Code of the West

by Aaron Latham

  “Revelie, I’ve got something to tell you,” Goodnight said in a soft voice. “I want you to know what happened to me and what happened to my sister. I’m sorry I kept it a secret all these here years.”

  Waiting for his wife to respond to his emotional preamble, Goodnight heard instead a gentle snore. His exhausted wife was asleep. He felt a slight sense of pride because he had worn her out with his lovemaking. She deserved a good rest. He was sure that another perfect moment would roll around soon. Let her sleep.

  The next morning, breakfast was served uncharacteristically in the dining room rather than the cook shack. At the big round table, Revelie told her mother, “We’re not selling the ranch.”

  “Then I’m leaving,” said her mother, who had not been softened by her recovery. “This country has turned you into a hard and selfish child. You don’t care that I’m all alone in the world now . . .”

  She seemed to be trying to burp, but she simply couldn’t anymore. A burp would have nicely underscored her abandoned plight—how could you send away your burping mother?—but it was beyond her.

  After several days of planning, packing, more speeches and ill humor, Mrs. Sanborn left just as the invited guests were beginning to arrive. Goodnight felt that they were actually celebrating two boons: Loving’s homecoming and Mrs. Sanborn’s departure from his red canyon.

  With Revelie’s mother in residence, Goodnight hadn’t felt comfortable about renewing his effort to share his past with his wife, but now he could.

  65

  Goodnight stood with his back to the big stone house and stared into the bonfire that blazed in his front yard. Boys and girls of various sizes, but none much older than ten, whooped it up around the burning logs. The boys all seemed to be fighting each other. The girls clumped together in girl bouquets. Beyond the fire, horses were tied to hackberry trees and chinaberry trees and cedars. As the canyon floor darkened, the many wagons, buckboards, buggies, surreys, hacks, and two-wheel carts all melted together into a long train with hundreds of wheels. The whole country had been invited on short notice and the whole country had come.

  Turning, Goodnight headed back inside, where most of the adults were congregated. He entered a living room that had been cleared of all its furniture except for chairs and benches around the perimeter.

  “Where’s the fiddlers?” called Too Short. “We’re rarin’ to go.”

  Soon impatient feet were stamping on the floorboards. Then the crowd around the kitchen door parted. Old Doc Wainwright (the only doctor for a hundred miles around) and Teddy Tucker (who was just a janitor who swept out the saloons in Tascosa) appeared carrying their fiddles. The doctor and the janitor touched their bows to their fiddles and couples flowed out onto the floor. These were mostly husbands and wives. Then the younger folks started looking for partners and asking and being asked to dance. The floor grew more crowded as the unmarrieds joined the marrieds.

  Goodnight wondered where Revelie had gotten off to. He wanted to dance with her. He scanned the four walls but didn’t find her. He figured she was probably back in the kitchen worrying over the refreshments. Well, he meant for his wife to enjoy her own party. He decided to go rescue her.

  Then as he was working his way through the crowd, Goodnight looked up and saw Revelie out on the dance floor. She was dancing with Loving. He smiled to see them. They made such a handsome couple that he couldn’t help staring. Most of the other dancers really didn’t know how to dance, and were just chasing each other around and around in a great circle. But Revelie and Loving were actually doing dance steps—were really dancing—with a grace that matched their good looks.

  Goodnight knew he couldn’t dance as well as Loving. He normally just galloped around the room like everybody else. But he nonetheless wanted to dance with his wife. He wanted Revelie back in his arms. He thought about cutting in, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. It seemed somehow wrong to separate such a well-matched pair. Besides, this party was meant to celebrate Loving’s homecoming, so Goodnight wanted his best friend to have a good time.

  When the fiddlers stopped, Goodnight saw Revelie look around. She saw him. He smiled at her. She smiled back but her smile didn’t look as big as his felt. Well, she had a smaller face.

  “There you are,” Revelie said. “I was looking for you. I thought you had gone outside. That’s why I danced with Mr. Loving.”

  “I come back in,” Goodnight stammered.

  “Well, it’s about time,” Revelie said.

  “Thanks for the dance, ma’am,” said Loving.

  He nodded slightly and retreated into the crowd.

  “He’s some kinda dancer, ain’t he?” said Goodnight. “I never seen dancin’ like you two was doin’. I was purdy near jealous. How’d he ever learn to shake a leg like that?”

  “He didn’t say,” said Revelie.

  “I hope he’s glad to be home. Anyhow, I think of this here as his home, but mebbe he don’t. Whaddaya think? Is he glad?”

  “I think so,” Revelie said. “He knows how much his being here means to you.”

  “But how much does it mean to him?”

  “I’m sure he’s pleased to be here.”

  “I sure hope so. He seems a little standoffish to me. Not quite hisself. But you think he’s okay?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Goodnight was a little disturbed to hear the fiddlers tuning up again because he knew his dancing would not stand comparison with Loving’s. Still, he wasn’t worried enough to forgo the pleasure of tromping around the dance floor with his wife.

  “Can I have this here dance?” Goodnight asked.

  “I would be delighted,” said Revelie.

  Soon Mr. and Mrs. Goodnight took their place in the train of dancers that rumbled around and around the big, empty living room. He concentrated so hard on his movements—trying but failing to move as gracefully as his friend—that he didn’t say a word to his partner. Goodnight wanted to pull Revelie close to him, to press his body to her body, but he held back. He didn’t want to step on her feet or accidentally knock her down. None of the other dancers moved body to body either. They danced as couples but somehow alone. They were all accustomed to having lots of space around them, and they seemed reluctant to get close even on the dance floor. But Goodnight recalled that Revelie and Loving had danced closer and moved together as one.

  “Less go find Loving,” Goodnight said when the music stopped.

  “I’m sure he’s all right,” said Revelie.

  “Less look anyhow.”

  “All right.”

  With Goodnight leading the way, they moved along the walls. As they passed the cavernous fireplace with its glowing embers, Revelie paused, so her husband paused also, to look at the small children and even infants asleep on pallets by the fire. He wished—as he was sure she wished—that some of them were theirs. But that time was coming soon. After the party, he would at long last share his darkness with his wife and then . . .

  Goodnight spotted Loving in a corner surrounded by cowboys. The music started up again.

  “Now this here’s supposed to be a dance,” Goodnight proclaimed. “And that means you boys gotta dance. Loving, you show ’em how. Be a good example to ’em. Run Revelie around the dance floor a coupla times. How about it, huh?”

  “I reckon Miss Revelie oughta have somethin’ to say about that,” said Loving.

  “I am at your service, Mr. Loving,” said Mrs. Goodnight. And she dropped an understated curtsey.

  As Revelie took Loving’s arm and moved out into the center of the room, Goodnight took a deep breath, as if he were relieved. He stood with the cowboys and watched Revelie and Loving. Their movements seemed to have an inevitability, as if they were stars in the night sky. The other dancers jerked and lurched like shooting stars, doomed meteors.

  Then the husband knew what he had to do: go for a walk outside. If he stayed indoors, Revelie would feel compelled to return to him for a dance when she really should be dancing
with Loving. Besides, he always liked a good walk by himself under the stars that roofed his canyon.

  But when he looked up at the night sky, Goodnight saw Orion dancing with Revelie.

  At midnight, Coffee rang the dinner bell. Returning to his large living room, Goodnight saw that supper was already under way. Home Ranch cowboys moved around the room passing out sliced-beef sandwiches on Coffee’s sourdough bread, slices of cake, and hand-turned ice cream. Every chair and every spot on a bench was now occupied.

  “If you cain’t find a spot to sit down,” Coffee called out to the milling crowd, “just sit on your fist and lean back on your thumb.”

  Goodnight looked around for his wife and his best friend. He turned all of the way around in a circle without seeing them. He shrugged his shoulders and turned a second time. He knew if he kept up this pivoting, he was going to get dizzy. He noticed an eight-year-old spinning around and around because he wanted to get dizzy. The boy achieved his goal and fell over on his side. Well, where were they?

  Goodnight returned to the out-of-doors. He stretched and then sat down under a chinaberry tree. He dozed.

  After so many of his guests had danced until dawn, Goodnight didn’t expect many to appear for breakfast. Yet a throng crowded into Coffee’s enlarged cook shack and squeezed onto the benches on both sides of the long table. Coffee, who had been up most of the night himself, supplied a steady stream of biscuits, eggs, toasted sourdough, spicy sausage, wrinkled bacon, and coffee.

  Goodnight wished Revelie were with him here at the table to share in the enjoyment of his favorite meal of the day. But she hadn’t come to bed until it was light out. No wonder she needed her sleep. Nor was she the only one. On his way to breakfast, Goodnight had been forced to step over several women and girls who were curled up on pallets in the main hallway. He had noticed others asleep on the dance floor, spaced at regular intervals like checkers on a checkerboard. Looking out a window to check on the weather, he had seen men and boys curled up out in the open. The rule for overnight guests was: females inside, males outside. He was pretty sure some had cheated.

  Goodnight himself had been in bed a couple of hours before his wife arrived. He had turned in “early”—around 4 A.M.— because he knew somebody would have to get up and see to their guests’ needs this morning. As he ate his steaming breakfast, Goodnight looked up every time somebody new entered the cook shack expecting to see Loving, but he never came. Good. That meant he had had a good time.

  Lingering over his third cup of Coffee’s dark brew, Goodnight told himself he had to get moving. He wanted his guests to have fun all day as well as all night, so he planned a kind of carnival. It would resemble a county fair, but such fairs were generally put on by farmers. Goodnight’s fair wouldn’t be a farmer fair but a cowboy fair. Farmers cared about who could grow the biggest pumpkin or bake the best cherry pie or raise the fattest pig. Cowboys cared about who could rope the fastest and ride the roughest. Farmers cared about produce and products. Cowboys cared about skill and grit. Anyhow, that was how Goodnight figured it, so he planned a whole day of contests. If folks seemed to like his cowboy festival, maybe he would do it again next year.

  Goodnight and Revelie, working together, had thought hard to come up with an appropriate name for their fair. At first, she had suggested calling it a “cowboy carnival,” because it alliterated, whatever that meant, but he said that was a little too cute. He told his wife that maybe the name should be Spanish since the vaqueros were the original cowboys. Cowboy hats were just Texas versions of sombreros, and lots of cowboy words were Spanish: remuda, bronco, desperado, lasso, ranch(o). Revelie said that was good, the name should be Spanish. She even pointed out that old Don Quixote might be considered the first cowboy because he rode around Spain with a big hat on his head; of course, his hat wasn’t a sombrero but a barber’s wash basin. Goodnight asked his wife what in the world she was talking about. Anyway, they finally settled on “rodeo” because it meant a cattle fair.

  66

  Goodnight smiled at what he had caused. The big corral by the barn was completely surrounded by wagons and buckboards and buggies and surreys and hacks and two-wheel carts. Every vehicle was crowded with men and women, boys and girls, some sitting, some standing up.

  Goodnight crawled up on Coffee’s chuck wagon and stood beside Revelie. He bent down and picked up the dinner bell. It wasn’t really a bell but an iron triangle. He rang it with an iron bar. The harsh, loud metallic ringing quieted the crowd.

  “May I have your attention!” Goodnight shouted. “Mrs. Goodnight has a few words to say.”

  The husband stepped back and his wife stepped forward.

  Revelie proclaimed in a loud, clear voice: “Let the games begin.”

  Goodnight raised his big white hat over his head and waved it, as if he were starting up a trail drive, which was a signal to Too Short to drive over the wild broncs. Churning up a dust storm, they soon reached the big corral, where wings—built out from the gate—funneled the horses inside. They seemed to take turns bucking and kicking at nothing in particular.

  “Look at them going around and around,” Revelie said. “They look like a merry-go-round gone quite mad.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Goodnight said. “I ain’t never seed no such thing. What it looks like to me is a big angry eye with a stake drove in it.”

  “How gruesome.”

  “Beg pardon, ma’am.”

  The stake in the eye was the snubbing post. When breaking a bronc, the first step was to lasso it and then wrap the rope around that post. That way the horse could be reeled in and controlled. Failure to get the rope around the snubbing post could result in rope-burned hands or a nasty dragging.

  Goodnight loved the energy of these wild horses. They were spotted descendants of Goddogs the Spanish conquistadors had brought to this new world. There had been wild horses in this canyon for as far back as anybody—Human or inhuman—could remember. Goodnight hoped they would be here forever. The Home Ranch cowboys had rounded them up for the carnival, but after it was over, they would let them go again.

  When the gate was closed behind the horses, Goodnight watched the bronc-riding contestants start climbing over the fence into the ring. The cowboys who wore guns unbuckled their gunbelts and piled them up before beginning their climb. Goodnight had decided not to enter the competition because he was afraid his cowboys might just let him win. But now he was tempted to change his mind; to take off his gun, climb the fence, and try his luck. He didn’t.

  “Look who’s climbing the fence,” Revelie said.

  Then she pointed, although she had taught him it wasn’t polite. Her husband was glad every time he noticed her adopting Western ways. Following her point, he saw Loving reach the top of the fence and hesitate there. Then he dropped down inside the ring.

  “He didn’t tell me,” Revelie said, “that he was going to ride a wild horse.”

  “He didn’t tell me neither,” Goodnight said.

  “I suppose he knew I would try to talk him out of it.”

  Loving appeared to have teamed up with a teenage cowboy who was nicknamed “Flytrap” because he often forgot to close his mouth. All the riders had helpers. The first bronc-buster who rode his wild horse to a standstill would be declared the winner and receive a special belt buckle—designed and struck by Tin Soldier—which depicted a cowboy riding a bucking bronc. Loving glanced up at his boss and the boss’s wife, then looked away.

  “Sure hope he wins,” Goodnight said. “Show these whippersnappers a thing or two.”

  “I hope he doesn’t get hurt,” said Revelie.

  Goodnight watched until cowboys stopped climbing into the ring. Then he took out his Colt revolver and pointed it up at the pale, cloudless sky. All the cowboys bunched their muscles and looked serious, even grim. All but Loving. Flytrap was so nervous he even shut his mouth.

  Then Goodnight pulled the trigger, heard the report of his big Colt, and watched the cowboys scram
ble. All but Loving. He took his time and moved with an economy that amounted to elegance.

  Goodnight hadn’t counted on there being quite so much red dust. The figures inside the corral seemed to be on the other side of a veil. He tried to focus on Loving, but he soon lost him in the dust and confusion.

  “Where is he?” asked Revelie anxiously.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Oh, there he is!” she said.

  “Where?”

  “There!” She pointed again. “On the ground! The horse is dragging him! He’ll get killed!”

  “No, he won’t,” Goodnight assured his wife. “He knows what he’s doin’. But I still don’t see him.”

  “Good, good!”

  “What?”

  “He’s up now.” She pointed. “Don’t you see him?”

  Goodnight tried to stare down her finger as if it were the barrel of a gun. He saw a figure who could possibly be Loving.

  “You mean over there by the snubbin’ post?” Goodnight asked.

  “Yes, yes,” Revelie said. “Is he all right?”

  “How come you knowed it was him?”

  “He’s wearing a blue shirt.”

  “They all got on blue shirts.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “Well, most of ’em.”

  “Theirs are different,” she said.

  Goodnight looked but he didn’t see any difference between Loving’s shirt and any of the other blue shirts. Well, leave it to a woman to notice differences in clothes. It was beyond him.

  Staring hard into the dust storm, Goodnight could just make out Loving looping his rope around the snubbing post. He was the first cowboy to make this much progress.

  “Attaboy,” Goodnight muttered.

  “He’s doing well,” said Revelie, “isn’t he?”

  “I told you he knowed what he was doin’.”

  Loving and Flytrap were both pulling on the end of the rope that circled the snubbing post once and then ran on out to the wild horse. The post acted as a kind of brake.