A Feather in the Rain (10 page)

He couldn't remember anything she'd actually said but somehow found comfort in her heartfelt words. He could feel her sharing his anguish and like a mother's kiss on a child's bruise, it lessened
the sting. She wanted to know everything. What happened, how it happened. He heard the pain ragged in her sweet voice as she said, “I'm so sorry,” over and over. “It sounds so useless to say…I feel so badly for you.”

He told her hearing her voice was a big help. Then he tried to lighten the mood, asking about her parents, their horses, and how the video was coming. The small talk wound down under the color of tragedy.

“Well, I guess I'd better let you get some sleep. I'm sorry I called so late…but it took us a while to…”

“It's not late. Jesse…I'm so sorry about Buckshot.”

“Thanks. Anyway…I'll look forward to getting that tape and I am gonna send you a book on cuttin'.”

After he'd hung up the phone, he poured another whiskey and put on his headphones. Bach was soothing but you had to be still enough to listen to get soothed. He took off the phones, rose from the bed, walked to the window and stared out at nothing. He looked up and saw the moon.

A cold loneliness crept about and invaded his being. And not Bach nor Steinbeck nor Patsy Cline, nor John Coltrane was going to take it away.

A
s they stood in the barn near the stall where Buckshot had lived, Jesse wrapped his arm around Abbie while she sobbed and soaked his shirt. He cooked her dinner and they drank a little whiskey and he got her to giggle. Then they went out to the porch and he watched her walk to her quarters in the trailer. She climbed in and shut the door.

The United Parcel truck drove up to the barn to deliver a carton from Colorado. With a feigned lack of concern he took it into the tack room and placed it on the floor in a corner under a wall of hanging bridles. When he came out, Abbie's antennae were quivering as she brushed a horse as if to strip its hide. She had determined not to ask, kill her though it might.

That evening after she'd left for town he fetched the box to the house and placed it on the dining table. He opened his pocketknife and cut the tape. Beneath a layer of plastic peanuts, he fished out the boxed video. He scooped out more white pods and found a jar of
popping corn bearing a hand-made label that said, “For pleasurable viewing, pop this, add butter, then sit back and watch the tape.” He rummaged further and came up with a card. It read, “For Jesse dear, We are so sorry to hear of the great misfortune that has come to you. To lose such a treasured friend, such a valiant beautiful creature. One can only try to imagine. We hope and pray you will find another with which to share your love and your special talent. Holly has helped us to understand and appreciate the unique bond that you have with horses. We hope some day to see you work with them firsthand. Meanwhile, please know that we feel for you and our hearts are with you.” It was signed individually, “Walk in love, Bear and Ruby.”

At the bottom of the carton was one more box wrapped in kid's cowboy paper. He untied the grass twine. He was smiling at the whimsy and care that had gone into this treasure chest. Cramped in the box was a stuffed brown rabbit, more of a rascal than a bunny. One soft ear flopped forward over a twinkling eye. He wore a sly, mischievous grin. Around his neck, a small white folded card was tied with a blue ribbon. In the same careful script, it said, “This is Rabbie the rabbit. He knows you are sad and he wants to make you laugh and pretend you are happy. And then you will be happy. He has left his girlfriend to come and see you. Her name is Bunny Bunny. You might have to fluff him up a little after his journey.” And then a simple one-line sketch of a bird in flight, a falcon, and beneath it the words, “Holly Marie.”

He popped the corn and put in the tape. It touched him deeply to watch the kids so young, bent, and twisted before they'd had a chance to live. The boy he'd put on the horse, Daniel, expended more energy to walk twenty feet than Jesse would to unload a hundred bales of hay. He wondered if God gave them an extra measure of strength and courage, or did it come in the same package as the ailment? He looked at the wall clock and wondered if it was too late to call her. What would he say? He could thank her. Tell her what a great job he thought she had done with the tape. Just pick up the
damn phone. He swore he'd do it in the morning. He wanted to think about it.

He held the book cover open with a pen in his hand. He clawed at his head as if the plowing would produce an inspired inscription certain to cause her to think of him as a person of value. At last the pen began to move. He drove to the post office, special. Then he went back to the house and stared at the phone as if it were a rattler.

Her voice like warm honey sweetened his mind. She was delighted to hear him tell what a treat the treasure chest was. “I thought the tape was really inspirational. It made me want to send you money.”

“Well, thank you. That is very nice to hear.”

“I was amazed. The way you put together the most beautiful moments out of the whole event. How'd you learn how to do that?”

“Oh, I've always been interested in film…and writing. I took some classes in New York.”

“You've sure got a talent.”

“Thank you. Did Rabbie cheer you up?”

“I smile every time I look at him. I've got him set up where he can keep an eye on everything.”

“Make sure you keep him fed on that popcorn.”

“Oh, I will. He's lookin' good. I sent you a book on cuttin'. When you get everything in that book down, you can teach me.”

“That'll be the day.”

“How are Bear and Ruby doing?”

“They're fine. I might be bringing Bear some business. One of the big car dealers who was a sponsor of the event saw my tape and was quite impressed. We had a meeting to talk about me creating a commercial for him. So I got Bear involved and it looks real good so far.”

“That is wonderful. It's good to hear that things are working out for you.” He was running out of talking steam and didn't want to keep her on the phone too long to where she might be wanting off and too nice to say so. “If…if…uh…if it's okay, I'll…call again
and see how you're…doing…with the book and the horses and…everything.”

“That would be nice…”

“Okay. Well…take care then. And thanks again for everything. It was really neat.”

“You, too. Bye.”

“Bye…” Whew. He felt as if he'd been holding his breath. Why did she make him so damn nervous? Anyway, he walked with a lighter step when he left the house to go to the barn. He tried to think about what she might be wearing and how she had her hair fixed. He tried to imagine her room as he stepped into the saddle and turned toward the arena.

I
t was a girl's room with redwood walls. Ancestral portraits in antique silver frames, straw hats dangling ribbons on wood pegs, an old steamer trunk with brass hardware, miles of shoes and boots by European craftsmen, and a pair of worn, lug-soled hiking boots. Pale cotton curtains rippled in the night breeze. A candle flickered in an old pewter holder. Dried prairie flowers sprouted from a porcelain vase on the marble top of an old English chest of drawers. A silver hand mirror and hairbrushes had belonged to Grandmama. Bunny Bunny, Rabbie's girlfriend, sat next to the brushes with her back against the wall.

Holly had her elbows on the windowsill, gazing at the darkened prairie night, smelling the grass and listening to coyotes yapping on a hill. The wind had lost its warmth. She shut the window, pulled off her jeans and her brother's flannel shirt. She stepped out of lacy white panties and unhooked her bra. She stretched her arms over her head walking to the oak-framed mirror on the wall and looked at herself sculpted in the candlelight. With her left arm reaching for the ceiling, she stroked its length from fingertips to her shoulder. Trailing her fingers across the back of her neck under her hair and
then down to her breast, she cupped its small weight and circled the pink nipple with her thumb. She stroked the flat smoothness of her belly till her fingers felt the soft fringe along the humid grotto. She rotated her head slowly letting it fall back and roll to the side feeling the silky stroke of hair across her shoulders. She shivered and turned to the bed.

H
e walked from stall to stall stroking and murmuring seductive whispers to velvet ears. He climbed slowly up the stairs to Zack's loft.

Dozer watched him lie back on the bed then flopped to the floor with a groan, fixing his head on a paw. Jesse closed his eyes and let his mind wander in the darkness.

The golden boy, Damien, was looking tarnished in the fluorescent coldness of the hospital room. The glow was gone. A complex network of wires and tubes crawled in and out of him to and from plastic cocoons and metered nests with blinking lights and numbered graphs. He was still as death but for the rhythmic hissing of the machine that moved his chest up and down in a parody of breathing. It was an image burned forever in Jesse's brain as he sat there. It had been five days with no change, not a blink, not a hair moving. Jesse had gently lifted an eyelid that seemed not fully shut and saw a pale lifeless pupil that had once been bright and blue. He borrowed scissors from a nurse and cut a lock of platinum hair,
a final desperate clutch at something he could hold onto, evidence that his son had been here. He knew as he looked at the body on the bed that the spirit of Damien no longer occupied it. He kissed him anyway on the cheek and held the big lifeless hand for a moment and left the room. He had already signed the forms.

The scene played over and over in his mind. It would sneak up and assault him like a mugger by surprise. Often, he could cut it off and think of something else—fishing in a mountain stream, wildflowers and log cabins, cold chicken, and music. But then he didn't ever want to forget his son, so he'd try to remember the good times, the laughter, the joys of firsts, the letting go as he found his balance on the bike, his first time driving the tractor. But this time he decided to let it play out. He wanted to feel the emotions rip through him, tear him up, and fling him about. He wanted to allow it to envelop him without resistance…like crawling into a python for a look at its innards.

Jesse's eyes were closed but he knew, at the same instant Dozer did. The dog made a sound, lifted his head, got to his feet and stared at the wall with that quizzical look and whimpered, wagging his tail. Jesse sat up and saw his son in the moonlight.

Jesse heard the words in his brain. “Dad…I'm all right now. I'm sorry. You couldn't have done anything more than you did. It was meant to be the way it was. I know you love me and I am with you. I love you, Dad.”

“Oh…Jesus…” he hadn't breathed. “I love you, Damien. I miss you so much…” His heart drummed in his throat. He stood and extended his arm as his son began to vanish like a vapor in a breeze. Dozer whined and brushed against his leg. He reached down and stroked his head, then headed for the door.

Stars glittered in the black above the thick twisted cottonwood behind the barn. Moonlight filtered through the flutter of leaves overhead as he sat on the plank swing hung low enough for a boy's legs. He pushed himself in a slow circle, leaned his full weight back on the ropes, looked up at the swirl of stars, and felt his head begin to swim.

A
pale rolling mist enveloped everything beyond a few feet from the porch. Light from the barn glowed dimly in the distant gray. Ricardo was up and beginning to feed.

He had been holding the pen poised above the pad long enough to have written a thousand words but the page was blank. He mauled his face, took a last swallow of cool black coffee, a deep breath and wrote the words, “Dear Holly Marie…” and then he stopped and pondered. The risen sun had routed the mist by the time he'd penned a page. He had read and reread, scratched out, and rewritten and even gone in to get a dictionary. He closed the pad, went into the house, scrambled eggs, and drank more coffee. Then he went out to work.