by Alex Cord
59
Entry Fee
Kevin Bradley’s wife Carley, a soft-spoken, southern belle from Atlanta, could ride a horse. She grew up showing jumpers that her construction mogul daddy purchased on the expensive advice of fashionable trainers.
After an hour of watching from the fence, at Jesse’s invitation, she put her foot in the stirrup and climbed aboard her husband’s horse. Kevin smiled up at her. “Carley, I know I’m making a big mistake. You are gonna love this.”
Jesse rode around with her while she got the feel and explained the difference between riding a cutter and a jumper. Before she could think about it, he said, “Go cut you a cow.”
While Abbie put the finishing praise to Carley, Kevin and Jesse walked toward Kevin’s truck. “I knew it,” said Kevin. “You better go ahead and find Carley a cuttin’ horse. Don’t say anything though, I want to surprise her.”
Profit on a horse for Carley, plus training and boarding fees—minus, of course, Abbie’s ten percent—would cover the entry fee for Soot at The Futurity.
60
A Maiden Voyage
It was a little practice cutting, a chance for Kevin to wet his feet, for Carley to sit on one of Jesse’s horses and watch. It was a good opportunity to introduce the spooky Soot to the noise, the action of cars, trucks and trailers jammed in a parking area, loudspeakers, being tied to the trailer with other horses, not too close to mares, of course. He was all flicking ears, flared nostrils, and wide-eyed.
When everyone had finished and were wetting their throats and replaying the events of the day, Jesse spoke quietly to the owner of the arena. Minutes later, he rode the apprehensive Soot into the arena and let him slowly walk around the fence as if it were a minefield, sidestepping away from the light flap of hung banners advertising feed and trucks. He rode him back and forth in front of a banner till he’d touch it with his nose and not jump back. He loped him around to loosen him up and then eased him into the herd and cut a cow. The place was mostly empty when he started. When he finished, it was mostly filled.
That night Lamar McCarthy called. The word was out that Jesse Burrell had him a colt. Excitement bubbled in Jesse’s belly, a huge grin ripped across his face as he quietly said, “He might turn out to be all right.”
“All right?” Lamar had his big laugh going. “I hear he’s a goddamn scorpion. I hear you’re gonna have to wire his jaws shut to keep him from eating a cow.”
“Who told you all that?”
“Everybody.” Lamar was tickled. “You son of a bitch. I’m coming out to your place tomorrow. I want to see him.”
61
His Honor Takes a Look
He stood on the platform and watched Jesse work the colt afoot in the round pen. When invited, the colt followed Jesse wherever he walked, head down, eyes soft, neck relaxed. Jesse stopped and turned to rub Soot’s face then he looked up at the judge. Lamar’s jaw had gone slack till he saw Jesse’s eyes. He shook his head and laughed. “I’ll be damned.”
Jesse bent at the waist, his hand extending toward the colt’s front foot. The colt lifted his foot and placed it in Jesse’s hand. Jesse stroked his neck and put the foot back on the ground. The judge said, “I’ll be damned.”
At the arena, one arm hung on the top rail and the other tilting a beer, Lamar watched Jesse on the colt circle at the trot. Reins seemed unnecessary. As if guided by one mind, they moved without effort, diagonally across the arena, fore and hind legs crossing one in front of the other. Then they eased into a lope, a circle to the left, a lead change, a circle right, then a gallop down the rail to a sinking, drop-dead stop, then a spin left and right and then…stillness.
The judge muttered, “Son of a bitch,” and shook his head. Jesse was smiling thirty yards away and a mile wide.
Jesse cracked a beer and brought another for Lamar. They sat on a stack of hay bales. The judge said, “I tell you, if I didn’t see it with my own eyes…”
“Tomorrow, I’m gonna enter him in The Futurity.”
The judge just shook his head like a dazed person. “You better…” Then he woke up laughing and said, “Jesus Christ! Am I gonna have to buy a ticket to see that son of a bitch that broke my arm cut a cow?”
62
A Ride to the Airport
Abbie had the driver’s seat in the dually jacked up as far as it would go. For Jesse, being chauffeured was a treat. When he teased her about her aggression, she said, “Hey, I’m just a peewee in a little car. I’m always looking up at everything. You know what that’s like? This makes me feel like Michael Jordan. I can kick some ass, man.”
She gave him a hug at the curb and said, “Tell the ugly wench I said hi.”
The Denver International Airport looked like an overblown Saudi monarch’s palace, a mammoth white tent with spires poking in the sky.
Standing there backed away from the crowd and leaning against a column, she was a tall, lean bundle of incongruity that somehow came together as an identity of its own—denim bib overalls, hiking boots, a lace-trimmed T-shirt, a ball cap with shining sequined stars, ponytail out the back, the summer-bright smile in wide red lips and those icy gray-blue eyes sparkling. As free as a child at a carnival, she was slowly waving a pinwheel with gold and silver blades that spun a tornado of joy filling him from head to toe.
He dropped his bag at her feet and took her in his arms. He smelled her neck and felt his heart beat against her chest. He stepped back and gently held her face and kissed her lips softly. He felt her hand against the back of his neck as she pressed against him and murmured, “Welcome to Denver.”
She held his hand as they walked to the baggage claim, heads turning as they passed. She seemed to notice nothing but him.
“Bear’s car had a dead battery so he had to take Starbuck. So I’ve got Olie May. Bear offered to take her but I couldn’t let him arrive at the office in Olie May. There she is. Hope you don’t mind.”
Olie May was a twenty-three-year-old Chevy Nova, once bronze, now a canvas for spray can art, a circus car. An American flag across the hood, stars and a quarter moon adorned the roof, the number 39 on one door, and 19 on the other, a carved pumpkin face smiled from the trunk lid she unlocked. “She sat in the yard for years not running, so whenever anyone got the urge we painted on her, thinking we’d get her towed away. Then one day a friend of Bear’s came over and fiddled under the hood and no one could believe it, he got her running and she’s been running ever since.”
Once in the hotel room, Jesse slipped the bellman a fiver, shut the door, and slid the bolt. When he turned, the simple fact of her standing there took his breath away. She looked so beautiful to him it made his jaws hurt. He pressed her against the wall and kissed her long and deep, soft and wet until they were naked on the bed and making love in the late afternoon.
They lay in each other’s arms and legs like twisted vines, every nerve steeped in the feel of their flesh. He turned to look at her. Eyes closed, her tongue moved, an unconscious exploration of her swollen lips. She moaned and turned to crawl against him. He held her close and closed his eyes. And like a bloodhound trailing a fugitive came a dreadful sense of doom hard upon the heels of his joy.
They awakened hungry in the dark. He kissed her everywhere at once and wished he had a thousand mouths to taste the all of her. An exquisite spring blossom, she stretched her tendril limbs and leaped into life, off the bed and into the shower, calling him to join her. They soaped and stroked and giggled and groped and hugged and kissed with water and shampoo cascading between their lips.
He wore pressed black Wranglers, sharkskin boots and a crisp white shirt. He put on his tweed sport jacket, as she appeared fresh from the cover of Vogue. He’d only seen photos of women who looked like that. He hadn’t really thought about them actually existing. The long black-stockinged thighs under the flared hem of ethereal skirt flow. And here he was taking her to dinner, having just made love to her. Good Lord. Somebody jump up and poke me.
The car, Olie M
ay, was already famous. The attendant smiling broadly as he held the door for the beautiful woman, said, “Don’t forget. You ever want to sell her. Just let me know. I’d sure like to have her.” Holly’s smile damn near made him trip over his own feet.
They made love again that night in the light of the candles she had brought and the wisps of incense smoke and slept deep in the bliss of it all.
The next morning while he showered, he was sure he smelled waffles. He walked out of the bathroom still drying his hair and found her in the living/dining room at the bar, fridge door ajar, wherein she had stored the fixings, setting the table while the waffles were cooking.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. “Where did you get the waffle iron?”
“I bought it yesterday.”
“And you brought all that stuff with you?”
“Yep.” She had real maple syrup and fresh strawberries and brown sugar.
“Man. I have died and gone to heaven.” He came up behind her, slipped an arm around her waist, lifted her hair, and kissed the back of her neck.
They drifted through the western art museum across from the Brown Palace Hotel, reading the hand-scrawled notes by Charles M. Russell on his drawings and his letters with little illustrations sketched in ink. They drank cappuccino and ate chocolate-covered biscuits in a café. Afterwards, they returned to the hotel and took the clothes from each other’s body and stood naked at the window overlooking the city and made love while watching pedestrians below and office workers out on smoking breaks.
They got dressed, keeping the scent of their love about them, and walked the mall on Sixteenth Street, hand in hand, browsing bookstores and gift shops. On the red brick street devoid of cars, draft horses stood between the shafts of carriages for hire. There were Percherons, a Clydesdale, several Belgians, and a dark brown and black giant with a white blaze down his wide face. Jesse was stroking his cheek as he called up to the woman idly holding the reins. “Is he a Shire?”
She was surprised. “Yes. How did you know?”
“I like horses,” he shrugged.
“Most people think he’s a Clydesdale.”
“Yeah…” He stroked his head. “He’s a nice boy.”
Holly watched the small exchange. She began to cherish hopes she wasn’t sure she should.
They had Guinness at a pub and walked to the theatre complex and bought tickets for that night’s live performance of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.
They walked back to the hotel with their arms around each other’s waist. “That was just great,” he said. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen a Shakespeare play. That was one tough woman.”
“I could take her.”
“I just bet you could.”
The depth of his feeling, the extent of the joy of being with this woman, was the most fearsome thing he’d ever known. He’d lost whoever he thought he was, and found himself feeling, doing, and saying things he’d never even imagined. Her head in the crook of his arm, her hair against his lips, he whispered, “My love for you has taken me into a wilderness…I am lost.”
“Are you scared?”
The only sound in the candlelight was the whisper of their breathing. She listened and waited.
“Some.” He turned and pressed his mouth gently against her breast and his hand found the special hollow in the slope of her back. She arched like a drawn bow and pressed his head to the perfumed softness of her flesh.
63
A Drive in Olie May
He shut the trunk, paid the kid who coveted the car, and hopped in. He touched her leg as she fed Olie gas and peeled away from the hotel as if they’d just robbed it. He smiled and cinched his seat belt a notch tighter.
Sixty miles later, at way more than a mile-a-minute, in the high plains of central Colorado, she wrenched the wheel of screeching Olie May and bounced on to a dirt road in a storm of dust and gravel, ignoring Jesse’s chuckle. Three minutes later she hurled the car right into a long dirt driveway and began blasting the horn repeatedly. Two golden retrievers came bounding out of the tall grass and down the drive to meet the car churning up the hill. Before it was parked, Ruby was out the front door waving a big warm smiling welcome. She was at the car as they got out and wrapped her arms around Jesse as if he were long lost and highly prized. The big dogs waggled as Holly got in their faces fussing and pulling, slapping their sides, and introducing them to Jesse.
Bear was in the barn, grooming and saddling horses. With a big, twinkle-eyed grin, he came forward and greeted Jesse with a bear hug. Damn, this family made him feel good. He liked Bear before he ever met Holly Marie. But that was before he was sleeping with her, before she had taken possession of everything he thought he was and turned him inside out.
They rode down the dirt road to a bridle path that eased around and alongside the neighbor’s fences. High cotton clouds hung in the bright blue, rimmed with light. Lodgepole lupine, larkspur, Indian paintbrush, and golden daisies rippled in patches of red, yellow, and purple.
Ruby had stayed behind preparing dinner, served by candlelight in the redwood house on an oak table set with elegant antique plates, ornate silver, and fine linen. They held hands and said a prayer for those they’d lost and they who thrived and eyes got moist. Bear raised his crystal glass to thank Jesse for being there.
64
Holly House
The “Holly House,” not much bigger than the bed of a pickup was crammed with a small desk, a tiny table, a stool, two lamps, a thin chair, and a narrow bed. All antique heirlooms. The walls were hung with old portraits, family photos, and a painting of an English cottage. A small stained-glass window had been fixed in the top half of the door.
The high plains wind had whipped up, stirring the branches of aspen and pine that circled the little place where Jesse and Holly cuddled under the cool sheets. He felt the need to whisper as if the P’s, as she referred to her parents, were a thin wall away. Her prairie-scented hair lay lightly on his chest. “That was a great dinner. I feel like I’m gonna explode.”
“Pork roast. Mom’s favorite thing to cook. Bear loves it.”
“They make me feel…right at home.”
“Well, what else? Why wouldn’t they?”
“I was really nervous about coming here.”
“Why?”
“Why?” He laughed. “You know Bear and I are at least the same age. He’s probably younger than I am.”
“So?”
“So…,” he laughed again at her dismissal of his concern. “There are those who would call this robbing the cradle.”
“And there are those who wouldn’t.”
“How old are you?” He just spit it out. Though dreading what the answer could be, he was glad he finally did it.
She smiled coyly. Years of conditioning would not allow a quick and honest answer, although she knew she wouldn’t lie to him. “Models never tell their age. Let’s see…I’ve lied about it so much, I have to think. How old do you think I am?”
“Twenty-four. And if you tell me I’m right, I’m leaving.”
“I’m…let’s see…twenty-six. You believe that?”
“I hate it…but I believe it. Man, I’m in despair.”
“No…I’m…let’s see…I’m thirty-three. I’ll be thirty-four in January.”
“Are you putting me on now?”
“Nope.”
“What year were you born?”
“Nineteen seventy-one.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Yeah, I am thirty-three.”
“Show me your driver’s license.”
She reached across him for her jeans on the floor and for the second that her breast was in his hand, he didn’t care if she was nineteen. She opened her wallet and handed him the license. He smiled, reading the truth. “I swear, sometimes you look fourteen. Thirtythree. Well, at least I’m not double your age.” He found her breast again and her lips and then, in the wind-sound, that wonderful, rare, nectared space i
n her for him to live before he died. She held him inside her with a pulsing desire that throbbed between them.
65
Flight 1239
It was ten at night when they parked Olie May. He’d arranged to get the last flight. It seemed minutes ago that she stood there with the pinwheel in her hand wearing the summer smile. Now they were saying goodbye.
“Flight twelve thirty-nine to San Antonio is now boarding all passengers,” said the speaker.
She opened her arms to release him. He felt as if he were being ripped from a Siamese twin. He touched her face. Then he kissed her lips and backed away slowly to the jetway entrance. She came forward as if tethered to him twenty feet away. He eased into the current of the boarding and just before the bend, looked back. She stood as close as she could with her hand raised and a pensive look of untold dramas on her beautiful face. He raised his hand and smiled, backing, till the bridge wall took her place.
He rolled up his jacket and stuffed it under his head against the window. He closed his eyes, his brain riveted on Holly Marie driving Olie May at seventy-five back to Kiowa in the dark, and a good chunk of it on crooked roads. First, he thanked God for the blessing of meeting her and then he asked Him to please keep her safe. He asked for His guidance in what to do about this impossible thing that had grown and deepened, giving him a reason to want to be alive.
66
Doing the Job
The Bluebonnet Stakes at Brenham had a cutting event for every level of skill. Jesse and Abbie hauled six horses two hundred miles. Soot was along for the seasoning. Chauncy, the tranquilizer, rode in the trailer at the colt’s feet and kept him as calm as a meditating Buddhist. Walter Nalls, Kevin Bradley and Carley, Daryl Ann Henley painted and perfumed, and the lawyer, Derrick Le Fevre, owner of Concho, the paint, were waiting nervously.
