The Honk and Holler Opening Soon

by Billie Letts

  “By the time they got engaged, I’d already figured out that she didn’t need me around anymore, so I dropped out of school, got on a Greyhound and went to Santa Fe.”

  “Why Santa Fe?”

  “I saw some pictures in a magazine. It looked glamorous.”

  “Was it?”

  “Oh, yeah. I worked in a bakery icing cakes. Met a guy, a roofer. I got pregnant and he got lost, so I had an abortion and moved on.”

  Caney shook his head.

  “Heard enough?” Vena asked as she started to roll away, but Caney caught her hand and pulled her back.

  “No. Where did you go then?”

  “Knocked around Arizona, a couple of years in Texas. Got in some trouble in Abilene. Owner of a liquor store where I worked had me arrested. Said I stole a hundred dollars from the register. I didn’t, but I spent a night in jail before Helen showed up and bailed me out.

  “After the jerk back in Austin had dumped her, she’d gone on to nursing school, got a job in a hospital in Las Vegas, so I went back there with her. That’s where we were when we found out Dad had died.”

  “Did you go home?”

  “Not much point. He’d been dead five months before we heard about it. Seems Inez had him cremated before he was cold, sold our place the next week and she was gone. Never heard a word from her.”

  “God, what a sweetheart.”

  “Anyway, I stayed in Las Vegas for a while. Worked as a cocktail waitress, a blackjack dealer, bartender. Started drinking. Got arrested one night for DWI. Helen to the rescue again.

  “I headed north then. Wyoming, Montana. Worked at a dude ranch for a while, a couple of training stables, ran some rodeo stock. But that came to a halt when I got thrown from a stallion, broke my arm and collarbone. Helen sent the money for the hospital and doctor bills.

  “She’d moved to San Antonio, wanted me to come live with her, but I went to California instead. Met Tom Sixkiller, got married. Another big mistake.

  “Tom was a decent guy… too decent, I suppose. But I wasn’t much of a wife.” Vena rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “After I left him, I drifted down to San Antonio. Stayed with Helen and her roommate, Carmelita Sanchez.

  “I wasn’t there long before Helen started talking about helping me go to nursing school. Hell, I was thirty years old and she still believed I could be somebody.

  “I don’t know why I said yes. To please her, I guess. She gave me a thousand dollars for my tuition. She acted real happy, tried to pump me up, but I suspect she knew I’d screw up again. And I did.

  “I took the money, had a few drinks, bought a car and wrecked it that night.”

  “What did she say?”

  “I didn’t stick around to find out, couldn’t face her. Couldn’t stand to see the disappointment in her eyes. I’d seen it too many times before.”

  “So…”

  “I left town. Didn’t even say good-bye. And I never saw her again.”

  Vena was quiet for several moments, then she wiped her eyes on the heels of her hands before she shifted, rolling onto her side again, facing Caney.

  “Well, there you have it. I told you it wasn’t a pretty story.”

  “I wasn’t expecting a fairy tale.” Caney used his thumb to wipe a tear from Vena’s temple. “You made a few mistakes. Who hasn’t?”

  “Caney, I didn’t make a few mistakes. I hurt the one person in my life who cared about me.”

  “Well, now there’s someone else who does.”

  “Weren’t you listening to me?” Vena sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. “After what you just heard, do you—”

  “Hell, Vena. I don’t care what you’ve done. I didn’t know the person you were… I only know who you are now.”

  “Caney, people don’t change. We get older, maybe a little smarter or maybe not, but underneath, we’re still the same.”

  “That’s not the way I see it.”

  “Look. I’ve messed up my own life and lots of others. I don’t want to mess up yours.”

  “Hell, go ahead. Mess it up. Listen, the day I watched you climb out of that truck and walk in here, I knew my life was gonna change. Hoped it’d get better, didn’t figure it could get much worse, but if that’s how things turn out…”

  “Caney, I told you from the beginning—”

  “That you wouldn’t stay. Well, I won’t ask you to. I’m not gonna push my luck; I’ll settle for what I’ve got.”

  He reached for her shoulders, eased her down onto his pillow and cradled her head into the curve of his neck.

  “But for now,” he said, “for tonight… that’s enough for me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  CANEY HAD WATCHED the whole thing from out back of the Honk, watched as Bui approached the gelding, taking mincing, tentative steps, holding the nylon halter out as if he were offering it as a gift.

  “Don’t hold it in front of you, Bui,” Caney said to himself. “He sees it coming, he’ll never let you get close.”

  But once again Bui neared the gelding with the halter held before him at arm’s length, and once again the gelding jerked his head and backed away.

  Bui had said he was not afraid of the horse, but Caney could tell from the way he jumped each time the gelding reared his head and snorted, that he was terrified. The animal knew it, too.

  While Bui waited again for the horse to settle, Caney could see his lips moving, and though he was too far away to hear the conversation, he knew Bui was pleading for a little cooperation.

  Caney smiled, wondering if the gelding could understand Vietnamese.

  Then, holding the halter at his side, Bui began to inch close again.

  “That’s the idea,” Caney whispered. “Go slow.”

  Bui got near enough this time to stroke the gelding’s muzzle with one hand; with the other, he slid the halter over its neck until he could reach under and pull both ends together.

  Because the halter was twisted, he had to work at getting it buckled, but he stayed with it, even as the gelding backed up, dragging him along. When he finally got it fastened, he turned toward the Honk and waved to let Caney know everything was all right, and Caney shot back a thumbs-up salute.

  As Bui led the gelding toward the gate, he moved like a crab, looking back to make sure the horse wasn’t gaining on him.

  While Caney waited, he wheeled his chair to the side of the tall ramp he’d had Bui build and pushed against it to test its strength. It felt sturdy enough, but the pitch was steeper than he’d figured on. Still, he thought he could manage it.

  Vena and MollyO had watched Bui working on it for the past couple of days, but when they asked what it was for, Caney said he guessed it was another of Bui’s secrets. Then, when he’d chained the bar to the limbs of the bois d’arc tree, MollyO said it looked like a trapeze, and she got the notion that Bui was thinking of joining a circus.

  When Caney looked up, the bar high over his head was swinging gently in the morning breeze.

  Bui had arrived early, just as he’d promised, right after sunrise. Caney, already up and dressed, had slipped out while Vena was still asleep. He didn’t want her watching in case this crazy plan didn’t work, didn’t want her to see him hanging up there like some kind of helpless Tarzan, or worse, to see him fall on his ass.

  Bui was smiling as he crossed the yard, leading the gelding to Caney.

  “You’re a good man, Bui,” Caney said. “You did fine, just fine.”

  “Yes, Mr. Chaney. I not fear of horse.” Bui patted the gelding’s flank to prove it.

  “Oh, I could see that all right.”

  “Horse my friend now. Like me very much, I think so.”

  “No question about it.”

  As Caney took the halter from Bui, he said, “You saw where Brim Neely put the bridle and saddle in the shed yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “I saw.”

  “Well, if you’ll bring those out here…”

  “I get, Mr. Chaney. Lic
kety spit.” Bui beamed. “New American words. Lickety spit. Mean very fast.” He laughed as he dashed for the shed.

  “You been well trained, fella,” Caney said as he smoothed the coat on the gelding’s withers. “Now, let’s see how you’re gonna deal with me.”

  When Bui came back, he put the saddle on the ground beside Caney and handed him the bridle.

  “Here, Bui. You take the halter again.”

  Caney reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a chunk of apple. When the gelding lowered its head to take it, Caney pressed just behind the ears to make sure the head stayed down after the apple was gone. Then Caney took the bridle in his right hand while he slipped the thumb of his left in the gelding’s mouth so he could guide the bit into place.

  “Horse have big teeth,” Bui said. “Much bite, I think so. Take off finger.”

  “Naw, he wouldn’t bite off your finger. Besides, if he did, he probably wouldn’t swallow it.”

  Bui giggled.

  “Can you unbuckle the halter now and slip it off?”

  “I can do it, Mr. Chaney.”

  Once the halter was removed, Caney looped the reins over the horse’s neck, then tethered them to the arm of his wheelchair.

  “Now, let’s see if we can get that saddle on him.”

  Bui picked up the saddle and moved in beside Caney who grabbed the pommel; then lifting together, they swung it onto the gelding’s back.

  “Bui, go around to the other side, reach up under the saddle and pull out the girth and stirrup leathers. They’re caught under it.”

  After Bui fumbled the tangled girth from beneath the saddle, he grabbed hold of the stirrups and pulled the leathers free. Then Caney reached under the gelding’s belly, pulled the girth toward him, threaded the latigo through and tied it off.

  “You did fine, boy,” Caney said as the horse lifted his head and snuffled.

  “All right. We’re ready for the hard part.” Caney pulled the reins loose from his chair and handed them to Bui. “Try to maneuver him right under the bar, while I see if I can get up this thing.”

  As Caney rolled around to the down side of the ramp, he passed Spot’s fence where the little dog was watching with interest the goings-on around him.

  “What do you think, Spot? Think this is gonna work?”

  The dog wagged her tail.

  Bui said, “Spot thinks horse is very big dog. A new friend, she thinks so.”

  Caney figured Bui might be right since Spot hadn’t barked, not once. But then Spot wasn’t much of a barker.

  When Caney rolled into position at the bottom of the ramp, he wiped his palms over his pant legs, then took a deep breath before he grabbed the wheels of his chair and started grinding his way to the top.

  In the beginning, he decided it was easier than he had thought. But by the time he was halfway up, his arms were quivering with the strain.

  As he worked to gain the final couple of feet, he was panting and making growling sounds each time he got a new handhold and forced the wheels forward.

  “You can do, Mr. Chaney,” Bui said. “I know you can do.”

  With one last powerful lunge, Caney rolled the wheelchair over the lip of the incline and onto the platform Bui had built at the top.

  “You champion now.” Bui flashed a smile of admiration. “Like Muhammad Ali.”

  “You bet,” Caney said between gulps of air.

  Caney flexed his hands to restore feeling back to his fingers, then shook his arms and rolled his head from one shoulder to the other.

  The gelding, growing impatient, snorted, then pawed at the ground.

  “You’re right, buddy.” Caney reached down and scratched the gelding between the ears. “It’s time to get on the road. You ready, Bui?”

  “I ready.”

  Caney reached above him for the bar, stretching his upper body as far as he could to reach it, and found that Bui’s measurements were just about perfect.

  When he curled his hands around the thick cylinder of steel, he tested it with a yank which sent the chains holding it clanking. Then he grasped the bar tightly and, straining, began to lift himself from the chair. And though he hadn’t chinned himself since he’d left rehab at the VA, he still had the strength to get the job done.

  He pulled himself up far enough to free his legs from the chair, and with them dangling almost over the gelding, he said, “Okay, Bui. Help me get there.”

  Bui, still holding the gelding in place with a tight grip on the reins, grabbed Caney’s legs and guided him to a position over the saddle.

  “You there, Mr. Chaney.”

  As Caney lowered himself, Bui was able to maneuver him onto the saddle.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Caney said. “It worked. What do you know about that? It worked!” And then he laughed and Bui laughed with him.

  Finally he took the reins from Bui, then reached down and shook his hand. “Thanks.”

  “You welcome, Mr. Chaney.”

  Then Caney flicked the reins and the gelding began to trot toward the open field.

  Bui stood watching until the horse and rider disappeared into a thick stand of evergreens, then turned and started for the Honk where he saw Vena smiling at him from the bedroom window.

  Caney was hardly out of sight of the Honk before he felt the first stirring of fear rise, but he fought against it, fought to keep his mind and body centered on the old familiarity of movement and rhythm, the smell of horse and leather, the feel of an early morning breeze on his skin.

  He struggled to keep his eyes fixed on the ground directly in the gelding’s path, would not let himself think about what might be creeping up behind him or what could be waiting up ahead, rode in silence, neck bowed, head lowered, the curled brim of his stained Stetson blocking the view of all but a few feet of earth.

  He didn’t know how long he’d ridden that way until the gelding waded into the stream they’d crossed weeks earlier and stopped to drink. Then, though Caney tried to resist, he was unable to keep from cutting his eyes to the far bank. But where before snipers had been in hiding, he saw now a doe and her fawn grazing near the water’s edge which was lined with flowering dogwoods and red maples.

  Then, tentatively, he began to steal quick, short glances around him as the gelding headed across a wide valley where plum and pear trees and crabapples bloomed.

  When he passed between the sweetgum trees where he’d seen the trip wire before, he discovered the wire’s mysterious transformation into vines of honeysuckle and ivy, and as the gelding carried him into the mouth of the valley, instead of land mines, he saw a field exploding with black-eyed Susans and Indian paintbrush.

  Then the horse climbed a rise thick with yellow daisies, and at the top, where an NVA patrol had been waiting for Caney weeks ago, he was met this morning by a wild turkey foraging beneath a stand of cottonwood trees.

  At the edge of a ridge, he looked down on a field covered with bluebonnets and sunflowers, and while he let the gelding graze in the meadow where the helicopter had roared in, filling the sky with its dark terror, Caney watched a red-tail hawk gliding on a current of air.

  In the remnant of the orchard near Ted Kyle’s now collapsed old home place, he picked a green apple smaller than a golf ball and almost as hard, but bit into it anyway, the sourness sweet with the memory of others he’d tasted in another time.

  He rode to the lake and watched a bass break water in a cove where he and Dewey O’Keefe had fished on Sundays, sharing a breakfast of Vienna sausage and hard biscuits, taking turns bailing water from a leaking johnboat.

  He saw a black snake sunning on a slab of granite, felt the rough bark of a bois d’arc and smelled earth fresh turned by a tractor in a field where he’d shot at his first deer and missed, perhaps intentionally.

  He watched scissor-tailed flycatchers rise from a black gum tree, and from a far hill, he heard the bellowing of coon hounds, reminding him of how grown-up he’d felt at nine, crouched around a predawn campfire with Sold
ier and Quinton, sharing strong black coffee and lies as they listened to their blueticks bay.

  He watched a crawdad back into its mud tunnel beside a narrow creek, then smiled at the memory of himself and Carl Phelps cutting school to catch crawdads with bacon tied to the end of a string.

  By the time the sun had centered itself in the sky, Caney’s eyes were bloodshot from its brightness, his arms burned from its heat. A dull pain spread between his shoulder blades while a muscle spasm gripped his lower back. A bee sting reddened and swelled on his elbow, and his fingers, unused to the grip of a saddle horn, had stiffened, yet he was filled with the boyness of his life… whole and free, alive again.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  AS REVEREND THOMAS took the pulpit, the congregation of the AME Church steeled themselves for bad news.

  They knew it was coming. Not because of the solemn expression that creased the Reverend’s face with deep furrows. They were used to that look, figured it came with the burden of trying to deliver them to the Kingdom of Heaven. No, today it was not the preacher’s face that gave him away. It was his feet.

  On those mornings his toes weren’t tapping out the rhythm of the spirituals the choir sang to open up the service, they knew something unfortunate, perhaps even tragic, was about to be revealed to them. And today, his spit-polished black Florsheims had remained rooted to the floor, even when the choir sang “Praying My Way to the Promised Land,” his favorite, the song that always caused his feet to dance.

  Now, fearing to hear the worst—that one of their number had passed over, they looked anxiously around them to see who was missing.

  “Brothers and sisters…”

  At the sound of his rich, deep voice, they grew silent with the dread of the news he was about to give them.

  “The sermon I had prepared for you today was inspired by the beautification of our house of worship. For each time we come together, we marvel at yet more evidence of the wondrous skill of our benefactor, who continues to remain anonymous.

  “Why, in just this past week alone, my study has received a fresh coat of paint, the trash stacked behind the shed has been removed and the supplies and materials in the basement have been reorganized and neatly stacked against the walls.