Catch Rider (9780544034303) (16 page)

“I'm not going to find a horse!” I slammed the cabinet and yelled so loudly that he jumped. “I could be great if I had people helping me and if I had a great horse, but I don't.”

That was like a knife in his heart, I could tell. It wasn't like he didn't know it already, but I was sure he didn't want to hear it out loud.

He took a long look at me. “I can get you a horse.”

I ignored him.

“You hear what I said?”

“You would, wouldn't you? You'd sell me some old nag, and you'd let me take him to New York City. Because you're a drunken fool.”

Wayne looked at me hard and pointed his finger. “Oh, so now you all fancy? Well, let me tell you something you don't know: I went to the National Hunter Finals in Atlanta, Georgia, and showed a horse myself. She was off the track six months. I was fifteen and lied about my age. I jumped that crazy bitch over four-and-a-half-foot jumps in front of five thousand people, and I came in tenth out of forty-one. Not too bad. So when that fancy coach talks about how much he knows, let me ask you how many horses he's ridden in the middle of downtown Atlanta, half-drunk, at fifteen.”

“You're lying,” I said.

“The hell I am. Rode down in a boxcar with my lunch in a paper sack. You ask your mama if it's true.”

I knew when he was lying, and I knew when he wasn't. This was a true story. I started mixing up the casserole. Wayne opened a drawer, dug through some papers, pulled out a framed photograph, and handed it to me. It was Wayne as a grinning, big-eared teenager on a gorgeous dapple gray horse, holding a big ribbon. It gave me the shivers. It was just an old photo, but for some reason it made me want to cry.

“Sidney, you're a catch rider. We'll find you a horse.”

“I ain't got a coach.”

“I'll do it.”

“You're a drunk.”

“I'll quit.”

“Sure you will.”

I set the timer for thirty minutes and put the dish in the oven. I got my coat. I knew if I stuck around, we'd fight.

“You be here tomorrow, rain or shine.”

I walked out and the door slammed behind me.

I didn't want to go home, but I had to. All afternoon, along with everything else, I'd been thinking about Melinda and worrying that Donald was going to hurt her. I couldn't turn my back on her, as mean as she had been to me the night before and as much as it broke my heart. I was just too loyal, kind of like a dumb old dog. Between her and Dee Dee, it seemed mothers were put on this earth just to torture their kids. To find the softest spot in your heart and jam their thumb into it. I knew that all mothers weren't like this. I knew my mother hadn't always been like this. Jimmy never would have married her if she had been. I felt like Donald and I were fighting for her soul.

I
SPENT THE NIGHT
at home, went to school the next day, and dragged through my classes. I decided to go to Wayne's, like he'd said, and see what he could come up with. The drunk he was on had to be over by now.

But when I got to his house and opened the door, I found him lying face-down on the floor. I put my hand on him—he was unconscious but breathing. His feet were pointed in, pigeon-toed, and he looked like a doll someone had thrown across the room. Boy, it was horrible seeing him like that. I called 911, and then I just waited, holding his hand and listening to the pot of water sizzling and popping on the wood stove. The fire was about two hours old, but I didn't know how long he'd been lying there.

An ambulance pulled into the muddy driveway. It looked so wrong there, its lights flashing as it drove past the tractors and wheelbarrows. Two men got out—one I knew from church and one worked at the farmer's co-op. They came in and checked him out, put an oxygen mask on him. They said his heart rate was slow. The older one said he was dehydrated and started an IV.

“This Wayne Stewart, the horse trader?” the boy asked. The other fellow nodded but let me answer.

“Yeah,” I said.

“He went to school with my daddy. Tough as a mule. They used to bootleg together, but don't tell no one.” He smiled.

“He going to be okay?” My voice caught.

“He looks right frail. We'll see.”

I drove to the hospital behind them. Inside, I followed the gurney down the hall and sat in the waiting area.

A few minutes later, Melinda came flying in the door. “Why didn't you call me? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I didn't want you to bring that dirtbag,” I said.

“Well, it's a good thing Sandy heard it over the scanner.”

“Good for her.”

“Is he okay?”

“Don't know.”

She sat down and stared at me.

A doctor came out and told us we could follow him into Wayne's room. Wayne looked awful, but he was awake.

“Your liver ain't getting any better,” the doctor said.

“I just quit drinking,” Wayne rasped.

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“Should have done it thirty years ago.”

“So now I just lie here and die?”

“Don't be getting mad at me, Wayne. I been telling you for a long time. You might drop dead in a month, you might live ten years.”

The doctor left, and we all just sat there awhile without saying anything.

“You know, I been making casseroles for you for forty years,” Melinda said finally.

“Maybe that's what did it,” Wayne said without missing a beat.

She stood up. “I been waking up every day wondering if you fell asleep with a cigarette and burned the house down!” she shouted. “Or if you finally drunk yourself to death. You're so lucky to be alive, and you just want to die.”

He reached over slowly and took a sip of water from a plastic cup. “We was born to a mom and dad who didn't want us,” he said. “The fact that we survived is lucky enough.”

“We didn't survive,” she said. I felt kind of bad hearing that. Then Melinda turned to me and said, “You need to stop wasting your time shoveling shit and get a real job.”

“Look who's talking,” I said.

“Horses are the biggest money pit God ever created. How many times did your father say we were broke, then spend his paycheck on a load of hay? Sidney, you need to get to school and make something of yourself.”

“So I can take care of you?” I asked her. “Is that why?”

“I'm going home.” She put her coat on and grabbed her purse. “You know, I had dreams, too, Sidney. In case you forgot, the night Daddy died, I was going to sign a lease to open a sewing store, remember?”

“No.”

“Of course you don't.”

She left. I did remember the sewing store.

Wayne and I were silent for a long time. I counted the drops of fluid in his IV so I wouldn't cry.

Wayne opened his eyes and looked at me, then closed them again. “We're going to the Garden,” he said.

“Shut up.”

“We're doing this for you.”

“I could give a shit about the Garden.”

“I'm going there, and you're going with me. You got a chance to win the National Championship, girl.”

I didn't say anything. I hoped I wouldn't die like that, lying in a hospital bed with everybody fighting and telling me how dumb I was for doing the things I did. All the people Wayne knew, all the horses he had, all that knowledge he had, and one day he'd just die and all of it would be gone. It couldn't happen to me. I didn't think I'd mind being dead—it was the dying part that scared me.

Wayne had opened his eyes and was staring at me. “Sidney, I don't know how much longer I'm gonna be around. I ain't in good shape.”

“You better not drop dead and leave me here alone with these people. I'll kill you myself.”

And then, goddamn it, I started to cry.

“You can't leave me, Uncle Wayne.”

“Let's go to New York,” he said. “We got three weeks.”

T
HE NEXT DAY
, Ruthie came out to Wayne's to help me feed. She'd been there a couple of times to watch me ride. We were walking through the deep mud carrying hay. She was grossed out because her feet were making sucking sounds in the mud.

“How's he live like this?” she asked me.

“He could live in a hollow log. Give those horses a bale, too, but break it up so they don't fight over it.”

“Okay. You heard about Eileen Cleek?” she asked.

“What about her?”

“She dropped out of school to work in the mill.”

I stopped in my tracks. It had to be a joke.

“Is that sad or what?” Ruthie said. “She was the last real farm girl, except you. I heard some girls saying she would either be pregnant or cooking meth by the end of the school year.”

“That's not funny.”

“I know it isn't.”

Ruthie threw a clump of hay into the paddock. The horses fought each other for it, ears pinned and teeth bared.

“I said to split it up. They'll kick the crap out of each other!”

I let the horses rip off clumps of hay and drag it off to eat.

“They're scary!” Ruthie looked down at her filthy clothes. “Can we go in now?”

“We gotta pick out all of these horses' feet or they'll get thrush. They been standing out here in the mud for two days.”

“What's ‘flush'?”

“Thrush. It's a nasty fungus. Smells awful.”

“Yuck!” Ruthie looked at Sub, who was covered in manure stains.

“And we have to soak that red horse's foot.”

I called to Sub.

“Why's he called Sub?”

“Short for Submarine 'cause he likes to swim in the river. One time my daddy . . .”

I choked up. Everything was falling apart.

“Your daddy what?”

“One time my daddy and I were riding him together, crossing the Jackson River, and Sub put his head down and went underwater like a fish. So we changed his name to Submarine. He got us soaking wet.”

I could tell Ruthie wanted me to keep talking.

“If my father came back tomorrow, he'd drag Donald out by his hair. And he wouldn't be too happy with my mother, either.”

I looked at Sub for a moment, and he looked back. He walked over to me, rested his head on my shoulder, and closed his eyes. His cheekbone sank into the top of my shoulder, and I thought he was going to push me over with that big head of his.

“Aww—look at him. He's so quiet,” Ruthie said.

“He is. And it's catching.”

I scraped some of the dried mud off his cheek. Then I turned my back and walked away.

Ruthie and I cleaned up the barn without talking for a while. I could tell she was thinking about something.

“You know, Sid, I wasn't sure if I should tell you, but I heard Daddy saying some things about Donald.”

“Like what? Like that he's evil incarnate?”

“Like he used to hit his girlfriend over in Elkins. Daddy's worried that he might hit your mom.”

I turned and faced Ruthie. “Ruthie, he hit
me.
”

Once the words came out of my mouth, everything changed. It was real. It was out.

“You have to tell your mother and Wayne. If you don't, I'll tell my father, he'll call Wayne, and the shit will hit the holy fan,” she said.

I almost wished I hadn't said anything, but it felt good knowing she cared so much that she actually threatened me. I didn't know who else I was going to tell or what I was going to do, but I had to do something. I knew Ruthie would do what she'd said. That was how Ruthie was. She left without saying anything.

Melinda and I picked up Wayne from the hospital, and she drove us to his house in her car. I thought about telling her then, but I couldn't. I was scared she would pick Donald over me—that was why I had kept it secret in the first place. I was scared she wouldn't believe me or that she would believe me but not really care. Sometimes I didn't know what went on in her head, but I knew I loved her no matter what.

Melinda helped Wayne inside and made him some tea, and then she went home. Wayne's neighbor Marlene Watson came by with a hot dish of food and talked for a while. She lived down the road and ran a cattle farm with her husband, who used to work at the mill as a pipe fitter but had retired. She had a cheerful face, like a daisy, and it made me feel good just looking at her. After she left, another neighbor, Pete Carter, a used-car dealer in Hot Springs, came by to say hello. He was a round and neatly dressed man with his pants pulled all the way up around the top of his giant belly, and he looked at you out of little slit eyes behind his metal-rimmed glasses.

Pete and Wayne told stories about when they were young. The first one was about the time they were out of work when they were eighteen. They tied a long rag to a fox's tail, dipped it in kerosene, and let the fox run through the woods. They said it was rigged so the rag would fall off and the fox wouldn't get hurt. They started a big forest fire, so they would get hired to put it out. When they were twelve, they tied a lit stick of dynamite to a buzzard to see what would happen. It crawled under Wayne's uncle's brand-new Cadillac and they thought the whole thing was going to blow, until they found the fuse lying there limply by their feet. Pete told one about how he and his brother-in-law got drunk and used a coffee can to spray-paint big red polka dots all over their boss's new truck.

They laughed until they coughed. Then it got real quiet, and we listened to the fire.

“Yeah. I ain't had a drink in ten years,” said Pete.

“Is that so?” asked Wayne.

“Ain't got no use for it,” Pete said. After a few moments, he got up. “You need anything, you call me.” He put his hand on Wayne's shoulder, as if he knew it was serious.

I'd been waiting to talk to Wayne about Donald. But I didn't know how to bring it up. I felt bad that he was sick and that I was going to upset him. I didn't know what to do.