He found a light switch and flipped it on. It looked like the cowboy was a neat freak. Except for his own footprints, the dirt was hardpacked and bare, even in the corners. Every tool and piece of equipment hung from a nail, and what was too heavy to hang was covered with burlap. Pulling one cloth away, he found a plain Western saddle straddling a sawhorse, cleaned and oiled, well kept, but none of the silver tooling he expected. Against the back wall there were bales of hay stacked like stairsteps ranging from one bale high to as tall as three. He climbed up and sat on the second tier, folding his arms across his chest, watching the horse worry the wooden stall door, thinking about the last time he’d sat on a hay bale. When people had the worst news to deliver, they liked to take you someplace natural—outside, down to the beach, to a park.
His father had that weatherbeaten kind of face that made him seem like a man who spent a lot of time outside, hiking, fly fishing, as if he would be as comfortable in this barn as he was in Hollywood. But Peter could count on one hand the times they’d done stuff like that, father and son. Sure, they made plans, and once or twice they’d actually gone on vacation, but when your dad carried a cellular phone in his jacket and had to pick up faxes at the front desk of the lodge before you bought bait, it kind of civilized the wilderness out of a camping trip.
The real reason he looked craggy was because he was one-fourth Cherokee Indian, the rest of him a blend of races—what he called mutt. He’d grown up in a small town outside McAlester, Oklahoma, and he still had relatives there, but when he talked about those people, it was like they were trash or something, embarrassing, and he only mentioned them when he wanted to make a negative point that illustrated his own point as correct. Look at me. I brought myself up, Peter. I never had the nice things you have. You want to know what it was like living where I did? Fine, I’ll tell you. Imagine wearing secondhand underwear, somebody else’s piss stains in them. Or not to have a working toilet, or better yet to go to school every day, trying like hell to make something out of myself, only to have white kids throw me in with the Indians, or as they called them, goat ropers. There was no sailboat out in front of where I grew up. No new cars….
That kind of yap was the preamble to one of his “B” arguments; when “A,” simple logic, failed, he brought out the heritage lecture. What the hell is this D in algebra about? You need a tutor? You stupid, or what? People who shit on their education live second-class lives, Peter. Someday that D could be the one point that makes a difference between you getting into a name school or having to go to State. Look around you. Tell me you could be happy with less. Which was pretty funny when Peter thought about it, because his father’s leaving had made all of them live with less—all of them except his father.
They’d gone for the horseback ride the weekend he told him—like he didn’t already know. They drove out to Coto de Caza, where his dad knew some people who owned horses, and they were going to take a ride, or so he said. But before they got on the horses, he took Peter over to the stacks of hay bales and said, Sit down, let’s talk for just a minute. He knew what was coming next, long before the words “irreconcilable differences” and “someone else” had even formed on his lips. Travis’s parents had split up when he was ten. Brian’s mom was on marriage number four, to some guy who thought punching Brian in the stomach made a fun hobby. He really didn’t know anyone whose parents had stayed together, so why should his own life be any different? He remembered the bright sunshine beating down on his shoulders, burning through his T-shirt, and that there was no shade anywhere. The horses switched their tails and shifted their feet like they couldn’t hack it either. The smell of the hay, the scratchy feel of it against his jeans, his father’s voice, trying so hard to be unemotional and sensible that it came out clipped, like when he tried to lie, and that his one “I’m sorry” sounded so fake it should have been laminated in plastic. Then, as they got on their horses—like taking the ride would somehow ease the bad news of divorce—how his father on the horse ahead of him, turned, and he noticed a stalk of hay stuck in his hair, his perfect haircut that was never too long or too short. That one piece of hay was all it took to undo the Italian suits, the power deals, the credits for every show he’d ever written. Of all his lectures and lessons, this unintentional one was the one Peter would always remember. The hay stalk stamped him with the single word he hated most, “Oklahoma,” and nothing would ever erase that.
Joe Yazzi rapped on the metal door of the barn, and Peter felt the vibration twang against his back. He sat up quickly as the sliding door he’d slid through swung all the way open. “Who’s there?” Joe held a teapot out, pointed to it, mimed drinking a cup of tea, and motioned for him to come inside the bunkhouse. Following the Indian into the rooms where the cowpoke lived was not first on his list of fun things to do, but neither was freezing to death in the barn. He cleared his throat and tried to make his voice come out normal, regular. “That’s okay.”
The Indian came back and gestured with the teapot. “Get your ass inside or I’m telling Owen you were out here messing with his horse,” he said.
He couldn’t speech-read everything the man said, but he could follow the few signs he’d used: Go-to, Inside, Not-say-Owen, and intrigued that he knew any of them, Peter followed.
Inside Joe signed and pointed to a deck of cards. “Sit down. You play?”
“A little.” He watched him deal out cards, counting. Eleven for Peter, ten for the Indian, that meant gin rummy, one of his aunt Nori’s favorite games. He picked up his hand and began sorting, found a run of three and discarded a jack of spades, keeping his points low in case Joe ginned early.
The Indian picked up the jack, smiled at it, and tucked it into his hand. He said something, but his face was half hidden by the cards and Peter missed it. Instead of asking him to repeat it, he pretended to be engrossed in his hand.
Four discards later, guessing that Joe hadn’t done any more than partner the jack next to one dealt him, Peter went out for four.
The Indian threw his cards down, then signed, “Good.”
Peter said, “Okay. Where did you learn that?”
“Signs? Owen showed me. We been practicing on each other from this book your mom gave us. I’m good. Owen tries, but he’s an old white man. Can’t hardly teach him nothing.”
Peter shuffled the cards, feeling the wind they created as he snapped them together. “Owen didn’t tell me that.”
“Maybe he tried, and you didn’t listen.” Joe refilled his teacup. “You should come help us with the sheep in the mornings. Could use some help.”
“Right. What do I know about sheep?”
Joe smiled and tipped his black hat back on his head. “You can learn.”
“Maybe I don’t want to learn.”
Joe leaned forward and began tucking the discarded cards back into the deck. “Pretty Voice Tsosie and me go way back, all the way to Nam.”
“Who?”
He wrote the name down on the tally pad, and Peter picked it up and read it. “Pretty Voice. Am I supposed to be impressed?”
Joe took the pad back and added to the name. “Pretty Voice’s niece listens to everything he says. He tells her watch out for a certain boy, Bonnie minds.”
Peter let the pad drop to the table. “Bonnie Tsosie? You know her?”
Joe smiled, and Peter watched as Joe finished his tea, cleaned out his thumbnail with a toothpick, then yawned. He was waiting for him to say more. When he did, it wasn’t what Peter wanted to hear. “Just asking for some help with the animals. Lot of hard work, animals. Better get home now and sleep. Morning’s coming up. Sheep eat early.”
“How early?”
On the pad, Joe wrote a big block numeral 5.
Peter smacked the table with his hand. “Man, this is blackmail,” he said, too loudly. “That sucks.”
Joe smiled, the silver eyetooth glinting like tinsel, then put a finger to his lips and shushed him.
“Awful nice of you to get up early tw
o days in a row and help me feed sheep,” Owen said.
“My dog wakes up about five to take a leak. Figured as long as I’m up….”
“Peter, I do believe the Christmas spirit has infected you.”
“Spare me, okay?” He was wrecking his gloves picking up the withered moldering lettuce Owen told him to rip into chunks and toss in the trough, an old hot-water tank cut lengthwise, its sharp edges hammered over to a safe smoothness. The lettuce was slimy stuff, and it smelled no better than the rotting apples had. While he did the dirty work, the cowboy went over the sheep one by one, checking their hooves, grasping individual muzzles and taking a brief look at their teeth. Where in hell was Joe Yazzi, Navajo blackmailer? Probably still in bed. Probably had no intention of telling Bonnie’s uncle anything. Merry flippin’ Christmas.
Owen had made him core the apples and measure out grain and hay into a hanging scale in the barn. What was the point, if you were going to throw it into the trough? Owen said, with exaggerated slowness to each word, “These sheep look tough, but they’re delicate creatures. Too many apple seeds is toxic. Too much grain, you go upsetting the rumen, nine times out of ten you get bloat. Don’t pay to feed cheap hay, ’cause you just end up having to feed more. Good hay costs good money, and it’s got to last, so we measure it.”
Whatever the hell rumen was. When they were finished with the sheep, Owen let his horse out of the stall and showed Peter how to brush him. “He likes the feel of that old shedding blade. Teeth are pretty worn down. Have at it.”
When Peter tried to prove his horse knowledge—two weeks of summer camp lessons on nags, his father’s occasional rides—by attempting to pick the horse’s feet clean, Owen yanked him away by the shoulder so hard he could hear his vertebra crackle.
“Fuck you!” Peter cried out.
“Nice mouth you got on the Lord’s birthday,” Owen said, catching him by the wrist. “Here I was trying to save your miserable little life. Red’s sensitive about his feet. He’ll pretty much kick anyone in the head, given the opportunity.”
He took down hobbles from the barn wall and tied one of the horse’s rear legs up. “Don’t want to spoil your momma’s Christmas with a trip to the hospital, getting a horseshoe removed from your forehead. Now you can pick his dainty hooves to your heart’s content.”
When his red face had quit burning, and the shame of trying to impress Owen had somewhat dissipated, Peter looked out at the sheep and said, “It’s disgusting.”
“Them sorry sheep of mine?”
“No. That people eat them.”
“Son, you can’t look at everything so hard. They’re here for a for a purpose.”
“Right, going into people’s guts, coming out shit. Nobody needs meat to survive.”
“Maybe so, but some choose to, and that’s one way I make my living.”
“It’s wrong.”
“You can’t expect the world to change its mind since you got mad.” Owen pointed to the old Merino. “Ruby’s my charity case. Her I’ll be sad to see go. She and I have covered some trail.”
“What about your horse? Would you sell him, too, if someone offered you a bunch of money? Let them turn him into dog food?”
He shook his head and breathed out a sigh that showed steam-white in the cold air. “No way. Likely I’d take a bullet for Red. He’s too good a horse to ever let go. We’ll be together until one of us forgets to take a breath, won’t we, boy?” He reached up and scratched the horse’s neck. “If something ever happened and I couldn’t take him along, I’d find a way to come back for him, no matter how long it might take. I love that horse.”
Peter said, “Really?”
Owen nodded.
“Then maybe you should think about your sheep the same way. They don’t deserve to be anybody’s dinner either.”
“Must get that stubborn streak from your momma. Let me bridle Red and you can ride him around the barn a few times.”
“No. Thanks anyway.” One of the reasons he didn’t want to was because Red reminded him of the horse he’d ridden with his father.
“Go on. It’s Christmas. Give Red a thrill.”
The other reason was that he didn’t want to fall. Since he’d lost his hearing, heights scared him, even just that few feet up on horseback seemed unmanageable.
“You scared?”
“Do I look scared?”
“If you’re scared, I won’t make you.”
“Jesus! I said I wasn’t scared.”
“Then give me your foot, and we’ll get you aboard.”
Whatever happens, please don’t let me fall and have to be rescued by the cowboy, Peter prayed. But beneath him the horse was gentle and solid. From his back everything about the property looked different. The white two-story house where his mother lay sleeping seemed to rise up out of the ground warm and sturdy, something the wind could howl at but never penetrate. The thick-trunked bare trees down by the Animas made a kind of black lace framing the farm way across the river. The dingy sheep were full of energy after their feeding, spazzing around, snow and icicles strung from their heavy wool. Between his thighs Peter could feel the warmth of the horse, the collected muscle waiting there, just aching for permission to run but well-mannered enough to wait to be asked. Before Mexico he might have tried it. Just smacked his heels against the horse and hung on, gone for it, whatever happened, whether he fell, cracked his head open, or somehow managed to stay aboard. That was before he believed in consequences. Now he was too scared to do anything but walk.
Owen let him get down off Red by himself, take off the saddle and bridle and hang them up. When Peter had groomed the horse, wiped his gloves on his jeans, and fed him two carrots, Owen said, “You handled him kindly. If you want to ride him again, you have my okay.”
Peter didn’t know what to say. Just the fact that he hadn’t said anything about how scared he was or held the hoof-picking attempt against him seemed surprising. He tugged Owen’s jacket sleeve and signed, “Thanks.”
Owen signed back, “You’re welcome. Pete, go clang a pot lid inside my bunkhouse. Get Joe up out of that bedroll. That lazy ’skin can at least help us cook breakfast.”
Peter used an old baling hook and the lid to a twenty-five-pound tin of equine Stride. Maybe he couldn’t hear, but from the cranky look on Joe’s face, he sure could.
14
TOO EARLY ON CHRISTMAS DAY, MAGGIE WOKE TO THE SOUND of Echo’s yipping. She had slept fitfully, pestered by the kind of dreaming that kept her so busy she woke expecting to receive a paycheck for the last eight hours. Still drowsy, she splashed her face with cold water under the faucet. Downstairs she could hear voices—Joe Yazzi’s deep baritone and Peter’s odd tone shifts, which meant he was trying to carry on his end of the conversation by reading lips and answering without using sign. It was a dangerous practice that “led to the newly deaf being ostracized,” or so said the school’s brochure on immersion. They would not approve. She heard chairs scrape across the pine floor. The smell of frying bacon tickled her nose and made her stomach growl with hunger. She pulled on her wrap, a heavy white terrycloth men’s robe from the JC Penney’s in Farmington, toed blindly into her slippers, and made her way downstairs.
“The sun isn’t even all the way up. What time is it?” She looked at the men in her kitchen: Joe with his boots propped on the woodbox; Peter, dressed in black sweats, peeling an orange by the sink. Echo was mad for oranges—just stood there yipping and drooling until Owen, who was at the stove, finally turned, threw a dish towel at Peter, and said, “Son, have mercy. Give the hound a slice.”
Peter, smiling at his dog’s antics, nodded his fist yes and let a segment fall. The dog growled over her orange as if it were her first kill. Hopeful, unimpressed, lay with closed eyes near Owen, all three legs stretched toward the stove as he soaked up the heat. Joe was buttering a stack of toast and had three kinds of jelly lined up beside him. It was a montage of homey comfortability she might have expected in an English novel, everyo
ne cordial owing to the holiday before them. When had they formed this brotherhood? When women’s bridges formed, they were structures spanning childbirth, marriage, and shared agony. With men, who could tell? Sometimes they had to batter each other into a bloody mess or tear up all their muscles moving an object that didn’t want to be moved. Their bonds were sweat, endurance, and heft. For that matter women’s weren’t so different, possibly a little more complex and—thinking of her sister, she was certain—more painfully broken. With a sharp pang in her throat, she wondered where Nori was spending her Christmas. In what five-star hotel she was staying the night at the corporate rate, and which first-run movie she was paying to watch on cable to waste enough time so that the holiday would pass and she could go back to where she was most comfortable—work. Here, in Maggie’s rented kitchen, her private domain, things had changed. Somehow, overnight, in a way that left her standing outside the circle, these men before her had become friends.
“Are we going to do the present thing?” she said, and the men looked at her, surprised to see her still there.
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