Western Swing (32 page)

Later, at home, Loren said, “That Marcie VanHorn sure is mature for her age. Her perceptions are right on target.”

“Lay one finger on her and I'll sew your penis shut.”

• • •

The foreman led a semishort pinto from the barn. “Name's Suzy Q,” he said. “Treat her firm or she'll graze.” The foreman was real small and real old, I'd say early seventies. A handlebar mustache flowed off the sides of his mouth like twin ermine tails.

I stood with both hands in my pockets. “Is she gentle? I haven't ridden a whole lot, you know. I mean, some, on bridle paths in Houston and a pack trip up by Jackson, but I haven't ridden all that much. I think I need a gentle one.”

The foreman spit. “She's broke.” His mustache tips were greased to antler points. I imagined you could turn his head by holding them like real handlebars. Of course I'd have to wear gloves to try it.

Working with his good arm, Thorne buckled and cinched leather things on a giant brown horse named Laredo. He kneed the hell out of the horse's belly before pulling the final belt tight. He grinned at me. “You afraid of horses?”

“Of course not.”

“Get on, then.”

Thorne mounted and waited while I held Suzy Q by the horn, put my left foot into the stirrup, and stood there, bouncing up and down on my right leg.

“Thought you'd been on a pack trip,” Thorne said.

“I was. Three days. It was awful.”

“Didn't you have to get on and off your horse that three days?”

Suzy Q's legs moved away from me. I followed her around in a circle. “Someone always gave me a boost,” I said.

Thorne watched as I followed Suzy Q's butt around another 360. “You allergic to horses?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You keep sniffing like you've got a runny nose.”

Finally Thorne nodded to the foreman, who stepped over and clasped his hands together under my right foot. Together we pushed me into the saddle. “Keep her head up,” he said.

The foreman's name was Gritz or Grits. I think it was Gritz as in a legitimate last name, but he was old enough to have been the original cook on
Rawhide
and cowboys back in the early twentieth century had the same names as their horses—lots of Texas and Pecos Johns. Now they're all Butch or Snuffy. I actually met a steer wrestler in a bar outside Meeteetse who'd said his name was Billy Joe Bobby Jack. “You call me BJBJ.”

I sat on Suzy Q, holding the reins with both hands, wishing Roxanne was here to tell me how to start her. I knew it took some kick action, but I didn't want to kick too hard for fear of pissing Suzy Q off. “Gedup” had no effect.

Gritz went over by Laredo and squinted off south toward some gray ledges on the horizon. “Got time to look at something, boss?” he asked.

“If it's that mare's fetlocks, no.”

“It's something else. Out behind the barn.”

Thorne shifted in the saddle toward me. “Ever see a barn like this?”

I went with the safe answer. “Nope.”

“Janey and I built her before we built the house. She'll hold forty thousand tons of hay. You could fly a plane through the front and back loading doors without touching a thing. I did it once.”

I thought of Loren. He'd like anyone who called a barn she. “I hear it's got two flush toilets.”

Thorne squinted at me as if I was being sarcastic. “Those're Janey's.”

Gritz still stared at the horizon. “Wish you'd come have a look.”

“Better be important.” Thorne swung his horse and started off. Without me making a move, Suzy Q followed.

• • •

Behind the barn we found four or five cowboys standing in an arc around a crucified prairie dog. Its front legs were held on to the crossbar by thick rubber bands. Its back legs dangled free in front of the tail.

I said, “That's sick.”

Thorne stared for thirty seconds or so. Then he sighed real deep. “Darlene?”

Gritz shrugged.

“How'd she kill it?” Thorne asked.

“Nobody's gone close enough to tell.”

Thorne glanced at the cowboys. “You afraid to get near it?” Cowboys don't like being called afraid. One of them stepped forward and knelt in front of the cross. “Head looks bashed in.”

Thorne sat looking at the dead prairie dog for another thirty seconds. His eyes were worn out like they'd been yesterday at the hospital. He blinked a couple of times. “Throw it out,” he said. Then he wheeled Laredo and trotted south. Suzy Q followed.

• • •

We rode up an old washed-out Jeep track. I wanted to ride alongside Thorne and discuss the situation, but Suzy Q was born to follow. She stuck her nose about eight inches behind Laredo's rump and stayed there. I kicked and tugged and pulled, finally got her over into the other rut, but the stupid horse wouldn't pass Laredo's tail.

I ended up talking to Thorne's back. “You think something's wrong with Darlene?” I shouted.

He glanced back at me, but didn't answer. We swung down into a gully and I had to lurch way back to keep from falling off. Then I fell forward and hung on to her neck as we climbed the other side. Roxanne would have been tickled.

Up on the flats again, I kept on as if Thorne had asked for my opinion. “I mean, a lot of kids don't like their parents. My daughter can't stand me. My husband is embarrassed by his mom. Lord knows what I think of mine. But that's all normal resentment. Darlene's not normal.”

Thorne's back moved up and down above the saddle. He had good posture for a cowboy—or maybe the prairie dog and my prattling made him tense.

“Even E.T.'s normal, more or less,” I said, “in a sick kind of way, but I think Darlene's sick like a disease, like cancer or something, where E.T. and my daughter are sick more like mumps.”

Thorne twisted in the saddle. “You been talking to E.T.?”

“I saw him this morning.” Thorne seemed to have forgotten E.T.'s crack about French-kissing in the basement.

He slowed Laredo to a walk. I urged Suzy Q up the rut, but she still would have none of it.

“Those two and their mother are all I did this for,” Thorne said. He paused to take in “this,” which was desert as far as we could see, spotted here and there by a few cows and a fence line. A windmill turned over by the eastern horizon. “And not one of them gives a shit.”

He reined Laredo to a halt. Suzy Q stopped behind them. “I almost killed myself yesterday, but I didn't. I'm glad I didn't.” He thought that one over a moment. “So, today, problems don't matter. Today I ride my horse on my land and spend time with you. Today is mine.”

Thorne glanced back at me to see how I was taking the speech. I smiled, so he continued. “I haven't done anything for me in years. Today I do.”

“What're you going to do?”

“I don't know. I'll think about it.”

A couple of miles later, Thorne led off through some willows down a gully and out into a low flat area with a pond and an old collapsed homesteader cabin. We tied the horses to a rotten trough and peeked through broken glass windows at a couple of moth-eaten mattresses and an ancient barrel stove. An empty Delaware Punch bottle sat on a shelf beside some black tins.

“How long ago'd these people leave?” I asked.

“Thirties, I figure.” Thorne pointed out a pile of Colt .45 cans in one corner. “My hands use it ever' now and then during a blizzard. Janey and I almost stayed here one night when my truck threw a rod. A rattler came under the door and she made us leave.”

“I wouldn't sleep with a snake.”

Thorne grunted. “Was raining like hell outside. Spent the night in the cab of the truck.”

At the pond, Suzy Q finally consented to stand beside Laredo. After the horses drank, Thorne hobbled their legs so they could shuffle around the clearing searching for grass. Thorne pulled a shower-curtain-looking blanket out of his saddlebag and spread it in the shade of three six-foot sagebrush.

“Let's see what Maria sent for lunch,” he said.

“This is a picnic?”

Thorne smiled. “Can't ride a horse without workin' or eatin', and I ain't workin'today.”

He pulled out a pair of small rib eyes and a half-dozen eggs, a homemade loaf of bread, two potatoes, a grocery store basket of strawberries, a can of Crisco, and a skillet. And a pint of Ten High.

“That Maria's wonderful,” Thorne said.

“You should throw Janey out and marry her.”

He took a slug of Ten High and eyed me over the bottle. “I got you.”

I'd been on these picnic-down-at-the-tank deals before in Texas and on the road with the Mick, so I knew that however innocent the afternoon begins, there'll always come a “Gee, it's hot, let's skinny-dip” suggestion, and once a man has your clothes off, he starts taking things for granted. Sooner or later it leads to a shoreline free-for-all. About the best you can hope for is the guy lets you get back to the blanket.

I thought about the situation as we gathered dead sagebrush for the fire. This time wouldn't be just morphine-in-a-dick like I'd wanted from Billy G. Making it with Thorne would matter in some way. Everyone at the ranch took it for granted I was there as a romance and sex object. Thorne acted as if the issue had already been decided. So did I.

But Loren was only three days back. I was married to Loren. Even though pain fucks weren't really cheating, this would be. I hadn't committed adultery on Loren before, wasn't real sure I wanted to.

“How do you like your steak?” Thorne asked.

“Medium rare.”

“Eggs?”

“Over easy.”

I expected the next question to be “sex?” and was all set to say, “Let's wait awhile.” However, Thorne seemed more interested in his meat.

I watched his fingers as he worked around the fire. He used mostly his right hand as the crook of his left arm was still bandaged. Even one-handed, though, each movement showed control. I'd never been around a man who knew exactly what he was doing before. It was unnerving. If I did say, “wait awhile,” I wasn't going to mean a real long while.

We ate the steaks, drank some more Ten High, watched a small herd of antelope come down the ravine. Thorne rolled over on his back and propped his bad hand on my knee. “Sure is peaceful,” he said. “Can't remember last time I felt peaceful.”

I looked at the water, which was still as glass. “My daughter Cassie'd like it here. She loves horses and real ranch stuff. I've been around cowboys in bars for years, but I've never seen them much at their work. It's interesting.”

Thorne snored.

So much for skinny-dipping after lunch. I sat on the blanket next to him, tossing pebbles into the pond and watching the ripples. The countryside was so quiet, not even a grasshopper to break the drone of Thorne's breathing and my pebbles as they plopped into the pond. I traced his face with my index finger while he slept. The corners of his eyes had deep lines. I made up little stories about how he got the scar, imagining something dangerous and fun, a grizzly maybe or a border-town whore.

An old cow came across the rise and drank from the other side of the pond. You'd never see one cow out by itself in Texas. When I was little, before Dessie turned gay or I discovered sugar sadness, back when Mom laughed, Daddy used to take us on drives outside Houston in our watermelon-green Dodge wagon. We'd see cattle standing in the shade of oil pumps, and black people sitting on crates in front of section road gas stations. Wyoming doesn't have section roads or black people, at least not up in Jackson Hole. There's more one-eyed bears in Teton County than there are black people.

Every drive we'd find a wind-beaten cafe and stop for apple pie heated with cheddar cheese on top. I must have been five or six then, because by the time I was eight Daddy'd traded the Dodge for an Oldsmobile. Then he bought a new house and took up golf and raising saffron. Funny how you date times by the car that goes with them.

Thorne's eyelids flew open. He lay still a moment, searching the sky. Then he sat up. “What happened?”

“You took a nap.”

He looked from the pond to the ravine to Laredo and Suzy Q grazing on weeds. “A nap.”

“You were so peaceful I didn't have the heart to wake you up.”

Thorne blinked a couple times. He ran his hand through his hair. “I never slept in the daytime before.”

I handed him the pint of Ten High.

Thorne held the bottle to his mouth, but didn't drink. “My dad didn't believe in naps. He said when the sun's up, you work, when it's down, you sleep.”

“When did you eat?”

“On the edges.” He drank from the bottle. “And noon. Straightup twelve, Mama had dinner on the table. They called lunch dinner when I was a boy.”

“I know that. I'm not as young as you think.”

Thorne seemed to be adjusting to his recent nap. He leaned back on his right arm and took another swig. His eyes traveled over my body. “You sure look good, Lana Sue.”

I've never been smooth at taking straight-on compliments. I prefer slightly smartass repartee where I can get in a few flirty licks amidst the wordplay. Simple sincerity is kind of embarrassing. What I did this time was mumble something along the lines of “thanks” and reach for the bottle.

Thorne didn't notice my embarrassment. He was still amazed at his own decadence. “Sleeping in the afternoon,” he went on, “how about that?”

“How about it?”

“I thought I'd come to an age where I'd never do anything I hadn't already done over and over.”

I took a good swig. The Ten High cleaned up the rough edges left by E.T.'s coke, relaxed my tight forehead. “Hell, we're on a roll. What else have you never done before that you always wanted to do?”

“Let me think.”

“I could shampoo your hair, or give you a pedicure. Have you ever been fed grapes while lying on your back? I can sing. When was the last time someone sang you a lullaby?”