Part 3
Caleb pulled his arm free.
Edith didn’t move to stop him. “My brother had it. Kept it to himself until he was forty-four. Then he put a grain truck into an irrigation ditch one evening, and the secret was over.”
“You’re mistaken.”
She studied him, then picked up her box.
“Fine.”
He stood back while she climbed into the cab. Before starting the engine, she lowered the window.
“I watched my brother spend years arranging things so nobody would notice. He was worn out long before he quit driving.”
She left him beside the barn.
By the time Caleb reached the house, he needed his hand on the porch rail to find the steps.
There had been a woman once, a schoolteacher in town. The summer after his diagnosis, he had ended their engagement. She had asked what she had done, whether there was somebody else, whether he had ever wanted to marry her at all.
He had told her he couldn’t explain it.
Two summers later, she married another man. She still had no explanation.
Caleb found the kitchen chair with the back of his knees and sat without turning on a light.
The following Thursday, he went to town at midday for fence staples. On his way back to the pickup, he stepped into the café across from the sale barn.
Russell occupied the round table near the window with three other men. Caleb took a stool at the counter. Their conversation continued behind him.
“Three hundred ten dollars,” Russell said. “And she can’t see the feed in front of her. He bought her to stop coyotes.”
“What’s he say when you ask him about it?”
“Same as always. Nothing. Basilio used to handle the conversation for both of them.”
Another man asked how a blind donkey was supposed to catch anything.
“Outhear them?” somebody offered.
The chairs creaked with laughter.
“Put her in charge,” Russell said. “They’ll both be lost.”
Caleb looked at the empty space beneath the pie display. The waitress set a cup beside his hand.
He laid five dollars on the counter and left the coffee untouched.
At home, he backed the trailer to the little pasture and shook grain in a bucket. Mamama came toward the rattle, with June beside her. The pair followed the bucket up the ramp.
Caleb shut them in.
Saturday would finish it. He would haul them back, take whatever the buyer offered, and stop giving the county something to laugh at.
He got behind the wheel but left the key in his pocket.
That envelope had been for the specialist. He had turned his doctor money into a blind donkey, and even Russell hadn’t yet learned the best part of the joke.
Caleb pressed both palms against the wheel.
“You told me not to leave them alone at night,” he said into the empty cab. “Easy enough for you. You could walk out there and see what was coming.”
His grandfather didn’t answer. Caleb heard how foolish he sounded and gave a bitter little laugh.
Then he struck the wheel with the heel of his hand. Pain ran up his wrist. He sat until he could draw a breath without catching it halfway.
A board creaked in the trailer.
He got out and went around back. Mamama had her face near an opening between the slats. Her ears found him before he spoke. She pushed her muzzle through until it brushed his coat.
Caleb stood close enough to feel the warmth from her nostrils.
“If blindness earns you that pen, there’s room for me.”
He lowered the ramp.
June went directly to the tank. Mamama remained beside him, her nose resting against his jacket, and Caleb left his hand on her cheek until she chose to move.
In the shop, Basilio’s bells hung above the workbench. Four of them shared an old leather strap, their brass dark from years without polishing. His grandfather had brought them in his suitcase when he crossed the ocean.
Caleb had not touched them since the old man died.
He reached up now, and a memory came with the small clink of metal.
He had been nine, in the summer range with Basilio, when fog hid the sheep. Caleb could hear them cropping grass, but he couldn’t tell where the flock ended. His grandfather stood with his eyes closed, listening.
Then the old man pointed in two directions.
“Try it without looking.”
Caleb had squeezed his eyes shut. After a while, he could separate the bells. One rang near the rocks, another farther downhill, another off to the right.
“Fog can’t stop your ears,” Basilio had said.
Caleb took the largest bell from the strap.
June objected to having her halter handled, tossing her head as he fastened it beneath her jaw. The bell sounded once.
Mamama lifted her muzzle.
June stepped away. The bell sounded again, and the gray jenny turned after it. She took two careful steps without reaching for June’s flank.
Caleb loosened his grip on the halter and let June walk.
For several yards, Mamama followed with open space between them.
That afternoon, he put them back with the sheep. At the gate, he listened to the bell travel downhill. Mamama’s hooves followed, steady and separate from June’s.
Near midnight, the ringing woke him.
He sat up before he knew what he had heard. Then Mamama brayed, a rough, sustained cry that carried through the open inch of window.
Below the house, sheep were running over frozen ground.
Caleb reached for the flashlight and went onto the porch. Cold came up through his socks. He aimed toward the creek, trying to find movement beyond the small patch of grass he could see.
A coyote called once from the direction of the draw.
June answered with a frantic bray. The bell rang wildly, and Caleb heard a heavy impact from somewhere beyond the reach of his eyes.
Then the bell fell silent…
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇