A Good High Place

Chapter 13

c H A P T e R T H i R T e e N i no longer avoid the stables when Keane is working. in fact, i make a point of going. Sometimes i help him pitch hay or shovel manure, but today i watch. Keane is looking at me crossly as he spreads straw behind Adam’s slip stall. Keane is seventeen and still hasn’t filled out, but there are bunchy muscles forming in his wide shoulders and along his forearms, and i know it won’t be long. His face has begun to make a background for his nose and lips, so they no longer seem to float in space. His eyes, which stand out due to their greenness, have dark bushy eyebrows that arch much of the time and make him look like he’s perpetually asking a question. Today there are angry vertical lines between them. You could help, you know. or at least talk, he says. What’s there to say? i ask. You haven’t said a word since i mentioned seeing Kachina over by Johnson’s Pond. He has eight tin water buckets in front of him, arranged in two tidy rows. He begins pumping water into them. i don’t see why you insist on being friendly to someone who hates my guts, i say. Anyway, i don’t know why i should care: she’s nothing but an indian. Keane pulls the red handle of the pump down with a thump. His words sound like short, fast punches. i doubt if she hates your guts, he says. How can you know what someone else thinks? And you have nothing against indians, and i’m hardly friendly. i’ve never even spoken to her. No answer from me, so Keane keeps talking. Mostoftheindianshereseemtohavehadthelifechasedoutofthem. They’re trying so hard to be like us. Kachina doesn’t try to be like us. Why don’t you ask her why she hates you? Maybe you’re afraid to ask. No comment from me. The livery stable is on West Second Street and takes up half the village block. it’s long, half of it two-story. The single-story end has three large box stalls on one side, with five slip stalls on the other, separated by a ten-foot walkway down the middle and a water pump to one side. The middle is used for grooming and has crossties on either side to keep the horses still while they are being curried and having their hooves cleaned, something Uncle George does himself every morning, or perhaps doesn’t do too well these days. i come and groom them sometimes at night. The other end of the stable is two stories. on one side downstairs is another box stall, which is used as a tack room and office. The opposite side has two democrat wagons for transporting luggage and freight from the trains at Williamsburg and Alden. Never could figure out why they called them democrat wagons or why Uncle George would drive one since he was not a democrat. one small sleigh and four smaller buggies, which are rented most Saturday nights, are lined up neatly against the wall. in the middle of the barn is a great sliding door big enough to permit the wagons to pass. Tonight we leave the door open to encourage any slight breeze. Upstairs at this end of the stable is a loft for hay and feed with a ladder up to it, and this is where Uncle George sleeps now. The barn smells of molasses and alfalfa, mixed with the ammonia smell of urine, which is not strong now since Keane has cleaned the stalls and spread lime powder and fresh straw behind the horses. i’ll milk Hannah, i say, heading into her stall. Hannah is a five-yearold bay mare Uncle George has recently purchased in Williamsburg. 70 L.E. Kimball A GOOD HIGH PLACE 71 She had a foal still nursing, but cap didn’t like the looks of him and wantedonlythemare.He’dbeenbornearlysoweaningwasfine,butthe marewastestyfromthediscomfortoffullteats.Asilaymyhandonher hindquarters, she kicks out, slamming her feet into the manger, barely misses catching me square in the stomach, grazing my hip instead. Get a lead on that mare before you do that, Keane says. He ties a rope to the mare’s halter and ties that to a bar at the top of...