If Wishes Were Horses (15 page)

The sound of a vehicle awakened her, and she went to the window to see headlights and knew it was Johnny Bellah returning. The hand of the bedside clock read quarter past three. The truck stopped only inches from the barn—she had thought he might hit it. Johnny Bellah got out and walked very unsteadily into the dark entry.

The sight of Johnny Bellah like that, and the horses in the moonlight, and the black hole of the barn entry struck Etta as so sad that she began to cry. She went back to the guest room, threw herself into bed, and cried until she fell asleep.

The following day, when she saw Johnny coming from the barn with a halter, Etta took up her hat and went out to watch him work with his horses. She was highly curious to decide for herself the extent of his training expertise.

Sitting on the fence rail beneath the shade of her brown Stetson, she watched and listened while Johnny gave her a running commentary on his philosophy of horse training, as if she were waiting with bated breath to hear all the magnificent things he had to say.

“No two horses are alike. They’re different same as people are different. Just like teenage boys—some I grant you need a smack or two once in a while to get their attention, while most will need a bit of gentle direction, and yet still others need you to smack and then direct.

“Each horse should be treated according to his need. Now, any trainer can have a plan and go about trainin’ according to that plan. What he’s doin’ is trainin’ for himself, and if his plan works with the horse, fine, but if it doesn’t, he’s out of luck with that horse. Trainers like that blame the horse. What I do is study the horse and change my plan to fit him. Go with him—not against him.”

Taking the lead rope, he strode toward the training pen without a backward glance at the brown horse, who showed signs of bolting but was forced to follow, or be dragged along. The man was clearly in control.

Although he appeared quite lackadaisical, Etta quickly formed the opinion that Johnny Bellah knew exactly what he was doing and was every inch the horse trainer he proclaimed himself to be.

While not ever looking at the horse—”To keep him guessin’,” he said—he knew the animal’s every movement. He shut the gate and smacked the animal’s hip, hard, sending it circling the perimeter of the round pen, while he stood in the middle, smoking a cigarette and casting his pearly comments Etta’s way, such as, “I call this son-of-a-buck Worthless—he’s not worth breakin’.” Or, “Don’t look a green horse in the eye. You scare him that way." Or, “Think we’ll get rain? My knee’s actin’ up.” Despite his knee, he could run hard and threatening toward a horse.

“Domination is the key,” he said. “It is the way of nature, what a horse understands. What some people don’t understand, though, is that dominate means to have mastery over, to guide and influence—not beat into submission.” He tapped his temple. “We got to dominate with the mind, and not the hand. If you dominate with the hand, you got to watch your back every minute. The best horse is convinced he wants to please us. That takes workin’ with his mind . . . and ideally, the whole process should take months.”

In a powerful motion, he grabbed the horse’s lead rope and jerked the animal to him. It stood there, chest heaving, while Johnny slung the saddle pad atop it with one hand, following with the saddle in the other saying, “But these horses here, I’ll just get on and ride. The man’s paid for thirty days ridin’ on ‘em, and he expects a three-month job done in one. So that’s what I’ll give.”

His gray eyes flickered to Etta, down to her belly, and then as quickly away. He was decidedly uncomfortable with her pregnancy. Whenever his eyes strayed to her belly, his face would redden.

Etta, entertained quite a bit by this, kept putting her belly in his way. She took foolish pride in being able to climb easily onto the top fence rail and sit there for hours on end, and although her back would begin to ache, she would have ground her teeth to dust before allowing the ache to show.

That first day when Johnny threw himself up on top of the first horse—a barrel-chested brown, big for his age— Etta gripped the rail and held her breath, expecting to see the horse start bucking and Johnny Bellah go flying to the ground. She had watched many trainers fall to the ground in this same pen. She had once seen her own father get knocked unconscious and would never forget the horror she had felt when she had run to him, held his head, and cried, “Daddy . . . Daddy, wake up.”

But the horse did not buck. He humped up, yet the next instant he was racing the circle, while Johnny leaned forward and urged him onward, faster and faster around the pen. Each time the horse slowed, Johnny snapped the end of the lead rope on the horse’s hip, forcing him forward. Only when the horse looked as if he might drop did Johnny pull up.

“Whoa, boy.” The horse, legs spraddled and sweat running in foamy rivulets, stood with sides heaving as Johnny slipped to the ground.

“He didn’t buck,” Etta said. She was at once relieved and disappointed.

“No, ma’am,” he said, gasping for breath and bending to rub his knee. “I’m workin’ with him, like I said. If you get a horse to runnin’, they cain’t buck. I’d rather run ‘em any day. It’s what a horse likes to do, what’s his nature to do, run from the fear. Pretty soon he’ll discover he doesn’t have to fear me, and he’ll get accustomed to me bein’ there. Don’t hardly ever have one buck on me when I go at it this way. I’d rather outthink ‘em than try to outride ‘em.”

He walked the horse around, rubbing it and talking to it (Johnny Bellah talked it into submission was Etta’s theory), then got on and ran it some more. The horse was tired and very grateful when Johnny finally removed the saddle and led him out of the pen.

Etta sat there watching him go at six horses in one afternoon, in a deliberate manner, sometimes standing back to study the horse, "Thinking on him,” never rushing and never losing his temper, not when the horse fought him or kicked at him—or bucked with him, which one finally did and threw Johnny to the ground with a loud, sickening thud.

As Etta sat there watching with her heart pounding, not knowing whether she should go to him, he got up, dusted himself off a bit, limped over and caught the horse, swung himself up into the saddle for another go, got bucked off again, only to rise up and get back on again. Again and again, his manner neither angry nor frustrated, only intense with thought that shut out all but the conflict between himself and the horse. He became uncharacteristically silent in the process.

Etta suspected that Johnny had been waiting for a horse to challenge him like this and was in his heaven. It unnerved her to watch, however, and after a few minutes, she got down from the fence and went into the house, from where she would peek out the window every ten minutes or so. Behind her, Latrice would ask, “Is he still alive? Should I count on him for supper?”

When Johnny did come up to supper, he was limping heavily, and Etta saw the pain in his eyes. Those silvery eyes still had a glimmer of a satisfied man to them, though, and over supper he spoke of training the two horses he owned. He believed they would both be good roping horses for the rodeo.

“That big dun can stop on a dime,” he said. “I’ll get him in shape real quick. Guess you wouldn’t mind if I use a couple of your calves, would you? I won’t hurt ‘em.”

As he left, he again offered to train Etta’ s red gelding.

She said, “Maybe.”

Johnny looked at her like he was about to say something more, then he closed his mouth and left to ride his two horses until full dark.

Etta watched from the fence for nearly an hour, until the air was crisp, and then she went back to the house and sat on the porch with Latrice and watched what she could from there, while the sun set and the cicadas began to chirp and the chucks-will-widow called.

When Johnny finished riding, he limped up to the porch and sat with a thud on the edge of the floor. It was too dark to see his face. Latrice brought him a cup of coffee. Etta waited for him to say something more about training Little Gus, but it was obvious he was too tired to say anything. Soon he limped away to the barn.

As Etta followed Latrice inside, she thought of Johnny in the stablehand’s room, in the narrow bed.

“I think I’ll make a pecan pie,” Latrice said. “I wonder if Johnny Bellah likes pecan pie.”

“I haven’t seen anything you’ve cooked yet that he didn’t like,” Etta said. “I bet you could cook up an old shoe, and he’d eat it.”

She could not point her finger to the moment it had happened, but sometime in the past two weeks, Johnny had become a part of their lives.

He had fallen into taking most of his meals with them, and to bringing them his laundry. Latrice doctored his occasional wounds, and Etta took him cold drinks.

In exchange, he did things around the farm. As if by the magic of his very presence, things began to look better. Corral fences got repaired and stock tanks got cleaned. The barn seemed to sit up straighter and get more red. The water pump quit, and Johnny fixed it. A big wind blew a limb down on Latrice’s clothesline, and he got it off and restrung the line. A hinge on the back screen door worked loose, and he replaced it. He helped Obie bring in the first cutting of alfalfa, and he tried to be of help in repairing Etta’s old Ford. He really didn’t know anything about engines, so mostly he sat in the shade with his poor leg stretched out, drinking beer, and every once in a while handing Obie a tool.

Etta pondered the entire situation. It seemed to her that one day Roy had flown away, and the next day Johnny Bellah had galloped in.

It seemed to Etta something should be made of that, and perhaps not all of it good. She was having a difficult struggle with a melancholy spirit, and nothing looked very hopeful to her.

“What you can make of it is that the man was livin’ in his truck, and now he isn’t,” Latrice said matter-of-factly.

She glanced up from the kitchen sink, where she was washing collard greens, to see Etta standing at the screen door, looking out in a manner that had begun to concern Latrice considerably. It was only natural for a newly widowed pregnant woman to have the miserables. Latrice herself was having a struggle with the blues over the state of their future. She wanted Etta to sell the farm immediately and to move into town, although she really would miss her excellent kitchen should that happen, and there were a number of problems living in town would present.

The situation was simply too undecided for Latrice’s taste. She was annoyed with herself for this sentiment. She saw that her years of easy living in the Rivers house had made her soft in her faith. Here she was putting a kitchen above everything—although God knew she was not so young any longer, and she needed a washer and dryer.

She was also put out with Etta for not being particularly bothered by the uncertainty of everything.

What Etta appeared preoccupied with was Johnny Bellah.

To Latrice’s mind, Etta and Johnny Bellah were covertly studying each other in the breathless manner of a lonely man and needy woman just waiting for someone to yell, “Go!”

This was understandable. Etta was a woman long denied a lover’s exclusive attention. And wild desires often plagued pregnant women, which in Latrice’s opinion was why the Good Practical Lord set it down that a pregnant woman was to be married, and preferably to a man close at hand.

Now here was Etta, pregnant and alone and blue, looking time and again at a man who was looking back, and who at that particular moment, Latrice saw when she came over, was out in the sun without a shirt, handling a filly by a rope, causing his muscles to ripple and bulge.

“What’s he want here?” Etta asked in a dreamy manner.

“Huh,” Latrice said, “what does any man want but his food cooked and laundry done? He came along and saw an empty barn and corrals and women without a man to do for. It fit him ideally. He was drawn here without a thought, the same way a wise man is drawn to wisdom. He is in heaven.” Then she pushed out the screen and yelled, “Put your shirt on!”

Johnny Bellah looked over his shoulder at her and immediately went to get his shirt off the fence post. The man had proven to have the sense to listen when she spoke.

Satisfied, Latrice went back into the kitchen. “Is the baby movin’ this mornin’?” She thought it best to keep reminding Etta of the baby.

Etta smoothed her hands over her belly in a loving caress. Her face softened as it always did when she focused on the baby, her only hope.

“She’s been kickin’ up a storm. She's growing.”

Latrice eyed Etta from head to toe, judging. At seven months Etta was not terribly big. Some women were like that, and although Latrice did not say, she believed Etta would deliver early, maybe as much as three weeks.

Latrice could look at a woman and calculate her time. She had never missed by more than two days, a fact that gave her a great deal of pride. Every time she saw a pregnant woman, on the street or in a store or anywhere, she would look at her and make a mental note. Later she would try to find out when the woman delivered. She had a running tally on notebook paper stuffed in the back of her Bible.

Etta had begun to think of being pregnant as a saving grace. God couldn’t totally hate her for all her foolish selfishness, since He had blessed her with this child. At times she would be seized with a great fear that she was not thankful enough, and she would pray fervently, “Thank you, God, thank you, God,” in case by her unappreciation, she would lose the child.

It was hard, though, keeping this in mind. Sometimes she became overwhelmed with the state of her life—being widowed and left with the hard knot that she had failed greatly in her marriage, and that she now faced the very real possibility of losing the home she loved so much, which should be her child’s home and heritage. Having never had a heritage herself, Etta really wanted one for her child.

“It is not your fault,” Latrice said. “Roy Rivers ran around with women, and there wasn’t nothin’ you could do about it. He was addicted. And it is not your fault he ran this place in the ground in debt, either.”

“I know Roy’s behavior was not my fault,” Etta said. “What is my fault is not giving my baby a better father.”

“Well, you are probably right there. I warned you.”

“Oh, please. I don’t have time for that sort of thing. If you can’t say something of a positive nature, please just don’t say anything at all.”

“You brought it up. Not I.”

With a sigh, Etta went over and sat at the table where her Scrabble game remained spread out since the previous night. She began fiddling with the wooden squares of letters, trying to make a name out of an A, an E, two Ts, a B, Q, and Z. She tried the name Zetta.

“I want my daughter to have a strong name,” she said. “Something strong and capable to see her through needy men that are bound to come into her life.”

“You can’t impart that attitude to her,” Latrice said. “Just because you have been disappointed, doesn’t mean your daughter might not meet with a perfectly wonderful man and be very happy. If you lead her to expect less, that is what she will find.”

Latrice’s critical tone annoyed Etta. She didn’t think she deserved such a tone. “You have never married,” Etta said. “What does that say?”

“I’m not talkin’ about me. I’m talkin’ about your daughter.”

“I point out that you are speaking from your own experience, which in this case is limited.”

“I have a mind that is not limited by my experiences. I don’t have to put my hand in the fire to know that it will burn.”

Unable to immediately think of a comeback to that, Etta refused to answer further. This was her best defense against Latrice, who would argue that the sky was green once she got started.

That she could think of no retort caused Etta to feel too low to continue discussion of any kind. It seemed, she thought, to be taking all she had to simply get up each morning and keep her mind from taking off on tangents. It seemed she was expending a great deal of energy trying to control herself from all manner of foolishness which she could not exactly name.

A shadow appeared at the screen door, and Obie Lee’s voice said softly, “Miz Etta . . . Miss Latrice.”

“Hello, Obie.” Glad for the interruption, Etta sprang up and went to the door, eagerly welcoming Obie inside.

Lately she had been having the absurd urge every time she saw Obie to put her arms around him, to hug him either because he looked so forlorn or because she needed to feel a hug, she wasn’t certain which. She longed terribly to throw herself at Latrice and have Latrice cuddle her as she used to do when Etta was a child. These days, if Latrice suspected Etta might hug her, she pulled back and acted strung out about it, as if that sort of physical contact was foolish.

Etta thought she might be having a sort of craving for physical contact, as she was used to it. What had been wonderful about Roy was that he was naturally affectionate and had embraced her several times a day.

Actually Roy had been given to embracing just about anyone any chance he got. Even if that was why he was at women all the time, Etta had loved his affectionate nature. She suspected Obie was the same way and would easily return her hug, but she held control of herself, afraid she might terrify him right back out the door.

Obie carried a bulging pillowcase. “I come across some down feathers, Miss Latrice. Good clean ones—my cousin give them to me. You been sayin’ you wanted a pillow for your rockin’ chair, and I thought these would make up real fine.”

His craggy face looked hopefully at Latrice. It was the third present he had brought her that week, the first being a whole ham and the second a basket of mushrooms he had taken an entire morning to hunt. Each time Latrice said nothing more than, “Thank you, Obie,” and that’s all she said now. She didn’t invite him to stay for lunch, or to at least to sit down and have coffee or a cold drink.

Etta stepped in and said, “Obie, would you like an RC? We still have quite a few.”

He shook his head, casting a glance at Latrice. “No, thank you just the same, Miz Etta. I promised to help my cousin with preparin’ his cotton field. I’d best get over there.” His lanky body seemed to fold down as he went out the door.

Etta turned on Latrice, “Why are you like this to him? He is wearin’ his heart on his sleeve for you, and you are rippin’ it right off. Can’t you be a little nicer?”

“I’m nice,” Latrice said. “I thanked him. That’s enough.”

Etta stared at her. “Obie’s a good man and would be good to you.”

In that instant she thought of Latrice going off with Obie, and her chest grew so tight she could hardly breathe.

Latrice looked at her a long moment, averted her eyes and said, "He's a good man, but he’d take too much right now. I don’t need that.”

Etta could practically see Latrice thinking: And what about you? It is one thing, you and I together. It is another to bring a man into it. See what happened before?

Etta was thinking all of that herself. She could not imagine her life without Latrice, and she was thinking:
What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?

Latrice said, “I don’t want to encourage him, when I don’t know where I want it to lead. And he is a man who needs a bit of leading,” she said ruefully. “Most men do, when it comes down to it.” Then she added in a practical tone, “Besides, he is happy in his pursuit of me. It would be a disappointment to him if I began to give in.”

“Latrice, you have wasted enough time with me,” Etta said. “I don’t want you to waste any more.”

She knew, though, that she could not make it without Latrice.

“And who says I do it just for you, honey?”

Etta shook her head, while feeling relief near tears. She pushed aside the name Zetta, realizing it was only one letter away from her own name. That being the case, she doubted that it would be suitable as the name of a woman strong enough to handle needy men.

Johnny was nipping a bit of whiskey, when Etta came out and caught him at it. That’s how he always felt—that she caught him at it—because of the way she would look at him, like she had caught him doing a disgusting deed. It seemed like every time he got ready to take a fortifying nip she appeared just to catch him.

That this time she also caught him with his pants down didn’t come to him until a few seconds later, when he noticed her blushing. He was sitting on a bale of hay, with one leg out of his pants, trying to wrap his bum knee, with time out for a sip of ol’ Jim Beam.

When he saw her, he slipped the bottle down beside him, but he didn’t know what to do about being out of his pants. He figured it would not help to jump up and try to get his leg back in and be dancing around there in his underwear and everything jiggling.

“I’m sorry,” she said, whipping her eyes straight ahead. “I came for a halter.”

“No problem.” He returned to wrapping the bandage tight around his sore knee. He imagined she had seen a man in his underwear before.