Gee Whiz (24 page)

“I think he’s discovered a few things.”

“What?”

“Well, the world is fallen. In a fallen world, you can’t do everything right, even if you are trying very hard.”

“What else?”

Now there was a long pause, and she was giving me this look that said, “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this,” but then I guess she decided that it would be a good lesson for me. She said, “When your child is so much like you, there are a lot
of times that you end up arguing with yourself.” She sighed. “And when you argue with yourself, how do you decide who’s the winner?”

I said, “Do you think that I’m like you?”

“Sweetheart, I think you are exactly like yourself, just yourself.” We stood up and did the dishes.

Friday afternoon, I made sure to do all my riding of Oh My, Nobby, and Morning Glory before I even looked at Gee Whiz, but he looked at me—I could see out of the corner of my eye that every time I took a mare out of the pasture or put one in, he would prick his ears and watch. At one point, he did go to his gate, and he did press his chest against it, and he did rattle the chain with his lips as if he knew that the chain was the key. After he did that, I led Morning Glory over to the gate and shooed him away. Yes, the clip was moist, as if he’d been working on it. I made sure it was secure and took Morning Glory to the barn.

When I was finished with her, and everything was cleaned up and I didn’t have any more work for Dad to point out, I got Gee Whiz and led him to the arena. It was late in the afternoon—the shadows were long and clouds were gathering to the west. I let him go and went back to the barn to put on my rain jacket. I wasn’t sure what to do with him, so I decided to let him figure that out for himself. First, he checked under the railing for grass, but I followed him, and clucked. He could eat grass anytime. So he walked along with his big, limber strides, looking here and there. I followed him at a distance. Finally, he lay down in the wettest spot and rolled, then he got up and lay down and rolled on the other side, then he
stood up, shook himself off, and blew out some air. Only then did he take off running. He was big and quick. I retreated to the center of the arena to watch him. He cantered out, but he didn’t gallop the way he’d done before. Every so often, he stretched his head down and kicked out with one leg, then tossed his head with pleasure. He broke to the trot, and trotted here and there, then he did what he’d done before, he looped around and trotted toward me with his ears pricked. I stood still. He trotted right up to me and stopped, his nose practically on my shoulder. I said, “No, you go away and do something,” and I waved my left arm toward the end of the arena. Sure enough, he turned to look where I was pointing, and trotted away. I went after him, and stood about halfway between the center and the end of the arena, in an open area. He looped back again, and trotted around me a couple of times, his eye on me. When I turned the right side of my body toward him and slightly raised my right arm, he bent his spine so that his body was conforming neatly to the shape of the circle he was making. I was impressed. He trotted away to the left, down the side of the arena.

I turned and walked away, a little more toward the railing but still in a fairly open area. In moments, he had come back. Now he looped around and circled me again, this time to the right. I lifted my arm. He bent to carve his circle, though he wasn’t as loose to the right as he was to the left. He went around me two and a half times, then trotted off. I had no idea what he was thinking, but it was really quite flattering to have this free, energetic animal attending to me. Now he picked up the gallop, went around the end of the arena, and
came back in my direction. I stood still the way I knew I was supposed to, but this time it was a little more frightening, because he was really galloping. He stopped again, even sliding a little. He ended up a couple of feet from me. I gave him a pat, then I stroked him down his neck and over his flanks, on both sides. He seemed to like that.

The light was getting bluer. I walked over to the gate to get the lead rope, and he followed me, so I ended up not attaching the lead rope, only walking along, listening to him breathe and hearing his footfalls as he came along beside me. Every so often, I petted him on the cheek. By the time he was completely cool and back in the pasture, it was dark, and Dad was handing out the hay. Dad watched me put Gee Whiz away without saying anything.

The next morning was Saturday. I wondered who Melinda and Ellen would be riding in their lessons. I hadn’t heard again from Jane. When I was lying in bed, listening to Simon and Garfunkel, I decided about six times that maybe I could just never mention Jane’s offer again, and pretend that she hadn’t said it, and then I wouldn’t have to be tempted in any direction, and I wouldn’t have to make up my mind. I was only in ninth grade, and I was much too young to be making up my mind, wasn’t I?

I
T HAD BEEN A WEEK AND A HALF SINCE
B
ROTHER
A
BNER
’
S FUNERAL
, and no one had said very much about him. There’d been a little talk the previous week about Dad and Mr. Hollingsworth and Sister Larrabee going over to his place and cleaning it out, but no one had done it yet. One reason to get it done was to see whether he had a landlord, and if so, who it might be. If it was someone from far away, then Dad or Mr. Hollingsworth would have to call that person. Dad said that it was not impossible that he owned the cabin and the patch of ground that it stood on, but papers would have to be found, and maybe distant relatives? It seemed like a big job; everyone was plenty busy. When we got to church the next day, I heard Sister Larrabee tell Sister Larkin that she’d driven over and
looked around for half an hour, but then had lost heart. She said, “Well, it still seems like an invasion of his privacy. You ask me, that’s what relatives are for, not friends.” But then Mr. Hollingsworth said that someone he knew had suggested that all they had to do was figure out the address of the cabin, and go to the county courthouse. There would be a record there saying who owned it.

Sister Larkin said, “It can’t be worth anything.”

Sister Brooks said, “Well, you never can tell. But what in the world would we do with it?”

Dad said, “The Lord will show the way,” and everyone nodded, and then Sister Larrabee said, “You know, he had a son. There might be something about that somewhere in his things.”

Every head turned to look at her. She said, “Oh, he told me about it years ago. Sad story. I was hoping it would come out as he got into his last days, but I didn’t feel that I could bring it up, so I didn’t.”

Some of the sisters started clucking. Finally, Sister Larrabee sighed, and said, “Well, it could be there’s a lesson to be learned here, and I’m sure it’s one Brother Abner would have wanted us all to learn, so …” But it took her a long time to begin. She patted her Bible in her lap, and then she said, “Did you know he was once married? My goodness. So long ago now. Seems like that was a different world in those days. He came back from one of those trips when he was a young man, and settled down in Cincinnati, I think it was. Married a nice girl from a large family, and everything went fine. They had a boy, a healthy strapping boy, he told me, and it seems to me
that Brother Abner was running a shop those people owned there in a beautiful neighborhood called Over-the-Rhine. I’ve been there—such lovely streets! Everything was going well, and then his wife contracted something—it wasn’t the influenza, that was later, but perhaps the yellow fever? Whatever it was, it looked like she’d gotten over it, and then she took a turn for the worse, and died. Well, that boy was not even two years old, and the wife’s family was a big one, several sisters all about the same age, and they wanted that boy, and Abner let them take him, for the child’s own good, because how was he going to care for such a young one? But then they all had a falling-out over something a few months later, and isn’t that what happens? Such a deep pain and unexpected tragedy, and then you have some little thing go wrong, and words that shouldn’t get said do get said, and there you are. Well, he left Cincinnati and went all over the world again, and sometimes he wrote a letter or two to the boy, but when he went back to find him twenty years later, that boy wouldn’t say a word to him, and they never made it up.”

There was clucking and head shaking.

Sister Larkin said, “Seems to me that sort of thing was more the way of it in those days, but maybe I’m wrong.”

Sister Larrabee said, “Well, he never figured out a way to cross back over that river, and he regretted that bitterly, he told me.”

I said, “What river?”

“Oh my goodness,” said Sister Larrabee with a smile. “Not the Ohio. Not a real river. It’s just that when you are young … Well, it’s the river of things that you do in your life.
When you’re young, it’s a narrow stream, but when you’re old, my girl, it’s a flood, and the other bank seems far, far away.”

Mom, who was sitting beside me, took my hand.

Dad said, “But he took up the way of the Lord, and he is saved now, and that’s the greatest thing any of us can hope for.” Everyone agreed to this, and then we sang “Blessed Assurance.” Church was pretty quiet, and at the end, Mom and I waited while Mr. Hollingsworth and Dad made a date to go to the courthouse, and then to Brother Abner’s cabin.

When I got off the school bus on Monday, there was a nice car parked by the front porch—a red Thunderbird with lots of chrome all over it that Kyle Gonzalez would have known all about. It was bright enough to scare the horses, I thought, and then I went around the house and saw Dad talking to the exact sort of guy who would be driving such a car. He was short, and wearing a gray suit with beautifully tooled black cowboy boots, and smoking a cigar, which he kept in one corner of his mouth while he talked. Dad was kind of standing back, but he was smiling. When I got near them, I heard the man say, “Well, now, why don’t you let me window-shop a little bit? See what I can see. Those are the equines over there, are they not? Let me take a look,” and before Dad could say anything, the man churned across the grass toward the two pastures. Dad followed him, and I put my books down on the step and followed them, too.

At one point, Dad tried, “Now, this gelding, we call him Lincoln—”

But the man interrupted him, and said, “Pardon me for a
moment, but I just like to give them a good look. I’m easily confused, so let me look in peace, if you don’t mind, just for a bit.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and stood on his heels, kind of rocking back and forth. He stared first at the mares, and then he turned and stared at the geldings. It was boring. Dad cocked his head at me, so I took the hint and went inside.

Mom was looking out the kitchen window. I said, “Who’s that?”

“That is Sterling McGee, from Las Vegas, Nevada.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“It might be that he’s buying a horse.”

“Why did he come here?”

“I guess he met the Carmichaels, and they sent him.”

“What kind of horse does he want?”

“He said he’ll know the one when he sees it.”

I stared out the window with her, until it got boring again, then I went up and put on my work clothes.

But Sterling McGee did not go away for a long time. After I came down, I sat in the kitchen doing homework, because there was nothing else to do. Finally, at almost five, when Mom was rummaging in the refrigerator for the ingredients of the stew she was making for supper, we saw Dad open the gate to the mare pasture, go in with a halter, and walk around among the mares for a moment. It was impossible to tell which one he was getting, and then he emerged with Morning Glory.

We’d had Morning Glory since the summer. She was not quite a pony, and Dad had hoped she would turn out to be a
second Gallant Man. She was sound and willing enough, and she could jump a little, but there was something about her that was dull—it took her just a moment to decide to do what she was told, and that is something judges do not like. She also stared at cows as if they had nothing to do with her, so Dad had decided that she would probably end up as a trail horse somewhere. She hadn’t cost much, she didn’t eat much, and maybe that was the last time he would take Uncle Luke’s word on a horse. Sterling McGee stared at her from all sides, then went over her legs with his hands, flexed her, trotted her out. Ten minutes later, Dad was bringing out a saddle and bridle, and they disappeared around the house. It was a good thing there was a clear sky and an early moon. I went out to feed the other horses. I’d just pushed the wheelbarrow full of hay to the geldings’ gate when Dad and Sterling McGee came walking back from the arena. Mr. McGee was sitting on Morning Glory, and he looked fine—not terribly big. Both men had big smiles, and I heard Sterling McGee say, “I don’t haggle. If it seems like a fair price, I don’t mind paying it.”

Dad’s smile got even bigger.

McGee said, “What about this saddle? Seems to fit her. Would you take fifty bucks for it?”

Dad said, “It’s pretty well broken in.”