Wounded (10 page)

Morning came and Morgan was still asleep. I went out into the clear crisp air to feed the animals. I put the hay in the feeder in the pasture and noticed Morgan’s horse, Square, arching her neck and coughing. It was an odd behavior, but she went for her food. She wanted to eat, so I didn’t think she was about to colic. Then she arched again and I thought she might be choking, which seemed odd since she hadn’t eaten anything yet. Choking on hay is uncommon and choking on the green grass is really uncommon. I haltered her and removed her from the food. I put her in a paddock and made sure there was water for her. Morgan came from the house in a thick robe, her face already worried.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Square’s acting funny,” I said.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know if there’s anything wrong yet.”

Just then the horse arched her neck again and coughed.

“What was that?” Morgan asked.

“That’s the funny thing,” I said.

“What’s wrong with her, John?” Everything was piling up on poor Morgan. She started to cry. Since there’s nothing wrong with crying, I didn’t get in her way. I simply proceeded with what I had to do with the horse. “Go to my truck and bring me my red box. I’ve got a speculum in there.”

She trotted, the robe trailing behind her, crying there and back.

I had my thumbs in the horse’s cheeks and was trying to see into her throat, trying to spot any kind of obstruction. “I need a flashlight,” I said. “There’s a penlight in the jockey box.”

She ran crying to get it. She came back and I asked her to hold the lead rope while I looked. I held the light in my teeth and opened Square’s mouth again. I grabbed her tongue and pulled it to the side. She was drooling and I saw that there was a bit of blood mixed in it. I saw a wire or a stick in her throat.

“Yep,” I said.

“What is it?” Morgan asked.

“She’s got something in there all right.”

“Oh, my god,” she said.

“She’s okay, Morgan.”

“Can you get it out?”

“I’m going to try.” I didn’t want to tell her that if I couldn’t we were going to have to take her to the clinic down in Laramie and have the vet knock her out and find a way to get it out. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her that. “It’s not too far back there.”

“John?”

“Okay, I’m going to give her some butte; that will make her feel better. I’ve got one shot of that left right here. And I’m going to sedate her slightly as well, but you’re going to have to hold her. Okay?”

“Okay.” Tears were streaming down Morgan’s face now.

I gave the horse the shots. Morgan watched as I found the vein, pulled a little blood into the syringe, then pumped the drug into the horse. In just a few minutes, Square’s head was hanging low.

“Is she all right?” Morgan asked.

“High as a kite,” I said. “Come and stand over on this side.” I took the rope and let Morgan walk around me to the right side of the horse. I set the speculum in Square’s mouth, essentially a piece of metal to wedge between the horse’s back teeth, and said, “Morgan, you’re going to have to hold this right here for me, okay, honey?”

She nodded, taking the metal tee of a handle and bracing it against the nose band of the halter.

“Oh, John, what if you can’t get it out?”

I didn’t say anything at first and then I thought that my silence might alarm her more. “This thing, whatever it is, is probably just sticking up through her soft palate. Shouldn’t be a problem.” Of course I didn’t know that at all. The horse began doing what horses do and that was chewing. At least she was trying to chew; the coil of metal of the speculum was in her way. But she was chewing enough that she was catching my knuckles. It hurt like hell, but I had to get the thing out. I couldn’t let this crush Morgan. Instead, my hand was getting crushed. I grabbed the object and it poked me; it had thorns. I didn’t pull back. I was in there now. I grabbed it, a thorn piercing my thumb, and I worked it free and slowly pulled it out. I held it out for Morgan to see. It was a four-inch-long wishbone of a rose twig.

“That’s it?” she said.

“That’s it.”

Morgan looked at my bleeding knuckle and my bleeding thumb. “Your hand,” she said.

“It’s okay.”

I was about to tell her I was all right, to take the horse back and not worry about me, but I was proud that I made a good decision for once, a selfless and right decision, a smart one. I let my friend take care of me. I let her look at the damage, wash me and bandage me and it was good. I let her take care of me and it was right.

I drove to town to pick up butte powder for Morgan’s horse and more for my supplies as well. I needed other things and tried to remember as best I could. Gus had told me to go take care of that and to pick up some groceries and a paper, too. He could feel, I imagined, that I was starting to worry about him and he was essentially kicking me out of the house until I came to my senses.

At the feed store, Myra was shaking her head. “Emily,” she said. “I thought she’d live forever. I thought she and old Clara Monday up on the reservation would never go. But I guess everybody does.”

“Sounds right,” I said.

“How’s Morgan?” she asked.

“It’s hard.”

“It always is,” Myra said. She looked at my stuff on the counter. “Let’s call it fifty even.”

“Okay.”

“You tell Morgan she can call me if she wants to talk. I lost my mother just last year.”

“Myra, I didn’t know. I’ll tell her.”

I walked out of the store and I guess I was looking down or not looking at all because I bumped into somebody. I excused myself and then saw the skinny face of one of the men who had fought with David and Robert. I remembered him immediately. The face of his partner was close behind him.

“Watch yourself, nigger,” the man said.

I’m a grown man with more than my share of self-control, so I ignored him and moved toward my Jeep.

“I said, watch yourself, nigger,” he repeated and gave me an open-handed shove in the shoulder.

I didn’t bother explaining to the malformed creature that he had chosen the wrong man on the wrong day to say the wrong thing. If I had, he might not have been so surprised by the quick left that started in my middle and launched from a coil that had been tightening for years. The bandage on my hand became red again, but not with my blood this time as the idiot’s nose exploded under my punch. The man’s apish friend took a dash at me, but I guess it was the look in my red eyes or the recocking of my bloody fist that stopped him. The bigger man examined his friend’s face, then renewed his resolve and glared at me.

I readjusted my package under my right arm. “And I kinda liked him,” I said and didn’t move away.

He looked back to the bloody face.

I walked to my rig and drove off to the grocery market, feeling bad and good, relieved and soiled.

I wouldn’t tell Gus about the confrontation. At best, the story would have reaffirmed his suspicion of this part of the country and, at worst, he would have wanted to drive into town and find the bastards. I was putting the food away when he came downstairs into the kitchen.

“How’s Morgan?” he asked.

“Good.”

He let out a soft whistle and from the blanket the little coyote dragged herself across the floor toward him, almost balancing on her three legs, almost hopping. Her little face was open and panting.

“How about that,” I said.

“Something, eh?”

I nodded.

“I’ve named her.”

“Again? I thought her name was Spirit or some such thing.”

“Her name is Emily. Do you think Morgan will mind? I mean I’m not going to tell her today.”

I watched Gus go to his knee and give the puppy a scratch. “I don’t think she’ll mind at all, Gus. I think she’ll like it.”

“By the way, that mule is out.”

“Well, of course he is,” I said.

“Been out better part of the day.”

“He’s going to have to stay out. I can’t be fussing with that fool animal tonight. I’m going to feed and then go over to Morgan’s.”

“Good. I’ll make a dinner plate for her.” Gus gained his feet and walked over to the refrigerator. “And I don’t want you rushing back in the morning. I can feed everybody here and if I go out there and find a horse with an extra leg or a bear in the tack room, I’ll call you.”

Emily’s funeral was a quiet affair. She had not been particularly religious during her life and no one saw fit to impose that on her now. A couple hundred people showed up at the Lutheran church where the Lutheran minister apologized for being a minister and mentioned a couple of nice things about the deceased, among them the fact that she had once repeatedly hauled her stock trailer up a burning mountain to rescue horses and the fact that she had come to sit with his own dying wife years ago. The minister said, “Emily didn’t express or show objection to my praying by my wife’s bedside and I won’t insult her beliefs by praying now.” Everyone mumbled agreement and the service was over in fifteen minutes.

“Now, that’s a funeral,” Gus said.

There was no graveside ceremony. Emily would be cremated and her ashes picked up by Morgan on Thursday. On that Monday, about fifty people gathered at Morgan’s house and ate food they had brought and more or less got in the way, hanging about in changing clusters in the kitchen, living room, and in the yard.

Duncan Camp and I stood on the porch and looked out over the pasture. I told him about Square’s twig.

“Horses,” he said. “Suicidal bastards, every one. You’re lucky it stopped in the front like that. And that she didn’t gnaw your finger off.”

“You got that right.”

He took a long, deep breath. “You think Morgan will do okay here alone?” Duncan asked. “This is a big place.”

“She’ll do fine.”

“I guess so. She and the old lady held it down pretty good.”

“They did,” I said.

“Well, we’ll check on her, won’t we?”

I nodded.

Myra came outside, screen door smacking shut behind her. She pulled her sweater tight against the chilly air. “John, Morgan went upstairs. She asked me to find you and tell you to get your ass up there.”

“She put it like that, did she?”

“No, I added the emphasis.”

“Well done.” I excused myself and went inside. I climbed the stairs and found Morgan in Emily’s room, standing at the open closet.

“So, what’s going on?” I asked.

She took an armful of clothes on hangers from the rod and tossed them onto the bed.

“Cleaning out already?” I asked.

“My mother’s voice is pretty clear in my head. ‘If it’s cold you build a fire, if it’s hot you jump in a creek. Life’s simple like that.’ She was right. My mother’s dead. That’s a simple fact. Life continues. That’s how she’d want me to think. And that’s how I’m going to think.” She looked out the window at the barn below. “John, thank you.”

“You bet. What would you like me to do? I mean, can I help in here?”

Morgan sat on the bed, rubbed her open hand on the bedspread. “There are some empty boxes in the tack room. Would you run out and get them?”

“Of course I will. What about all those people downstairs?” I asked. “You want me to tell them anything?”

“They’ll be fine. And I’m fine. You know that, don’t you, John?”

“I know.” I walked to the door. “You want anything else?”

“Bring us up a bottle of wine and some glasses. Two bottles.”

THE MORNING
was hard cold. I’d just come in from breaking the ice on the horses’ water. I was heating water for tea and looking out at the foot of snow that covered the ground. The snow was still falling and every half-hour or so I would go out and sweep the steps. Emily, the little coyote, skated around on the linoleum of the kitchen while Zoe watched from the corner. The older dog’s interest in the puppy had diminished some, but she still kept an eye on her. Out the window, the sun was just reaching the top of the barn.

“Good morning,” Gus said as he came into the room.

“Morning, Gus.”

“And how’s my little girl?” he cooed to the pup. He reached down and let the coyote chew on his finger.”

“Gus, I don’t think you should do that,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, right.”

“I’d like you to flip her on her back as often as you think of it. Hold her there until she doesn’t struggle.”

“Okay.”

“This is important, Gus.”

“I hear you,” he said.

“I’m sorry.” I grabbed the kettle and poured my tea water. “I don’t mean to be a nag.” But I did.

“Where’s Morgan?” Gus asked.

“I think she’s still sleeping. That’s how I left her anyway. It’s a good morning to sleep.”

Gus looked out the window over the sink. “Christmas Eve already. Is it as cold at it looks out there?”

“Oh, yeah. It hasn’t been this cold since the last time it was this cold.” I sat at the table with my mug.

“You mean yesterday.”

I nodded. “Hey, how about whipping up some of those farm fresh eggs and that fake bacon?”

“Sure thing.” He went to the refrigerator and took eggs from the tray in the door. “How do you want them? Scrambled, over-easy, sunny-side-up, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, poached, or shirred?”

“Surprise me.” I got up and put my mug in the sink. “I’m going up to see my sweetie.”

“I’ll take my time,” he said.

I walked up the stairs, trying to avoid the squeaky spots and stood in the doorway, watched Morgan sleep. She was facing me and the light through the window was falling over her covered legs.

“Hey there, cowboy, why aren’t you in the bed with me?” she asked in a sleepy voice.

“For one thing, I’m wearing filthy clothes and for another, I think you’d find my hands to be freezing cold.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “I can take it.”

“Well, okay then.” I kicked off my house shoes, pulled back the covers, and crawled in beside her. When my hands hit her warm skin, she screamed. “I told you they were cold.”

“Get those icy things off me.”

“You said you could take it.” I put my knuckles on her stomach. “How’s that? Cold enough?”

She let out a shriek, slapped at my hands. “No, not there, not there. Put them on my butt, on my butt.”

I did as instructed. “Is that okay?”

“Yes. Actually, that’s not bad,” she said.

“Not bad? Whatever happened to ‘great’ or ‘good’?” I made to go again for her belly.

“Good, good,” she said. “That feels good. Please, please, please don’t touch my stomach.”

I pulled my hands back and looked at the ceiling. “Gus is making breakfast. Eggs and that awful phony bacon.”

“Do I have time to shower?”

“I insist,” I said.

“Wise guy.” Morgan kissed me, then pushed me down as she climbed over me and out of the bed. “I’ll be right down.” She was pulling off her nightshirt as she walked into the bathroom.

“Who wears a nightshirt these days?” I asked. I followed her and leaned on the sink, watched her step into the shower.

“Old-fashioned girls like me,” she said. She turned on the water and stood away from the spray while she checked the temperature.

“Hey, old-fashioned girl.”

She talked over the sound of the water, stepping into it now. “Yes? What do you want to know?”

“I want to know what an old-fashioned girl wears when she gets married?” I asked.

The water stopped. “Excuse me?”

“I think I just proposed.”

“Marry you?” she asked.

“That’s what I had in mind.”

She turned the water back on and began to lather her hair. “I guess I’ll wear jeans and boots.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

The eggs were scrambled, fluffy and pretty good. The fake bacon was what it was, but I was getting used it. Not a thing one wants to say about food, I’m getting used to it, but better than the converse. I was on my second cup of tea and making eyes at Morgan.

“Well, if you two aren’t absolutely disgusting, I just don’t know what is.” Gus said.

“Sorry, Gus,” Morgan said.

I looked out the window to see that the snow was tapering off.

“What are you thinking about?” Morgan asked.

“I’m thinking that I have to go out in this mess and ride the fence. And I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t,” Gus said.

“I have to,” I told him. “I need to check the line so I can take off some shoes and turn out a few horses.”

“I’ll keep the house warm for you,” Gus said. “Yep, I’ll just kick back, turn on one of them soap operas and keep it nice and toasty.”

“Oh, yeah. And Gus, we’re getting married,” I said.

“To each other?” he asked.

“Do you two read the same joke book?”

Gus smiled at Morgan. “I think you’re a damn fool, but I’m glad to hear it. Best wishes, little lady. And good luck.”

“What about me?” I asked.

“You’re one fortunate son of a bitch,” he said. “So, when is this going to happen?”

Before Morgan could say we didn’t know, the phone rang. I got up and answered it. It was Daniel White Buffalo.

“You must come out here again,” Daniel said. He used “must” the way the Arapaho used it; it wasn’t a command.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “What’s up this time? Another cow shot?” I laughed.

“Yes.”

I stopped laughing. “Jesus, you’re joking.” But he wasn’t joking. “Daniel, I don’t know why you’re calling me. I can’t help.”

“I think you should see this one,” he said.

“I’m assuming this one looks a lot like the other one. Listen, Daniel, I’m behind as it is. I’ve got to ride my line.”

“No, you must see this one.” This was a command.

I studied the snow again through the window over the sink, considered the roads. I looked over at Morgan and shrugged. “Daniel, I’ll be there in about an hour. I’ll expect some hot tea when I get there.” I hung up.

“What’s that all about?” Gus asked.

“It appears that Daniel White Buffalo’s got another dead beef. Wants me to look at it.”

“What, are you the cow undertaker or something?” he asked.

“Must be.”

“Would you like some company?” Morgan asked.

“No, you stay here. The roads are a mess,” I said.

“What do you want me to do around here?” Gus asked.

“Keep the house warm,” I said. “Morgan, would you lunge Felony and the App for me?”

“You bet.”

I gave Morgan a kiss. “I’ll see you two in a couple of hours.”

“So, this is twice in a month,” I said to Daniel White Buffalo as he approached. “People are going to start talking.”

“Let ’em talk.”

“Where’s this one?”

“Not far from the other one.” Daniel’s usually cheerful face was wiped somewhat blank.

“It’s too bad about the animal, Daniel. This is getting to be too much. Have you called Bucky yet?”

“What good is it to call him?” the man asked. He removed his cap and scratched his head. “He didn’t do anything the last time and he won’t do anything this time. I guess there’s not much he can do.”

“I suppose,” I said. “Your rig or mine?”

“Mine,” he said. “My truck knows the way.”

We walked to his Bronco and I had to brush snow off the seat. “You ever cover this up?”

“When I remember.” He started the engine.

“Why am I here, Daniel? I can’t help any more than the sheriff. I can help less that the sheriff.”

“You’ll see.”

We didn’t say anything during the short, bouncy drive. I sat back, pulled my coat tight around me, dipping my face into my collar to keep warm, and enjoyed the view of the rolling landscape. Daniel stopped and set the brake a hundred or so yards upstream from where he’d shown me the first cow. This one was on the far bank as well, but today the creek was frozen. I skated, not intentionally, to the other side. This time Daniel followed.

The cow’s head was a bloody mess; he’d been shot a few times. And this time the animal had been ripped through its middle and so the ground under it was soaked with blood. The blood had drained down the slope and melted snow to the water’s edge. The ground was stained black.

“Well, I’d say this is pretty ugly,” I said. “Tell me, when did it stop snowing here?”

“Last night, early this morning,” Daniel said. “But this is not what I called you out here to see.”

I looked at him.

“It’s up here,” he said. He turned and climbed the slope to flat ground, pointed down with a nod of his head.

I stood next to him and looked down at a bright blue tarp laid open over the snow. It looked like a thousand blue tarps. My mind raced and I imagined that there was a dead human under the cover.

Daniel bent over, grabbed a corner of the tarp, and pulled it away. Written in the snow, in red, in cow’s blood, were the words
Red
Nigger
.

I blew out a soft whistle of a breath. “I don’t suppose you’re the one who wrote that,” I said.

“Pretty scary, eh?”

I nodded. “This makes my list of scary things.”

“So, what do I do?” Daniel asked.

“I’m afraid I have no idea.” I looked around at the ground around the writing, then started to pace a circle around it. I stopped and looked at some blue in the sky. “I say you call the sheriff.”

“I’ll consider that as an option, but what should I do?”

“Lock your doors, I guess. Face it, there are some bad folks in the neighborhood.”

“And I’ll keep a rifle loaded as well,” he added.

I couldn’t argue with that.

“You know, I have half a mind to camp out here and wait for the bastards,” he said.

“And you might end up with half a mind,” I said, looking at his eyes. “You can’t sleep out here every night. Just to end up getting shot yourself.” I began to circle the area again, looking for anything, maybe more shell casings. “I sure as hell wouldn’t park myself out here.”

“I should just let them kill my stock, kill my livelihood?”

“Listen, I’ll come back and help you round them up,” I said. “We can at least move them closer to the house.”

Daniel just shook his head.

“Well, think about it. I’m glad to come back and help. All you have to do is call.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, let’s go.”

We slid down the bank and made our way across the creek to the Bronco. “And call Bucky,” I said.

“I’ll call him,” Daniel said.

The largest presence on Christmas morning was Emily’s absence. The three of us didn’t celebrate the day, but Gus insisted on cooking a big meal, big insofar as he would be preparing real meat, moose steaks from the freezer, a gift from the Gunthers in the fall. That morning, Morgan and I lay in the warm bed silently watching the sky just beginning to turn light.

“I miss her,” she said.

“Me, too.”

There wasn’t much else to say. If Morgan were going to cry, she would cry. I’d hold her until she stopped crying. But she didn’t cry.

“Mother always gave the horses carrots on Christmas,” she said. “Can we do that this morning?”

“Of course.”

We pulled on our clothes and went down to the kitchen. We found a bag of carrots in the refrigerator. I had a thought that Gus wanted the carrots for the dinner and when I looked at Morgan I knew she was thinking the same thing. I shrugged and closed the door.

“Are you sure?” Morgan whispered.

“I won’t say anything if you don’t,” I said.

We went outside and began passing out carrots, one animal at a time. The mule was loose and following us, so he got several.

“What’s the mule’s name again?” Morgan asked, watching him walk away from us toward the hay once it was clear we were out of carrots. “His name is Pest now. He’s mine. I don’t like it, but I like him.”

“That thing at Daniel’s scares me,” she said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Do you think we’ve got some crazed militia assholes around here?” she asked. She was studying my eyes.

“I know we do. There might be only one or two or there might be fifty, but they’re out there. I’d be a fool to think there weren’t.”

Morgan pulled my arm to her and hugged me. “John, I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me. Nothing’s going to happen to any of us. I’m very cautious and, besides, I’ve got old Gus.”

“What will you do if they come around here?” she asked. “What are we supposed to do?”

That was a really good question and I didn’t want to let on that I had absolutely no idea.

“I mean the sheriff is an hour away.”

“Sweetie, things happen in a second. It doesn’t matter whether Bucky is a minute away. This is my home.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ve lived here for twenty years. It’s been good so far. No Son of Sam, no LAPD, and, until now, no neo-Nazis. Everything will be fine.” I put my arm around her and pulled her close. “Let’s go in and have some coffee and a little something to gnaw on.”

Morgan and I sat at the table with our coffee and toast. Gus was at the refrigerator and he was pulling out things, surveying the stores. “I was sure I had a bag of carrots,” he said. “Did you move my carrots?”

When neither of us spoke, he let the door swing shut. “I asked if anyone moved my carrots.”

“Morgan, the man asked you a question,” I said.

“John ate them,” she said.

“I don’t believe you,” he said, flatly.

“We fed them to the horses,” she said.

“That, I believe.” He glared at us for a second. “How am I supposed to make glazed carrots without carrots?”

“We’re sorry,” I said.

“Well, you got that right.”

“My mother always gave the horses carrots on Christmas.”

Gus softened. “And a fine tradition it is.”