Bright's Passage: A Novel by Josh Ritter Page B

probably ain’t even a mother at all.” He swung his arm behind in the direction of the palace. “And that palace over there? That’s a hotel! I seen those in France too. I even stayed in one once. Either you’re trying to trick me or you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “I am only trying to help you.”
    “Some help you are. That girl Margaret minds children for rich folks.” He threw a caustic laugh in the horse’s face. A touch of spittle landed on the its dark nose, startling the beast. “
You know everything!
I just bet you do!”
    The angel was silent.
    Bright tied the horse’s lead tightly around a tree. Then he went to fill a pail with water from one of the small ponds on the lawn. He came back into the trees and plunked the bucket down in front of the horse. “Everything you told me so far has been wrong,” he said, as it lowered its head to drink. “I come back from the War and you show up all of a sudden, tell me I gotta go steal Rachel from her own house, and I listen to you and go on over there and get her in the middle of the night and the old man comes out yelling he’s gonna kill me. Then she’s having a baby and you don’t help us and she dies. Rachel! Now the Colonel and his boys are gonna kill me and take my son—”
    “The old man and the half-wits are not chasing you,” the angel interrupted.
    “You say that, but you been wrong about everything else!”
    “They are not chasing you.”
    “I loved Rachel, angel! I loved her! Maybe you don’t know about that kind of thing.”
    “You are being a coward, Henry Bright. Go and—”
    “She was my wife!” he screamed. His eyes were red-rimmed and welled with tears. His lower lip trembled. There was a twitch in the skin over his cheekbone and he tried to smooth it out by rasping a hand over his face and looking up into the hazy sky until he had composed himself. “And
now,
” he said, once he was able to continue, “you want me to give my boy to that girl Margaret in there because you say she’s a mother, and now I find out that she’s not even a mother at all.”
    The goat began to pull on its tether, straining toward a bush. Bright bent and untied it to forage. The horse rumbled deep in its throat.
    “You’ll get your food when I say you do,” he snapped. “And I’ll tell you another thing: Everything you tell me is wrong and makes me look like a fool. So why am I supposed to believe you? And don’t say something like, ‘It’s because I know,’ ’cause we both know that ain’t gonna wash with me no more.” He took the baby out of its sling and laid it on his jacket on the ground.
    “Go.”
    “No, no, no! I ain’t going. This is a wild-goose chase. Only thing we got to do is stay away from the Colonel, and that’s just what we’re gonna do. We’ll stop here tonight and head out in the morning. We’ll ride another piece tomorrow and another piece the next day.”
    “The boy will die.”
    “He ain’t gonna die. I ain’t gonna let him die, but I ain’t gonna do everything you say anymore just ’cause you tell me to.” He threw himself on the ground next to his son and cast one arm over his eyes. “If you want that girl so much, then
you
should go and ask her to be
your
mother. We’ll just leave you behindin the morning, see if we don’t.” He rolled over. “Go to hell.”
    He lay there for a while, and the horse held its peace. Eventually Bright got up, emptied the bucket of water, and went to pick the goat up and carry it out of the dark-green leaves where it was munching contentedly. He milked it for a bit, then set up camp and ate the crackers and wedge of cheese that the woman had given him at the general-merchandise store. After a little while, the big black auto came back, empty of its passengers and their bags. The birds began to sing and then they stopped, and the sky began to darken as night fell. Finally the moon rose, nearly full, but its light seemed to be shining down through a