I Was Trying to Describe What it Feels Like

by Noy Holland

  Pa when he was up again and shrunk into himself again rode Goose unshod through our honeyed woods our creeks our windfall autumn. Among the lowly creatures named and ours to daily tend.

  We are sloppy in our tending. Our swallows catch in the raftered dark our rabbits are turned from the fields. Fox we trap and whistle pig and the spotty domes of our turtles crush in the wet upon our road. And in our hay we gather. And too the narrow fellows sunning lazy in the stubble catch—snakes pressed between the flakes of hay as though we mean to keep them, and faith by them in the shut-away days the snowbound weeks we wait to breathe that the fields are strewn and rooted through with bees with bodies sleeping.

  Pa wore Goose away his hooves split and curled and then a day I came from school Pa brought him to me saddled and swung me up to ride. Pa gave me a whip to run him with. Goose could not walk it looked to me he seemed to wince to stand there.

  Up the hill I ran him.

  We ran until Pa could not see and we let him gimp up the hill to us to snap the lunge line on. Pa swung me up again. So he could run us. So we might see she watched him run us. He stood at the hub of the circle we ran in whatever dusk was left to us and Ma appeared in the windowlight in her sorry robe. Hup ho.

  The night closed in the early cold. Goose beneath me frothed and steamed and still my hands my skinny arms grew thick to me and shook. My bare legs burned beneath my skirt against the sweating saddle flaps and so I tried to hold them off so that when Goose tripped he threw me, he would throw me, I would fly through the trees like a doll.

  QUICK THE SNOW the brittling cold. As quick the thaw comes on.

  I trick Goose into the trailer then his blinkers on to calm him and grain in the bin to steady him after we have beat at him and cussed and poked and whooped at him till Pa has gone off for his gun.

  After the day we shod this was. After the thaw had come.

  No bird for us no Christmas.

  The snow slumping against the barn. “You load the cur before I’m back else I am going to have to—”

  To have to. Pa could do with him what he wanted—he was toddling off for his gun. I did not try to stop him but to think to walk Goose in.

  Ma gone from her chair the tent jerked down we had hung at the hearth to snug in. Yet we were not what kept her. It was not in us to keep her.

  And so I walked him in.

  THE FIRST I saw I ran from him. I did not think Pa at first but is it dead or living.

  This was before we blinded Goose before the time we trailered him our Ma going off with her wheelbarrow her boy in a bunch in the wheelbarrow how small against the road.

  Before any of that. Before we shod this was. Before the rooster flapped onto the pond.

  And yet I ran from Pa. Crept back. Before the bees died off I did. Before the fescue yellowed. I lay on the bank to look at him. The pods of the milkweed swelled and split and the seed by its silken feathery plumes as it was meant to do broke away.

  AND THEN WE shod him.

  The day was dull the day we shod him and cold before the snow had come and Pa sent me out to fetch Goose out of the withering grass where he browsed. I walked through the gate with my pail at my knees and called to him over the field.

  He came to me.

  He let me come to him, whinnying, that day as any other.

  The days were dry then. The corn a stubble. The apples blew into the fields, a glut that year—I could find him. It was easy enough to find Goose—he was feasting beneath the trees. He quit to look at me. Pa’s rooster pecking lazily a drubbing on his withers.

  Pa had fired the forge in the barn the barn dark to me but for the embers there the shadows rayed and flinching the cottony raftered dark. Goose was shy of it, I brought him gently in, he was skittish.

  I backed him into the washroom into the crossties where we shod. I leaned my chest, a boy’s, against him. I felt my heart knock at the bone in his head his breath the wet of the grass he ate and sweet against my belly. Hush.

  I kept it to me.

  At the first even Pa was kind. He clipped away where the hoof began at the end to hook and tear. He kicked the shards the cutaway moons to his dogs to take to nibble at at the end of the barn and hide. He rasped the hoof flat, he picked a small stone from the frog.

  The shoe nested in the forge on the fire. Outside, winter’s early winded dark advancing slowly on.

  The rooster stood to crow for it. That day as any other. But Pa when the rooster crowed jerked up and let his hollowed sound he made the day I came upon him swarmed. He jabbed Goose in his brisket. Goose already lunging. Pa gone to his knees on the slab.

  The rooster flapped to the rafters. The sparrows swept from the barn.

  He filed the hoof flat. You have to rasp it flat to take the shoe to ride the wash and hillside slopes to pass the house and Ma in the house to pass the coop the chickens.

  Pa pinched the shoe from the forge—it was flaring, a shaking liquid yellow. He hooked the shoe over the anvil then over the battered nose—you have to turn it. Pound it to make a fit of it bore the slim squared holes.

  I knew Pa’s knees were swelling—I had heard them knock against the slab. His long face pinched and fallowed, I saw, who saw ahead as I knew he must the bruisy syrupy blue of skin the selvage pressed of the pants I hemmed sloppily upon it. I would have to cut Pa’s pants from him—from the burl the knotted sickened joint and ice or lance or sit to bend or what any else Pa thought to show he could bully through the doing of and so we two kept on with it so we two said nothing.

  He punched the nail through—once, three times again, on the one shank and then on the other. To keep the shoe fast. To drive the nails through—square and blunted. Eight in all. I knew the sound and counted.

  Pa held the shoe against his hoof. The shoe was hot still it was hissing and the stink of hide of hair or hoof the twangy burning smell rose up and Goose threw himself against me. Pa held him. He did what he could to hold him Pa he kept him wedged against the wall we hang the tack the lead shanks on the picks and forks and shovels.

  Tell her that.

  He tapped the nail in.

  Tell your ma I tried to calm him. That at the last we twitched him. To make it easy. I meant to calm him. I put myself between you tried to keep you safe from harm. No harm meant. You could not trust him. He was game but you could not trust him. He would throw you into the trees he would he would drag you across the fields.

  I let Pa twitch him. So I could hold him. So the day might come I thought so of the weeks I sulked to school.

  Pa drew out Goose’s lip where the stripe blazed through the velvet soft that veered across and snatched down the twitch the silver bars upon it hard and twisted. It was easier then to hold Goose shaking quiet on the slab. I drew his head down slowly and pressed my face to the white of his face how soft where the stripe swept through.

  Pa tapped a nail in. He went hoof to hoof in the graying light. How quick the dark came on. Tell her that.

  But I could not yet think of Ma of what we would need or not to tell but thought of the day I would ride our Goose in my boots to school. I would tie Goose off on the chalky racks the city kids lash their bicycles to, would come to him between the bells to curry him to feed him.

  Hey, horsey girl.

  Of course they teased me. Would. Who wished to be me.

  How I pressed my heart to his brisket.

  Pa wedged each hoof between his knees his shoulder thrown against Goose hard to keep him tipped against the wall we hang the leads and halters on the shoe for luck to hold him. I felt his breath against my chest a wind drawn rough across my throat and felt the cool the whips of spit the snot swept down from his nostrils yes and of his mouth the velvet there where the stripe blazed through.

  You get. And the rooster too. Get get.

  I kept the loop of his mouth pinched fast the twist in the loop that made him wheeze that made him drip and gurgle. And still I could not hold him. I was sick i
n myself to hold him so so Pa could shove and cuss at him so Pa could treat him roughly.

  He swung the rasp back.

  It would not be long.

  We would leave our tools and the cooling forge and make our way up from the barn. Soon enough.

  Then I could cut Pa’s pants from him. Who cannot reach to do it. Who have not kept him from it. The selvage dug well in.

  Pa kept on as I knew he must who knew by him the way of things who knew to watch him swing his rasp he swung at Goose’s head his knees enough to think he’s mine. He is mine he is mine he is mine.

  Will be.

  I will cook and clean for him and sew and scrub his feet for him and shine his boots and buckles.

  Keep him safe from harm.

  Say that.

  Say that is easy—to lose an eye on the washroom wall on the hooks and nails we hang tack from he could do it to himself tell her he could do it easy.

  That he is fractious. He is meant to be worked and strong tell her. How quick the dark came on.

  It came on.

  Pa beat at Goose about the knees the rasp struck in behind and hard where you can hear the bones in him where you can make him buckle.

  I would not have pictured it—that you could make him buckle. That Pa could fell him in the crossties hanging ready for the blow.

  Goose dropped to his knees his rump yet high as if to let me throw my foot my leg across and ride him. My hat flying up to school. Wheeo.

  He quit there—to let before Pa came at him his last breath ratchet through. And then Pa came at him.

  I thought how the white swept up. Pa fallen across the road. Wheeo.

  Because Pa could not have rolled from him. Pa could not have moved.

  He swung the rasp back. He brought it hard across his head his rolling curdled eye I saw.

  Cricket you Cricket you.

  Quick a girl’s sweet warbled note. Quick as that the wettish thuck the jellied seep of his eyeball burst the flies the puss like honey.

  WE SET HIM out then. When it was done then. I walked Goose out on his blinded side and set him loose like Pa had said back in the back and hidden field the deer came to to lie in. We walked up the hill and washed our hands and sat and ate our supper.

  She had fried three eggs for supper for us as Ma had come those weeks to do no matter what Pa said of it and three again come morning. And Pa said nothing of it and not again when light had come and Ma went out with her boy in the snow that as we slept flew down. Her tracks went out to the fence I sat the days Goose ran the sloping field and turned toward the barn and quit there well shy of the bend in the road.

  She came back then. I put my mind to it—to the tracks I had to go by. There were two of them going she left in the snow and not a step she came back by.

  She had gone away twice down the hill, I thought. She had gone away once the mother we knew who sat for us in the window. Then look on her heels came the other. Here came the one from before the boy we had forgotten was hers to ever be or ever was ours to know.

  I liked to think of it—that she could walk herself out away from us from what we did or did not do, she could call herself out on the road going out going out in her boots in the unbroken snow that we would know at the last we had lost her.

  And yet the tracks quit.

  She would find Goose in the barn she thought. She would see him she thought from the bend in the road see what we had done to him who sat at her table after and ate the meal she cooked for us and slept in the beds she made for us and so she quit well shy of it and came away back to home. She walked herself back up the hill to us walking backward her back to the wind to keep her boy from the snow.

  The snow climbed in the trees in the fences. A night would pass a morning time and soon Pa would set upon her again and break what eggs I brought to her that the hens before the rooster quit still had in them for laying. After that I did not bring the eggs. After that they did not lay them.

  The rooster went from the field and back to sit the broken back of the couch stood up in the ice of the pond. No thought in his head to rooster. No eggs to bring for Pa to break for Ma to fry for supper then even should we want some.

  I thought I would not want some. I would break an egg in his socket, I thought, let the yolk freeze bright and round. Should Goose lie down.

  And then he lay down—the night of the day the wind came warm and the thaw set in the sudden melt and the birds appeared and bickered and swerved in the steam twisting up from our farm.

  We hitched the trailer then. That we might use him. Sell him off quick on the hoof down the hill in the warm while we could move.

  I had kept Goose’s tail in a braid for him and kept his head in a hood for him so the wind could not eat at the socket. The last of our sorry apples dropped I had kicked to him in the field where he lies where he pawed at the snow for what grass there was and picked the leaves he could get to yet from the beech the oak the whippy trees at the edge of the woods that held them. What he did not eat the deer took to and to the cobs of corn I brought and his coat grew thick and ratted in the wind and his hipbones stood out from him.

  We kept our heads down. The cold had deepened. I tramped a path past the coop the failing hens the rooster would not when the cold had come leave the pond to rooster.

  I thought at first our rooster would ride with me out in the pail with the corn to the field. And so I stopped at the bank to cluck at him. He turned his tail to me. I brought his prize hens to the bank to see and scratch to spread to tempt him. Before the pond was skinned with ice I ferried him back through the muck the weeks yet never once did I see him eat nor seem to think to rooster, never once did I pass the crib to climb the hill to the house to Ma but that he hadn’t flapped back out to the couch to announce what we had done.

  This was when the freeze augured in, this was in the thaw.

  In the thaw of the year when the water rose Pa’s bird seemed to walk upon it.

  I WENT THE while before the thaw before the hillsides snicked and steamed and then the once thereafter after Ma had gone. I knew to call to him, picking my way once the creek froze through between the spindly boles of trees the needled limbs of the buckthorn there where yet the small dark berries clung the beads in rimpled clusters. I shook in my pail as I went to him the corn I was not to bring to him. I brought cigarettes and sugar cubes crumbling apart in my pockets.

  Hope hey. Hope hey. I meant to tend to him, to swab and slowly doctor him. To sweep my thumb through his socket. A day came I came upon Goose there forgetting myself to speak to him and stood upon his blinded side and he swung away and kicked me. I let him kick me.

  Then it was easy. Then I could quit then.

  The field was hidden. I tossed my pail back to the back of the crib and the rats there shied and scuttled out and trotted away to the barn.

  So it was easy. The cold had deepened.

  I went the once Pa sent me out when the thaw set in to fetch him. I saw his head rise up to see me. Otherwise I went no more.

  WE SNUGGED IN when the worst of the cold had come and fashioned a room with the blankets we had with the tablecloths she kept to spread should a guest appear should Christmas. I rode on Pa’s back to drive the nails to stand in his hands in the stirrups he made and hit at the few ruined crooked nubs the old people left to hang them. We brought our sheets our pillows in and ate and slept in what warmth there was from the fire we nursed and prodded. Ma ripening in her gown. Our shadows should we sit in quiet there yet flinching against the walls.

  Ma kept her eye fast on her boy. Sitting her silk chair.

  “Time was I thought the milk teeth came to make the women stop it,” Pa said. “Let them rest a time—for the next to breed. Give a man his chance abed. Time was.”

  She set the baby down on his feet at her feet. Should he squall she swung him up again.

  “But it makes your ma keep at it, same with that boy as you.”

  Her boy.
Him lolling yet at her bosom.

  We woke for months to snowfall the curling drifts the wind banked up to pin our flapping door. The hedge disappeared the leeward fence cow Maggie walked out over to find her way to the barn. No school for weeks no place we went our tractor left with the broken plow on the road where Pa sprung off from it come up on him and over until all but the lip of the high-side tire the wind picked clean seemed gone.

  Then of a night a velvet wind and foreign swept our farm.

  Pa legged me over the windowsill. He heaved me out in my mukluks onto the slope of snow. The slabs of snow of thickened ice already in the pooling glare crept across the rooftops. I took my list to go by: cigarettes, sardines, D-con, cheese.

  Barn and barn and crib and pond and on the pond Pa’s rooster—spun—our grudging weathervane. I think he thought to crow at me who never crowed by morning light and so I waved my cap at him and waved as I went at his baffled hens, sunk to my peep in the snow.

  “How you?”

  They had lights at the store and the woodstove burned and the wind flown hard in the blackened pipe sucked and moaned and tumbled. I gathered my goods and bagged them. The girl held out her hand for the money she knew my pa would never send me with and quick I turned for home from her, the thaw sunk deep upon us.

  Every stone and matted leaf and fence and sloping fallow steamed. The ice on the pond broke soft when I passed and soft the newts the spotty frogs the dull fish frozen in. The barn the mossy pond I smelled and in the wind the flowers bloomed where it had crossed to reach us. It came on.

  Ma went back in her blotted gown to the back of the house she had happened from and found her hat her dungarees her chalky split galoshes. So quick I went to fetch Goose. He lay in the field on his blinded side in a patch pawed free of snow.

  I let him stop for a time for the apples that dropped and palmed him the last of the treats I had kept the months for him in my pockets.

  We took the path past the crib. I knew no other way to go so as not to pass her. She would go on. Her boy in a bunch in the wheelbarrow. She had her bag at her knee her hat on.