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The snow wasn’t letting up.
It had been an hour since Johnny finished the last of that terrible wine back in Milwaukee. The corpse parts were gone and he was back to zero. Sure, he had the small piece of vertebrae left but what did that matter in the grand scheme of the race. He had nothing…
“Nyo Ho! I think I found a place to rest for the night!”
He still had Gyro.
Since leaving the city–as the casino patrons and new owners of the only residential building wouldn’t give them a room after the fight–they’ve been stopping at homes on the outskirts asking for use of a barn to weather the storm. Most declined; no goodwill to be found for two poor, injured riders. Others didn’t have the room, having taken in other travelers.
“The house up the road has a stable and they’re willing to part with some firewood for us as well,” Gyro led the way to a home where a man and his daughter stood on the porch, arms saddled with blankets and a pile of firewood beside them. Humble was the best way to describe the pair. They didn’t appear to have much but kindness and Johnny supposed that probably suited them just well.
“I’m Max,” called the man as he came down the porch steps. His blonde hair was cropped short exposing his ears to the cold turning them red. “This here is my daughter Mara.” The little girl, curly blond hair the same shade as her father’s, struggled to follow her father in the snow but her determination was endearing. “Y’all are free to use the stable for as long as the storm goes on. There’s soup in the house if y’all want to grab a bowl 'fore bedding down.”
“Thank you so much,” Johnny replied. The little girl, Mara, had made it to Slow Dancer and was holding her stack of blankets above her head up to Johnny. Leaning over he took them from her, giving her a pat on the head as a thank you. She gave him an angelic smile before trudging over to her father who had given Gyro his stack.
The father daughter duo waved them off as they trotted over to stable around back. Gyro set to work settling the horses as Johnny prepped the area they would bed down in. Normally, Gyro would fill their silence with a silly song or stale jokes that barely landed. But the weight of their loss–of Johnny’s loss–was heavy. Johnny could tell Gyro had something on his mind, and he did too, but it wasn’t the right time to talk about it.
He wasn’t ready to talk about why he gave up the corpse parts. He wasn’t ready to talk about a lot of things, especially why he was willing to sacrifice everything he wanted for Gyro.
“Johnny, we should take them up on that offer of soup. I know we ate a bunch back in town but I don’t want this cold to settle.” Gyro took a seat on a bale of hay near Johnny. He took in the set up and pulled a face. “There’s no room for a fire here?”
Sometimes it was easy to forget that Gyro wasn’t a proper cowboy. “There’s a furnace in here to keep the horses warm, you know. That’s why they let us use the space. Now they don’t have to come out and add wood to it to keep their horse warm.” Johnny grew up in stables, this was common knowledge.
“Huh,” was Gyro’s only response. “Can we use it to make food so we don’t have to go back out in the cold?”
Said furnace was in the corner of the stable. The wood inside was burning low but still radiated heat. The black top was flat but when Johnny rolled his wheelchair over and gave it a light tap it was hot as a stove. It could work, and would take a little longer to cook than a typical open flame would, but they could just feed more fire into it. “Yeah, it could work Gyro.”
“Nyo Ho! I’ll go get the wood and see if they’ll part with some more food.” The dusty blonde man waltzed out the stable doors, quickly shutting them behind him, leaving Johnny and the horses.
———
When Gyro returned he came bearing a basket with produce and wine. The pair got to work making a quick soup chatting about the race and plotting their next moves. Talk about the corpse was left in the silence between them. Gyro began making jokes about their time in Milwaukee; the ridiculousness of Sugar Mountain’s stand.
“I mean, thank God we found that Casino!”
“Only that turned out to be worse!”
“Ha, it was! Why were they trying to make us win?!”
Johnny doubled over laughing at the memory. This was something he’d missed in their treck here and it was easy to fall back into. Gyro made up another hokey song while they ate and drank, this one somehow being about tomatoes rather than cheese.
———
Dinner passed and Johnny hunkered down for bed. The blankets he had gotten from Mara earlier were weighty and he soon felt himself being lulled to sleep.
“Hey, Johnny, ‘you awake?” Gyro’s voice called into the darkness. He could answer, but it had been a more stressful day than they had experienced in a while since getting across the Mississippi. Gyro’s nonsense could wait till morning. “Why did you give up the corpse parts?”
Johnny would not be able to sleep, but still he did not answer.
“You want the corpse parts and you weren’t being affected by Sugar Mountain. You could have left. You should have left. Why didn’t you?”
A neigh from either Valkyrie, Slow Dancer, or Max’s horse is the only reply to Gyro. Still, he continued on.
“It doesn’t make sense to me why you did but, I suppose, I’m grateful. I could have been a tree and been completely stuck there losing the race.” Silence again, followed by Gyro shifting in his pallet. “Good night, Johnny.” A few moments passed and Gyro’s telltale snore filled the air.
In the quiet with only the snow pelting on the roof and neighing horses, Johnny admitted to himself silently that he did know why he gave up the corpse parts. He knows and he thinks Gyro knows too.
“I couldn’t imagine finishing this journey without you,” he said into the darkness. There was no reply, but that suited him just fine. He needed to say it, even if his only audience were the horses. “I couldn’t imagine not hearing your stupid songs and stupid laugh. I couldn’t imagine…” his voice trailed off, unsure of how to put into words what he’d been feeling since their time in the desert of Arizona.
Johnny wasn’t stupid. He’d had this feeling in his chest before; from girls who gave him the right kind of attention. The feeling that made him want to do stupid, reckless things. But this time, that feeling made him want to be better, stronger. To impress upon someone who impressed him on their first meeting.
To be someone worthy.
The wind rattled the tin roof as the storm picked up pace, as if urging the storm that had been inside Johnny to hurry up to its conclusion. With the wind, snow, and horses as his only audience, Johnny confessed.
“I couldn’t imagine being without you. I would give up everything again and again if I knew that we would always be together.” He turned his body to look for the shape of Gyro in the darkness. A lump surrounded by hay, wide brimmed hat beside him. “And I think you feel the same.”
The wind had stopped when he stopped talking. Taking in the quiet outside and inside the stable, for the first time since Milwaukee, Johnny felt at peace for what he’d done. No guilt, no remorse. He thought back to Sugar Mountain and what she had said as they left her: those who are willing to lose... they're the ones who ultimately gain everything.
That was true, he thought, as he pulled the covers over him once more being pulled to sleep. He may have had nothing, but he still had Gyro.
———
In the morning, the underlying tension between the pair had dissipated along with the storm. They packed their things and talked amicably. Gyro sang his tomato song and Johnny egged him on singing a few verses here and there. When they were ready to head out, Max and Mara greeted them at the stable doors.
“Mara wanted y’all to have this before you head out. She was up before the sun making them.”
In the daylight, Johnny could get a better look at the girl. Her blond curls done up in pigtails today and her powder blue eyes sparkled something fierce when she handed Johnny a satchel. “I made y’all some snacks for the road. Daddy says there ain’t gonna be much open due to all the snow and the papers say y’all racers will be heading north so you’ll need lots to eat to make it.”
Inside the satchel were sandwiches and cookies and even a few turnovers. Johnny swung it over his shoulder leaning down on Slow Dancer to give her a pat like he did the night before. “Thank you for your hospitality, Max. And thank you for the snacks, Mara.” The angelic girl gave him a big smile before running back to her father and being picked up.
“I advise y’all to prepare yourselves for the tundra up north. Not only for the cold but for the wildlife as well.” Max nodded to the both of them before turning and walking away with Mara. The little girl waved goodbye to them over her father’s shoulder.
“Are you ready to head out Gyro?” Johnny turned to look at his partner who had those awful visors over his eyes.
Gyro flashed his gold teeth that gleamed in the sunlight reflected off the fresh snow and off they went, together.