Death of a Kleptomaniac (8 page)

I guess I'm not a fan of the horse after all. I mean, these look like they're on steroids or something. Tate tries to calm me down.

“They're more afraid of you than you are of them.”

“Who said I'm afraid?” I ask.

“You haven't gotten out of the car yet.”

I look at him and then I look around inside the car's immaculate backseat. He's right. It's time to exit the vehicle.

“I need to tell Wyatt something,” Tate says, glancing over his shoulder. “I'll be right back.”

Wyatt and Denise have already picked out their horses. I've decided that they're a mildly weird couple. And seated on their big, tan, glossy horses, they only look weirder. Tate and Wyatt talk, and I suck in deep breaths. It smells like a minty cough drop inside the car. It's the air freshener. I look between the front seats, at the dashboard. I see a plastic ladybug dangling from the cigarette lighter. Who knew air fresheners came in such cute packaging? I look back out the window. Nobody is watching. I reach forward and unloop the ladybug from the lighter's knob. Then I shove the plastic bug into my jacket pocket. I zip it closed.

When I look back at Tate and Wyatt I begin to grow concerned that they're planning something. But that's stupid. What could they be planning? Because Wyatt has the most riding experience, it was decided on the way up that he would ride the lead horse.

I watch that horse strike his front hoof against the ground, sort of like he's trying to dig into the earth and make a hole. Until now, I hadn't realized that horses had an innate desire to dig. I pictured them more as sleigh and carriage pullers.

Tate walks back to the car smiling. I know it's time for me to get out and join everybody. If I stay in the car any longer I'll look too weird to date. I open my door a crack.

I walk toward Tate and the horses. From the road, or inside my television, they have always seemed about my height, not this massive. In actuality, I only go up to a horse's tail. A man has already unloaded the towering animals from a trailer. He's saddled them and done whatever else you do to a horse before a person mounts it and rides it through the mountains.

“This is Peppa,” says Tate, leading a white horse with black speckles toward me. “He'll be your horse. I'll be riding Salt.” Salt is a black horse. Because I doubt cowboys have a sense of irony, clearly these horses have been misnamed.

“What are the names of their horses?” I ask, pointing to Wyatt and Denise. Their horses are both gargantuan and tan.

“Pickles and Ballerina.”

I wonder if Wyatt renamed them for comic effect, or if these are their actual names.

“Who's riding Pickles?” I ask.

“Denise.”

I look at my horse and can see right up its cavernous nostrils. Then it opens its mouth. Oh my god. I never realized that horses had such enormous teeth. I thought they were vegetarians and just ate grain. I take hold of Peppa's reins. He pulls his head back and whinnies.

“Horses can sense fear,” Tate says.

I frown at my horse, hoping I'll be able to confuse him. Maybe he'll think I'm not afraid, but ticked off. We walk our horses over to Wyatt and Denise, who are already perched in their saddles.

“The air smells like a mountain,” Denise says.

Of course, at that very moment, my horse releases a well-timed fart. Everybody looks at me. I look disapprovingly at Peppa's back end.

“Do you need help?” Tate asks, pointing to my saddle horn.

“I think I can do it.”

I slip my boot into the stirrup and pull myself up off the ground. For some dumb reason, Peppa starts walking toward the brush, and I haven't even slung my leg over yet. I'm not even on him.

“Whoa!” I say.

Tate smiles as he watches me hoist myself onto my moving horse.

“Nice job, Lone Ranger,” Wyatt says. “Last one down the trail owes the rest of us fifty bucks.”

“Wyatt,” Denise says. “Molly might not know that you're joking.”

Does Denise think I'm developmentally challenged? I didn't really think I'd owe anybody fifty bucks. Denise keeps explaining how this is a joke.

“The horses are trained to follow each other single file, and you're the lead horse. Of course, Molly, you'll be the last one there.”

“That's fine,” I say. I hadn't expected my date to be a race.

“Now that we understand the equine mind, let's get this party started,” Wyatt says. He lightly kicks his boots against Ballerina's side and she starts to move.

“We can give them a little leeway,” Tate says. “We don't have to stick right at their heels.”

But Peppa seems to want to follow them very closely. He's rushing to stay with the lead horse. Tate angles his horse across the path, blocking Peppa's progress.

“Once Ballerina is out of sight, he'll loosen up. He won't want to hurry.”

“Okay.”

Then Peppa releases an excruciatingly long fart. It's like my horse is part whoopee cushion.

“Do they feed them a pure bean diet?” I ask.

“Some horses are just gassier than others, I guess.”

Tate makes Salt walk right next to Peppa. I don't think that they're used to walking shoulder to shoulder like this. They seem to want to walk single file, like Denise said. But after a few minutes, they settle down. Tate is full of questions. He asks about Tigerettes.

“Why do you like it so much?” he asks.

I don't know why he assumes that I like it that much.

“I don't know,” I say. “I want to be part of something. When high school is over I want to be able to look back and say, I did that.”

“You really think ahead,” Tate says.

I'm not quite sure how to take that comment. Is he judging me? There's nothing wrong with thinking ahead. High school will be over in two years. I'm not thinking that far ahead. “I want to get the most out of everything,” I explain. “Life is for living.” Ooh. That sounded cheesy. Why am I suddenly saying cheesy things?

“And that means being a Tigerette?” Tate asks.

“This year it does,” I say defensively. It sounds like he hates our drill team. Which is not cool. He's an athlete. He should appreciate us.

I let Salt and Peppa walk in silence, their hooves clomping against the hard dirt trail.

We pass a thick bank of trees that have already dropped their fall leaves. Our horses mash over them. “I bet this place had gorgeous foliage.”

“So you're a leaf peeper,” Tate says in a joking voice.

“I would never use the word ‘peeper' to describe myself,” I say.

“I don't know. I like it. Peeper,” Tate says. “I might start calling you that.”

“I'm sixteen. You cannot start calling me Peeper. I won't allow it.” I like that Tate is playful. But he's also more immature than I realized. Unlike Henry, who is considerably more mature than I realized. Why am I still thinking about Henry?

“I thought you were seventeen,” Tate says.

“No, not until February.”

“Seventeen's great. It's like the beginning of everything.”

I've heard that about sixteen, eighteen, and twenty-one, but never seventeen.

“That's when things really started happening for me,” he says.

It sort of sounds like he's talking about losing his virginity. Is that what he means? I guess seventeen is a reasonable age for that. I don't personally feel ready to be deflowered. It's always struck me as a good idea to hold on to that for as long as possible.

Tate steers Salt so close to my horse that his legs and my legs touch. From the corner of my eye, I see Tate reach for my thigh.

“Hey, Peeper, make Peppa stop.”

I need to break him of this nickname as politely as I can. I pull back lightly on the reins and Peppa stands still. Salt has stopped, too. Tate leans over and slides his hand beneath my hair, setting it on the nape of my neck. I lean toward him and close my eyes. I think I smell ham. Or baloney. Finally, I will be able to compare his kisses to Henry's kisses. My lips actually tingle in anticipation. Then I realize something terrible. There's no way this can happen. I'm leaning too far already and our lips aren't even close. Kissing on horseback, unless you're on the same horse, is essentially impossible.

“I can't,” I say.

“Why?” he asks.

“I'll fall,” I say.

He seems to believe me.

“Maybe at the end,” I say.

“Maybe?” he asks.

“Most likely at the end,” I say. My mind flashes to Henry and our make-out session. I really wish my mind would stop doing that.

Tate pulls away from me and sits up in his saddle.

“Wow,” he says. “In addition to the pine trees I think I can smell eucalyptus.”

I look down at the ground. The scent of the air freshener wafts out of my pocket the way the smell of baking bread escapes an oven. Taking it was a bad decision. At the first chance I have, I need to throw it into a bush and get rid of it.

Tate kicks Salt lightly in the side and makes a clicking sound with his mouth.

“We should get going,” he says.

I nod and smile. Peppa clops along just fine for a bit. But then he starts trying to wander off into the brush again. Like maybe there's a fresh can of beans out there just waiting to be devoured.

“Come on,” I encourage in a stern voice.

“You okay?” Tate asks.

Salt and Tate have pulled ahead of us quite a bit. I'm not panicked or anything, but I don't want Peppa to start backtracking. I kick him lightly in the sides. He lowers his head to the ground and chomps off the head of a tuft of weeds.

“Kick him again,” Tate says.

I try, but he wanders farther off the trail.

“Peppa, go back to the trail,” I say.

Tate coaxes Salt off the trail.

“We're on our way,” he says.

But he's at least a basketball court away, and I'm starting to feel nervous. I think Tate can sense this.

“You're fine,” he says.

Right as he says that, I hear somebody shaking a maraca. Peppa tries to go in reverse, but the sound grows louder. Then, suddenly, Peppa is standing on his back legs. His front legs look like they're trying to climb a ladder into the sky. There's no way for me to stay in the saddle. As I'm tumbling off the back end of the horse, I can see something moving on the ground. It looks like a piece of rope. It flashes. Then it's gone. I feel pain. First in my butt and then in my head. And then I don't feel anything.

When I wake up, I'm alone. I'm lying in the brush and there's a white horse tied to a woody shrub. Wait. That's my horse. That's Peppa. I try to lift my head, but it hurts. I reach up and touch it, and my hand gets wet. I pull my hand away and look at it. It's covered in blood. Crap. It's my blood. I've hit my head. Where's Tate? I rest my head back in the dirt.

How much blood have I lost? I remember reading somewhere that nothing bleeds like a head wound. I think I'm supposed to apply pressure to it. Again, I reach up to touch the cut. This time I realize that I'm not touching my head. Something is tied around my head. I can feel buttons. And a pocket. I pull on a piece of loose fabric and lift up the sleeve of Tate's shirt. Wow, if I wasn't bleeding to death by myself in the wilderness, I would think that gesture was so sweet.

I let the sleeve fall to the ground. I can't believe this is happening. God, my butt feels like it has a rock wedged deep beneath the skin. It feels like it's swelling. Did I land on a patch of thistle? I can't find a comfortable position. It's too painful to even try to shift the weight of my body, so I lie flat on my back in the dirt.

As I breathe, I notice something rising and falling on my chest. It's a small rock. When I push it off, a piece of paper flies away. Using my right hand, I smash the paper flat to the ground, then drag it back to me. As I raise it up, I see that it's a note. But it's hard to read. Things are blurry. How hard did I hit my head? It's from Tate. I make out his signature and take a few breaths. As I squint, trying to make the words come into focus, pain pumps through me. I manage to get through the note anyway.

Molly,

I've gone to get help. You fell and hit your head. Peppa is tied to a bush. Back soon.

Love, Tate

Holy crap! He used the word love. I know it probably doesn't mean anything. He was probably just in a hurry and that's how he signs all of his notes. Weird. He doesn't love me. Does he? I read it again. Then everything is so blurry that I have to put the note away. I retrieve the rock and set it right on my chest again, where Tate left it. But I keep holding the note. I close my eyes. I bet he'll be here with help really soon.

We're not that far away from the trailhead. I bet whoever comes to get me will be able to drive a truck right to this spot. I mean, people get hit on the head all the time. It's not like I've fallen down an inaccessible cliff and broken all my bones. I try to calm myself down by telling myself that the more I relax, the better I'll feel. But, that's a lie. I'm in agony.

I open my eyes again. That's when I remember it. The ladybug. I need to get rid of the air freshener. Nobody can find that in my pocket. That discovery would be the worst thing that has ever happened to me. Tate would learn that I was a thief. He wouldn't like me anymore. He might even hate me. Or think I was crazy. He'd never trust me. I try to open my pocket. I can't. Opening the zipper feels impossible. My fingers won't bend. I can't make myself move the way I need to move. Of all the ways to get caught. A ladybug air freshener? How humiliating.

At least I'm not alone. I have a horse to keep me company. I look in Peppa's direction. He's eating a patch of grass. I sure wish I could've fallen in a soft patch of grass. My butt would feel a whole lot better. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something small and black on the ground. It's near my face and moving closer to me. It's a tick! Wait. It's a beetle.

I press my lips closed and feel it crawl across my mouth. I bet it has mandibles. Beetles bite, right? Indiscriminately? It walks right up to the cave of my right nostril. Am I going to have a beetle stuck in my nasal cavity? Is that even possible? It kills me to move, but I turn my head quickly and the beetle races away from my nose and traipses across my cheek, tickling me in a horrible way. I jerk my head the other direction. The blurred beetle climbs off me and crawls through the dirt, out of view.

Unless Tate returns within the next couple of minutes, more bugs will be crawling on me. I need to come up with ways to keep them off. How? My mind isn't able to think of any ideas. I close my eyes and open them again. The sun is up. At least I'm not cold. Wait. I think I have an idea. I will kill all future bugs by swatting them with the rock on my chest. I reach up and take hold of the rock.

I notice that my fingers tingle. My toes too. Even my lips. And they don't tingle like in the way when Tate almost kissed me. It's like something is seriously wrong. I bet I've injured my spinal cord. I bet its juices are leaking inside of me and I'm going to lose feeling in all of my extremities. I'm going to be a paraplegic. Maybe even a quadriplegic. I never should have told Tate that I liked horses. I glare at Peppa like I want him to die. He doesn't even look at me. Then he takes a foul-smelling dump downwind of me. Thanks.

The Magic 8 Ball was wrong. I
did
fall off my stupid horse.

I close my eyes and try to forget about the tingling and the bleeding and the awful smell of hot, fresh dung. I fall inside of myself to a place like sleep, but it's not quite sleep, because I'm in constant pain. I feel other bugs tripping across my hands and face. I don't have the energy to hit them with the rock. They feel small. I don't think they're biting me. Normally, I'd be freaked out, but it's almost a relief, because at least I can still feel them.

I hear an engine. Is it my imagination? No; why would I imagine an engine? I open my eyes, and the whole world, even the soft blue sky, is blurred. I don't try to angle my head to see a truck. My head aches. Tate is at my side. I can feel him holding my hand. He's with two guys I've never seen before, with puffy gray beards. Wait. There's only one guy. I'm totally seeing double.

“It's not too bad,” he tells Tate. “We'll drive her to the hospital.”

Tate gives my hand three quick squeezes.

“You're going to be just fine,” the man says. “I've seen a lot of injuries over the years, and your head wound is small potatoes.”

I feel a little offended by this comment. I mean, he's marginalizing my head wound. Then this guy yells for some other guy named Darrell to take Peppa and get Wyatt and Denise. He tells Darrell to bring them to the hospital.

“Don't I need an ambulance?” I ask.

My mouth feels different; it's slick with spit. It takes effort for me to speak.

“It'd take longer to wait for one,” he says.

“Actually, I called 911 at your office. I gave them directions to the trailhead,” Tate says.

I hear sirens approaching. I'm so relieved. I don't know who this two-headed bearded guy is, but clearly he's no medical doctor. I've only taken two semesters of biology and I'm certain my injuries aren't “small potatoes.” Even the way the paramedics slam their doors and run to me gives me more comfort than my original rescuer.

“What's her name?” the first paramedic asks.

“Molly Weller,” Tate says.

“Molly, do you know what day it is?”

I focus all my energy to answer. “Saturday.”

“Do you know where you are?”

Again, an answer takes all my energy. “In the dirt.”

“How did you get in the dirt?”

I can't keep answering these questions. “My horse dumped me.”

“Does your head hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Do you hurt anywhere else?”

I know I should say that my butt hurts, but I'm so tired. And that's embarrassing. And really, isn't a head wound far more serious than a butt wound? I don't tell the paramedic.

“My head,” I mumble.

“We're going to put you on this board and lift you into the ambulance. I want you to stay awake.”

I blink, and hope that the paramedic understands that this means I heard him and will try to stay awake. I reach up and grab the note, and the rock tumbles off of me. When they roll me onto the board, I moan.

“You're okay,” the bearded man says.

He has no idea whether or not I'm okay. I'm the one inside my injured body.

The paramedics load me into the ambulance, and Tate tells me that he'll be riding in front with the driver. He squeezes my hand.

On the drive to the hospital, the medic spends a lot of time dealing with my head wound. He takes off Tate's makeshift bandage and dresses it properly. After he's cleaned my wound and applied fresh bandages, the medic sits back and takes a deep breath. There's a lot of beeping machines back here. I feel like I'm tucked inside a metal lunch box. My fingers are so tingly that I loosen my grip on the note, and it falls. The paramedic picks it up and hands it back to me.

“‘Love Tate,'” he says. “Sounds serious.”

“It's our first date,” I say. My voice is barely a whisper.

“You'll remember this one for a long time.”

I nod. And close my eyes.

“Stay awake, Molly,” the medic says. His voice is stern.

I don't think I can stay awake.

“Does your girlfriend have any preexisting medical conditions?” the paramedic yells.

He sounds so worried.

“I don't think so,” Tate shouts. “She might be recovering from the flu.”

No
, I want to tell them.
That's not right. Not the flu.
Ruthann. I am recovering from Ruthann.

“Molly, I need you to be a good girl and stay awake for me.”

I feel the medic lightly slap my cheeks. He's not trying to hurt me. He wants to reach me. I know this because I'm falling somewhere inside of myself again. Falling to a place deeper than I've ever fallen before.

“Molly! Be good,” he says. “Stay with me.”

Be good? Stay with you? I don't think I can. Things feel out of my hands. The word
good
ricochets through me. I'm not good. Just ask Sadie. Or Joy. Or the ladybug air freshener.
Be good? Stay with you?
I haven't been good for a long time. How can I start now?

The paramedic may still be yelling at me, but I can't hear him anymore. The sirens have faded away too. Maybe we've arrived at the hospital and everybody is being very quiet. But why would they do that? I'm on the verge of letting out a big breath. I don't feel like myself anymore. My body feels light and feathery. Like I've been turned into air. I don't think I'm even in my body anymore. It feels like I'm rising, floating above everything. Myself. The paramedic. Tate. The ambulance. Wyoming. Everything.