She said, “It’s here, I guess.” She felt sorry for being so sharp with him, yet irritated that he could be so pliable that he never let her sharpness bother him.
“And I thank you,” he said, opening his thermos. “How’s Miz Etta doin’?” he asked, his expression getting serious.
“She’s not awake yet, but when she does get awake, I imagine she’ll be havin’ a hard time.”
Obie nodded and said, “I imagine.”
Latrice thought that he might as well not have said anything at all, although she bit her tongue on this observation. She knew she was in a bad mood and being overly critical. He cast her another hopeful look—trying to wrangle an invitation to breakfast, she knew.
She said, “I have things to do,” and went back into the house.
At the door she sipped her coffee and watched Obie walk back to his truck, slumped over as if she had shot him.
Each morning she felt a silly expectancy in her chest, for what she didn’t know, but she would look for Obie, and he would come with his own hopefulness, and whatever it was she expected from him, he never did, because then he would go away, and she would feel disappointed.
* * *
Chapter 6
When Johnny got himself awake enough to sit up, he saw a man off to the right, hefting a feed bag onto each shoulder and toting them past the pickup. The man was one tall drink of water Negro, a lean pole topped by a blue ball cap.
"Mornin’,” the man said to Johnny, as if he saw a stranger wake up in the back of a pickup truck in this very barn every day.
“Mornin’,” Johnny returned with equal politeness.
Realizing he was scratching his head, he stopped, not wanting the man to think he might have bugs. He knew he looked pretty poorly. He watched the tall man continue out and dump the sacks of feed in the back of his own truck.
Despite wanting to do better, Johnny sank back against his saddle. His head was pounding like a jackhammer. The tall man came three more times for feed sacks, while Johnny tried to get his head to quiet down. He listened to the red horse’s hooves gallop around in the corral, listened to the morning birds, listened to the tall man drive off in his truck. It gave a few good pops, which didn’t help Johnny’s head.
Suddenly he realized he smelled coffee. He thought he had to be dreaming, but he sat up again and saw a steaming enamel cup sitting on the edge of the tailgate. He had not heard the tall man’s footsteps, but he knew it had been him that had brought the coffee.
Johnny eased gingerly to the tailgate, dragging his boots along, stuck them on, and reached for the cup. He curled both hands around it, savoring the warmth and the aroma of the dark brew before tasting it. It was strong enough to open his eyes wide. Coffee warming and easing his pounding head, he sat and gazed at the house out across the yard. It looked silent.
After he drank the last drop, Johnny went and snaked the hose connected to the outside spigot into the barn, secured it over the partition of a stall, and took himself a shower. He cursed a couple of times, splashing on the icy well water and watching goose bumps grow and parts of him shrivel in the cold water and air.
Johnny had always been particular about keeping clean. He felt it came from his mother being somewhat of a fanatic about keeping him clean as a boy. He had been raised around a lot of women early on, his mother being a whore in a house in Fort Worth. All the women there had mothered him. They’d wanted so much for him, as mothers tend to do for their sons, and they had insisted he always be exceptionally presentable.
Even when down on his luck, Johnny always managed to find a way to wash himself, but sometimes washing his clothes was a bit more difficult. It did seem, though, that things always turned around for him just when all his clothes got dirty. He found either a job or a woman. As he slipped into his last clean shirt, he figured things were due to turn his way that very day.
Once more dressed and warmed by a flannel-lined denim jacket, shaved with cold water, teeth brushed and hair neatly combed, he made himself a cigarette and went out to the corrals. The gelding was running in the large one, head proud and tail flowing, as some horses were given to doing when the morning sun broke over the horizon.
Standing very still so as to not draw attention, Johnny watched the horse, watched his movements—the way he stretched his legs when running and the way he tucked his rear when he stopped short and turned. Johnny’s interest sharpened. When moving like that the gelding took on an amazing beauty, didn’t seem like the same horse at all.
Then the horse stopped and turned his head to Johnny. Once more seeming a little disjointed, he ambled over to the fence where Johnny stood and stuck his head over, sniffing at Johnny’s coat pocket containing the tobacco pouch.
“Well now, you little son-of-a-buck, you like tobacco, do ya?” Johnny took out some tobacco and fed it to him. A lot of horses liked tobacco.
Johnny was standing there at the fence when the tall Negro man returned in his pickup, the black truck chugging and popping up the pasture road that curved from around some trees. Johnny had halfway been waiting for him—or for some indication what to do next.
The tall man stopped his truck in front of the barn, got out, and said good morning again. “Well, you look like you might just live now.”
“Thanks to you. It was touch and go, I admit. Whiskey provided comfort last night and near death this mornin’.”
“Figured. I’ve been there a time or two. I emptied my thermos while I was feedin’ the cattle, but there’s a percolator sittin’ over there on the porch, and Miss Latrice likely has made fresh. She usually does.”
He took the lid to his thermos and Johnny’s cup over to the back porch and returned with both steaming. He was perhaps past fifty. It was hard to tell. He wore a tattered baseball cap with a big gold M on it, and he was sort of like a clothed skeleton walking, all his bones attached by strings. The hand that held out Johnny’s cup of coffee was large and strong and callused.
“Okay . . . I have to know. Why do these people make their coffee on the back porch?” Johnny asked.
“On account of Miz Etta bein’ pregnant. The poor gal cain’t stand the smell of coffee. She been awful sick right along with the baby.”
"Oh."
Johnny ducked his head and took a drink of the coffee. He felt a bit peculiar at the mention of Mrs. Rivers, and the word pregnant always made him feel uncomfortable. It was an intimate, private thing. He felt foolishly like he’d been intimate with the gal, after carting her over to town on the sly and then having her bawling against his chest.
Suddenly grinning, he stuck out his hand to the tall man. “I’m Johnny Bellah.”
“Obie Lee,” the tall man said, taking Johnny’s hand in a firm shake.
“Obie . . . well, good to meet you, sir.”
The tall man’s eyebrow went up at the formal address, and Johnny felt a little silly and self-conscious. Still, he’d been raised to be polite. They drank their coffee in companionable silence for a few minutes, leaning on the fence and watching the sun rise to light the day.
“Didn’t I see you round at the funeral yesterday?” Obie asked, surveying Johnny curiously.
Johnny nodded. “I dropped in to speak to Roy Rivers. I didn’t know he had passed on.”
“It was kind of sudden,” the man nodded, respectfully as one did when speaking of the dead. “A lot of folks put out by Mr. Roy dyin’ like that. Lot of folks sayin’ a lot of things . . . but Mr. Roy was like most of us, filled with bad and good. He knew how to fish up a storm and how to make playin’ poker better than playin’ a woman. You know Mr. Roy well?”
“Well enough to know he did play good poker. I got an IOU from playin’ with him, and I was aimin’ to get it cashed in.”
Obie shook his head, chuckling, “I got a few of those myself, and I don’t imagine I’ll hold my breath till I see the money.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“How much he stick you for?”
“Eight hundred.”
Obie whistled low. “You didn’t look that foolish to me, son."
“Well, I’m supposin’ you knew Roy Rivers a lot better than I did, and you say you got a few, so how much smarter than me does that make you?”
The dark man grinned. “All of my notes together don’t come to twenty dollars, and I never counted on seein’ the money. That’s what makes me different.” He cocked his head. “How come you took an IOU like that from a fella you didn’t hardly know?”
“I knew him,” Johnny defended himself. “I handled sellin’ a few of his horses, and he paid me right on the spot. How was I to know he would be gone from the hotel when I went to collect on my IOU?”
“Well,” Obie drawled, “if it’s a comfort to you, I’ll put forth that Mr. Roy probably did have your money back at the hotel, only when he got there, he probably went ahead and spent it. He meant to pay you, but he just managed to get in that position with a lot of folks, and whoever got to him first was who got their money.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I might have known that goin’ in, but I was half-drunk and had a red-head on my knee. He invited me to play poker with the big boys over in a back room at the stockyards. It didn’t really dawn on me till later that of all those big boys, I was the only one givin’ out cash money.”
The tall man shook his head in commiseration, took off his ball cap, and turned it in his hand, gazing at it.
“You play ball?” Johnny asked, nodding toward the cap.
“Oh, yeah.” He gave a shy smile and a nod. “While back—Negro Leagues, you know.”
“No kiddin’? I’ve seen some of those games. What team—hey, the Monarchs?”
“Yep, Kansas City Monarchs. Outfielder and first baseman.” The man shook his head. “Long time back, but I like to wear the hat, you know. I played till I was nearin’ forty, almost twenty years.”
“Well, I bet I saw you play. Probably more than once. You probably could have spit at me a couple of times, ‘cause I liked to get right down front.” He thought about how he must have seen the old man play, and then here he was, meeting him. “Funny world sometimes, idn’t it?”
“You said it,” the tall man allowed.
“I was in rodeo myself,” Johnny said. “All-round cowboy three times . . . long time ago, too,” he said. “You ever go to many rodeos?” His gaze fell to the man’s dark hands, and he felt a little foolish for the question. The races did not mix as readily at rodeos.
The older man’s teeth gleamed and he drawled, “Guess I was always either pickin’ cotton or pitchin’ baseballs.”
Johnny nodded and averted his gaze. It lit on the red horse that was nosing at stubs of grass now. “You work around here then?” he asked.
“Yeah, a bit.”
“What’s the story on this colt? He’s about three, idn’t he?”
“Three back first of March, I guess. He was born runty as could be, had his legs all folded up, and then his mama died. Didn’t look like the critter had much of a chance, and Mr. Roy wanted to shoot him on the spot.” He slipped his hat back on and tugged at the brim. “Mr. Roy had a deep soft spot in him when it came to anythin’ sufferin’. He didn’t care that the colt weren’t worth nothin’, but he could not stand sufferin’. Every fish Mr. Roy ever caught and intended to keep, he killed right away. He said to me, ‘Nothin’ on earth should have to go ‘round sickly and hurtin’, Obie.’ Mr. Roy’d been pretty sickly as a boy.
“Anyway, he went to get his gun, but Miz Etta, she throwed a fit and said to give it a chance, and that it wouldn’t hurt it to struggle for a few days. She set out to hand-feed it and tend it. I found a plow horse could give it milk, and Miz Etta and me got the colt to suck off her, and that mare took him fine. In three days that colt was jumpin’ around, his legs gettin’ straight. Those scars you see there, that’s from when he got tangled up in the barb wire fence out yonder last year. He was a good mess again, and there were plenty of people would have put him down directly, but Miz Etta got Miss Latrice to tell her what to do, and she worked him over again. She ain’t one for givin’ up, Miz Etta.”
“What’s his breedin’?” Johnny asked.
Obie shrugged. “I don’t know much about that. Miz Etta knows about stuff like that. She was raised up with horses.”
“He seems sound. Does Missus Rivers think he is?”
“Well, I guess she hopes he is, but ain’t nobody been on him. Mr. Roy, he tried twice and got throwed pretty good twice and called that quits. He just wasn’t interested. Miz Etta would have rode him, but ‘bout that time she found out she was pregnant and couldn’t get on him.”
Johnny had slipped through the fence and was running a hand along the horse’s back. The animal quivered and twisted to sniff for the tobacco in Johnny’s pocket. “I might take this colt in exchange for my IOU. Do think Missus Rivers might do that?”
Obie squinted an eye at him. “I don’t suppose I could say ‘bout that.”
Johnny looked at the horse. He knew he’d never get anywhere near eight hundred dollars for him. He might possibly be able to talk the horse up to two hundred dollars, and he was good at talking up interest in a horse. Still, anything he might get out of the animal would be better than nothing.
He really wouldn’t want to sell the colt, though. He’d rather keep it and see what it could do first. He was always curious to know what a horse could do, and what he could do with a horse. If he could get it to win a race or show some talent for cutting a cow, he could boost the price. Maybe this colt would be one who could naturally be used for roping first time out.
A long time ago, when he was thirteen and thrown out on his own because of his mother’s death, he had come across a horse that had never been trained but could do anything right off that you set him to doing. A miracle, and that’s what he’d named the animal, Miracle. Johnny had been able to keep himself fed by renting the horse to cowboys at rodeos. Like this one, Miracle hadn’t been much for looks, and maybe that was why he felt drawn to this red one now.
Johnny knew very well that he wasn’t in a position to increase the horse’s value at the moment, though. With no money to tide him, no place to put his hat, much less to work on a horse, all his ideas were pretty much pie-in-the-sky ones. That knowledge did not stop his mind from twisting around trying to make a plan just the same.
“You feelin’ pretty hungry?” Obie asked.
Johnny glanced over to see the tall man looking at the house, at the Negro woman who had come out on the porch and was vigorously shaking a rug.
“My backbone’s pressin’ my stomach,” Johnny said.
Obie was already walking. “Well, come on. Maybe Miss Latrice’s of a mind by now to give us some breakfast.”
As he approached the porch, Obie Lee jerked his hat off, hoping as always to please Miss Latrice. He never was certain, however, if anything he did pleased her. She seemed put out with him at least half the time. Try as he might, he could not figure out exactly why. He felt he was a fool to keep longing after her, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Feeling the way he did about her had come on him slowly, about like a wild grape vine growing over a tree until it had a stranglehold. He’d spent four lonely years mourning his wife’s passing, and then one day he woke up to see Miss Latrice living up the hill from him.
He said now, “Miss Latrice, I thought you might could use some company for breakfast."
She looked at him, her black-as-night eyes seeming to see him for the first time. “I guess you just got hungry,” she said.
“Yes’m, and you’re the best cook in the county, so I’d be foolish not to try to get breakfast.”
He thought he saw a flare of warm amusement in her dark eyes.
She said, “I suppose I could make you some breakfast.” Her eyes traveled beyond him, to Johnny Bellah. “You’re one to make yourself to home.”
Johnny was smart enough to answer, “Yes, ma’am. Thank you."
She studied him, looking a little deflated, Obie thought. Fearing
their breakfast might evaporate, he quickly said, “I imagine Johnny could sure use one of your good meals, Miss Latrice.”
She gave out a “Humph,” then tossed aside the rug, saying, “You men remember to wipe your boots. “ She opened the kitchen door and held it for them to file through, like schoolboys. “Miz Etta came down a little earlier feelin’ poorly and went to my bed, so please keep your voices down.”
Obie looked at the closed bedroom door, a little intrigued by the idea of Miz Etta sleeping in Miss Latrice’s big feather bed. He often thought of Miss Latrice in there, dark and big and sinkin’ into the feathers.
One thing he liked about Miss Latrice was that she was tall; he liked a tall woman. He had caught several glimpses of Miss Latrice’s big fancy brass bed and feather mattress and had entertained a few fantasies of himself in it with her. He eased himself down into a chair at the table and watched her dress strain over her full breasts and her hips with each of her movements. His hand itched to rest on her hip.
Miss Latrice served up a fine meal, and Johnny and Obie ate every last crumb of it. Over an hour and a half passed by, taking Johnny’s initial optimism that perhaps Mrs. Rivers would appear with it. Hoping she would come, he lingered over coffee and complimented Miss Latrice again and again for the meal, but then Obie Lee was rising, and Johnny had to, too.
He said just before going out the door, “Ma’am, do you suppose I might speak to Missus Rivers about her husband’s IOU?”
“Not today,” Miss Latrice said. “And even when you get your chance, you’ll be standin’ in line.”
Obie spoke up on his behalf. “Johnny was thinkin’ that Miz Etta might would trade Little Gus for the IOU. He’d be willin’ to do that.”
“I’ll tell her when she’s feelin’ up to it,” the woman said, “but I wouldn’t hold out hope. She’s fond of that horse.”
She held the door open for them to leave, appearing to sweep them right out. In the yard, Johnny paused, looked back and watched Obie Lee linger before stepping off the porch.
“You enjoy more in there than the food,” Johnny said, amused at the expression on the older man’s face.
If Wishes Were Horses Page 7
