THE day before they were supposed to leave for New Orleans, Bobby got a call from his uncle Kayo begging him to come out and help work a horse. “Bring the little girl if she can come. We’re in trouble. We need all the help we can get.”
“That mare we sent to Enida won’t work a cow. We paid Enida eight thousand dollars to train her and he said she was ready for the Futurity so we paid that entrance fee, that’s two thousand more, and now she won’t work a cow. Robert worked her yesterday and he says she’s as green as a yearling. The boss has lost money on this operation four years in a row. One more year and we’ll all be out of a job.”
“I sure would like to help but I got to go to school all morning and I’m working on the Locust Grove exit in the afternoons. You know more about cutting than I do. Why do you need me? Well, hell, call Jimbo Reed and tell him to let me off this afternoon and I’ll come. Hell, you always do things for me. We both owe you plenty.”
“What’s that?” Olivia asked, sitting up on the other side of the bed. “What’s going on?”
“That mare we told you about. Boon Alto’s colt. They had her up to Enida Grant’s being trained and now she won’t work a cow.”
“She’s supposed to be the best two-year-old in the country,” Kayo was saying. “The boss is going to have a fit over this. He’s got a bunch of buyers from Australia coming to the Futurity to see this mare. Come on out this afternoon, Bobby. There’s two hundred dollars in it for you, just for trying. Tell the little girl there’s a hundred for her for a consulting fee. She’s got a touch as good as you.”
“You want to make three hundred dollars this afternoon? It would pay for our trip.” Bobby turned to her. “They’re in trouble.”
“Sure I do.” Olivia got up and began to pull on her jeans and a T-shirt. She drew in her breath, felt her rib cage rise up out of the fat that had been settling on her body. Working a world-class horse and getting paid for it. That beat the hell out of another afternoon with a book of grammar. “Sure I will. What time does he want us there?”
“So what do you think is wrong with her?” Bobby had gone back to his conversation with his uncle. “What do you think happened?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I think Enida burned her out. His colts been losing everywhere this year. Maybe he’s lost his touch. Anyway, get on out here as soon as you can. I’ll call Jimbo and make it all right.”
“I’m making coffee,” Olivia yelled from the kitchen. She pulled one of Bobby’s plaid shirts over her T-shirt and tucked it in. She stuck bread in the toaster and threw some placemats on the table. Bobby’s belt with his buckle from the year he won Best In State was hanging over a chair and she picked it up and put it around her waist. “Can I wear your belt?” she called. “God, I can’t wait to see this mare. She’s Alto’s colt? That’s a direct line to Boon San Sally. What’s she called?”
“Allie’s Dream. If Enida ruined this horse, there’ll be hell to pay.”
At twelve-thirty they were barreling down the highway in Daniel’s Mercedes headed for Baron Fork. “I wrote this thing in Chapel Hill about how they put bits in horses’ mouths,” Olivia was saying. “When I was a kid my granddad made me ride every horse with only a bridle before I could use a bit on it. I bet somebody’s hurt her mouth. You hurt their mouth real good one time and you’ve ruined a horse. The real horses don’t forget. The sad ones let you keep on hurting them, but the horses that leave no tracks, the angel horses, they don’t forget. I’ll ride her without a bit, if Kayo’ll let me.”
“I’m the one that’s supposed to be riding her. But, hell, baby, everyone knows you’re better than I am. You’ve got the thing my dad’s got. Like you can see into a horse’s head. I used to think Dad could talk to them. The first time Dad saw you ride, in that little rodeo they had for the Special Olympics, he said I could give up the world for you and he wouldn’t blame me.”
He reached over and took her hand, thinking about Olivia on a horse, how she pulled her shoulders back and let her left arm hang, so elegant you’d think she was the queen of England. Nothing moving that didn’t need to move. So that was how Little Sun had taught her, not letting her use a bit. The Wagoners were funny folks. They kept their secrets, most of them. Well, Olivia had that North Carolina blood and it had turned her into a talker.
“How’s your dad doing?” she asked. “What’d he say when you talked to him?”
“He’s got a new lawyer, a guy named Roytame who’s an Iroquois. He might get out on bail pretty soon. It’s looking better.”
“He’s a first offender. Georgia said the jails are so full they never put anyone in prison the first time they get caught.”
“You told her about this?”
“She tells me everything she does. You wouldn’t believe the things she tells me about her boyfriend. She was trying to break up with him last week because she hates his kids and you know what she said? She said she’d been masturbating twice a day so she wouldn’t get in his power. We were having breakfast at The Shak and everybody at the next table heard her say it. You know how loud she talks. I thought they were all going to spit their coffee all over the table. Well, she’s so blind and she never wears her glasses so she couldn’t see them and she was just going on, in the voice she uses to lecture with, talking about masturbating to keep from being in love just like she was describing the mating habits of some tribe. She talks about herself like she wasn’t even there. Like she is some kind of experiment she’s running.” Olivia started laughing. Bobby joined her and pretty soon they were laughing so hard they couldn’t stop. They were still laughing when they went through the gate and entered the property of Baron Fork. The laughter cleared the air, made up for the jail cell in Iowa.
“My brother-in-law ought to be in jail,” Olivia added. “He used to be the worst dope addict you ever saw. He was in trouble when he was fifteen years old for selling LSD. You aren’t the only one with dope dealers in the family. It’s big business. That’s what Georgia says. The growth industry of the eighties. Either they ought to legalize it or they ought to sell stock. The way it’s costing everyone so much. Well, it’s not the first time people got a really bad idea and used it. They used to cut off people’s hands for stealing bread when they were hungry. They did that in France not long ago. So don’t tell me about high civilization. That’s what Georgia always says. And the Cherokee weren’t perfect either. We’ve got a lot to apologize for. And the Irish are still killing each other, so I don’t guess I have a drop of peaceful blood.”
“We weren’t as bad as a lot of tribes. The Sioux. Goddamn, I can’t think about the stuff they did. I wish people would stop making movies about the tribes.”
“Sometimes I wish I was a horse.”
“Then you’d have a bit in your mouth.”
“People put the bits in. Horses don’t hurt each other, unless they fight over a mare and that’s only natural.”
“If you say so, baby. There’s Kayo and Robert. Well, let’s go see about this mare.”
Ten minutes later they were standing by the mare’s stall. Kayo and two of the grooms and Bobby and Olivia, talking about the horse while the horse stood with her head over the stall gate and listened. “I think she’s burned out,” the groom named Robert said. He noticed Olivia watching him and took out his cigarette lighter and used it to burn off a string that was hanging from his worn denim jacket. He put the lighter away and ran his fingers through his hair. “Enida ruined her.”
“Well, when the boss finds out about that entry fee, it’s going to be my tail.” Kayo put an arm around Bobby’s shoulders. “Put a saddle on her, son. See what you think.”
“Let Olivia ride her first. She says she can ride her without a bit. Let her try it, Kayo. She’s got an intuition about her. You know that. You want to go first, baby?”
“Without a bit.” Robert looked down at the ground. His jeans were so tight and his boots so old and his stomach so flat he looked like he had invented the idea of cowboy. “Well, if you get thrown, don’t blame me. I worked her yesterday. She won’t get on a cow. She don’t want nothing to do with a cow.”
“You got a Hackamore?” Olivia asked.
“Yeah, there’s one by the sawhorse.” Olivia picked it up, opened the gate to the stall and went inside and started talking to the mare. She removed the halter and slipped the Hackamore bridle over the mare’s head and led her out into the passageway between the stalls. “Get out of the way,” she said. “Dreamy wants some exercise before she goes to work.” She heaved herself up on the horse’s bare back and rode her out into the bright summer air. When they had cleared the barn she lay down against the mare and began to ride toward the yard of the Baron Fork manor house. The mare kicked up her heels and began to trot. “What happened to you up in Missouri?” Olivia was crooning. “What’d they do to you up there, Champion? That’s what you are. Your momma was the greatest cutting horse in five states and your daddy wasn’t any slouch. So maybe you don’t want to show. Maybe you want to stay out in a pasture and be a brood mare. Is that what you want? You want to get laid and have colts and never go to Dallas–Fort Worth in the trailer? That’s what you want?” Olivia rode the horse back to where the men were waiting. “Look at her ribs,” she said. “This mare’s been starved. Either she got mad and wouldn’t eat or they didn’t feed her. I’d sue them if they sent me back a horse with ribs like this. Go find a couple of steers and turn them into the corral. I’ll try her now. We’ll see what she’ll do.”
“She won’t do diddly without a bit.” Robert was smoking now, starting to get his feelings hurt. “Except she might just dump you on top of a cow. Put a saddle and bridle on the horse, Kayo. Let’s stop all this fooling around.”
“She’s okay,” Bobby said. “Go on, Kayo, get her some cows.”
Olivia rode the horse back into the barn and climbed down and saddled her and led her into the corral where Robert was waiting with the steers. Then, very gently, crooning a little song, Olivia began to work the steers. Cutting horses are bred and trained to zero in on a cow and bring it out of a herd. They have to be very sure. Horse and rider have to think and move as one. The mare Olivia was riding had not been treated badly. But she had been taken away from home and treated like a peasant when she considered herself a queen. She had been put in a corral with other horses and made to wait her turn in the ring. She had been ignored. Now, with Olivia light and sure on her back, she was ready to show her stuff. Subtly, Olivia signaled what to do and like a dancer the powerful small horse could do it.
The mare moved toward the first steer with small bright steps, then backed, then moved in again, cutting off the exits, turning the steer by small degrees, leading it to the chute, then running it away. She turned to the second steer and got rid of it in less than a minute, then backed across the open space with small pretty steps and began to trot around the ring. The men applauded and Olivia came to a halt beside Bobby and slid down off the side. “Here’s your horse,” she said. “Stay out of her way. If you want someone to ride in the Futurity, call me up.”
“What are you doing over at that college?” Kayo sighed. “What do those college professors have to teach you that you don’t know?”
“I thought I was going to learn to write Navajo, but it’s so boring I’m about to flunk the class. This college professor talked me into trying to learn it. He said it would help me get a job on computers.” She started laughing then and climbed up on the fence and sat on the top rail. “I had one in Carolina who had a sex-change operation. He had himself turned into a woman. We didn’t know what to call him.” She was laughing so hard now she could hardly stay on the rail of the corral. Her laughter rose to the top of the barn, a long golden laugh she had forgotten she possessed. A laugh that belonged to horses and barns and cowboys and wide open spaces.
“Goddamn,” Robert said. “I’ll be goddamned.”