Wash (24 page)

Richardson watches Wash put his hand through the rails palm down so as not to scare the foal then wiggle his fingers to lure him closer. When Wash grins, Richardson notices he has fine even teeth. Then the healing scar on Wash’s cheek buckles from the tension of his grin. Richardson feels a fresh wave of anger surge through him.

He can see Wash wants to climb the fence to get closer to the foal. He puts both hands on the top rail, bending his bad knee to set one foot on the bottom rail. But he’s not moving around well enough yet. He’s still clumsy and he knows his clambering over, maybe even falling, will scare the foal and the mare too. His quick scan of the barnyard also tells Richardson that Wash knows he’s not supposed to go in there.

Richardson understands the urge Wash has to run his fingers through that new foal’s shiny coat, still silky soft from his long swim inside his mother’s body. To feel that small muzzle explore his palm. To scratch the foal’s narrow chest until he wiggles his upper lip and grunts with pleasure. To do this often enough that the colt will walk straight to him as soon as he hears him or smells him. Unafraid. Richardson knows all of this precisely. The solace that animals offer.

Wash drops into a squat, wincing at the pain that shoots through his healing leg. Richardson nods in approval without realizing it. Wash knows horses. And sure enough, now that he’s at eye level, the foal heads toward him, checking back for mamma every few steps. Wash lets the colt make all the moves. Lets him think it’s his idea.

Richardson stands in the dark stall, watching Wash talk the foal toward him through the brightness. Before long, Wash has the foal butting against the fence and pawing at him, impatient with wanting Wash to come in and play. Wash shakes his head and laughs softly with the foal so he does not see Richardson step from the deep shadow of the stall into the open paddock.

The first he knows of it is when the foal wheels around, spooking so hard on his still unsteady legs that he almost falls over, desperate to put his mother between himself and this new man who stands inside his paddock. Wash feels caught out as he hauls himself back to standing, holding his face flat so as not to wince from the pain in his knee. The foal stands at the far edge of his mother’s shadow, tossing his head in an aggravation of confusion and fear.

“Fine piece of something, isn’t he?”

Wash nods.

“Carrying his mamma’s head and his daddy’s legs.”

Wash nods again.

“Guess I got lucky. What do you think?”

“Yessir.”

Wash looks at the ground, waiting to be dismissed and hoping Richardson will not hold him there by trying to talk to him.

“How you doing?”

“Better.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

Richardson walks across the paddock toward Wash, running his hand along Gamma’s swayed back as he passes by her. Once he’s facing Wash, with the fence running between them, he reaches to take hold of Wash’s chin so he can lift his bowed head to look into his face.

As he turns Wash’s face into the full sun, all Wash can see is the jagged light bouncing off the water in shards on that day when the Thompson boys came for their father’s body and for them. As Wash struggles to keep his breath even, he feels Mena’s grip on his wrist, telling him everything’s different now. He hears her saying I told you and you promised me. He lets Richardson look.

The scar from the hammer runs several inches through Wash’s hairline at his right temple. Like a slim hipped river has run through there long enough to wear down into the earth of Wash’s temple until it lies thin and shiny at the bottom between smooth banks rising on either side. Almost deep enough for Richardson to lay his first finger inside it, if not for the bend of it.

The tail of that scar fades out before crossing Wash’s forehead but it leads Richardson’s eye diagonally down across the bridge of Wash’s nose to the top inside corner of the R for runaway written across his left cheek, with the leg of the R kicking back toward his ear.

“Damn. Anything on you they didn’t get?”

Richardson doesn’t expect an answer and Wash doesn’t give one. He keeps hold of Wash’s chin, turning his face first to the sun then away, tilting it back and forth to watch the R show up in raking light then disappear in shadow. Saying nothing but mmmh mmmh. Each mmmh coming out of the deep of his chest hard and bitten off.

Wash looks over Richardson’s shoulder and tries to force himself to breathe. His right arm tingles with wanting to knock Richardson’s grip off his chin.

“Your mamma did a good job with that R.”

Wash fights to hold his arm down by his side for just one more second then another.

“Wish she could have done something about that dent.”

Richardson lets go.

“I don’t intend for you to need to run off from me.”

Wash drops his eyes to the round top of the fence post, counting his breaths. Working to keep them steady.

“That R gives free rein to any fool hunting reward money. You’re liable to get picked up and taken in just running errands for me. Word will get to me but you need to try to stay in one piece until I can send somebody to fetch you home. Best if you stay close by until this fades some and people come to know you as mine.”

Wash keeps silent.

“You hear me?”

“Yessir.”

“You want to help with the horses?”

“Yessir.”

“All right then, tomorrow.”

Wash

You’d think I’d have settled down some. But seemed like I healed up from that brand just as hardheaded as ever. Most folks, you can beat their knowing right out of em. But some of us, each lick lays our knowing in deeper.

I didn’t know exactly what it was I knew, but I wasn’t going to be shaken loose from it. I’d felt my knowing start to rise up in me back at Thompson’s place, before my troubles started. And even though it felt mostly broken and gone, I still held tight to it.

I was a raggedy old yard by the time we landed at Richardson’s. Hardpacked and weedy. But still, I snarled at any threat to my little patch. Somehow, I musta known my blooming out self was tucked away inside me, curled up tight and laying way down deep, along with Rufus and Cleo and Minerva and all my people my mamma had laid in me so careful before that. All of it, laying in there, just waiting on me to pick it back up.

But I didn’t know I knew this yet, so I limped round Richardson’s place with everything new to me all over again. I kept to myself but there wasn’t a thing I could do about the talk. My scars made sure I was a story and no matter how beaten down people get, they stay hungry for a story. They took mine and they passed it back and forth. Talked all round me before they ever said one word to me.

At first, I was too busy being mad and hurting to want their attention on me. I wanted to stay in that far off shed but by the end of that summer, Richardson put us in the quarters with everybody else. Said we needed to get back to work, just like he did.

My mamma started in on her stitching, but I took one look at that crowded cabin and went straight up to that highest loft of the big barn, no matter what that crotchety old stableman Ben had to say about it. I stayed holed up, hating everything and Richardson the most, until it started to dawn on me, stoking my own fire might not be enough.

My mamma kept telling me I’d get hungry for more, like it was a warning on something that had already happened.

And sure enough, soon as I started feeling better, started coming down from the hayloft, there they all were. Sitting at the fire circle in the quarters, talking and cooking and carrying on. Just like at Thompson’s place but with a whole new set. And before too long, this new batch grew round me like a vine. Wasn’t even three months yet and there I was, listening for the hook in one of Albert’s stories or shaking my head at Virgil’s lies, whether I meant to or not.

Life goes on, my mamma kept telling me, life goes on, and I felt my inside soften to her words just like it does when that one horse breathes close and warm on the back of my neck.

I visited her cabin plenty but she knew I couldn’t stay there. I was still too mad. Quick to take offense and quicker still to fight about it, so I needed to stay off to myself. But I did feel myself starting to turn more towards life than away from it. I was still a young man, waking up again, and I couldn’t help from wanting to go and see and do and taste everything.

The only real sting about my healing up was how much it seemed to please old Richardson. He kept coming after me. Said I had a gift with the horses. Made me his pet, sure as any new colt. Said he was trying to pull me back into the world of the living.Made me want to say I may be broke but it ain’t for you to fix.

With the way Richardson stayed after me, it was better to be out of his barn than in it, so I rode with Ben all over this county and the next those first few years, taking our yearlings round to those folks that had bought em and bringing their mares back to our stud for next year’s batch.

It was riding with Ben that gave me a chance to see the world. That’s how I met Nelle over at Bennett’s place and started talking to her. That’s how I met most of the rest of em too. I liked Nelle the best but she wasn’t the only one. The girls loved me. Always had. All through my troubles and maybe more because of em. My mamma grinned about it when she wasn’t worrying over it.

It was people from neighboring places whose eyes snagged on me the most. Who’s that and what happened to him, with the story always sounding better than the truth. All those girls growing into women, they came right straight for me, wanting a story of their own. And there I was, ready to take em up on it. Each one was new and different and better than the last. Each one was a new world I wanted to walk through till it sunk into me.

Richardson had no way of knowing what those girls were to me. He didn’t see how each of those girls was the only way I had to empty my mind from that hammer and everything since. He didn’t know my moving soft and slow and sure with Nelle or with Beck was as close as I came to swimming in that ocean I remembered from before, floating outside the breakers, rising and falling, with everything feeling as new and shiny as when I started out. He just thought I was a hound dog.

So maybe it was more than him being broke and watching me work that Eclipse stud for Carpenter come to breed his mare that led him to put me to stud. Maybe it was all those girls sneaking out of this barn. Maybe he figured if I was forever getting after it anyway, what was the harm in making me be his money? And once he gave up on his good name, I guess putting me to this work wasn’t no big step. But it sure took me a minute to catch onto the switch.

Bennett came for the weekend. Brought two of his mares to be bred, said he wanted one last crop before that fancy horse got too old. And he brought Nelle to look after him. She made sure she was the one he picked so she could see me again. Two whole nights and she spent both of em up in my loft with me.

There I was, being real careful and thinking I’m so smart, with Nelle good and on her way home before I step to the doorway of the barn after finishing my chores. I’m standing there watching their wagon about to pull out. That’s when I hear Richardson talking to Bennett. Thought it was about the mares but it was about me. He’s telling Bennett all about me.

How he bought my mamma and put us out on that island with old man Thompson. How I ran into some trouble with those brothers but now I’m coming along nice. Real nice. Too nice maybe. Then they laugh, talking about how the girls stay after me.

Then I see Richardson stepping closer and Bennett bending down from his high seat with his hand on Richardson’s shoulder and his mouth next to Richardson’s ear. I see the man’s hand snake out with a wad of bills and I see Richardson tuck the money into his waist pocket, asking Bennett what was the name again?

And I hear Bennett say Nelle, that would be Nelle. And Richardson says good, I’ll mark it down, as he turns away saying thank you, pleasure doing business with you as always. See you at the dance. Bring whoever you want.

I stand there, hearing this and feeling my belly drop. Watching Nelle leaning over the far side of the wagon, saying goodbye to some friends she made here. I see her brimming with sugar, knowing she’s thinking about me, and meanwhile, that damn Richardson’s taking me and her both and putting us right in his pocket.

He bet on me. He bet Bennett I’d get with Nelle. He bet I’d do just exactly what I did before I ever did it. Then he took that money and put it in his pocket.

I stand there like I’m rooted. I don’t even nod at Nelle waving goodbye to me. All I can feel is the big barn door sucking me back inside and before I know it I’m trying to break whatever’s laying right there by me. It’s a rasp and it won’t break, no matter how hard I swing. So I stab the tip into the center post and start in on the closest horse.

Queenie is standing there tied in the aisle. I grab her by her lead rope, jerking her till she panics, scrambling to get away from me, her squeals and whinnies echoing through the barn, and I’m yanking her towards me, muttering run away, you want to? You can’t run away from me, can’t run away from me now, and she’s pulling back, but I’m pulling her closer so I can slap her.

I guess Richardson heard the ruckus from out in the yard cause I hear him yelling. Then he’s standing in the doorway. By then, I’d let go of the mare. I turn to face him with Queenie behind me, backed against the end of her rope and blowing loud rattling snorts.