Horse People

by Cary Holladay

  “Beauteous,” Barrett’s father said, and if Barrett hadn’t known different, he’d have thought his father was a happy man. There was somebody named Ben Burleigh who was causing bad feelings between Barrett’s parents. Barrett didn’t know exactly what was happening. The unhappy feeling, though, was a fact, like the buzzards, something sinister that was close and distant at the same time. Ben Burleigh was a horse person, too. Sometimes when Barrett did lessons with Aunt Iris, he would realize that his mother was not at home, and he knew, somehow, that she’d gone to see that man. “Your mother’s friend, Ben Burleigh,” Aunt Iris dared to say once, darting a look at Barrett. Much as Barrett loved Aunt Iris, he thought she shouldn’t have said that to him. The comment felt like a poke in the eye.

  The sun was getting hot. Barrett and his father stopped at a creek for the horses to drink. After a while, making their way up a hillside, they reached a barn Barrett had seen only a few times before. The barn was old, with boards spaced widely so that light came through the walls. Its open bay allowed horses to shelter in its central aisle.

  Along with the Thoroughbreds that Barrett’s mother and father raised, a special horse lived in the surrounding field, a red horse with a coal-black mane. Ben Burleigh had given the animal to Barrett’s mother. The horse appeared, as if he knew Barrett was thinking about him. He whipped along the crest of the hill, and when he was close, he kicked up his heels and raced away. Hurricane jerked at her bridle. Barrett’s father said a quiet word to soothe her.

  The red horse never let other horses get near him, Barrett noticed, never formed friendships the way the others did, grazing together or just standing side by side. He was the most beautiful animal Barrett had ever seen. Barrett’s father never mentioned him. Barrett could almost believe, around his father, that the fiery figure was something he had only imagined.

  Barrett’s father led the way into the barn. Even in the dimness, Barrett saw hoofprints in the packed red-clay floor. How fine it must be to take cover there in the dark or during a storm. His father unlatched a door at the rear of the barn, and they rode through it into a brushy field. No horses lived back there.

  Barrett recalled the purpose of their trip. Soon, Nehemiah would leave, and a new person would be there instead. He didn’t think Nehemiah would miss them. Around Barrett’s mother, Nehemiah spoke softly, but his jaw was tight. For Barrett’s father, he had a quick smile but kept his eyes cast down. Nehemiah’s ancestors, who’d been slaves, were buried along the fences in the field, Barrett’s father said. That was the old way, he said, pointing to the rail. The ground was soft underneath, easy to dig.

  They reached a wall made of rocks, with a gate in the middle. They passed through it. “This is where we leave our land,” Barrett’s father said. They entered deep woods. All around them, bugs made a glistening sound. The black walnuts were already bare; they lost their leaves first. Other trees were still green, or just turning. There was a tall tulip poplar, Barrett’s favorite kind. He loved persimmons, too, with their sweet fruit on the ground like a picnic.

  Barrett was worn out. Scarlet fever had kept him in bed for days and made the grown-ups ban his brothers from his room, but Dudley caught it anyway and was even sicker than Barrett had been. The doctor came every day to see Dudley. The doctor still asked Barrett how he felt, holding his stethoscope against Barrett’s chest and telling him to eat eggs and go to bed early.

  A cabin came into view, a welcome sight.

  And what was that happy sound, like a party? The cabin door swung open, and people spilled out of it, a big colored family with several children, greeting them.

  An old woman said, “Mr. Fenton, that boy…” and she doubled over, laughing.

  A younger woman explained, “Philip got a pet chicken. Emmy.”

  A girl about Barrett’s age said, “We put the chicken down the chimney, to clean it.” She made flapping motions with her arms.

  “Well, let’s take a look,” Barrett’s father said, swinging out of the saddle and holding out a hand to help Barrett climb down from Skedaddle. For a second Barrett’s legs buckled, but his father didn’t seem to notice. Barrett’s father said, “Meet my son—Barrett.”

  The family said Barrett favored his father, and Barrett was pleased. The girl and the two women led them into the cabin.

  In the middle of the floor sat a boy clutching a grimy white hen. Feathers littered the hearth. The cabin had some plain furniture, Barrett saw, and windows, though some panes were cracked. Barrett smelled something savory. The old woman offered fried squirrel. Barrett ate a piece: delicious. They offered coffee too, but it was so bitter, Barrett couldn’t drink it. One of the children brought a dipper of water. Barrett did drink that.

  The laughter had died down like leaves settling on the ground after a breeze. The boy bent his head over his crossed arms as if protecting the chicken. Barrett saw that the boy was older than he had thought at first, almost a man.

  “Philip didn’t like what we did,” the old woman said, “using Emmy that way.”

  Philip, the young man, raised his head, a grin flickering over his lips. “She did right well,” he said.

  Barrett’s father looked around and asked, “How is Robert? Was the doctor here?”

  “Here he is,” the old woman said, gesturing to a pile of bedding in a corner. Barrett realized that the old woman was probably Robert’s mother, and Philip was Robert’s son.

  The other woman spoke up. Barrett guessed she was Robert’s wife and Philip’s mother. “He was bit by a spider, the bad kind,” she said. “That’s what the doctor said.”

  Barrett’s father made his way to the corner. The women lifted the covers from the man’s legs. Barrett glimpsed a bare, bloated knee with a craterlike sore in the middle. A scary, rotten smell reached Barrett’s nose.

  “Robert, can you stand up? Can you walk?” Barrett’s father asked.

  “No,” the man said, his voice hoarse, his pupils glittering, and Barrett remembered how hot and dry his own eyes had felt when he was sick.

  “Did the doctor leave this?” Barrett’s father said, picking up a jar of medicine.

  “It don’t seem to help,” said Robert.

  Barrett’s father said to Robert’s wife, “Put him in the wagon tomorrow morning and bring him to the road. I’ll be waiting in the car, about eight o’clock. I’ll take him to the hospital.”

  She nodded.

  Robert said, “Philip goes back with y’all, Mr. Fenton. He knows that.”

  Barrett’s father said, “Philip, does that sound all right to you?”

  Philip agreed. Philip’s mother ran outside and tore something off a clothesline. His other shirt, she said. Philip kept the white chicken in his arms, and Barrett realized the chicken would go with them. Philip’s grandmother tied up the chicken’s feet with string. “So Emmy can’t fly away,” she said.

  Barrett’s father put Barrett on Hurricane with him, and Philip rode Skedaddle, holding the chicken in one arm. His long legs almost trailed the ground. The younger children followed at a distance through the woods. Barrett kept looking back until they were gone.

  Nehemiah trained Philip for a few days, and then Nehemiah was gone. Philip was born to cook, Barrett’s mother declared. He learned how to fix roasts, game, vegetables, and sweets. Breads too, batter bread and rolls. Barrett’s mother had cookbooks, and Nehemiah used to look up recipes, but Philip couldn’t read, Barrett realized.

  Stanton had the room upstairs over the stable, so Philip slept in the tack room, on a cot. They shared a coal stove for heat, a flush toilet, and a sink with a single tap. Early every morning, Philip let himself into the house through the back porch. Every night, he let himself out and made his way back to the stable. Barrett sometimes heard the soft sweep of the door. Philip had every other weekend off, and he would go home to his family. Barrett pictured him walking through the woods. It had taken a long time to reach the cabin on horseback. How long would it take to walk?

  Philip ne
ver married. There was a man who visited him, a black man older than he was, who would come over in a mule-drawn cart, and he and Philip would go off together in the part of the afternoon when Barrett’s mother was napping or riding. Barrett’s brothers said bad words about Philip and his friend, and Barrett said them too, trying out the slurs. There were questions Barrett wanted to ask, but he didn’t know how. Philip and his visitor went clattering off in the cart, and where they went and what they did were mysteries to Barrett, despite his brothers’ jokes. When Philip returned, he never looked or acted any different. He’d be humming as he washed dishes.

  Philip stayed slim. His face had a reddish tint, like Nehemiah’s. Barrett would have sworn Philip was Nehemiah’s son or grandson, but his father said no, they were from different families. Barrett admired the way his father could keep entire Orange County genealogies in his head. He knew the names and kinships from all the years people came up onto his porch and asked for advice. He loved them, Barrett realized, as if having seven sons only made it easier for him to love the people of the entire county.

  Barrett and his brothers grew up and went to war, all seven, deployed to the Pacific or to Europe. Even the oldest brothers went. John, at thirty-two, was divorced and had no children, and Alex, thirty, was married and had a son born while he was overseas. They kept in touch through letters and the prized occasional visit home. Barrett saved the letters his parents wrote during his tour, about sausage-making and new foals. Aunt Iris wrote, too. Barrett’s father had a heart attack, Aunt Iris said, and the doctor insisted he rest. Philip helped him up and down the steps. A photograph Aunt Iris sent surprised Barrett: a tired old farm couple squinted into the sun, their shoulders sagging. Where were the vigorous, dashing parents of his childhood? On the deck of his merchant marine ship, in the brilliant oceanic light, Barrett held the picture close. Nearsightedness and flat feet had ended his time in the army, but he liked the merchant marine better, because he traveled more. He bought a small portable motorcycle, and on shore leave in Italy, Belgium, and Poland he explored the cities and the countryside, often with some pretty local girl to guide him.

  With great good fortune, Barrett and all his brothers survived the war. Barrett had been home for only two weeks when his father had the second heart attack, which killed him. And then it seemed to Barrett that although his own life picked up its pace, his mother’s and Philip’s continued almost unchanged. Philip worked for Barrett’s mother during her long widowhood, fixing three meals a day, and party food when she wanted to entertain. Barrett and his brothers, married now, with careers—Barrett was a civil engineer—gave Philip extra money when they were home. They were afraid their mother wasn’t keeping up with his pay. Aunt Iris died, and Barrett had the feeling his mother didn’t miss her, though Philip did. His face looked heavy and sorrowful, and suddenly, his hair was gray.

  Whenever Barrett’s brothers’ wives tried to chat with Philip, he was pleasant with them. He knew which one was married to which son, and which children belonged to whom. But he wasn’t much for conversation, as Barrett explained to his wife. Pamela was shy and gentle. She grew up in Williamsburg, the daughter of a doctor who died about the same time Barrett’s own father did. Barrett was glad Pamela didn’t badger Philip the way the louder, wilder wives did, teasing him and drinking whiskey in the kitchen. Barrett sensed Philip would have preferred to be left alone to do his work, and imagined he was grateful to Pamela for the respectful distance she kept. Besides, Pamela didn’t enjoy the other wives very much. “Show-offs,” she complained to Barrett. “There’s a lot of one-upmanship. Women are worse than men, that way.”

  For decades Philip appeared in holiday photographs, wearing a white jacket, serving at the dining room table. Barrett was the first Fenton to get a Polaroid camera. It pleased him that his brothers got so excited, wanting Polaroids too. He told Pamela, “It’s the only thing I’ve ever had that they didn’t.”

  “And me,” Pamela said.

  “And you,” said Barrett.

  Finally, Barrett’s mother, nearing ninety, pensioned Philip off like she’d done with Nehemiah. “He cried,” she told Barrett on the phone. “He didn’t want to go home.” Barrett and Pamela were living up North by then, in Connecticut, with three daughters. His mother was scared of somebody dying at her house, she admitted, afraid of authorities coming. It was one of the few fears Barrett ever knew her to have.

  “He went on home,” she said, and Barrett pictured the cabin deep in the woods. The darkness and remoteness came back to him. What condition was it in, he wondered, and what had become of Philip’s family? Was the cabin deserted, with branches poking through the windows, or was it shipshape, with somebody baking bread to welcome Philip home?

  “I think it’s a mistake to let him go, Mother,” Barrett said. “It’s not too late to change your mind. Ask him to come back.”

  His mother grew angry and hung up the phone. She hated to be contradicted. She was never easy to get along with, Barrett fumed to Pamela, and was only getting worse with age.

  Barrett had trouble remembering the names of the cooks and companions that followed. None stayed for long. Philip didn’t live more than a year after he retired. The news traveled the circuit of Barrett and the brothers. Barrett felt his mother’s own time was coming to an end. His brothers and their wives asked, How long can she go on?

  She died in August 1976, aged ninety-three.

  One of the seven sons, Gordon, had died in ’58, at forty-four, but he’d lived hard, drinking and gambling. Their mother willed her property equally to the others. Barrett borrowed money and bought out his brothers’ portions. It was what he wanted more than anything, to own Fairfield and live there again, though he would have to work hard to pay it off. He knew he could do it. His three daughters were nearly grown, finishing college and making their lives elsewhere.

  Pamela objected. She didn’t want so much debt or such a big house. She wanted nothing to do with farming. They quarreled sharply, and Barrett felt their marriage wobbling toward divorce. At last Pamela relented, but she extracted from him two promises: they would not raise horses, and they, or at least she, “wouldn’t have to go to funerals all the time.”

  Barrett was surprised she didn’t make more demands. He agreed readily to her terms. His boyhood friends were starting to die, and funerals always upset him, to the point where he could have wept at a stranger’s. He would go to those that mattered most, but he’d go alone. As for horses—he’d never felt about them the way his mother did, so he suggested to Pamela that they rent out the barns and pastures, and the horses that lived there would belong to other people. That was fine with Pamela, and they packed their belongings and moved.

  Barrett easily found horse people to rent the barn and the fields, and Pamela occasionally strolled out to chat with them. But when Barrett suggested they invite their tenants in for coffee, she’d say, “The four-legged ones would be okay, but not the two-legged ones.”

  Barrett laughed, though he sometimes wished Pamela were more sociable. He had told her how his father warned his mother about horse people, and she repeated the admonition so often that for Barrett it wore a little thin. Through the family grapevine, she’d learned of the affair between his mother and Ben Burleigh. She marveled, “With all those children, how did she have time?” Barrett tried to divert her: “Aw, it was so long ago.” Pamela mused, “How much was physical, do you think? Or was it more of an emotional involvement?” and Barrett would change the subject. Didn’t she understand it was hurtful, even now?

  When Barrett’s brothers brought their wives back to the old place, Pamela served simple meals and adeptly discouraged overnight visits. Barrett’s brothers lived out their span of days, and some grew old and older still. Barrett outlived them all. He was the last one.

  Halfway home, that October day in 1927, Emmy broke free from Philip’s grasp. She shook the binding from her feet and flew up into a pine. Philip cried out, lunging from the saddle. As the white he
n settled in the bough, with the sun streaming behind her, Barrett realized it was late in the day. In the woods around Philip’s cabin it might already be dark.

  “Well, look at that,” Barrett’s father said. He took off his hat and waved it toward Emmy’s perch, but the chicken stayed where she was.

  Philip slid off the pony and ran toward the tree. He angled his thin body into the limbs, but he fell, tearing his pant leg, and his face showed fear. Barrett felt suddenly as if he and his father had kidnapped Philip. What he was seeing was homesickness and sorrow. Emmy was still in sight, but it would be hard to get her back.

  Barrett’s father dismounted, went to the base of the tree, and called, “Birdy, birdy, come on down.”

  “I’ll get her,” Barrett said and eased his legs over the saddle. Sixteen hands high, Hurricane was. Barrett fell, knocking the wind out of his lungs, but he stood up again.

  The tree was so tall that he thought of Jack and the Beanstalk. Up and up he climbed. Sap stuck to his hands. He was hungry and thirsty. At home, his mother and brothers and Aunt Iris might have already eaten supper. Above him, the chicken was a rustling white blur. Despite being tired, Barrett knew he was well again, that the doctor was satisfied when he listened to his heart. Barrett’s thoughts moved back and forth. A spider bite could lame a man, even kill him. How could he have forgotten about Philip’s father, the man in the corner, for even a little while? What if his father forgot about the man? No, his father would be waiting on the road in the morning as he’d promised. Yet maybe that was too long to wait.

  The chicken sailed out of the tree.

  She flew higher than Barrett knew a chicken could go, to the very top of the pine, where she disappeared. Barrett balanced himself and looked down. It was the highest he’d ever been. His father looked up, and their eyes met. His father’s face was serious and attentive, the way it was when he sat on the porch with people who were troubled about legal matters. Most other men would be laughing about Philip and Emmy, laughing so hard their shoulders would shake. Other men would tell the story at the table and laugh all over again, but not his father.