They were a ways off, a half a dozen horses or so, including Sackett and Lucky, who we used exclusively for equine therapy and nothing more. Lucky had turned out to be the sweetest, mildest old boy in the world. Completely house-broken, that one.
“The Paint. Is the Paint yours?” Tag asked, and his voice was equally strained.
“Calico? Yeah. She’s ours.” I nodded, finding the pretty horse with her white mane and bright colors and feeling the familiar lurch in my heart I always felt when I saw her.
Suddenly Moses was striding away from the corral, covering the ground between the back of his house and our property without a backwards glance or a “see you later.”
Tag and I watched him go, and I turned baffled eyes on Moses’s friend.
“I would ask you what the hell his problem is, but I stopped caring a long time ago.” I reached Cuss and snagged the rope around his neck a little more firmly than I would have in other circumstances. He reared up and tossed his head, making me regret my hasty actions. I managed to free my rope from around his neck, but not without a little quick-footed hopping to avoid teeth and hooves.
“For his sake, I hope that’s not true,” Tag answered frankly, which baffled me even more. But he pushed off the fence as if to follow Moses. “It was nice to meet you, Georgia. You’re nothing like I expected. And I’m glad.”
I had no response but to watch him leave. He was twenty feet away when he called over his shoulder, “He’s going to be tough to break. I’m not sure ol’ Cuss wants to be ridden.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what they all say, until I’m ridin’ ‘em,” I tossed back.
I heard him laughing as I started over with Cuss.
Moses
YOU WOULD THINK with a lifetime of seeing the dead, I would hate cemeteries. But I didn’t. I liked them. They were quiet. They were peaceful. And the dead were tucked away in neat little rows beneath the soil. Tidy. Taken care of. At least their bodies were. The dead didn’t roam cemeteries. That’s not where their lives were. But they were drawn by their loved ones’ grief. By their loved ones’ misery. I’d seen the walking dead, trailing behind a wife or a daughter, a son or a father, many times before. But today, in the cemetery in Levan, there were no walking dead.
Today, I saw only one other person, and for a moment, my heart lurched as my eyes fell on her fair head and her slim figure crouched by a nearby grave. Then I realized it wasn’t Georgia. It couldn’t be Georgia. I’d seen the horse and heard Georgia say Calico, and I came straight here. Plus, the woman was a little smaller than Georgia, maybe a little older, and her blonde hair fell down in curls from a messy knot on her head. She left a little bouquet by a stone that said Janelle Pruitt Jensen in large letters and moved off toward a tall man waiting at the edge of the cemetery. When the woman reached him, he leaned down and kissed her, as if consoling her, which made me look away immediately. I hadn’t meant to stare. But they were a striking couple—darkness and light, softness and strength. I could paint them, easily.
The man’s skin was as dark as mine, but he didn’t look black to me. Maybe Native, tall and lean with a way about him that made me think military. The woman was slim and girlish in a pale pink skirt, a white blouse, and sandals, and as they turned toward the exit and I got a look at her profile, I realized I knew her.
When I was a little kid, Gigi had made me go to church whenever I visited. One Sunday, when I was about nine, a girl had played the organ. She was maybe only thirteen or fourteen at the time, but the way she played was something else. Her name was Josie.
Her name came to me in my grandmother’s voice and I smiled a little.
The music Josie had made was soul-stirring and beautiful. And best of all, it made me feel safe and calm. Gi picked up on that right away and we started walking to the church when Josie was practicing and we would listen in the back. Sometimes she would play the piano, often she would play the organ, but whatever it was, I would be still. I remembered Gi sighing and saying, “That Josie Jensen is a musical wonder.”
And then Gi had told me I was a wonder too. She whispered in my ear, with Josie’s music in the background, that I created music when I painted, just like Josie made music when she played. Both were gifts, both were special, and both should be cherished. I’d forgotten all about it. Until now. The woman’s name was Josie Jensen and the grave she visited must be her mother.
I watched the couple walk away, lost in the memory of her music when, at the last minute, Josie stopped and turned. She said something to the man with her, who then glanced back at me and nodded.
Then she walked back toward me, picking her way around the tombstones until she stood a few feet in front of me. She smiled sweetly and extended her hand in greeting. I took it and held it briefly before letting go.
“It’s Moses, right?”
“Yes. Josie Jensen, correct?” She smiled, obviously pleased that I had recognized her too. “I’m Josie Yates now. My husband, Samuel, doesn’t like cemeteries. It’s a Navajo thing. He comes with me, but waits under the trees.”
Navajo. I was right.
“I just wanted to tell you how much I liked your grandmother . . . your great grandmother, actually, yes?” I nodded as she continued. “Kathleen had a way about her that made you feel like everything was going to be okay. After my mom died when I was little, she was one of the ladies in the church who looked after my family, and she looked after me too, teaching me things and letting me hang out in her kitchen when I needed to figure out how to do this or that. She was wonderful.” Josie’s voice rang with sincerity and I nodded, agreeing.
“She was like that. She always made me feel that way too.” I swallowed and looked away awkwardly, realizing I was having an intimate moment with a stranger. “Thank you,” I said, meeting her eyes briefly. “That means a lot to me.”
She nodded once, smiled a sad little smile, and turned away again.
“Moses?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know who Edgar Allen Poe is?”