Read Online Funerals for Horses by Catherine Ryan Hyde - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Catherine Ryan Hyde
Ads: Link
a year or two. Don’t cry, Simon. I think Grandma Sterling liked you.”
Simon laughed bitterly, but not as loud as DeeDee.
THE MOON DOESN'T SAY
Something propels me upward through a thick crust of unconsciousness, cracking the surface to allow a scrap of light to bleed through. A hand, behind my neck, a touch of warm metal at my lips, then cool water. I try to take it in, gurgle and cough, spill it down my chin and neck, but even there it is appreciated.
Now I lose another couple of days.
When I get one back again, it’s fairly useless to me. I’m lying on a couch in a modest cabin, in a long, clean white shirt, with a sheet thrown over me. A noisy swamp cooler works against odds to keep the air livable. The room is decorated in bones. Cattle, coyote, rabbit, god only knows what. Feathers. Native American pottery.
My feet lie propped and bandaged. They feel too heavy. I don’t move them, so I won’t have to know what I’ve done.
My first visitor is about three years old, a towhead, with a baby bottle of something amber, juice maybe, dangling from his mouth. He runs up to the couch surrounded by hound dogs whose whole bodies wag with the action of their tails.
I hear a sucking sound as he pulls the bottle free, and a squeak of air rushing into the flattened nipple.
He seems startled to see me look back.
“Are you dead?” he asks.
“Apparently not.”
“Mom said you might be dead.”
“Looks like it got better.”
“Right,” he says, and runs away, the dogs running with him.
I decide on a little nap; or rather, it decides on me.
When I wake up, a woman sits on the edge of the couch with me. Kathy, so she says. Her golden-brown hair is gathered up onto her head, with just the right amount falling away again. She is younger than me. She hands me a cup that I assume contains water, but it’s warm chicken broth. I drink it all at once and feel better.
“Thank you. How did I get here?”
“You walked. Rick found you in the front yard. You were delirious with fever. You probably don’t remember.”
I don’t, but it doesn’t seem necessary to say I don’t. I’m sure the blankness on my face says it all. She is a stranger to me, yet I’m an old friend of the family by now. I’ve been with them for days.
She sits with me for a while, which I like, though I can’t seem to say so, and tells me my fever was a hundred and four when I arrived. She and Rick wrapped me in wet sheets, and the doctor came and shot me full of antibiotics. He said my feet were so infected that in another three or four days he might not have been able to save them.
I try to thank her for finding me in time to save my feet. I can’t very well follow Simon without them. She says I found her. Whatever. I want to ask how Simon’s feet are holding up, and who will find Simon in time to save them, but I think she has enough trouble just saving me, so I ask where we are.
She says we’re on the edge of Death Valley, fifteen miles from the nearest town.
I say I have money, I’ll pay her back for the doctor, and she says we’ll work that out when I’m better, that I should get some sleep, and in the process of doing so, I lose another day or two.
Long before my feet are ready to bear me, I decide to test the water, and I hobble out back to sit with Rick, my host, on rickety lawn chairs in the cool desert night. As soon as I take my first step I know it’s a mistake, but I finish the job anyway.
“Mighta been too soon,” he says, pointing to the clean dressing soaking through with blood.
“Guess so,” I say.
He’s a bearded young man, twenty-five maybe, with thin brown hair cascading down the back of his collar, and an easy smile, which he gives away for free. We sit silent for a while, not so much out of awkwardness as respect. A yellow hunter’s moon hangs gigantic over a nearby mountain, washing the barrel cactus and prickly pears in a pearly, translucent light. Somewhere in the distance coyotes yip and bark
Simon laughed bitterly, but not as loud as DeeDee.
THE MOON DOESN'T SAY
Something propels me upward through a thick crust of unconsciousness, cracking the surface to allow a scrap of light to bleed through. A hand, behind my neck, a touch of warm metal at my lips, then cool water. I try to take it in, gurgle and cough, spill it down my chin and neck, but even there it is appreciated.
Now I lose another couple of days.
When I get one back again, it’s fairly useless to me. I’m lying on a couch in a modest cabin, in a long, clean white shirt, with a sheet thrown over me. A noisy swamp cooler works against odds to keep the air livable. The room is decorated in bones. Cattle, coyote, rabbit, god only knows what. Feathers. Native American pottery.
My feet lie propped and bandaged. They feel too heavy. I don’t move them, so I won’t have to know what I’ve done.
My first visitor is about three years old, a towhead, with a baby bottle of something amber, juice maybe, dangling from his mouth. He runs up to the couch surrounded by hound dogs whose whole bodies wag with the action of their tails.
I hear a sucking sound as he pulls the bottle free, and a squeak of air rushing into the flattened nipple.
He seems startled to see me look back.
“Are you dead?” he asks.
“Apparently not.”
“Mom said you might be dead.”
“Looks like it got better.”
“Right,” he says, and runs away, the dogs running with him.
I decide on a little nap; or rather, it decides on me.
When I wake up, a woman sits on the edge of the couch with me. Kathy, so she says. Her golden-brown hair is gathered up onto her head, with just the right amount falling away again. She is younger than me. She hands me a cup that I assume contains water, but it’s warm chicken broth. I drink it all at once and feel better.
“Thank you. How did I get here?”
“You walked. Rick found you in the front yard. You were delirious with fever. You probably don’t remember.”
I don’t, but it doesn’t seem necessary to say I don’t. I’m sure the blankness on my face says it all. She is a stranger to me, yet I’m an old friend of the family by now. I’ve been with them for days.
She sits with me for a while, which I like, though I can’t seem to say so, and tells me my fever was a hundred and four when I arrived. She and Rick wrapped me in wet sheets, and the doctor came and shot me full of antibiotics. He said my feet were so infected that in another three or four days he might not have been able to save them.
I try to thank her for finding me in time to save my feet. I can’t very well follow Simon without them. She says I found her. Whatever. I want to ask how Simon’s feet are holding up, and who will find Simon in time to save them, but I think she has enough trouble just saving me, so I ask where we are.
She says we’re on the edge of Death Valley, fifteen miles from the nearest town.
I say I have money, I’ll pay her back for the doctor, and she says we’ll work that out when I’m better, that I should get some sleep, and in the process of doing so, I lose another day or two.
Long before my feet are ready to bear me, I decide to test the water, and I hobble out back to sit with Rick, my host, on rickety lawn chairs in the cool desert night. As soon as I take my first step I know it’s a mistake, but I finish the job anyway.
“Mighta been too soon,” he says, pointing to the clean dressing soaking through with blood.
“Guess so,” I say.
He’s a bearded young man, twenty-five maybe, with thin brown hair cascading down the back of his collar, and an easy smile, which he gives away for free. We sit silent for a while, not so much out of awkwardness as respect. A yellow hunter’s moon hangs gigantic over a nearby mountain, washing the barrel cactus and prickly pears in a pearly, translucent light. Somewhere in the distance coyotes yip and bark
Similar Books
