Flamethrower - Maggie Estep [16]
At Grant Avenue, Ruby emerged from the subway, crossed North Conduit, and walked over to Linden Boulevard. The day was even brighter here where the buildings were low and the trees never grew enough to afford much shade. Ruby passed the incongruous flower shop that occupied space near a muffler shop and a gas station. The flower shop owner, a fiftyish white woman with a very tan hide, nodded at Ruby. For no reason other than Ruby was another white person. Tribal allegiances, Ruby reflected, were a weird thing.
Ruby walked, dizzy from the loud traffic, looking forward to the solace of The Hole, where all the city’s noise came to die.
Coleman was standing in front of the barn with his bay gelding Captain, surrounded by half a dozen kids. Ruby had completely forgotten it was a kid day. The men and women who kept horses at The Hole volunteered teaching horsemanship to neighborhood kids. Lately, Coleman had started asking Ruby to help him out, and the whole thing made her nervous. Unlike some of her girlfriends, Ruby didn’t have any pressing need to have kids. She figured one day a stray kid would find his or her way into her life and that would be fine. But she wasn’t the type who went out of her way to spend time with kids. These kids were all right though. Degenerate little savages whose lives had already been filled with so much hell that nothing scared them. They were mischievous, mouthy and fearless. Ruby liked that.
“Hi,” Ruby greeted Coleman.
“Finally,” Coleman said. “You were supposed to be here at noon.”
“I was?” Ruby squinted.
Coleman squinted back. “What, you forgot? What the hell is wrong with you?”
The kids started giggling. There were six of them. Five boys and one girl. Ruby recognized one of them, Joey, a gangly dark-skinned kid who lived ten blocks away.
“I got a lot on my mind, Coleman,” Ruby said.
The cowboy shrugged and handed her Captain’s reins.
“Get this girl up on the horse and lead her around some.” Coleman indicated a girl of about ten. She had close-set black eyes and cheekbones that could have sliced a salami. She was giving Ruby the evil eye.
“I’m Ruby,” Ruby said.
“Alicia,” the girl said.
“You been on a horse before?”
“Yeah,” Alicia said, sticking her bottom lip out.
“So, you wanna get on or what?” Ruby asked.
“Yeah,” Alicia said, jutting her bottom lip out further.
The little girl walked to the left side of the horse then stared up at the stirrup forlornly.
Ruby hoisted her into the saddle. Captain shook his head once, a homage to some distant past when he actually had the energy to make a fuss over a rider getting on his back.
As Ruby led the gelding forward, she could feel Alicia’s eyes boring holes in the back of her head. They walked in silence, just the soft sound of Captain’s hooves against dirt. Ruby didn’t really know what to say to the girl. She hated the way most people talked down to kids, as if they were morons. Alicia had probably seen more inexplicably painful stuff in her ten years than Ruby had in thirty-four.
“You got that big black horse?” the girl suddenly asked Ruby’s back.
“What?” Ruby turned to look at Alicia.
“That big black horse in the barn. That’s yours?”
“Yup,” Ruby said. “That’s Jack Valentine.”
“How come you got a horse?”
“Someone gave him to me. He used to be a racehorse, but he hurt himself and can’t race anymore.”
“How come he hurt himself?”
“Running fast,” Ruby said.
“Oh. You don’t want him to run fast when you ride him?”
“Not that fast,” Ruby smiled.
“I wanna ride your horse,” Alicia said then. “This one’s too slow.”
“Captain’s just taking care of you. He knows what’s what.”
“He can go fast?” Alicia was frowning at Ruby.
“Sure can,” Ruby said, “but you’re not ready for that yet.