If Wishes Were Horses (39 page)

The race was so quick that she held her breath the length of it and gave out a cry when they went across the line. She thought they had won, but there was some discussion, as a black horse had been very close. But then Little Gus was declared winner of the race and the purse of a hundred dollars. On hearing this news, Etta slid off Little Gus and threw herself into Johnny’s arms, almost unbalancing him.

They had not planned to race Little Gus again, but then they got drawn into a sort of match race with two other riders. It began with a young man, who was very Indian and of the wild-living sort that Roy had been. From listening to the young man pester Johnny about racing, Etta got the idea that he had wanted before to race Little Gus with his paint horse. This paint horse looked awfully fast to Etta, and the young man a very good rider.

“I’ll bet you a hundred and fifty dollars that my pony can take yours,” he said.

“There’s no need to bet,” Etta injected into the men’s conversation. “I imagine he can.”

This made all those around her chuckle, and Etta assumed they were all used to flimflamming each other and did not take to the truth stated.

Johnny rubbed the side of his nose and whispered, “Let me handle it.”

She whispered back, “Maybe a hundred and fifty dollars is not a fortune, but I don’t care to flush it down the toilet. I think we ought to save his strength for races with purses.”

He gave her that “Well now” grin, and said, “I’ll get you a purse, Miz Etta.”

Etta raised an eyebrow at that. One thing she knew, and that was Johnny Bellah could talk the stars from the sky.

As it turned out Johnny worked it around so that Jed Stuart and the owner of the Western Auto store each put up added money to see a race between Little Gus, the young Indian’s paint horse, and Bitta Fudge’s horse, a deep brown gelding. Etta heard someone say the gelding had won a hard race up at Woodward the day before. Each rider put in fifty dollars, and with the added money the purse to the winner would be three hundred dollars.

Etta thought fifty dollars a lot to risk, but Johnny reminded her they were partners, so her share would be twenty-five.

“Have I steered you wrong before?” he asked.

Etta brought up the first race she had lost, and he told her he had known she would lose that, just like he knew she’d win this.

“I know horses,” he said, and then added, “It’s women that puzzle me.”

And again he was right. Little Gus ran the four hundred and forty feet like he could run forever, leaving Bitta Fudge’s pretty brown gelding dropping back at three hundred and fifty, and the paint horse losing enough ground at four hundred that Little Gus was able to pull ahead and win by a neck.

The young man softly rode his paint pony up to Etta and Johnny. With a wry grin, be swept off his hat to Etta. Then he told Johnny that he’d like another match sometime at a length of three hundred and fifty feet. Johnny laughed and said he was smarter than that.

“I’d like to come by, talk to you sometime,” the young man said, his black eyes intense.

“Come on," Johnny told him. “I’m over at the Rivers Stables for now. I’d be pleased to talk with you.”

Etta heard Johnny’s words, for now. She looked at him and wondered and thought of how she wanted to say,
Marry me and stay
. And likely, if he said he would marry her at all, he would say,
Marry me and go with me
, and there they would be, each asking of the other what the other was unwilling to give.

The four of them ate their picnic meal on the blanket beneath the big umbrella, which today was trying to blow away, and then strolled the carnival, where Obie pitched and won Latrice a set of red glass goblets to go with her red plates, and Johnny shot targets and won a teddy bear for Etta. Again while Latrice and Obie played bingo and minded Lattie Kate, Etta and Johnny rode the carousel and the Ferris wheel and ate cotton candy. Again that night Etta watched the rodeo from the stands, while Johnny sat beside her, giving her a sort of running commentary of each contestant’s effort in each event.

There was no dance that night. The booths closed at the carnival and the grounds quickly emptied. Everyone packing up, loading horses, and moving on.

When Etta and Johnny returned to the truck beneath the stars, they found Latrice a little disappointed, as she had only been called upon to assist in a very minor emergency of a man walking past with a bloody nose. She showed the man how to press a penny on his gum beneath his upper lip and stop the flow. That had happened early in the evening and nothing had happened since. “I might as well go home,” she said.

Johnny helped Etta, with Lattie Kate, up into the truck seat. Etta nursed Lattie Kate, who fell asleep, and then Johnny reached for her, and she scooted over beside him and into the curve of his arm. On the way home they talked about this horse and that, funny things that had happened or been said. Etta told Johnny again that she wanted to learn to barrel race.

“Will you help me?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yeah,” he said.

And then he rested his hand on her shoulder, and her skin grew moist with the weight, while his thumb drew tingling circles on her neck.

That first week after the Fourth of July rodeo, Johnny set up barrels in the big corral, and Etta began to learn the art of racing Little Gus around them.

They went at this early in the morning, before the heat of the day, oftentimes before the sun became more than a rosy glow in the east and while cool still radiated from the dusty ground.

Johnny sat on the fence and gave direction. “Don’t lean into the hole,” he would say, or, “Push him around with your leg—you’re forgettin’ to use your leg.”

“Why don’t you yell at the horse once in a while,” Etta said to him in a snippy tone.

“Because he’s not the one havin’ the trouble,” Johnny answered patiently.

That Johnny remained so even-tempered aggravated Etta. He sat there, and his eyes would follow her in a lazy, seductive way, yet he did not exhibit impatience or nervousness. His being right about the horse did not improve her temper, either.

Little Gus took instantly to running at top speed around the barrels, while Etta had trouble riding atop him running around them. The horse exhibited the wonderful ability to turn sharply, and Etta had to fight her fear of these racy turns. She had not known before that her fear of such turns amounted to stark terror. Little Gus felt her fear. It slowed him down and often confused him, too, as he kept watching for a possible threat from somewhere.

Again and again, Etta forced herself to face the fear, knowing that only by gaining confidence could she communicate that to the horse, and thereby win money at racing barrels.

Money was one of Etta’s major concerns. The days and weeks were adding up to months, and she still had not sold any land. She struggled to pay the everyday debts and had nothing left to put toward the mortgage debt. For every dollar she spent, she worried of a way to earn another. She managed to rent two corrals to people who needed a place to keep old horses they didn’t want to send to the slaughterhouse, and she went through the attic and the house again, hauling out anything that she could part with and that could possibly be of value. She had the good fortune to come upon an entire set of china packed away in the attic and an old rocking-reclining chair, both of which Robert Lamb readily bought from her.

“This is good,” Latrice said. "We’re gettin’ less to pack everyday, should we end up havin’ to move.”

“We’re not goin’ to move,” Etta said vehemently. She was often vehement these days. “I’m tellin’ you we have put our hand to the plow and are not lookin’ back,” she added, purposely using analogy Latrice herself might have employed.

“You have put your hand there,” Latrice said. “Don’t include me.”

“I have always included you,” Etta told her. “For twenty-six years I have included you in my life, so I do not think I should change now, unless you yourself decide otherwise.”

She looked pointedly at Latrice, who said with vehemence of her own, “I guess I’ve put my hand to the plow, too. It’s a different plow, but it seems to be hooked to the same horse.”

Etta stubbornly clung to her intention to stay right where she was, with the belief that she could will everything to turn out. She made herself believe that she was going to ride her wishes just like she was riding Little Gus. She was riding with fear, but she was riding.

She was, however, far less believing about Johnny.

Etta’s feelings for Johnny appeared to be in a constant pivotal state. Although she realized that she depended on him every day, she could not decide whether she should allow herself to do this, whether she wanted to continue doing this. She knew she loved him, but she could not decide if she was going to allow herself to love, or if she was going to firmly reject it.

She was certain of one thing. She wanted Johnny.

Without the enforced discipline of her pregnant state, Etta began to be overcome with this wanting. She wanted him to kiss her, to touch her, to make love to her until she was sweaty and breathless and could not move. Recalling his kisses, this wanting increased daily, until she had intervals of thinking that she might go crazy with it.

It would sometimes come as a surprise to her to find herself going about the normal activities of helping with laundry or setting Johnny’s plate in front of him and asking him if he wanted coffee and then discussing the front page of the newspaper with Latrice, while in the back of her mind teemed steamy desires. She and Johnny had ceased to touch each other, fearing it, Etta supposed, as one would red-hot flames. She would catch him looking at her, though, with hungry eyes. And she occasionally slipped up and let him catch her looking at him in the same way.

As a remedy for the condition, a control over it, Etta tried to wear herself out by taking care of Lattie Kate and thinking up ways to earn a dollar, or by tending horses and learning to race barrels, until she had to drag herself up to the house and was too physically sore to anticipate a man’s touch.

Once Latrice said, “You two are exhausting my patience. I wished you’d both get it over with.”

At first stunned, Etta then came back with, “Yes, I should fling myself at a man just so you can have your patience soothed.”

She left the room because she wanted to prevent getting into a good argument. Of late she and Latrice had been picking and sniping at each other, and Etta had discovered her best defense was to leave while she was ahead. She also knew this was a way of winning, as it drove Latrice crazy. Now she went into the den and took up the bills that needed to be paid.

Latrice came after her, entering the office with a burst of frustration. “What I am sayin’ to you is that you are gettin’ nowhere in this state. You two need to get it settled between you before you both burn right up.”

Etta looked at her. “I apologize for my distracted and somewhat ill humor; however, I am now forced, since you are pursuin’ the subject, to bring up that you yourself could settle a few things with Obie. He moons after you, and you have left him hangin’ for reasons of your own. Suppose we agree that I have to work my own problems out, and you do the same.”

Seeing what she interpreted as a confused, sad expression on Latrice’s face, Etta felt badly and softened her tone.

“I know that you have held yourself contained out of your responsibility toward me. I urge you to do exactly as you wish with Obie and know that I’m agreeable. You should know by now that I want nothing more in the world than for you to be happy. You have given up so much for me, but I’m grown now, and you don’t need to do that. And should you marry Obie, we’ll always remain close.”

To this Latrice said, “Huh. I’ll have you know that I am doin’ exactly as I please with Obie. I always have.” Then she pulled the leaving-the-room ploy.

Etta sat there, staring after her, with lips trembling and tears threatening.

The memories flashed across her mind. Memories of childhood, pulling at Latrice’s skirts, and being in Latrice’s comforting arms. Memories of the many nights when she had left Obie and Latrice working over the newspaper crossword puzzle when she went to bed. And many mornings that she came down and found Obie sitting at the kitchen table with coffee, mooning over Latrice while she awaited her breakfast.

She had assumed that Obie had left and returned early, but thinking of it now, she realized he might not have left. That he might have been staying the night was a startling idea. An image flashed across her mind, and she swept it right along.

Latrice generally did exactly what she wished at any given time, Etta thought. This should be a good example to her to follow her own mind. Although, with a sinking feeling, she knew that choices were sometimes very difficult indeed. She did not want to be tied up in the angst of an affair, but neither did she want to be celibate.

Neither choice was appealing, she thought, getting up and switching on the fan sitting on one of the bookcases. She unbuttoned the top buttons of her blouse and leaned over to cool herself.

That night she was awake and in front of her opened bedroom window when Johnny came home from wherever he had been. She imagined lipstick on his cheek as she watched him walk beneath the pole lamp and enter the darker barn.

Watching the light come on in his room, she gathered up all she had not to run down there and throw herself on him. Even while she clung to her determination, she thought that it was foolish to remain this wound up and not do anything about it. Why was she not doing anything about it?

Fear of appearing foolish, she thought, going to her bed and slumping upon it and crying into her pillow.

The next morning, clearing the breakfast table after Johnny had left, Etta dropped a plate and cracked it. She broke out in immediate, hard sobs.

“Good Lord a’mercy,” Latrice said. “It was only one of those Duz plates.”

“He doesn’t care,” Etta said through her sobs. “He doesn’t want me like I want him.” She had a headache and was feeling very weak, and her hunger for Johnny had so consumed her that the words simply poured out on their own.