The Appaloosas and The Harley

“Dammit!”

The boy, his fingers stiff and numb with morning cold, had dropped the heavy pliers into the crusted snow beneath the wire fence. As he stooped to retrieve them, his father’s two big, rough hands came from nowhere and shoved him hard against the fence post and wire.

“Gawdammit, boy! You ain’t even gonna earn your pancakes this mornin’, are you?”

Cursing, the man clawed through the dirty snow with long, powerful fingers, searching for the tool.. “Dam’ worthless, dam’ worthless you are.... just like your mother!”

The boy shivering, stood aside, and put his numb hands under his armpits. He stamped his cold feet in the snow..

“She wasn’t worthless! You say that, you say that all the time, but she wasn’t worthless.”

His father stood up – stood straight, tall and thin in a dirty plaid wool jacket and sour-smelling overalls. He looked at the boy curiously, and the blow, when it happened, came swinging up from his hip almost lazily, gracefully, but with great power and strength – and directly against the boy’s nose.

“Gahhh.......”

The boy staggered back, and then bent double at the waist, spitting, the pain coming in a dark wave, the blood draining down almost instantly -- splashing against the snow, bright red and steaming. The boy could taste it in the back of his throat. He was familiar with the taste.

“Your ma was whatever I say she was, and you’ll listen, by Gawd...... She was worthless when I met her, she was worthless all the while, and she was worthless when she died! Say it now....!”

The boy swallowed. “Worthless.....,” he whispered.

“Yeah... you betcha.... now get out some hay out for these damned cows........”

The boy went into the barn, where he tipped his head back and pinched his nostrils until the bleeding stopped. He washed blood from his face and hands with cold water from a bucket. He took a pitchfork down from pegs on a wall, and carried forkfuls of the sweet-smelling dry hay to the fence, and dumped it over to the waiting lifestock. His father had disappeared.

While the cows nosed and chewed at the hay, the boy leaned against the pitchfork and looked up at the Wallowa Mountains circling his father’s ranch. The peaks were pearl white against a blue sky, a gleaming pearl white with the last snowfall of the season. Spring was close, and every morning when the boy crawled from his blankets he could hear more and more sweet birdsong outside his window.

He slapped a cow on it’s warm, trembling shoulder and spoke to it.

“He wouldn’t have dared say that about her when the old ones lived.... Joseph and Looking Glass and Ollokot and White Bird.... those old ones still wearing the Blanket....they would have come riding down from them white hills up there, riding down on them tough Appaloosas of theirs... come down here, and killed him!. The non-Christian people would have stripped his clothes off, sliced him.... gutted him like a fish... burnt him on a fire.....and then taken her away with them, and me, too...... up and away on them tough Appaloosas.” He smiled at the cow, and then went to put the pitchfork away.

His father came into the barn before he could leave.

I’m taking the Ford truck over to Enterprise this mornin,’ because the old man at Johnson’s thinks he can fix the transmission......somethin’ I doubt.... While I’m gone, try and not be as worthless as usual. Finish wirin’ up that fence, and then spade the muck outa the west ditch.... get some water goin’ down it...... I wanta see somethin’ done when I get back!”

The boy stood against the wall, silent.....

“You hear me, boy?”

“Yeah....”

“Then say something!”

“I’m to wire the fence. Clean out the ditch.....”

“Yessir.” His father opened a tool drawer, and brought out a bottle of clear liquid. He tilted it up and swallowed twice. He smacked his lips as he replaced the cap, and then he looked at the boy.

“Don’t even think about it! I know how much is in it.....couldn’t never keep it away from your ma, though......worthless drunk that she was. Go to work now! Oh, yeah.... tomorrow we butcher your steer.”

The boy stood silent and tense

“But I wanna sell it......”

His father laughed, the sound harsh in the musty, sweet-smelling barn.

“Sell it! Yeah, in a pig’s eye! You raised it here, and we’ll eat it here..... you got nothin’ but what this place gives you, and you should never forget that..”

He stared at the boy a minute, and then walked out of the barn. The boy followed, and walked to the fence. He picked the pliers and hog rings from the top of the post, and began threading and crimping the rings through the fence wire wrapped around the post. After a moment, his father drove a rusty Ford truck around the corner of the barn and then down the dirt road that led to the farm and ranch town of Enterprise, Oregon. As he drove, his father stared straight ahead. He didn’t look at the boy.

The boy stood silent for a moment after the truck had disappeared from his sight.

“Son of a bitch.”

He gripped the pliers and with a running start threw them high and hard out into a field of snow and mud.......

“Find the damn things now, will ya?”

He broke into a dead run toward the house, and then bounded up on the porch, slamming open the front door, and going up the stairway in long bounds. He tore some shirts and underwear from a drawer and threw them on his bed. Rummaging deep in a closet, he found a canvas Boy Scout rucksack, and stuffed his clothes into it. From under his pillow he carefully pulled his most cherished possession, a long hunting knife he had made from an old file in a school shop project. The handle was of antler horn from the first deer he had killed with his friend Homer's old 30-40 Krag rifle. The sheath casing for the knife he had sewn of buckskin from the same deer He looked around once, removed a picture of his mother from a dresser, and placed it carefully with the knife deep in the rucksack, and then left his bedroom....forever.

He headed due west, in a loping, easy run, toward a series of timbered ridges. After a half hour, he stood panting on the last of the ridges, looking down at a clearing -- looking down at a neatly built cabin of pale peeled logs with smoke rising steadily from a river rock chimney. The boy loped toward the cabin, and pulled up just at the porch.

“Homer,” he called. “You in there?”

He waited a half minute, his breath slowing, the pulse in his temple quieting.

“Homer?”

The door opened and a tall elderly man wearing wire frame spectacles came out on the porch. He smiled at the boy. He limped when he walked.

“You again.....What, you just wanna go look at it again? You gonna wear it out with your eyeballs before it’s yours?”

“No,” replied the boy. “I’ll never own it.....I’ll never work enough here to earn it. He hit me again. And when he does it again, I’ll kill him. I’ll cut his throat with my knife.”

The old man’s shoulders seemed to collapse against his chest.

“Aw, hell...... just.....aw, hell..... C’mon in here and have some coffee.”

Later, sitting at a pine table, the elderly man rubbed his head with a nervous hand and then picked up an enameled cup of steaming coffee. The boy cradled his cup with shaking hands.

“Was it bad? Whada’ he hit you for this time?”

“Bad enough,” said the boy. “He hit me because I dropped some pliers into the snow....”

“He hit you because you dropped some pliers? Jesus.....!”

“He also called my mom, “worthless,” and I told him she wasn’t...... He’s always saying that... and I’m not gonna hear it no more....!”

“Aww, damn,” said Homer.

“Why’d she ever marry him, Homer.....and why does he hate me, his own blood?”

Homer stood and moved to a window, where he stood sipping his coffee. After a moment, he turned and faced the boy.

“I gotta tell you somethin,’ sport..... should’ve done it a long time ago, should a’ done it last summer, maybe... and maybe now’s the time. My fault it ain’t be done yet.”

The boy sat still, his hands moving gently on the smooth cup.

Homer limped to the table and set his cup down. “He don’t hate his own blood..... ‘cause you ain’t his blood. He ain’t your real father....”

The boy leaped to his feet, his cup spilling and clattering across the pine board floor.

“What the hell! What.......?”

“Easy, son, easy.... your real father was named Harold Gough.... but everybody called him, ‘Mike.’ He was a real good man, real good..... but he was a U.S. Marine that went and got himself killed off in Korea.”

The boy sank down cross-legged on the floor. He rocked back and forth on his buttocks, and in the darkness of his mind he saw somehow a splash of dancing campfire sparks, and smelled wet elkskin, and heard the shrill piping of eagle bone whistles and the throb of drums.

“Your mom went over to Idaho once, for a tribal gathering, and she met your dad in Spokane, he worked at an ice-skating rink there. At Natatorium park.”

Homer was rubbing his head again.

“Nobody could keep ‘em apart after that.... and what a picture they were! Your mom was about nineteen, your dad quite a few years older..... both wild and free and beautiful.... Damn, but they loved each other!”

Homer looked at him. The boy again saw the flash of sparks, and heard an ancient song, a hunting song, a song he had never heard before.

“You okay, son?”

The boy didn’t answer.

“She talked him into comin’ here, the Old Homeland of her people, and they moved into a house near Wallowa Lake, and he went to work in the sawmill. But he had been in the Pacific War, and they called him up again for that Korean thing, where he proceeded to get himself killed.”

The boy stood, and began removing things from his rucksack.

“Your mom just fell apart then, no Mike and you being just a little baby... she started drinking way too much. Had no way of raisin’ you, no way of makin’ enough to raise a boy... so she met your "stepdad" Morrison and then married him. Felt it was the best way for you, I guess.....”

“And he never told me!”

“No, I guess he did not. I think he blamed you after she died, kind of resented you, I guess..... what are you doing?”

The boy had unsheathed his knife, and was stropping the hard steel blade against the smooth leather of his boot.

“I’m gonna go back there and cut his throat to the bone.”

“Aw, hell.....,” said Homer. He took a deep breath. “Son, you cain’t go and do that now, not now and not ever. They’ll catch you sure, and you’ll hang for it, even as young as you are.”

The boy tested his knife on the ball of his thumb, staring at the thin line of crimson that materialized there.

Homer stared at him. “Ya just cain’t do it.... you ain’t big enough, or smart enough.... Morrison will kill you in a heartbeat. He’s been tryin’ to have an excuse for sometime now. You ain’t strong enough yet, you’re too young.”

The boy stared up at Homer. “I can’t look at him one more time.... if I do, I’ll sink this in his chest!”

Homer sighed again. “Yeah. I do see that.... come with me, son.” He set his coffee cup down and – limping – led the way out the door. After a moment, the boy followed him outside and across the yard to a old log shed. In the half gloom inside, Homer stopped near a shape covered with canvas.

“Well,” said Homer. “Here she is... time for you to have her now.”

“But I ain’t got it paid off yet,” said the boy. “And I’ll never earn it now... and he’ll never let me have it...ever.”

“Ain’t for him to say,” grunted Homer. “It’s my cycle, mine to keep, sell, or give away. I half- sold it to you already...for your labor ... and now I’m half-giving it to you.” He rubbed his aching hip. “I cain’t ride it ever again, anyway....damn fool horse....”

“But Morrison won’t let me keep it! He’ll sell it off, sure....”

Homer stripped the canvas away, revealing the dull green Harley-Davidson WA 45, an army surplus bike, the outline of the white star still visible on the dull tank.

“No. He ain’t agonna sell it.... because he ain’t agonna see it. You’re gonna ride it away. Tonight.”

Again, the boy heard drumbeats and eagle bone whistles.

“Where?” He whispered. “Where am I to go?”

Homer knelt in front of him. “Your dad has a brother, a fellow named Hal, he works on the tugboats outa Umatilla. You’re gonna get on that motorcycle now and ride to Umatilla, today, and look him up, get in touch with your uncle... he knows about you and he ain’t gonna turn you away. Probably get you a job on the boats.”

Homer reached over and cradled the boy’s chin with a rough, reddened hand. “After you leave, I’ll go to town and use the phone at Stockman’s Café and try and call him... tell him what’s up. But you get on that motorcycle now and leave, and don’t you ever come back...... not on your life.”

The boy sat, staring at his boot tops.

Homer shook his chin gently...... “You follow the river road to Lostine, Wallowa, and then Elgin. Keep on goin’ to La Grande, and then catch the road to Pendleton, Hermiston, and then Umatilla. If you get lost, just ask.... but keep goin’, don’t stop.” He stood up, favoring his leg.
“You got any money,” he asked.

The boy stared at him. “None, “ he said.

“Well, I’ll give you enough for gas and a sandwich. If you don’t get there tonight, pull off into the woods and make a cold camp. Keep off the highway. He ain’t agonna start looking for you until tomorrow morning, I don’t think.. By then you’ll be gone....”

He got up and moved toward the Harley-Davidson. “I’ll start this up. You go and get your pack, drink some of that coffee on the stove, and then take the blankets off the bed.... you might need them tonight. Remember how to start it? Don’t forget to retard the spark before kickin’ it any..."

Homer grinned at the boy. “Forget to retard that spark and you gonna be pulling your boot outa your ass! Go on now.....”

The boy ran to the cabin. He drank some coffee straight from the cooling pot, and then took one blanket off the bed. He rolled it tightly and strapped it under the flap of his pack. He looked around a final time, looked at the only room on earth in which he had always felt welcome... and then ran back to the shed.

Halfway there, he heard the Harley start, a bark, and then a deep rhythmic rumble alive in the gloom. Inside he found Homer standing there with a old sheepskin jacket and a flyer’s leather helmet with goggles.

“These will do you... wearing them, nobody’s gonna recognize you and they will keep you warm. Put them on.”

The boy shrugged into the jacket, spread the leather flaps of the helmet, and pulled it down over his head. Mixed up in the rumble of the Harley, the boy heard again somehow the old songs of his mother’s people, and – for the first time in his life – joy flooded his soul.

Homer held up a folded square of paper and several folded bills. “This is my handwritten permission for you to have this bike. And some cash. I don’t know but I don’t think you’re actually old enough to own it, but with that paper it don’t matter..... the state license is good until fall. We’ll worry about what to do about it then....You go now, ride it good and careful, like I showed you.... and remember, your uncle’s name is Hal Gough, in Umatilla. He’s a good man, trust me...”

Homer went to put the boy’s pack into one of the Harley’s saddlebags. “Wait, Homer,” said the boy. He dug for a moment in the pack and pulled out his sheath knife, and tucked it into the calf of his right boot. The folded paper and money he put deep in the other. He then stood and looked at the old man.......

“Homer.....,” and he started to weep.

“It’s okay, boy, “ mumbled Homer, and he awkwardly patted the boy on the shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay now... all you have to do is get to Umatilla..... it was all building up to this... as natural as rain. Just get to Umatilla.... I’ll see you again.”

The boy wiped tears from his eyes and then pulled down the goggles. Homer stood nodding his head and shouting above the rumbling engine. “Remember, you only got three gears, and 55-60's all you’re gonna get, but that you’ll get for sure.... she’s got aluminum heads and iron barrels, and she’s as good as I could make her. “

The boy through his leg over the leather saddle, and duckwalked the bike backwards out the door. Homer followed wiping his nose with a blue bandana.

The boy yelled, “goodbye Homer, goodbye uncle!” Homer waved one hand but said nothing.

The boy then engaged the clutch, shifted the hand lever to 1st, and the bike began to move away from Homer’s shed... from Homer’s cabin...down the muddy, broken lane to the Enterprise Highway, and, suddenly, the boy was alone.

He had ridden the bike in secret and in Homer's pasture many times last fall, and in minutes he was comfortable, standing high on the pegs to ride over the bumps, and sitting down in the saddle on the smooth stretches. The bike’s engine was reassuringly smooth and the clean wind stung his face. When he came to the Enterprise Highway, he stopped the bike and sat, staring up at the gleaming Wallowa Mountains.

After a moment, he looked down the highway to his left, where he could barely see the barn of his stepfather’s ranch through a fringe of timber, and smoke rising straight up from a hidden chimney. “So the bastard’s home already,” muttered the boy. “Bet he’s wondering why the fence ain’t fixed and the ditch ain’t dug!” He smiled under the goggles. He then bent to the side and pulled out his long knife, which he held at arm’s length toward the Wallowa Mountains. He then turned and pointed the knife at his father’s farm.

“You’ll see me again, old man. When I am stronger and smarter... when no one will be good enough to catch me, I’ll come one night through the timber like the old ones did, the blanket wearers, like Ollokot and White Bird, on them big Appaloosas stepping so careful. And you’ll wake up in the black morning and my knife will be down against your throat.....and then you will know sure that my mother, who you ruined, was never worthless, never....”

After a moment the boy put his knife carefully away in his boot, gunned his Harley-Davidson, and turned out on the Enterprise Highway, headed west, to Umatilla and the Columbia River.