Marvel and a Wonder (6 page)

“I don’t like this,” the boy said, trying to get his balance. “This is a bad idea.”

“Give a little kick,” Rodrigo said.

“I don’t want to kick it.”

“Just a little one.”

The boy sighed and gave a small kick. The horse did not move, only knelt over, nosing at the grass.

“A little harder,” Rodrigo said.

The boy obliged and this time the mare took off, jerking the reins from the farmhand’s fist, trotting a sharp path along the fence line. The boy’s stomach leapt from his mouth as he tried to cry for help.

“Whoa!” Rodrigo called, but the horse kept bolting forward, the boy letting out a high-pitched sound, his glasses flying from his face. “Whoa!” Rodrigo repeated. “Whoa!” until he could catch up and grab hold of the reins.

Rodrigo and the grandfather were laughing, the boy tumbling out of the saddle, cursing, finding his glasses in a bowl of mud. He wiped them off against his pants and cursed again. “Very funny, very funny, laugh it up,” he muttered, and then at the horse, “We’re not friends anymore. We’re not friends.”

“Go on,” the grandfather said. “Give it another try.”

“No way. She tried to kill me.”

Jim watched the boy storm into the house, the kitchen screen door slamming behind him. He turned and glimpsed Rodrigo combing the mare’s hindquarters, then slowly headed inside.

The boy was at the kitchen table eating cereal. He did not look up. Jim poured himself a cup of coffee, staring out the rectangular window, his back to the boy.

“When I was just about your age,” he began, “or maybe just a few years older, they made me an MP and sent me over to Korea. I was stationed in a place called Chuncheon. In the north. Right by the thirty-eighth parallel. The other side of that line was all the bad guys. They sent all the roughneck American soldiers up there, the ones they didn’t mind seeing shot or blown up. I was in the vice squad. That’s what it was called. We were supposed to keep the other soldiers, the enlisted men, out of trouble. They’d get themselves drunk and get in a fight or go and get VD from some Korean prostitute, or else they’d steal something and then try to sell it, and it was our job to make sure none of that happened.

“The place I was stationed in, they had all kinds of superstitions. The people up there said there were demons that lived in the jungle. And sometimes you’d believe them. There were all kinds of weird lights, like tracer bullets. Strange things were always happening up there. One time, my partner Stan and me were driving in the jeep, and I had to take a leak, so we pulled over and I went off in the brush a little way, trying not to step on a mine, and there was this tree full of dead mice. They had been hung there with string, hundreds of them. Like a kind of sacrifice, I guess. I guess some of them were rats. Well, I seen them and I ran off. It was spooky. These Koreans, they had hung them up there to keep the demons of the woods happy. I was convinced it really was haunted.

“Another time, Stan and me were driving somewhere else. He outranked me, so he always drove. He said I drove like a civilian. We were driving and this Korean fella jumps out of the woods, right in front of the jeep, like he was going to kill himself. Stan swerved out of the way, and the vehicle goes off the road, into a ditch. I swear I nearly broke my neck. Stan gets out, he runs over and grabs the guy and starts shouting at him in Korean, and I ask him what it’s all about. And then he tells me that the guy said he had a demon. And the only way to get rid of a demon was to scare him out. So the guy jumped in front of the jeep trying to scare off the demon but he almost got all three of us killed. Stan said later that it wasn’t the first time something like that happened.

“So this one night, a soldier goes AWOL, some nineteen-year-old kid, and we searched all the regular hangouts, the dives, and we’re about out of ideas when a local came up to the jeep waving his arms, saying there was a ghost in his chimney. Stan and I looked at each other and followed the old man to his house. Their houses weren’t really houses, just shacks, I guess, and the old man was pointing and Stan glanced at me like I should be the one to take a peek, because I had the lower rank, and so I took out my sidearm and tried to squeeze my way through. The whole thing was about as wide as a bread box, and I poked my head inside but there was nothing but black.”

“What did you see?” the boy asked.

“I didn’t see anything. But I heard something, this low kind of moan, and I thought it was a demon who was going to pull me up the chimney, and I got my flashlight out and tried to see what was ahead of me as I was climbing up, but there was no room to maneuver, so I put the flashlight in my mouth and started climbing, and the chimney was all at odd angles, and I could hear the moan again, and I looked up and saw this face, but it wasn’t a face, just this pale white shape peering back at me, and I screamed and the face screamed back and I tried to get my arm up to shoot, but I couldn’t, so I screamed again and then I glimpsed a face, the face of some nineteen-year-old boy, the kid we had been looking for who had gone AWOL. For some reason, he thought to hide in a chimney and he got stuck and broke his leg trying to escape. Eventually we got him out, and he did his time before getting shipped back to the front line. But the thing of it was, I was scared. I thought for sure I was going to die up in that chimney.”

The boy sniffled again and set down his spoon. “So?”

“So I’m telling you this because it’s okay to be scared. Scared means you’re smart. Scared keeps you alive. There ain’t nothing you can do to avoid being scared. But being scared all the time isn’t any way to live.”

The boy stared into his empty bowl.

“Finish up and meet me in the coop. We got eggs to candle yet.”

The boy nodded, contemplating the murky reflection in his spoon.

Later, sometime after lunch, the grandfather was cleaning the dishes in the sink when he glanced up across the field and saw Quentin feeding the horse, one hand holding the bucket of oats, the other on the animal’s neck, the boy singing or talking. Jim smiled, holding the boy’s dirty plate in his hands.

* * *

On the first Friday of August, Jim Northfield came for a visit. He pulled his dilapidated gray Chevy into a corner of the drive and climbed out, stepping around the mud in his Sears catalog boots, which looked like they had never been worn.

The grandfather peered up from the rusty irrigation hose and grinned. “To what do we owe the honor?” he called out, putting down the wrench before standing.

Jim Northfield smiled and made his way over. “I’ve got some news.”

“You could have phoned. You didn’t need to come all the way out here.”

“I don’t mind driving for good news.”

“Hate to see you get your fancy boots dirty.”

Jim Northfield’s smile grew. “You like these?”

“Those boots look like they cost more than I make in six months.”

“Well, you should have paid better attention in school.”

“Ha. There wasn’t any school when I was a kid,” the grandfather joked.

“I know, I know. But you still walked uphill both ways.”

The grandfather chuckled. “What brings you out?”

“I came to see your horse. I like to meet all my clients face to face.”

The grandfather tipped his hat.

* * *

Rodrigo led it out to the squared-off pasture, holding the fancy reins in his hand. The sun fell on its coat, making it look like the mare was built of silver, like the ornament on some king’s tomb. Then it began to run, its pink nostrils tightening then going wide, long legs crossing the muddy field quickly.

“What do you say?” the grandfather asked.

“She’s a beaut. You time her yet?”

“Time her? What do I know about racehorses?”

“You don’t have to be an expert to see that animal likes to run.”

The grandfather nodded, conceding the point. “So what’s this good news you brought?”

“I got ahold of someone at the delivery company; said they weren’t allowed to give out the name of the folks who hired them.”

“Hmm.”

“Then just last weekend I was over in South Bend; met a few of the boys I went to law school with. One of them is a federal judge now. I told him about your predicament. He asked me if you had the transfer of property. I said yes. He told me he thought you were in the clear. He said if it was his client, he’d tell ’em to keep his mouth shut. Things like this happen all the time.”

“But it ain’t ours.”

“Listen, I can keep trying to get ahold of those folks on the East Coast for you, but the thing is, that horse was sent to you, for whatever reason.”

“There wasn’t any reason.”

“Who are we to say?”

“It was sent to us by mistake.”

“Don’t you read your Bible? A miracle is a miracle. You don’t question that sort of thing.”

The grandfather frowned and thought on that, staring across the field.

* * *

Before turning in that evening, the grandfather knocked on the boy’s bedroom door to say goodnight.

The boy looked up from his video game, nodded, and, just as the grandfather was walking away, asked, “Sir?”

“Hm.”

“Where do you think it came from?”

“Hm?”

“The horse. Where do you think it came from?”

The grandfather smiled. “I don’t know.”

The boy said goodnight, then went back to his game.

* * *

One week after that, on a Thursday around four p.m., there was a long-distance call from New York, from the office of a female lawyer asking to speak with Jim Falls. The grandfather stood in the kitchen and held the phone to his ear, then took a seat at the table, trying to steady himself.

“This is him,” the grandfather said. “I’ve been wondering when you were going to call.”

The voice on the line introduced herself as Lila Winn, saying she represented the office of the executor of the will that had awarded Jim the horse. Apparently, several parties were now challenging the executor’s interpretation, which, in their opinion, had “injudiciously” reallocated a number of the deceased’s holdings. The ownership of the horse as well as several other assets were being called into question.

“Is the animal still in your possession?” the distant female voice asked. “Or has it been sold?”

“No, we’ve been taking care of it. I told my friend this was all some sort of mistake. I’m happy you all figured it out, but we’ll be mighty upset to see the horse go.”

“Well, as of right now, Mr. Falls, the horse technically belongs to you. Or at least until these other countersuits are settled. Which may not be for some time.”

“No? Well, how long?”

“I’ve known cases like this to go on for years.”

“Years,” Jim repeated. Then again, quieter, “Years.” He held the yellow plastic receiver in the crook of his neck. “So you’re telling me it’s mine?”

“For now. Or at least until this other business is adjudicated. Is this the best number to reach you at?”

“Yes ma’am.” And then he asked, “Do you mind saying that all again? About the horse.”

“It’s yours, for now,” she said softly.

“For now,” he repeated. “Do you think you can do me one more favor, miss?”

“If I can.”

“Do you think you can tell me where it came from? Who sent it, I mean.”

“I’m not able to give out that information at this time.”

“No?” Jim frowned. “We’d just like to know, that’s all.”

“I understand. I’m just not authorized to give out that information at the moment.”

“I see. Well, this certainly is interesting. I . . . I thank you for the call.”

“We’ll be in touch, Mr. Falls. Have a good evening.”

Jim said goodbye and set the phone back on the wall, holding his hand against the cool plastic device, waiting for it to begin to ring again, to tell him it was all a joke. But it did not. He thought maybe the conversation had taken place inside some childhood dream—the fields gone purple, a girl with an apple for a face, a tea kettle that could speak. He stood there in the kitchen with his hand on the phone for a long while.

* * *

In the dark later that same night, the grandfather crept out alone to the stable and put a hand on the mare’s neck.
What if?
he began to think, looking into its blue-black eyes, measuring the gentle slope of its shoulder, feeling its breath on the palm of his other hand.
What if?
What if it really is ours? What if we were to race it? What if this might be the thing, the one thing that saved us?

_________________

But soon August was more than halfway over; summer was already coming to an end. The grandfather felt an ambivalence about this, as he did with most things; though the heat would be gone and with it the reek of the henhouse—the odor altogether unignorable, unpleasant, the chalky smell of dry feed, sawdust, and molted feathers forever hanging about their clothes, their hair, their fingernails—soon Rodrigo would be heading back to Mexico and the boy to school, which meant that the grandfather would have to once again work the farm on his own. On the other hand, there was the mare and a host of other prospects, a life that had, before the horse’s appearance, seemed impossible.

On a Saturday morning in the middle of August, just around ten a.m., a big shot named Bill Evens came around to appraise the animal. Bill Evens was an operator, a former state congressman, and construction contractor who owned nine or ten racehorses, which he kept on an immense spread of land about forty minutes south of town.

He drove up to the farmhouse in a brand-new Ford pickup without an introduction or invitation, his wide, bald head covered with a dented straw cowboy hat, dark prescription glasses obscuring his face. He walked right over to the small pasture they had set up and leaned against the snake-rail fence, then let out a piercing whistle.

“Look at them hinds,” he said, squatting down, grinning through the fence.

Jim came out of the coop, a Delaware rooster in hand. “Howdy.”

Evens turned and smiled. “She looks like a racer,” he announced, grinning wider. He stood and extended a wide hand for Jim to shake. “Don’t believe we’ve met. Name’s Evens. I own the Triple A, near Bellwood.”