Bone Gap (6 page)

“That one has to go,” said Finn.

“I don't know,” said Miguel. “Maybe this is where the Lonogans store their larvae.”

With the pliers, they plucked the staples holding the wire to the post. They dug around the base of the post to loosen it, then kicked the post over. Hundreds of ants spilled from the lacy wood. Immediately, the dog tried to herd the insects with his
nose. When that didn't work, he ate them.

“That'll teach you,” said Finn.

“I hope you're not talking to the bugs,” Miguel said.

The new posts were thicker and longer than the old ones, so Finn and Miguel took turns with the posthole digger to widen and deepen the hole. When it was deep enough, they inserted the post into the hole, checking with a level to make sure it was straight. Then Miguel held the post while Finn poured a little water into the hole. After that, a layer of concrete mix, then more water, more mix, until the hole was full.

Miguel said, “One down, eleventy million to go.”

They moved on to the next post, Mustard on their heels, muzzle littered with ant parts.

“What the hell happened to this one?” Miguel said. The post was splintered and gouged, gnawed in places.

Finn fingered the gouges. “Horses will sometimes chew the wood.”

“Horses don't have fangs. And the Rudes don't have horses.”

“Well, it wasn't the corn.”

“How do you know?” said Miguel. He squinted at the field across the street. “Anything could be in there.”

For a second, Finn almost saw her, Roza, crouched in the plants, laughing at him. Then he shook the sun out of his eyes and started removing the staples that held the wires in place on the chewed-up post.

“Did you see her?”

Finn fumbled with the pliers. “What?”

“Amber Hass. She just rode by on her bike.”

Finn let out a breath. “No, I didn't.”

“I might have told her you'd be here today.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe you should take your shirt off.”

“What? Why?”

“Then she'll come over here.”

“Cut it out.”

“Don't you want to talk to her?”

“Not really.”

“She's unbelievable, man.”

She can't do that thing with the bees.
“She's okay.”

“Okay? You're not a normal human.”

“That's what everyone keeps telling me.”

“There she is again, riding the other way.”

“Maybe she's here for you,” said Finn. “Maybe you should take your shirt off. Isn't that why you work out so much?”

“She's not here for me.”

“How do you know?”

“Her dad once asked my dad if he knew any gangsters in Mexico.”

“Isn't your dad from Venezuela?”

“Do I really have to explain this to you?”

“The hell with her dad,” said Finn. “Maybe Amber likes Mexicans.”

“Which might help if I were Mexican. To her dad, I'm just another brown kid.”

“What's wrong with that?” Finn said, though he knew what Miguel was talking about. Roza was the sort of color that older ladies first called “dark” and then later called “olive,” as if being green was somehow nicer. “Maybe Amber would like you even if you were—”

“Do not tell me you were going to say green. Or purple.”

“I definitely wasn't going to say purple.”

Miguel pointed at Finn's face. “Well, you're red already. That shit's going to hurt tomorrow. And it serves you right for all this ‘We Are the World' crap.”

“You're changing the subject.”

“My arms are too long.”

“That's good. Amber will always be able to spot you in a crowd.”

Miguel ripped a staple from the wood. “I see why you get beat up all the time.”

“Twice isn't all the time,” said Finn.

“What's Sean say about it?”

“About what?”

“About subsidies for corn farmers,” Miguel said. “About your face being smashed in, dumbass.”

Finn stabbed the ground with his shovel, stamped down on the edge to bury it deeper. “What should he say about it?”

“Nothing, I guess,” Miguel said.

They dug for a while, the only sound the scrape of the shovels against the rock and the dirt. Then Miguel started to laugh.

“What?” Finn said.

“Your brother. Remember that Halloween when we were around seven or eight and those big-city kids came down to the corn maze dressed like skeletons?”

“They were chasing us,” Finn said. “They wanted our candy.”

“And your brother jumped on Amber's pink bicycle?”

Finn smiled. “The one with the white basket. And the flowers.”

“He caught up with them, took a flying leap off the bicycle, and cracked their heads together? Knocked them out cold.
That's
gangster.”

“He got in trouble for that.”

“Not too much,” said Miguel. “Jonas Apple hates city people.”

Finn leaned on the handle of his shovel and pointed past the fence. “Maybe you should go ask Amber what happened to that pink bicycle.”

“Yeah? Maybe you should ask your brother to teach you how to fight.”

If he were talking to me, maybe I would.

Suddenly, Mustard went rigid, rearing and barking at the cornfields.

“See? He's barking at the corn,” said Miguel. “You can't say I didn't tell you.”

“What is it, boy?” Finn said. They stood there, scanning the
fields, the dog barking, the corn waving.

Just like that, Mustard stopped barking. He leaned his weight against Finn to move him closer to Miguel, as if that would keep the flock safe.

Late that night, Finn sat at the kitchen table, test prep books spread in front of him, steam curling from his fourth cup of tea. Calamity Jane, also spread out on the kitchen table in a nest of papers, watched as Finn poured nearly half a jar of Hippie Queen Honey into the cup.

“I know,” Finn said. “I should just skip the tea and drink the honey instead.”

But he drank the tea anyway, frying the taste buds off his tongue, because he didn't drink coffee and because he wanted to stay awake. The clock read two in the morning, and his body begged for sleep, but Finn was having none of that. Even if he got in bed, there would only be twisted sheets and damp pillows as he thrashed and sweated out all the hours of the dark. Maybe other guys would watch TV all night, but TV was just a bunch of noise, and when Sean came home, if he ever came home, he would tell Finn to turn it off.

So he rubbed his eyes and leafed through the prep books that he would have to study for the next four months. It did not help that he was bad with tests. It did not help that he kept mixing up the test and the scholarship and the application deadlines—June? September? October? November? It did not help that even the
tests had essay questions. It did not help that all the questions were stupid.
Do you think that cities have the right to limit the number of pets per household? Do you think that high school should be extended another year? Do you believe that previous failures always lead to later successes?

He tapped the pencil on the paper, searching his brain for answers. Through the open window came the sound of a horse snorting.

“I could do without the commentary,” said Finn.

Calamity yawned.

“From you, too.”

The cat blinked, once, twice, three times.

“I don't speak blink.”

Instead of limiting the number of animals, cities could make ordinances to keep people from hoarding chickens in living rooms. High school can be extended five or even ten more years, but only for people named Rude. Previous failures will mean that your brother will work extra shifts and come home at dawn so that he doesn't have to see you anymore. They mean that your brother will hate you and the town will hate you and you will hate you and you will never sleep.

Somewhere, the horse snorted again.

“Shut up, already.”

The man was tall. And he was so still. I've never seen anyone that still. But when he finally moved, he moved like a cornstalk twitching in the wind.

A sharp whinny. Calamity swiveled her head toward the window.

“It's just a horse,” Finn said.

Another whinny.

“A loud one. Possibly with fangs.”

A thud. Like hooves against a barn door.

“Is that
our
barn door?” Which it couldn't be, because the only things that lived in the barn were the mice and the birds. Except . . .

Finn pushed back his chair and went to the window. He squinted, trying to make out the barn in the dark. He was about to sit down again when he heard the second thud and saw the barn doors shake. He left Calamity to guard the books and the honey and raced outside, skidding to a stop right in front of the slanted structure. The horse—he hoped it was a horse and not, say, a bull—was kicking hard enough to take the doors down.

“Hey, horse,” he said.

The kicking ceased.

“If I open the barn, do you promise not to charge me?”

There was a hushed whinny, as if the horse understood what he was saying. Except he couldn't speak horse either, and for all he knew the horse had just promised to eat him. His hands fell on the latch. Should he open it now or wait until morning?

The horse gave the doors a hard kick, the force nearly knocking Finn over.

“Fine,” he said. He stood as far to the side as he could while still keeping his hand on the latch, flipped it open. He leaped around the side of the barn, expecting that the horse would
explode from the building, galloping off to wherever loud, furious horses went. But no, though the latch was open, the doors stayed closed. Finn took a deep breath, grabbed a handle, and walked one door back. He waited for the horse to show itself. No horse. Maybe Finn had had too much tea. Maybe he'd had too much honey.

A soft nicker from inside the barn.

Finn stepped inside. He felt along the dusty shelves on the wall where he knew Sean kept an old flashlight. He flicked it on, and a wan yellow glow illuminated the barn. He swung the flashlight around. And there it was. Gleaming. Enormous. At least eighteen hands high, but not thick in the way of shire or draft horses. Lean and elegant as a racer. So black that it almost blended into the shadows pooling in the corners. Warily, he walked all the way around the horse. It was a she.

“Whoa,” said Finn. “Where did you come from?”

The horse shook her head, stepped forward, and nudged his chest with her nose. She wore a bitless bridle made of leather nearly as black as her coat, but no saddle. “Hey there,” he murmured, stroking the long face, the silky mane. It was then, when he was petting the horse's nose, he noticed the smell of fresh hay. A dozen bales were stacked by the door. So someone had put the horse in the barn along with some feed. He'd heard that sometimes families who had hit hard times would leave beloved animals with people they thought could afford them. But Finn didn't know any local people who had owned a horse as special
as this one; he would have remembered. Besides, Finn and Sean couldn't afford to take care of a horse. They could barely afford the cat.

And
when
had this mythical family left the horse and unloaded the hay? Sean was on shift, but Finn had been sitting at the kitchen table all night. Even if he had been too preoccupied to hear the sounds of trucks or voices, Calamity would have, so quick to startle now that her kittens were close.

The horse gave him another nudge. She seemed young and healthy, groomed and clean. She allowed him to pick up one hoof at a time and check the shoes. They looked new.

A horse. What the hell was he supposed to do with a horse?

The mare threw him three times before he managed to stay on her back. He'd ridden a million times before, but not a horse this big, not a horse this strong and fast and fierce, and never at night. He'd barely gotten his hands wrapped in the reins when she was off, tearing a furious path through the darkness as if something wicked was nipping at her heels. He tried using his knees to guide her, he tried to stop her from jumping fences and crashing through streams, he tried to keep her from running all the way to Idaho, but the horse had her own ideas, which boiled down to galloping as fast as she possibly could. After a while, it was all he could do to hold on and hope they wouldn't die.

Finally, the horse's hooves slowed and Finn's heartbeat slowed and they wandered together past farms and houses, all
of them so quiet that Finn almost believed that he and the mare were the only living creatures left in a muted, dormant world.

The horse slipped between the Bone Gap cemetery and the Corderos' stone farmhouse, winding her way through the grasses at the edge of the Willises' beeyard. Mel Willis was the owner of Hippie Queen Honey, and she lived on a shaggy, overgrown patch of berry bushes and brambles and flowers with her hives and with Priscilla. But the beeyard was not dark the way that the other yards were; a small fire glowed in the center of the circle of hives. A figure was silhouetted in front of the fire.

Finn heard Miguel's voice in his head—
Don't you know when to give up?
—but he wasn't ready to go home yet. And besides, if he was looking for punishment, he'd rather take it from Priscilla Willis than from anyone else.

Finn urged the horse toward the figure, and this time, the mare was in the mood to comply. Priscilla Willis glanced up from the flames as Finn and the mare stepped close. She tented her hand over her eyes, trying to make him out in the dark.

“Who is that?”

“Finn,” he said. “Finn O'Sullivan.”

“Okay, Finn O'Sullivan. What are you doing here?”

“I thought I'd stop by.”

“You thought you'd stop by for what?” she said, voice sharp.

Priscilla never made anything easy. “To talk to you.”

She gazed at him for a few moments longer, then dropped her hand. “Isn't it dangerous to go riding at night?”