by Aaron Latham
Then the bone sleigh came to the brink of the red canyon. At first, Goodnight didn’t know why the horses had stopped. He raised up to complain and then saw over the edge of the abyss. What were they going to do now? It wasn’t the first time this question had crossed his mind. It had plagued him like a low-grade fever for miles, but he had never been able to come up with a solution. He wondered if he would have to camp out on the lip of the canyon until he could sit on a horse. His spirits had been soaring, and now they plummeted. He wanted to sink into the earth.
“Damn,” said Goodnight. “Damn, damn, damn.”
“Hold your horses,” Loving said, turning in the saddle. “Don’t go damnin’ nobody yet.”
“Don’t tell me this here chariot’s gonna fly,” said Goodnight. “I’d like to see that.”
“That’s a good idea,” said the handsome cowboy. “I hadn’t thought a that.”
“This here contraption’ll bust up goin’ down that there trail. You dunno how rough it is. I do.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I never figured on taking a sleigh ride down that slope, much fun as it looks like it’d be.”
Watching Loving swing gracefully down off his horse, Goodnight was surprised to discover that he was physically afraid. He feared this gentle cowboy was going to hurt him without intending to. He didn’t want to suffer any more. He told himself he should be ashamed of himself, but he remained tense and felt brittle.
“Whachew gonna do to me?” Goodnight asked.
“Carry you,” said Loving.
“What?”
“Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.”
“You cain’t. It’s too steep and I’m too heavy.”
“My mom was a mule.”
“I won’t have nobody talkin’ ag’in’ their mama.”
“That was a compliment.”
Despite Goodnight’s muttered protests and complaints, Loving scooped him up and carried him to the brink of the yawning canyon. They both looked into the red void. Then Loving started down. He carried Goodnight like a baby. The baby was surprised at the slender cowboy’s strength and his surefootedness. Goodnight began to relax, the tension trickling out of him . . .
Then Loving’s boots slipped on the loose scree and he started dancing on the brink of the abyss trying to regain his balance. Goodnight sucked in a breath and held it as if he expected to be plunged underwater, even though no water was in sight. At the same time, he hugged Loving more tightly, which did not help the dancer, who needed all his dexterity to keep from falling. But somehow he succeeded in regaining his balance.
“Scared you, didn’t I?” Loving laughed.
“No,” Goodnight lied.
“No?”
“Okay, yeah.”
“Scared myself a little, too.”
“You better put me down.”
Loving didn’t say anything, but he started walking again, carrying Goodnight on down the treacherous trail. Soon he slipped on the scree again, but he regained his balance again.
“It’s kinda like walkin’ on marbles, ain’t it?” Loving said. “Ticklish business.”
“Be careful,” said Goodnight.
“Good idea.”
Loving’s breathing became more and more labored. His burden was getting heavier and heavier.
“You sound like a cow havin’ a calf,” Goodnight said.
“Thanks,” said Loving.
“Didn’t mean no disrespect.”
Loving eventually gave in and took a rest stop. He set his baby down carefully on the sheer side of the void and then collapsed on the wall of marbles. The trail was only a little over a mile long, but Loving needed half a dozen rest stops. Then at long last, after two hours of hard labor, he dropped to his knees as if praying and deposited his child on the red canyon floor.
After a rest, Loving climbed back up the canyon wall to get the horses. He tied the bone sleigh on the back of Goodnight’s horse, which was a tricky arrangement, but somehow it worked. Then he got on his own horse and led the way back down the Comanche trail. When he reached the bottom of the canyon, he found Goodnight fast asleep.
Goodnight returned to the Home Ranch riding a dead buffalo. His cowboys welcomed him back warmly even though they were surprised to see him come home with a new gunslinger instead of a bride. He hadn’t told any of them why he had wanted to go to Tascosa, but they all knew anyway. They all eyed Loving warily, trying to size him up, guessing at his skills. They wondered where he stood with Goodnight, whom he had almost killed and then saved.
28
Ijust wisht I’d ever loved somebody that much,” Loving said. “I surely do.”
They were alone in the north room of the two-room house. All the cowboys were out doing their appointed chores. Loving’s only job was to continue to nurse the man he had shot.
“Well, didn’t do me much good,” Goodnight said a little irritably, “did it?”
“Not yet,” Loving said.
“She’s gone.”
“She ain’t dead, is she? If’n she’s dead, I figure she’s gone. Otherwise, well, she’s just misplaced.”
“Don’t try to be funny. I don’t feel much like laughin’ right now.”
Goodnight watched Loving pacing up and down the cedar room.
“I’m jealous,” Loving said at last.
“Nothin’ to be jealous of,” Goodnight said. “I ain’t got nothin’, leastwise not what I wanted. Now kin we drop the subject. I’m tired.”
“You don’t seem like no quitter. I didn’t come all this way to work for no quitter. Quittin’ didn’t git these cows here.”
“Shut up! Who asked you to come look me up, anyhow? Git outa here!”
Loving obeyed. He walked out the door into the sunshine. Goodnight wondered if he would ever see him again. Good riddance.
Coffee brought Goodnight his supper. Beans and beef and biscuits. Then the cook went back to the chuck wagon to feed the hands, and the boss was left alone and lonely. He didn’t have Revelie to live with him in his new house, and he didn’t have Loving either. He had managed to drive them both away.
“Whose chow you like best,” asked a familiar voice, “mine or Coffee’s?”
Looking up, the wounded man saw his nurse coming through the door.
“Coffee’s,” said Goodnight.
“Me, too,” said Loving. “But that ain’t sayin’ much.”
The cowboy with the tricky eyes squatted down—there wasn’t any furniture in this palace—and dug into his own plate of beans, beef, and biscuits. He ate in silence as the cedar room got dark and darker. When he was finished with his supper, Loving got up and lit a coal-oil lantern.
“I got somethin’ to show you,” Loving said. “It’s a new-fangled contraption.”
He unbuckled a saddlebag that was lying on the floor and rummaged around inside looking for something. When he found it, he hid it in his hand. He extended the closed hand until it was only a few inches from the wounded man’s face. Then he opened his fingers and revealed a fountain pen. Goodnight recoiled as if somebody had just thrust a rattlesnake under his nose. He made an inarticulate noise like an animal.
“What’s the matter?” asked Loving.
“Git that damned thing away from me!” Goodnight yelled.
“I’m glad to see you’re in a better mood.”
“Never mind my mood.”
“It’s just a fountain pen.”
“I know good ’n’ well what it is. I don’t much like fountain pens.”
“How come?”
“Why won’t you just leave me alone?”
Goodnight closed his good eye and pretended to be trying to go to sleep. He could feel Loving watching him.
“How come you got one of them damned things?” Goodnight asked, opening his eye a crack.
“I got a mother somewheres,” Loving said. “I don’t want her to fergit my name or my handwritin’.”
“Oh.”
“What’s wrong with that?”<
br />
“Nothin’.”
Loving took a deep breath and began: “See, you don’t have to go traipsin’ to Boston after that there girl. Your words can do all the damn traipsin’ for you. Just write her a letter. Tell her how you feel about her. Like what you was sayin’ when you was out of your head. Maybe she’ll up and come back. Never know.”
Goodnight studied Loving carefully. He was trying to figure him out. He wondered what he wanted.
“How come you’re so interested in all this?” Goodnight asked.
“I like you,” Loving said. “I shot you. I want to make it up to you. You’re about the last person in the world I’da wanted to hurt.”
“We’re square. You shot me, but then you turned around and saved my damn life. That’s the end a that. Let it be.”
Loving started pacing again, measuring the cedar room again. Goodnight just stared at him.
“I cain’t let it be,” Loving said.
“Why not?” asked Goodnight.
“Because I heard how much you love her. Just write her a damn letter. Do it for me.”
“I ain’t no Writer.”
“You don’t hafta be much of a writer to write a damn letter. It don’t even hafta be that long.” He paused. “Less’n you mean you never learnt how atall.”
“I cain’t spell too good.”
“I kin spell more or less. You kin ask me how to spell the hard words. I’ll help.”
Goodnight braced himself. He was about to admit something he surely hated to own up to. But making a hard admission would be easier than writing a goddamned letter.
“I cain’t write,” Goodnight said. “I mean, I cain’t do no script. I just print. Looks like a first-grader. And I hate fountain pens.”
He watched Loving think over his confession. The cowboy pursed his lips and his black eyebrows arched.
“You tell me what you wanna say,” Loving said at last. “I’ll write it down. My writin’ ain’t much to write home about, but I reckon it’ll do in a pinch.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Goodnight said.
“Tell her what you done told me about her.”
“What did I tell you? I was crazy.”
“Lotta stuff.”
“You remember it?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I don’t. Just write down what you remember I done said. That’ll do fer a letter, maybe. Okay?”
Goodnight watched Loving think over this proposition. The lips pursed. The eyebrows arched. Then the mouth frowned.
“I cain’t put it the way you put it,” Loving said. “I kin hand-write, but I cain’t put the words together. You gotta do that part.” He scrounged around in his saddlebag for paper. Then he unscrewed the top of the fountain pen. “Just pretend you’re outa your head ag’in and start talkin’.”
Goodnight lay back on his pallet, stared at the ceiling with his one good eye, then closed it in order to better see an interior landscape. He wasn’t sure he wanted to share his feelings about Revelie with this writing cowboy, but evidently he already had, so he wouldn’t really be giving anything away. He didn’t know if he was up to talking a letter, but he didn’t want to lose her.
“Dear Revelie,” Goodnight began uncertainly, and then stopped. He stared up at the peaked cedar ceiling. Then he began to speak in tongues.
Loving just stared at him because he was making no sense at all.
“That’s Comanche talk,” Goodnight explained. “I can say some things better in Comanche. Now all I gotta do is try an’ translate ’em into English.” He paused again. “Write this down: ‘My mind cries for you.’” Pause. “‘My mind weeps for you. My mind mourns for you.’” Long pause. “‘The forest inside me is dying. The trees fall one by one.’ That’s it, I reckon. Think it’ll do any good?”
“You never know. Better’n nothin’.”
“I’m gonna rest now.” Writing was such hard work.
Goodnight lay with his eye closed, hoping he would fall asleep, but he found he couldn’t stop thinking about the letter. Phrases occurred to him. Whole sentences marched through his cluttered mind. He couldn’t sleep with all this racket going on inside his head.
“Now don’t laugh,” Goodnight said, opening his good eye.
“I won’t,” Loving said.
“Promise.”
“Cross my heart.” He drew anX over his heart with the fountain pen. “Shoot.”
“Well, here goes,” Goodnight sighed. “Write: ‘Revelie, my mind cries for the dark forest in you. I was hopin’ to keep on explorin’ that damn forest all my damn life.’ Only don’t say ‘damn.’ ‘An’ I’d always be afindin’ new places an’ new animals. An’ some a them critters’d be gentle fawns, and some’d be killers that eat them fawns. An’—”
“How come you say ‘and’ so often?” Loving asked.
Goodnight felt a flash of anger. This job was hard enough already without this interference. But he soon calmed down.
“You don’t hafta write down the ‘ands,’” Goodnight said, “but I gotta say ’em. I cain’t talk no other way. That all right with you?”
“Fine.”
“Fine. Now where was I?”
“‘Killers that eat fawns.’”
“Oh, yeah. ‘An’ there’d be warm sunny days.’ Only you don’t hafta say ‘and,’ okay? ‘An’ there’d be terr’ble storms. An’ lightnin’ an’ thunder—’”
“I thought this here was supposed to be a love letter.”
“That’s just what it is.”
“Suit yourself.”
“‘An’ I’d find whole tribes in your soul. Tribes of damn pines. Tribes of big ol’ oaks. Tribes of cottonwoods and tribes of aspens. Tribes of, I dunno, poison ivy.’”
“Poison ivy? Some love letter.”
“Well, I don’t wanta sound sappy. I mean I figure when I say somethin’ nice, then I gotta say somethin’ to sorta take it back. Right? See? Like poison ivy.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Less see. ‘An’ tribes of gods. Forest gods. Water gods. Wild gods. Real ol’ gods. Your gods and my gods. An’ I’d worship all them there gods.’”
Goodnight fell silent. He saw Loving staring at him with his eyebrows arched like horizontal question marks.
“Well?” Loving said.
“Well what?”
“Well, whatcha gonna say to sorta take that back?”
“Take what back?”
“You know, the sappy stuff about all them gods.”
Goodnight thought for a moment. Maybe Loving had a good point. Perhaps he should stick in some poison oak or grass burs or thistles to sort of even things out. But he somehow didn’t feel like it.
“Leave it,” Goodnight said at last. “Mebbe girls like that sorta stuff.”
“Suit yourself.”
29
Coffee took the letter into Tascosa the next time he went for supplies. Then Goodnight waited for an answer. While he waited, the hole in the middle of his chest healed. He got back on his feet, back on a horse, and went back to work. While he waited to hear from Revelie, Goodnight and his cowboys built a barn. While he waited, he and his boys put up a cook shack. While he waited, they clapped together a blacksmith shop where Tin Soldier went to work forging horseshoes and other iron gadgets. While Goodnight waited on and on, corrals sprang up on the floor of the red canyon. While he waited, the snow fell and turned the red canyon into a white canyon.
Then one afternoon in the early spring when the chinaberries were just putting out tentative leaves—peeking green noses outside to see if it was still too cold—a rider came hurrying down the north wall of the red canyon. Goodnight pulled his field glasses out of a saddlebag and aimed them at the rider. Focusing, he didn’t recognize the horse or the man, which he took as a good sign. This stranger in the canyon might well be a messenger. Goodnight’s answer could even now be winding its way down into the red earth. But why was this messenger in such a hurry now—after waiting all these lazy m
onths?
Well, Goodnight was in a hurry now, too. He suddenly couldn’t wait for Revelie’s answer. He dug his spurs into Red’s ribs and galloped toward the yes or no that would brighten or blight his life. Two red dust storms rode toward each other. But why the hurry? Goodnight knew why he was in a hurry, but he still couldn’t imagine why the strange rider was. Could Revelie really bethat anxious to marry him? Or to break his heart?
When he reached the steep north wall of the red canyon, Goodnight rode right up it. He met the stranger on the sheer face of the cliff.
“How do,” said Goodnight.
“Howdy, Goodnight,” said the stranger.
“You got the advantage a me. We know each other?”
“I’m Gibson. They call me Gibby. I was there when you busted them there thumbs. You do nice work.”
“Thanks. Well, what can I do for ya, Gibby? Any chance you got a message for me, I hope.”
“You hope?”
“Yeah, I been waitin’ some time. Hope it ain’t bad news.”
Goodnight could feel his shoulders hunch as if he expected a sharp blow. And his heart was beating too fast, the way it used to back in his school days, when the teacher would call on him to read.
“I don’t reckon I unnerstand,” said Gibby Gibson, “but it’s bad news all right. How come you been waitin’ for it? How’d you know?”
“Know what?”
“About the girl-stealin’.”
Goodnight was suddenly frightened in a new way. Had somebody harmed the woman who had kept him waiting so long for an answer? She was supposed to be safe back home in Boston, but who knew how safe those Eastern cities really were. Or maybe she had come back— only to be carried off to Robbers’ Roost.
“Revelie,” Goodnight whispered hoarsely. “They done got Revelie?”
“That’s who they was after, all right,” Gibson drawled. “But they didn’t know she went back East. So they done carried off the hotel keep’s daughter instead.”
Good,thought Goodnight.
“What happened was,” Gibson explained, “they busted into Sanborn’s house lookin’ for Miss Revelie. But all they found was Miss Katie. Ya know, the Russell girl.”