Painted Boots (18 page)

33

I’VE GOT THE
horse trailer in sight when Rox suddenly whinnies.  She rears back, her eyes wide and panicked as she rises on her hind legs.  I scream, but I clutch her mane, pressing my knees tight to her belly.

Rox
bolts into a crazy run.

Kyle is far ahead of me, almost to the truck.  In
my vibrating, jarring view I see him pull Bucky’s reins and sharply turn.  His horse sprints toward me, Kyle’s body so smooth in the saddle it’s like he sits on a cushion of air.  He pulls up across my path and Rox rears back, again.

“What should I do?” I
yell, clinging to the horse.  “Tell me what to do!”

Kyle
stands in his stirrups and reaches up.  Rox towers over him, whinnying and kicking.  I scream again, sure he’ll be killed.  But he dodges her legs as he gathers her reins in his fist.  He yanks Rox downward.  Then he wraps the reins around his hand, drawing her in until Rox’s head is pressed against his thigh.  The horse blows through her nostrils, stamping her feet.  Her thrashing tail sounds like brittle straw.  Her body shivers so violently it rattles my bones.  Kyle holds the reins tight.

“What happened?” he asks.

“I don’t know!  She was fine.  I don’t know why she freaked.”

Kyle looks beyond me, scanning the way we’
ve come.  “Did you hear anything?”

“
A twig cracked somewhere.  Or maybe it was wind in the trees.  Just the ordinary stuff I’ve been hearing all day.  Then she started running.”  I’ve still got a death-grip on Rox’s mane and slowly, I let go.  Drawing a deep breath, I sit up and pat her neck.  “I’m sorry, girl,” I say.

Kyle practically rolls his eyes. 
“God, Aspen!  Don’t fret for the horse.  Rox might have thrown you.  She might have trampled you.  You did right, to hang on.”  Rox’s body quivers.  She side-steps, her teeth grinding at the bit.  “Come on now, Roxy,” he says.  “Mellow down.”

“
She’s shaking like crazy,” I say.  “I feel it everywhere.”

Kyle nods.

I grip the pommel horn as he leads Rox to the trailer.  All the way she fights him, tossing her head, testing his hold on her reins.  Her tail beats against her flanks.

When we reach the trailer Kyle
dismounts Bucky without letting go of Rox, slapping the stallion up the ramp.  Then he lifts one of Rox’s front legs, examining the hoof.  He lifts the other.  Still grasping the pommel, I swing free of the saddle and step down.  From the corner of my eye I see a slick of red.  “I think she’s bleeding!” I say.

Kyle
is still examining Rox’s flank, near her tail, when he says, “Get in the truck.”

“But shouldn’t we—”

“I said get in the truck!”  He urges Rox up the ramp, the horse wide-eyed and snorting.  When she’s in the trailer he lifts the gate, slamming it with a bang against the cold metal frame.  The noise scares the horses.  They whinny and shift, but Kyle doesn’t seem to care.

He’s mad, I can tell,
as I help him close the doors and secure the bolts.  We climb into the cab from opposite sides but I scoot across the seat, slipping my hand under his duster and onto his thigh as he starts the engine.

“
She’s been shot,” he says.  “A pellet gun, I’d guess.  We would have heard it, otherwise.” The truck’s tires spin for a moment, climbing free of where they’ve settled in the snow.  Then we’re away, following the snow-packed road to the highway.  As Kyle pulls onto the asphalt, I shiver.

“
Back there,” he says.  “I needed you in the truck, girl.  I was scared as hell.”

“
But I wanted to help.”

Kyle
bites at his glove, pulling it from his hand.  He curls his fingers over mine.  “I don’t know if someone was meaning to fire on us or if it was just an accident or what.  I mean, it could have been you hit, as easy as Rox.”

He
clears his throat and wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close.  He kisses the side of my head.  Like a cat circling round and round before it settles into sleep, Kyle moves his arm from my shoulders and holds my hand.  From there he touches my knee.  Then he drapes his arm around my shoulders, again.  Finally he pulls to the side of the road, gathers me in a huge hug and holds me against his chest.  He kisses my cheek, my forehead, my hair.  He hums softly.  Humming is his comfort, like an old worn toy.  It makes me feel guilty.

I should tell him
.  I should tell him about the dead bird and the red cloth and the circle of rocks in my drive.  I should tell him everything.

But I’m scared of what he’ll do.  Maybe he’ll think it’s all too much
and end things between us.  Or worse, maybe he’ll go back with Em, promising it would only be for a while and asking me to wait.  I’d go insane seeing them together—holding hands or kissing.  Just thinking on it makes me sizzle with anger.

But w
hat if he sided with Dad and sent me to Portland?  What if Kyle tried to take me to Portland himself?  I can’t picture him there, the sky three inches above his head most months and crowds of people all around him.  He belongs here, and so do I.  I don’t want to leave Gillette.  I won’t be exiled like I’ve done something wrong.  I’m with Kyle and Em won’t ruin us.  I won’t let her.

I
pull Kyle into a kiss and slip my hand beneath his coat.  My fingers are clumsy as I unbutton his shirt, but I don’t stop until I can touch the smooth skin of his chest.  While we kiss a semi-truck whizzes by, splattering the Ford with slush.  The horses neigh and stamp.

“What about
Rox?” I ask.

“
It’s just a nick.”  Kyle presses another kiss to my mouth, pushing against me until we’re lying across the front seat.  He pauses a moment, kneeling over me as he tugs off his duster.  Then, as he comes close to kiss me again, he throws the duster over us.  Suddenly we’re in a world that seems ours alone—I have the same private feeling I’d get when I was young and I’d smuggle a flashlight under my bedcovers at night so I could read.

I work his shirt free of his jeans and caress his back.  He eases his body onto mine.  H
is fingers find their way under my sweater, their coolness a surprise against the bare warmth of my waist.

“I’ve got you, girl,” he whispers.  “I’ve got you.”

34

DAD FLAPS HIS arms like he’s being swarmed by killer bees.  He yells, “What the hell, Ray?  What the hell?” over and over.  He stops in front of Rox and shouts, “What the hell?” As if she’ll answer him or something.

I’ll admit,
in a space as big as the Thackers’ barn, Dad’s yelling doesn’t carry weight.  He paces the length, back and forth, shouting out his frustration.  Most of his racket is absorbed by hay, horse-training stuff and saddles.  Not to mention the nineteen horses occupying nineteen of the twenty stalls—ten stalls along each side of the barn.

I
stay out of the way, watching.  I’ve hardly seen my father since Monday, the day he and Kyle had their man-to-man.  Kyle’s been picking me up for school all week.  I’ve spent my afternoons at the Thackers’ house; dinner-time, too.  Maybe my absence explains why I can’t read Dad’s expression.  Or maybe I just don’t want to.

Ray Thacker pulls a small pewter-colored plug, looking more like a chess piece than a bullet, from
Rox’s flank.  “Pellet gun,” he says.  “A small one, though.  The wound’s superficial.  It scared her, more than anything.”

Dad
jabs his finger into Kyle’s chest.  I flinch.  Kyle’s eyes darken, like a threatening sky. “Why didn’t you call the cops?” Dad yells.  “What were you doing out in the middle of nowhere?  What were you thinking?”

Kyle frowns.

Ray Thacker says, “Best you answer, son.”  He sprays antiseptic all over Rox’s rump.

“
People go up shooting all the time,” Kyle says in a controlled voice.  He glances at me.  “Most likely it was just a stray.”

I
gather an armful of stuff from the horse packs then slip from the barn, almost running as I head for the house.  I don’t want Dad’s questions flying my way.  And if Dad and Kyle are going to fight, well, I don’t want to see it.  Dad left me in Kyle’s care this week because he believes my life is back to normal.  Kyle isn’t suspicious only because he doesn’t know about the red cloth and black rocks and dead bird.  The Thackers have mellowed about Em’s intrusive visit only because Ray thinks it gave him ‘definitive proof.’

No one knows
she was wearing my belt.  No one knows about the handprint on our window or the black ribbon round our tree.  No one—except me and Em.

I’ve been telling myself
all week that in the long run, none of this will matter.  It was my plan to turn eighteen, tell Kyle everything and then sort it out, together.  Dad would never know about the marbles and the feathers in the mailbox.  And even if he found out he wouldn’t have the power to drag me off to Portland. I’d be an adult.  Technically.  But now, I don’t know.  Everything is different, now that Rox is hurt.

In the house
I hang my coat then put away the stuff from the packs.  After that I settle near the kitchen fire to think.  Jesse’s leaning like a model against the counter, her thin-fingered hands orchestrating her talk.  Her hair is woven into a thick braid—the curving strands shine copper in the firelight.  When she laughs, her wide-set eyes crinkle.  She has a nice smile, an open smile, like so many of the adults have here in Gillette.  I’ve tried not to notice, but she’s pretty.  Maybe even prettier than Mom.

I wonder
if Dad knew her in grade school.  Maybe he knew Ray Thacker and Angella.  Maybe he even knew Em’s parents.  I’d bet anything he grew up in Gillette, that as a kid he knew half of the people he works with and runs into at the grocery.  If he did know Jesse growing up it might explain why he fell into step with her so easily—it’s an old-friends thing.  They lunch together most days.  And sometimes she sleeps over, though she’s careful about it, even after the awkward sex-talk she sat in on with Dad.

Jesse says
, “You’re quiet tonight, Aspen.”  I stare at my boots.

“
You could set the table,” Angella commands.

I lift
six heavy, hand-thrown plates from the cupboard near the sink, then arrange them around the dining table.  Each one has a small branded-looking element at its center: a lizard, a roadrunner, a cactus, a horseshoe, a snake, an owl.  The plates are beautifully glazed in natural earthy hues.  I turn one over.  It’s stamped AMT in an old-style letterpress font.

“Where’d these come from?” I ask.

“I made them,” Angella says.  She wanders in from the kitchen and places a fist-full of knives, forks and spoons on the table’s corner.  “The stamp’s mine.  Angella Marne Thacker.  I used to sell pottery, in my life before motherhood.  I did art fairs and everything.  I’ll make a set for you, if you’d like.”

“I’d love that,” I
mumble, but I can’t meet her gaze.  For some reason her offer fuels my guilt.  She asks, “Is something wrong?” and I shake my head.  I wouldn’t know where to start.

I need
to talk with Kyle.  I need him.  But I can’t go back out to the barn.  For all I know Kyle and Dad are pounding on each other.  Maybe Ray Thacker is—at this moment!—asking Dad to leave.  If I go out there they might question me too much.  I’m not a good liar.  Just a good avoider.  If they pressed me I’d spill the truth, then Dad would take me back to Portland.  I’d lose the happiness I’ve found here in Gillette.  I’d lose Kyle.

I gather
up the silverware with careful, trembling hands and set each place, making sure the twiggy handles align with the table’s edge.  There’s nothing else to do.

It’s two a.m. when I open the door and step into the coal-dark hallway of Kyle’s house.  I walk slowly, keeping one hand on the wall as I move past the master bedroom.  From somewhere I catch a whiff of the peach and raspberry cobbler Angella made for dessert—the one I ate four long hours ago with the Thackers and Dad and Jesse.  Over dessert Dad had asked,
if
it wouldn’t be an imposition,
if I could spend the night.  Angella looked at Kyle.  Ray said, “Sure.”  Jesse glanced at Dad and smiled.

I missed Mom a lot
, just then.

I touch
rough stone and pause.  It’s here the hallway branches.  Two more doors and I’m standing at the entrance to Kyle’s room.  His door is closed, like all the others have been.  I rest my hand on the knob then twist, feeling grateful it isn’t locked.  Once inside, I close the door behind me.

“Kyle?”

Nothing.

Is he here?  I can’t tell
—it’s like I’ve stepped from a cavern into an abyss.  I’m tempted to turn on the light, but I don’t.  Instead I move carefully forward, listening for any sound of him, hoping he’s not in the Jam.  My toes brush the floor in arcing sweeps; my arms stretch outward like a mummy in old cartoons.  I step onto the faux bearskin rug.  My thigh bumps up against his bed.  Kyle draws one deep breath and I almost cry. I climb up next to him and sit just as a wild shiver wracks my body.

“Kyle?”
I clutch at my elbows.  “Are you awake?”

The covers rustle. 
Kyle reaches out and pulls me down, draping the comforter over me as he gathers me close.  His warmth is instant relief.  I kiss him on his chin, I think, then I find his mouth.  His hand moves along my side, pushing my tee-shirt up.  He says, “How naked do I need to get you girl, before you’ll tell me what’s going on inside your head?”

I
burst into tears.  I can’t help it.  I mean, once I tell Kyle what I know, everything will fall apart.  But he doesn’t ask me why I’m crying.  He doesn’t say anything at all.  He holds me tight, waiting, I guess, while I find words for all the secrets I’ve buried deep.

It takes a while, b
ut once the truth surfaces it flows in torrents, spilling from me in breathy whispers.  And I surprise myself.  I mean, it’s not just my belt or the dead bird or the circle of stones in my driveway.  It’s not just marbles tossed against my bedroom window.

It’s Dad and Jesse.

The more Jesse’s around the more Mom fades away, farther from me than she’s ever been.  It’s like my mother’s making room for Dad to become someone else, but I’m not ready.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be.

W
hen I’ve said all there is to say and Kyle’s asked all he can think to ask and we’ve debated and theorized and accepted that things are what they are, we let go of talking.  Kyle curls around me, humming our song in my ear.  I close my eyes and drift into sleep.