Free Funerals for Horses by Catherine Ryan Hyde Page B

just let go. What a relief that would be. It doesn’t hurt to fall, you know, only to land, and the well has no bottom.”
    “So what do you think keeps you on the toothpick, then, Ella? If it’s something you want to talk about at all.”
    “Oh, that’s easy. Simon. He’s lost everybody else to the well. It’s important to him.”
    “You’ve told me quite a lot, Ella. I must say I’m surprised. You’re very cooperative with me.”
    “Simon said to tell you what I could. Oh, one more thing. I saw something on the news last week. They’re trying to pass a law that says dog pounds can’t turn unwanted dogs over for lab experiments. The people who want them—you know, the experimenters—they say the dogs’ll just die anyway. But you know why they want to pass the law? They say it’s cruel to hurt them once they’ve known a decent home. They say it’s not the same as a rat that’s never known a better life, only pain.”
    “I can see that means something to you, Ella.”
    I turned my face in to Willie, away from the green, and watched my field of vision zoom into a spyglass pattern, darken to almost obscure her.
    “Sometimes,” I said, “I think it would be better if we’d never gone to live with Mrs. Hurley.”
    “Mrs. Hurley? Who was that?”
    I said I didn’t remember, and unfortunately, that was true.

THE SURFACE OF THE MOON

I sit back against a Hopi blanket on the seat of Rick’s truck, my shirt soaked through with sweat. I wipe it out of my eyes, and it tickles as it rolls into my collar. Across the hood of the old Chevy pickup, heat rises in waves, a shimmering disturbance to the natural order of the air. I lift my hat, wipe my forehead on my sleeve, and tuck it back down again.
    I wiggle my toes in my heavy hiking boots, testing my level of pain. It’s too soon, of course, but here I go.
    Rick gave me the hiking boots. They’re three sizes too big. “Just the point,” he said, and supplied the accompanying five pairs of socks. “This way when your feet swell, and they will, you can peel off socks.”
    I thanked him and settled up my doctor and pharmaceutical bills, leaving me with fifty-three dollars’ life savings.
    “You sure you’re not cutting yourself too short,” Kathy had said, at least four times.
    “I’ll do fine.”
    Of course I was cutting myself short. But Simon taught me to face financial needs as they arise. Never short current obligations for those you can’t even see yet. That’s what he used to say.
    Vegas is a dream on the unseen horizon. I’ve been there twice before. Once saying hello to Mrs. Hurley, once saying goodbye. For the longest time I hated hellos, thinking the one leads to the other.
    Rick always says what’s on his mind. I tolerate this in him because he saved my life and then some, but it’s a character trait that tends to make me want to fly away.
    “You know,” he says, “if your brother tried to walk through here—”
    “Rick,” I say. I don’t need to elaborate. He nods and falls silent. I must have mentioned Simon in my delirious moments. Since coming to my senses, I haven’t said his name aloud once—an attempt to circumvent this moment.
    I think of the bleached bones on Rick’s walls and mantel. Then I don’t anymore.
    He stops at the Las Vegas bus station. I reach across the seat to shake his hand. It’s a strong grasp, on both of our parts, full of respect, and the regret of parting.
    “Thanks for everything,” I say, and he shifts his eyes to the floor and shakes his head. Gratitude and charity must have muddled in his brain. He won’t take it. I tell him to thank his wife again, and that I hope his kid grows up strong and safe.
    I step down to the pavement and disguise my initial wince of pain by waving to the tailgate of Rick’s retreating Chevy.
    A bus station clerk with an untrimmed mustache and visible undershirt lines says the next bus east won’t leave for over an hour. I buy a ticket to Gallup, the farthest I