Shaper

by Jessie Haas

  To the box stall. If Jeep had changed his mind, it would be empty. Tiger would be out with the rest of the stock.

  But here he was, a dim motion in the flashlight beam, then a face over the door. His ears were forward. He blinked, friendly and sleepy.

  “Hi, guy,” Chad whispered. “Get you out of here.” He set the flashlight on a hay bale and lifted the halter. He didn’t handle horses much and couldn’t tell at first which end was up. Was he supposed to unbuckle it or—no, it went over Tiger’s ears and snapped at the throat. He reached with the halter, and the friendly nose shot toward the ceiling, knocking it out of his hands. It hit the opposite wall with a buckle-y crash.

  Chad held his breath. No response from the house. He crossed the aisle and groped for the halter, approached the stall door again. Tiger drew back and swung his haunches around. His tail stung Chad’s face.

  Chad slid back the bolt, not making a sound, stepped inside the stall, and leaned over the door, hurting his armpit, to shoot the bolt home again. “Whoa, Tiger. Easy.”

  The snaky sound of his whispers didn’t seem soothing even to him. The stall was full of large horse breaths, barely seen bulk. Had Tiger ever kicked anybody? Chad couldn’t remember.

  He touched Tiger’s haunch, hot and flinching under his hand. “Easy.” He tried voicing it, very low. But maybe that sounded like a growl. He slid his hand along Tiger’s quivering barrel.

  Tiger turned, knocking Chad on shin and shoulder. A smell of manure rose from the trampled floor. Shavings shooshed. Around they went. Around. Chad’s fingers slipped off Tiger’s slick side again and again.

  Stop. Think.

  What does a horse want? David would ask.

  Grain. But Chad couldn’t raid the grain bin. The lid had a creak you could hear in the kitchen. Helen timed breakfast by its sound.

  So grain was out. What else?

  Grass. Horses like grass. Horses like sugar. Horses …

  This horse. Tiger, breathing tremulous breaths into a corner of the stall. This horse liked company. Horse company.

  In his mind Chad saw small golden Tiger and big black Billy, scratching each other’s shoulders with their lips and teeth. Neither had horse company at home. They rushed to greet each other, forehead to forehead, nostrils puffing, and then scratched.

  “Easy,” Chad murmured, getting the flat of his hand on Tiger’s hip. The hot hide shivered away from him, but quickly he started scratching.

  Tiger stood tensely for a moment. Then his frame seemed to relax. Chad scratched harder, and with a noisy sigh Tiger turned to present his shoulder, to swirl his bristly lip on Chad’s upper arm.

  Yes. Yes. They scratched each other.

  Tiger’s teeth opened, to nip Chad the way he’d nip Billy’s shoulder. Harder, he meant. Like this.

  Chad paused in his own scratching. Tiger hesitated, swung his muzzle away. Chad started again. Tiger’s nose came back. He was gender now, and if he got rough, Chad had only to lighten his own scratching. He kept it up for a while, giving Tiger a good long session before he slipped the halter on the half-seen head.

  Time to go. He opened the door. But his hands and mind were busy with Tiger, and he forgot to be careful. The bolt shot back with a crack of metal on metal and—

  “Bo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo! Bo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-wo-!”

  It almost hurt, being that surprised. The night exploded into fragments. A rectangle of light flung out across the yard. Queenie trotted over it, hackles raised, toward the house and Ginger’s barking. Tiger lunged out of the stall, dragging Chad. In the open aisle Chad braced, and the horse circled him, all angles and wild eyes.

  The barn light came on, bleached and blinding. Shapes: a block, a stick …

  “Jesus, Chad!”

  Jeep. The gun.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “The hell are you doing?” Chad’s voice came out breathy, half swallowed. The rifle pointed abruptly toward the floor. Jeep’s knuckled hands eased the safety back on. In his pajamas. Top open. Gray hairs curling on his chest.

  Out in the yard Queenie stood over Ginger, her neck stiff and bristling. Ginger bristled right back. More light. Helen’s voice. “Jeep? Something in the chickens?” She was coming. “Queenie! What are you doing here? Jeep?”

  Jeep blinked in the strong light. The bottom half of his face looked shrunken. No teeth.

  A wild snarl went up. The dogs rolled past the barn door in a tight tangle. Tiger wheeled around Chad, knocking a shovel off the wall. It landed with a clatter. He half reared, dragged Chad through the open door past the dogs; Ginger’s teeth were sunk in Queenie’s ear, Queenie’s teeth in the side of Ginger’s ruff.

  Tiger turned to face them and backed across the driveway. His steel-shod hooves plunged left, right, left. Chad moved with him till the horse stopped pulling, circled again, and he was the hub of the wheel. Facing Jeep …

  Jeep moved toward the dogs. The gun barrel pointed down, near the whirl of blond and black fur, the intent and fragile skulls.

  “Shoot them, why don’t you?” The words ripped straight from the center of Chad’s chest. “Go ahead and shoot them! You shoot everything else!”

  A shining stream of water arced out of the night, splashing on the dogs. Queenie sprang back, sneezing. Like a thunderclap came Jeep’s voice: “Ginger!”

  Ginger crouched and slunk circling toward him. Queenie sat down to scratch tenderly at her bitten ear. The water shut off. Helen stood just inside the circle of light, the garden hose in her hand.

  The yard went quiet but for the purring snorts of the horse, like falling gravel after an explosion.

  Helen said, “Chad?”

  Her voice was shocked. She stood there wrapped tightly in her pretty bathrobe, bringing the normal world into this scene.

  Chad said, “He’s going to sell him!” His voice sounded as if it had big air bubbles in it. “Jeep’s going to sell him.”

  Helen let out a weary breath. “Don’t you know your grandfather better than that? Do you really think—”

  “He’d do anything! He shot Shep—”

  A look came over Helen’s face that stopped Chad cold: a look of danger, deeper and stronger than anything else in this yard. He could hear his heart pound.

  “Put the horse back, Chad,” she said. “He isn’t going anywhere.”

  Chad stood staring for a minute, his mind gone completely blank. He became aware that he was trembling. The night throbbed with the sound of crickets.

  Abruptly he turned Tiger’s head and led him down the road, out of the circle of light.

  “Chad!”

  “Let him go.” Jeep’s voice sounded heavy. Chad looked back over his shoulder. Jeep stood rubbing his face with one hand. His shoulders slumped. His hair was ruffled, fluffy around his ears. Helen put her arm around him, gun and all, and Chad turned away.

  CHAPTER

  24

  IT WAS THREE-THIRTY by the chiming clock before Chad could stop pacing the deck. He kept replaying the scenes: Tiger whirling in his stall, light, dogs, gun, “Go ahead and shoot them! You shoot everything else!” The raw rasp of his own voice, tearing his throat.

  Then he’d walked away. No flashlight. It was in the barn, still shining, probably. He didn’t need it. The feel and sound of the road under his feet, the path of stars above where the trees didn’t quite meet, Queenie’s tail ahead had guided him, and he’d turned Tiger loose in his own pasture and climbed the deck stairs, wanting to be someplace high and familiar.

  Finally he sat in one of the lawn chairs and snapped his fingers for Queenie. Delicately he felt her ear, the velvet fur, the fine tendons. She winced and whined softly but let his fingers explore. A little stickiness was all he found—no terrible wound, as he had feared.

  “Good Queen.” He drew her close, rubbing her chest. She’d never fought before. “Good Queenie.”

  She lay down with a sigh, pressing hard against his legs. Maybe she felt the same way he did, sick wit
h reabsorbed adrenaline. There’d been such a tang of it on the air up there. No wonder it had spilled over to the dogs.

  The sky gradually turned from black to near black, to a sort of purplish, throbbing gray. Just after four-thirty a bird started singing. What kind was it? It said, “Tweet! Tweet!” like a cartoon bird.

  Almost at once, as if they’d been waiting for a signal, other birds started up: thrushes, robins. A blue jay shrieked. Chad had been up all night now. His eyes prickled, and he closed them, leaning his head against the back of his chair.

  Creak. Creak. Creak. Creak.

  His eyes opened. The sky was already lighter, almost white. He could see tree branches and chairs. Inside, someone was coming downstairs.

  The front door opened and closed. Chad got up and walked around the corner of the deck. Julia stood at the railing, fully dressed, staring down at Tiger.

  She heard him and turned. Her face was a pale blur. “Chad? When did Jeep bring him? I was just going up there.”

  Chad shook his head. He hadn’t imagined this scene or worked out what he would say. But she kept staring. He had to say something. “I went and got him.”

  “But … what did you say to Jeep?”

  “Nothing. I just took him.”

  Julia’s eyes widened. “Oh Lord. Now what?”

  “Well, if you want me to take him back—”

  “No, but—oh, Chad!” Julia sat down on the top stair. Queen went to her, and Chad stood behind them, forced now to think of the morning coming. Would Jeep show up or call? What would he say, and what would they say back? And—

  “What happened to Queenie’s ear?”

  “Fight. Ginger.”

  “Oh, Chad.” Juha looked devastated. “They never slept through that?”

  Chad shook his head. He wasn’t about to lay out the whole scene for her. “After breakfast we’ll go see David,” he said, and faked a yawn. “I’m going to bed.”

  But he couldn’t sleep. The morning was long between dawn and breakfast, and at breakfast it was hard not to be impatient at Mom and Gib’s ignorance. They knew nothing. Tiger had not been here last night and was here before breakfast, and they made nothing of it. They didn’t even think about it. Chad almost felt sorry for them.

  Mom did notice Queenie’s ear, which had a dark three-cornered tear. She was puzzled. “She didn’t have that when I went to bed! What could she have done?” Chad and Julia sat tight-lipped.

  “Bring him,” Chad said to Julia as they went down the deck stairs after breakfast. Jeep’s truck hadn’t passed yet. They couldn’t leave Tiger unguarded.

  They went down the road four abreast: Queenie, Chad, Julia, Tiger. The sound of hooves on gravel was like last night. Looking past Julia at the relaxed horse, Chad felt his heart swell unexpectedly, as if Tiger belonged to him.

  “You have to tell me what happened,” Julia said when they were out of sight of the house.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Chad! I’m in the middle of this! I have to know!”

  “Look, they came out, all right! Jeep had his gun, and Helen turned the hose on the dogs, and I came home.”

  “But they let you?”

  “Could they stop me?” It came out with a little laugh. That was the thing about last night. Even Jeep’s gun, even Helen’s terrible warning face had not been able to hold him. How simple it had been to turn away with the horse, to step out of the circle of light into darkness! How strangely simple!

  They walked down the road without speaking for a few minutes. Then Julia asked, “Why’d you do it?” She sounded hard and tough, as if she didn’t care.

  In a hard voice of his own Chad said, “I didn’t want him to get away with it.”

  “But he was right. This horse—I can’t handle him. I get crazy! Every day I come home from a ride and look in all my books and plan for tomorrow, and it never—and I’m scared!”

  That turned Chad’s head. Julia’s mouth was open, corners turned down to hold back crying. Beyond her Tiger walked along mildly, his eye gentle.

  “I never knew you were scared.” He had to force it out.

  Julia swallowed hard and lifted her chin, drew a deep breath. “I’m terrified,” she said. “Every single minute. Like I’m strapped to a bomb.”

  “Then why—” Why what? It had been one of Chad’s firmest beliefs that Julia was exactly what she appeared to be. That was what was wrong with her. She had no depths. After a moment he asked, “Do you want to keep him?”

  Julia bit her Hp. Tears spilled suddenly down her cheeks. She nodded.

  Then they were in David’s yard, and Chad could smell toast. “Hello!” he called, but no one came to the door, and he had to knock.

  David appeared with a piece of toast in his hand. “Oh, hi—” He looked past Chad at Julia and Tiger, and though his face didn’t change, his body slackened with dismay. They were a burden, he and Julia, awkward waifs, knuckled and bristling.

  David let out a little sigh, even before he spoke. “Hello, Julia. Louise has told me about your problem. I’m not sure I can—”

  “Daddy!” Louise was on the stairs behind him. Chad could see only her feet below the hem of the terry-cloth bathrobe. “Daddy, don’t be a wimp!”

  “Louise, my legal obligation—”

  “Daddy!” Louise came all the way down. Her hair lay flat and feathery, shaped to her head. There was a crease on her cheek from the pillowcase. “Daddy, you do not have to train this horse, and you don’t have to give Julia riding lessons. She’s a terrific rider. You just have to teach her how to train—”

  “Oh, Louise,” David said. “I think my lawyer would tell me I need her parents’ permission.”

  Louise looked stubborn but baffled, and Julia looked as if she wanted to sink into the ground.

  Chad said, “Mom and Gib would give permission. Just ask them.” He tried to telegraph to Julia, V style: “Don’t mention Jeep!”

  The message got garbled. Julia said, “Jeep owns him.”

  “And obviously he’s fine with it,” Louise said, “or he wouldn’t have brought him back!”

  Chad opened his mouth, and it hung open, empty of words. Julia was motionless beside him.

  Louise looked, rubbed her hand across her eyes, and looked again. “Do you want me to call him, Daddy?” she asked in a quieter voice.

  David closed his eyes. “Louise. There are times when I see your mother in you!” He went inside, making a little after-you-madame gesture to sweep her out onto the front step, and closed the door firmly. After a moment they heard his voice, too faraway for distinct words.

  “I wish he wouldn’t compare me to Mum!” Louise said.

  Tiger pulled toward the lawn. It was mainly weed, not grass, and he gave up, stood with lowered head. His ears twitched, his lip drooped, as he succumbed to sleep. Julia leaned against his shoulder; Chad lowered himself onto the lawn; Louise stood on the doorstep, eyes wide and unfocused. A lot of time passed.

  David’s voice came nearer, as he wandered with his cordless phone. “Really?” He sounded as if he had all day and nothing on his mind.

  “I see,” he said. “I see. I see.” Julia hugged Tiger’s neck, looking sick.

  Finally David said, “You were brought up using animals, so you always had to figure out how to make them understand. You probably don’t even think about it anymore.” He listened again. “Yeah? Yeah? I always figured oxen weren’t the sharpest crayons in the box!”

  It was going to be all right. Jeep was telling a story. Chad might even know which one. The young oxen on the farm in St. Johnsbury; the cows that went wild in the back pastures over in Warren and the boy sent after them; the bobcat that followed him; the bear and cubs … Chad knew all the stories, everything that made an adventure out of Jeep’s hard growing-up.

  David’s voice faded again and in a minute stopped. He came outside with fresh toast. His coffee steamed white in the morning air. “Louise,” he said, “why don’t you go and … get yourself
some breakfast?”

  He meant, Go get some clothes on! Chad could hear that in his voice. Louise went inside, but came back, still in her bathrobe, with a mug of milky coffee and a granola bar. She sat on the step and patted the spot beside her. Chad sat, too. The stone was warm, and a shaft of sun came through the trees to tell of the hot day coming.

  Out on the lawn David asked Julia questions. Is he head shy? Can you catch him? Does he kick? Bite? Rear?

  “So,” Louise said. Chad started. He’d been nearly asleep. “Tiger. What’s the story?”

  It all came flooding back again: the vanilla scent from the tobacco plants, the circle of yellow yard light with the dogs lighting and the horse snorting, and his grandparents. Jeep’s gun. Helen’s look.

  And he had stepped out of the circle. Simply completed what he’d come to do.

  He took a breath full of all this, and his voice came out of a deeper place in his chest. “I went up last night and took him.”

  He felt Louise turn to look at him and waited a second before looking back. Would she halfway disapprove, like Julia?

  She was smiling, and her eyes sparkled, as if she found him funny and amazing. “Oh!” she said. “Oh! I don’t think Daddy needs to know that!” She looked at him a moment longer and then stood up, pulling the robe tighter around her. “I’d better go get dressed.”

  Chad listened to her feet on the stairs. David sent Julia to the shed for grain. While she was gone, he did a little dance with Tiger, stepping toward him from the front and sides. Twice Tiger stepped away from David, and once he didn’t. Chad couldn’t tell which response David wanted. Everything was like that this morning. Only big movements, big patches of color registered. Everything else was distant, pleasantly distant.

  David introduced Julia and Tiger to the clicker. Louise came back in khakis and a high-necked sleeveless shirt that bottled her up, made her older and taller.

  “Grab that milk jug out of the trash and rinse it,” David called. Louise brought the jug. Tiger backed away from it, showing the whites of his eyes, and within moments, it seemed, touched it, was clicked and treated, and with a few repeats nudged it vigorously, then swung his head around for his treat.