Six Old Horses Ahead of the Fire

At 2:30 Lyndon’s truck came through the fairgrounds gate. He had his four-horse trailer behind it, empty now, rattling over the cattle guard.

I knew he would come. His horses were there. And I knew Corliss had been calling him, because she had been calling me, from the hospital in Rapid City where she works the day shift as a nurse.

She had heard about the fire on the break room television.

I had told Corliss the truth on the phone. I told her Mom was safe and all six horses were safe and that I had hauled them.

She asked me how Lyndon had helped. I told her I would let him tell her that.

Lyndon got out of his truck and started toward the barn. He did not see Mom and me on the bench at first.

He was walking fast, with his head down, the way a man walks when he is thinking about one thing.

Mom stood up off the bench. I stood up with her.

The men who had been carrying hay set their bales down. I do not think anybody told them to. They just stopped, the way people stop on a road when something is about to happen.

Lyndon reached the barn door and stepped inside.

I followed him in. I am not proud of every reason I did that, but I did it.

The barn was dim after the bright haze outside, and it smelled like fresh straw and horses and smoke.

Down the whole long row, every stall had a horse in it and a full bucket and a flake of hay.

At the end of the row, his three. Dandy, the big bay roping horse, and the two younger geldings.

Right beside them, in the next six stalls, Mom’s horses. Red was closest to him, still a little sweaty, eating hay like nothing in the world had happened.

Lyndon stopped. I watched him count them. I watched his lips move on the numbers, one through six, the same way Mom’s lips had moved on her prayers.

Elroy was standing in the aisle with a pitchfork. Two of the other ranchers were in there too, and the boy with the hose. Nobody said a word to Lyndon. They did not have to.

He turned around and saw me. Then he saw Mom, who had come in behind me, one hand on the door frame.

For a long time Lyndon did not say anything. He took his cap off and held it in both hands.

His face was gray, and I could see where the sweat had run down through the dust on his neck.

“Bernie,” he said to my mother. That is what he has always called her. “Bernie, I’m sorry.”

“I know you are, Lyndon,” Mom said.

“I saw the smoke and I just went. I had Dandy in there and I still owe twenty thousand on him. I wasn’t thinking about anything but getting him out. I panicked.” He looked at the floor. “I’m not saying that makes it right.”