Robert Goolrick: A Reliable Wife

Catherine groped blindly. The reins whipped in the wind, but she found them, took them in her hands. The carriage rocked in the pitted field, but she held on. Her foolish cloak was streaming in the wind, choking her, and she ripped it from her neck and it flew out behind, a momentary ghost in the swirling snow.

She knew enough to let the horses run. She knew enough to hope in their natural instincts. Her strength was no match for the terror she felt pulsing from the horses’ black rumps. She held on. She did the only thing she could.

The horses raced on in a frenzy. They galloped down a small bank, skimmed onto the frozen river, the carriage arcing dangerously, so that the horses were spun in a circle, leaving crazy black trails on the powdered ice, really frightened now, aware, suddenly, of how far they were from safety. One of the horses slipped, lost its footing and collapsed onto the ice, which cracked and shimmered but held. Catherine sat mute with fear, with the idea of death in the frigid water, drowning, tangled in dying horses.

The river held. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. As the horses struggled to find their footing, she climbed the traces and lay along their steaming necks. As the black gelding stood again she was there, whispering in its ear, the words coming from somewhere and lost in the wind, but enough, whispering, holding her hand gently against the softest part of its throat.

The horses calmed beneath her hands, their panic passed. They heard her voice, barely audible above the howling wind, and they stood patiently as she inched her way back through the harness, her hands never leaving their flesh, never letting them forget that she was there, was in charge, promising them safe delivery.

She gently picked up the reins again and they walked, exhausted now, her eyes straining in the howling dark to pick up the ruts in the snow so she could tell where they had come from, driving them slowly back to the place where the deer had leapt out of nothing and sent the stillness flying into panic.

On the road again, the horses stood pitiful and defeated. The gelding almost collapsed, but pulled himself upright, and together the two horses hauled the carriage into the white blindness. Miraculously, the lanterns had held, and she could see a short distance ahead.

They almost ran over Ralph before she saw him. He stood calmly in the middle of the road, swaying a bit, blood streaming from a gash in his forehead, a gash deep as bone.

She jumped from the carriage. She hadn’t come all this way to have him die now. Not now. She caught the hem of her skirt on the edge of the seat, heard the quick tear of the cheap material as she almost fell into his arms. The blood covered his face, mixing with the snow clotted in the fur collar of his black coat. She took his elbow. He shook her off, but then he staggered, and she took his arm again and this time he didn’t push her away but leaned into her, so that she realized the size and solidity of him, the depth of his chest, even through his heavy coat the heat of his body was clear. She helped him to the seat, the blood streaming from his forehead. She found her cloak, her foolish thin cape, and covered his shivering legs.

“The horses all right?” His voice was strained.

“They can carry us.” She climbed up. “Which way, Mr. Truitt?”

“They know. Just let them go.” The horses moved forward, one limping and wheezing, and both blind in the night, but sure of their way.

Ralph sat as stiffly as he could, trying not to give in to the searing pain, but it was too much. He felt himself slowly crumpling, his hurt body folding in against hers. He felt it as her arm came up across him, pulling him down, pulling his head to rest against her breast, her racing heart.

There was blood everywhere. It was frozen into the fabric of her dress, stiff and black. It was on his head and face and clothes and beneath her frozen fingernails. Still, she was calm, determined he would not die. And then she saw the house, and a face at the window.

There was a moment of utter stillness in which she took in every detail, the weight of Ralph in her arms, the house, the face at the window, stricken with terror, the horse, its broken leg, realizing now that the cracking sound on the ice had been bone not ice. She saw herself, her hair wild around her head, her hands chill and raw, her skirt light, the hem spilling her jewels in the snow. She saw them standing in the yard, snow up to the iron wheel hubs, the horses’ heads drooping in exhaustion and pain, the house itself. The house.

It’s like a clean white shirt, she thought. A clean white shirt hanging on the back of a door.

A neat, columned porch, a warm rust light through drawn curtains, the turn of a chair left out long past summer. Details. She couldn’t see the whole of it, couldn’t see the point at which the peaked roof met. But it seemed warm. It seemed nice.

The horses stopped, the brown mare stamping its hooves, the black gelding couldn’t take another step, its right front leg raised off the ground, hoof hanging dangerously. The light from the porch lit up the sweat on their heaving flanks, turned the breath streaming from their wide nostrils into bright wispy feathers.

It was trim, the house, simple without being austere, and it was bright with lights, not at all the way she had imagined it. It sat foursquare in the center of a neat lawn, steps running up to a wide porch. She had imagined something more squalid, something grown greasy through years of neglect. She had imagined a house that was desolate, an unloved structure in a bleak terrain. This was a surprise, like a crisply wrapped package, all white tissue and blue ribbon trim.

The moment ended and time began again, all in a rush. The face howled, vanished from the window and the door flew open. A woman stood dumbfounded inside.

Ralph Truitt was bleeding badly and lay heavily against Catherine. His breath was easy, his eyes were open but staring ahead without direction or focus, and the porch, the glittering door, and safety seemed miles away.

“Truitt?” the gray head thrust out, eyes peering into the swirl, voice carrying past Catherine’s ears. “Is that you Mr. Truitt?”

“Help! We’re here!” Catherine yelled into the wind, hysteria suddenly seizing her. “Please come! We need help.”

A man and a woman ran from the house, their hair, their clothes catching the wind and flying madly. The man went straight for the faltering, groaning gelding and began to check the extent of the injuries, speaking calmly, his hand on the horse’s flank as he shook his head at the pitiful leg. Catherine could see the broken bone thrust through the flesh, could feel the animal’s defeat in the way the ribcage shimmered with pain.

The woman ran straight for Truitt. “Sweet Jesus,” she yelled. “What’s happened? What did you do?” Her brittle, bright eyes caught Catherine’s, held there, accusing.

“The horses bolted. A deer… they bolted and threw him. I think his head hit the wheel. It wasn’t my fault,” she added uselessly. “It was a deer. So fast.”

“Inside. Larsen!” The old man’s head jerked up from the animal, which was slowly sinking to the ground. “Truitt’s cut bad. Get him in the house.”

So the three of them, each taking a part, carried Truitt’s body into the house. He was jerking around now, wild with the pain and the blood, and it took every muscle of all three of them to get him up the stairs and into the house. They laid him on a velvet sofa, put a pillow beneath his head.

The woman said, “He’ll bleed to death.”

“He needs a doctor. Surely…”

Mrs. Larsen, she must have been, turned on Catherine. “In this weather? Not even for Ralph Truitt. It’s miles both ways, and too late by a long shot when the doctor gets here. If you can find him. Drunk. If he’ll come. Drunk and useless.”