Both feet firmly planted, my right arm crept forward so slowly the muscles in my shoulder cramped. The skin on the horse’s neck twitched and rippled with nervous energy. The heat from her coat reached the palm of my hand even though it was still six inches away. I blocked out the sounds of my brothers in the field and Pa spitting tobacco a mere ten feet away, and listened for the filly’s cadenced panting and matched my breath to hers. Pa said horses could smell fear, and he’d taught all of us to never show hesitation around any animal. I can’t remember a time in my life when horses did not surround me. At seventeen I’d broken six already. It’s called breaking, and it starts this way: training the horse to abide human companionship until they gain your trust. Pa brought this filly back from the auction last week and already she was letting me touch her without running off.
Out of the corner of my eye, Pa lifted his bulk off his lawn chair and limped his way over.
“That’s enough for today, son. Tomorrow let’s see if she’ll tolerate a blanket.” At the sound of his voice, the horse trotted off toward the far end of the corral. “She’s a fine horse. Still needs a name. How about Maple?”
Knowing full well this filly’s name wasn’t up for discussion, I nodded in agreement. Pa had named all thirty-five of our horses. I’d even heard him persuade a few of our boarders to change the name of their own while convincing them it was their idea.
As I headed toward the barn a slight breeze danced through the corral. When the filly stopped, the cool air lifted her forelock slightly. The wind carried with it the scent of barn, body odor and decay. Even though the doctors warned Pa that the open wound on his leg would never heal unless he got his sugar under control, he didn’t change his habits. Each night after dinner, he silently followed Momma into the bathroom where she would slather his leg with a thick salve and replace the dressing.
That summer, my body went through the motions of helping Pa run the farm, my mind preoccupied with my future. Next month I’d turn eighteen and in September I’d start my senior year in high school. While all the other kids my age were growing their hair long and looking for ways to drop out, I wanted to settle down, marry Sherri and get a job at one of the Big Three. I longed for a life in which work and home were separate and where I didn’t need anyone’s permission to make decisions. And as long as my draft number eluded the lottery, that’s exactly what I intended to do. The war in Vietnam was ramping up and Momma prayed long and hard that it would end before it took any of her sons. As the oldest, I’d be the first to go.
As I went about the business of cleaning up the tack room, Pa announced he was taking Momma South to visit family. When I asked who would tend the horses, he tilted his head to the right and wrinkled his nose at me.
“Why, you will, Marcus,” he said. He always swallowed the end of my name so that it came out in one syllable. “We’ll bring the girls. But it’s you, your brothers and Russell. You’ll be in charge, not Russ. He’s not family.”
Everyone knew Pa still held a grudge after Russ disobeyed him and called a vet about a colicky colt. The fact that the vet said the phone call saved the horse’s life made no difference.
I gazed out toward the back of the barn, trying to rearrange the look on my face. I could feel his eyes on me.
“We’ll leave Wednesday. Be back Monday,” he said.
That night I lay awake, practically bursting with excitement. None of us had ever been alone on the farm overnight without Pa and Momma. Now we’d be alone for six full days and five nights. My skin tingled and twitched like the green horses I worked with. A list of tasks tumbled through my mind. Keeping the horses fed and exercised, mucking the stalls, repairing equipment – my brothers and I already managed all that day-to-day stuff. The calendar, money and people were Pa’s job. But I’d watched and heard enough to know what to do.
The Saturday before they left, I told Pa that Midnight looked like she was ready for new shoes. I let him know so he could call up Johnson, our farrier, to come in that week. As soon as the words dropped out of my mouth, it hit me that I would be the one dealing with Johnson, a task Pa always managed.
“You’ll have to deal with Johnson.” It was as if Pa was reading my mind. “Be sure you watch him closely and mark down what time he gets here and all that he does so he don’t overcharge us. That man would steal from his own momma if he thought he’d get away with it. And send one of the boys to get whatever tools he forgets in the truck. Don’t let him go himself. He keeps a bottle in the glove compartment.”
That Johnson drank or had tried to rip us off was news to me. I didn’t bother asking why Pa would play poker every Saturday night with a man he couldn’t trust.
Wednesday morning, I woke before six to see them off. The sky teetered on the edge of night and day. All the stars had burnt off, but the outline of the moon remained while the sun peeked out from the horizon. Stepping out onto the yard between the front porch and the driveway, my feet slipped on the dewy grass. It was early summer, but the air already felt thick with humidity.
“You know what to do. You got Uncle Jay’s number, call if you need us,” Pa said. “We’ll call when we get there.”
He climbed into the driver’s seat, lifting his bad leg with both hands, sliding it into position to the left of the brake pedal. The car groaned slightly under his weight.
“We’ll be there by suppertime.” Momma kissed my cheek and squeezed my shoulder. “Be careful.”
Waving goodbye, I stood in the stillness of the yard long after their taillights were visible. The yard felt bigger than before, and when I turned around, the barn cast a long shadow over the corral. The robins ran through their morning song exercises, barely pausing before they began again. After their third chorus I broke away and woke the house up.
That day felt like any other. After breakfast, we cleaned out the stalls then took care of a few boarders. The only difference was instead of turning to Pa in his seat at the barn entrance for questions, everyone turned to me. Before answering, I’d tip my hat back slightly and lean against a stall door, trying to look older.
When my brothers began sword fighting with pitchforks after finishing their barn work, I sent them out to weed Momma’s garden.
“You gotta help too. Stop acting like Pa,” said Stanley.
“I’m in charge and if he was here, he wouldn’t be in the garden, he’d be sitting here keeping watch in case somebody stopped by.”
In the background Russell murmured agreement. I turned to him, and he caught my eye and nodded.
When Johnson arrived, I had to yell for Clark three times before he bolted across the yard from the back of the property. When he ran past me, he stuck out his tongue and then stood ramrod straight in front of Johnson waiting for his assignment.
Johnson’s visit lasted a little over three hours. He replaced Midnight’s shoe and worked on two other horses. I recorded everything carefully in the ledger, trying hard to imitate Pa’s confident handwriting. I slanted my letters like his hoping that when he read it later, he wouldn’t be able to tell this was the week he left me in charge.
That night after closing the barn and locking up the house, the weight of the day fell away as I sat with my brothers watching Bonanza. The buzz of cicadas hummed through the open window. I knew if I stepped outside and away from the porch, small pinpricks of light from fireflies would greet me. If Patsy were here, she would collect them in mason jars for homemade lanterns, then cry the next morning when their lifeless bodies lie among the grass and twigs of their makeshift home. Even though she was the youngest of the family, we were close, calling ourselves the bookends of the family. I knew I’d miss her the most when I finally moved out.
The next morning, heading toward the barn with my brothers, I forced myself to think about the day ahead. My distracted mood stemmed from Pa’s call last night. When I told him everything was running smoothly, he sounded disappointed. His reaction had kept me awake. Tossing and turning, I flipped through my memories, unable to recall the last time he acted proud of anything I’d ever done. The realization made me sad and angry all at once. The distance of a few hours of sleep hadn’t changed my mind.
I unlocked the heavy chain that secured the barn door and unwrapped it from the door handles while Clark, Stanley and Robert slid open the doors. The familiar scent of sweet hay and earthy manure welcomed us. But underneath there was a slightly rank scent and the horses sounded restless. Stanley flipped on the lights.
“Where’s Queenie?”
Queenie was the oldest mare we owned. She was a gift to Momma from Pa on their one-year wedding anniversary. Every Sunday after church, Momma would take Queenie out and ride the perimeter of our forty acres.
Walking the length of the barn, I could see horses lined up in every stall except Queenie’s. I leaned forward slightly over her stall. Queenie lay on her side, the hay on the floor beside her untouched. Flies gathered around her closed eyes. I reached my hands behind me to shoo my brothers away, but it was too late.
“Is she dead?” Stan said.
“Yes, she’s gone.” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, even though the word was echoing in my head.
Dead.
“Okay, listen, we still need to feed and water the others. Russell will be here soon to help.” I turned to Robert, who at sixteen was next in line. “You’re in charge. I have to go back up to the house.”
My mind raced. I knew I needed to call Pa but thought I should wait for Russell. He’d been working for us for years; he would know what to do. Or I could call Johnson. The knot in my gut loosened while I entertained those ideas. But only for a moment. I knew it was Pa I had to deal with.
I opened the book that listed scheduled riders and the boarders expected that day, then glanced at the cuckoo clock perched above the couch. It was seven forty-five. Having no idea how long it would take to dispose of Queenie’s body, I wasn’t sure if I should cancel the two rides scheduled for one o’clock.
I heard the screen door open. Before it slammed shut Robert was sitting in the chair opposite me.
“Did you call him? What did he say? Was he mad?” He slapped his legs, kicking up dust. Bits of hay had settled in the brim of his hat.
“No, not yet. I’m getting ready to.”
Uncle Jay answered on the second ring. I listened to him wax on about the heat and laugh about how his brother’s blood was getting too thick for Southern summers. When his laughter shifted from wheezing to coughing, I interrupted politely to ask if Pa was there.
The phone shook slightly in my hand, and I struggled to control my voice. If I didn’t panic, he’d have no choice but to react calmly. But when I heard Pa’s voice my throat tightened. I was glad he couldn’t see my face.
“Pa. It’s Queenie.” I still couldn’t say the word. Dead.
There was a lightness in his voice I didn’t expect.
“Queenie? What’s about Queenie, son?”
“She’s, she’s gone. Lying in her stall this morning. She was fine yesterday, Pa, I swear.”
“Marcus. Queenie was old. Now listen to me carefully.”
Two hours later, I watched Queenie’s body hoisted into a sling and dropped carefully onto a trailer. The driver apologized to me and my brothers before driving off, as if we had lost a family member. Across the corral Russell looked up from the fence post he was mending and tipped his hat at me.
The rest of the day my mind felt split in two: one half resting in the present, managing my brothers, the horses and customers, the other half tormented by Pa’s reaction when he returned. The whole thing wore me down. It was like a tight fist that had ahold of something inside of me and wouldn’t let up.
Early Friday morning, I woke to the sound of Momma humming in the kitchen. They must have driven all night. Pa sat with his leg elevated on the living room coffee table, the foot swollen and bruised from the drive home. When I walked by, he didn’t lift his head from the newspaper spread out on his lap. My sisters chattered away, filling us in on the latest family news. While I poured a cup of coffee, Patsy ran up and hugged me from behind. After my brothers woke and we finished eating, we headed out to the barn to work. Pa came out later and silently took his rightful spot in the seat by the entrance to the barn. It was as if nothing had changed.
Summer ended and my senior year started. Sherri and I dreamed about life after high school while Momma prayed the war would end. All the while, Pa practiced an economy of words.
The month after graduation, Sherri and I married. While we were up north on our honeymoon, they rushed Pa to the hospital. He died on the operating table having his leg amputated.
At his funeral I kept thinking about that time he left me to tend the farm. After Queenie died, I carried a heaviness around for months, waiting for him to sling the incident back in my face. Sometimes I could feel him staring at me, like he wanted to say something. But he never did.
It wasn’t until I announced I was marrying Sherri did I initiate a conversation with him. His worn face stared back at me, his head nodding. By then he was using a cane. With one hand on the cane, he swayed slightly and reached out to me for balance, and I stood still. He squeezed my shoulder and released it, then turned, and walked away. Without speaking a word, that touch released the immense weight I had carried around for months.
And now, at his funeral, I lifted my hand and touched my shoulder.
“You okay?” Sherri whispered to me.
I looked at the woman I had taken as my wife a few weeks earlier. When we took our vows, part of me still felt like a child, unprepared for what lie ahead. Like we were both kids playing house. Dropping my hand from my shoulder, I reached over and grabbed hers, responding with confidence, “I’ll be okay.”
Beth Yoakum is an avid reader known to devour nearly anything set in front of her. Recently, she set aside her reading glasses for a pen, and began writing. She has published creative non-fiction and fiction in Valiant Scribe, Epistemic Literary and Vita and the Woolf Literary Journal and has completed her first novel. Beth lives in Michigan with her husband, her four daughters and a large collection of unread books.
