Redeye

by Edgerton, Clyde

  It makes me feel good to do it—and know that I’m a part of making things right and balanced. God’s hand is in it. How can a man feel his mission on earth, feel it said into his heart and bones but still not follow, act out, that mission? No matter what his mission was before, no matter what he’s done before. That is the man who dies before he dies, who simply takes up space and food and air on earth, who is a bother to those of us who walk into our holes following God’s almighty voice, that voice saying make the world even. Because if there is sons of bitches roaming the world playing their power on the innocence of innocents, then there by God has to be somebody listening for orders on how to track the cowards down and give to them their due and overdue justice. God can’t act except through a man. This earth is the only one we got. If you sit by, it don’t get it right. If nobody done nothing, it would get completely wrong and evil. God is justice. I’m just doing what I got to do.

  “Redeye. You ready to turn in, boy? You think I might be able to turn you loose in a herd of sheep tomorrow? Say, boy. Come over here.”

  STAR

  When I entered the house after seeing Mr. Pittman, Libby was facing the collar on a new blouse for Elisabeth. “Mr. Pittman—the man with the dog—wants to talk to Mr. Merriwether,” I said, “so I told him he could stay in one of the tents all night. I hope that was all right. He seemed sick, somehow.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine. He was by himself?”

  “Yes’um. Except for the dog.”

  “Should we ask him in for supper?”

  “It’s fine with me. He’s a little bit odd, but seems perfectly nice.”

  “Go ask him.”

  “Come on, girls,” I said, “let’s go ask the man in for supper.”

  He was not a big man, but he looked wiry, and strong. He’d left off his smoked spectacles, and his eyelids were red and the bags underneath his eyes were red and tears were constantly rolling down his cheeks into his bushy beard. He agreed to come in and eat. I showed him to the washbowl on the porch.

  At the table he had his hat off and his hair all around was combed straight back, except that it was thin on top. It was smoothed back as if with a washcloth.

  We started eating and sat in silence for a while. I couldn’t remember if I knew where Mr. Pittman lived. Finally I could think of nothing else, so I asked him, “How do you like where you live?”

  “Oh, I don’t like anywhere very much,” he said.

  “Where do you live?”

  “On the trail, mostly. At the hotel sometimes. At your uncle’s once or twice—in his saddle shop.”

  Juanita and her little boy, Jose Hombre, were having supper with us and Libby allowed him and Elisabeth and Melinda to eat by themselves at a small table in the corner. The Merriwethers ask their servants to eat with them, another unusual western custom. Though, come to think of it, I don’t know of anyone around, besides the Merriwethers, who has servants. When Mr. Merriwether is at home we eat in complete silence, but not when he’s away.

  Mr. Pittman finally talked a little—I got him to talking—told us that he worked for the government doing land surveys and that his family and children were in Georgia. He also said he was interested in archaeology.

  “Mr. Merriwether is very interested in archaeology,” I said. “He’s brought back two mummies from up on the mesa.”

  “The word has pretty much got out,” said Libby.

  “The big mummy es bery ugly,” said Juanita, “and the baby es bery bonita.”

  Here Mr. Pittman takes in to talking Spanish with Juanita. He said something that Jose Hombre laughed at and then he said, “God works in mysterious ways.” He took a big spoon of mashed potatoes into his mouth. Water ran from his eyes. We were finishing up supper and the conversation turned to sheep and cattle. He was curious about who owned sheep and cattle in the area.

  Before he left to go back to his tent, I told him about Mr. Blankenship’s ideas about tourists and the possibility of my going on a tourist expedition into the mountains. He seemed interested in perhaps going himself.

  COBB PITTMAN

  I got up to the ferry about dinnertime, after I’d talked with Merriwether. Merriwether’s not interested in much except exploring in the cliff dwellings. One of Thorpe’s wives runs the house with the MEALS sign on a front porch post. That’s where I stopped. Another wife runs the trading post across the river.

  Redeye was hungry. I was too.

  There was a buggy out front. Up on the porch I looked in through the window before I knocked. A big fire was going and two men and a little lady were seated at the table. It was still chilly from a cool night. They hadn’t heard me ride up. She come to the door and was as lively as a little bird; took my hat and coat and took me to a seat. It was a long table and pretty near filled up the room.

  The two fellows were eating hard and keeping their eyes down. The little miss asked which way I’d come and I told her by the Copelands’ and Merriwethers’. She talked some about the new mortuary business at the Copelands’. She’d heard that Copeland had learned it in Denver and then come home and sewed up the hole in his mama’s cheek.

  “Did you know she’s sleeping with a baby mummy?” I said.

  That got the fellows’ attention.

  “Gracious, no,” she said.

  “Yep. Seems she thinks it’s one of her long-lost children.”

  “No, I hadn’t heard about that. Did they get the mummy from up on the mesa?”

  “They did. Seems to be a whole lot of Mormon signs up in there. Signs of Jesus. Just for one, the baby mummy’s got a cross on its forehead. And I hear tell there’s robes from Israel up in there.”

  “Bishop Thorpe has been up in the mesa,” she said, “but he’s not found any of that.”

  “Is he your husband?” I asked her.

  “No. He’s a good friend—and a provider.”

  “Maybe he wants to go on the next expedition. They’re planning one I think, and if it all works out it might mean good business for the ferry, seeing as they might get tourists going in there. Especially people that might want to see proof of the Book of Mormon. And they’re trying to get all kinds of people to go. Blankenship, out of Mumford Rock, is heading it up.”

  “You talking about Mesa Largo?” said one of the fellows.

  “That’s what I understand. Seems there’s some cliff dwellings in there drawing some interest.”

  “There’s cliff dwellings everywhere,” said the ugly one.

  “The whole country is going to hell,” said the first one. “That’s all they need now—pulling more foreigners in here.”

  “Ain’t it the truth,” I said.

  “Bishop Thorpe would like to know about that cross,” said the little woman.

  “I bet he would. He ought to know about it,” I said. I thought about him making his rounds to all his wives. I’d seen a picture drawing in a Denver newspaper of a Mormon in bed with six or eight wives.

  “There’s coming a time,” said the one straight across from me, the ugly one, “within not too many years when you ain’t gone to be able to ride ten mile without having to cross a railroad track. And they’ll put a telegraph in ever house that’s built.”

  “Ain’t it the truth,” I said.

  Mrs. Thorpe was up spooning oatmeal on our plates. “Bishop Thorpe sees it both ways,” she said. “He’s not for the railroads, but he’s glad that the Saints can now more easily find their way to the Kingdom.”

  “You tell him about that cross,” I said. “He might want to go on that expedition. Is he around, by the way?”

  “Yes, he’s down at the ferry.”

  “And he ain’t your husband?” asked one of the fellows.

  She stood still and looked at him. “He’s a very good friend and provider.”

  “The last newspaper I seen,” said the ugly one, “said they was trying a man somewhere in Kansas for pigamy. A Mormon.”

  “Polygamy,” said the other one.

  “Tha
t’s what I said,” said the ugly one.

  “You said ‘pigamy.’”

  “I know. That’s what I said I said.”

  “You said—”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You said pigamy and he said polygamy.”

  “It means the same thing,” said the ugly one.

  “No, it don’t,” said the other one. “A pigamy is from Africa.”

  “That’s Pygmy,” I said.

  “How do you know?” he said.

  “Because I goddamn lived with them . . . I was married to one. I had Pygmy children and grandchildren. Don’t tell me it’s pigamy.”

  I wished I had somebody to tell that conversation to.

  “All we can do,” said the little lady, “is live by the word of God, and Jesus, and the Book of Mormon, in spite of all the troubles we’ve been up against.”

  “Well,” I said, “I think I’ll go on down to the ferry and speak to the Bishop. Good day to you gentlemen, and ma’am, might I have a piece of cornpone for my little dog?”

  “Why, certainly.” She gave me a good-size hunk of pone.

  ———

  Some men were on the far side of the ferry crossing, loading two wagonloads of logs. Looked like Thorpe was helping.

  By the time the ferry got over to the near side, the two fellows who’d been inside eating were standing with me, waiting.

  “I wisht I had me seven or eight wives,” said the ugly one.

  “I wisht I just had me that one in there,” said the other one. “She sure was a feisty little thing.”

  “I’d settle for a Pygmy woman,” I said. “Them women think the man ain’t supposed to do nothing but lay around all day and drink and eat and fish in the river. I gained about a hundred pounds while I was over there.”

  Thorpe was poling the raft—a pole raft slung on a wire running between big cottonwoods. “Gentlemen,” he said to us, when he drifted to a stop, “the fee is twenty-five cents per person and wagon, ten cents per animal. Welcome aboard. May God bless ye.”

  I watched him carefully, and while he was talking to the two men, he smiled, and I finally got a good look at the turn of his lip.

  BUMPY

  The relic show was in late October and the purpose was to get people to sign up for the first tourist trip up to the cliff dwellings, which would happen in April. But on the second day of the show hadn’t nobody come to see it except people who was leaving or coming in on the train, as far as we could tell. So Mr. Blankenship talked Mr. Merriwether into letting us bring the mummies in, both of them, and so that’s what started out happening today. Mr. Blankenship got to the saddle shop at about eight o’clock this morning with Cleopatra in the wagon in a box—Mr. Copeland has built her a glass-top box, too, because she had started to wrinkle like the baby had. I was supposed to have the baby mummy ready out in the yard when he got there.

  Mr. Copeland was going to stay in town with the mummies the first day they was showed, Zack the second day, then I was going in the third day and bring both mummies back home on the fourth day.

  The trouble started when Mr. Copeland couldn’t get the baby mummy separated from Grandma Copeland. He had planned to take it away from her in the night, and then tell her next morning that it was sick and they had taken it to the doctor’s office. But when he sneaked in there to get it, she had her arm up over the glass and when he went to move it, she woke up. He went ahead and tried to take the mummy and she started moaning that moan. By the time he give her the mummy back and quieted her down and we’d all eat breakfast, Mr. Blankenship was there, and Mr. Copeland started in explaining to Grandma Copeland about the baby being sick and us having to take her into town and she started up moaning that moan again. It gets Mr. Copeland nervous.

  This is where Mr. Blankenship got one of his ideas. He was on the front porch waiting, and he called Mr. Copeland out there. I went out there, too.

  “Listen,” he says, “why don’t we do this—now listen me through before you say anything, P.J. We could build Grandma Copeland a box too, with a glass top—now wait a minute, P.J.—but with air holes, but make it big enough to where the baby mummy can slide right in there beside her. Tell her the truth: that we’re going to put the baby out for people to look at and she can come along. Then—now whoa, listen to this, P.J.—remember the shock experiment? Well, what we do is this: we dress Cleopatra up like a man, she looks like one anyway, then we dress your mama up like a mama mummy and announce that we got a entire complete mummy family. We fix—”

  “Billy, if you think—”

  “Hold on. We fix your mama up with smut on her face or something, and then we can say that she was a mummy that we brought—”

  “No.”

  “—say we brought back to life by shocking her. See? We could, let’s see, hook up wires to her and tell her to move when we flip a switch or something.”

  “That’s the most—”

  “That ought to get some attention,” I said.

  Mr. Copeland looked at me, then at Mr. Blankenship like he’d been shot. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of. That’s my mama you’re talking about.”

  “I know that, P.J. I know that. But I’m also talking about business. I’m also talking about capital. I’m also talking about money. I’m also talking about what tourists is going to do for your saddle trade. I’m also talking what those two fine coffins on display will do for Modern Mortuary Science Services, Incorporated. In short, I’m talking about life. Weaver at the train station is all for it; I done talked to him. And look—”

  “No, Billy . . . No. I—”

  “Just hear me out, P.J. Just hear me out. I ain’t finished. I hear you out all the time, and generally go along, too. Now. It ain’t like we’re making your mama into a mummy. That don’t have to be it at all. There are all sorts of ways to look at this. We could come at it from a strict funeral home perspective. We could say something like, ‘Guess which one is alive.’ Or leave the smut off your mama’s face and say, ‘Which one do you want to look like when you walk through the pearly gates,’ and then hand them a brochure. There are so many ways to get this done I can’t count them. Hell, she can sit there beside the baby mummy in a rocking chair. Very normal kind of thing. Happy family kind of thing. Get her into town. I don’t care. You do not recognize a gold mine. And Merriwether is going to be very pleased with this idea. Trust me. Merriwether needs the business. Merriwether will not get business until he gets attention. He’s about to realize that. He says he don’t want no part in all this, but he’ll change his mind. This idea will get us all more attention than we know what to do with, and attention can be turned into money. I am doing this, P.J. . . . I am doing all this for you and me and our families.”

  “You ain’t got no family, Billy.”

  “You’re missing the entire point, P.J. Listen to me. Cleopatra is in the wagon. She ain’t dragging her feet. In the coming few years half the world is going to get rich entertaining the other half, which is going to be poor. I want to be in that first half. I want you to be in that first half. I got . . .” Right here Mr. Blankenship sat down on the steps. “Sit down, P.J.”

  Mr. Copeland sat down and I knew then he was a goner.

  Mr. Blankenship says real soft and slow, “P.J., how long has it been since your sweet mama went to town?”

  “Billy.”

  “How long?”

  “Six or eight years. I don’t know. That ain’t—”

  “Then okay. Then what we do is ask your sweet mama if she wants to go to town. That’s it. Let’s just do it this way, and I promise you that I’ll live with the consequences. We just simply ask her. Ask her what her will is. This here is the best and most fairest way to do it. By your mama’s will. She says yes or she says no. I’ll ask her. And I’ll bet you a five-dollar gold piece she says yes.”

  “No, oh no. Wait. I’ll ask her. You’ll see.”

  COBB PITTMAN

  How can I feel pity for this happy woman selling me
als? She will have to suffer the loss of this man who without penitence, remorse, without suffering, still breathes sweet air because the balance hasn’t happened, the leveling hasn’t burned his life’s breath, hasn’t taken up his parched breath, thrown it to the wind.

  Markham Thorpe–Christian Boyle is done.

  So I leave the happy little woman, and the happy little house, with flowers hanging from pots on the front porch, with rocking chairs whitewashed on the front porch. I can’t think about that.

  We weren’t more than halfway along the road from the ferry back to Mumford Rock when I spied a couple of strays amongst a stand of scrub cedar at the base of a sheer rock cliff about thirty feet high. As we ambled over toward them they raised their heads and stared at us, lazy, chewing their cuds. I stopped maybe fifty yards out from them and got down, got Redeye’s bag loose and on the ground. He come out of it, stood looking at them steers, his hair ruffed on his neck. “Go git ’em, Redeye. Go git ’em. Sic ’em.” He started in on that crouched-down walk and I said, “Sic ’em, Redeye, sic ’em,” and that walk turned into a trot and then a run with him kicking up dirt and them cows had just started turning to run, turning away from each other, leaning, fixing to break away, eyes getting big, when old Redeye left the ground like he’s been slung-shot into the air and clamped onto that old steer’s nose—the one breaking to the left. He clamped in and just hung there, his weight holding that steer’s head down so that the steer had to stop, and then sort of spread his legs, and square away so as to fight whatever it was had hold to him. I guess he was having problems figuring out what’s going on because he was just standing there when the pain sure enough hits him, or else he tastes blood, because he lets out this muffled bellow and tries to toss his head—a sort of a half toss, a neck roll—and Redeye is holding on so it looks like this cow has got a great big old leech fastened into his nose, and then I hollered, “Halt, Redeye,” and I will be damned if the old boy didn’t turn loose, fall off, scramble up, and head right at me with his mouth red and a wildness in his good eye, a red glow in the other one.