Saddle Up(50)

“What else can you do with him?” she asked. “I’m wondering why you picked him up in the first place. I thought you didn’t want anything more to do with horses.”

“It was a moment of weakness,” he said.

“More like madness.”

“Maybe.” Keith sighed. “If Kenu doesn’t want him, I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, I’ve got to unload him from this trailer.”

“C’mon,” Tanya said. “There’s an empty corral you can just back up to.”

*

Keith waited on a stump outside the sweat lodge for almost two hours before his grandfather emerged, wearing only his breechcloth. Steam rose from his body into the frosty air like a mist over a winter lake, but he seemed completely unaware of the cold.

Keith offered him a blanket and a pouch of loose tobacco. His grandfather accepted both with a nod, betraying no emotion. Although clouded by cataracts, his gaze seemed just as sharp and penetrating as when they’d first met.

“I knew you would come,” he said after a time. “I saw it in a vision.”

“I brought you another gift,” Keith said. “A spirit horse from the Paiute lands.”

“A spirit horse?” Keith instantly perceived that he’d breached a wall. Horses were the common love that had brought them together so many years ago. The old man nodded his gray head. “I will see this gift.”

“A beautiful animal,” Kenu remarked as they approached the corral where the horse paced, “but his spirit is much agitated.” The animal greeted them with flattened ears and a broad backside. Kenu eyed the horse again with a slow shake of his head. “I cannot accept your gift, Two Wolves.”

“Why not?” Keith asked, his chest tightening. He’d hoped to put an end to his rootless existence, only to be turned away again, his gift rejected.

“Because this gift is as incomplete as the giver.”

Keith wanted to gnash his teeth in anger and frustration. As he’d feared, his peace offering had been appraised and found lacking. Just as he had been.

“Why did you take me in when I first came here?” he demanded, prepared at last to hear the brutal truth. “Was it only because you lost your son?”

His grandfather met his gaze, but this time there was a difference. Pain flickered in Kenu’s black eyes. “I never could have survived losing my son had you not come, Two Wolves. You were a gift I did not seek, but I knew you were never meant to remain.”

“But I want to stay,” Keith insisted. “Why won’t you let me?”

“Because your place is not here, Two Wolves.”

Keith gave a deprecating laugh. “It’s not out there either.” He’d thought coming home to Wyoming would be the easiest path. He didn’t want to forge a new one on his own. Not again.

“Then you have not looked hard enough,” Kenu replied. “The easiest path is not always the answer.”

“I do belong here,” Keith insisted. “I know I screwed up. Why won’t you let me make amends? Give me a chance to prove myself.”

The old man shook his head sadly. “It is not for you to prove anything to me, Two Wolves. It is for you to find your purpose. A man with no purpose is a man with no soul.”

Did Kenu really believe he lacked a soul?

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my life. In all this time the answer has never been revealed to me, so how am I ever to know it?”

Kenu once more regarded the horse. “Did you ever consider that this animal might be the answer? Perhaps it is he that is meant to show you.”

In that moment Keith understood. The truth was indeed brutal, piercing like an arrow to the heart, but not in the way he’d expected. He wasn’t being sent away for lack of love, but because of it.

*

Keith was loaded up and headed for Rock Springs to return Mitch’s trailer when his phone rang. “Keith, it’s Mitch. I know you just got back a couple of days ago, but I’m in a bit of a tight spot.”

“How’s that?”

“I just got a call asking if I can haul a load of horses from Gunnison.”

“The prison?” Keith asked.

“Yup,” Mitch said. “They’re shutting down their mustang program due to an alleged mishandling of funds. It’s a huge blow to the entire inmate training program.”

“Don’t they house several hundred horses at that facility?” Keith asked.

“Over eleven hundred, and the BLM’s scrambling to find places for the horses. They’ve got less than thirty days to remove all of them. We all knew it wouldn’t be a pretty sight when the shit finally hit the fan. But we also knew it was inevitable. Rock Springs is almost at capacity, but they’re still going to take fifty horses. I’ve got three trailers available to haul them, but I need another driver. Would you be willing to make the trip?”

“When?” Keith asked.

“We need to get them as soon as possible,” Mitch replied. “I predict that we’ll be spending the next couple of months doing nothing but hauling horses ’cross country.”

Mitch voiced Keith’s fears, but his first loyalty had to be to Mitch, at least until the current crisis was over. “Yes. I can go. I’ll head out first thing in the morning.”