The Work of Wolves (13 page)

"You're working
for
me," he said. "Not with me."

He turned away before Carson could respond.

SHE CAME BACK THE NEXT DAY
. She stood outside the fence for a long time, watching Carson and Orlando work.

"Am I allowed to talk?" she finally asked.

Carson led the horse in a figure eight, teaching it the tug of a bridle. He wasn't sure whether or not her politeness was meant as sarcasm.

"No rules against talkin," he said.

"Are you allowed to stop work to answer?"

"Depends on Orlando."

"He makes the rules?"

"Most of era."

"So what's he say about your stopping work to talk?"

"In another minute he won't mind a bit."

Carson finished the exercise and loosely tied the reins. He came out of the corral, picked up his water jug, took a long drink. Holding the jug in both hands, the ice water cold against his brain, he looked at Rebecca Yarborough. She leaned against a windrower one of the hired men had parked near the barn a few days before. She wore blue jeans and a blue chambray shirt with a red rose sewn over the left pocket. Her hair was pinned on the back of her head. The new riding boots she'd worn two days earlier were missing. She wore white running shoes instead.

"I was out of line the other day," she said.

"Uh huh." Carson lifted the jug to his lips but stopped, surprised, when she laughed.

"That was an apology," she said. "You're not supposed to just agree."

He looked at her over the half-raised jug, flustered at her laughter, at how easily it came.

"Oh," was all he managed to say.

"You're supposed to recognize an apology without making someone put a sign on it."

He nodded, drank, swallowed, lowered the jug, shut his eyes for a moment against the rush of cold.

"Guess I need some work on that," he said.

She was taking delight in his confusion, and he felt embarrassed by it. The sun brought out faint gold flecks in her eyes.

"I don't know a thing about horses," she said. "I should have done what you asked when you asked it."

"Is that 'n apology, too?"

She moved her head loosely, a nod-shake, yes-no. "More just the truth."

He set the jug on the ground. "So why'd you go get your husband down here to give me a hard time about it?"

Her smile disappeared.

"He came down here?"

Carson nodded.

She gazed into the corral, absorbing this. "I guess I owe you another apology," she said. "I just mentioned you kept me out of the corral. I knew I'd made a fool of myself. I never thought he'd come down here."

"Maybe I shouldn' a told you."

"He likes to throw his weight around."

When Carson didn't reply, she said, "You're a diplomatic man."

"He had an opinion. I had another. We worked it out."

"I bet you did. So why didn't he inform me I could go into the corral if I wanted?"

"I suppose because you can't."

Everything that had lit up in her before lit up again, and she laughed out loud, delighted.

"You mean he didn't get his way? I wish I could have heard that conversation."

"He's used to gettin his way, is he?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, God."

"Well, he got me here. Wasn' my idea."

With the toe of her shoe, she touched the side of the water jug he'd set down. It wobbled, regained its balance. "He got me here, too," she said.

Carson could think of no reply. He watched the jug wobble. "Well, Orlando's waiting," he finally said.

"How's that work—Orlando telling you what to do?"

"I know where I want him to get, but he's the one knows how to get there. Every horse's a little different."

"When do I get to learn? To ride?"

A subdued, hopeful tone entered her voice, and Carson felt a sudden pang, remembering the riding boots she'd worn, their newness. It hadn't occurred to him that learning to ride actually meant something to her and that she'd come to the corral two days ago with a yearning, however small. That her entering the corral had been a mistake of hope. He'd missed that.

"I got to get a horse ready first," he said. "Orlando's comin along. Maybe another two weeks. Just confuse 'm, I put you on 'm too soon."

"He's the first priority, huh?"

"Make a mistake with a person, you can explain. With 'n animal, you got to live with it. Or start over, if you can."

She looked past him, at the distance out there, then met his eyes. The sun went deep into hers. Green pools, swimming flecks of gold.

"And what if you can't explain or live with it or start over, none of them?"

"I don' know," Carson said. "I ain't never been where one a three didn't work."

FOUR DAYS IN A ROW
she asked when she was going to learn to ride.

"Patience is at a real premium on this place, isn't it?" Carson finally asked her.

He was on Orlando, getting the big bay accustomed to neck reining, shifting his weight and pressing with his heels as he laid the reins along the horse's neck to help it understand how it should turn. Orlando was confused by it. He had taken the saddle, and Carson's weight, well, but the notion of being guided, of going where another being wanted him to go, was a difficult thing for the horse to understand. Some horses wanted to be guided. Others resisted. Others had difficulty comprehending it at all.

Carson had allowed Rebecca inside the corral. Orlando had gotten used to her, seemed even to like her, and Carson was letting her help. He had her walk around the corral, and he would guide Orlando away from her, then toward and around her, to the right or left. He'd never tried this before, but it seemed to work well, and it gave Rebecca something to do. Carson didn't understand why she seemed to have so much time on her hands, but as long as she was here, she might as well be useful.

"I'm not impatient," she replied to him. "I'm just in a hurry."

"Move over to that other corner now," Carson said as he guided Orlando past her.

He took Orlando to the fence, then swung him around and started back toward Rebecca, who had walked to the corner he'd indicated.

"It's just that there's not a whole lot else to do out here," she explained.

"Don' move now. I'm goin a take him between you and the fence. See if he'll go for that. You tellin me you got a whole ranch to help work and there's nothin to do? I must look half-gullible."

"You think he lets me do anything?"

Orlando pricked his ears. "Easy," Carson said to him. "She's just makin odd sounds." The horse didn't want to go through the narrow gap between Rebecca and the fence. "C'mon," Carson urged. Orlando tossed his head. Carson saw he'd either have to pull Orlando's head hard with the reins or let him go outside Rebecca. He stopped the horse, its nose a few feet from her. Orlando was agitated, his ears moving back and forth between the rider on his back and the person in front of him.

"We're just goin a sit here a sec," Carson said. "He don' want a go through, and I don' want him to get the idea he can do whatever he wants. So while he's thinkin about it, you take a few slow steps to the side. Widen the gap. We'll accommodate him since he's such a baby about it, but he'll still be doin what he's supposed to."

She moved away from the fence, and Carson settled Orlando down, then urged him forward again. This time the horse stepped through the gap.

"We're comin back around," Carson said as he went past her. "Move a step closer to the fence. He don't let you help with things, huh?"

"Not a thing. I'm stuck."

"Good place to be stuck, I guess."

He said this as he was moving away from her. When he turned Orlando and started back toward her, she was staring at him with a face so pained she might have just stepped on a nail. Carson stopped Orlando. He looked down at her from the back of the horse.

"OK," he said. "Not a good place to be stuck."

She didn't reply. She seemed to be looking at Orlando's hooves. Carson saw that her white running shoes were smudged from the dry dirt of the corral. He saw the part in her hair, the fine line of her scalp. He nudged the horse forward until he was abreast of her. She didn't lift her head.

"Hey," he said. "That was an apology. I'm not supposed to have to put a sign on it."

Her face came up to his then.

"We gotta get you a hat," he said. "And you might want a wear them riding boots out here again tomorrow."

"You noticed that," she said.

SHE WAS ON ORLANDO
, Carson on Surety, in the pasture behind the barn.

"You're doin OK," he said. "So's he. I want you to run 'm."

Her hair flowed in a delayed wave across her neck as she swung her head to stare at him. The wave parted, he saw a small emerald earring, then the wave closed again, and he saw that her eyes were the same emerald as the jewel. Or the jewel the same emerald as her eyes.

"Run him? You mean gallop? Really go?"

"You're not tryin a be a rocket. But yeah, gallop him."

"I don't know if I'm ready for that."

"You're ready. You just ain't ever done it before."

"What are you going to do?"

"Bring Surety along nice and slow."

"You want me to run Orlando out there by myself?"

"He's needin it. You, too. You don't want a just walk the rest a your life."

She lifted her chin and looked at him sideways. Carson had the impression that her eyes actually stirred deep down. Clear and mineral water.

"No, I don't," she said.

She clucked to Orlando and jabbed him with her heels the way Carson had told her, and the horse's haunches bunched, tensing under the shining coat, and already the horse was moving. Rebecca's hair flew back from her head, lifted on the created wind, so that it resembled the sheen that floated on the very surface of a blackbird's neck, color that was all light, all diffraction, without material or substance.

Carson restrained Surety, teaching her it was the rider on her back she obeyed and not the horse beside her. He watched Rebecca's back recede and Orlando's swift feet striking the earth and curling back up. Prairie dogs in their distant holes dropped their paws to the ground and disappeared.

Orlando swept to the left as Rebecca turned him, and the horse's tail and her hair were hung on the wind, outlined against a low, distant cloud. Then they were growing toward him again, the sound of the hoofbeats coming just behind their striking, that pleasurable syncopation of eye and ear.

"Whoo-o-o-o!" she cried. She was shining. Alight. She flew toward him, having found the rhythm, so that she floated above Orlando without moving, the animal a platform for her flight. Nostrils flaring, mane atangle—both of them. Then she took up the reins, but not hard, as he'd told her, and Orlando rushed to a stop beside Surety as he had rushed away. He obeyed so well in fact that Rebecca was thrown a little off balance and fell forward slightly over his neck. Carson reached out and clasped her shoulder to steady her.

"God!" she cried. "God that was fun! I did it, didn't I?"

"You did it." Carson laughed himself.

"That was great!" She threw back her head—then stopped laughing. Her eyes clouded. He saw she was looking at something behind him. Carson turned. Magnus Yarborough's pickup was parked near the barn, and Magnus was watching them, his elbow sticking out the open window. He was too far away for Carson to see his expression. Then Magnus drew his arm into the cab and turned the wheel, and the pickup rolled forward and disappeared around the corner of the barn.

"Well, looks like he saw you riding," Carson said.

She nodded.

"Oughta make him happy. Seein how good you got already."

She watched the point where the pickup had disappeared and didn't reply. Surety reached down and ripped up a mouthful of grass. Carson leaned forward, patted the horse's neck.

"He's upset," she said finally.

Carson considered this. "You got good eyes," he said, "seein that from here."

She flicked her reins playfully at him. But her voice was serious. "He is," she said.

"Why'd he be upset? He wants you to learn to ride."

"Wants? He agreed to it. But it wasn't easy."

Carson looked where the pickup had been, as if the empty space it had left might clarify something that he could read imprinted on the air.

"I don' get it," he said. "He doesn't want you ridin horses? This's a ranch."

"You don't want to get it."

Carson glanced at her. She'd said the words almost as if she'd been talking to herself. As if
she
didn't wanted to get it. He saw how the shadow of her hat brim cut a curving line across her torso and upper arm. How she balanced herself when Orlando moved. He wondered if he should ask a question about what he didn't want to get. Or if he should agree to silence.

Before he could decide, she looked at him and said, "Forget him. Let's ride."

TWO DAYS LATER
she suggested they load the horses into a trailer and drive to another part of the ranch. "I want to see different country," she said.

"You can learn to ride here just fine."

"You sound like him."

She said it jokingly, but the words disturbed Carson. Magnus, even when he wasn't watching, seemed suddenly present, shouldering his way into everything she thought. And Carson knew who she meant by "him." How had it happened that the word needed no clarification? And he was troubled knowing her desire to ride someplace else involved Magnus, not just riding. This was the very sort of thing Carson's grandfather had in mind when he demanded horses be brought to him. The horses and their training shouldn't be entangled in these kinds of human affairs. "Pollution," Ves had called it once. "Horses ain't askin to be trained, so if you're goin a do it, they at least deserve some purity out've it."

But seeing Magnus watching them had been a little creepy, and the thought of getting away from this ranch and into open country appealed to Carson. He just didn't want the decision to be anything but a decision about horses: where to ride them, where they liked to be rode.

"Reb," he said, looking for neutral ground. "I'm gettin paid quite a bit. But goin clear—"