Noy Holland - What begins with bird

Pa wore Goose away his hooves split and curled and then a day I came from school Pa brought him to me saddled and swung me up to ride him. Pa gave me a whip to run him with. Goose could not walk it looked to me he seemed to wince to stand there.

Up the hill I ran him.

We ran until Pa could not see and then we let him come to us come gimping up the hill to us to snap the lunge line on. Pa swung me up again. So he could run us. So we might see she watched him run us. He stood at the hub of the circle we ran in whatever dusk was left to us and Ma appeared in the windowlight in her sorry robe. Hup ho .

The night closed in the early cold. Goose beneath me frothed and steamed and still my hands my skinny arms grew thick to me and shook. My bare legs burned beneath my skirt against the sweating saddleflaps and so I tried to hold them off so that when Goose tripped he threw me, he would throw me, I would fly through the trees like a doll. Soon enough.

Quick the snow the brittling cold. As quick the thaw comes on.

I trick Goose into the trailer then his blinkers on to calm him and grain in the bin to steady him after we have beat at him and cussed and poked and whooped at him till Pa has gone off for his gun.

After the day we shod this was. After the snow the thaw had come.

No bird for us no Christmas.

The snow slumping against the barn. “You load the cur before I’m back else I am going to have to—”

To have to. Pa could do with him what he wanted — he was toddling off for his gun. I did not try to stop him but to think to walk Goose in.

Ma gone from her chair the tent jerked down we had hung at the hearth to snug in. Yet we were not what kept her. It was not in us to keep her.

And so I walked him in.

The first I saw I ran from him. I did not think Pa at first but is it dead or living.

This was before we blinded Goose before the time we trailered him our Ma going off with her wheelbarrow her boy in a bunch in the wheelbarrow how small against the road.

Before any of that. Before we shod this was. Before the rooster flapped onto the pond.

And yet I ran from Pa. Crept back. Before the bees died off I did. Before the fescue yellowed. I lay on the bank to look at him. The pods of the milkweed swelled and split and the seed by its silken feathery plumes as it was meant to do broke away.

And then we shod him.

The day was dull the day we shod him and cold before the snow had come and Pa sent me out to fetch Goose out of the withering grass where he browsed. I walked through the gate with my pail at my knees and called to him over the field.

He came to me.

He let me come to him, whinnying, that day as any other.

The days were dry then. The corn a stubble. The apples blew into the fields, a glut that year — I could find him. It was easy enough to find Goose — he was feasting beneath the trees. He quit to look at me. Pa’s rooster pecking lazily a drubbing on his withers.

Pa had fired the forge in the barn the barn dark to me but for the embers there the shadows rayed and flinching the cottony raftered dark. Goose was shy of it, I brought him gently in, he was skittish.

I backed him into the washroom into the crossties where we shod. I leaned my chest, a boy’s, against him. I felt my heart at the bone in his head his breath the wet of the grass he ate and sweet against my belly. Hush .

I kept it to me.

At the first even Pa was kind. He clipped away where the hoof began at the end to hook and tear. He kicked the shards the cutaway moons to his dogs to take to nibble at at the end of the barn and hide. He rasped the hoof flat, he picked a small stone from the frog.

The shoe nested in the forge on the fire outside, winter’s early winded dark advancing slowly on.

The rooster stood to crow for it. That day as any other. But Pa when the rooster crowed jerked up and let his hollowed sound he made the day I came upon him swarmed. He jabbed Goose in his brisket. Goose already lunging. Pa gone to his knees on the slab.

The rooster flapped to the rafters. The sparrows swept from the barn.

He filed the hoof flat. You have to rasp it flat to take the shoe to ride the wash and hillside slopes to pass the house and Ma in the house to pass the coop the chickens.

He pinched the shoe from the forge — it was flaring, a shaking liquid yellow. He hooked the shoe over the anvil then over the battered nose — you have to turn it. Pound it to make a fit of it bore the slim squared holes.

I knew Pa’s knees were swelling — I had heard them knock against the slab. His long face pinched and fallowed, I saw, who saw ahead as I knew he must the bruisy syrupy blue of skin the selvage pressed of the pants I hemmed sloppily upon it. I would have to cut Pa’s pants from him — from the burl the knotted sickened joint and ice or lance or sit to bend or what any else Pa thought to show he could bully through the doing of and so we two kept on with it so we two said nothing.

He punched the nail through once, three times again, on the one shank and then on the other. To keep the shoe fast. To drive the nails through — square and blunted. Eight in all. I knew the sound and counted.

Pa held the shoe against his hoof. The shoe was hot still it was hissing and the stink of hide of hair or hoof the twangy burning smell rose up and Goose threw himself against me. Pa held him. He did what he could to hold him Pa he kept him wedged against the wall we hang the tack the leadshanks on the picks and forks and shovels.

Tell her that .

He tapped the nail in.

Tell your ma I tried to calm him. That at the last we twitched him. To make it easy. I meant to calm him. I put myself between you tried to keep you safe from harm. No harm meant. You could not trust him. He was game but you could not trust him. He would throw you into the trees he would he would drag you across the fields .

I let Pa twitch him. So I could hold him. So the day might come I thought so of the weeks I sulked to school.

Pa drew out Goose’s lip where the stripe blazed through the velvet soft that veered across and snatched down the twitch the silver bars upon it hard and twisted. It was easier then to hold Goose shaking quiet on the slab. I drew his head down slowly and pressed my face to the white of his face how soft where the stripe swept through.

Pa tapped a nail in. He went hoof to hoof in the graying light. How quick the dark came on. Tell her that .

But I could not yet think of Ma of what we would need or not to tell but thought of the day I would ride our Goose in my boots to school. I would tie Goose off on the chalky racks the city kids lash their bicycles to, would come to him between the bells to curry him to feed him.

Hey horsie girl .

Of course they teased me. Would. Who wished to be me.

How I pressed my heart to his brisket.

Pa wedged each hoof between his knees his shoulder thrown against Goose hard to keep him tipped against the wall we hang the leads and halters on the shoe for luck to hold him. I felt his breath against my chest a wind drawn rough across my throat and felt the cool the whips of spit the snot swept down from his nostrils yes and of his mouth the velvet there where the stripe blazed through.

You get . And the rooster too. Get get .

I kept the loop of his mouth pinched fast the twist in the loop that made him wheeze that Pa had stopped to show to me that made him drip and gurgle. And still I could not hold him. I was sick in myself to hold him so so Pa could shove and cuss at him so Pa could treat him roughly.

He swung the rasp back.

It would not be long.

We would leave our tools and the cooling forge and make our way up from the barn. Soon enough.