The Buffalo Soldier
Page 38
Aren’t you nervous? Heather asked her. You must be.
She smiled. A little.
Only a little?
Actually Terry was the one who didn’t sleep a whole lot last night.
It’s true, he admitted. Boy’s first show, and all. So, yes, I have worried about him. I have worried about Mesa.
You like the braid? she asked Laura.
You mean on her tail?
Yup. One of the girls helped me do that. I thought Alfred was going to die.
It’s very elegant.
I think so, too, Heather said, and then her voice grew more serious. Still, looks aren’t everything. I really wish we could have had another couple weeks to work with her. I don’t know her as well as I do the horses who board at the stable, I don’t—
Mesa will comport herself just fine, thank you very much, Paul said, a slight rumble of indignation in his voice, and he pointed the bag of popcorn he was holding in the trainer’s direction. None of you has a thing to worry about. That horse will do well, and the young man upon her will do even better.
The announcer called Alfred’s number, and Laura watched him swing his horse around to the start of the course. The jumps looked huge to her this morning, though she knew in reality they were a mere eighteen inches high. She counted eight of them, and tried to guess where in the ring he would be expected to change direction.
Are we allowed to stay here, Emily asked, or should we take seats in the grandstand?
Oh, stay, definitely stay, Heather insisted. You might be on your feet, but the best seats are right here at the rail.
Russell’s going to be late, Terry murmured, a slight ripple of annoyance in his voice, and Laura was going to tell him it was all right, it didn’t matter, when she saw her brother-in-law strutting across the flattened grass in the field just beyond where he’d parked. He was ogling a pair of teenage girls in snug jeans and tight blouses, but he was present and that was what counted today.
She pointed out Russell to Terry, and he shook his head and called out, Mighty nice of you to make it on time!
Russell grinned, satisfied that he managed to keep his brother on edge, and yelled that he had been behind a hay wagon for miles.
She turned back to Alfred and saw him sit up straight in his saddle, his spine a line perfectly perpendicular to the dirt on the ground in the ring, and she saw his fingers open and close around the leather reins. Suddenly, in so many ways, he was a teenager: His chest and his shoulders were filling out, and his new riding boots were a man’s size eight and a half. His riding jacket was a man’s size thirty-six. And though Laura had not been oblivious to these changes throughout the summer—rather, she had been excruciatingly aware of them—in so many ways she still viewed him as a child who was fragile and small, and she would feel a twinge of unease whenever he was gone from her sight.
Under the small brim of his helmet she saw his eyes, and they were staring straight ahead at the first jump, a pair of horizontal white beams with a pot of gerbera daisies on either side.
Laura took her husband’s hand in hers and they watched their son breathe. He squeezed the horse’s sides with his legs and then started toward the jump at a canter, the drumbeat from the horse’s hooves the only sound she could hear. He moved quickly away from her through the ring, his whole body starting forward with the big animal in two-point and then—the horse’s legs extended before and behind her, a carousel pony but real, the immense thrust invisible to anyone but the boy on the creature’s back—he was rising, rising, rising...
And aloft.
Acknowledgments
I am deeply indebted to Pam LaFave of the Cobble Hill Horse Farm in Middlebury, Vermont; Sergeant Thomas Noble of the Vermont State Police; and William Young, commissioner of Vermont’s Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. Pam taught me to ride a horse (though I still have a great deal to learn), Thomas shared with me the joys, frustrations, and dangers that mark his life daily, and William offered me a small window into the world of foster care in Vermont—a world in which the failures are chronicled often but the successes (of which there are many) are likely to go unnoticed.
Each of them gave me their wisdom and their time, and critiqued this manuscript for me.
In addition, I am indebted to Vaughn Carney, Paul Eschholz, Jay Parini, Sylvie Rabineau, and Judy Simpson for reading early drafts of The Buffalo Soldier, and to the following individuals for answering specific questions in the course of my research: Diane Amsden, a family foster care specialist; Dr. Craig S. Bartlett, an orthopedic surgeon; Mark Breen, meteorologist at the Fairbanks Museum in Saint Johnsbury, Vermont; Mary Buffum, a resource coordinator for Vermont’s Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services; Susan Eisenstadt, a social worker with Vermont’s Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services; Carrie Hathaway, a financial specialist with Vermont’s Agency of Human Services; Dr. Paul Morrow, chief medical examiner for the state of Vermont;Towana Spivey, Director of the Fort Sill National Historic Landmark in Oklahoma; and Vaneasa Stearns, the owner of the general store in Lincoln, Vermont.
A variety of books were either inspirational or provided helpful historical information. Four stand out: Lost in the System, by Charlotte Lopez with Susan Dworkin; Loving Across the Color Line: A White Adoptive Mother Learns About Race, by Sharon E. Rush; Buffalo Soldiers and Officers of the Ninth Cavalry, 1867–1898: Black & White Together, by Charles L. Kenner; and The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Negro Cavalry in the West, by William H. Leckie.
Once again I am grateful to Random House and to my preternaturally gifted and exceedingly wise editor and friend, Shaye Areheart—a reader who never allows her critical eye to blur. I am appreciative as well of all the time and effort that Marty Asher, Chip Gibson, and Anne Messitte put into my work.
Finally, I want to thank my wife, Victoria, for listening to this novel almost a page at a time over the course of a year and a half, reading it chapter by chapter, and maintaining her focus, her patience, and her sense of humor. You are, in all ways, an inspiration.
About the Author
Chris Bohjalian is the author of eight novels, including Midwives (a Publishers Weekly Best Book and a New England Booksellers Association Discovery title), Trans-Sister Radio, The Law of Similars, and Water Witches. He lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter.
ALSO BY
Chris Bohjalian
Trans-Sister Radio
(2000)
The Law of Similars
(1999)
Midwives
(1997)
Water Witches
(1995)
Past the Bleachers
(1992)
Hangman
(1991)
A Killing in the Real World
(1988)
Copyright © 2002 by Chris Bohjalian
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Shaye Areheart Books, a member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2000, and subsequently in trade paperback by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2003.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Contemporaries and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the Shaye Areheart edition as follows:
Bohjalian, Christopher A.
The buffalo soldier: a novel / by Chris Bohjalian.
1. African-American boys—Fiction. 2. Children—Death—Fiction.3. Married people—Fiction. 4. Foster parents�
��Fiction. 5. Adultery—Fiction. 6. Vermont—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.O495 B84 2002
813'.54—dc21 2001049042
www.vintagebooks.com
A paperback edition of this title is available from Vintage Books.
eISBN: 978-1-4000-3286-0
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