Anderson, who looked just like the person she was before she was whole, stared up at her, trembling so fiercely that he seemed blurry. Once, she and this pitiful little creature had been virtually identical, except that he’d had the power to prevent all of this, and she’d had nothing but hatred.
But their eyes met, and her weaker half wanted to try one more time to save him.
So, they turned and left. Hettie, who no longer knew if she was one or two, turned away from the safe house as the fire spread to the roof, and ran, trampling over those of the sheriff’s men slow enough to be in her way. Neither she nor her stronger self cared anymore what happened to them or anyone else. They felt bone give way under their feet, and they broke into a gallop, along the road leading past the farmhouse, to the crossroads where her strong self had been born, and out of Richter Hollow, westward, to anywhere else.
***
Cat McDonald lives on the eighth floor and can see all of Edmonton from here. She has a formal detective education and is currently enrolled in witch school as well. Her short stories can be found in Sirens, Tesseracts 15, and Here Be Monsters: Tongues and Teeth.
We Us You
Andrew Bourelle
He was taking her to the rodeo, so he wore jeans and a tucked-in long-sleeved shirt, with cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. He regretted how he dressed as soon as he saw her. Nicole answered the door in a dress, not a fancy one like girls might wear to a dance, but a summer dress, a light green color that flowed out around her legs, past her knees. Her sandy blond hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, tied with a red ribbon. She wore no makeup, but didn’t need it. Patrick thought she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Even years later, after all that happened that night, he remembered this moment. The door swinging open. The sight of her in her dress. Her smile. Her big, expressive eyes, green as a spring field. He felt a happiness he hadn’t experienced before. This girl was going out with him.
She explained that her parents wanted to meet him. He walked in, his boots clicking on the hardwood floor. In the living room, her parents sat reading. The TV was off. He’d never seen his own parents reading instead of watching TV.
“Oh,” Nicole’s mom said, as she saw him, then she hid her surprise with a smile. “How are you doing, cowboy?”
Patrick regretted how he had dressed even more. Nicole and her family were from Las Vegas, new to the community and new to Montana. Why hadn’t he thought that they might be put off by his boots and hat?
“Good, ma’am. Thank you.” He removed his hat and held it.
Nicole’s mother looked like her, older but still pretty; her father had a long gray ponytail, glasses that seemed to perch at the end of his nose. He eyed Patrick above the lenses, his face welcoming and friendly. Patrick sat with Nicole on a couch, and the four of them spoke briefly. Her parents asked Patrick questions, but he mostly answered “Yes, ma’am” or “No, sir” instead of giving them the sentences and paragraphs they were probably hoping for. He knew he should talk more but he was nervous and therefore quiet. Nicole grinned at him, her dimples showing.
“You’re so polite, Patrick,” her mother said.
“You can call us Greg and Tanya,” her father said.
“Yes, sir,” Patrick said.
Nicole and her parents began laughing, and then, a second later, Patrick did too.
When he and Nicole left, he regretted wearing a pair of jeans that showed off the ring from snuff cans he carried in his back pocket. Having a ring like that was a badge of esteem usually, but he didn’t like Nicole’s parents seeing it as he walked out the door. His boots clapped self-consciously against the floor as he left. He told himself to stop worrying about these things, it was too late now.
He opened the door of the truck for Nicole, and she climbed in. He came around and started the engine.
“What’s this?” she said, pointing to the back window.
“A gun rack,” Patrick said. “This is my dad’s truck,” he added, as if to distance himself from hunting, even though he was eager for the season to begin.
“Oh.” Her voice held no judgment, only curiosity.
It was Saturday, and school had only started on Monday. The talk of the school the very first day had been the new girl from Las Vegas. He was seated next to her in English class. They’d exchanged glances right away, and smiles. She was beautiful, but not in what he expected to be a stereotypically Las Vegas way, bleach-blond hair and lots of makeup. She felt more down to earth, pretty in a cute way, not trashy. But she dressed differently than the other girls, wearing sundresses and blouses that girls couldn’t get around here.
She was smart, too. She could answer all the questions the English teacher asked. They’d only had to write one paper so far, but for that she received a big red A+. He glanced at her score out of the corner of his eye. When the teacher called his name and he went to her desk to get his paper, the teacher had pointed to one of the sentences he wrote and asked him to read it aloud. He spoke softly, “I told my mom I’ll get good grades this year,” only he pronounced “I’ll” as “all.” He knew his mistake, but was helpless to stop what was happening.
“Do you mean ‘I’ll’?” the teacher said. “As in ‘I will’?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you mean to tell me you’ve made it all the way to your junior year of high school and you think ‘I’ll’ is spelled A-L-L?”
She didn’t wait for a response, thrusting his paper at him as if it was a poisonous weed she no longer wanted to touch. He walked back to his seat, feeling the blood rushing to his head, knowing his face was sunburn red. He avoided looking at the new girl. She whispered to him, “Don’t worry about it. It’s only the first week.”
On Friday, during group work when they were supposed to discuss the night’s reading of several poems by Emily Dickinson, Patrick asked if Nicole planned on going to the rodeo that weekend. She said no and explained she didn’t have any friends close enough to go with.
“Well, you should go with me,” he said, surprising himself with his own boldness.
“Okay,” Nicole said. “When do you want to go?”
They agreed on Saturday night and as he left class, his friend Alex saw him in the hall and asked, “What the hell are you smiling about?”
For dinner, he took Nicole to a local restaurant. It wasn’t the fanciest restaurant in town, but he thought the food was the best. He asked about where she was from. His older brother had told him to do this: ask questions. She explained that Las Vegas wasn’t as glamorous as the TV shows and movies made it seem—all gangsters and high-stakes poker players—mostly it was middle-class tourists, families even. The city had some seedy characters, she said, but mostly these were gambling addicts on a swing of bad luck.
“It’s pretty big, though,” Nicole said. “I think almost as many people live in Las Vegas as in the whole state of Montana.”
“Wow,” he said.
“Vegas isn’t nearly as cool as Seattle or Chicago,” she said. “Have you ever been to either one?”
Patrick shook his head. He didn’t want to admit that Missoula was the biggest city he’d been to, with a population you could fit into some college football stadiums.
“They made a big fuss here,” he said, “when we got the second stoplight.”
She explained that her parents moved her to Montana so they could start a wild-horse rescue ranch.
“In Nevada, they capture horses from overpopulated areas, and break and tame them for adoption,” she said. “We want to make a refuge where they can stay wild.”
“Doesn’t it get too cold here?” Patrick asked.
Nicole shrugged. “We haven’t figured everything out just yet.”
Nicole’s family had bought one of the biggest ranches in the county.
“We don’t have any horses yet,” Nicole said, “but once things get up and going, we hope the whole place will be teeming with wild horses.”
He asked what her parents d
id for work.
“Well, in Vegas, they were performers at one of the casinos. I guess now they’re just going to be ranchers.”
Patrick nodded, trying to imagine Nicole’s parents working a ranch the way he and his parents did. He couldn’t picture it.
“Have you ever ridden a horse?” Patrick asked.
“No,” she said.
“You can ride my horse some time,” Patrick said. He wanted to tell her how much he loved horses, how riding was the only time he ever felt truly happy, a way for him to escape and forget about his parents’ fighting or his teacher teasing him about spelling words wrong. He felt giddy about the prospect of sharing this love with Nicole—no one else really knew about it.
But she just shrugged at the offer and said, “We don’t plan to ride our horses, just, you know, keep them safe.”
Deflated, Patrick said nothing more about horses.
When their meal arrived, Nicole began asking Patrick questions: about his parents, about his siblings, about life on the ranch. He tried to answer articulately between bites of his bison burger. Nicole had ordered a salad, explaining that she was a vegetarian, and she picked at it as he talked.
As they left the restaurant, he asked if Las Vegas had any good rodeos.
“Nevada has rodeos,” she said, “but I’ve never been to one.”
“You’ve never been to a rodeo before?”
She shook her head, looking embarrassed.
“Well,” he said, opening the door to his truck for her, “you’re in for a real treat.”
As they walked through the dirt parking lot, they could hear the announcer talking about the contestants and kids laughing over at the fair. A Ferris wheel stood above the other structures, and Patrick imagined the two of them riding it, him working the courage up to kiss her. Behind the big wheel, the clouds were bathed in scarlet from the setting sun, giving everything around them a reddish tint.
“There’s something about the sunsets here,” Nicole said. “They’re so beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like them.”
Patrick said, “Thank you,” as if she’d been complimenting him. He didn’t know what else to say—he didn’t have much to compare the sunsets to.
They were quiet for a moment. Then Patrick said, “Watch out for the cow shit.”
Nicole maneuvered around a flattened brown pancake nearly the size of a manhole cover.
“I guess I shouldn’t have worn these shoes,” she said, pointing to her white sandals. Her toes were already covered in a layer of dirt.
“We’ll be up on the bleachers most of the time,” Patrick said. “Just watch where you step.”
Inside, no one was dressed like Nicole. The crowd was all jeans and boots and ball caps and cowboy hats. Some people even stared at her but she seemed not to notice, and Patrick felt proud to be walking next to her. She was pretty and out of the ordinary, and she was with him. Patrick felt desperate for something different. When he was out riding, the feeling wasn’t there. But other times, sitting in class, making hay on the ranch, or even at a party with friends, he felt he didn’t belong. He wanted to be somewhere else, but he didn’t know where.
Nicole seemed to embody a somewhere-else-ness.
As they climbed into the stands a friend of his, Jimmy, called his name and waved.
“Come over here,” he shouted.
“Do you want to go sit with them?” Patrick said, secretly hoping that he and Nicole would have more time alone together.
“Sure,” she said, and they climbed up the metal bleachers to where Patrick’s friends sat.
“Have y’all met Nicole?” he asked.
Five of his friends were there, three guys and two girls: Jimmy, Toby, and Alex; Jeannine and Alicia. Patrick sat next to them, with Nicole on the aisle. Patrick leaned in close to her, pointing down into the arena, explaining the rules. A bareback rider came out of the chute with the horse kicking so hard that the rider’s back crashed down into its hindquarters again and again, his head whipping back. The eight-second horn sounded, and the two standby riders came in to rescue the guy from the horse. Nicole’s mouth was an O.
“How could he stay on?” she said. “It seems like that would give him whiplash.”
“It’s a tough sport,” Patrick said. “I told you this would be fun.”
A trick roper came into the center of the arena, swinging a lasso around his body like magic. He made the loop go up and down his body, like he was inside a tornado, then he made it even bigger, swinging it parallel to his body, and jumped back and forth through it while his arm swung the rope in a blur. Nicole clapped vigorously along with the rest of the crowd.
When team roping began, Nicole couldn’t believe that someone could lasso the hind legs of a running calf.
“How can they do that?” she said, genuine bewilderment in her voice.
“I can do that,” he said. “But not very well.”
When the next duo came out, the first cowboy lassoed the calf’s neck right away. The second shot his lasso but only captured one hind leg, so instead of falling into the dirt, the calf was pulled between the cowboys, one leg stretched out behind it like it was caught in some kind of torture trap.
“Oh,” Nicole said. “That poor calf.”
“They’re resilient,” Patrick said. “This don’t hurt ‘em.”
He didn’t know if this was true or not. He hadn’t thought about it before.
More kids from high school showed up, and Patrick introduced Nicole.
“Come sit with us over here for a minute,” Jeannine said to Nicole, gesturing to where the girls sat.
“Okay,” Nicole said.
Patrick was glad for her. He knew she was new to town and hadn’t made many—or any—friends yet. But once she was gone, sitting one row up and a few seats down, he ached to have her back.
“Going after the new girl, huh?” Johnny whispered, sitting down next to him and bumping his shoulder.
“Shhh,” Patrick said.
“I’m just kidding. She’s cute. I’d let her slob my cob.”
Patrick didn’t know how to respond, and so he didn’t.
Johnny had a backpack of beer and offered everyone a can. His friends took them discreetly, sneaking drinks and hiding the cans out of sight. The bleachers were filled with neighbors, parents, teachers, but everyone expected high schoolers to sneak beer into the rodeo.
Patrick looked at Nicole and asked—he almost had to shout now—if she wanted one. She mouthed the words “No.” He accepted one hesitantly.
Now that he was in the presence of his friends, and not alone with Nicole, he felt himself changing. He took on all the old manners he always had with his friends, slapping their backs, teasing them just as they teased him. He finished his beer and bummed a dip off Toby. He spit into his empty can. He knew this wasn’t how he’d been acting around Nicole, in class or tonight, but he was unable to stop.
Later, even just a few years later, he attributed it to growing up. As a teenager, he assumed a pose—what he thought he should be—because he didn’t yet know who he actually was. But that night, he felt like he was watching someone else in a TV show, a character in someone else’s story.
He looked periodically back at Nicole. She seemed to be enjoying her conversation with the girls but time had skipped by since they’d been separated, like someone had fast-forwarded the video he was watching, and now the announcer was saying that bull-riding was up next.
“Oh, this is the last event,” he heard Jessica tell Nicole. “It’s the best.”
Patrick looked back at her and she smiled sweetly, giving him a small wave. He smiled, conscious of the chew in his bottom lip. He wanted to stand up and go sit next to her but not with the snuff in his mouth. He stayed where he was, turning his back to her to spit the last of the grains out. For once, his entire group of friends was quiet, watching the rodeo with their full attention.
The first rider came out and was quickly thrown. The standby riders came in, l
assoing the bull’s horns and directing it toward the exit chute.
“My God,” Nicole said. “It’s so big.”
She was right. Everything about it was big, its head, its horns, its broad and bulked shoulders. The bull was all muscle and madness, pure force, as big as a bear and probably just as strong. It took several minutes for the two cowboys to get the bull under control and out of the arena.
The next rider came out. He was thrown immediately.
Finally, a few riders came out who finished their eight seconds. One couldn’t get loose once the horn had sounded, and the cowboys had to chase the bull around the ring until he grabbed one of them and jumped off. Other riders followed with similar outcomes, finishing and then squirming to be away from the bull. Another almost finished but was bucked off just as the horn sounded. The bull thrashed around, looking as if he was right on top of the rider. The clown ran in to distract it. When the bull was gone, the man stood up and limped to the side, climbing up and out.
“He’s okay,” the announcer said through the loudspeaker. “He’s a real cowboy.”
He looked back at Nicole. He’d succeeded most of the night in reading her expression, but now he was unsure. He hoped she was probably just captivated by what was happening, this being her first rodeo.
The final rider of the night was up. The bull’s name was “Cannibal.” When the chute opened he charged out, thrashing madly. The rider lasted a few seconds and then he was catapulted, twisting in the air. He landed on his head, with the rest of his body pile-driving him into the dirt, limbs flopping in ways that it seemed a person shouldn’t bend. The crowd gasped. Patrick too. But the bull wasn’t done. It jumped up, slamming its front legs down, then its rear, trampling the man.
The cowboys rushed in to drive it away. It ran to the other side of the arena. One of the standby riders lassoed its horns, and then the other. Still, the bull fought, struggling against the ropes.
Finally, it jumped, both sets of legs rising into the air, its body twisting—looking like a fish caught on a fisherman’s line, a great marlin jumping out of the water and struggling fruitlessly against the cord, suspended in the air for a moment, just long enough for Patrick to remember the image in his mind like a photograph. Instead of landing, the bull crashed down on its side, creating a cloud of dust. It struggled up, but now it was beaten. It allowed itself to be pulled toward the chute.
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