When she ducked between the corral rails Royal nickered softly, his voice deeper than the others, a dozen of them milling around or standing in their sleep. She could just distinguish where he stood by the water trough, the night settled darker on his body, and when she got closer the outline of his head came clear in the moonlight, his ears pricked. The gate stood open. They’d come in from the pastureland to drink, perhaps finding some comfort in the shadows of the barn. A horse snorted, the stamp of a hoof reverberating in the ground. Another coughed.
She circled his neck with her arms, water dripping from his muzzle back into the trough, rippling the moon’s reflection. He nickered again, and this time it tickled her cheek.
He followed her to the barn. They all came, thinking of grain, but she latched the door behind her and stepped out through the tackshed holding a bridle against her side. They edged away, cautious as deer, and she wondered if it was the leather they smelled or if something had changed in her posture, revealing she wasn’t just another animal sharing the night but a woman wanting something from them. Only Royal did not care. He stepped to her and lowered his head.
She looped the reins around his neck, offering the bit and slipping the headstall over his ears. She buckled the throatlatch, turning to grip a handful of the dark mane at his withers, and swung onto his back. He stood straighter, the night changed for both of them.
The others moved away, coyly at first, then out through the gate at a run with her and Royal among them, the rhythm of their hooves striking the earth in a tremendous, continuous roar, the bunch of them moving at once together and apart, much as clouds shift. They swept down and across the creek, the surface breaking up in thin sheets that fell back into her chest and face, making her gasp. Once through the cottonwood and into the pasture, they separated and slowed, only she and Royal maintaining the pace.
He crossed the irrigation ditch that bordered the sage in a single jump and worked upward along the fall line, warming between her legs. She lay against his neck, a breast on either side of his neck, his body straining beneath her, lunging, and at the crest of the ridge she reined him in. They turned, looking back at the moonstruck valley below them, its long shadows falling westward. There was no wind, only the sound of their breathing. They seemed to be floating, as we float in our dreams.
She stood in the hallway outside his room, listening to the ticking of the old windup clock he preferred. “Are you asleep?” she whispered.
“I thought I was.” There was the rustling of bed linen. “I’m not sure I can always tell the difference anymore.”
She skirted the foot of the bed and stretched out on top of the covers beside him, the ticking even louder now.
“You used to come in here all the time when you were little. I forgot how much I liked it.”
She found his hand. “Me too.” His grip had gotten stronger.
“You smell horsey.”
“I was saying my good-byes,” she said. “I decided to go to Chicago. For the clay residency.”
“I was hoping you would. I would’ve been disappointed if you didn’t.”
The wind gusted and a series of pinecones fell against the roof, rolling into the gutter.
“They’ve got every kind of kiln you can think of,” she said, “and a gallery, and Marin said Paul can almost walk to school and I can take the ‘L’ down to Oak Park.”
Another gust of wind and more pinecones on the roof.
“I never said so, but I didn’t think Africa or Billings, neither one, would work for him.” He cleared his throat and pushed up higher against his pillows. “We’re going to manage here just fine. I don’t want you to worry.”
“I’m going to.”
“Then try to limit yourself,” he said. “Maybe just an hour in the mornings.”
She turned onto her side. “You don’t think Marin bribed them, do you? To accept me for the whole year?”
“She just sent the pictures she took.”
“You’re sure?”
“Marin wouldn’t do something like that.” And then, as though it had just occurred to him: “You aren’t taking them along, are you?”
“No. I made them for you.”
“I’ve gotten fond of that little snake-faced girl,” he said. “The others too.”
She slipped up against him, her head on his shoulder. “I’ll miss you.”
“I know you will.” He stroked her hair. “Why wouldn’t you?”
Thirty-four
HE HAD A BREAKFAST of cereal and skim milk. A breeze was coming through the window, and he sat listening to the notepaper snapping against the cabinet door. She always taped it up to the left of the sink, a printed-out reminder that she loved him, every day since they’d come back from the hospital. He thought he’d have a look at it later.
When he returned the milk carton to the refrigerator, he slid the meals she’d stacked up in casserole dishes to the side. Two plain, saltless lunches and dinners. Nothing fried. No sauces. He’d gotten used to them, but she was gone for the day and he’d made other arrangements.
She believed in reincarnation, and they’d agreed to come back as brother and sister again. He told her that if he got to pick, he sure wanted another run at it.
He drank two cups of coffee from the thermos she’d left on the counter, rinsed the dishes and positioned himself in the center of the kitchen. He swung his arms around him, cocking his hips left and right, and everything seemed to be working better than it had for some time. He felt an uncommon clarity and didn’t hurt anywhere, so decided not to take his pills. He wanted to see what would happen.
He dressed, sat down by the new phone she’d bought and called McEban, running a finger over the little strip of duct tape she’d stuck on the console next to a button that would dial her cell phone in case he had an emergency. He’d promised her he would, but that was a lie. He wasn’t about to ruin her one night away.
Then, when he’d made his plans with McEban, he called Curtis Hanson. “I’m ready,” he said, and hung up.
He picked up his cane, put on his hat and started down the drive. It was a fine, late-summer day. The sun warm, a light breeze. He could hear the grasses rustling alongside the road and whistled a few bars of his favorite birdsong, and a meadowlark sang back.
When he reached the turnout at the mailboxes he could hear the Cummins diesel idling, throaty and even, and Curtis helped him up into the cab.
“I didn’t make you wait too long, did I?” he asked.
“No. I just got here myself.”
They eased down through the borrow ditch and out across the pasture in four-wheel-drive, listening to the sage scraping against the undercarriage. They could smell it.
He dug the folded bills out of his pocket and held them up between them. “I need to give you something for gas.”
“I’m your neighbor, for Christ’s sake.”
He put the money away. He could feel the warm press of sunlight moving across his chest as Curtis turned them in a slow arc, then backed around.
“That level stretch there?” Curtis asked. “Just south of Mitchell?”
He nodded. “It’s where I pictured it.”
Curtis dragged a shovel off the truckbed, and Einar stood leaning into the fender, listening to him hacking away at the prairie grass. Then the squeal of the gin poles pivoting back, Curtis locking them in place.
Einar started back along the side, above him the cable groaning in its pulley, the electric winch whining. He laid his hand open against the steel edging of the flatbed and felt the truck squatting against the torque.
“You might want to take a step back,” Curtis said.