My father would get the stare. You know, the thousand yard stare. That’s what they’d come to call it. We didn’t know at the time. It ain’t what most people think. Most people think it’s this tough guy type of stare, like somebody looking through you to your soul. But, the truth is, there’s nothing about it. Their eyes are lazy but glare like headlights. And they don’t look through you to your soul. Instead, it’s like they see no soul anymore in the world. Like their eyes are looking for light and can’t see any.
As a little girl, I didn’t have to worry about my father when he had that look. He was as placid as a cabbage patch doll. The lazy eyes glazed over with whisky, those I had to worry about.
One of the last times I saw him I found him lying there in his bed at Mercy Care Hospital looking out the window. “Dad,” I said. He turned with blankness; then the subtlest spark.
“Nurse Gretchen,” he said. It was going to be one of those days I guessed. I played along.
“Ye–yes. How you doin?” He went on to tell me about a pesky crow he was convinced was trying to taunt him. He then did the most startling thing: he asked, “Have I ever told ya bout my daughter?” I think I froze, strange cogs reeling in my brain. These visits were dutiful, not meaningful.
“Tell me about her.”
“Oh, like me, she had a Musket in her.”
Musket was the famed mustang he could never tame. Ma said he’d come home with all kinds of bumps and bruises from working with him. It was before my time, but the story goes he was the only horse my father never could tame. Had to let the thing free.
“Horses are all spirit, ya know,” he continued. “They aren’t like other animals. The smarter they are, the harder they are to train. My Tracy was the same. I had a clue, ya know, when she was just a baby. She could holler and cry like no other. They said I was the same, can ya believe that?” A rare smile appeared on his face. “I tried to tame her. Tried hard… Too hard.” The smile disappeared, and he was looking away now, staring off to some invisible past. He said, “I wasn’t a good father. I was ruined already, ya know.”
Should I admit this? People say I’m hard. I don’t know if it’s true. Maybe I just have trouble showing anybody I hurt. At that moment, I could feel that feeling you get when your eyes are thinking about crying.
“Was it the war?” I asked.
“I told ya bout the war? That ain’t nothin to speak to no one about. Yes, of course it was the war. People think it’s romantic. It ain’t. It’s the worst of man. The damned worst. And that damn spirit too.”
My father wasn’t the most coherent in those days. You had to try and follow the best you could. Sometimes there was a rhyme to it. Other times, no dice.
“I don’t know how they did it. There was some that went through the war like it was nothin. Then…” His eyes were staring in the distance again, searching just beyond the horizon. “It would take whole portions of the soul from some of us. I saw it in Musket. Ya know, that fierce spirit. That’s the way it is with horses, they sense things others can’t. Like they catch frequencies others can’t. Musket just had it more than any other. I saw it cause… it’s in me too. And it’s in my Tracy.”
Then my father fell silent, eyes still searching that horizon beyond the hospital wall. As he did, I pondered a question whose answer, again dare I admit it, I was afraid of. “Did you dislike that horse?”
“N—o. O Lord no. Musket was my favorite, bar none. I was going to miss him. He wasn’t meant for our world. Many times I wondered what came of him. Having that kind of spirit is risky business. It’s sensitive to things. Wild, difficult to tame. Under the wrong conditions, can go crazy. But by God, you had to see that mustang run. Just magnificent.”
I had to clear my throat. “What if I told you I could talk to your daughter, is there any advice you’d give her?”
His eyes widened; he grabbed my hand. It felt strange after so long. Gone were the rough mitts that toiled with hard work. They were replaced with these fragile things, warm skin so soft it could fall off the bone. “Can ya talk to her? Can you?” He pleaded.
“I might.”
“Tell— tell her to stay away from the darkness. There’s so much out there. That spirit of hers, it ain’t like others. It shines fiercely, but all that darkness out there, it hurts it real bad. Ya hear me? Real bad I say. She has to be careful with a spirit like that.”
The tears came. The ones I didn’t want, came. “I’ll try da– em… I’ll tell her.”
“What’s wrong? Why ya crying?”
“It’s nothin. I’m fine. Yer daughter… she just wants you to know she’s happy.”
“Ya know my daughter?”
“Yeah, I know her real well.”
“Is she married? Does she have kids? Please tell me.”
“Yes, she does.” This was a lie. Every time I saw him, it was the desire he made known, and every time, I disappointed.
“Is he good to her?”
“Yes, he is. He loves her very much.” Tears streaming now.
“Oh, you have no idea how happy this makes me! No idea at all. I was afraid I ruined her, ya know. My baby girl found her prairie. Can ya tell her I’m sorry… fer not being a better dad, that I tried.”
“Y–yes, I can tell her.”
