Part 6
Walt slipped the card into his shirt pocket. April let out a long breath, her muzzle warming the front of his coat, and he found he could take one himself without stopping halfway.
He stood with her while the sheriff gathered the abandoned leather lead and the others returned to their vehicles. When the yard was quiet, he loosened the cotton rope and let her lower her head toward the grass.
She took a mouthful, chewed, and stayed beside him.
The tractor was running by the last week of October.
Walt had found an alternator in a neighbor’s parts shed and spent two attempts sorting out the wiring. The engine still needed listening to, and he wouldn’t have trusted it far from the house without tools aboard. But it turned over when he asked it to.
He had just shut it down near the driveway when Curt’s pickup stopped at the gate.
Frost had lingered in the shaded hollows that morning. Leaves lay against the lower fence, and smoke from someone’s brush pile drifted above the valley. Walt wiped grease from his fingers and walked over as the passenger window came down.
Three packaged horse blankets lay in the truck bed. They were new, folded squarely inside clear plastic with their tags attached.
“Before you say anything,” Curt told him, “the order was wrong.”
Walt looked from the blankets to his neighbor.
“What were you ordering horse blankets for?”
“My geldings.”
“You haven’t got any.”
“Worse mistake than I thought.”
The engine idled between them. Curt kept looking toward the pasture.
“November’s coming. Thought she might need something over that thin hide.”
Walt lifted one of the packages. The fabric was heavy, the fittings solid. He could tell from the stitching that Curt hadn’t chosen the cheapest thing he could find.
“You paid for these.”
“I’ve explained the transaction.”
“Curt.”
His neighbor looked at him at last.
“Don’t make me sit here talking about it.”
Walt nodded and set the package against his hip. “All right.”
Curt rubbed a cracked place on the steering wheel.
“You don’t get the paper now, do you?”
“Not for a while.”
“Agents were at Rusk’s yesterday. Federal people. Deputies had the road blocked while they carried boxes out of the office barn. Computers came out of the house.”
Walt rested his free hand on the side of the truck.
“The paper says they’re reviewing several death claims,” Curt continued. “Paid policies. Horses sent along with private haulers, then through dealers. Your investigator’s been busy.”
Beyond the pickup, April grazed near the trees.
Walt looked at her for a while before he said, “Good.”
Curt followed his gaze. “Yes.”
Neither man spoke again until the engine gave a small uneven shudder. Curt touched the throttle, though it didn’t need it.
Walt pictured the back pens and the ramp behind the broker’s truck. He pressed the blanket package tighter beneath his arm.
“Want coffee?” he asked.
“No.”
“I can put some on.”
“I said no, Walt.”
“Then I’ll save the trouble.”
Curt nodded, relieved to have something ordinary to disagree about.
“Get those inside before it rains.”
He drove away without giving Walt another chance to thank him.
Walt carried two blankets to the shed and took the third toward the pasture. The tractor ticked behind him as its engine cooled. He passed the porch, noting the board near the steps that had started to lift again.
There was still no money to replace the whole section. The mortgage remained, along with the taxes he was trying to catch up on. The bank’s letters hadn’t grown friendlier. Rain still found a place through the barn roof, and three stretches of lower fence needed more than wire twisted around an old post.
He shifted the blanket to his other arm and worked the gate chain loose.
April raised her head.
Six weeks of steady feeding had begun to fill the hollows along her back. Her neck no longer looked too narrow for her head. Brushing had freed her coat of the sale-yard grime, and the pale hair caught the weak sunshine beneath the oaks.
She came toward him at a walk.
The limp was plain. She tested the bad foot before committing her weight and paused when the ground changed. Damp mornings still made her stiff. Walt knew she would never carry someone into an arena again or clear a fence while people watched from the rail.
He waited until she reached him.
April stretched her neck over the fence and rested her muzzle against his chest. She’d begun greeting him that way most mornings. He had once searched his pockets, thinking she expected feed, but she’d ignored what he offered and stayed where she was.
He put his hand between her ears. Her winter coat was coming in, thicker and softer beneath his palm.
“Curt sent a present.”
Her nostrils moved against his jacket.
“He’d rather I called it a clerical error.”
Walt opened the plastic and unfolded the blanket over the rail. He let her inspect it before bringing it any closer. April sniffed a corner, moved to a buckle, then gave an enormous sigh and turned her nose back toward him.
“You can complain to him,” Walt said. “I’ve had my turn.”
A laugh escaped him, brief and rusty.
April lifted her head at the unfamiliar sound. Walt covered his mouth with one hand, then laughed once more, quieter this time. She watched him, ears forward, until he lowered his hand to her neck again.
Across the yard, sunlight reached the kitchen window. Evelyn’s garden beds stood beyond it, crowded with dead stalks and weeds. He could cut them back before the ground froze. There were tools in the shed, and the tractor was close enough to pull a load away if he could get it started again.
The stovepipe needed cleaning too. He’d bring the ladder around after April’s next meal. If the porch board wouldn’t take another nail, he had a short plank in the barn that might fit.
He laid the folded blanket over the fence and rubbed the place April liked beneath her mane.
The house would need a fire that evening. He could make one before dark and eat at the table instead of standing at the sink. In the morning, there would be water to carry and medicine to measure, and April would be listening for his boots outside the door.
She lowered her head against him again.
Walt left one hand on her neck and curled the other around the worn top rail. A crow called from the far side of the field. The cooling tractor gave a final metallic click.
He stayed until the oak shadows reached their feet, with the unopened bills waiting in the house and the blanket ready beside his hand. April remained at the fence with him, breathing steadily into his coat.