In the City of Shy Hunters (22 page)

Between horseflesh and parked car, all that was left was asphalt.

But I didn't have to drop to the asphalt.

As the horse stepped away, he gave my face a brush with his tail.

No doubt about it, the white stallion could smell my horse Chub all over me.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

F
or the most part, I'd say if you crossed a cat with a smart dog, made him a matriarchal vegetarian, gave him sleek beauty, a mass of muscle, and the desire to run, then what you'd have is a horse.

Chub was a gelding, half Morgan, half quarter horse, and old by the time Bobbie and I got him. Chub was black and if you didn't keep him brushed he had a reddish tint and, just before he died, silver. Chub was like an old grandfather who loves his grandkids. Big brown eyes that really loved you. He'd do just about anything for you if you fed and watered him regular.

Chub liked me better than Bobbie, because every chance I got I fed Chub a carrot in front of ayaHuaska, just to get ayaHuaska's goat.

AyaHuaska was an Appaloosa and loved Charlie 2Moons.

AyaHuaska was only four years old, a gelding too but lots of macho spirit. Knew he was one beautiful creature, so I didn't trust him for one minute. AyaHuaska was real possessive of Charlie 2Moons. AyaHuaska would make his lips go like Mister Ed cussing you out and look right at you with his ears back and stand between you and Charlie, wouldn't let you near Charlie, would stick his spotted gray butt right in your face and make like he was going to kick you. Charlie'd yell at ayaHuaska when he did that, and ayaHuaska would stop, but underneath Charlie liked that ayaHuaska was jealous and so protective of him.

I still got a scar where one time that damn horse took a bite out of my backside.

Another weird thing about ayaHuaska was when you fed him a bucket of grain he wouldn't let you watch him eat it. AyaHuaska would start kicking the stanchion or whatever was behind him and putting his big horse's ass in your face and kicking at you if you tried to watch him.

After ayaHusaka bit me, every once in a while, I'd go over to the corral where Charlie kept ayaHuaska behind his grandmother's house
behind Viv's double-wide trailer, and when Charlie wasn't around, I'd get the bucket and put grain in the bucket and sneak through the corral poles and put the bucket of grain just far enough into the corral, then run back out and wait and watch. Drove that horse nuts with the bucket there, him wanting to eat the grain, and me leaning up against the corral poles watching him.

Charlie could always tell when I'd teased ayaHuaska that way with the grain. It was in the spots.

AyaHuaska's mane and tail were silver and his butt was covered with spots of gray. Charlie said he could tell the future by the gray spots on ayaHuaska's butt. Charlie said ayaHuaska's spots changed every day and, like tea leaves, you could read them.

It's going to be a good day today, Charlie would say.

Or: Your father's coming home early next week.

Or: The barn spirits have invited me up to jerk off with them today.

Or: Weather's gonna turn bad Thursday.

Or: Grandfather wants us to come haul him some water.

One time it was: The nuclear power plant in Arco is blowing a fuse.

All on ayaHuaska's butt.

The liar's space between Charlie's two front teeth. Charlie and his stories.

The thing was, though, Charlie was usually right.

Father's horse, Star, never got along with ayaHuaska. Star was a big roan, Arabian and quarter horse, a rodeo performer, used to an audience, liked the spotlight. It was important for Star to win. Both of them, ayaHuaska and Star, drama queens. Mack Dicksons of the horse world. Pretty boys, used to all the attention.

ONE DAY
,
OUR
first summer at the Residency, out back of the barn, Bobbie and I were sitting in the sun with our backs against the wall. Charlie was lying in the grass. We each had a stem of grass in our mouth, sucking on the juice, the good kind of grass to suck on that Charlie showed us.

Charlie rolled over, squinted his eyes in the sun, chewed a couple times on his stem of grass, and started talking about his famous trickriding father, the fancy rider, who traveled all over Europe and even had a show in Madison's Square Garden in New York City.

Usually Bobbie would've said, Charlie 2Moons, you're so full of horse shit. But Bobbie didn't say anything. Maybe it was the sun shining on
us, or the grass juice, or the ladybug that flew on Bobbie's arm, or because Bobbie wasn't grown up yet.

Maybe in the sun behind the barn that day Bobbie was tired of nothing to believe in and just needed something, a story, some hope, so when Charlie told us about his fancy-rider father, Bobbie's eyes didn't flash gold flecks and Bobbie didn't say, Charlie 2Moons, your father sounds like a damn drunk rodeo fool same as mine.

Instead Bobbie said, Madison's Square Garden, huh? How about that, a fancy rider in Madison's Square Garden in New York City!

Why is Madison's Garden, I said, Square?

Charlie and Bobbie just looked at each other, didn't say anything.

THE THREE OF
us decided to get an act together, a trick-riding trio. We'd practice and travel all over, even to Europe, and finally to Madison's Square Garden in New York City too.

First we had to find a name for our trio. Charlie wanted to call us the Madison's Square Garden Trio. Bobbie hated that name. Bobbie wanted to call us the Badland Boys, even though she was a girl. I wanted to call us the Fancy Frees, and both Bobbie and Charlie hated that, so we drew straws, or stems of grass, and Bobbie won. Bobbie always won, because she was the one holding the stems of grass.

Charlie bought the book,
The Complete Book of Trick and Fancy Riding
, by Frank E. Dean. It was a big orange book with photographs of trick riders trick riding and drawings showing you how to do the different tricks and, in the beginning of the book, how to get started.

That's all we did that summer, Charlie and Bobbie and me, was read
The Complete Book of Trick and Fancy Riding
and practice on ayaHuaska and Chub in the side corral of the barn.

Of course, before we could start, Bobbie had to measure the side corral, get the one hundred feet from station to station—one side of the corral to the other—exactly perfect. We had to take the whole south end of the fence down and move it in eight feet. Had to redig the post holes, reset the posts, and nail the corral poles back on the posts. Then we had to pull the weeds around the fence, rake the weeds into a pile, and burn the weeds. Then Bobbie found a few places where the corral poles were sagging and we had to repair them.

Charlie and Bobbie were at each other the whole time we worked on the corral.

We're trick riders, Charlie said, Not cheap labor.

It has to be a certain way, Bobbie said, Before we can start. You can't play unless you know the rules.

The rules, Charlie said, Is to have some fun on your horse.

The rules, Bobbie said, Is to have some rules.

Back and forth, those two.

Some days Charlie didn't even show up to help us.

When it was all done, the side corral looked real square and new, and clean because of no weeds.

Perfect, Bobbie said.

Just perfect, I said.

IT TOOK US
a good two weeks to get the basics of trick and fancy riding down—getting ayaHuaska and Chub used to us doing weird things on them, getting ayaHuaska and Chub to do their boring job of just walking and then galloping back and forth, back and forth, station to station.

The first trick we all learned is the simplest and it's called the Two-Hand Horn Spin, where you get galloping from station to station. As you're galloping, you put both hands around the saddle horn. Then you lift yourself up with your arms and put your right leg over to the left and you're straddling the horn with both your legs to the left, then you lift yourself up with your arms and you bring your left leg over and you sit facing backward, straddling the saddle horn, then your right leg over to the left and you sit sidesaddle that way, then your left leg back and you're back in the saddle where you started.

Bobbie did the Two-Hand Horn Spin first. Then Charlie. Then me.

Next was the One-Hand Horn Spin, and then the No-Hands Horn Spin.

We had the Two-Hand Horn Spin and the One-Hand Horn Spin and the No-Hands Horn Spin down in two days.

Next was the Hippodrome Stand, which was real hard even though it sounds easy. The Hippodrome Stand is just you, standing up on the saddle and sticking out your arms, while the horse keeps galloping.

The first time I did the Hippodrome Stand was after both Bobbie and Charlie had done it. For two days they had been galloping and Hippodrome standing, and I had tried and tried but I just couldn't make myself stand up in the air and stick my arms out. There was nothing holding us down except for the loop of rope Charlie'd fashioned across the saddle that we stuck our boots under.

On my third day at this, I still couldn't make my legs just stand up and put me up into the flying air. It was late morning and we were all hungry, and I remember there wasn't anything in the kitchen except for carrots and Cheerios and Rice Crispies, no milk and no sugar, and we never went over to bother Viv, Charlie's mother, while she was banging hair, and the sun was getting hot, so once again I got Chub galloping, once again I got my one foot up and then my other foot up and both feet stuck under the Hippodrome strap that wasn't really a strap, just a piece of rope, and once again I went to stand up and once again my legs just wouldn't do it.

That's when Bobbie called me a spineless ass. Bobbie was sitting on the fence, and she cupped her hands around her mouth and said, For chrissakes, Will! You're nothing but a spineless ass!

Charlie was sitting right next to Bobbie when Bobbie cupped her hands over her mouth and yelled out
spineless ass
at me, and just like that, all at once, Charlie backhanded Bobbie square in the face and Bobbie went off the fence ass over teakettle.

All the while, Chub is galloping back and forth, back and forth, galloping galloping, station to station, and my feet are under the Hippodrome strap.

Bobbie hits the ground in a cloud of dust and it ain't two seconds and Bobbie is back up and has Charlie by the belt and then Charlie's flying off the fence.

Galloping galloping, back and forth, back and forth.

All I can see of Charlie and Bobbie is flying arms and legs and dust, them screaming and yelling at each other, just going at each other like mad dogs.

I talk to Chub first—Chub, I'm standing up now, just hang in there with me, please—and then I'm standing up, in the air, the wind and the sun all around me, and I put my arms out and the way I feel is the way I'd always wanted to feel and never knew it. It's the way the ocean feels, I figure, rolling rolling, or why birds like to fly so much. I let out a big whoop! and look over at Charlie and Bobbie, and their faces are all snot and blood and dirt and they're smiling big smiles and they start clapping like they're the audience and I am doing the Hippodrome Stand and this is New York City and this is Madison's Square Garden.

THE NEXT TRICK
was Double Vaulting, but Bobbie never got to Double Vaulting. Bobbie didn't get past the Hippodrome Stand. Late that summer,
after Father got home, Bobbie got sick and stayed sick and pretty much stayed in her room except when she barfed in the bathroom.

Bobbie told me not to worry. She said she was fourteen now and grown up and had to put aside the ways of a child. I took it to mean Bobbie was no longer on the premises and that she couldn't ride with Charlie and me because she had breasts and her period.

So that was it for the Badland Boys. It was just Charlie and me after that.

One morning in the corral, Charlie doing the Hippodrome Stand on the back of ayaHuaska, he yelled over at me, Fuck the rules, Will! Why do we have to stay in the corral?

Going Slack is what Charlie and I called it, the game we played.

Out the barn door, tying the reins together and letting them go slack, ayaHuaska and Chub racing flat-out to the bottoms, through miles of sun on tall waving grass, ayaHuaska and Chub taking us to Spring Creek, to the river, to old Fort Hall, to the cemetery, Ferry Butte, to the cliffs, to the mystery, to where we ought to go.

Charlie and me doing the tricks: Double Vaulting, Going Under the Neck, One Foot Slick Stand Over the Hips, Back Roll to a Crupper Jump, through the yellow and the blue and the green, fancy riding, riding free.

One night by the campfire, owl hooting in a cottonwood, coyote singing at the moon, Charlie 2Moons told me his grandfather told him once about a beautiful warrior on a stallion who lives in our dreams. The warrior is strong and gets his strength from riding the stallion without reining the horse. If you ride fast enough, letting the reins go slack, if you shut your eyes and dream hard enough, you can make the warrior's stallion your own and live forever that way, riding free.

And something else. Something else I'll tell you.

But I never told Bobbie this.

That summer, before Father got home and before Bobbie got sick and stayed in her room, one night lying up in my bed, I heard something and looked over at my window and there's Charlie 2Moons in my window with his big liar's smile, with the moon and the stars behind Charlie, the moon and the stars solitary illuminations, plus the crickets and the frogs and the whole noisy night.

Charlie stayed up in my room with me and slept in my bed with me. In the middle of the night, Charlie's arm around me, holding on to me, all night long.

CHAPTER
NINE

M
y first spring in New York.

On 77th Street, across from the Museum of Natural History, we found a parking place right after True Shot said his prayer to Saint Carlotta. True Shot shifted and backed into the parking space.