Page 21 of On the Land, We Shoot Straight
Grady nodded.
“Gotta be at least three.”
“Three what?”
“Three times means you figured it out. Once is random. Twice could be coincidence. Three times is a pattern.”
Grady slowed for the turn and glanced at Cole. “This that book learnin’?”
Cole laughed and shook his head. “Nah, TV.”
Grady chuckled. He stopped at the gate, and Cole jumped out and let them through. It was a relief to hear Cole laughing again, and Grady didn’t want to think on that too much, so he let their comfortable silence fill the cabin against the background of the radio until they got home and hosed the horses down, gave them more carrot and apple, put them out and watched them feed before heading in themselves.
“Maybe she got hurt,” Cole said in a rush that night after they’d finished eating. He said it like he’d been thinking on it, had been wanting to say something about it but wasn’t sure if he was allowed. There was a desperate edge to the words hovering there in the kitchen as twilight settled outside, the final calls of birdsong ringing out confidently beyond the old walls and stuffy air of the kitchen.
Grady pushed his empty plate away and regarded Cole mirroring him with a jerky movement of his hand. He had no idea what he was talking about.
“Maybe who got hurt?” he asked, lifting his coffee to his lips and taking a sip.
Cole scratched the side of his head, flicked his eyes up. “Chloe. With the trailer. See, I been thinkin’ on it. And horses, if they get hurt or scared somewhere, then they ain’t never wanna go to that place again. It’s all about the place where it happened. And mares are especially bad with it, real careful, you know?”
Grady set his mug on the table, tapped his finger on the porcelain. He could see Cole had a whole lot more to say, so he waited.
“See,” he started when he noted Grady waiting on him, “I reckon somethin’ mighta happened before she got here, somethin’ bad in the trailer. And that’s why you can’t ever load her.”
“But she went in with Red,” Grady replied and took another sip.
Cole nodded, his eyes growing excited. “That’s it, though. You gotta change the place, change somethin’ about it so they feel safe again. Red changed it for her. But I reckon…”
Grady finished his coffee and waited for Cole to go on. When he didn’t, he prompted, “You reckon?”
Cole gazed over Grady’s shoulder, expression going distant. “I reckon it wasn’t too bad, what happened. So Red bein’ there was enough. But some people…” He met Grady’s eyes again, and Grady nodded. Cole took a quick breath and went on, “Some folks’ll whip their horses and then just keep on whippin’ ’em when they won’t work for them anymore, so then they think that horse is finished, you know? But it ain’t true. You can fix a horse like that, but you can’t ever work with it in the same place where it was whipped. If it happened in a ring, then you take that horse and ride him on the range and he’ll come good. People throw ’em out ’cause they break ’em, but ain’t no need for it. Just gotta change the place where you workin’ ’em.”
Cole was red and a little winded when he finished, like he wasn’t sure if he should be talking this much or if what he was saying might offend Grady. Grady thought it made a whole lot of sense. He also heard what Cole wasn’t saying—probably need to stop whipping the horse too, shouldn’t be whipping them in the first place if you want a well-adjusted horse.
“But,” Cole said quickly when Grady didn’t say anything, “that’s just my thinkin’ on it. Maybe she was just hot.”
“Hmm.” Grady tapped his finger against the empty mug. “And maybe she wasn’t.”
Cole’s answering smile was directed at his plate and it was small, but Grady reckoned there was some relief in it too.
14
“W
hat’re you goin’ intotown for?” Cole asked Grady the following week.
Grady had just come back from town, walked into the kitchen and found Cole at the table drinking coffee and reading a book. Cole had been out riding Chloe when Grady told him he was going into town and did Cole want anything. Cole didn’t.
“Sorry,” Cole said now and looked back down at his book.
“What’re you sorry for?” Grady asked as he poured himself a coffee.
“Askin’.”
Grady leaned against the counter, crossed his legs at the ankles, brought his mug up and sipped. Cole’s head was bent over his book. His hair was getting longer. It was curling a bit around the collar, the fine black strands shiny, like maybe he washed it every day.
“No harm in askin’.”
