I took a seat at the bar and struck up a conversation with the bartender. He was about my age, and his mountain accent reminded me of Savannah's. After twenty minutes of easy conversation, I took Savannah's picture from my wallet and explained that I was a friend of the family. I used her parents' names and asked questions that implied I'd been there before.
He was wary, and rightfully so. Small towns protect their own, but it turned out that he'd spent a couple of years in the Marine Corps, which helped. In time, he nodded.
"Yeah, I know her," he said. "She lives out on Old Mill Road, next to her parents' place."
It was just after eight in the evening, and the sky was graying as dusk began to settle in. Ten minutes later, I left a big tip on the bar and made my way out the door.
My mind was curiously blank as I headed into horse country. At least, that's how I remembered thinking of it the last time I was here. The road I drove slanted ever upward, and I began to recognize the landmarks of the area; I knew that in a few minutes I'd pass Savannah's parents' house. When I did, I leaned over the steering wheel, watching for the next break in the fence before turning onto a long gravel road. As I made the turn, I saw a hand-painted sign for something called "Hope and Horses."
The crackle of my tires as they rolled over gravel was oddly comforting, and I pulled to a stop beneath a willow tree, next to a small battered pickup truck. I looked toward the house. Steep roofed and square, with flaking white paint and a chimney pointing toward the sky, it seemed to rise from the earth like a ghostly image a hundred years in the making. A single bulb glowed above the battered front door, and a small potted plant hung near an American flag, both moving gently in the breeze. Off to the side of the house was a weathered barn and a small corral; beyond that, an emerald-covered pasture enclosed by a tidy white fence stretched toward a line of massive oak trees. Another shedlike structure stood near the barn, and in the shadows I could see the outlines of aging field equipment. I found myself wondering again what I was doing here.
It wasn't too late to leave, but I couldn't force myself to turn the car around. The sky flared red and yellow before the sun dipped below the horizon, casting the mountains in moody darkness. I emerged from the car and began to approach the house. The dew on the grass moistened the tips of my shoes, and I caught the scent of conifers once more. I could hear the sounds of crickets chirping and the steady call of a nightingale. The sounds seemed to give me strength as I stepped onto the porch. I tried to figure out what I would say to her if she answered the door. Or what I would say to him. While I was trying to decide what to do, a tail-wagging retriever approached me.
I held out my hand, and his friendly tongue lapped against it before he turned and trotted down the steps again. His tail continued to swish back and forth as he headed around the house, and hearing the same call that had brought me to Lenoir, I left the porch and followed him. He dipped low, skimming his belly as he crawled beneath the lowest rung of the fence, and trotted into the barn.
As soon as the dog had disappeared, I saw Savannah emerge from the barn with rectangles of hay clamped beneath her arms. Horses from the pasture began to canter toward her as she tossed the hay into various troughs. I continued moving forward. She was brushing herself off and getting ready to head back into the barn when she inadvertently glanced my way. She took a step, looked again, and then froze in place.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. With her gaze locked on mine, I realized that it was wrong to have come, to have shown up without warning like this. I knew I should say something, anything, but nothing came to mind. All I could do was stare at her.
The memories came rushing back then, all of them, and I noticed how little she'd changed since I'd last seen her. Like me, she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, smudged with dirt, and her cowboy boots were scuffed and worn. Somehow the hardscrabble look gave her an earthy appeal. Her hair was longer than I remembered, but she still had the slight gap between her front teeth that I had always loved.
"Savannah," I finally said.
It wasn't until I spoke that I realized she'd been as spellbound as I. All at once, she broke into a wide smile of innocent pleasure.
"John?" she cried.
"It's good to see you again."
She shook her head, as if trying to clear her mind, then squinted at me again. When at last she was convinced I wasn't a mirage, she jogged to the gate and bounded through it. A moment later I could feel her arms around me, her body warm and welcoming. For a second it was as if nothing between us had changed at all. I wanted to hold her forever, but when she pulled back, the illusion was shattered, and we were strangers once more. Her expression held the question I'd been unable to answer on the long trip here.
"What are you doing here?"
I looked away. "I don't know," I said. "I just needed to come."
Though she asked nothing, there was a mixture of curiosity and hesitation in her expression, as if she weren't sure she wanted a further explanation. I took a small step backward, giving her space. I could see the shadowy outlines of the horses in the darkness and felt the events of the last few days coming back to me.
"My dad died," I whispered, the words seeming to come from nowhere. "I just came from his funeral."
She was quiet, her expression softening into the spontaneous compassion I'd once been so drawn to.
"Oh, John . . . I'm so sorry," she murmured.
She drew near again, and there was an urgency to her embrace this time. When she pulled back, her face was half in shadow.
"How did it happen?" she asked, her hand lingering on mine.
I could hear the authentic sorrow in her voice, and I paused, unable to sum up the last couple of years into a single statement. "It's a long story," I said. In the glare of the barn lights, I thought I could see in her gaze traces of memories that she wanted to keep buried, a life from long ago. When she released my hand, I saw her wedding band glinting on her left finger. The sight of it doused me with a cold splash of reality.
She recognized my expression. "Yes," she said, "I'm married."
"I'm sorry," I said, shaking my head. "I shouldn't have come."
Surprising me, she gave a small wave of her hand. "It's okay," she said, tilting her head. "How'd you find me?"
"It's a small town." I shrugged. "I asked someone."
"And they just . . . told you?"
"I was persuasive."
It was awkward, and neither of us seemed to know what to say. Part of me fully expected to continue standing there while we caught up like old friends on everything that had happened in our lives since we'd last seen each other. Another part of me expected her husband to pop out of the house any minute and either shake my hand or challenge me to fight. In the silence a horse neighed, and over her shoulder I could see four horses with their heads lowered into the trough, half in shadow, half in the circle of the barn's light. Three other horses, including Midas, were staring at Savannah, as if wondering whether she'd forgotten them. Savannah finally motioned over her shoulder.
"I should get them going, too," she said. "It's their feeding time, and they're getting antsy."
When I nodded, Savannah took a step backward, then turned. Just as she reached the gate, she beckoned. "Do you want to give me a hand?"
I hesitated, glancing toward the house. She followed my gaze.
"Don't worry," she said. "He's not here, and I could really use the help." Her voice was surprisingly steady.
Though I wasn't sure what to make of her response, I nodded. "I'd be glad to."
She waited for me and shut the gate behind us. She pointed to a pile of manure. "Watch out for their droppings. They'll stain your shoes."
I groaned. "I'll try."
In the barn, she separated a chunk of hay and then two more and handed them both to me.
"Just toss those in the troughs next to the others. I'm going to get the oats."
I did as she directed, and the horses closed in. Savannah came out h
olding a couple of pails.
"You might want to give them a little room. They might accidentally knock you over."
I stepped away, and Savannah hung a couple of pails on the fence. The first group of horses trotted toward them. Savannah watched them, her pride evident.
"How many times do you have to feed them?"
"Twice a day, every day. But there's more than just feeding. You'd be amazed at how clumsy they can be sometimes. We have the veterinarian on speed dial."
I smiled. "Sounds like a lot of work."
"They are. They say owning a horse is like living with an anchor. Unless you have someone else help out, it's tough to get away, even for a weekend."
"Do your parents pitch in?"
"Sometimes. When I really need them. But my dad's getting older, and there's a big difference between taking care of one horse and taking care of seven."
"I'll take your word for it."
In the warm embrace of the night, I listened to the steady hum of cicadas, breathing in the peace of this refuge, trying to still my racing thoughts.
"This is just the kind of place I imagined you'd live," I finally said.
"Me too," she said. "But it's a lot harder than I thought it would be. There's always something that needs to be repaired. You can't imagine how many leaks there were in the barn, and big stretches of the fence collapsed last winter. That's what we worked on during the spring."
Though I heard her use of "we" and assumed she was talking about her husband, I wasn't ready to talk about him yet. Nor, it seemed, was she.
"But it is beautiful here, even if it's a lot of work. On nights like this, I like to sit on the porch and just listen to the world. You hardly ever hear cars driving by, and it's just so . . . peaceful. It helps to clear the mind, especially after a long day."
As she spoke, I felt for the measure of her words, sensing her desire to keep our conversation on safe footing.
"I'll bet."
"I need to clean some hooves," she announced. "You want to help?"
"I don't know what to do," I admitted.
"It's easy," she said. "I'll show you." She vanished into the barn and walked out carrying what looked to be a couple of small curved nails. She handed one to me. As the horses were eating, she moved toward one.
"All you have to do is grab near the hoof and tug while you tap the back of his leg here," she said, demonstrating. The horse, occupied with his hay, obediently lifted his hoof. She propped the hoof between her legs. "Then, just dig out the dirt around the shoe. That's all there is to it."
I moved toward the horse beside her and tried to replicate her actions, but nothing happened. The horse was both exceedingly large and stubborn. I tugged again at the foot and tapped in the right place, then tugged and tapped some more. The horse continued to eat, ignoring my efforts.
"He won't lift his foot," I complained.
She finished the hoof she was working on, then bent next to my horse. A tap and tug later, the hoof was in place between her legs. "Sure he will. He just knows you don't know what you're doing and that you're uncomfortable around him. You have to be confident about this." She let the hoof drop, and I took her place, trying again. The horse ignored me once more.
"Watch what I do," she said carefully.
"I was watching," I protested.
She repeated the drill; the horse lifted his foot. A moment later I mimicked her exactly, and the horse ignored me. Though I couldn't claim to read the mind of a horse, I had the strange notion that this one was enjoying my travails. Frustrated, I tapped and tugged relentlessly until finally, as if by magic, the horse's foot lifted. Despite the minimal nature of my accomplishment, I felt a surge of pride. For the first time since I'd arrived, Savannah laughed.
"Good job. Now just scrape the mud out and go to the next hoof."
Savannah had finished the other six horses by the time I finished one. When we were done, she opened the gate and the horses trotted into the darkened pasture. I wasn't sure what to expect, but Savannah moved toward the shed. She had two shovels in hand.
"Now it's time to clean up," she said, handing me a shovel.
"Clean up?"
"The manure," she said. "Otherwise it can get pretty rank around here."
I took the shovel. "You do this every day?"
"Life's a peach, isn't it?" she teased. She left again and returned with a wheelbarrow.
As we began scooping the manure, the sliver of a moon began its rise over the treetops. We worked in silence, the clink and scrape of her shovel a steady rhythm that filled the air. In time we both finished, and I leaned on my shovel, inspecting her. In the shadows of the barnyard, she seemed as lovely and elusive as a wraith. She said nothing, but I could feel her evaluating me.
"Are you okay?" I finally asked.
"Why are you here, John?"
"You already asked me that."
"I know I did," she said. "But you didn't really answer."
I studied her. No, I hadn't. I wasn't sure I could explain it myself and shifted my weight from one foot to the other. "I didn't know where else to go."
Surprising me, she nodded. "Uh-huh," she acknowledged.
It was the unqualified acceptance in her voice that made me go on.
"I mean it," I said. "In some ways, you were the best friend I've ever had."
I could see her expression soften. "Okay," she said. Her response reminded me of my father, and after she answered, perhaps she realized it as well. I forced myself to survey the property.
"This is the ranch you dreamed of starting, isn't it?" I asked. "Hope and Horses is for autistic kids, isn't it?"
She ran a hand through her hair, tucking a strand behind her ear. She seemed pleased that I remembered. "Yes," she said. "It is."
"Is it everything you thought it would be?"
She laughed and threw up her hands. "Sometimes," she said. "But don't think for a second it earns enough to pay the bills. We both have jobs, and every day I realize that I didn't learn as much in school as I thought I did."
"No?"
She shook her head. "Some of the kids who show up here, or at the center, are difficult to reach." She hesitated, trying to find the right words. Finally she shook her head. "I guess I thought they'd all be like Alan, you know?" She looked up. "Do you remember when I told you about him?"
When I nodded, she went on. "It turns out that Alan's situation was special. I don't know--maybe it was because he'd grown up on a ranch, but he adapted to this a lot more easily than most kids."
When she didn't continue, I gave her a quizzical look. "That's not the way I remember you telling it to me. From what I remember, Alan was terrified at first."
"Yeah, I know, but still . . . he did get used to it. And that's the thing. I can't tell you how many kids we have here who never adapt at all, no matter how long we work with them. This isn't just a weekend thing; some kids have come here regularly for more than a year. We work at the developmental evaluation center, so we've spent a lot of time with most of the kids, and when we started the ranch, we insisted on opening it up to kids no matter how severe their condition. We felt it was an important commitment, but with some kids . . . I just wish I knew how to get through to them. Sometimes it feels like we're just spinning our wheels."
I could see Savannah cataloging her memories. "I don't mean that we feel like we're wasting our time," she went on. "Some kids really benefit from what we're doing. They come out here and spend a couple of weekends, and it's like . . . a flower bud slowly blossoming into something beautiful. Just like it did with Alan. It's like you can sense their mind opening up to new ideas and possibilities, and when they're riding with a great big smile on their faces, it's like nothing else matters in the world. It's a heady feeling, and you want it to happen over and over with every child who comes here. I used to think it was a matter of persistence, that we could help everyone, but we can't. Some of the kids never even get close to the horse, let alone ride it."
"You k
now that's not your fault. I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of riding, either, remember?"
She giggled, sounding remarkably girlish. "Yeah, I remember. The first time you got on a horse, you were more scared than a lot of the kids."
"No, I wasn't," I protested. "And besides, Pepper was frisky."
"Ha!" she cried. "Why do you think I let you ride him? He's just about the easiest horse you can imagine. I don't think he's ever so much as shimmied when someone rode him."
"He was frisky," I insisted.
"Spoken like a true rookie," she teased. "But even if you're wrong, I'm touched that you still remember it."
Her playfulness summoned a tidal wave of memories.
"Of course I remember," I said. "Those were some of the best days of my life. I won't ever forget them." Over her shoulder, I could see the dog wandering in the pasture. "Maybe that's why I'm still not married."
At my words, her gaze faltered. "I still remember them, too."
"Do you?"
"Of course," she said. "You might not believe it, but it's true."
The weight of her words hung heavy in the air.
"Are you happy, Savannah?" I finally asked.
She offered a wry smile. "Most of the time. Aren't you?"
"I don't know," I said, which made her laugh again.
"That's your standard answer, you know. When you're asked to look into yourself for the answer? It's like a reflex with you. It always has been. Why don't you ask me what you really wanted to ask."
"What did I really want to ask?"
"Whether or not I love my husband. Isn't that what you mean?" she asked, looking away for a moment.
For an instant I was speechless, but I realized her instincts were correct. It was the real reason I was here.
"Yes," she said at last, reading my mind again. "I love him."
The unmistakable sincerity in her tone stung, but before I could dwell on it, she turned to face me again. Anxiety flickered in her expression, as if she were remembering something painful, but it passed quickly.
"Have you eaten yet?" she asked.
I was still trying to make sense of what I'd just seen. "No," I said. "Actually, I didn't have breakfast or lunch, either."