The White Horse

by Kate Hallett Dayton

Jules turned to reach for the water glass on the tray. It was too far away. His arms were not long enough. Arms that once hauled ice chunks, beer barrels, and twentypound rolls of sod were no longer strong enough. He rolled onto his back with a grunt and felt a reeling sensation, like speeding down Ramsey Hill long ago in a beer truck. He pressed the call button. The ceiling closed in on him, so he turned toward the window. His once expansive view of Minnesota farmland was narrowed like one of his old, out of focus slides of the cornfields. Aurora had been riding through his dreams lately.

He longed for the mattress at home, the familiar painting of the lone wolf Alice had earned as a premium with a Stanley party and the rhythmic pendulum of the clock Jim had given him several Christmases ago. It had been hard to remember to wind it lately. Tonight he heard hospital sounds, the whir of the gurneys over tile and the rattle of glass against steel, cold and harsh, like the January night.

Each breath came hard and shallow. He remembered being in another room like this some weeks ago. Didn't know how long ago it had been. Time kept fading in and out. Emergency. A few years before he'd visited Jim for the last time there. Since then, time had ceased to concern him in any regimented way. He'd sold the sod cutter and the tractor, and closed the landscaping business; he'd painted the basement floor green like the picture of the New Guinea forest he'd seen in the National Geographic. Even took up rug hooking. He'd never counted on spending all these hours alone.

He had started the sodding and hauling business the day Ike was sworn in. He loved working outside, being his own boss after punching out the foreman at the brewery. He hauled sod in the summer, gravel in the autumn, and snow in the winter. He heard just the roar of the engine and his own thoughts. No voices to answer to but his own. He had planned to get a tractor with a cab, but he could never keep up.

Jim helped him for a few years, and then he hired men, as he needed them, just as he’d hired out when he was young. Of course, there were days when the hired men didn't show up. But Jim was always there until he went to work at the Phillip’s garage. Jules just couldn't pay the same wages. Kid needed his own money. Married early. Kid on the way.

Jules’ stomach hurt. A deep gnaw. Cancer of the liver, the Filipino doctor had said. Too much Seagram’s. Irritable all the time, he yellowed and his legs swelled so he could hardly walk. But he kept on. He wouldn't let no young foreigner tell him what to do. Then his abdomen swelled and he couldn't keep anything down, not even chicken noodle soup, to say nothing of Denver sandwiches or head cheese. The blood came with the cough. His throat seemed to close.

The ambulance took him to St. Mary's in Rochester. Another hospital. More tests. He smoked in the conference room. Surgery was out, they said. Cancer too advanced. Chances weren't worth the side effects. Day after day he had drunk Carnation shakes in defiance, until he couldn't even keep those down. At home he lay on the couch many afternoons watching baseball, then football, his body covered to the neck with the lion-figured afghan Jim had given him.

Cam appeared at his hospital room door.

"Need a smoke."

She shook her head.

"You're sweating heavily tonight, Jules," she observed, untangling the clammy top sheets. "I should change your bedding."

After a long pause he murmured, "Just another blanket." Cam opened the closet and pulled out a heavier blanket. She threw the blanket over him just as his eyes closed.

"You're bullheaded, Jules," she said as she poured him a glass of water. "You remember that time you and Jack Dietz drove the beer truck over to Ma's place?"

“She told you that?”

"You were a sly one." She winked. "After that, Granddad wouldn't let you back on the property."

"But your Aunt Flo and I sat down the road."

"Mom says you were one crazy guy."

"Finished off more than a few bottles that way. Dancing. We both loved dancing."

"Flo never stopped ‘til she..." Cam got up and moved toward the window.

“Died.” His smile was faint. "I was crazy in love with her. Rode Aurora bareback together."

She snapped the heavy blinds closed. "That was Aunt Flo."

"Old bastard sent her away with my baby,” he whispered.

Cam swung to look Jules in the eye. “She lost that baby.”

"A road baby... The summer before we hid in an empty cabin over on Tippeota after the dances." He stared out the window. "Old fool never caught on...till it was too late ... then he tore after me in that old Ford ... we spewed plenty of dust on that countryside..." He looked up at Cam. "Open the blind. I need the countryside...”

Cam opened the blind. "So that's why Ma called you hell on wheels."

Blinking, he twisted to stare out between the faded plastic curtains. Snow whirled across the field. He loved that woman, so wildly, so long ago.

"Coffee."

"At this hour?"

He nodded. "Chills." He shifted his head sideways as he closed his eyes.

He'd been here before: I.V. tubes, Demerol, that doctor he couldn't understand. Alice died here. Hemorrhaging. That was years after he'd rushed her into that place to deliver Jim breech. Bills he had a hard time paying. Too close, that breathing package of flesh. The crying had overwhelmed him.

As a teenager, Jim's punch missed Jules the first time he fought back, but left a hole in the dining room wall. He took him to Emergency, but the boy wouldn't stop screaming at him for killing the Weimaraner. Wouldn't believe him when he talked about not seeing King choke on the chicken bones.

“How’d he get those chicken bones?”

“Wasn’t me. Nothing I could do.” Jim smashed the tiny bones in his hand, the doc said.

Again and again Jules’ own father's blood red face came at him. He had left the horses out one night when he was with Flo. The white had disappeared, but the rest came back. He didn't know what could have happened to Aurora. He searched the landscape that night and for days after, but found no sign of her. Just like that she had disappeared. Never found her. His father never forgave him. And neither did Jim. Two years ago he had waited in the lobby of the hospital for the ambulance to bring Jim in. He had driven his car into a tree. Never survived the ambulance ride.

Jules coughed and could not stop.

Cam slipped in, "You shouldn't cough like that." She placed the thermal pitcher and sheets on the table and approached the bed. "Take this." He swallowed the syrup.

"We've got to get you out of this mess, Jules, or you'll never be able to rest."

He stiffened, but didn't resist. She rolled his tense body and wedged the damp bottom sheet out from under him.

"She loved that Barnes fella from Fayette."

"Flo?" She rolled him to the other side and removed the sodden sheet.

"No, Alice. Before we met," he whispered, barely audible. "Jilted her when he found out about her baby."

Cam looked at Jules, her eyes narrowed. "What are you saying? Jim wasn’t your son?"

Silent, Jules knew she understood. He closed his eyes and heard an I.V. stand clatter past the door. His own bottle swung back and forth on its cradle.

“Jim was just like you, tight lipped about the other side of life, but always dropping hints."

“Alice’s gone. Jim’s gone. I had to tell someone.”

“So you did,” she said. "Want your coffee out of a saucer?"

He nodded. The familiar fragrance hit the air and he watched her pour it into the white bowl. As the coffee settled into the saucer, he noticed the fine grounds sink to the bottom.

"Things get sorted out, one way or another," she said before she left the room.

Jules turned from the coffee to the landscape. The drifts piled up beneath the pale green glow of the floodlights. Snow whirled across the field. In the distance he saw the white horse move. He twisted and leaned toward the window to stare out. He lifted his head, sure it was the mare coming for him. His heart raced and his cough erupted. Blood spattered. He rode it like a bronco, ragged, weary, but leaning into the rattle.