Part 8 (2/2)

Hank dropped to a haunch-squat to peer under d.i.c.k's guts. ”c.o.ke cans wrapped around the pipe will fix that. I've got some clamps in the barn.”

”Much obliged,” Lloyd said, and Bingo, they were male pals on the spot. Men can do that. ”Carburetor's clogged,” a man will say to a complete stranger, and instantly they're connected by a common language. I don't share a common language with women. Mildred Barber asked me what I thought of Final Net once and I had to say, ”Huh?”

Lloyd and Hank wandered off for clamps and the trailer and left me with Mr. Delusions of Grandeur. Under the fat folds, his ratty eyes glittered. ”This was right after The Philadelphia Story. She told me Cary Grant had vulture breath.”

”So, if you got laid on one, why do you hate horses?”

He glanced at me. ”Kate screamed, 'Give me more, big boy!' and the stallion panicked and reared. The end result was a life spent in this chair. It took all the Warner Brothers' resources to keep the story out of the tabloids. Can you see it?” He held his hand up to scan an imaginary headline. ”Katharine Hepburn Cripples Stunt-man While f.u.c.king on Pony.”

”You were a stuntman?”

”Didn't you know?” He slid through another cookie.

The brown slime was getting deep, so I muttered something vague about checking a colt and walked over to the main corral. One of the mares had come up dry, and Hank had her and her foal penned so he could do the baby bottle deal. I did the baby bottle deal for Shannon, mostly, but Auburn was a breast baby. He'd left my t.i.ts tender-I could kind of excite myself by touching them. Sometimes I wonder if it's a sign of hopeless deprivation when nursing a baby gives you thoughts.

It felt weird to be at the TM getting ready to leave. What if I never made it back? All my innocence was wrapped up in this ranch, and innocence isn't something to leave on purpose. Things happen outside Jackson Hole; you never know when you're going to get stuck somewhere and never again see the place that you'd always taken for granted would be the center of your days for life.

The corral poles were part of me, and the watering hole off the creek, and the boneyard where pieces of machinery older than Wyoming rusted into the sage. The ranch cycles were so soaked into my blood that on our land I always knew what time it was and which way was north. You feel those things when your ident.i.ty becomes a location. The outside world made me nervous.

Back over at the house, Lloyd and Hank had pulled Dad's old rodeoing trailer over to Moby d.i.c.k and were in the process of winching it onto the hitch and hooking up brake and lights wiring. From the corral, I could see a big dent I put in the trailer by backing it into an A&W billboard. The billboard fell on an empty fireworks stand and knocked it flat. Dad laughed until tears dripped off his beard.

I didn't see any urgent need for Hank to loan us that particular trailer. Self-destructive tendencies can't possibly benefit from a father memory following your backside across America.

Shane had his back to the work, facing the horses and the sun. It was the time of year people liked to face the sun. He looked at me and popped a cookie. ”Tonto says you used to ride horses.”

”Used to?” I said.

”Tonto?” Hank said.

”You might think you're hot stuff, but even before you fell off the deep end you could never have matched Kate at horsemans.h.i.+p. There was a competent woman. You don't look so very competent.”

I advanced on him. ”Maybe it's time you and me duke it.”

Shane was amused to no end. ”I don't fight helpless women.”

”I do fight fat cripples.”

I could tell calling him a fat cripple earned me a little respect. Most people bend so far over backward not to say the wrong thing around the handicapped, to the point where the bending over becomes obvious and an insult. Shane was one of those cripples who wanted the same abuse given normal men.

He turned the chair so we weren't facing head on. ”I did not mean to upset your feminine sensibilities. All I meant was Katharine Hepburn did things you couldn't do even before you became a drunk.”

I looked over at Lloyd, who chose to stay noncommittal, then back at Shane, who seemed to be leading with his belly.

”Watch this, Humpty-Dumpty.” Sticking two fingers in my mouth, I let out a whistle. Very little causes me pride, not since college, anyway, but my whistle does call 'em in for lunch. Not a boy in Teton County could out-blow me.

Frostbite's ears jumped alert and his head swiveled. As he came at a canter, you couldn't help but admire the skewbald Daddy-killer. The old guy was fourteen now, but he still lifted his feet like a colt, and his eyes still sparked with the glory of performance.

At a twenty-foot gap, I held my hand palm forward and Frostbite stopped on a nickel. A dime. World's greatest trick horse.

”n.o.body's rode him since Buddy,” Hank said.

Frostbite and I locked brown eyes on blue. Faith in each other leapt between us like lightning between a thunderhead and a mountain spire. Horse and woman became a unit.

Hank stepped next to me. ”I advise against it.”

Shane said, ”If you break your neck, don't ask to use my chair.”

I gave the hand signal for Frostbite to turn around. Exhaling calmly, I said, ”No problem. We haven't lost a thing.”

My rear mount was smooth as water over a rock. The instant my jeans touched his back, Frostbite became motion, I became Frostbite. We're talking exhilaration-the refinding of lost enthusiasm.

I grasped the mane with my left hand and did a right vault, then reversed it and bounced dirt on the other side. For the first time I wished I hadn't cut my hair. Long hair streaming in the wind is a trip when you go fast. You should see Hank do the arrow-beneath-the-belly Indian trick. On a full-blast horse death doesn't mean s.h.i.+t.

As he hurled toward the fence I gently tugged Frostbite's mane and touched him with my left leg. He did a flying leftward U-ey, and ZOOM, we're charging back toward Moby d.i.c.k. I placed both palms on his back between my thighs, straightened my legs, and lifted myself into a rear spin-same trick Mary Ellen McKenzie had been trying on the mechanical horse at Kimball's before she mocked me.

Forward again, I made a crowd appreciation check. Hank watched with both hands on his hips. Shane knocked his harmonica against his dead leg. He would say something tacky, but I would know I'd shut him down. The slug couldn't c.r.a.p at me anymore.

I brought both feet under my body with my weight on my toes. Time for the free rump stand followed by the back flip dismount. This would knock their socks off-all except Lloyd, who wasn't wearing socks.

I came to on the ground in the shade of the ambulance. This time the progression went in reverse-black spots turning to yellow turning to three round faces staring down at me. Hank's was angry, Lloyd's concerned. Shane was so entertained he practically bubbled.

Hank said, ”I won't bury another member of your family.”

In times of embarra.s.sment, always fall back on bravado. ”f.u.c.king horse broke stride.”

Shane giggled. ”That's what Katharine said.” Hank knelt to manipulate my legs.

I must have landed on my shoulders because that's what hurt the most, other than my already battered ego. ”Frostbite jumped a chiseler hole. He's lost his touch.”

Lloyd didn't blink. ”Would you have fallen if you hadn't had a drink?”

Shane gave his hideous hoot. All three chins contracted like a frog's neck when it croaks. ”She'd have stayed up longer with more to drink, not less.”

I closed my eyes. I'd crashed any number of times learning the tricks. This didn't mean a thing; I wasn't a washed-up, twenty-two-year-old has-been.

Hank touched my ankle. ”Can you move your feet?”

”Of course I can move my feet. Let's get the h.e.l.l out of Dodge, I'm tired of this G.o.dforsaken dump.”

Dothan trained Mae West to buck whenever she heard ”Chewy Chewy” by the Ohio Express. Dothan loved the Ohio Express, which tells you as much about his depth of character as the calendar with Kiwanis meetings marked by a star.

He used to bring his portable eight-track tape player to the ranch and sit on the corral fence listening to music while I exercised Frostbite and a couple others. Dothan was only there waiting for me to get done so he could take me up the hayloft and get straw in my p.u.b.es. Every now and then while I rode I'd catch him chunking a rock at Mae West's b.u.t.t, always when the same song was playing. I didn't make the connection until after the incident.

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