“Teaches them what?”
“Astronomy,” he deadpanned.
“Really?”
“No, dipshit, she teaches ’em how to ride horses.”
I laughed. “Okay, okay, you got me. That was a stupid question.”
He huffed and shook his head, looking away.
“What?” I said with an edge in my tone. His smug shit was getting on my nerves.
“Nothing, it’s just, you’re so interested in that bitch. I have no fucking clue why.”
I straightened and leaned my forearm on the top of the shovel. “Why do you think she’s a bitch?”
“She just is. She doesn’t give anyone the time of day.” He continued shoveling while he talked. It was obvious that Caleb had some resentment toward her; he was more than just irritated at her indifference.
“You know her story, right?” I asked.
“Yeah, her husband blew his head off. Probably couldn’t fuckin’ stand living with her anymore.” He stood, mimicked a gun with his finger under his chin, and mimicked the sound of a gunshot.
“You’re a dick, man.”
“What? Why don’t you say that to my face?”
“I just did.” Why in the world I would antagonize a three-hundred-pound man who towered over my six-foot frame, I’ll never know. Some deep-seated sense of chivalry surfaced in me.
“You better mind your business.”
In an utterly calm and matter-of-fact voice, I said, “How long have you worked here shoveling shit, my friend?”
“Long enough to know you’re barking up the wrong tree. She won’t even make eye contact with me, so your chances are slim.”
“So that’s what this is really about? What, you came on to her? Maybe you’re not her type.”
He threw the shovel effortlessly across the corral into a pile of tools. “And you are, faggot?”
“Neanderthal,” I shot back.
“Pussy,” he said, walking away.
“Maybe in another three thousand years when you’ve evolved we can have this conversation again. Do you even have opposable thumbs?” I yelled the last part as he disappeared from view.
In the evening, when Ava was unloading the horses from her trailer, I snuck up on her. “Boo.”
She didn’t startle.
“Wow, you’re no fun.”
“I’ve been told that before,” she said.
She backed Dancer down the ramp toward me. “Move out of the way, Nate. Never stand behind a horse unless you want to get kicked in the noggin—or another part of your body.”
I moved away and followed her into the barn where she put Dancer into a stall. “How was your day? What have you been up to?”
She threw a chunk of alfalfa into Dancer’s food trough and petted her head. When she finally turned to face me, she leaned against the short stall door with a brazen smirk, a look I had never seen on her.
“I give horseback-riding lessons to some kids on another ranch, but you already knew that, I’m sure.”
She was on to me. She must have known I had been asking about her.
“Well, how’d the lessons go?”
“Excellent. What did you do today?”
I smiled really big. “Shoveled shit.”
“How was that?”
“Pretty shitty.” We both laughed but she looked down, almost as if she were too embarrassed to really let it out. “I also got to know Caleb a little better.”
“I’m sorry,” she said seriously.
“Why don’t you two get along?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t like me . . . ,” her voice trailed off. She looked away and her mood changed.
“Why don’t you think he likes you?”
“Well, one night . . . he tried . . .” She took a breath through her nose and looked up to the barn ceiling. “One night he tried to kiss me. I don’t know why. I didn’t send him mixed signals, I swear.”
“I believe you.” And I did believe her. She didn’t give anyone any signals, good or bad; she rarely looked up from her feet. “Keep going.”
“He caught me on the steps, just as I was coming down and he was going up to the main house. He grabbed my hips and leaned in. I slapped him.”
“What did he do?”
“He called me a bad word and said I was the reason for, um . . . for the stuff that’s happened in my life.”
“Nothing is your fault. I know what happened.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does. That fucking oaf has no right to treat you that way.” I looked up pensively. “Just wondering, what word did he call you?”
“The c-word.”
“I’m going to kill him.” Even as I said it, I couldn’t believe my reaction. Apparently there’s something in the Montana water that instantly transforms an agnostic, Starbucks-loving, vegetarian pacifist into a God-and-country-loving protector of all women and cattle.
She laughed through her nose. “You would be wasting your time.”
It got quiet for several moments as we faced each other in the barn. The atmosphere was heady. I watched her eyes dance around my face and then remain fixed on my lips. Part of me wanted to lean in and kiss her, but she made no motion toward me—and frankly, I wasn’t in the mood to get slapped.
“Honestly, Ava, I don’t think it’s that Caleb doesn’t like you. It’s the exact opposite. He probably likes you a lot.” I suddenly sounded very pragmatic, as if I were speaking to a room of college students. “My bet was that he felt rejected, and because he has a small penis he felt the need to make you feel bad about yourself.”
She smiled. Her look was endearing, almost like gratitude. “Thank you. That was a very interesting explanation of what might have happened that day on the stairs. Still, everyone here knows what happened to me. It’s hard not to think that they blame me for Jake.” I could tell it pained her to say his name.
“That’s not true.” I moved toward her to close the gap but she shook her head, stopping me. “You shouldn’t get close to me.”
I squinted. “Physically close?”
“No, you just shouldn’t want to know me. Jake was my husband. You know that, right?” Her eyes filled with tears. “My husband, Jake, killed himself because I couldn’t love him right. I couldn’t make him want to live.”
“Like I said, I know the story, Ava, but you’ve got it wrong. Just let me hold your hand. It’s easier this way.” I reached out and took her hand and held it as we stood several feet apart from each other. Her palm was cold, small, and calloused. There was a bit of dirt under her nails but the skin on her outer hand was smooth.
“It’s easier to talk when there’s not that uncomfortable space between us.”
“Your hand is smooth,” we both said at the same time.
“Doctor hands are always smooth because we have to exfoliate so much.” I smiled and she laughed a high-pitch, fluttering fairylike sound. It made my heart skip a beat.
“Exfoliate. That’s funny. You’re funny, Nate.”
“No one has ever told me that.”
“That’s kind of sad. I feel like I’ve smiled and laughed more around you than anyone else in years.”
Both of our expressions turned serious again. As I held her hand in mine, I thought I should try and really talk to her.
“Where is your family?”
“Not around. My father is dead.” She swallowed. “My mom went back to Spain. My brother lives in New York. And I’m here, where I belong, in some kind of hell.”
“Stop,” I whispered, shaking my head. “Don’t say that.”
“That’s how I feel.”
“Well, it’s beautiful here now, during the summer.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“At first the days melted into each other. After Jake’s accident, I would wake up and think hard about what happened the day before but all of my memories were cloudy, even the recent ones. I couldn’t get over it, and then
when I thought I was finally able to accept it, that Jake would be paralyzed forever, he killed himself. After that it wasn’t just days anymore—it was weeks, melting together like my life was in fast-forward. But I’m only twenty-four.”
I wiped a tear from her cheek. “I’m glad you’re talking to me about this. Maybe we can hang out tonight, after dinner?”
She blinked and then let out a heavy breath. “No, I don’t think so.” She seemed conflicted and I didn’t want to press. I knew I would have to take my time if I wanted to get to know her. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Even when I wasn’t with her, I thought about her hair, the way she smelled, and her warm, smooth skin.
After dinner I went into my room and fiddled with my computer until I was able to dial up onto the Internet. Every second it took to get online felt like an hour. It was completely obvious to me why people on the ranch didn’t use the Internet. After hours of clicking in frustration and watching that little timer on the screen go in circles, I finally kicked my feet up and began reading. Just as I turned the second page of a book called The Montana Cowboy: Legends of the Big Sky Country, I heard the sounds of small pebbles hitting my window.
I bolted upright and went to the ledge. Sweeping the curtains aside, I looked out to see Ava peering up at me from the ground, just a few feet below.
I opened the window. “Hi, Ava.” I smiled. “I’m sure Redman and Bea wouldn’t mind you using the door.” She was so cute standing there, gazing up at me.
“Shhh.” She held her finger to her mouth. Her eyes were wide. “I have an idea.”
I could smell whiskey on her breath, even from four feet away. “Do you want me to lift you up here? You want to come in my room?” Suddenly I was seventeen again and it made me smile.
“Just put on a jacket and come on. I have something to show you.”
I reached for my jacket and shoes and then hopped through the window, landing hard and almost falling into a roll.
When I stood up, she put her hands on my shoulders and said, “I need your help.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
“Yes.” She nodded dramatically, arching her eyebrows like she was proud of the fact. She pulled a flask from her pocket and handed it to me. “Want some?”
I can’t say that I honestly knew anyone who drank liquor out of a flask, certainly not a five-foot-four, small-boned woman, but I was intrigued. Following her toward the cabin, I unscrewed the flask and took a large gulp. Having not drank except for a few times in college and high school, the liquor made me gag a little but then it went down smooth, giving my throat a warm sensation. “We’ll need more. Let’s get more,” she said, pointing to the flask as she ran up the stairs to her cabin.
I stood outside on the porch until she came back out with a square Jack Daniels bottle.
“This will do,” she said.
“Where are we going?”
Following behind her, holding the bottle in one hand and flask in the other, I wondered for a second if there was actually a legitimate reason why people told me to stay away from her. We approached a second cabin on the other side of the main house. I could see Caleb through the bedroom window.
“Be quiet,” she said. “Don’t make a sound. Look.” She pointed toward a metal cage, one you might use as a dog crate. It was in shadow under the eaves of the cabin, but there was no mistaking what was inside. Even in the darkness I could see the white above the raccoon’s eyes and on his nose.
“Did you catch that?”
“Yes, it was easy.” She smiled so gleefully.
“I’m not sure raccoons make for very good pets.”
“He’s not a pet, silly.”
She stood on her tippy-toes and peeked into Caleb’s cabin. “Okay, it’s almost time.” We could hear the shower in the bathroom go on. “Here.” She handed me a pair of leather work gloves. “I need your help carrying the cage inside. We’re going to leave Caleb a little present.”
Finally, I understood. I found it hard to keep a straight face. “You’re a sneaky little girl, aren’t you?”
“I’ve never done anything like this but I take it Caleb wasn’t very nice to you, and well, you know, he wasn’t very nice to me either. I figured it was time to teach him a lesson.”
“Are you avenging my pride, sweetheart?” I winked and she smiled back.
“That’s what us country girls do.”
“God, I’ve been missing out on so much.”
We picked up the cage while the raccoon scratched and hissed at us.
“Oh shit,” I yelped.
“Don’t touch him, he’s a mean little bastard.”
“But he looks so cute.”
“He’s probably rabid. I hope he bites Caleb.”
“Ava, you’ve got a real mean streak,” I teased.
Caleb’s cabin door was open. Ava opened the cage and poked the animal from the other side, encouraging him to run out. We left him there to scurry around the front room and then we ran down the steps outside and hid in the shadows, spying through the cabin’s window.
We waited, watching until Caleb came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel from the waist down. He stood stock-still in the hallway. From our vantage point, we had a front-row seat to the show. Caleb screamed like a girl and threw his sizable arms in the air, inadvertently dropping his towel before running back into the bathroom. The giant man was scared of raccoons.
Ava and I both slid to the ground, holding our stomachs and laughing so hard but trying not to make a sound.
“Oh my god, did you see his face?” she said. “He was terrified.”
“That was classic—I’ll never forget it. I wonder what’s gonna happen to the raccoon?”
“I don’t think Caleb will ever come out of that bathroom. Maybe we should open the front door.”
“Nah. He’ll figure it out. I can’t imagine that he’s the type of guy to ask for help, even when he needs it.”
“Now who has the mean streak?” she teased. “But you were right about one thing.” We had finally controlled our hysterics and were seated with our backs against the cabin.
“What’s that?”
“He definitely has a small . . . you know what.” Even in the dark I could see her wide grin.
“Yes, he most definitely has little-dick syndrome,” I said in a pseudo-serious doctor voice.
“Did you learn that in medical school?”
“It’s weird. For once in my life I don’t want to think about medical school, or being a doctor or surgery or hospitals. This is nice. Sitting here with you. I’ve never seen this many stars.”
She looked up. “Yes, they dulled for me after I lost Jake.” She looked up at me. “Do you know what I mean?”
I nodded.
“But they seem a bit brighter tonight.”
She was finally talking with ease about Jake and I didn’t want her to stop. “Was he a lot of fun?”
“Yeah. Jake had a real hardworking serious side to him, but he could be funny and silly, too. He wasn’t an educated guy; he had a rough childhood and a sensitive ego.”
“How do you mean?” I knew exactly what she meant but I wanted to keep her talking.
“I don’t know, I guess now that I’m a little older I can look back and see that he had some real flaws.” She looked away and I could tell the words pained her to say. “I don’t mean that he wasn’t a good man but he couldn’t really keep his pride inside. He could be boastful and arrogant. I thought in the beginning that he was just cocksure and trying to impress me, but after the accident his true colors showed through and he wasn’t very good to me.”
“That’s really terrible, Ava. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Maybe I deserved it.”
“Why in the world would you say that?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know if I ever belonged here. Now I haven’t seen my mom in five years, my brother is off in New York living his life, and here I am. All because I follow
ed a cowboy to Montana and got married,” she said with a little laugh.
“Why can’t you go to Spain and live with your mother?”
“I was born here. I’ve never even been there. That’s my parents’ country, not mine. I don’t really have a place that’s mine, I guess. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’d like a swig of that if you wouldn’t mind handing it to me,” she said, pointing to the whiskey.
I handed her the bottle. She took a big gulp and then sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t really understand why you’re here. I mean, I know your uncle’s here but why would you want to leave your fancy life in L.A. to come out here and shovel shit?”
I laughed. “I’m not sure one would call what I had a fancy life. I never wanted anything more than to become a doctor, and that kind of consumed me. Everything for my career fell into place perfectly.” I paused for a long time, searching for the right words, but nothing eloquent came to me. “I fucked up and basically caused a young girl’s death. I’m probably going to be sued for malpractice, as well as the hospital. I feel terrible about it.”
“Do you feel more terrible about being sued or for the girl’s death?”
It was a question that should have been offensive but wasn’t. It hit a nerve, but only because I questioned the same thing myself. Her eyes were wide, watching me intently. “I feel terrible for the girl, the life lost, the family that’s mourning her. But up until this week I was also terrified that I would lose my job. When I got home the day it happened, I realized I had nothing but my work. I didn’t know what to do with myself. My father sent me here.”
“To clear your head?”
“Something like that, although if I know my father he might have sent me out here more to deflate my head than anything.”
“Oh.”
“It might have worked because the job seems a lot less significant now. I feel terrible for the girl and her family. That’s it.”
She nodded, smiling with compassion.
We carried the cage back to Ava’s cabin and as we set it down, the door swung open, gouging the fat part of my palm near my thumb.
“Shit.” I held my hand, gripping it tightly.
“What happened?”
“Fuck.”
“What’s wrong, Nate?”