Wild Horses (26 page)

“Oh, really?” Dr. Russo shut down his laptop and produced a stethoscope from the pocket of his long, tan canvas vest. “Where is that stubborn bastard?”

K
AI
cracked the door open and peeked in. Attila was sprawled across the bed, the covers kicked to the bottom. “Attila!” Kai sat on his side of the bed and stroked the ill man’s shoulder. “Hey, Attila… wake up for me, will ya?”

Pale eyelids fluttered, cracking open the slightest bit. “Is there any water?”

“Yeah. Here.”

Attila drank some, his somewhat disoriented gaze landing on the imposing figure by the other side of the bed. “Hey, doc,” he said, his voice raspy. “I’m fine. It’s just a virus. It’ll go away.”

“You might be correct,” Dr. Russo said, his deep rumble filling the room. “Let’s have a look anyway, since I’m already here.” He asked a few questions, nodding when the answers came mostly from Kai. Then he stuck a thermometer in Attila’s ear. “One-oh-three. You must be feeling a bit run down.”

Attila nodded. “A little.”

“I need you to sit up, please.”

Kai helped Attila to the requested position, sliding behind the other man and offering his chest to lean upon.

“You have some mosquito bites,” Dr. Russo noted as he carried out his examination, his hand feeling Attila’s neck and the soft place under his chin. “Swollen lymph nodes,” he said. Then he moved Attila’s hair off his neck. “What the hell happened to you?” Attila’s neck, especially his left side, was covered with bruising splotches.

“Nothing,” Attila said, his cheeks flushing pink.

“Uh… those are just hickeys,” Kai supplied, earning a jab of Attila’s elbow to his ribs.

“Uh-huh,” the good doctor articulated, moving to the other side. He slid his finger along Attila’s hairline. “This doesn’t feel like a hickey to me, Attila.”

“What?”

“You have a red rash the size of a child’s fist, right behind your ear.”

Kai noted the location. “Oh yeah, that’s where the tick used to be.”

The doctor’s big hand stilled, his bushy eyebrows scrunching together. “Well, well. A tick. Could be you don’t have the West Nile virus after all. Stay right here. I’ll be right back.”

Attila leaned away from Kai and slumped on the pillow on his side of the bed. “I believe we had an understanding, Kai. I am perfectly all right. I do not need a doctor.”

His tone was distant and chill. Kai leaned over, attempting to stroke the sweaty brow, but his hand was swatted aside.

“Had I not been perfectly clear?”

“Well, I dunno,” Kai mused, working to buy time. “Your fever was pretty high and you weren’t making a lot of sense for a while, so….”

“So what?”

“So I got really concerned, Attila. I mean, losing a horse is bad enough, but I don’t think I could stand losing you.”

“You were not going to lose me.”

Kai noted the past tense of Attila’s pissy sentence just as Dr. Russo entered the bedroom with a small case in his hand, forestalling other conversation. “I’m going to draw some blood. If it’s the West Nile virus, you’ll just have to ride it out and we’ll keep an eye out on you. If it’s Lyme disease, you’ll get antibiotics. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know.”

Kai watched Attila bite his lower lip and look away from his arm as the hypodermic needle slid under the pale skin and punctured a well-developed vein.

H
IS
dad was covered in white. White sheets, white walls, white hospital gown. Only his hair was that obnoxious shout of ginger in a room that was still, redolent of antiseptics and slow decay. His arm was taped where the needle slid in so the anti-cancer drug could make its way into his system through a thin, transparent length of tubing. He used to be a big man, full of piss and vinegar and always ready to laugh, his cigarette hanging off his lip at any hour of the day. Now the last prominent feature left was the shock of his brilliant, rust-colored hair, threaded with the very beginnings of silver.

“Dad.” Kai watched the skeletal hand just about disappear in his teenage paw. It was hard to believe these hands had set coal-mining records underground, had built Kai’s tree house, had used to tickle Kai until he screamed for mercy.

“M’boy.” Even his voice was but a shadow of his former self. “M’fairy boy.”

“Yeah.” They had had that conversation a year ago.

“Promise me something, before I get outta your hair.”

Kai swallowed. “You’ll make it, dad. You’ll get better, and then we’ll play football again, an’ go huntin’ in the hills….”

“Humor your ole man. Promise me never to set your foot in a coal mine.”

Kai swallowed. “Yeah. Okay, Dad. I promise.” He squeezed the pale hand with tender care.

“An’ promise me to find somebody to love. Don’t listen to your mother—don’t let her pick for ya. Find somebody who sings to your heart, Kai.”

His father died two weeks later.

Two years later, his mother’s new husband kicked Kai out of the house.

“
I’
M
DONE
here, but I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know about the test results.” Dr. Russo’s voice, as deep as his father’s used to be, brought Kai to the present.

“Okay. Thank you.” Kai didn’t trust his voice not to betray him. He had thought all these old issues were resolved, accepted, shelved away. Attila was a bad influence, because he made Kai
feel
things. His old terrors were resurrected, free to haunt him all over again.

“If he complains of headaches, sensitivity to bright lights, or his neck is stiffer than usual, call me immediately, even at night. Although…” Dr. Russo paused. “A stiff neck might be hard to diagnose with someone as stubborn as he is.”

“Yes, Dr. Russo.”

With a corner of his eye, he saw Attila give both of them an evil glare. He had never seen the horse trainer as angry as he was right then.

Dr. Russo wiggled his bushy eyebrows and measured Kai with his dark eyes once again. “Come walk me out,” he requested.

Kai did.

The tall man leaned against his white station wagon. “What’s wrong?”

Kai shrugged. If he opened his mouth now, everything just might spill out and he’d never be the same again. His lips remained pressed together.

“Listen, Kai… are you guys using protection?”

“Yeah,” he croaked after some time. “Although after today, we won’t need any. I’ve never seen him as mad as this before.”

Dr. Russo gave Kai a look that was meant to reassure him. “I don’t care if Attila is pissed at you right now. You did the right thing. He’ll come around and see, don’t worry. He can be quite reasonable.”

Kai shrugged again.

“All right,” Dr. Russo drawled, landing his huge, capable hand on Kai’s shoulder. “You keep an eye on him. Let me know if there is anything to worry about.” Then Kai felt the doctor pull him into a brief bear hug, and he fought not to slump into the warmth of it. Eyes downcast, he nodded and waited for the big man to get inside his car and head down the driveway.

Kai stood as though frozen in time. When he could no longer see the car nor hear the crunch of the gravel driveway, he walked to the house door and slumped against its painted surface. He slid his butt down until he was crumpled in the lee of the entryway. Now that he had privacy, he allowed the insistent tears to escape his eyes.

I ain’t gonna lose you like I lost my dad. I may lose your love, but I won’t let you fuckin’ die.

O
NCE
the horses were taken care of, Kai took Attila’s Bronco and drove to town on a supply run: oranges, lemons, several kinds of canned chicken soup, a few boxes of Jell-O, frozen fruit popsicles, more Gatorade, herbal tea, a bag of ginger snaps, a box of saltines….

He eyed the ice cream stand in the middle of the town square. The chocolate mint shake beckoned to him, calling out to him with its cool, chocolaty smoothness. His glance bounced off the empty bench under the spreading maple tree. It was drenched in the sweltering sun.

Exposed.

Not without Attila.

He wiped his forehead with his sleeve in an effort to banish his anxious frown. Soon Attila would be better and then they would go out together again. They would share a cool, almost bitter milk shake in the dark, their feet and their foreheads touching in a silent communion which would be broken only by the slurping sounds of their straws and their sounds of hushed contentment.

Soon.

W
HEN
he got home, Rita was in the kitchen, having brought a casserole and two half-gallon cartons of grapefruit juice. It was the good kind, with pulp in it. “Attila likes this when he’s sick,” she explained. “I understand he’s in a bit of a temper right now. Kai… thank you for being here. I know how difficult he can be. He’s the worst patient I have ever seen—even worse than Tibor. He’s always been like this.”

“I got him some foods he could eat,” Kai said. “He must be feeling like… eh… pretty awful.” He was going to say “like shit,” but Kai didn’t know Rita well enough to let his tongue slip and sound as worthless as he sometimes felt.

“If he gives you any trouble, call me. Here is my number.” She pressed a business card into his hand. “I will take your call even if I happen to be in a meeting.”

Kai nodded. He felt her small hand on his arm.

“I am sorry about the horse,” she said, her tone gentle. “The boys were in quite a state over it, too. You have probably been told I that do not care for horses. That is not entirely true. It’s hard… it’s hard to lose an animal you’ve been working with.”

“Or a person,” Kai quipped, his voice sharp with a bitter edge. To his surprise, Rita nodded.

“Yes, or a person.” She sighed. “Thank you for being here. Being here for him, I mean. He…” She hesitated. “He can do with the company of someone who won’t run away at the first sign of trouble.”

Kai held his breath, waiting for more to come, but she only looked around, surveying the scene.

Her perceptive eyes returned to Kai. “As it happens, I brought some reading I need to do for work, and I never have enough quiet at home… the boys can be so raucous. You’d think they’d know enough to settle down, at their age. Would you mind if I stayed for a while? I can make some tea.”

Kai measured her small person, her body language, and her pervasive and barely suppressed air of command. She was Attila’s sister, and he could not miss the similarities. “Of course you can stay. Let me know if you need anything.”

She smiled, pleased. “Thank you, Kai. I’ll settle in the living room.”

Less than two hours passed before the stillness of the house was broken by the sound of Attila getting up and moving about. Kai and Rita exchanged a smile before they turned their eyes back to their reading.

The sense of peace did not last for long, though. Attila entered the living room, emanating cold fury. “Did I not tell you not to call the doctor on my behalf?”

Kai looked up at the sound of Attila’s frosty voice. He could have sworn that the temperature in the room dropped by twenty degrees, but he steeled himself against Attila’s onslaught, and only shrugged. “You didn’t look too good.” Then he got off the sofa and retreated into the kitchen. “Would you like something to drink?” He asked Attila, trying to defuse the situation.

“Stop coddling me!” Attila’s words were a shout now as he ghosted through the house, dogging Kai’s footsteps. The fury was intimidating. Kai widened his eyes as he pressed himself against the refrigerator, giving Attila space in the small kitchen.

“You presume much, taking liberties and trying to manage my health without my consent.” Attila’s butt was leaning against the sink now, but his head was toward the doorway. His sister stood there with her arms across her chest, slender chin jutted up in defiance. He turned to her. “Rita, you have no part in this argument. Stop interfering.”

“Well, sorry for trying to keep you alive. You are being such a brat right now, Attila. If you cared to remember your highfalutin manners, you’d thank Kai for working his butt off on your behalf.”

Attila turned his feverish face toward her. “Go home. I shall not be controlled.”

“Good night, Attila,” she replied, sparing a curt nod in Kai’s direction before she gathered her work and sailed out the door.

Attila slumped in relief as soon as she left the house.

After Rita left, Kai peeled himself off the refrigerator and tiptoed past the other man.

I
T
WAS
quiet by the time Attila awoke. Attila turned on his reading light and tilted it to the side, grateful Kai chose to fall asleep in their bed instead of retreating to his old room. He tiptoed to the restroom, glad the dust he had raised by his vituperations only a couple of hours earlier seemed to have settled down. Looking back at his actions and his ill-tempered words, he could hardly breathe in his embarrassment.