2
There came a day when John was out too late on a job with Ken to see to his chores. Football practice had run long and exhausting that evening, and Virgil was desperately weary, but the work needed doing, and the spinner stopped on 'V'.
First hogs, then hounds, then (saved to the last, in hopes that John would appear) the horses. No John, though, and all he was hearing was 'The Song of the Volga Boatmen'.
Virgil slipped into the big, wood and stone stable, already dreaming of bed, then stopped short, and stared. There, caught just so by a shaft of moonlight, was a girl. She was standing in Summer's stall, pouring water into the bay mare's bucket, plain as day; except that it was actually night time, and she was anything but plain.
She had medium-length, brownish-black hair, with a few pieces of hay in it, and a high-boned, mestizo face that made him itch for a pencil or crayon. Her nose had a slightly aquiline curve to it, and her mouth was a dusky, full-lipped bloom. In the moonlit, rustling dark, her wide eyes were deep brown, and densely lashed
A little bony, the girl was about his age, Virgil thought, but her wary, serious gaze made her seem older. She looked like a doe startled at a stream, head lifted on slim neck, about to bound away.
"No, wait!" Virgil found himself saying, "Don't move, please."
Reaching into his jacket, he found a piece of folded paper and a splintery pencil stub. He didn't bother to flip on the lights, but drew the girl as she stood, perfectly beautiful, enveloped in moon-glow, and red plaid.
Once, when Summer stirred restlessly, the girl moved her hand, but Virgil at once went over and repositioned it. No problem. He worked from life, not pictures, and life had a way of meandering.
Totally absorbed, Virgil forgot to be tired, and entirely failed to notice the slim shadow that dropped to the littered ground behind him. It stole up, craning to see the paper. Another girl, almost exactly similar to the first one. A fraction taller and better-fleshed, perhaps, with her hair caught back in a thick, kinked braid.
She stared at the emerging image with her head cocked to one side, watching silently as Virgil erased and smudged, added lines and took them away. At one point, answering the question in her twin's eyes, the second girl shrugged, and made a little flip-flop gesture with one hand. But, Virgil wasn't through.
When he drew, he saw in his mind's eye, and the model's face, what he wanted to reveal on paper. Working furiously, eyes darting from girl to image, he coaxed the likeness along, several times turning the paper over and holding it up to squint at the drawing's reverse (he sometimes caught things that way, that he would otherwise have missed).
It was a moment of pure satisfaction when, at last, what he saw in his head matched the figure on paper, and someone looked out at him.
"Hello, Beautiful," Virgil whispered reverently. Then, holding forth the drawing, he walked over to his model, to show her.
No longer much timid, the girl squeezed out through the stall's wooden half-door, and gazed at the picture.
"That's me?" She asked quietly, speaking to Virgil for the very first time. 'Hungry', 'dirty' and 'worried' weren't in the drawing, somehow. Instead, 'pretty' was, and 'surprised'. She smiled at him.
"Yeah, kind of...," Virgil answered both question and smile. "First try, anyway. I could do better with a real canvas, and some watercolors. This...," he surprised himself, then, with a rather adult comment. "...doesn't do you justice."
And afterward, because something more needed saying, before the real questions came up,
"You got a name? Well, of course, you've got a name. I just don't know it yet, or... why you're here. But, I don't care," on a lifted note, with slightly raised, placating hands.
"...about the why, I mean. You could stay. I won't tell."
And he meant it, she could see that. They both could.
"I'm Teena. Two 'E's. We... I'm here waiting, for... somebody." She betrayed neither sister, nor mother, with that.
Virgil was perplexed for a moment. Then, disappointment battled disbelief on his round-cheeked young face, and he blurted,
"You're waiting on John? 'Cause... uh... he's gonna be awhile."
"I know," she replied, indicating the horses. "He told them about it, last night. That's why I fed them, already. I was up in the loft, listening. I've been learning so much stuff, about space. And all this time," she looked faintly outraged, "I thought they was just... stars." Then, more quietly, "He's very sad."
Sad? Virgil considered, momentarily startled. John? His brother had always seemed aloof, impatient and secretive. Kind of bored, maybe... but sad? It was a new perspective. An unsettling one. Could you really spend your whole life with a brother, and never really get to know him?
"How 'bout Scott?" He wondered aloud. Was the oldest hiding anything?
She shrugged a little, saying,
"Oh, him."
Virgil grinned, and, when she gave him a questioning look, said,
"Sorry, it's just... I never mentioned Scott before, and had someone go 'Oh.., him', like he was a free sample, or something. Usually they gush. Especially the girls."
"He don't come in here, much," Teena told him, "but he's always in a hurry, when he does. Too busy to much look around, or talk to the horses."
There was a noise, from outside the stables. Slow, booted feet, scuffing tiredly along the graveled path.
Posy lifted her head, snuffed a bit, and nickered. Summer did the same. In fact, all down the row, big bodies shifted about, ears swivelled, and low horsey grumbles filled the still air. John.
Virgil tensed. Sound carried faster, in cold air... There were, probably, about ten steps left to the door, at that speed and distance. Teena began to slip off, but before she could quite dissolve into shadow, Virgil touched her grimy sleeve.
"Wait a minute, please," the boy pled, struggling for words. "You.. You know how wishes always disappear, in the morning?"
Teena nodded. They knew.
"Well, don't disappear, okay? I could bring you food, and stuff, and I won't tell. I promise. Just... I don't want to wake up and find out that something so pretty's gone forever. You gotta... you gotta at least stay till I finish the real picture, or until whoever you're waiting for shows up. Okay?"
For Virgil, a very long speech. The door was opening, the horses now quite animated. From the east end of the row, by the window, Traveler neighed long and ringingly, letting the world know with a stamped hoof that such dereliction and negligence would not be tolerated in his stable.
Unable to promise a thing, the girl slipped free, and faded away. Virgil picked up the hose and watering pail, and turned to face his newly arrived brother.
Hunched up against a biting wind, John shut out the cold, and walked inside. He wasn't even death warmed over; seeming too freezer-burned, grey and questionable for anything but the garbage can. Quickly, Virgil stuffed away the picture.
"Hey," he called out, amiably enough.
John gave him a silent nod, then flipped on the lights and went from stall to stall, beginning with the gravid Posy. Noting full feed pans and thermal buckets, sleek hides and clean straw, he said,
"Thanks, Virgil. I'll take yours, tomorrow."
"That's okay, John. It was nothing." Really.
He knew that his brother would take on both sets of chores the next day, anyhow. John always repaid his debts.
Leaning against one of the stalls (Posy's; being pregnant, the strawberry roan Morgan needed more room, and was closest to the main doors) John stripped off his work gloves, and got a drink from the still dribbling hose. A short, broad head and questing lips poked over the barrier and past his shoulder, so he let her have some, too. Posy dripped and sprayed more than she drank, but John, lost in sleepy thoughts, merely held the hose, and endured his shower.
Virgil immediately fetched out another piece of paper, and started drawing again. John was a good model, prone to stillness and quiet, easily rendered gesture.
But, this time, Virgil wanted to capture mood, as well as pose. He tried to look deeper, and, yes; he saw 'sad' and 'empty' and 'alone'.
Shown the picture, John said,
"I look like that?" Oddly, he sounded almost like Teena had.
"Yeah," Virgil replied. "Guess I just never noticed."
"Why now?" The question was casual, directed at Virgil, while turning back to the mare.
"I dunno... all this time, I've been counting things, and drawing them. Seeing just the outsides. Maybe, now, I want to see inside, too."
"So, get yourself an X-ray machine." John tossed it off with a shrug, as if he really didn't care. Like the horses, though, Virgil knew better.
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah. Sorry. It makes you a better artist." Then, "Thanks, again, Virgil. I'm going to turn in. See you."
And that's how matters stood, until the affair of the trash, and the Grizzly bear.