Ghost Medicine

  “What’s wrong with you?” Tom asked.

  “Nothing. Put him in her car and let’s see if we can move some of those horses over.”

  We left Rose there, standing by the Falcon with an open jug of wine, which she was drinking straight from the mouth, arm chicken-winged under the weight of the green bottle like it was moonshine. I’m glad she didn’t offer any, because Tom Buller would have taken it, and that meant I would, too, and then we’d burn to death for sure. I guess she knew we were determined to try to move some of the horses over to the safer ground near the lake, so she just smiled and watched us, that cat with its paws up on the metal-trimmed steering wheel of the station wagon like it was getting ready to go even if Rose wasn’t.

  “You’re going to have to go pretty soon, Rose,” I said.

  “You just take care of yourself, Tennis Shoes. Ha! I’ve lived a long time by not being in a hurry.”

  Tom and I rode out toward the foothills and trees at the western end of Rose’s land. We could see those horses right away, circling around one another nervously, older foals sandwiched between mares, colts mimicking the stallions who’d raise their heads up and sniff the air. They were jittery, and the sky was angry and orange-brown like it was the end of the world.

  “You hold ‘em on this side,” I said to Tom and then Reno and I cut around the herd, between the horses and the trees, Reno running fast and straight like he knew more about what we were going to do than I did.

  We started to nudge the horses forward from the back of the pack, yearlings, colts, and fillies, all were scared of a horse carrying a rider. Then the whole herd started to move and I saw Tom and Arrow across their undulating backs, pushing them north and letting me cut them east from my side. It was a beautiful thing, and it made me feel proud to see my friend across that small sea of horses, knowing what we would do without saying anything to me, just spitting his tobacco and calling out “Haw!” like that laugh of Rose’s, to get them moving the right way.

  It was like riding through a dream. The light was all but gone now and smoke and dust hung low against the ground. I was sure the fire would be right on us soon.

  We headed the horses over the rise down towards Rose’s steel house, scattering nervous and bleating goats as we did. The Ford Falcon was gone, and I was relieved that Rose had decided to go away, at least for now. I caught sight of Tom looking over at me as we ran the horses by. He had noticed it, too.

  Once in a while, one or two of the horses would cut away and either Reno or Arrow would widen out their path to lead them back in, so when we got to the fence line we hadn’t lost a single horse that I could see. I sprinted Reno up ahead of the pack now so I could get down and open that chute gate we had cut into the fence. Then I got back on Reno and helped Tommy get the leaders through the gate.

  There must have been as many as fifty horses, and I knew our holding corral wouldn’t be big enough, especially if some of them started to push against the rails or try to jump them, so once we had gotten them through the chute I jumped Reno over the fence and came around to set them all loose on Benavidez land without setting free the two horses Tom and I had been working on. There was nothing else we could do for Rose’s herd; we had to hope they would be able to get away from the fire and the Benavidez ranch had enough running room for them, as well as the safety of the lake.

  I opened the gate and swung it back, riding on the middle rail and watching all those horses run, thundering past me and Reno, and off toward the north. I looked back at Tom, on the other side of the fence at the chute gate, and I could barely see him through the fog of smoke. He waved his hat at me.

  “We did it, Stotts.”

  “We better get out of here quick, Tom. It’s coming this way.”

  Through the smoky haze I could see an eruption of orange flames pulsing from the canopy of one of the oaks on Rose’s land.

  The fire burned for three days. That first night was the worst; we all thought we’d have to leave. I always associated those nighttime brush fires, the orange lines twisting and writhing like snakes on the hills, with dying; and I thought about those horses we set loose, and all the burning. I stayed at Tom’s house throughout those days, just moping quietly beside him as we worked; I had told my dad that they’d need me at the ranch in case we had to move out some of the stock, and that was the truth.

  “Okay with me if you don’t want to talk, Stotts.”

  I looked over at Tommy. We rode out to the main pasture fence the morning after the fire started, watching the Benavidez stock, and keeping our eyes on the walls of tumbling smoke that rose in great orange pillows across the sun. Ashes peppered our hat brims, and we both had bandanas tied across our faces to block out the stink, but it didn’t help much.

  It was such a terrible thing, but it was impossible to ignore.

  “ ‘Cause I’m worried, too,” he continued. “So if you want me to shut up, I will, but it’s pretty hard for me to be out here with you and not talk about anything. You want me to shut up?”

  “No.”

  Tommy spit.

  “Then tell me.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Tell me about it, Stotts.”

  Tommy nudged Arrow right beside Reno so we were practically touching. I just kept my eyes on the smoke. I was so tired. I hadn’t slept, couldn’t stop my head all night long from picturing things that had been.

  I remembered my mother.

  You disappear in those clothes that big, Troy.

  She had driven me to the dance at the community center, that first high school dance in ninth grade in September, before she got so sick. I sat in the car, afraid to go out, watching as Chase Rutledge, laughing, walked past us toward the doors, a girl drunkly swinging along at his arm.

  I want to look different, Mom. I wish I was good-looking. I’m the smallest boy here.

  I see all the other boys going in there, Troy. You’re the handsomest one here.

  I sighed and looked out the window.

  Who are you going to dance with?

  No one. I don’t even know any girls.

  Luz is coming.

  Okay, then. Luz.

  I bet you that the others will ask you to dance with them, you’ll see.

  I pulled my hat down over my eyes and opened the door. She was watching me, then, looking at me like I was about to break.

  Relax, Troy. Have a good time. Luz wants to dance with you. She told us a week ago.

  You shouldn’t’ve said anything to her about it a week ago. I’ll see you.

  I closed the door.

  “You won’t tell anyone?” I asked.

  “You’re talking to me, Stotts,” Tommy said, and pulled the bandana down to his chin so I could see he was looking right at me, that he wasn’t smiling.

  Tommy lifted the bandana back across his nose. “Man, that stinks. Sure doesn’t have the same smell as our fire, does it, Stotts?”

  “I’m just hurting, Tom.”

  “I know.”

  I sighed. “Nothing’s right.”

  Tommy spit.

  “Lots of things are. You know that.”

  “When we watched those flames on the hills last night, it made me remember a lot of things I try not to think about,” I said. “When I was four, when my brother died, we drove home from the hospital at night and everything was on fire. It was so quiet in that car. The only thing I heard was the sound of the road, and my mother and father in the front seat crying and not saying anything or looking at each other. And all I could see out the window was black, and these crazy zigzags of flames all around on the hills. It looked like we were driving into hell, and I kept thinking, Where’s my brother? We can’t just drive away and leave him there. I try not to think about it. I try not to think about my mom and him, but sometimes I can’t stop it. I’m sorry.”

  Tommy looked at me, and then up at the smoke clouds I was watching.

  “I’m sorry, too, Stotts,” he said. “How’d he die?”

&
nbsp; “We were doing something we weren’t supposed to do. We were playing on the roof. He fell off and broke his neck.”

  Tommy spit again.

  “I played on roofs before. Don’t all boys do that?”

  My eyes burned. I rubbed them.

  “I never told anyone that, Tom.”

  “No one’ll ever hear it from me, Stotts.”

  He held out his fist, and I punched it.

  When the fire had burned itself out, the damage was great. It even came onto Benavidez land, but never got near any of the stock or buildings on the property. Two of the locals who lived near Three Points lost their homes, and so our annual ‘49ers Day celebration had to be postponed for a week. And on the third day, Tommy and I rode out to see if we could find where the horses went, and to check on Rose.

  The horses all looked fine. They were scattered around the old south pastureland where we had gone shooting with Gabriel. We found them all, even Ghost Medicine and Duke.

  I took a drink from my canteen as Tommy dipped into his tobacco. Everything still smelled like burned paper.

  “There’s some real good horses in this group,” Tommy said. “I guess I didn’t notice ‘em all before.”

  “Look at that tall sorrel there. Look at her legs,” I said. “That’s a real nice-looking horse.”

  “I like that one,” Tommy said and pointed to a big chestnut bay with black legs and a big white face. “Kinda looks like a young Arrow, don’t he?”

  We just sat there looking at those horses for a while, then Tommy said, “So what’re we gonna do about ‘em, now? I bet it was just luck we got ‘em over here so easy without one of us breakin’ a leg or something.”

  “We need to check on Rose before we can move ‘em,” I said. “We don’t even know if the fence got burned down or not.”

  “Let’s go see.” And then he spit. “Want some?”

  “I’ll wait.”

  Where we had built the holding and training corrals there was no sign that a fire had burned through, but right from the fence line we could see the blackened ground and burned trees on Rose’s land. And as we rode farther in toward her house, the burning looked worse and worse.

  “It got her place for sure,” Tom said. “Now we’ll see how that steel house made out.”

  I couldn’t help but feel sad for Rose, sad for this land.

  Isn’t this about the most beautiful place in the world, Troy?

  As we got closer to that rise before her house, I saw a little black, charred mound. I rode up to it and saw it was a burned goat, just kneeling down like goats do when the wind blows too hard; dead and stiff and peaceful like one of those castings from Pompeii. I looked over at Tom.

  “Well, I told you there’s not much stupider than a goat,” he said.

  “I know.”

  There was no rust and no shine left on that big steel house of Rose’s. All around it was burned away. The pile of oak fire-wood around the Chevy pickup was still smoking and smoldering, and the shell of the truck looked thinner, a blackened eggshell surrounding nothing, ready to crumble and implode if one of us touched it. The house itself was black with thick soot, but all around it on the ground there was an eerie kind of bloom of gray on the earth where the house had given off heat and continued to bake the ground.

  “Rose? Rose?” I shouted as we came up to the house.

  There was no answer, just the rusty, creaking sound of that steel windmill pumping water from the ground, its black fan blades spinning dumbly, water trickling from the cistern’s overflow into that trough of ash-blackened water. There were no goats around to drink it anyway.

  We got down from our horses.

  “Rose?” I called out at the door, still shut, just as we had left it four days ago.

  “That car’s not here,” Tom said. “That’s a good sign. She’s okay, Stotts.”

  I grabbed the doorknob and immediately jerked my hand back.

  “It’s hot.”

  I pulled the bottom of my T-shirt out to insulate my palm and tried again, wiping black grime all over my shirt. I pushed the door in. The house reeked of smoke, and I could hear crackling sounds inside like you’d hear in the belly of a stove that’s burned for days and days.

  “I bet that got rid of those spiders,” I said.

  “Don’t go in, Stotts. Look.” Tommy pointed to the little four-pane window looking out from the side of the door. The glass was melted, the lower panes ballooning out a little, the two on top shattered.

  “Poor old woman.”

  “It won’t be nothing for us to clean this place out for her, Stotts. There wasn’t hardly nothin’ in it anyway and now she can get a clean start. We’ll bring her what she needs and fix it up. It’ll be okay.”

  I wiped my eyes with my black hand, smearing my face.

  “I wonder where she is,” I said.

  “Somewhere where she can drink wine and spit her tobacco, probly.”

  FOURTEEN

  I don’t know the origins of Three Points’ annual ‘49ers Day celebration; I guess that it had something to do with some fools back in history thinking they could pan enough gold from the rivers here to keep food in their bellies. Tom Buller and my dad both believed it was just an excuse for people to get together and drink and gamble and act foolish. So the real truth is probably somewhere between those two explanations.

  It was always held on the first weekend in August, but that’s when the big fire broke out. Rose still hadn’t come back to her steel house, although Tommy and Carl and I had managed to get all her horses back onto her property, which wasn’t half-burned. I was disappointed that it had to be postponed for a week following that wildfire because now that I was sixteen I was finally old enough to compete in the only thing about the day that ever held my attention: the Three Points Biathlon. Some people came from as far away as Colorado or Wyoming to compete in the biathlon, which combined trail riding and target shooting. Riders were started in staggered runs, beginning in the early morning just after the parade, and had to get their horses over a four-mile course that had three checkpoints where each rider would have five shots at five targets. One checkpoint involved shooting from horse back, one required standing, and one required prone firing. Every target missed added one extra minute to a rider’s overall time, and every rider had to use the rifles supplied by the event organizers. There were judges at every checkpoint, and this year my father would be at one of them.

  So with all that running through my head, and knowing that Tommy and Gabe and I were going to camp out at the fire pit that night, needless to say I was up well before sunrise on that Saturday morning.

  I pulled on a pair of 501s and went out to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of orange juice. It was still hot in our house, and I wasn’t wearing any shirt, just standing there in the light of the open refrigerator drinking my juice. My dad came in and turned on the overhead lights.

  “Good morning, son. Sleep good?”

  “Morning, Dad. Un-uh. Too nervous, I guess.”

  “Hey, why don’t you wear that belt Luz gave you for good luck?” My dad pulled up on one of the empty belt hoops on my jeans. I know I’d gotten taller in the last few months, just not any thicker.

  “I don’t need any luck,” I said.

  “Well, then, do you want some eggs?”

  I started to say no, but then I told him yes because I knew it would make my dad happy to make breakfast for me and I figured that I could always just leave them anyway, since I knew I was too jittery to eat. “I’ll go get Reno up while you fix ‘em.”

  I stopped just inside the screen door, my hands ready to push, looking out, away from my father. “Dad?” I said, and I could feel him looking at me. “I’m going into eleventh grade now and so next year might be our last summer together if I end up going away to school.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, the reason I’m saying this is that mare Ghost I got is a real good horse with a real good head, too. She’s going to be a g
ood riding horse once I’m done with her and when I do, I want to give her to you so next summer you and me can take that trip up to that cabin like you said you wanted to do. I’ve been thinking about that for a long time but just didn’t have the guts to ask you till now. So will you do it?”

  My dad never liked horses.

  “I swear I will, Troy,” he said, and put his hand on my shoulder. “I promise we’ll do it.”

  I made sure Reno looked especially good that day. He was clean and combed and his mane hung perfectly straight and even. The saddle and all my gear were soaped and shined, too, and Reno felt the excitement of the morning. Every ‘49ers Day began with a parade, which was always led by the numbered riders competing in the biathlon, with the Holmes School band, a Forest Service fire truck, and a few other local entries following. The parade was always announced by the sheriff over the PA system on his car, and immediately after, the biathlon’s first rider would get sent out.

  Of course I didn’t eat more than a couple bites of my breakfast, but my dad didn’t seem too bothered by that. I was just about to make an excuse for not wanting to finish when Tommy drove up with the trailer to take me and Reno to the start.

  I ran back to my room and put a T-shirt on, then grabbed my hat and headed for the front door.

  “I’m going, Dad.”

  “I’ll see you up there, son. Good luck,” he called out from in the kitchen.

  “I don’t need it,” I said as I shut the door behind me.

  I pulled Reno around the side of the house where Tommy waited. As I got him up into the trailer, he shook his head back and forth, trying to say he’d rather run. That was good, I thought.

  Tom and I closed up the trailer and climbed into the cab.

  “Ready for the big shootout, Stotts?” Tommy said as he started the engine.

  “Thanks for coming to get us. It would be a lot of riding, even for Reno. You and Gabe all set for later?”

  “I’m going to drive Arrow and Dusty up to the fire pit, if that’s okay with you. So we’ll just all meet there after the barbecue.”