Code of the West

by Aaron Latham

  “Hello, allow me to introduce myself,” said the suit, waistcoat, and tie. His pronunciation sounded funny. “My name is H. B. Sanborn.”

  Then he stuck out his hand. Goodnight didn’t want to shake it, but he told himself not to be childish. They clasped hands.

  “My name’s Jimmy Goodnight,” he said.

  “Glad to meet you, Mr. Goodnight,” said Sanborn.

  “Likewise,” lied Goodnight.

  When the handshake was over, he didn’t know what to do with his hands. He wanted to touch his patch again, but he remembered that he had just done so.

  “I would like to thank you,” said Sanborn, “for what you did for my daughter.”

  Goodnight sensed his face stretching into a stupid grin, but he couldn’t stop it. He felt silly, but he didn’t really care. He even found that he liked the look of a good waistcoat and didn’t even mind velvet britches.

  “Why, you’re right welcome,” Goodnight said. “I’m just glad we could help.”

  The daughter, who still looked weak, came forward to stand beside her father. Her dad put his arm around her to steady her.

  “Mr. Goodnight, m-m-my name is Revelie Sanborn,” she introduced herself in a quavering, uncertain voice. “I would like to th- tha-thank you personally. I wish I could shake your hand, but I’m afraid it would h-h-hurt.”

  She moved the thumb on her right hand back and forth to see if it still worked. It was too bloated to move as well as it normally did. She studied it with a frown.

  “Jimmy,” he said. “Call me Jimmy.”

  “What those m-m-men said about my father wasn’t true,” she said. “He had already given them all the money he had. They just wouldn’t believe there wasn’t any more. That’s why they did that to me.”

  Goodnight touched his patch. He noticed that her face was still wet from crying. He saw that her eyes were green and bloodshot.

  “I cain’t help myself,” Goodnight said. “I’ve gotta just come right out and tell you. You’re the purdiest sight I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  Then he saw that he was embarrassing her, and her embarrassment embarrassed him. He wished he hadn’t been so open and frank, for he appreciated the position he had put her in. Obviously, she couldn’t repay the compliment. She certainly couldn’t tell him that he was the prettiest sight she had ever seen. She would be a bald-faced liar.

  “Thank you again,” Revelie said. She seemed to be trying to think of something else to say, but she was stumped. Then her face cleared. “Would you come to supper tonight?”

  “Yes, do come,” said her father.

  “Sure,” said Goodnight. “Sure thing.”

  Goodnight spent the rest of the day buying supplies and looking forward to and worrying about supper. He called on the storekeeper whose name turned out to be I. M. Wright, but who was generally referred to as I Am Wrong, which he didn’t seem to mind. Goodnight purchased gallon cans of Arbuckle coffee. He added gallons of A&P sorghum to sweeten the coffee and life in general. He chose Calumet baking powder with a Human chief in full headdress pictured on the cans. He also bought sacks of flour and meal and many tins of tobacco of which he disapproved.

  Before the invitation, he hadn’t planned a bath or a shave or a haircut, but now he decided he had better put up with this waste of time and money. So he paid a visit to the barber, where he cleaned up all over.

  Then Jimmy Goodnight took a walk down Main Street until he came to a rickety footbridge thrown across Tascosa Creek. The banker and his daughter lived in a single-story home built on the bank of the creek. He reached for his eye patch, touched it as if it were both talisman and curse. Then his fingertips trickled over the stars on his cheek. Now he was ready to knock on the door. Revelie, her thumbs bandaged, opened the door gingerly.

  “This is the purdiest house I ever seen in my life,” Goodnight said right away. “It sure is.”

  Then he saw once again that Revelie didn’t quite know how to respond to his superlative.

  “I’m glad you think so,” she said at last.

  “It’s a shack,” said a woman in a red dress. “Nothing but a shack.”

  “Mother, this is Mr. Goodnight,” Revelie said.

  She was a striking woman who wore a pinafore that made her look like a little girl—or a doll. It resembled a fancy apron with lace ruffles at the hem and more ruffles over the shoulders. It was spotless white, starched, and tied in the back with a bow. She also wore white gloves.

  “Not Mr. Goodnight,” he said. “Please just call me Jimmy.”

  “I don’t know you well enough,” said Mrs. Sanborn. “Are you a religious man, Mr. Goodnight?”

  The guest wondered how it could be that this woman—who didn’t know him well enough to call him by his given name—nonetheless felt she did know him well enough to question him about something as personal as religion.

  “No,” he stammered. “I’m a teetotaler but not religious.”

  Natural beauty always made him feel reverent, but churches didn’t.

  “Then you’ve never read the Bible?”

  “Well, frankly, ma’am, it’s the only book I own, so I read it some. So I won’t fergit how to read. And because it’s full a good tales. But it’s a little too bloodthirsty for my taste, ma’am.”

  “I see.”

  But Goodnight hoped she didn’t. He had been trying to confuse her. He didn’t like being cross-examined about religion.

  “Thank you again for what you did this afternoon,” Revelie said.

  “Yes, thank you,” echoed Mrs. Sanborn, “for that.”

  She had not been on the scene to see the rescue, and Goodnight had the impression that her daughter and husband had downplayed the incident so as not to worry her. So her thanks were not particularly warm.

  Soon they were all seated around a table with real china and actual silverware. The tablecloth was white and crocheted. Goodnight had never sat at such a table in his life. It was far fancier than anything his Aunt Orlena had ever attempted. He found himself thinking of it as a real Writer’s table.

  Goodnight felt that Mrs. Sanborn did not believe he was good enough for her table. She obviously did not approve of his easy firstname manners, and yet she talked with her mouth full of food. The nourishment in her talkative mouth was chicken. She evidently felt that eating beef was somehow plebeian. After all, cows were so common in this country. Goodnight didn’t particularly like chicken.

  “Don’t you like your dinner, Mr. Goodnight?” asked Mrs. Sanborn.

  “It’s delicious,” he lied.

  “Then try to show a little more enthusiasm, Mr. Goodnight,” she instructed. “My chicken is famous all over Massachusetts.”

  “I thought I made the chicken,” said Revelie.

  “Yes, dear, but you made it from my recipe,” said her mother.

  Knowing who cooked the chicken, Goodnight tried to like it better. But he still preferred beef or buffalo or even roast prairie dog.

  Mrs. Sanborn did most of the talking at the table. Much of what she said was not just to impress but to intimidate. From her ill-spirited chatter, Goodnight began to piece together something of a history of the Sanborn family. They were from Boston, where Mr. Sanborn had graduated from Harvard College. Mrs. Sanborn didn’t say anything about her own education. Besides providing the town of Tascosa with a heavy safe in which to store its cash, Mr. Sanborn also represented several wealthy English speculators who were anxious to cash in on an anticipated “beef boom.” The British Empire seemed intent on buying back a part of the America it had lost. Goodnight had come to supper because he was interested in the daughter, but now the father began to interest him as well. For the rancher knew he needed capital. The Sanborn family had evidently come west only about six weeks earlier, and had found their new hometown to be considerably rougher than they had expected.

  The visitor formed an impression that Mrs. Sanborn had come from a relatively poor Boston family but had somehow managed to marry up. Now she
appeared to be determined that her daughter would not marry down. She had no wish to get mixed up in a drama that might be entitled “The Cowboy and the Lady.” Or so the cowboy thought.

  Goodnight, of course, wanted to make a good impression on the mother and father if possible, but most of all upon the daughter. And yet in spite of all his desire to shine, he found himself saying little more than “Yes” and “No.” And he didn’t even manage to say yes or no very often.

  Growing more and more nervous as he said less and less, Goodnight—who could talk to Goddogs—realized he simply couldn’t talk to Revelie Sanborn. He loved beauty, but he was afraid of it. He longed to get out of that dining room where he didn’t feel welcome, but he was reluctant to go before he had succeeded in saying something that would convince Miss Revelie that he wasn’t a complete nitwit.

  And yet he couldn’t think of anything.

  10

  Jimmy Goodnight sat under a chinaberry tree trying to turn himself into a Writer. He could hardly believe it himself. He had long considered Writers to be his enemies. He had gone on the warpath to rape and murder Writers. And now he wanted to become one. Now he needed to be one. For he was trying to write a letter to Revelie Sanborn. But he had missed too many school years to be able to write easily. During his days as a Human Being, he had always considered Writers to be too soft. But now he was in the process of revising that opinion. Being a Writer was harder than he had imagined.

  He wrote, “Dear—”

  But then he stopped because he wasn’t sure how to spell her name and he didn’t know what to say next. He studied his pencil, wishing it were a pen, which would have been more fitting. But he didn’t happen to have a pen.

  Finally, he scribbled, “Dear Miss R—” Then he wrote, “Thank you for diner.”

  He stared at it for a long time because it didn’t look right. He wished he had somebody to check his spelling and grammar, but he wasn’t sure any of his men could spell any better than he could. Besides, he didn’t want any of his cowboys to read this letter. It was bad enough that Revelie would be reading it. He was actually breathing hard and sweating as if the pencil weighed a hundred pounds.

  He wrote, “Will you marry me?”

  Having done the hardest part, he got up and went for a walk. Now that the heavy lifting was done, he felt he had earned a rest. As he strolled beneath the walls of his canyon, he continued to worry about his letter. It pursued him. He had a feeling that he hadn’t said enough, but had also said too much. He wished he could think of a way to soften the blow, but he had no idea how to go about it. Well, walking wasn’t getting him anywhere. So he went back and sat down beneath his tree and picked up his heavy pencil.

  He wrote, “I am ernest.”

  Then he couldn’t decide how to say goodbye. He knew he couldn’t say “Love.” But he didn’t know what else to say.

  So he just signed it: “Jimmy Goodnight.”

  Then he went looking for Too Short, who would be his mailman.

  Goodnight didn’t know what to do with himself while he waited for an answer. He was normally an active man, but now there was nothing more to do to advance his cause. All he could do was passively hope for the best. Still hehad to do something. He knew it had to be something with sufficient intrinsic interest to take his mind off the answer he awaited. Novelty would help. A little danger would be even better.

  So Goodnight decided to rope a buffalo. When he announced his intention, Suckerod said he would be proud to go along. They saddled up and went buffalo hunting with lassos instead of buffalo guns. Riding southeast, they watched the red canyon open out wider and wider like a horn of plenty. They knew the buffalo generally preferred the broader and flatter part of the canyon. They didn’t expect the beasts to be hard to find, but they rode a long while without seeing any sign of them. The Human Beings had disappeared from the canyon, and the Human-cattle were beginning to vanish, too. They rode past the small tributary canyon where the Goddog bones lay bleaching whiter and whiter in the sun.

  But today Goodnight was more concerned with passing a few hours as painlessly as possible than he was with the passage of an era. He kept looking for buffalo but seeing Revelie’s face. He kept rewriting his letter in his head, finding phrases that would have been much better, but they all contained words he couldn’t spell.

  Eventually, Goodnight located a small herd of buffalo in the lower canyon. He stood up in his stirrups to look for the herd’s chief. Locating the largest bull, he rode slowly toward him. The animal turned to face the rider, lowering his shaggy head, pawing the earth in ritual fashion. When Goodnight was a dozen yards from the buffalo, he reined in his horse. The two chiefs stared at one another.

  “O, Great Chief of the Human-Cattle,” he said in the Human tongue, “I have a favor to ask. I need to git my mind off something, so I am looking for a little fun. I need your help. I am asking your permission to rope you. I will do you no harm. What do you say?”

  The big bull raised his head and sniffed the air, then lowered it again. Goodnight hoped the buffalo was nodding.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Then Goodnight lifted his lariat and shook out a large loop. He yelled and slapped the rope against his chaps to make a racket. The rest of the herd started to run, but the old bull stood his ground. Goodnight thought roping a standing target would be about as much fun as throwing a loop over a stump, so he yelled again even louder and slapped his rope over and over. The bull reluctantly turned and started to trot. Goodnight fired in the air with his revolver. The bull ran faster and the roper gave chase.

  Once he finally got moving, the Chief of the Buffalo proved to be fast in spite of his bulk. He soon caught up with the others and led the mad charge. As Goodnight tried to catch up, he heard the sound of dozens of hooves beating the earth like a drum, their drumbeat echoed and amplified by the canyon walls. They sounded like a stampede of thousands and almost drowned out Goodnight’s throbbing doubts about his letter. Now he was able momentarily to shift his worries from Revelie to the danger of prairie dog holes that could break his horse’s leg and send them both crashing to the earth. Then horse and rider would both be trampled to death. And there were prairie dog towns all over this part of the canyon. Beginning to overtake the bull, Goodnight started swinging his lasso over his head. Now he had to concentrate on what he was doing, which meant that he didn’t have time to think about what he had no control over. His mind was right here, right now, which was where he wanted it.

  Now!Goodnight threw his lariat. The rope seemed to float in the dry air, appeared to have a life of its own, was transformed into a flying snake. The living lasso fell over the buffalo’s huge head and horns. As the rope tightened around the bull’s neck, Goodnight reined in his horse, which stiffened its front legs and sat down on its haunches as it bounced to a stop. One end of the rope was wrapped around the saddle horn; the other was tied to a runaway locomotive. When the buffalo hit the end of the rope, the horse staggered and almost fell. Then Goodnight realized he was being dragged along, horse and all, behind the bull. Mister Goddog tried valiantly to hold his ground, but he couldn’t and so went skidding across the red earth. The buffalo seemed to have roped the horse and rider rather than the other way around.

  Suddenly, the bull stopped in a storm of dust. That was more like it. But then the buffalo turned and charged. Now Goodnight was really living right here, right now. The onrushing bull drove any concerns about grammar and spelling from his mind. Mister Goddog wheeled to try to get out of the way, but only succeeded in offering a better target. The bull hit the horse broadside, driving in its short horns. Goodnight hung onto the saddle horn as his mount reared. The horse came down on top of the buffalo, which seemed to drive both animals insane. They both started bucking, the bull below, the horse above, as if they were two halves of one monster.

  Goodnight felt himself losing his hold and his balance. He fought desperately to cling to his horse’s back, but it was no use. As he felt himself f
alling, he tried to jump clear of the thrashing hooves. He landed on his back on a rock. Wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the monster he had created, he tried to get up and run, but he found he couldn’t move his legs. He was paralyzed. So he started crawling, or trying to, using his hands to drag himself along while his dead legs trailed behind him.

  Goodnight grew even more alarmed when he saw the buffalo and the horse finally fight free of one another. For the old bull charged right at him. The fallen man started rolling over and over to try to get out of the way, but he knew it was hopeless. The buffalo chief was on top of him . . .

  Then Goodnight heard a shot. And another. And another. Three explosions coming as fast as a repeating rifle could be cocked and fired.

  The bull collapsed with his head across Goodnight’s useless legs. As soon as he realized he was safe—as soon as he knew Suckerod had saved him—Goodnight started worrying about his letter. Was the spelling all right? How about the grammar? Why had he written it anyway when he knew very well that he was no writer?

  Then he asked himself: Why had the bull charged him? Had he lost his ability to talk to buffalo? What about other animals? He wondered: Had this loss of powers begun when he found he couldn’t talk to a young female of his own species?

  The fear of being paralyzed for life reared up and momentarily drove his fears about Revelie from his mind. He saw himself lying in bed, a helpless cripple, until the day he died. Then his fears of paralysis combined with his fears of never winning Revelie, for she certainly would have no use for a man paralyzed from the waist down. Losing her and his legs—and the use of his third leg—all at the same time was the worst disaster he could possibly imagine. But he didn’t want Suckerod to see him unmanned. He had to pretend not to be terrified.

  “I cain’t move my legs,” he said calmly. “Tie me on my horse.” Then Goodnight wondered if Mister Goddog might be too badly injured to carry him. “Make sure he’s up to it. Check his belly.”