Dream Wheels (39 page)

She looked at him and he met it evenly. There was a hardness to him, a toughness, but just under that was a pool of compassion, a gentleness that tempered it, eased it and made him manly. She could trust that kind of man with her son. “I don’t think I could ever equate riding a bull with being graceful. It seems more like you’d need to be strong and supple, slightly crazy too, I suppose. Not graceful.”

“Come with me. I’ll show you.”

He led her to the house, into the rec room, and knelt in front of the television leafing through a collection of videocassettes. He slid one into the player and sat on the sofa beside her. He thumbed the remote and the screen soon filled with a bull and rider exploding into an arena. He fast-forwarded, then stopped the tape at a point where the camera was focussed on the chute. Claire could see a rider poised for action behind it and the rope men bent strangely by the free frame in front. “Watch,” he said.

The tape started, and instead of the blur of action she expected Joe Willie had it set to slow motion. What she saw amazed her. A gigantic bull flowed out of the chute. It rose majestically, like a tidal wave, and launched itself into the light of the open space. On its back a cowboy flowed with it, the small of his back tucked in above his hip bone and tight behind the bull’s shoulder, his free arm rising like a flag with the motion. She could see each bunch of muscle in the bull’s hindquarters gather, compact, compress like huge fists and then the explosion of them opening in a wild thrust upwards, the height of the jump magnified by the slow, surreal timing of
the tape. She felt her jaw drop. Beside her Joe Willie leaned forward and cupped his chin in his palms. The cowboy on the bull’s back stretched out incredibly, elastically, each tucking in of his knees accentuated by a long unfolding of the free arm above him and then the outward surge of his legs toward the bull’s shoulders followed by a pulling down of the arm. The tension was all gather and release, gather and release, and Claire began to see the poetry in it, the rhythm, the grace he spoke of and the pure, unadulterated thrill of wild captured and slowed to a snail’s pace. When he thumbed the remote and the streaming quality of the ride dissipated into the chaos of real time she found it hard to breathe.

“Oh my god,” she said. “Aiden.”

“He’ll be all right,” Joe Willie said. “But he’s gotta learn to feel that rhythm you just saw. Gotta know without a doubt that it lives there. Gotta know where it lives in him so he can match it up.”

“That was magical. I would never have believed it if you’d just told me. How incredibly devastating. How beautiful,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “I haven’t watched that ride for a long time.”

“Who was that cowboy?”

“It was me,” he said, handing her the remote and walking quickly from the room.

At first it came easy. The trainer Joe Willie brought in reminded him of Johnny Calder and he liked his rough-and-tumble, no-nonsense approach to things. He listened closely and watched as the old boxer bobbed and wove and shadow-boxed around the ring. When it was his turn he took to it naturally, the athlete in him responding to the challenge to his timing, his balance, his ability to move. In the joint he’d only
learned how to throw a punch, how to throw the combinations and move around the heavy bag. Calder had never allowed them to actually fight each other. So this new approach intrigued him, and he wanted to learn. He put himself into it and found an easy familiarity with the skill. The old pug tousled his hair, called him champ, and he liked it. Then the gymnastics coach turned out to be a pretty, fit little blonde, and he gave her all of his attention. She taught him how to stretch, and they worked on floor mats. At first the movements she showed him made him feel awkward, too big for his body, slow and tight, but gradually he limbered, and again his athleticism allowed him a measure of confidence and he responded well. At the end of that first day he felt enthused, capable and interested in learning more.

When the first punch landed everything changed. The old boxer was lightning quick and Aiden barely saw his hands move. When the jabs hit him they rocked his head back, and even with the thickly padded helmet he felt like he’d been pounded with a hammer. He pedalled backwards, trying to find a neutral space to gather himself, but the old fighter kept coming for him. His arms suddenly weighed a ton, and it was nearly impossible to think with the explosions of white in his head that followed the punches. There was an anger that came with being hit and it was this more than anything that enabled his body to remember the footwork he’d been shown. As the trainer bore in on him again he shuffled, left then right then back, bending at the waist like he’d been shown, and he felt the breeze of punches sailing past their mark. He felt elated. But then the old pro keyed on his rhythm and he got plowed again and again. After what seemed an eternity Joe Willie called time, and he collapsed on a hay bale in the corner of the ring. His head felt swollen and cottony.

After that the trampoline was nearly impossible. His body ached from taking blows to the chest, belly and shoulders and he was stiffening rapidly. But he didn’t want to appear weak and he stretched out hard with the coach and she showed him the basics of bouncing. He liked the feel of flying through the air. There was a freedom in it and he watched closely when she showed him how to find his balance in the air. She worked him through a simple routine and kept him at it for fifteen minutes. His legs ached. His arms got stiff again and he found it difficult to maintain his posture in the air. When he began to travel off centre she yelled at him, reminding him, and he struggled.

And then the mountain. After the training Joe Willie and his mother came with the horse and they set out on the trail again. In the beginning the peak they aimed for had seemed reachable, but after a full day’s work on the ranch and then the boxing and gymnastics it was all he could do to keep up with Joe Willie. It felt steeper, the footing harder, more elusive, and he seemed to sweat more. But the cowboy kept going and Aiden was unable to find any quit in himself. They climbed, and on the third night Joe Willie halted at a bend in the trail just beyond where the line of trees began to thin.

“Almost,” he said.

“Almost what?” Aiden gasped.

“Almost there. Up around this bend there’s one final push, one last hard climb and we’re at the meadow. The cliff face is around this bend.”

“Now?” Claire asked, looking around at the darkening sky.

“No. Too late now. Tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll start earlier. Get there so we can watch the sun set. Bring tents, food, so we can camp.”

“Sounds good to me,” Aiden said. “Do I ride after that?”

“No,” Joe Willie said. “Not until you’re ready.”

“Jesus. When’s that?”

“Don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Who the hell knows, then?”

“You do.” Joe Willie signalled for Claire to hand a canteen down, and he drank slowly, watching Aiden. “You’ll show me when you’re ready.”

The boy scowled at him, then took the canteen he offered. He drank slowly like Joe Willie had, small sips over the course of a couple of minutes, then splashed a handful of water on his face and mopped it with his neckerchief. He walked away to the edge of the trail and stood watching the sky. Claire and Joe Willie saw his shoulders slump, then his head dropped. He cupped his face in his hands, bent forward at the waist, then knelt slowly on the ground with one knee. Claire made a motion in the saddle to dismount and go to him, but Joe Willie stopped her with a palm on her leg. They watched him for a long time. Finally, he rubbed his brow with the fingers and thumb of one hand and they heard him moan, one long, deep, ragged moan, before he rose and turned to them.

“Best be some good fucking camping then,” he said.

Lionel showed him how to load the tarpaulins for balance and then helped Aiden tie them onto the packhorse. It was only an overnight stay and the gear didn’t amount to a big load, but the old man took his time and taught the boy exactly. He showed him how to work around the horse so it stayed calm, the reassurances he gave it in a low, soothing voice. Aiden listened carefully, biting down on his lower lip and watching intently as Lionel showed him the knots a second time. When they were finished the old man gave him a big clap on the shoulder.

“That’s your responsibility now,” Lionel said. “You got her?”

“I got her,” Aiden said and shook his hand.

“Good man,” Lionel said, and Aiden smiled.

The other Wolfchilds walked in as Claire finished saddling her horse. She’d chosen a fractious little half-Arabian mare she’d ridden three or four times. The horse was a handful, its Arabian blood giving it a wildness that had scared Claire at first but which she enjoyed tremendously when the horse settled and pranced its way around the round pen or galloped across the main pasture. She wanted to challenge herself by navigating the flighty little mare up the mountain just as Joe Willie and Aiden would do on foot scaling upward all the way to the peak. Handling the Arabian through the unpredictable footing would give both of them the necessary confidence for the long mountain trail ride Claire was planning for herself.

“This is the night you figure to beat it?” Birch asked.

Joe Willie nodded grimly. “We should,” he said.

“Long climb,” Birch said to Aiden.

“We trained for it. We’re good,” Aiden said.

“You’re looking at three hours,” Birch said.

Joe Willie and Aiden exchanged a look. “We know,” they said in unison.

Birch slapped both of them on the back. “Take a mighty good pair of legs to get you up. Not to mention walking back down tomorrow. Different muscles. Different kind of tough.”

“We got the legs,” Aiden said, and Joe Willie arched an eyebrow at him.

They walked the horses through the corral and out the gate. They stood about looking up at Iron Mountain. It stood stolidly in the bright afternoon sun, proud and ancient, an old warrior watching the sun arc its path across the sky. Johanna and Victoria hugged Claire tightly before she mounted up.

“You watch over my men now,” Victoria said.

“I will,” Claire said.

“Something for your trip,” Johanna said and handed up a small hide bag on a thong.

“What’s this?” Claire asked.

“Medicine bag,” Johanna said. “Wear it under your shirt, right next to your heart. It’s got good medicine in it. It’ll keep you balanced.”

“On the horse?”

“That too,” Johanna said.

“You need us for anything you light a smoky fire, hear?” Birch said to Aiden.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. You’re the scout on this trip. It’s a big honour. Ojibways figure the scout is the bravest one. The one who goes first, takes on the danger first.”

“What danger?”

“Figure of speech,” Birch said.

Aiden and Joe Willie stretched some and then moved off wordlessly toward the trailhead. Claire kicked the horse up and tugged lightly on the rein for the packhorse to follow them. The Wolfchilds stood at the corral and watched them go. When they got to the trees they didn’t break stride to stop and wave. They disappeared into the trees.

“Big mountain,” Lionel said.

“Big mountain,” Birch said.

“Figure of speech,” Victoria said, and they turned to head back to the house.

It was hot. When the sun broke through the trees it flared against their bare backs in a splash of heat and they both broke sweat early. They pushed up the trail side by side. Behind
them, Claire was bowled over at the casual way Joe Willie had thrown off his shirt and tucked it into the back of his jeans. It was like second nature, something he did unthinkingly, and she was touched at the display of trust it contained. Now, watching them drive their way up the steep incline of the trail, she didn’t see the narrow thrust of the arm as anything other than another part of this muscular, proud assault on the trail, on the challenge. It pistoned up and back in time with the other arm, and if he thought about it at all Joe Willie didn’t show it with his body. He and Aiden matched strides and their heads were down, eyes focussed on the trail in front of them, the pebbly, twig-scrabbled path that must have seemed mere inches from their faces. The bad leg didn’t seem bad at all. Instead, Joe Willie set the pace, a gritty, driving pace that put them ahead of the schedule they’d been on previously. She worried a little about dehydration but she knew the cowboy in Joe Willie wouldn’t let them go too far without a water stop. For them and the horses.

When they did stop the two of them were bathed in sweat. Their breathing was so hard and ragged that they were reduced to the tiniest sips from the canteen. “Pap says three hours,” Joe Willie said. “We can do her in two.”

“You figure?” Aiden asked, leaning over with his hands on his knees.

“It’ll take a helluva push, but yeah. You good?”

“Never better.”

“Good. You lead, then. Set your pace. Your call for the next water stop.”

Aiden huffed out his breath. “Okay. Ready?”

“Go.”

Claire sat a moment longer, drinking in the view as she sipped from the canteen. It was fabulous. It was like the trail in
her girlhood dream. The little Arabian nickered and kicked out a tad, and Claire eased it into a walk, watching closely as it shook its head about. The horse settled into the climb and Claire let herself relax, the motion of the walk comforting and familiar now, the need to press up slightly in the stirrups now and then something that she did without thinking. Ahead of her Aiden pressed on at the same tempo Joe Willie had set initially, and they climbed the slope side by side, silent, not looking at each other. Claire nudged the Arabian and they ate up the distance easily.

Aiden strode right past the previous markers. They took the next section of trail quickly, and when they passed the little clearing where’d they’d stopped before Claire was amazed at how far they’d come so fast. Neither of them looked tired. Instead, they burned with the challenge. Now and then they allowed themselves a small glance at the other, a brief check, a search for flagging resolve, but they didn’t find it, and it began to look to Claire like they’d do the whole climb before stopping again.