Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [48]
Kip was hotly aware of his sins, his false claims and bad credits. Maybe if he built something tangible with his hands, with what was left of his physical self, it would help offset a little of what he’d ruined. He had divulged some of these thoughts to Sarah that morning up at Los Alamos, and she had attempted to reassure him that we all share such imperfections. Well and good, he’d thought then. But now he told himself, Don’t fuck up, Kip. Make something right. Even if it’s only a bustdown clay hovel, it’s better than the bustdown clay mongrel who stands before it. This place at least once served a worthy purpose. Who knows? Restoring it might teach you a thing or two about yourself.
So he thought as he traipsed through the tall cheatgrass and rye, peering through the fieldhouse windows into its dark interior and imagining how once this place had been a habitat where people slept, woke, loved, argued, thought, lived. They’d probably planted these sweet grasses that brushed against his hands, and which flourished like all thirsty desert plants do near running water. He remembered it was called cheatgrass because Europeans had introduced it in Nambé for stock feed. Well, at least Kip was native rather than cheat, even though the cheatgrass thrived better than he ever would.
Sarah said she would speak with Carl about the proposition.
“He have any experience building?” Carl wondered.
“You know sure as day he’s too proud to say he’ll do something he can’t,” kneeling beside her husband in one of the stalls, where he was wrapping a filly’s leg with supportive bandages. “He seems to know something about everything, and I doubt he’d make the offer if he wasn’t equal to the task.”
“People do things all the time they’re not qualified to do. Kip isn’t that kind, though, I’ll admit.”
“Listen, the fieldhouse is such a wreck nobody could do but make it better. I’m more worried about whether he’s up to it physically than whether the place could tolerate an attempted restoration.”
“Hand me that standing wrap.” Carl Montoya did not look at his wife but concentrated instead on the tender fetlock of this four-year-old, whom he considered way too wild for all the training they’d put her through. “I got to tell this gal’s owners we can’t board their crazy horse anymore.” Carl chewed his words like a cheroot, with amiable disgust, as he rose to look the bay in her wet velvety black eye. “You’re an ugly hag of a nag,” he told the ribboned show horse with a smile. “Too smart for your own good. Handgalloped me right into the rail today.”
“Look, it might give Kip a sense of purpose. My worry is he’s started thinking he’s underfoot.”
“Who says he isn’t?”
“That’s nice. Look, I took responsibility for him, and I want to do the best I can by the poor guy.”
Carl placed his palm gently on the filly’s roan teacup muzzle, then ran his hand up her smooth jaw to her throatlatch. “She took responsibility, and when are you gonna learn not to run me into the fence, jerk?” he said, his voice purring, as the horse nodded and sputtered appeasement.
“Come on, Carl.”
Her husband turned his squint on her. “I don’t know why you bother to ask, being as you intend to let him go ahead no matter what I say.”
“It’s your decision.”
“I like old Kip, too, and if rebuilding that fieldhouse is what he wants to do, let him go ahead so long as he can keep up with his load down here. Anyways, he’s like you. He’ll go ahead even if I don’t want him to. I lost control of this place a long time ago.”
“You’re an ugly nag yourself, you know.”
He chuffed at the compliment, said he had work to do, and went on about his business.
Sarah found Kip already down at the fieldhouse that morning, himself chuffing and soughing like confused wind as he shoveled the thin