WEDNESDAY DAWNED COLD AND BRITTLE. THE RAIN HAD turned to snow sometime in the night. It was a wet snow and all the branches of the cedars were heavy and they frowned toward the white ground like they bore the weight of not only the snow but also something else. It was just after eight when Fielding awoke. The yard was white, the pasture. Reefs of purple clouds stacked toward the paling eastern sky.
Fielding put the coffee on. He made a morning fire in the stove. When the coffee was done he took it in bed with the down comforter pulled to his chest. The room felt cold. The heeler lay asleep at the foot of the bed. Sometimes he would yip at the deer or grouse he was chasing in his dreams. Fielding listened to the cedarwood popping in the stove. Listened for anything else but there was nothing else to hear. Totally quiet. Like every morning.
Late in the morning he went to see the horses. When he opened the door of the barn their heads swung up from the stallboards. Their eyes were big and wet. Snake was looking through the hair of his mane. Fielding walked toward Snake and Snake tossed his head. He pressed his long face into Fielding’s hand.
Yeh boys warm enough? Fielding asked. Got cold last night.
He rubbed Snake between the eyes. Rubbed down the long bridge of his nose. Snake’s nostrils were working the air. The bone beneath the skin was like rock. Fielding let his hand rest where it was. Through the caged mane Snake’s dark eyes looked back at him and dished within that dark world Fielding saw himself and the somber expression on his face. And looking into them he knew there were things in this world he would never know or even care to. And he said to the horse, Yeh got no idea what’s goin on out there, do yeh? The Appaloosa blinked at him. Fielding said, I envy that.
He opened the stall door and walked in and closed the door behind him. Snake turned his head and watched him. Fielding took down the hackamore from the nail in the wall. The bosal was a pale color and made of rawhide and the rope cinched to the bosal was made of horsehair. Fielding liked the way it felt in his hands. There was a certain amount of weight to it, like it would never wear out. Like it would outlive the horse it was used on. Outlive the rider. He slipped the bosal over Snake’s nose and laced the thin leather strap behind his ears and buckled it just below his eyes. Snake tossed his head once.
I know, Fielding said. But we’ll get it.
He led the horse from the stall and dallied the rope and went to get the saddle. The tack room was at the far end of the barn and Snake watched him as he walked the length. Inside the room was nice and dry. Fielding snapped on the light. The old Rowell saddle hung on a thick wooden post. He lifted the saddle and the Navajo blanket and carried them out and snapped off the light and shut the door and walked them back down the barn where Snake stood watching him. He draped the blanket over Snake’s back. Then he lifted the saddle and buckled the girth strap. He undallied the rope and led Snake through the barn and into the falling snow.
The wind was perfectly still. The snow fell in silence. The snow was wet on the ground and wherever the pair stepped their prints turned dark in the mud. Snake’s breath smoked in the waxen light.
He stopped Snake and told him what he was about to do. Said, Just let me get my boot in here.
He stuck a boot in the stirrup and then said, Just goin a swing my leg up.
He sat the horse for a moment and together they watched the falling snow. He snapped his tongue and tapped his boot-heels into Snake.
Uh-oh, he said.
And once again the horse took off in a pounding gallop. More than once he attempted to stop him by reining back but it was like trying to pull a log from water. With the bosal taut against his nose Snake ran with his neck erect and his face turned down in a calamitous fashion. Again Fielding lost his hat. With his head jostling and hands and reins aloft, he looked the part of an ill-fated buckaroo. And not sure what to do with the fence line approaching, he kicked his right foot out of the stirrup and leapt from the saddle.
He hit the ground with his back against the earth. His face staring up at the sky. He lay unmoving for fear something was broken. But he felt around and everything felt as it should. Nothing busted, only his ego.
Snake returned and stood above him, blinking his large eyes like he’d never seen a man lying on the ground before.
If yeh kill me, Fielding said, who’s goin a feed yeh?
A little breath of wind kicked up and Snake’s long mane lifted with it.
I’d yell at yeh if yeh weren’t so pretty, he said.
Out over the snow he heard the hooves of another horse. He thought at first it might be Buckshot escaped from his stall but the gait was not the gait of a mule. He lifted himself up to sit with his elbows propping him and he saw a rider approaching over the white pasture. The horse was a dun-colored Morgan with a dark mane. The woman riding it had a long black braid over her shoulder and a broad flat-brimmed hat the color of flour and she had set the Morgan into a trot and she moved with the horse in a way Fielding had never seen before. Closer she came he could tell she was smiling. She slowed the horse and then sat it with her hands laid one atop the other on the saddle horn.
So this is what happens when yeh die? he said.
Excuse me, she said.
Some pretty lady on a horse comes to take yeh away.
You aren’t dead, Mr Fielding.
Mrs Batey, Fielding said. To what do I owe the pleasure?
Figured it might be a good morning for a ride.
Yer too late, he said. Already rode him.
She was wearing a worn Carhartt jacket and a pair of Wranglers that came up high on her waist and they made her legs look longer than they already were.
Can’t help but wonder, Coraline said.
What’s that?
Why a grown man is lying in all this wet snow when there’s a perfectly good horse standing over him.
Thought I’d give him a break, Fielding said.
She leaned in her saddle and offered him a hand.
My knight in shining Wranglers, he said.
He took her hand and made a painful kind of sound and stood and tried to clean his hands on the thighs of his jeans. Coraline swung out of her saddle. She draped the reins over the Morgan’s neck and the Morgan stood there without moving. She went over to Snake and leaned into him and spoke Spanish in a soft voice Fielding couldn’t understand. She closed her eyes as she spoke and she rubbed Snake’s neck and spoke to him some more. She slipped her fingers under the girth strap to check it. Oh, she said. Pobrecito. She unbuckled it and loosened it by a notch. Then she went around him and looked at every part of him. Snake tossed his tail like it was chasing flies. She came around again and held Snake’s face in her hands and looked into his eyes.
What made you choose him? she asked.
Yeh mean Snake?
I mean an Appaloosa.
What’s wrong with an Appaloosa?
Absolutely nothing.
Then why yeh askin me?
They’re a bit spirited is all.
Spirited is good.
Sure, Coraline said.
What’s that look for?
Nothing.
That look yer givin me, Fielding said. That ain’t nothin.
You want my unsolicited opinion?
I got a choice?
I’d have you set up with a quarter horse. Around nine years old. Broke and trained so even a toddler could ride him. And you’re riding a hackamore?
Yes mam.
Ran through your hands, didn’t he?
Yeh saw that, did yeh?
Caught a glimpse.
She rubbed Snake between the eyes. She rubbed her hand down his nose.
Why are you riding a hackamore, Coraline asked, and not a snaffle?
I don’t know, Fielding said. I don’t know what a snaffle is.
It’s a bit, she said.
She put her finger between her teeth and bit down.
A bit?
A bit.
So a hackamore ain’t a bit?
No, she said. A hackamore’s a hackamore.
What’s the difference?
It’d be like driving a race car in roller skates.
Yeh mean it’d be tricky?
Means you better be a good driver.
I haven’t worn roller skates in years.
Then I wouldn’t recommend taking them to Daytona.
Come to think of it, Fielding said, I ain’t ever driven a race car either.
Coraline smiled at him. She smiled with her eyes and it was those eyes that made him believe that things could turn out all right if one really worked at it.
You mind? she asked.
Mind what?
If I take this Appaloosa for a spin?
If yeh feel like gettin bucked.
She smiled again but this time for a different reason.
She spoke to the horse in Spanish again. Whispering something. Then she put her foot into the stirrup and swung into the saddle. Snake stepped uneasily at first. His eyes wild looking and unblinking. He jostled a bit and he stepped quickly in circles. Her hands popped the reins, correcting the horse. All the while Coraline’s braid did not move from its place on her shoulder. Then all at once Snake stopped. His breathing seemed easier. He tossed his head a time or two then stood like the statue of a horse.
Ahí está, she said. Take him for a little walk now.
She set the horse forward. She circled Fielding standing there in the snow. As she circled she called out the horse’s steps.
Right hind, right front, she said. Left hind, left front.
She repeated it like litany.
What’s that yer sayin?
You got to become acquainted with a horse’s cadence. Right hind, right front. Left hind, left front. To get him to do what you want you got to know what hoof is leaving the ground.
She rode in circles. The snow grew dark with the wet mud.
Right hind, right front, she said. Left hind, left front. Now I’m going to get him going a little.
On the right hind step she set the horse into a lope. Loping in circles in the wet snow. Fielding was turning with them like a ribbon on a maypole. Like he had never seen a horse lope before.
See how he’s just going now? she said. I’ve got the reins loosened up. If you can control the hind quarters you got the whole horse. He’s just doing his thing now. Like I’m supposed to be up here. Then she said, Now I’m going to pick up some softness here.
Coraline tightened the reins a little and the horse slowed and she set him into a walk again and then abruptly she stopped him. She patted Snake’s neck. She said, I’m going to try something.
She turned the horse and trotted off. At a good distance she turned back to Fielding, who was just standing there like a scarecrow. She clucked her tongue and Snake pounded off. She was high in the saddle. Snake’s mane and Coraline’s braid were straight out and sawing like fire. Ten feet from Fielding she said something and the horse drove its hind hooves into the ground and squatted its quarters like it was trying to sit and they slid to a stop.
Huh, Fielding said.
Coraline walked him over and patted Snake’s neck again.
You got a good horse here, she said.
She lay the reins over the saddle horn and put her hands up as if in surrender and with just the pressure from her legs Snake started backing up. Then she set him forward. Then she turned him in circles.
Now yer just showin off, Fielding said.
She took up the reins and swung out of the saddle.
Yeh ain’t afraid of anything, Fielding said. Are yeh?
Everything frightens me, Coraline said. I’m a mother. The whole damn world frightens me.
But not horses.
No, she said. Not horses. There isn’t a single horse alive that I’m afraid of. That horse doesn’t exist.
She handed Fielding the reins.
Swing on up, she said.
I told yeh I’ve already ridden him today.
Swing up.
He put a foot into the stirrup and swung his leg over and stood up into the saddle and sat down and looked at Coraline.
Don’t look at me, she said. I can’t tell you where to go.
He tried to nudge the horse on but Snake did not move.
He tried again but it did no good.
He ain’t goin, he said.
You haven’t told him anything yet.
What should I tell him?
You tell him whatever you want, she said. It’s your horse.
Right hind, right front, Fielding said. Left hind, left front.
He didn’t know if it was those words or something in his body or something deep within the union of horse and man but Snake started walking. He did not take off. Just walked and Fielding rode him as if he was meant to be there.
Coraline went to her own horse and passed the reins over its neck and stood into the saddle and turned the horse and rode up alongside Fielding and looked at him once but did not say a word and they rode side by side into the pasture over the snow in the ash-colored light till the fence line stopped them and then they rode back again. They rode for nearly an hour with the only sounds coming from the horses’ breathing and the leather of the saddles creaking in the cold morning air.
At some point they rode back to the barn and Fielding dismounted and dallied the reins on the post and walked Coraline to her truck. It was a big 350 diesel and it seemed overkill for a single horse trailer. Coraline stepped down from the horse.
How about that, she said. She looked at him. A cowboy.
Yeh mean me?
I mean you.
Coraline leaned and undid the girth strap and lifted the saddle from the Morgan’s back and walked it to the truck and swung it into the bed as if it weighed nothing at all. She folded up the blanket and put that inside the truck and came back with a brush and started rubbing that over the Morgan’s coat. And as she did she started talking and it was as if she were talking to the horse but what she spoke of had no concern to the horse. She ran the brush down the horse’s neck to the withers. Still Coraline was talking and not letting Fielding rebut any of it. He stood there and listened and when she finally said all she had to say she turned around to Fielding and spit into the snow.
So that’s why yer here, Fielding said.
Yes.
He told yeh all that? Fielding asked.
Yes sir.
I wish yeh wouldn’t call me that.
Yes, Amos, she said. He told me all of that.
Tell yeh about tomorrow night then? Tell yeh what we’re aimin to do?
He told me everything.
Huh.
Huh what?
Don’t seem right, Fielding said. I don’t know.
What doesn’t seem right?
Yeh knowin. Or maybe yeh havin to know.
Cause I’m just a purty little woman? Is that it?
No.
Let me ask you something.
Ask it.
You tell Sara all this?
All this what?
What you do, what you did? You tell her all about what you had seen? About what you had to go and do?
Sure, he said. Some of it.
Some of it?
Okay, Fielding said. I told her.
Then how is this different? How is me knowing any different?
I guess it ain’t.
You guess?
Sara and I were like the same person. Even if I didn’t tell her, she knew. She knew the whole story before I even said a word.
What makes you think Dee and I aren’t like that?
Ain’t my place to say one way or another. Guess what I’m tryin to say is that it’s different bein on the outside. To see what yeh expose people to. People yeh love. Thinkin about it now, I wish Sara didn’t know what she did. I wish I came home and she saw the man she married. The man full of hope. That’s what yeh lose in all this. Yer sense of hope. I just hope yeh can still see the good in it.
The good in what? she asked.
Life, I guess. Livin. I hope yeh still see Dee just as yeh did the day yeh married him.
I do.
That’s good.
You boys can stop you know, Coraline said. You can stop.
Yeh ever been on an escalator? Fielding asked. Sometimes yeh can’t get off. Sometimes yeh have to ride it till it’s done.
This isn’t that.
Maybe, Fielding said. But I’m movin somewhere.
This isn’t a department store, Amos.
No, Fielding said. And I’m bad at metaphors. Don’t matter neither. Someone killed those girls. Someone shot those two guys. Someone took that Eunice girl. And that girl might still be out there. That’s why I ain’t gettin off this ride till it’s done.
And when’s that going to be?
I don’t know. Ain’t got there yet.
You know how this could end. Don’t you?
Could end several ways.
You know what I’m talking about.
Yes mam.
Don’t make it end that way.
I don’t plan to.
Promise me.
Dee ain’t a Boy Scout out there, Fielding said. He can handle himself.
Promise me.
Okay.
Say it, Coraline said.
Her eyes were becoming wet.
She said, Say the words.
I promise.
You promise to what?
I promise I won’t let it end that way.
A teardrop fell from her eye and it streamed in a thin rivulet down her cheek. She did not attempt to wipe it away and it fell to her jaw and with nowhere else to go the weight of everything pulled on the drop and it fell to the ground, where it vanished in the snow.
Coraline led the horse back to the trailer and inside and closed the door and dropped in the lever and then chained it. She came back around and said, You better not be lying to me.
I don’t tell lies, he said.
Good, she said. Cause if you are and the worst thing happens I’ll kill you both myself just for putting me through it.