose a day of overtime, but I’ve got to see the horses, be with them again. On his way out this morning, Eddie said he and Carley would likely be late getting home after he picks her up at rehab. He wants to go get parts for his truck so he can spend Saturday morning working on it. I didn’t say anything, not wanting to make him feel bad, but my first thought was that he won’t have time to go out and check the horses today if they’re going to the Truck Supply.
I have no confrontation in mind. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I expect to be completely ignored—if I’m even seen. I parked on the road and slipped into the barn by coming around from the side away from the house. I’ve got to check what grain there is, whether it’s getting moldy, and how much straw is left for bedding. October has begun. Somebody’s got to think about these things. Probably we can order hay from Pelley’s again; it was good last year, lots of alfalfa in it. Who else is going to do this?
It’s not that Eddie’s word hasn’t been gold about checking the horses. “All there and healthy-looking,” he says regularly. “Nope, no one showed a face out of the house. I just parked on the road again and kept to myself.” It’s way better than nothing, but beyond knowing a dead horse from a live one, giving the carrots and apples I load him up with, petting the horses and talking to them, and reassuring me that no horse is limping or showing other signs of distress, Eddie isn’t a lot of use. I can’t tell him how to groom, clean feet, sniff out moldy grain, or tell how much more straw we’ll need. I can’t expect him to throw the hay and scoop the grain all winter, let alone when to stall the horses and when to turn them out. He doesn’t even know how to put on a halter; I can’t tell him how to do that, even though he wants me to try. But Eddie can’t possibly be enough; the horses need me. Still, seeing his determination to help me is like turning over a stone in a stream, one that looked disappointing on the surface and then underneath you find a much deeper color, something to amaze you.
And another good has come of Eddie’s looking in on the horses for me: it’s shown me that if he can just go fool with the horses and be completely ignored, I might well be able to pull off the same thing.
I sense his presence before I hear him, and before my eyes adjust to the dimness of the barn I hear the soft thump of his hoof as he steps within the stall. Spice. I am startled, and more, frightened. Who here could have, would have, brought my horse in, and why? I hurry down the center of the barn to his door, calling to him, working to keep my voice quiet and unalarmed. “Hey, boy, my beautiful boy. What’re you doing in here? Are you all right?” As soon as I open the door, I see that his leg has a cold pack on it. My mind is a rush hour of questions honking their horns.
“Are you hurt, boy? What happened?” My face against his, arms around his neck. Squatting, I remove the pack, which isn’t cold, just faintly cool, to examine his leg. It’s not swollen, no heat. No cut, nothing I can see. I put on his halter, taking it from its nail outside the door, and lead him out. Automatically I check: yes, his stall has been mucked, the straw is fresh, and the watering system is working. As I walk Spice up and down the center of the barn, I don’t see any hitch in his step. He looks completely sound to me. “Okay, boy, I’ll check the others and then get back to you.” I put him back, for which I get a small snort. He wants out.
In the feed area, there’s fresh grain in the barrel and four bales of hay. But Spice can’t have been stalled for more than a couple of days, or Eddie would have seen and told me. I grab the pail and put a good scoop of grain in it, take three halters, and, to keep myself small and unnoticed, use the back door out of the barn to find the others.
From just behind the corral fence on the side away from the house, I try bringing them in using my rings on the metal pail and whistling. If they’re in the back pasture, I may have to leave the grain here, walk out with carrots, and call their names.
But Moonie’s head appears over the rise. She’s in no big hurry, but she’s coming. Usually it’s Charyzma in the lead. Now she comes, too, a length behind Moonbeam and closing in. I cannot see them without smiling. “Well, come on, you two lazy girls,” I sing out, waving the pail around. “I’ve got you some grain. Where’s Red?” The horses expand my heart every time I’m with them.
Moonie picks up the pace, her face like a sunflower bending toward me now. She’s recognized my voice. Within minutes we are having a reunion. “Save some for Red.” I laugh as they crowd each other at the fence for the grain, which I’m scooping out to hand-feed with both hands, palms flat. They look good, much cleaner than I expected after not being regularly groomed. But Dad must have been trying to do it. “You two are something. Bet your feet can use cleaning, though.” I reach to my rear. No back pocket, no hoof pick. I’m still in the khaki pants I wore to the office though I’ve got on the boots from the trunk of my car; today’s was a last minute plan.
And where’s Red? As I make my way to the gate to bring them in, Moonbeam and Charyzma following along the corral fence, eager for more grain and, I’d like to think, my attention, there’s still no sign of him. What if he’s sick or injured in the back pasture? Colic? Stepped in a hole and broken his leg? But somebody put a cold pack on Spice’s leg, I tell myself. What’s going on?
I have to check. I leave Charyzma and Moonbeam in the pasture and go back into the far side of the barn for a bridle. I’ll ride Moonie bareback to look for Red. She’s the smaller of those two, and I can use the fence for a leg up onto her.
The sky is almost turquoise, and the air is good, cool, with that leafy golden edge of fall in it. I can almost feel the earth turning, and my heart wants to be happy that I’m going to ride, no matter the reason. With Moonie’s bridle slung over my shoulder, I’m back out of the barn and on the way to get her when I hear what I’d convinced myself I wouldn’t.
“Yo! Jewel!”
“What, Cal?” He’s approaching out of the house fast, at an angle that cuts me off from the horses. And, oh my God, he’s got on Mama’s pink bedroom slippers, his heels hanging over the backs. “Nice shoes,” I add.
“Yeah, well, I dress up formal for company.” He dares to grin at me. “So … you, ah, come to … visit … or something?”
“Or something. What’s going on with my horse? Who put him in his stall and why?”
At first Cal’s face registers a blank, but seconds later, he says, “Oh, yeah, that one’s yours. I did it. I been taking care of him. You know, somebody’s got to.”
“You?”
“Yeah, me.”
“F
or God’s sake, Cal, what do you know about horses?”
“More than you’d think. Can’t grow up around Dad and not pick up a little something. But he’s been tellin’ me what t’ do. Thought your horse might have a small, small problem, and Dad said to put him in the stall. All there was to it.”
“And Dad told you to put a cold pack on his leg?”
“Yep.”
“And told you how to do it?”
“Shit, Jewel, Dad did that part, but how hard is it anyway?”
“What’s wrong with his leg?
“Turns out nothing’s wrong. Dad just checked it and said turns out it wasn’t nothing at all. A bee sting or something like that, he said. Supposed to let him out anyway. Dad’s been checkin’ all the horses.”
“How does he get them in?”
“Makes me do it.”
“You cleaned his stall?”
“Just put him in it. Don’t wanna, don’t hafta. Supposed to let him out.”
“You fed him?”
“Listen, Dad sat there, told me everything to do.”
“And you got the hay and grain?”
“Dad said who to call and what to say. Said he needed it anyway.”
I am in a rage, the image of Cal and Carley in the stall indelible. “I don’t want you touching him or anything else that’s mine. I checked his leg, I’ll check it again. I’ll have my vet—”
“Not necessary. A bee sting is all it was. Dad says he’s fine. All of ’em are good.”
Cal looks out toward the pasture. My eyes follow his. “Red’s not with the other two,” I say. “Have you seen him today since you’re so suddenly responsible.”
“Jesus, Jewel,” he says softly. “I thought you might be glad. That I was takin’ care of ’em, I mean. I’m doin’ the best I can here.” The breeze takes his hair, long and stringy and patchy-thin, and blows it across his face. The hand he uses to brush it out of his eyes is still scarred, a flat white statement like the tone I take with him.
“The best you can, Cal? Now that’s one pathetic standard. Remember how you got that scar?” I tap my front teeth. “I only wish my daughter had the same sense. And that she hadn’t deflected my bullet.”
Cal puts his head down. “Carley’s of age,” he says. “Her idea. And … we were wasted.”
“I suppose it was my idea back then.”
He shakes his head.
“Look at me.”
Cal seems to drag his head off his chest and finally meets my eyes. “You hurt me. You were no brother. Now you’ve hurt my daughter—not that she’s smart enough to know it. I know you don’t care, but I won’t ever forgive you.”
Cal does the one thing he could that would surprise me. “I care,” he says, eyes up, and it seems he’s about to say more. But something behind me diverts him. “Hey, there’s the horse you were askin’ about, right? Told you he was fine,” Cal says, pointing well beyond where Charyzma and Moonie are grazing patiently near the fence in the foreground.
I turn, and, yes, Red is on the crest, coming in on his own. Cal seems relieved. “Just so you know, Mom and Dad are doin’ fine. The agency people are workin’ out good,” he says and turns to go back into the house, the heels of Mama’s fluffy pink slippers flapping, entirely ridiculous, something I wish I could fall to my knees laughing at until I finally cry.
Through the Looking Glass
CARLEY HAD NO IDEA how long to wait out in the back pasture. Thank God Eddie told her mom they’d be late tonight. He’d made up a story about looking for truck parts because they needed to grocery shop for her grandparents. The list she and Cal had made was waiting on the kitchen counter. Oh crap, it was in her handwriting, would Mom go into the house? The thought was an anxious rush as complications spread like a brush fire. Was anything of hers lying around? Everything depended on whether Cal was quick on his feet and thought to stash everything fast if her mother came to the door. On the other hand, what was she thinking? Her grandparents would mention Eddie and Carley to Jewel if she came into the house. They had no reason not to. Unless they were sleeping. Unless Cal could head them off.
No, there’d be a nuclear explosion if her mother went into the house.
Why was her mother here, anyway?
Carley hiked around the back pasture for what she guessed was well over an hour. At first she’d tried sitting, a fence post tattooing itself into her back, but she was too nervous to stay still. She was noticing first signs of twilight, ground colors starting to fade and darken, though the sky and treetops still held plenty of light and color, thanks to Daylight Saving Time. She was getting cold, though. No one came looking for her, which she took as a good sign. Sending Red to the barn might have worked, but, on the other hand, it might mean Jewel was waiting to ambush her. And if that was the case, her mother would wait forever. The crickets were in full throttle now. Eddie would be showing up at the house any minute. She had to at least get close enough to see what was in the driveway.
She moved the saddle and bridle to the most protected place, against the fence where goldenrod and asters were luminous as they clung to the memory of sun. She covered the tack with Red’s saddle blanket. I can do this, she told herself and headed for the barn.
By walking slowly, she gave darkness time to rise higher off the ground. A breathy barred owl called, hoo-hoo-hoohoo. She stuck to the same fence line, the one that went by the far side of the corral and barn, past the riding ring, and out to the road, trying to make her body small and unobtrusive. Several bats swooped, not far enough overhead. When she got closer, Carley discerned Eddie’s truck, habitually parked as close to the house as possible to avoid an extra ten or twelve steps.
The horses were all grazing in the front pasture, including Spice. Dammit. That meant she must have been right about her mother, and another dammit, because Carley hadn’t been planning to turn him out with the others yet. She’d nursed that leg so carefully. But aside from that, were they busted?
She quietly edged open the back door of the barn. Her heart was too noisy. She strained to hear whether she was alone.
The darkness inside was almost complete. Only ambient light from the tack room window helped her make her way down the center aisle. Surely no one was doing anything in here. Still, she was as frightened as she’d ever been. She crossed the barn floor hurriedly and slipped out the tack room door, Eddie’s truck blocking the view of anyone looking out from the house.
The kitchen window was open several inches, as it always was now. Cal kept it that way so he could exhale smoke outdoors. When Eddie was there, he did it, too, leaning over the sink and twisting his neck to the side above it, like some odd bit of plumbing, so he could aim it through the gap. There was fluid in Grandma’s legs, the doctor had said, and now she had to use oxygen at night. Once in a while during the day, too, depending on whether she was having trouble breathing. No smoking anywhere around her, he’d apparently lectured Cal, who’d come out and passed it on to Eddie, slouched and bored in the waiting room. They weren’t cheerful about it. (Twice already the wind had been wrong, of course, and it had come right back in their faces, something it shouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to realize would happen, since the ancient curtains were flapping into the room. Carley had seen what was coming and hadn’t said anything so she could laugh and call them Dumb and Dumber again.)
She picked her way across the gravel and then ducked and ran over the weedy grass. She could see the top of Eddie’s head though the kitchen window, but that was all. Jewel could be in there, too, for all she knew, and, if so, it was a place to avoid.
There were overgrown bushes along the side of the house, and Carley worked her way between them. As she did, she picked up male voices and then laughter. She crouched beneath the kitchen window, her head as high as she dared, constantly readjusting her position, trying to make out words and who was speaking.
It was Cal and Eddie. And they didn’t sound upset.
“… yeah, I know. Well, I wasn’t gon
na let her bust Carley, for Chrissake … Kid’s been knockin’ herself stupid … real good with Dad and Ma and the nags.”
Eddie said something she couldn’t make out, then “… but you?”
“Well, I told her Dad was telling me what to do and that I knew more ’n she thought I did, just from growing up around him. It was plausible.”
“What’d she say?”
Cal laughed, long and mirthful, his beer laugh. “She flipped out, man. Flipped out. Didn’t want me touching her horse, yadda, yadda. But she bought it. I thought she softened up a little bit before she left, too. Y’know. The nag ain’t dead. Which is entirely thanks to Miss Carla-Derby-Rose, but Jewel don’t know that.” Carley heard the refrigerator door open and then a moment later, close again. The sound of a can opening. Then another can. “Here y’go, man.”
Eddie said, “I told you not to put beer in the refrigerator. Carley. And besides, you know your mother still gets in there sometimes. Did Jewel ask if you’d seen me around? Cause y’know, I told her I’ve been checking the horses for her. A lot. Told you that.”
“Didn’t ask, didn’t mention it. Neither way. Woulda told her I never saw you though, like you’d been careful-like. See what I mean?”
“Yeah, but then she might think I didn’t do it.”
“It’s a moot point anyway.”
So Cal had covered for her. Taken heat for her. Said something nice about her to Eddie. Carley squatted all the way down, her back and knees tired from the crouched position, turning over Cal’s words in her mind like ordinary old dirt—from which an unexpected vein of something precious glinted up at her. With her right thumb, she rubbed the healing-over place on her other hand, forming a broad finished line of scar tissue.