Rebeccah stared at her hands, then looked up at Mama with tears in her eyes. She kissed my cheek and the tears spilled over onto my face. She wrapped her arms around Granny, as tenderly as if she were a dried leaf that might crumble. Rebeccah whispered again, “Granny, you are so dear. Please don’t ever die.” The older lady didn’t wake.

  Then my older sister looked at me and said, “I’ve never been jealous in my life before. Not of anything or anybody. But right this minute I’m jealous of what Granny gave to you.”

  “I understand, Beccah. I’ll let you see it when the time is right. I promise. For now, as she says, secrets are heavy things to carry.” With that, I thought how I treasured Granny’s memoirs, too. I vowed to read them over again, soon as I got some daylight and solitude, even if I had to go sit in the henhouse.

  Nights on the sleeping porch were my favorite place to be. It was warm, sure, but on our side of a hanging blanket it was just us women there, and we slept in our thinnest cotton gowns with wet burlap curtains hanging everywhere. With a little breeze it got so cool I pulled a quilt over me. Hard to see stars through the screens and waving burlap bags. But the moon was full and I heard coyotes on a distant hill and a puma roaring somewhere. An owl sat on our chimney and hooted three times. Moonlight hit the side of the house and I felt filled with contentment. The sounds of the desert and home. Sure, we were missing our fellows, but they’d return, I just knew it. I simply claimed it as fact, with nothing to prove it. I figured they’d come up from wherever they were being kept like a picture comes up on a paper after a time in the developing. The time would come when I’d have to leave. Maybe I’d have to tell Mama and Papa why. It would break their hearts, but I’d leave so as not to shame them. Maybe if the boys get home I’d light out of here before I had to tell them. Before anyone could see how my body was changing. For I could see it every day. Plumped all over like a ripe little hen. I repeatedly told Mama I was hot and wanted to wear my big sisters’ baggy old shirts and skirts.

  The sky had started to green in the east and the moon hung like a beacon in the morning light, brighter than ever. Someone banged on the screen door post. A dog barked. “Hello, the house,” a man’s voice called. It wasn’t sharp and frightening, but in the stillness before dawn, it seemed loud. “I’ve come for Miss Mary Pearl. She out here? Checkers, be quiet.”

  “Brody, is that you?” Ma asked. That startled me because I hadn’t known she was awake.

  “Yes, ma’am. There’s a problem. Gil and I were out all night riding fence.”

  I stood in front of him wrapped in my quilt, my hair hanging down, not even braided. “Why do you need me?”

  Brody ducked his head, embarrassed. He wouldn’t look at me. “We think we found your horse, Duende. He’s alive but bad. If I didn’t know who owned him, I’da put him down, but since the animal belongs to you, you should decide.”

  Brody had saddled my mare. I didn’t ask questions. I followed him, so thankful he’d found Duende, and yet terrified of what I would see. Checkers wove in and out between the horses’ hooves for a minute, then ran wide of our path. Our horses kept up a good lope for several miles and then Brody slowed. He got off his mount and walked slowly down a steep sandy canyon, picking his way in the dim light.

  A dark form writhed in the shadows. The dog came running back and Brody pointed at the ground. Checkers immediately got in his herding position and got quiet. I had to trot to catch up to Brody; he was walking fast then. I heard a horse whimper.

  I’d like to say I knew it was my horse, but honestly it was just a horse in pain. I’d never heard Duende make that noise. Brody said, “Climb up here,” and held out his hand. I took hold and leapt onto the boulder. The sun had cleared the hills enough that it showed the sight below the boulder. Struggling just lower than our reach, my magnificent stallion lay, bloody and trapped. His nose was bound to his foreleg with a strand of barbwire that disappeared under his belly. The leg, the only one we could see, looked broken. The shoe was almost off and the hoof had a crack. The rest of his body was caught between the large boulder and another that must have come down on top of him.

  Brody had helped me up on the rock, but he had not let go my hand. I was glad. I squeezed his hand with mine for a second and tried to look closer. He looked full in my face with real sorrow. “Can we get him out?” I asked.

  We crept closer, and the pearly green daylight revealed what I hadn’t wanted to see. The horse was sorely wounded, flesh hanging off his back. Duende murmured and breathed hard, every movement a fight against agony. The signs of large claws and teeth tearing at his neck told a tale of a big cat. A trail of blood and torn-up ground led from about ten yards away where a stand of trees had made tempting shade as well as a trap where a mountain lion could wait. Looking down at this tortured animal that had been my pride, I felt hard and cold. It was our way never to let an animal suffer, but he was mine and I wanted him. Against all warnings that he was too much horse for me, that he was too big and wild and beautiful, he was mine and I wanted him and I would not shoot him until I knew that there was no hope at all.

  I dropped Brody’s hand and found a hefty branch to pry away the stone. Brody took hold, too, yet when we heaved on it the branch broke in half. Duende moaned. Then he began to fight and writhe again. To me it tore my heart like a scream.

  “Here comes Gil,” Brody said.

  Gilbert showed up sitting on the back of a huge draft Belgian and had brought a stack of blankets and ropes, things I hadn’t even thought to bring. He got that old Belgian up on a slope and threw Brody a rope. I helped him get it around the jagged boulder that was pinning Duende in place. With a simple “hup,” the massive horse started to pull, and the stone rolled away. It kept on tumbling, and to keep his horse from going with it, Gil cut the rope.

  When I saw the rest of Duende’s wounds, I thought my heart would quit beating. He was trying to stand. Brody and I rushed to him with blankets to cover his skin and to shield ourselves from the barbwire. It cut through, anyway, piercing my sleeves and my breasts. Brody spoke in words so soft I almost couldn’t hear. “Take his head. Hold him as still as you can. I’ve got wire cutters. We’ll get his head free from the leg first.”

  I felt as if my heart was banging in my brain by the time we got him standing and quieted.

  Gilbert looked mighty sad. I turned to Brody and asked, “Is he going to live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If this was any other horse would you shoot him?”

  “Yes.”

  I breathed in and out slowly. “But might he be saved?”

  “Mary Pearl, you could do everything humanly possible for this horse and a year from now he’d fall over dead. I’d say he’s got a small chance.”

  I raised the pistol from my right holster.

  “I’ll do it,” he said.

  “No. He’s my horse.” Then I put the gun back in the holster.

  Gil stepped in closer. “My ma’s place has got a rig for a broken leg. If we can get him there, I’ll sling him up.”

  We put blankets under Duende’s belly and cut holes in the corners of the blankets, threading them through with giant stitches of rope. We tied the ropes so he was lying in a sling and only had to use his three good legs. I tried to hold Duende’s nose and put a soft bosal on him. I walked between Gil and Brody on their mounts, Duende hobbling.

  “Where are we?” I asked after a while.

  Gil said, “You’re west of Maldonado’s place. I forget the name of the gorge. We have about seven miles to go.”

  I stopped and turned. “We’re past Maldonado’s? What were you two doing riding fence down here? Your ma doesn’t have fence down here. I’m sick and tired of people lying to me.”

  At last, Brody said, “Following buzzards. Looking for your brothers.”

  “Ah,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  My cousin Gil looked sad but not sheepish. “Any answer is better than no answer, Imp. I saw buzzards and heard a puma this morning early. Thought it might be them.”

  “Let’s get this horse home,” I said. There was nothing else I could say. They’d put into action what I’d thought without saying. That my brothers could be long dead, lying in a shallow trench, eaten by animals and their bones picked by buzzards.

  Later, Gilbert left Brody and me in the barn and rode off to tell everyone. It was under a mile. It wouldn’t take long. We spent the afternoon trying to soothe him and wrap the wounds.

  Charity came out to the barn saying Gil got back and was eating supper. She was carrying a pillowcase full of clean clothes along with a basketful of biscuits, a jug of hot pinto beans, and a bowl of cut-up tomatoes. I told Charity thank you, and decided she wasn’t a complete ninny after all. But then she insisted I come into the house and sleep with her and let the men sleep in the barn with the horse.

  “No,” I said. “Duende’s my horse. My responsibility. If he’s going to pull through I want to be here. If he isn’t—then I want to be here.”

  “You can’t sleep in a barn with a strange man.”

  “He isn’t a strange man. He’s Brody.” It didn’t dawn on me what she was inferring until I said that. The shadows lengthened and my resolve crumbled as I watched her walk away carrying the dishes. Brody was washing his face in the horse trough, mopping his wet hair with his handkerchief. “I hope you don’t think I am, well—nothing. Are you a strange man?”

  “Nope. Kinda regular, I ’spect.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “I’ll watch first. You can lay that blanket there on the hay.”

  “Call me, if anything.”

  “I will. You’ll have to take a watch sooner than you hope, on accounta I’m tired to the bone, being up all night last night.”

  “Then you take the blanket. I mean it. I feel wide awake and full of starch. I stink to high heaven.” There was no sense in washing up just to lie down in a stall.

  He seemed to be thinking it over just a bit, then nodded. I don’t know what he was agreeing to—whether it was the smell of me or his need to sleep—because he didn’t say another word. Just curled himself on the blanket and dropped off. Checkers came into the barn and it made Duende uneasy. I let him lick out my bowl of beans then led him over to where Brody was deep in sleep, and told him to lay there. That dog did just what I said as if he could understand every word. Gilbert checked on us before going back in the house, but he’d be out again if we needed him.

  I lay next to Duende and put my head on my canteen with one hand on the horse’s neck.

  Morning came and Brody was up, changing a bandage when I awoke. “How is he?”

  “Holding on.”

  Duende looked pathetic. The broken ribs were so obvious, caved in on his side. His breathing was shallow. Other bones made outlines on his skin, too. He was starved. I asked again, “Are we doing the right thing?”

  “If you came upon this horse in this shape, and he wasn’t yours, what would you say?”

  The horse was fluttery. In pain. I said, “I’d say I gave him that name because I thought he was grander than any horse ever was. I’d say I’ve figured out that I can’t give any man nor beast a heart and soul just because I wish it on him. He isn’t ever going to stand on that leg proper. He may never get his wind back. But I don’t mind feeding him the rest of his days. I won’t give up on him, even if he’s not like before, but he’s a horse. I don’t aim to be childish about it. I want to do what’s right for the animal.”

  “Then let’s give him a chance, and see what tomorrow brings. Decide every day if it’s fair to him. Maybe every hour.”

  “Would you spell me awhile so I can go home and clean up?”

  By the time I got back, there were other voices coming from the barn. My cousin Charlie had showed up. I said, “I’m glad you’re here. I want to see if we can backtrack Duende’s path before he fell. If he had that split hoof before the puma jumped him, and he escaped from whoever has the boys, we should be able to track it easily.”

  Charlie exchanged looks with Brody and said, “She’s smart as a whip.”

  “Only you aren’t going to do that,” Brody said to me. “You’re going to stay here and Charlie and me’ll go.”

  Charlie pulled his pistol and blew through the barrel before he reloaded it. “I’m ready. Gilbert’s wife a good cook?”

  “Not bad,” Brody said.

  “We’ll take anything she’s got ready and light out now while the sun’s got a good angle for tracking.”

  But then Gilbert came to the barn and offered to sit with Duende until we came back so I could go with the men. Charity said she’d walk back to my house and tell Ma what I was doing. “That okay with you boys?” I asked. I believe they couldn’t grudge me coming along, because they just nodded.

  We found the boulders easily enough. Trouble was, on so much hard rock there wasn’t much track. We kicked our horses up a trail and got to the top of a hill. It grew steep the last twenty feet or so, and we had to lead our mounts and go on foot. I was proud of myself for thinking of this, and prouder still to be the first one to spot a large cat’s paw print. Before long Charlie had found horseshoe prints, heading toward the steep area. From the edge we could see a definite track where the horse had tumbled once the cat had him by the neck and back. It must have sprung from some brush and ridden Duende down the hill. Might be that the tumble dislodged the cat, and otherwise the horse would have been dead already.

  We spent the better part of three hours on foot from there, and walked down and up that hill a dozen times apiece. In the distance a line shack seemed a likely place to hide a horse, but we rode up to it and there was nothing to see. It stunk like the drifters who might have spent a night there were none too particular about how they used the place, either.

  Charlie whistled long and sharp, like you’d call another drover.

  “You see something?”

  “Riders.”

  Brody said, “Let’s get on back to the house. They look like our people. There ain’t nothing here.”

  The riders turned out to be a couple of Rangers, just out poking around. They’d seen nothing, either, they said, except for a trail of moccasin footprints from that little shack back to Maldonado’s old hacienda. They’d snooped around the place, even shot a bullet through a window and disturbed nothing but spiders. They’d eaten tamales from the old woman at the hacienda. She told them that she and her man kept some shovels and tools in the shed, and they’d just come to retrieve them so they could put up a garden. It was harmless.

  We headed home.

  That night I spent with Duende again. He was fevered and you could just about feel heat coming off him like he was on fire inside. What else could we do for the poor animal?

  The next day, Ma walked down to Aunt Sarah’s barn, and Gilbert and Charity came. Brody and I stood by Duende, holding his head. The horse breathed shallowly, and kicked up with one hind leg, trying to roll or to stand or something. His eyes were all sunken and sick. Funny thing was, even though I knew what the answer was, I looked to Brody for some kind of hope that there was a choice.

  Brody said, real softly, “The leg would heal. But the missing skin on his neck, all the cuts on his back, everything’s festered. If you feel him there, the heat has given him the bumps.” It was true. Small mounds of infection had risen on his legs. I didn’t know what they were called, but I knew what it meant.

  Aunt Sarah said, “I rinsed it with salt water while you were gone yesterday. But, Mary Pearl, it’s gone bad.”

  The horse grunted and snuffled, whining in pain. “I’ll do it,” I said. Gilbert took my pistol from me but I grabbed it back. “I said I’ll do it. He’s my horse. If … if someone else could handle getting him out of here.”

  “It isn’t your fault,” Brody said.

  “I know it. This is at the feet of whoever stole him. Look how skinny he is. They didn’t take care of a fine animal, even before he made a break for it. You all go on now. I don’t want anybody to watch.”

  Everyone except Brody did as I asked, filing out of the barn to stand outside in the blistering afternoon sunlight. I walked around Duende, petted his nose. His eyes stayed closed but his ears went back. Tears overwhelmed me for a moment. “There ain’t nothing for it; we’ve done all we can,” I said to him through grimacing lips.

  I stood up and drew a deep breath, but someone pushed my hand down. Brody took the pistol from me. Looking into my eyes, he pushed my shoulder and turned me, then pulled the trigger close to Duende’s head. The sound made me shake all over. Soon as they heard the sound the whole family came back inside the barn.

  Brody said, “You go wash up. Me and Gil and some of the hands will take care of it.”

  “All right.”

  Ma said, “Come on home, honey.”

  Later that afternoon after I’d changed, I walked alone down to Cienega Creek and hung my feet in the water. I dipped my handkerchief in, too, and wrung it out and mopped my face. I didn’t cry. I just felt old. Old as the rocky bank I sat upon. Old as time. I heard a horse whicker somewhere off, and my heart pained on the hearing of it, just like I imagine when people say they have heartache. Now I knew what that felt like. I knew animals having to be put down. Any ranch or farm is full of that. I just always believed that horse would live out his days in a pasture. I laid back and looked through the leaves of a mesquite where it tangled into a cottonwood tree.

  I pulled on my stockings and boots, and picked up a handful of rocks. One at a time I let every one of them fly into that creek, some close, some far. When I got to the last two, I thought of Ezra and Zachary. I squeezed those two little stones. Then I wrapped them into my kerchief and tied a knot around them and tied it back around my neck where it gave a cool, soft comfort.