He pinched the shoe from the forge — it was flaring, a shaking liquid yellow. He hooked the shoe over the anvil then over the battered nose — you have to turn it. Pound it to make a fit of it bore the slim squared holes.
I knew Pa’s knees were swelling — I had heard them knock against the slab. His long face pinched and fallowed, I saw, who saw ahead as I knew he must the bruisy syrupy blue of skin the selvage pressed of the pants I hemmed sloppily upon it. I would have to cut Pa’s pants from him — from the burl the knotted sickened joint and ice or lance or sit to bend or what any else Pa thought to show he could bully through the doing of and so we two kept on with it so we two said nothing.
He punched the nail through once, three times again, on the one shank and then on the other. To keep the shoe fast. To drive the nails through — square and blunted. Eight in all. I knew the sound and counted.
Pa held the shoe against his hoof. The shoe was hot still it was hissing and the stink of hide of hair or hoof the twangy burning smell rose up and Goose threw himself against me. Pa held him. He did what he could to hold him Pa he kept him wedged against the wall we hang the tack the leadshanks on the picks and forks and shovels.
Tell her that.
He tapped the nail in.
Tell your ma I tried to calm him. That at the last we twitched him. To make it easy. I meant to calm him. I put myself between you tried to keep you safe from harm. No harm meant. You could not trust him. He was game but you could not trust him. He would throw you into the trees he would he would drag you across the fields.
I let Pa twitch him. So I could hold him. So the day might come I thought so of the weeks I sulked to school.
Pa drew out Goose’s lip where the stripe blazed through the velvet soft that veered across and snatched down the twitch the silver bars upon it hard and twisted. It was easier then to hold Goose shaking quiet on the slab. I drew his head down slowly and pressed my face to the white of his face how soft where the stripe swept through.
Pa tapped a nail in. He went hoof to hoof in the graying light. How quick the dark came on. Tell her that.
But I could not yet think of Ma of what we would need or not to tell but thought of the day I would ride our Goose in my boots to school. I would tie Goose off on the chalky racks the city kids lash their bicycles to, would come to him between the bells to curry him to feed him.
Hey horsie girl.
Of course they teased me. Would. Who wished to be me.
How I pressed my heart to his brisket.
Pa wedged each hoof between his knees his shoulder thrown against Goose hard to keep him tipped against the wall we hang the leads and halters on the shoe for luck to hold him. I felt his breath against my chest a wind drawn rough across my throat and felt the cool the whips of spit the snot swept down from his nostrils yes and of his mouth the velvet there where the stripe blazed through.
You get. And the rooster too. Get get.
I kept the loop of his mouth pinched fast the twist in the loop that made him wheeze that Pa had stopped to show to me that made him drip and gurgle. And still I could not hold him. I was sick in myself to hold him so so Pa could shove and cuss at him so Pa could treat him roughly.
He swung the rasp back.
It would not be long.
We would leave our tools and the cooling forge and make our way up from the barn. Soon enough.
Then I could cut Pa’s pants from him. Who cannot reach to do it. Who have not kept him from it. The selvage dug well in.
Pa kept on as I knew he must who knew by him the way of things who knew to watch him swing his rasp he swung at Goose’s head his knees enough to think he’s mine. He is mine he is mine he is mine.
Will be.
I will cook and clean for him and sew and scrub his feet for him and shine his boots and buckles.
Keep him safe from harm.
Say that.
That it was easy, it would have been easy — to lose an eye on the washroom wall on the hooks and nails we hang tack from he could do it to himself tell her he could do it easy.
That he is fractious. He is meant to be worked and strong tell her. How quick the dark came on.
It came on.
Pa beat at Goose about the knees the rasp struck in behind and hard where you can hear the bones in him where you can make him buckle.
I would not have pictured it — that you could make him buckle. That Pa could fell him in the crossties hanging ready for the blow.
Goose dropped to his knees his rump yet high as if to let me throw my foot my leg across and ride him. My hat flying up to school. Wheeo.
He quit there-to let before Pa came at him his last breath ratchet through. And then Pa came at him.
I thought how the white swept up. Pa fallen across the road. Wheeo.
Because Pa could not have rolled from him. Pa could not have moved.
He swung the rasp back. He brought it hard across his head his rolling curdled eye I saw.
Cricket you Cricket you.
Quick a girl’s sweet wurbled note. Quick as that the wettish thuck the jellied seep of his eyeball burst the flies the puss like honey.
We set him out then. When it was done then. I walked Goose out on his blinded side and set him loose like Pa had said back in the back and hidden field the deer came to to lie in. We walked up the hill and washed our hands and sat and ate our supper.
She had fried three eggs for supper for us as Ma had come those weeks to do no matter what Pa said of it and three again come morning. And Pa said nothing of it and not again when light had come and Ma went out with her boy in the snow that as we slept flew down. Her tracks went out to the fence I sat the days Goose ran the sloping field and turned toward the barn and quit there well shy of the bend in the road.
She came back then. I put my mind to it — to the tracks I had to go by. There were two of them going she left in the snow and not a step she came back by.
She had gone away twice down the hill, I thought. She had gone away once the mother we knew who sat for us in the window. Then look on her heels came the other. Here came the one from before the boy we had forgotten was hers to ever be or ever was ours to know.
I liked to think of it — that she could walk herself out away from us from what we did or did not do she could call herself out on the road going out going out in her boots in the unbroken snow that we would know at the last we had lost her.
And yet the tracks quit.
She would find Goose in the barn she thought. She would see him she thought from the bend in the road see what we had done to him who sat at her table after and ate the meal she cooked for us and slept in the beds she made for us and so she quit well shy of it and came away back to home. She walked herself back up the hill to us walking backward her back to the wind to keep her boy from the snow.
The snow climbed in the trees in the fences. A night would pass a morningtime and soon Pa would set upon her again and break what eggs I brought to her that the hens before the rooster quit still had in them for laying. After that I did not bring the eggs. After that they did not lay them.
The rooster went from the field and back to sit the broken back of the couch stood up in the ice of the pond. No thought in his head to rooster. No eggs to bring for Pa to break for Ma to fry for supper then even should we want some.
I thought I would not want some. I would break an egg in his socket I thought let the yolk freeze bright and round. Should Goose lie down.