A Good Horse (24 page)

“I don’t know that it is convenient,” said Mom when he got off the phone.

Daddy said, “I think we have to make it convenient. I think that was the tone of his voice underneath all the polite language.”

As for me, I didn’t care if it was convenient or not. I
thought it would be very convenient for Jack and me to have a little walk down to the crick and to see what was going on down there. I did not think it would be at all convenient for this Raymond Matthews to see how beautiful and long-legged Jack was or to look at the cowlick in his forelock.

Daddy said, “ ‘Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.’ Our faith is that all of this will turn out for the best.” He patted me on the head, and I decided once again that I dared not pray. The rules were the rules, and they could easily go against you, if you understood them or if you didn’t. So the best thing to do was just not think about it. Daddy said, “Do you understand, Ruth Abigail?”

I nodded.

Mom gave me a kiss on the cheek and squeezed my hand.

It was dark when I went out to the gelding pasture—cloudy night, no moon, chilly wind. It was November, after all, just that time of year when Pearl had been wandering around Oklahoma only a year ago. Just that time of year when Danny had moved out. I thought about myself, a year ago in seventh grade, and I seemed like such an idiot. Well, not an idiot, more like a dope. What did I know then? Not much, just to do as I was told, at home and at school. I never wondered whether doing as I was told made sense or worked out, or even why I was doing as I was told, I just did it.

I climbed onto the gate of the gelding pasture and sat on the top rail, with my heels resting on the third rail down. Lincoln and Jefferson were under one of the trees, so much in the dark that I could hardly see the difference between them. They
would be good horses all their lives, and well taken care of—they didn’t make trouble, they were pretty good-looking, and they weren’t nervous. They always did what they were told to do, and even Mom could ride them. That was a one hundred percent good thing, until you looked at Jack.

Jack was not coming over to me because he was out in the middle of the pasture, where there was a little rise, and he was engaged in a project of his own—first he arched his neck and trotted in a semicircle, then he squealed and struck out, as if he had an enemy, then he reared up and galloped about three strides, then kicked out. Then he came back down to that snorty trot and turned the other way. It was like he was playing with an imaginary friend—a shadow on the grass or the ghost of Black George. He reared up again and walked two or three steps on his hind legs, then snorted and galloped forward. Jack was too young to do as he was told, and that was part of his beauty—who he was, how he was different from all other horses, showed up when he was not doing as he was told.

Then I saw Rusty jump the fence. She didn’t jump it like a horse, she jumped it like a dog—that is, putting her forepaws on the top of the fence and pushing off—but even so, it was quite a jump, and I had never seen her do that before. Jack saw her, too, and reared up. Once she was over the fence, she crouched down for a moment, then crept toward Jack, her tail swinging slowly but silently. Jack stopped what he was doing and turned toward her, his ears pricked, his neck arched, and his tail up. At the very moment that he whinnied, she raced toward him, and I thought she was going to chase him again, the way she had that first time, but then a shape rose out of the grass and ran away, zigzagging in front of Jack for a moment,
then skittering to his right. Rusty was on it in a heartbeat, bringing it down and then crouching over it, shaking it. Jack reared up, wheeled, and trotted away, tossing his head.

I jumped down from the gate and walked toward Rusty, but slowly, remembering that, really, Rusty seemed like a nice dog, but we did not know her. I stopped a few steps back. She had dropped her prey. Now she walked away from it, over to me, wagging her tail. I said, “What is that, Rusty? What is that?”

It was a bobcat—I could tell by the big ears with little tufts of hair at the tips and the short tail that it wasn’t one of the barn cats, though it was about the same size. It lay in the grass, its head twisted to one side, completely dead. Rusty had done a good job of that. It wasn’t full-grown—a full-grown bobcat is about twice the size of a house cat and four times tougher. If she had killed one of those, there would have been more of a fight, I thought.

I looked around. Jack had moved off but was still staring at us. Right then, he put his nose to the ground and snuffled the grass for a second, then raised his head and snorted again. When I approached him, he backed up. Then I backed up, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you want a horse to come toward you, but he stood where he was. I watched him for a minute, then decided that I would just leave him alone. I headed for the gate. Rusty followed me. On the porch, she went over to her blanket and curled up on it, her nose facing out.

Mom and Daddy were reading in the living room. Daddy said, “Isn’t it time for you to go to bed?”

I said, “Rusty just killed a bobcat.”

Both of them sat straight up. Mom said, “What?”

“Rusty just killed a bobcat in the gelding pasture. She jumped the fence and went straight for it. You should come and see.”

Mom put on a sweater and we went out.

By this time, Jack was over under the trees with Lincoln and Jefferson. From the gate, you could see a dark patch in the grass, but you couldn’t see what it was until you got up to it. Rusty didn’t come with us. She went as far as the gate but sat down just inside the pasture and watched us. She didn’t look embarrassed or worried. She looked like she knew she had done a job that needed to be done.

The dead bobcat was not in exactly the same position it had been when I left it. I said, “Jack must have moved it.”

“What do you mean?” said Daddy.

“It was bent the other way. I think Jack was sniffing it while we were in the house.”

Mom said, “Don’t you wonder what sort of life those horses are living out here when we’re minding our own business in the house?”

Daddy said, “He’s an inquisitive fellow, that’s for sure.”

I said, “When I came out before, I thought he was just playing around, but I think the bobcat was crouched down, and he was—I don’t what he was doing, but he was excited. Rearing up and snorting. Lots of things. Then Rusty jumped the fence and went for it like an arrow. At first, I thought she was going for Jack again.”

“Why would she kill a bobcat?” said Mom.

“Protecting the place, probably,” said Dad. “I’ve really never seen a dog take her responsibilities so seriously.”

Mom said, “She never looks twice at the barn cats. It’s
like they don’t exist. I don’t think she would ever chase or kill one.”

The way Jack had moved the bobcat showed how young the bobcat was. The others I’d seen walking here and there on the hillsides had huge hind legs, longer than the front legs, muscular and strong. Their hair, even from a distance, looked thick and rough, nothing you would want to pet. This one was neither as tall nor as brawny as those had been. Its hair was thick, but not ratty the way it would get as the cat aged. I didn’t feel much for the bobcat at the moment. Bobcats were mysterious and the opposite of friendly. When a bobcat looked at you, you never had the sense that it could ever feel anything for you.

And then there were the other things about cats, even the barn cats. One of my worst memories was coming into the barn one day when I was really young, maybe five, and two of the barn cats had a mouse between them. The mouse was running back and forth. The cats never let it get away, but they also didn’t kill it. They cared about it when it moved, but when it crouched in terror, they forgot about it and licked their paws. Mom wouldn’t let me watch it for long, but a few minutes was long enough—I cried myself to sleep that night and hated the barn cats for weeks afterward. Daddy just kept saying, “Cats are cats.”

Well, dogs are dogs, too, and Rusty, for whatever reason, was a killer. It gave me a funny feeling, and I was sad when I went to bed.

R
AYMOND
M
ATTHEWS SHOWED UP IN A WHITE
C
ADILLAC
. I
HAD
just gotten off the school bus and was about halfway to the house when this car started honking. It took me a minute or two to realize that I was supposed to run back and get the gate for whoever was there. I opened both sides and then stood there while he drove his long white car through. He didn’t wave, but he did lift one finger off the steering wheel as a thank-you. I got to the house just as Daddy was coming out to meet him, a big smile on his face. Raymond Matthews glanced at me but didn’t say anything. I stood there for a second, then went inside to change my clothes. It was pretty clear that they didn’t think this visit was any of my business, but I didn’t agree with that. As I was heading out the door, Mom came into the
kitchen, and I heard her say, “Abby—” but by that time, I was halfway to the barn.

I could see the two men by the gate to the gelding pasture. Daddy had the training halter in his hand and was just undoing the gate latch. I ran. As he was pushing open the gate, I came up to him and took the halter out of his hand, and said, “I’ll do it.”

I knew he wouldn’t get on me with a stranger around. Raymond Matthews stepped back, like I was going to bump into him and get his suit and his shiny black shoes dirty. He was wearing a hat, too—not a Stetson, or even a straw hat, but a fancy black thing kind of down over one eye. I was sure he thought himself very handsome.

Jack and Lincoln were eating the last of the noon hay. Jefferson was chewing a board of the fence, which he stopped doing when Daddy clapped his hands at him and said, “Hey!”

Jack was friendly—he walked right over and checked my hands, thinking I might have a carrot or a bit of bread. Lincoln came after him, thinking, I was sure, that if there was something, he had first dibs. I patted Jack and slipped the rope around his neck, then I asked him to back up a half step and lower his head, which he did quite agreeably. By the time Lincoln had arrived to nudge him out of the way, I had the training halter on him. I flicked the end of the rope at Lincoln, who tossed his head as if to say, Well, who cares, anyway? He wandered back to the last of the hay. I had Jack step over a couple of times to the right and then a couple of times to the left, just to make sure he wasn’t harboring any mischief. I also had him back up a step or two. He was fine. It was a warm day
and he was full of hay. I turned and walked toward the gate, and Jack followed right along, not pushing ahead.

Daddy and Raymond Matthews were watching us. I wasn’t sure what I wanted Jack to do. Maybe I wanted him to look weedy and small and unimpressive just so that Raymond Matthews would decide that Jack wasn’t worth his time and get in his car and drive away. But I was very used to being proud of his size and strength and grace and speed, and more than that, it wasn’t so much pride as love and amazement. If something was beautiful, you wanted it to keep being beautiful, no matter what. You just couldn’t help yourself.