by Aaron Latham
Then an ax hit him in the chest. Anyway, it felt like an ax. The blade seemed to strike him right in his breastbone, right where his ribs joined in front, right where his heart was. He was already falling when he heard the sound of the shot. It sounded like a rifle. Goodnight hit the ground and felt himself die. He saw himself fall into an ocean of water and go down and down. And then he didn’t see anything. His world was black . . .
When he opened his good eye, not knowing if he was in heaven or hell or lost in the Great Mystery, he saw a good-looking stranger standing over him. He had blue eyes and arched black eyebrows. Goodnight rebelled at the idea of having been killed by a handsome cowboy. It was so unfair. The good-looking should pick on the goodlooking, not somebody like him with one eye.
“Hell, why’d you shoot me?” Goodnight asked.
“Because you was shooting at me,” said Blue Eyes.
“No, I waddn’t. I was just trying to git your attention. I’m lost.”
“Where you tryin’ to git to?”
“There’s a big red canyon around here somewheres. I sorta misplaced it.”
“The red canyon. That’s where I’m goin’, too.”
“You got business there?” Goodnight asked suspiciously.
“Don’t know as how that’s any a your business.”
“Dammit, you shot me, so humor me, okay?”
“Well, I’m lookin’ for a fella named Goodnight, if’n you gotta know.”
“Hell, I’m Goodnight.”
“No?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn, I heard a lot about you. I’m on my way to work for you, if’n you’ll have me.”
25
I’m sorry,” said the cowboy. “I surely am sorry.”
“Oh, shut up!” Getting shot made Goodnight cranky. “What’s your name, anyhow? I reckon I oughta know the name a the man who killt me.”
“Jack.”
“You got a last name.”
“Loving. But I ain’t too partial to it.”
“Jack Loving, huh? Well, I cain’t say I’m glad to know ya. But I gotta admit, you’re a purdy fair shot. Damn, it hurts.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop bein’ sorry. You’re wearin’ me out.”
Loving dropped to his knees in the buffalo grass. Goodnight could see the good-looking killer trying to figure out how to help his victim, but he clearly didn’t know much about doctoring.
“Mebbe you better roll me over on my side,” Goodnight said. “See if your damn bullet went clear through or not.”
Goodnight could see that Loving was reluctant to touch him, as reluctant as an inexperienced lover, wanting to do it right but not knowing exactly how.
“Just do it,” hissed Goodnight. “Git it over with. Hurry.”
Loving obeyed. He put his hands gently under Goodnight’s left shoulder and hip and rolled him over onto his right side.
“Damn, that smarts,” grimaced Goodnight. “How’s it look? Any blood back there?”
“Yes, sir,” said Loving.
“Bleedin’ bad?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t sir me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t sorry me either.”
“No, sir.”
Goodnight could feel himself losing touch. The world was slipping from his grasp. He slipped back into the black water and sank deeper and deeper . . .
When he woke up again, Goodnight was surprised still to be alive. He hurt in his body and his mind. He wondered how many times he would have to die to be dead. All this dying and coming back to life again was so damn tiring. He was plum tuckered out. He had never figured dying would be such hard work. He just wanted to sleep . . .
When he came back to the surface once more, Goodnight was burning up.Burning. He couldn’t stand being this hot.Burning, burning, burning. It was somehow worse than the pain in his chest. He found himself wishing he had the strength to locate a devil’s pincushion. That’s what he needed. That’s what would suck the poison out of him. That’s what would bring the fever down. But he couldn’t move, so a devil’s pincushion remained as unattainable as Revelie in Boston.
“How you doin’?” a strange voice asked.
Then Goodnight remembered that Loving was there with him. Maybe the man who had tried to kill him would be willing to run an errand for him. But first the burning man would have to summon all his strength, open his mouth, and talk. He didn’t know if he could. It was going to be the hardest thing he had ever tried to do in his life.
“Duh-duh-devil’s pincushion,” Goodnight managed to whisper.
“What?” asked Loving.
“Cactus. Small.” He stopped to catch his breath. “Looks like fishhooks on top. Med’cine.”
“Save your strength. Just nod if’n I’m right. You want this here cactus ’cause you figure it’ll do you some good.”
Goodnight nodded.
“I reckon the fishhooks’re thorns, huh?”
Goodnight nodded.
“You figure there’s some ’round here somewheres?”
Goodnight nodded.
“Be right back.”
Goodnight could feel that Loving was glad to have an excuse to leave him. Of course he would want to get away. Who wanted to sit around with a dying man? Stop rambling. Try to think. Concentrate. You forgot something. Something important.
“Loving!” Goodnight shouted. He was surprised he had that much voice left in his dying body. “Loving, come back!”
He heard his killer hurrying back to him. He heard his boots in the dry grass. He heard him breathing hard from anxiety. He realized this murderer-turned-Good-Samaritan thought he was dying right now.
“What’s wrong?” asked Loving, his distorted face blocking out the sky.
What’s wrong? Everything was wrong. He had been shot. He was in pain. Fever was burning him up. He was dying. What wasn’t wrong!
“Ask,” whispered Goodnight.
“Ask what?” Loving said.
“Ask permission.”
“Ask who?”
“Ask the devil’s pincushion’s permission. Say you need it to make med’cine. Git down on your knees.”
Loving looked at Goodnight strangely. The wounded man knew the good-looking cowboy thought he was raving.
“Okay.”
He was humoring him.
“I mean it. Promise me. Promise you’ll do just like I say. Just promise, okay?”
“Yeah, right, I promise.”
“Cross your heart!” Goodnight demanded.
What had come over him? Was he getting younger and younger as he got closer to death? Was he living his life in reverse? Where did he think he was? In the damn school playground at recess?
“Cross my heart,” said Loving. And he made anX over his heart with his trigger finger.
26
Goodnight felt somebody bothering him, and he got angry. Why would anybody wake him up when he so wanted to sleep? How inconsiderate! How downright mean! When he was a boy, he had hated to go to sleep because it was too much like death. He was actually afraid of sleep. So he well understood why the Humans referred to sleep as “blanket-death.” But now he was in so much pain . . . he was so hot . . . he felt so miserable all over that he longed for death because it was so much like sleep. Death would be so comfortable. Death would be so soothing. And now somebody was trying to wake him up from this sweet lullaby of death. Damn his soul!
“Stoppit,” Goodnight grumbled. “Git away. Lemme alone.”
“I’m sorry,” said a strange voice. “I surely am.”
“Quit it.”
“I said I’m sorry.”
Goodnight opened his eye and saw a vaguely familiar face. He studied it, trying hard to recognize it. The eyebrows were black. The eyes were brown. No, they were supposed to be blue. They ought to be blue. What was wrong? What was happening?
“Who are you?” asked Goodnight.
“Jack Loving,” said the brown-eye
d cowboy.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?”
“Nothin’. Be still.”
As his head cleared somewhat, Goodnight remembered that this was the man who had shot him. But he had had blue eyes back then, and now they were brown. This cowboy must have “much medicine.” Was it some kind of robber’s trick? Was it some sort of disguise?
Studying the eyes, Goodnight once again noticed the black eyebrows. They were so dark that they looked as if they had been drawn. Which made the face look slightly effeminate. Loving was almost pretty.
“You’re too damn good-lookin’,” Goodnight said.
“I said I’m sorry,” Loving said.
“Stop sayin’ that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What’re you doin’ to me?”
“I got that there devil’s pincushion you wanted. Had a devil of a time findin’ it, as a matter a fact.”
“Stop complainin’.”
“I’m sorry. I’m almost finished. Just hold on.”
Goodnight remembered now. He hoped the devil’s pincushion would suck out the infection and bring down his fever. With just one eye, he had to crane his neck to see what was happening to him. He saw Loving chewing pieces of devil’s pincushion to pulverize it. Then he spat it out and stuffed it under bandages, front and back, next to the wounds. Loving was doing it right, doing what had to be done, even though it hurt like hell and all.
“There, that’s got it,” said the blue-eyed, brown-eyed cowboy. “That’s the last of it.”
Then he set about trying to clean stray cactus pulp out of his mouth with his trigger finger.
“Thanks,” said Goodnight.
“Least I could do,” said Loving. “Kin I do anythin’ else for you?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“Tell me. What color are your eyes?”
“First one thing and then another.”
“Damnedest thing. Now shut up. I wanna sleep.”
When Goodnight woke up again, he thought Revelie was with him. He told “her” how glad he was to see “her.” He said his mind cried for “her” now more than ever. He told “her” how disappointed he had been when “her” father had told him that “she” had gone back East. But now “she” had come back to him, and he was so grateful. He thanked “her” over and over again for coming.
“I’m sorry,” said a strange, masculine voice, “but I ain’t her whoever she is. Hate to disappoint you.”
When Goodnight heard the stranger say “sorry,” he remembered Jack Loving. He realized his mistake. This cowboy had a girl’s eyebrows, but he wasn’t Revelie. Not by a long shot. The disappointment seemed to press down on Goodnight’s painful chest, and he found it hard to breathe. Now he didn’t have the breath to sing his death song. So he just gave up and let go.
Waking once more, Goodnight thought maybe he was dead because he couldn’t see anything. He was sorry he wouldn’t ever see Revelie again. Then he saw a single star in the blackness of death and realized it was night. Just night.
He drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes it was night. Other times it was day. Sometimes he thought he was awake when he was really dreaming, dreaming the dead had come back to life, dreaming his sister Becky was alive again, dreaming Wekeah had come back to him. Dreams were tough. You couldn’t block the dead out of your dreams the way you could from your waking thoughts. Even their names crept in. Other times he thought he was dreaming when he was really awake. Sometimes he was afraid of death. Other times he wanted to die and join the dead, his dead.
On the fourth day, Goodnight felt well enough to be irritable and bossy. He told Loving that he could travel now but, no, he didn’t want to go back to Tascosa to see some sawbones. He wanted to go home to the Home Ranch.
“You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Loving said. “You cain’t fork a horse, and I ain’t got no wagon to haul you in, mebbe you didn’t notice. So you’re stayin’ put. I’m sorry.”
Goodnight flinched at the apology. He wondered how he was ever goin’ to break Loving of the habit.
“You kin be as sorry as you want,” he said irritably. “But I’m goin’ home. You kin haul me in a Comanche wagon. That’s plenty good ’nough for me.”
Goodnight watched the cowboy’s blue-brown eyes go slightly out of focus as he tried to figure out what he was hearing.
“We don’t have no injun wagon neither,” Loving said. He looked behind him as if he were afraid one might be sneaking up on him.
“You’re gonna build one,” Goodnight bossed. “Get two long poles—”
“Oh, you mean a travois.”
“Right.”
Loving just squatted beside Goodnight, glancing first to the left, then to the right. He was trying to decide just how to put whatever it was he was trying to say.
“I know you don’t want me to say I’m sorry,” Loving said, “so I won’t. But I swear I don’t see no long poles around cheer. You know they ain’t enough wood on this here Staked Plain to make a little bitty campfire, much less a damn travois.”
“I’m sorry,” Goodnight said. “Look now, you got me sayin’ it. I guess I forgot where we was at. Mebbe I’m still a little weak in the head. But we cain’t just stay here. We gotta do somethin’.”
The two men were silent for a moment while they tried to figure out what to do. Goodnight caught himself playing with his eye patch. Loving pursed his lips.
“You better go on to the ranch,” Goodnight said. “Git the chuck wagon and come git me. Whaddaya say?”
“I ain’t leavin’ you,” Loving said. “Just fergit it. I’m—never mind.”
They thought some more.
“Well, I dunno,” Goodnight said at last, “but mebbe you could look around for a dead buffalo. They’re scattered all over this here country. Mebbe we could fiddle around and make somethin’ outa buffalo bones.”
“I dunno,” said Loving.
“You got a better idea?”
“Nope.”
“Then you better git goin’.”
Goodnight watched Loving shrug, get slowly to his feet, and start saddling his horse. The cowboy moved with an easy grace and an economy of motion. He didn’t seem to hurry, but he was soon mounted and ready to go.
“So long,” Loving said. “Be back as soon as I kin.”
“Don’t shoot nobody else,” Goodnight said, “less’n you got to.”
The mounted man spurred his horse with small rowels and galloped off in a hurry. As he moved farther and farther away, he seemed to sink into the flat land.
Goodnight felt relieved. He no longer had to listen to Loving say how sorry he was. What was more, he didn’t have to try to entertain the cowboy when he didn’t really feel up to being entertaining. Then just as he was beginning to feel real good about being alone for a change, Goodnight realized that he missed Loving. He felt abandoned even though he had sent the strange-eyed cowboy away. He was lonely. He almost longed to hear Loving say how sorry he was.
He had a long, lonely wait. The sun sank toward the flat land, like a big, fat egg falling slowly toward a flat griddle. The light softened on the plain. Goodnight generally enjoyed this time of day, but today it made him worry. Where was Loving? What kind of trouble could he have gone and gotten himself into? He worried for the sake of the cowboy. He also worried for his own sake. Maybe Loving had run into a Human hunting party and hadn’t known how to behave. What if they mistook him for a buffalo hunter? Or maybe he had bumped into Gudanuf’s gang. While he was preoccupied with these waking nightmares, Goodnight drifted off to sleep.
Much later, Goodnight was awakened by a strange racket. Looking about for its source, he saw a moonlit rider approaching, pulling some strange contraption behind him. He soon recognized the man as Loving, but he couldn’t figure out just what he was dragging. As it drew closer, the contraption began to look more and more like a sled. Not a little sled for kids, but something considerably bigger. A sleigh. The kind of sleigh you sa
ng “Jingle Bells” about. But it wasn’t Christmastime. The first snow was still weeks away. What was a sleigh doing out here jingling across the Staked Plain? Goodnight figured it must be a mirage. Or he was dreaming. Or he was having a spell again and didn’t know what was real and what were fever pictures.
“Howdy,” Loving called from afar. “How you gittin’ along?”
“Fair to middlin’,” Goodnight called back. “What’s that there thing followin’ you?”
“I built you a wagon.”
“Looks more like a sleigh.”
“Yeah, it does, don’t it. Seems like it’s holdin’ together so far. Knock on wood. But we both know there ain’t no wood nowheres around here. Whaddaya think?”
Goodnight stared at a Staked Plain sleigh made entirely of buffalo bones. The rib cage of the buffalo formed the body of the sleigh. Two long thighbones were tied on underneath to do the job of the sled’s runners. Loving had woven his lariat in and out of the ribs and around the backbone to help reenforce the buffalo’s skeleton. With any luck, it might hang together for a few miles. Goodnight just kept staring at the chariot Loving had built for him. He finally decided it was the most beautiful wagon he had ever seen, and he was ready to ride it home to the most beautiful canyon he had ever seen, the prettiest spot in the whole wide world.
27
Riding in the belly of a buffalo, Goodnight bumped and jarred his way across the face of the Staked Plain. He imagined himself an unborn calf in his mother’s womb. He would be the new hope of his doomed race. He and his woolly descendants would rule over the Great Plains forever and ever. He was the Prince of Calves. He felt great until he figured out that he was delirious again.
The buffalo-bones sleigh ran fairly well on its bone runners— requiring only a few stops for repairs—so long as their path lay across a table-flat plain. Unlike the one-horse open sleigh, this one was pulled by two horses: Loving’s and Goodnight’s own Red. Lying on his saddle blanket inside the rib cage, the wounded man felt every pebble and bounce, but he could stand it. He was going home.