I hadn't ever seen Dad demonstrate that much contempt toward my brother. After Evan leaped backward off Rowdy, picking himself off the loose soil, watching the horse gallop toward the ranch, Dad spat at Evan's trembling feet.

“You could've got yourself killed, boy,” Dad hollered.

Evan feared getting his head clunked by the crossbeam over the corral's entrance gate. He swung his right leg slowly over the saddle's cantle, and grabbed the horn cap with his left. He balanced an elusive moment as if on a pummel horse, his right hand on the cantle, then pushed off, launching his body backward in stop-time air, making certain not to get his left foot tangled in the stirrup.

Evan's younger sister, Jan, dismounted.

“Where's Rowdy?” she asked. “I hope he didn't get hurt.”

“Rowdy's fine,” Dad said. “Some kind of fool I raised, that's for sure.”

Catlin, the trail boss on this Evan's first ride on a “real” horse at Remington's Dude ranch, witnessed the aerodynamics, too. He tried to grab Rowdy's reins, but his horse proved no match for the faster Rowdy. He slid his cowboy hat back, revealing pale white skin beneath where the band arced around his forehead.“I've been around horses all my life but never saw what you just did.'

Evan, liking originality, grinned. The faint-red scar above Catlin eyebrow gleamed in the summer sun in Wyoming's Teton Mountains. On the first ride, Evan asked about the scar's origin. “An Appaloosa I was breaking kicked me good after throwing me in the corral.”

This was before web cams broadcast the local news here, before kayak trips and whitewater rafting, before Tasmanian salmon ceviche dinners in sushi bars, before famous painters and sculptors in galleries, before jazz and bluegrass concerts, before cinemas and DVD rentals.

This happened long ago. Or so it seemed to me, Ward, Evan's older brother. Though I haven't seen him for decades, Evan sends me letters. I've been fixated by western movies and books ever since.

The first time Evan saw Rowdy had been in the corral. Evan and I arose early. We watched Rowdy at the corral's wood-railed fence. The roan horse, colored white over his loin and hips, with small dark spots speckling around his nose, lips, genitalia and eyes, stirred Evan. Rowdy snorted morning fog through flared, twitching nostrils. Evan learned a bit in biology class about the eye, seeing a huge color diagram of one. Rowdy's eye had been the first living one he'd observed close-up. White film encircled the eyeball except for the iris and pupil. Evan caressed Rowdy's flexing jowls. The horse chomped carrots given to Evan by a waitress the previous night at dinner.

Catlin approached us, chewing on a chaw.

“You'll like Rowdy,” Catlin said. “He's not one of those nags you complained about.” He'd badgered Catlin for a better horse since the first tail ride.

“I didn't like saggy horses going through rides in their sleep,” Evan said. He fed Rowdy more carrots. He liked this gelding.

“Nice that Phoebe gave you carrots,” Catlin said.

“You know her?” asked Evan.

“We're going to get engaged,” Catlin said. “Soon.”

“Like her a lot, then?” Evan perked up.

“Always like folks who can tell the difference between real people and phonies,” he said, placing another chaw into his cheek.

“How does she know?” Rowdy's ears flicked back and forth.

“Real ones don't make others small and frightened,” he said.

“She must be smarter than most people,” Evan said.

“Waitressing tables, she learns by being a good listener.”

“How's that done?” Evan pursued, unsure where he headed.

“You take your dad,” Catlin said. “Phoebe heard him sound like he hated his own son.” No one ever said this about Ted before.   

“My dad doesn't hate me,” Evan said. “He just thinks I'm a clutch.'

“She says it's in his voice, how he doesn't respect his own flesh and blood.”

I stood silent. I'm a for-their-own-good believer. Evan's expression showed that he knew Catlin's version rang true. Evan choked back emotion. We absorbed the early morning before breakfast, how sunlight revealed the tiniest freckles around Rowdy's lips. That day marked the first and last ride on Rowdy. 

“What else could I do?” Evan asked, legs shaking, expecting no answer.

“You could put four riders piggyback, and still never reach that beam,” Catlin said.

By this time Evan's mother, Jennifer, and his sister, Jan, dismounted. They left the verdict to Ted about Evan's latest departure from grace.

“He's one odd duck,” Ted said to Catlin. “Lots of growing up to do.” Evan tipped his head down, then lifted his eyes toward Catlin's staring hard into Ted's eyes. His father suddenly peered at the other riders passing them on the trail. “No Hollywood stuntman crap from now on.”

Ted explained what happened to Jenny and Jan. Both smirked, knowing Evan hadn't broken anything. Evan dusted his jeans and polo shirt, giving him time to regain poise, shaking off the crying impulse. His rear hurt, rubbing his left buttock. “Rowdy's stronger than ever,” Evan told Jan. She smiled. 

“Don't let your deal go down,” Catlin said, chuckling softly.

“ ‘Deal'?” asked Evan.

“You'll find out soon enough,” Catlin answered.

“You're not one of those silly clown-faces at some rodeo,” Ted said.

“They're to protect the tossed bull riders,” Catlin said. Ted's face went red.

“You're right. I've seen rodeos on TV,” Ted said. “Clowns are brave, very brave souls indeed.” Catlin winced at first, and then smiled.

“Guts before wisdom, my father used to say,” Catlin said. He mounted his bay and cantered to the stable.

Evan walked, while we four walked our horses along side of him. We changed for dinner. Moose antlers reigned in the dining room, with old-time, mustachioed frontier men's photos surrounding us on pine walls. Ted ordered buffalo and elk platters, drinking his usual bourbon and water. Jenny sipped watery scotch. The three of us drank ice-cold Pepsis in tall glasses.

“Tell you what, kids,” Ted said. “How about going to the racetrack tomorrow?” Not a question, but a fait accompli.

“Aren't we riding anymore?” asked Evan. Ted blamed him for the abrupt change of plans. We all thought so, but said nothing.      

“Maybe a couple of more before we leave,” Ted said. “We'll bet, small ones. This isn't Las Vegas, you know.”

It was Phoebe's station and she placed the meals down in front of us. We savored our meal. Evan talked about winning money so he could buy Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly records. We walked back afterwards. Evan commented about the full moon hanging over a mountaintop, how back home we hardly ever saw the moon. Ted agreed, joking how Evan stayed in his room so much, how could he. Jan told Ted all don't see the moon, what with tall buildings on every side. Ted complimented her precise mind, it wasn't only Evan who couldn't view the moon. 

Evan and I shared a bedroom. He explained, in so many words, that Ted should've been proud of his backward jump off galloping Rowdy.

“No western ever showed a cowboy doing that before,” he said. We laughed and slept, though once Evan tossed back and forth, uncharacteristic of him. I awoke, figuring the strange bed had something to do with it.

Since leaving home long ago, Evan has sought and acquired that proud feeling. It runs through every letter he has sent. I finally started filing them chronologically ever since settling down in Barcelona.

Arriving early, Ted walked to the paddock, checking out horses. Then he walked to the stables and training area. He grew up on a small farm. He gave slice-of-life reminiscences to us about horses. He and Jenny always included racetracks whenever

they vacationed. We didn't bet as planned but sat in the stands, sampling over-priced

treats from concessionaires.

Ted returned just in time to see the horses bolt out of the gates. As they headed for the home stretch, the greedy bettors' roar, almost sexual, rose in all our throats. Ted's horse won by two lengths.

“Way to go, Dad,” Evan enthused. “This must be your lucky day.”

“The horse looked good in the paddock,” he said. “The jockey wins a lot here.”

Ted cashed in the fifteen to one ticket. He came back, fanning the bills like a canasta hand. He placed long-odd bets on the next three races, coming back with more green. Jenny appeared stunned, even though she'd accompanied him countless times to tracks.

“Is that Catlin coming this way?” Evan saw Catlin and a woman at his arm heading toward them.

“I'll tell him I lead a charmed life,” Ted said, beaming all over.

Catlin introduced Phoebe. She smiled, shaking hands with our family. The trail boss threw Ted a cold look. Evan couldn't help notice. Ted's nervous mouth went to Mach 2, chatting about everything and nothing simultaneously. Was that a snarl beginning to form, or would Ted work to conceal it?

“We saw you hanging around the backside,” Catlin said.

“Research pays off. I've won four in a row.”

“Saw you with Willy, used to work with me at Remington's.”

“Nice fellow. Has lots of horse sense,” Ted spoke with confidence.

“If you call stealing nice, that is,” Catlin said. Phoebe talked softly with Jan and Jenny, exchanging smiles with Evan and me.

“Stealing? I'm here to make bets. Stealing?”

“Willy slipped into cabins, took money, jewelry, watches,” Catlin said.

“Glad he's not around anymore. They caught him, right?”

“Did time in the penitentiary,” he said. “I told Remington's owners about it.”

“What's that have to do with me?” Indignation enunciated in each word.  

“Word is, he hooked up with guys while doing time,” Catlin said. “Sort of Wyoming's cowboy gambling mafia.”

“What's all this mean, Catlin?” Evan asked, intervening during Ted's silence.

“Willy knows who'll win these races, that's what it means.” Evan's expression changed from quizzical to anger.

“Dad never cheated in his life. Damn you, Catlin.” Evan never swore in front of the family, except sometimes alone with me. Jan almost cried, knowing Evan shouldn't have used that word. Jenny pushed down her floppy sun hat, hiding her face, then looked up at Catlin.

“Are you telling us Ted's a criminal? Guilt by association?” She talked louder than ever before, but the spectators' buzz hadn't drawn attention to her high volume.

“What Catlin's saying is Ted's a real phony-baloney,” Phoebe said, looking at Jenny, then Ted, then Evan.

“You've no right to barge into our family like this,” Ted said. “Go back to the stables and eat that idiot cowboy horseshit.”

“Talking to Evan like he was horseshit,” Phoebe said. “You ought to be horsewhipped.” A kernel of popcorn flew out her mouth as she spoke.

“Go away, Annie Oakley, before I lose my temper,” Ted said. “ And take Gene Autry with you.” He pointed at Catlin with his thumb, jabbing it close to his nose.

“Willy and you make a nice match,” Catlin said. Ted's thumb pushed through the air with greater emotion. “You can't threaten me with that thumb.”

Ted backed up a step, reached in his pocket, and pulled out a jackknife.

“Does this threaten you?” Ted held the opened blade to his throat, then stuck it on Catlin's Adam's apple. Tiny drops of blood slid down Catlin's throat. By then, nearby spectators saw the knife. Some screamed, others tried to intercede. People yelled to get the cops.

“Why in hell are you doing this?” Jenny screamed and cried at once.

That's my old scouting knife, Dad,” Evan said. “Don't hurt Catlin.”

Evan's voice distracted Ted, and Catlin slammed Ted's knife away with one heavy blow to his forearm. The knife fell to the cement. Ted bent down to scoop it up, but before he touched the knife again, Catlin kicked his cowboy boot into Ted's face. Kicked him very hard.

Ted sprawled to his side, then lay on his back. Blood flowed like the creek. Evan said put him to sleep at night outside Remington's cabin. Or so it seemed. By then Catlin and Phoebe had vanished, and the track's security cops arrived. Jenny wouldn't press charges.

Evan picked his old knife up, folding the blade, putting it in his pant pocket. When medical help came, they put Ted on a stretcher, taking him to the emergency room beneath the stands. Horses rounded the far turn and down the stretch. Losers tore their tickets, the fraction of others going to the pay windows, collecting their winning bets.

Ted had sixteen stitches taken, his face purple and swollen. They set his busted nose. Jenny drove the station wagon all the way back home. Ted usually drove, but with his eyes puffed up, he could hardly see. Ted bet on the fifth race, the ticket somewhere in his pockets. He probably had another winner, but that had no meaning anymore.

The radio played as they drove east. Country, rock ‘n' roll, blues, doo-wop, pop standards, rockabilly, gospel, jazz---we heard the North American continent's musical osmosis rather than speaking to one another. 

Three years later, I attended Evan's high school graduation ceremony. He started growing his hair long back then. With his high grade point average, Evan had been accepted at a fine university. But he never entered because he left, disappeared would be a better word, the day before departing to college. Everything had been done by Ted and Jenny to locate him. Detailing it here would be a tedious and awesome task, so I won't try.

Before he left, I gave him my post office box address while I attended graduate school, and his first letter, postmarked Denver, arrived a month later. He dwelled on helping poor people, and how hungry they and he were. He obsessed on peanut butter and baloney sandwiches, since his political group only could afford $10 a week income. Famine, its consequences, its victims, the reckoning, the “Midnight Hour” he termed it, those subjects dominated his pages.

That letter started his correspondence with me. No return address was on that letter or all his later letters. Organizing California farm workers, protesting Mississippi racism, burning draft cards, supporting nuns and priests attacking missile silos, writing manifestos against war profiteers in “underground” newspapers, justifying assassinations and bombing sites at universities colluding with imperialist wars, joining anti-fascist brigades, siding early with the Palestinian cause, debating Marxist and anarchist theories in communes, hitchhiking back and forth, suggesting armed  robbery to fund the Native-American resistance, living as a fugitive, committing unnamed crimes, letters from Buenos Aires, Havana, Montreal, Dublin, Belfast, London, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, innumerable postmarks from continental Europe, Algiers, Hanoi, Bangkok, Tokyo, the Philippines, peasant villages requiring exquisite maps, cryptic messages smuggled out of foreign jails.

Hundreds of pieces of mail, written as well or better than most dead or living short story authors. Once he asked about Jan, but I had no way to communicate that she majored in equine veterinary, and now is a practicing veterinarian.

During these years, many U.S. law enforcement agencies contacted me, tapped my phones, opened my mail, listened through common apartment walls, followed me in streets, airports, public bathrooms, hotel halls, buses, trains, staked-out my residences, knocked at my door, tracked my email, placed me under 24/7 surveillance, questioned me, threatened me: I became an enemy of the state. The farther Evan was from me, the closer I dwelled with him.

Suddenly, no more letters and communiqués came. It's been seven years since I filed a letter. I teach American cultural history in Barcelona. Had Evan failed to reconnoiter and recognize his world perception, Weltanschauung as professors called it, no longer functioned in our age? Or had he succumbed to outmoded beliefs, a warped past so hopelessly flawed and damaged, beyond all salvation?

Jan and I correspond all the time. Constantly. Incessantly. Ted and Jenny are dead. Her professional interest in horses has flowed to me. I'm driven, even possessed by horses. I read about them in English and Spanish literature: Non-fiction, poetry, fiction, historical accounts, mythologies, scientific journals, religious works. I've collected prints with horses figuring prominently in each.

One image ceaselessly enters my dreams, capturing me. A galloping horse, riderless and powerful, running down a vacant track, never quite reaching the finish line. Neither winning nor losing, I can't tell whether it's racing toward something or away from it.   

I check the mail compulsively, expecting Evan's return each time I look.

It's 2010. Another year. I no longer have the horse dream. I have no dreams at all.