The trail hadn’t been maintained and was hemmed with weeds and branches on the sides. Teagan let Duchess’s rope slide through her palm and the mare fell in behind Ian. The lead rope wasn’t meant for ponying and wasn’t very long, but Teagan clutched a bight of rope in her hand, trying to keep it from snaking out of her grip. A tree trunk, laid down across the trail for a low jump, was ahead. Teagan just sat, letting the horses decide. Ian hopped over it, and there was no tension in the lead rope as Duchess found her spot and hopped over, too.
After the low jump Teagan felt able to sit heavy on Ian’s back and slow him to a trot, and then a walk. She breathed deeply. Her arms were tight with adrenaline. She’d never ponied before, and she knew it wasn’t exactly safe, taking two horses on the trail, and letting them canter, and letting them jump, especially because no one knew that she was in the woods.
The horses were excited, moving in a herd of two, and their walk was brisk, and Ian kept trying to move forward into a trot; if she let him trot he tried to canter. The trail opened into a clearing. The clearing rose to a hill, and at the top, to Teagan’s surprise, sat a perfectly fine coop, its weathered wood frame in good condition. The open field, and the hill, the horses running together, and the light control Teagan had of their heads; Ian took off, his powerful hindquarters propelling him up the hill, and all Teagan could do was try to hold him steady.
She hauled on Duchess’s rope and felt the mare make an effort, and then Duchess was neck to neck with Ian. Teagan held both Ian’s reins in one hand, and Duchess’s taut rope in the other. Rising in the stirrups, her leg muscles burning, holding both the horses’ heads in her hands, Teagan felt she was steering a double team, driving them like she was in a chariot.
A thrill went through her when she saw Ian’s ears flick forward to the coop, and she felt him shift his weight and prepare to spring from the ground. She pressed her calves against his sides to support the leap, and to hold on, and because she had no other choice; the horses matched themselves, stride for stride; one carried a rider, and one did not, and they leapt in unison and landed beautifully, galloping on the other side of the coop.
Teagan held on, held steady, and at the bottom of the hill she was able to slow them both to the walk. Glad to be upright and whole, she slapped Ian’s neck in a series of pats, good boy. She reached over and hooked Duchess’s neck with her arm, pulling the mare close, giving her hard pats, ruffling the mane, “That a girl,” Teagan praised her, and she didn’t even like the mare that much. Seeming satisfied, the horses walked side by side the rest of the way back to the barn.
Afternoon
Teagan stomped into the kitchen, wearing her riding boots and one of the T-shirts she wore for the dust and horse-slobber atmosphere of the barn. She had an apple between her teeth and some carrots in a bag. One snack for herself, and one for Ian.
Charlie was on the phone. Teagan heard him say, “Okay.”
He looked at her. “What are you doing?”
Teagan danced on a booted foot. “Going riding. Later, alligator.”
Charlie didn’t say, “After a while, crocodile.” Instead he said, “Dad’s coming to get us.”
Teagan stood, surprised. She took a bite of apple and decided she wasn’t going to go.
“He’s taking us to lunch. You better hurry up and change,” Charlie said.
“When did this happen?” Teagan asked.
“He called. Just now,” Charlie said.
Teagan wanted to throw her apple at Charlie’s head. Why did he always do whatever their father told him? In her own mind she was already walking out of the kitchen, to the barn, to her familiar routine where her hands would move through their rote tasks, and in a matter of minutes she and Ian would be heading toward a patch of woods, surrounded by things that rustled or sang or held still, and Ian would take her wherever she asked him.
“I’m not going,” Teagan said.
Charlie stood still. “You have to.”
Teagan stood, too. Two statues in the kitchen, with completely different sentient thoughts. Charlie softened his voice, cajoling. “Just do this.”
Teagan shook her head. She felt that if she spoke, they would keep arguing, so she walked up to her room and sat on the bed, looking out of the window to where she could see Ian’s dark shape in the field. The day was good for riding. Teagan vaguely considered how her father came and went, but how her horse was always there, in the field.
From the sounds in the hallway, Teagan imagined Charlie standing by the front door, good soldier that he was, good son. She thought she could hear the gravel crunch under the wheels of the car. She felt she knew what was said in a brief, quiet conversation at the front door, and then Charlie was going, walking to the car and sitting down on the seat.
Teagan wasn’t sure if she had won or lost. Then she could hear the car engine, and the fade of it down the driveway. Then she cried, picturing Charlie sitting in the car by himself.
Closet
Susanna was away and the house was empty. Teagan didn’t feel like calling anyone, not even Grace. Barker and Max were in the living room, lying in the sun. Teagan hadn’t done any of her summer reading, and she had slept on the couch in the living room, again, while the dogs slept on the floor.
Teagan’s own bed felt unfriendly to her. She wasn’t sleeping well, maybe because she was used to having a roommate. She missed Julie but hadn’t tried to call her, and hadn’t written even though she’d promised she would. For something to do, she tried making coffee, remembering how she thought Susanna did it. She didn’t like it and mixed some with milk and chocolate syrup, and that was a little better. There was less food in the house than she was used to, so she made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast. She made a peanut butter and honey sandwich for lunch. She thought about drinking the beer she found but for no particular reason decided not to.
In a wandering mood, Teagan found herself standing in front of Susanna’s bedroom door, as if her mother were telling Teagan she could come in. Teagan thought how it wasn’t her parents’ bedroom door anymore, it was just her mother’s. She went inside, looking around as if discovering it. The bedspread was new. She looked at the things on her mother’s dressing table but didn’t touch anything. Her father’s dresser was there. She thought of it as her father’s. Teagan pulled out the drawers but saw Susanna’s clothes in them. She opened the closet. Susanna’s familiar skirts swung from the suck of air the door made. Teagan ran her hand across a row of hanging shirts, like stroking a horse’s neck. The shirts were silky and soft until the end of the row, when her hand rested on a flannel sleeve.
Doughnuts
“Y’all drink coffee now?” Teagan watched Caroline and Grace dumping more sugar into their tall Styrofoam cups of light coffee, which they’d ordered with cream and sugar already added.
“This is what we do now. If you were here, ever, you’d know,” Caroline said.
“And we don’t say y’all, either. Y’all isn’t a word,” Grace said.
“Y’all say y’all,” Teagan said.
Caroline shook her head slowly at Teagan. “I’ll get seats.”
The doughnut shop was practically empty. It was four in the afternoon. Teagan sat next to Grace across from Caroline. She sipped her sugary coffee. It was good. The sweet hit her like a drug, and she grinned. Caroline grinned back. They picked up their doughnuts and bit. The cream in Teagan’s Boston cream mingled with the sweet dough and chocolate layer of icing, and for a moment she was completely happy. Everything around her seemed ordinary and comfortable, even the way Caroline delicately held her powdered doughnut, barely dusting her fingertips in the white sugar, and Grace purposefully put down her half-eaten chocolate-covered chocolate on the white napkin while she sipped her coffee, prolonging her pleasure.
“This is genius,” Teagan finally said.
Grace widened her e
yes and nodded. When they’d consumed all of the doughnuts, there was another little silence, and they sat as if grieving that the feast had ended, as if there were no more doughnuts to be had, even though the air was thick with the smell of frying dough. The two-part tone of the door’s bell and the cash register’s clink-chunk, made a tune.
Grace gave Teagan a look, but Teagan couldn’t tell what it meant.
“So, how was y’all’s year?” Teagan asked.
“Not very memorable. You know, it’s school,” Grace said.
“Nothing exciting?” Teagan asked.
“The seniors won Spirit Week. Big surprise,” Caroline said.
“Oh, right. I forgot about Spirit Week. What was their theme?”
“Something to do with Grease. There were a lot of poodle skirts,” Caroline said.
“Oh, the movie Grease. I’ve never seen it.”
“It was pretty unrecognizable. They tried some plotline having to do with the basketball team; it didn’t make any sense.”
“What did our class do?”
“I wasn’t part of it,” Caroline said.
“Me either,” Grace said.
“But what was the theme?” Teagan asked.
Caroline said, “Grace and I were on a committee that won the vote for doing our own version of Spinal Tap, but Mrs. Rackley said she would have to act as censor for the lyrics.”
Teagan asked, “Who’s Mrs. Rackley?”
“Our principal?”
“Oh, right,” Teagan said.
“So then the theme was switched to a parody of Cinderella, but it wasn’t good. It was mostly the field hockey team doing something incomprehensible with their sticks.”
“They wore ball gowns,” Grace said.
“That sounds dumb,” Teagan said.
Grace nodded and sipped her coffee.
Caroline was looking closely at Teagan again. “Is that your dad’s shirt?” she asked.
“What?”
“Your shirt. Is it your dad’s?”
“It looks like it’s your dad’s shirt,” Grace added.
Teagan was wearing a blue plaid flannel shirt, too big for her, unbuttoned and with the sleeves rolled up, over a tank top. She startled a little. “Yes. It’s his. He left it.”
Caroline glanced at Teagan and then met eyes with Grace.
Grace looked under the table and said, “Are you wearing his shoes, too?”
Teagan was. They were an old pair of worn leather penny loafers, too big for her; she was wearing two pairs of thick socks.
“They’re comfortable.” She began rotating her Styrofoam cup of coffee on the tabletop.
“And is that his belt?” Grace asked.
Caroline leaned forward over the table and looked at the wide leather belt in the belt loops of Teagan’s cutoff jean shorts.
Teagan said, “Yes.”
Cookies
In my apartment I put all three beautiful macaroons on a plate. I carried the plate to the couch and sat on one end, facing the window, and tucked my feet, and bit into the first cookie. It was chewy and soft and the smell and taste of sugar and almonds filled my nose and mouth. I had dived into sweetness. The delight of eating cookies lightened the thought that I did not have anything else to get rid of. Something was over and done with, but I was reaching for the second macaroon and smelling it and eating it; there was comfort that I wanted, and I wondered if it was because of the thought I had of Ian. And when I think of the horse I am twinned in a thought of my father, who rarely saw me ride the horse. I finished the second macaroon and was glad to have the third. I placed it on my open palm and held it so that it was framed in the light of the window. I wanted to admire it for a moment before I consumed it.
Skeet
She lived here, didn’t she? She didn’t see why she shouldn’t go, too. It wasn’t until they were all in the field that Teagan realized she had invited herself along on Charlie and Jenny’s date. She’d been too interested in the guns to notice that, half an hour previously. Teagan rode in the bed of the truck with the guns. They were in long canvas sleeves, two of them. Charlie drove through the field, down the gully and up, with Jenny in the cab beside him, and Teagan looked at the guns, sleeping in their sacks.
He’d already set up the trap. It was an army-green-color skeletal thing with a seat bolted on. She stood aside, watched Charlie unsheathe a 12-gauge and a .22 shotgun.
“What’s the difference?” Jenny was almost hopping with nervous energy.
Charlie laid a hand on the first gun. “The twelve is heavier. You’ll probably like the twenty-two, but give them both a try.”
He wasn’t talking to Teagan. Jenny moved closer to the guns, and Teagan hung back and folded her arms. She scanned the woods as Charlie helped Jenny fit a leather pad to the front of her shoulder and secure it with a strap. Charlie didn’t offer anything to Teagan, but he spoke to both girls when he picked up each gun in turn and showed them how to break the barrel, load the cartridges, and how to take the safety off and put it back on. “Keep it broken down until you want to shoot, and the last thing you do is take the safety off. And don’t point it at me or your feet.” He smiled.
Teagan felt a surge of embarrassment. It was either that the smile was especially for Jenny or that she hadn’t seen her brother actually smile in some time. She realized he was happy. She wanted to walk away. She decided she didn’t want to stay and shoot, but she thought she’d stay to watch them shoot one time. Charlie led Jenny to the trap to show her how it worked. Teagan lingered and looked at the guns in the bed of the truck. Charlie kept them clean and oiled. She’d forgotten he had guns. She forgot he cleaned guns. She forgot that their dad had bought him the .22. She had a vague memory of a conversation her parents had about getting Charlie a gun. She remembered something else.
Charlie looked over at Teagan. She backed up a step and raised her palms to show she wasn’t touching anything. He waved her over, frowning.
Beside the trap was a big cardboard box and several little rectangle boxes. The big one was separated into six compartments, and each compartment held a stack of round disks that were black with a circle of neon orange on top of each. She had pictured something in the shape of a bird. These were the clay pigeons. The other boxes held cartridges. The 12-gauge ones were encased in yellow plastic, and the .22-gauge were smaller and encased in red plastic.
“Do we get in trouble if we shoot a horse?” Jenny said.
Charlie smiled.
Teagan frowned at him. “I put them in the barn,” she said, but Jenny’s attention was on Charlie.
Charlie straddled the arms of the trap and sat down. He slid a pigeon into the arm. “This will throw it up to about there.” He scanned the sky and then pointed with his whole hand.
Jenny and Teagan looked up at some unidentified point in the distant sky.
“I can adjust the height,” Charlie said. “Keep in mind that the longer you wait to pull the trigger, the farther it travels from you. And it’s harder to hit on the way down. Now this spring arm will break your leg if it hits you, so don’t let it hit you.” He waved them back a couple steps and then pulled a string. With a violent clang of metal the arm swung and the disk became a little neon dot in the sky.
Jenny jumped up and down. “There’s no way I’ll hit that. I hope you brought a lot of bullets.”
Charlie’s voice was light. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Which gun belonged to Dad?” Teagan asked. She already knew that it was the double-barrel. She asked just to spoil his happiness a little, and maybe because she wanted to hear him say it.
“The twelve was Dad’s. He bought me the twenty-two.”
So there it was. She noted that Charlie didn’t say their dad had given him the 12-gauge gun. Their dad had just left it behind.
Charlie got the gun
s out of the truck. He put a folded tarp on the grass and lay them on it.
“Let’s see you shoot,” Teagan said to him. She wanted to be friendly suddenly.
Charlie turned to Jenny and smiled a little and opened his hand to the guns.
“You first,” Jenny said, laughing.
Charlie squeezed Jenny’s shoulder as he walked past her. Teagan voluntarily climbed into the seat of the trap and with both hands tried to cock the sling arm. The heavy spring was too strong.
“This one slides to load,” he said, and with the gun balanced over his left arm, he used his right hand to cock the gun and the bullets clicked into place. “Whoever’s shooting stands out in front, and everybody else get back. And then I’ll say pull, and, Teagan, you release the pigeon.”
Teagan tried again to pull the arm of the trap back into place. She got it halfway and then she lost control of it and it flung back into place, spitting out a pigeon that trailed above the ground.
“Stop,” Charlie said. He carefully fit the .22 into Jenny’s hands and told her the safety was on. He pushed Teagan out of the seat and sat down himself and loaded a pigeon and the arm. “Don’t touch it until I say pull,” he said to Teagan. Charlie took the gun from Jenny, positioned her back a few strides, walked forward, held the gun up and sighted through it, then lowered it, clicked the safety off, and nodded at Teagan. With the gun sighted again, Charlie said, “Pull.”
She pulled. The pigeon flew into the air and at the top of its arc exploded into pieces. Jenny clapped and Teagan had to smile at Charlie’s perfect shot.
Teagan climbed off the trap and decided to walk back. “Good luck, y’all. Come back in one piece.”
Fence
Horse Page 19
