Saving Scott

The rain kept coming coming coming. Not coming and coming and coming. There were no pauses. This was rain on the island with the sea all around and we were all going to drown. Or, at least, that’s how it felt.

Papa said to stay inside. He had to check on the stables. And all the animals boarded there soon to be sold and slaughtered for mink-feed. Or other uses. This was his business. This is how we lived. Mother could never understand it and she eventually “came unglued” as Aunt Kitty called it.

We have a big house and land and sea and boats and hired help. But that doesn’t stop the darkness as my mother eventually proved. Papa keeps on and I try to help. Even though I’m terrified of dying, I see it must happen. But then everything changed when the rain stopped and there couldn’t have been a wetter place than our land, our island.

That’s when MacRae drove up, fat and wet as a used-up cigar. In his trailer was a beaten-down old bull and a horse. But not just any horse. This one had a sense about it the moment I saw it. Yes, he was old, past his prime, useless, of no value, and about to be ground up to feed minks. But he had belonged to someone. And, in his horse mind, that someone belonged to him.

“Papa! Can I have him please?” I felt such a desperation to rescue this horse. And the bull too. Because what I saw in my limited twelve-year-old view was a crude man who not only didn’t care for anyone or anything but was deliberately cruel to those who could not speak for themselves or defend themselves.

“Papa! Please! Let me have them both!” Tears ran down my face wetter than rain. “PLEASE!”

Papa stared at me. Then he looked at the two creatures. And then back at me.

“What do you plan to do with them, Kit?”

“Love them, Papa.”

MacRae started pacing back and forth, his fat, wet, cigar-shaped body plopping through the puddles.

“Are you gonna pay me now or what!?!” he screamed.

I rushed to the horse which had been removed from the trailer and clung to it.

“What’s his name?” I cried.

“What? Why are you asking that, you little goblin? It’s dogmeat. That’s all I care about!” yelled MacRae.

Papa stepped closer to MacRae and said, cold and firm, like a sheet of tin being hit by rain, “My daughter asked you what is the horse’s name?”

“Scott. The owner called him Scott. Now can I have my money and be off?”

“And the bull?”

“I don’t know. Just an old useless thing ran his pecker through enough heifers to last a lifetime.”

Papa took out his leather pouch and opened it. “Get the bull and the horse into my stables, MacRae. And then I’ll pay you.”

MacRae spit and snorted and coughed and spit as he did as Papa commanded.

Once Scott and the bull were settled in the barn I quit quivering.

“Here,” Papa said, shoving the money at MacRae. “Now git.”

MacRae heaved himself into his truck and drove off fast like he was on a dry, paved road, the empty trailer bouncing and banging behind him.

Papa winked at me. “They’re all yours, Kit. Best not spoil ‘em.”

“No, sir.” I couldn’t help grinning in spite of the tears as I ran towards the barn.

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*[It has been suggested when one has a bad dream to go back and reconstruct the ending in one’s mind so as not to be left with that horrible nightmare nagging at one’s conscience the rest of the day. After reading Alistair MacLeod’s powerful short story, “After The Fall” I had to write my own ending. His was just too disturbing for me to live with. So I decided Scott (and the bull) should – and could — be saved. I give you “Saving Scott.”]