There were a dozen stalls but only eight horses. One was a mare that would foal in a month or so, four geldings and a big gray stallion that had to be sixteen hands tall.
There also were two good-looking geldings. One of them, a Morgan, was colored like Blue Jacket and had bright, intelligent eyes.
But Will kept coming back to the stallion. CAZZIO, was the name over the door. There was a ton of trophies on the mantle and a ton more blue ribbons and medals pinned on a board outside the stall.
Will cracked the stall door, then leaned his face in and waited, letting Cazzio decide. The horse had puffed up and snorted, no petting-zoo whore- Good! -then took his time before touching his muzzle to Will’s hair, then his face.
The stallion sniffed, then snorted. Sniffed again, then banged Will’s face with his muzzle in a testing sort of way. Snorted again and shied, letting the clatter of his hooves communicate a warning.
Will considered backing out and trying the Morgan gelding with the intelligent eyes. Stallions were risky. Two years back, he had watched a rank Arabian stud clamp his teeth on a man’s neck and fling him like a rag doll before trying to stomp him to death. A decent hand with horses, too, an experienced wrangler.
It’s the way stallions were. Slip a grain sack over their head, tip them and clove-hitch their legs-all that might dull the fire for an hour or two but it was only a temporary fix. On the other hand.. . certain stallions, you didn’t want the fire dulled. Some were worth the risk.
Will put the medicine bag on the floor, aware of what the horse was smelling-horse tranquilizers and some other stuff-then stepped into the stall and closed the door.
“Easy… Whoa, easy…”
The gray horse shook his head and pawed at the floor. Didn’t even have to move to dominate the darkness, his energy so radiant it shrunk the airspace.
“You look like the Real McCoy to me,” Will whispered.
I ain’t no vet, I’m a hand, he thought.
Then he waited, arms at his sides, for Cazzio to make up his mind.
Now Will was on the stallion, lying forward, his arms loose around the horse’s neck, the stall door closed, not locked, which the horse knew but was tolerating.
Go when it’s time to go.
A stallion like this one-by God, he would go.
Will had his boots up on Cazzio’s hindquarters, chest flat on his withers, so it was like lying on a wide, warm couch. He was under a blanket that he had pulled over them, but not until the air was right and the horse was ready-a feeling alive in the darkness, transmitted flesh through flesh. Not consent but tolerance, a gradual calming of muscle, subtle as first light.
Who the hell braided your mane? A real ranch, we’d open the gate before allowing this bullshit…
Right flank, left wither, the animal’s skin fluttered beneath Will’s belly. Muscles flexed independently, mechanics of a complicated instrument that, if played expertly, produced pure kick-ass flow. Part dance, all power.
Will’s nose rested near Cazzio’s mane, close as he could get to home: horse sweat and leather, the ammoniac mix of manure and grain. Crying wasn’t an option, but it was right there if Will allowed himself.
Waiting. They both were. Ten minutes, at most, he had been in the barn, but it felt like hours.
You like that?
He scratched Cazzio’s neck and Cazzio stretched his head forward, lips wide, teeth bared, as if laughing. He wasn’t laughing, of course, although people who treated horses as pets, as almost human, might believe it. Not Will. Horses were horses, a few better than most. The same with hands. It was just something some stallions did.
Blue Jacket, another example.
As Will lay on Cazzio, he told himself to relax, he needed to conserve his energy. Cazzio already had drunk his belly full from the water trough and found residue in the feed bin. Oats and sorghum plus a supplement powder, which smelled sweet but Will knew tasted awful. What farm kid hadn’t tried it? He’d squeezed the mash into a ball and swallowed it anyway. Will needed food. He didn’t want the crazy feeling to come back, which happened more often when he ran out of gas.
Will knew he did stupid things when he got mad. Not something to admit to that government shrink, the one who’d told the parole officer, “A grand mal seizure or anger-management problems.” A lesson for him, telling the truth instead of lying about how it felt, the chemical sensation when he got seriously pissed off.
This was after a couple of tests which he also should have lied about, although he had lied quite a bit, faking some of the answers, but not enough.
“The boy’s not abnormal, but he lacks certain normal qualities,” the shrink had told the parole officer and a social worker, talking as if Will wasn’t in the room. “He demonstrates behavior associated with emotional scarring, typical of abandoned children. Rage mixed with antisocial behavior. But he has highly developed survival skills. He’s an expert manipulator. Again, all typical, considering his background.”
William wasn’t abnormal, but that didn’t mean he was normal either, the woman shrink had added-which was lying flattery, something adults often tried. But then it got interesting:
“It’s the way the boy’s brain translates outside stimuli,” the woman had said, before asking, “William? Isn’t it true that certain things come into your mind as colors or smells? Numbers have colors, you said. Days of the week, too. Friday is yellow, you told me. Thursday is purple, the number ten is silver. Fear is bluish gray. Fear has an odor, a mix of copper and pears, you said.” The shrink was reading from notes, finally including him in the conversation.
Everyone wasn’t that way? That was a surprise to Will.
“Will has a condition-a gift perhaps-that’s been well documented. It’s called synesthesia. Synesthesia is not a paranormal power. It’s a heightened awareness. Just like some people have exceptional eyesight or hearing. Very rare.
“It’s been linked with unusual artistic abilities. Sexuality, too: It’s possible that synesthetes radiate pheromones that are abnormally potent-that’s anecdotal data but fascinating, isn’t it?” The shrink had smiled but avoided Will’s eyes, oddly uncomfortable. “Intense rage is also associated,” she’d said. “There’s a lot we don’t understand about synesthesia.
“I’ve contacted the psychology department at the university. We want to pay Will to participate in a research program designed just for him. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, Will? We could work together, the two of us! And no more living in stinky barns, doing manual labor.”
Will had smiled but was thinking, No way, Jose.
It wasn’t that easy getting out of it, though, because the shrink was determined. Didn’t matter that the cops had just nailed him for stealing Blue Jacket.
A week later, though, when the principal surprised the school librarian seducing Will in the stacks, it was farewell Oklahoma and hello Land of a Thousand Lakes. The timing hadn’t been easy because the principal seldom left his office and the librarian was fickle.
Minnesota was okay, mostly because of Old Man Guttersen. Guttersen got a kick out of Will’s stories, when he shut up long enough to listen. Will could tell the old man anything, including the truth. Selling weed, gambling, diddling teachers didn’t bother him a bit. Same with stealing: as long as it was in a different neighborhood and former U.S. military personnel weren’t targeted. Even if Will hadn’t been stealing for a good reason-saving to buy Blue Jacket-it would’ve been just fine with the old man.
“We’re both sneaky, lying, shitheel frauds,” Guttersen had confided, “and we’re screwed if the world finds out.”
Luckiest thing that had ever happened to Will, being assigned a foster granddad who understood.
“The word unique,” his English teacher, Mrs. Thinglestadt, had told him, “is commonly misused. It is incorrect to say ‘very unique’ or ‘extremely unique’ because unique is unique. One of a kind.”