Moses
WE PULLED OFF THE INTERSTATE just outside of Nephi and exited onto the old highway that connected Nephi to Levan. The Ridge is what it was called. Just a two lane stretch of nothing with fields stretching out on either side. We passed the Circle A with its big red sign sticking up high enough to be seen above the overpass and a mile down the freeway, telling truckers and weary drivers that there was relief in sight.
“Go back, Moses.”
I shot him a questioning look.
“I want to see it. It was there, wasn’t it?”
“Molly?”
“Yeah. Molly. I want to see the overpass.”
I didn’t argue, though I didn’t know what there was to see. My picture was long gone, covered and forgotten. So was Molly. Long gone. Covered and forgotten. But Tag hadn’t forgotten.
I turned around and found the dirt road that shimmied through the field, came out behind the overpass, and continued up into the hills. There were still broken beer bottles and fast food wrappers. A broken CD player that had probably been there for a while, considering the make and model, lay abandoned on its side, wires protruding from the missing speaker. I didn’t want glass in my tires and pulled off in the barrow pit a little ways off, just like I’d done that night so long ago. It was the same time of year and everything. It was the same kind of October—unseasonably warm, but predictably beautiful. The leaves were a hot riot on the lower hills and the sky was so blue I wanted to reach up and capture the color with my paint brush. But that night it had been dark. That night Georgia had followed me. That night I’d lost my head and maybe something else too.
Tag picked his way through the debris and just kept walking out into the field where the dogs must have canvased, noses to the ground. He stopped once and looked around, eyeing the hills, judging the distance to the freeway, measuring the length between the overpass and the back of the businesses that crowded the on and off ramps, trying to make sense of something that made no sense at all.
I turned away and walked to the cement walls that held the freeway on her shoulders. There were two sides, one slanting right, one slanting left, and I leaned back against the side still exposed to the sun, closed my eyes, and felt the warmth seep into my skin.
Wait! Please, please, please don’t keep walking away from me!” she cried in frustration. I could hear the tears in her voice and the fear too. She was afraid of me, but she still came after me. She still came after me. The thought made me stumble, it made me stop. And I turned, letting her catch me. And I caught her too, wrapping my arms around her so tight that the space between us became space around us, space above us, but not space inside us. I felt the drumming, the pounding beneath the softness of her breasts, and my heart raced to match it. I opened her mouth under mine, needing to see the colors, to feel them lick and climb up my throat and behind my eyes like flames from a signal flare. I kissed her lips over and over, until there were no secrets. Not hers, not mine. Not Molly’s. There was just heat and light and color. And I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop. Her skin was like silk and her sighs like satin, and I couldn’t look away from the pleasure on her face or the pleas in her hands that urged me onward.
Georgia’s hair, Georgia’s mouth, Georgia’s skin, Georgia’s eyes, Georgia’s long, long legs.
Georgia’s love, Georgia’s trust, Georgia’s faith, Georgia’s cries, Georgia’s long, long wait.
And then the cries of passion became something else. There was sorrow in the sound. And there were tears. Georgia was bent over with them, doubled over. And her hair streamed around her like the water falling from her eyes and wailing from her mouth, and her long, long legs were no longer around me but beneath her, kneeling, supplicating, and she cried, and cried, and cried…
I opened my eyes and sat upright, unsure of what had been my own memory or something else entirely. I felt sick and disoriented, almost like I’d dozed too long and gotten a touch of heat stroke. I rubbed at my neck with clammy hands. But it couldn’t have been that long. Tag still wandered around in the field, looking for a sign that led to absolution or a road to reasons why. I winced at the setting sun and turned back toward the concrete wall to give him time to discover there was no such thing as either one.
Eli sat against the opposite wall, his stubby legs in Batman pajamas pulled up into his chest as if he too had settled in for a long, long wait. His hood covered his dark curls, and the small fabric points crafted to resemble bat ears gave him a devilish air totally at odds with his angel boy face.
I cursed loudly, louder than I’d intended, the sound echoing off the concrete walls and beckoning Tag to turn around. He did and raised his arms in question.
“Time to go, Tag. I can’t be here anymore,” I called, walking away from the little boy who was busily sharing images of the same galloping white horse with colors on her hind quarters. Then a fat rope spun in the air, making a perfect loop that dropped around the horse’s neck and was pulled tight by some unknown hand. The horse tossed her pale mane, whinnied softly, and trotted around in my head unhappily. I didn’t know how to set her free.
“He keeps showing me a white horse,” I muttered, as Tag and I climbed back into my truck and pulled out onto the highway leading from one heartbreak and dropping us off at another. I didn’t want to be here. I couldn’t imagine Tag did either. “He keeps showing me a white horse with splotches of color on her rump. The same horse, over and over. Like the one in the picture I painted.”
“A Paint.”
“What?”
“It’s called a Paint. That kind of horse. Her coloring. They call that a Paint.”
“A Paint.” I wondered suddenly if the horse was just symbolic. Maybe all the kid wanted me to do was paint. Maybe I just hadn’t gotten it right.
Moses
TAG WALKED BEHIND ME, trailing me through the front door and into a house that had been laid bare. There was no furniture, no dishes, no rugs on the floor. Nothing remained of my grandmother in the house. It didn’t feel like her. It definitely didn’t smell like her. It was dusty and dank and it needed a good airing out. It was just an empty house. I hesitated in the entryway, looking up the stairs, turning right and then left, testing the waters, until finally moving through the dining area into the kitchen, where nothing remained but the red-striped curtains that hung on the small window over the sink. The curtains in the family room remained as well. Nobody wanted those either. But I was guessing it had more to do with the fact that they were stiff with paint than with their outdated pattern.
Nobody had painted the walls.
I stopped abruptly and felt Tag at my back. I heard the way his breath caught in his throat and then the slow exhalation when he let it out on a stream of words even I wouldn’t say.
I had found my grandmother at around 6:45. I only remember the time because she had a clock in the entryway that spat out a bird that cuckooed on the hour and sang on the half-hour. But on the quarter hours, the bird would stick his head out and tweet loudly, making you aware the time was passing. Warning you the hour was coming. I had walked through the front door that morning, half-dazed, longing for my bed where I could sleep off the lust and the love that were clinging to my skin, and that bird had squawked at me as if to say “Where have you been?”
I had jumped and then laughed at myself and stepped into the dining room and called her name.
“Gi!”
“Gi!” I said it again and heard my voice echo in the empty house.
I didn’t mean to speak out loud, but Tag pushed past me and walked toward the walls filled with curling colors and twisted tendrils. It was like being on a spinning merry-go-round inside a circus tent, and everyone was a clown. The color was garish and grandiose, one color merging into the next, one face becoming another, like a photograph of a car in motion, nothing entirely captured, everything distorted by the perspective. I’d found Gigi at 6:45 in the morning. Georgia had found me at 11:30. I had painted for almost five straight hours and filled the walls with everything and nothing.
The clock had struck and the bird sang sweetly as I swept my aching arms up and down, finishing a face that had nothing to do with the face I wanted to see. And then Georgia had stepped into the house. Poor Georgia.
“That’s Molly,” Tag choked, his hand resting on the image of his sister looking back over her shoulder, beckoning me to follow. The gold paint of her hair spread out like a river and became the hair of several other girls, all running alongside her.
I could only nod. The whole thing was a blur. I didn’t remember most of it. I didn’t remember anything in detail. It felt like a dream, and I only had bits and pieces.
“Who are these other people?” Tag whispered, his eyes roving from one distorted drawing to the next.
I shrugged. “I know some of them. I remember some of them. But most, I don’t really know.”
“You like blondes.”“Nah—I don’t.” I shook my head slowly, protesting.
Tag raised his eyebrows and looked pointedly at the girls surrounding Molly and at the painting of my mother a little ways off, the basket of babies in her arms.
I just shook my head. I couldn’t explain the other side. I just painted what I saw.
“Mo?”
“Yeah?”
“This is freaky as shit. You know that, right?”
I nodded. “I didn’t know it. Not really. Not then. I didn’t even see it. I just lived it. But yeah.”
We both stared a moment longer, until I just couldn’t stand it anymore.
“So what would you think of a red couch in here?” I said. “’Cause that’s what I’m thinkin’-”
Tag started to laugh, the loud bark of stunned mirth shaking out the cobwebs and the lingering sense of horror in the room. He shook his head at me like I was past saving. “You’re sick, man. Really.”
I laughed too, shoving him, needing the contact. He shoved me back and I stumbled backwards, grabbing at him as we each grappled to get the better position to land the other on his ass. We bounced into walls and ended up pulling down the paint covered curtains, letting the fading light pierce the color-drenched room. But it was the walls that would have to go. Not just the curtains. I wouldn’t be sleeping in that house until the walls were white once more.
Georgia
THERE WAS A TRUCK PARKED at Kathleen Wright’s old house. It had been there off and on for two days. The front door hung open, and a few cans of paint sat on the tail gate, along with ladders and drop cloths and a wide assortment of other things. The truck was black and shiny and brand new. When I peered through the window like the snoopy, small-town girl I was, I could see the creamy leather of the seats and a cowboy hat on the dash. The truck didn’t look like anything Moses would drive. And I knew he’d never wear that hat.
But as far as I knew, Moses still owned the house. My stomach clenched nervously, but I refused to acknowledge it. He was probably there to clean it out and then he’d be gone. He probably wanted to sell it. That was all. Soon he would be gone again and I could go about my business. But my stomach didn’t believe me, and I spent the days in a nervous frenzy, accomplishing everything on my to-do list and feeling no sense of satisfaction in any of it. Dad was back home from the hospital and other than a little residual weakness, was doing fine. Mom fussed, which made him irritable, and I just tried to stay out of the house.
But staying out of the house meant looking toward the rear windows of Kathleen’s house every ten minutes. I’d noticed the windows were bare that morning when I’d taken Lucky for a turn around the west pasture that butted right up to Kathleen Wright’s back yard. For years, those curtains had been tightly drawn. Now they were gone, and the windows were open as if someone were airing things out. I could hear music playing and as the day wore on, I thought I caught glimpses of Moses and someone else working inside. I was agitated and distracted, and the horses picked up on it, which was never a good thing, especially when working with a horse named Cuss.
I was breaking the horse for Dale Garrett, and Cuss was a big quarter horse with a bigger attitude. His name summed up his owner’s opinion of him. Dean called my dad, and dad promptly turned Cuss over to me. Funny. The old boys in the county didn’t want to call in a girl to break their horses—it rubbed against their manhood—and not in the way they enjoyed. Everybody knew when you called Doc Shepherd—my dad—to break your horse, you were really getting Georgia Shepherd, but it made the bitter pill easier to swallow. And I didn’t care. Eventually, they would get over it. I would wear them down too. Just like old Cuss. I took inordinate pleasure in wearing down the ornery ones.
We were in the round corral and I was running Cuss, lunging him, no halter, just the two of us getting used to each other. I stood in the center of the corral with a rope in hand and swung it out, using it like a whip, never touching him, just making him change direction and respect my space. Every once in a while I’d step in front of him and make him turn around, making him run if he wanted to get away. Applying pressure. It was nothing new. I’d run him like this several times in the last week, and today I was ready to go to second base. Cuss let me approach, and I swung my rope in a lazy circle, just talking to him as I neared his shoulder. So far, so good.
Cuss was breathing hard and his eyes were trained on me, but he didn’t shift. I laid the end of the rope against his neck gently, and then took it off again. I did it again, a little harder, and he trembled a little. I moved the rope to the other side, stroking his neck with it, getting him used to being touched, getting him used to the rope against his throat, desensitizing him. And then, carefully, slowly, I eased a loop up and over his neck, letting it hang loosely around his shoulders. I waited, holding the lead rope in my hands, waiting for him to tell me no.
“Before long, he’ll be begging Georgia to tie him up,” a voice said from somewhere behind me. Cuss skittered and whinnied, pulling his head away sharply and taking me with him, the rope searing my hands before I dropped it and let him go.
“I see some things haven’t changed.” I dusted off my smarting hands and turned toward him. I didn’t have to see his face to know. It was almost a relief to get this over with.
Moses stood outside the corral, his hands hanging over the top plank, a foot resting on the bottom one. A man stood at his side, a toothpick in his mouth, his posture identical to Moses’s. But that was where the similarities ended.
“Animals still don’t like you very much, do they?” I said. My composure pleased me.
“It’s not just animals. Moses has that effect on most people too.” The stranger smiled and extended his hand over the fence. “In fact, I think I’m his only friend.” I walked toward him, toward Moses, and took the proffered hand.
“Hi, Georgia. I’m Tag.” There was Texas in his voice and he looked like he could handle Cuss handily if he wanted to. He brought to mind a good old country boy with a sprinkling of ex-convict thrown in, just to make you watch yourself. He was good looking in a rough sort of way, even with a nose that needed straightening and hair that needed a trim, but his smile was blinding and his handshake was firm. I wondered how in the world he’d ended up with Moses.
I met Moses’s eyes then, the golden-green orbs that were all wrong, and still so wonderful, in his dark face. And much like it had a week ago on that crowded elevator, the earth beneath my feet shifted, just slightly, just enough to make me wonder if the ground was slanted or my perspective was just skewed. I probably stared too long, but he stared right back, tipping his head to the side, as if he too needed to readjust.
The man beside Moses cleared his throat uncomfortably and then laughed a little, saying something under his breath that I didn’t catch.
“What’s going on at Kathleen’s? You sellin’ the place?” I asked, ending the stand-off with Moses and turning away. Cuss still had my other rope looped around his neck, so I snagged another one from the fence post on the other side of Tag. Cuss was hugging the far side of the corral like he’d been sent to time-out.
“Maybe. Right now, we’re just cleaning it up,” Moses replied quietly.
“Why?” I challenged. “Why now?” I eyed him again without smiling, not willing to make small talk with a huge mistake. And that was what he was. A huge mistake. I wanted to know why he was here. And I wanted to know when he would be leaving. I circled toward Cuss, making him whinny and tremble, wanting to run, but apparently not wanting to run toward the strangers at the fence.
“It was time,” Moses said simply, as if time held more sway than I ever did.
“I’d be interested in buying it, if you decide to sell.” It would make sense. I’d thought about it for a long time, but I’d never wanted to track Moses down to make an offer. But he was back. And if he was selling, the house made sense for me, bordering my parents’ property the way it did.
He didn’t respond, and I shrugged like it didn’t make any difference to me what he did with the house. I started moving toward Cuss, leaving the two unwelcome visitors to do what they wanted.
“Georgia?” I flinched when Moses said my name, and then Tag swore, a long, drawn-out shhhhiiiiiiit, that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
“Georgia? Does that horse belong to you?” Moses asked sharply.
“Who, Cuss? No. I’m just breaking him.” I didn’t look up at the question, but continued moving in on Cuss.
“No. Not that horse.” Moses’s voice sounded strange and I looked up, beyond the round corral and the small riding arena, out to the pasture where our horses grazed.
They were a ways off, a half a dozen horses or so, including Sackett and Lucky, who we used exclusively for equine therapy and nothing more. Lucky had turned out to be the sweetest, mildest old boy in the world. Completely house-broken, that one.
“The Paint. Is the Paint yours?” Tag asked, and his voice was equally strained.
“Calico? Yeah. She’s ours.” I nodded, finding the pretty horse with her white mane and bright colors and feeling the familiar lurch in my heart I always felt when I saw her.
Suddenly Moses was striding away from the corral, covering the ground between the back of his house and our property without a backwards glance or a “see you later.”
Tag and I watched him go, and I turned baffled eyes on Moses’s friend.
“I would ask you what the hell his problem is, but I stopped caring a long time ago.” I reached Cuss and snagged the rope around his neck a little more firmly than I would have in other circumstances. He reared up and tossed his head, making me regret my hasty actions. I managed to free my rope from around his neck, but not without a little quick-footed hopping to avoid teeth and hooves.
“For his sake, I hope that’s not true,” Tag answered frankly, which baffled me even more. But he pushed off the fence as if to follow Moses. “It was nice to meet you, Georgia. You’re nothing like I expected. And I’m glad.”
I had no response but to watch him leave. He was twenty feet away when he called over his shoulder, “He’s going to be tough to break. I’m not sure ol’ Cuss wants to be ridden.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what they all say, until I’m ridin’ ‘em,” I tossed back.
I heard him laughing as I started over with Cuss.