FICTION | Francesca de Onis Tomlinson Huracan

FICTION

HURACAN

By Francesca de Onis Tomlinson

I was running Guinevere around the field, and Lance chased her in circles, a game to him. Guinevere’s training came from a filly showed, she always knew when it was business and she’d settle right down into it. It was in her nature to be in this trade between man and horse.

She flowed by me like a form of the wind, long muscles smoothing and tightening, her hooves setting pretty in the ground.

My brother Ben was off on Mr. Saad’s business. Mr. Saad was staying close to home, his missus, Miss Violetta Lee was with child and he needed Ben to see to his affairs in the outlying towns.

Me, I just worried he’d put Ben in a suit or some such and we’d never get that trip up Oklahoma we’d been planning on. Ben said no how that’d happen, we’d leave anyway. He’d take Prince out on the range and catch me one of them mustang mares, jump her and let her whip herself into a spinny ‘til she stopped bucking. It didn’t take him long, I’d seen him do it at the rodeo. He never took the stallions, said they’d fool you too easy, like they were accepting their fate when of a sudden you’d be in a heap on the ground and them flying off to the horizon, back in search of their wildness.

Guinevere was skittish, tossing her head at any old thing—

the stones under her feet, the wind in the branches. Lance ran up to the edge of the wood and commenced to tearing around in a big circle that took him from the edge of the fenced pasture down to trees on the ridge. He lit off like a stone from a sling, loving the air that flew under his feet. I knew he’d circle back, he was no more going to leave his mama, so I led her down to the trough and watered her for a good morning’s work.

Ma rang the supper bell though I hadn’t expected her to, so soon. She was on the back porch studying the sky and I got myself on Guinevere to ride her in.

Lance trotted along beside, at first he seemed confused like, and then he stopped noticing, the way it is with the young ones no matter what they are, horse, child, dog. Cats they go their own way, never minding you anyhow.

“Weather’s curious, Luke,” she said. “I’m not liking the way the sky is looking.” She pointed out over the plains in the distance, and it was true, the clouds were shirring, and massing together on the horizon. The wind was coming at us from all different directions.

“Let’s get the animals put away,” she said, and she called Jim out of the barn. “You help Jim round up the sheep. The cows will come in themselves if they think there’s ought to worry about and the goats will know what to do. But those sheep’ll scatter throughout the hills and we’ll never get them back.”

“They’re branded, Ma.”

“And sheared, too I’m glad to say. Ned’s been busy while you and Ben been gallivanting. Don’t make a difference, Luke, if they scatter, they can be gone for good and if not, they have a way of hurting themselves when they’re frightened. You help Jim in with the sheep, like I told you. And let the horses go down the meadow ‘til you do.”

That was Ma’s way of saying I’d better hop to it if I wanted to make arrangements for Guinevere and Lance. I don’t think Pa’d agree with her choices but Pa wasn’t home, he was out shoe-ing by McCloskey way down on the river plain.

Ma got to herding her chickens into the henhouse. They kept hopping up in the trees and sticking their heads under their arms. It was something comical to see and Jim and I laughed and I made as if to put my head under my arms and sit in a tree branch and Jim laughed himself silly in a way he hadn’t for a long time. He needed help at the paddock latches, he fumbled with ‘em a bit. But he wouldn’t let me fasten them back up. He stuck his ground on that and I decided to let him have his way as we drove the sheep down the hill. I figured I could get back up later to close it all up. But it didn’t really matter as we were herding the critters into the barn anyhow.

The animals were right confused with the change in their day and it took a while to get the sheep into the barn. Jim threw hay down on the floor at the back of the barn, farthest from the direction of the wind that was now soughing on us. They settled down, lowering onto their fours, curling their legs under. They were a pitiful sight, all sheared and spooked and a red cross marked on their backs for the worm treatment. I threw out handfuls to settle them. They was like a pulpit of penitents, listening to the wind out beyond them barn walls, scolding like Preacher Twombley. The chickens clucked in between them, happy to see the grain and Ma kept shooing the birds in til she finally got them penned up with the sheep and the goats.

Ma called out to her cows who were massing at the fence, looking for her and their salvation.

Ma led them in, talking slow and gentle, patting their necks. They had a language they spoke to each other and I

reckon they was saying to themselves to calm down and wait this thing through.

“What is it, Ma? I ain’t never seen the animals this spooked without a big storm on the way.”

“There is a big storm on the way,” Ma said. “Down on the coast they call it the Huracan.”

“I ain’t never seen that,” I said.

“It’s early for such a storm. You usually see them later in the year. I’ve never heard of one so early, in June. I can’t figure it.”

Jim was sitting in his seat by the door and he was listening to the wind. I was starting to see it was scurrying all about, as if it were blowing at itself, or some kind of celestial struggle was under way and it was swirling down to include us all.

“It ain’t the Rapture, Ma?” Jim asked Ma. He was frightened, pale, and his hands was working themselves.

Ma took his face in her hands. “What’re you talking about the Rapture for?” she said, with a teasing tone in her voice. “Who said anything about a Rapture?”

“Preacher been talking about it.”

“Oh, phoo. Those preachers get to talking all kinds of nonsense to keep us listening to them. Don’t you worry about the Rapture. There ain’t going to be angels descending or us folks ascending. Not to heaven anyways. We don’t get some things out there tied down there’ll be plenty flying off without angels helping out any.”

But Jim was settled into his corner and he wasn’t budging.

“Okay, Jim. You comfort these dumb animals as best you can. We’ll see to what’s left outside.”

Me and Ma got to storing anything weren’t weighted down in the tool shed. Ma gave a good push to the door and fastened it shut with a cross bolt.

“I don’t expect we’ll see the worst of it ‘til night falls,” she said. “I wonder does Pa know when to get hisself back at a sensible time?”

“And Ben?” I asked. “Will he know what to do about this Huracan?”

“I expect so,” she said. “Ben’s a smart man. And you’re my big man today. Poor Jim’s unstrung by this.”

“I seen that,” I said, and it made me sad to see how far Jim was sinking and it seemed to me that I realized for the first time how Ma’s cares for him kept us all from realizing we were losing him day by day, just a little bit at a time. Now I saw that it was Ma who put the tools in his hands and Ma who told him what needed doing and as often as not after a while he’d place it on the ground and his eyes would seek out the distance as if there was something calling him from there, he was listening for it the way a dog listens to the call of a wolf, something he once was, and was no more.

“What’s he so afraid of Ma?” I asked.

“It’s the things beyond his understanding,” she said. She took her kerchief off, mopped her face and tied it on tighter, twisting the ends and knotting them hard.

“Ain’t that true of all of us?”

“What’s different for Jim now,” Ma said. “He ain’t wondering. He’s worrying. The wondering has stopped, and now it’s gone and left fear behind.”

“Why’s that? I don’t reckon I know what’s happened to him.”

“I don’t think it matters what happened,” Ma said. “Any more.”

“So what can we do for him, Ma?”

“We give him shelter in his storm, Luke.” Ma said. “Nothing else we can do.”

She moved towards the barn door as if to check on him. The wind was pulling at her skirts. She put her hands to her head and ran for the door. The sky was darkening quickly now. “See to them horses,” she called out and the wind snatched her words and sent them off in flurries like the leaves whipping off the trees.