Sailor’s bellows were weaker now as he swayed on the fulcrum of the fence, unable to spring forward or fall back. Dawnette barreled out of the barn lugging eight two-by-fours. She made a dozen trips before Sailor got enough traction under his ass to hop over the fence and into the run with Fritillary, still waving her tail at him. Sailor didn’t even look at her.

I didn’t start plugging in to the world again until I got home from the emergency clinic. I was walking gently for another week, my legs in parentheses like old Sailor’s when I last saw him. Mother nursed my wounds and made me relatively comfortable on an armchair in the sunlight.

Quillet wouldn’t talk to me. If communication became necessary, I was addressed in the third person, with Mother the intermediary. “Did you show him the letter?” he asked one night. Mother shook her bowed head, as if pleading guilty to a charge of dereliction. “Show it to him,” he ordered, and left the room.

Dear Quillet, [it began]

I don’t know what you done

to my horse but his whole pennis

is busted. He will never service

another mare you ruint him. He

will be lucky if he can ever piss

right again.

Sincerely,

(Mrs.) Della White

P.S. I am suing you.

I handed the letter back to Mother.

“Perhaps you’d better leave,” she said gently. “Dil thinks it would be best.”

Dil was right. It was indeed time for a tactical withdrawal from this ragged mountainside, if I wanted to continue breathing. The air was getting thinner and in a few short weeks I’d be freezing again, under a cemetery sky.

“Would you like to come with me?” I asked.

She thought for a moment, then said “No. What are your plans?”

I shrugged. It seemed to me that I had been asked that question, or some equally discomforting facsimile of it, too many times in my life.

“You’ll let me hear from you?”

I nodded. “You’ll be okay?”

“Of course.” Her eyes were fixed on mine with a sad, vulnerable focus. “He’s a good man, Dil, basically. I guess I’ve always been attracted to men who are difficult. Proves they’re not hypocrites—they don’t conform easily.”

I said nothing.

“He casts a certain spell…” she went on.

…That is irresistible, I might have added, but only to the victim. Still, I said nothing, which was tactless, because she started to cry without any particular agitation. She dabbed at her eyes, quickly composing herself, and got to her feet. “I’d better do the dishes,” she said, and went into the kitchen. I heard a cabinet door open, and then one flat note—the rim of a glass meeting the neck of a bottle. I could have used a little sherry myself.

TWENTY-ONE
UNDER THE BRIDGE