Excerpted Fiction
Father was hard and cold and meaner than a snake during shedding season and I cannot remember a time when I did not hate him. In days to come I would forget his face but his hands would remain stuck in my mind like a splinter, those big, thick squares of leather, calloused and stained with tobacco, nails chipped and curled under on the corners like talons.
Right now they were clamped on the reins, the four long straps of leather squeezing through his fingers the way the mud down on French Creek squeezed between the toes of my bare feet after a hard rain. The mules, Big Jack and Little Jack, were laying hard against a juniper stump; though I suspected even with their simple way of thinking they knew it wasn’t going nowhere. It was a stubborn thing, the stump, and big—bigger than me—with roots that probably twisted down a hundred years or more, gnarling underground between chunks of solid stone. I imagined the roots like arms and hands and fingers, all holding on for dear life and I was torn between secretly hoping they would never let go and just wanting it to all be over.
The mules eased up and the reins dipped with slack. Sweat dripped from their bellies, their flanks, their eyelashes. It ran in rivers down their legs, pooling beneath the hairy fetlocks and darkening their hooves in stripes. Their nostrils flared like bellows. We’d been clearing all day without so much as a drop of water and it was pure awful hot—the kind of hot you can only feel in the bottom of a canyon in August under a big fat New Mexico sun. The kind of hot that makes your brains soft and your eyes blurry. The kind of hot that makes a body think crazy thoughts.
Father grunted a curse and both Jacks flinched, trembling in their harness, rat-tails clamped tight to their hind ends, mealy muzzles pursed into beaks of fear. I watched the golden arc of their flanks quiver; saw the half moon of terror rise in their eyes as they anticipated the sharp bite of Father’s whip and I found myself wishing Big Jack would nail my father in the chin with one of his plate-sized hooves. I measured the distance in my mind. Yep, a good kick would knock his head clean off his body and then some.
“Hyaw.” Like gravel, Father’s voice scraped across my ears followed quick-like with a pop of his whip. My insides jumped. I looked across at my sister, but she cut her eyes away. She was different now, all filled with secrets and lots of stuff I didn’t know and couldn’t do anything about anyway. I was learning that sometimes it was best if you just didn’t know such things at all.
The jacks dug in again, haunches hunkered deep, necks bowed. Leather strained. Hooves grated into the rocky soil. Again and again, the same thing, until I had to bite my lips to keep from shouting out, had to twist my hands into fists to keep from yanking the reins out of Father’s hands, to turn and use them on him, to tell him I’d like to see him pull a tree out of the ground roots and all.
And then, just as suddenly as the crazy thoughts had come upon me, they were gone. With a pop and groan, the stump broke free and the mules let up and I was mighty glad I hadn’t done any of the things I’d been thinking on.
“Ho,” Father barked. Both Jacks froze in place, ears flopping back and forth. One of Big Jack’s legs still trembled in mid air. Maybe it was from the effort, maybe relief, but I knew better. He trembled cause he was scared. Scared he didn’t do it good enough or fast enough or right enough to please Father. I knew that feeling: I knew it well. We lived in it, my ma and my sister and me. We didn’t talk about it, not ever, so I don’t know how they dealt with their fears, but as for me, I hid. During the day, I hid in plain sight by working hard and being quiet and doing what I was supposed to be doing all the time. But at night it wasn’t so easy. At night I snuck out to the barn to see the mules and also so I wouldn’t have to hear things I didn’t want to hear and it seemed like they understood why I was there. I told them they were good. I told them they were the biggest, best pair of mules in Territory and I wouldn’t trade nothing for them. Nothing.
“Git yer heads out of the clouds and get that cleaned up.”
We jumped and hurried to the stump right fast, me hacking away at the clumpy roots with my axe, my sister dragging the loose stubble to the side to be burned. How I didn’t chop her hands clean off, I don’t know. Never thought about it til later. Father said to do it and we did it. We did whatever Father said.
Whatever he said, just the way he said, or we paid the price.
And sometimes, we paid anyway. Especially my sister.
Right now they were clamped on the reins, the four long straps of leather squeezing through his fingers the way the mud down on French Creek squeezed between the toes of my bare feet after a hard rain. The mules, Big Jack and Little Jack, were laying hard against a juniper stump; though I suspected even with their simple way of thinking they knew it wasn’t going nowhere. It was a stubborn thing, the stump, and big—bigger than me—with roots that probably twisted down a hundred years or more, gnarling underground between chunks of solid stone. I imagined the roots like arms and hands and fingers, all holding on for dear life and I was torn between secretly hoping they would never let go and just wanting it to all be over.
The mules eased up and the reins dipped with slack. Sweat dripped from their bellies, their flanks, their eyelashes. It ran in rivers down their legs, pooling beneath the hairy fetlocks and darkening their hooves in stripes. Their nostrils flared like bellows. We’d been clearing all day without so much as a drop of water and it was pure awful hot—the kind of hot you can only feel in the bottom of a canyon in August under a big fat New Mexico sun. The kind of hot that makes your brains soft and your eyes blurry. The kind of hot that makes a body think crazy thoughts.
Father grunted a curse and both Jacks flinched, trembling in their harness, rat-tails clamped tight to their hind ends, mealy muzzles pursed into beaks of fear. I watched the golden arc of their flanks quiver; saw the half moon of terror rise in their eyes as they anticipated the sharp bite of Father’s whip and I found myself wishing Big Jack would nail my father in the chin with one of his plate-sized hooves. I measured the distance in my mind. Yep, a good kick would knock his head clean off his body and then some.
“Hyaw.” Like gravel, Father’s voice scraped across my ears followed quick-like with a pop of his whip. My insides jumped. I looked across at my sister, but she cut her eyes away. She was different now, all filled with secrets and lots of stuff I didn’t know and couldn’t do anything about anyway. I was learning that sometimes it was best if you just didn’t know such things at all.
The jacks dug in again, haunches hunkered deep, necks bowed. Leather strained. Hooves grated into the rocky soil. Again and again, the same thing, until I had to bite my lips to keep from shouting out, had to twist my hands into fists to keep from yanking the reins out of Father’s hands, to turn and use them on him, to tell him I’d like to see him pull a tree out of the ground roots and all.
And then, just as suddenly as the crazy thoughts had come upon me, they were gone. With a pop and groan, the stump broke free and the mules let up and I was mighty glad I hadn’t done any of the things I’d been thinking on.
“Ho,” Father barked. Both Jacks froze in place, ears flopping back and forth. One of Big Jack’s legs still trembled in mid air. Maybe it was from the effort, maybe relief, but I knew better. He trembled cause he was scared. Scared he didn’t do it good enough or fast enough or right enough to please Father. I knew that feeling: I knew it well. We lived in it, my ma and my sister and me. We didn’t talk about it, not ever, so I don’t know how they dealt with their fears, but as for me, I hid. During the day, I hid in plain sight by working hard and being quiet and doing what I was supposed to be doing all the time. But at night it wasn’t so easy. At night I snuck out to the barn to see the mules and also so I wouldn’t have to hear things I didn’t want to hear and it seemed like they understood why I was there. I told them they were good. I told them they were the biggest, best pair of mules in Territory and I wouldn’t trade nothing for them. Nothing.
“Git yer heads out of the clouds and get that cleaned up.”
We jumped and hurried to the stump right fast, me hacking away at the clumpy roots with my axe, my sister dragging the loose stubble to the side to be burned. How I didn’t chop her hands clean off, I don’t know. Never thought about it til later. Father said to do it and we did it. We did whatever Father said.
Whatever he said, just the way he said, or we paid the price.
And sometimes, we paid anyway. Especially my sister.
