I Cannot Get You Close Enough (19 page)

“There's no point in arguing about it,” Jessie put in. “If he wants to send Spook, he will. He always makes me take Spook out there.”

Daniel made a phone call and in fifteen minutes Spook drove up in his pickup. His real name was Marcellus Biggs but his cousins called him Spook because his hair was so light. He was sixty-seven years old but he hadn't told his age in so long he had almost forgotten the exact age himself. He and Daniel loved each other. They were a matched pair for haughtiness and snobbery and always getting their way.

Spook was glad of a chance to go to the country. Since Daniel had moved him into town he had almost worn himself out getting laid. He had nightmares of horny young women following him through corridors. He wasn't getting any fishing done and hardly any thinking.

“Do I have to let her drive?” he asked Daniel, indicating Jessie. There was no question of him getting in a car with Olivia at the wheel. He had taken one look at her and decided he didn't trust her. “I don't like the look of her,” he had told several people at the tractor company. Word of that had reached Daniel, who had it out with him while he watched him sweep the showroom floor.

“I ride with both of them,” Daniel said now. “So can you.”

Half an hour later they were headed for the country, Spook in the back seat of the convertible and Jessie driving.

“Who you going to ride?” he asked. “Them horses haven't been ridden all winter. I'd take the palominos if I was you. Don't go fooling with that red horse.”

“I can ride anything,” Olivia said. “I used to rodeo in Oklahoma.”

“I don't care what you used to do. You ain't riding anything but palominos today.”

“We'll ride the palominos,” Jessie said. “That's okay.”

“You better believe it's okay. Daniel told me to catch the palominos.” Jessie speeded up and all further conversation was lost in the wind.

“This little mare's the sweetest horse on the farm,” Spook said, leading the horse around and handing the reins to Jessie. “I was here when she was born. We bred her mother to the palomino Mr. Jody Kelley used to keep at stud on Monte Cristo. Hard to believe everybody's gone to town.”

“We're not in town now,” Jessie said. “We're here.” She swung herself up into the saddle. It felt grand. Olivia was right. All they needed was to get out in the country and get some exercise. It would be all right. They would be sisters now and friends. She would stop thinking Olivia liked King. She would have the milk of human kindness where Olivia was concerned. And maybe, by the time she got home that afternoon, a letter would be there from him. It would say, I love you, Jessie. I will love you till I die. Love, King.

Olivia was mounted on a gelding. She was sitting very still, hardly touching the reins.

“How do you do that?” Jessie asked. “God, that looks so good.”

“Do what?”

“Do it without the reins.”

“I use my knees. I keep my weight where he's going. Didn't they teach you that?”

“I think so. I used to get thrown a lot. I wasn't good at it, was I, Spook?”

“Sometime you was. When you wanted to be.”

“He knows I can be trusted,” Olivia went on. “You make them trust you. Then you're safe.”

“Well, go on if you're going,” Spook said. “Enough of all this talk. I'm going fishing.”

They rode to the back of the farm, past the deserted cabins and the deserted store, far back onto the land where their ancestors had created a life they could not imagine. Their father and aunts and uncles could remember the farm filled with meaning and life. To the girls it was only a place of ghosts and stories, on its way back to wilderness.

They crossed a gravel road into the oldest cleared part of the land, walking the horses through the rough parts and finding paths no one had used all winter. “The meadow's back here,” Jessie said. “The one that joins Dunleith. You ever been back here?”

“Yeah. The first time I came to visit. Don't you remember?”

“It's so ancient back here. I'm so glad we came.” Jessie paused at the edge of the meadow, reached down into her jacket pocket, took out some cookies in a plastic sack. “You want a cookie?” She held one out and Olivia took it from her. They stuffed the cookies in their mouths and chewed them up. The sun was almost to its zenith now. It had turned into a perfect cloudless day.

“Did you ever bring King here?” Olivia asked.

“No.”

“We could bring him here if he comes to visit.”

“I might go there this summer. He won't come here.”

“Why not? His grandmother's here, isn't she. Isn't that old lady we met his grandmother? I thought that's what they said.”

“Miss Clarice Manning, and she's not an old lady. She was a great beauty. She's grandmother's best friend.”

“Anyway, I guess he has to come see her, doesn't he?”

“He's my boyfriend, Olivia. Look, you want to ride to the lake or not?”

“Sure. I was just waiting for you. You don't have to get mad just because I said I wished he'd come and visit. I don't want your boyfriend. I've got plenty of boys if I want them.” Olivia led her horse away from Jessie, sighted down across the meadow to the lake. Fuck them all, she was thinking. I can't stand all this stupid crap they get into. She can't even ride a goddamn horse. She's scared to death to ride a tired old mare. Olivia lifted her head, caught a smell of wild grass, fecund, hot, the meadow and the earth. She rose up in the saddle and began to ride. She left so fast that Jessie was startled. She finished her cookie and wrapped the package back up and stuck it in her pocket. I can ride too, she thought. Anybody can ride a horse fast if that's all they want to do. She moved her knees, urged the old mare on and began to ride down across the meadow. I will bring King here, she was thinking, but I won't bring her too. I don't have to take her everywhere I go. Oh, God, he's so beautiful and sweet, he's so manly, he has such a kind face. I love him so much. No one will ever know how I feel about him.

She was off in daydream. She and King together on a beach with dark skies and a storm coming. The mare galloped on. It was Jessie's old problem with horses, daydreaming as she rode. She drove cars the same way, a foot on the gas pedal and her mind a million miles away. King turned to her now. The wild surf was pounding at his back. His white shirt was blowing in the wind. I love you until I die, King said. I cannot live without you. Will you be my wife?

The mare galloped on through real-life North Carolina. A real-life rabbit darted out in front of her hooves and she spooked and reared. Jessie jerked the reins. The mare reared again and turned. Jessie pulled her feet from the stirrups and began to fall. Her years of gymnastics stood her in good stead and she rolled as she fell. Rolled her neck down into her chest, her legs into her waist. The mare shivered, terrified, then galloped back toward the road.

 

When Olivia realized Jessie was no longer behind her, she turned around and began to ride back across the meadow, calling her sister's name. She caught sight of Jessie's jacket in the tall grass, then Jessie, with her face between her arms, stretched out flat upon the ground. She dismounted and tied her horse to a tree and ran back and knelt beside her sister. “Oh, God, oh, be all right. Oh, Jessie, please wake up. For God's sake don't die on me.”

The mare made straight for home. Skirting paths and flying across the gravel road barely missing a pickup truck. She stopped once to shiver and tremble, then galloped straight back to the farm. Spook was on his way to the pond with a six-pack in one hand and his fishing pole in the other. When he heard the horse coming he dropped them and went on a run for the Jeep. He had been on the farm when Clara Abadie had broken her neck in a riding accident and, although that was forty years ago, he remembered it as if it were yesterday. The riderless horse coming galloping back and the days that followed. He jumped in the Jeep and began to drive back across the pastures. At the road he stopped a passing car and asked them to call Daniel. Then he drove the Jeep as far as possible into the deadening, then he started running.

Olivia was sitting on the ground by Jessie, who was beginning to come around. “I'm okay,” she kept saying. “I'm okay now.”

“Please don't move. You don't know if you broke anything.”

“I didn't break anything. I'm okay. We have to find the mare. She might kill somebody on the road. Dad's going to have a fit. I never fell off in the ring. I never fell off a single time in the ring.”

“Maybe the saddle wasn't right. I don't think Spook knows what he's doing with the horses. I had to tighten my girth. He thinks he's so smart. He's just an old man.”

“It wasn't Spook's fault. I wasn't concentrating. I always have accidents. It's always me.”

“Oh, Jessie.” Olivia reached out and very tentatively put her hands around her sister's waist. It was the first time they had ever really hugged each other, except once, many months ago, when Jessie had come to the airport to take Olivia to Anna's wake. Now, awkwardly, sitting on the dry prickly grass, Olivia reached for her sister, felt the small bones of Jessie's ribs. For a moment she was so near it seemed light-years had blown away between them. “I take my sister to the lake at dawn. To search for the great liveoak tree at Mandeville. To stand naked in its arms and know spider and moss and oak and vine.” Where had she read that? What was she remembering?

“Go find the mare,” Jessie said. “You go try to catch her. I can walk back now.”

“No. To hell with the mare. I'm not leaving you.”

“We have to catch her. She might get out on the road.” Jessie stood up. Her hip was hurting but her legs moved. “I was thinking of the seashore,” she said, shaking her head, embarrassed, giggling. “I was thinking of the ocean, then I was flying through the air.”

“It isn't funny,” Olivia said. “Nothing about this is funny to me.”

 

Spook came in sight, running toward them in his overalls, mad as hell and winded and ready to fix some blame. “What the hell you doing way back here? You know you not supposed to go on this side of the road. When Daniel gets here I hope he wears you out. You okay, Jessie? You going to make it?”

“We have to catch the mare,” Jessie said. “She ran off somewhere.”

“She ran home. How you think I know where you're at?” He stood before them, breathing hard, hands on his hips. “I guess I'll have my heart attack any minute. I sent a man on the road to call your daddy and the doctor. You shut up, both of you, and walk with me. Jeep's across the road behind the fence. How'd you get across that fence? That's what I'd like to know.”

“We went through the gate,” Olivia answered. “So stop yelling at me. I don't let people yell at me. Nobody told me not to ride back here. Dad told me to ride anyplace I wanted to on our land.”

“Our land,” Spook muttered, pulling the girls along beside him. “Move in here and take up everything you like.”

“Let go of me,” Olivia said. “I'm riding the horse back home.”

Daniel arrived soon after they got back to the house. The message had been relayed to the country club where he had taken the Japanese to eat lunch and see the golf course.

“What happened?” he asked, striding into the house. Spook was in the kitchen eating a sandwich. Jessie was on the couch talking to King Mallison, Junior, long distance on the phone. Olivia was reading a book.

“They went back across the road to the old place. You told them to stay out of there. I heard you say it.” Spook looked up from his sandwich and motioned toward the girls. “It's a wonder nobody's dead. That pasture's full of rabbit holes. I was here when Clara Abadie got knocked off by a tree branch and broke her neck. I seen what happened to all of them. Old Mr. Abadie never did get over that. You told them to stay on this side. I know you did. I wouldn't have come out here if I'd thought they could go anyplace they liked.”

“It's my fault for thinking it up,” Olivia said. “I thought it up.”

“I have to go. Dad's here,” Jessie said into the phone. She put the receiver down into its cradle and pulled the quilt up around her legs. Daniel went straight to her.

“You got knocked out?”

“No. I was just scared.”

“Yes, you were,” Olivia said. “You were out cold.”

“No, I wasn't. I was lying there but I could hear.”

“Let me see.” Daniel knelt beside the couch. He took Jessie's head in his hands, began to feel for bumps. Olivia watched him in a sort of wonder of jealousy. He had not even spoken to her. Had not acknowledged she was in the room.

“I caused all this,” she said. “I know Jessie doesn't like to ride. I know it's dangerous for her.”

“It isn't dangerous for me. The horse spooked. But it wasn't the horse's fault, Dad. Don't blame the horse. Don't blame anyone but me.”

“They was back across the road on the deadening,” Spook repeated. “They said you said they could ride back there but I heard you tell them not to go across the road. You want me to make you a sandwich? I guess you had to interrupt your lunch, didn't you?”

“I ought to take you to the hospital,” Daniel said. “I think a doctor ought to look at you.”

“I'm okay, Dad. I'm perfectly okay.” She put her hand over his. She looked into his eyes, so exactly like her own. She seemed so perfect to him, so beautiful and fragile, so impenetrable a mystery. Olivia got up and came and knelt beside them on the floor. She added her hand to her father's hand.

“She's okay, Dad,” Olivia said. “We're both okay.”

“You want a sandwich or not?” Spook asked again. “I'll be glad to make you one.”

14

That same Saturday Mrs. Walker finally told her husband what she was worrying about. “They have so few chances to escape,” she said. “To get a real education anywhere. I was so happy for her when I heard she was going up there. Her father's a wealthy man.”