If Wishes Were Horses (37 page)

They still had two stalls in the barn Etta would like to fill, and just that day a man had telephoned from up in Canadian County, asking to speak to Johnny about taking on a racehorse he had that had been crazed by a barn fire. It appeared that Johnny’s name as a trainer was spreading.

Etta was excited and pleased for Johnny, but she was rather unsettled for herself. It appeared that their relationship was in great question, neither of them certain of what move to make.

Twice more Johnny had brought her wildflowers, and she had baked his favorite peanut butter cookies. They had gone on short dates, into town to get ice cream or cold drinks, a drive to a ranch to see prospective colts for sale.

On occasion they would touch. His hand might brush hers as she handed him a glass of ice tea, or she would lay her hand on his shoulder when passing behind him at the table, or his shoulder would press hers when he came up beside her at the corral fence.

Once he had kissed her there at the fence. They had been standing and talking about purchasing breeding stock. Their eyes met, and Johnny leaned down and kissed her, swiftly and touching her only with his lips. Another time she had gotten carried away when they were alone in the kitchen, and she had leaned over his shoulder, looking at something in one of his books, and the next thing she had been kissing him.

They had not, however, spoken another word about getting married or what was going on between them.

Time and time again she would find him looking at her with his steely gray eyes. He seemed to be waiting for her. She knew he wanted her. She wondered if he still wanted to marry her. Was he waiting for her to say she would go with him? She wouldn’t, and this made her very sad.

That Johnny would leave had become one of Etta’s big fears. She had seen him scanning the real-estate section of the classified ads. One morning he had brought the paper to breakfast, and she’d seen an ad circled when he’d left the paper by his plate. It was for a small farm down in Cotton County, house and hay barn on a half-section of land. He had wanted her to see the ad, of course, and she had carefully pretended not to see it.

She realized, though, that if he did leave, she would be heartbroken.

Having her heart so thoroughly broken by Roy made her terrified; she thought she might die if she got her heart broken again. This fear had opposing effects on her, causing her at times to reject all her feelings for Johnny, and at other times causing her to want to throw herself at him, do anything to make him stay.

Then she would get hold of herself and realize she was reacting to the situation in a manner similar to the way she had with Roy. She knew that way she would lose herself. Much larger than the fear of Johnny leaving and causing her to have a broken heart was the fear of losing the self she was at last finding.

She walked up the tree-shaded driveway and let herself in the front door. It was cool in the living room, with windows providing a pleasant cross-breeze. She sat on the sofa to feed Lattie Kate and look through the mail. The bills were fewer these days. People were smiling at her now when she came into their stores, asking her how she and Lattie Kate and Latrice were getting along.

They were getting by, just barely, but they were not paying off the mortgage. Etta tried not to worry over it, most especially when she nursed Lattie Kate.

She came to a long white envelope—from Robert Lamb, the estate liquidator. She tore it open, and a check fell out onto Lattie Kate’s belly. The next instant the breeze lifted the check and seemed to wave it in the air in front of her face, before depositing it on the couch beside her. Etta smacked it with her hand, then lifted it and looked at it, then at the note accompanying it.

Clutching Lattie Kate to her breast, Etta jumped up and ran to the kitchen.

“The bedroom set sold,” she told Latrice, who was altering an old dress of Etta’s. “It sold for three thousand dollars!” She tossed the check down in front of Latrice.

“Well, that Robert Lamb is a sweet-talkin’ man.” Latrice gave the check a highly approving look.

“Are you gonna put all the money on the mortgage?” Latrice asked, after Etta had dragged over the rocker to finish nursing Lattie Kate, who had properly thrown a hissy fit about her meal being interrupted.

“No.” Etta shook her head thoughtfully. “If I’m gonna start raisin’ rodeo stock, I’ve got to buy some.”

Latrice looked at her. “You take some of this and you save it in the bank for an emergency.”

“What do you think we’re livin’, if it’s not an emergency?”

“You put some aside, for the rest of your life, so that you don’t ever get stuck again,” Latrice said. “So that you can feel a slice of freedom.”

Looking at her, Etta said, “You’re right. I’ll put some of it aside . . . but I’ve got to buy some breeding stock.”

For an instant her thoughts flashed back to the day she had been told Roy had died. It seemed so long ago, much more than months she could count on her hand. She saw herself, how frightened she had been, cowering in her bed and fearful that her entire world was crumbling around her, which it was. It had crumbled and it remained that way.

Her position was not greatly changed. She was still trying to hold on to her place and provide a home for herself and her child and Latrice. What had changed was herself.

Latrice spoke of putting money away for a bit of security, but Etta thought the only true security a person had was in her ability to cope. One could not prevent sadness or tragedy from coming into one’s life, and one could not help but make mistakes, too, which seemed a quite frustrating fact of existence. One could, however, develop the ability to cope with it all.

Etta felt she was at last getting ahead in learning to cope. She rocked Lattie Kate at her breast, and Latrice finished her sewing and took up the Sunday paper, which she had not gotten to read on Sunday, and read aloud items of interest, which she and Etta discussed in soft voices, laughing now and again.

That night at supper Johnny spoke of their choices of Fourth of July rodeos that would have racing opportunities. He’d also learned of some good breeding stock that Etta needed to look at. He had found all this out at the feed store that morning. Whenever Johnny went to the feed store, he always had a lot to talk about. Everything from the price of grain to the sale of stock to who was sick, who was in debt or jail or having an affair.

“People just tell me things,” he said with some perplexity. “Today all I did was say a polite hello to Gabe Pickett, and the next thing I knew he was tellin’ me how his father has been pesterin’ women at the rest home, so they had to tie him down. Now, I really don’t want to be privy to stuff like that, but people just tell me, like I want to know.”

Etta thought that Johnny did like knowing. He liked to be able to tell the story later, and usually they all wanted to listen.

“What about the Fourth?” she prodded him, anxious to get back to the subject of racing Little Gus. Johnny tended to get off on tangents.

“I’d like to take him up to Woodward, but that’s a long drive,” he said, frowning. “Anadarko’s closer, and there’ll be good racin’ there—more than before. But we’re gonna have to find someone to ride for us. I found out this mornin’ that Woody’s gone down to Bonham and he’s goin’ on to Fort Worth and maybe Waco after that. He won’t be back for at least a month. I’ve been askin’ around, and I’ve gotten the names of a few fellas who might could ride for us.”

He and Obie started discussing these few fellows, and Etta looked from one man to the other, listening.

“I can ride Little Gus now,” she said.

Both men’s eyes swung to her, Obie’s coffee-dark and Johnny’s shimmering silver. Etta gazed at Johnny, and he gazed back with a somewhat stunned expression.

“I haven’t raced,” she said, “but I used to gallop some of the horses Roy and I were getting ready for sale. I can ride pretty well. And I want to learn to barrel race, anyway.”

She watched Johnny’s gaze flicker down her body and then quickly back up, splotches blooming on his cheeks and making Etta feel self-conscious. His steely gray eyes held hers, and she knew he was thinking about more than riding, just as she was.

Then slowly Johnny nodded. “You just got to get him to run, and he’s willin’ to do that.” He raised an eyebrow. “You know it can get a little dangerous? Gus is a pretty steady son-of-a-buck, but some horses you might race with can be crazy.”

“I know,” Etta said with a nod, “but it’s been my hope all along to ride him. And I do seem to be the most logical choice.”

Johnny, sighing and laying his napkin on the table, said, “Well, if you’re gonna ride this weekend, we need to get you some practice. You ready to start tonight?”

He didn’t wait for an answer but was already rising and reaching for his hat. Etta jumped up, saying that she would be only a few minutes, and then she hurried upstairs to change clothes, only to be confronted with the fact that she still could not button any of her riding pants.

Throwing the last pair on the floor, she was about to despair when her gaze lit on the laundry on the line in the backyard—Johnny’s three pairs of jeans blowing stiffly in the breeze. She called down the back stairs to Latrice to please get them.

The first pair she tried fit fine, a little loose but a belt solved that problem, and his inseam was the same as her own. Quite satisfied, Etta nursed Lattie Kate, then handed her to Latrice, grabbed up her old brown hat, and raced out the door to Johnny and Little Gus waiting in the training pen.

Johnny didn’t appear to look at her, so she could not tell if he noticed that it was his pants she was wearing.

“I think we should start in the pen and see how it goes,” he told her, as if to forestall any protest on her part.

She said, “Fine,” and took Little Gus by the reins.

She caressed his neck, anticipation rising in her chest. The time had come at last, and she hadn’t even realized it until there at the supper table.

Automatically she checked the tightness of the girth strap before swinging up into the saddle. Little Gus stood there, and she felt his tenseness as he awaited instruction. The late sun hit her, and the breeze tugged at her hat. She shifted her buttocks and legs, getting the memory of her seat, and the horse pranced. Having been conditioned to run, he anticipated the command. Easily he walked, and then he trotted, and then Etta kicked his side, sending him loping around the pen. His trot was hard and bouncing, but his lope was as if he changed into a winged creature. He seemed to float above the ground, and there atop him, Etta’s spirit began to fly, up and up and up.

“He’s beautiful,” she called to Johnny.

The next instant Johnny threw open the gate, and Etta and Little Gus shot out, across the yard and straight for the open pasture track, never slowing.

It had been so long since she had enjoyed this pleasure, and she reveled in it. Reveled in the power and beauty of the horse beneath her and the wind on her face, the turquoise sky stretching above and the golden glow of the evening sun on the trees and hills.

She thought she could gallop forever, but eventually she and Little Gus came to a sharp turn in the road at the fence line, and she brought him down because she was a little afraid of the turn. She had always been afraid of turns when galloping. She would have to get over that, but she didn’t think she needed to do so immediately.

For that moment, she would enjoy the sheer bliss of the time, the place, and the movement. It seemed like she had not ridden in years, instead of months. Well, it had been nearly a year. A really trying year, she thought, except for Lattie Kate. And Johnny.

Thinking of Johnny made her turn Gus for the house.

Johnny was slouched atop the corral railing, when she rode across the yard. The final rays of the sun hit his hat and face and shoulders. She stopped in front of him.

“He’s wonderful. You have done so well with him,” she said, the words coming in a rush.

He didn’t smile, and he didn’t praise her riding, but something in the way he regarded her made her instantly aware of being a woman. She tightened her legs enough that Little Gus thought they were to run again, and she had to hold him back.

Johnny said, “Well, Miz Etta, I guess you can ride. Now you have to learn how to run him.”

Stiffly he climbed down from the fence and started in with directions about how it would be against other horses and how sometimes she would need to hold Little Gus back and know when to let him go. He walked beside her and Little Gus to the pasture road and sent them galloping up and down it for half an hour, until it was getting too dark to see, and Etta told him she had to get back to Lattie Kate.

She got stiffly out of the saddle, her legs hurting and buttocks bruised, although she immediately tried to cover the fact. She was also a little annoyed at Johnny’s attitude, which was cold and authoritative. Etta never had responded well to an authoritative attitude.

“You’ll need to ride every day,” he said to her. “You have to learn to push him hard and get him right up into the bit. He likes to run, but sometimes he needs remindin’.”

“I’ll ride,” she said, handing him the reins and turning toward the house.

He caught her wrist and jerked her around, pulled her against him and kissed her fiercely.

In an instant, her annoyance melted away. She wrapped her arms around his neck, crying out from inside, kissing him for all she was worth. When he lifted his head, he would have pulled away, but she would not let him go. She threw herself against him, whispering his name. "Johnny."

He held her tightly for a moment in which she felt him quivering. Or else it was her own trembling. Then he set her from him.

“You’d better go in to Lattie Kate,” he said. Somewhat stunned, she stepped out toward the house. Johnny called after her, “You can keep the pants!” and there was amusement in his voice.

“I think I will,” Etta returned. “They fit just fine.”

That night when Etta showered, she found a raw blister on her buttocks. Before riding the next day, she put a bandage over it.

By the third day of running Little Gus up and down the pasture track, she had another blister, but her muscles were stronger and she fit once more into at least one pair of her jeans. For practice, though, she continued to wear Johnny’s pants.

Johnny would sit on his golden dun beneath the hackberry tree and watch. He would sit slouched, with his good leg hooked over the horn, peering out from beneath the brim of his hat and calling out directions.

“Learn to feel him. Learn to tell how your weight affects him. Keep right in the middle of his back and out of his way. Get the feel of how tight to hold the reins.”

Etta began to believe she would never please him. “Would you just leave me alone? I can’t ride with you yelling all that at me!”

She pressed her right leg into Little Gus, and he pivoted, and they ran off down the track, flying over the ground. When Etta returned with Little Gus, she found Johnny sitting there on his horse, waiting.

“You need to figure out when to tap him to push him up into the bit,” Johnny said, as if he’d never been interrupted. “You need to let him build steam, and know when to release him.”

Etta set her jaw and returned to practicing.

On the fourth afternoon, Johnny had Etta riding bareback. He said he thought this would help her get the feel of Little Gus. “And you might want to race bareback sometimes,” he added. “Sometimes you can give the horse an edge without the weight of the saddle.”

Etta was nervous to ride like this, and her nervousness did not help Little Gus. On the second run, she fell off. Little Gus felt her tilting and slowed, so at least she did not go off at a full run. She simply slipped off his side like a rag, while Little Gus circled and looked at her from several feet away, hanging his head, as if he might be in trouble.

Johnny came racing over and jumped down beside her. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t think it is as easy as it used to be, but I’m okay.”

She found it gratifying that he hovered, clearly somewhat undone. She walked over and got Little Gus by the reins. “Will you give me a boost up?” she asked, squinting at Johnny, who stood there, looking uncertain. She liked that he worried about her, but she didn’t want him to think her incapable.

He came forward and formed his hands into a prop for her foot. She got back on the horse and kept at it because she loved the riding, and because she didn’t want Johnny to be disappointed in her. Also, she wanted to win races all over the place.

While Etta practiced, she and Johnny shared the endeavor. He the teacher, she the student, and both reaching for the same end, and both occupied with a goal outside their relationship.

As soon as Etta quit riding for the day, however, it seemed that they would look at each other and be struck shy.

It was getting more and more tense between them. Etta would be all hot and her clothes stuck to her, and she would feel Johnny’s eyes on her, but when she looked at him, he would avoid meeting her gaze, and she would suddenly find herself uncertain of what to say to him.

She would say normal things like: “I’ll wash down Little Gus,” or “Will you empty grain sacks into the bin?” while her thoughts revolved around how she would like to touch him and tell him her heart.

She imagined saying, “I think you are a superb horse trainer and a wonderful man, Johnny.” And she would imagine him smiling and saying to her, “I’ve reconsidered, Etta. I think your idea of me staying here and marrying you is a fine idea. Let’s just sit on the porch and plan our future together. It is going to be perfect and we will live happily ever after.”

What he actually said to her was, “I’d better get started on Harry’s horse,” and he would take himself off to get up one of the horses. Later in the afternoon, he would drive away on some sort of errand, having his suppers in town and returning late into the night.

Etta wondered where he ate, what he did. She wondered if he was meeting a woman and would imagine him walking down the sidewalk beside a pert woman in heels and red and white dress with a swirling skirt, both of them entering a darkly lit bar and sitting with their hands all over each other.

Having wonderings like this made her get so angry that she ended up slamming cabinet doors.

The morning of the rodeo they were all up before the sun and doing the chores before leaving for the Fourth of July festivities. In addition to the rodeo, there would be a parade and a carnival, a chili cook-off, Indian dancing, and all manner of goings-on. People would come from miles around and stay with relatives or camp on the grounds. The rodeo was to be so big there would be cutting competition and trick riding acts, too.

The plan was to go over in the morning, return home that night, get up again Sunday morning and do it all again, for two full days of holiday. It was all very exciting, and Etta rushed around, trying not to forget anything that would be needed for their comfort. She did not trust Latrice’s memory, because Latrice had only reluctantly agreed to go.

“I am a town girl,” Latrice said. “Just because I’ve lived out here for six years does not mean I like the country or rough things like rodeos and smelly animals that go with it.’’

Still, she went because she was needed to take care of Lattie Kate when Etta rode Little Gus or otherwise got preoccupied with the rodeo doings. Obie went because Latrice did, and to drive her over he had completely cleaned his old pickup truck and had tuned it up so that it could get up to fifty miles an hour.

“You’d better put these porch chairs in the back of Obie’s truck,” Etta told Johnny, when they began loading up for the trip. “Latrice will have a fit if we don’t have a chair for her.”

She went inside and returned with two quilts and Lattie Kate’s baby carriage. Johnny grinned at her and said she might as well bring the sofa, too.

“Don’t forget to get the new umbrella,” Etta told him. “I put it in the shed.”

He went off, shaking his head, and Etta turned back to the kitchen. When she looked through the screen door, she paused.

There at the table, loading into the picnic basket the fried chicken and potato salad Latrice had been up since dawn cooking, stood Latrice and Obie side by side. Latrice looked up at Obie, who had come dressed in a starched white shirt and creased khaki trousers, and who had exchanged his ball cap for a new straw hat for the occasion. Obie bent his head slowly and kissed Latrice.

Etta saw to her astonishment a man and woman kissing with great passion. Quickly she stepped back and waited, her heart pounding in her chest with embarrassment and anxiety as thoughts raced across her mind of what might happen to her life should Latrice finally give in to Obie’s love.

When she heard the water running in the sink, she went inside. She couldn’t look at Latrice, which didn’t matter, because Latrice ordered her to take one of the picnic baskets out to the pickup truck. Obie was leaning on the kitchen counter, charming Latrice with a smile whenever she happened to look his way.

“Help Etta carry out those baskets,” Latrice ordered him, and he readily complied, casting a wink at Etta to show he was not bothered by Latrice’s brusque manner.

Etta looked at his hands as he lowered the two picnic baskets into the back of his truck. Then she found herself looking at Johnny’s hands as he closed the rear of his truck. She wondered what his hands would feel like on her skin.

At the last minute, Etta ran back inside and upstairs to comb her hair and put on lipstick, before coming back down, jumping into the cab beside Johnny and taking Lattie Kate into her arms for the drive. Johnny’s hands shifting gears caught her eye, and then she looked upward, meeting his eyes that grinned at her.

Facing forward and holding Lattie Kate firmly, Etta thought excitedly about the day ahead, about getting away from the everyday and enjoying everything with Johnny. And she found herself repeatedly looking at Johnny’s hands.

The rodeo grounds, indeed the entire town of Anadarko, swarmed with people and vehicles and horses.

“It’s a wonder people aren’t being run down or trampled all over the place,” Latrice said. “I imagine we’ll see plenty of that before it’s all over.”

She had brought her medical kit in case of emergency, and she voiced what amounted to anticipation that she might be called upon to attend someone. This seemed to mollify her annoyance at having to come. Once she was ensconced in one of the chairs beneath the big umbrella, she was satisfied and indeed interested to watch the sights, which she now expected to be interesting.

“This many people and animals, we’re bound to see some good foolishness,” she said.

Etta, having grown so excited that she was afraid she might be one of those acting foolish, contained herself and even managed to act a little nonchalant as she tagged after Johnny to get the lay of everything. She saw Sissy Post, the barrel racer whom she’d met at the previous rodeo and who had wanted to buy Little Gus. This day the woman was riding a different horse, a very flashy roan. Sissy, flamboyantly dressed in white shirt with fringe from the yoke front and back, and white pants, gave her a nod, but she was not an overly friendly person.

For Etta’s first race, Johnny entered her in one of a shorter length, which filled rapidly to thirteen entries. Two of those were young women, one a girl of no more than fifteen.

It seemed to Etta that one minute she was sitting there on top Little Gus and watching a race, and the next she was lining up to be in one. All the horses and commotion had Little Gus prancing. It was the first time Etta had been atop him when he was agitated, and she was agitated, too. Little Gus and the bay next to him got into it, the bay trying to kick Little Gus. Etta began to understand a bit of Johnny’s concern about the whole thing. Riding hell-bent alone on the pasture track was a whole lot different than on a track alongside other agitated horses and riders of all types.

They all struggled to get their horses lined up for the lap and tap start. Etta tried to hold Little Gus steady while she listened and watched for the signal. She made the mistake of blinking, and the next instant Little Gus was bounding forward with all the other horses. It seemed to Etta that he took off on the fly.

Down the track, people yelling on either side and from the grandstands, all a roar of sound and color, Etta passing a rider and riders passing her, and then she panicked to see many horses’ tails in front of her.

Everything went so fast that Etta didn’t have time to think of deliberately pushing Little Gus up into the bit or to even be afraid of possibly being shoved out of the saddle. It was over in a matter of seconds, and she’d come in fifth.

Etta was stunned to realize she had lost. Little Gus had won all the previous races, and in her mind he was going to win forevermore. She vaguely recalled the possibility of him losing crossing her mind, and Johnny mentioning it, but still she had not considered it seriously, so fixed into her consciousness was the image of Little Gus like the red winged horse and herself winning races all over the place.

Now she had lost the race, her entry fee, and the twenty dollars she’d had Johnny wager for her. He’d had a good laugh at her twenty, too, thinking it of scant worth.

The thought of losing that money made her sick. And remembering how happy Johnny had been at Little Gus’s previous times of winning, she had trouble going back and facing him. She felt she had let him down.

Johnny said, “It was your first time out—and you didn’t come in last. You did okay.” Etta could tell by his attitude that he was not surprised at all.

“If you had expected me to lose, you should have warned me and saved me my wager,” she said sharply.

She had been angry at herself, and now she was annoyed with Johnny. She was hot and dusty and ready to go home, where she would not further exhibit her foolish tendencies.

“You can’t be runnin’ home,” Johnny said with a shocked expression. “We got Latrice over here, and she isn’t gonna take kindly to be jerked away.”

This was true. Latrice was now happily chatting with an old friend she had not seen since schooldays, while Obie sat quietly beside her, content to listen to tales about the life of his love when she was young. Etta’s news of having lost the race was greeted with the barest of comments, before the three returned to their conversation.

And Etta really didn’t want to go home. She was irritated that Johnny wouldn’t see this, irritated that he looked so worried.

“I didn’t mean it,” she said. “I was just lettin’ off steam.”

“Oh.” He looked vastly relieved. And as if to escape something he didn’t understand, he eagerly took the opportunity to walk Little Gus and cool him off.

Etta sat in the truck, taking comfort in holding and nursing Lattie Kate. That she knew herself to be a good mother helped her to accept her imperfect riding abilities and foolishness at betting.

When Lattie Kate tired of smiling and sucking and finally fell asleep, Etta laid her in the seat, looked in the mirror and refreshed her lipstick, then slouched on the seat back, thinking that Johnny really should not have let her bet, if he had expected her to lose.

Having risen before five, Etta was dozing when Johnny returned.

“Etta,” he said, bringing her up quickly. “Are you ready to ride again? I got you a match race.”

He took hold of her hand and told her to come on, although she still hadn’t answered him. She was coming fully awake, realizing she must have been dozing for quite some time.

He called for Obie to watch Lattie Kate, whom Johnny himself gathered from the seat. Etta hovered, as she was never certain about Johnny’s expertise with the baby; he always seemed a little uncertain when handling Lattie Kate. At this moment, however, in a motion much like handing off a football, he quite capably handed the baby to Obie. Etta put her foot in the stirrup and flung herself atop Little Gus. They started away, Johnny leading the horse, but Etta made him stop and return for her hat. The sun was so bright she could barely open her eyes.