Little Joe (14 page)

“I’ll talk to your pa,” Grandpa whispered. “Just because he didn’t get to show at the fair that first year doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. That was then. Now it’s your turn, son.”

Eli hoped Grandpa could convince Pa, but he knew how different they were. “Pa says we talk too much.”

“He does? Well, I got a right to be with my grandson. Tell him a few things.” Grandpa pulled Eli closer, the way he always did. Eli couldn’t help but smile.

“You and Pa sure are different,” Eli said.

“Your pa’s got a particular way of seeing things, Eli. It don’t have to be yours. If you don’t want it to.”

But Eli wanted to please Pa. Whenever he caught sight of the winning photos in the tack room, his neck hairs tingled. And he figured if he got close enough to winning the blue ribbon with Little Joe, Pa might be proud of him.

“You
are
gonna lose him, son.”

“Huh?” Eli leaned over to look at Grandpa.

“Your show animal.”

Eli wasn’t ready to think about that.

“Sometimes nature decides when, sometimes a cattle sale does.” Grandpa put an arm around Eli. “That’s just the way it is. Doesn’t mean you stop caring just because it hurts. If you do, you turn away all the good that comes from knowing them. The only thing sadder than losing a show animal is hardening up for good.”

No Trespassing

Eli started off slowly beside the nodding white petals of Queen Anne’s lace, dawdling along the gravel shoulder next to the road that led to Tess’s farm. He wanted to see the horses. He’d been told more foals had been born and hoped to touch them before they got too big. Maybe he’d see Tess. Tess was different. She wasn’t always talking like Hannah. And she was close to her horses the way he was to his calf without ever having to say it. Eli didn’t feel like saying much. Or thinking. Especially about what Grandpa had told him in the barn. Or the lobelia Pa found in Fancy’s field.

Eli tugged at his cap and began to jog as soon as he heard whinnying. When he got near the white ribbons on the electric fence surrounding the pastures, Blue barked.

“Blue! Come here, Blue!” It was Tess calling. The little blue-gray dachshund waddled next to her heels with his squatty legs and stuck out his tongue.

Eli rested behind the deeply grooved trunk of a sugar maple nearly stripped of its golden leaves and caught his breath. He watched Tess lead an Appaloosa he hadn’t seen before into the pasture above the lake.

“Hi, Eli.” Tess smiled. Eli looked around the tree and smiled, too.

Tess took off the twine holding the pasture gate in place and guided the speckled horse through it. She unhooked the lead chain and the horse galloped free, kicking and bucking at the wind. He slowed to a trot and flared his nostrils when he got close to the others and saw they were grazing.

“Come to see the babies?” Tess asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“They’re in the pasture by the lake where it’s nice and flat. No gopher holes. And no electric fence to zap them. Come see.”

They watched the foals frolicking in the fields and rolling around in the last patches of clover. Eli marveled at their long, spindly legs. They splayed out in all directions, yet somehow the foals didn’t topple over.

“Their mouths are softer than velvet,” Tess whispered.

A tan one bit the neck of another to get him to play.
They galloped away with bushy tails in the air so new, the stubs barely covered their rumps.

Tess climbed through the fence and made a clucking sound. Two foals came over. She took a cloth from her back pocket and wiped their eyes with it.

“Still fly season,” she told Eli. “And their tails are too short to shoo anything away.” Tess curled an arm around the neck of the rust-colored one and guided him toward the fence. “Would you like to touch him?”

“Sure.”

The colt’s black mane stood straight up and was all feathery.
Just like a toothbrush
, Eli thought.
Only not near as many bristles
. Eli could see right through it.

“Go ahead. Reach your hand out, palm flat, and he’ll sniff it,” urged Tess.

Eli stretched out his arm too quickly. The foal got spooked and backed away.

“They’re so skittish at this age,” Tess said. “Try again. Give me your hand this time and I’ll bring it to him.”

Tess took Eli’s palm and rested it on top of hers. Slowly, she guided it toward the colt. He didn’t get spooked and sniffed at Eli’s fingers. Snorting out a warm breath of air, the colt skimmed Eli’s palm with his mouth.

“It is soft.” Eli smiled. Tess was right. It was softer than velvet. Softer than anything Eli’d ever touched. He imagined it must be even softer than the velvety skin he’d
seen hanging off a buck’s antlers. And it was softer than the pinkest part on Tater’s belly.

Tess laughed and studied the colt like Eli studied Little Joe. She examined his legs, cupping her hand around a tiny ankle and sliding it up the tendon. “They’re pretty helpless when they’re babies,” she said, feeling a scab below the colt’s knee. “They need lots of attention.”

Tess picked some straw out of his mane in the same gentle way Ma used to comb Eli’s hair when he was little. She ran her fingers through his stringy mane and the colt stepped on Tess’s foot. She giggled and looked down at the hoof, no bigger than a few fingers. “They go barefoot until they become yearlings,” Tess explained. “Then they get shoes on the front feet.”

Eli stuck a sneaker under the fence. The little hooves were the color of his shoelaces. “Cows don’t get anything done with their hooves till they’re at least a year old,” Eli mentioned, happy he knew that.

“Oh. I didn’t know that. Is your calf a year old?” Tess asked.

“He’ll be a little over nine months at the fair.”

“When do you show?”

“Tomorrow.”
If I even go
, Eli thought. He kept eyeing the colt’s hooves, trying not to think about the fair.

“I could never do that.” Tess climbed under the fence and stood beside Eli.

“Do what?”

“Part with an animal the way beef farmers do.” She shook away a loose brown hair from her forehead. “I couldn’t imagine taking care of an animal every day, then going to the fair and selling it. None of us in my family could.”

“It’s different with beef farmers,” Eli admitted. He thought of Pa and how he kept growth charts filled with numbers on all the crossbreds. And how he even
named
them numbers. Eli could never do that.
I’d have to give them real names
, he thought.
Just like I did with Little Joe
.

“Don’t you want to win a blue ribbon?” he asked Tess.

“Oh, I’ve got plenty of ribbons,” she said. “Not to brag or anything. I go to competitions all the time with Chili Pepper. She’s grazing up there.” Tess pointed to the paddock where the older horses were. “I always get nervous. Don’t know why. I do the same jumps with her down by the lake a hundred times, but the minute I enter the show ring, I forget. Only for a second, though. Chili Pepper reminds me. She helps me win all the time.”

Tess swung around and leaned into the rail to face Eli. “Is it like that with Little Joe? Does he help you, too?”

Eli thought about his calf and smiled. “He’s just a big old teddy bear.” Eli laughed. “Once he got used to me
leading him around. And he’ll do anything I ask him to. Poses like he’s a movie star. As long as Tater don’t spook him.”

“I bet you’ll win,” Tess said. “Then you’ll get lots of money to buy another one.” She paused, then forced out a laugh. “Guess I’m lucky they don’t eat horses and I can keep mine each year.”

“Yes, they do.” Keller had snuck up from behind. Both Tess and Eli jumped a little from the fence.

“They eat horses over in Europe,” Keller said. “That’s where my grandma’s from.” He tried to squeeze into the space between Tess and Eli. “They make glue out of ’em, too. That’s why glue smells the way it does.”

“I don’t believe it.” Tess hopped onto the lower rail and whistled at a foal that skittered by.

Eli didn’t believe it, either.

“Has your brother fixed that halter yet?” Keller asked, tapping the back of Tess’s shoulder.

“Oh yeah,” Tess said, climbing down from the rail. “I’ll go and get it.”

They both watched Tess as she headed to the barn.

“You got a halter that needs fixin’?” Keller asked Eli.

Eli shook his head.

“Then what are you here for?”

“To see the horses,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, and who else?”

Eli turned red and set his gaze across the pasture.

Tess came back and handed Keller the halter. All three of them just stood there, not knowing what to say.

Keller stared down at Eli. “Finished seeing the horses yet?”

Eli pulled the brim of his cap lower and followed Keller to the road.

“Good luck at the fair, Eli!” Tess called out.

“Good luck at the fair,
Ee-lie!”
Keller mimicked, making his voice sound dumb and squeaky.

“Your calf ready?” Keller asked, breaking the silence that had come between them as they walked along the road from Tess’s.

“Guess so.” Eli wasn’t about to tell Keller that he might not be going to the fair. “How’s your pigs?”

“Same as ever. Watermelon’s so fat he can hardly move, but he still bites.” Keller showed Eli a sickle-shaped scar in the fleshy part of his thumb. “Strawberry looks like she might be a winner, though.”

“If they’re too fat, then what happens?” Eli asked. Seemed beef cattle couldn’t get big enough.

“They can’t show.”

“You mean you lose your shot at a blue ribbon?”

Keller grabbed at a dried-out cornstalk and broke off
a hollow bit. “Who cares about a ribbon, anyway? If I get one, I’ll probably just end up wiping my arse with it.” Keller squatted as if he had to go.

“But you never got one,” Eli said.

“And neither have you,” Keller fired back. “What are they good for, anyhow? My mom’s got a bunch and she just stuffs them in the attic. They never see daylight.”

Still, Eli wanted a shot at winning one. And he wouldn’t do that with his ribbon—stuff it up in the attic and forget about it. He’d keep it in his room, pinned to his bedpost, and look at it every day.

“The good thing is,” Keller said, “you can still sell a pig once he’s super-fat, even if they get disqualified at the fair. DQ’d pigs make for some good bacon.” Keller licked his lips, then put a few fingers in his mouth, plucking them out one by one and making a smacking sound. As if he’d just had a good fill of bacon. “I like mine with plenty of mustard and ketchup. How ’bout you?”

Eli was still thinking about Watermelon as a pig, not bacon. He wondered how Keller could joke about his show animal becoming breakfast.

“Don’t the trees look like somebody spilled mustard and ketchup all over them?” It sounded awkward and Eli knew it, but he pointed to the trees anyway, hoping Keller would notice that they did look like fixings.

“You sure see things funny,” Keller said. “Like you’re not even really a farmer.”

They’d reached the old Rupert homestead. A
NO TRESPASSING
sign hung on the fence outside the vacant property. The pole it was suspended from had been bent to a sharp angle from years of tugging and was overtaken by poison ivy. It jutted out so far, Eli and Keller had to walk into the road to avoid it.

Keller eyed the broken-down barn. Part of the roof had caved in and the lightning rod clamped to its peak was piercing the sky sideways.

“They got a manure machine in there,” Keller said. He went up to the barn and peeked through a hole between two boards. “On wheels. It’s fun to ride sometimes, when you don’t care how you smell.”

“You’ve been inside?”

“All the time. How come you haven’t?”

“Well …” Eli bent down to make sure his shoelaces were tied. “It doesn’t look safe. The roof’s caved in.”

“Just on one side,” Keller was quick to mention. “I’ll show you around.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What? Too scared you might get a boo-boo before the fair?”

“No.” How could Eli tell Keller that he’d been in enough trouble with Pa already? He didn’t want to be
going into a no-trespassing barn when he wasn’t supposed to, especially one that looked like that.