circling in a thermal against the limited storm now evaporating like steam on glass. The truck sucked down into the creekbottom. The storm dematerialized and left the hawk in empty blue.
Patrick stopped at the calving shed a mile below the house and played Ornette Coleman on the machine, wondered why Ornette always had a white bass player and why he made you think so hard. Patrick decided that because Ornette was such a thorough master of bebop, he knew a white man could be expected to play melodic bass and not worry too much about time. Was Ornette as clever as the Yardbird? Why was there not a statue of Charlie Parker in Washington? When Patrick thought of Ornette Coleman running an elevator in Los Angeles with a roomful of scores and his mother sending him food from Texas, he developed grave doubts about the District of Columbia.
Patrick daydreamed on with unimpeded high energy. Lenin’s girl friend Inessa Armand died in 1920 of typhus in the North Caucasus. Patrick read that in a Mexican comic book while preparing for flight to Castile. He read that in the vague interior light of a high-speed American tank in Germany. He was a security measure. He liked whiskey. Most of the other security measures preferred pharmaceuticals. With their dilated pupils and langorous movements, they were there to help save the West from the East, should the occasion arise. Patrick felt they had already gone East. But then, he was a captain, and being an officer had slowly sunk against the grain until finally, strangely, he was actually an Army captain, if you could see around the matter of the Mexican comic books.
I will work the claybank mare. She has taken to running through the bridle. She does not fall off to the right as well as she does to the left. I want her to drag, lock down and turn around when she needs to. We are not trying tomake trail horses. We are not leading a string of dudes to a photo view of Scissorbill Peak.
Next to the barn a cat ran through three shadows without touching the sunlight, then emerged triumphant in the glare, mouse crosswise in its hard domestic mouth. After a motionless instant the cat started toward the green lawn and the house, where, in front of the sink, it would leave the minute head and vermiculate insides of the mouse.
The horses, maybe twenty head, were all in a pod on the far side of the corral, shaded by cottonwoods. Wild rose bushes grew right to the poles, and the sides of the corral were like a tall hedge, illuminated by the pale-pink blossoms. The claybank mare was in the center of the band, nearer the side of the corral, really; and as Patrick closed the gate to walk toward the horses, the mare, butt toward him, shifted her head slightly for better rear-angle vision—out of a very real sense that it was she who was going up to the pasture with Patrick and not the other roughly nineteen. She looked like a shoplifter.
In this bunch there were no kickers, and so Patrick murmured his way gently through the big bodies, feeling their heat and watching the quizzical movement of the claybank mare’s head and ears. Some of the horses kept sleeping, the good old saddle horses, lower lips trembling in massive dreams, one or another rear foot tipped up, weight transferred from muscle to ligament in that horse magic of standing sleep; one or two craning, ignorant yearlings, and Patrick’s hand touched the mare’s flank, which twitched involuntarily, as though he’d shuffled across a carpet and given her a flicker of static electricity. He said softly, “Hey, now,” as he moved toward her head. “Care to go with me to Spain? Little walk-up deal with a cool stone kitchen?” And he had her haltered, turnedaround and headed for the gate, the mare flopping her feet along, knowing she was going to school.
Patrick brushed her thoroughly, watching the early light go through her coat. Claybank and grulla were his preferred colors; claybank, just like it sounded, a blur away from a copper dun, or
Patrick stopped at the calving shed a mile below the house and played Ornette Coleman on the machine, wondered why Ornette always had a white bass player and why he made you think so hard. Patrick decided that because Ornette was such a thorough master of bebop, he knew a white man could be expected to play melodic bass and not worry too much about time. Was Ornette as clever as the Yardbird? Why was there not a statue of Charlie Parker in Washington? When Patrick thought of Ornette Coleman running an elevator in Los Angeles with a roomful of scores and his mother sending him food from Texas, he developed grave doubts about the District of Columbia.
Patrick daydreamed on with unimpeded high energy. Lenin’s girl friend Inessa Armand died in 1920 of typhus in the North Caucasus. Patrick read that in a Mexican comic book while preparing for flight to Castile. He read that in the vague interior light of a high-speed American tank in Germany. He was a security measure. He liked whiskey. Most of the other security measures preferred pharmaceuticals. With their dilated pupils and langorous movements, they were there to help save the West from the East, should the occasion arise. Patrick felt they had already gone East. But then, he was a captain, and being an officer had slowly sunk against the grain until finally, strangely, he was actually an Army captain, if you could see around the matter of the Mexican comic books.
I will work the claybank mare. She has taken to running through the bridle. She does not fall off to the right as well as she does to the left. I want her to drag, lock down and turn around when she needs to. We are not trying tomake trail horses. We are not leading a string of dudes to a photo view of Scissorbill Peak.
Next to the barn a cat ran through three shadows without touching the sunlight, then emerged triumphant in the glare, mouse crosswise in its hard domestic mouth. After a motionless instant the cat started toward the green lawn and the house, where, in front of the sink, it would leave the minute head and vermiculate insides of the mouse.
The horses, maybe twenty head, were all in a pod on the far side of the corral, shaded by cottonwoods. Wild rose bushes grew right to the poles, and the sides of the corral were like a tall hedge, illuminated by the pale-pink blossoms. The claybank mare was in the center of the band, nearer the side of the corral, really; and as Patrick closed the gate to walk toward the horses, the mare, butt toward him, shifted her head slightly for better rear-angle vision—out of a very real sense that it was she who was going up to the pasture with Patrick and not the other roughly nineteen. She looked like a shoplifter.
In this bunch there were no kickers, and so Patrick murmured his way gently through the big bodies, feeling their heat and watching the quizzical movement of the claybank mare’s head and ears. Some of the horses kept sleeping, the good old saddle horses, lower lips trembling in massive dreams, one or another rear foot tipped up, weight transferred from muscle to ligament in that horse magic of standing sleep; one or two craning, ignorant yearlings, and Patrick’s hand touched the mare’s flank, which twitched involuntarily, as though he’d shuffled across a carpet and given her a flicker of static electricity. He said softly, “Hey, now,” as he moved toward her head. “Care to go with me to Spain? Little walk-up deal with a cool stone kitchen?” And he had her haltered, turnedaround and headed for the gate, the mare flopping her feet along, knowing she was going to school.
Patrick brushed her thoroughly, watching the early light go through her coat. Claybank and grulla were his preferred colors; claybank, just like it sounded, a blur away from a copper dun, or
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