Percival Everett - Half an Inch of Water - Stories

Norma thought about the tracks out there. She had a notion to saddle up and ride Zed back out and search for more sign. But she wouldn’t do that. Her bones didn’t want her to do it. Besides, the farrier was coming that afternoon.

She said good-bye to Pat and cleaned the dishes. She then went into the den and sat in her good chair, put up her feet, and let her body rest. She thumbed through a regional bird guide and drifted into a nap.

Norma awoke to the sound of tires on the gravel of her drive. She pushed herself to standing and heard herself groan. It was a complaint she was certain she issued frequently, but this time she heard it. The driver outside tapped a beep on the horn. Norma grabbed her glasses and stepped outside.

The little round farrier was out of his truck and waddling toward the barn. He turned at the sound of the door.

“Afternoon, Norma.”

“Bob.”

Bob was still wearing the black rodeo rib protector he wore when driving. “I was going to grab your beast.”

“I’ll get him for you.”

“I’ll get my tools.”

Norma went into the barn and grabbed Zed’s halter from the nail outside his stall. The horse was munching the last of his hay. She collected him and led him out into the yard. She stroked his muzzle and rubbed his ears while the farrier worked. He’d taken off his rib protector.

“Tell me,” Norma said, “why do you wear that vest?”

“I like the weight of it,” he said. “Also, if I’m ever in a crash that vest will protect me from my own damn air bag. Did you know that those things open at around two hundred miles per hour? The blink of an eye. And I’m short. Maybe you’ve noticed that I’m a short man. I’m sitting pretty damn close to that steering wheel. The blink of an eye.”

Norma nodded.

Bob liked to talk and she’d opened the door. That was okay with Norma. It meant she didn’t have to make conversation. He’d follow one scent for a while and then pick up another.

“Yessiree Bobby,” he said. “They’re going to save us to death. Of course you know that the propellant that shoots the bag open with nitrogen gas is toxic and explosive.”

Norma said nothing.

“Yep. Sodium azide. Just a couple of grams ingested could kill you. Yep. It’s a big problem. All them cars in the junkyards are eventually going to leak that stuff into the environment. When the bag deploys it becomes nitrogen and sodium, harmless. The problem is when they don’t deploy. Yep.”

And so it went. Through the taking off of the old shoes, the cutting, the clipping, the rasping, the hammering, and the nailing. He snipped off the tip of the last nail while yakking about how some folks consider tomatoes to be poisonous because they are of the nightshade family. Bob stood and arched his back in a stretch.

“All done?” Norma asked.

“We’re all done.” Bob looked at the sunset just starting. “What do you think? Snow soon?”

“I reckon.” Norma took the horse back to his stall while Bob picked up his tools. When she came back he was slipping into his vest. She pulled some bills from her pocket and paid him.

“Exact as always,” he said.

That night Norma awoke with pains in her back and hip. She took a couple of the pills that seldom seemed to abate the pain, but did usually put her to sleep. Tonight, though, she just lay there on her back, staring at the ceiling, imagining that what she was thinking was a dream. She thought of the tracks and the horse that made them. In her mind it was a young mare, an overo Paint, brown and white. She could see her drinking from the pond. She could see her raising her head at the sound of something in the brush. She was moderately stout with a big rump. She walked away from the water and disappeared into the trees.

The morning was much colder. Norma felt it in her bones even before she pushed herself out of the covers. It was mornings like this, when her bare feet hit the cold wood of the floor, that she remembered her last dog, Zach. The German shepherd had lived for fourteen years. At the end, he’d been unable to climb onto the bed and so would push himself as close to her bedside as he could. She would swing her feet down in the morning and find his warm body beneath her. She recalled pausing there and feeling the dog’s chest rise and fall through the soles of her feet. She loved him and she’d let him live too long. He’d been blind, deaf, and barely able to walk, and she’d let one more day go by, then another, not able to bear the thought of putting him down. Now she cursed herself, wondering how she could have let him suffer so.

She was up a good hour earlier than usual. It was still dark. After a small breakfast, yogurt and a banana, and a brief listen to the radio weather, a mere confirmation of what she already knew, that it was cold, she packed a thermos of coffee, some bread and cheese.

She walked out to the barn and to Zed’s stall. She clumsily took the blanket off him and draped it over his gate. She led him out of the barn, brushed him out, and saddled him. She put her lunch in a saddlebag and strapped it on. She mounted with some difficulty, her hip complaining, and rode out.

The birds were just beginning to chatter, but when she hit the tree line, they stopped. The stillness held for a moment, then the birds started up again. A rabbit or a squirrel disturbed some leaves. Norma rode with her eyes pressed to the sides of the trail, looking up occasionally to reassure Zed that she was paying attention. She remembered her husband telling her that somebody had to steer the horse and it should probably be the rider. Some clouds hung like webbing in the trees ahead of her, but she felt warmer than she had at home. In fact, she felt light; her bones did not speak to her. She discovered what she thought might be tracks leading off from a patch of mossy ground. The trail stopped but they gave her a direction and it was up. She forgot the ground and paid attention to guiding Zed up the mountain. Some of the going was steep and rocky and the short horse stumbled more than once, but her confidence pushed him on. When she finally came to a place where she could see out of the trees she was astonished to find that she did not recognize what was below her. She looked back at the way she had come and that path seemed clear to her, so she did not become afraid. Still, she dismounted and set up a rock marker.

Norma was miles from home, much farther than she had meant to go. She admitted to herself that she was now lost. Clouds were gathering in the west and blowing her way. Snow was coming. She could feel it, but strangely not in her bones. She didn’t even feel tired or sore from the strenuous ride. She rode on, figuring that she would probably come up and over and see below her the river that ran between her place and the Hiltons’.

First she saw the animal trail, followed it, and then she found the tracks, clearly a horse’s, clearly those of the same animal she’d tracked the day before. She climbed down from the saddle and traced evidence of the damage to the rear hoof with her fingers. The indentation felt warm. She felt warm. She stood and climbed easily back onto Zed. She paused and observed the fact and then quickly chose to forget it. She looked at her watch and thought about poor Braden showing up, remaining patient for an hour or so and then panicking. He would walk the pasture and then call the sheriff. They would be out and looking for her by late afternoon. But she felt no urgency about getting back.

She followed the sign. Then she heard the falls. She was surprised, but at least she now knew where she was. The hoofprints followed the stream up to the pond at the base of the falls, then became hard to read, appearing to circle and slip into the water. And so that’s what Norma did.