SQUEAMISH

By Lisa Alther 

It was sweltering that night as I sat in the stairwell in my pajamas, watching smoke drift from the living room on a ray of lamplight. The tabby cat slinked out of the shadows and paused to stare at me, green eyes flashing, and then narrowing in recognition. She leapt up the steps. I scratched her ears until she turned her head to lick my hand with a sandpaper tongue. The newspaper rustling in the living room punctuated the pulse of the locusts outside. My father's large frame would be filling the brown leather armchair, and his fingers would be flicking a cigarette. My mother would be curled up on the couch with a library book. My father's voice rumbled like flexed tin roofing. Hearing my name, I scooted down the steps, purring cat still draped across my lap. "I don't think he's too young," my father was saying. "I could ride a horse to hell and back when I was his age. But too squeamish � maybe." "He's just sensitive," said my mother. I frowned. "It's not like I'd just toss him in the saddle and turn him loose. I'll teach him first." "I tried to ride for years but never had any control over a horse."

Back in bed I thought about walking through the woods one autumn afternoon, crunching every red leaf I came to. I was halfway running because my father, who was holding my hand, was walking at his own pace. He dropped my hand to raise his rifle. Something white and brown plunged out from behind a bush. He turned, following it through the sight. The animal rose to leap over a fallen tree trunk. There was a sound like a stick breaking. The animal jerked, scrambled forward, and then collapsed. I was running. Branches were lashing my face. I squatted and looked down. Red was soaking the white and turning the twitching tan to dark brown. The orange and yellow leaves were splattered with red. I shivered, clenching my teeth. My father's mouth was moving, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. "...it didn't feel anything at all," I finally deciphered. He paused, waiting for me to reply. But I couldn't. "If we didn't shoot some of the deer, they'd all starve to death in the winter." He pulled me to my feet and put his hands on my shoulders. "You have to learn to be tough, son. To make things best in the long run. You can't be squeamish."

Blotting sweat off my forehead with my top sheet, I listened to the bullfrogs croaking down by the pond, and to my father's soft snoring from their bedroom. Squeamish. It sounded like what it meant � sick and shivering, like squirting blood. I remembered standing on a stool one time, wearing a long green gown that hung down around the stool so that I seemed seven feet tall. Everything was a murky undersea green � the walls, the backs and heads of the nurses and doctors in their scrubs. I stood on tiptoe, craning my neck. Finally, I saw it � a meal for a monster. Red, with globs of yellow fat. Silver probes were picking and digging. Pale rubber hands dabbed with bloody gauze. I couldn't breathe. I tried to pull off my mask. My father murmured, "Get him out of here, Alex. I never should have brought him in." The lights lurched back and forth. Alex set me down on the green- and black- checkered linoleum, saying, "I guess you don't want to be a doctor like your dad and granddad?" I crumpled to the floor. That's what squeamish meant. But I hadn't felt like that since. Now that I was older, I understood why you had to cut people open. Because it was best in the long run.

I hopped on one foot down the stone steps out front, imagining I was a war hero with a missing leg. As I rounded the house, I spotted a large brown horse. I stopped and stood very still, hoping it wouldn't notice me. My father was smiling. Not taking my eyes off the horse, I tried to smile back. "Where did you get that?" I asked. "Her name is Vera. She's a retired show horse that one of my patients sold me. Think you can handle her?" "Sure." I tried to sound nonchalant. "Ready for lesson number one?" I nodded warily. "You have to convince her that you're in charge." Holding Vera's forelock in his fist, he worked the bit past her teeth. "They don't like this thing in their mouths. You have to leave them no choice." I touched the velvet between Vera's nostrils. She nudged my hand in a silent pact against my father. He tossed a saddle on to her back. After buckling the girth, he paused a moment, then wrenched the strap a couple of notches tighter. "They puff out their stomachs when you fasten the cinch, so that the saddle slips when you try to mount." I looked into Vera's dark eyes. I seriously doubted that she would play such a nasty trick. My father climbed into the saddle. "Break me a switch off the apple tree." I did, also breaking my pact with Vera. "Show it to her." Her ears pricked forward and her nostrils dilated, making me feel like a heel. My father whacked her with it, and they circled the yard. He put her through her gaits, explaining how her leg movements shifted with each. My grandfather used to ride horses into the hills where cars couldn't go, and my father went along to keep him company. He described stopping one afternoon in front of a shack roofed with rusting soft drink signs and old license plates. The sweaty horses waited in the yard, which was cluttered with empty tin cans and bottles. Two blue tick hounds howled and hurled themselves against their chains. Dodging some clucking hens, my father and grandfather crossed the porch. Inside sat a dozen people of different ages, men and women, all with deep-set eyes and high cheekbones. Nobody said a word. The stench of infection was strong. My father held an old man's trembling arm, while my grandfather drew an injection into a needle. The old man, face furrowed with pain, sank his broken teeth into my father's arm. Like a snapping turtle, he refused to let go. No one moved a muscle. My grandfather finally pushed the old man to the floor. Those teeth marks were now pinpricks on my father's forearm. My father stopped the horse in front of me. "She's getting old. She's a little sluggish." He dismounted. "But she's beautifully trained. You just have to let her know what you expect from her."

I sat straight and still in the saddle. I'd always liked horses. I used to draw them � purple and orange and green horses that flew through the air and swam underwater. I'd checked out all the horse books in the school library. The horses always loved the kids that owned them, saving them from forest fires and outlaws. Every summer at the carnival I rode my favorite plaster stallion, ivory with tan spots and a gilded saddle. He moved up and down on a chrome pole, while the engine in the middle throbbed and hissed. I held the reins with only one hand, smiling indulgently as children all around me clung to their poles with terror. I'd been on a real pony once at the fair. He was smaller than Vera, but I was taller now, so it came to the same thing. Dad could ride when he was my age, so I knew I could, too. "...and be sure to grip with your knees. Now try walking," said my father. Vera jogged for a few yards, driving my backbone into my brain. "Keep the reins taut," said my father. "And pull back smoothly, don't yank. Her mouth is tender." Vera threw her head forward, and the reins slid through my palms. "But don't hesitate to be firm!" called my father. I was now bouncing in the saddle, as though riding a bronco. "Don't try trotting yet, son!" He apparently didn't realize that that wasn't what I'd had in mind either. As I slid sideways, I grabbed at the pommel. A necklace of pain encircled my throat, and I hit the ground hard. Above me the wire clothesline twanged slowly back and forth across the blue sky. My father came running. I stood up, swallowing to be sure I still could. "It's okay," I croaked. "I'm fine, Dad." "What's wrong with you, son? When she tosses her head like that, pull it back in!" "But you said her mouth is tender...." "That's why you can control her with the bit. She's got to know who's boss." "But if she really wants to take off, there's nothing I can do about it," I realized. "We may know that, but she doesn't. Unless you let her find it out."

You could count on something like that happening if you rode a horse around your backyard. That's why I'd spent a week clearing a path through our land. I sat on Vera outside our rosa multiflora hedge. The noon sun was hot, and the saddle I'd carefully polished was gleaming like glass. Vera was damp with sweat. Flies were circling us, trying to dodge her tail and settle on her twitching muscles. I tried to shoo them away before they bit her. We started toward the dam that formed our pond. Vera twisted her head. She wanted a drink. But my father had said never to let her eat or drink once she was saddled, so I kicked her with my heels. She shook her head, making the bridle clank. Then she lunged toward the shore. Water rushed up at me. It soaked my jeans. Vera writhed on her back like a Holy Roller, burying my leg in the mud. Gasping and choking, I dragged myself out from under her. The mud came off the two of us, but later than afternoon I was still trying to wipe the orange clay off the stupid saddle. I could have yanked her head around and lashed her with my whip. That's what my father would have done. Well, that's what I was going to do from now on. It didn't matter whether she liked me or not. I'd show her who was boss. I scrubbed furiously at the leather. The next morning at breakfast my father cleared his throat, pushed back his chair, and lit a cigarette. The cat rubbed against his leg. He pushed her toward the door with his foot. She returned, purring like a traitor. "We've decided to sell Vera," he announced. "And maybe try again later. When you're older." He was looking at my mother. He could ride when he was my age. He didn't really think I was too young. He thought I was too squeamish. So did she. "Please don't sell her, Dad. I'm just catching on." He looked at my mother. She was staring at her plate. "What makes you think so?" he asked. "So far I've been nice to her, and she's taken advantage of me. She doesn't realize how tough I can be. But she's going to find out." My mother looked at me doubtfully and opened her mouth, then closed it. My father nodded. "Okay, let's give Vera another chance." I carried my dishes to the sink. He wouldn't be sorry he was giving me another chance. I went outside and grabbed the bridle. I walked up to Vera and forced the bit between her teeth. I fastened the strap at her throat. I hoisted the saddle onto her back. After yanking the girth tight, I scrambled up. I tapped her with my whip, and we passed through the gate. When we reached the pond, she turned toward the water, which was sparkling in the sun. I jerked her head around and whipped her hard. She trotted across the dam. Riding wasn't really that hard. You just had to show the horse who was boss. As we skirted the tobacco field, grasshoppers in flight whirred all around us. Entering the woods, we parted our way past ribbons of sunlight that threaded through the mesh of poplar branches overhead. Vera's hooves thudded like a drum beat on the dark dirt. A mocking bird jeered from a nearby pine. We entered the alfalfa field. Past the farthest hills rippled the Blue Ridge, scalloping the sky with hazy blue-gray. I realized we'd been standing still for several minutes. Vera was munching alfalfa. Down at the barn one day I'd heard some cows bleating in agony. My father said, "They broke into the alfalfa and gorged themselves. It would be like you eating a quart of ice cream all at once." I hauled in the reins. Vera threw her head forward, and I pulled it back in hard, saying, "It's for your own good, Vera." She snorted and shook her head, clanking her bridle. Clenching the muscles in my jaw, I raised my stick and swatted her flank. She stood quite still, as though astonished. Then she plunked one foot in front of the other and skulked across the field. As Vera and I descended the sloping meadow, the ochre foothills rose up to hide the distant mountains. Soon we were in a valley formed by a rushing creek. A barbed wire fence separated the alfalfa from the creek, where cows in the opposite pasture watered. They had worn a path alongside the creek down to the milking parlor by the barn. It was cool and dark there by the stream with the willow branches hanging low. Everything was silent except for the water swirling over the moss and through the cress. Vera and I followed the fence, hiding from the sun, until we came to a fork. We could take the left path and climb a low cliff, or we could stay by the water. I turned Vera up the cliff. She stopped and eyed the hill, and the scorching sun at the top of it. She veered toward the stream. Shrugging, I let her continue down the valley. The path was rutted by the hooves of the cows in wet weather. But Vera, refreshed, began to trot. I tightened my knees and tried to post. But I wasn't very good at posting yet, and Vera's gait had, in any case, accelerated to a cross between a trot and a canter. I tugged on the reins. She tossed her head, mane flowing out behind her and stinging my cheeks. She surged forward into a canter. I felt a thrill in my stomach like when I pumped really high in a swing. I lay alongside her neck and let her run. From the corner of my eye I could see the parade of passing fence posts. This was crazy. I should stop her. The path was too rutted. She could break her leg. Up ahead the cliff jutted into the path, forcing it against the barbed wire. A wave of fear swept through me, and I pulled in hard on the reins. Vera just tossed her head and hurtled on. There was no way she could know the path was too narrow for us to get through. I was the only one who knew. I was the boss. I sawed at her mouth with the reins. She shook her head like a spoiled child, dancing playfully on her delicate ballerina legs. Her whinny was a shriek almost human. Sharp knives sliced my leg. Vera twisted diagonally, wedging herself between the barbed wire and the cliff. She plunged up and down with panicked snorts. Red was splattering everywhere. I felt myself slipping off the saddle. The entire world was upside down. A dull thud as my head hit a fence post turned everything to black. It was drizzling out the window. The leaves on the branches were just dying and falling off with no final flourish of color. I sat by the fire in the living room, leg propped on the coffee table. I had a lot of stitches and a couple of pints of someone else's blood. I wanted to go to the barn. But I was only out of bed on the condition that I not walk. I knew Dad didn't want me to see Vera. But I could see it anyway: the soggy straw splotched with stinking purple ointment. An olive army blanket with Vera's head sticking out from under it, eyes closed, breathing jagged. And underneath, the gashes. The broken leg that would never heal. I shivered. Squeamishly. I heard a crack like a dead limb breaking off a tree. A little later my father's boots stamped on the stone steps outside. Looking up, I saw him in the doorway, wiping rain off his rifle barrel with a rag. "She was very sick and could only have gotten worse," he announced, not looking at me. My mother, standing behind my chair, put a hand on my shoulder. "It's not your fault, son," she said. My father looked at the two of us for a long time. "No, it's not your fault," he finally agreed.