Wild Horses (18 page)

“That’s mostly true,” Attila admitted, fleshing out the deal he and Kai had made regarding Vermillion’s renaming to Cayenne. “I don’t expect any more strife between them. Not unless Kai takes a fancy to young Lindsey, which I find rather unlikely.”

Keen eyes drank in the sight Attila presented, noting the set of his shoulders and the tone of his voice. “Is that so.” The old man paused. “And Kai still lives with you, then?”

“You remembered his name,” Attila said, his tone a bit sharper than he intended.

The old man uttered a wheezing laugh. “Of course I remembered! What a story you had to tell the last time you were here! And he interests you, this Kai.” Ignoring Attila’s stiff set of shoulders, he barged on in the way old people had, dispensing advice. “You be careful so your heart doesn’t get broken, Attila. It has been a while since that other fellow you dated, and that was an unmitigated disaster.”

“He walked out.” The pain was almost gone from Attila’s voice, but the indignation was still there.

“He walked out because you put your horse relationships before your people relationships, Attila. Which is why your grandmother walked out on me all those years ago.”

Attila sipped the cooling tea, not correcting the old man in his assumptions as to the reasons for the breakup. “I already told him. He knows the horses come first.”

“Does he, now? How very interesting.”

The image of amorous Kai from that morning brought a small smile to Attila’s face. “Oh yeah. We get up and the horses get fed before anything else goes on.”

Grandpa Keleman raised his bushy eyebrows, brushing his long, white hair back. “That is certainly good to know. Just keep the details to yourself.”

Attila’s face reddened, making the old man cackle. “Bring him over next time you come visit. I am curious to see what’s so special about him that he would deserve the attentions of my favorite grandson.”

Their eyes met, and Attila was reminded, once again, how much he missed the old man’s presence.

M
AY
supervised in the arena while Brent gave his kid sister a lesson in Attila’s stead. This Friday night belonged to Attila and his grandfather.

“Keep your hands down, Naomi,” he instructed, eyeing her form with a critical eye. “Keep your butt lower as you post. Minimum effort, okay?”

She complied, a little blur of pink on top of Dusty.

“At every letter, I want you to go from posting trot to two-point.” The walls of the arena were labeled with large plaques, each bearing a letter that signified a direction. The more advanced students used these directional signs during dressage.

Kai stopped scooping horse droppings from the sand in the arena and looked at Naomi just in time to see her roll her eyes.

“I already
know
that,” she grumbled when she thought nobody could hear her.

Kai kept to his task, filling the wheelbarrow with the day’s droppings. Were they left to dry, they would be stomped into fine dust under the hooves of the horses, turning the sandy floor of the arena into a dusty mess. Or so Attila had informed him. Kai took his time, observing Brent’s teaching style and Naomi’s performance. He was pleased to see Naomi’s lesson was much like his own: there was a warm-up, balance exercises, and different paces gone through in a set order and in both directions. He was being taught just like everyone else, then. He had not cantered while in the saddle yet—an aberration—but he would in his next lesson. Or he would at least try. The pattern reassured him; it seemed to have been a pledge on Attila’s part to teach him well, the way he had been teaching his paying students.

K
AI
wheeled the horse manure out to the pile and dumped it, perversely enjoying its fragrance. It was shit, no doubt, and decay was its middle name, but once again he reflected that its smell was somehow cleaner than the diesel fumes and rotten produce he had once considered a part of his normal environment.

He had heard people around the stables say: “Excuse me, I’m covered with sweat and smelling of horse.” Kai liked the smell of horse. He basked in the sharp, uric scent of horse sweat with its overtones of warm amber, and he loved the clean, tickly smell of hay. The tannic, nearly masculine smell of leather saddles made his nostrils widen whenever he entered the tack room. He hadn’t minded having to clean the tack with Hal, even though Attila assigned the task as a form of discipline; the leather, despite being worn and rough in places, felt sensuous in his palms and between his fingers. His mind drifted to the leather-clad gay guys in the basement of Frankie’s on Penn Avenue. In his recollection, their leather smelled of cigarette smoke, unwashed musk, and beer. Horse tack was different: its leather was still sensuous, but even when dirty, its scent was clean.

Brent, Hal, and Naomi all pitched in to feed the horses and bring them inside their stalls. Kai spent an extra few minutes with Cayenne, just hanging out and enjoying casual touches of the horse’s large head against his shoulder. The stallion allowed him to remove the riding pad, knowing there was grain in a pitcher on the cart just outside the door. Under the pad was damp with sweat, and Kai grabbed a brush and stroked Cayenne’s short hair, helping it fluff and dry out again. Then the lights were turned out, the doors were closed, and May climbed into her sporty blue Hyundai Tiburon, yelling thanks and a good night to the rest of the crew.

Hal looked at Kai. “How does it feel to be in charge?” he asked.

“In charge of what?”

“Of the stables, stupid. We’re going home, and that makes you responsible for whatever happens until Uncle ’Tila comes back.”

Kai shrugged. “I’ll be careful. Can I… can I call you if I have a question about something?”

Hal nodded and fished a phone out of his pocket. “Sure. Give me your cell-phone number.”

“I don’t have one.” A familiar feeling of being the poor kid on the block washed over him. The sentiment was not unfounded; he was still poor. There was a pile of cash in a shoebox under his bed, waiting until his documents were all in order and he could open a bank account. Attila had been prompt in paying him: a going rate in the industry, minus three hundred bucks for room and board. He could buy a cheap phone, maybe—the kind with a prepaid SIM card—just so he would have one and didn’t have to feel so different anymore.

Hal rummaged in the glove compartment of his father’s car and produced an old gas-station receipt and a pen. “Here’s my number. Under that is Brent’s number. Under that is our home number, if you need to talk to my dad.”

The generous gesture stunned him. He knew access to Hal’s father was limited. “Thanks, Hal. Seriously.”

Brent looked at him through his blue, almost violet eyes, and tucked his straight hair behind his ear. “You don’t have to call only if there is an emergency, you know. Like, if you want to talk because you’re alone, that’s okay, too.”

A lump grew in Kai’s throat. “I’m used to being alone,” he growled.

Hal snorted. “That’s the whole point, asshole. If you get used to being alone, you’ll become as weird as Attila—and who wants to be an eccentric recluse?”

Kai was almost knocked off his feet by a running tackle as a small person hugged him around the hips. “You can call me too, Kai. I can tell you all about the horses. I know everything about every single horse here!”

Touched, Kai placed his hands around Naomi’s shoulders and squeezed. “Thanks, kid. I might just do that.”

Then the three of them poured into their father’s Mazda and backed out, heading down the long, curving driveway. Kai followed them with his eyes.

Even with Attila gone, he was not entirely alone.

The house felt oddly still. The hum of the refrigerator was amplified by Attila’s absence, and the television blared with too much insistence. Kai switched the TV off and turned to his driver’s manual instead.

Don’t drink and drive.

Stop on red.

Go on green.

The text was so boring and so dry, Kai’s mind felt as parched as the tan dirt in the paddock. Half an hour of bureaucratic print on cheap paper threatened to put him to sleep right there on the sofa. He set the booklet aside and stretched, thinking what he would be doing had Attila been home.

Dinner.

Pool.

Reading….

He warmed up leftovers for dinner, but ate from a bowl on the sofa while trying to read the rules of the road. The ice broke the silence as it fell out of the dispenser, and Kai found he missed the clopping sound of hooves on concrete and the horses’ shifting sounds in their stalls. There were no occasional whickers, no comments from Attila, no helpful suggestions, no detailed planning of the weekend ahead.

Suddenly Kai found that he missed his smelly loading dock. He had had an occasional neighbor who was a wino who used to stop by before the night fell, just to chat and to bum a dollar off Kai when he had a bit to spare.

He had never felt this alone.

Attila was gone, and his domain was now under Kai’s watchful and protective eye.

He could not abide the silence.

T
HE
road darkened as Attila turned off the highway. A few hilly roads and switchbacks later, he was headed up the driveway of the Blue Heron Acres. It was late; tomorrow would be a real bitch of a morning and even he would succumb to the lure of coffee. It had been worth it, though. He sat up with the old man until his bedtime. They ordered takeout food with a lot more flavor than the nutritionally balanced institutional cuisine. Attila had never begrudged his grandfather these evenings, but he found he was looking forward to Kai’s company, which made him recall his former trips home on Friday night. Suddenly, Attila became painfully aware of how empty his home had been before Kai appeared on his rusty bike.

The kitchen light was left on for him. He let himself in, silent as fog. He was careful not to wake Kai, yet he wondered whether the other man would sleep in the guest bedroom or whether Attila would find him on his large bed.

Attila was hoping for his larger bed, because he had made a strategic stop at the drugstore on the way back and had stocked up on supplies he had not needed in a long time. Yet as he tiptoed into his bedroom, he found it empty. It had been disturbed earlier, and a more careful examination revealed one of Attila’s pillows was missing. Kai’s room was empty as well and its door was left ajar. There was no blanket on Kai’s bed.

Attila frowned.

“Kai?”

The hum of the refrigerator was his reply. A sudden surge of adrenaline banished Attila’s fatigue as he turned the lights on.

“Kai? Are you here?”

Only then did he think to look in the brightly lit kitchen. There was a note on the table.

I am in the hayloft.

Puzzled, Attila took his flashlight and his second pillow and trudged up the winding driveway to the barn. He slid the door open just a crack and let himself in. He pushed it shut again with a gentle thud. He hadn’t slept in the hayloft in some time, but his memory guided him well in the dark. He stuck his flashlight in his pocket, and with his pillow in one hand, navigated the worn and familiar rungs of the wooden ladder up to what would normally be called the attic. The space was considerable, yet crowded with bales of hay. Only a small skylight let in enough ambient light from the outside that he could make out the outlines of the walls of feed someone had arranged into a small sleeping room.

Attila smiled. There had been a time when he, too, had used the hayloft as a refuge.

His foot stepped on something soft in the dark. He bent over and reached down with his fingers and found a blanket.

“Hey!” The challenge was quiet, yet Attila detected alarm in Kai’s voice.

“Just me,” he whispered as he eased himself down into Kai’s nest. He placed the pillow up next to where Kai’s head would be, feeling his way carefully. “Are you sleeping on the hay?” Attila asked.

“No… I don’t want to waste fodder…. I found an old futon in the corner and some blankets, though, and I brought my comforter. There’s plenty of room.”

“I know.” Attila stripped off his button-down shirt and boots and jeans, leaving only his briefs and undershirt. He eased his way down into the inky darkness, feeling the give of the blankets underneath. He inhaled, smelling their familiar, wooly scent.

Old friends.

“I used to sleep here sometimes,” he admitted, the words unwilling to leave his throat.

“Why?” Kai asked, his voice now fully alert.

“Lots of reasons. When a mare is about to foal… or when a horse is sick.” There were other reasons as well, but Attila had no need to share those. “Why are you here now?”

Kai held his breath for a short while. He reached for Attila in the dark, pulled him in, and squeezed. “The house. It’s too empty. I… I missed the sounds the horses make.”

“Yeah,” Attila whispered, letting Kai embrace him from behind. His quiet assent was drowned out by a thunderclap; the barn shook as blue light flashed through the skylight.

“It’s right overhead,” Kai murmured, squeezing Attila a bit harder than before. A hiss of rain susurrated against the roof only a few feet above their heads. Attila turned in Kai’s arms and squeezed him back, and could not suppress his excitement when he raised his voice over the sounds of the downpour overhead.

“It’s raining!”

The drought is finally over.