"Come in, I can offer you buttermilk," Lorena said, holding the door open.
Goodnight immediately came in and took a chair in the kitchen.
"I know you've got your duties, I'll be brief, though I would like the buttermilk," he said. "If I had been born in different circumstances, I could have made a life of drinking buttermilk." Lorena poured him a large glass. He drank half of it and set the glass down.
Clarie peeked in at the door. She couldn't resist. Everyone talked about Mr. Goodnight, but she had only seen him once before, at a picnic, and he hadn't stayed around long enough for her to get a really good look at him.
"That's a fine-looking young lady there--I understand she helps out with the teaching," Goodnight said.
"Yes, she's a great help," Lorena said.
Clarie blushed, so unexpected was her mother's compliment; she had made it to the great man, too!
"I'm shaky at some of the arithmetic," Lorena admitted. "Clarie grasps fractions better than I do." Goodnight drank the other half of the buttermilk and set the empty glass back on the table.
"I expect I could chase a fraction from dawn to sunset and never come near enough to grasp it," he said.
Then he looked firmly at Clarie. The three boys, hearing an unfamiliar voice in the kitchen, were huddled behind her, peeking along with their big sister.
"I'll have to ask you young'uns to excuse us older folks," he said. "I've got a private matter to talk over with your mother." "Oh," Clarie said. She immediately retreated, taking the boys with her. Georgie she had to forcibly drag by the collar. He had developed the ill-mannered habit of staring at guests.
Lorena felt a sudden alarm. Had something happened to Pea?
"No, your husband's fine, as far as I know," Goodnight said, seeing the alarm in the woman's eyes. He felt sympathy for her, and much admiration. It was well known that she had not missed a day of school since taking her job. She arrived every day, in her buggy, in the coldest weather and in the muddiest weather, too. He himself had always been more vexed by mud than by cold, and so was Mary, his wife. Skirts and high-button shoes were a great nuisance when it was muddy, Mary claimed, and he didn't doubt it a bit.
This young woman had strength, and she didn't neglect her duties; that he admired. He felt uneasy, though, at the nature of the inquiry he had come to make. The uneasiness had kept him at home for two weeks or more, since he had first been told that Mox Mox, the manburner, had appeared again. This woman had a difficult past; he knew that, but he didn't care. Life was an uneven business. He knew himself to be of a judgmental nature--too judgmental, his wife assured him. But with the schoolmarm, he had no urge to pass judgment.
She was not the only woman in the Panhandle to have had an uneven life, and her performance with her pupils had been splendid, in his opinion. Her past was between her and her husband. Goodnight was not a preacher, and he had no mission to save the world, either.
"You're sure he's not dead?" Lorena asked. She couldn't help it. She'd had several bad dreams, since Pea Eye left, and in all of them he was either dead or about to be.
"If he is, I haven't heard it," Goodnight said.
"Then what is it, Mr. Goodnight?" Lorena asked. "What is it?" "It's Mox Mox," Goodnight replied.
Lorena knew then why it had taken an old man, known all over the West for his abruptness, so long to come to the point. Her first urge was to run and lock her children in the bedroom, where they couldn't possibly even hear the name Goodnight had just spoken.
At the same time, she felt too weak to stand up. A rush of fear broke in her such as she had not felt for many years.
Goodnight saw it--the woman had come into the kitchen a little flustered, some color in her cheeks. But the color left her, as soon as he spoke Mox Mox's name. It was as if the blood had suddenly been milked from her, with one squeeze.
"But he's dead, ain't he?" Lorena asked.
It was the first time she had slipped and said "ain't" in many months.
"I thought so myself, but now I ain't so sure," Goodnight said. "I've never seen the man myself, and I believe you have seen him. That's why I've bothered you and took the risk of upsetting you." He paused, watching the young woman bring herself under control. It was not a simple struggle, or a brief one. She stared at him, wordless. She was plainly scared, too scared to hide it. Finally, to be doing something, he got up and helped himself to another glass of buttermilk.
Seeing Mr. Goodnight pouring himself the buttermilk brought Lorena back to herself, and just in time. For a second, she had felt a scream starting in her head, or had heard, inside herself, the piercing echo of many screams from the past. She felt cold and clammy, so heavy with fear that, for a second, she didn't know if she could move. During the hours when she had been a captive of Mox Mox and his boss, Blue Duck, she hadn't been able to move, and the terror that she felt during those hours was a thing that would never leave her. The name alone had brought it all back. Mr. Goodnight must have known it might, or he would not have hesitated.
But the man was in her kitchen, he was her guest, and there was such a thing as manners. Even though her deepest urge was to gather her children and run--run to Nebraska, or farther--she knew that she had to control herself and try to help Charles Goodnight, for the very sake of her children.
"I'm sorry, I'm bad scared, it caused me to forget my manners," she said. She gripped the edge of the table and squeezed it with the fingers of both hands. She needed something that would steady her, something to grip. But the spasm of fear was stronger than her grip. Despite herself, she kept trembling.
"It don't take much muscle to pour buttermilk," Goodnight said. "I regret having to put you through this." "Why are you? Mox Mox is dead," Lorena said. "Pea Eye heard it years ago. He was killed in Utah, or somewhere.
"He's dead. ... ain't he?" she asked.
"He's dead. Everybody said it." "I chased him to Utah myself," Goodnight said. "He burnt four of my cowboys, in Colorado, on the Purgatory River.
Three of them were boys of sixteen, and the fourth was my foreman. He'd been with me twenty years.
I chased Mox Mox, but I lost him. It's a failure I've regretted ever since. Two or three years later, I heard he was dead, killed by a Ute Indian." "Yes, it was a Ute that killed him," Lorena said. "That's what Pea Eye told me." Goodnight watched her shaking. He wished he could comfort her, but he had never been much of a hand at comforting women. It wasn't one of his skills.
He drank the second glass of buttermilk, looked at the pitcher, and decided not to have a third.
"I think Mox Mox is alive," he said.
"Somebody's been burning people in New Mexico." "Burning what kinds of people?" Lorena asked, still gripping the table. It was all she could do to keep from jumping up and gathering her children and running before Mox Mox could come and get them all.
"Whatever kind he catches," Goodnight said. "He stopped a train and took three people off and burned them. That was three weeks ago.
"There ain't that many manburners," Goodnight added, after a pause. "The Suggs brothers burned two farmers, but Captain Call caught the Suggs brothers and hung them. That was years ago." He paused again. "Mox Mox is the only killer I've heard of who makes a habit of burning people," he said, finally.
Lorena was silent. But in her head, she heard the screams.
"If I've got the history right, when Blue Duck took you from the Hat Creek outfit, Mox Mox was still running with him," Goodnight said. He spoke with caution. He had known several women who had been captives, several women and a few children. Some of them babbled about it; others never spoke of it; but all were damaged.
Though used to plain speech, he knew that there were times when it wasn't the best way to talk. This woman, who worked so hard for the ignorant, raw children of the settlers, in a schoolhouse he had built, had been a captive, not of the Comanche, but of Blue Duck, one of the cruelest renegades ever to appear in the Panhandle country.
And Mox Mox, at various times, h
ad run with Blue Duck. He himself had never seen either man. This woman had seen one of them for sure; perhaps she had seen both. He wanted to know what she knew, or as much of it as she could bear to tell him.
Rarely, in his long life, had Goodnight felt so awkward about asking for the information he needed. Lorena was not one to babble. What she felt, she mainly kept inside. Her fingers were white from gripping the edge of the table, and her arms shook a little; but she was not behaving wildly, she was not screaming or crying, and she was also not talking.
"Mox Mox is a white man and he's short," Lorena said. "One of his eyes ain't right, it points to the side. But the other eye looks at you, and one's enough." Goodnight waited, standing by the stove.
Lorena took a deep breath. She felt as if she might strangle, if she didn't get more air into her lungs. She remembered that was how she had been then, too, the day Blue Duck led her horse across the Red River and handed her over to Ermoke and Monkey John and all the rest.
But not Mox Mox. He hadn't been there then.
He had arrived later; how many days later, Lorena wasn't sure. She wasn't counting days, then. She hadn't expected to live, and didn't want to, or didn't think she wanted to.
Then Mox Mox arrived. He had three Mexicans with him, and a stolen white boy. The little boy was about six. He whimpered all night.
When Gus McCrae rescued her, she hadn't been able to speak, and she had never since spoken of that time to anyone--not much, anyway.
Particularly, she had never spoken about the little boy.
"Mox Mox wanted to burn me," Lorena said. "I'll tell you, Mr. Goodnight.
I'll tell it today. But don't ever ask me about it again. Is that a bargain?" Goodnight nodded.
"He's small," Lorena said. "He wasn't big, like Blue Duck, and he's got that eye that looks off. He wanted to burn me.
He piled brush all around me and he poured whiskey on me. He said that would make me burn longer. He said it would make it hurt worse.
He rubbed grease in my eyes. He said that would be the worst, when my eyes fried. He poured whiskey on me and he rubbed that grease in my eyes." "But he didn't burn you," Goodnight said.
"I'm surprised. It's our good luck and yours." "Blue Duck wouldn't let him burn me," Lorena said. "Blue Duck wanted me for bait. He let him pile up the brush, and he let him squirt and rub grease in my eyes, but he wouldn't let him burn me. He wanted to use me to catch Gus McCrae. He wanted to catch Gus real bad, but then Gus killed half his renegades, and Blue Duck left." "What about Mox Mox?" Goodnight asked.
"I guess he didn't stay for the fight with Captain McCrae, did he? He left, like his jefe." "Yes ... he left with his Mexicans," Lorena said.
She stopped.
"I've never told nobody this. ... I don't know if I can, Mr. Goodnight," Lorena said.
"Don't try," Goodnight said. "You don't need to. I'll tell this part, ma'am.
He didn't burn you, but he burned the boy, didn't he?" "How'd you know?" Lorena asked, looking at him in surprise.
"Because I found what was left of that boy, and buried him," Goodnight said. "Six months later, that devil burned my cowboys." "I'm glad somebody else knows," Lorena said.
"Well, I know," Goodnight said. "I found the remains. The boy's parents showed up at my headquarters about a year later. They were still looking for their child." Lorena began to tremble so hard that Charles Goodnight stepped over and put a hand on her shoulder. He had steadied horses that way; perhaps it would have the same effect with this woman.
"You didn't tell them, did you?" Lorena said. "You didn't tell them what happened, did you?" "I told them their son drowned in the South Canadian River," Goodnight said. "I usually try to stick to the truth, but these poor folks had been hunting that boy for a year. I thought the full truth was more than they needed to hear.
Anyway, the child was dead. They wanted to go to the grave, and I took them. I'm thankful they didn't try to dig up the child." "You did right," Lorena said. "You shouldn't have told them no more than you did." They were silent. Lorena was still trembling, but not so badly.
"I wasn't a mother then," Lorena said.
"I'm a mother now. Mox Mox did the same things to that child that he said he would do to me. He whipped him and he poured whiskey on him, and he rubbed grease in his eyes. Then he piled brush on him and burned him." She had said it, said it for the first time. She looked up at Goodnight, the old man of the plains.
"Were the Indians that bad, with people they caught?" she asked.
"They were," Goodnight said. "Those were bloody times, the Indian times. But you said Mox Mox was white." "He was white--a mean, little white man," Lorena said. "He whipped that boy till there wasn't an inch of skin on his body. Then he burned him." "It ain't often you find two bad ones of the caliber of him and Blue Duck, running together," Goodnight said. "But you said Mox Mox had his own gang?" "Three Mexicans," Lorena said. "They left with Mox Mox, when Blue Duck wouldn't let him burn me." Goodnight was about to speak when Lorena's voice quickened.
"I still hear that boy screaming, Mr.
Goodnight," she said. "I'll always hear that child screaming. I'm a mother now. He was about the age of Georgie ... about ... the age of Georgie." Then a convulsion of sobbing seized her, and she got up and stumbled out of the room, her arms clutched about her chest, as if her very organs might spill out if she didn't clutch herself tightly enough.
Goodnight looked at the buttermilk again, and again decided against another glass. Though he was old, and should have been used to all suffering, to any misery that life could place in his path, he had never accustomed himself to the deep sobbing of women, to the grief that seized them when their children died, or their men. He had no children. His cowboys were his children, but he had not given birth to his cowboys; it must surely make a difference. He went out the back door, into the stiff wind, and stood by his horse, waiting until the young woman had recovered sufficiently to fend for herself and her children.
A little boy came out and walked up to him.
"My more-more-mama is crying," he said, looking at Goodnight. The boy didn't seem to be particularly upset. He was just reporting.
"Well, I expect she needs to. .
Let her bawl," Goodnight said.
"My but-but-baby sister cries all the that-that-time, but I don't cry," the little boy, Georgie, stammered.
Two more boys came out, one older, one younger.
They stood together. All were barefoot, though it was cold outside. Then the large girl came too, carrying the baby. She looked scared.
"Mama's screaming in there," the girl said.
"Why is she screaming like that? She's never screamed before." Indeed, when the wind lay for a few seconds, Goodnight could hear Lorena screaming. They were wild screams. He supposed captive women must scream like that, during the worst of it. But he had never been a captive, nor a woman, and he could only suppose.
"I brought some bad news; I'm afraid it's greatly upset her," Goodnight said.
"She'll probably be better, presently." Unless she isn't, he thought. People had lost their minds over less than the schoolmarm had endured.
"I hope she stops," one of the older boys said.
"It wasn't about Pa, was it?" Clarie asked.
"No. I have no reason to think your father has had any difficulty," Goodnight told the girl. He was not used to talking to young people, and found it a strain. But in the calm intervals, between the surges of wind, he could still hear Lorena, as could the children, and she was still screaming. Then the wind would return and whisk her screams away.
"Do you ever can-can-cry, mister?" the bold Georgie asked.
"Seldom, son, very seldom," Goodnight replied.
"Is it but-but-because you have a but-but-beard?" Georgie asked. He liked the old man, though he certainly didn't have much to say.
"Yes, I expect that's the reason," Goodnight said.
There was an interval. The wind lay, briefly. They heard no screams.
"No, let's just wait," Goodnight said.
"I expect she'll come and get us when she wants us." They were all silent for a minute, as the wind blew.
"It's chilly weather to go barefoot in," Goodnight said. "Don't none of you have shoes?" "We got a pair apiece," the older of the boys replied. "Ma don't like us to put 'em on until we get to school, though.
She thinks it's wasting shoes." "Go-go-got any horses that's for knowledge-knowledge-kids to ride?" Georgie asked. "I but-but-been wantin' a horse." "Georgie, it's Mr. Goodnight," Clarie said, mortified. Georgie had practically come right out and asked him for a horse, with their mother screaming in the house.
Streets Of Laredo ld-2 Page 24