WATER FOR ELEPHANT - Sara Gruen [44]
WHEN I GET BACK to the stock car, the interior door is open. I poke my head in with more than a little trepidation, but Kinko is gone. I go inside and change into my regular clothes. A few minutes later, August shows up with a rifle.
“Here,” he says, climbing the ramp. He hands me the gun and drops two shells into my other palm.
I slip one into my pocket and hold the other one out. “I only need one.”
“What if you miss?”
“For crying out loud, August, I’m going to be standing right next to him.”
He stares at me, and then takes the extra shell. “Okay, fine. Take him a good ways from the train to do it.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. He can’t walk.”
“You can’t do it here,” he says. “The other horses are right outside.”
I just look at him.
“Shit,” he says finally. He turns and leans against the wall, his fingers beating a tattoo against the slats. “Okay. Fine.”
He walks to the door. “Otis! Joe! Get the other horses out of here. Take them at least as far up as the second section.”
Someone outside mumbles.
“Yeah, I know,” says August. “But they’re just going to have to wait. Yeah, I know that. I’ll talk to Al and tell him we have a little . . . complication.”
He turns back to me. “I’m going to find Al.”
“You better find Marlena, too.”
“I thought you said she knew?”
“She does. But I don’t want her to be alone when she hears that shot. Do you?”
August stares at me long and hard. Then he clomps down the ramp, planting his feet with such force the boards bounce beneath him.
I WAIT A FULL fifteen minutes, both to give August time to find Uncle Al and Marlena and also to let the other men move the rest of the animals far enough away.
Finally I pick up the rifle, slide the shell into the chamber, and throw the bolt. Silver Star’s muzzle is pressed up against the end of his stall, his ears twitching. I lean over and run my fingers down his neck. Then I place the muzzle of the gun under his left ear and pull the trigger.
There’s an explosion of sound and the butt of the rifle bucks into my shoulder. Silver Star’s body seizes, his muscles responding to one last synaptical spasm before finally falling still. From far away, I hear a single desperate whinny.
My ears are ringing as I climb down from the stock car, but even so it seems to me that the scene is eerily silent. A small crowd of people has gathered. They stand motionless, their faces long. One man pulls his hat from his head and presses it to his chest.
I walk a few dozen yards from the train, climb the grassy bank, and sit rubbing my shoulder.
Otis, Pete, and Earl enter the stock car and then reappear, hauling Silver Star’s lifeless body down the ramp by a rope tied to his hind feet. Upside down his belly looks huge and vulnerable, a smooth expanse of snowy white dotted by black-skinned genitals. His lifeless head nods in agreement with each yank of the rope.
I sit for close to an hour, staring at the grass between my feet. I pluck a few blades and roll them in my fingers, wondering why the hell it’s taking them so long to pull out.
After a while August approaches. He stares at me, and then leans over to pick up the rifle. I hadn’t been aware of bringing it with me.
“Come on, pal,” he says. “Don’t want to get left behind.”
“I think I do.”
“Don’t worry about what I said earlier—I talked to Al, and no one’s getting redlighted. You’re fine.”
I stare sullenly at the ground. After a while, August sits beside me.
“Or are you?” he says.
“How’s Marlena?” I respond.
August watches me for a moment and then digs a package of Camels from his shirt pocket. He shakes one loose and offers it to me.
“No thanks,” I say.
“Is that the first time you’ve shot a horse?” he says, plucking the cigarette from the package with his teeth.
“No. But it doesn’t mean I like it.”
“Part of being a vet, my boy.”
“Which, technically, I’m not.”
“So you missed the exams. Big deal.”
“It is a big deal.”
“No it isn’t. It’s just a piece of paper, and nobody here gives a damn about that. You’re on a show now. The rules are different.”
“How so?”
He waves toward