Dream Wheels (2 page)

t
hey came up through the draw and he watched the dog run rabbits. He ran low to the ground, his nose skimming the grass, ears flat against his head, tail straight out behind him like a rudder, back paws kicking up tufts of dust so that even in his stealth the flushing of rabbits from the brush took on the illusion of speed. When a hare bolted the dog gave a short burst of pursuit, then idled back into the low prowl again. The man admired the old sheepdog’s determination even though time had erased the speed and agility of its youth. The twenty yards or so of chase was all the dog could manage now, but fourteen years would do that to a dog.

The man wouldn’t mind a smidgen of that exuberance himself if he could get it. It was the best he could do sometimes to saddle up the old buckskin mare and take his evening ride. Old. Geezer. Coot. Funny how when you arrived at that marker, when you finally, irrevocably qualified for it, everything in your life arrived there with you. Old dog, old horse, old
saddle. He laughed to himself. Eighty-four and he could still ride, still saddle his own mount, still muck out the stall and never suffer any ache. He never galloped though. Not anymore. No, him and the old dog and the old horse merely walked now, walked for an hour or so every night down the draw, along the river, through the trees awhile and then back up to the equipment shed to watch the sun go down behind the mountains then moseying homeward before it got too dark to cause the old woman any worry. The dog loped back and walked beside the horse, looking up at the old man as if looking for affirmation.

“I seen ya,” he said. “Them rabbits never had a chance.”

The dog skipped off a few steps and they eased out of the draw and onto the flat where the equipment shed sat at the far end of the main pasture. When they got there he dismounted, dropped the reins so the horse could graze, gave it a rub along the neck and walked toward the shed. He’d built it out here on purpose. It was his place. The one place on the whole ranch where no one interfered. Hell, no one ever really ventured there but him and the dog. It wasn’t much more than boards and beams but it didn’t need to be. Inside it was a maze of gear; tools, tack, saws, plowshares, axes, whiffletrees from the draft team he’d broken the ground with, engine parts, dead radios, a 1950s television, toys, snowshoes, rope, fishing gear and rusted guns. Most people might have labelled it a mess, a confusion of junk, but to him it was a museum. His story was here; the whole range of him in the hump and cluster and shadow and odour of the place. He loved the smell of old leather, oil, rope and wood. The way he figured it, smell was the one sense that allowed you to hold on to things, to remember, recollect, reassemble a life, and he came here to do just that. The dog and him would climb up into the cab of the old truck and he’d roll down the windows and sit there staring at the line and curve
and lurch of everything, remembering with small, satisfied nods of the head. Eventually he’d focus on the panorama laid out beyond the door and he’d sit and smoke and watch the sun go down, the dog’s head laid across his lap.

When he’d first come to this valley there was nothing here but open pastureland and the woman’s dreams. Her family were descendants of the gold miners who’d first opened the valley, and the property the ranch sat on had been hers from the day she was born. Her brother’s and sister’s places were on the adjoining sections. When she brought him here he was incapable of seeing anything but she saw it all. It was like she could see directly into the future, and as they stood there, on a night pretty much like the one he’d just rode through, she told him how it would be. It turned out almost to the word and he loved her for that, though in the beginning he had his share of doubts.

Back then an Indian man and a white woman was still considered a strange union. The fact that he’d been nothing but a rodeo vagabond all his life and she was the product of a settled family with land and money and a local name did nothing to stall the talk when they got here. He drew back some when he was around people but she strode right into a room, daring anyone to say anything to her or about her, and when she introduced him it was with pride and a fierce, visible loyalty. He smiled. Folks never knew enough at first to avoid antagonizing her but they learned quick enough. Couldn’t help but. It took a year or so but when the neighbours and the townsfolk saw his industry, the dawn-to-dark routine he put in building and clearing and stocking the place, the fact he never drank like they expected him to and the fact that he and the woman clearly, outright loved each other, they mellowed and eventually, slowly, invisibly, they crossed the
line into acceptance and, later, admiration. Now, sixty years later, they were merely Lionel and Victoria and the ranch was merely Wolf Creek and the talk was merely about their grandson, Joe Willie, the rodeo champion. Three generations of Wolfchilds had lived on this land and he nodded in satisfaction. She’d known all along that it would work. She’d known all along that love was enough to pan the gold of family out of the rough pastureland of this valley. She’d known all along that the lanky Indian cowboy she fell in love with at the Cheyenne Rodeo was the man she wanted to build it with, and he thanked her in his heart for that wisdom.

The busted kneecap he got in Mesquite in ’42 never healed up right, and after a season of trying to get past it, the bucking and falling got to be too much and he’d had to hang up the spurs. They’d driven here in the truck, with his tack and gear thrown in the back. Rodeo was his blood though, and once they’d got the place up and able to run, it was a natural choice for him to look at how he could still keep a hand in. Stock contracting was the easiest and surest way. With all his connections in the chutes and on the back lots they’d had a built-in market. They’d made the rounds of local rodeos looking for brood stock and the first bull they’d gotten turned out to be a prolific sire of rough-and-tumble bucking bulls. The horses were her concern and she’d proven to have a keen eye for the wild, unpredictable nature required for good bucking broncs. It hadn’t taken long. A few seasons later they were turning out prime rodeo stock every year. He’d given up the trucking end of things when they started to ship too many head and it kept him from the rodeos. He ached for it then, yearned for it like a lost love. But Birch took care of that.

Birch had been a solid rodeo rider. He knew the ins and outs of sticking to a bronc and he understood completely the
narrow hunk of territory he needed to sit to ride a bull and how to stay there. He had a good career. The old truck had gotten Birch around the circuit too, and remembering that the old man reached out and rubbed a small circle of dust from the dashboard. Good truck. Loyal, like it knew its role in the Wolfchild scheme of things and had played it as long as it could. It died about the same time as Birch’s career.

Even though he was in the money more times than not, Birch never made the championship rounds. He was just a good, solid rodeo cowboy, never spectacular, never the whole deal. Not like Joe Willie. Nope, his grandson was a pure natural. Tall and lean, wiry, he was built to ride and from the moment he rode his first sheep you could see that this boy’s butt and the ground were not meant to meet up very often. He rode his first steer at five and from there it was plain to see where he was headed. Birch and he had coached him on the bulls and the woman had taught him horses. He could ride anything. He was a national teen champion every year and when he finally went fulltime with the men it was largely no contest at every rodeo he entered. With a few good rides at the National Finals that night he’d be World Champion All-Round Cowboy: champion in the saddle bronc, bareback and bulls. It took a whole heap of cowboy to accomplish that, and Joe Willie was the purest rider the old man had ever seen. Joe Willie had made it possible for the ranch to become what it had. The championship money, endorsements and appearance fees went into turning the ranch into a successful family enterprise. Wolfchild stock was regarded as the prime rodeo stock to be had, and the family worked hard to maintain both the bloodline and their connection to the sport. For him it was the pleasure of all pleasures to look around him and see his family together in one place bound by the dust and dirt, the scent and sound of rodeo; family ties snug as a latigo strap.

The dog barked and the old man looked up to see her trot a horse up to the door of the shed.

“There’s been an accident,” she said.

“Joe Willie?” he asked.

“Yes. It’s not good, Lionel. It’s not good at all.”

Around him the light faded into night.

Claire Hartley barely moved. She kept her breathing small, short, measured, each dollop of air gauged to keep her awake and maintain the calm, the stillness, the safety of the scant space between the top of her thighs and the back of the man’s. Heat. The radiant warmth of her skin against his offered him sufficient assurance to sleep, snoring rhythmically, one hand thrown backwards, draped over her hip bone, the fingers contouring the curve of her buttocks. The whiskey smell spewed into the room with each snore. It seeped from his skin, hung in the air like the curses from an hour ago, and her throat constricted from its sour, sickly richness.

The sex had been rough. It always was. He’d been demanding from the moment he reeled through the door, sweeping her into a fierce bear hug, feet off the floor, twirling her in a clumping caveman dance around the kitchen, his coarse, unshaven cheeks scraping against the sensitive skin of her neck, chafing, his tongue darting lasciviously against the back of her ear. Then he’d plopped her down on the counter, spread her knees with one large hand and inserted himself there, pulling her closer, plumbing her with his tongue, the tang of ferment from the after-work beers cloying, nearly gagging her, and his hands kneading the press of her rump on the counter. No words. There never were. Only the grunt and moan and mutter of lust and her silence. It’s what hurt the most, her silence, the utter inability to even scream, protest,
challenge the brutish intrusion, the invasion of her. She felt his hardness as he slid her off the counter, wrapped her legs about him only to keep from tumbling them both to the floor and felt the solid urge of him. The pots burbled gently on the stove, their wafted promise ignored, and she reached for the knob as they stumbled past but it slid beyond her outstretched fingers.

He’d thrown her onto the couch. She landed square on her back and bounced twice before her weight settled into the cushions. He’d stood there, unbuckling, unzipping, leering at her, talking now in a garbled mélange of curses and loutish description of her body, his desire, his intentions, his control. She didn’t move. That was her part, the one he wanted her to play, the one he needed performed in order for him to move into the realm he needed to inhabit. Acquiescence. Surrender. He needed surrender. The black woman silent before his power. She waited wordlessly and when he reached upward along her thigh and groped for the thin fabric of underwear, the humping of her rear was a preventative move more than invitation. He yanked them from her. He pulled apart the zipper along the back of the thin sundress and threw it from her. He forgot about the shoes. He always did. Instead he raised her heels above his shoulders and speared downward.