The Law of Moses (7 page)

He actually seemed pleased by the money, like he’d forgotten he’d been commissioned, and thanked me sincerely, folding the bills inside a soft leather wallet and shoving it into the pocket of his jeans.

Georgia

DAD SAID HORSES REFLECT the energy of the people around them. If you’re scared the horse will shy away from you. If you doubt yourself he’ll take advantage of you. If you don’t trust yourself, neither will he. They are truth detectors. It isn’t rocket science. It isn’t voodoo. There’s a reason you give a horse his head if you’re lost. He’ll always take you home.

It hadn’t escaped me that the horses were afraid of Moses. And if Dad’s theory was correct, it was because Moses was afraid, and the horses were simply mirroring a very powerful emotion. Horses scare some people. They’re so big and powerful, and if it’s you against a horse, well, the horse will kick your ass.

But I didn’t think Moses was afraid of the horses. Not exactly. I was pretty sure Moses was just afraid in general. Anxious, desperate, manic. Whatever. And our horses knew it.

“You know how Sackett kicked me?” I asked my dad one morning as we were getting ready for a counseling session.

“Yeah,” my dad grunted.

“He was just mirroring Moses, wasn’t he?”

My dad looked up sharply, not liking the suggestion that Moses wanted to kick me in the head.

“Moses is afraid, Dad. I think he paints because it releases a lot of nervous energy. But I was thinking maybe we could get him around the horses, maybe help him that way too.”

“First rule of therapy, George,” my dad said.

“What’s that?”

“You can lead a horse to water . . .”

“. . . but you can’t make him drink,” I sighed, finishing the old maxim.

“That’s right. You might be right about Moses. And I’m sure we could help him, when and if he wants our help. Kids, married couples, people with addictions, people who are depressed, everybody and almost anybody can be helped by equine therapy. I’ve never known a man who couldn’t be helped by spending time with a horse. But it’s really up to Moses. You’re pretty headstrong, George, but you’ve met your match with that boy.”

I was convinced I had. Met my match, that is. Maybe that kick to the head or the brush with violence at the stampede had permanently altered me, maybe it was his role as savior, or maybe I had just fallen in love with the artist who brought a white horse to life on my bedroom walls, but I couldn’t get Moses out of my thoughts. I found myself looking for him from the moment I stepped outside in the mornings until the moment I gave up in the evening and went home. His grandma was calling in favors right and left, and once Moses finished doing odd jobs for my dad, he started repairing fence for Gene Powell, which would probably take him the rest of the summer, considering how many acres Gene Powell had. On top of that, he’d been hired to do some demolition inside the old mill west of town that had shut down twenty years before.

I could make up reasons to be riding along the fence line, but the old mill was a different matter entirely. I figured I would cross that bridge when I got to it, but I was already plotting. I didn’t let myself think about my infatuation, because then I would have to acknowledge it. And I wasn’t the kind of girl to be infatuated or to get caught up in crushes, the kind of girl who checked her lips or fluffed her hair when boys were around.

Yet, I found myself doing just that, loosening my braid and running my hands through my unbound hair as I approached the edge of Gene Powell’s property on my horse in late July. I had Moses’s lunch. I’d made sure to intercept Kathleen on her way out and had casually mentioned that Sackett and I were headed this way. She smiled at me like she wasn’t fooled, and I felt pretty stupid. Kathleen Wright might be eighty years old, but I was sure she didn’t miss much. Especially since I’d just happened to stop by three days in a row, just in time to bring Moses his lunch.

When Moses saw me coming he didn’t look pleased, and I wondered for the umpteenth time what I’d done to piss him off.

“Where’s Gigi?” he asked.

“Who’s Gigi?”

“My grandma. She’s my great-grandma—two G’s in a row. GG.”

“I seen her heading this way, and I thought as long as I was out riding, I may as well bring your lunch.”

“You
saw
her heading this way.” He looked up at me with disgust. “Not seen. And it’s ‘we were’ not ‘we was.’ You say that wrong too.”

It didn’t sound wrong to me, but I made note of it. I didn’t want Moses to think I was stupid.

“Everyone in this town says it wrong. My grandma says it wrong! It drives me crazy,” Moses grumbled. He was in rare form today. But I didn’t mind that he was complaining as long as he was talking to me.

“Okay. I’ll fix my grammar. You want to tell me what else you don’t like about me? ‘Cause I’m thinking that isn’t all,” I said.

He sighed but ignored my question, asking a few of his own. “Why are you here, Georgia? Does your dad know you’re here?”

“I’m bringing you your lunch, Einstein. And no to the second question. Why should he? I don’t check in every time I ride my horse.”

“Does he know how you’re out here jumping fences?”

I shrugged. “I’ve been riding since I could walk. It’s not a big deal.”

He let it drop, but after a few bites of his sandwich he was picking on me again.

“Georgie Porgie puddin’ and pie. Kissed the boys and made them cry. What kind of name is Georgia?”

“My great-great grandma was Georgia. The first Georgia Shepherd. My dad calls me George.”

“Yeah. I’ve heard him. That’s just nasty.”

I felt my temper rise in my cheeks, and I really wanted to spit on him from where I sat atop my horse, looking down on his neatly shorn, well-shaped head. He glanced up at me and his lips twitched, making me even angrier.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not trying to be mean. But George is a terrible name for a girl. Hell, for anyone who isn’t the King of England.”

“I think it suits me,” I huffed.

“Oh, yeah? George is the name for a man with a stuffy, British accent or a man in a white, powdered wig. You better hope it doesn’t suit you.”

“Well, I don’t exactly need a sexy name, do I? I’ve never been a sexy girl.” I gave Sackett a hard nudge in her flanks and pulled the reins sharply, more than ready to leave. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t be bringing Moses his lunch again. He was a jerk, and I was sick of it.

But as I rode away I thought I heard him call after me, “Just keep telling yourself that, Georgie Porgie. I’ll keep telling myself that too.”

I brought his lunch again the next day.

Moses

“SHE LIKES YOU, YOU KNOW.” Gigi smiled at me, teasing.

I just grunted.

“Georgia likes you, Moses. And she’s such a good girl. A nice girl. Pretty too. Why don’t you give her some attention? That’s all she wants, you know.” Gigi winked at me, and I felt the heat that I had so prided myself on controlling start to spread through my chest and down my abdomen.

Georgia may only want attention now. But that wouldn’t last. If I gave her attention, she would want to spend more time with me. And if I spent time with her, she might want me to be her boyfriend. And if I was her boyfriend, she would want me to be normal. She would want me to be normal because she was normal. And normal was so lost to me that I didn’t even know where to look for it.

Still . . .

I thought about the way she looked when she fell asleep the night I painted the ceiling in her room. I’d looked down through the slats on the scaffolding, and she was directly below me, curled around a pillow she’d pulled off her bed. It was as if I floated over her, my body hovering six feet above hers. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, the same color as the wheat in the fields around the small town where we lived. But her hair wasn’t coarse and wispy. It was silky and thick and wavy from the braid she’d worn all day. She was tall, not as tall as I was, but long and lean, with golden skin and deep brown eyes that were a sharp contrast with her fair hair. My opposite. I had light eyes and dark hair. Maybe if you put us together, our physical oddities would even out. My belly tightened at the thought. No one would put us together. Especially not me.

I found myself watching her sleep, the painting temporarily forgotten. The man in the corner of the room who shared his thoughts, who shared Georgia’s story in pictures that poured into my head and out my hands, had disappeared. I wondered if I could call him back. I wasn’t finished yet.

But I didn’t try to call him back. Instead, I stared down at Georgia for a long, long time, watching the girl who was easily as persistent as the ghosts in my head. And for once, my mind was full of pictures of my own making, filled with dreams only I had conjured. And for the first time ever, I fell asleep with Georgia beneath me and peace inside of me.

Georgia

LUCKY HADN’T BEEN WORKED with at all before he came to us. Dad didn’t have much time to train him, but I had nothing but time. I had a knack, everyone said I did. So I spent a few hours with him every morning getting him used to me, making sure I was the one who fed him, I was the one who he saw, day in and day out. He would run when I drew near, deliver a skittish two-step when I cut off his desired direction, and generally get very irritated with me. The day I got a rope around his head and he let me lead him around was a month in the making. It took me another two weeks before we were in a bridle and he let me draw his head back toward me as I stood at his side.

“That’s it, baby. You gonna let me have your head?” I smiled as I talked, trying not to gloat. You train a horse with pressure. Not pain. Pressure. A horse doesn’t want to get in the trailer? You don’t force him. You just run him in circles, round and round the trailer until he’s breathing hard. Then you try to take him up the ramp again. He doesn’t want to go? You keep running him. Eventually, he’ll figure out that the pressure lets up when he’s in the trailer. He gets to rest in the trailer. So he’ll climb that ramp eagerly every time.

I got a little impatient. My dad always said when you’re working with people or with animals, impatience is the worst mistake you can make. But I’d grown a little cocky. He was giving me his head, and I wanted the rest of him. I fisted my hands in his mane and drew my body up so that my belly brushed his side. He went still, quivering, and I felt that quiver echo in my stomach, anticipation zinging down my legs and arms, making me stupid.