by Chris White
“Look,” Adrian whispers, pointing at the front windows.
The kids gasp. A horse is clearly visible in the living room, and another darker horse withdraws from it as they’re watching, deeper into the house in a quiet sweep of movement.
Adrian can hear Stella’s voice in his head in teasing disbelief, “In the house?” she’d say. “You guys are making this up!”
“Can we go in?” Zander pleads.
“Please, Daddy?” says Michaela, pulling at the arm of Adrian’s jacket.
Adrian wonders why he didn’t anticipate this moment. Of course they want to go inside. Hadn’t he? Wild horses are wild, but when he was here last, the one he encountered was gentle enough.
He plants his hands on his hips a moment as if considering, then turns his back to Michaela and lowers himself to a squat, winded but so happy. “Hop on,” he says. “And hold on tight in case we have to run.”
“Yes!” hisses Zander.
“No talking,” warns Adrian. “Stay right by me.” And they enter the place like those with missing pieces entering the palace of Oz.
Once inside, two horses loom, breaths barely visible in the air—one peering out the window toward the sky, one looking dead-ended at an interior wall, no food or water around, only mud and clots of grasses and manure. Michaela’s legs squeeze Adrian’s waist as she holds tight to his neck. Zander is making his silent, wide-mouthed expression of amazement.
From elsewhere in the house, they hear a brief, impatient snorting.
Zander pulls at Adrian’s arm and gestures toward the sound, mouthing, “Let’s do this!”
Intent on avoiding the kitchen this time, with its land mine of scattered shot, Adrian leads them instead toward a dim hallway. They venture in slow motion through the living room, each passing a hand along the crumbling plaster wall with its two ancient electrical outlets and one discolored well where a switch used to be. The place has been stripped clean. No curtain rod dangling above the window, not even a charred stick of kindling in the fireplace. Only the two mute beasts standing large. Adrian considers touching one on its hindquarters, because he’s seen people do it, to calm a horse when approaching. He thinks better of it, but he and the kids pass so close they can see the horses’ wide, damp nostrils and the yellow white of their eyes.
When they make the turn into the hallway, the broad rump of a bay mare materializes in the space before them.
Michaela gasps, Adrian backs into Zander, and they all fall back against the wall.
The mare’s head and upper torso were concealed beyond a doorjamb opening into another room. Now she yanks back in surprise, scraping her muzzle against the splintered frame, and trots out the way they came in. Her escaping footfalls soften once they hit the ground outside, then come immediately back around toward their side of the house.
Zander is grinning, breathing hard, until he glances into the room the mare had been blocking and his mouth falls open. “Dad.”
Adrian rounds the corner to peer into the small bedroom. Nearly at his feet there lies a tiny dead horse.
“Jesus!” Adrian gasps.
When Michaela squeals, the horses in the living room spook and run.
Adrian lowers her to the floor, takes her head in his hands. “It’s okay, honey. Don’t worry.”
“What happened to it?” Zander asks, jittery with adrenaline, his hands around his throat.
“You guys go back outside,” Adrian says. “I’ll be right there.”
Michaela allows herself to be taken under Zander’s arm. “Is it dead?”
The foal is covered in a hardened coat of birth slickness, seasoned now into a grossly pockmarked glaze. The curve of the neck, the peaked ears, the wide forehead, everything is in miniature, so that Adrian almost expects to find the coiling tail of a seahorse at its end, but there are the spindle legs, tucked under it, never opened, its visible eye closed. Out in the pasture, the bay mare paces back and forth like someone trying to make up her mind before knocking.
Adrian forces himself to look again at the decomposing foal, then scans the hopeless room. What can he possibly do here? If he could find a spade, he’d bury the animal, but there’s nothing. He could cover it, but there’s no tarp, no trash bag he can empty, no scrap of plywood.
He should just attend to the kids, he thinks, get them out of here—but the mare still stands breathing, twitching, and staring through the window.
Adrian sighs deeply, then shrugs off his jacket, folding it shoulder to shoulder and laying it along the windowsill. He calls out, “Be right there!” and unbuttons and peels off his shirt, the late November air amassing in layers around his arms, his chest, his stomach, then pulls off the pristine undershirt he considers one of the last remnants of polite society.
Squatting unsteadily, he lays his tee shirt over the torso of the liver-red foal and around its stunted ridge of a mane, pressing the cotton with his palms like a bandage and swiping at his nose with his knuckles. He knows a fool’s errand when he sees one, and this is it, but maybe it will quell some of the stench; maybe it will obscure or confuse the visual impact of the thing on its grieving mother.
• • •
They drive back to town in silence. This obviously wasn’t what Adrian had in mind. They’d been having so much fun too.
When they get to the house, he says, “Happy Thanksgiving, guys. Call me later?”
They look at him, as if confused. Michaela gives him a quick peck on the cheek and says, “Oma’s bringing hazelnut cake!”
Adrian looks to Zander, who says, “We’ll try. You call us,” and stalks back toward the house.
• • •
At seven that night, Adrian has a light dinner at Jeff’s kitchen island—kale and potato soup with good bread from Alfalfa’s—reconsidering his position. He clearly isn’t paying the right kind of attention. He’d been so pleased to be with Zander and Michaela, and they’d been happy too, then they were rewarded for their efforts with this macabre thing. He shouldn’t have taken them there. He wants to be with them, but he doesn’t really know how. He needs help. He needs a sign.
Jeff watches the Broncos stampede the Giants from the couch, eating three fried eggs, raisin toast, and cheap pumpkin pie from King Soopers.
“Hey,” he shouts, “you should come in here! I’ve got an extra cap if you want to put one on.”
Adrian tells him he’s got to rest and catch up on a little reading, and that’s just what he does. Then once Jeff’s fallen asleep in front of the TV, he steals out to the parking area and drives home again.
He’s brought a few things with him, like an extra shirt and underwear, his bag with his laptop, and his antibiotics, in case he were to end up staying, though he isn’t counting on it, of course. He’s done nothing to earn it. He knows that. He hasn’t been listening.
He’s not really sure what he’s doing, so he idles near the mailbox, not entering the driveway that leads to the house, just trying to catch sight of someone he loves walking through an illuminated room on Thanksgiving night.
All is still.
There is his house, sitting in a champagne pool of light, the little aspen to the left of the front door perfectly shaped, the careful grouping of waxflower bushes to the right stiff and bare, the shape of the stairway, just visible through the frosty front door window, leading up to the bedrooms. It’s as though he’s viewing an exhibit in a museum on a subject he’s always been interested in but knows nothing about firsthand.
If he’s honest, he wants Stella to see him waiting at the curb. He wants her to crack open the door and wave him inside, fill him in on what he’s missed, tell him what to do next. Maybe he should knock on the door.
He decides that if a light in the house goes on or off while he’s sitting here, he’ll do it, he’ll knock. He’ll wait for a sign.
After a few minutes, he eats a stiff granola bar he finds in the bottom of his bag; then he cleans the dashboard with the Armor All wipes he keeps in the pouch behind th
e passenger-side seat.
Finally he takes out his laptop and plugs it into the lighter, connects to his home Wi-Fi, and logs on to Backyard Birder, to the posts and messages from the man beside the water.
Just out of curiosity, because there’s really nothing else to do, he copies and pastes all the man’s communications to a new document. He studies their preternatural glow—curious, naturally curious, about where he’s been writing from.
The first post is from November first, late Halloween night after the pumpkin runners mowed down his family. The man reported a Northern Cardinal, but a cardinal could be seen anywhere in the eastern and southern US.
Later in this same post: “We’re getting a new batch of boys from Georgia” and “The north field is like grand central station.” Very odd. Maybe the juxtaposition of the arrival of “boys” with a “field” indicates involvement in a sport. A coach at a university maybe? Unlikely, since it’s the wrong time of year for new recruits, and anyway, it tells him nothing about the location.
Adrian glances down the street as a van rolls right through the stop sign. He gives it two clipped honks of his horn. Once it’s gone, he looks up to see whether Stella heard him, and with no change in the house, he scrolls to the November second post.
Here, the man reported having seen an American Kestrel, which is so common and widespread, it’s no use at all. He did say the weather “got so cold I put on a jacket,” which likely implies a warm climate in which a jacket is usually unnecessary in November. So, likely southeastern US, and if there were an ivorybill still extant, there’s no other place it would be. Then: “the new guys are breaking down getting their hands burned and black.” No idea. Auto mechanics? Welders? Coal miners? Blacksmiths?
Michaela’s light is still off, and Zander’s is still on. It’s an odd light, actually, as if he’s replaced his usual bedside bulb with one of those colored “party” bulbs. A shadow of movement cuts across the room. Adrian squints up at the hazy window, then realizes he has his binocular and takes it out, just as Zander moves into full view.
Adrian’s heart contracts at the simple sight of his son in his room, his head with that new-penny sheen, wearing the light-blue tee shirt he likes to sleep in. He’s got something in one hand, a notebook or magazine, and a can of something in the other, probably those health-food sodas that Stella buys as a compromise, the tangerine that Zander prefers. He arcs it across the room, out of sight, then slings the magazine too, like a Frisbee, and moves away again. He’s angry, Adrian thinks, or he’s just a boy aiming for a basket.
Adrian taps the command button to light up the next entry: A Great Blue Heron “fishing on the SR sound.” A coastal location, yes, but something else—one of the “new boys” was “impressed by the reservation.” He hadn’t noticed that before.
Intrigued, Adrian Googles “American Indian Reservation” and “American southeast.” He finds the Poarch band of Creek Indians (the Muskogee), which looks to be on and near the coast in Alabama; the Chitimacha tribe in Louisiana; the Miccosukee tribe in Miami; and the Seminoles, in a few coastal areas of southern Florida.
When he backspaces to add in “coastal,” he clicks on the wrong option in the dropdown menu and a list of North American tribes appears:
A’ananin (Aane), Abenaki (Abnaki, Abanaki, Abenaqui), Absaalooke (Absaroke), Achumawi (Achomawi), Acjachemen, Acoma, Agua Caliente, Adai, Ahtna (Atna), Ajachemen, Akimel O’odham, Akwaala (Akwala), Alabama-Coushatta, Aleut, Alutiiq, Algonquians (Algonkians), Algonquin (Algonkin), Alliklik, Alnobak (Alnôbak, Alnombak), Alsea (Älsé, Alseya), Andaste, Anishinaabe (Anishinabemowin, Anishnabay), Aniyunwiya, Antoniaño, Apache, Apalachee, Applegate, Apsaalooke (Apsaroke), Arapaho (Arapahoe), Arawak, Arikara, Assiniboine, Atakapa, Atikamekw, Atsina, Atsugewi (Atsuke), Araucano (Araucanian), Avoyel (Avoyelles), Ayisiyiniwok, Aymara, Aztec, Babine, Bannock, Barbareño, Bari, Bear River, Beaver Bella, Bella, Bella Coola, Beothuks (Betoukuag), Bidai, Biloxi, Black Carib, Blackfoot (Blackfeet), Blood Indians, Bora, Caddo (Caddoe), Cahita, Cahto, Cahuilla, Calapooya (Calapuya, Calapooia), Calusa, (Caloosa) Carib, Carquin, Carrier, Caska, Catawba,Cathlamet, Cayuga, Cayuse, Celilo, Central Pomo, Chahta, Chalaque, Chappaquiddick (Chappaquiddic, Chappiquidic), Chawchila (Chawchilla), Chehalis, Chela, Chemehuevi, Cheraw, Cheroenhaka (Cheroenkhaka, Cherokhaka), Cherokee, Chetco, Cheyenne (Cheyanne), Chickamaugan, Chickasaw, Chilcotin, Chilula-Wilkut, Chimariko, Chinook, Chipewyan (Chipewyin), Chippewa, Chitimacha (Chitamacha), Chocheno, Choctaw, Cholon, Chontal de Tabasco (Chontal Maya), Choynimni (Choinimni), Chukchansi, Chumash, Clackamas (Clackama), Clallam, Clatskanie, (Clatskanai), Clatsop, Cmique, Coastal, Cochimi, Cochiti, Cocopa (Cocopah), Coeur d’Alene, Cofan, Columbia (Columbian), Colville, Comanche, Comcaac, Comox, Conestoga, Coos (Coosan), Copper River Athabaskan, Coquille, Cora, Coso, Costanoan, Coushatta, Cowichan, Cowlitz, Cree, Creek, Croatan (Croatoan), Crow, Cruzeño, Cuna, Cucupa (Cucapa), Cupeño (Cupa), Cupik (Cu’pik, Cuit), Dakelh, Dakota, Dakubetede, Dawson, Deg Xinag (Deg Hit’an), Delaware, Dena’ina (Denaina), Dene, Dene Suline (Denesuline), Dene Tha, Diegueno, Dine (Dineh), Dogrib, Dohema (Dohma), Dumna, Dunne-za (Dane-zaa, Dunneza), Eastern Inland Cree, Eastern Pomo, Eel River Athabascan, Eenou (Eeyou), Eskimo, Esselen, Etchemin (Etchimin), Euchee, Eudeve (Endeve), Excelen, Eyak, Fernandeno (Fernandeño), Flathead Salish, Fox, Gabrielino (Gabrieleño), Gae, Gaigwu, Galibi, Galice, Garifuna, Gashowu, Gitxsan (Gitksan), Gosiute (Goshute), Gros Ventre, Guarani, Guarijio (Guarijío), Gulf, Gwich’in (Gwichin, Gwitchin), Haida, Haisla, Halkomelem (Halqomeylem), Hän (Han Hwech’in), Hanis, Hare, Hatteras, Haudenosaunee, Havasupai, Hawaiian, Heiltsuk, Heve, Hiaki, Hichiti (Hitchiti), Hidatsa, Hocak (Ho-Chunk, Hochunk), Holikachuk, Homalco, Hoopa, Hopi, Hopland Pomo, Hualapai, Huelel, Huichol, Huichun, Hupa, Huron, Illini (Illiniwek, Illinois), Inca, Ineseño (Inezeño), Ingalik (Ingalit), Innoko, Innu, Inuktitut (Inupiat, Inupiaq, Inupiatun), Iowa-Oto (Ioway), Iroquois Confederacy, Ishak, Isleño, Isleta, Itza Maya (Itzah), Iviatim, Iynu, James Bay Cree, Jemez, Juaneno (Juaneño), Juichun, Kabinapek, Kainai (Kainaiwa), Kalapuya (Kalapuyan, Kalapooya), Kalina (Kaliña), Kanenavish, Kanien ’kehaka (Kanienkehaka), Kalispel, Kansa (Kanza, Kanze), Karankawa, Karkin, Karok (Karuk), Kashaya, Kaska, Kaskaskia, Kathlamet, Kato, Kaw, Kenaitze (Kenai), Keres (Keresan), Kichai, Kickapoo (Kikapu), Kiliwa (Kiliwi), Kiowa, Kiowa Apache, Kitanemuk, Kitsai, Klahoose, Klallam, Klamath-Modoc, Klatskanie (Klatskanai), Klatsop, Klickitat, Koasati, Kolchan, Konkow (Konkau), Konomihu, Kootenai (Ktunaxa, Kutenai), Koso, Koyukon, Kuitsh, Kulanapo (Kulanapan, Kulanapa), Kumeyaay (Kumiai), Kuna, Kupa, Kusan, Kuskokwim, Kutchin (Kootchin), Kwaiailk, Kwakiutl (Kwakwala), Kwalhioqua, Kwantlen, Kwapa (Kwapaw), Kwinault (Kwinayl), Laguna, Lakhota (Lakota), Lakmiak (Lakmayut), Lassik, Laurentian (Lawrencian), Lecesem, Lenape (Lenni Lenape), Lillooet, Lipan Apache, Listiguj (Listuguj), Lnuk (L’nuk, L’nu’k, Lnu), Lokono, Loucheux (Loucheaux), Loup, Lower Chehalis, Lower Coquille, Lower Cowlitz, Lower Tanana, Lower Umpqua, Luckiamute (Lukiamute), Luiseño, Lumbee, Lummi, Lushootseed, Lutuamian, Macushi (Macusi), Mahican, Maidu, Maina (Mayna), Makah, Makushi, Maliseet (Maliceet, Malisit, Malisset), Mandan, Mapuche (Mapudungun, Mapudugan), Maricopa, Massachusett (Massachusetts), Massasoit (Massassoit, Mashpee), Mattabesic, Mattole, Maumee, Matlatzinca, Mayan, Mayo, Mengwe, Menominee (Menomini), Mescalero-Chiricahua, Meskwaki (Mesquakie), Metis Creole, Miami-Illinois, Miccosukee, Michif, Micmac (Mi’gmaq), Migueleño, Mikasuki, Mi’kmaq (Mikmawisimk), Mingo, Minqua, Minsi, Minto, Miskito (Mosquito), Missouria, Miwok (Miwuk), Mixe, Mixtec (Mixteco, Mixteca), Modoc, Mohave, Mohawk, Mohegan, Mohican, Mojave, Molale (Molalla, Molala), Monache (Mono), Montagnais, Montauk, Moosehide, Multnomah, Munsee (Munsie, Muncey, Muncie), Muskogee (Muscogee, Mvskoke), Musqueam, Mutsun, Nabesna, Nadot’en (Natoot’en, Natut’en), Nahane (Nahani, Nahanne), Nahuat, Nahuatl, Nakoda (Nakota), Nambe, Nanticoke, Nantucket, Narragansett, Naskapi, Nass-Gitxsan, Natchez, Natick, Naugutuck, Navajo (Navaho), Nawat, Nayhiyuwayin, Nde, Nee-me-poo, Nehiyaw (Nehiyawok), Netela, New Blackfoot, Newe, Nez Perce, Niantic, Nicola, Niitsipussin (Niitsitapi), Nimiipuu (Nim
i’ipu), Nipmuc, Nisenan (Nishinam), Nisga’a (Nisgaa, Nishga), Nlaka’pamux (Nlakapamux), Nomlaki, Nooksack (Nooksak), Nootka (Nutka), Nootsak, Northeastern Pomo, Northern Carrier, Northern Cheyenne, Nottoway, Nuu-chaa-nulth (Nuuchahnulth), Nuxalk, Obispeño, Ocuilteco, Odawa Ofo, Ogahpah (Ogaxpa), Ohlone, Ojibwa (Ojibway, Ojibwe, Ojibwemowin), Oji-Cree, Okanagan (Okanogan), Okwanuchu, Old Blackfoot, Omaha-Ponca, Oneida, Onondaga, O’ob, No’ok, O’odham (Oodham), Opata, Osage, Otchipwe, Otoe, Ottawa, Pai, Paipai, Paiute, Palaihnihan (Palaihnih, Palahinihan), Palewyami, Palouse, Pamlico, Panamint, Papago-Pima, Pascua Yaqui, Passamaquoddy, Patuxet, Patwin, Paugussett (Paugusset), Pawnee, Peigan, Pend d’Oreill, Penobscot (Pentagoet), Pentlatch (Pentlach), Peoria, Pequot, Picuris, Piegan (Piikani), Pima, Pima Bajo, Pipil, Pit River, Pojoaque, Pomo (Pomoan), Ponca, Poospatuck (Poosepatuk, Poospatuk, Poosepatuck), Popoluca (Popoloca), Potawatomi (Pottawatomie, Potawatomie), Powhatan, Pueblo, Puget Sound Salish, Purisimeño, Putún, Quapaw (Quapa), Quechan, Quechua, Quilcene, Quileute, Quinault, Quinnipiac (Quinnipiack), Quiripi, Raramuri, Red Indians, Restigouche, Rumsen, Runasimi, Saanich, Sac, Sahaptin, Salhulhtxw, Salinan, Salish, Samish, Sandia, Sanish (Sahnish), San Felipe, San Ildefonso, San Juan, Sanpoil, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Santiam, Santo Domingo, Saponi, Sarcee (Sarsi), Sastean (Sasta), Satsop, Savannah, Sauk, Saulteaux, Schaghticoke (Scaticook), Sechelt, Secwepemc (Secwepmectsin), Sekani, Selkirk, Seminoles, Seneca, Seri, Serrano, Seshelt, Severn, Ojibwe Shanel, Shasta (Shastan), Shawnee (Shawano), Shinnecock, Shoshone (Shoshoni), Shuar, Shuswap, Siksika (Siksikawa), Siletz, Similkameen, Sinkiuse (Sincayuse), Sinkyone, Sioux, Siuslaw, Skagit, Skicin, S’Klallam, Skokomish, Skraeling, Skwamish, Slavey (Slave, Slavi), Sliammon (Sliamon), Sm’algyax, Snichim, Snohomish, Songish, Sooke, Souriquois (Sourquois), Southeastern Pomo, Southern Paiute, Spokane (Spokan), Squamish, Stadaconan, St’at’imcets (St’at’imc), Stockbridge, Sto:lo, Stoney, Straits, Sugpiaq, Suquamish, Susquehannock, Suwal, Swampy Cree, Swinomish, Tabasco Chontal, Tachi (Tache), Taensa, Tahltan, Tagish, Tahcully, Taino, Takelma (Takilma), Takla, Taltushtuntude, Tamyen, Tanacross, Tanaina, Tanana, Tano, Taos, Tarahumara, Tataviam, Tauira (Tawira), Teguime, Tehachapi, Ten’a, Tenino, Tepehuano (Tepecano), Tequistlateco (Tequistlatec), Tesuque, Tetes-de-Boules, Tewa, Thompson, Tigua, Tillamook, Timbisha (Timbasha), Timucua, Tinde, Tinneh, Tiwa, Tjekan, Tlahuica (Tlahura), Tlatskanie (Tlatskanai), Tlatsop, Tlicho Dinne, Tlingit, Tohono O’odham, Tolowa, Tongva, Tonkawa, Towa, Tsalagi (Tsa-la-gi), Tsattine, Tsekani (Tsek’ehne), Tsetsehestahese, Tsetsaut, Tsilhqot’in (Tzilkotin), Tsimshian (Tsimpshian), Tsitsistas, Tsooke, Tsoyaha, Tsuu T’ina (Tsuutina), Tualatin, Tubar (Tubare), Tubatulabal, Takudh, Tulalip, Tumpisa (Tümbisha, Tumbisha), Tunica, Tupi, Tuscarora, Tutchone, Tutelo, Tututni, Tuwa’duqutsid, Twana, Twatwa (Twightwee), Uchi (Uche, Uchee), Ukiah (Ukian, Uki, Ukia), Ukomnom, Umatilla, Unami, Unangan (Unangax), Unkechaug (Unquachog), Upper Chehalis, Upper Chinook, Upper Cowlitz, Upper Tanana, Upper Umpqua, Ute, Ventureño, Virginian Algonkin, Wailaki (Wailakki), Wailatpu (Waylatpu), Walapai, Walla Walla, Wampano, Wampanoag, Wanapam, Wanki (Wangki), Wappinger, Wappo, Warijio (Warihio, Warijío),Warm Springs, Wasco-Wishram, Washo (Washoe), Wazhazhe, Wea, Wenatchi (Wenatchee), Wendat, Weott, Western Pomo, Whilkut, White Clay People, Wichita (Witchita), Wikchamni, Willapa (Willopah), Winnebago, Wintu (Wintun), Wishram, Witsuwit’en (Witsuwiten), Wiyot (Wi’yot, Wishosk), Wolastoqewi (Wolastoqiyik), Wyandot (Wyandotte), Yakama (Yakima), Yanesha, Yaquina (Yakonan, Yakon), Yavapai, Yawelmani, Yaqui, Yinka Dene, Yneseño (Ynezeño), Yocot’an, Yokaia (Yakaya), Yokuts (Yokut, Yokutsan), Yoncalla (Yonkalla), Yowlumni, Ysleño, Ysleta del Sur, Yucatec Maya (Yucateco, Yucatan), Yuchi (Yuchee), Yuki (Yukian), Yuma, Yupik (Yu’pik, Yuit), Yurok (Yu’rok), Zapotec, Zia, Zimshian, Zoque, Zuni
