Sorrow Floats by Tim Sandlin Page A

folds, his ratty eyes glittered. “This was right after The Philadelphia Story . She told me Cary Grant had vulture breath.”
    “So, if you got laid on one, why do you hate horses?”
    He glanced at me. “Kate screamed, ‘Give me more, big boy!’ and the stallion panicked and reared. The end result was a life spent in this chair. It took all the Warner Brothers’ resources to keep the story out of the tabloids. Can you see it?” He held his hand up to scan an imaginary headline. “Katharine Hepburn Cripples Stunt-man While Fucking on Pony.”
    “You were a stuntman?”
    “Didn’t you know?” He slid through another cookie.
    The brown slime was getting deep, so I muttered something vague about checking a colt and walked over to the main corral. One of the mares had come up dry, and Hank had her and her foal penned so he could do the baby bottle deal. I did the baby bottle deal for Shannon, mostly, but Auburn was a breast baby. He’d left my tits tender—I could kind of excite myself by touching them. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a sign of hopeless deprivation when nursing a baby gives you thoughts.
    It felt weird to be at the TM getting ready to leave. What if I never made it back? All my innocence was wrapped up in this ranch, and innocence isn’t something to leave on purpose. Things happen outside Jackson Hole; you never know when you’re going to get stuck somewhere and never again see the place that you’d always taken for granted would be the center of your days for life.
    The corral poles were part of me, and the watering hole off the creek, and the boneyard where pieces of machinery older than Wyoming rusted into the sage. The ranch cycles were so soaked into my blood that on our land I always knew what time it was and which way was north. You feel those things when your identity becomes a location. The outside world made me nervous.
    Back over at the house, Lloyd and Hank had pulled Dad’s old rodeoing trailer over to Moby Dick and were in the process of winching it onto the hitch and hooking up brake and lights wiring. From the corral, I could see a big dent I put in the trailer by backing it into an A&W billboard. The billboard fell on an empty fireworks stand and knocked it flat. Dad laughed until tears dripped off his beard.
    I didn’t see any urgent need for Hank to loan us that particular trailer. Self-destructive tendencies can’t possibly benefit from a father memory following your backside across America.
    ***
    Shane had his back to the work, facing the horses and the sun. It was the time of year people liked to face the sun. He looked at me and popped a cookie. “Tonto says you used to ride horses.”
    “Used to?” I said.
    “Tonto?” Hank said.
    “You might think you’re hot stuff, but even before you fell off the deep end you could never have matched Kate at horsemanship. There was a competent woman. You don’t look so very competent.”
    I advanced on him. “Maybe it’s time you and me duke it.”
    Shane was amused to no end. “I don’t fight helpless women.”
    “I do fight fat cripples.”
    I could tell calling him a fat cripple earned me a little respect. Most people bend so far over backward not to say the wrong thing around the handicapped, to the point where the bending over becomes obvious and an insult. Shane was one of those cripples who wanted the same abuse given normal men.
    He turned the chair so we weren’t facing head on. “I did not mean to upset your feminine sensibilities. All I meant was Katharine Hepburn did things you couldn’t do even before you became a drunk.”
    I looked over at Lloyd, who chose to stay noncommittal, then back at Shane, who seemed to be leading with his belly.
    “Watch this, Humpty-Dumpty.” Sticking two fingers in my mouth, I let out a whistle. Very little causes me pride, not since college, anyway, but my whistle does call ’em in for lunch. Not a boy in Teton County could out-blow me.
    Frostbite’s ears jumped alert and