Paulette Jiles - Stormy Weather

Smoky Joe ran against a Houston horse named Cherokee Chief.

“Don’t hit him,” Jeanine said to the jockey. “Maybe once. But you don’t get a second.” She bent forward and held up one finger in case he was deaf or had water in his ears. “One hit is all you get. Okay?” Her body was slim and taut beneath the cotton dress, she had the gestural vocabulary of a mime.

“I know how to ride,” said the boy. “I ain’t taking advice from no girl.”

Jeanine hurried out among the crowd of men to place bets. She wrapped dollar bills around her fingers for each separate bet, she was intent and serious. She was one of the few women in the crowd but she carried herself in this male territory as if she had special privileges. Smoky beat Cherokee chief by a length. Jeanine had clambered up the stock racks of a truck with the agility of a monkey to watch the dark stallion charge past the finish-line flag as if he were running down some enemy and suddenly it was a wonderful day and here she was in her new dress in the aqua print. She jumped down and ran to the horse’s owner to collect her money. He wore a suit and tie and his hat tipped back, he had a new Buick and a drink in his hand. His car radio was on. The announcer was talking about the first overnight transcontinental flights and that Generalissimo Franco was besieging Barcelona.

“Hand it over,” she said. The young man laughed and held it high above his head where she couldn’t reach it.

“What’s your name?” he said.

“Jeanine Stoddard,” she said. She took hold of his tie and said in a gangbuster’s voice, “Hand over that money, Pretty Boy, and nobody gets hurt.”

He held it out to her in his closed fist. She unbent his fingers and took the bills, and then stepped forward and kissed him.

She turned into the hot, noisy evening before it faded into dark, before her father came looking for her. Before he found out she had been kissing strange men. The amount of money she gripped in her hand made her nervous. Andrew Jackson’s severe, drawn face stared up from out of the center of the wadded banknotes. She was afraid she might lose it or it would be stolen, or her father would come lurching out from behind a trailer and demand it from her. Then he would gamble it away on a blanket somewhere. It would end up as a wad in somebody else’s pocket.

Jeanine ducked around the late-model Ford truck and trailer and nearly crashed into a man. Half his face was white and frothy. At first she thought he had a white beard or was foaming at the mouth, and then realized he was shaving. He grasped her arm to stop her.

“Here! You’re going to make me cut my throat,” he said. He shook soap from a straight razor and then let go of her. He looked at himself in the truck’s side mirror and continued shaving.

It was Ross Everett.

He said, “Is this the entire extent of your social life, Jeanine?” he said. “Kissing strange drunks at horse races?”

Jeanine’s face flushed hot. “Mr. Everett. You were spying on me.”

“Well, it was kind of public.” He ran the razor down his cheek and flung off the foam. “I was just standing here shaving.”

“You’re going to tell my father.”

“I expect he’s too goddamned busy.”

Jeanine put out her hand. “Don’t tell him. I mean it.” She kicked one of his tires. “You are going to tell him. Because you are rotten and evil.”

“Don’t tell me he’s developed some fatherly instincts all of a sudden. What would he do about it?”

“He’ll tell my mother.”

“Good.” He stroked the razor down his throat and slung the soap to the ground. He rinsed the blade and folded it. Splashed water onto his face from a basin sitting on the fender, wiped his face on a pink towel. His face was made up of flat planes, a square mouth. “At least you’ve got one functioning parent.”

“Promise me you won’t tell him.”

“All right.” In his trailer, a gray horse shifted and tapped at the floor planks. “Well, since I just won my race, I’d probably better cut my luck and go.”

“Good.” She walked over to the trailer and peered in through the slats. A gray mare, tidy and clean-legged, shifted around on the floorboards. On the fender was a good racing saddle and a saddlecloth. “What have you got? This is a good-looking horse.”

“Her name is She Kitty.” Ross Everett buttoned up his shirt. “Out of Krazy Kat. I got her when old man Carruthers gave up. They shot all his cattle. He was overstocked.” He wiped at his face with one hand. “You wouldn’t know him. Your dad drags y’all around the world like a gypsy.”

“I know it.”

“You quit school?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve been on the road three days from Comanche and made three races. Bought a horse. Now I have to go to a meeting in Houston and then head home again. My wife puts up with all this and the least I can do is show up shaved.” He pulled a tie around his neck under his collar and tied it. “In all three races this is the first time I’ve seen a young girl running around by herself. If your daddy wanted a boy to be his running buddy he should go hire one.”

She wasn’t his running buddy, she was his daughter, but on the other hand there he was, dancing openly with the woman in the green satin dress in the middle of the afternoon in front of everybody like a fool.

So she said, “He couldn’t keep me away if he tried.”

Everett took out a sack of tobacco and rolled a cigarette, lit it with a silver lighter that flared up several inches. He squinted his eyes against it. “You all still got that Reo Speed Wagon with the trailer?”

“Yes. And I’m going to drive it home.”

“I guess so. You started hauling him home drunk when you were nine.” Smoke from the cigarette ran up his nose. “And so you better do it.” He flicked off the ashes. “I’ll keep my mouth shut this time.”

She found her father at a tailgate. It was a new truck and he was dancing around in the grass to the music of “Dinah” from a car radio. Dancing with the woman in a stained green satin dress and heavy lipstick.

“Well, Jeanine girl. How’s my Pistol?” He was somewhat drunk. “Let’s see what we won.”

The woman said, “Does she always collect your winnings for you?”

“Yeah,” her father said. “She’s my buddy.” He took the thirty-five dollars from Jeanine. She kept fifteen in her pocket and said nothing. He handed her a cold Dr Pepper. “That’s so you don’t tell.”

“You’re cute,” the woman said.

Jeanine ignored her. “I’m going on home, Dad,” she said. She tipped up the ice-cold soda and it tasted like heaven.

“Go on. Tell your mother that I’m dickering about a new horse or something. Make something up. You’re good at making things up.” He laughed and wiped back the lock of dark hair that fell in his face. “I’m going to be gone for two weeks here in a little bit. Up to Central Texas. So I got to stay on her good side.”

She ran to find Smoky Joe and came upon the jockey walking the dark stallion back and forth in the grove of pines, along with other handlers and their horses. Smoky’s veins stood out in his hide like coursing liquid ropes and he was still sucking air hard into his wide nostrils. She threw the soda bottle into the shadows.

“All right, I’ll get him home now.” She took the lead line and patted the stallion’s hot neck. “Ain’t you a rocket?” She held out a five-dollar bill to the jockey.

He snatched at it and jammed the five in his pocket. “I should charge double for riding this goddamned maniac,” he said.

“You’re going to hell for swearing,” she said.

“So’s your old man.”

She led Smoky back to the trailer. He jumped in and turned to face backward. He always rode backward, he wanted to see anything that might come up on him from behind. When she pulled the headlight knob the interior light came on and shone in her face and when she lifted her head she saw Ross Everett with one boot up on his running board watching her. She leaned out of the window and stuck her tongue out at him. He blew smoke from his nose and lifted a hand.