Painted Horses by Malcolm Brooks

Author:Malcolm Brooks [Brooks, Malcolm]
Language: ara
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2014-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

John H

III

His name is Malloy but you ladies can call him the worst goddamn day of the rest of your short and pathetic life, from now on the first word out of your cock holster will be sir, the last word will be sir, and so forth. John H has not been off the train five minutes before Malloy spies the saddle.

“What does this look like, Private Dumbfuck, the junior miss riding competition?” The harangue is no doubt just getting started except someone farther down the line bursts out laughing and before John H knows it the whole bunch of them are pounding push-ups on the station platform.

Spring, 1943. John H has been working on a ranch outside Buffalo, Wyoming, when a draft notice directs him to Camp Hale, Colorado. He gathers on the military train that most of the others are experienced skiers from Minnesota and Vermont, and he wonders if he’s been assigned to the wrong unit. He’s explained he has a weak knee and this doesn’t register either. Eventually the train chugs into an alpine valley and whines past a squat run of stables. He picks up a whiff of livestock, and takes heart.

He is not here to ski but to acquire mule-packing skills. Many of the recruits including John H have been summoned without basic training, so urgent is the need to make this mountain force operational. They will receive their rudiments on site, under the tutelage of this bullnecked drill instructor.

John H sees his saddle come off the floorboards and he comes up himself and goes right back down with a blinding pain in his knee. Blind luck. He struggles back to his feet and this time Malloy plants a sharp finger in his chest.

“Hold it right there, private.”

“I need my saddle.”

“What part of the first word out of your mouth don’t you understand.”

“It’s my saddle.”

“Does your mother know she raised a imbecile?”

John H feels his neck go scarlet. “Sir. That saddle is all I have. Sir. It has kept me out of a soup line. Sir.”

“Now then. Maybe you ain’t as stupid as you look. You ladies listen up. For a few short weeks you belong to me. You make me proud—and I mean every sorry-ass one of you—and missy here might get her saddle back.” He withdraws his finger. John H still can feel the prod. As Malloy stalks off with the Furstnow he looks back and says, “What do you have in this thing, lead?”

The next few days consist of various marching drills with full battle packs. Twice in the night they are wrenched from sleep by the shriek of a whistle, made to gear up and march overland. John H can barely bend his knee after the second day but thinks constantly of his saddle and resolves to limp his way through.

The limp attracts the attention of Malloy who presumes a bluff. John H becomes his special project, singled out for this, berated for that.

They are issued rifles, .30-06 Garands with twice the heft of the saddle guns John H is accustomed to.

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