Ghost Medicine (20 page)

Man, Stotts, you're weird.

The doors fall open, and then they slam shut, and they're the lid of my mother's coffin, and then the belly of a big white plane, upside down. I'm sitting on Reno, looking up. I know Gabey's gone, even though I'm not looking down at where he was. Reno starts to back away and he steps into a squirrel hole. Remember when he did that, and we thought he'd break his leg? Then the hole gives way and we both fall underground. It's like a dark dirty cave and I can see the roots of the tree like they're dripping down from the ceiling. Then I got too scared and it woke me up.

About the scariest dreams I have are going to church or school in my underwear.

You guys are both messed up.

Okay, then what about you, Tommy?

I don't have dreams.

Running out of chewing tobacco.

And he sleeps standing up.

There was another clap of thunder.

“You know when we went out after that big cat?”

“I won't forget that.”

“Well, I'm sorry about what I did, Troy. But I wasn't scared. I don't think I was.”

“You still holding on to that?” I asked. “I don't mind saying it scared the hell out of me.”

Dusty nudged my shoulder with a sticky nose. “And Gabe?”

“Yeah?”

“I felt horrible about that. I still do. About what I said to you.”

“It's okay, Troy.”

“Can't get mad at Gabe Benavidez for being Gabe Benavidez.”

“Sure you can. My dad does all the time. I know he'd like me more if I was like you. Or Tom.”

“I don't think so, Gabe. Your dad loves you, he's just a tough guy who wants you to be tough, too,” I said. But I knew that Gabriel would never be the kind of man his father pictured running the ranch, and felt sorry, too, that Mr. Benavidez couldn't see what I did in his son.

I cleared my throat. “When we get up a little closer by Three Points, let's try to ride the horses around through the woods south so we don't have to go past anyone. Then we can cut up to the Foreman's house and borrow some clothes from Tommy.”

“I bet he only owns one pair of pants. And they're gonna be dirty,” Gabe said.

“Then they're mine. Sorry,” I said, and Gabriel smiled.

I tilted his hat back on my head. The sun was dropping behind us now, our shadows stretching in front of us. The thunder over the mountains had died out, and clouds dotted across the sky, high up, like splatters off an oversoaked paintbrush.

“Troy,” he said, “I've been thinking about something that's kind of funny. You know how you're always walking like that with your head up, looking straight ahead. Well, I've been noticing something and I think we should consider it.”

“What?”

“Well, it just struck me that we didn't ride here yesterday ‘cause me and Tom trailered Arrow and Dusty to the fire pit. But I'm seeing these three sets of hoofprints heading west, going the other way. See ‘em?”

I looked down. I should have noticed them, but it was one of those things that's just invisible until someone rubs your face in it.

“And I think these ones here are Doats ‘cause he's got that prancy foot up front. See?”

We stopped moving and looked at the dust covering the old dirt road. I turned back to face west. I had just assumed, believed, that Chase would have gone back east—toward Three Points—and I felt so stupid now that I realized they'd come out on the road ahead of where we were, but had gone the other way, toward the bluffs at the shallow end of the lake.

“Chase went this way and Luz and Tommy must have followed him.”

Gabe looked at me like he had already figured that out. “So. We should just keep going anyway,” Gabe said. “It won't take too much longer to get around to Tommy's and get some clothes. Then we can get after them if Tom and Luz aren't back by then.”

“I can't stand that guy.”

I looked back down the road from where we had come, trying to imagine where the three of them could have gone; towards that west end of the lake where the rocky bluffs rose up. I exhaled a disappointed sigh. “Let's follow ‘em.”

“Aw hell!”

But that was all he said before we turned around and headed west.

Maybe they're going back to the truck,” Gabe said.

“Well, they're going this way. That's for sure,” I said. “How's that Arrow doing?”

“He's doing good,” Gabe said. “I hate to say it, but I guess I weigh less than you.”

“He just doesn't like me,” I said. “Dusty's a good horse.” And I patted his neck and scratched his black-tipped ears. “You should run him harder and jump him.”

“I have a hard time letting him go like that with me on him,” Gabe said.

“Tom could show you. You know what he said to me? He said, ‘Just stay on the saddle. The saddle will stay on your horse.' “

“That sounds like what he told you when we took that kayak over the falls.”

“But, oh Gabey, we both got really messed up that first day we tried to catch those wild horses out there. That was one of the funnest days ever.”

“Then how'd you catch ‘em?”

“We just kept trying and we got better at it. We caught my black mare first. But then it took us four more tries to get that big red stallion of Tom's and he almost killed us once, too.”

“And you already got ‘em gentled?”

“Mine's on a halter and I can lead her. I sacked her out good, too. But she's gonna foal any time now.”

“Why do you help her out—that woman?”

“I like her. A lot. And I'm afraid those horses are going to starve, especially now we put them back on her land after that fire. One day, I'm going to get ‘em all.”

“And then what'll you do?”

At this part of the south lakeshore, the woods got denser and taller, which is why we liked to camp here. The turnoff to the fire pit was just ahead now and I could almost smell the embers of that big campfire we had the night before. I pulled Dusty right up alongside the other horse and told Gabe to stop. I reached down into Tom's bag.

“I ate ‘em all,” Gabe said.

“I'm getting some tobacco,” I said.

“Sick.”

“Want some?”

Gabe didn't say anything. We had come to the turnoff to our fire pit, two ruts cut in the underbrush by the regular coming and going of the truck and trailer, of us and our horses. We could see the track of the other horses still going on west down that dirt road, but without saying anything about it, we both moved on to that turnoff and rode to our campsite.

The truck was still there, parked right where the trees gave way to the sloping rocky ground that spread to the shoreline. I got down from Dusty.

“I'm trying it again.”

Gabe stayed on Arrow. I knew it was useless to try starting the truck, but it's just one of those things you do, hoping somehow that things just heal themselves when you know they can't. So it wasn't so much of a surprise when I turned the key and heard nothing but that dull and distant click. I opened the glove compartment, remembering that missing five thousand dollars that nearly cost the Bullers their jobs and home, that had now become one of those things that we just didn't mention and couldn't explain. But I knew what happened.

You don't have to tell me that Benavidez doesn't really care about the money and stuff, ‘cause I figured it would be like that.

There were some cigarettes in there and another can of Tommy's tobacco; so I knew Tom didn't come back this way.

But there was my flat-brimmed black Stetson on the passenger seat, just where I'd left it. I took off Gabe's hat and pushed my sweaty hair back straight over the top of my head. I thought of Luz, could see her if I closed my eyes. I put my old hat on and it felt cool, like dipping my head in water.

I went back over to the horses and gave Gabe that dirty hat of his, which he put on. “I didn't know you wanted your hat back. I'm sorry, Gabey, you want your horse back now?”

“Naw, I didn't want my hat, either. It's just easier to wear it than to do anything else with it. It's okay about Dusty. You can ride him. Let's get going. I bet we can catch ‘em now and get home.”

So we rode back out to the road and turned west again. The horses were moving comfortably now, maybe smelling the closeness of other horses.
Maybe,
I thought.

“Hey Troy!” Gabe said, pointing down in front of us. “Look at that. It's footprints. Bare feet. Tommy got off Reno.”

Of course Tommy had left his hat and boots under the trees back by where we had been swimming—he took off so fast after Chase.

“Well, I guess so,” I said, “ ‘cause he's standing right up there.”

And up the road a little ways, walking barefoot away from us, a little crooked and stiff on that bad knee of his, wearing only his boxers, was Tom Buller.

“My heroes!” Tommy said when we rode up to him. “Salvation is here. Even if I never asked for it.”

“What happened to you?” Gabe said.

“What happened to my horse?” I asked, then tossed him down a can of tobacco.

“Well, you know,” Tom began after dipping a wad of black tobacco into his lip, grinning that coyote squint-eyed grin of his, so I knew he wouldn't spare us the dramatics. “I gotta tell you boys that riding a horse as big and fast as Reno wearing only your boxers is not the most comfortable experience, if you know what I mean. Anyways, after that punk Rutledge cut back this way, I had to stop for a minute. ‘Cause I figured that this way was a dead end anyways, unless he knows some way around those bluffs that I never saw. So I got down and took a pee, and then along comes Luz and Doats just as fast as I ever seen her ride, so I kind of turned away in the bushes and then Reno takes off after ‘em like he thinks it's a race or something. Next thing you know, I'm walking. Just following the prints. That was about a half an hour ago, I guess.”

“What's she thinking?” Gabe asked.

“I don't know, but she shouldn't be riding after Chase,” I said.

“So which one of you two is going to walk?” Tom said.

I got down from Dusty, bent onto one knee, and laced each shoe up tightly.

“I'll run. You two ride. I bet those horses'll have a hard time keeping up with me anyhow.” And I took my hat off again and gave it to Tom, who put it on and then looked questioningly at Gabe, who didn't react at all, so Tom went ahead and got up onto Dusty.

I started running.

I noticed a long time ago that when I run, with each step it seemed like I got smaller and smaller. Not physically, I mean, but after a minute or two it was like the
me
part of me didn't exist anymore and as the sweat would break and the breathing would pulse in rhythm with the crunch of the footfalls, it always becomes breath and sweat and feet hitting the ground and side-blurred vision of the world flowing evenly past like a stream of warm water.

I imagine that's what it's like to be a horse; you run, you breathe, sweat, your feet dig in and you stare straight ahead and watch all those things flow and flow. And you keep running because it just feels good.

I was ahead of the horses, but they were moving along now, even Arrow. I hadn't been through this part of the shoreline in years, and I was surprised to see that the fire had burned so far north, this close to the lake.

“Dang, it's all burned up,” I heard Gabe say.

Here, the trees alongside the dirt road were black and dry; they still gave off the reek of a wildfire. Most of them were burned to a shiny, thick black all the way up their trunks, then branching out with withered, curled arms holding black porcupine quill needles. Some weren't completely burned, and had a green branch or green treetop high above where the height of the flames had come through. Everything that could be blackened was, even rocks. Just the dirt of the road seemed to retain its regular color, peppered with ash, and so added to the surreal appearance of what had once been forest.

I stopped. The sweat running down my back felt like racing spiders. I waited for Gabe and Tom to catch up.

“Any more water in that canteen?” I asked Gabe.

“Here.” He handed it down to me.

I drank and brushed my hair back over my head. Then I passed the canteen up to Tommy.

“We must be getting close,” Tommy said.

“Luz! Luz!” Gabe screamed. But there was no answer, just the sound of the wind blowing through the dead trees.

Tom handed the canteen back to me and I took one more gulp. I wiped my mouth with the back of my forearm and gave the canteen to Gabe. The water was good. I was ready to run again.

Once we had gotten past the charred strip of land where the fire had burned almost to the lake, I felt better. The trees were green here and somehow made the afternoon air cooler. Gabe and Tommy were well behind me; Arrow had gone back to walking. The horses had moved a lot in the past two days and I felt sorry for them, even though that stubborn-headed Arrow was more used to working than Gabe's buckskin.

I stopped in the middle of the road, sweating hard. My hair was plastered down to my neck and the side of my head. The waistband of my boxers was soaked dark with sweat, white salt at the edges where the heat had evaporated it.

Then I saw Reno up ahead, standing in the road and looking back at me.

His ears shot up when I whistled at him, and he gave that chuckle of his and started trotting to me. I could swear he was smiling, looking at me with those soft and forgiving eyes, still wearing the red bandana Tommy had given me yesterday morning tied around his saddle horn.

My horse got right up to me and pressed his nose into my chest, smelling me, and then even trying to lick the salty sweat from my skin, which tickled and made me laugh.

“I know I can't be smelling too good right now, bud.” And I patted his shoulder and hugged him around his neck, feeling his slick warm hide against my body. “And you're not smelling so good, either, pal.”

Gabriel and Tom had caught up to me.

“Thanks for ditching me,” Tommy said to my horse.

“They gotta be somewhere right around here,” Gabe said.

“We'll get that guy now,” I said, and then called out, “Luz!
Luz!
”

We all grew up the day that Tom Buller, Gabriel Benavidez, and I left our clothes on the shore and went swimming off those tall rocks in the lake. Me, Tommy, Gabe, and Luz. But we didn't ask for it, even though it's a common thing to want to be grown-up when you're a kid. And maybe I knew better than my friends that it wasn't something that would happen in your sleep, like a dream, but it was event after event, piling up, bricking a wall between me now and that boy I had been, sitting on my mother's lap, looking out that churchlike window, past the dog-eared fence. And each brick, once laid in place, would never be moved: the good-byes, death, secrets, falling in love, loving your friends more than yourself.

It seemed like a year since I took off on that race the morning before; and now here we all were, riding along that dirt road heading west, wearing nothing but our boxers, the bluffs rising up ahead of us so I knew the road would cut south soon, along past Rose's property and ultimately to the paved highway and off Benavidez land entirely.

“You want your horse back?” Tommy asked

Gabe. “You ride him till we catch up to our clothes, then I'll take him home ‘cause I don't know if Arrow's got it in him anyway,” Gabriel said. “But I kind of like this big mean horse of yours.”

“You two planning on just leaving me out here then?” Tom asked.

“I'd walk him in,” I said. “You could take Reno and go get Carl. And if I do, you better bring me something to eat.”

“How ‘bout some beer?” Tommy asked.

“No thanks.”

Gabe said, “How ‘bout some turkey?”

I just gave him a mean look and pulled my hat down low across my eyebrows.

“Look at that,” I said to Tommy, pointing down at the dirt of the road. A thick, curving snake track cut across the road from our left to right, disappearing into some mustard weed.

“That's a big one,” Tommsy said. “He's probably just laying in that shade right there watching us.”