Better Left Unsaid/Sixteen

I had to put some distance between us, as I feared I may begin to cry, so, I hurried to the bedroom to dress. My underwear appeared to be missing. I checked under the bed, beside the bed, in the bed…so, I pulled jeans on over my naked flesh, and, decided to leave Tim’s blue plaid flannel shirt on, rather than wear the shirt Tim had pulled off of me earlier. I managed to find my socks on the floor beside the bed, where Tim had dropped them, and, pulled them on before stepping into my boots. I looked up to see Tim standing in the doorway. His hands were shoved into his front pockets, and, his blue eyes were bleak as he looked at me. Nervously, my gaze fell away from his, and, I gestured to his bare feet, “You better put your boots on. I’ve got a lot of horses to bathe and clip today.” He came to stand in front of me, and, I continued to look at his feet, unable to meet his eyes again. His long fingers lifted my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze. I resisted the temptation to close my eyes. “Yer just a baby, ain’t ya?” he said, very softly. “I’m not a baby,” I said, unable to keep all of the anger out of my voice. “Yes, you are, Darlin’. Yer just a sweet baby girl, and, you should be going out with some nice boy yer own age. Shoot, Doug’s been snortin’ yer flank for about as long as I’ve known you. You should be seein’ someone like him,” he said, as he turned to sit on the bed to put on his socks and boots. I felt a burning flash of…rage, and, something like panic as he said this. Though he often brought up the issue of my age, each time, I feared it would be the time he would finally come to his senses, and, really pull away from me. And, he was acting as if he wanted me to start seeing Doug, which hurt far more than I would ever be able to admit to him..

He continued, “There are things about me you don’t know nothin’ about. Things you shouldn’t know nothin’ about. That cocaine today? It ain’t the first time. I been tryin’ to stay away from it, since you and I been seein’ each other, but, ain’t been able to completely. And, there’s more. Yer mom and dad is nice folks. How do you think they’d feel if they knew what we did in front of you today?” The truth was, I was irritated that he’d brought up my parents, as if they were the doting kind, who protected my every endeavor. He had no idea what my family life was like, and, it angered me that he presumed to know, and, to continually use it against me. My anger and, panic were growing, and, I couldn’t help blurting out, “How do you think they’d feel if they knew we were fucking three times a day, every day?” What I had really wanted to say was tell me about those things I don't know about you. But, I feared the answer. So, I let my anger goad me into saying something ridiculous.
He went very still, pausing in the middle of pulling on a sock. I feared that, this time, I may have pushed him too far, yet when he looked up at me, his expression was very mild. “See? That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Everything about me is wrong for you,” he said earnestly. I was angry with myself for losing control, for giving him additional ammunition with which to attack me about my age. He reached out to pull me to stand between his legs. I was able to look him right in the eye, without tilting my head back. “Damn, though, you are cute when you get mad. Yer just so damned pretty, and, innocent lookin’—you got a face like an angel, dammit—then, you say, ‘fucking,’ and it just cracks me the hell up,” he said, shaking his head as he said it. Then he groaned, and pulled me closer, and, pressed his head into my flannel covered belly. I had a vague sense of foreboding, as if there were something dark and threatening surrounding us…something tugging at the edge of my consciousness which I could not clearly see or identify. Something more that he wanted to say, or, needed to say. I didn’t know what to think, or, what sort of mood he was in, so, I didn’t speak, fearing anything I said, or, any move I made, would push him in the wrong direction. And, I didn’t dare question him—I feared what he may say. I felt strange and disconnected from him. I stood, uncertainly, in front of him, still unable to speak. I resisted the powerful urge to place my hands on his head, to hold him close. My hands remained at my sides. He sighed and stood then, his tall frame towering over mine in the tiny bedroom. Something he had said earlier struck me, and, I blurted out, “And, Doug is not snorting my flank.” He pulled me into his arms again, and, his hands cupped my buttocks warmly, “If you say so,” he said, skeptically. “He’s not,” I reiterated. These were issues I could address with him, things I did not fear, and, I needed to fill the silence, somehow, before the thing which I feared, but, could not identify, filled the silence instead. “And, he does drugs, too,” I added, for good measure. “Hmmm…” he muttered, softly, “You know what’s gonna happen to me, all day? Every time I look at you, I’m gonna be thinkin’ about how you looked in here, this morning, with the bright sunshine showin’ me every detail of all yer little nooks and crannies, and, I’m gonna forgit about why I shouldn’t be messin’ with you.” I felt the familiar heat creeping up, low in my belly, replacing my earlier unease and, I leaned into him as my knees weakened. “You can mess with me anytime you want, “I said, doing my best to sound sophisticated and womanly. He said softly, against my lips, “Yeah, that’s the hard part. Knowin’ that, and, tryin’ to concentrate on all the other things I should be doin’. Shoot, I ain’t even doin’ that great of a job on the colts I’m trainin’, cuz all I think about is gettin’ you back here, into my bed.” I could hear The Eagles’ I Can’t Tell You Why playing on the radio, as I leaned helplessly against his tall frame. I felt a strange sort of energy, a kind of warm tugging at my chest, as though there was a living force pulling me into him. That force left me breathless, and, weak. And, vulnerable. He laughed softly, and set me away from him, turning me around gently to face the doorway, “As stoned as you are, we still got to git to work, little woman,” he said laughingly. All I heard was woman. My heart soared.


We stepped out into the midday sunlight and headed for Tim’s pickup. Though my knees were still weak, I had no trouble keeping up with Tim’s long stride. One evening that winter, as we were all joking around, Tim had given me my, “Indian Name,” which was Fastwalker.

On the way back up to Wayne’s, Tim turned off the radio and looked at me. “Time for you to sing me a song.” I thought for a moment. “What do you want to hear?” I asked cheerfully. I was suspicious that the reason he frequently asked me to sing for him was because I sang so horribly, it amused him, but, I never let on that I was on to him. I would just sing, and, he’d grin…often joining me, if he knew the words. It also seemed to amuse him that I knew the words to almost every song that came on the radio. “How about some Baba O’Riley?” He requested. I began to sing loudly,
“Out here in the fields, I farm for my meals…” in my high pitched, teenaged voice and, when I glanced back over at him he was grinning from ear to ear, watching the road as he drove. The awkward, painful events of the morning seemed ten thousand miles away, as I sang loudly for my cowboy in the cab of his pickup truck.

When we arrived at Wayne’s, there was an array of pickup trucks parked on the limestone gravel outside the show barn. A couple of them had trailers attached. Most of them, I recognized. I guessed that I would be doing most of the bathing and clipping of horses on my own, as almost every truck I saw there was owned by one of Tim’s roping buddies. There was going to be some roping happening here. I guessed they’d had this planned, and, that the cocaine was somehow part of this. I looked at Tim a bit nervously as he helped me down from the truck, suddenly recalling the half dressed state some of them had seen me in, only moments before, and, knowing that they all had an idea about why Tim and I were late. “You shy?” he wanted to know. How was it he always seemed to know what I was feeling? “No…” I replied, however, I must not have sounded terribly convincing, because he grabbed for my hand and held it as we walked entered the show barn.

Tom, Chris and Doug were there, along with several other men that I knew, including Doug’s dad, Burton, who was my other boss. It appeared that they were all waiting for Tim’s arrival. I flushed as we entered the barn, unable to control my embarrassment, and, focused intently on the concrete floor as I walked along. I was grateful to Tim for holding my hand. He stopped briefly and bent down to whisper in my ear, “It’s alright, Darlin’. They’re just jealous.” I smiled, without looking at him, and, noticed Jerry down at the other end of the barn. I made a beeline for him, leaving Tim to his buddies. As I walked away, I heard Tom ask, “She mad at us?” Tim’s voice was too soft for me to hear his reply.
Jerry was glad to see me, and, his lovely white teeth showed starkly against his dark skin as he flashed me his dimpled grin. “Hey, Pipsqueak,“ He said in his loud, booming voice. Jerry had called me, “pipsqueak,” since I was about nine. “How come you’re not in school?” I had forgotten, for a moment, that I was supposed to be in school, and, felt myself flush. I wanted to tell him that Tim had kept me out of school because he had wanted to spend the day with me, before he had to go to New Mexico…but, I didn’t want to get Tim in trouble. So, I lied. “No school today,” I said faintly, and, changed the subject, “Can you help me clip Smokey?” Smokey was a young stallion that was going to New Mexico with Tim and Wayne, and, he was the only one whom I couldn’t clip without using a twitch. “Well, sure thing, Pipsqueak!” Jerry replied, enthusiastically.

As I made my way through the process of bathing, clipping and pulling manes on the horses that were going to the show, I could hear the familiar metal clang of the roping chute from the arena below, and, an occasional shout or holler over the buzz of my clipper blades. Since Tim hadn’t done a single bit of work since we’d arrived, I decided to take a break, myself, and, go down to watch. I enjoyed watching them rope the steer, though, I hated the calf roping. The steer roping was a bit less traumatic for the steer. First, one cowboy (the header) would throw a rope around the horns, pulling it taut, as the steer was released from the chute. Then, the other cowboy (heeler) would rope the back legs, also pulling the rope taut, so that the steer had no place to go. Calf roping was a bit different. A rope was thrown around a young calf’s neck, as the calf was running to escape and, the calf would hit the end of the rope at a dead run, often being pulled completely off of his feet. Then, the cowboy would jump off his horse and tie up the calf’s legs. I had seen calves die this way. Oddly, Tim had confessed to me he didn’t like this form of roping, either, though he did do it, and, did train other folks’ horses for it. He’d told me that the calf’s bellows when it hit the end of the rope were like a knife in his heart.

Today, it was to be strictly team roping, with all of them taking turns, riding different horses at different times, and, pairing up with different partners.

I could see the dust rising in the sunlight, from the arena below, as I made my way down the hill to where the outoor arena was. I spotted Tim in the corner, sitting on Lady, his thin frame leaning forward casually with his arms crossed over the pommel of his saddle as he watched his friends. Tom and Jerry flanked him, also watching. Tim spied me coming down the hill, and grinned boldly in my direction from under the brim of his baseball cap. I could not see his eyes, as they were shaded by his ball cap, but, I’d no doubt that the smile was for me. I climbed up on the fence and sat on the top rail, settling in to watch some roping for a bit. It appeared, however, that Tim was done roping, and, I was sorry, for I truly enjoyed watching him. He was so good. He was incredibly fast and accurate, with 99.9 percent of his tosses hitting their mark. I had never seen anyone rope like he did, and, neither had anyone else in our little town. This was one reason he was beginning to cause such a sensation, and, why roping was becoming more and more popular; more a part of the mainstream. I know that I, before meeting Tim, had no interest at all in roping. It was just something that was done at shows early in the morning, before my classes started, and something that was done by the occasional husband of a family friend. It seemed that now, however, just about every male in the community who owned or trained horses, was learning to rope, and, many of them, learning to rope from Tim!

Currently, however, it seemed roping was not on Tim’s mind, for his head was turned in my direction for most of the time that I sat perched on that fence rail. After about half an hour, Tim rode out of the arena and made his way over to me. “Ya better hang on! Lady’s fixin’ to knock you off yer rail,” he warned. Indeed, Lady’s soft nose was pushing into my face, asking for her kiss. Wrapping one arm around her face, I obliged her, without turning to look at Tim. “Why don’t you climb on, Sugar? We’re all goin’ into town. Tom’s goin’ to buy us lunch," he suggested. "Tom's sorry he barged in on us this morning,” he added, grinning. I turned so that I was straddling the rail, and winced a bit as I did so. “Ah, yer little girl parts is sore, ain’t they?” he said softly, as he sidepassed Lady so that she was directly beside me. I looked up at him, flushing, recalling his soft voice, earlier, telling me what would be on his mind all day, today, and, did not reply as I quickly plopped myself down onto Lady behind him. We rode back up to the show barn in silence. Strangely, I was careful not to touch him, and, rather, hung on lightly to the seat of his saddle…though, from a distance, it may have appeared as if I was holding on to his rear end…

Lunch was rather enjoyable, actually. I wasn’t really hungry, but, it was fun being with those cowboys, especially so since I was fully dressed!! Tim’s blue plaid flannel shirt fell almost to my knees, and, I felt very safely covered! I realized that my feelings of embarrassment faded with a couple of beers, anyhow, and, that the boys really didn’t seem to be as obsessed over the sight of my naked body as I had feared. In fact, it seemed as if they’d quite forgotten about it!! Perhaps I should have been insulted! The only one who seemed to remember was Tim, who’d look down at me, with very warm eyes, every so often, or, reach down to grip my thigh with his hand, in between eating most of the food on my plate and finishing my beers for me.
We had chosen our favorite local haunt, a Bar/Burger joint called the Circle B. Above the Circle B was a ballroom. The building had been constructed at the turn of the century, and, the ballroom featured lovely wooden floors, and, hosted many local dances and events. Tim and I had even two stepped on those floors a time or two at a few of the local Quarter Horse functions. The bar itself was dark and close, and smelled of grease and old wood.
The boys were animated, loud, and, attracted a great deal of attention from the surrounding tables. I found that this was often the case when I spent time in public with them! I’d once gone to a movie with most of the same group, and, we’d been very firmly asked to leave the theater only a half hour into the film. I believe the movie was called Motel Hell, and, that the bad behavior of my cowboys included some fairly spot on pig noises…
I sat quietly between Tim and Tom in the booth, enjoying the entertainment. Tim’s long legs were stretched out as far as he could stretch them, and, Jerry, across from him, kept hollering at Tim, in his booming dj like voice, to quit kicking him. Poor Tim could not sit normally in a booth, because the tables were never tall enough for his legs to fit under. So, he sat with them spread, and, stretched out. In fact, his thin leg pushed against mine, however, unlike Jerry, I wasn’t complaining.
Currently under discussion was poor Jimmy Carter, whom I’d occasionally jump in to defend. It was a bit alarming to hear of how uninformed these boisterous voters were about current events! Tim was fairly quiet. He rarely talked politics. They didn’t seem to interest him. He seemed content to listen, and, to grin at me. He did ask me to sing for the boys, however. In fact, he was rather insistent about it, which I found strange. Actually, his behavior in the last few hours had been very different, and, did not seem in keeping with the Tim I had come to know. I wondered, in that moment, if I really knew him at all. Not wanting to disappoint him, however, I agreed to sing. I wanted to know what I should sing, and, several requests were quickly fired at me from all directions. I was a bit shy about singing in the bar, in the middle of the day, however, I was surrounded by large men, and, was fairly hidden. I was also mildly drunk, at that point, and, of course, stoned. So, as per Tim’s special request, I softly broke into Paul Simon’s, “Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover.” During my singing, Tim kept exclaiming, “Ain’t that the cutest damned thing you’ve ever heard?,” after which he’d be told to shut up so that they could listen. There were definitely a few loud guffaws coming from our little booth as I sang, however, thankfully, I don’t think the scattering of other patrons in the bar really heard me…perhaps the children at the table across from us, who were looking at me and giggling…

When I was about half way through the song, Doug said, “Hey, that’d be real good if your shirt was hiked up to your titties, like Tim had it this morning!” He was grinning, and, his blue eyes were crinkled at the corners. This was so unlike Doug, I wondered if they had all gone crazy. I quit singing, and, we all looked at Doug, who was still grinning. I was quite certain I had never heard Doug say titties before, and, even more certain that he’d never noticed I had them until today. Tim looked down at me, while saying softly to Doug, “You got a real good look, then? I been tellin’ ya’ll she ain’t as skinny as she looks.” He seemed edgy, and, ready to say more, but Jerry interrupted, somewhat loudly, “Hey, now, that ain’t no way to talk about a little lady. What in the hell is the matter with ya’ll? And, what were ya’ll doing this morning, anyhow?” Ignoring Jerry, and, still surprised by Doug’s small outburst, I said conversationally, “So, you don’t think I’m too skinny now?” Doug continued to grin, pulled down the brim of his ball cap, and said, “No ma’am.” Tom chimed in, “Yeah, guess I’m going to have to quit calling you jailbait. From the neck down, you’re all woman.” They had all gone bananas. Truly. I was, at once, embarrassed, and, proud. Proud that Tim’s friends were pointing out my womanly charms to Tim, in the event that he’d forgotten about them during the day, or, had only pointed them out, himself, out of kindness. And, embarrassed that Jerry had been a witness to it all. And, truly baffled at the strange behavior of them all.

We returned to the barn, for a bit, that afternoon. Tim and I had a few colts to ride, and, I had another horse to clip and bathe, and, the trailer to load up. Afterward, Tim and I stopped at my folks’ house so that I could take a shower, and, spend a little time with my Zippy dog. My brother was home, and, hadn’t seemed to notice that I wasn’t in school. I asked Tim if I could take Zippy with us, but, he said he wasn’t in the mood to get attacked every time he touched me, and, didn’t want to have to worry about Zip chasing the steer over at Tom’s, later. So, I hugged my Zippy close, whispered an apology, and, left with my cowboy before my mother could come home and ruin our plans.

On the way back to Tim’s, I had little pangs of guilt about my Zippy, but, said nothing to Tim, knowing he wouldn’t understand. I was also having little rushes of panic about skipping school. This, I did confess to Tim. “Haven’t you skipped school a lot already this year?” he wanted to know. Indeed, I had. Doug and I had spent the bulk of the fall semester driving around in his red pickup truck, which used to be the truck his dad drove around town as the town veterinarian(strangely, I never did get over the thrill of seeing that red pickup truck parked somewhere--a throwover, I suppose, from the days when his dad drove it to our farm to make everything okay, again, when we had a sick horse), and hanging out at the track, having beer for breakfast and getting high for lunch.

My family had moved back to Nebraska after moving away for a couple of years, and, I had found it difficult to reestablish myself in the close knit community at school. I had moved away a skinny, mousey girl and, returned pretty. Though still skinny, I’d managed to grow a respectable set of breasts, an apparently surprisingly round bottom, and, my face had changed, somehow. I was certain that being pretty would make it easier for me, at school, but, as it turned out, the result was quite the opposite. So, I feared school. I feared it as I had feared almost nothing else in life. And Doug? Doug had his own story as to why he’d skipped so much school with me, a story which he’d never really shared. Doug was a man of few words. As far as I knew, Doug was just helping me to escape the terror that was High School. I told Tim, “Yeah, it’s always been easy, because we have an open campus, but, I get nervous, every time.” I was actually uncomfortable talking to Tim about school. I didn’t want him to remember that I was still in school. He looked sideways at me, and wondered, “How come you never wear your hair down?” I was surprised by this. I wore my hair the same way, every day, and, he’d never mentioned it before. I always wore it pulled back in a tight pony tail, which gathered at the crown of my head. I told him, “I’ve got bad, bad hair. It’s always in my eyes, and, my mom has always yelled at me about it, so, I just got in the habit of wearing it up. I had a perm last summer, though, and, it was short. Everybody liked it, but you missed it!” He grinned at me. “There you go!! I ain’t never heard you talk about yer hair before, and, I thought all girls liked to talk about their hair. Guess I just never asked the right question,” he said, laughing. I flushed. I didn’t like to talk about hair. I never talked about hair. I was just happy to talk about something other than school. I gritted my teeth at him, and said nothing. “Hell, I’m just teasin’ you, Darlin’. I really did want to know why you’ve always got yer hair in that pony tail. There ain’t nothin’ wrong with it; in fact it’s real cute when it flops along while yer walkin’ and ridin’,” he said.
We pulled up in front of the little house, and, he turned his truck off. He stepped out, and, reached for me, as he always did, pulling me down to stand in front of him. He bent his head down to ask, in his soft voice, “Yer little girl parts still sore?” I thought for a moment, then, nodded, wondering why he’d asked me this question so many times. I was, by now, no longer horribly embarrassed by the question, just puzzled as to why it seemed so important to him. Lots of my body parts were sore, most of the time. I had been working with horses for all of my life. Hurting, in one way or another, was just something I’d grown accustomed to. Tim grabbed my hand, and, led me down the path to his tiny home.