Ghost Medicine (30 page)

It was almost winter before I was fit to go back to work at the ranch. And when I did, Mr. Benavidez called me in to see him right away. I thought he was going to fire me, but he didn't. I guess I thought the whole world was mad at me, and maybe I was expecting to be punished. I don't know.

I walked even more crooked than Tommy did from that snakebite, and the worst part about that was that it hurt me to run, which I tried to do the same day they took that cast off of me. But I didn't care about the pain, I would run anyway.

And I didn't blame Reno, either.

So maybe that horse medicine we all had that night at the edge of the pond worked at putting forgiveness in me, but I never saw myself as holding a grudge anyway. Especially against a horse.

“It's nice to see you up and looking like your old self. Come in, Troy,” Mr. Benavidez said at the door to his office. He shook my hand, almost carefully, as I thought about what my old self must have looked like.

I was a little nervous, but I didn't care anymore if he wanted to fire me, or even if he told me that I could never see Luz again, because I already knew what I was going to do; no matter what. I held my hat in front of me and limped over to the leather chair in front of his desk.

“I don't want you to worry about anything, Troy. You seem nervous. I've talked with Gabriel and Luz. And, well, Gabriel thinks the world of you. I'm sure you know, he thinks of you as his brother.”

I looked down at my hands.

“I'm ready to work.”

“Then you should go.”

I stopped at the door, my back turned to Mr. Benavidez as he lit a cigar. “Your son saved my life. That's all. We would've both died without him.”

I heard him puff that cigar. Without turning around, I left, closing the door behind me. And I thought,
That old fool probably thinks his son did something wrong again. He doesn't even know his own son. Or his daughter.

I hadn't seen Luz in weeks, and I felt like it was making me sick. I hadn't slept, and every time I thought about her my mouth would dry up and I'd get that lump in my throat. So I'd call her, but hearing her voice would even make me feel crazier about getting out, just so I could see her again.

And she was waiting for me just outside the front door of that big house. It was windy and clear and cold. The willows had lost nearly all of their leaves, scattered like yellow scales and feathers below them. I had buttoned up my coat and was straightening my hat when I saw her there.

“You look good,” she said.

“You look better,” I said. “It hurts sometimes. Like today.” I looked right at her. Her hair was down, the color of those willow leaves, spilling over the upturned collar of her coat. Her eyes were shining, smiling at me. “I miss you, Luz. I miss you so much. Being here with you. I hope everything's gonna be okay now.”

She grabbed my hand. “Can I walk with you over to the barns?”

“I bet your dad's watching.”

“I know he is,” she said. “I told him I'm going to see you. That's all.”

We walked out the little gate, past the willows where Gabriel and I had dug that fort, holding hands. I could almost smell the cigar, feel his eyes on my back. And at that moment I almost wished the barns were a hundred miles away, just so we could walk like that, with him watching, wondering about me, wondering about what had happened; so I held on tight to his daughter's hand and resisted the urge I had to glance back over my shoulder to the window where I knew he'd be.

“I'm coming back to school next week, Luz.”

“There go my grades.”

We were out of sight of the house now. “Can I kiss you?”

She grabbed my collar with both of her hands and pulled herself into me, combing her fingers through my hair, over the spot where I had all those stitches.

“It's all healed,” I said. “But look, my hair's shorter there. And it's brown.” I took my hat off and turned around, and felt her fingers working through my hair, parting it to see the scar. She raised up on her toes and kissed me there.

“I need to talk to Gabey,” I said.

We started on toward the stables. “I want you to, Troy. He's not doing good.”

“I knew it. I know. I'll take him out on a ride. Maybe tomorrow after work. Will you tell him for me? Tell him to be ready, okay? Make him go.”

“He needs that.”

“So do I. I haven't even been up on a horse …” I didn't finish. Didn't need to.

I took the truck and drove to Holmes that night.

After all, I did remember making that promise to Tom when we rode through that orchard of ghosts the night we came down from the mountain.

In his things, I'd found a picture of a horse he had drawn. It looked like that stallion he had taken from Rose. I could tell Tommy put a lot of work into it, and although I was scared about the tattooing, Tom's drawing was beautiful. All in black, running, with his head down and his hooves all splayed out and stretching for the ground, like he was moving fast, his mane and tail spraying back behind him. It looked exactly like how that horse ran when we set him free.

They put that horse on my left rib cage, right below my heart, and it took almost two hours to finish. All the while, I felt Tommy sitting over me, grinning, as I stretched shirtless out on the table, watching the artist work with that vibrating bee-stinger needle, hearing Tom asking
Does it hurt
about a dozen times and spitting tobacco. I stared right up at the ceiling, counting the black marks on the rotting foam tiles there, and silently said
no, no
, because it didn't hurt like my broken leg, like seeing Tommy dying, but it hurt pretty bad and the pain was worse the closer it got to being finished.

The artist taped clear plastic wrap over it when he was finished, and blood seeped from its edges. I looked at it in the mirror, dizzy and numb from that pain, like scraping the flesh away to my bones. I liked that horse even more than when I had seen it on the paper where Tommy had drawn it.

I paid and left. I'd stowed some cold beers in the truck and I drank two before starting back for home on that dark stretch of empty dirt road.

The angel is sleeping in the woods.

I left my shirt off so I wouldn't get blood on it; and so I could admire that horse from time to time.

I had spent four months trying to figure out the sense in what had happened, but I never got close to knowing. I pulled the truck over in the dark, looked down at the horse inked into my body, and opened a can of tobacco.

Maybe some things you're just not supposed to know. And you try to figure them out and you just get frustrated when you should just forget them and move on. ‘Cause you'll never figure out why you have to see the people you love go away and disappear. I spit out the window, the icy night air raising bumps on my naked skin.

I tried to forget. I tried so hard not to ask why again.

Maybe sometimes a boy'll throw a rock in the water, and the ripples that it makes will rock a boatful of fishermen on the other side of the world, and they'll all look at each other and say, “What was that?”

And maybe every one of them will have a different explanation, but they'll all be wrong. And who would know?

It was cold. I rolled the window up again.

One day, I told myself, I would tell my father the whole truth about me and Tommy and Gabe and Luz. But, months later, when he asked about it, about what happened to us all that day, I just said, “Nothing.”

Gabriel was tightening Dusty's saddle when I walked Reno into the big barn behind the Benavidez house. I could just see his silhouette cutting black against the bright light at the opposite end of the breezeway. He straightened up when he heard Reno and I could feel myself just about light up when I saw him. I hadn't seen him since I was in the hospital, months before.

And all that time I wondered why Gabe didn't want to see me, what he was scared of now, because he didn't look scared on the mountain. So I told myself that maybe it was just Gabe's way of trying to get rid of his own ghosts.

I grabbed him by the shoulders and hugged him hard, and he squeezed back, only not so tight.

“Gabey, where you been?”

“At home. Mostly.”

“I missed you. I missed you so much, Gabey. You okay?”

“I thought I'd get us in more trouble. I thought you were mad.”

I took my hat off and held it in my hanging right hand. “Why? ‘Cause you got taller than me?” I reached over and touched the top of his head. It looked like he grew at least four inches in those months.

“Well. You need to eat more.”

He had a new hat, hooked on the horn of his saddle. A gray, flat-brimmed Stetson. I picked it up. “This is a nice one,” turning it around in my hands. It was just how I liked them.

“I liked my old one better. But it got too… I don't know. There was blood on it. This one's too stiff. It makes me feel like a clothes store dummy.” He took it from me and pressed it down on his head.

“We'll get it broke in. And dirty.” I put mine on, too. “I guess that's something about black ones, ‘cause you know mine was dripping with blood from this thing. But I kept it anyway.” And I touched the back of my head.

“Well, how are you now?”

“I'm good,” I said. “But this is the first time I rode Reno…” and I stopped myself from finishing, because he knew. “You ready to ride?”

“That's why I'm here. And she told me to, anyway. Where do you want to go?”

“I don't know,” I said. “It's getting late. How about we ride out to the bridge over the flats and back?”

We got up onto our horses and trotted them out of the barn and past the house, heading for the big redwood gate and to the dirt road leading into town.

It felt good to be back up on Reno. We didn't say anything at all until we had passed that big wooden gate with their name carved on the crossbeam, and I didn't mind; Gabe just followed along, determined and steady as the sun began turning everything orange and colder on that early December afternoon.

“And anyway, I asked you first and you still didn't answer,” I said.

“Asked what?”

“I asked if you were okay.”

Gabriel slowed Dusty to a walk. “I don't know. My dad said he's tired of me. He said when am I gonna grow up and stop moping around and stop counting on Troy Stotts to always protect me?”

I could tell that hurt him to say. “He doesn't know… well, he didn't mean it like that, Gabey.”

“It felt like he did.”

“I talked to him yesterday,” I said. “And I told him. Told him how you saved my life. And that's all he needs to know, so he can stop wondering. ‘Cause that's what happened and that's what I said to him.”

“Thanks, then.”

I never could figure out why Mr. Benavidez never thought Gabe was good enough.

I held Reno up, and Gabe stopped alongside. “I forgot to show you what I did.” I pulled my jacket open and lifted up my shirt, so he could see that black horse on my ribs. He leaned close and looked at the lines, still gapped from the needlework.

“I bet that hurt.”

“So bad,” I said.

“You
are
crazy, Troy.”

“Tommy drew him.” I put my shirt down and Gabriel cocked his head away, looking at the clouds turning colors over the treetops in the west.

“He was crazy, too.” And Gabriel sighed. He nudged Dusty's ribs and the horse started walking forward. “I could never do that, you know. I could never be like you or Tommy.”

“I'm no Tom Buller. And who'd like you if you were?”

I kicked Reno into a trot and Gabe kept Dusty up along with us.

“Race to that tree?” I pointed. “You say go.”

And Gabe said go and jabbed his heels into Dusty's ribs and the buckskin just about jumped out of his hooves. I had never seen Gabriel ride so loose and free on that horse, his one hand trailing behind him, relaxed, his fingers just tickling at Dusty's side. And I had never seen Gabriel from behind him in a race, either.

Reno snorted and huffed when we came to our stop, and Dusty just circled around in place, his head held back and his back feet shuffling, eyes wild and showing white like he was ready to do it again. I held my fist out to Gabe and he punched me.

“You better not've let me won,” he said, challenging.

I exhaled through my nose. I just looked at him. “Gabey.” I didn't need to say anything else. We could hear the river behind the trees. The sun was down now, the sky fading peach to blue to gray above us. The bridge was just up ahead.

I heard a car go by, driving over it. We walked the horses, still breathing hard, into the cover of the trees that opened up to the highway and that long, high bridge. We went out to the middle and stopped there, looking out over the calm flats just past where the falls, now at their lowest point, spilled into them.

“I know what's bugging you, Gabriel.”

He got down from Dusty and stood at the rail, looking down, watching the water.

“What?”

I lowered down from Reno, my leg aching a little from working the past two days, and stood right beside him.

“Do you want me to say it?”

“Okay with me. Tell me.”

“Well, okay then, I will.” I looked out at the water, reflecting like obsidian in the fading light. “You think you killed those boys. That it was all your fault.”

“Shut up, Troy.”

“You said it was okay if I said it, Gabe. So I'm telling you.” I took my hat off and brushed my hair back. I held my hat over the edge of the rail, spinning it in my fingers. “It's time I got a new one of these, I guess.” I looked at Gabe and could see in the fading light that his eyes were filling with tears and I felt so bad for him. I breathed out of my mouth and went on, looking down at the black water moving underneath us. “Well, it wasn't your fault and you didn't kill ‘em. It just happened, that's all. What you
did
saved me. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you.”

Gabriel started crying. He lowered his head, staring down from the bridge into the blackness of the flats.

“I can't stop thinking about it,” he said. “It hurts so bad. I'm so sorry.”

“I'm sorry, too,” I said. “I'm so sorry it makes me sick, Gabe, and there's nothing we can do about it. But it's not our fault what happened, and Tom knew that. I miss him so much. Why didn't you come see me ever?”

“ ‘Cause I didn't want to think about Tommy.”

We stood there in silence for the longest time. Gabe snuffled and wiped his nose across the back of his forearm. The horses stamped their forelegs nervously.

“They found Chase right over there.” Gabriel wiped at his cheek and pointed across the water. “He was all messed up. They had the funerals together. My dad made me go. He said we had to do it for Clayton. And I saw all those people and the mothers and family there crying like that and I wished I was dead. I wanted to tell ‘em I killed ‘em. I killed ‘em. That I murdered those boys. It feels like everyone knows it anyway.”

I grabbed his right hand in both of my hands. “Gabriel, I owe you my life. You're my brother and I could never pay you back for that. You have to know that.”

He exhaled heavily. He wiped his eyes with his palm, smearing wet all over his face.

“Gabey, you'd've done it again. I know you would. You didn't have a choice. Chase Rutledge
made
it happen that way.”

He started sobbing and put his face in his hands, elbows on the railing of that high bridge. I put my arm on his shoulder and said, “Come on, man. You'll be okay.” I thought about Tom Buller fading away in that orchard of the ghosts, crying, his hat just barely moving, just barely showing he was alive on that long ride down in the dark. And I remembered Gabriel in the dim gray drizzle on that distant morning, pushing my gun away from that lion.

He rubbed at his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “You remember how bad it rained that day? I hated that. It was the worst I ever seen. And it scared me, ‘cause I was all alone and I was sure they were following me. I was so wet I thought I could've drowned on horse back.”

“So were we.”

“I got lost and I circled around. It was raining so hard I couldn't see where I was heading. I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to look if I was going into a tree. Then I found their horses and so I hid Dusty and followed them. I almost walked right into ‘em. I thought for sure they'd seen me, but they didn't. I could hear ‘em talking and Chase was saying how he was going to shoot me and Tommy first and make you watch ‘em do it. I got so scared I didn't know what to do. But I followed ‘em and I just stood there and watched when he walked up and shot Tommy. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I just watched it happening. It was my fault what happened to Tommy. And I got mad and I picked up that rock. And when I saw him standing over Tommy like that I just thought his head was a catcher's mitt and I threw it so hard it hurt my arm.”

“I heard it flying, Gabey. I knew it was you right away.”

“I saw him go in the water. He tried to get up once but he slipped right under. ‘Cause he was hurting before he even fell down, I hit him so hard. And I saw Crutchfield go after him and he got his hand on him once where it was deep and then he slipped, too, right into the fastest part. I knew they wouldn't make it out then.”

I spit from the bridge, watched the blob tumble and spin until it was swallowed in the darkness.

“I never asked you,” I said. “Why did you leave that morning when we were sleeping?”

Gabriel swallowed. “I knew they were after me. He said it that day, he was gonna get me for shooting him. I didn't want them to find you and Tom, so I left, thinking I'd make it down okay. I thought they'd follow me, not you and Tom. And I knew you guys would take care of yourselves. I never thought they'd do anything to you, I swear. I swear.”

It was dark now. A car was coming down the highway, its headlights blinding us; so Gabe turned his head down to shade his eyes with his hat and I held mine up before me, a big black circle between me and the light, as we held on to our horses' reins. The red taillights disappeared off the bridge in the darkness at the other side.

“Well, I know what you did, Gabey, so put it out of your head. You saved my life.” I looked at my hat. “I need a new one of these, too.” And I let the hat go from the bridge and it floated down and became the blackness.

“Troy,” he said, and looked back across the dark water. “I thought about killing myself even. I took a rope and rode out to that big mushroom oak by where we went shooting and I just sat under that tree all day and looked up at the cross on that hill and cried. Pretty stupid, huh? Then I just left that dumb rope coiled up there under that tree and came back home.”

“Everyone's thought about killing themselves, I guess,” I said. “But, Gabey, you gotta give yourself a break on this. ‘Cause I already lost a brother and I don't think I can do it again. You can do this, Gabey. You have to. For me and Luz.”

And then I looked at him and said, “Please.”

He rubbed his eyes.

“We're gonna ride out and get that rope in the morning, Gabey,” I said. “And you have to swear to me if you ever feel that bad again … that you're not
going
to feel that bad again, Gabey.”

Gabe didn't say anything, just nodded his head a little. Just like Tommy nodding his head, so barely, on that dark ride down.

“Look,” I said, pulling back the sleeve of my jacket. “Remember this?” I showed him the little scar on my right wrist. “The horse medicine? We're all brothers, right? If one of us dies, the other two die a little bit, too. No, a lot. I know it, and you do, too. That's why you did what you did up at the river, too. You as much saved yourself as you did me, only you weren't thinking that then.”

“I have bad dreams now,” he said. “It's hard to stop thinking about it.”

“I gave up trying. ‘Cause I don't think you ever
do
stop thinking about it. It's just, after a while, those ghosts just don't seem as scary. But they never really go away.” I put my hand on the back of his neck and rubbed. I felt so horrible for what Gabriel had suffered; what we all had suffered, even Chase. Reno pushed at my shoulder with his nose, tired of standing on the asphalt of the bridge for so long. “Come on. You ready to ride back home now?”

“I don't want to. But, yeah.”

We got onto our horses and rode, in that dark, cold night, off the bridge in the direction from which we had come.

It hadn't really rained much or snowed at all yet this year. It would be a dry winter. Working would be easier, at least. We rode slowly. Something huge and heavy and dark was hanging over my friend Gabriel Benavidez and I hoped he knew that all he needed was to be with someone who had been there, to let him know what he did was right. And I realized that Gabriel, the boy I remembered running around in diapers and nothing else, who dug that fort with me and got me in trouble, who dropped the gun and almost killed us that day Tommy got snakebit, had lost more than blood that night on the mountain. I was riding next to a different boy than the one I had taken up to that cabin.

“Does that tattoo still hurt?”