Ghost Medicine (16 page)

Luz is coming.

Okay, then. Luz.

I bet you that the others will ask you to dance with them, you'll see.

I pulled my hat down over my eyes and opened the door. She was watching me, then, looking at me like I was about to break.

Relax, Troy. Have a good time. Luz wants to dance with you. She told us a week ago.

You shouldn't've said anything to her about it a week ago. I'll see you.

I closed the door.

“You won't tell anyone?” I asked.

“You're talking to me, Stotts,” Tommy said, and pulled the bandana down to his chin so I could see he was looking right at me, that he wasn't smiling.

Tommy lifted the bandana back across his nose. “Man, that stinks. Sure doesn't have the same smell as our fire, does it, Stotts?”

“I'm just hurting, Tom.”

“I know.”

I sighed. “Nothing's right.”

Tommy spit.

“Lots of things are. You know that.”

“When we watched those flames on the hills last night, it made me remember a lot of things I try not to think about,” I said. “When I was four, when my brother died, we drove home from the hospital at night and everything was on fire. It was so quiet in that car. The only thing I heard was the sound of the road, and my mother and father in the front seat crying and not saying anything or looking at each other. And all I could see out the window was black, and these crazy zigzags of flames all around on the hills. It looked like we were driving into hell, and I kept thinking,
Where's my brother? We can't just drive away and leave him there.
I try not to think about it. I try not to think about my mom and him, but sometimes I can't stop it. I'm sorry.”

Tommy looked at me, and then up at the smoke clouds I was watching.

“I'm sorry, too, Stotts,” he said. “How'd he die?”

“We were doing something we weren't supposed to do. We were playing on the roof. He fell off and broke his neck.”

Tommy spit again.

“I played on roofs before. Don't all boys do that?”

My eyes burned. I rubbed them.

“I never told anyone that, Tom.”

“No one'll ever hear it from me, Stotts.”

He held out his fist, and I punched it.

When the fire had burned itself out, the damage was great. It even came onto Benavidez land, but never got near any of the stock or buildings on the property. Two of the locals who lived near Three Points lost their homes, and so our annual ‘49ers Day celebration had to be postponed for a week. And on the third day, Tommy and I rode out to see if we could find where the horses went, and to check on Rose.

The horses all looked fine. They were scattered around the old south pastureland where we had gone shooting with Gabriel. We found them all, even Ghost Medicine and Duke.

I took a drink from my canteen as Tommy dipped into his tobacco. Everything still smelled like burned paper.

“There's some real good horses in this group,” Tommy said. “I guess I didn't notice ‘em all before.”

“Look at that tall sorrel there. Look at her legs,” I said. “That's a real nice-looking horse.”

“I like that one,” Tommy said and pointed to a big chestnut bay with black legs and a big white face. “Kinda looks like a young Arrow, don't he?”

We just sat there looking at those horses for a while, then Tommy said, “So what're we gonna do about ‘em, now? I bet it was just luck we got ‘em over here so easy without one of us breakin' a leg or something.”

“We need to check on Rose before we can move ‘em,” I said. “We don't even know if the fence got burned down or not.”

“Let's go see.” And then he spit. “Want some?”

“I'll wait.”

Where we had built the holding and training corrals there was no sign that a fire had burned through, but right from the fence line we could see the blackened ground and burned trees on Rose's land. And as we rode farther in toward her house, the burning looked worse and worse.

“It got her place for sure,” Tom said. “Now we'll see how that steel house made out.”

I couldn't help but feel sad for Rose, sad for this land.

Isn't this about the most beautiful place in the world, Troy?

As we got closer to that rise before her house, I saw a little black, charred mound. I rode up to it and saw it was a burned goat, just kneeling down like goats do when the wind blows too hard; dead and stiff and peaceful like one of those castings from Pompeii. I looked over at Tom.

“Well, I told you there's not much stupider than a goat,” he said.

“I know.”

There was no rust and no shine left on that big steel house of Rose's. All around it was burned away. The pile of oak fire-wood around the Chevy pickup was still smoking and smoldering, and the shell of the truck looked thinner, a blackened eggshell surrounding nothing, ready to crumble and implode if one of us touched it. The house itself was black with thick soot, but all around it on the ground there was an eerie kind of bloom of gray on the earth where the house had given off heat and continued to bake the ground.

“Rose? Rose?” I shouted as we came up to the house.

There was no answer, just the rusty, creaking sound of that steel windmill pumping water from the ground, its black fan blades spinning dumbly, water trickling from the cistern's overflow into that trough of ash-blackened water. There were no goats around to drink it anyway.

We got down from our horses.

“Rose?” I called out at the door, still shut, just as we had left it four days ago.

“That car's not here,” Tom said. “That's a good sign. She's okay, Stotts.”

I grabbed the doorknob and immediately jerked my hand back.

“It's hot.”

I pulled the bottom of my T-shirt out to insulate my palm and tried again, wiping black grime all over my shirt. I pushed the door in. The house reeked of smoke, and I could hear crackling sounds inside like you'd hear in the belly of a stove that's burned for days and days.

“I bet that got rid of those spiders,” I said.

“Don't go in, Stotts. Look.” Tommy pointed to the little four-pane window looking out from the side of the door. The glass was melted, the lower panes ballooning out a little, the two on top shattered.

“Poor old woman.”

“It won't be nothing for us to clean this place out for her, Stotts. There wasn't hardly nothin' in it anyway and now she can get a clean start. We'll bring her what she needs and fix it up. It'll be okay.”

I wiped my eyes with my black hand, smearing my face.

“I wonder where she is,” I said.

“Somewhere where she can drink wine and spit her tobacco, probly.”

I don't know the origins of Three Points' annual ‘49ers Day celebration; I guess that it had something to do with some fools back in history thinking they could pan enough gold from the rivers here to keep food in their bellies. Tom Buller and my dad both believed it was just an excuse for people to get together and drink and gamble and act foolish. So the real truth is probably somewhere between those two explanations.

It was always held on the first weekend in August, but that's when the big fire broke out. Rose still hadn't come back to her steel house, although Tommy and Carl and I had managed to get all her horses back onto her property, which wasn't half-burned. I was disappointed that it had to be postponed for a week following that wildfire because now that I was sixteen I was finally old enough to compete in the only thing about the day that ever held my attention: the Three Points Biathlon. Some people came from as far away as Colorado or Wyoming to compete in the biathlon, which combined trail riding and target shooting. Riders were started in staggered runs, beginning in the early morning just after the parade, and had to get their horses over a four-mile course that had three checkpoints where each rider would have five shots at five targets. One checkpoint involved shooting from horse back, one required standing, and one required prone firing. Every target missed added one extra minute to a rider's overall time, and every rider had to use the rifles supplied by the event organizers. There were judges at every checkpoint, and this year my father would be at one of them.

So with all that running through my head, and knowing that Tommy and Gabe and I were going to camp out at the fire pit that night, needless to say I was up well before sunrise on that Saturday morning.

I pulled on a pair of 501s and went out to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of orange juice. It was still hot in our house, and I wasn't wearing any shirt, just standing there in the light of the open refrigerator drinking my juice. My dad came in and turned on the overhead lights.

“Good morning, son. Sleep good?”

“Morning, Dad. Un-uh. Too nervous, I guess.”

“Hey, why don't you wear that belt Luz gave you for good luck?” My dad pulled up on one of the empty belt hoops on my jeans. I know I'd gotten taller in the last few months, just not any thicker.

“I don't need any luck,” I said.

“Well, then, do you want some eggs?”

I started to say no, but then I told him yes because I knew it would make my dad happy to make breakfast for me and I figured that I could always just leave them anyway, since I knew I was too jittery to eat. “I'll go get Reno up while you fix ‘em.”

I stopped just inside the screen door, my hands ready to push, looking out, away from my father. “Dad?” I said, and I could feel him looking at me. “I'm going into eleventh grade now and so next year might be our last summer together if I end up going away to school.”

“Yes?”

“Well, the reason I'm saying this is that mare Ghost I got is a real good horse with a real good head, too. She's going to be a good riding horse once I'm done with her and when I do, I want to give her to you so next summer you and me can take that trip up to that cabin like you said you wanted to do. I've been thinking about that for a long time but just didn't have the guts to ask you till now. So will you do it?”

My dad never liked horses.

“I swear I will, Troy,” he said, and put his hand on my shoulder. “I promise we'll do it.”

I made sure Reno looked especially good that day. He was clean and combed and his mane hung perfectly straight and even. The saddle and all my gear were soaped and shined, too, and Reno felt the excitement of the morning. Every ‘49ers Day began with a parade, which was always led by the numbered riders competing in the biathlon, with the Holmes School band, a Forest Service fire truck, and a few other local entries following. The parade was always announced by the sheriff over the PA system on his car, and immediately after, the biathlon's first rider would get sent out.

Of course I didn't eat more than a couple bites of my breakfast, but my dad didn't seem too bothered by that. I was just about to make an excuse for not wanting to finish when Tommy drove up with the trailer to take me and Reno to the start.

I ran back to my room and put a T-shirt on, then grabbed my hat and headed for the front door.

“I'm going, Dad.”

“I'll see you up there, son. Good luck,” he called out from in the kitchen.

“I don't need it,” I said as I shut the door behind me.

I pulled Reno around the side of the house where Tommy waited. As I got him up into the trailer, he shook his head back and forth, trying to say he'd rather run. That was good, I thought.

Tom and I closed up the trailer and climbed into the cab.

“Ready for the big shootout, Stotts?” Tommy said as he started the engine.

“Thanks for coming to get us. It would be a lot of riding, even for Reno. You and Gabe all set for later?”

“I'm going to drive Arrow and Dusty up to the fire pit, if that's okay with you. So we'll just all meet there after the barbecue.”

“That's okay. It's not too far. It'll be fun.”

“Yeah. I don't think Gabe's even really got permission from his dad to come along, but that's his problem, ‘cause he's coming anyway.”

“Sounds like you're kidnapping him.”

Tommy, grinning, steered with his knee and opened up his can of tobacco.

“Want some?”

“Not now. I feel sick, kind of.”

“You'll shoot and ride the hell out of that thing, don't worry,” Tom said, and I felt better just hearing my friend talk like that. “CB and Ramiro are taking off this morning to flatbed some hay down that easement road to throw out for those horses. I gave him a can of chew for Rose in case she's back yet and I told him to tell her we'll come out on Monday and see her.”

“That's really nice of them. Tell your dad thanks if I don't see him.”

“It's not that nice. He's taking it out of our wages anyway.”

“Just so he's not charging us feed store prices.”

“Feed store prices plus hourly for him and Ramiro.” Then he spit into his ever-present, half-filled cup. And I laughed. I knew he was joking, and I knew that Carl would probably end up not charging us anything for that hay, even though I believed it was a fair thing to do.

Tom looked at me. “Where's your bandana?”

“What?”

“You should have a bandana or something when you ride in one of these things. You never know. You might need to wipe the sweat off your hands or your eyes or keep the dust out of your face. You could even get cut. You need one.”

“I didn't think about that.”

“Well, here.” Tommy tilted over to one side and pulled a pressed and folded red bandana from his back pocket.

“Is it used?”

“That would make it even luckier.” Then he spit again.

I tied the bandana around my neck like an outlaw in one of those old westerns. “I don't need any extra luck. Thanks, Tom.”

“You just win, Stotts. We're all going to be betting on you.”

“That makes me feel even worse, then.”

There was always a lot of money being bet on the biathlon. Everyone knew it was illegal, even the sheriff, but it was just like a regular horse race and, of course, Clay Rutledge gambled on it just as much as anyone else. And everyone said he took his own cut from it, too. Bettors could put money to win, place, or show on any one of the numbered riders in the event and the betting tickets were sold right over the counter at Papa's store. Most people thought the money from the biathlon was the only thing that kept Papa's open for business from one year to the next.

There were at least fifteen riders already there at the check-in when Tommy and I got to Three Points. Most of them I had never seen before, but there were a few hands from the Benavidez ranch who said hi to me, and I saw Chase Rutledge and that leopard Appaloosa of his there, too, which didn't do anything good for my nervous stomach.

“I feel like I'm gonna throw up,” I whispered to Tom as we went to the sign-in table.

“Aim that way,” he said, pointing a thumb like a hitchhiker toward Chase.

Then I saw the Benavidez family there by the table, all smiling at me like I was some kind of hero. Gabriel came up to me, snaking through the crowd gathered around the table filling out forms and paying entry fees.

“Hey, Troy. You look like a bank robber,” Gabe said.

“Don't say that too loud, I think Rutledge still wants to put me in jail,” I said. “You coming tonight?”

“Sure thing.”

“Troy!” Mr. Benavidez smiled and reached out a hand. This time he squeezed real hard and slapped my shoulder, too, with a stinging left swat. “Let me pay your entry fee. You can be sponsored by the Benavidez ranch.”

“No offense, Mr. Benavidez.” I felt myself turning a little red. “But no thanks. I wouldn't know what to do with this fifty dollars I got in my pocket otherwise, and I've been ready to do this since my birthday.”

“You're quite a young man, Troy,” he said, and then he started to say something else but Luz cut him off.

“Hi, Troy. Are you feeling good?”

She was looking at my pants sagging over the tops of my tennis shoes, so I know what she was thinking.

“I can't wear a belt when I ride. It hurts. Sorry, Luz,” I said, looking down. “And I feel horrible. I think I'm sick or something.”

My hand was shaking and I could hardly write legibly when I filled out the entry forms at that table. To make things worse, they were all looking over my shoulder as I wrote.

I paid my fee and drew a Popsicle stick from inside a big upturned hat. I drew number seven and was handed a printed bib and four safety pins to attach to my shirt.

“Number seven, Dad, number seven,” Gabe said, indicating which number to place money on over at the small store. Maybe I was dreaming, but I heard a couple other people saying “number seven” from within the crowd.

“All riders should report to parade lineup,” the sheriff was announcing from his loudspeaker.

“I should go get my horse,” I said.

I saw Mr. Benavidez grab his wife's arm and turn back toward Papa's, Gabe following. Somewhere back in the crowd I saw my father, could read his lips as he was talking to another spectator. He was saying, “Number seven.”

I felt as dizzy as the first time I chewed that tobacco with Tommy, and I followed my friend back to that old Ford truck, where Reno was tied outside the trailer, numbly aware that I was barely holding that bib number in my hand and Luz was following along.

“Here,” she said, “give me those,” when she saw that I couldn't get the first safety pin open with my sweaty hand. She took the bib and pins from me and I wiped my hand up on that bandana around my neck.

“Don't scream too loud if I stick you, Troy,” she said and she pressed the bib up to my chest and opened the first pin. Then she slid her other hand up inside my shirt and I felt her cool, smooth arm slide up my belly and chest and my knees nearly buckled underneath me.

Tommy must have known what was happening because I felt his hands bracing my shoulders from behind me.

“Easy there, Stottsy. You're not resting on us yet.”

And me standing there, barely, wishing there were a dozen more pins to hold that number seven to my chest. After she closed the fourth pin, she turned her hand around and pressed her palm on my breast.

“Your heart is beating so hard,” she said.

“I know.”

She rubbed her palm down my belly softly and then she pulled my shirt down straight and smoothed out the number by rubbing it down on my chest. Then she pulled that red bandana around so the knot was behind my neck.

“There,” she said. “You're the handsomest rider in the bunch by far.” And then she looked over at Tommy and back at me and said, “Good luck, Troy.”

And then she leaned forward and kissed me softly on the cheek.

“Oh, he says he doesn't need any,” Tommy said.

I didn't say anything, but I heard Mr. Benavidez calling for Luz from somewhere far away. She whirled around and disappeared into the swirling and buzzing crowd.

As fast as I could, I ran behind the trailer and bent forward with my hands on my knees and threw up all over the tire.

“That's probly a good thing, Stottsy,” Tom Buller said, standing right behind me, next to my horse. “That's probly a real good thing.”

And then I heard him spit.

They began playing the national anthem. I was late to line up. The parade was starting, and we were supposed to be in numbered order.

“Come on, Stotts. Get up on your horse before it's too late.”

I moved over to Reno's left side and got my foot up in the stirrup. I stood there for a second and then I wiped my face off with that bandana.

“Now
that's
lucky,” Tom said, pointing at the smear on his bandana.

“I feel good now.”

“Good. ‘Cause I'm going down there to see George at the store and I'm gonna put a week's pay on number seven.”

“Please don't, Tommy.”

“Don't worry, Stottsy,” he said. “I'm betting you all three ways. There's no way I can lose.”

And then Tom Buller slapped my leg as I got up on my horse and turned away toward Papa's. Then he called back over his shoulder, “I know you don't need it, so I won't say it.”

I rode Reno to the lineup and found my place near the front. There were thirty-two of us, so I figured the staggered start would take almost three hours and if we were lucky, the last riders would be in by noon. Last year's winner got to wear number one; he was an older rider from Holmes who had grown up most of his life in Texas. He was real good, and won the event the last three years running. I saw Chase off behind me wearing number nineteen.