Annie

69 ANNIE Bonnelyn Thwaits

First Place, Nonfiction Competition Cochise Community Creative Writing Celebration

The isolation, the dirt, the flies, the manure, the communality of death, and the tapestry of animal suffering are all part of the ebb and flow of the family rancho. This ugliness competes with the commanding beauty of the brown and green mesas.

When the short rainy period storms into our desert, we are overwhelmed by the urgent fertility of every living thing in our realm. It is an orgy of frantic toads, humming insects, operatic song birds, trudging tortoises, and pairs of bounding jack rabbits. Mosquitos fly in squadrons, along with flies and flying ants. Bees and hornets swarm to enlarge their kingdoms. The backdrop changes to an urgent verdancy with ferocious, brutally armed flora. If it is green, it will stab, scratch, or tear your flesh. The water swells the cacti to epic girth, and the thorny mesquite and cat claw trees boldly encroach onto the dirt roads.

The sapphire blue sky is empty or dotted with white cumulus clouds. In the space of a few breaths, the sky fills with menacing slate blue clouds and deadly strikes of electric fire. A rider on a horse is the tallest thing on the top of the mesa among the barrel cactus and ocotillo. If he is struck down, he may not be found for days. My family lives alone. Our nearest neighbors are two miles away.

But we don ’t know any other way to live. My children and I thrive here. No amount of inconvenience can make the monsoons any less glorious. The luxury of surface water is too exquisite.

“The cows sure look pretty when the desert puts her wedding dress on, ” I said over my right shoulder to my seven-year-old son, Will. My horse shied a little to the right when a jet black baby calf jumped out of hiding from the five-foot-tall wall of careless weeds on the left side of the dirt road.

“Goddamn it, Annie, ” I said when I kicked her out of the interlocking trees and bushes on the right side of the small road. I had a nasty scratch on my right thigh and also on my right ankle. The

flies immediately found the blood.

Will involuntarily clamped tight to my belly and his heels clinched into Annie ’ s sweaty brown flanks. Annie humped up and tried to bolt. I pulled back on her reins reflexively, stopping her, and asked Will to loosen his death grip on both of us.

The little terrified calf was in a full-out bawling sprint with our two young, and therefore foolish, border collies in hot pursuit. The calf’ s tail was held straight up like an elephant’ s trunk as he and the dogs vanished into the brush on the right side of the road about a hundred feet in front of us. I didn ’t call the dogs back. It was a beautiful morning, and I sort of felt like chasing things myself. I also knew there was no need to worry about the calf. Within seconds, the first and then the second dog awkwardly fell, or more accurately, flew backwards out of the weeds. Their strange method of travel was soon explained by the cow, ear tag number 90 Yellow. The calf’ s mother was displeased with the juvenile delinquency of the stupid dogs. Enough was enough—90 Yellow tossed her head at me twice, clearly asking if I wanted a piece of her too. I declined, and she disappeared back into her refuge from the sun.

Will asked if he could ride in front of me.

“No. ”

“Why not?”

“Because you always snivel that your balls hurt. Then I’ll have to stop and drag you right back to where you are now, ” I said with finality.

“But I can ’t see, ” Will whined.

“Well, if you weren ’t such a pansy, you ’d be on your own horse right now. ”

Will was silent. Sweat trickled down my back. We both reeked of insect repellent and SPF 50. Some droplets of sweat ran into my eyes from under my beat-up straw cowboy hat. My eyes burned from the chemicals and salt. The sting was bad enough to cause my nose to run. I couldn ’t wipe it on my sweaty right shoulder because it wouldn ’t be doing my nose any favors. I was just wearing a sports bra and miniscule spandex shorts.

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That is how ranch women sunbathe. I wear swim suit-like apparel and lavishly apply sunscreen combined with insect repellent when I switch irrigation pipe, clean out pivot sprinklers, drive the tractor, or ride my horse on a vuelty. Vuelty is bastardized Spanish for a taking a big look around the ranch. I always wear a traditional cowboy hat so I won ’t get skin cancer or, even worse, wrinkles. On this particular vuelty, I was not getting much sweet air on my back since Will stubbornly refused to ride his own horse.

Will doesn ’t like to ride alone when we ride “ naked. ” This is how he refers to the horse ’ s saddleless state, not to my lack of a proper riding habit. I also ride barefoot. Why else would I paint my toe nails?

I do wear a t-shirt around my neck in case I ride up on someone. This is not likely. I was currently checking things out in a five-thousand-acre pasture. We are so isolated, we don ’t even have curtains on our windows.

Will had seen Vern, our crop analyst, in field number 3 this morning.

“What if Vern sees you, Mom?” This was asked with much anxiety. I turned sideways on Annie ’ s back and looked him in the eye.

“I don ’t care. Vern has a mother, too. ”

“But, Mom. ”

“Will, I am wearing more than I do at a swimming pool. ” Annie stopped abruptly, and my pubic bone rammed painfully onto the bony arch of her withers, just like a bad bicycle mishap. Will compounded this by ramming behind me from the sudden halt.

“What the hell?” I gasped.

Annie ’ s ears were at attention. Her head was up like a stick pony. Every muscle trembled against my legs, telegraphing her fear. There was a man standing in the road. His large black eyes met mine, and he smiled. A quick flash of straight white teeth. His black hair was cut short, what I could see of it under his hat. The straw hat was new, in much better shape than mine. He was wearing a chambray Western-cut shirt and jeans. Both were lightly starched

and beautifully ironed. He filled them out like an athlete. This was no mojado—he didn ’t walk here from my fence line. He could only have come from a vehicle, and that meant the river bed. He must have been trapped by new flooding in a normally dry and passable wash.

I knew he was a narco, the Spanish term for the wealthiest members of the impoverished class. He could be trafficking in people, drugs, whatever. This was not the time or place to find out. The new undocumented immigrants are not impoverished farm workers desperately seeking work after walking hundreds of miles through our unforgiving environment. The new smugglers are dangerous people.

One of my neighbors was shot in his wash just last year, and he was armed. They even shot his dog. They shot Robby in the back while he was radioing his brother back at ranch headquarters for medical assistance and a possible flight-for-life. He had ridden up on a group of men laying on their bellies in the warm sand, and my neighbor thought they needed medical attention.

Considering my current state of hygiene, I looked so ridiculous that offering a reward or lure of a ransom would be laughable. He probably thought I was homeless. “Perdoname. I want your horse. I have an appointment and I am late. ” I pondered the wisdom of dismounting and standing helpless in front of this man. Mercy would not be a factor in his decision process.

My right arm wrapped around Will’ s slim waist. I held the reins with my left hand. My only advantage was that I knew what he didn ’t. How to run through the desert turned jungle.

“Just a moment—I have to get my son down first. ” I turned to the right and grasped Will tightly with my right arm. Then I spun Annie to the right and straight into the tangle. I felt the three shots before I heard them. The first one struck Annie. I felt the push of the impact and Annie grunted. Annie suddenly ran without restraint. The bit was in her teeth, and she was flying. Will stiffened and hugged his head low between my shoulder blades. My left

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When I hit the road to the corn field, I headed straight through the corn. No one can see through a corn field. I knew I was safe. Then Annie fell. Will was thrown, and Annie rolled clear of me. There was blood coating both of her sides, her tail was red with it. I thought she was dying. I scrambled towards her to search her for a wound, but she got back up to her feet, breathing heavily from her run. She had tripped on a wheel rut and seemed to still be rideable. Both of us were black with mosquitos. I found Will about three feet away. Blood was pumping from his abdomen and red froth was coming from his mouth. He was not moving at all.

“Oh, God. Oh, God!”

I threw his fifty-two pounds up over Annie ’ s neck and swung up behind him. I let Annie run home unguided, while I applied pressure to his visceral wound. As we came to Juan ’ s, the first ranch home, I begged, “Whoa. ” Annie slid to a stop. My obedient Annie. I screamed for help, pulled Will´ s body off her neck, and worked on my son. He was breathing, and he had a pulse but it was shallow. He was pale, so pale. I was keeping the blood from leaking out of his body with my hand, but he was bleeding into his abdominal cavity.

“Please God, Please, please, please, please. ”

It seemed to take hours, but the response time was under fifteen minutes. Juan had called 911. I knew that this was a great personal risk for him. Juan had no papers, two children, and a wife. I looked up and saw the helicopter coming for us. I glanced around and saw Annie slowly crumple. Blood was dripping from her nostrils. I chose to stay with my son and continued to watch Annie begin the slow lazy leg movement that signaled that death was not far. Juan was about to flee, but he looked down at my lovely mare and knelt by her head. He told her of horse heaven, green pastures, no hard work. He spoke in Spanish, the language of God.

Juan stayed with my brave Annie long after she had died.

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