Writing Samples

Fiction

The Gift

I was eleven years old. I would sit on the arm of Grandpa's big chair and read to him from my comic books. Grandpa never learned to read. He could draw a rooster so well it almost walked off the page and crowed. He could draw really well. He could write his name in heavy old fashioned script. That was all he could write. He would scan the newspaper. When he saw a picture or headline that caught his eye, he would ask me to read the article. He hadn't much time or use for reading or drawing while working the farm. He had been a farmer, and that was all he had been.

Across from his chair, on the wall, was his favourite picture. A dark skinned Indian, in full feathered Indian regalia, sat astride a brown and white pony . The sinewy rider clamped his buckskin covered legs around the glossy barrel of the pony. The pony's brown and white hide glistened over its muscles. It sat back on its haunches, mouth agape and eyes wild. Its mane and tail were carried in the wind of a streaming herd of bison while the brown native controlled the pony with one hand, his spear ready in the other.

While Grandpa was alive no one was permitted to move or remove the picture. It was an article of forbearance amongst the adults of the house. My mother just smiled indulgently if ever it was discussed...most often by grandmother, who more than once threatened to start the fireplace with it.

At that time I lived on Roy Rogers, Red Ryder, and Slim Evans. I named my bicycle Lightening. I called my little brothers tricycle Pal. To me the picture on the wall was the gateway to imagination. No bird was safe from the ineffectual arrows of my willow branch bow or rabbit from my spear. I was The Lone Ranger and Tonto rolled into one. My mother became immune to my frequent ambushes and even humoured me by throwing her hands in the air when I shouted, "Reach for the sky, hombre."

Between that picture and the comics I dwelt in the Old West. I longed for chaps and a Stetson one day, a feathered head-dress and war paint the next. What I really longed for was the pinto pony. And it was a longing that I suspected I shared with Grandpa. I could think of no other reason the picture hung on the wall.

On those cold winter afternoons Grandpa and I would gallop away on his big old chair, I on Lightening, Grandpa on his pinto pony. I knew that if I was the sheriff, Grandpa was my posse. We lived our lives vicariously through the smudgy pictures printed on the cheap newsprint. I would read every word in the bubbles over the character's head and reproduce every snort and whinny of the horses.

A cool, wet spring that we spent lost amongst the pages of the comic books gave way to summer. School was almost over. The crops began to make up for lost time and I became more occupied with helping on the farm. My father was sure that both my brother and I were to become farmers so, as soon as we were physically able we were given chores to do. This spring the mustard threatened to take over the hay fields. This meant pulling it by hand.

I spent hours in the fields wearing huge work gloves, to big for my hands, pulling the reluctant weed from amongst the alfalfa and timothy. When I had finished our fields, the neighbours offered to pay me to clean out theirs too. I hated the work. My neck was sunburnt to blistering and my shoulders and arms ached from pulling. But the feel of cold hard cash, something I had not had a lot of, felt good in my hand at the end of the day.

I quickly became known as someone reliable to do odd jobs. The neighbours seemed willing to give me their loose change in exchange for my labour. By the end of the summer I had quite a cache and spent some happy time speculating on what I would spend it on.

We had a few catalogues in the house and the local store was a treasure trove of items that fuelled a boys purchasing impulses. I tried on the Stetson and Biltmore hats, but they were too big and weren't the real "ten gallon" type I wanted. I vacillated between a pair of cowboy boots and an air rifle. My parents weren't too excited about the air rifle idea and my mother pointed out the boots weren't warm enough for winter and I would only outgrow them before I got much wear out of them anyway.

I knew what I really wanted. I wanted a horse: an Indian pony, a cow pony, a silver steed like Lightening. But I already knew the answer my father would give me if I asked for a pony. I had tried before. The answer was 'no'. Horses were trouble, costly to feed, not much use really, just hay-burners.

All through the summer Grandpa became increasingly restless and forgetful. He rarely left the chair in the livingroom. Only if the weather was very good would he venture out onto the porch. He never went near the fields but constantly fretted over the crops, the weather, prices--all the things that weigh on a farmer's mind. He forgot were he left his pipe, which room he was sitting in, what day it was. Father said he guessed it was because he had so little to do around the farm anymore. He needed something to think about besides what he wasn't able to do. That's when I got the idea.

The idea came into my head like the pop of a camera flash. It was so grand it burned there like an un-shaded light bulb. I counted my money. I knew I really didn't have as much as I needed, but I believed hard enough that my idea would help--that the money would be enough. It was the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep and the first thing I remembered when I awoke.

I laid my plan carefully. Every year in the late summer, there was a huge livestock auction. Every type of winged and legged beast was offered to the highest bidder, from chickens to...horses. And if my grandfather had a horse just like the one in the picture, well, it would be a dream come true. How my grandfather admired that regal spotted pony in the picture. I would find one just like it. And I would buy it, just for him.

I begged to go with my father to the auction. But, he had no need to buy or sell stock. I overheard my parents talking about a neighbour who planned to take a few head of cattle in. I asked the neighbour, a quite tobacco chewing man with a handful of young daughters and a banty hen of wife, if I could go with him. He said yes. I begged and cajoled my parents to let me go. I finally wore them down.

My mother put a cheese sandwich and an apple in a bag and I planned to spend a few cents of my stash for a soda. I walked to the neighbour's house through a lavender and gold morning and sat packed in the cab of his truck with he, his wife and two of his daughters. The ride was quiet. The neighbour spit his tobacco out the window. The wife glowered at him. The two daughters stole glances at me, giggling into their hands. My stomach was queasy, from nerves or claustrophobia, I'll never know.

When we arrived at the fair grounds we tumbled out of the cab. The wife gave me clipped instructions where to meet them and what time they were leaving. The daughters tried to follow me, but I slipped between the vegetable stands and they lost my trail. I was on my own.

I found my way to the auction barn and made my way up and down the aisles peering between the gates at the contents of the pens. Sheep bleated and switched their little tails nervously. Placid Herefords tipped their curly faces over the gates. Guernseys stood at the backs of their pens and regarded the bedlam with doe like eyes. Every type of farm animal was here, from screeching guinea hens to huge draft horses.

The horses drew me like a magnet. I checked and double checked every pen. No pinto. I checked each pen again. I checked for more trucks discharging their loads. None. No spotted steed like the one in the picture. My throat tightened and my heart sank in disappointment. I fingered the bag of money tied tightly around my waist.

I wandered my way out to fruit stands again and drowned my sorrows in a Doctor Pepper. I ate the sandwich and the apple and checked the time with a vendor. In fifteen minutes the horse auction started. I decided to watch the auction anyway. I wasn't interested in squandering my money on the offerings of the marketers outside and it would be a few hours before the truck left for home. There was little else to do.

I took a seat close to the ring. The stands were filling up quickly. The smell of sawdust rose from the ring. From the behind the big closed doors the cacophony of farm animals could still be heard. In an adjacent ring the auctioneer rolled over bids on squealing swine. Every category of rural population was represented at the sale. Gentleman farmers in their spotless Levis rubbed shoulders with farmers in gritty sweat stiffened greens. Parents with little children came to buy ponies for the backyard, while the indifferent meat dealers calculated how many pounds would fill their quotas.

One by one, the horses were shoo'd into the ring. Someone rode their horse in and the bidding went high enough to dissuade the meat dealers. A little girl squealed with delight when her daddy successfully out bid all the others for a cute shaggy Shetland, complete with saddle and bridle. I heard a man behind my chuckle to his neighbour,
"That one been here before, it ain't got no teeth." and a burst of laughter erupted.

A parade of young, old, untrained, work weary, neglected and well cared for horse flesh passed before my eyes. I wanted to go home. My plan had been smashed and quickly tired of watching.

I got up to leave just as the doors opened to let in another horse. If I had turned my head quicker, if I had left a moment sooner I would have missed him. For there, emerging from the noisy barn was the pinto. He was brown and white just like the picture. I was blind to grey around his eyes, his thickened knobbly joints, his huge dinner plate-ish feet. He walked in with a phlegmatic plod. But, to my eyes he was the pony in the picture. He was perfect.

Almost before the bidding began my arm shot up. The auctioneer looked at me, consternation written on his face. But he acknowledged my bid. The only other bidders were the dealers. As they realized that I was bidding they laughingly dropped out--except one. The price crawled towards the amount counted in my money bag.

Surprised by my own brevity I bid the price up by dollars. I kicked myself for having bought the soda. If that price was the difference between getting him or not I would never forgive myself. I would swear off soda for life.

Determinedly I nodded yes to every new price that rolled off the auctioneer's lips. Someone yelled, "Come on, let the kid have it" and the under the pressure of his peers the dealer stopped bidding. The horse was mine.

I whooped with joy and raced back to the pens to get a closer look at the steed. He was indeed the same colour as the pony in the picture. But the similarity ended there. This was a horse who had clearly seen younger days. His hide hung over his bones like an old quilt on a rail fence. His mane hung in tattered wisps from his sunken neck. Bits of hay tumbled from his lips as he dispassionately took the wisps I offered from my hand. Despite his plain ugliness, he was the most beautiful horse I had ever seen.

I found a piece of binder twine, tied it to the ring of the hard leather halter and lead him out the door to the truck. By this time the family was waiting and the mother gave me a hard cold stare as I walked up with my purchase.

Rather baffled with what I had done, and unsure whether he had the right to refuse that I take this woebegone creature home, the neighbour helped me load the horse onto his stock truck. The stoic creature swayed uncaring in the back during the ride home and when we arrived descended from the box stiffly with a clicking of his ancient bones and a violent expulsion of gas.

I, too proud to see anything beyond the fact that this horse was the very one in the painting grandfather loved so, led him to the yard were he would be sure to see him. Grandpa was sitting in a chair on the porch, eyes closed, sucking on an unlit pipe.

"Grandpa", I called.

He snorted as if waking from a half sleep.

"Grandpa, look what I have got."

He rose partly out of his chair and peered through the screening.

"Ho, what have you got there", he asked.

'It's a horse, Grandpa, can't you see, it's a horse, a pinto." expecting him to realize the significance at any moment.

I was almost dancing with delight. I had finally given him the gift he so desperately needed. I had given him what no one else had. I had done it.

"So what do ya plan to do with it."? he asked.

Just then my father came around the corner of the house. He stopped dead in his tracks. The horse lifted his head from his placid cropping of lush lawn and looked at him, gobs of green droll stringing from its mouth.

"My...What the...where the..." he sputtered.

I grinned knowing he must surely know, it was so obvious, so clear.

"It's Grandpa's" I said

My father turned to my Grandpa, his mouth opening and closing like a carp out of water. Grandpa had sat down in his chair and resumed his pipe sucking doze.

"Take that ...horse...put it down in the old sheep pasture" he
said, turning to me. "Better give it a bucket of water too."

I started to lead the horse away, and it followed with a leg swiveling walk.
"When you're done, get your supper and go straight to bed, I'll deal with you in the morning" and he slammed the door behind him.

I put the horse into the pasture and latched the gate. I didn't understand. Here in his very own sheep pasture was the dream horse. I had done it, and I was the only one who knew. I wandered back to the house, entered past the now silently sleeping Grandpa, ate my supper quietly and went to my room. I read comic books by the fading sun of the long summer evening. Between my confused disappointment and, the prolonged light of the evening, sleep come slowly, but I finally drifted off.

The next morning I woke early. I looked out of the window and saw the horse lazily grazing and swishing his tail. I hurriedly got dressed and tiptoed down the stairs, stepping close against the wall so the boards wouldn't squeak. No one else was up and the kitchen blinds were still down. I glanced into the livingroom and to my surprise Grandpa lay on the sofa. The night had been warm, but he slept in his clothes with a blanket over him. He slept quietly with no snores and sputters that normally punctuated his sleep. I closed the door silently and padded back to the livingroom to take a closer look. He was still. Perfectly still. I ran back to the door and slammed it behind me. I dashed to the pasture where the horse placidly grazed. The early morning dew was heavy on the tall grass and petals of daisy and buttercups adhered to my wetted pant legs. My tears soaked into the ratty mane of the ancient nag that had been my gift. He barely lifted his head from the grass to acknowledge my arrival.

It wasn't until much later that I put it all together. I was cleaning out the attic of the old house. Both my parents had died, one after another, just like Grandma and Grandpa. We sold the house, both my brother and I having given root to our families in the city. The picture was leaning in a dusty corner, faded, the frame, chipped and dented. On the back was written in ornate old fashioned hand.

"First Prize-Penmanship-Raymond Trainor-1910".

The man who could not read had won a handwriting contest. The picture had been a prize. The only one he ever won. The picture now hangs across from my chair in the livingroom.

appeared in Dandelion Wine