The Driest Season Page 10

  Her grandmother sat in a chair at the kitchen table. “Resisting what is will keep you stuck in hurt,” she said.

  “I’m not resisting. I’m confused, I’m sad.”

  “We all are,” her mother said.

  “You don’t just move on,” Cielle said.

  “It’s all you can do,” her mother said.

  “It’s only been sixteen days.” Cielle stomped her foot on the floor. “Sixteen! Days!”

  “Okay.” Her mother stopped her mixing and looked at her. “I know.”

  “God,” Cielle said, her face hot and her eyes tearing. “Goddammit!” She went upstairs, put on her riding pants and boots, and came back down. “I’m going for a ride at the Mitchells’,” she said, and left.

  It was still early morning. She brushed Ginger in her stall, down her neck and legs, then down from the top of her back. Dust and hay flew into the air and she brushed her harder to make the coat shine. “I bet that feels good, girl. It’s been a while.” She scratched Ginger between her ears and Ginger bowed to her touch.

  She heard footsteps and Mrs. Mitchell entered the barn.

  “Trail ride?” Mrs. Mitchell asked.

  “If that’s all right.”

  “Mind if I come along?”

  “They’re your horses,” Cielle said.

  “All right, then.” Mrs. Mitchell brushed and readied Juno, the bay mare, to ride. She had a smile on her face.

  “Something to be happy about?” Cielle asked.

  “Just glad to be going for a ride.”

  Cielle hefted the saddle onto Ginger’s back and tightened the girth around her belly. Ginger stomped, snorted, and nodded her head up and down.

  “She hasn’t been ridden since you last saw her,” Mrs. Mitchell said.

  “You should have exercised her.”

  “She wouldn’t let me on her.”

  “She always lets you ride her.”

  “I think she was waiting for you.”

  Cielle knew Mrs. Mitchell was watching her, and she wasn’t in the mood. She just wanted to take a ride and clear her head. She led Ginger out of the stall, adjusted her hard hat, and swung herself up into the saddle.

  “I’m going to start on,” Cielle said, and clucked her tongue. Ginger walked forward, out into the sun. She steered Ginger to the field behind the barn, along the tree line and toward the cherry orchard. There were trails throughout the woods and if the sun got hot enough she’d take them for shade, but it was still early, not yet ten in the morning, and large white clouds hung in the sky. The sun was warm and there was a breeze, and it felt good on Cielle’s skin. She took a deep breath: leather, horse, grass, honeysuckle. The clank of hooves, the sway of the animal, and the sway of her own hips calmed her. If this was moving on, then she would get on this horse every day and move in a direction that felt like forward. The sky was bright blue, the trees were full and green, and orange tiger lilies in bloom lined the side of the pasture.

  Ginger sidestepped and whinnied. She wasn’t one to spook or act out. The pounding roll of Juno cantering came closer. Cielle sat up straight and deeper in the saddle, tightened her legs, and pushed her heels down in the stirrups.

  “Okay, okay, Ginger. We’re good.” She tried to get Ginger to sit still, but the horse backed up. Cielle pressed hard into Ginger’s belly with her heels and clucked her tongue but Ginger wouldn’t move forward. Mrs. Mitchell slowed Juno to a trot and then to a halt right up next to Cielle and Ginger.

  “She’s been funny,” Mrs. Mitchell said. “Give her a swat on the butt.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing.” She lifted her leg to adjust her stirrup. “Animals sense things. They feel our energy and react to it.”

  “I don’t like to hit her.”

  “If she senses you’re in control, she’ll be more comfortable. If she feels you’re anxious, then she gets tense and jumpy.”

  “I’m not anxious.”

  “Well, whatever it is.”

  “I’m nothing.”

  “You’re different than you were before.” She dropped the stirrup and settled her foot on it.

  “I’m still me,” Cielle said.

  “Sweetheart.” Mrs. Mitchell dropped her reins and Juno lowered her head and stood perfectly still like she might take a nap. Mrs. Mitchell unbuttoned the cuffs on her shirt and rolled up her sleeves. “You’ll never be the same.”

  Cielle didn’t want to believe she’d changed so much in a matter of sixteen days that even a horse could tell. This was the first time she’d ever been aware that she was in a process of change, and could decide who she’d become, or at least try as hard as she could to be a certain way. She had no idea what kind of woman she wanted to be.

  “She’ll follow Juno. Where do you want to go?”

  “Cherry orchard.”

  They walked through the open pasture, and Ginger relaxed and closely followed Juno. The grass was tall, and ahead of them it shifted like waves from the wind—it leaned, rose up, leaned again, undulating in light greens drying out into yellows. The tick-ticking of the grasshoppers and cicadas beat out, that heated sound, that ticking of gas stoves, of fire.

  Mrs. Mitchell’s hair was a short bob cut—honey-brown, straight and fine, and held back from her face with clips on either side. She was athletic and sturdy, comfortable on a horse, a good rider, and Cielle felt lucky to have learned about horses from her. If she weren’t a woman, she would have been widely respected for her horsemanship.

  Cielle wondered what things she herself wouldn’t get to do or say because she was a woman, and wondered about the choices her own sister was making. Helen was willing to wait for a man to let her know when he was ready to be with her, let her know when he was ready to have her in his life. She knew Helen was afraid that if she left Boaz, Bodie wouldn’t be hers anymore; she wanted to be married young and have a husband above all else. Cielle wasn’t willing to give up everything that mattered to her for that—not her independence, her opinions, or her dreams. That didn’t seem like love to her, to give herself up to wait for or follow someone else.

  Mrs. Mitchell turned her head to the side and said, “Want to talk?”

  “Did my mother call to say I was coming?”

  “No.”

  “I know it was suicide. I knew that day.”

  Mrs. Mitchell stopped and Ginger almost ran straight into Juno’s behind. She turned Juno fully around, and walked her up until her foot touched Cielle’s and their knees and toes met, as if they were pieces to a puzzle linking together. The horses didn’t mind the proximity.

  “How did you know?”

  “I found him.”

  “Oh, Cielle.”

  “Do you know why?” Cielle asked.

  “His headaches depressed him. He wanted to get better. He tried, Cielle.”

  “Did he?” Cielle looked over at the trees: Douglas fir, blue spruce, paper birch, elm, oak, locust, maple, and weeping willow. And the wildflowers: tiger lily, honeysuckle, black-eyed Susan, buttercup.

  “If anyone knew what his state of mind was like, it might have been Mrs. Olsen. He saw her for counseling. No one else knew he was seeing her. Not even your mother. I saw him coming from their house one day, and he asked I keep it a secret. He was embarrassed he couldn’t help himself.” She put her hand on Cielle’s knee. “But had I known how bad it was, I would have said something.”

  Cielle nodded.

  “I’ll tell your mother, but right now she doesn’t want to hear any of it.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. I had this note he left, but it got ruined.”

  Mrs. Mitchell nodded.

  “And then Bodie and this war. It’s too much all at once.”

  “Sometimes not thinking about any of it helps. I want to show you something before we go to the orchard,” Mrs. Mitchell said. “There’s a track where the horses love to run. I think we could use a good run.” She steered Juno into
an adjacent field and trotted through tall grass to a maple tree at the top of the hill, and Cielle followed. At the top of the hill was a dirt racetrack. The minute Ginger was on the track she bolted into a gallop without a cue from Cielle, as if a horse’s instinct was to run on an open dirt loop.

  Cielle leaned forward, loosened the reins, gripped the horse’s mane, squeezed with her thighs, and let Ginger run. She didn’t want to stop, ever. “Go, go, go,” she whispered. Ginger’s legs drummed and pounded beneath her. This was freedom and power. This sunshine and this speed and this air on her face, through her hair, this live gorgeous animal running just to run, this muscle and heart and earth beneath her, was beautiful. Her eyes watered. She’d never felt more alive or happier than in that singular moment. There was a log jump between two maple trees. Ginger soared over it with ease. They flew through the air for seconds that seemed like minutes—airborne, suspended, flying—then Ginger landed and didn’t miss a step and galloped around the track again. Cielle smiled, she couldn’t help it. Her eyes watered, she leaned down, hung on. Drumming legs, dirt and dust and wind and speed. She thought, There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

  As Cielle rounded the track she saw Mrs. Mitchell and Juno headed for the log-jump. Cielle came around the bend in time to see Juno push forward off her back legs, her haunches flexed, sweaty, and muscular. She took off too early and lurched to clear the log, and Mrs. Mitchell whipped back in the saddle like a rag doll and then swung forward, too far forward. She lost her stirrups and was up on Juno’s neck. Cielle hoped she’d scoot back into the saddle, or get low enough and use her legs to hold on. But the forward momentum was too strong, and Mrs. Mitchell sailed into the air over Juno’s head, doing a somersault and landing on her back. Cielle steered Ginger off the track at full gallop toward them. She dug her heels in and Ginger galloped harder and faster than she’d ever galloped before.

  Mrs. Mitchell was on her back while Juno stood by a tree eating grass as though nothing had happened. Cielle dismounted, shaky and out of breath, her chest buzzing as though there were a million tiny flies inside. She knelt beside Mrs. Mitchell.

  “Are you all right? Can you hear me?”

  Mrs. Mitchell’s eyes were closed and she parted her lips but then closed them again.

  “I can get you on Juno and lead you back.”

  Mrs. Mitchell opened her eyes and shook her head back and forth in tiny motions. “I’m too heavy,” she said. “I need to lie here a minute and catch my breath.”

  Cielle reached for her hand, and Mrs. Mitchell gave it a light squeeze. “I’m okay, Cielle. I just bruised my tailbone real bad. Ride back, take Juno with you, and get Bodie or Jim to pick me up in the truck.”

  A pressure rose up within Cielle, fast and unexpected, and her body took over—she sobbed, heaved, and hiccupped, bent down, head in her hands, and let it come. She felt ashamed but couldn’t stop. She was so tired. She caught her breath and yawned, then wiped her eyes so she could see.

  “Good,” Mrs. Mitchell said. “You needed that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you’re scared and sad.” She reached up and took Cielle’s hand. “I know.”

  Cielle nodded. “I’ll go get someone to come for you.”

  She held Juno’s reins, and mounted Ginger, who sidestepped again. “Not today, Ginger,” Cielle said, swatting her hard on the ass, and Ginger quit it.

  “Don’t be reckless,” Mrs. Mitchell said.

  Cielle clucked her tongue. Ginger and Juno picked up a trot and then a canter, running in unison, keeping pace. She hoped Mr. Mitchell and Bodie were home. If not, she’d leave Juno at the house and ride the miles home to get her own mother. The horses pushed forward as if they knew their mission was to help their owner, to save the downed, to heal the wounded. Instead of riding back the way they’d come along the edge of the field, Cielle cut straight across to get to the farm faster. The tall dried grasses swooshed and snapped underneath her, against the horses’ hooves and forelocks. The horses ran steadily over the bumpy ground and through the thick grasses.

  Don’t be reckless, don’t be reckless. She couldn’t promise that. She had a fire inside her as if someone had dropped a hot coal in her gut. She was not going to be quiet. She was not going to be well mannered, unsuspecting, or go unnoticed. Her mother said for some things there were no answers, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t look for them. It didn’t mean she just walked away, or gave up. Some people didn’t want to know things, but Cielle always wanted to know things.

  There was movement ahead. A flock of starlings, hundreds of them, lifted from the tops of the trees at the edge of the pasture and rose, a swarm of small black dots moving as a whole against the blue sky like pepper. They swooped down in one motion, almost as if to skim the tips of the grasses, and lifted again, rising, rising, and veered out of sight, off to who knows where. Here and gone.

  CHAPTER NINE

  MR. MITCHELL RODE JUNO out to the track to be with Mrs. Mitchell, while Bodie pitchforked hay into the flatbed of the pickup, over which he would lay a blanket where they could put his mother to drive her back. Helen stood and watched.

  Cielle pulled a round peppermint candy from her pocket and fed it to Ginger. “So, have you two had any talks lately?” Cielle asked.

  “Don’t test me, Cielle,” Bodie said. “Not while my mother’s lying out there.”

  “What’s this about?” Helen asked.

  “She’s pushing buttons,” Bodie said. “Mind your own business, Cielle.”

  “I think everything should be in the open, is all I’m saying,” Cielle said.

  “All right.” Bodie raised the pitchfork and rammed it into the dirt so it stood on its own. “You want me to tell Helen right now?”

  “I’m not going to tell her for you,” Cielle said.

  “What in hell are you two talking about?” Helen asked.

  Bodie spit and then turned toward Helen and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “I enlisted in the Army Air Corps back in November. I go to Texas in a few weeks for training.”

  “You are not going,” Helen said. “You are not leaving in a few weeks.”

  “I am,” Bodie said.

  “And when were you going to tell me, and why did Cielle know this? Why did you know this and not tell me?” She looked at Cielle.

  “Because he had to tell you.”

  “I told Cielle a few days ago. I was afraid to tell you.”

  “You should have been afraid. What about me?”

  He pulled the pitchfork from the dirt and climbed up onto the flatbed. “You know what, Helen, this is bigger than us. This is about going to fight for our country. This is about being a man, and getting out of this middle-of-nowhere heart farmland to do something that matters.”

  “It’s the heartland,” Cielle said under her breath, while adjusting Ginger’s saddle and tightening her girth.

  “It’s the what?” Bodie asked. He looked angry enough to stick the pitchfork through her torso.

  “Heartland,” Helen said. “It’s the heartland.”

  “Whatever,” he said.

  “The middle, the center, the heart of something,” Cielle said.

  “Lay off it, Cielle,” Bodie said.

  “Besides that,” Helen said, “I should matter too.”

  “You do matter.”

  “But there’s something that matters more.”

  “Don’t start.”

  “We talked about marriage and then you made this decision on your own without taking me into account or asking how I felt, and you expect me to be okay with that?”

  “Everyone supports this war, it seems, except for you.”

  “This isn’t about the war, Bodie. It’s about us making decisions together.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What don’t you know?” Helen stood at the edge of the truck, her hands up in the air. “What?”

  “You just want so many things.” He didn’t look at her.

>   “I want to be married to you. I want to have a family with you. I don’t want you to die at war. Is that too much to want?”

  “No.” His head lowered further, his chin closer to his chest. The pitchfork made an awful scraping sound against the metal of the truck bed as he shuffled the hay around. “But I’m going to Texas, because that’s what I want.”

  Helen shut her eyes and put her hand over her mouth. Cielle saw the deep breaths she took to keep herself together, and wished she’d yell at him, but she didn’t. She wished she’d bang on his chest or hug him so tight he’d change his mind, but she didn’t.

  “I don’t expect you to wait for me,” Bodie said.

  “I can’t believe this is coming out of your mouth.” Helen shook her head back and forth. “Why have you been wasting my time?”

  “Wasting your time?”

  “You knew I wanted things you didn’t want, but you told me you loved me, that you wanted to marry me. But you don’t. You lied and you wasted my time. Time I could have spent moving on and making other plans. You’re a coward.”

  “I’m sorry you see it that way.”

  “You don’t get it.”

  “I made this decision long before your father died, and when he died I didn’t know how to tell you I’d just been called for training.”

  “You can’t even look at my face.”

  Bodie kept his head down. Look up, Cielle thought. Look up.

  “Cielle, wherever you’re going, I’m going with you. Get me out of here.”

  “Don’t take that horse.” Bodie snapped his head up.

  “Get on first and scoot back,” Cielle said, and held the reins while Helen mounted Ginger. “Best to go get your mother,” she said to Bodie. “They’ll be waiting for you.”

  Bodie stood in the flatbed of the truck and banged the pitchfork down. “Do not take that horse!”

  Cielle thought he’d regret his choice to enlist and leave, instead of taking the exemption to stay and farm, but he wouldn’t ever admit it. She didn’t understand why he was more afraid to commit to Helen than to a war and places he’d never been and men he’d never met and danger he couldn’t yet imagine. She didn’t understand why he’d take danger and the unknown over safety and a possible known. Unless it was his only way out, his only way to see the world beyond Boaz.