Chapter 10 - Horses

Jack Gentry was pissed off. He was drunk, too. It was not a good combination.

He'd stayed sober all winter, after his second session in the Schick center last fall. But his woman, Robin, was off in Denver to a horse show and Gerry let him run up to Warm Springs for a couple of days with his family.

On the way back to the ranch, he'd had to change a tire. It was hot, sweaty work, in the high country of the eastern slopes of the Cascades. Then a little further, his old pickup had overheated and he'd hauled water in a small jar from a creek 50 yards down a steep embankment.

When he got to Sisters, he was mad at the world. He stopped for gas and went into the little convenience store that was part of the gas station. When he paid for the gas, he paid for a six-pack of Blitz, too.

By the time he got to the ranch, he'd downed three bottles and took the other three into the mobile home he lived in with Robin.

He drank the other beers while watching a basketball game on his TV. Then he was mad because he didn't buy enough beer while he was in Sisters and there wasn't anything to drink in the house.

He didn't realize it, but he was reeling some and his speech was slurred.

Thinking maybe Mary had a bottle he could 'borrow', he walked across to her trailer.

"Hey, Jack," Mary said, when she opened her door to his knock.

"Hey, Mary. You got a beer or two you'd let me have?"

"Jack, you know I don't. And you better not let anyone see you like this," her sharp eyes took in his condition. "Go home and get a good rest, Jack. Robin will be back tomorrow."

"Shit! I'll go see if Gerry has a bottle."

"You better not, Jack."

"I'm all growed up, Mary. I'm OK."

"You're shooting yourself in the foot, Jack."

"Screw off, woman!" he muttered, turning away.

Mary heard him and almost wept. She knew how much Robin loved the man. And how much it would hurt her when she found out he'd been drinking again. She would find out. Jack was too stupid to go home and go to bed.

Jack walked down the lane to Gerry's house. Gerry lived in the house mom and dad shared until mom left the ranch for good last year. Gerry's old mobile was pretty beat up and he asked if he and his wife, Alice, could move into the house. It made sense. It was a lot better to have someone live there than to leave it vacant, and Alice was a good housekeeper. We junked the mobile.

Gerry had been with the Steeles all of his adult life and had been foreman for years. Not that it was a big deal-Uncle Rick ran the cattle breeding operation and was his own cow boss, really. But Gerry was in charge when Rick was gone and knew as much about the ranch as anybody. Small as the permanent crew was, everybody did what was needed, without a lot of concern over whose job it was, or need to get permission.

Gerry knew all about Jack and his battle with alcohol.

When Jack appeared at his door, wanting a bottle, he knew there was going to be trouble.

"Jack, you know damn well I'm not going to give you a drink. In fact, we'll talk first thing in the morning. For now, you get home and get to bed."

"I'm not a kid you can order around like that, Gerry."

"You are when you act like this. Get home, Jack!"

Turning, Jack said, "Fuck you."

Gerry ignored it, but didn't forget.

When he got to the barn, Jack forgot why he was wandering around. He was cold and tired, so he found a pile of straw and lay down for a short nap.

Just as the sky started to change from black to gray, he awoke, stiff, and with chattering teeth. His head hurt and his mouth tasted like mice had nested in it.

Stumbling to his house, he saw that the lights were still on, and the door was open-as he had left it. One of the dogs had wandered in and eaten the burritos he'd set out for his dinner. The dog had also left a deposit on the kitchen floor.

No longer drunk, but hung over and mad, Jack threw the plate with the burrito remains on the floor with the dog crap, shattering it. Slamming the door, he went to his bed, where he collapsed without undressing.

Audry, Robin and I got back to the ranch in the middle of the morning, pulling our big horse trailer.

The kids all came running to greet us and for a bit there was the usual cheerful mass confusion as we unloaded the horses and hugged the kids.

With the horses in their paddock, Robin grabbed her bag and walked to her house. The scene that greeted her in her kitchen told its tale, with half-eaten burrito, broken plate and dog poop on the floor-and beer bottles on the counter.

Marching into the bedroom, she grabbed the snoring Jack by an ear and twisted. As soon as his eyes opened, she started screeching at him.

"You bastard! You just have to mess up a good thing, don't you? We have it made here, and you... you fuckup!... you have to mess it up. Well, you can do it on your own. Get out of here! Go sleep in the bunkhouse, asshole!"

As she was berating him, she was marching him down the hall, and out the door. The door was slammed at his back and he heard the sound of the bolt going home. They never locked the house! The locks just came with the manufactured home. He sure didn't have a key.

Sheepishly, he walked over to the barn and got his tack. Then he roped and saddled a horse. He was supposed to be checking a section of the north range-he'd best get on with it.

He'd forgotten all about the previous evening and that Gerry wanted to see him that morning.

Gerry didn't forget. He made a point of telling Rick about the evening's activity.

Mary saw Robin's tirade, from the training ring, and hurried over to Robin's house as soon as Jack was gone.

"Robin?" she called, at the locked door.

"What!?" was the snapped reply. The door didn't open, like it always did.

"Can we talk?" Mary asked, gently.

"Oh, I suppose." Robin slowly opened the door, to admit her friend.

"God, what a mess!" Mary said, seeing the kitchen floor.

"Yeah. Damnit!... We had it so good here."

"Robin, you still do."

"No. Rick will fire Jack for sure. He's been through the Schick program twice already. And I'll have to go with him... Damn! Damn! Damn!!"

"Robin. Slow down! First, you don't have to go with him. Second, how do you know Rick will fire him? Maybe he'll make him do the detox program again?"

"Mary, I have to go with him because I love him. That's why."

"Girl, you're thinking with your snatch, not your head. If you love him, you'll make him shape up. If you go with him, he'll never make it. And you know that for a fact. So quit kidding yourself. He's got to square himself away. You can't do it for him. And you only make it easier for him to stay messed up, if you go with him and support him 'while he's out of work'."

"I dunno, Mary..."

"Well, I do! I'm right. You know damn well I'm right. Admit it!"

"Yeah. I guess..." Robin turned to her friend and wailed, "Why, Mary? Why did he have to drink again? We've never had such a good thing as we do here."

Holding her weeping friend, the mountainous Indian woman said, "I think it is a demon in him. So many of our people have the problem. Right now, Robin, you have to be strong and brave-for Jack and for yourself. You can't give in."

"I know you're right. But Mary," she wailed in pain, "it hurts so much!"

"I know, honey. I know."

Soon, Mary and Robin came to see us. We got Rick and Gerry in the meeting, too. Our consensus, after a lot of arguing and discussing, was that, if Jack would leave for the Schick center-and check himself in, and do the program again, as earnestly as he could-we'd keep his job for him. Robin insisted that he'd have to live in the bunkhouse with the other hands. She was putting him on her own probation.

If Jack refused, he'd be fired. If there was any trouble with him, we'd turn the problem over to the tribe.

I called Gary Butler. Gary said he'd be down to the ranch as soon as he could get there.

That night, when Jack rode in, he found his house locked and his things piled on the porch, with a note that he could spend the night in the bunkhouse-and that Rick wanted to see him first thing in the morning.

Jack began to understand that maybe he was in trouble.

In the morning, Rick met with Jack. Gary sat in on the meeting. Jack insisted that he was OK. He'd had a couple of beers, but he wouldn't do it again. Rick repeated the conditions-go to Schick, or leave the ranch.

Gary tried to talk some sense into him, but Jack just got mad, and told everybody to go fuck themselves-"And tell that to my bitch wife, too!"

A half-hour later, he'd thrown his things in his old pickup and was off the ranch.

Audry had gone to Robin and was doing her best to console her. It was very hard to let her husband drive off without saying goodbye. Hell, it was hard to keep from jumping in the truck alongside him!

Jack returned to the reservation, to the shack he'd lived in as a young man, behind his mother's old, beat-up trailer. He drank until he had no money left. Then he tried to find work, to make some money to drink some more. The classic alcoholic pattern.

Gary sent one of Jack's school friends who worked for the tribal council out to try to get him into a detox program. Jack insisted he was OK and didn't appreciate the 'help' he was getting from the tribe.

The only meals he got were when his mother fed him. That was mostly only once a day.

At the ranch, Robin was hurting. Her problem was that she loved her husband deeply, and wanted to spend her life with him. While he was away, she worried about what he was doing and if he was eating and if he was even going to survive.

Except for an occasional phone call from Gary or one of our other friends from the reservation, we had no news at all. Jack never contacted anyone at the ranch.

Naturally, Robin's work suffered. She wasn't nearly as sharp as she had been, either training the horses, or improving her own riding skills. We all noticed it right away, but gave her space to work it out.

Mary and Robin often ate together. It was just as easy to cook for two as for one, and they liked the same kinds of food. Mary, in spite of her size, didn't eat any more than Robin. Her size was a function of metabolism and a minor thyroid condition.

One evening, a month after Jack left, Mary decided it was time for some straight talk.

"Robin, enough is enough! You've got to quit spending your time-and all your energy-worrying about Jack, and concentrate on what's going on around you. We all love you. And we all care about you and what you're going through. But enough, already! How long do you think Audry and Rob will cover for you?"

Robin studied the remains of her dinner intently, but didn't say anything.

"Honey," Mary said, "Jack is your man. He's a good man, if he's not drinking. But drinking, he's just another drunken Indian. The man you love doesn't exist right now. Maybe he never will again. But if you go to him, all you'll do is help him keep drinking."

Robin still didn't say a word.

"I know... If you go to him, you'll get laid. And he'll probably do a pretty good job of it. But Robin, there's all your life, besides what happens in bed. You have to accept that he'll either come back, strong and proud-and sober-or you'll have to find another man somewhere."

"No, Mary," Robin said, her voice just above a whisper. "I don't accept that. I won't accept that. Jack is my husband, 'till death us do part'."

"Robin, dear girl. I love you like a sister-better than most sisters. Please. Believe me. If you go back to Jack, before he comes back to you, you will destroy him. He will take that as an endorsement of what he's doing. If you make him come to you, clean and sober, you'll both live. Otherwise, the Jack you love is dead now."

"I don't believe that, Mary."

"Believe it, my dear friend. It's true. Talk to Gary. He's been there and back. Or talk to Mary Butler. She's walked in your sandals, for sure."

Robin had to believe Mary meant what she'd said. They were like sisters. She knew Mary loved her and really cared. So, a few days later, she drove up to Warm Springs and found Mary Butler hanging laundry on the line in her back yard.

"Hi, Mary. I thought Gary bought you a new washer and dryer?"

"He did. But clothes dried on a line smell better! Have you ever noticed? And they wear longer too... What brings you up here?"

"Well... I wanted to talk to you."

Mary nodded and motioned toward a bench under the only tree in their yard.

"Truth? I hoped to run into Jack. To see him. To see how he looks. If he's OK... Mary, it's driving me crazy not knowing what's going on with him."

Mary put a hand on her arm.

"I know, dear. It's the hardest thing you'll ever do, probably. I can tell you what I've heard. He's not doing well at all. He's still living behind his mother's. Other than a little day labor, when he's sober, he can't get any work. He drinks up whatever money he manages to find. He's not eating regularly or even washing very often."

Robin put her face in her hands and wept, softly but bitterly.

"Robin, you know that he has to go through this. If you get into it, he won't ever get better."

"That's what people tell me. But, my God, Mary! He's my husband! How can I stand by and see him kill himself?"

"Only with great discipline and courage, Robin. Prayer helps, too. I can tell you that his only chance is to cure himself, or at least, ask for help. But if you interfere at this stage, he will kill himself for certain."

"That's a crap-shoot, Mary."

"It sure is. And it's not easy for any of us. I've been there."

"I heard that. Could you tell me how you coped?"

Mary smiled with sympathy. "About like you. I fretted and fussed and wore myself ragged. I had three kids at home, too... Robin, I have to tell you, the only way I got through it was to never lose faith. I had faith in God and faith in Gary. I prayed daily for him. And I turned him over to God to deal with him and the demon in him. I don't know what your religion is, or even if you have one. All I can tell you is what worked for me."

Robin nodded. She wasn't being preached at by some 'Jesus freak'.

"Once I realized that he was in God's hands and that I was completely unable to save him-indeed, that I could kill him, but I could not save him-I finally felt a sense of peace about him. I didn't know if he'd live or die-literally. I had no idea if he'd ever come back to me, except maybe to beg for money to buy another jug. But I knew that I had done everything I could, and I kept on praying for him every day. Often several times a day... Robin, I had to understand that that was the only thing I could do for him. Once I understood that, I did all I could, as well as I could.

"The other thing I could and did do, was love him and care for his children."

Robin nodded. She was not hearing what she wanted to hear. She wanted to hear how Mary Butler had gotten her husband, Gary, off of alcohol and back to being a good husband. Mary was telling her she had to give it up, and trust God!

"But Mary, what can I do?" she pleaded.

"I just told you... Robin, did you know that it was four years before Gary sobered up and came home?"

"Oh, God!" Robin wailed. "I'm going crazy now. I can't take it that long!"

"Robin, you can if you have to. That's one of the things women do. We wait for our men. It doesn't matter if they're off hunting bear, or away at war... Maybe it would help you to think of Jack in that way. He's away, fighting a war. His war isn't against the Japs, Nazis or Viet Cong. He's fighting the demon in himself. But the war is just as real."

Robin was beginning to see it. But it was hard. Real hard! She said as much.

"Of course it is. A man couldn't do it. Only a woman, with a woman's faith, and a woman's strength, and a woman's patience, can do it. And not every woman can do it. A teaser, or a stupid, selfish bitch who demands what she wants when she wants it, can't do it. But a real woman, mature and sure of herself, can do it if she wants it badly enough."

Robin closed her eyes and shuddered.

"Yeah. I can do it. I have no choice... But, damn, Mary! It's hard!"

"Yeah, dear. It is hard. But it's the only way... You might try the prayer part of it, too."

"I'll think on that," Robin said, rising. "Thanks for your time. And for your advice. I know I dug up some of your old pain, too. Thanks for sharing with me."

"Any time, Robin. Come see me again, soon. Call me any time."

Subdued-she was in for a long period of trouble-Robin drove back to her home at the ranch.

Audry and I were just leaving the training ring when she arrived. We walked over to her house and greeted her when she got out of her little car. She was obviously not a happy woman.

Audry just wrapped her arms around her and they shared a good cry.

A mere man, I got out of there.

We had Robin join us for dinner. After the kids were all in bed, Robin told us-including Shawna-about her visit. She told us what she'd learned about Jack's condition and what Mary had advised her.

Robin held us as a last hope that there was an easier way. She saw in our faces that we were bleeding for her, but that we agreed with Mary.

This time, when she broke down and wept again, we all just gathered around and held her.

In the morning, Robin was the first in the training ring. Her hair was neatly held behind her ears with combs and her face was clean and serene. Only if you knew her real well, could you tell that her eyes were puffy from crying.

She gave us a cheery "Good morning!" as we joined her in the ring. "I thought I'd work Windy this morning. Would you coach me, Rob?"

"Happy to," I responded. It still grated slightly, that she'd appropriated Windy for her own. That she was right made it even worse. I didn't have my own competition mount. (I'd been riding whatever horse we wanted to sell into the high-end market. There was always some wannabe-or even an occasional good rider-who would buy one, seeing what I did with them in the competitions.)

When she'd been working Windy for an hour, I called a break. Over coffee, I mentioned that, damnit, I needed my own horse.

Robin laughed gaily. It was the first honest laugh we'd heard from her in weeks. "I think you're just ticked off because none of Sam's colts are as good as Sam."

"Maybe. But considering the mares we bred him to, we should have done better."

Another gay peal of laughter. "Have you looked at the two-year-olds? Merlin is a promising colt if I ever saw one."

I did a double-take. I hadn't paid any attention to the horses that young, except for keeping in mind my impressions of them, for marketing purposes. Mary, then Robin, and finally Audry worked with the young horses.

Merlin, like Windy, had a bit of Appaloosa-enough to give him the distinctive coloration, though he had a jumper's form. He was growing into a fine, big horse-well-proportioned and clean-limbed.

I probably thought about it all of five seconds, while Robin looked on with amusement.

"Think I'll go throw a saddle on that colt," I said, as I jumped down from the fence where we were drinking our coffee.

Fifteen minutes later, I knew I'd found a very good horse. Merlin tried to do everything I asked of him. He needed a lot of schooling, and he was still growing and filling out. But he did the basic dressage the way Mary had taught him. Jumping, he was exuberant. If anything, he had Sam's old problem of jumping too high. But in Merlin's case, it was not to look around while he was up there, but for the pure joy of it.

Riding over to Robin-she was on one of the colts, training him in basic jumping-I growled, "You know, Robin, you really piss me off at times."

She just grinned, knowing what was coming.

"You're a witch. You magic horses into being what a rider needs. Then you come on all innocent and tell a guy to try a horse he's looked at a hundred times-and the beast is suddenly just right!"

Again, that gay laughter. "Up yours, Rob. If you paid attention to the horses, instead of that computer program of yours, you'd know when the good ones are coming along."

Still on Merlin, I rode into the barn and threw my roping saddle on him. Then I rode over to the house and hitched him to the rail. Inside, I grabbed my saddlebags and bedroll. "I'm going for a ride," I announced loudly to anybody there. "Anybody want to come along better be ready in about five minutes."

That produced a scurry of activity as my two oldest ran for their bedrolls and a change of clothes, then out to the corral to catch and saddle their own horses. Audry came from the nursery, where she'd been helping Julie clean up her room.

"Can I come too?" she asked.

"Sure. I want to give a horse a hard run. I'd love to have you, to keep an eye on the kids, until they catch up. I don't want them running their horses in the ground."

Audry understood immediately. "Give me fifteen minutes." I looked pained. "For me. I'm worth it!"

I had to agree, though I looked at my watch very ostentatiously. As she passed me, she slugged me in the arm.

"One night, or two?" she asked.

"One."

"OK." She'd bring enough food for all of us for two days.

We were pretty efficient. In minutes we were on the trail. Audry, the kids and me. All of us rode our 'show' horses, and I rode Merlin. As soon as we were away from the main ranch, I asked Audry to restrain the kids. I wanted to camp at the little meadow near the Indian archeological site. We'd meet there. Maybe we'd visit the dig tomorrow. But today, I wanted to see how far Merlin could run.

Some horses need other horses pushing them to make them run. Not this one. As soon as I loosened the reins, gave him a heel and said, "Come on, boy," he was off. And he ran like a thoroughbred. Except he didn't stop! I let him go, not urging him on, but not giving him any body language to slow him, either. He ran hard a good three miles, then slowed to a fast canter. Apparently, he could keep that up all day, because he ran another three miles to the meadow before I reined him in.

He was sweaty, but not lathered, and, though glad of a blow, could have run some more.

He'd do. Not even Sam ever gave me a run like that!

Since we'd come so far, we cantered over to the Indian site, just for a quick look around. I knew Audry would follow my tracks if I wasn't at the meadow when she got there.

When I got to the archeology compound, no one was there, though a couple of jeeps were sitting in the parking area. So I rode Merlin through the narrow, zigzag entrance to the little box canyon.

There must have been a dozen people there. Old Tom, tribal elder and good friend, saw me riding up.

"Yo, Rob! You're just in time!"

"For what? You gonna have a party?"

"We just might. We found a grave. It's old... real old... and not like anything I've ever seen."

Joining the crowd around the trench, I watched in fascination, as the grave was meticulously uncovered. Part of the fascination was with the amount of dirt removed in a short time, without hurrying the process, or neglecting to record every detail.

The pictures and descriptions have been covered in exhaustive detail in National Geographic, as well as popular news magazines, so I won't bore you with an amateur recital here.

They later proved that the site was not a 'graveyard' per se. Apparently, a young woman had given birth while camped there and she and her baby had died in the process. It seemed they had been wrapped in some sort of shroud, but that had mostly decomposed. All that really remained were the skeletons and the artifacts placed beside them.

What fascinated me most was a pair of little figurines. They were not the primitive baked mud idols so often found all over the world. They were ceramic, but more sophisticated than any native art from the northwest I'd ever seen.

After a lot of debate and at least two learned journal articles, the consensus was that they were some kind of 'totems' or icons. Personally, I think they were toys for a child-maybe traded from one tribe to another until they ended up here.

At any rate, the discovery of the gravesite, from a race no one knew anything about, gave new impetus to academic and government attempts to take over the site-with every excuse from 'protecting' it to making sure it was studied 'properly'. Most attempts were thinly camouflaged attempts to steal it from us and from the tribes.

Our answer to that was political. George, it turned out, was a friend of our state's junior Senator, through mutual friends in Washington. We invited the Senator and his wife to the ranch-George and Hazel entertained them, having the most lavish facilities-and took them to the site to see for themselves. We pointed out that we were a working ranch and did quite well, through our hard work and canny ability to market our products at good prices.

We made the point that making the little canyon a tourist site, or opening it up to government supervision, would ruin a large part of the ranch for the uses we had for it; in turn, reducing our income and diminishing what the family had built over the years.

Finally, we made the point that it was our land. Our family had owned it in clear title for a hundred years. Anything we found on it was ours. Further, we had contracted with the Indians to supervise the site, both for scientific and cultural purposes. Nothing was done without respect for the 'old ones'. The spirits of the place were placated. And Native Americans all over the country looked to the site as an example of how this kind of thing should be done.

The Senator agreed-with energetic urging from his wife. He became a steadfast ally in Washington. When his office sent a strongly worded letter to some agency that was giving us grief, they tended to back off.

Audry and the kids found me there, and gazed at the skeletons the team was uncovering. The kids thought it was 'cool' and weren't frightened by the ancient remains.

We were invited to have lunch with the crew, which we did gladly. Dr. Ralph Allenby and his wife, Nancy, were especially cordial, while some of the young people, doing the 'grunt work' of the dig, contested to see which could spoil the kids most.

Tom sat at our table. Ralph, it turns out, hated his name. "Please, call me 'Al' or 'Doc'. I really hate 'Ralph'. It sounds like someone throwing up."

"You got it, Doc. So. What is this thing you found? Tom tells me it's not like anything he's seen or heard of. But have you?"

"Not exactly. I think this grave is quite old.-We'll arrange carbon dating soon.-I see some similarities with the old people of the southwest, the Anasazi-but they never got this far north, as far as we know. And this isn't the same, just some similarities. Also, I think this was a 'sudden' burial. I think that this place was a campsite-maybe for hundreds of years-but not a homesite, if you get the difference."

"You're saying that you think these people would have buried this body differently-maybe more elaborately-it they'd been at home instead of on the trail?"

"Exactly. I wouldn't write it up that way, with what we know. We don't even have the bones out of the ground yet. This is just what my instinct is telling me."

Tom nodded. "I agree. There are no spirits lingering here. Those people are long departed. We will respect the bones, but disturbing them won't disturb any spirits."

"Al?" Audry asked. "Does your idea that this was just a convenient camping spot make the site less valuable-than if it were a home?"

"Not at all. We have a lot to learn here. This is the only site of these people I know of. The more we find, the better picture we can form of who they were and where they were going... No, this site is very valuable."

Nancy entered the conversation. "We're so thrilled, personally, that the tribes chose us to supervise this dig. Doing it this way, we can take our time and do it right. With Al and me in charge, on a long-term contract, we have continuity and a consistent approach. If we were here on a university-sponsored expedition, we'd have been 'bumped' by some tenured professor long ago. And we'd have to publish monographs about every little thing-even if much of it would be, of necessity, pure speculation."

"Yeah!" Al rushed in, eagerly. "The way you guys set it up, you and the tribes are in complete control. We are the professional directors, but under contract to the tribes. Specifically, the council of elders. So as long as Tom's happy, we're OK. Rob, this is every archeologist's dream!"