Catch Rider (9780544034303) (8 page)

“Give me the lighter,” I said.

He took a long drag, started to put the lighter back in his pocket. I grabbed for it, but he held it away. I smelled the smoke and liquor on his breath.

“What about asking nicely,” Donald said.

“May I have that lighter?” I asked.

I was scared he was going to hit me again, and he knew it. He handed it to me but held on as I touched it.

“You need to learn to act like a lady.”

I pulled the lighter away from him and walked out, wondering if he was going to chase me.

“Where you going? You can't take that car nowhere but to school and the barn!” he yelled.

I got into my car, locked the doors, and peeled out.

I couldn't tell Wayne what had happened or all hell would break loose. As tough as Wayne was, Donald was crazy. All the guns in the world were no match for crazy.

Before Donald, my mother and I had been planning to have a good life together, just the two of us. We were going to go to the beach. I slept in her bed for two weeks after Jimmy died, and we talked about all of it. She told me that she'd always wanted to go to Scotland where some of our ancestors were from and that we could go on an overnight trail ride together. But my mother was a captive now, and none of that was ever going to happen.

D
RIVING UP
R
OUTE
220, I decided I needed a gun. That bastard wasn't done with me. Jimmy would want me to get a damn pistol and put a slug right between Donald's eyes if he ever laid a hand on me again. That I knew for sure.

I saw the Tastee-Freez and pulled into the parking lot. Four teenagers sat on the hood of a car, laughing and flirting. I pulled some crumpled bills out of my pocket and picked a few quarters off the dirty floor mat, then ordered a cheeseburger and fries from the takeout window. I recognized one of the kids as the cute boy from the lunchroom. The other boy was his ugly, dimwitted friend. His family lived in the trailer park and fought with everyone in town about everything. He'd been in trouble for hunting on posted land, drunk driving, and selling pot, but he finally got his when he tried to lie to a game warden about his fishing license. In Allegheny County, that was like treason. The game warden took one look at his gap-toothed lying smile, arrested him, and sent him to jail for two weeks.

The dimwit looked me up and down. “Hey, ain't your uncle Wayne Stewart?”

I ignored him.

“'Scuse me!” he said, louder.

“Yeah, what if he is?” I answered.

“Does he live in that old shit shack down in the hollow?”

His girlfriend laughed.

I got ketchup for my fries, trying to ignore them. I was so hungry that I was shaking. I walked toward my car clutching the bag of food.

“I'm just asking,” he continued. “Didn't think anyone could live in a house that had a hole in the roof. Does he have a toilet, or does he shit in the field with the donkeys?”

I faced him. The girls snickered.

“Come on, Tommy, stop it,” said the cute boy.

I walked up to the dimwit, stopped, clenched my fist, and punched him in the mouth.

One girl screamed. The other one laughed. “Oh, Tommy, you got hit by a girl!”

“Keep talking about my family,” I said as he grabbed his face. “I'll knock your goddamn teeth out.”

Blood running down his lip, he grabbed me by the throat with both hands. “I'd knock you flat, 'cept I don't hit girls.”

He tightened his grip until I choked, then let go. I pushed him away and got into my car, coughing.

“Poor white trash!” his girlfriend yelled at me.

“You oughta know!” I yelled back.

I drove half a mile and pulled into the entrance of the National Forest, shoving the food in my mouth without even tasting it. When I parked, I saw two kids making out in the back of a pickup truck. They saw me and sat up quickly, and I realized that it was Eileen Cleek and some boy from school. I put the car in reverse and drove away. Even Eileen Cleek, the girl everyone called a lesbo, had a boyfriend.

I drove up the mountain for half an hour, looking for June. He always made me feel better, but he wasn't easy to find. He only came out when he was walking to town to get his usual staples: cheese nabs, Dr Pepper, cornmeal, and kerosene. I wondered what it was like to live in the hollow with your brother and sister for seventy years, no electricity or running water. He always seemed happy, and it didn't take much to make him smile. I had only seen his sister, Maybelle, and his brother, Clifford, once, when I was ten. They had come to church for revival week. I'd never seen their little farm. Jimmy had told me all about it, but he'd always gone there alone.

I parked by the ram, hoping for June. The ram was an old pump the Army Corps of Engineers had put near Natural Well, and it made a low, rhythmic sound as it pumped cold water out of the ground and over the mossy rocks in the shade. This was near the path June took to get to his house, but no one else knew.

Boy, I bet they'd made some moonshine back in that hollow years ago. Wayne had explained to me how perfect these mountains were for homemade liquor—you got the clean water, the kind of trees that didn't give off much smoke, and the privacy of the deep dark hollows. Wayne and Jimmy used to get jars of apple brandy from somewhere up in here, but hell if I knew where.

I watched the ram pumping water, imagining it was corn liquor trickling through the rocks. I wondered how many people had sat here and thought the same thing. I waited, but all I saw was a big tom turkey fly along the fence line and nearly crash into a utility pole.

When it started getting dark half an hour later, I gave up and drove to Wayne's house. He made me a bowl of stew and handed me a blanket.

“What's the matter, girl?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“It can't be all that bad.”

“Mind your own goddamn business,” I said. “I don't want to talk about it.” But then I started crying real hard. Wayne came over and hugged me. His arms were bony, but when he hugged me tight I could feel how strong he was.

“Donald wants to move out to the desert in California,” I said. It hurt more saying it out loud because it made it true. “I know Melinda will do it.”

“Well, that's about the dumbest thing I ever heard. No Criser has lived or ever will live out in the damn desert.”

“He wants to work at some oil refinery where his cousin works.”

I could see a flash of worry deep in Wayne's eyes that he quickly covered up. The light from the television flickered across his face.

If we moved to the desert, I would never see Uncle Wayne again. The thought of it made me want to die. I wanted to ask him if I could live with him if that happened, but I was scared he would say no again. I was scared he would tell me he couldn't have no little girl living with him, that I would have to go with Melinda.

But I decided to speak up anyway. “Wayne, if they leave, I can't go there.” I choked up again.

He looked at me like a statue. Then he crossed his feet in front of the fire.

“You can stay in the barn. But that donkey might stomp you while you're sleeping.” He winked. “Of course you can stay here.”

He threw another pillow to me, and I tucked it under my head and fell asleep. I dared anyone to come get me here at Uncle Wayne's.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, the sun was bright. It was the first day of September, and the air was clear. I told Wayne I didn't want to go to school.

“I'll bush hog the paddock,” I volunteered. “Got enough weeds in there to choke an elephant.”

“I ain't leavin' you here to run the damn rotary cutter all by yourself.”

I made myself go to school, staying far away from the rednecks and skipping lunch entirely. I didn't tell Ruthie about any of it, how Donald had hit me or that I'd punched Tommy and he'd grabbed me. It would scare her half to death, and she would ask too many questions.

Ms. Cash talked about
As I Lay Dying.
Her eyes twinkled, and I knew she loved the book. I had read it, and most of the time I didn't know what the hell was happening, but I liked not knowing. I liked understanding something without having to think about it.

Most of the kids didn't get it, and they complained and said it was dumb because the story was told with different people's perspectives. Why couldn't the writer pick his main character? Just when you understood one, the point of view changed to someone else.

“Maybe there is no real story. Maybe everyone has a different version, and they're all a little true and they're all a little false, and we should respect how everyone else thinks,” one boy said.

Several kids nodded in agreement.

“God's version is the true version,” said a girl. “The writer should try to think in terms of God's perspective.”

I laughed out loud.

Some kids said it was a desecration when the mother's body fell out of the coffin. Poor Ms. Cash, trying to save their souls from the preacher who told them they weren't supposed to study anything but scripture.

 

I rode to the barn with Wayne after school, and the trip seemed shorter this time. Wayne told me about Dee Dee, how she was a champion rider but had a reputation for what he called “funny stuff.” He meant that she gave her horses drugs.

I had read that people like that were always staying one step ahead of USEF—the United States Equestrian Federation—but sometimes their horses were drug tested at shows. One time, a lady's horse got disqualified after she'd given him a can of Coke and he'd tested positive for caffeine. Wayne didn't judge people who played around with the rules unless they were downright inhumane. So for him to make a comment about Dee Dee—that was something.

I looked for Wes but he wasn't around. Not like I really cared—I just thought I might run into him. I saw myself in the dirty tack-room mirror, my hair frizzy from sweating, circles under my eyes. Kelly had such smooth, shiny hair, and she was so confident.

I sat silently in the lunchroom while Uncle Wayne talked horses with the stable hands. I was picking at a blister on the inside of my knuckle at the base of my index finger.

“Let me see your hand,” Wayne said. I showed him my palms, rubbed raw with fat blisters. He reached up into a cabinet, opened a saltshaker, and set it down. He opened his pocketknife and grabbed my hand. I jerked it away.

“Fine. It'll be infected and hurt a hell of a lot more than it does now.”

I let him slice the blister open and rub salt into it. It burned like hell. I clamped my teeth down and my eyes teared up.

“After a few days, you won't need no gloves.”

Wayne let me bathe a bay mare in the wash stall. I scrubbed her tail with soap and sprayed it with ShowSheen to repel the dust. I painted her feet with hoof polish, the dark lacquer dripping off the golden brush, leaving mahogany horseshoe prints on the concrete. I could have done it for hours. The mare liked me and closed her eyes sleepily while I worked on her tail. She rested her big head in the crossties and fell asleep.

I knew I could untangle this horse's dirty tail every day, clean her stall and a hundred more, wash every damn horse in the field, if I didn't have to speak to another human being for the rest of my life. Horses trusted me, and I could be myself around them.

Kelly, Wes, and Dee Dee appeared just as the mare pawed to get out, raking her metal shoe against the concrete, the grinding sound echoing through the barn. When Wes saw me, he smiled and said hello.

“Is someone watching this horse?” Kelly yelled. She sure didn't miss an opportunity to make somebody look bad. I didn't answer. I unhooked the mare from the crossties and walked her down the aisle.

It was time for Kelly's lesson, and there was activity in the barn. A couple of other riders were getting their horses ready to join her. Her mother was walking down the aisle inspecting horses with her arms crossed.

I saw a silver Mercedes pull into the driveway and park right next to the building. The driver was an old man who wore an oxford shirt and riding breeches with socks pulled up over them to his knees, worn loafers, and a tweed newsboy cap. His face was pink with gin blossoms. He opened his door, and a pint of vodka, stuffed behind old maps and mail, fell out from the door's side compartment and clinked on the gravel.

“Jesus Christ, Herbert,” said the old lady in the passenger's seat. She had short gray hair and pink lipstick.
These must be the Wakefields,
I thought.

“No one saw, Martha,” the man hissed.

He picked up the flask and tucked it into the door compartment. Two fat Jack Russell terriers spilled out of the car and trotted toward the barn.

“Grandma's here,” Kelly called out to her mother.

I tied the mare to a pole and went back to the wash stall to get the fly spray. The Jack Russells trotted down the aisle as I returned. All of the horses ignored them, except one.

The mare saw the terriers and braced her front feet out, flared her nostrils until they were big round circles, snorted deep into her chest, and panicked.

“Whoa, mare!” I said, putting my hand on her flank and patting her to calm her down. I could feel disaster coming.

Wes had jogged in from the riding ring. Everyone in the barn—stable hands, Wes, Kelly, and Wayne—yelled, “Whoa!” as the mare ripped the metal bar out of the barn wall and took off full throttle toward the road. The jagged bar dragged behind her and whipped around her feet. Dee Dee came running out of the office cussing a blue streak. I was so scared the mare was going to kill herself that I almost passed out. I ran after her, praying she would stop before she got to the road or got tangled up and broke her leg. I slipped and fell into a gully covered in long grass and looked up to see Wayne grabbing the mare by the halter.

“Come here, you fool!” he told her. He unhooked the lead rope, and the metal bar fell to the ground. He turned to me. “Not a scratch on her. You're lucky.”