Sliding On The Edge (4 page)

I pick up the Twain book and
leaf through its pages. The book falls open to a page with a corner
folded down. Someone underlined a sentence halfway down:
Pity is for the living, envy is for the
dead.
I read it a couple of times, soaking
up the idea. Wow! Who was the depresso with the pen?

I put the book down and turn to
explore the rest of my space.

Green plaid curtains hang on each side
of a wide window that looks out on Kay’s barn and the hillside
where horses nose the grass. Some of them have moved to the shade
of a wide-branched tree, where they huddle like they’re having some
kind of meeting.

Way past Kay’s barn, and on the other
side of her fence, is a small shack. It leans to one side, and its
roof buckles in the center, ready to crumble in on itself. One good
push and that place goes splat. On one side of the wobbly place
sits a square block foundation. And at one end, steps lead from a
weedy brick path up to an empty door frame. It’s the only upright
part of what looks like it used to be a house. At the back of that
falling-to-pieces property stands a tacky-looking gray barn. It
shows no signs of paint and has lots of missing boards. Three
horses line up alongside the shady barn wall—a black one, a spotted
brown and white, and a gray with a deep swayback. The black one
stands taller than the rest, but even from this far, I can see
they’re a sad-looking bunch. Their heads droop like it’s too hard
to hold them up, and their ribs show along their sides. None look
as good as Kay’s. Hers are shiny and fleshy, with long tight
muscles hugged close by their skin. Any guy would be happy to strut
around with pecs like the ones on those horses.

Kenny walks out of Kay’s barn. He
holds his fingers to his mouth and whistles so loud I can hear him
from inside the house, even with the windows shut. A reddish-brown
horse gallops out from under the shade tree and stops in front of
the old man. The horse lowers its head. Kenny steps onto a fallen
log and in one swing sits on the horse’s bare back. Now I
understand why his legs form an arch. They’re the exact shape of a
horse. Together they shoot out of sight—Old Spit’s on the
range.

I pull the bottle of Mom’s sleeping
pills and the ratty envelope out of the paper bag. The lamp table
has a drawer, so I stuff the pills in the back and tuck the thin
blade wrapped in toilet paper under the bottle. I sit on the edge
of the bed and take out my stack of old library cards from the
envelope. Dealing them like a poker hand, I spread them across the
quilt. This is a map of where I’ve lived: Houston, L.A, Barstow,
Bakersfield, Reno. Ah, yes, Reno. That’s where the gambling bug bit
Mom, and from then on, there wasn’t a casino she didn’t love.
That’s how we wound up in Las Vegas.

The loud knock on the door shoots me
upright. For a minute I’m back in Vegas, ready to face Tuan with
his hand out for the rent.

“
Shawna?” It’s
Kay.

I wait, but when she doesn’t open the
door, I get up and let her in.

“
Come on. Kenny says you’ll
need some pocket money when school starts, so he’ll put you on
salary.”

“
On salary. That means work,
right?”

“
You got it.”

“
What kind?” I back against
the wall and put my foot on it to brace myself.

She does one of those long
blinks that flash
fed
up
. “On a horse ranch we work with horses.
Does that surprise you?”

“
I don’t work with horses.”
I want that clear, so I might as well lay it out right up
front.

“
I see.” She leans against
the open door. “Maybe you mean that you’ve never worked with horses
before now, but since you have the opportunity, you
will
.”

“
No. That’s not what I mean.
Not even close.”

“
That’s too bad.” She folds
her arms across her chest and stares out the window.“Because on
this horse ranch, if you don’t do your chores during the day, not
only do you not get pocket money, you don’t eat,
either.”

Now
I
fold my arms across my chest. “I
guess I’ll just have to call the child protective people and tell
them about this.”

“
The phone’s in my office.”
She walks away. “Tell Marla Perdy hello for me when you get
her.”

“
Who?”

“
Marla Perdy. She’s in
charge of the County Welfare Agency. You know, child abuse, that
sort of thing. You explain how you got here, how I’m putting you to
work, and paying you. She’s very understanding.”

“
Shit!”

“
Did you say something?” Kay
looks over her shoulder at me.

“
No
.” What’s the use? I’m stuck in this happy acres horse camp
until I can figure a way out.

“
So, are we going to the
barn?” she asks, like I’ve got a choice.

Sigh. “Yes.” Still I wonder what she’d
do if I slammed the door and didn’t budge. Would she actually kick
me out?

I follow my leggy grandmother out the
back door, down the steps, and across the yard toward the
barn.

That one question that’s been niggling
around in my brain, ever since I read Mom’s note, starts to niggle
again. I think I should ask her now. “Hey!”

She stops and turns, fixing
me with a sour look. “Kay? Grandma?” I’m not sure what to call her,
but
Hey
does not
sit well, I can tell.

“
Call me Kay.”

“
Right. Well, Kay, I was
wondering about something. Like, are you Jackie’s mom or my dad’s
mom?”

Now her expression shifts to hard, and
the rest of her goes heavy. I imagine her sinking into the ground.
“I’m your father’s mother.” She barely says the last word when she
turns around and heads toward the barn again.

Hmmm. So it was her son
that ditched Mom and me
. Well, she doesn’t
want to talk about my parents. That’s flat out clear, so I’ll wait
to ask the other question: Was his name Rick or Nic?

Chapter 7

Shawna

I’m backed against the barn wall, as
far as I can get from a horse that’s glaring at me. I’ve never been
so close to anything this big and smelly before. Well, this smelly,
yes, but this big, no.

Do horses eat
people?

Kenny stands with one hand
on each hip, his mouth working hard on a piece of what he
calls
chaw
. The
horse the size of a casino stands by his side.

“
I hate horses. Look at this
one’s eyes. He feels the same about me.”

“
Makes no difference to me,
Missy.” He spits into the bushes. “You can love ‘em or you can hate
‘em. In either case, you are gonna learn to curry their backsides
without gettin’ your butt kicked. Comprende?”

"Oh, man,” I groan. “I am so not a
horse person.”

“
You’ll catch on.” He holds
out a brush to me.

I shake my head and drag the toes of
my shoes into the dirt. “No way. Look man,

I came here because I had to, but I
don’t have to stay.” I fold my arms over my chest.

He ignores me. “This here is
Stud.”

“
I don’t care if he’s King
Tut. I’m not touching him.”

“
Scared?”

“
No,” I shout, and the horse
dances sideways. “Damn!” I jump out of the way, just in time to not
get crushed against the barn wall.

Kenny hurls another arc of dark spit
into his favorite bush. “Just a tad skeered?” The old fart
laughs.

“
Give me the damned
brush.”

He tosses it to me. “You just learned
your first lesson, Missy. Don’t yell around a critter that’s four
times your size. Now here’s another one for you. This horse kicks
like hell when you swipe his haunch in just the right spot.” Kenny
spits again and walks away.

“
Hey! Wait up, Poncho,” I
shout.

He stops but doesn’t turn
around.

“
Okay. Please wait, . . .
Mr. Kenny.”

“
If you got any questions,
the name’s Kenny Fargo to you, Missy.” He looks at me over his
shoulder.

“
All right. How in the hell
do I do this . . . this curry thing without getting my ass kicked,
Kenny Fargo?”

“
Thought you’d never
ask.”

Kenny walks back to me, takes the
brush from my hand and begins a slow even stroke over Stud’s
quivering back. “When you come to this part,” he points to the
horse’s right hind leg, “you go real gentle. The other side don’t
matter. But treat this side like raw nerve.” He holds the brush out
to me again. “Give it a try, Missy.”

“
The name’s Shawna.” I
snatch the brush out of his hand.

Stud’s hindquarters don’t give me
nearly as much trouble as Mom’s choice of boyfriends. The horse
shivers under the brush as I come down his right leg, but he
doesn’t shy away or kick me into the side of the barn, which I half
expected. Kenny watches but doesn’t say anything. I decide the
whole place is filled with people who don’t talk much and horses
that wait until your guard is down before they’d sink their teeth
into your butt.

“
How’s that?” I ask when
I’ve brushed a three-sixty around Stud.

“
That’s one.” Kenny Fargo
takes Stud’s lead and pulls him back into his stall.

One?
My arms already ache, and the old man’s bringing out another
horse.

Kay strides past, leading a gray horse
toward the barn. Her long-legged walk matches the gray’s, as though
they are both the same kind of animal—one with only two legs, the
other with the right number.

She looks at me, but I get the feeling
she doesn’t see me at all. It’s like she’s picturing somebody else.
It creeps me out and I turn away.

Kenny Fargo leads out three
more horses, one after the other, each with twitchy butts and big
teeth. I do the curry thing while he
supervises
, then he puts them back in
their stalls.

“
How many of these do I have
to curry?” I shout at his back. Kenny doesn’t answer me.

He walks another horse out and hooks
its leash or lead—whatever they call the thing—to a hook on the
side of the barn. Then he leans back while I brush and brush and
brush. I’ve almost forgotten I’d asked him anything when he says,
“All together, we got fifteen. The good news is I already done the
others today, and the mules don’t get curried much at all.” He
smiles a wide brown smile and runs his hand over the horse’s side.
“Looks good. I think you’re getting the hang of this curry
business.” He leads this last horse to its stall. When he comes
back, he’s carrying a long pitchfork.

“
Now comes the real easy
part.” He puts the pitchfork into my right hand. “Fresh grass hay
is over there.” He points to the corner in the back of the barn.
“All eighteen of these beauties need a couple of
flakes.”

I must look blank because he says,
“That’s a good forkful. Then ‘yer done for the night, Miss . . .
Shawna.”

“
Where are you going?” I
yell. He’s already around the corner of the barn, but he ducks his
head back and looks at me.

“
My trailer. Got some things
to do before dinner. You got a problem with that?”

“
Wouldn’t matter if I did.”
I dig the pitchfork into the pile of hay.

Okay. Mark Twain is right. Pity is for
the living. I understand envying a dead guy, who doesn’t have to do
what I’m doing—a lifetime of currying skittery horses, forking hay,
and trying to dodge Kenny Fargo’s spit . . . that is pitiful. Not
to mention how my arms feel. They hang at my sides like sticks
pegged at the shoulders. I’ve carried so many of Mom’s suitcases up
rickety stairs and down again that I know something about being
tired. But this is . . . actual pain. And all due to those
super-sized animals that don’t do diddly all day, except eat the
hay that I have to pitch into their stalls. I’ve got to figure a
way back to Vegas, ‘cause this deal really sucks.

“
I need a break.” The gray
in the stall next to me nods and snorts at me. “At least something
around here listens,” I say to her.

I walk outside, breathe in the fresh
air, and exhale the smell of hay and horses. From the barn I can
see the kitchen windows, with Kay passing back and forth—looking
like the queen in her castle. My first dinner with Grandma: This is
going to be interesting. I just hope she doesn’t feed me what she
feeds her horses—I’ve really had it with straw!

Chapter 8

Kay

In the kitchen, Kay pretended that
peeling the potatoes for this dinner was like doing it any other
night. She filled her big white enamel pot with cold water, then
carefully peeled each tuber, sculpting it from its gritty skin. She
dug out the eyes and plunged the potato into the pot, as she’d done
since helping her mother cook for their ranch hands, when she’d
learned about cooking first hand.