InsaneJournal

Holiday Bit 4!
For dr_schreaber. Thanks for asking for this one--it was one that needed to be written!

I should know that there's no way to make Basch with horses short.

3000 words, takes place about 7 years before One-Horsepower.

And forgive me my p.o.v. shift. It was deliberate.


Noah all but runs through the front door, shuts it hard, yesterday’s stack of mail in his hand.

“Basch!” There’s no answer. Noah sighs, kicks off his boots, and while he puts them by the door, he looks out the window again. He can’t see Mr. Kiniviuk’s horse, but the damn thing scared the shit out of him out by the mailbox. He swears its eyes glow red. He calls for Basch again, but there’s no answer still, and Noah knows where he is. The bedroom door is still ajar, and the comforter is up over Basch’s head but one flannel-clad arm hangs down to the floor. There isn’t even a copy of Western Horseman beside him, not even pretending to zonk out reading—Noah thinks there’s an issue still in the plastic on the kitchen table, and he’s worried.

Basch is asleep again. It’s not even four in the afternoon, though it’s already dark—has been, will be. It’s Sunday, their one day off all week, and Basch just sleeps. He’s always had trouble with the winters, the long dead light this far north, but it’s worse, now, since Dad died, and even leaving on all of the lights doesn’t help. Noah doesn’t know how to fix this, knows they’ve got to move, but they don’t have enough money to do it yet. And he doesn’t know how to help his brother. He can’t shift latitude. But it isn’t good for Basch to be sleeping twelve hours a day, that much he knows. Noah flips on the light, tugs the blanket off Basch’s face.

“Kiniviuk’s demon horse almost ate me just now.” He’ll be cheerful. Then Basch has to get up.

Basch only puts his arms over his face, doesn’t move otherwise. He didn’t even undress to get in bed. Noah pushes him.

“Honestly.” He pushes until Basch has to roll over, and Basch almost hits the wall. “I could have been kicked in the head and you wouldn’t even know.”

At that, Basch shifts a little, finally pushes himself up onto his hands. He looks…he looks terrible. Circles under his eyes, despite how much he’s been sleeping, and while they’ve both always been pale, it’s like he can see through Basch’s skin, like it’s too thin for this winter in ways that have nothing to do with temperature. Blinking like even his eyelashes are weighted, Basch turns to him, leans against the wall.

“Why were you in Kiniviuk’s pasture?” The wan cast turns bitter. “He said he doesn’t want us near there.”

If there was one thing Noah could change just now, it would be that. That Mr. Kiniviuk would let Basch at least visit with the horse. When they first moved here, after the funeral and the sale, it was the one thing that seemed to shake the heavy November fog. For two days, Noah watched Basch hop the fence and bury his hands in the horse’s tangled mane, talk nonsense into its twitching ears, and let it lip at the collar of his parka, watched him come through the door smiling. Then Mr. Kiniviuk caught him at it, said to keep away or he’d sue. The neighbors say it’s because he’s afraid someone else will sue—the horse is a nightmare, bites and kicks and threatens at its fence enough that ‘Kini’s Horse’ is a scarier threat than ‘bear’ or ‘wolf.’ The long winters, apparently, can turn even an animal mad. Now, two months later, Noah would give anything to get that spark of life back in Basch. Things will get better when the light comes back, but—Basch is already tugging the comforter back up—Noah doesn’t think he can wait that long. Doesn’t think Basch can wait that long.

“I was getting the mail. Damn thing’s loose.”

Basch pushes the blanket down again, pulls back the curtain just a little, looks out over the dull white fluorescence of snow. It’s fresh—yesterday’s falling—and there are lines cut across it that certainly have hoofmarks at the bottom.

He shouldn’t say this, but that’s the most interested in anything Basch has looked in days. “Kini ought to get his horse in before someone shoots it. Or it gets hit by a logging truck.”

Basch looks even more miserable at that. “She doesn’t like him, either. She won’t go back until she gets hungry.” He pushes the curtain back farther, leans to see as far around the edge of the house as he can.

Noah steals Basch’s pillow while he’s sitting up, smacks him in the arm with it. “Stupid horse likes you okay.” Maybe— “If you can fetch her home, that’s probably worth something.”

Basch climbs over him so fast Noah falls off the bed, and the front door closes before Noah can even get his boots back on. At least Basch had enough brain to take his parka with him—though Basch probably thought first that the horse liked chewing on it, rather than of warmth. Before he follows, he takes out the shotgun, loads it. Even if Basch trusts that horse, Noah’s not sure he does, not after seeing the wreck she made of the fence.

When he follows, it is easy enough to carry along in Basch’s tracks, and he can see the muted red of his coat yards ahead. He can’t see the horse, though—can only hear Basch’s occasional whistle, one he’s heard before on the rare occasion he can coax Basch out to get the mail. And he remembers how the horse followed as far as the fence would allow when Basch was outside.

The heavy pad of hooves makes him turn, and there’s the horse, making a wide circle around him—better than before, when getting to the mailbox was enough of a game of chicken that he doesn’t want to do it again, and he’s pretty sure she ran after him just for the sheer meanness of it. Basch stops, and so does he, lets a wide berth between the two of them, because it’s not Noah the horse likes.

She doesn’t go right to Basch—stops twenty feet out, just stands there, and so does Basch. And then Basch sits down. In the snow. And Noah’s glad he just flopped in bed in jeans because otherwise he’d be in the snow in his boxer shorts.

The horse might be gray or she might be brown; she’s always too dusty to tell, won’t let Mr. Kiniviuk groom her and Noah’s heard him try. It’s unfortunate—the man’s not mean to her, obviously still wants the horse; otherwise, he’d have sold her for dog food rather than deal with the expense of keeping an unrideable—an unapproachable—animal.

The three of them stay that way long enough that Noah’s cheeks are starting to numb, and then the horse moves. Turns around, puts her back to them both, starts walking. Noah sighs, his exhale a cloud, and he takes a step forward. If it’s not going to work, frostbite won’t fix Basch, either. As he’s about to call out, tell Basch to at least get out of the snow, the horse whirls, charges, and Noah shoulders the gun, the safety off and sighting as she closes. At the corner of his eye, he sees Basch’s hand lift—not toward the horse, but toward him, and Noah waits. He waits, and hopes to all that’s holy Basch at least has the sense to roll out of the way if she doesn’t stop—but she does. In a spray of powder, she pulls up short, her muzzle inches from Basch’s head. Noah lets out the breath he’d been holding, lowers the gun. Basch hasn’t even got a hat on, nothing to keep his ears warm, and he watches her mouth Basch’s hair—

—and it was a good idea not to bring a hat, so her soft whiskered chin touches him, seems to remember. Basch waits until the chewing moves to the collar of his coat before he moves at all, and even then, he only holds up his bare hands, holds them out, fingers open and palms flat, and though the cold starts to sting and the snow is melting through his jeans, her hay-sweet breath warms them. Only after she’s lipped at the edges of his sleeves and is whuffling her way up his arms does he try to touch her. When his hand finds her neck, she shies, dances back a step, and he stays still. After a moment, though, her teeth sink into the parka’s fabric, and she is pulling, yanking him to his feet. Fear clutches briefly, but he pushes it down; Noah, at the corner of his eye, takes another step forward. Neither his brother nor this horse can afford him to be scared. So when he has his feet under him—his toes are cold and he should have remembered socks—he stands his ground, though she still has him by the collar.

He tilts his chin toward her, looks her in the eye as well as he can, and brings one hand up to touch her nose, keeps the whole hand in plain sight. This, she allows, though her breath puffs against his ear and she snorts. He speaks without knowing what he’s really saying—it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s words—and rests his palm on her cheek, slides his hand under her bitless bridle and scratches softly. He doesn’t even know if she’s rideable, wouldn’t be so stupid as to think he can climb on her back, but she could be, he’d bet. When his fingers touch the leather, she startles again, but he makes no move to take hold. The winter takes hold well enough, jerks your head around more than a season ought to, and he won’t make it worse. He stands until she sniffs at his hand again. He puts it back in the same place, though, and this time she lets him scratch, lets his fingers stroke the length of her neck, though she twitches away when he touches her withers. She stands and looks, and he wishes he knew a name for her. He also wishes this weren’t January—the only time he can feel his fingers is when they’re actually on the horse, and she really ought be blanketed in these months. Cupping his hands in front of his mouth, he blows what warmth he has into them, but even that’s getting scarce. Used to it or not, he’s not layered for being out so long.

This time, he reaches for her, and she lets him hide his fingers under the tangled fall of her mane. He cups his hand, takes a small step forward, and hopes she’ll follow. He’s pretty sure his jeans have frozen where the snow melted against the backs of his thighs, but he’s so close. He tries to keep the shiver out of his voice when he speaks again, and she leans forward enough that he takes another step, and her snow-crusted hooves lift, one after the other.

Noah is still standing where he was, though he backs up enough to give the horse a clear path. Basch grins as well as he can, the way his teeth are chattering, and Noah tilts his head toward the broken fence. Basch nods, and he leads the horse back through the very hole she put in it, though she doesn’t particularly like that. She tosses her head, bumps Basch with her shoulder when Noah follows behind them and at least puts the unbroken rail back in place. Basch walks her into her stall and closes the door behind him. And has to plaster himself against the wall because she kicks, wood-splinteringly, at the stall door. The whites show around her eyes for the first time tonight, and Basch reaches, as slowly as he can, for the top half of the Dutch door. It swings open, and she shoves her chest into the lower half. Through the door, Basch can see Noah peering in, and he’s got the gun half-raised.

“I’m okay,” Basch says into the corral, and Noah nods again, quiet. The horse paws—almost kicking—at the door, but she looks less spooked with her head in the open space. She looks less spooked at the sound of his voice, too, and because that worked before, he keeps talking, tells her she’s okay, describes the door, points out how the wood is ragged and that it’ll scratch if she’s not careful, and Basch knows she doesn’t understand a damn word of it, but her ears relax, and she turns her head to chew on Basch’s parka again. He tucks his hands under her mane again because it’s warmer inside the barn but only barely and rests his head against her neck. She smells dusty and horsy, and Basch feels like he can breathe again. It’s only when her nostrils flare wide that Basch turns around to see Mr. Kiniviuk in the doorway.

Basch opens his mouth to explain, but the man only passes him the horse’s blanket.

“See if Kula will let you buckle it,” Kiniviuk says.

The horse—Kula—snorts at the sound of his voice. Basch tries saying her name, and she seems to take no more particular notice of that than of any of the other things he’s said. He opens the blanket at his own knees, lifts it slowly, lets her smell it closely. She holds still while he drapes it over her back, cranes her head down to watch him close the buckle at her chest. When he reaches for the one at her stomach though, she backs away, paws at the straw.

“If I let it go, you’ll just get tangled in it.” Basch scratches under her chin, and she puts her nose in his hair, lips at it again. As he scratches, he lets his left hand move down her neck, keeps full contact with her coat, and this time, she only shivers when he gets to her withers, shies a little when he reaches for the end of the blanket strap. So he holds the buckle—one of those plastic ones, easy to close, nothing sharp that could prick her—against the matted hairs until she is still again. And slowly, slowly he leans his weight against her, reaches for the other side of the strap and makes himself breathe normally. She could kick him in the head without particularly trying hard like this, or even if she decides she’s going for the wall—but she doesn’t. She lets him clip the blanket under her stomach, but as soon as the plastic clicks against itself, she’s pushing for the stall’s far side, and Basch hopes again that she won’t kick. What she does do is try to reach the blanket straps with her teeth, and she manages to get the blanket’s edge itself.

“You’re determined to make a mess of everything, aren’t you?” Offering his sleeve, he nudges her muzzle away from the blanket, and after a few minutes—he can feel himself starting to shake with cold now, and his jeans are certainly frozen, the fabric stiff—she seems content again, and she take a mouthful of hay from her rack.

Noah appears in the doorway, behind Mr. Kiniviuk. He clears his throat, and the neighbor turns, looking from Basch and the horse to Noah and back.

“She seems to like my brother all right,” Noah says. And Mr. Kiniviuk looks first angry and then amused. He rolls up his sleeve to show a bruised half-circle on his wrist.

“That’s what she did when I went to put the blanket on the other day.” Mr. Kiniviuk tucks his hands under his arms. “When the sun comes back, she’s a good horse.”

Basch leans against her again, hands tucked under the edge of her blanket. He doesn’t know how she can be so warm, because he’s numb. He’s numb, but he doesn’t want to leave.

Noah unloads the shotgun, tucks the shells into his pocket. Kula’s ears don’t even flatten at the breech’s clicking open and closed. “She’s a good horse now,” he says, and Basch can’t help but reach to scratch under her mane again, and she pushes into his fingers. He presses his cold-tingling cheek to her neck and doesn’t care that her fur is stiff with dried mud. There’s a pause hanging in the air from Noah—Basch hears it, doesn’t suspect anyone else notices until he speaks. “Look,” he says, and Basch bites his lip at the tone—Noah’s mad, though he probably doesn’t sound mad to someone who doesn’t know him—“look, would it kill you to let him come fuss with the horse when he wants to? He’s not hurting anything—”

“And if she did kick me, it’d be my fault anyway.” Basch’s words fog. “I’ll fix the fence, too.” His ‘f’s’ are stuttering against his teeth.

“Come out of there before you freeze,” Mr. Kiniviuk says. “The horse didn’t kill you, but cold might.” He holds his mittened hand over the stall door, and Basch takes it, though he’s having a hard time feeling his hands, and scrambles over the wooden divider. On the other side, he stumbles. The man’s face is weathered and lined, and his eyebrows draw low over his eyes. “If Kula lets you visit, fine. Next time make sure you’re dressed right.”

Noah is already giving Basch his gloves, pulling his own hat over Basch’s ears, and the difference that makes lets Basch know exactly how cold he is. The dangerous kind. Tonight is not exactly the smartest thing he’s done, and Noah will bust him for it later, he’s sure of it, but—he has a horse. At least, one to borrow.

“He will,” Noah says, “and thank you.” Basch says the same, but it chatters, and Noah holds his arm while they jog back to the house. That doesn’t help much, except it gets them inside faster, and Noah puts on the kettle while he fumbles his boots off. By the time he’s done, Noah’s already holding out dry clothes, and Basch changes right in the kitchen. He’s on the couch, hands wrapped around a mug of hot, over-sweet coffee, and Noah’s actually sitting on his feet, when he asks, “You okay?”

The chill-stutter is almost gone from his voice when Basch says yes. Almost, but not quite. His toes sting with the blood coming back.

Noah shakes his head and rubs Basch’s shins until his skin starts to heat. “You are not.” Noah tucks the edge of the blanket tighter, looks toward the window. “But you will be.”

Basch sniffs, his nose starting to run. The dusty hay-sweet smell is still everywhere. And he nods.