John Sayles - A Moment in the Sun

“On the double, Sergeant.”

LaDuke curses and calls his men over. Hod pretends he can’t hear but Grissom goes to get him. As the sergeant begins to run Big Ten rolls into his spot, bracing the Krag on top of the tree trunk and firing, one — two — three — four — five — six — the other volunteers along the bank cheering as they see bodies drop out of trees and then the 1st Kansas is up and whooping, charging into the water.

The colonel with the moustache and some of the other brass and everybody else but the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration come up to congratulate Manigault on having such a valuable asset in his company. Only one of the squad, Clete Standish, was hit by the snipers while running decoy, shot through the hip, and he is being carried back by Hod and little Monroe who used to tend bar at the Arcade in Denver.

The colonel thumps Big Ten on the back. “If your outfit had a few more bucks could shoot like you do,” he winks, “I might never have made it out of Arizona.”

Big Ten watches the 1st Kansas wading neck-deep under halfhearted fire with their rifles, bayonets fixed, held high over their heads. Never miss a chance, the Kansas, to stick whoever is left crawling on the other side. He knows he hit at least three of the men in the trees, not showing much of themselves, right between the eyes.

“My outfit never crossed an ocean to kill nobody, either,” he mutters, and heads off to help Hod with the wounded man.

You don’t like to see a white foot on a dray horse. Hooker got three of them, and Jubal checks them over after he brushes her, getting her to lift each foot so he can look for splits and see how the shoe is wearing. She is a dapple-gray Percheron, seven, maybe eight years old, and been used hard, which is why they give her to Jubal when Mr. White sent him over from the Island. New man get the sorriest ride. Somebody had bob-wire in her mouth, probly back on the farm, she got some scars and don’t feel the bit lest you put some boss into it. Call her Hooker cause she always pull to the left but that was only a shoulder sore let go and Jubal has healed it up. He makes sure to do everything in the same order in the morning, like you need to with the jumpy ones, which means he lets her eat hay from the iron manger while he looks her over for rub spots.

“You take this to keep her off you,” Duckworth said on the first day they moved him onto the city job, handing him a rusty railroad spike, and she did try to crowd him against the stall boards, but every time he just duck under and go to the other side till she give up on it. Horse can’t kick back on you when you between its legs and it don’t have the patience for mischief that a mule does.

Jubal ties her lead line off to the post, hangs the collar over her neck, straps it shut, and then fixes the hames in the groove.

“Gone be a good day for us, Hooker,” he croons, crossing the trace lines over her back to keep them out of the way. “Get out and see the world some.”

He is only started laying the harness saddle on her when her tail goes up. He steps back and lets her pee like she always does, still got the nerves even with how he treats her. He waits for it to soak into the straw a bit, then cinches the harness saddle, keeping it loose. Horse like her only got one question in its head — how they gone hurt me next? She’ll bloat on you at first so it’s no use pulling that cinch too tight. Jubal lays the britching over her rump, lifting her tail gently to fix the backstrap and then buckling the cropper down to it before snapping the top strap onto the saddle. This was the hardest part when he first come, maybe somebody twist her tail or put a stick up her behind before. Lots of ignorant people think they know how to make a horse act right.

He replaces the halter with the bridle then, slipping the nose band over, working his thumb into the space between her front and back teeth to get her to open and pushing the bit into place. He gets the crown piece over her ears and snugs it all up, being sure the blinkers don’t rub on the eye and tightening the throat latch strap. She holds nice and still for him, lazily switching flies with her tail, not twitching under the skin like she done the first week. He had to come in a hour early those days, but now they know each other and got a understanding.

“Gonna be a hot one,” calls Jerrold Huxley, walking past with Spook, who is a light sorrel Belgian. “Be quite a number of em fore it’s over.”

“Spect there will.”

It was Jerrold he rode with to learn the job, Jerrold who helped him find the room on 27th. There is colored from just about everywhere in the building, from the Carolinas and Maryland and Virginia and up from Georgia and Mrs. Battle from the country of Jamaica and even one big-headed boy says he was born right in the City, that his people go back here from before it was United States and didn’t never belong to white folks. Rent is more than on Barren Island but it smells better and there is something to do at night.

Jubal runs the narrow end of the reins through the terret ring on the saddle, pulling them back through the horse-collar guides and then up to the bit rings on the bridle. He tucks the loose ends of the reins under the back strap and backs her out of the stall.

Tiny Lipscombe is on the ramp ahead of them leading Pockets, a beautiful bay with black points who will bite you if you come at him from the right. At the bottom they pass the grooms throwing dice on a blanket and move on to the wagons.

He backs Hooker up between the wagon shafts, then loops an arm’s length of rein around a post to keep her in place. Butterbean comes over from the dice game and holds the shafts up for Jubal to get the tug loops over them. He threads the traces back through the belly-band guides and hooks them to the wagon body, Butterbean stepping away the minute he’s not needed. None of the stable boys like to deal with Hooker. Jubal tightens the cinch another few inches and checks the traces for twists. Jerrold is doing the same at the next wagon over.

“Mulraney in yet?”

Jerrold shakes his head. “Aint seen the man, but he might be about. Likes to tip up on people when they not looking.”

Mulraney is the dispatcher and is always out to catch you with a bottle. Duckworth says it’s cause he can’t drink no more, doctor’s orders, and can’t stand the idea of somebody getting away with a nip under his same roof.

“He catch a sniff of liquor on your breath when you come back to the stable,” Duckworth told him the first day, “that is the end of you.”

Jubal takes the reins in hand and climbs onto the seat of the tip-wagon, watching Hooker’s ears to see that she is ready to go. He clucks and gives the slightest jerk on the lines and Hooker starts them out of the stable.

Mulraney is not in his office when they pass, old Doucette who stays through the night sitting there watching the telephone, afraid he will have to pick it up. They don’t really start to drop until noon, though now and then there is one that has laid out all night before somebody reported it.

Jubal gees her out through the doors to join the tail of the line on the Avenue. It is all kinds of horses they got working for White’s Sons — Shires and Suffolks and Haflingers and Belgians and big tall Percherons like Hooker. The breweries take up the Clydesdales for their delivery teams, and it seems like all the saddle horses gone off to the Philippines or been sold to the English for their war in Africa. There are six wagons waiting in a row, horses blinkered with their heads down and ears slack, some of them probly asleep, while the teamsters lean back and tilt their faces up to the sun rising over the tenements to the east. He’s never known Hooker to sleep in the traces, not even with a long standing spell, too busy worrying what somebody might surprise her with. No telling how many owners she been through to this point. Had her on a farm buggy maybe, mowed some hay, then when she got her size was sold into the City. Before the electric come in they run the streetcar and omnibus teams in all weather, uphill and down, till they were wore out. Every time a horse change hands it got someone new to deal with, someone got a whole nother way of doing to you. It puts Jubal in mind of his Mama’s stories about slave days and people being traded out for livestock or stores. Hell, he thinks, I’d balk plenty you put a hand to me. Get away with whatever I could.