If Wishes Were Horses by Curtiss Ann Matlock Page A

his way that very day.
    Once more dressed and warmed by a flannel-lined denim jacket, shaved with cold water, teeth brushed and hair neatly combed, he made himself a cigarette and went out to the corrals. The gelding was running in the large one, head proud and tail flowing, as some horses were given to doing when the morning sun broke over the horizon.
    Standing very still so as to not draw attention, Johnny watched the horse, watched his movements—the way he stretched his legs when running and the way he tucked his rear when he stopped short and turned. Johnny’s interest sharpened. When moving like that the gelding took on an amazing beauty, didn’t seem like the same horse at all.
    Then the horse stopped and turned his head to Johnny. Once more seeming a little disjointed, he ambled over to the fence where Johnny stood and stuck his head over, sniffing at Johnny’s coat pocket containing the tobacco pouch.
    “Well now, you little son-of-a-buck, you like tobacco, do ya?” Johnny took out some tobacco and fed it to him. A lot of horses liked tobacco.
    Johnny was standing there at the fence when the tall Negro man returned in his pickup, the black truck chugging and popping up the pasture road that curved from around some trees. Johnny had halfway been waiting for him—or for some indication what to do next.
    The tall man stopped his truck in front of the barn, got out, and said good morning again. “Well, you look like you might just live now.”
    “Thanks to you. It was touch and go, I admit. Whiskey provided comfort last night and near death this mornin’.”
    “Figured. I’ve been there a time or two. I emptied my thermos while I was feedin’ the cattle, but there’s a percolator sittin’ over there on the porch, and Miss Latrice likely has made fresh. She usually does.”
    He took the lid to his thermos and Johnny’s cup over to the back porch and returned with both steaming. He was perhaps past fifty. It was hard to tell. He wore a tattered baseball cap with a big gold M on it, and he was sort of like a clothed skeleton walking, all his bones attached by strings. The hand that held out Johnny’s cup of coffee was large and strong and callused.
    “Okay . . . I have to know. Why do these people make their coffee on the back porch?” Johnny asked.
    “On account of Miz Etta bein’ pregnant. The poor gal cain’t stand the smell of coffee. She been awful sick right along with the baby.”
    "Oh."
    Johnny ducked his head and took a drink of the coffee. He felt a bit peculiar at the mention of Mrs. Rivers, and the word pregnant always made him feel uncomfortable. It was an intimate, private thing. He felt foolishly like he’d been intimate with the gal, after carting her over to town on the sly and then having her bawling against his chest.
    Suddenly grinning, he stuck out his hand to the tall man. “I’m Johnny Bellah.”
    “Obie Lee,” the tall man said, taking Johnny’s hand in a firm shake.
    “Obie . . . well, good to meet you, sir.”
    The tall man’s eyebrow went up at the formal address, and Johnny felt a little silly and self-conscious. Still, he’d been raised to be polite. They drank their coffee in companionable silence for a few minutes, leaning on the fence and watching the sun rise to light the day.
    “Didn’t I see you round at the funeral yesterday?” Obie asked, surveying Johnny curiously.
    Johnny nodded. “I dropped in to speak to Roy Rivers. I didn’t know he had passed on.”
    “It was kind of sudden,” the man nodded, respectfully as one did when speaking of the dead. “A lot of folks put out by Mr. Roy dyin’ like that. Lot of folks sayin’ a lot of things . . . but Mr. Roy was like most of us, filled with bad and good. He knew how to fish up a storm and how to make playin’ poker better than playin’ a woman. You know Mr. Roy well?”
    “Well enough to know he did play good poker. I got an IOU from playin’ with him, and I was aimin’ to get it cashed