Lean on Pete (17 page)

I was still lying on the ground. I couldn’t breathe, then finally my air came back and I nodded. My nose started to bleed and my ribs hurt. Mike gave me his hand. I took it and he pulled me up.

Chapter 18

My right leg hurt when I stood on it but when I walked around it got better and it got easier to breathe. Pete moved back underneath the shelter in the shade. Mike and Dallas went back into the trailer. I got the milk crate and set it by Pete, sat on it, and apologized to him and tried not to cry, but after a while I did.

My thoughts got to me again. I was a horrible person, and I had gotten us in a huge mess. I felt as lost and lonely as I ever had and I couldn’t stop worrying about Pete. I sat out there and I didn’t know what to do. Then Mike and Dallas came from the trailer and walked over to me. They were both wearing shirts now and had sunglasses on and Dallas carried a twelve pack of beer.

“We’re going to get you a bale of hay,” Mike said. “You can come along if you want.”

I stood up and followed them to their car. I got in the backseat and Mike lit a cigarette and started the engine. Dallas gave him a beer. He opened it, took a drink from the can, then drove us out to the main road. Dallas turned the stereo on and he played it so loud you couldn’t hear anything. The windows were rolled down and there was a breeze and the day was almost over.

We drove for a while on a paved road, then we came to a yellow house set back on a dirt drive and we drove down it and parked in front of a barn. Next to us was a rusted-out pickup truck and a horse trailer and a tractor and farm gear. The barn was twice the size of the house. It was yellow too but the paint was coming off and the whole place seemed like it was leaning.

Mike finished his beer and cut the engine. He lit another cigarette, then we all got out, walked up to the house, and he knocked on the door.

An old man answered.

“Hey, Mr. Kendall.”

“Is that you, Mike?”

“It is,” Mike said and he introduced Dallas and me. Then the old man opened the door and led us through the house and out the back door to where there was a deck. He had the radio going and was drinking a can of soda and we all sat out there on folding chairs. His eyes were gray and he wore glasses and his hands were so bent with arthritis that he had a hard time holding the soda can.

“Can I offer you a beer, Mr. Kendall?” Mike asked.

“It’s too early for me but I don’t care what anyone else does.”

Dallas grabbed the twelve pack at his feet and took out two.

“So you’re back?”

“We have two more weeks until we have to report again.”

“You boys are doing us a good service.”

Mike lit another cigarette.

“We’re doing something over there alright.”

Dallas laughed at that. Then Mike told us about a friend of theirs who lost both his legs and got a concussion so bad he can’t talk. He listed a few guys he knew who were killed over there. Then he told us about having to shoot a guy in the head. How the man’s head just blew off but his body stood there for a time. And then he talked about a morning they saw a truck in front of them blow up and then about a guy he knew that blew a girl in half. She was really cut in two parts. He split her at her belly.

“It’s a real fucking mess over there,” Mike said finally, and no one said anything for a while after that. The sun was going down over the hills. The radio played the news and then the farm reports.

“When you come back, are you going to take over your granddad’s place?” the old man asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We just had a few weeks off and I wanted to show Dallas. After I get back I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

The old man took out a short cigar from his pocket and lit it.

“I came across a mom coyote and her cubs last week. They were eating on something. There must have been seven of them. They were down in the gully. I had my rifle. I hit the first few while they were eating and a few others as they tried to run up the gully hill and escape.”

“Did you get them all?” Dallas asked.

“I think so,” the old man said.

Dallas laughed at that, but Mike didn’t even smile. He just looked at the hills and seemed tired.

The old man got up.

“Can you stay for dinner?”

“Sure,” Mike said. “If you don’t mind.”

“It’s sloppy joe night. Let me just make sure Laurie has enough.”

The old man went inside and Mike leaned over to Dallas and said something I couldn’t make out and they both busted out laughing.

When dinner was ready we sat in the kitchen. A huge woman stood there cooking. She was so big she used a walker to get around, but she looked young and he introduced us to her as his granddaughter. She was the largest woman I’d ever seen. You could tell it was hard for her to just walk, you could hear it in her struggle to breathe. It was like someone had blown up her body with air.

Her red hair came down to her shoulders and her face was alright. She wasn’t pretty but she wasn’t the other way either. We all sat around the table while she worked, and no one said anything to her and she hardly spoke at all. Dallas and Mike kept drinking beer and then the old man started drinking them too.

Dinner was sloppy joes with green beans, and there were two bags of potato chips on the table. She set down a plate in front of me and asked me if I wanted a soda. I nodded and she came back with two.

“Just in case you’re really thirsty,” she said and then she sat down at the end of the table. Everyone was eating and the food was good. She opened a can of soda for herself and when she did her grandfather stopped eating and wiped his mouth with a paper towel.

“Mike, she won’t even drink diet soda. She won’t even do that to help herself.”

Mike looked at the old man and nodded.

“I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how a person can get like she is.”

The woman just sat there and ate. She had the same amount as us, she didn’t have any more.

“If I were as big as a semi I’d try something. I’ve caught her in her room eating a whole bag of Snickers bars.”

“I was not,” she said. “You know that’s not true.” She had a nice voice. It was soft and warm. “You shouldn’t drink beer. You get ugly when you drink beer.”

The old man looked at her and we kept eating. When she got up to get us seconds the old man started talking about her even though she was just a few feet away.

“When she came to live here she was getting big and now she’s so big she can’t go up the stairs. I had to put in a shower downstairs because she can’t take a bath ’cause she can’t fit in the tub. It cost me three hundred dollars to do that. Look at her. She won’t eat much around me, but God knows when I’m asleep she puts on the feed bag.”

Mike and Dallas and I just sat there and listened. Then Mike set down his fork and said, “You’re lucky you got someone looking after you, Mr. Kendall.”

The old man just looked at Mike, but Mike looked right back, then smiled and drank from his beer. Laurie set down a plate with extra sloppy joes on it.

“Do you boys need any more beer?” the old man asked.

Both Dallas and Mike nodded and the woman went over to the fridge and brought back two. We all kept eating until the food was gone, then I helped clear the table and Laurie did the dishes. Mr. Kendall brought out a bottle of whiskey and they all went back out to the porch.

“Do you want me to dry?” I asked her.

“If you want,” she said and handed me a towel that was hanging from a hook on the wall. “What are you doing with Mike?”

“My truck broke down. I’m waiting for my ride. I just met Mike today.”

“He’s alright, I guess,” she said. “Do you like ice cream?”

“Sure,” I said, and when we’d finished cleaning up she made us two bowls of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and we went into the living room and watched TV. There was a movie on and we watched it until it was over, then we found another one.

“It’s going to take him a week to recover from tonight,” she said.

“Who?” I asked her.

“My grandfather. He’s not supposed to drink anymore. He’s an asshole when he drinks. It’s why no one ever comes here.”

We were silent for a long time.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Okay,” she said.

“Why do you stay here? He seems really mean.”

“I don’t know where else to go,” she said, and then she reached over to the end table and opened a drawer and took a pack of Werther’s candy and gave me one. Our legs touched as we sat next to each other on the small couch and it felt good that they were. Then Mike came in and got me and told me we were leaving. I told the woman goodbye and we went outside. Mike started the car and we drove down the side of their property to a hay shelter. He got out and climbed up a huge stack of hay and threw a bale down.

He put it on top of the car and we started driving again.

They were both so drunk they could hardly talk. Dallas had the music loud and we drove out the driveway onto the paved road and went fifteen miles an hour along it. We were halfway to the trailer when Dallas opened the door, leaned out, and puked.

“Don’t get any on my car,” Mike said and stopped. He laughed and got out of the car. I got out, too.

“You should stop puking and look at these stars,” Mike said and lit another cigarette.

“I hate sloppy joes,” Dallas said. He sat up, wiped his face with his shirt, and got out of the car. “I’ve always hated them.”

They both sat on the hood and Mike started talking about the army but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. After a while we drove back. Mike had to help Dallas out of the car because he was so drunk and he practically carried him into the trailer.

I pushed the bale off the roof and carried it over to Pete. I cut the bale strings and gave him three flakes and filled his water.

“I like you a lot, Pete,” I told him. “I’m sorry about what happened today. I’ll stand up for you better next time.” I pet him, then went inside.

The TV was going but they weren’t in the living room. I walked down the hall towards the bedrooms and saw Dallas face down on a twin bed, passed out. He lay there on the bed snoring. I called out to Mike but when I went back to his room he was passed out with headphones on and I could hear music coming from them.

I went into the bathroom and locked the door. I started the shower and took off my clothes and got in. I stayed there for a long time. When I got out I used a towel that was on the floor, then I looked through the medicine cabinet and found a tube of toothpaste and I put some on my finger and tried to brush my teeth.

When I went back out they were both still asleep. I went into the kitchen and looked through the cupboards. I found two cans of stew, a can of soup, and a couple cans of corn and I put them in a plastic sack. There were two empty gallon jugs and I filled both those with water, then I found a piece of paper and I wrote them a note. I thanked them and told them I’d pay them back for the canned food and the hay. I put the note on the counter and left.

Pete was still eating when I went to him and I waited until he finished.

The night was full of stars and it wasn’t cold. I sat down in the dirt and leaned against the barn and fell asleep. When I woke it was still dark and Pete was just standing there. I got up and put as much hay as I could in the duffel, then took a rope and tied one end around a jug of water and the other end around the other jug. I put the halter on him and opened the gate. I put my sleeping bag over my shoulder and carried the duffel and the plastic sack of canned food and the water and led Pete out of the pen and onto the road.

Chapter 19

When it got light we moved off the road and began following it from a distance as we had before. We kept walking and the landscape stayed the same, just sagebrush and rock and dirt and desert. We went through gullies and across long straight stretches of nothing.

We came to a fence. It was barbed wire running north and south and it blocked us from going east. I took us south, farther away from the highway, and we went for miles until there was a break and we went across there. I couldn’t see the highway anymore and I couldn’t hear it. Pete took shorter steps and I knew the rocks hurt his feet. At one point I stopped and looked at his shoes and saw he was missing his hind right. I didn’t know what to do so we just kept going. I came to a dirt road. We followed it for hours but I never once heard the sound of cars or trucks and I didn’t see any house or building either. Above us there were no clouds and it was really hot. There were no trees or shade anywhere.

Late in the afternoon we stopped to rest. I put out a flake of hay for Pete and while he ate I drank as much water as I could, then I cut the top off the plastic jug and held it in front of him. He didn’t drink from it for a while, then he finally did. I sat down on the road and opened a can of stew and ate.

We started walking again but I was tired and sunburned. I saw a ranch in the distance, maybe a mile away. It was dusk by then so I unrolled the sleeping bag and sat down. I took the extra rope and tied it to Pete’s lead so he’d have more room to move around, then I tied the end to my ankle and held on to the rope with my hand and night came.

We heard coyotes whine and it seemed like an ocean of them surrounding us. A wind picked up and it got cold. I put on my coat and fell asleep. In the middle of the night Pete pulled away from me and the rope around my ankle tugged and I woke up. I untied the rope and went to him and pet him and we stood in darkness and you could tell he was worried. I told him what a good horse he was, and how fast he was. I told him we’d find a place where both of us could stay for a long time. A place where his feet would get fixed, a place where there was a lot of food.

I kept talking to him. I told him about a time my dad and me and some friends of his spent a weekend at a cabin in the snow, and I told him about school, about teachers I had. About changing schools four times. About girls I saw and sat next to, about friends I had. I liked the school part of school alright, but I barely got good enough grades to play sports. I told him about getting free lunch and being embarrassed by it, and running to the cafeteria so I could eat before anyone I knew saw. Then I told him about my mother. About how I used to have a picture of her but that I threw it away one night when I was mad and how I tried never to think about her.