Riding Invisible (2 page)

More “back story”—can't sleep—it's those freakin' sounds.

WHAT'S WILL LIKE?

• handsome—girls say he's twisted but cute
  
• charming—only when he wants something
  
• smart—never gets A's but could if he wanted to
  
• sneaky—always manages to not get caught
  
• bad temper—yeah, and seeks revenge, too
  
• innocent—it's, like, never his fault
  

Will's Worst Characteristic:

PHYSICALLY CRUEL TO PEOPLE
(like younger brothers)

AND ANIMALS
(like my horse)

early—above Hansen Dam

So this morning on the Trail to Wherever, the fog was a thick, wet, way-heavy WALL, and I'm sitting here under a rain tree trying to write on a damp page. I packed my stuff when it was still dark, and we've ridden for a few hours already before it gets hot. So maybe I'm starting to wonder why the hell I'm out here eating pulverized potato chips and a bruised mushy apple with a label that says GALA. Now the sticker's on my cheek where I stuck it because GALA sounds so fun, like there's this GALA event out here where it's moist and chilly and where Shy practically inhales his feed, and I worry when it'll run out. He keeps giving me these sad-eye stares, and I'm sure in his small horse brain he thinks I've gone nuts.

Horse questions:

1. Dude! Where's the barn?
   
2. Like, where's my regular hay and how come you're so stingy with these pellets?
   
3. And not only that, I need water, okay? Where's the freakin' water? Huh??
   

early afternoon—15 miles(?) above Hansen Dam

So by the time we reached a rocky fire road, the little
stream was long gone, the canteen was almost empty,
and the sun had started to break through cloudy
clumps of haze. My palms kept trying to choke the soft
leather reins. Shy's gonna colic if he can't drink. That's
what horses do. They colic, and I've seen that before,
a colicky mare, and it was terrible how she thrashed
around and bit at her sides, pawing and sweating, all
out of control. They transported her to the equine
hospital, operated, and saved her.

I just yelled it. No one answered.

This horse has heart. He pushed forward all morning, a tireless machine. Finally, he found a trail behind the chaparral where we dropped deep into a shady oak grove. I turned hopeful and Shy did too, because he stamped his front hoof in some oozing mud and then lowered his nose to snort and sniff. Oh, it sucked of disappointment. Sorry, boy. No water. And we stared at the mud, both of us in our separate worlds of wanting and not receiving.

And now while we're resting, while my pen moves across this dry paper, there is nothing to drink. This whole thing is crazy! What was I thinking, doing this on a horse? We should turn around. My common sense tells me, “Go home. Go straight home, dude. Get that horse back in his barn where he wants to be.”

But we can't go back. There's a reason why we're out here running. I'm so exhausted, I don't want to think about it. I'd rather draw Christi and think about her.

God, I sound like a lovesick dipshit. I must be a Lovesick Dipshit. Note to self: Perfect title for romance-less teen novel I should write one day:

4:30 p.m.?—small clearing—20 miles? from home

The fire road eventually narrowed until it forked off to form a trail, and we were both sweating like horses without even one drop of drinking water in our guts. All of a sudden, this sign on a post seemed to burst out of the ground like a strange, fast-growing tree, and what it said made me swallow hard, my mouth all dry like that time I accidentally took three decongestant capsules instead of one.

Key word: PARK!! That must mean WATER!! Drinking fountain, right? Maybe a creek. So we turned left. My body sucked in arms and legs as soon as I noticed the first poison oak branch. The red-leaved autumn bushes aren't so toxic right now, but I am way allergic to the stuff, and it bordered the trail for the next two miles.

Two thirsty miles! Shy plodded along and I counted the steps out loud until we finally reached

WATER WATER WATER
glorious water!

The horse plunged in up to his knees gulping around the bit, guzzling like a sucking slurping celebration with the magical stuff dr i bbling off his whiskers, a mini-waterfall. Every time he raised his head it reminded me of a bearded goat in a rain forest downpour. When he wouldn't drink any more I guided him up a hill toward a small park building and dismounted beside the drinking fountain.

MY TURN!

Inside the park headquarters I found a public toilet, used it, then dipped my head in the dirty sink and splashed water on my face. When I walked out I noticed this middle-aged woman behind the counter and wiped my face on my shirt. This lady was wearing her name tag: JOAN, and a khaki shorts uniform. She had all this curly gray hair and white-framed glasses and these awful crooked yellow teeth that I noticed when she smiled at me. On her desk an open bag of peanuts was hanging around, along with a bunch of shells that were all over her work space and on the floor. Oh, and a hot-lookin' novel beside her laptop, probably one of those hopeful sagas written by some other Lovesick Dipshit.

“May I help you?” she said, staring at my cheek.

Oh yeah, the GALA sticker! and I ripped it off and asked in my Good Manners Voice, “Yes, please. Um, where's the Palmdale trail, ma'am?”

JOAN glanced at the wall clock (3:15), and she studied the phone on her desk, scratched her forehead under the khaki hat, her eyes narrowing behind the gigantic frames. “You going there on horseback, young man? To Palmdale?”

And then I realized if she were to suspect how I'm one of those runaway types, for sure she'd report me.

“No way!! I'm not riding to Palmdale, definitely not today. Today I'm just heading home. I live really close to here. But my dad wants to ride his horse to Palmdale someday soon because he heard about the trail.”

And so JOAN nodded her head, but her lips tightened into a thin, wrinkled line. She cleared her throat. “The trailhead is a mile down the road past the McKenzie Ranch on the right. Tell your dad to look for the U.S. Forest Service marker when he reaches the turnoff.”

I said thanks to her and smiled nicely, and then I backed out the door waving my hand like a bad kid who's leaving the principal's office. Oops! Bumped into the watercooler. Sound effects: sloshing wave smacks cement wall. JOAN shook her head like she had me ALL figured out.
THE KID WITH A FRUIT STICKER ON HIS CHEEK IS ALSO AN AWKWARD IDIOT. JEEZ!

Shy was resting under a tree. I unhitched him and led him back to the creek so he could drink without the bit this time. He tanked up real good and I put his bridle back on, shoved $ in the vending machine for an orange soda, icy cold. Fizzy! It blasted me straight into a carbonated orange grove, my eyes scrunching with that tickling, bubbling effect in the back of my throat. And when I rode off into the sunset I figured maybe my new friend, JOAN, might be calling the sheriff inside her dreary boring nothing-to-do-all-day office.

6:00 p.m.—on top of some mountain someplace

I know I got JOAN's directions straight…but they SUCK! She probably did it on purpose, and now it's getting dark, and maybe if I scream like a two-year-old, that'll help, but hey, no one's listening except for Shy, and he doesn't understand screaming.

My top-of-the-line trail horse found the trail JOAN described, if you can call it that. It's this dirt-bike trail all buried in silver-gray thorny brush that pokes through my jeans, steep enough to make my horse struggle and blow hard through his nostrils. Once we reached the ridge, the trail slanted to the downhill again, then veered back up at an impossible angle. At the top of the mountain I decided there was at least enough space for me to sit, and that's what I'm doing right now.

I'm taking a breather in about four square feet of empty dirt in the middle of an abrasive forest where Shy is eating sage. His chin brushes against the hair on my head when his neck dives to the right, then to the left, a chewing machine, a branch-crushing maniac. His actions produce one of those comforting scents because Mom burns sage when she meditates, creating little smoke signals on the inside of our house. Anyway, the sunset just turned gray, so we'd better get ourselves the hell outta this place.

about 7 p.m.—location unknown

So now I'm trapped. If I can just climb out of here tomorrow morning I guess I probably won't die, but this could be my grave.

After we'd rested, I hopped back in the saddle and we went along for maybe 10 minutes until Shy squeezed through a narrow passage in the bushes. In the dim light it looked like the trail had disappeared. So I backed him into a tight keyhole space, and without warning his legs thrashed and he struggled hard, lurching, collapsing with the ledge giving way, falling, tumbling in slow motion.

DOWN DOWN DOWN

DOWN DOWN

watch

me

fall

So now I am in shock at the bottom of some gully. I tried to stand, but my knees gave out. Probably nothing's broken. The bandanna that was once inside my pocket is now wrapped around my head, because my forehead's bleeding. At least I've got my backpack, and maybe it saved my neck from snapping in half. And I've got my journal and the flashlight, too. I tried yelling HELP! a few times, which is ridiculous. Shy's up there someplace. When I called for him, my scream became an empty echo. No telling where he's at. My mind can picture plenty—ALL BAD. Looks like I'm sleeping here. The sand is soft. For sure I'm alive.

I've got my journal, so if you are reading this, like if you're some person who went hiking and ran across my body or my skeleton, please call my parents. The phone number is on the inside of the front cover. I'm sure Will's gonna celebrate my death, because he'll get to be an only child, which is his main wish in life. Tell him I hate his fucking guts. But maybe there's another alternative:

my thumb presses “pwr,”

and my inner voice says

GIVE UP

that's what I usually do

GIVE UP

let my brother win

GIVE UP

I would but the tiny screen says

NO SIGNAL

No signal? They call it fate. But, hey, no signal—isn't that another kind of signal, like a sign? A sign telling me that I'm in charge here. Me in charge of me. Me in charge of my life. Literally. Shit! So this is when I should get it all down. Like, in case I die. If it comes to that.

Horse History:

Five years ago I took a job down the street mucking out Frank's corrals. After about a month, inside Stall 4, I discovered my ticket to temporary freedom.

His registered name, Shy Poco Doc: a gorgeous
buckskin worth $10,000 before the leg injury, but his cutting days were over. Frank said I could adopt the horse for free. He showed me how to make that bowed tendon heal. It took six months for Shy to get strong, and now he can go forever.

Most Important Thing: Every minute spent on the trails is another minute away from my brother.

Second Most Important Thing: Isn't it weird how my best friend is a horse?

Third Most Important Thing: Shy, the new horse I got when I was ten and Will was eleven, made it even more clear that Will hates my guts. But no one else seemed to notice.

early morning? late night?—down in the gully

I'll never fall asleep, not stuck in this dark pit. I vomited and now my mouth tastes like crap while I practice my own form of meditation:

calm calm calm Yancy just be calm

I don't want the flashlight batteries to go dead. I can't write forever. Please, God, is Shy okay? I've been staring into blackness listening for horse sounds, but all I hear is an owl. My body is hurting.

So it's back to thoughts about Will. Is anyone capable of figuring out his warped mind? Maybe it's related to FREEDOM—who has it—who wishes they could have it—and what the fuck is freedom anyway?

That's my opinion. If I get a car before Will, which is probably what will happen, he'll slash my tires and sabotage the engine, and maybe he'll blow the sucker up. It's how his mind works. Payback is everything.

He has to pay me back for not having conduct disorder.

The guy is very smart, way too smart to get caught. Like, even though Will's supposed to be at the YMCA Teen Center every day after school, he can arrange to NOT be there whenever it works for him. The busy counselors never miss Slick Will, Escape Artist of the Century. For sure he'll return before 6:00 p.m., looking all innocent and relaxed when Dad arrives to pick him up.

Anyway. Two days before My Escape and Will was waiting at Shy's corral.

“So, jerk-off,” he told me that day. “I need some money. Ya got some cash, little bro?”

He flipped his peroxide-streaked hair over his right shoulder and stepped in close, too close. I could smell Reese's Pieces on his breath.
BAM-BAM-BAM
, my heart goin' all crazy, and I told myself to make up something in a hurry. So I lied and explained how my money was at Gomez's house.

“Okay, Loser Boy,” Will said, motioning toward me with his hand. “Let's go to Gomez's then. C'mon, Fancy Yancy. Move it!”

YOU'RE NOT GETTING A DIME. NOT THIS TIME.
I sprinted past the corral in the other direction. A breeze ruffled Shy's mane, and his awesome tail swung to the side like a grass skirt on a dancing island girl. He snorted and watched me leave.

Behind the stables there's a field packed full of tall weeds and ditches and abandoned cars and furniture. Perfect! I crouched low and waited, noticing how the eucalyptus trees smelled like cough drops. I decided to lie back, enjoy the scent, watch the sky. Will called my name a few thousand times, pissed off, definitely in Manic Mode. But I kept staring at birds. Then I tracked a massive cloud formation blowing in from the west. Finally Will gave up.