The Clincher

by Lisa Preston

  “What is?”

  “This thing we’re going to do to get ourselves out of here, to catch Harper Junior. I’m betting he’s nearly back home. His dad is not safe. The Flying Cross is straight north of us, maybe five miles tops down this Jeep track.”

  Guy looked down the dirt trail, several kinds of puzzled crossing his face.

  I swung onto the mare’s back.

  We’d have to race the moon to stop Junior.

  Chapter 28

  I NUDGED MY CALVES INTO THE wild-eyed horse and Guy took off running. I soon cantered past him. Minutes later, in steep stuff, I slowed her to a trot and a couple minutes after that, I figured I’d ridden my spell, so I pointed Misty at a likely tree. It felt clumsy bailing down from her off side to avoid the tree. If it wasn’t for the not-being-good-at-it part, I’d be good at this sport. Tying Misty and jogging away made her nicker a question. I promised the mare that Guy would be along to untie her in a few minutes.

  I ran fast as my breath let me keep a steady pace, picking it up a bit every time the footing allowed, even when hoofbeats pounded up behind me.

  Guy was all business, sitting up straight, his legs long down Misty’s sides, relaxed and balanced, his back and hips perfectly loosey-goosey. At ease riding bareback, he was a natural. Once ahead of me, Guy hollered, “How far should I go?”

  “A few minutes,” I said on an exhale, not breaking pace as I ate his dust.

  He and the mare were gone and I was running alone again.

  Almost every thought in the world galloped through my mind while I ran and rode through Dry Valley that night. There was a shoeing job I’d done last week, a big spoiled Appendix-bred horse that tried to show me something, but I didn’t know it at the time.

  Why is it people think they can breed two horses that each have a few good points and a few flaws, yet they think they’re going to get offspring with a combination of both sets of good points? For crying out loud, these clients bred a sensitive, too-hot, rangy, crummy-footed Thoroughbred to an over-muscled Quarter Horse with solid little feet like the cold concrete he probably had between his ears and they expected to get a nice, big, calm, sensitive horse with good feet. Why don’t they expect what they got, which is a nervous nellie dumb-butt with thin hoof walls who’s not suited to do anything real well? Zenith was always going to be a goofy gelding and he had a rude habit that I especially hate: getting overly relaxed when I worked on his feet.

  Dangling his lily in my face.

  “Put that away,” I’d said, popping Zenith light-like on the belly. He did, which seemed sympathetic.

  Getting Zenith’s old shoes off, I use my nail cutters and my crease nail pullers, though I don’t with every horse. Zenith is a wuss who needs tender loving care on his tootsies. I six-nailed him, of course, though that took some convincing of his owners, who’d always had him handed back from their last shoer eight-nailed. It’s not like I’m trying to save two nails per hoof out of a shoeing, but even punching my own holes I couldn’t fit four on a side, his walls are so thin in the heel quarters. Plus, if I place nails too far back, then hooves can’t expand as the weeks wear on. Main point being, everything needs room to grow.

  The point I’d explained to that gelding in my head was about having two mismatched parents. And Zenith had the attention span of a bucket so I thought-explained it to him several times. I should have paid attention to the lesson from his feet instead.

  Room to grow. Now I explained it to myself, because my attention span’s no better than Zenith’s. I didn’t like what I’d done when I was thirteen, and I liked less what I’d done when I was fourteen. I made one huge mistake after another. After shoeing school, after internships, my first best idea was to find Red. It was good, I decided now, that it had been so hard and taken so many months and miles to track Red down to Cowdry. I’d found a good dog on the way. I’d found a chance here in Oregon. I’d met Guy, who gave me all the attention a gal could handle. More than I could handle.

  Guy was a good man, a novice riding bareback under a full moon because we were going to go stop a killer.

  I ran on.

  It’s a quiet feeling, remote and peaceful and a little scary, running a trail under moonlight. And I thought, this Ride and Tie is what life is like. It’s being on your own, but being a part of a team. Pulling together, but doing your part. I ran like I was running for more than myself, and was winded when I saw Misty pawing under a pine tree. I’d probably only been alone on the trail a few minutes since Guy rode by. Not to be accused of dilly-dallying when I ought to be pulling my load, I untied and hopped on Misty in one leap, sorting out the mecate as she trotted off under me.

  Bless her, the little mare had it all figured out now. Catch Guy, lope past him a ways, and when I slowed her, pick a tree that looked like a nice place to rest.

  It occurred to me that this Ride and Tie thing is a type of race more natural to a horse than anything else we ask of them. These beauty beasts are built to run a piece and rest, run a piece and rest. They were never meant to run three or a hundred miles straight, or tussle with steers, or blaze around barrels in an arena, or jump five-foot fences thirty times in a row. Folks have made horses do a lot of nonsense.

  Some pretty hard riding was required to catch Guy, and I wasn’t on the ground very long during my afoot spells. Realizing that he was making more mileage running than me, I swore under the moon that next time I hit the dirt, I’d make Guy ride his heart out to catch me.

  “Go a bit more,” Guy said, arms pumping when I rode by him.

  I pressed Misty up a wicked hill that topped out on a plateau of scrubby grassland. We picked the last shrub and she dived for it at the first hint I was asking for a stop. A tough competitor, this mare had gathered up all there was to know about being a Ride and Tie pony. She should turn pro.

  So should Guy, who soon loped past as I ran my best.

  If I’d thought Guy city-soft, I was learning my lesson. He could take a licking, cowboy-up and get to riding where it counted. And there was something else, something he was trying to tell me when we flew by each other every five or ten minutes.

  The next time I rode past, Guy called out, “What can I get?”

  I reined in and yelled over my shoulder, thinking he was exhausted and needed the horse right away. “You want her now?”

  He waved. “Ride on. I’ve got a half-mile sprint left.”

  It was ground to fly on, good footing, firm and not too rocky. I pointed Misty down the slope. In a piece, I swung off, tied her, and ran solo.

  When Guy rode up on Misty, I was clean winded. He tumbled off her right side and I went to haul my sweet self up on her left. Abby’s Ride and Tie heroes would call this strategy using handoffs and flying ties to maximize our speed while keeping tight. Getting tired, my mounting attempt failed and I needed a second try.

  I gripped the mecate and put everything I had into vaulting on for what might be my last spell astride.

  Sound carries in the canyons. I heard Guy through the boughs, around the rocks, and hoped no one else did as his voice echoed, “I love you.”

  Misty galloped us past him. The wind made my eyes water. It can reset a gal’s whole whirling brain for a guy to say something as wide as Texas right before the last leg of a Ride and Tie for life. It can make her consider the facts.

  Guy hadn’t done anything but care about me. I ought to decide there wasn’t anything wrong with caring about me. He’s never weak, not in any sense. Things only went downhill with Guy when I was a stinker.

  I didn’t push Misty anymore. She’d worked hard and didn’t need to have her legs run off. We walked an awful steep descent. She was blowing, deserving this slower pace. Besides, it gave me a chance to ask this good gray mare a question.

  “What the devil d’you suppose he meant by that?”

  Truly, Guy’s asked me for a life together before, but I’d discounted the notion, partly on account of him joking. Mostly because considering a real life together had
been unfair. Back then, Guy hadn’t known how ugly I am, what I’d done. And what I’d left undone by getting Red back, but in no way checking on my child.

  But now he knows. He knows and he’s saying he wants to be with me? Didn’t make sense.

  But he’s tired, I pointed out to the mare’s right ear, which came back for a listen on my deliberations. She was waiting, I think, for me to get to the good part, the part where I figure out the whole deal.

  I rode at a walk and trot to settle the little mare. This was downhill trail, so I let Misty pick her way, sliding her hocks in the dust as we got off the valley’s shoulders.

  Before when Guy mentioned us as a permanent thing, he hadn’t been serious, right? I sure hadn’t taken the idea seriously. We’d been so far from each other, too far apart even when we shared a table.

  Suddenly, the whole idea of Guy struck me, made good sense. Usually, when I get struck, it’s a sunrise or Charley playing with a frog, or good old Red blowing howdy, or a hawk in the sky.

  I’m silly, I guess, the way I sometimes get struck by things that aren’t of the greatest importance. At that moment in my life, the most important thing was stopping Harper Junior. And living through the deal, should we come to it.

  But instead I thought, this is beautiful. It’s just beautiful.

  The night was stark wondrous out there. The moon cast so much pale golden light on the rocks they glowed. I saw my hand, reaching up to pat the mare’s neck, and my fingers looked ­beautiful. Grace and sweaty strength showed as her muscles flexed under a short hair coat. Everything was wondrous to behold. The creak of my leather boots when I flexed my ankles. The dull thud of Misty’s concave hooves muffled in the dirt. The extra clink and spark every time her steel struck rock. These sounds were chords of life to me. As Misty breathed, I swear I felt in my guts the flare of her nostrils while she did the trail-trotting job she’d been asked. Willing and working, this horse covered ground because it was what she was built to do. She’d tied well and quit crying when she was left alone at a tree. She’d caught on to the task, to move us all north, at speed. At that moment in the history of the world, she was the candidate to partner with Guy and me. I was in love with the mare’s wits and heart, nearly as much as I’d ever loved anything.

  Nearly anything.

  The Scotch broom reached onto the rough trail and sprayed me with yellow flowers when my thighs knocked the swaying boughs. Thistles and stinging nettle were coming up with a fury in the logged ground, but that’s the way of it. Some plants hurt us and others help. Most do both, like the spike-thorned wild roses. These were budding out, making the air smell so sweet it gave strength to anyone breathing. Running and riding this hard, I used a lot of air. I felt alive, maybe because I’d almost been killed, maybe because I was sharp enough now to kill Junior if need be. I felt more alive leapfrogging down the trail with Guy than I’d ever felt.

  This was ground that hardly left Guy behind. I heard him bounding down the slope, panting a good clip while I let Misty get her legs back under herself.

  I could live, I thought, if I can respect this Misty mare as I do with this breath, if I could love her enough to keep going. And I’m going to give her back to her real family. Tonight. I am strong, I really am. Strong enough to love, even though I could never love anything as much as I’d needed to love the baby boy I gave away.

  It scared me, how much I loved him, love him still.

  I’d held him once, just one time.

  And then I let them take him away.

  I’m sorry, son. I did it for you, not to you. I gave you away so they’d give you to people who would do better by you. Please forgive me, please try to understand. They promised to give you to good people. Two good parents. I had to trust them. You have to trust me that I didn’t have it in me to do better.

  When I went looking for Red, got him back, of course I thought of you first. I always think of you. You’re why I’m so distracted.

  You’re so special. I promise you that there’s good, even for a boy whose mama handed him over. There’s good and there’s beauty. Please see the beauty of the world. That’s what I most want you to see, not to see me and mine. I want you to see the beauty. Please, son.

  And I thought he might, he might see the beauty, this son whose name I’ll never know.

  Why these thoughts came to me, where they’d been for the last decade, I don’t know. What made everything smell so crisp, every sound amplify, every moonlit sight stronger and sharper than human senses were normally capable of noticing?

  Maybe it was because my eyes were so well adjusted in the dark. I saw Junior’s Suzuki Samurai beside the Harpers’ old metal barn. We’d caught up to my would-be killer. And maybe we’d done so before he’d hurt his father. Now what?

  Chapter 29

  THE OLD METAL BARN WAS A simple windowless square, with a light glowing inside, and a small lean-to on the near side that sheltered scrap wood and old tools such as a rusty compressor, a welder, a chop saw, and more. The barn doors were huge—half of the whole front end of the building hung from head rollers, and they were slid open, which made temporary walls jutting out beyond the corners. The design would have provided easy access for loading hay by the ton. I figured it had been the Harpers’ main storage before the big fancy barn was built nearer the main house. And just this side of the first door and the lean-to sat Junior’s Suzuki, its back hatch open, ready for packing something from the gaping barn.

  Fifty or a hundred yards farther, the road improved all the way to the little dark cottage. I remembered catching a glimpse of that original homestead when I was at Patsy-Lynn’s funeral reception. When I’d hiked up the Stakes Ridge looking for Misty in the early afternoon, I’d glimpsed sunlight reflecting off the old metal barn.

  Guy ran up wiping sweat from his brow and joined in my look-see at the layout. We both put quieting hands on Misty’s neck, me still astride, her body heat warming my thighs. We were awful close to salvation or big trouble. Harper’s main house was just down this gravel driveway and beyond it was the big barn with Spartacus and other horses. If the home herd got wind of us, heard hoofbeats, they might call out to the strange horse that just rode up.

  What if Misty whinnied back, announcing our presence?

  Clanking noises came from inside the barn. What Harper Junior was doing in there, I couldn’t hazard a guess.

  “You ride on,” Guy said. “We’ll keep going, get to a phone.”

  “But Junior’s in there now. And I think the deal with his daddy is that he has to be out of town by midnight.”

  Guy shook his head. “We’ll go on past the main house, out Oldham and onto the highway. It’s not much further to Keith Langston’s place. We’ll use his phone.”

  “But what if Junior drives away while we’re headed to Langston’s house? At least let’s ground him here so he doesn’t slip away.” I slid off and tied Misty to a hemlock, passing my hands over her face to plead.

  Please, please, don’t nicker, don’t paw, don’t create a ruckus. I tried to mind-talk the mare, then left her in the shadows.

  Cutting into the dark area between the lean-to and the Suzuki, Guy and I inched closer to that gaping barn door and the sounds of Junior banging metal around inside. A case of the creeps descended upon my shoulders but good. What the oops was Junior doing in there?

  The pistol Junior had put in my face was on the Suzuki’s dashboard. I twisted my do-all into pliers, clamped onto the tire stem of the off hind tire, and yanked. Hissing noise. Instant flat tire.

  “Well, fine,” Guy said, his voice lower than the whooshing air of the tire. “I see we’re not planning on borrowing this car and driving down to use a phone somewhere.”

  I paused at the next tire. Why hadn’t I thought of driving off in the Suzuki as a way to strand Junior? I’d just been thinking about grounding him, but now we were going to have to hold him somehow.

  And no, I wasn’t going to call him Mister.

  Creepy-crawling
my way into the barn seemed like a good idea at the time, but looking back, I guess plan B would have made more sense from the get-go. Guy and I closed the distance quiet as we could, but I was sure my pounding heart was going to alert Junior.

  He was right inside, boots sounding nearer as he carried something that gave a hollow clunk when he set it down in the open doorway less than twelve feet from us.

  Gas cans. It’s a long drive to Mexico. Time to nip down there for sun and steroids, wait for things to cool off here.

  When Junior turned and went back for something deeper in the barn, I whispered to Guy, “Let’s go get him.” Plan A, two against one, seemed like decent odds if I didn’t put any more thought into the notion.

  Guy looked truly appalled. “That’s a pretty bad idea, Rainy.”

  I gave him my new look. It’s the I Should Have Gone With the Big Veterinarian look.

  Guy straightened up into tougher posture, like someone to go into battle with, then walked right into the barn like he owned the place.

  That impressed me a good lick and I only paused long enough to wrap my mitts around the stoutest board I could in a quick grab at the lean-to’s scrap wood pile.

  Good thing, ’cause Winston Harper Junior boiled after Guy in an instant fury that was to be reckoned with. Hands on each other’s throats, they whirled, Junior kneeing Guy and generally slamming him around into an old tractor, boxes of gear, a tool bench. Guy’s quick, and big enough, but he was locked up with a man who had about a hundred pounds on him.

  “Hey!” I hollered, “Stop that!” I kept yelling, almost adding “no fair.”

  Just in case I was fixing to calm down, Guy yelled, “Get out of here, Rainy. Run.”

  I didn’t run. I did what comes natural.

  Cocked back my weapon, and when Junior’s back was to me, I whacked him right in the cheese wheel.

  He went down, hands on the back of his head, squealing like a girl. I ran outside quick as a bunny and Guy backed out of the barn a bit slower. No sooner than our breathing got less gaspy, a shadow grew, darkening the doorway.