April Smith - Judas Horse

The look between us deepens, not over the suffering of the child or the animal, but something much more tender and sad. McCord and I both know that way out here in the wash there are no landmarks beyond a yellow fire hydrant and a concrete bunker with some pipes in a mesh cage. This is where your heart is exposed, or where it’s buried.

He does not wait, but climbs the ridge.

“Sara!” I am giving orders now. “Get in the truck and go with Sterling.”

McCord looks down from the top of the embankment.

“Sara? Come on now. Come with me.”

And he holds out his hand patiently until she finally scrambles up. He pulls her over the top and the truck disappears.

Space unrolls in every direction. I take a breath full of sage. I sit beside the foal and sponge the blood off its face. Please don’t be in pain. Please forgive me.

The bees hum like a plucked string. I sit beneath a dead oak, against a mud bank where the broken root system is exposed. There are holes and burrows in the mud and it is stained with dried-out algae, like the cross section of a melted civilization. The smell of deadness is rank. The sky is white and far away, the sun a burning locus. Here at the bottom of the riverbed, the lives of the foal and I are as inconsequential as the flash of a mirror in a very great plain.

Hundreds of miles to the north, across a harsh volcanic basin, wild mustangs forage freely, fight, and play — until they are betrayed by the Judas horse for a bucket of grain. I remember how the captured mares would circle the corral, lost in silence, all the subtle scent and body messages with their babies and the stallions snapped.

Beneath my hands, the tiny horse is laboring to breathe. I stay with him, dabbling water with the blood-soaked cloth, as if I could accompany his sightless soul into the greater darkness. I feel a deep and wordless kinship, as if we are bound by some transparent force of kindness. I will not abandon you.

Am I the Judas horse, cynical and beaten? Or the innocent foal?

After a very long time, the amber lights of the veterinarian’s truck show above the ridge.

July. Intruders are everywhere.

False dandelion invades the perfectly swept orchard floor, no matter how often Stone drives the flail, or makes us rake by hand. We are halfway through the development of the hazelnuts, and tiny larvae of the leaf-roller moth have appeared on the new clusters. Bad news. The larvae cause nut abortions, not a pretty sight. In the still heat of the afternoon, I am up on a ladder setting insect traps, using the work as a cover to check in with Donnato.

I have discovered that poking around the topmost branches of the hazelnuts is an excellent way to conduct a covert conversation. For one thing, it’s great up there. You see things differently, like opening a secret hatch to a world of sky. Rooftops and mountains become your ground — and unlike hiding out in Sirocco’s stall, if Dick Stone ventures into the orchard, you would be the first to know.

“The fifty-caliber casings you found are a match to the slug that killed Sergeant Mackee,” Donnato is saying from L.A. “The shooter is the same as the one at the BLM corrals.” “What about the Native American we took into custody?”

“He had a pretty good alibi. At the time of the shooting, he was in a local emergency room being treated for ulcers. Now we need the weapon.” “The sniper rifle that matches the casings,” I agree, watching a white butterfly skimming perfectly through the leaves.

“Stone has it somewhere. Make a search,” he tells me, “room by room.” “Got it,” I say without enthusiasm.

“You should be ecstatic.”

“About the casings? Yeah, it’s cool.”

“What’s up?”

“Just be straight, okay?”

“Always, buddy, you know that.”

“Do you have an agent tailing me? Because I can’t function that way, and frankly, I resent the hell out of it.” “A federal agent?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“The cowboy? Come on. Good-looking, mid-thirties? He shows up at the corrals, working on the gather? Then he appears again, a mile from the farm, hitting targets like a pro?” “At the same shooting range? You’re kidding. What kind of gun?” “Don’t get excited. It was a hunting rifle, a.308.”

Your handler doesn’t tell you everything. While you’re alone and isolated undercover, the Bureau will be working things from the other end, putting operatives in place you don’t know about. They’ll say it’s for your safety, but it can make you paranoid fast.

“If you don’t like this guy, check him out,” Donnato says.

“I don’t like him,” I reply.

“Search his vehicle, for a start.”

“That would be difficult,” I say. “He’s riding a horse.” Because there, in the heaviest torpor of the day, when stubborn fever becalms the air and the stringed vibration of the bees hits an even riper pitch, Sterling McCord is riding slowly down the sun-soaked lane on a bay, leading the white foal on a halter rope.

It’s the bay mare who rescued me, loaded up with the same silver-encrusted western saddle, but this time walking leisurely at loose rein with head low, flicking her ears at the flies. McCord’s posture is identical to when they were at full gallop, head tipped forward and shoulders relaxed, as if he is half-asleep.

He is wearing the high red-tooled boots and spurs, jeans, a clean white shirt, and the Stetson with the vintage cowboy crease. As the lazy clomping of horseshoes passes below me, I can see the tight copper bracelet on one strong wrist, a braided leather one on the other, and I have a clean downward angle of vision on the squarish hands with wide finger pads resting on the horn of the saddle — manly and competent hands you would entrust to complete the mission.

Whatever the mission might be.

I stay silent until he passes. Does he know without looking that I am here — the way Dick Stone knew when I first arrived?

“There’s something about this guy,” I tell Donnato. “He’s not who he appears to be.” “What name does he use?”

“Sterling McCord.”

“We’ll check him out.”

I cannot tell if my partner of twelve years is telling the truth.

That is what I mean by paranoid.

Megan and Sara have gathered around the horseman in the shaded driveway.

“Look at that sweet thing,” Megan says, crooning over the foal. “You’re our new baby.” McCord tips his hat. “Good afternoon, ladies.”

His eyes remain hidden in the shadow of the brim, but his skin seems to have acquired a darker tan, with deeper leathery lines, and the blond sideburns have grown long and rough. It occurs to me that in his outdoor life, he, too, is a creature of transforming elements, same as the eroding granite outcrop; unlike city folks, he wouldn’t try to put the brakes on aging, and he wears it well. He’s dropped the reins and the horse dozes beneath him. I like this touch: a knife in a leather sheath buckled to his thigh.

The foal has gained weight. Its sculpted head is up and alert, the bristly mane long enough to flop over, and the small pinkish hooves strike the dirt inquisitively. But the dark violet eyes are empty as mirrors.

“Does he have a name?” Megan asks.

“Geronimo.”

“You are cute as the dickens!” she tells the foal, and actually kisses it on the nose.

“Sara,” McCord calls from the saddle, “look at your boy.” “He’s not mine.”

She is wearing skintight jeans that hit below her slack hipbones, and a gingham top somewhere between a bra and a bib.

The foal’s dark muzzle has shrunk to normal size, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, which it explores with eager lips.