“I don’t know what she’ll think of the road,” Clem says. “I don’t think she’s ever been past the far field.” Their mother only uses the horse when her car gets stuck in the muddy divots of their driveway. She harnesses Humbletonian to the bumper, pulling while she pushes.
They reach the end of the driveway. Humbletonian turns left and trots along the breakdown lane, as if she can’t wait to get down to town, as if there’s nothing to it.
On the road Humbletonian’s hooves sound like winter—metal on ice or an empty galvanized pail tossed down a stone staircase. They pass an abandoned barn that is wedged between two service stations and two narrow swaths of dried red clover. Someone has spray-painted the words LUV SHAK below a tin sign advertising the Crystal Cave tourist attraction. The land is flat and open here. The road is the straightest road there is. It runs all the way down to where the Pennsylvania Dutch people live in villages named Blue Ball, Intercourse, Paradise.
An eighteen-wheeled tanker whooshes past Humbletonian. It blows Beatrice’s body to the right. A car honks before passing. The man in the backseat does not seem surprised to see a horse and riders on the highway on Thanksgiving evening. He throws his cigarette butt toward them so it explodes against the asphalt, a bomb sized for insects.
“I’m going to puke,” she says.
“No. No, you won’t.” Clem pats her on the back one, two, three times. Beatrice leans against Humbletonian’s neck. The warmth of the horse on her stomach. They ride the rest of the way in silence except for the click of Humbletonian’s hooves and the rush of the horse’s warm pulse.
One of the myths Beatrice’s mother was responsible for developing was a fictionalized version of Montezuma meeting Cortés for the first time. Her mother’s coworkers rarely bothered to differentiate between those things that had actually happened and those things that people just used to say had happened. They’d take history and add to it and no one knew the difference anymore. For example, they might say that Montezuma could fly through the air carrying three virgins at a time to a sacrificial altar in the sky. They might say that there was bloodshed when these two men met or that Cortés was part man, part horse.
Mythologic Development sold the Montezuma-Cortés myth to an amusement park in Maryland, which used it for a roller coaster called the Aztecathon. The concept sold for a good price, but her mother was a salaried employee and so she saw very little of the money. Now the amusement park owns Montezuma. He is their intellectual property.
Beatrice’s mother keeps a painting of Montezuma over her bed. In the painting he looks more like a famous movie star than like an Aztec ruler. Beatrice’s mother likes that about him. She tells Beatrice that she is in love with Montezuma now that Beatrice’s father is gone.
“Montezuma’s also dead,” Beatrice says, and her mother smiles as if that were a really good joke.
“Who-ah.” Humbletonian turns into the Middleland Mall Complex. They pass through a large empty lot dotted with circles of light. It is freezing cold. “Who-ah.” Humbletonian clops to a halt outside the Walmart entrance. At the doors, they wait on the horse. Their breath is visible in the cold air. Humbletonian stomps her hoof as though asking, “What next?” Her motion is detected by a sensor. The door swings open to let them in. Humbletonian takes a few steps back before she steadies.
They’d have to duck their heads to make it through the entry. “I bet they’ve never had a horse inside there.” Clem tilts his neck. A security officer stationed by the theft-deterrent column stands to adjust his utility belt. He eyes their transportation with more than suspicion. He steps outside.
“I know you’re not even thinking about bringing that beast in here,” he says.
“But I was thinking of it,” Clem says. “So you’re wrong.”
The guard palms his nightstick. He looks like just the sort of security officer who would have Clem ticketed for an inane livestock violation still on the books from 1823. No Horse-Riding on Public Holidays. Clem slides off Humbletonian, leading Beatrice over to the corral for collecting shopping carts. He ties Humbletonian’s reins to the metal bar. Beatrice slides off the curve of her flank.
Few people seem to be shopping. Clem asks a young man in a Walmart smock, “Excuse me. What’s going on here?”
The young man raises his eyebrows, waiting for some clue as to how he can assist them. “Lots of things are going on here,” the boy says finally.
“Walmart’s open?” Clem asks. “It’s Thanksgiving.”
The boy stares at the dog food he’s been pricing, looking to the back of the shelf, seeing something golden but invisible to everyone else.
Clem bends to see what the boy’s looking at. Just the back of the metal shelf. Clem grabs Beatrice’s arm and leads her away.
Up front, the store is ready for Christmas. Past Christmas comes an aisle of automotive and craft/hobby supplies, then an aisle of hair products and footwear, then an aisle of watches and diamond-chip rings. All of these aisles dead-end at the wall of sporting goods/hunting gear. Ladies’ and menswear are intersected by a row of birthday cards, logic-puzzle books, scented candles, deodorant, and toothpaste. Beatrice and Clem pass the electronics division. They’re sold out of the game Clem was thinking about buying, Dead or Alive 5000. There is a paper SALE sign that Clem swipes at.
“Do you need anything?”
Beatrice detects a flashing pulse in the fluorescent lighting. “Nope. Let’s go.”
Clem takes a pack of gum, puts it in his pocket. “For Mom,” and they leave quickly without paying for the gum.
Outside, Humbletonian is no longer tied up. She is gone, and Beatrice bets it was the security guard. “Shit.” Clem giggles because, by the shopping-cart corral, there is a pile of horseshit that Humbletonian left behind.
Clem scans the parking lot. The circles of light underneath each lamp are still there, but no horse. “You go that way,” Clem tells Beatrice. “I’ll go this way and I’ll meet you around back. We’ll flush her out.” Clem departs around one side of the giant complex and Beatrice walks off in the other direction.
The store is so long that she feels as though she’ll never even reach the corner of it. Beatrice is an astronaut dragging a two-hundred-pound space suit. That’s why her footsteps can’t carry her forward. She stops altogether. “I wouldn’t have killed him,” Beatrice says out loud. She waits until she hears a question from the far side of her brain, from her mother. “What would you have done? Just let him suffer? Let him go on breathing that bubbly wet breath that sounded like a damn water fountain?” “Yes,” Beatrice answers. “Yes, I would have.”