Palomino

28

“How's it going, kid?” Charlie shook the snow from his collar, took off his coat, and threw it on a chair. There was even snow in his beard and in his hair. “So?” He looked at her expectantly, and she shrugged.

“What do you expect? For me to sit in my chair wearing a pink tutu and do an arabesque for you when you walk in?”

“Ooohhhhh-eeee, charming today, aren't we?”

“Get fucked.”

He looked at his watch with a pensive expression. “I'd like to, but Mellie has a PTA meeting, and actually I don't have time. I have a client meeting at two.”

“Very amusing.”

“That's more than I can say for you.”

“Well, I'm not funny anymore. That's life. I'm thirty-one years old and I'm a cripple in a wheelchair. That is neither funny, nor amusing, nor cute.”

“No, but it's not necessarily as pitiful as you'd like to make it either.” He had seen her this way for three and a half months. Ever since her idiot stepfather had broken the news. She was out of the body cast now and wearing a brace and moving around in a wheelchair. But now came the hard part, the grueling months of physical therapy when she learned to live with her handicap, or not. “It doesn't have to be as lousy as this, Sam. You don't have to be a ‘helpless cripple,’ as your mother puts it.”

“No? Why not? You going to make a miracle again and give me back the power over my legs?” She pounded on them as if they were old rubber.

“No, I can't do that, Sam.” He spoke gently but firmly. “But you've got the power of your mind and your arms and your hands and”-he grinned for an instant-“the power of your mouth. You could do a lot with all of that, if you wanted to.”

“Really? Like what?” Today he had come prepared.

“As it so happens, Miss Smartass, I brought you a present from Harvey today.”

“One more box of chocolates from anyone and I'll scream.” She sounded like a petulant child and not the Sam he knew. But there was still hope that she would adjust. The doctors said that in time she would very probably come around. It was a hell of a tough adjustment, for anyone, especially a beautiful, active young woman like Sam.

“He didn't send you chocolates, kiddo. He sent you work.” For an instant he saw surprise in Sam's eyes.

“What do you mean, he sent me work?”

“Just that. We talked to your doctors yesterday and they said there's no reason why you can't do some of your work here. I brought you a dictating machine, some pens and paper, three files Harvey wants you to look over…” He was about to go on when Sam spun her chair away and almost snarled.

“Why the hell should I?”

But he decided that she had played the game for long enough. “Because you've been sitting here on your ass for long enough. Because you have a fine mind, and you could have died and you didn't, Sam, so don't waste what you got.” He sounded angry and Sam was quieter when she spoke again.

“Why should I do anything for Harvey?”

“Why should he do anything for you? Why should he give you a five-month vacation because your husband left you, and then spare no expense to bring you home when you have an accident-I might remind you that you could still be sitting alone in Denver, if it weren't for Harvey-and then why should he give you unlimited sick leave and wait for you to come back?”

“Because I'm good at what I do, that's why!”

“Bitch!” It was the first time in months he had gotten angry at her and it felt good. “He need6 your help, dammit. He's snowed under and so am I. Are you willing to pick yourself up again and stop feeling sorry for yourself, or aren't you?”

She was very quiet for a long moment, her back turned in her chair, her head bowed. “I haven't decided yet.” She said it very softly and he smiled.

“I love you, Sam.” And then she turned slowly to face him, and when she did, he saw that there were tears running slowly down her face.

“What the hell am I going to do, Charlie? Where am I going to live? And how?… Oh, Christ, I'm so afraid I'll end up with my mother in Atlanta. They call me every day to tell me what a helpless cripple I am now, and that's what I keep thinking… that I am…”

“You're not. There's nothing helpless about you. You may have to make some changes in your life, but nothing as radical as Atlanta. Christ, you'd go nuts there.” She nodded sadly, and he took her chin in his hand. “Mellie and I won't let that happen, even if you have to come and live with us.”

“But I don't want to be helpless, Charlie. I want to take care of myself.”

“So do it. Isn't that what they're teaching you here?”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. But it takes forever.”

“How long is forever? Six months? A year?”

“Something like that.”

“Isn't it worth it, not to have to live in Atlanta?”

“Yes.” She wiped her tears away with her fancy bed jacket. “For that, it would be worth five years.”

“Then do it, learn what you've got to, and then come on back out in the world and do your thing, Sam. And meanwhile”-he smiled at her and glanced at his watch-“do me a favor and read those files and memos. For Harvey.”

“Never mind ‘for Harvey.’ You're both full of shit. I know what you're doing, but I'll try it. Send him my love.”

“He sent you his. He said he'd be up here tomorrow.”

“Tell him not to forget my Mickey Spillanes.”

She and Harvey were addicted to the detective books and Harvey kept shipping her copies of them to amuse herself with.

“Oh, Christ… you two.” Charlie struggled back into his heavy overcoat, put on his galoshes, pulled up his collar, and waved at her from the door.

“So long, Santa Claus. Give my love to Mellie.”

“Yes, ma'am.” He saluted and disappeared, and for a long time she sat in her chair, staring at the files. It was almost Christmas again and she had been thinking of Tate all morning. Only a year before she had been on the Lord Ranch, and Tate had played Santa to the kids. It had been then that she had started to get to know him, then that it had all begun. It had been Christmas Day when he had taken her to the hidden cabin. Thinking about him made it all come alive again and she felt the familiar ache as she wondered again where he had gone.

She had talked to Caroline only that morning. Bill had had a small stroke after Thanksgiving, and in the past few months he had done nothing but go downhill. In the midst of the gloomy reports she hated to bother Caro with inquiries about Tate Jordan, but eventually she had anyway, and as always she had no news. Caroline herself was terribly depressed about the state of Bill's health. She had just hired a new foreman, a young man with a wife and three kids, and he seemed to be doing a good job. And as always she had encouraged Sam to push on. The physical therapy that Sam was enduring was the hardest work of her life and she wondered if it was worth it; strengthening her arms so that she could almost swing like a monkey, get herself in and out of her chair, in and out of bed, on and off the pot, anything she would need to do to live alone. If she would cooperate, the staff would train her to manage totally independently. She had resisted, balking at the help offered her-in her heart she felt it didn't really matter anyway-but now, now suddenly it seemed important to push on. Charlie was right. She had lived-that was reason enough to push on.

Christmas Day itself was a difficult holiday for her. Harvey Maxwell came by, and Charlie and Mellie and the kids. The nurse let them all in and she got to hold the baby, who was almost five months old now and prettier than ever. When they all left, she felt desperately alone. By the end of the afternoon she thought that she simply couldn't bear it, and out of sheer desperation she left her room and wheeled herself slowly down the hall. And then at the very end of the floor she found a little boy in a wheelchair like hers, sitting sadly by the window, staring out at the snow.

“Hi, my name's Sam.” Her heart ached for him, and then he turned toward her. He couldn't have been more than six, and his eyes were filled with tears.

“I can't play in the snow anymore.”

“Neither can I. What's your name?”

“Alex.”

“What did you get for Christmas?”

“A cowboy hat and a holster. But I can't ride horses either.”

She nodded slowly, and then suddenly she wondered. “Why not?”

He looked at her as though she were very stupid. “Because I'm in this wheelchair, dummy. I got hit by a car, riding my bike, and now I have to be in this thing forever.” And then he looked at her curiously. “What about you?”

“I fell off a horse in Colorado.”

“Yeah?” He looked at her with interest and she grinned.

“Yeah. And you know something, I bet I could still ride, and I'll bet you could too. I saw this article once in a magazine that showed people like us riding horses. I think they had special saddles, but they did it.”

“Did they have special horses?” He looked enchanted at the idea and Sam smiled and shook her head.

“I don't think so. Just nice ones.”

“Did a nice horse make you fall off?” He stared at her legs and then her face.

“No. He wasn't a nice horse. But I was pretty silly to ride him. He was a real mean horse, and I did a lot of stupid things when I was riding him.”

“Like what?”

“Gallop all over the place and take a lot of chances.” It was the first time she had been that honest with herself. It was also the first time she had talked about the accident, and she was surprised by how little it hurt. “Do you like horses, Alex?”

“I sure do. I went to the rodeo once.”

“Did you? I used to work on a ranch.”

“No, you didn't.” He looked disgusted. “Girls don't work on ranches.”

“Yes, they do. I did.”

“Did you like it?” He still looked doubtful.

“I loved it.”

“Then why did you stop?”

“Because I came back to New York.”

“How come?”

“I missed my friends.”

“Oh. You got kids?”

“Nope.” She felt a small twinge as she said it, thinking longingly of little baby Sam. “Do you have kids, Alex?” She grinned at him and he guffawed.

“Of course not. You're silly. Is your name really Sam?”

“Yup. It's really Samantha. My friends call me Sam.”

“Mine is Alexander. But only my mom calls me that.”

“Want to go for a ride?” She was feeling restless and he was as good a companion as any.

“Now?”

“Sure. Why not? You expecting a visitor?”

“No.” He looked momentarily sad again. “They just went home. I was watching them leave from the window.”

“Okay, then why don't you and I take a little tour?” She grinned mischievously at him, gave him a push to start him, and told the nurse at the desk that she was taking Alex for a ride, and the entire nurses' station waved good-bye as they headed for the elevators and from there to the gift shop on the main floor. Sam bought him a lollipop and two candy bars, and some magazines for herself. Then they decided to buy some bubble gum too and they came back to their floor, blowing bubbles and playing guessing games.

“Wanna come see my room?”

“Sure.” He had a tiny Christmas tree covered with little Snoopy decorations, and the walls were pasted with pictures and cards from his friends at school.

“I'm gonna go back too. My doctor says I don't have to go to a special school. If I do my therapy, I can be just like everyone else, almost.”

“That's what my doctor says too.”

“Do you go to school?” He looked intrigued, and she laughed.

“No. I work.”

“What do you do?”

“I work at an advertising agency, we make commercials.”

“You mean like to sell kids junk on TV? My mom says that the people who write them are ireessperonss… susperonsible, or something like that.”

“Irresponsible. Actually I write commercials to sell junk to grown-ups mostly, like cars, or pianos, or lipstick, or stuff to make you smell good.”

“Yuck.”

“Yeah, well… maybe one day I'll go back to working on a ranch.” He nodded wisely. It sounded sensible to him.

“You married, Sam?”

“Nope.”

“How come?”

“No one wants me, I guess.” She was teasing but he nodded seriously. “You married, Alex?”

“No.” He grinned. “But I've got two girl friends.”

“Two…?” And the conversation went on for hours. They shared dinner that night and Sam came back to kiss him good night and tell him a story, and when she went back to her room, she smiled peacefully to herself and attacked a stack of work.