Hank bet that in half an hour, tops, the man of God would be back in his rectory kitchen, eating glazed doughnuts and counting out his gratuity. Hank would be in his office at the college, grading a few papers and counting the time until he would go home and grade more papers. Which of us has a better grasp on things? he wondered. We’re both sorry mortals, groping in the darkness. His smile twitched beneath his mustache and he wished he’d eaten breakfast.
At forty-two, reminders of his own mortality came to him on a daily basis—the twinge in his lower back as he stretched out on the carpet to execute his fifty morning push-ups was now part of his morning routine. He ate fruit now instead of pastry on his coffee breaks, tuned the office radio he shared with Asa Carver back to quiet stations that gave extended global news reports, and took the weather seriously. Peaceful, maybe sedentary. He wondered when this gradual shifting of gears had occurred. Even as he took his cue to lift his portion of Hoop’s casket with the others, the task seemed numbingly familiar, not unmanageable at all. Inside, a man’s life was reduced to the simplest of definitions. Dismissed, beyond grief. We get used to it, he thought, and wondered briefly how he could work that notion into one of his lectures.
Iris sent a determined smile Hank’s way as he stepped from the altar toward the pews. His mother’s gray hair was wound into a heavy coil atop her head, secured with silver combs she’d had since she was a young woman, teaching school on the reservation in Page, Arizona. The funeral rated high on Iris’s list of important events, Hank could tell, because she was wearing her turquoise squash-blossom necklace. The necklace appeared only on the most monumental of occasions. I’ll wear it to your wedding, Iris had promised, and someday give it to your wife. But of course, there had been no wedding to wear it to. A Navajo man had made her a present of the necklace in exchange for teaching his son to read, the first reader in his family. How little Hank knew of his mother’s life. Slight alarm prickled his skin beneath the good shirt and jacket. She’d had a bout with cancer a year ago. The surgery permanently subtracted ten pounds from her frame and subdued her merry laugh to a cautious smile. He’d driven her to chemotherapy once, when Henry senior’s car was getting new brakes, but otherwise the details of her illness had been kept from him, the same as he had been shielded from most unpleasantness in childhood. Oh, they insisted everything was fine now, just dandy. As if she had never had cancer at all. But it could recur.
Henry senior made an exaggerated gesture toward his own extremely paisley necktie. Hank deduced that this meant his own was hanging awry. Christ, what did his father want? For Hank to stop, balance the casket on his hip and straighten his Windsor knot? He tried not to frown, but he felt the heat of annoyance flood his cheeks. Such trivialities seemed to obsess his father, who couldn’t quite leave behind his life as an administrative civil servant. It’s all a snap, son, if you just follow the rules. And when there are no rules, Dad, what do we do then?
Hank understood why his mother had spent a lifetime in her husband’s shadow. For the same reasons, Hank had completed the rank of Eagle Scout, had served for years as acolyte while his chums were shunning church, trying to pick up girls. The necktie, which he intended to rebury in his closet this evening, was a twin to his father’s—a Christmas gift—and one of five decent ties he owned. Both Hank and his mother knew from experience it was much easier not to fight Henry’s wishes, just to smile and slowly step to the left whenever possible. Iris had dabbled here and there: substitute teaching, the Literacy Guild, where she still enjoyed teaching others to read, but since the cancer she had withdrawn into a world with narrower boundaries. Though the complex offered countless activities for aimless joining, she sat in the living room of the apartment, needlepointing doe-eyed animals for throw pillows, Henry never far from her side. One hopeful sign: recently she’d ordered Henry to wallpaper the kitchen in hair-raising stripes—fuchsia, lemon, a tangerine shade worthy of a macaw’s lunch. Cancer. The syllables were designed to shock. But Iris endured with a Republican’s blindsided confidence: “President Reagan did just fine and I will, too.”
Hank couldn’t explain the childish counting of footsteps he’d done from the altar to the polished hearse waiting outside…. thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two. His age—a number as random as stars in the sky, but disturbing. When he stepped away from the hearse, his parents were by his side. His mother pressed his shoulder. He took her hand.
“Thank you for helping, Hank,” Hoop’s widow said at the curb, touching his sleeve lightly. “You’re such a gentleman to lend a hand. Wasn’t the minister insufferable? And why Hoop wanted a sunrise service is certainly beyond me. He never got up before nine unless it was for a starting time. I guess the rain took care of the sun, anyway. We’re having a breakfast back at the complex after the graveside. Join us?”
“Of course,” Henry senior answered for all of them. “We’ll be with you as long as you need us, dear.”
Hank shook his head. “Gosh, I’m sorry, I can’t.” Emily? He’d blanked out on her first name, and it wouldn’t do to screw up now. He forged ahead with his practiced condolences, taking care not to press too hard on the small bones of her arthritic hand. “I’m afraid I have a seminar I have to teach. My students count on me. I hate to let them down.”
“Of course. You go on.”
He kissed her damp cheek in celebration of freedom. His father lifted a hand to protest, but Hank was already slipping through the crowd, moving carefully past the aged bodies toward the rain-wet parking lot. He waved to his parents, his palms outstretched in a “what can I do?” gesture, tapped his watch, and made his escape.
Of course it was a lie. He had time to drink a cup of decaf from the widow’s good china. He could eat the bakery croissants and the sturdy quiche, stand around for an hour, listen and smile while friends and acquaintances reminisced, making sense of their lives. Henry and Iris’s boy—Professor Oliver—a master’s degree. Upright, dependable, though his necktie is a little crooked. Teaching is a noble profession these days, isn’t it? Oh, yes. Prattling on about those wonderful ancient myths in an arena of determined business majors. And all for a subsistence-level salary. You get used to it.
As he gunned the motor of the seasoned Honda, it occurred to Hank that during his entire career of teaching at the junior college, nearly all his work, save for final grades and one impassioned grant proposal, had been done in pencil.
CHAPTER
3
Invoking the gods would do no good. The stench of death had moved in, suitcases and all, perfuming the old school barn. Chloe’s legs were damp, chilled gooseflesh. Bits of shavings clung to her skin as she knelt and studied the laboring chestnut mare Philip Green had gotten her out of bed to examine.
A sleeping horse—no overt signs of disaster to the layman, but that unbalanced, nonscientific feeling prevailed. Phil had kept her posted for the last three weeks on every imminent sign. One day he had come into the café at lunch hour and shouted, “Chloe, her teats waxed!” and Rich had poked his head out the cubby where he received the orders, answering, “More than I ever got her to do, buddy.”
He’d done a textbook preparation: spread new cedar shavings, purchased the requisite bottle of iodine for the umbilical stump, laid out assorted syringes and vials of tetanus antitoxin on a clean towel, standby antibiotics—all purchased on Chloe’s suggestion from State Line Feed and Tack, where you paid nearly what the vets did, semi-wholesale. He had fifteen-dollar scissors and a hot-pink halter and lead rope—hoping filly.
All that insurance, and Chloe would have bet her tip jar that the mare wasn’t going to make it through the birth.
The trouble with the mare was complicated, signs she couldn’t read. For the last fifteen minutes she had been popping football-size clots. Chloe broke one open with her finger to study the fibrin. It was clumped and stringy, like unripe grapes. Further, it smelled rank, as if it had traveled from a deeper source of infection. She settled herself down, sitting cross-legged i
n the cedar shavings, taking the mare’s head into her lap. Nothing for either of them to do but wait for the vet.
While she waited, she stroked the mare’s face, feeling her facial bones beneath the thin hide. The school barn was neat, tidy, worn down from the passage of animals over the years. Chloe studied every plank and tool hanging from the walls. This was the nineties, no more Future Farmers were graduating from the school. Agriculture and husbandry were being phased out of the curriculum, and Phil’s horse was the sole equine occupant left. Her foal would have made two, a beginning. It was still raining, slower now, the washed street smell thin underneath the cleaner thrust of heaven-driven water. The thrumming on the tin rooftop soothed them both. Phil had his head in his hands, his bald spot glinting in the flashlight glow. Outside, the thinning school herd of Herefords grazed the half-acre pasture. Chloe heard them lowing in the dark, wondering about breakfast. Cows were fools—fresh manure factories. But she admired the unlikely picture they made standing behind the fence alongside the boulevard. She heard the freeway traffic’s high keening in the distance. Early commuters to LA, aiming to beat gridlock. She ran her palms across the mare’s cheek, feeling for the pulse she’d kept a mental tally on since she’d arrived. The mare sighed at her touch, and a small rattle followed the outtake of breath. Chloe moved her hands down the rib cage now. Not much muscle there, but what could you expect, off the racetrack in Caliente, bred out of God knows what kind of nightmare? Phil shouldn’t have bought her at all, let alone in foal, but he was like a lot of new horse owners, couldn’t wait, swayed by the two-for-one idea of pregnancy. The foal was still viable, moving against her hand, struggling to find a way out. The mare coughed, and her nostrils filled with blood. Here we go, Chloe thought. Was there one orifice left that hadn’t bled?
Phil looked up. “I’ve pretty much bitched this, haven’t I?”
Chloe wouldn’t let her face reveal anything. “You call the vet again?”
“His exchange said they’d find him. They said—”
“Oh, piss on those answering service people. They’re all drug addicts or nineteen-year-olds. You call back and tell them Chloe Morgan says if Gabriel Hubbard can’t get his sorry ass out of bed, he’s going to regret his entire life not to mention his practice.”
Phil smiled, showing even white teeth. “You know, some of us spend our whole lives just working up to a ‘pardon me’”
She stuffed the last clean towel under the mare’s bloody hindquarters. “Hey, that’s not my problem. We’re losing this mare. Make the call.”
He left the barn, locking the stall door shut behind him as if he expected the mare suddenly to bolt.
Answering service, my ass. Gabriel Hubbard was out catting. Good vets were rare and passionate—it might take years before you found one who knew his trade and possessed the instinct that elevated him beyond able. Gabe was that. His talent was as gracious as love at first sight and just as undependable in the long run. He might be the best, but he wasn’t going to get here in time to save Phil Green’s mare. Oh, he’d mop up, be sure to send out his bill, but the mare was the knacker’s.
Phil returned, shaking rain from his sleeves, popping the tab of a Diet Pepsi. “They said the same thing”
Chloe leaned over the mare and took his offer of a hand to pull her to her feet. “Phil, you called me for an honest opinion. Well, the truth is, things look iffy as hell.”
“Iffy.”
“You want a word, that’s mine.” She swallowed a warm sip of soda from the can he held out. “Phil, you teach the husbandry classes. Press a thumbnail into her gums. Her capillary refill is a pretty clear indication of internal hemorrhaging, even if she wasn’t bleeding from every goddamn place we can see. Look at her. She’s not even fighting. If you’ve got a shotgun in the barn, you might want to take it down and load it.”
His weight shifted from one boot to another in the cedar shavings. “Don’t think I could do that.”
“If Gabe doesn’t show up soon, I guess I could do it for you.”
“My foal?”
“Mother Nature’s giving you a strong nudge here. Letting things alone might be the wisest idea we come up with.”
She watched the tall professor’s face empty of hope. He crouched down, stroked the mare’s neck, then buried his fingers in the long mane hair. Years ago, when they’d first met, he ran the 4-H youth project on horsemanship in his spare time. Over the years he’d been responsible for sending her students, a select few, those who had the spark it took to make a good rider. He’d been there when Fats died, offering help she couldn’t bring herself to accept. Now he led pack trips into the Sierra Nevada so people who had the money could photograph the few remaining herds of mustangs. Twice this year he’d conned her into lecturing to his classes, a sort of “blue-collar” authority on horsemanship, and for her time he’d slipped her twenty-five dollars that she knew came out of his own pocket. His wife was a hefty redhead named Sally, who pretty much dedicated her life to keeping Phil happy. So their kids didn’t make the honor roll. They said “please” and “thank you,” and looked Chloe straight in the eye, none of this metal-head nonsense that seemed to have infected the rest of the teenage world. Phil Green had a heart, and he wasn’t afraid of the contents. Trouble was, sometimes that kind of thing came back and slapped you, whereas vets like Gabe got hard. She wondered how human doctors weathered the agony that came with telling bad news. It seemed like it was the idea of loss that bewildered people into begging for respirators, anything to maintain a semblance of life. Heartbreaking shit, but so long as the chest lifted, technically life was present. When it quit, you shook hands with your grief, got on with things, or you lost your mind. It all depended on which side of the fence you stood.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll give it a shot, but the odds aren’t in my favor. Just so we both know that going in.”
Phil nodded. “I understand.”
“Good. Go call that goddamn vet and tell him to get down here, that he’s got about five minutes left to be a hero.”
Phil pressed his arms around her shoulders. “Thanks, Chloe.”
She brushed him away. “Don’t say that. Later on you might hate me. Get me a clean rope, and let’s see if we can find your baby’s legs.”
Gabriel Hubbard, DVM, pulled up half an hour later. He was wearing a tuxedo and reeked of champagne.
He chuckled at Chloe’s rope. “What in Christ are you doing, a rerun of ‘Wagon Train’?” He took off his jacket, threw on a cellophane sleeve, doused it with lubricant and drove it up inside the mare to his elbow. He rotated his arm, checking the foal’s position. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Oh, spare us the details,” she said, absently coiling the rope in her hands.
Phil hovered nearby. “Anything?”
“Wish there were some contractions to fight around, Phil.” Gabe withdrew his arm and stripped off the glove with a snap. “Total inertia. This baby’s not moving.”
Chloe said, “So shoot her with oxytocin.”
“I’m getting to that. Jesus, when did you graduate from A & M?” He found a vein, administered the injections, then lifted the bound tail and studied, shaking his head. The mare’s heaving sides labored in a guttering shudder and stilled. She was gone.
“Fuck that,” Hubbard said, letting the tail drop. He nudged her heavy side with his boot tip. “Goddamn quitter bitch. Phil, if you want me to try and save this baby, I have to get mean and I have about ninety seconds to do it.”
Phil made a sound, not comprehending.
“Do it,” Chloe urged him. “Whatever it takes, so that this day doesn’t end in a double disaster.”
“Kneel down and brace her side, Chloe. I need something to lean against.”
“Already there.”
The sound of the scalpel slicing through flank flesh echoed through Chloe’s eardrums. She clenched her jaw as the scrape of the vet’s pliers separated layers of muscle. Hubbard worked quickly, making an oblique incis
ion across the uterus, and the crumpled foal flopped forward, suddenly relieved of the pressure that had held him captive. Blood spilled over the amniotic sac and splashed up onto Chloe’s chest. Her pink sweatshirt clung wetly to her breasts. She pawed at herself uselessly with her free hand. The smell torqued her gut, threatening to make her vomit the Diet Pepsi.
Gabe slit the sac and hooked his fingers into the foal’s nostrils to dislodge the mucus plugs. He gave the foal a little massage, and it came alive, blinking startled eyes.
“Colt,” he said. “Come on, baby, breathe for me.”
With a choking squeal, the horse sucked air, looked around in panic, and struggled unsuccessfully to free himself of Gabe’s hands. Hubbard handed Phil a towel. “Looks like you’re going to be Mama for the time being. Towel him down.”
Phil knelt. He took the towel from Chloe. “It wasn’t popular to go into the delivery room when Sally had our two. Don’t quite know what I’m doing here.”
Hank & Chloe Page 2
