Outlawed(18)

“I can set a bone,” I said to the Kid. “I can bind a wound. If you get a chill, I know the herbs to warm you, and if you get a fever, I know the herbs to cool you down. I can stitch a cut, I can drain a boil, I can dress a burn so the skin heals clean. I can grind a medicine to put a man to sleep, and if I grind enough, I can make him sleep forever.”

The strangers were quiet. The Kid looked at me for a minute, like measuring, then smiled.

“Texas, find the good doctor a horse she can handle.”

And that’s how I joined the Hole in the Wall Gang, in 1894 when I was eighteen years old.

At first it seemed like I might make a decent outlaw. Texas made me clean the stables and wash and brush all the horses before she would teach me to ride, and even then she was surly and expected me to be terrible, but we were both surprised at how good I was with the horses. They weren’t so different from children, I realized, and I’d spent years convincing children to trust me enough that I could take their temperature or remove their splinters or lead them away from the room where their mother lay laboring.

Soon I learned the horses’ names and their idiosyncrasies, the way they liked to be brushed and talked to and fed. Prudence, a black mare with a white blaze across her forehead and snout, was strong-willed and stubborn. Temperance, a bay, was sweet but flighty, afraid of loud noises and sudden moves. Charity, a sorrel, was sociable but could be jealous, grumbling in her stall when we tended to the others instead of her. Faith, the horse Texas rode most often, was small and brown-haired like her, but boisterous where Texas was quiet. Every morning Faith greeted Texas with a great whinnying and shaking of her mane, at which Texas only nodded and patted her flank. But when the two went out on a ride, Texas’s whole face seemed to open up, her joints to loosen, and I saw in her the same joy I’d seen when she danced with Lo at the firepit, a joy at all other times obscured by her furrowed forehead and her clipped and parsimonious speech.

One horse in particular took to me, a dappled gray mare named Amity. She was alert, always the first horse to notice when someone new came into the barn, or when a field mouse skittered across the floor. She reminded me of Bee, the way she seemed to be always watching and listening.

Within three weeks I could guide Amity through a passable walk, trot, and gallop, and Texas, though still not exactly warm toward me, was forced to admit I was a better student than Agnes Rose.

One morning she woke me when it was still dark out, and handed me a chunk of the pressed, cured meat they called pemmican.

“Come on,” she said, “time for a trail ride.”

Texas hadn’t mentioned anything about a trail ride before, and I was nervous as I saddled Amity. I could tell she noticed—she shifted back and forth on her graceful hooves, and shied her head away when I tried to adjust her bridle. I whispered to her and stroked her neck, and eventually she let me pull the straps tight.

Out in the summer air—still morning-cool, but with the promise of heat in it—Amity seemed to calm. We rode north, down into the valley and away from the towns the bookseller had carried me through. The road narrowed to no more than a horse path, dotted everywhere with stones and punctured by prairie dog burrows. Tall grass grew on either side, obscuring the way forward, and the path kept twisting and forking and crossing over dry streambeds that looked like paths, so it was all I could do to keep Amity on track. I held her reins tightly, trying to prevent her from tripping on a rock or turning her ankle in a burrow. But she rewarded my caution with annoyance, stopping and starting and finally, at a place where the road forked and Texas guided Faith down the left-hand path, refusing to move at all.

I leaned forward and squeezed with my legs the way Texas had taught me, but Amity wouldn’t budge.

“Come on,” I said, then felt ridiculous.

I squeezed again. Texas and Faith were receding in the morning twilight. Behind me, I could no longer see the bunkhouse or the stables, just grass and scrub and red rocks rising in the violet sky. I started to panic. I did what Texas had told me never to do, which was to kick Amity in the sides with my heels. I didn’t do it hard, but she whinnied in rage and I could feel her whole body stiffen beneath me, resisting my very presence on her back. Texas turned Faith around and began making her way back to us.

“Look at your hands,” she said when she was back in earshot. “Why are you choked up on the reins so much?”

“The path doesn’t look so good,” I said. “I just don’t want her to hurt herself.”

Texas came alongside me, rolling her eyes.

“How long have you been in this valley?” she asked.

“About a month,” I said, “a little less. Why?”

Amity shifted angrily from hoof to hoof. Faith switched her tail but stood obediently in place.

“I brought Amity here when she was a foal. That was four years ago. She grew up on this land. You learn it from her, not the other way around.”

I loosened my grip on the reins. Texas nodded.

“Okay, Am,” she said. The horse relaxed beneath me.

Texas clucked her tongue and Faith began to walk. With no prompting from me, Amity followed.

“Horses hate a know-it-all,” Texas said over her shoulder.

After that I held the reins as loosely as I could, just enough to let Amity know I was paying attention, and let the horse do the rest. Texas was right; Amity easily avoided the holes and hillocks that dotted the path. What was more, she clearly knew the way, ignoring the false paths cut by rainwater and choosing without hesitation when the way forked, even when Faith was too far in the distance to easily follow.