by Penny Lam
Her breath fogged in the air.
Drawing a blanket tight around her shoulders, she leaned on Bonnie’s body. The horse was lying down, lids heavy with sleep. The stable was surprisingly noisy when Maple allowed herself stillness. She could hear the slowing stamps and snorts of the horses as they bedded down. Outside an owl hooted.
And, in gut-wrenching clarity, Bonnie’s rattled breaths resonated through the stillness.
Maple put her soup aside and wrapped her arms around Bonnie’s neck, pressing her face into the warm mane. She relaxed and let Bonnie’s labored breaths lift her gently up and down.
Was this it? It seemed too soon! The vet had only just been there that day!
She knew she should get up. Help Bonnie outside. J.B. didn’t give orders for no reason. But Maple couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why Bonnie should be outside, exposed and alone, for her last hours on earth. Inside the stall it was safe. Warm. Full of the comforting smells, blankets, food, and memories that Bonnie deserved.
The rasping breaths slowed with sleep, steady and heartbreaking. Maple couldn’t do it. She couldn’t wake the dear horse up and drag her outside. Besides, sleep would probably do wonders for her. It wouldn’t cure old age, but when the sun had risen in the morning, and it had warmed up outside, she could take Bonnie out.
One more night in the stable wasn’t asking too much. Even J.B. would understand that. He’d have to.
Sleepiness stole into her limbs, carried by the shared warmth of laying with Bonnie. One step at a time, Maple decided. She’d be with Bonnie until the end. After that, after the grief, she’d explore her relationship with J.B. more deeply.
Putting that off was difficult; Maple was the kind of girl to gnaw at something until she’d torn it to bits. It was how she coped. But she wasn’t sure she could think clearly about J.B. When she was near him, God help her, she became so clouded with lust that everything else fell out of focus.
Her eyelids were heavy, itching to shut. Pulling the blanket more tightly around Bonnie, Maple slid to her own self-made pallet in the stall. Her back pressed against the rough wood. Watching her best friend sleep filled her with a little peace.
It wasn’t fair that she was going to lose Bonnie, but any rancher worth her salt knew life wasn’t fair. Bonnie was the light to her dark. The innocence of the sweet horse balanced Maple’s own insecurities and Stygian past.
As the noises of the stable coalesced into the perfect background music, Maple fell into a restless sleep.
She dreamed of monsters.
Chapter Nine
The air was freezing. The body was cold.
Maple stared at her breath, frozen by disbelief. One freaking night. The vet had come, and all Maple had wanted was one more night with Bonnie.
But the sweet, old horse must have died sometime in the night. Probably not too long after Maple had fallen asleep, judging by how cool the skin was to touch.
Now Maple sat, cross-legged, next to the dead animal. She sat, and she watched her breath, one hand absentmindedly stroking Bonnie’s mane. Inside was too much emotion. She wished she could define it. Analyze it. Break it down into comprehensible pieces because then she could pick up those pieces.
Then she could pick herself up.
But the grief, the longing, the fear, and the horror had managed to roll into one, undefinable lump. That lump sat in her stomach, huge and heavy. And it churned.
She didn’t know how long she sat.
You’re being ridiculous. Get up and get help. Bonnie was just a horse.
But her chest ached, and no, Bonnie was not just a horse. That’s the thing about horses, Maple knew. They were family. The amount of time, devotion, and mutual affection created a bond that no one could sever.
The stall door groaned as it opened behind her.
“Oh, Maple--” it was Raúl. He sounded sad… and a little scared. “Is she dead then?”
Maple sniffed and tried to clear the tears from her throat. “Yeah.” It was all she could choke out before her body threatened to throw itself into sobbing again.
Raúl shuffled behind her. “How long?”
“I don’t know.”
She was numb as he brushed past her. Crouching next to Bonnie’s flank, he tested the horse’s leg. It didn’t move. Raúl cursed under his breath.
“I’m going to have to get J.B.”
She nodded, mute.
“Maple…”
It took effort, but she met his gaze. His eyes were full of sorrow. It wasn’t for Bonnie.
“I just don’t understand why you make everything so hard for yourself.”
He walked away without explaining. Maple tried to get angry about it. Her mind shouted things like how can you say that to me? and you don’t know anything about me, or how hard things are!
But in the end, the fight in her was just gone. It would come back. She knew it would, because Tony had tried his very hardest to beat and fuck the fight out of her, and she was here now, without him and stronger for it. It would come back.
First though… pain.
She steeled herself for J.B. Prepared for the narrowed eyes, the seething anger. Prepared for whatever punishment (and release) he had planned for her. He had asked her to do something and, yet again, she’d disobeyed.
Maple tried to picture what he’d say. How he’d hurt her. Her body was starting to warm up, to hum in anticipation. She wanted it. She needed it.
J.B. was going to punish her, and she could escape Bonnie’s absence, just for a moment.
So she waited, eager, full of dread and hope.
He said nothing. When she finally met his mismatched eyes, there wasn’t any anger in them. Instead, like Raúl’s, they were full of sorrow. “I’m sorry about Bonnie,” he said.
It cut like a knife, her ribs screaming as her chest constricted.
“I’m sorry I didn’t obey,” she said meekly, hoping to trigger him. She didn’t want his compassion now. She wanted his wrath.
“Yep,” was all she got in return.
When nothing else happened, she found a little bit of fight was still in there. “Yep? That’s it? I didn’t do as you said!”
“Bonnie’s death seems like punishment enough.”
No. He was wrong! She needed more. Maple needed him to release her from the anguish. “We knew it was coming! And you warned me! Now what?” The last part didn’t come out as challenging as it had sounded in her mind. It came out like a little girl, lost and needing guidance.
“Now what? Now you get to work.”
If it weren’t for his lamenting gaze, Maple would accuse him of indifference. She still launched an attack.
“What do you mean, get to work? What about Bonnie? What about what I did?”
He shook his head. “Maple… you created your own punishment when you didn’t listen to me. Do you know why I told you to get her outside?”
She chewed her lip, waiting.
“Because now that her body is cold, now that rigor mortis has set in, we can’t get her out of the stall. And we can’t afford to wait for her limbs to ease, either. It isn’t safe or healthy for the other horses if we leave a corpse in here.”
Oh, God. She hadn’t thought of that. “How does she get out?”
J.B. walked to grab something from just outside the stable door. When he came back in--
He was holding an ax.
Not a large one, like she imagined men used for cutting wood. This was a small hand ax, fitting easily in his palm, looking like an extension of his arm.
“You can’t be serious! You can’t do that to her!”
The two times she’d left home, for college and then for this job, Maple’s mother had snuck a Bible into her bag. God wasn’t a major player in her parents’ household in the regular ways; they didn’t go to church, they didn’t pray before meals (except at holidays), and they didn’t talk about it much. That didn’t mean belief wasn’t there.
Her mother was a fervent believer in
Christ. While she didn’t speak it aloud, Maple knew her mother prayed for the farm. Prayed for her family. Other things, too, Maple imagined, but she wasn’t privy to her mother’s thoughts.
Maple only needed to pray for forgiveness, but she didn’t think God would listen to someone like her. So she left religion behind, not out of spite, but out of avoidance.
Practically speaking, J.B. was right, and she shouldn’t be so upset by this. A body was a body. It’s spirit, or whatever it was that made it a personality and not just flesh, was gone. There was a corpse in the stall. Not Bonnie.
But it was still Bonnie. That body was the only thing left of Maple’s friend. Already Maple felt the things she’d held so dear fading. It scared her.
“I’m not going to do it to her, Maple.”
The tightness in her chest released a little. “What then? Do we take out a wall? Make an opening--”
“Nope.” He pressed the ax into her hand. It was heavier than she imagined. “You’re going to do it.”
Time stopped. The flurry of her thoughts became too dense, a buzz in her ears. He couldn’t possibly be serious.
“Maple, I don’t know how to get through to you anymore. I don’t know what we’re doing, you and me. But damnit, I just want you to listen to me. Just once. Until you do, you’re gonna have to deal with the consequences.”
Her mouth was dry. Lips trembling. The ax in her hand threatened to slide to the floor. Absentmindedly, she tightened the grip.
He couldn’t be serious now. It was an inhuman and masochistic request. No, not request. J.B. didn’t ask, he told. He didn’t really expect her to go in there and use the ax…
But he did, because he added “Raúl will be here after he’s done his rounds with the steer to help you clean up.”
Then J.B. left her, shaking and sick, with an ax and a body.
She showered until the hot water ran out. Then she showered until she was shivering uncontrollably.
Maple skipped two meals in a row. It was too hard to see Raúl or the others. Somehow she’d managed to be a part of the ranch again after breaking into J.B.’s ponygirl stable the first time. That had been a greater grievance. She’d threatened the ranch, their jobs, and their lives when she’d done that.
Yet after, Maple had managed to keep seeing them. To keep working and, well, functioning.
Now her suitcase was on the bed. It was half packed. She sat next to it, picking at her nails. From time to time she’d hold her hand up and look for any trace of blood still caked in the cuticles.
Everything about this was new.
Maple thought she’d known guilt. Holy hell, she’d killed a man and managed to drive away. Pick herself up enough to start a life again. She’d had her heart and mind and body broken and could still make decisions. Live with the consequences.
Why was this so different?
Why did the wound cut so deep, so thoroughly? She didn’t just feel like she was bleeding inside. Maple felt bled dry. Empty.
Her stomach roiled. It was that torturous mix of so hungry it hurt and yet, nauseous. She was sick to her stomach with the day. Sick of the ranch. Sick of everyone putting up with J.B.’s cruelty.
Sick of J.B.?
Because he was why her suitcase was open in the first place. This time he’d gone too far. It was fine with Maple if he used and tortured her body. She wanted that. But it had been beyond unfair to ask her to…
No. She couldn’t even think of it. The visuals of it, the sounds and the smells… those things would never leave her. There was no wall she could build in herself that was tall enough, thick enough, fucking impenetrable enough to bury those memories.
The one good thing about his punishment-- and it was a poor fucking excuse for a silver lining-- was it had helped her move more quickly out of debilitating grief. She’d hacked away at the numbness, at the heartbreak, and at the loneliness. All that was left was bitterness and fury.
After skipping dinner, after showering, after sleeping it off (or rather lying in bed with the lights off, trying to stomach everything she’d done), Maple still hadn’t been able to find the smallest bit of forgiveness.
So she’d skipped breakfast, too, and decided to pack.
Maple had thought she’d endure anything just to be near J.B. The fact that recently he’d actually touched her, had managed to make a future seem at least a little possible, made everything she felt that much worse.
Because she wasn’t going to stay. She couldn’t. In the end, she was beginning to wonder if he was just as awful as Tony. Maybe even worse.
Making up her mind, she packed everything else. She was going to miss the ranch. She’d miss her coworkers, the horses, and even, in a weird way, the girls. She’d miss the man she’d thought J.B. was.
After combing the room to make sure nothing else was missing, it was time for the hard part. The hard part was asking J.B. to call his driver. If he said no, Maple would have to call a cab. She could call her parents, but she knew they couldn’t afford to come get her. She’d been banking whatever J.B. was paying her. She doubted it was much, because of her free room and board, but it had to be enough for a cab.
It dawned on Maple that she should probably make sure. Her phone was still in the drawer of her bedside table. It was almost dead from lack of use. Plugging it in, she waited for it to charge some.
At her parents’ house she was lucky to get a signal. And internet? No way. They had an old dial-up modem. Her parents had no use for the internet and had only shared in paying to have it run out to the farm with their neighbors because most of the business ran through e-mail. They used their internet for electronic correspondence only.
That was it.
Here at the ranch, though…
The screen lit up as the phone switched on. As soon as it loaded she was tapping the screen, opening her bank account. She hadn’t looked at it since she’d left Louisiana. She hadn’t needed to. There was nothing to spend money on in Silt Springs, and J.B. kept her busy enough that the idea of shopping never came up.
She tapped her foot while it accessed her account.
Maple gasped when she saw the balance. It was over twenty thousand dollars. When she’d started at the ranch, she’d had about four hundred in there. J.B. was paying her far, far more than a stable hand should be making.
She stared at the screen. They’d never discussed her official pay. It seemed dumb and naive to her now, but she’d given him a voided check, and then simply started to work. Out at the ranch, there truly had been no need to think about the pay being deposited every month into her account.
Now she could afford a cab. All the way to Austin, probably. And a down payment on an apartment. Her stomach roiled and twisted as she considered the possibilities. She didn’t have to run home. And she could still run away from J.B. and his merciless cruelty. She could run from the memory of Bonnie.
She could try again.
This was you trying again, Maple. What makes you think Austin would be any different?
She wasn’t certain. All she knew was that she was different than the little lost girl who’d gone to Tulane. Or the wreck of a woman who’d started work at Deyton Ranch. Maple wasn’t healed. Not by a long shot. Each day was spent suppressing desires and fantasies, working until she couldn’t think anymore, and avoiding confronting any decisive measures she should take.
Bonnie’s death was giving her a borrowed strength. The anger, the hurt, the loss-- these provided the impetus she needed to, for once, do something to protect herself instead of tumbling headfirst into whatever some man wanted.
Austin might not be different. But she wasn’t going to blow her money on a cab ride there. Maple needed to be smart. That meant confronting J.B. for his car, and, if he said no, calling a cab to her parents’.
Then hopping in her truck and disappearing.
She found him in the stable, working with Ashley. Maple didn’t know much about any of the girls, but Ashley was the one she was the least connecte
d with. The medium-sized girl with freckles and strawberry blond hair was the only one who never seemed to be into the training. She went through the motions, but her eyes, a soft muted gray, managed to stay blank. Emotionless.
J.B. was pissed at her. “Ashley, I don’t know who you think is going to want to buy you if you can’t show a little goddamn personality!”
Ashley’s face stayed passive.
