Free Lean on Pete by Willy Vlautin Page B

gear and left.
    I brought the horse out and took him to the truck. Lean on Pete was tied to the side of the trailer and was wound up and more nervous than I’d ever seen him. He pulled at the lead rope and it made the trailer rattle. He couldn’t stand still. Del was down the way arguing with one of the Mexicans. They were pointing to the dirt track where two men wearing cowboy hats were walking around looking at the ground.
    Harry untied Pete and pulled hard on his lead rope, trying to get his attention. Then he walked Pete back and forth in the driveway and when Pete had settled down enough he came to me and handed me the lead rope.
    “Don’t lose him, alright?” I took the rope and held it as tight as I could while Harry opened the trailer door, but when the door slammed against the side of the trailer Pete got uneasy again and began circling me in panic. I didn’t know what to do, and Harry had to come and help. He took the rope from me and settled Pete down and we loaded Pete and did the same with Blue, then shut the door behind them and got in the truck and waited for Del.
    “What’s going on?” I asked him.
    Harry sat back on the truck’s bench seat and rubbed his face with his hands and let out a long sigh.
    “They think we’ve cheated.”
    “How could you cheat?”
    “There’s a lot of ways to cheat.”
    “Did you?”
    Harry let out another sigh.
    “What are those two guys looking for out there?”
    “A buzzer,” Harry said and looked out the window.
    The trailer began to rock and shake.
    “Don’t worry. It’s probably just Pete. He’s scared shitless right now. It ain’t right to load him just after a race like that but Del’s got a point. We probably need to get the fuck out of here.”
    I looked outside the cab to see Del still talking to the man in the gray cowboy hat. They both were staring off into the distance at the men doing the search. Del kicked at the ground with his boot. I counted the other men. There were seven.
    “Are they gonna find it?”
    “The buzzer?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Not where they’re looking,” Harry said and laughed. He reached down to the floor and took a beer from the sack and opened it. He pulled his baseball cap down low and acted like he was asleep and would only move when he took a drink of beer. I kept looking at Del but he kept talking to the guy and, even at that distance, you could tell they weren’t getting along. The trailer would fall silent, then all of the sudden there would be loud bangs.
    It must have been a half-hour before Del got in the truck and started it and we drove out of there. He was sweating pretty heavy and he had both hands on the wheel. The cast on his arm looked worse. It was thick with dirt and it was cracking around his hand. He used that arm to shift the truck and after he’d got us up to fifty and on the main road he hit the steering wheel with his other hand.
    “Goddamn,” he said. “That Rodriguez is one untrusting son of a bitch.”
    “I wonder why,” Harry said.
    Del laughed and turned on the radio. He set it to a country station and started humming along. Harry took the last beer from the sack and we drove for nearly an hour until we were on the outskirts of Walla Walla. Del took an exit and drove us to a ranch and parked. He got out of the truck and talked to a man there, then they both walked to the back of the trailer and unloaded the horses. After that Del backed the trailer off to the side of the barn and we unhooked it and left.
    We got a room in Walla Walla at the A & H Motel. Harry walked down the street and came back with a twelve pack of beer and pint of whiskey. He set it on the table between the two beds, then took off his boots and his racing pants and put on his regular clothes. He sat on the bed closest to the door and started drinking. Del was lying on the other bed watching TV. I stood there for a while, then saw there was a pretty decent place for me to lie down in the corner by the window. I put