Code of the West

by Aaron Latham

“Something for my mother?” Revelie said a little louder. “Will miracles never cease? Did you bring anything for your wife?”

  “Nope, just Loving. On the way home, way out yonder, I come across some snakeweed. Hard to find around here, but there’s plenty of it out there. Thought it might help her burpin’—’less the burpin’ done cured itself.”

  “How sweet. No, she hasn’t stopped. She burps day and night. Do you actually believe you can persuade my mother to take snakeweed?”

  “I’ll git Coffee to brew up some snakeweed tea.”

  Revelie entered the sickroom followed by her husband, who was carrying a heavy, steaming mug. Mrs. Sanborn looked up, startled.

  “Mr. Goodnight is back,” Revelie announced, “and he has brought you some medicine. He believes it might help your condition.”

  Mrs. Sanborn pulled the covers up closer to her chin. She seemed to want to hide. Her hair was a mess after days in bed. Her eyes were suspicious.

  “What kind of medicine?” she asked. “Have you considered that he might,burp, be trying to poison me to save his precious ranch?”

  “Well, at least it would put you out of your misery, Mother.”

  “That isn’t funny.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. He has made you some tea. Please drink it. It may soothe your stomach and make you feel better.”

  Mrs. Sanborn considered the matter.

  “What’ve you gotta lose?” asked her son-in-law.

  “My life. That’s all.”

  “Not hardly. It don’t even taste half bad.”

  “What kind of tea is it, Mr. Goodnight.”

  “Well, you see, it’s made from snakeweed, so most folks just call it snakeweed tea.”

  “Snakeweed indeed. He is trying to poison me. He admits it.”

  “No, ma’am. Snakeweed’s just a name.”

  “Not a very pleasant name. I hardly think it will readily replace English breakfast tea.”

  “Ain’t supposed to. That’s for breakfast, this here’s for burpin’.”

  “Mr. Goodnight, you alliterate.”

  “I do not. It’s the God’s honest truth. Try a sip.”

  Mrs. Sanborn hesitated.

  “Try it,” Revelie said with the weight of command in her pretty voice. “Don’t be silly. It won’t hurt you, and it might help you. The only way to find out is to try it.”

  Her mother looked startled again.

  “All right, Mr. Goodnight,” she said, “I’ll taste your snake’s brew if I must.”

  Her son-in-law handed her the mug. Mrs. Sanborn lifted it to drink from it, making a face.

  “Not so fast,” Goodnight said.

  “What?” asked his mother-in-law, startled once more.

  “You’ve gotta say some words over it or else it won’t do you no dang good.”

  “You are jesting, certainly.”

  “’Fraid not, ma’am. Sorry, but you gotta ask the snakeweed’s permission to drink that there tea. You gotta say how come you need it. And you gotta promise that you didn’t take all the snakeweed, but left plenty behind, so there’ll be more snakeweed next year. Can you remember all that there?”

  “I’m not an ignoramus, Mr. Goodnight, whatever you may think. But I am not accustomed to conversing with my tea. I’ll just drink it if it’s all the same to you.”

  Mrs. Sanborn lifted the mug once again, but Goodnight reached out and took hold of his mother-in-law’s wrist.

  “I’m serious. It won’t do you no good unless you say what I said. If you ain’t gonna say it, I’ll just throw it out.”

  “Mother, say the words,” said Revelie.

  Mrs. Sanborn glared at her daughter, glared at Goodnight, then glared back at her only child. Then she shrugged, giving up.

  “Mr. Snakeweed”—she swallowed a burp—“please cure me.”

  She tried to lift the mug again, but Goodnight renewed his grip on her wrist.

  “Sorry, but you didn’t git it just right. You gotta ask permission. You gotta say what’s afflictin’ you. And you gotta say you left plenty for next year. Got it?”

  “All right, unhand me. Let me see. Mr. Snakeweed, I ask your permission to drink your tea.”

  “Good,” said Goodnight.

  “I need your tea because I am ill—”

  “Say what’s wrong.”

  “But this is embarrassing. I cannot—”

  “Say it,” said Revelie.

  “I need your help because I cannot seem to stop,burp, burping. It is most embarrassing. You see I do need your help badly.”

  “Good,” said Goodnight. “Now next year . . .”

  “Mr. Snakeweed, I promise that my agent, Mr. Goodnight, left plenty of snakeweeds behind so that your progeny will be plentiful in the future.”

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “She said it,” explained his wife.

  “Okay, bottoms up.”

  “I’m not quite that enthusiastic, Mr. Goodnight.” But she did take a sip, making a face before and a worse face after. “I thought you told me this did not have a bad taste? It tastes like venom.”

  “Well, you should taste horehound tea,” said Goodnight.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Mrs. Sanborn.

  “Keep drinking,” Revelie said.

  It took several minutes, but Mrs. Sanborn finally drained the large mug. She handed it back to her son-in-law.

  “Nice goin’, ma’am. Now we’ll just wait a few minutes.”

  “Burp,”said his mother-in-law with a scowl.

  Goodnight walked over and sat on the windowsill. He looked out at his red canyon. His wife sat on the bed beside her mother.

  “Burp.”

  Goodnight hoped to catch a glimpse of Loving getting reaccustomed to the place, but he was nowhere in sight. The medicine man crossed his legs and watched his boot twitch. It twitched for some time.

  “Now try to burp,” Goodnight said at last.

  Mrs. Sanborn tried, but she couldn’t.

  In the hallway outside Mrs. Sanborn’s sickroom, Revelie pulled Goodnight to her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “It was wonderful of you to do what you did. Wonderful in many ways.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “And she’s welcome, too.”

  He sensed that in curing Revelie’s mother he had also begun to heal the illness between himself and his wife.

  “Thank you again,” she said, lifting up to kiss him briefly on the lips. “I’m sure my mother thanks you, too.”

  “That’s all well and good, but your mom and me, we don’t hafta be best friends now, do we?”

  “No, Mr. Goodnight, you certainly do not. I’ve never liked any man who liked my mother.”

  63

  In honor of Loving’s homecoming, they ate in the large but seldom-used dining room in the big stone house. Goodnight sat at the “head” of a large, round table. Revelie was on his right, Loving at his left, and the rest of the cowboys strung out around the table. (Mrs. Sanborn was absent, insisting she was still too weak to appear in public.) Goodnight felt a euphoria at being back where he belonged, back among the people he belonged with, back in the canyon that seemed to be the palm of God’s cupped hand. God must be a red man. Goodnight just hoped he wouldn’t bust out crying right here at the table. Then he saw his vision blur and he knew what that meant.

  “’Scuse me,” Goodnight said. “I gotta go take care of somethin’.”

  Getting up, he hurriedly left the table as if he had to go to the bathroom real bad and real fast. He was a little embarrassed by what he knew they all were thinking, but he would have been even more embarrassed if they had seen what a crybaby he was turning into. He managed to make it to the bathroom and to close the door before he started blubbering. He sat down on the newfangled indoor john and just bawled. His whole body shook. He couldn’t get his breath and choked. He told himself to cut out this kind of behavior, to grow up, but he didn’t particularly feel like growing up. He didn’t particularly li
ke choking, but he did like the way he felt all over when the spasms of crying stopped. He felt clean inside as if the tears had actually washed something away. He felt a sense of renewal as if the tears were a spring rain on parched ground. He shivered and luxuriated in the feeling.

  When he felt like it, Goodnight got up, washed his face, stared at himself in the mirror, and wondered what he could do about his red eye. He splashed more cold water on it, but when he looked again, it was as red as ever. Well, he couldn’t wait around until he looked like his old self again. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to be his old self again. Reluctantly, Goodnight opened the door and headed back to face the family that he had gathered around him.

  Entering the spacious dining room, Goodnight saw Revelie and Loving leaning toward each other talking. He stopped to enjoy the scene. He enjoyed how well the two of them looked together. He saw them as a beautiful sister and handsome brother. They even resembled each other in that they were both good-looking in the same way. Both had fine, well-made features. And they both had the same intense life burning inside them that animated them the way a candle animates a jack-o’-lantern. They seemed to belong together. And so Goodnight felt an intense pride at having brought them together here under this roof, here in the palm of this canyon.

  “Mr. Goodnight,” said Revelie, noticing him in the doorway, “what are you staring at?”

  “The two of you,” said the husband.

  “What about the two of us?” asked his wife sharply.

  “I cain’t git over how good you look together,” he said. “I just been standin’ here soakin’ it up.”

  “Really?” she said.

  “You oughta see yourselves. I got the best-lookin’ man and the best-lookin’ woman in Texas right cheer under my own roof. I won’t never need to leave home no more. There ain’t nothin’ more out there to look for. To quest for. Like you said.”

  Goodnight congratulated himself: He had fixed up things with his dead sister and now he was making progress with his wife. Anyway, he hoped so. Thanks, Becky.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling well,” said Revelie. “I was afraid you might be ill the way you left the table.”

  “Oh, no, that waddn’t nothin’,” Goodnight said. “I’m fine. Real fine.” He thought a moment. “I tell you what less do. Less kill the fat calf an’ invite the whole country.”

  “What?” asked Revelie.

  “To celebrate Loving’s homecomin’. Less have a two-day, mebbe a three-day, dance. Folks sleepin’ over. Fill up this here house for a change. Really raise Cain. I wanta show off my family now that I got it back together ag’in. Whaddaya say?”

  Goodnight didn’t think Loving much liked the idea, but he was glad to see Revelie smile.

  “That reminds me of a song my mother used to sing to us when we were little,” she said. “It’s too bad she is too sick to be with us. The song was about Ireland, but it could just as well be about Texas. ‘I am of Texas, and of the holy land of Texas. Good sir, pray I thee, on Saint Charity, come and dance with me in Texas.’”

  “I’ll gladly dance with you in Texas,” Goodnight said. “And Loving will too. He don’t look too pleased right now, but he will be.”

  Goodnight couldn’t hear Loving’s reply because it was drowned out by a sudden detonation of thunder so loud and so close that it shook the big rock house on its firm foundation. Then rain beat on the windows like small, determined ghosts demanding to be let in. The insistence of the drops seemed to wake an impatience inside Goodnight himself. He couldn’t wait any longer. He wanted Revelie right now, had to have her right now . . .

  “Revelie,” Goodnight said, “I got an idea. Less go for a walk.”

  “In the rain?” asked his wife.

  “Sure. You know how much I like walkin’ under the rain.”

  64

  While the storm raged, Goodnight led Revelie along an old Human trail that wound through hackberry thickets and chinaberry groves. His wife was being a good sport about this walk in the driving rain. She normally didn’t even like to get her hair wet, and yet she didn’t complain as the heavens poured buckets of water on her head. Her grip on his hand was warm and firm. When thunder roared, she squeezed hard. Goodnight just hoped it wouldn’t start to hail. He wondered why he kept exposing the ones he loved most to dangers.

  He put hail temporarily out of his mind when a flash of lightning revealed to him a dense patch of horehound plants fenced in by wild plum trees. He smiled to himself remembering how his Human father had taught him to harvest this herb that was supposed to be the friend of the barren woman. The storm was so fierce that it had beaten down many of the plants, so they formed a matting that would protect the lovers from the mud below. Anyway, he hoped so. He knew horehound was normally taken internally to be effective, but he just liked the idea of making love on top of a bed of fertility plants.

  Goodnight reached for the buttons at Revelie’s throat and started undoing them. She was reluctant at first, but . . . soon they only had an eyepatch between them. The lightning lit her and he saw again how beautiful she was, water dripping off her slightly turned-up nose and her slightly upturned, puckered nipples.

  The husband lay down first, lay on his back, and pulled his wife down on top of him. He chose to be on the bottom because he wanted to protect Revelie. His back and not hers would touch the rough horehounds and the mud beneath. He would be her bed and her lover at the same time.

  As he entered her, Goodnight stared up at the sky and saw lightning branch out across the heavens like a huge, overhanging electric tree. Then a moment later, terrible thunder shook Revelie above him, shook the earth beneath him, shook the red canyon, shook his whole world. This giant red hole in the ground magnified the thunder, echoed the thunder, made the roar last until the next great detonation, which was amplified and repeated, until the next . . .

  One lightning flash was the devil’s own fiery pitchfork overhead. Then another burst was God’s own electric finger reaching down once more to quicken another generation of Adams with the spark of life. Then the next fiery display was a mighty electric river with many tributaries . . . the burning river above echoing the red river with its many branches down below . . . Then came a fragmented bolt that appeared to be a giant root . . . the root of an invisible tree whose leaves were stars.

  The bright bursts seemed to have their own rhythm, which matched his rhythm. He felt as if he took some of their energy into his own body. He absorbed their power. He penetrated Revelie the way they penetrated the sky. The heavens thundered and Revelie moaned. He wondered why he had never made love in a thunderstorm before. He was as wild and mighty and elemental as the lightning itself. He only wished he could be as unselfconscious as the lightning as well, but he couldn’t. He was aware of having gone out of his way to perform a supremely romantic act and this awareness seemed to undermine the romanticism a little.

  “Turn over!” Revelie screamed above the thunder. “I want to see the lightning, too! It’s my turn.”

  “You might git muddy,” he said.

  “It’ll wash off,” she said. “Roll over.”

  Goodnight rolled and Revelie rolled with him. Now she looked up at the lightning, and he saw the flashes reflected in her eyes. The rain beat hard on his bare back. It was cold. It stung. He loved it. He seemed to absorb the power of every driving drop. He was wet everywhere, and she was wet everywhere, too. Liquid moved against liquid. He was immersed in liquid. He felt as if he were back in the womb again, not just a part of him, but all of him.

  “My mind cries for you,” Goodnight whispered in the storm.

  “My mind, uh, cries for, uh, you too,” Revelie screamed into the storm.

  Goodnight smelled her scent mingling with the smell of the red mud. She seemed to be a part of the red earth itself. She was as much a part of his red canyon as any tree or boulder. In making love to her, he was also making love to his canyon, to this great red womb dug deep into the earth, and in loving the canyon he
loved her. He didn’t think he could separate his love of this woman from his love of this place. And he didn’t want to. He would always love them both more than anybody else or anywhere else in the world.

  Goodnight screamed into the thunder, his cry mingling with the thunder, so he couldn’t tell where one sound ended and the other began. He seemed to feel the thunder in his throat. Then a moment later, Revelie screamed too, her cry an echo of his own, both thundering down the canyon.

  The husband collapsed on top of his wife, laughing softly now, no longer thundering. Afraid he would hurt her, he rolled to one side and then took her in his arms.

  Lying beside her, Goodnight felt spent and weak. He hadn’t made love to his wife in such a happy, fierce way in years. He thanked the storm for its help, but he felt he should thank someone else as well. After all, he had been feeling more energetic ever since his experience in those blinding White Sands. So he thanked Becky as well as the storm. He felt sure that she was the invisible maiden of honor who had led the bride and groom to this rude altar to be married all over again. His blind inner eye that had refused for so long to see his dead sister was now open. And when it opened, it saw more than his lost Becky: it saw his lost Revelie, the Revelie of old, the Revelie of the beginning, the Revelie of the first love.

  Goodnight was so happy that he almost felt selfish. He wished he could share his happiness. He would have loved to have given some of it to Loving. He had more than enough to go around.

  Right here, right now, in the rain, on the muddy ground, Goodnight was tempted to tell Revelie his long-guarded secrets. But the downpour had turned cold, and the mud was uncomfortable. He would tell her later. The perfect time would come.

  When they returned to the ranch house, they discovered that Tin Soldier had come back. He had gotten tired of the life of a wandering cowboy-blacksmith and had come home. He had ridden in soaking wet.

  Loving was working his magic.

  • • •

  In bed that night, after they had bathed away the mud, Goodnight realized that he had found the perfect moment to tell Revelie about his dark—his lost—life among the Human Beings. First, he had needed Becky’s forgiveness. Now he needed his wife’s.