BUZZARD by Coby Hoffman
Tom Terrell is a simple man: he does what he does, which is what he’s always done. Having a beer for breakfast is one of those things. It’s been a time-honored tradition for three generations of Terrell boys, all of them named Tom, all of them born on this piece of land in what is now called Las Vegas.
Doreen watches Tom take a beer out of the refrigerator before she starts slamming doors and accusing him of things. Namely, being unfit to own a horse. She storms out of her country kitchen, past the Christmas tree and all the unopened gifts for Tom. Picks up her cat and closes herself inside the bedroom.
Tom Terrell grabs the first beer he touches and stands with a slight slouch, his chest somewhat concave, a definite paunch. After three days without a shave, the white stubble has turned into a mangy beard that begins under his eyes and runs down his neck. He scratches at his face with cold fingers and he remembers something his father used to say. A wise man is his own doctor. In jail just the night before, this wise man prescribed cutting out the beer because lately he’s been feeling forgetful, on the decline, stupid even – none of which suits a Tom Terrell at age 62.
Now that he’s home from jail, Tom Terrell pops the beer and guzzles hard before he can talk himself out of it.
Jail and the whole D.U.I. arrest didn’t suit Tom Terrell. Doreen made him sit there for two nights, Christmas and Christmas Eve, with four street punks to keep him company. Boys stared at his boots the whole time. Asked him stupid questions.
“Are you a cowboy?”
“Where’s your horse?”
“What’s with the boots?”
“Aren’t cowboys supposed to go down fighting?”
“I once seen a guy ride a horse across a parking lot. Was that you, Buzzard?”
For two days and two nights, they called him Buzzard, because nowadays everyone has to have a nickname. He looked like one by the end of it, with his sagging skin, red-rimmed eyes, and white hairs sticking out of his face. These boys – with their wormy skin, meaningless tattoos, metal pieces hanging off their faces, scorn for the workingman – robbed him of the respect he’s earned. Reduced him from a Terrell man to an ugly old bird in ridiculous boots.
By the second night, he saw death clearly, as if there were no avoiding it. Saw himself dead on the brown-plaid couch. Small black cat asleep at his feet. A skinny gal with early emphysema watching television. His father died to the tune of coyotes yipping in the pre-dawn darkness; Tom Terrell will die to the blaring tune of television and his old lady coughing.
In jail, he decided to quit the beer. That’s what a man does when he loses his driver’s license, truck, horse, and horse trailer on Christmas Eve morning. That’s how he makes amends with himself and his woman.
The horse is a different story, though. Whether a man quits beer doesn’t mean shit to a horse, especially a horse that, on account of Tom Terrell, had to spend two nights at a county animal shelter. Doreen reminded him of all the terrible things that could happen to the horse. Shadow’s going to call for something extra.
Tom Terrell takes his beer out to the backyard where the temperature reads a cool sixty. The two filthy dogs bark at him, excited at the prospect of being let out. Tom ignores them. Shadow stands in the same place he’d found her earlier, facing the gate in the back corner of her stall, staring at the way out. Tom must’ve looked that way sitting in the jail cell.
When Tom sits in his patio chair, he thinks about his father. Tom Terrell, Sr. occasionally sat, but when he did, it was only to work better. Tom Terrell, Sr. looked strong even at the dinner table, with those muscled forearms and broad shoulders. Tom Terrell, Sr., with his chin tipped slightly down, his clear blue eyes sharp and clever, emanated a father’s shame long before Tom had done anything to deserve it.
The father saw it all coming, of course. Knew his son would never amount to much as a landowner. Lacked something the old horsemen used to have. Besides, the times were changing, and to really make a living breeding horses, he’d probably have to move to another state. Tom Terrell, Sr. sold the land out from under his family. Came home and announced it just like that. Sold the land. Sold most of the horses. All but the house, and the two-acre parcel it sat on. Sold the land, then went off and died on a trail ride. Stone-gray under a heavy blue blanket. A monument in death. The way a Terrell boy is supposed to go.
Tom Terrell slurps down a cold river. His father’s legacy makes him feel heavy and dull. Long as I’ve got my horse, he tells himself. Got my horse trapped in a stall, on a one-acre lot. Tom gets that urge to take the truck and get past the buildings, out where the highway has no limits. Smoke my cigarettes, country music on low, just drive until I fade into the sunset. It swims round in his brain like a goldfish looking for the ocean. Makes him ache all over.
Of course he ought to get up off this chair and get to work. The brown dogs in that run are covered with flies and shit. His father’s dogs never looked desperate. Get your land in order, son. All these things a man just does. One then the next. Keeps a well-oiled machine called life. His father never called anything he did a chore; it was work, and there was honor in that. With Tom, Sr. there was honor in shoveling shit. Tom raises his beer. To shit.
Shadow turns to face Tom. A horse’s stare is an intense thing. The white star between her eyes strengthens the hold she keeps on Tom. She doesn’t snort, sniff, shuffle, swish, or make any of her horse sounds. It’s that silent, black-eyed stare that finally pulls him up off his chair just before noon. As soon as Tom’s standing, Shadow turns to face the gate once again. She paces a little, left to right, left to right, her head swinging, black tail raised slightly.
As Tom makes his way out to her, he finds himself squeezing the empty beer can. Shadow doesn’t care if he drinks. He puts one boot on the stall’s bottom rail, crosses his arms, and rests them on the top rail. He doesn’t bother with apologies or empty words. Just stands there watching her, noticing the slight hang to her head, the lethargy, the flies landing near her eyes, a full feed bin. The horse is definitely pissed. Exhausted and hungry and pissed and always alone, which is never a good thing for a horse.
Tom Terrell rests his chin on his arms.
“I know it’s been tough.”
He stops himself. He can imagine all he wants; Tom doesn’t know shit about what happened to the horse. Normally he’d go on talking whether the horse wanted to hear it or not. Normally he’d go on with Doreen, insisting on steak for dinner, beer for breakfast, honoring the Terrell legacy. But that was back when he had a little power in this world. Three days ago he was the man of the house, the land, the horse, and the truck. Now he’s lost all that, he starts hearing others’ thoughts and realizes that no one wants to hear it from Tom. Not the horse, not his son, not Doreen.
Shadow swings her head down and up, looking impatient as Tom just stands there. She paces, telling Tom the day is young and they’ve still got time for a ride. He owes Shadow this ride.
Tom Terrell recalls the simplicity and the thrill of riding straight out from the yard, something he hasn’t done in over a decade.
He returns to the house where he stands dumbfounded for a moment. What does one need for an overnight ride? Wallet. Blanket. One of Doreen’s cats sits on the back of the couch with its eyes closed to him. He yanks the blanket out from under it. He fetches a wool jacket from the hall closet, a mess kit and canteen from the garage, couple cans of soup and a sack of bread from the kitchen, and he wonders if he’ll ever come back. Last stop, he hits the refrigerator, crouches in the cold light, wondering how many beers will fit in his jacket. Tom reckons a total of four beers will do. Enough to keep him warm, fed, and hydrated. The rest can go to hell.
Outside, Shadow seems to understand what it means when Tom straps on the saddlebags. There’s a heavy longing for the world beyond the gate.
Before he can remind himself of promises and cures, Tom Terrell pops open a beer and saddles up. It’s as easy as rolling into bed, even with an open beer in hand. The horse takes a few steps forward so Tom can unlatch the gate. She lacks the energy of a penned horse about to start a ride. She moves slow, responds slow, seems pained to even have to lift a hoof.
“I know,” he tells her, “it’s been a while.”
Shadow turns west, her shoes clacking on the concrete. They ride along the paved path next to a drainage ditch. With cinder block an arm’s length to his right, the ditch in the center and another cinder block wall on the other side of the ditch, Tom remembers the old dirt trail that once ran through here. Just a decade ago (or maybe longer), he used to ride along a dirt trail and cut across the elementary school’s grounds. The kids liked seeing a cowboy ride across the back since that was their mascot. Home of the Caballeros. But now, as he takes Shadow to the start of the grass, he discovers a chain link fence covered with red and yellow prohibitive signs. No Trespassing. No Loitering. This is a Drug-Free Zone.
The drainage trail finally dumps them onto a suburban street. He holds the beer in his right hand and tugs both reins to the left. The street’s empty, with no signs of life. Few cars in the driveways. Most of the drapes pulled shut. There’s only one man outside, washing his truck. He’s a squat man in short pants, a motorcycle t-shirt, and sandals. Dresses like a little boy. He tosses a running hose on the sidewalk as Tom passes. Looks up at Tom Terrell, high on a dull, black horse, watching the hose water run like a river down the gutter.
“Mornin’,” says Tom.
The man flips his head up. “Hey.”
He looks at Tom as if he were doing something strange, as if riding a horse in the desert were unheard of. Tom thumbs his hat and rides on.
He winds around the subdivision before he feels the horse limping slightly on the right. Probably just the concrete and asphalt. She is an old horse, after all. Anyway, it takes his mind off the state of the Terrell land until Shadow pulls up to the road, and by that time, Shadow’s limp seems to have subsided.
Car car car car car car car car.
Actually Tom’s not sure it can be called a road now that it’s got six lanes, a concrete island, bicycle lanes, heavy truck traffic, and sidewalks on both sides. It’s probably a highway. A place to drive fast if you can hit the stoplights just right.
Shadow takes several quick steps back. Tom has to kick a little to get her to step up.
“You know, Shadow, a man was seen in a parking lot, riding his horse around all the cars. What do you think of that?” Tom suggests, “We could pretend you’re a bicycle.”
Tom holds the reins in one hand and grips his beer with the other. He remembers when landmarks were trails and mountains, not highways and shopping centers. You could see mountains on all four sides: Spring Mountains to the west, Frenchman to the east, Sheep and Las Vegas Mountains to the north, McCullough to the south. He could ride Red Rock Canyon for months and never tire of it. He finishes off the beer and tucks the empty in his jacket.
In what feels like a low point on par with spending Christmas in jail, Tom steers the horse into the new bicycle lane. They’ll have to keep riding west from here. Couldn’t be more than two miles until they reach the far west edge of Vegas, beyond which it’s all desert from there. Desert then rocky foothills then mountains.
He pulls another beer from his jacket, muttering every swear word he ever learned three, four times over. Now that he’s riding his old horse along a highway, he remembers why he deserves the beer. Why he sometimes can’t face this place before he’s erased it with booze. Tom opens his throat and lets the warm beer run straight down his gullet. He’s always considered beer to be a form of water; you can’t really get drunk off it. Still, Tom wonders what he’ll say if a police officer stops him for drinking beer while riding a horse in the bicycle lane. He worries for Shadow’s sake, and decides to hide the beer in his jacket and get some speed.
Warm blasts of exhaust pelt Tom and the horse. Trucks are the worst. Motorcycles, with their noise, are almost as bad. In less than a city block, they ride past the oversized drug store, the strip mall, two fast food restaurants. By the time they reach the last crosswalk and wait some more, Tom finishes beer number three and decides he’ll never ride straight out of the yard again.
The Walk signal beeps, and drivers stare as if this were some cute old scene, a grizzly Buzzard riding for their amusement. His face turns as sour as his mood.
“Tonight, Shadow, some kid in jail is going to tell stories about us.”
Shadow takes the curb and heads across the gas station parking lot. This is it: the northwest edge of Las Vegas. The horse drops several inches from asphalt to hard-packed dirt. Behind him, the city of Las Vegas fills this valley like the junk-strewn aftermath of a flood. Tom has to remind himself to pull his spine taut and quit slouching. He rests the beer can on the saddle’s horn, takes both reins in one hand, and breathes in the dry tingle of sagebrush. Out here, he feels like the man he’s supposed to be.
Tom gives Shadow a while to get reacquainted with the desert before he digs in his heels. But Shadow ignores Tom’s romantic urge to just set out and ride. For the first hour or so, she keeps a cautious gait. Maneuvers around rocks, spiny bushes, holes, and sandpits. When she missteps and lands on a rock, Shadow stops completely. No nudging, kicking, or encouragement will get her to budge. When she takes her first few steps forward and regains her confidence, Tom figures she’s as determined to get out of town as he is. But at a much slower pace than Tom had in mind.
Tom keeps both eyes on the ground, at least until they reach an actual trail. Of course, even on the trail, there’s the occasional bicycle rider, sudden tumbleweed, and white plastic bag, but nothing so full of obstacles as riding straight across the virgin desert. One brush with a cholla branch – a landmine covered with ten thousand prickles – and Shadow’s done for the day. Tom keeps her slow for now. With the sun a couple hours above the mountains, there’s no need to hurry. A well-worn horse trail and fire road couldn’t be more than a half-mile out. Shadow can handle the sand and rocks until then.
The sagebrush flatlands eventually lead to foothills with rounded-rock outcroppings and the sudden rockfalls that come with them. Foothills eventually turn to mountains in full black shadow, mountains with switchbacks and steep inclines, juniper trees and creeks, fresh cold wind rushing down tight canyons. Tom urges Shadow onward, and the horse – a Terrell horse – obliges. She keeps going, her head rocking up and down like an oil rig, pumping energy to her legs as she starts the first of several steep inclines. Shadow pauses at odd times, however. She stops before every tight turn, considering her own weight as well as the weight on her back. She paces in place, not because of pent-up energy, but as if she were testing the strength left in her legs.
Finally switchbacks spill them onto a grassy ledge the size of a suburban driveway. At one end, the ledge dives into the sheer rock hillside. A narrow, swift-running creek runs along the groove, rambling over dead branches and fallen rocks. The ledge slopes upward from there, flattening near the drop off. Near the edge, there’s a grassy patch suitable for camping and gazing across Las Vegas Valley. A juniper tree indicates the significant climb they’ve made. It reminds Tom of the camp where his father died. There’s even a rock fire ring with recently charred wood in the pit.
Tom stretches his back before he dismounts. It’s been a good ride. A rugged ride. The kind he had envisioned. They could camp here or they could take it up into the mountains. They could turn back for home, but he doubts they’d make it off the desert before nightfall. He leads Shadow over to the creek. She resists his pull at first, but when Tom finally gets her to the water, she dips her nose down and takes it in.
He’s proud of the horse, proud of himself for getting her up here. He runs his hand down her neck, finally apologizing for getting her locked up. Thanks her for being a good horse. He feels the horse has either forgiven him or simply forgotten the ordeal she’d been through. Tom continues running his hands along her body, getting as much comfort from her acceptance as the horse gets from his affection. He thinks of Doreen as he caresses the horse, and an upwelling of affection and love for her overwhelms him. He can’t let this one go. He will have to make amends. He’ll do anything, change everything, and become the man she needs him to be.
He moves down to the front right leg and Shadow kicks. She tosses her head and trots in a circle before she returns to the creek. Tom Terrell feels a sudden weight, a pounding return to his chest. He talks gently as he crouches beside her, trying to hide his anxiety. He moves closer to the leg, peering at the inside of the knee. He thinks better of touching the four-inch gash that runs down the inside of the horse’s forearm. A gash from elbow to knee, sustained on another day, at another place, under someone else’s watch. The puss-filled wound gapes about a half-inch at its center. It’s the kind of injury you might miss if you didn’t get on your own knees and really look for it. The kind of injury that would start to fester after a day or so. The kind of injury that requires a vet’s attention, or at least a basic first aid kit, which Tom neglected to pack. The kind of injury Tom’s unfit to even inspect, much less treat. Not unless he wants to get kicked in the face.
Tom Terrell pulls himself to his feet. Like the horse, he just stands there because there’s nothing else he can do. Tom wonders why he can’t just enjoy even the smallest victory for a while, without defeat dogging so close behind. He walks to the edge of the overlook and weighs his options. Can’t make it home before dark. Can’t ride a lame horse in the dark. Can’t keep going.
Home suddenly feels farther than Tom wants it to be. And home has nothing to do with this land or the adventure he’d wanted. Home is that safe, brown couch with a bored but healthy horse just outside the sliding glass doors. Home has a woman in it. Tom wonders if home will always feel like a place that’s just been lost.
“Shit, Shadow. Can’t just stand here all night.”
But day has already turned to dusk. And dusk quickly dissolves into black night, with orange streetlights and a fluorescent white Strip that outshines the stars. There’s a holly green triangle floating above the white lights, probably a Christmas tree mounted on top of a casino. Vegas Valley could be any other place now. It could be Los Angeles or Phoenix, a city hemmed by mountains. To some, this would have been a beautiful night.
With winds rushing down the slopes of the mountains, Tom ties Shadow to the juniper tree for the night. He unrolls the blanket and huddles inside. The cold eats right through it. Serves me right. Tom expects it to be a long night, longer than two nights in jail.
Everywhere he looks, he sees that white glow emanating from the center of the valley. Every moth, wild burro, and coyote for hundreds of miles has to endure the Strip every night. Around it, the orange city glows like a pit of lava, as if the earth – finally having had enough – were slowly turning itself inside out.
Cold boxes his head on all sides, so he pulls the blanket over himself like a bonnet. Tom Terrell hears Doreen’s voice talking to him from several miles north and east. And now what, Tom Terrell? You’re a fool, Tom Terrell. A lost fool. Among his many regrets, the one that feels the most foolish is his refusal to take to the cellular phone. Refusal to marry Doreen. Refusal to leave Vegas and live the right life in another valley, in another state.
And what if he did have a cellular phone and what if he did call and she did answer? Doreen would certainly send help for the horse, but as for Tom Terrell, he doesn’t hear her tell him to come on home, now. She’s beyond that, beyond begging, and so is the horse.
Shadow draws his attention back to her. She tosses her head and snorts. Her eyes are wide open with fear. He strokes her neck and drapes his blanket over her back. Talks kind to her. Asks her for this one last favor.
Not long after, with Tom still standing beside her, Shadow’s leg fails. Her fall comes on slowly, with the slight buckling of the leg, her head swinging in the direction of the failed leg, and gravity’s long pull on the rest of her body. Shadow’s resistance, her old Terrell grace, makes her go down as if she needed to simply lie down and sleep. Tom Terrell – feeling useless and unprepared, issuing prayers, curses, and wishes – huddles beside the horse’s barrel. She lets him run his hand down her trembling neck. Sometime between midnight and dawn, shivering turns into sweaty convulsions. Infection runs freely in all directions.
By dawn, Tom Terrell realizes that a decade ago, things would have ended differently. For that other Tom Terrell, there was all work, the pleasure derived from work, and no such thing as suffering. A gun was more essential than a wallet. And despite the loss of one good horse, it still would have been a beautiful night.
Coby Hoffman is the author of Desert Stories, a short story collection (San Francisco State University Press, 2002).