If Wishes Were Horses (31 page)

Johnny could not move. Obie smacked him on the back, saying, “Well, boy, we got us a girl,” and gave him a shove forward.

Etta was sitting up against puffy pillows in the soft glow of two lamps. Johnny stopped just inside the room, gazing at her and at the small bundle she held in her arms. He thought suddenly that he should have washed his hands and combed his hair . . . and possibly put on a suit and tie, and bowed down, too.

Etta smiled at him. “Come see her . . .”

Johnny went to the side of the bed and looked. Overcome by the sight of Etta so beautiful holding the tiny baby, he went down on his good knee, peering closer at the tiny creature in her arms. Such a tiny, wrinkled thing, with the reddest face, like a turnip plucked out of the red mud, although he didn’t think he was supposed to say anything like that.

“She’s sure pretty,” he said.

Then Obie was leaning over Johnny’s shoulder and poking a finger at the baby and murmuring to her. Latrice sat on the opposite side of the bed and told them they didn’t have to whisper.

Looking around at all of them, Johnny felt oddly like crying. He would have gotten up and left, but Obie was blocking his exit, so he made himself go on acting natural. He had to blink really hard a couple of times.

At daybreak Johnny was sitting on the porch steps with a cup of coffee, admiring the day and thinking wonderingly of the new baby, when Leon Thibodeaux came driving up, all the way to the back door in his big car, where he got out and slammed shut the car door.

“I’ve been tryin’ to call,” Thibodeaux said. He shoved his coat back and put a hand on his belt.

“Took the phone off the hook,” Johnny said. “We didn’t need disturbin’”

Thibodeaux glared at him and then stalked across the porch and opened the kitchen door, going on inside without knocking. Johnny, following, told him that Etta was asleep.

To Johnny’s satisfaction, Latrice wouldn’t disturb Etta for Thibodeaux, either, but she brought the baby out for him to see. Since the baby had been born, Latrice had appeared strangely pliable and agreeable, even speaking in a softer voice. She didn’t let Thibodeaux hold the baby, though, much to Johnny’s satisfaction.

Johnny said, “She’s a tiny thing, only weighs about six pounds,” letting Thibodeaux know that he had held her.

Thibodaux gave him an eye, then told Latrice he would take a cup of coffee, if she was so inclined. He tossed himself down in a chair before she even answered, as if she were expected to wait on him.

Johnny said, “I’ll get it, Latrice.”

She went back into the bedroom, and Johnny strode to the percolator on the counter, poured a cup of coffee and set it in front of Thibodeaux, who eyed him.

“Nice to have seen you,” Johnny said and left to go feed the horses.

When Latrice came out of the bedroom, Mr. Leon was sitting at the kitchen table. She had been so preoccupied with the baby that she had sort of forgotten about the man and had to bring herself around.

“How is she?” Mr. Leon asked quickly, half-rising from his chair so that his tie swung lose. “Did she get along okay?”

“As fine as any I’ve ever attended,” Latrice said.

She felt a sudden tenderness for him, recalling that his wife had lost a child, and the two of them never did have another.

“She’s sleeping,” she said, “and she needs to do that. I’m in a position to see she gets the best care, so I’m not lettin’ anyone disturb her. She’s had a lot on her recently, and she needs peace.”

He nodded, accepting. “Well, that’s good. It’s good she has you to help her, Latrice."

Latrice was pleased that he noted that fact. He seemed a right pitiful man who was having some inner emotional struggles, which caused him to keep bouncing his leg and stare broodingly into his coffee. Wanting to nurse him in some way, too, Latrice offered him breakfast.

He at first declined her offer, saying he didn’t really have time, but then, catching sight of her pan of biscuits, he changed his mind. As she prepared his plate, he asked, “Who is that cowboy?”

Latrice glanced at him, then focused on bringing his plate. “Well, that’s Johnny Bellah.”

“That’s what everyone keeps sayin’, but who is he? What’s he doin’ around here?” he asked in an aggravated tone of voice.

“Well . . . he’s livin’ here. Out in the barn,” she added firmly, not wanting him to get indecent ideas. “He came around lookin’ for Mr. Roy, as Mr. Roy owed him some money, and then he and Miss Etta worked out that he could use the corrals for training and stay in the room in the barn. He’s been awfully handy around here, too,” she told him with a certain deliberateness.

“I just bet he has,” Mr. Leon said.

Latrice began cleaning the dishes, waiting for Mr. Leon’s next words, for she felt certain he had more to say.

“Latrice, it is foolish of Etta to try to hold on to this place. You need to speak to her about this. She can sell this place and end up with a good profit and get her a place in town. It’d be a lot more convenient and comfortable for her.”

Not looking at him, Latrice said, “She has what she wants here. This is a very comfortable house,” she added.

“The house is grand,” he allowed, “but this kind of life . . ." He shook his head. “She’ll have to work hard, and she’s likely to wear herself out and lose the place anyway, and then what’s she gonna have? She’s gonna end up back in one of those shacks like y’all came from.”

Latrice found the man a definite pessimist. She said, “Etta has a mind of her own, and she knows what she wants.”

She decided she wasn’t going to try to explain any of it to the man. He had his mind set, as Etta had observed the previous day. He wanted Etta in a certain place for his own reasons that even he did not recognize nor understand. Latrice could speculate as to those reasons, but she didn’t think any of it mattered. People went through these spells. Hopefully Mr. Leon would get over his.

He ate the rest of his meal in silence, then wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin on his plate, saying, “I sure thank you, Latrice. This was the best breakfast I’ve had in six months.”

“You’re welcome,” Latrice said. She saw him to the door and returned to clean the table. That he had thrown a cloth napkin onto a dirty plate irritated the daylights out of her. She hated napkins thrown on a plate.

When Leon Thibodeaux came out of the house, Johnny was at the large corral, filling the stock tank with water from a hose. Looking but taking care to not appear to be looking, Johnny saw Thibodeaux pause at the edge of the porch and hitch up his trousers. Then he saw him coming across the yard, walking purposefully yet mindful of his shiny shoes with each step, a manner which put Johnny in mind of a tom turkey.

“I guess it’s you who has encouraged Etta in this dang fool notion of keepin’ this place and runnin’ some sort of horse farm,” Thibodeaux said without preliminaries.

Johnny looked up from the water rushing out of the hose. “I haven’t discouraged her. But Etta has a mind of her own choosin’.”

“What is it you want here, buddy? You want this place?”

Johnny said, “I rent this space from Miz Etta, and I train her horse. Critter won two races on Sunday over to Anadarko. She got offered two thousand dollars for him.” He took great pride in the telling, and in Thibodeaux’s raised eyebrow and startled glance over at Little Gus, who was grazing and looking as scrubby as ever.

Frowning, Thibodeaux looked again at Johnny. With a disparaging shake of his head, he pointed his hat at Johnny and said, “Look—Roy tried this horse farm business, and he ran this place in the ground. This was a fine place, and he just wrung it dry . . . and Etta, too.”

That sat there between them, and Johnny let it lay. He certainly couldn’t dispute the facts.

“Etta doesn’t need to be doin’ this,” Thibodeaux continued. “She can get some security from this place, if she’ll just sell it.”

“Well now,” Johnny said, focusing Thibodeaux with a firm look, “far as I could tell Roy Rivers didn’t operate this farm, and he didn’t do much more than play at horses.” He paused, then added, “And Etta idn’t her husband by a long shot. She has some sense.”

“That may be,” Thibodeaux allowed, “but this isn’t any life for a woman. Etta does not need to be throwin’ herself into a life of hard work and heartache all over again with another no-account man who can’t grow up. At least Roy could give her this place. Just what’s some hard-luck ol’ boy like you gonna give her?”

That question and the intent look on the man’s face went clean through Johnny. He stared at Thibodeaux and Thibodeaux stared back. Then Johnny brought the hose up out of the stock tank and sprayed straight down at Thibodeaux’s shiny shoes.

Thibodeaux cursed and hopped backward.

“Man with such shoes shouldn’t be comin’ out around corrals,” Johnny said.

Thibodeaux stalked back to his car and drove away fast enough to be out of sight before the dust settled, while his voice lingered in Johnny’s mind like the smell of burnt cabbage in the air.

Johnny checked the level in the stock tank, then stopped, gazing at the face reflected there in the murky water and thinking:
Man like me . . . what can I give Etta?

Etta fell immediately into calling her daughter Lattie Kate. She liked the feel and sound of it rolling off her tongue.

Latrice did not. She said, “Do not saddle that child with such a arty name. No tellin’ what it will lead to: runnin’ around without shoes and no bra and draped in perfume and feathers. Kate is a good, honorable name of a woman who can handle life, and a man, too.”

Etta believed what Latrice said was true, and she tried calling her daughter simply Kate, and she tried Katherine, but Lattie Kate just seemed to keep coming out. She could not help smiling as she held her baby girl close and waltzed gently around, singing softly, “Lattie Kate, lovely Lattie Kate,” in a melody to fit her tiny, exquisitely beautiful daughter, who at the instant of her birth became Etta’s moon and stars.

The first days following Lattie Kate’s birth, Etta kept thinking profoundly:
I have become a mother.
Of course she had known she was to be a mother, but she truly hadn’t known. Certain things took on new importance far and above piddly things like bills or mortgages or racing horses. Now all Etta could think about was nursing correctly and learning lullabies and keeping her hands washed, and making certain anyone who wanted to hold Lattie Kate had their hands washed. She felt such a strange combination of wonder and reverence and duty about the whole thing that she worried that she might be going a little loony like her mother.

Latrice said, “You are fine. You are healthy and had an easy time and aren’t so worn out that you can’t think of how you have been blessed with this angel,” she said, taking Lattie Kate (whom she insisted was just Kate) and hugging her and smiling one of those rare beautiful smiles that she could when extremely happy.

Etta thought that perhaps Lattie Kate’s arrival had caused everyone to go a little loony. Latrice smiled a number of times a day, and cooed and spoke in a childish voice to Lattie Kate. Obie did likewise, although this did not seem strange for him—with all his nephews, he was the most adept with Lattie Kate.

Several times a day Johnny came up to the house to see the baby. He would sort of wander in and would gaze at Lattie Kate for long minutes, with an expression somewhere between puzzlement and awe. When Lattie Kate let out any kind of a wail, he seemed to jump clean out of his skin and would say, “What’s wrong? Do you think her diaper pin is stickin’ her?”

Etta had gotten along so well during her delivery that after a few good hours of sleep, she was on her feet, and that very first afternoon of Lattie Kate’s life, Etta took her daughter outside to see the sun and the sky and Little Gus. She wanted to introduce her child to all the world, to share the things she herself loved and hoped her daughter would love, too.

“Oh, look, darlin’, it’s a bright world and the sky is blue as blue can be . . . this is a blade of grass, and this is a tree . . . well, you’ll feel it when you’re older. And here is a horse . . . this is Little Pegasus.”

Etta held Lattie Kate up for Little Gus to sniff; he blew on her face, and Lattie Kate did not flinch but looked up at the horse with eyes that seemed to see.

“Look,” Etta said to Johnny who’d come up beside them at the fence, alerting him to her daughter’s certain magic with the horse. “Oh, look . . . how gentle he is to her.”

“She’s already a charmer,” Johnny said. He leaned close to Lattie Kate, grinning at her and calling her a beautiful doll, his rugged features all soft and gooey. “Can I?” he asked with a suddenness, indicating that he wanted to hold the baby up to the horse, too.

Etta hesitated slightly, worried about Johnny’s dirty hands, but his face was so concentrated on Lattie Kate that she could not disappoint him. She slipped the bundled baby carefully into his arms. “Hold her head . . . there you are . . . oh, darlin’, look at who’s holdin’ you.”

His hands dark and rough against the soft, fine baby blanket, Johnny held the baby up to Little Gus, and Little Gus blew and sniffed on her in an unusually quiet manner, as if he was very aware of the preciousness of the child. Etta leaned close to Johnny, hovering, sharing the moment.

Then Latrice was hollering from the porch: “Bring my baby back in this house. It’s too bright for her eyes out there.”

Although Etta did not want to let Lattie Kate out of her sight, she made herself be generous and let Latrice hold and rock Lattie Kate, while Etta napped for long hours. She would wake up, and Latrice would bring Lattie Kate for nursing, and then take the baby afterward, getting the burps out of her. Etta would drift into sleep again, listening to Latrice sing a lullaby and thinking that the child belonged to Latrice, too.

Leon Thibodeaux returned that first evening to see Etta and Lattie Kate. He came alone, as he said Betsy had a cold and didn’t feel she should be around a baby. He brought a little stuffed lamb that played “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Etta was glad to see him and so very excited to show him Lattie Kate, although she worried when he held her. Leon had a habit of bouncing his knee in a nervous tic, which jarred Lattie Kate just a little too much in Etta’s opinion. She quickly retrieved her daughter from him.