by Amy Harmon
My dad looked up sharply, not liking the suggestion that Moses wanted to kick me in the head.
“Moses is afraid, Dad. I think he paints because it releases a lot of nervous energy. But I was thinking maybe we could get him around the horses, maybe help him that way too.”
“First rule of therapy, George,” my dad said.
“What’s that?”
“You can lead a horse to water . . .”
“. . . but you can’t make him drink,” I sighed, finishing the old maxim.
“That’s right. You might be right about Moses. And I’m sure we could help him, when and if he wants our help. Kids, married couples, people with addictions, people who are depressed, everybody and almost anybody can be helped by equine therapy. I’ve never known a man who couldn’t be helped by spending time with a horse. But it’s really up to Moses. You’re pretty headstrong, George, but you’ve met your match with that boy.”
I was convinced I had. Met my match, that is. Maybe that kick to the head or the brush with violence at the stampede had permanently altered me, maybe it was his role as savior, or maybe I had just fallen in love with the artist who brought a white horse to life on my bedroom walls, but I couldn’t get Moses out of my thoughts. I found myself looking for him from the moment I stepped outside in the mornings until the moment I gave up in the evening and went home. His grandma was calling in favors right and left, and once Moses finished doing odd jobs for my dad, he started repairing fence for Gene Powell, which would probably take him the rest of the summer, considering how many acres Gene Powell had. On top of that, he’d been hired to do some demolition inside the old mill west of town that had shut down twenty years before.
I could make up reasons to be riding along the fence line, but the old mill was a different matter entirely. I figured I would cross that bridge when I got to it, but I was already plotting. I didn’t let myself think about my infatuation, because then I would have to acknowledge it. And I wasn’t the kind of girl to be infatuated or to get caught up in crushes, the kind of girl who checked her lips or fluffed her hair when boys were around.
Yet, I found myself doing just that, loosening my braid and running my hands through my unbound hair as I approached the edge of Gene Powell’s property on my horse in late July. I had Moses’s lunch. I’d made sure to intercept Kathleen on her way out and had casually mentioned that Sackett and I were headed this way. She smiled at me like she wasn’t fooled, and I felt pretty stupid. Kathleen Wright might be eighty years old, but I was sure she didn’t miss much. Especially since I’d just happened to stop by three days in a row, just in time to bring Moses his lunch.
When Moses saw me coming he didn’t look pleased, and I wondered for the umpteenth time what I’d done to piss him off.
“Where’s Gigi?” he asked.
“Who’s Gigi?”
“My grandma. She’s my great-grandma—two G’s in a row. GG.”
“I seen her heading this way, and I thought as long as I was out riding, I may as well bring your lunch.”
“You saw her heading this way.” He looked up at me with disgust. “Not seen. And it’s ‘we were’ not ‘we was.’ You say that wrong too.”
It didn’t sound wrong to me, but I made note of it. I didn’t want Moses to think I was stupid.
“Everyone in this town says it wrong. My grandma says it wrong! It drives me crazy,” Moses grumbled. He was in rare form today. But I didn’t mind that he was complaining as long as he was talking to me.
“Okay. I’ll fix my grammar. You want to tell me what else you don’t like about me? ‘Cause I’m thinking that isn’t all,” I said.
He sighed but ignored my question, asking a few of his own. “Why are you here, Georgia? Does your dad know you’re here?”
“I’m bringing you your lunch, Einstein. And no to the second question. Why should he? I don’t check in every time I ride my horse.”
“Does he know how you’re out here jumping fences?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been riding since I could walk. It’s not a big deal.”
He let it drop, but after a few bites of his sandwich he was picking on me again.
“Georgie Porgie puddin’ and pie. Kissed the boys and made them cry. What kind of name is Georgia?”
“My great-great grandma was Georgia. The first Georgia Shepherd. My dad calls me George.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard him. That’s just nasty.”
I felt my temper rise in my cheeks, and I really wanted to spit on him from where I sat atop my horse, looking down on his neatly shorn, well-shaped head. He glanced up at me and his lips twitched, making me even angrier.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not trying to be mean. But George is a terrible name for a girl. Hell, for anyone who isn’t the King of England.”
“I think it suits me,” I huffed.
“Oh, yeah? George is the name for a man with a stuffy, British accent or a man in a white, powdered wig. You better hope it doesn’t suit you.”
“Well, I don’t exactly need a sexy name, do I? I’ve never been a sexy girl.” I gave Sackett a hard nudge in her flanks and pulled the reins sharply, more than ready to leave. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t be bringing Moses his lunch again. He was a jerk, and I was sick of it.
But as I rode away I thought I heard him call after me, “Just keep telling yourself that, Georgie Porgie. I’ll keep telling myself that too.”
I brought his lunch again the next day.
Moses
“SHE LIKES YOU, YOU KNOW.” Gigi smiled at me, teasing.
I just grunted.
“Georgia likes you, Moses. And she’s such a good girl. A nice girl. Pretty too. Why don’t you give her some attention? That’s all she wants, you know.” Gigi winked at me, and I felt the heat that I had so prided myself on controlling start to spread through my chest and down my abdomen.
Georgia may only want attention now. But that wouldn’t last. If I gave her attention, she would want to spend more time with me. And if I spent time with her, she might want me to be her boyfriend. And if I was her boyfriend, she would want me to be normal. She would want me to be normal because she was normal. And normal was so lost to me that I didn’t even know where to look for it.
Still . . .
I thought about the way she looked when she fell asleep the night I painted the ceiling in her room. I’d looked down through the slats on the scaffolding, and she was directly below me, curled around a pillow she’d pulled off her bed. It was as if I floated over her, my body hovering six feet above hers. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, the same color as the wheat in the fields around the small town where we lived. But her hair wasn’t coarse and wispy. It was silky and thick and wavy from the braid she’d worn all day. She was tall, not as tall as I was, but long and lean, with golden skin and deep brown eyes that were a sharp contrast with her fair hair. My opposite. I had light eyes and dark hair. Maybe if you put us together, our physical oddities would even out. My belly tightened at the thought. No one would put us together. Especially not me.
I found myself watching her sleep, the painting temporarily forgotten. The man in the corner of the room who shared his thoughts, who shared Georgia’s story in pictures that poured into my head and out my hands, had disappeared. I wondered if I could call him back. I wasn’t finished yet.
But I didn’t try to call him back. Instead, I stared down at Georgia for a long, long time, watching the girl who was easily as persistent as the ghosts in my head. And for once, my mind was full of pictures of my own making, filled with dreams only I had conjured. And for the first time ever, I fell asleep with Georgia beneath me and peace inside of me.
Georgia
LUCKY HADN’T BEEN WORKED with at all before he came to us. Dad didn’t have much time to train him, but I had nothing but time. I had a knack, everyone said I did. So I spent a few hours with him every morning getting him used to me, making sure I was the one who fed him, I was the one who he saw, day
in and day out. He would run when I drew near, deliver a skittish two-step when I cut off his desired direction, and generally get very irritated with me. The day I got a rope around his head and he let me lead him around was a month in the making. It took me another two weeks before we were in a bridle and he let me draw his head back toward me as I stood at his side.
“That’s it, baby. You gonna let me have your head?” I smiled as I talked, trying not to gloat. You train a horse with pressure. Not pain. Pressure. A horse doesn’t want to get in the trailer? You don’t force him. You just run him in circles, round and round the trailer until he’s breathing hard. Then you try to take him up the ramp again. He doesn’t want to go? You keep running him. Eventually, he’ll figure out that the pressure lets up when he’s in the trailer. He gets to rest in the trailer. So he’ll climb that ramp eagerly every time.
I got a little impatient. My dad always said when you’re working with people or with animals, impatience is the worst mistake you can make. But I’d grown a little cocky. He was giving me his head, and I wanted the rest of him. I fisted my hands in his mane and drew my body up so that my belly brushed his side. He went still, quivering, and I felt that quiver echo in my stomach, anticipation zinging down my legs and arms, making me stupid.
“We’re friends aren’t we, Lucky?” I whispered. “Let’s go for a little run. Just an easy little run.”
He didn’t pull away, and I took the hesitation for consent. In one quick move I hoisted myself up and over, and as my butt hit his back we were off, and I knew with a terrible twist in my gut that he wasn’t ready. But it was too damn late. I was on his back, hands in his hair, committed. I would have been fine if he’d just decided to shake me loose. I knew how to fall. But he bolted instead, flying across the field with me clinging to his back. We cleared the fence separating our property from Gene Powell’s and I did my best to meld my body with his, but it’s incredibly hard to stay on a horse without a saddle. They are smooth, slick, and powerful, and my thighs were screaming with the effort to keep him between them. We cleared another fence and I stayed seated, but my arms were trembling, and I was terrified that Lucky was going to hurt himself. Horses break their legs and it’s not just an easy trip to the ER and a big cast and crutches. It’s over. I wasn’t thinking about myself. I was thinking of my mistake in judgment, how I’d pushed him too far. And I didn’t know how to fix it.
On the third fence, Lucky landed hard and I started to slide to the side. I cursed a streak of the bluest words I’d ever said, yanking with all my might on Lucky’s mane, and trying to right myself. But there was no stopping my descent, and I hit the ground hard, my shoulder and hip getting the worst of it as I rolled and found myself staring up at a sky that was far too blue for dying.
If I hadn’t been trying to pull air back into my lungs and life back into my limbs, I might have noticed where I was, but it wasn’t until Moses squatted down beside me and peered into my face that I realized where Lucky had thrown me.
He didn’t ask if I was okay. He didn’t say anything for a moment. We just stared at each other, and I saw that his breaths were as labored as my own. It pleased me to think he’d run to make sure I wasn’t mortally wounded.
“Well, shit.” I sighed, trying to sit up.
Moses sat back and watched as I brushed the dirt from my right side, wincing as I swept my hand over my shoulder. I had a long scrape that stretched almost to my elbow, but other than that, I was fine. I would hurt like hell tomorrow, but nothing was broken. I was on my feet brushing off my rear end and scanning the horizon without any help from Moses.
“Did you see which way he went?” I asked, casting my eyes across the field.
“No,” he answered finally. “I was too busy watching you fall.”
“I rode for a while before that,” I answered defensively. “We cleared two fences.”
“Is that normal for you?”
“What?”
“Riding without a saddle, full out, on a horse that obviously doesn’t want to be ridden?”
“He gave me his head . . . I thought he was ready. I was wrong.”
“He gave you his head?”
“Yeah . . . never mind. It’s horse speak. When a horse lets you control his head, pull it all the way back along his body, move it this way and that, he’s yours. But Lucky’s never been ridden. I needed to court him a little more.”
Moses’s lips were pursed and his eyebrows quirked and I thought for a minute he was going to laugh. I seemed to have that effect on him.
“Shut up,” I said.
He laughed, just as I predicted. “I didn’t say anything!”
“But you’re thinking it.”
“What am I thinking?”
“Something dirty. I can see it all over your face.”
“Nah. That’s not dirt. I’m just black.”
“Har, har.”
“You’ve never been thrown, huh?” He rose to his feet beside me.
“I’ve been thrown plenty,” I clipped, turning away. I started to walk in the direction I’d come. No use wandering around looking for Lucky. I’d go back for the truck and drive around until I found him.
“So is that what you’re trying to do with me? You want me to give you my head, just like the horse?” he called after me.
I stopped. Moses never gave me much. I’d been pushing him day after day, week after week, since he’d painted my room, just like I’d been pushing Lucky. Lucky had come around. But Moses hadn’t.
“I don’t want a damn thing from you,” I lied.
“That’s why you bring me my lunch every day and spy on me and drop by my grandma’s house every night.”
I felt like I’d fallen all over again, and this time it wasn’t my shoulder that hurt. My heart ached like I’d taken one of Lucky’s feet to my chest.
“I don’t want your head, Moses. I just thought you might need a friend.”
“I won’t let you in my head, Georgia. You don’t want to see what’s in my head.”“Okay. Fine. Then I’ll give you mine,” I said, turning on him. I don’t know where my pride was. I should spit on him and tell him to go to hell. Instead I was bowing at his feet.
“I’m kind of thinking there isn’t anything in your head. I’ve seen you get kicked and thrown, and I’m guessing you’ll be right back at it as soon as you find your horse.”
“Screw you, Moses.”
“That’s the first thing you’ve said that appeals to me.”
I gasped and he laughed. Again. I knew he was just trying to irritate me and make me run away crying. But I wasn’t the crying kind. He was right about one thing. I got kicked and thrown, and I came back for more.
So I did something I had never done. I turned and walked back to him, took his face between my hands, and I kissed him hard. It was probably the worst kiss ever delivered in the history of angry kisses. It was a terrible kiss. I had never kissed anyone before, and my lips were pressed into a hard, little line, my eyes squeezed shut, my hands gripping his face like they’d gripped Lucky’s mane.
He pulled away, but not far, and his breath was harsh across my mouth. “Careful, Georgia. You’re about to get thrown.”
“You son of a—”
And then his lips were back, swallowing my angry words, and I forgot almost immediately what a jerk he was. He wasn’t impatient or pushy or rough—not like I had been. He took his time and he showed me how to take mine. One hand held my head, cradling it, while the other found the curve of my waist and curled around my belt. And when I tried to take charge he bit down on my lip.
“Stop it,” he hissed. “Let me lead.”
So I did.
And he led me round and round, up and down, until my legs turned to jelly and my eyes rolled back in my head, until I was leaning against him because I was too turned on to stand.
And when he lifted his head and laughed, just a soft little chuckle, I struggled to open my heavy eyelids and drift back down to earth.
“Well,
whaddaya know?”
I shook out the fog and turned my head, finding the spot where Moses’s eyes were trained.
Lucky was sauntering across the field like he hadn’t just freaked out and taken me for the ride of my life.
“See? The moment you quit chasing him, that’s when he wants you. He looks jealous. He thinks he’s been replaced.”
Our eyes clashed and I peeled myself off him, trying to play like I’d been kissed a hundred times by a hundred different boys.
Moses’s eyes drifted down to my mouth, and I shoved my hands into my pockets so I wouldn’t be tempted to reach for him again and prove that I could lead as well as he could.
As if he read my mind, Moses nodded toward the horse.
“Go on. You’ve learned your lesson. He doesn’t want to be ridden.”
I flipped around, immediately cured from any desire to kiss him again. I gritted my teeth as I walked back to my horse, my stride long, my hands clenched.
Lucky watched me come. He didn’t shy away or flinch as I drew near, and without allowing myself to hesitate, I grabbed his mane and swung myself immediately back up onto his bare back. He reared up once, spun a little, dancing and prancing, but I was ready for him and I held on.
And he gave in.
As I urged him back toward home, I couldn’t help looking back. Moses stood frozen to the spot, a look of absolute amazement on his face. And it was my turn to laugh.
Moses
I SLEPT ON THE SECOND FLOOR, across the hall from Gi. The old house had no air conditioning, and by the end of the day, the upper rooms were stifling. Gi never seemed to mind, she was always cold, but each night I would open my window, soak my T-shirt with water before putting it on, and then turn the little oscillating fan in the corner on full blast so it blew directly on me, just so I could sleep without drowning in a pool of my own sweat.
Utah had experienced record-breaking temperatures all summer, but the first week of August was unbearable. For the fourth night in a row, I was laying in my bed at midnight, so miserable I considered taking another shower just to cool down, when I heard someone say my name.
