From GABRIEL
The boy could ride. Hours before she escaped the spring blizzard up on Cat's Claw Butte, she’d watched him running the legs off his grandfather’s flea-bitten gray. There was no joy in it—he was riding the fury out of that horse, a darkness out of himself, the only thing he knew to do, twelve-years-old and bareback.
When he charged past, he didn’t see her resting against the stone. The large woman, the megalith—both out of place on the high flat plain; she, the color of the rock in her overalls, aching from the climb. This time she thought he was going to ride right off the edge, the air clean before him, the dust swallowing him. The boy and horse passed so close that she inhaled raised particles of grit. She closed her eyes, coughed, and couldn’t hear for her own racket. When she stopped enough to listen, it was silent except for the explosive breaths from the animal. Alarmed, she labored to her feet to see what happened.
The gelding stood at the brink, its hocks lowered and quivering, flanks foamy with sweat, front hooves not a palm’s width away from the chasm. The boy had aimed the horse over the sweetgrass country like a rifle, cocked and ready as if, were she to call his name, she’d trigger them over the cliff. So she waited. When he turned the horse around, he looked at her and nodded. She nodded back.
She’d made the hike to get a bead on the spring’s progress. Ever since she was a child with her family, alone now, she’d touched the stone with flat hands when the first wash of green came over the grazing lands, her people’s once, before the whites came with their deeds and measure. Antelope didn’t recognize ranch boundaries; jack rabbits didn’t; why should she? As she was getting older and heavier, and older and heavier still, every year she made the climb. But the time was coming when her bum leg wouldn’t bring her down again.
A month later, she sat under the lonely tree by of the mouth of the cave. She’d have to stand and twist clear round to see the orange butte, stark in the distance against the noon sky. She was doing a lot of sitting these days, a lot of resting.
The cave’s slanted entrance on the hillock looked like a giant badger hole partly obscured with weeds. The next rise protected her from the view of the boy’s ranch house—his grandmother wouldn’t approve she was there. The tree, a misshapen apple, grew practically out of stone—the soil was so thin. Someone had spat a seed once, or a bird shat it out. Strange place to take root. She liked that tree. She liked how the tough fruit resisted teeth. Even the crows didn’t bother. She said hello to it every now and again when she was near-by.
And here came the boy, once more crossing her path, this time leading the horse, patched with dried sweat. As he got closer she could see that his nose had been broke, still raw with injury, and his eyes were starting to swell and mask.
“Hello, Bird,” he said.
“Luke. Out for a ride?”
“Something like that.”
He dropped the reins and eased down beside her, dusting off his hat.
“You been into the cave?” he asked.
She patted her pillowy belly. “Tighter fit every year.”
He chuckled.
She twisted to examine his face with her good eye. “You didn’t fall off that horse, did you.”
He looked at her, not saying.
“Didn’t think so. It would take more than that nag to toss you. Your grandmother do that?”
He thought about the answer, then nodded.
“You should slug her back.”
“Last time I tried, it was a mistake.”
“Someday you’ll be big enough and strong enough—you can wallop her and she won’t ever do it again.”
“That’s what she wants. I’m not going to give her the satisfaction.”
“It’s not good to hold things in.”
“Don’t have a choice.”
“How’s your grandfather?”
“Good. We stay out of her way. We’re out in the bunkhouse now. It’s better.”
She offered water from her canteen which he accepted. “You should get that set or it’s going to be crooked forever.”
He shrugged.
“I can fix it.”
“It will hurt.”
“Yes, but it will be over quick. “
His shoulders drooped. “Do I have to?”
“Nope.”
He thought about it, his mouth unhappy. “Well, damn it. Where do you want me?”
She pulled him over and in front of her, laying his head in her lap. With her hands on either side of his cheeks, she looked upside down into his pretty brown eyes, ringed with lashes. Those lashes were going to drive the girls crazy.
“It won’t be like this forever Luke. You’ll be grown before you know it. You stay who you are.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know you are.”
When she snapped the cartilage back into place, he howled like a man. Tears welled. She patted his shoulder and they stayed like that for a while, the massive woman, the boy stretched out in the dirt, his head in her lap, his boots pointing at the bright sky, the tree offering spindly shade.