by Rhonda Riley
Unnerved by the sight, I dialed Ray Bentley, our veterinarian.
When I hung up, I grabbed gauze, a sheet, scissors, and the extra first-aid kit we kept in the house, then ran to the stable. Bloody footprints led to the first stall, where Jericho lay on her side. Adam and Manny had stripped to the waist. A broad smear of red darkened Adam’s chest. Kneeling at Jericho’s shoulder, he held bloody, wadded-up shirts, one pressed at the base of her neck, the other at her chest. His cheek was abraded, and a long, shallow cut oozed at his bicep.
The mare lay still. Only her eyes moved, wildly. She breathed in staccato snorts.
I heard nothing else, but when I touched Adam’s back, his voice vibrated under my hand. “The vet’s on his way,” I said.
Manny muttered a soothing stream of Spanish as he grabbed the sheet and began tearing it into strips.
“Never seen anything like it!” Adam winced as I handed him two thick gauze pads. “He bit the crap out of her, then all hell broke loose. Rearing. Over and over. His hooves slashing.” He tossed the shirts aside and pressed the gauze firmly to the wounds. “He wanted to kill her. We barely got her out.” Blood blossomed through the compress immediately, oozing around his fingers.
“Loco, loco,” Manny muttered.
Jericho nickered weakly when the vet arrived. Ray shook his head as he knelt to examine the mare. I gasped when he removed the compress. A fist-sized chunk of flesh slid sideways from her withers, barely attached.
Jericho erupted, kicked, then lifted her head and shoulders as if to heave herself upright. Everyone but Adam backed away. He moved closer, his hand in her mane, soothing her. At his touch, she laid her head down again.
Ray laid a large, dark case on the ground a few feet away and began to unpack syringes and a large vial. “It looks bad. A local, first. She’s not going to like it.”
“You don’t have to stay for this,” Adam whispered to me.
Grateful, I walked away from the agonized cries of the horse. For want of anything more constructive to do, I went in the house and prepared sandwiches and coffee. As I loaded the food onto a tray, another sharp neigh rang. I added a flask of whiskey on my way out.
Manny stood at a respectful distance, watching intently. The other horses in the stable were quiet, their ears perked. The odors of blood and the men’s sweat dulled the air.
A big utility light clamped to the stall rails shone down on Adam and Ray. Jericho, her legs tied, lay facing away from my view. I was grateful not to see her wounded chest or her terrified eyes.
Adam knelt at her back, stroking her neck. Her foreleg trembled spasmodically. Her hide rippled.
Ray paused, leaning back on his heels. “I didn’t expect anything this extensive. I’m out.” He held up an empty vial and shook it. “I can’t give her a local on these last two wounds. But I’ve got to close her up before there’s any more swelling. Twenty-five, maybe thirty more sutures. It’s going to be rough.” He glanced at Adam, who nodded.
“Evelyn,” Adam said without looking up.
Ray hesitated, the threaded needle poised over Jericho, and shot a questioning glance in my direction.
The cups rattled as I set the tray down. The only other sound was the mare’s shallow and rapid breath.
Not certain what Adam wanted, I stepped into the stall and stood next to him. Ray’s needle touched near a gapping slash of exposed muscle. Jericho flexed her forelegs and jerked her head sideways in a scream of protest. The two remaining gashes bled anew.
Adam touched my foot. I realized what he was going to do and moved to stand closer to him, giving tacit permission. Then I braced myself. His other hand slid up the taut muscles of Jericho’s neck. His lips parted in exhalation. A single, radiant chime rang out, pure and singular. A test, not his full range. Jericho nickered a soft response. Adam and Ray locked eyes for a second. As Adam’s voice increased in volume, Ray’s face opened in shock. Adam bent to press his chest to the mare’s shoulder.
Ray’s eyes followed Adam, then darted down the flanks of the horse who now lay completely still.
Adam’s monotone rose and flexed through the stable. His hand encircled my ankle. The air pressed into pure sound. But I heard an undercurrent of uncertainty, a falter in the swell of it. I realized with a shock that his goal was not only to soothe but to anesthetize. My head and chest hummed. I opened my mouth to breathe. His grasp on my ankle tightened. A chill ran up my arms as his hesitant tremolo blasted into full harmonic command. Soothing and hypnotic. To the bone. Ray blinked rapidly and shuddered before guiding the needle in. His hand dipped, then rose for the next stitch.
I closed my eyes. I reached out to steady myself. My hand landed on Adam’s head, and the resonance changed instantly as if some circuit completed.
His voice filled my skin. My arm and ribs vibrated. It pulsed down into my hips and feet.
I do not know how long Adam’s voice rang through me—through the mare and the stable. Slowly, evenly, he drew down to shallow waves. I opened my eyes. Jericho lay softly beside us, breathing regularly, her eyes closed.
Ray’s hands shook slightly as he smoothed the last bandage on. “I couldn’t completely close her up, but it will granulate in,” he whispered, his words slow and thick. His eyes glistened. “There was ligament damage on her chest that will affect her right leg. But it’s the best I can do.” His dazed face slack, he rubbed his arms as if they were cold, and stared at Adam, who still leaned over Jericho’s neck.
An expanse of white bandage covered her chest, her withers, and her upper foreleg. A small bandage glowed on her cheek.
Adam took a deep breath and released my ankle. I dropped to my knees beside him. I must have looked like I was praying.
Manny stepped forward to pull a blanket over the mare and help Ray collect his tools. Then I heard one of them pour coffee. A spoon clinked on a cup. Footsteps. Then Manny’s hands appeared in front of me, holding half a sandwich and a cup of coffee.
A small dread bloomed in my chest. I steeled myself against that familiar pang of anger and shame, against what I’d seen in the faces of Clarion.
Manny set the sandwich and coffee down on the floor in front of me.
I looked up.
He regarded me only with somber concern and a brief nod. “Eat,” he said.
I picked up the sandwich and pushed myself up off the floor.
Adam didn’t move.
The men turned their gaze expectantly from Adam’s back to me. I saw with a start of relief: their dazed faces were respectful, almost reverent. No judgment, no fear. “Please help yourselves to the food.”
Adam sat, slumped, one hand still resting on Jericho. I held the sandwich out to him.
“I’m okay.” He waved it away.
I followed Ray out of the stall. “Let’s let them rest,” I said and pushed the stall door shut behind us.
The three of us ate quietly, standing up. I was grateful for their silence as the whiskey flask passed from hand to hand.
After we finished the food, Ray squatted beside Adam and, including me with a glance, gave us instructions for Jericho’s care and the dates and times he’d be returning to check up on her. He spoke quietly and to the point, his hand resting on Adam’s shoulder.
Adam, bleary-eyed, simply nodded; then, when Ray was done, asked me if I was okay. “Good,” he muttered when I told him I was fine. Then he returned his attention to Jericho.
I walked Ray outside. I was suddenly reluctant to have him leave and felt I owed him something. He paused at the door of his truck and turned to me as if to speak. But he said nothing, simply opened the door and got into his truck.
I touched his arm propped in the window. “Thank you” was all I could manage.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m glad to have—” He blinked away tears, then sighed.
“You don’t have to say anything, Ray.”
He nodded and drove away.
I returned to the stable to find Manny standing outside the sta
ll as if guarding Jericho and Adam. He startled briefly, then waved his hand indicating the whole stable. “Is so quiet now.”
It was unusually quiet in the stable. I heard only the gentle swish of a horse’s tail, then, from one of the far stalls, the faint rhythm of chewing. Adam slept beside the mare.
“They’ll be okay. You can go now. Go on home. It’s been a long day.”
He studied Adam’s back for a moment. “Gracias,” he whispered with a nod. As he walked to his truck, I saw him cross himself.
My chest still hummed and my ankle felt hot. I went outside and took my first deep breath since Adam had touched me. Overhead, the sky was brilliantly clear, the horizon low and softened by the distant tree line. Florida lay gentle and flat in all directions. Miles away, the sea kept rhythm. Under my feet were the tributaries of springs. This land was different. The men in the stable were not a bunch of stoned hippies, not a congregation in pain. They’d heard a soothing, powerful command, not the rage of loss.
I returned to the house for a sleeping bag and pillows to make him a pallet. Adam slept the rest of the afternoon by Jericho’s side. All day, I could feel the imprint of his hand on my ankle.
Breath, Adam’s and the horses’, purled through the stable when I visited late that night. He lay beautiful in his sleep, his face placid and firm, one hand on the mare’s shoulder. She slept on her opposite side. He must have awakened and gotten her to stand and turn, a good sign. The bandage on her chest was bloody at the center, but the edges were white.
The next day, Manny stopped me on the back porch. He spent his days in the stables and rarely came up to the house. His normal serious, calm demeanor was unchanged. Still, I braced myself.
But there was only kindness and curiosity on his face. “What happened in the stable?” A quiet, almost formal man, he seldom asked me direct questions.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know how he does it or what it is. He doesn’t know either. But it works on the horses.”
“Yes, it works.” Manny nodded. “It is his talent.”
“Thank you, Manny. I appreciate you seeing it that way.”
He returned my smile, puzzled as if wondering what other way he might see it, but said nothing more before returning to the stable.
I went inside and wept with gratitude.
Initially, Jericho made swift progress, but on the third day she burned with a fever. It took days for the new antibiotic to kick in. Adam stayed with her around the clock, sleeping in the stable. Ray was not optimistic about her chances of a full recovery from the damage to her ligaments. Her owner wanted to put her down, but Adam insisted that she could recuperate. He bought her from the owner to ensure that she had a chance.
At Ray’s instruction, he cleaned and dressed the wounds three times a day for the first few weeks, then twice daily for months, and finally only once a day. Adam eventually coaxed the mare into a confident, nearly normal gait, but the stallion, still boarding with us even after the attack, became progressively more aggressive, kicking when anyone walked through the stable, often striking and rearing when Adam approached him. Manny, a very capable, calm groom, refused to handle him.
“I don’t understand it,” Adam complained repeatedly. “One moment, he’s a normal horse. The next, it’s like there’s no horse in there, just rage and fear. Nothing I do reaches him then. Something’s not right. I don’t know what to do. This has never happened before. I don’t know how to fix this.” He rubbed his face as if to wake himself.
One afternoon, I heard the stallion’s angry neighs and kicks repeatedly interrupt the soothing ring of Adam’s voice. That evening, when I took Adam’s supper out to him in the stable office, I found him drowsing at his desk. He looked tired, unfocused.
“I feel like a snake ready to shed,” he muttered, ignoring the plate I set on his desk. “Things seem veiled, as if there’s a caul over my head.” He waved his hand in front of his eyes.
I rubbed his arm and felt the firm muscle and his smooth skin. Our trip to Kentucky had taken something out of both of us. A dull, helpless dread nagged me. I could feel it in my bones, and was uncertain if it was a fordable obstacle or the foreshadowing of my body’s eventual surrender. In Adam, I sensed resistance, his energies deferred. He’d been willing to become old for me. Instead, he would, in the youthful skin of Roy Hope, escort me into my old age. He would watch my vigor and remaining beauty slip away. Then I would leave him here to grow old at his own unique rate. The bitter bile of sorrow threatened. I pressed it down, pushed it away, and turned my attention to the comforts I could offer him now. “You need more sleep. Come to bed. I’ll give you a back rub.”
As we settled into bed that evening, he said, “There’s a waterfall in the mountains that I always go to. Near the top of the falls there is a place you can walk behind the water. The ledge is deep, the water falls clear as glass. One night, I saw the full moon through it. And if you stick your head through the curtain of water on a clear day, you can see for miles.”
“Yes?” I whispered.
“I think of that place when I’m tired or discouraged. The water never stops. No matter what happens to any of us, to anyone, anywhere, water keeps coming off the mountain. It moves. It was. Is. Will be.”
I reached back and rubbed his thigh. “Go. As soon as you can, go.”
A few days later, the stallion’s owner, unhappy with Adam’s lack of progress, arranged to move the horse to another stable—another first for Adam. When the new stable came to pick up the stallion, the horse was having one of his better days, his neck and back supple. Adam pressed his face against the horse’s shoulder before leading him out of our stable. At the trailer ramp, he stepped back and held his arms open as he released the horse. I remembered him standing in the rain so many years ago, his arms open to Darling the day Cole broke his leg.
The winter sun bounced off the side of the trailer as it turned onto the highway. The earth seemed to exhale mist as the day warmed and the brown-tipped grass of the pastures returned the morning’s rain to its source.
Adam radiated thwarted energy.
Later that day, I found him in the hall, standing next to the phone. He stared into space and rubbed his chest. “The waterfall that I told you about. It has stopped,” he said. “I called the ranger station there. It’s frozen. How could I not have thought of that?”
In bed that night, I switched off the light and I pulled him toward me. Wordlessly, as we had countless times, we touched. His hands were certain, his voice strong. But I woke in the middle of the night to find him naked, silhouetted at the bedroom window looking toward the stables.
“You loved the springs when we first got here. What was it you once told me about them? Millions of gallons a day, every day. Endless. You don’t have to wait for your waterfall to thaw. Go to the springs. Think of it as the reverse of the mountain. It’s moving water. You just go down instead of up.”
“Being underwater feels very different. But you’re right. I’ll go. Tomorrow.” He nodded and continued watching the stables.
Soon, I felt his warm, bruised energy spooning up behind me.
In the morning, Adam packed his scuba-diving gear in the back of the truck. Devil’s Springs had been developed as a private park by then, but they still allowed diving in the caves. He hadn’t dived that cave in years.
We kissed, a slow, soft kiss, then he was off. I noticed again how he smelled different lately, more tart. I waved good-bye, happy to think of him in the spring where we had taken our one cave dive together. Dust rose behind his truck as he waved and passed Manny’s little red dented car on the driveway.
Usually, he was gone four or five hours when he went diving. But he still was not back when the little girl with the leg brace came for her riding lesson in the afternoon.
The girl and her mother sat in the stable office waiting for Adam. I took some iced tea out to them.
“When do you expect him back?” the mother asked, wiping the arm of her chair. A
n impatient beauty, she seemed to think the world owed her something to compensate for the crippled daughter fate had given her.
“He should have been back by now,” I said.
She gave me a look that said she knew that kind of husband. I didn’t want to wait there with her. Usually, Adam called if he was running late. I assumed a flat tire, a last-minute errand.
After a few minutes, I heard the soft hiss of her car tires as she drove away.
Still Adam did not come home. In the slant of late-afternoon light, Manny closed the stables for the evening.
As I prepared our dinner, I imagined Adam stopping at the tack shop. I set the table. Spaghetti, the sauce made with my own canned tomatoes. A salad with the first lettuce of winter. I would give him until nine o’clock, I told myself, then I would eat.
My dinner tasted like cardboard. After a few bites, I put it in the refrigerator. I left his plate on the table, a fork and spoon beside it.
Midnight was too late for a stray errand or a broken fan belt. I tried to think who Adam might have stopped to visit. Sometimes, Ray came by for a beer at the end of the week. Adam played poker with Randy Warren and some Ocala horse ranchers every few weeks. A tattered list of typed names hung on the bulletin board next to the kitchen phone—people he played music with. I recognized most of the names. Adam had penciled in a few new names. One had been crossed out.
The flutter of anxiety in my chest became a stone. All night, I waited. First, I watched TV, then I turned the TV off and resorted to the silence of reading, so I would be certain to hear him arrive.
At the first blush of light in the windows, I put his unused dishes away and made a pot of coffee. I poured two cups and went out to the stables. My hand shook slightly as I set Adam’s steaming cup of coffee on his desk. I shivered in the dawn cold and drew my robe closer.
