Bingham's ranch swarmed with agitated excitement. A scout had appeared at dawn to announce the return of the party and the harras of Mustangs they were dragging back from some distant edge of the Western plains. For all of his money, Bingham preferred his horses free and wild, and he had deployed five men for his purpose six days prior. Daniel had been among them. Since the scout's breathless arrival, neighbors, friends and debtors began collecting in clusters around the ranch, waiting to see the team in.
For six days I was cast away, lost awash a foreign ocean tide, and drifting further every day. For six days I avoided Philip with a fear that seized me in a vice's grip. For six days I succumbed to the insatiable turbulence that would only be quieted when I could see that devilish stranger, when I could see Daniel again. Six days was an eternity.
I slipped unnoticed into the yard. At least I thought I did. Aida sidled silently up to me. She waited for me to notice her before she spoke.
"They're bringing the new Mustangs in," she said.
"So I heard," I answered coldly. I had no room in my mind for Aida at that moment and I knew it would drive her mad. I don't know why I derived so much pleasure from driving her mad.
She stood there without a word for some time, but she didn't move. We both watched the horizon.
"He likes you, you know," she finally said sheepishly. "You shouldn't be so mean with him."
"Who?" I asked, pretending not to know.
"You know who," she answered calling my bluff. "I've tried to get his attention. I've tried hard, harder than I have with most men. But he doesn't have eyes for me at all. He just clams up and works around me. It's only when you come around that he gets any color in his face, any vitality to him at all. Be kinder to him, even if you don't like him. Its hard enough to be in love alone without being humiliated for it."
I took a deep breath and let out a sigh. She was speaking from experience, from her heart. She was showing more insight than I had ever known her to have. She didn't love Daniel, not really. But she thought she did, and that was enough to give her a new perspective. I wondered if the irony might be lost on her, if she could stomach it. I softened and consented to take my chances.
"I guess we all know that too well." I said.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Adia," I said turning to her and regarding her with more respect than I ever had, "There's a lot more love and loss being bandied about than you know."
She looked at me blankly.
"Philip loves you," I added plainly, "always has."
She closed her eyes heavily and nodded. "But you love Philip," she said softly.
"No," I answered. "Not really. Not anymore."
She opened her eyes and looked deep into my face, searching. When she found the answer she was seeking, that for everything she and I are the same, that we're both fortunate and jealous and stubborn, that we all have our hidden demons, and that we will all survive them just the same, when she understood me and I understood her, she turned her eyes back to the horizon.
"They'll be here soon," she said. "You won't be able to get any work done today anyway. Wanna come watch from the fence with me?"
"Yeah," I said. "I do." and I meant it.
We walked to the coral without a word and climbed the planks. I looked back at the Bingham home and wondered what my life might have felt like if Aida and I had remained friends. I imagined us looking out across the fields that were such shades of viridian, emerald and jade when we were young. I could almost see too small heads peering out from the upstairs window, one light, one dark. We might have played hide and seek in the rafters of the attic, or read to each other well into the latest hours during overnight visits. Perhaps with more direct access to her, Philip might have made his love for Aida known sooner, and saved us all so much time and pain. I was ripped from this alternate past when Aida stood suddenly on her beam, pointing and crying, "There! There they come!"
And indeed, balanced there between the earth and the sky bounced several of the tiniest, happiest black specs you ever saw. My throat tightened and my blood rushed as the anticipation on the ranch bubbled and percolated.
Henrietta, the Bingham's cook, lit the fire under the vat of grease and water for the bar-be-que before rushing inside to boil pot after pot of strong, dark coffee. By mid morning there would be a great feast to welcome the men back and honor their efforts, but first hard work was to be done. Room would have to be made for the 16 mustangs the scout reported. The harem would have to be sorted, branded and stabled. Then, in the coming weeks Daniel would have to break those to be used for riding and work. One stud would be pastured with several mares, reserved for siring.
Bingham's crew of temporary help numbered nearly twenty, and with the five returning, there would be only one, maybe two men for each horse. The cacophony shrank down into a concentrated, silent electricity. The party galloped closer. The crew stood, poised as soldiers, to move into action. Aida and I held steady to our place on the fence, stiff and silent. Thunder grew up from the ground, sprouting defining pulses as the party galloped closer. Hooves stomped, sending roaring reverberations past us. My breathing grew heavy. All five faces were screwed up in gritty determination, staring dead ahead. Daniel led them. His expression was the fiercest of them all.
He looked at no one thing specifically, but he concentrated ferociously just the same. This was the first thing I noticed. In the next instant I saw the beast underneath him. The rest of them saw it too. My chest heaved as I panted. Jaws dropped in awe. The massive draft stallion was as much a stranger to us as Daniel had been. It snorted through nostrils bigger than walnuts as it propelled them both over strides spanning fifteen feet. His onyx coat glowed indigo under the sun. The beast was majestic.
"Aida!" Mr. Bingham called. "Come over here and hold these stable doors open." She slid down the fence like rain.
"Wait here," she said. "I'll be back." She ran to the stable never taking her eyes from the team.
As they reached the edge of the property Daniel pulled ahead, pushing the purplish monster headlong into a sprint. He glided over the ground as if he had wings, covering twenty feet in a bound. The party broke right, herding the mustangs directly into the coral. Men leaped in every direction, grasping for ropes and lariats and manes, anything they could get their hands firmly on to direct and redirect the wild animals. Cries flew out in all manner of tones and volumes as the men struggled to work in conjunction with one another.
Still Daniel persisted forward, gaining speed by the second. Leaving the others he steered the giant brute dead for me and the place where I sat frozen to the fence. His mouth broke into a fiendish snarl. The stallion's eyes grew wide and rolled with terror, but still faster they came. The horse's thick shoulders bulged as it lunged forward. Faster. Sunlight gleamed off the sweat on Daniel's arms as he gripped the reigns tighter, his forearms flexing and contracting. Mucus and saliva flew from the horse's nostrils and lips.
My own eyes grew wide and rolled in terror. In one more breath man and horse, fused into one, would be upon me, plow through me, smash us all into unholy oblivion. My heart froze. My pulse stopped. My eyes remained wide. Daniel clenched every muscle in his body. His arms and neck rippled. His thighs collapsed in on the ribs of the beast. His sternum contracted, pulling him into a tight ball upon the stallion's back. In a fluid flash, the centaur bounded, soared through the sky, clear over my head, and landed thirty feet behind me and behind the fence with sickening grace.
Daniel slowed the steed and turned to face me. The creature reared in protest, determined to rid himself of the psychopath in his back. On that point the magical monster and I stood in solidarity. But Daniel casually stroked the beast down its long, regal neck and face. The stallion acquiesced. I would not.
I exhaled, and trembled as the blood rushed back into my face and my brain. Daniel merely grinned his lopsided grin and winked.
"Was that meant to impress me?" I hissed, finding my voice absent, my throat dry. I clutched the fence post for support, my nerves shattered.
He chuckled, a little out of breath himself.
"Why? Were you impressed?"
"A little, yes" I admitted watching him warily. "But mostly terrified."
He laughed outright this time, deep and from his belly.
"Then it was a little meant to." He turned a circle on his compatriot, tipped his hat to me, and galloped off toward the stables. I remained there, melting and bristling and alone for quite some time.
While I recovered, bedlam unfolded in the coral. The hands were leading the mares from the coral into the stable. One by one the girls had followed the men's prompts with little more than a fuss. Now and again, one horse or another would stiffen or whinny out her complaint, but sooner or later they all accepted their directive. Eventually, only one mare remained, a beautiful painted girl.She was a rusted out sunset. Her coat was bronze flame, flecked with gold and black on her flank. Her legs were beveled, and her coat flared royally into wide golden hooves. As her hand attempted to lead her in she began to resist. The harder he yanked at her ropes the more violently she reared. She twisted her long neck and flung her vermilion mane about. The man began to shout and spit at her. He whipped at her hind quarters. Time after time he lashed at her. My spine jolted with every crack. She threw her ears back and bared her large square teeth. It promised to be her last warning. More men came and together they yanked at her with ropes, lashed at her, prodded her with sharpened sticks. Her warnings came to an end. She bucked and she kicked and she clamped her great jaw down on any flesh in her way. They swarmed around her like flies, desperately whaling on her back and face. Finally, she arched her enormous back, threw her head high into the air like a wolf, and as she reared and let out a blood chilling scream.
The cruelty was too much, the men too vicious. I sprang from the fence, and bolted into the stable. Daniel was serenely putting the black stallion into a stall, looking proud as a papa.
"You have to come!" I panted clutching his elbow. Sweat beaded on my face, rolled down my neck and pooled in my collar.
"Lucene, what is it?" he asked with more sincerity than I had ever before seen in him.
"The mare, the painted one! Can't you hear her screaming?"
He dashed through the stable. I followed closely behind. Once in the coral he broke through the mob, pushing men aside. The first man still stood holding the rope and yanking hard on the mare's face. Daniel gripped him by the wrist and pinwheeled the man's arm high up against his back until he groaned.
"How do you like it?" He held his face close to his captive's, breathing hard. His words dripped venom. The man squinted and gasped in pain. Daniel released his hand and shoved him away.
"What in the goddamned hell is going on out here?" He shouted at rest. Several of them had been out with him in the party. They deferred to him immediately. He had become a sort of leader, a hero to them.
"She won't come in," one of them said.
"Course she won't, not like that, you damned fools!" Daniel answered.
"We was just trying to do like you did with that stallion, show her who's boss is all," another man answered.
"That ain't gonna work on that mare, you idiots, and she's trying to tell you so. Stallions are easy. They're used to being bossed most of the time. You show 'em who's boss and they just say, 'ok, I guess you's boss now' but you know who usually does the tellin? The lead mare. Right here's your lead mare, and she can't be convinced by bossin'."
The men stood stupidly holding their ropes and saying nothing.
"Go on, now," Daniel said. "There's plenty else to be done this mornin'. I'll take care of this little filly."
The men dispersed, leaving Daniel alone in the coral with the painted beauty. She continued to snort and circle and stomp. But she stopped screaming. He stood still as a post in that coral for more than an hour, watching the horse from the corner of his eye while she slowly settled down. His hat sat so low on his brow I could hardly see his face. He forgot me entirely, but I watched him as silently still as he watched her.
When he did move, he stepped slowly, deliberately, toward her. He kept his head bent low as he approached. She shook. He stopped and waited. Then, again he moved slowly, gently. When he came to her, he came to her side, not to her front or her back. With his head bent, he carefully placed one hand on her flank and one on her neck. The two stood there still, but for their breathing. Neither stirred. They were communicating, becoming acquainted without word or motion. He began to pet at her flank and at her neck. Nothing changed. He continued to pet and pat at her. Her ears loosened and came up from her head. He leaned his face close to hers like he did with the hand, but this time he dropped his forehead into her jaw and gave himself to her completely. She snorted, or rather sighed her consent. He loosely fingered a loop in the lariat around her neck, and stepped toward the stable. She followed him.
"I didn't know you had it in you," I said softly.
"Yeah, well, I guess there's a lot of things about me you don't know," he answered just as softly.
"Mr. Bingham's gonna want you to break her. She's the prettiest one. He'll want her for Aida," I said.
"You're probably right," he answered, "but he might just have to be settling for that stallion."
"No one can ride that stallion but you, and you know it," I said.
"You're probably right about that too."
"Don't you think you can break her?" I asked.
"I know I can," he answered. "but I don't know if I will. Some creatures just aren't meant to be tamed."
He walked out of the stable without looking at me.
No comments:
Post a Comment