The Choice

Colt lay on his back, their blanket spread on the prairie floor beneath a brutal blue sky. He closed his eyes and laced his fingers behind his head while his black Stetson hat rested on his chest. He listened to Isabella's lips move over each word. She filled his language with music all her own.

“Someone always wins,” he said. “And someone always loses. Call it a draw, sure, but anyone who's seen a fight knows there's always a winner.”

“You don't get it,” she said.

Colt rolled to his side and his hat tumbled onto the blanket. He gazed at Isabella. She sat with her knees to her chest and her arms locked around her legs, facing away from him. Dark strands of her hair skipped along the thin line of smooth brown skin that shown where the hem of her shirt and the waist of her jeans slid apart as she leaned into her legs.

She looked over her shoulder at Colt and his heart trembled. The dust of the prairie never clung to her face like it did to his. He wanted to reach out and feel the smooth skin of her cheeks, but he could see her father flying into a rage at the sight of Colt's dirty finger-print on her face.

“I want to understand,” Colt said. “Just keep talking and I'll get it.”

“It's just something you have to see, Osito.”

Her lips stretched and Colt saw a flash of white teeth just before she turned away and let her hair fall across her face.

“Preciosa,” he said.

She laughed quietly. He couldn't get the word to flow like she had taught him.

“C'mon,” he said, “tell me about the bulls.”

“We should be heading back. Mi padre, he will be home soon.”

Colt felt the weight of reality crash on them. Their time together always seemed so short, and imagining the next few days apart always sucked the wind out of Colt's chest. He could see the change in Isabella too. She pulled her knees even closer to her chest and looked out across the horizon as her smile faded. Her shoulders rose and fell with a silent sigh.

Colt stood up and donned his hat. He was tall now. Finally taller than his father, and her father too. The curled brim of his hat cast a shadow over the smooth features of his face. His shoulders were broad and the sleeves of his plaid shirt were rolled tightly around expanding arms. He reached down and Isabella slid her hand into his and rose from the prairie floor.

Colt clicked his tongue.

“Clavo, git! Let's go, boy,” he said.

The horse had drifted away from their blanket. He stood over a dry patch of dead grass, pulling at the crisp brown strands.

“Clavo! C'mon now!”

“Stop. You know he only listens to me,” Isabella said as she wrapped her fingers around Colt's forearm. “Clavo, here boy.”

The horse stopped eating and walked lazily toward them. Colt shook his head and grabbed the blanket from the prairie floor. He rolled the blanket and hung it from the saddle on Clavo's back. Isabella slipped her boot into the stirrup and Colt placed his hands on her back and helped her onto the horse. Tiny yellow clouds rose around Clavo's hooves. He lifted his head toward the western horizon where the sinking sun lit a distant thunderhead ablaze in gold and crimson.

Colt spat into the dust and placed his hand on Clavo's long muzzle.

“I take it you're just itchin' to get going, huh?”

Isabella watched from atop the horse. Clavo lifted his face again and blew a rush of air from his nose.

“Yeah, I seen it,” Colt said.

The large muscles in Clavo's neck trembled.

Isabella leaned forward in the saddle and ran her hand down Clavo's mane.

“Sé fuerte mi amigo,” she whispered to the horse.

“I don't know how I got stuck with the likes of you, Clavo. Damn coward.”

“Stop that,” Isabella said. “Let's get him home. Okay?”

Colt took the lead line and turned his horse to the northeast and began walking toward the Garcia Ranch.

Thunder rolled across the prairie behind them. The air pressed down on them as they plodded along in silence toward home.

“Tell me about Pamplona,” Colt said without turning.

And she did. She told him the stories that her father had told her. Dangerous stories of fearless men running down slick stone streets, bulls rumbling at their backs.

It was nearly dark when Isabella kissed Colt on the cheek and sprinted away toward her father's house, leaving a trail of dust behind her and never looking back. Colt climbed into the saddle and watched as she disappeared into the darkness of the house. He could hear the low rumble of Rodrigo's truck in the distance and he could see the glow of the headlamps behind the small hill to the north. Colt kicked Clavo into a sprint and they hurried across the prairie toward the dilapidated barn and tiny house in the distance. They cut an indirect path, sweeping to the north to put a patch of trees between them and the road. Colt looked back and saw the truck already working its way down the nearside of the hill.

“You think he saw us?”

Clavo had no answer.

When the storm clouds finally slid overhead, they unleashed a torrent of fat and cold rain drops. The ground had hardened and cracked from months without rain and the falling water pooled on the surface and splashed beneath Clavo's hooves. Colt stepped down as they came to the barn and took the lead line to bring Clavo into the barn. When the rain came it always came hard and fast and then left in a hurry. Inside the barn, weathered boards squealed against loose nails. Lightning snapped nearby and the flash threw shadows across the barn. Clavo reared onto his hind legs, squealing as the thunder roared overhead. One stiff tug on the reins and Colt pulled the horse back to earth.

“C'mon now, you're alright,” Colt said. “Easy. Easy now.”

Colt ran his hand up and down the length of Clavo's neck as they walked toward the only stall with a rusty name-tag on the door. The roof was riddled with leaks and the barn provided little shelter from the storm's wrath. Clavo stopped trembling as they stepped into his empty stall and Colt began removing the saddle and reins. Colt held the lasso rope for a moment, tracing the stiff and faded threads with his fingers. He hung all the gear in the tack-room and took the saturated roll of blanket and returned to Clavo. As Colt unrolled the blanket and hung it over the stall door, Clavo stepped forward and knocked Colt's hat eschew with his nose.

Colt smiled, tipped his hat back and put his face against the horse's. He cupped his hands atop the horse's broad nose and put his mouth to the small opening between his thumbs. He blew gently and looked straight into Clavo's eyes. The horse's hooves settled into the sawdust that lined the floor of the stall. Dirty little pools of rain and sweat formed beneath the glistening horse. Clavo's eyes focused and Colt stared at his dual reflections.

Clavo was mahogany all over, except for the white line that ran up the length of his nose and ended where it was crossed by another white line between his eyes. The nail-shaped patch was the only bit of white on the horse's body. Isabella had seen it when Clavo was just a baby. She had traced the white lines with her fingers and said, "Clavo," and Colt knew that the horse had been named.

“What do you think? We gonna see Isabella tomorrow?”

Clavo stared at Colt over the stall door. Colt pet the horse one last time and then turned and walked from the barn in silence.

The rain had already thinned into the piercing drops that signalled the storm would pass soon. Colt trudged back through the mud for the house and stripped his boots on the porch. Three dry and dusty pairs of boots sat by the door where he set his. From the porch he could see the edge of the storm was not far off. He stepped into the house in his socks. Soft, hollow sounds rose from the wooden floor as he sought the kitchen at the end of the main hall. The smell of ham and okra lofted above him.

“Well if it ain't Colt. Just in time, no less.”

“Evening, Pa. Sorry. You know how Clavo gets when it gets to storming like this.”

“Yeah, and you know how Clavo gets too, so you damn well know better than to keep him out there.”

“Yessir.”

Colt sat in his place as his mother set the meal on the table. His younger sister sat across from him and stared, fork and knife in hand.

“What you starin' at Maggie?”

“Nothin',” she said as she began to saw away at the ham.

The meat was overcooked and dry. Maggie's tiny and pale hands struggled to wield the knife. Colt focused on his own meal. He took great hulking bites from the ham. Everything tasted like dirt. The dust found it's way into everything.

“How'd it go today?” his father asked.

Colt stuffed a load of okra into his mouth to delay having to answer. His father folded the corner of his newspaper down and glared across the table.

“Be nice to have some live cattle to train on now and then,” Colt said.

“How many times I gotta tell you to give up that dumb fuckin' dream? Huh? Your happiness ain't anything I'm worried about.”

The corner of the paper rose again to conceal his father. Colt shoved the last slice of ham into his mouth, forked the last of his okra in after it and sent it all down with great gulps of his milk. He sat staring at the back of the broadsheet.

Headlines on the paper exclaimed economic woes. Thousands of miles away men were screaming over falling numbers, but it was the drought and the enormous black dust storms that had everyone on edge in Texas. Colt's father sat and read the paper every night, muttering about the world just going to shit.

“I saw Rodrigo in town today,” his father said.

Colt's chest tightened. The fork quivered in his hand. He waited.

“You shouldn't be sneaking off with his daughter when he ain't around. You hear me? What good is gonna come of that?”

His father turned to the next page.