Ghost Medicine

by Andrew Smith

  “Well, I’ve pretty much been living off fish and berries.”

  “That’ll turn you into a bear, Troy Stotts. A real skinny one.”

  I pulled at a belt loop to hitch my pants a little higher, knowing she was scowling at how my Levi’s dropped below my waist.

  “I’m sorry, Luz.” I felt like I disappointed her, again. “Anyway, I found this cabin and kind of made it home for a while.”

  “Your home is down there on the lake. Your father is about sick with worrying over you now. Everyone’s been looking for you. Even the sheriff.”

  Chase Rutledge’s dad. Looking for me. I knew he couldn’t have been trying too hard. Everyone knew about Clayton Rutledge, just nobody ever said it.

  “Well, you can tell him I’m okay. Do you want to see this place?”

  “Are you really okay?”

  “I said it.”

  “You say a lot of things,” she sighed. “But you never even tell your best friends what’s really bugging you.”

  I knew that.

  I thought about Tommy and Gabe. When we were kids, we’d promised each other to be friends for life. And I suddenly felt like I betrayed them in some way by running off.

  Reno liked Doats, who was older and a little indifferent to my horse. His real name was Wild Oats, but Gabe and Luz came up with the shorter call name since Gabe couldn’t say it when he was little. “Anyway, I’ve brought some real food with me if you can fit any of it in you.”

  “I could try.”

  I showed her how I had set up the cabin. We walked the horses up the shore of the pond, me showing Luz how I had been surviving by fishing. I didn’t tell her what I wanted to, about how I needed to come here, about how I felt seeing her; it just stuck in my throat, formed, but unspoken. Mostly I listened, as Luz told me about the little things from home: how Tom Buller and Gabriel were doing, that her father and Tom’s dad had gone to Wyoming for a horse auction, and that her mother didn’t know that she had come looking for me.

  And I could tell that she thought she would find me, too. She had brought ham sandwiches and chocolate cake from home. She also brought along some carrots for the horses.

  We ate at the table in the cabin in the late afternoon. I slid it across the floor so we could both sit on the wood bed. I wanted to look at her, but I just looked at the food she unpacked. I felt my face turning red, felt her looking right at me, sitting so close I could feel the static between us, needles from invisible electric magnets.

  “When are you coming back, Troy?”

  “I haven’t thought about that yet.”

  “I’m going to tell your dad you’re okay and that you’re coming back.”

  Her hand brushed against my leg as she adjusted herself on that bed. I hoped that it was too dim for her to notice I was sweating.

  “You can if you want to.” I rubbed at my neck, remembering the fight I’d had with him, like it was a dream; and my indignant fingers dumbly trying to testify, to offer some evidence of what he had done.

  I took another bite of sandwich, trying to show her I didn’t want to talk about this. I could tell that hurt her feelings, so I talked.

  “You know, when my grandfather died we moved up here because this was his home, where my dad grew up. With your dad. At my mom’s funeral, everyone was talking about me going away and stuff, to live somewhere they think is normal or something. But I don’t want to leave this place. And my dad and me, we’re not liking each other right now for a bunch of reasons I don’t want to say. Maybe I should’ve talked to him about it, but I was mad. I was mad at everyone, especially him because I thought he wasn’t there when my mom was dying. And I know I was being stupid and selfish but I guess I thought I was suffering more than anyone else, like I was some kind of saint or something. I was stupid and I could see that. And I didn’t even cry or say anything at her funeral ‘cause I was just so mad. And I needed to just get away to try to get my head back. But I don’t know if it worked out because I honestly feel more lost and messed up now than ever. And he has every right to be mad at me, too. But I’m not running away, because running away means that you know where you should be, and that’s the biggest thing I need to figure out, I guess, but I just kept messing things up worse and worse. Then, when I left, I thought to go by Tommy’s and get him but I messed up and slept too late and headed up this way instead, by myself. Then I fell asleep on Reno and fell off and busted my head open.”

  “Well okay, you said it. Thank you, Troy. What a mess!” She laughed, looking across at me. But I saw her eyes were wet. “I remember when you first got that horse and how Tommy told you Reno wasn’t going to ever get tired of trying to kill you.”

  I remembered that day. “I think he is tired of it, but that doesn’t mean he’ll ever quit it.”

  “Your dad’s not mad, Troy. He’s waiting for you to come home.”

  “I know. Probly.”

  She brought coffee, too. I usually don’t drink it, but it tasted real good after our meal. We boiled it on the stovetop and shared the one cup she had brought along. I sat on the floor, she sat on the bed behind me. We watched the fire in the belly of the stove.

  “Troy, I wanted to say something to you.”

  I didn’t say anything, I just waited and stared at the fire. I took a sip of coffee and set the cup down on the dirt floor beside me.

  “Troy, we’ve been friends since we were four years old. I loved your mom, too. And I just wanted to tell you I’m really sorry. I can’t imagine how much it hurts. But you’ve got to come back home, Troy. You can’t stay up here by yourself like this.”

  And now I could tell she was crying.

  I pulled my knees up to my face and closed my eyes. I felt her hand on my shoulder and then she reached down and grabbed my hand. And then I cried, too, which made me mad at myself. I wanted so bad to stop feeling like that and then it would just keep coming back and I hated that.

  “Things’ll be better, Troy.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Because I didn’t know if things ever got better, or worse, than they had always been. Days would just plod along and happen whether you were ready for them or not. And no matter how disappointed or how elated life might make you, it was always going to just keep happening, pouring over you in a neutral, lukewarm flow. Like spit, I guess. I yawned. My eyes were watery, my hand sweaty and warm where our fingers intertwined.

  We both fell to sleep like that, me sitting on the floor and Luz lying down behind me and holding my hand.

  look, it floats. You stay in it. You float, too. See you at the bottom of the falls, then it’s Gabey’s turn.

  you disappear in that water, Troy. Don’t go under the water.

  Tommy and Gabe running down the shore toward the flats before the lake. The white foamy water, stinging like shards of ice suspended in its roiling flow, tightening my chest, making my T-shirt and jeans shrink to my skin, shrinking to my bones, closing around my face like a pillow being pressed down.

  Troy, Troy

  how do you like the hat, son?

  it’s too curled up. I’m going to fix it. And I’m taking off that band with the feather in it. A real Stetson. I love it. Thanks, Dad. You’re the best.

  And the cold, painful water now swallowing me up, keeping my eyes open, seeing white and gray like staring dumbly into a fluorescent light. I was looking through the window from the outside now, looking in; my mother sitting on the white chair; quiet, like always, my brother beside her.

  Then I’m on the chair, sinking in, deeper and deeper. The water is covering me up.

  When I opened my eyes, it was dark. The embers of the fire glowed orange inside the stove. I was lying on the floor, curled up, my head pillowed on my aching and numb arm. Luz was covered in my sleeping bag, sleeping on her side on the plank bed, one arm hanging down, fingertips just touching my shoulder.

  She shouldn’t have been there. I knew she was going to get into trouble at home, but I didn’t want to wake her. I look
ed at her, sleeping, and thought how lucky I was to be here alone with her. I wished I could go back home, that it would be like it was, sitting by the fire pit with Tommy and Gabriel, dizzy, laughing in the smoke and warm nighttime. I sat there on the dirt floor and watched her sleep, watching with envy the rise and fall of the cover over her body.

  I made myself go outside and saddle Reno. He was in the rope pen next to Doats. Doats followed us as I took Reno out around the other side of the pond for a run in the early morning quiet as the dark sky gave way to the pale color of slate, which in turn softened to a cottony blue.

  She was awake when we came back.

  “I thought you stole my horse.” She was coming out the doorway as we rode up.

  “I couldn’t stop him from following.”

  “There’s coffee.”

  “You make coffee for horse thieves?”

  She frowned, which made me a little uncomfortable.

  I got down from Reno as Luz tended to her paint. I could see her saddle and bag were all packed up, ready to go. I picked up her saddle and walked over to where Doats was drinking at the steel trough.

  “I didn’t mean for you to get into any trouble, Luz. I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s a good thing my dad’s out of state. I’ve got a long enough ride back to figure out what to tell my mom.”

  “I wouldn’t think there’s that many miles in between here and home.” I cinched Doats’ saddle in place.

  “How can you do that, Troy?” And then I could tell she was mad. “I know you think that life can be funny. Sometimes you say really funny things that make us all laugh. But that mouth of yours is always straight and sad. When am I ever going to see you smile at things instead of just make fun of ‘em?”

  I’d never really thought about it before, but I was suddenly aware of my straight-mouthed face. But I don’t think I felt sad, really, at least not at that moment. I just sometimes felt like I was in some kind of audience, watching myself do things between moments of distraction.

  And then before I knew it, Luz whirled toward me and grabbed the back of my neck in both of her hands and kissed me straight on my straight lips. Then she was up on Doats, giving out a “hyaw!” and they were off toward the trees, heading down the mountain.

  I guess I always knew that eventually one of us would break down and do that, and so many times I’d pictured myself getting slapped afterwards.

  I let out a “who-eee,” loud enough for her to hear as she rode off. I stood there, watching her go; openmouthed, chest pounding, smiling big.

  I went into the cabin and gulped down the coffee she had left in her tin cup, kind of wondering what side she had drank from, trying to keep that feel of her lips on mine. I just sat there on the edge of that plank bed, looking at the stove, not blinking. I felt a little tired and dizzy. I could smell her hair there, like strawberries and tea where she had laid her head down on my sleeping bag and it reminded me of all those times we had gone to the Benavidezes’ when I was small; Gabe running around the house barefoot, constant trickle of snot from his nose at three years old, her trying to get me to play doll house or with her toy horses, the sounds of our moms’ voices through the halls, laughing about things we would never know.

  I called out the doorway: “You want to go home, Reno?” And Reno, of course, answered back in his own language that I understand, but can’t put into words.

  I started gathering up my belongings and I repacked them a little less carefully than I had organized them when I left home that morning weeks ago.

  THREE

  I wondered which way I would have gone if Luz hadn’t come looking for me; if I stayed up there, waiting for something.

  My father just waited; he always did that. His patience and quiet ways made most people think he was aloof, that he didn’t care about anything. And it frustrated me, too, to watch him expect things to be predictable, and then try to act unsurprised when what he expected never happened. But I knew things about my father I didn’t have to say; all boys know those things about their dads.

  After Will left us, my father stopped talking more than a few words every day, and I thought of him as some kind of professor who was quietly measuring the experiment of our lives with emotionless eyes. And I could tell he wanted to say things, too, but he held them in and I tried to be good and strong like his older boy. And I wanted to tell him things, too, but after my mom died, when it was just us left alone, I couldn’t bring myself to do it, even if I kept telling myself I had to.

  As Reno and I made our way down through the trees, I listened to the rush of the river.

  I remembered Tommy and Gabriel coming to my house, kidnapping me on my sixteenth birthday, and how my father had insisted I go with my friends as my mother lay sleeping in the room where she would die. And I didn’t want to go; I didn’t want to do anything, but my dad told me to go, and Tommy and Gabe practically dragged me out before I could even get my shirt on. That was when we took out the kayak Tommy found and went over the falls. I lost my shoes and nearly drowned; and I remembered them taking me to the Foreman’s house afterwards, the smell of the cake Luz had baked for me there, and me, completely stripped naked out of my freezing clothes, shivering and wrapped in nothing but a hole-pocked towel, as Luz laughed and insisted on taking a picture of me at their surprise party.

  And that night, when I came back home, dressed in Tommy’s clothes, my dad didn’t say anything; didn’t ask where we went, or why I was wearing Tom Buller’s things, even though I knew he noticed, was measuring the changes in me, quietly, at his distance.

  Once we had come down into the foothills and passed through the break in the old white plank fence surrounding the apple orchard, Reno began moving purposefully, knowing exactly where and when he would stop. The apples weren’t nearly in yet, but some of them were big enough that Reno spent a few minutes at one of the branches, hanging bent with red-green fruit, before turning away and resuming his quickened pace toward the familiarity of his barn.

  It was late afternoon now, the long shadows of mountain, hill, and treetops painting over our white barn with its loose-boarded sides, the broad open breezeway turned at an angle against winter winds. Reno’s stall was positioned along a row of others off to one side, the hen house on the other, all of it contained by a big pipe-and-wire fence. Our three goats stood in front of the breezeway, eating at a fresh flake of hay that must have been dropped there by my father. Hens scratched and squatted in the dirt, cooling their feathers after the long hot day.

  I stepped down from Reno and opened the pipe gate to his stall. He went in, chuckling, willingly, on his own. I threw his reins over the top rail and removed his saddle and pad, soaked with sweat, and threw them onto the pipe rail, as well. I looked for the little nail in the wall to make sure his brush still hung there as I freed him from that halter.

  “Are you hungry, Reno?”

  Those were probably the words he recognized most, and he threw his head up and down, nodding and neighing, smelling the alfalfa there.

  “I’ll brush you down when I get you some food.”

  I latched the gate behind me and then walked down the breezeway to the small hay room where we stored the feed. I could hear Reno stamping at the bottom rail with his front foot, trying to knock it open, as though he were afraid I’d walk off for good and not feed him first.

  “Troy? Troy?”

  I heard my father calling me from out by Reno’s stall.

  He was standing back at the end of the breezeway when I turned out of the hay room, blue-flowered alfalfa sprinkling down from my cradling arm.

  “I’m here, Dad.”

  He moved through the hallway straight to me and grabbed me by the shoulders. And then he hugged me hard, pressing the flake of hay into my chest. I think he was crying.

  He knocked my hat back off of my head and put his fingers in my hair. He kissed my ear and said, “Oh my God, Troy, don’t you know how much I love you, son?”

  Do you know wh
o my favorite boy in the whole world is?

  I am.

  Do you know how much I love you?

  Forever and ever.

  We used to play that game when I was four. Every day. Every day until maybe I got too old, or maybe he thought I just forgot the answers. But even when I was four, I knew he was afraid, and that he was trying to hold on to me because he couldn’t hold on to the son who was born first.

  “I’m sorry, Dad. I love you. I’m sorry.”

  Then he held me back and looked at me, all the way down to my dirty tennis shoes.

  “She used to always say you were disappearing. Look at you, boy, you look like you’ve lost twenty pounds that you can’t spare.” And he pulled the waist of my 501s out from my side. They opened a gap out about four inches from my body.

  “You look like you haven’t been eating regular either, Dad.”

  “Why don’t we do something about that, Troy?”

  I looked at all the hay scattering down my front, into my pants, pockets, and the sides of my shoes. “I’ll bet Reno’s wanting us to remember he was out there for all that time, too.”

  “Do you think you’ve got enough for him?”

  “I’m wearing enough for all the Benavidez horses.” I thought about my mouth. Straight. “And I better go easy on him right now, anyway, or he might get sick.”

  My dad didn’t know horses.

  He put his hand on my right shoulder and we walked like that out to Reno’s stall. I tossed the flake into his feeder and he went right to it. I brushed him down as he ate.