All Things Left Wild

by James Wade

  Copyright © 2020 by James Wade

  E-book Published in 2020 by Blackstone Publishing

  Cover and book design by Kathryn Galloway English

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental

  and not intended by the author.

  Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-982601-04-1

  Library e-book ISBN 978-1-982601-03-4

  Fiction / Literary

  CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress

  Blackstone Publishing

  31 Mistletoe Rd.

  Ashland, OR 97520

  www.BlackstonePublishing.com

  For Jordan

  Prologue

  Two barn swallows hopped and danced between thin branches in a grove of tangled salt cedar, never getting too close or too far from one another. It was as if their movements were circumscribed by some choreography they were born knowing, and should either decide to quit the routine, the other would surely die of incertitude, and the world would become in an instant a less balanced place.

  I watched them, turning away from the sad scene in front of me. The cemetery wasn’t much to look at, unless you were needing to look at wood crosses and chewed-up dirt. There were a few rocks. Somebody had tried to set up a little fence around the graves and their markers, but it didn’t take and now there were old posts lying about on the ground like bodies waiting to be buried themselves.

  Fall was late in coming, but the morning air was crisp, and the baked brown grass held onto the dew as long as it could, fighting the rising sun over water rights. The land sloped down into town and the trail up the hill was covered in greasewood and flowered yucca, and the preacher had spoken of the beauty of the morning and the wonder of eternity and all that it held. Beyond the plots the trail gave out, like some woebegone spirit too tired to continue, and there the sumac grew thick and would oftentimes mantle the valley with its perfumed scent. Higher still, the earth pitched itself toward the sky and borne upon it were the juniper and pine of the high country and out from amongst them he rode, atop the old bay horse he’d given to her when they married.

  I saw him there on the ridge. He sat his horse like a drunk, slightly slumped and tilting off to one side. He was a drunk. The preacher spoke to the part about life everlasting, but he was too far away to hear. He was too far away for anything.

  He had on a black coat and he’d taken off his hat and there he sat in reverence and in sobriety. I turned back to the preacher, and when he was finished I scanned the ridge again and there was nothing and no one and the service had ended.

  I smoothed my hair back and pulled my hat down firm over top it and the few dozen people shrouded in black began to all move as one, trudging toward the cheap pine coffin in a manner withdrawn, sending up muffled prayers, wondering about rain and war and if it was too late for breakfast. They nodded at us or gave half-hearted smiles or both. There were hands on our shoulders and pats on our backs. Some offered kind words. Others offered food. We watched them go.

  “He was settin’ up there on that ridge,” Shelby said. “Just past the tree line.”

  “I know,” I told him.

  “You seen him?”

  “I did.”

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Well what?”

  “What do you think?”

  “What do I think about what?”

  “Nothing, I guess.” Shelby walked toward the line of mourners as they filed down the hill, and he stopped midway and turned and stared for a while at the tree line, then walked on.

  I stood and watched as the gravediggers lowered her down and filled in the dirt, and when they were finished I stood some more. I didn’t want to go back to the house yet, not even to change clothes.

  I walked out from the graveyard and followed a well-trod deer path to Red Creek and sat in the grass. The morning sky glowed golden behind a bank of blue-gray clouds, a quiet caution to the world’s awakening.

  The sun was distancing itself from the horizon line, but the clouds had yet to burn off, leaving the eastern half of the world to be filtered through an orange tint. The creek moved slowly, matching the pace of the morning, the water shining pale pink, and on its surface, a bleeding reflection of the world.

  A cat-squirrel duo on the far side of the creek were hard at play with some game I could not follow. They barked at one another or at me or at nothing, then in fits and starts they hopped from one tree to the next, clinging to the bark with their arms and legs splayed in an almost sacrificial manner.

  A siege of herons passed overhead. The long-legged shorebirds flew beneath the lowest clouds and I saw them and they me and it would be months before they returned north, passing again along the same sky.

  I watched them glide across the morning, unencumbered by the changing of the times, following the flight of their fathers and their fathers’ fathers, all the while unburdened by such things as doubt and desire. Participating by blood. Born into decisions made long ago and born knowing, but not knowing why. I envied the certitude of their existence. I longed for the conviction of those like my mother who, despite all to the contrary, could maintain a faith in the way of things, holding tight to a structured and resolute reading of every breath until her last.

  Instead, at a moment I couldn’t recall, or perhaps in a series of built-upon moments, I accepted ambivalence and unease, and there inside of me they did remain in some dogged cellar of the soul, determined that I should never know peace or certainty again.

  * * *

  I walked into Longpine and into the Tanglefoot and sat at the bar while a table of men in the corner played cards.

  “You ain’t old enough to drink,” the bartender said. I knew his face.

  “I hadn’t even asked yet.”

  “I’m sorry about your momma and all, but I ain’t gonna serve no kid.”

  “Alright, well I reckon I’m old enough to just set for a while.”

  The man took a swipe at the countertop with an old rag, then flung it across his shoulder. It rested there as natural as if it had been born of the man and so cradled its entire life.

  “I won’t kick you out, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I’m not asking anything,” I said, and then I stood and walked out.

  I walked around back to the livery and leaned with both hands on the top of the gate and a boot raised up against the low post. I watched the horses and talked to them and called them by names that weren’t their own, but they answered anyway.

  An old dog was laid up in the shade of the stable roof, his feet kicked out in front of him from on his side and he made yipping noises, and as he got closer to whatever he was chasing he started to growl and the whole time I stood there he never opened his eyes.

  My mother talked in her sleep, toward the end. She whispered things. Called out names I knew and names I didn’t. Sometimes she talked so clearly, and maybe she was even awake, but she never remembered later. I wondered if my mother found the people she was looking for, or would she wake up like the dog and find herself covered in dirt and the whole chase just a dream.

  “Figured I’d find you here,” Shelby said. “Anything good?”

  “Shep’s got his paint horse yonder. Mustang or two I hadn’t seen before.”

  “Probably goes with them boys in there dealing cards.”

 
“You been inside?”

  “Old Moss told me you come in wanting a drink.”

  I shook my head.

  “Hell, I can get you a drink, little brother, just let me know,” he said.

  “I didn’t want a drink then, and I don’t want one now.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Shelby spit and slipped a flask from his boot and took a pull and stretched his mouth out.

  “How come it is folks wear black at a funeral?” I asked, still watching the horses mill about the stable inspecting one another and their surroundings.

  “Couldn’t say.”

  “Well, why do you think?”

  “Shit, son, I got no idea. It’s just what you do.”

  “I think it’s to hide the fear,” I told him.

  “What fear? What are you even talking about?”

  “I think folks are afraid of dying.”

  “At a funeral?”

  “All the time. I think they’re always afraid of dying and a funeral makes them think about it more than they might otherwise.”

  “What’s that got anything to do with wearing black?”

  “I been thinking about that—”

  “Aw hell, he’s been thinking,” Shelby said and rolled his eyes.

  “I have. I been thinking everybody says there’s a big white light when you die. And everybody says Heaven is a bright, pretty place.”

  Shelby drank again from his flask and screwed the cap back on and let it drop back into his boot.

  “Alright, I’m with you.”

  “Well, what if they ain’t so sure about all that? And so when somebody dies, they all dress up in black, thinking if they can make this world look darker, the next one might seem brighter no matter what.”

  “Christ Almighty, Caleb, are you sure you ain’t had nothing to drink?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Maybe you ought to,” he said.

  “I figure a bunch of them people today were crying, and how come? They didn’t even hardly know her. But they was crying.”

  “Folks can’t cry?”

  “I think they were crying ’cause they know they’re gonna die.”

  “Hell, we’re all gonna die.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “You’re wearing me out, little brother. This ain’t what I came to talk to you about.”

  “Why’d you come?”

  Shelby looked around and we were alone, and about that time the dog raised up his head and double-checked.

  “I got a plan,” he said, unable to contain his grin.

  I stood watching the dog struggle to its feet, shaking off sleep and disappointment.

  “Well,” Shelby said.

  “Well what?”

  “Goddamn, ain’t you gonna ask me what it is?”

  “I figured you was about to tell me.”

  “I am.”

  “Go on then. If you’re waiting on me, you’re already behind.”

  “We’re gonna rob Randall Dawson.”

  I nodded. The dog trotted off, his tongue falling from the side of his mouth.

  “What do you say?” Shelby asked, grinning again.

  “I say you need to slow down on that whiskey.”

  He tossed his head, dramatic, and put his hands on his hips.

  “C’mon, Caleb, that rich sumbitch ain’t gonna miss a few horses.”

  “Oh, horse thieves is it?”

  “He cost Daddy his job.”

  “Daddy cost himself his job, and please don’t tell me this is about him. He ain’t coming back.”

  “He was there today. We seen him.”

  “And by God, where is he now?”

  “We could do it, little brother,” Shelby said, ignoring my question. “I got it all planned.”

  “I’ll just bet you do.”

  * * *

  That night my brother went to work at the bar, tending to the needs and whims of cutthroats, gamblers, and local drunkards. He’d worked at the Tanglefoot since our father decided it was too burdensome to be both a lawman and an alcoholic, him choosing the latter.

  With Momma sick, Shelby was left to grow up at the feet of society’s worst, and maybe it was a sad situation or maybe he was always destined to find the shadowed figures no matter what path he walked. It was his eighteenth birthday the day we buried her. I’m not sure he even knew.

  I walked into the empty house for the first time, or at least the first time I could recall. The door swung shut behind me with the help of the wind, and I stood there in the dark, unsure of what to think, let alone what to do. My heart quickened for no reason I could place. I took a step back and leaned against the door and put my hand to my chest. My throat was closing and I was dying—I was sure of it. I steadied myself and walked to the cupboard and felt in the dark for the water jug. I drank and took a deep breath and drank again. I took off my hat and leaned into the wash sink and emptied the jug over my head. I stayed there, dripping and breathing, until I figured I wasn’t dying anymore.

  I wiped my face and hair with a dish towel and crossed through the kitchen and gave a look into the living room like maybe somebody would be there, but they weren’t. I paused at the foot of the hallway and looked again, just to be sure. Her room was across from the back porch, and I could feel the cool of the night coming in through the wire screen. I went into the room and sat on the edge of the bed and folded my hands into my lap, and the mattress was indented on her side and I looked down at it and put my hat back on.

  There were rolled cigarettes on the low-set table by the bed. I leaned over and picked one up and examined it, then set it back in the same place, as if anyone would notice otherwise. I rose and moved to the closet and opened the door and stared into the dark and took a step forward, then backed out and closed it again and walked and stood in the hall with the whistling wind. I felt my own pulse, then regarded again the room as it stood, untouched by all but death. Through the frame I saw it and tried my best to commit it to memory, and also her, knowing I would never see either again.

  1

  The boy was dead and the winds came up out of Mexico angry-like, pushing north over the mountains, sweeping into the desert below, picking up the dirt and moving it across the plain with the ease of a brush stroke on canvas. They howled and sang and the prickly pear and yucca clung to the earth, where their stunted limbs danced in motions aberrant.

  The winds spilled into the dry, rocky arroyo, where even our shadows were covered in dust. I pulled my shirt up over my mouth and nose, and Shelby fussed with tying his bedroll and in it the sand and sentiment of the storm.

  We put our stolen horses and our backs against the bank of the ditch and pieces of dead cholla and cactus came down with the dust and peppered our hats like a mutant rain. The horses sneezed and stomped, and I loosened the bridle bits and talked to them and made promises I planned to keep but we’d seen, the horses and me, what happens to plans.

  “This ain’t good cover,” Shelby said, and it wasn’t.

  He pulled his shirt over his face, and we turned the horses up the draw and out into the mess. Shelby pointed and I saw the canyon and nodded. We led the animals across the plain and the wind seemed to blow harder, as if it had seen us.

  We pressed forward over the cracked earth with the wind at our back, sweeping past us and flattening our clothes to our skin on its way east into the San Rafael Valley. We circled the ravine until we found a passable trail. There was a creek bed without much water but the horses drank anyway, and we waited until the winds died with the sun before moving on.

  Things were different at night, cold and still and dark, and when the clouds burned off, the stars were still there as they’d been since before we began shining lights ba
ck at them. They scalded the night sky in their dying, and when they fell we whispered wishes to ourselves for things only the stars might understand.

  We bore south and east and followed a path beaten by cattle, letting the horses decide their steps. They knew better than us, the horses, in the dark and in general. When the ride was too long we ate fruit from a tin and Shelby made the fire while I tied and tended the animals. I loosened the straps of the saddles and ran my hand along the sides of their bellies, and their breathing was strong and slow. I told them they had done well and I touched their faces and said I was sorry for everything that happened. I fed them without rationing, as if extra oats could right the world’s wrongs. I carried both saddles, one atop the other, and along with them the blankets from the horses’ backs, and the stirrups drug in the dirt as I came upon the fire.

  I looked at my brother and wondered what he was thinking, now and always, and this time I asked him. He looked at me with the load of gear in my arms and laughed and said he was thinking about how much money I could make as a pack mule.

  “Keep laughing,” I told him. “Maybe you can joke your way out of that noose they’re getting ready for us.”

  After things had gone sideways at the Dawson Ranch, we’d made south through the territory, expecting someone to follow, but no one did. We had no plan save what Shelby would decide each morning and mostly it was the same.

  “Let’s keep heading south,” he’d say, and we’d bury the fire while our stomachs grumbled.

  We followed the earth’s shelf down from the rim country and into the desert valley below. We passed Phoenix, staying to the east, and chanced a stop in Tucson for supplies. We had only the money we’d set out with before the robbery. And for the boy’s life we had only the two horses we rode. Things had not gone in accordance with Shelby’s plan.

  We left Tucson with a sack full of tinned fruit and some dried beef and headed further into the desert.

  * * *

  “You sure ain’t said much,” Shelby told me, our horses trotting through the waxy candelilla of the lowlands the day after the windstorm.