Ghost Medicine (2 page)

And I was sitting between Luz and her brother then.

let's go outside and get our horses.

do you want to?

I don't think he wants you to come with us, Troy.

Gabe was pointing to my father. And in that dream Luz and I were standing in a zoo, looking into the cages, all empty. Only one cage held horses, but it was so full, the horses tried to push their heads out through the bars.

I know what to get you for your next birthday, Troy. A belt. Either that or you're going to have to start eating dinner at my house more often.

I loved being at her house, even if I was afraid of her mother and her father, and why did he give me that horse?

aren't you going to eat, Troy? You disappear in clothes that big.

Then I was looking out that tall, cold window again. Past rows of graying dog-ear cedar fences that turned into headstones, growing into the gables of barns, then mountains rising up. Transforming again, the rocks became two fingers of an illuminated Christ, holding a cigarette that glowed orange and exploded into the galloping fire that leapt along the ridgetops of the dark rolling hills outside the car window as my parents drove home from the hospital the night my brother died; and me, feeling like we couldn't just drive home and leave him there, like we had forgotten something and needed to turn around and get it. I was only four years old then, but the thing I remember most about that night was seeing those flames, the orange slashes of fire, zigzagging like a rattlesnake, like Tommy's crooked smile. It was all I could see in that horrible silence, the blackness of the hills against the dimmer blackness of the sky, and the pulsing, racing fire that ran toward our house, pushed by the warm, dry winds of autumn. And the orange fire became the galloping horses: Reno, riderless, in front; Luz on her paint, Doats; and Gabriel on his silver buckskin, Dusty; and Tom on the angry and arthritic Arrow, trying to keep up, laughing wildly as the hills fell away, crumbling beneath them.

the angel is sleeping in the woods.

I jerked my hands up, to brace myself for some kind of collision. I saw stars in a black sky. I was flat on my back, lying in tall grass, shoeless. My head ached. I felt for my hat, gone. I pulled my hand back from my hair. It smelled of blood. Reno stood beside me, his nose down in the grass by my head, sniffing at me.

And I stared up at the sky, remembering the time I'd fallen from Reno as Tommy, Gabriel, and Luz watched.

damn, Stotts. Whoever taught you to ride a horse?

I don't think I learned so much about riding as falling off from this one.

are you hurt, Troy?

no.

he's too big. I think he's too big for you, Troy. I'm going to make my daddy trade you for another one.

no, Luz, don't. I'm okay.

And she was picking up my hat, brushing it off. She knelt beside me and combed my hair back over my eyebrow with her fingers, cooling my skin, healing me. I thought it was the most perfect moment I had ever lived, and I felt Tom and Gabe's envy on me.

I'm okay, Luz. Look, he wants me to get back on.

Stottsy, that look means he's not tired of trying to kill you is all.

And Gabe laughed.

How long had I slept, or been knocked out? I was sweating on my back where I had been lying. I sat up, and pulled my knees into my chest. I stood, feebly.

I could see the blackness of the treetops cutting a jagged border around a dim sky. The sun was already rising in the east. I leaned against Reno, brushing off the bottoms of my socks, one at a time, and putting my shoes on. I wondered if I had had enough, if I should head down the mountain now and go back home.

Reno blew air through his lips.

“I'm okay, bud.” I uncapped my canteen and poured a little water on my hair. I wiped it with my bare hand. Not too much blood, not much of a cut, but a good-sized lump.

“Where's my hat?” Reno nudged my chest with his nose as if trying to answer me.

“I'll tell you what. When I find it, if it's right side up, we'll go home. If it's upside down, we'll keep going up.”

It was about ten feet away. Upside down.

I ate my last candy bar, giving the final bite to Reno. I wasn't tired anymore, and although my head stung a bit when I replaced my hat, I was feeling pretty good as we set off following the ridgeline as it rose to the north. Reno was eager to ride, as well.

We rode higher into the mountains until it was nearly noon, stopping once in a while to take a drink or to allow Reno to graze a bit as I just stared and thought. We had followed the stream as much as possible, and as it forked smaller and smaller, kept along those feeder streams coming from the east.

Ahead I could see the line where the trees stopped, giving way to the paleness of granite and snow on the higher peaks. Where the upper ridge split and opened up to the mountaintops there was a nice-sized pond, brilliant green, surrounded by what looked like maybe the last stand of pine forest.

This was far enough, I thought.

you ran how far?

sixteen miles, I guess.

damn, Stottsy. I wouldn't even like to drive sixteen miles without the air conditioner on and a Coke between my legs.

what'd you do that for, Troy?

I don't know, I didn't start out thinking about how far I'd go and before I knew it I was coming into Holmes on that dirt road. And then it was either turn around and come back, or just keep going and never come back. But you know, I don't particularly like Holmes.

are you tired?

I feel good.

good enough to do it again?

yep.

you're crazy.

We rode around the entire shore of the pond. It had a rock bottom, and the water was clear and cold. In the afternoon sun, dropping at an angle, I could see fish sitting still, then jerking into deeper water when Reno's hooves clapped down.

At the rounded north end of the pond, there was a crooked old log cabin set back under the dark and low pines, half-dug into a mounding of earth and rock shards so that it was hardly noticeable. It had a flat log roof, which had accumulated so much dirt and debris over the years that small trees and brush and wild purple irises grew on it. A black metal stovepipe jutted up out of the right side. It had a square doorway with no door, and one four-paned window with clouded, cracked glass.

I knew that lumbermen had built cabins a hundred years ago or so on the lower slopes, when the redwood forests were being cleared. Occasionally, signs of these old cabins would make themselves obvious along with the rusted cables and machinery that had been used before the lumber companies had to stop the clearing. This had to have been the cabin of a hunter, or maybe a hermit, but it looked sound enough. And empty, too.

“Do me a favor. Don't run off, okay?” I said to Reno as I got down from the saddle.

The cabin was maybe ten feet deep, and the window allowed for enough light that I could see everything in it. The roof sagged in some spots, but even with my hat on I could stand up straight. There was an old four-leg woodstove at the end away from the window. Like the cabin itself, it was missing its door, but the pipe looked functional. Near the stove was a bed, partially carved from the log wall and made complete with dried redwood planking. The floor was dirt, but had accumulated an eclectic macadam of bottle tops, flattened cans, rocks, broken glass, and shell casings from guns of all sizes.

A wood Coke crate was nailed to the wall, its empty square bottle cubbies having at one time served to help organize the person who put it there. A table by the window was covered with dust and pine needles, empty, unlabeled jars, one plate, two forks, and two yellow and rusted paperback books:
The Idiot
, and
Jude the Obscure
. Thumbing through them, I decided that I'd read the Hardy book if I stayed on long enough or got bored, because the first pages of
The Idiot
had been torn out, probably to get the stove started.

I went out and took the saddle and pack down from Reno. At this side of the cabin, an old galvanized tub was half-dug into the hillside, where a slow trickle of spring water kept it constantly overflowing. Reno drank from it.

I climbed up the hill to the back of the cabin's roof and cautiously walked out onto it. The stovepipe had a crude cap made from a porous and corroded coffee can. I pulled it up and looked down the pipe to see if it was clear. A bird's nest came up with the coffee can as I lifted it. It had long since been abandoned, and there was still half a small blue paper-thin eggshell in it, a rusted drop of dried blood on its inner surface.

I could see light at the bottom of the pipe, so I knew I could probably get a fire going without worrying about not waking up in the morning.

I spread my sleeping bag out on the plank bed. I cleared off the table and put the books on top of the Coke crate on the wall. I arranged my pack and food bag on the table and went outside to gather dead wood for the stove. The moon was rising behind the trees across the pond. Reno rested patiently in the temporary corral I roped on the side of the cabin. I was suddenly very hungry and very sleepy.

I got a fire going in the belly of the stove, without having to resort to book pages as kindling. I opened a can of pork and beans and put it on the surface of the stove. When my food was warmed, I sat up on the bed and ate. Looking out the doorway of the cabin, I could see the white moon, frozen like a dripping comet in the still surface of the pond. Even now, remembering it, this was about as perfect a place as I had ever seen.

Reno woke me in the morning with his usual wake-up-and-feed-me call, that laughing and untiring sound that horses make to let you know they're ready even if you're not. I slipped my feet into my shoes and went out into the bright, clear daylight. Reno was still in his pen, patiently waiting for me as though to say he approved of our new home. I untied the rope and let him go free and he ran out toward the pond, kicking his back legs like he was shaking something unpleasant off of them.

By noon I had already caught three nice-sized trout and left them tied on a rope stringer at the edge of the pond. I wasn't hungry, and would save the fish for later. I walked back to the cabin, where Reno was slurping up water from the steel trough.

“Time to do a little cleaning up, bud. I smell more like you than you do.”

I always brought the same standard supplies with me when I camped out for more than a day with Tommy and Gabriel: one extra change of clothes, and a bar of soap and toothbrush, which I kept inside an old metal Boy Scout mess kit. I washed my dirty set of clothes with the bar soap in the pond, and hung them out to dry on the windowsill of the cabin. I brushed my teeth and bathed in the cold water at the edge of the pond. I dressed in my only dry clothes, still dirty and bloodstained from my fall. I'd wash that set of clothes tomorrow. Then I sat out under a tree with my canteen and some Oreos I'd brought, and began reading the Hardy book. That would please my dad; I knew I'd have to read it in twelfth grade, if I survived the eleventh, and with the way things had been going for me this past week, and knowing I'd have to deal with people like Chase Rutledge back at school, that was a gamble anyway.