“I can work with him,” I said. “Is there anything you know that he’s particularly afraid of?”
“John, he’s scared of everything. A squirrel spooked him. Once he caught sight of his reflection in a truck window and took off. Who knows? All I know is I don’t have many wrecks left in me at my age.”
“Well, I’ll work with him for a few weeks.”
Duncan looked at his watch. “I’m late. Hell, I’m always late. I didn’t expect you to start right away.”
“I’ll give you a call when I know more,” I said. We started walking back to his truck. “Are you going to be the one riding him?”
“Mostly,” Duncan said. “Unfortunately, my daughter’s in love with him. She’ll want to ride him. I would like to put other people on him.”
“We’ll see,” I said. “We might have to have Ginny come over and ride him here some.”
“She’ll like that,” he said.
Duncan opened his truck door. “That was great.”
“Well, we’ll see how it goes,” I said.
In my dream, I was working a string of seven green horses. It was too many and I knew it. I didn’t have enough time to train them correctly. Every horse bucked and I found myself resorting to popping the animal I was riding with a quirt. Every time the horse bucked, I’d reach out and whip him on the snoot. But he wouldn’t stop bucking and when I looked over at the hitching post I saw the other six horses, saddled, tied, waiting and bucking in place.
All day long woolly, white clouds had clumped together over the mountains and I expected rain, so I worked like mad trying to get my hay in. But there would be no rain that night. The clouds had already rolled past and so I left off with the last of the hay and saddled my Appaloosa. I packed a canteen and a little food and rode out the south gate and toward the creek. I had to admit to myself that I was bothered by my failure with Wallace’s brother, but I had only said I would call, not that I would get him to come. I was also bothered by my decided lack of interest in Wallace Castlebury’s predicament. I am by nature loyal and it felt bad simply to abandon the man, despite his brief presence on the ranch and despite the fact that I found the man generally objectionable. I didn’t know if Wallace was guilty or not and I didn’t care. He was nothing to me. I wasn’t his lawyer or a cop. I’d made the call and that was it. I hoped the ride would clear my head. Zoe trotted some yards ahead of me and darted off after the occasional rabbit.
The creek was late summer low, a couple yards wide. The Appy crossed it without hesitation, which was unusual, and I took it as a good sign. I had an hour of light left and so I decided to ride all the way to the mouth of the cave and ride back in the dark. I’d discovered the cave several years into living in the area. I happened on it while chasing down a cagey bull back when I ran cattle. The cave was deep enough that I didn’t know how deep it was. Susie and I had taken picnics and camped there regularly for a while. She’d never liked it.
“I don’t want to go any farther,” Susie said.
I turned to her. She was backlit by the entrance to the cave. Still, I could see the fear, if not on her face then by her posture. A chipmunk had found the picnic we’d set up some yards outside the cave.
“I don’t like it in here,” she said.
I pointed the beam of my flashlight into the darkness, showing a twist of passage. I realized that once we made that turn, the outside light would be lost and Susie would really become frightened. “You go on back, I’m going to look a little deeper,” I said.
“No.” She shook her hands at her sides. “This makes me so nervous.” Her voice broke. “I’m scared.”
I went back to her. “I’m sorry, Susie. Come on, let’s go back and have some fruit. If that chipmunk left us anything.”
“I don’t mean to be such a baby,” she said.
We walked out and Susie sat cross-legged on the blanket.
“If it scares you, it scares you. That’s pretty simple. There’s absolutely nothing to apologize about.” I sat and leaned back against a large rock. “I can come back here some other time.”
“I don’t want you to,” she said. “Just the idea of your being in here terrifies me. Really, I’m not making it up.”
“Okay, honey.”
Susie stood. She trembled as she looked down the slope then out over the Red Desert.
I got up and put my arms around her. “Everything’s okay,” I told her. “Everything is just fine.”
“No, it’s not,” she said. “Can we go back to the house now?”
“You bet.”
“I’m sorry, John.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “We’ll go back home. What’s the big deal? Come on, let’s pack up.”
Zoe was back from chasing a rabbit, heeling to the App. I had sneaked back to the cave many times while Susie was alive. She must have known, but she never said anything. I stopped going shortly before her death, feeling that somehow I was cheating on her by being in the cave.
The sun was gone by the time I reached the entrance. I still hadn’t been back in. But I wanted to explore it. I got off and looked into the dark mouth while my horse rested. Then I mounted and started back.
It was good and dark when I loosened the horse’s cinch and walked him the last hundred yards to the hitching post beneath the flickering vapor lamp on the barn. A hatch of white flies darted in and out of the glow well above me. I took off the saddle and took my time brushing the horse. I had started cleaning out a hoof when I noticed a car parked in front of the house. It was a light-colored convertible, seemingly new, that I didn’t recognize. I cleaned all the hooves, led the horse to her stall, and walked to the house. My body felt creaky.
“Who goes there?” Gus called as I stepped into the kitchen.
“Who does the fancy chariot belong to?” I asked.
“That would be mine.” It was Morgan Reese from the neighboring ranch. She was a frequent visitor.
“Hey there, Morgan,” I said. “What’s up with the new wheels?”
“I got sick of driving a truck to Billings,” she said.
“How much will it tow?” I asked.
“Who cares,” she said, “it’s a guy magnet. So where were you? Scaring cougars or kissing elk?”
“A little of both.” I moved to take a seat at the table across from her, but I remembered and felt how dirty I was. “Are you going to stick around and have some dinner with us?”
“Gus already asked and I said ‘you bet.’”
“Well. If you two will excuse me, I’ll go upstairs and try to get cleaned up. It’s one thing to come in after a ride and settle down to chow with a scraggly old geezer, but it’s something else to sit down to a meal with a spiffy cowgirl who drives up in a white convertible.”
I walked up the stairs, undressed, and left my clothes on the bathroom floor. I stepped into the shower and found myself thinking about Morgan. She was around a lot. I wasn’t stupid or blind and so I knew she had a crush on me. I didn’t mind her presence, in fact, it was sort of nice, and I tried to rationalize that by recognizing her as a good friend for Gus. Susie had been dead for six years and I know that most people would have moved on in that time, but I couldn’t seem to. I missed my wife and I knew that wouldn’t go away; I honestly didn’t want that feeling to pass. But I had trouble imagining myself close to anyone again. My clumsiness around Morgan made me feel tense, uneasy, and my defense was to step away and the step away made me feel bad and so I felt more awkward still. While I dried, staring at my face in the mirror, I was amused by my all too apparent observation that I wasn’t getting any younger.