Blind Your Ponies (22 page)

She hesitated, standing before the mirror in the bathroom. Was that the door? Just her imagination.
Relax, nothing serious, keep it light, stay cool.
She snapped off the light in the bathroom and hurriedly lit several candles in the living room. Then she blew them out. Too much. She turned on all the lights, stood there a moment, relit the candles and turned out all the lights.

She peered out the window for headlights. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to get away; after all it was their first win in almost six years. He was probably still celebrating at the Blue Willow. Though she hadn’t been very aggressive, he did have a knack for avoiding her whenever they might spend some time
alone. But she’d felt his passion the night they went to dinner and embraced at her door. Sometimes she caught him looking at her. Had she read him wrong? Damn! She wasn’t ready for this. She lit several lamps and blew out the candles.

O
N THE DRIVE
out of town, Sam couldn’t deny Amy’s memory, and he knew that one of the voices in his head was hers. He knew she wanted him to live his life fully, with gusto, with passion, but he was terrified of falling in love again, afraid of needing someone like that again, someone who could be snatched away in an instant.

“Not going to fall in love, not going to fall in love,” he said aloud, in rhythm with the yellow highway strips flying past on the blacktop. “Not going to fall in love, not going to fall in love.”

Maybe she just wanted to talk, to say good-bye when they were alone. He could turn around; she’d never know he came this far.
Keep it light, don’t get serious, don’t get involved, you’re not ready for this.
His hands trembled on the steering wheel when he turned on the gravel road to her farmhouse. She’d see the lights by now, too late to turn around. Maybe we’ll just neck on the sofa, friendly like, just for the fun of it.

He pulled the Ford to a stop in front of the house and doused the lights. Damn, the house was almost dark, she was probably already in bed. He’d taken too long. He stumbled onto the porch and was about to knock when the door opened and she was standing there in a terry cloth robe, barefoot, and the room behind her was aglow with candles.

“Hi,” he said, his throat going dry.

“Hi.”

“I almost didn’t come.”

“Me too,” she said softly.

She backed into the house and he followed, tentatively, shutting the door behind him, his breathing quickening.

“You want to talk?” he said.

“Yes … talk …”

He stood in the flickering light for a moment and fire mainlined through his body and face. He could smell her, soapy and sweet, see her in the dull
glow with the pink robe’s sash tight around her small waist, the cleavage of her breasts slightly visible. The next moment they flew into each other’s arms and kissed with a primitive hunger.

“We’re not getting serious,” she said between kisses.

“Nothing serious.” “Nothing serious,” he said with his mouth tasting the skin of her supple neck. “Just some fun.” And with his last rational thought he told himself,
I’m not going to fall in love.

With the lights off, Peter guided the old VW bus around to the side of the Blue Willow, moving stealthily even though the village appeared deserted. A few vehicles lingered in front of the café, like weary horses tied at the rail. The night was unseasonably warm, more like April than December, a balmy wind gusting from the southwest.

Tom and Pete crept to the building’s back door with the bearing of burglars, leaving Olaf in the bus, a getaway driver. Through the windowed door they could see Axel mopping the room. Tom knocked lightly and the brawny man looked up, momentarily startled. Then he waved them in.

“What are you guys doing up?” the innkeeper said. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

“We need some paint,” Tom said.

“
Paint!
At this time of night?”

“Yeah, do you have any around?” Pete said.

Axel cocked his sweat-glistened bald head and regarded the two boys suspiciously, his hand holding the mop handle like a meat cleaver.

“What are you fellas plannin’ to paint?”

“We have to fix something,” Tom said. “Do you have any?”

“We don’t have a water tower.” Axel paused. “A bridge?”

“No, nothing like that, honest,” Pete said. “Don’t you have any?”

“Yeah, I got paint. I’m always touching up something around here. What color you need?”

“Anything but red,” Tom said.

Axel set the mop aside and led them to a neatly kept back room. He swung open a cupboard and revealed a dozen or more cans of paint in a variety of colors and sizes, none of which was more than a quart.

“We need a gallon or two,” Tom said.

“A gallon or two!” Axel shook his head slightly. “What are you going to paint, the talc plant?”

Tom glanced at Pete with disappointment in his face.

“Sorry,” Axel said. “That’s all I got.”

“Would you get my grandma?” Pete asked. “We’re supposed to be in bed and don’t want anyone to see us.”

“Sure.”

Axel fetched Grandma Chapman, who was still savoring the win with a few loyalists in the dining room. She came plowing through the kitchen with worry taking root in the furrows of her face.

“What’s the matter? You all right?” she asked Pete.

“Yeah, fine,” Pete said. “We need to talk to you.”

“What are you still doing up? Coach Pickett sent you to bed an hour ago.”

“I know,” Pete said. “We need your help.” He nodded. “Outside.”

She exchanged a “what’s up” look with Axel and followed the two boys out the door.

“They need some
paint,
” Axel called after them.

At the bus, Grandma noticed Olaf stacked in the back seat.

“They keeping you up, too.”

“Ya, falling asleep I am.”

“Have you got any paint?” Pete asked, standing beside the truck.

“Paint? Yes … have a couple of gallons of white; was going to paint the fence last summer, but decided there were more important things to do.”

“Have you got a brush?” Tom asked.

“Yes.”

“Have you got two brushes?” Pete asked.

“Yes, I have several old brushes. What are you three up to?”

Tom glanced at Pete, questioning. Pete knew his grandma and nodded at Tom.

“We’re going to paint the score of the game on my dad’s barn,” Tom whispered as if George Stonebreaker were lurking in the shadows. “He told me we’d never win a game as long as I played, that I was a loser, that the whole team was a bunch of geldings.”

Grandma stood silently for a moment, regarding the three boys. Then she looked into Tom’s stubborn face. “Can
I
help?”

G
RANDMA BOUNCED THE
Volkswagen bus across the pasture, the vehicle’s lights off. Tom sat beside her, pointing the way, while Pete and Olaf rode on the bone-jarring bench seat, shaking two cans of Sherwin-Williams outdoor latex. They stopped at a fence line and scrambled out of the bus, a quarter of a mile south of the ranch site.

“This is great,” Grandma said. “Thought I’d lost any chance to do something like this.”

They helped each other through the barbed wire fence, headed toward the one dim yard light, which did little to dispel the smothering darkness. The wind prodded at Pete’s back as though sensing he was losing his nerve. Was he the only one with a knot of fear in his stomach? he wondered. His mother was coming to Willow Creek for Christmas and, though he felt like a traitor, he knew he could talk her into letting him go home with her.

“What will your dad do if he catches us?” Pete asked Tom, who led the way.

“He’ll kill us.”

Pete tried to find some comfort in numbers, but as he glanced at the shadows beside him, he found no comfort. Tom hurried ahead of them, and all at once the barn loomed out of the darkness like a great ship, casting its outline against the star-spangled sky. Passing an assortment of farm machinery, Tom led them around to the dark side of the barn, in the lee from the yard light. He stopped and swept his arm toward the towering broadside.

“There,” he said.

The three of them stood gawking at the huge wall, the first story of which was constructed out of mortared field stones. Small square windows six feet above ground level ran the length of the barn like cannon ports.

“How are we going to get up there?” Pete asked.

“We’ve got an old ladder,” Tom said, “but first I’ve got to see if my dad is home.”

A dog barked from beyond the barn.

“That’s Skipper. You wait here,” Tom said, and he crept off into the darkness toward the aroused dog and the one low-watt light.

Shortly after Tom disappeared, the dog stopped barking. His three cohorts
instinctively crouched and waited. Pete began wondering if this was such a great idea after all. He’d heard stories about Tom’s violent father and he wished they had let Axel in on their scheme and brought the oxlike inn-keeper for backup. As a million stars watched mutely from the endless sky, things were moving on the barn, creaking and groaning and bumping in the wind, as though it were a rocking vessel moored to a wharf. How would they ever know if one of the sounds was Tom’s dad? Peter was able to make out more of his surroundings as his eyes adjusted to the shadows of the barnyard. The minutes stretched on until it seemed as though Tom had deserted them.

“Keep shakin’ the paint,” Grandma said, obviously enjoying herself.

Kneeling, the two of them were shaking the gallon cans when Pete heard a rustling coming toward them. Just as he stopped jiggling the can to listen, he was knocked flat by a pouncing animal. A large, shaggy-haired mutt licked his face and wagged its tail, greeting the other two with the enthusiasm of someone who wanted in on the caper. Tom appeared with a long wooden ladder.

“Down, Skipper, down,” he said.

“Is your dad home?” Pete asked, picking himself off the ground.

“No, not yet … out drinkin’ somewhere.”

Tom hoisted the ladder up against the barn wall. It only reached a few feet above the stone.

“Damn,” Tom said.

He climbed the widow-maker and stood near the top, testing his reach against the vertical one-by-ten boards. He scrambled back down.

“Olaf, will you paint on the ladder?”

“On the ladder? … Ya.”

“How big are we going to make this?” Grandma asked.

“Six feet tall,” Tom said.

“Sweet!” Pete said. “That rocks.”

“That’s the county road,” Tom said, pointing west. “I want this big enough so you can see it from the road. Every time my dad drives in he’ll have it starin’ at him; all the neighbors will see it. That’ll burn his ass.”

“Won’t he just paint over it?” Pete asked.

“Not the way we’re going to do it. Olaf will paint the lower part with the ladder.”

“The
lower
part?” Grandma said.

“Yeah. I’ll paint the Willow Creek score higher.”

“How you gonna do that?” Pete said, gazing up at the towering barn.

“With rope, to where my dad can’t touch it.”

They got Olaf started, painting from right to left because he was righthanded, Grandma steadying the ladder and spelling out the Lima score in reverse. He began painting a six-foot “9.” Peter followed Tom to the other side of the barn, where Tom scrounged a variety of rope in some of the outbuildings, including several of his lariats and a block and tackle. On this side of the barn, the yard light cast shadows in all directions and Peter felt exposed to whatever eyes might be peering from the old two-story house.

After knotting the rope together, Tom heaved a heavy wrench tied to baler twine over the barn roof. Pete went around and waited for Tom to lower the old tool on the twine until he could reach it. Quickly he pulled on the twine until he had the attached rope in hand. Olaf had the “9” completed, and after moving the ladder, he was working on the “7.” Grandma had been appointed lookout, instructed to keep one eye peeled on the road for any hint of George Stonebreaker’s pickup. It was past midnight.

Tom came around the barn with an old truck tire. He tied it securely to the rope. He picked up the other can and a brush and climbed into the tire. He sat with one arm around the tire and holding the can, the other free to paint.

“Okay, hoist me up.”

Pete scrambled around to the east side of the barn where Tom had the rope running through the block and tackle and snugged to a railroad tie in the corral. He began pulling as he’d been instructed, heaving Tom off the ground on the other side of the barn. In a minute he heard a whistle, the signal to stop, and he tied off the rope. He hurried around to see where he’d hung Tom. High above the white “9” Tom rode the old tire in the wind, a foot or so off the wall because of the eaves, already lining out a six-foot “1” with his slapping five-inch paint brush.

“You’ve got to let me down fast if my dad comes,” Tom said.

The ranch road came in straight from the west, and if he glanced at the barn, George Stonebreaker would be the first to see their night’s handiwork. Pete found himself squinting northwest into the darkness and manufacturing headlights in his imagination.

Both boys painted with a frenzy, slopping their brushes against the rough, weathered boards. Grandma guided their crude calligraphy from below, having them leave two-board spaces between letters. Tom could move himself along by pushing himself out from the wall with his legs and flipping the rope over the eaves a few inches at a time. But Pete would have to move it from the other side when he’d worked his way eight or ten feet laterally.

The scoreboard began to take shape. Below, Olaf had the “79” finished and was about done with the “A.” Above, painting faster, Tom had finished the “K 81” and had started the “E.”

“A car!” Grandma shouted.

Far to the north, headlights fluttered along the country road. Olaf scrambled down the ladder and Pete ran around to the far side of the barn, almost cold-cocking himself by running into a post of the corral. He untied the rope and was about to lower Tom to the ground when he heard Grandma calling in a whisper as she came around the barn.

“It’s okay, false alarm, wasn’t him.”