CHAPTER 24 #2
"All right, love. Four steps and we are across. Easy."
I rub the cleft of my sternum at the shirt past her belly.
"Walk on."
He walks.
---
The four steps are not four. The windrow has a low half-burned branch at the third stride that I did not see, and the six steps are at the duff, the black mat going dull-red under his fetlocks at the second.
The heat comes up his shoulder through the saddle and through my thighs at the filly's belly, and the smell hits me at the bandanna at the third step.
Singed horsehair.
Ardent's mane is taking the heat at the off shoulder where the duff has flickered open — the mane is singeing an inch or two, the long red-brown hair going dark and curling and the smell hitting me sharp through the bandanna, sharp and animal and bitter and mine.
The smell I have at the back of the throat from a stable fire in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in November of 1864 when I was fourteen and standing at the fence holding a yearling and watching my mother go back through a door that was already gone.
The same smell. I do not laugh. I do not weep. I rub the cleft of my sternum at the shirt past the filly's flank.
The fourth step is the duff at the centre of the windrow and the duff has gone open — a small clean three-inch flame at the off-fetlock — and Ardent puts the off-fore down on it because there is no other place to put it down.
I feel my beard go.
The off jaw is between the bandanna and the heat, and the right side of my beard is singeing — an inch of red-brown coarse hair going dark and curling, the lanolin of the bandanna's wax against my mouth and the singed-beard at the off cheek and the fear-sweat at my own collar going cold-sharp at the same moment — and I say it, into the bandanna, into the chestnut's mane at the off shoulder, into the singed-horsehair and the lanolin and the fear-sweat:
"Christ's teeth. Fuck. Love. Love. Christ's teeth."
Ardent steps the fifth on the back of the duff-mat still black, the off-fore comes down clean, the off-hind goes through the centre at the duff that was open at the fourth and comes up at the cool side, and the sixth step is at the trail beyond the windrow. The chestnut is across.
He walks ten yards. He stops.
I lift the filly off the saddle on the safe side, slow, my hands shaking, and her four feet touch the trail and she stands at the lead-line and she is alive.
I get down off Ardent. My knees go a half-second; I put my left hand on the saddle-horn and hold, and Ardent stands, and I laugh once, dry, into the bandanna.
The mane at his off shoulder is singed an inch up from the wither — a small black crescent at the long red-brown coat.
The off jaw of my own beard is dark and curled at the right side.
The smell at my collar is singed horsehair and lanolin and fear-sweat, and I will carry it across the dust to the iron pump where she is, and she will smell it on me before she sees me.
"Walk on, loves. Up. To the herd at the seeps."
They walk on.
---
Two o'clock. The seven are at the snowfield and Ardent has come up the second trip on his own four feet, and the filly is at Pie's flank already; Pie has taken her in. Eight.
I take Ardent's bridle off, the charm staying on the brow-band. I weight the saddle at the krummholz with a flat rock against the gust.
"You stay, love. You and the filly. I am coming back tomorrow."
He blows once. I turn from him.
I walk down onto the krummholz trail. The basin is below me, gray, lit at one pip by the kitchen-window lamp, and the wind is —
I stop at the bend.
The wind is on my left cheek.
The wind has been on my back all the climb up and all the climb down to the windrow and all the climb back.
The wind has been north and gusting forty.
The wind on my left cheek at the bend facing south is east of north — the wind shifting north to north-northwest, moving the fire-front off the basin's west rim and east onto the next divide.
I stand at the bend with the smell of singed horsehair and lanolin and fear-sweat at my collar and I do not laugh.
I rub the cleft scar with two fingers.
"Love. Love. We have done it."
I go down.
---
Six o'clock. The descent off the north ridge is the long descent a man makes when he is past the part of the day where he has had a body.
I am at the lower wire with the smoke thinning and the wind on my left cheek north-northwest. The basin is laid out below me — the dooryard a pip, the iron pump a tick, the freight canvas a long pale shape at the porch beams — and three figures at the pump.
I lower the bandanna round my throat, cross the wire, come down through the lodgepole into the dooryard at the gate.
I stop at the gate.
She is at the iron pump. Her right hand is on Beck's scarred left palm.
Her left hand is on Tate's right wrist at the burn-mark — the long mottled scald he has carried at the cuff since '75 — her two hands on the two scars of the two men, the bucket between them at the trough.
Old Brigham crows the late hour from the chicken yard — three crows, a rooster's I am back home — and the kerosene lamp is at the kitchen window already lit because of the smoke.
She turns. She does not run — she is not the woman who runs in a dooryard — but her gray eyes find me and her hand at Tate's wrist tightens once and her hand at Beck's palm tightens once.
I laugh once. Dry. Ash on my teeth. The smell of singed horsehair and lanolin and fear-sweat at my collar carrying down to the iron pump, and it is at the back of her throat already — I can see it in the line of her shoulders.
"Christ's teeth. We're alive."
"Levi," she says, against my collarbone.
"Love," I say, into the bone pin at the nape.
"The colt?"
"At the snowfield. Singed at the off shoulder. Yearling. White blaze. Breathing."
"Ardent?"
"At the snowfield. The charm is on the bridle."
Beck says, behind her, low, "The charm."
I rub the cleft scar against her forehead instead of my own two fingers because that is the only place left to rub it, and she feels it, and she says, into my collarbone, "Levi Thorn."
"Sweetheart."
Beck nods once, slow. Tate closes his eyes for one beat longer than he should. The basin is the basin.
"Christ's teeth. We're alive."