allways // entry four

entry four

HORSE THIEF

At this point in the tale, Kalin has been joined by Landry, who is Tom's little sister, and the spectre or memory of Tom, who only he has been able to see and communicate with. I'm not sure if it's actually a ghost story or if this is some way of Kalin processing losing his only friend. He’s not a bad kid or anything, just has always been quiet around others. [1]

In order to avoid direct spoilers, however difficult it is proving to be, Landry only comes into the scene, protecting Kalin from one of the relatives of the Porch family, the known shady business owners and owners of the stolen horses. The horses are named Navidad and Mouse.

This family member has a lot to prove and goes off on a mission to recover his family's property and stand up for himself and his family's name. The matriarch, Old Porch, is bemused and allows it.

All of this came on pretty quickly. Having not grown up in this world, I hadn't really appreciated "horse thievery" as a huge sin and bloody crime, but knowing that one of the owners was now angry, hot-headed, and armed, and in pursuit of our main characters was anxiety-inducing. He was a visible, concrete, and direct threat. I thought that he would be the main pursuing villain of the story. As one of the last spoilers I'm intending on having in this project, and because I am still somehow in the first two hundred pages, I'll leave it at this: the young Porch rapidly gains on Kalin and Tom's ghost. As he's intimidating the horse thieves, Landry pops out and intervenes, as she, too, was following Kalin, only somewhat aware of the promise he made to Tom (to free the horses).

But then... emotions settled. The situation ran cool. The so-called vigilante was welcomed for food near the fire and enjoyed the company of Kalin and Landry. He even thought that, come Monday, they would all be good friends and greet each other at school. She even paid for the horses in order to completely absolve them of the Porch's hatred and debt. They were horses for slaughter, after all, it’s not like they would be missed. [2]

So they parted ways, now all friends. But something else happens, far and away from the main characters, and a whole lot of hate and hurt and blame are suddenly directed towards Kalin and Landry.

All the while, the narration talking about this story as if it all had already happened, and the unknown ramifications of what it all meant, made for a dreadful and anxious account. [3]

This all made that far-off and almost historical charge of "horse thievery" sound that much more severe. It wasn't some cowboy hooliganism going on... now we're dealing with our main characters being accused of murder, and the rich, crooked family of the valley having "evidence" to solidly put them away. But they are out in the mountains. The pursuit and what happens to them is far off in the distance... but always known to the narrator and any of those who manage to survive the tale. [4]

We are still in the dark, but know only that suffering is on the horizon.

End Notes

I’m still thinking about that time in high school. The rest of the week, Jamie was visibly missing in our carpool. The mood had lifted a tad though, no longer the heavy, absent air that clung to us the first time he had to go to court. I’m realizing now that his court presence wasn’t related to only the cow prank. Friday (marking a full week without our fifth passenger) had the potential to rise towards an awesome start to the weekend. I could already tell when I met Cameron in the school's parking lot.

"Change of plans," he smiled. I asked him what he meant.

"Ever fire an air pistol?"

Ant and Big Andre eventually came along and the four of us drove towards the train tracks on the far end of town. If it sounds cliche, it's because it was. Years later, I recognized this type of adventure in the movie Donnie Darko, where Donnie has his famous monologue dissecting the sex lives of the Smurfs. Or lack of. Whatever. But it was the same kind of day, sunny, except tilting towards fall, the cold just about on the air.

Jamie was already on the top of the hill when we arrived. Presumably, he and the guys had done this numerous times. This was a precious gift bestowed upon me, the underclassman of the group. But to them, it was a typical Friday afternoon after school, before the allure of drinking or parties or anything opened up elsewhere in town. Now feeling almost wholly a part of the group, I also had one more consideration. I could potentially ask Jamie about the cow prank and with his permission, quote some badass one-liner for the school paper.

I thought I could get the best of both worlds, an inside scoop, having been a friend of the "criminal," as well as doing my utmost best for a journalistic masterpiece. Ms. Yard would be proud, and would eventually get over my associating with one of the dredges of society. Her words, not mine.

We could hear the low rumble of freight trains rolling into the yards a mile or two away. The tracks nearby were seldom used, but enough of a concern that we all had had cautionary lectures accompanied with an educational (and scarring) short film about children playing on the tracks, as kids. I didn't think they'd show that in a made-for-school-children program, but I still can see the little boy and his sister getting dramatically dashed on the tracks. Of course, it was fiction, but the sleight of hand editing and basic movie magic still fucked with our young minds.

Big Andre and Jamie took turns setting up handfuls of partially crumpled soda cans. Some of them were found, some of them were saved by the carpool gang throughout the week, knowing that they'd earn a second life on Friday afternoon. Cameron shot a few with the air pistol, and the piece was handed off a few times. I mostly just spectated and after Jamie finished drilling four direct shots, Cameron said, "Hey, why don't you take a shot." He was obviously speaking to me.

The sun was about twenty minutes from setting and the cold wind of the looming autumn had begun sweeping the hill. I can still remember poor Jamie Clough on the hill, screwing around with the components of the air pistol, hearing Cameron's suggestion, and him turning and looking at me. He smirked and shrugged, a gesture that read, "yeah, of course, why the hell not," and he held out the gun.

I approached and took the gun from his hand. It was much lighter than I had anticipated. Like a toy gun. I guess that that's what it really was. Blame it on growing up in Jersey for having a skewed perspective on firearms. They were somewhat foreign to most of us, at least as children.

I took aim at a soda can, or maybe it was a beer can, and fired, sending a round into the dirt about a foot in front of it. Big Andre cheered and said give it another go. I fired once more and grazed the can, the shot missing well enough that it didn't even tilt the handful of aluminum. Cameron chimed in with "almost." I raised to shoot again when Jamie muttered something about the sights.

"What's that?" I asked, not sure I understood.

"The sights," he said. "They're crap. It's a toy gun. Looking down them is more of a suggestion, not really true to life. Look down the sights but don't focus too hard. You're not a sniper."

We both kind of chuckled and I looked up again, taking aim, however, more casually as Jamie suggested. The can popped off the log it had been balancing on as if it was a prop in one of those old cowboy movies.

"Well, there it is!" Cameron laughed.

"Atta boy," Jamie winked.

All of this good cheer gave me the opening to ask about the prank. But, somewhat stupidly, although it was not anything consciously in poor taste or consideration on my part, I made one more comment. I would put my foot in my mouth countless times as I became an adult, but this error, for once, was the world's fault, and not my own. Or maybe it was just Big Andre's mistake.

"Hell yeah," I smiled. "Jamie's the expert, I just listened to his advice."

The cow prank and an interest in journalism stood at the doorway, just about on my lips when-

"That's our Jamie," Andre said. "Our resident badass, it's in his blood."

I looked up, confused for a moment. Jamie turned on his heel.

"What did you say?" Jamie said. All humor had left the hillside. Big Andre's smile disappeared.

"I didn't mean for it to sound bad, Jamie. It's just... you know!" He raised his hands, trying to alleviate the situation.

"I know what, Andre," Jamie said. "What about my blood, was it?"

"Just," Andre looked around, bashful and upset with himself. "Just… you know, having famous criminals in your family, it's nothing to be ashamed up, you didn't do anything-"

Jamie scoffed and turned away, marching away from our spot on the hill. I remember Cameron making quite a scowl at Big Andre as he frowned and scrambled after Jamie, apologizing and offering a handful of ignored "I didn't mean it like that" and other useless pleas. Jamie wasn't coming back to the gang that night.

I screwed around with the air pistol to ensure it wouldn't accidentally fire, I guess it was the toy's version of a safety, and approached Cameron, confused. I gave him a look that said, "what the hell was that about?" and he patted a spot near where he was sitting on a log.

"Ah, it's nothing, really," Cameron said, looking in the direction that Jamie and Big Andre had disappeared. "Jamie's like, great-great-uncle or some shit murdered someone back in the day. A long time ago. He was kept at one of those haunted prisons in South Jersey. Or Philly. I don't remember. I mean, I guess it wasn't haunted back then, but..."

He kind of trailed off.

"I don't get why he's so torn up about that... sounds like he wasn't even alive at the same time as the guy."

"He wasn't. But I remember we were literally on a school trip down there, must have been in elementary school. Somehow the story about his uncle or whatever comes up. The tour guide, completely unable to read the fucking room, brings up the storied legend of Clough's crime and subsequent hanging. The kids loved that. They didn't mean to, at least not all of them, but the constant recitation of the story and the things they said really upset Jamie. And that never really goes away. The shittiest kids back then knew it was a sore spot and would remind him of his family's history any chance they could. Kids are awful like that. You know that."

I only nodded, shivering from the cold and listening to the distant horn of an incoming train.

That was as far as I had followed the thread back then, in high school. Cameron later told me, maybe when we were driving home, that the legal issues Jamie faced had, in fact, settled down. Just a bout of community service was all he had to deal with. I was relieved for our friend, but can't recall ever hanging out much with him again. Even after his community service ended and he would have been able to be back in our carpool gang, I don't have any memories with him and the others. In fact, I'm not sure if our group really continued past Christmas break that year. The others were all seniors and their schedules began deteriorating into more fractured arrangements. Not all of them would be in school all day, some had trade school in the afternoons, others worked. Eventually Cameron would offer to drive me when he could, but it was certainly no longer the wonderful occasion that had set the tone for the first half of the year. But that's just growing up, it wasn't like there was some dramatic blowup, regardless of the memories I'm recounting now.

Nonetheless, looking back, and especially then, there was one prominent takeaway from that afternoon on the hillside. I realized that then, and in my short friendship with Jamie Clough, I never did get a chance to really ask him about the cow prank. I never did get my quote for the school newspaper. I don't think that these are related, either, but I also stopped writing for the publication after that first year of high school.

(Appendix C)

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