by Aaron Latham
“Juh, Juhimmy,” Crying Coyote said.
The old one was so happy that he didn’t look bad for a Writer.
“Jimmy,” the boy said.
The ancient one was laughing. Crying Coyote smiled back. He couldn’t help it.
“Jimmy,” he said again since the old one liked hearing it so much. “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.”
The old one stopped laughing and started crying. Crying Coyote wondered what he had done wrong. He still had a lot to learn about Writers.
90
Jimmy Goodnight entered Weatherford, Texas, riding in the midst of what looked like a victory procession. The whole town had turned out to welcome him, but so far they had only succeeded in frightening him, waving flags and shouting. The wooden Goddog paused in front of a wooden house painted white. The boy had been kidnapped seven years ago from a log fort, but now he was returning to a home built of sawed lumber. He was growing up and so was Texas.
Jimmy saw a white welcoming committee lined up in front of the white house. Some of them looked a little like the white-haired old man who had found him in a jail and gotten him out. By now, he knew that the ancient one was his uncle, Isaac Goodnight, and he guessed that the others were probably relatives, too. Some of his memories of his pre-Human life were beginning to come back to him, and he could even remember a few words of the Writer tongue.
Jimmy understood his Uncle Isaac when he said “Welcome home.” The wild boy stared at his new family. They were smiling. He grinned shyly back. He understood that he was being introduced to his uncle’s wife and son and two daughters, but he couldn’t make out the strange Writer names.
They all went into the house. Jimmy watched the women putting food on the table. It smelled strange. The foreign aromas suggested that these people didn’t know what was good to eat. Soon the whole family was sitting around the table. Uncle Isaac bowed his head and closed his eyes, then all the others did the same, all but Jimmy. Uncle Isaac mumbled some sort of speech, but his nephew didn’t understand a word. When he stopped talking, they all opened their eyes and started reaching for food.
Jimmy’s aunt put a chunk of meat on his plate. It resembled Human-cattle flesh, but it was more fine-grained. He wished it smelled better, but he was hungry enough to eat anything. He picked up the meat and ate it with his hands. Grease ran down his chin and dropped onto his chest, where it stained his new homespun, butternut-colored Writer shirt.
That night, Jimmy discovered that he had been assigned his own blanket-death room. He was lonely in his own bedroom. He missed having other bodies close to him. He couldn’t understand why Writers wanted to live in such big houses. These structures must be hard to pick up and carry when the time came to move the village. He didn’t like this room, but he was tired enough to sleep anywhere. He lay down on the floor beside the bed and surrendered himself to a good night’s blanket-death.
91
The rooster crowed and chores beckoned. Jimmy had been allowed to rest for a couple of weeks when he first came to live with his Uncle Isaac, but as soon as he had relearned enough English to take orders, he was put to work. He didn’t mind doing his share, but he didn’t like the way they were always pushing him to work harder— to prove that he hadn’t turned into some shiftless savage. He knew the Human Beings worked as hard as any Texas farmer, they just didn’t plant and hoe and milk. But try to explain that to a Writer.
Jimmy got up out of his feather bed, shivered in the cold air, got dressed as fast as he could, and headed for the cow pen. He had milked in the summer, milked in the fall, and now he was milking in the winter. He had learned that winter milking was the worst. His hands were so cold it hurt to close them around the cows’ fat tits. And imagine how much the cow liked it! The cow was an old guernsey with just one horn. Since he just had one eye, he considered that they were even. Maybe that was why he kept worrying about how the cow was feeling.
When he finished milking, Jimmy stood up a little too quickly and felt light-headed. As he swayed there for an instant—momentarily vulnerable—he remembered his mother Lucy. He had been told how she had died of a “broken heart” shortly after she had lost her whole family: husband killed, daughter killed, son carried away. She wouldn’t eat and grew weaker and weaker. Regaining his balance, Jimmy managed to put his dead mother out of his mind as he headed for breakfast.
Jimmy got up earliest, so he was the first one at the kitchen table. His Aunt Orlena was at the stove frying eggs, frying bacon, frying hot cakes, baking biscuits, and boiling coffee. Soon his cousin Jeff came in with eggs stuffed in all of his pockets. Jimmy had been hoping for seven months that one day he would forget to take the eggs out before he sat down for breakfast, but so far it hadn’t happened. Next, Uncle Isaac came in rubbing his cold hands together. Jimmy wasn’t really sure what his uncle did when he got up and headed outside every morning. As an apprentice “Writer,” maybe he wasn’t yet old enough or white enough to understand a farmer’s ways. Cousins Rhoda and Naomi, both redheads, were already trying to sweep the dirt out of the house. Piles of it had collected in just twenty-four hours. The pretty white home wasn’t very tightly put together. And the wind always blew in Texas. Uncle Isaac was fond of saying, “One day the wind stopped blowing and all the chickens fell over.”
When Aunt Orlena started putting platters of food on the table, Rhoda and Naomi scrambled to take their places. Uncle Isaac bowed his head and prayed. Then everybody reached and grabbed. Jimmy thought breakfast was the best meal of the day, and the biscuits were his favorite part of his favorite meal.
“This is shore good ’nough to eat,” Jimmy said with his mouth full.
“Thank you, Jimmy,” said his Aunt Orlena with a grateful smile. “Glad you like it.”
“Wheat’s dyin’,” Uncle Isaac mumbled into his eggs. He meant his crop of winter wheat. “Damn, wisht it’d rain.”
“Don’t swear,” Aunt Orlena said. “Not in front of the kids. Not before Gawd.”
The mood at the table changed. The wilting wheat now set the tone rather than the good food. Jimmy wanted to rescue the good feeling before it died along with the winter crop. Besides, breakfast made him feel optimistic.
“Texas ain’t farmin’ country,” Jimmy said. “It’s ranchin’ country.”
“It’s Gawd’s country,” said Aunt Orlena. “That’s what country it is.”
“Amen,” said Uncle Isaac.
“I know, I know,” Jimmy said. “But if we was to go up to that canyon I done tol’ you ’bout. Now that’s real Gawd’s country.”
“Don’t blaspheme,” said Aunt Orlena.
“I’m not blasphemin’,” said Jimmy. “It’s the Gawd’s truth. Wait’ll you see.”
“Don’t start that again,” said Uncle Isaac. “Stop pesterin’ me about that damn canyon.”
“Don’t swear,” said Aunt Orlena.
“But Uncle Isaac—” Jimmy began.
“I mean it,” his uncle interrupted sternly. “I don’t wanna hear no more o’ that crazy talk. I swear, you ain’t got good sense, boy. So just pipe down.”
“It ain’t his fault,” said his aunt. “The heathen got holda his mind.”
After breakfast, Jimmy and his cousins set off for school. It was a four-mile walk, which seemed longer in the winter. They followed a dirt road that got wider and wider as it approached town. The school-house had just two rooms, one for grades one through six, the other for seven through twelve. The room for the little kids in the lower grades was considerably more crowded than the room for the big kids in the upper grades. But the school did manage to graduate one or two almost every year.
The closer they got to school, the worse Jimmy felt. His breakfast-table optimism gave way to schoolhouse pessimism. His shoulders sagged. His head dropped lower and lower. He hated having to study with the little kids rather than the big kids. He was now eighteen years old, but he was only in the second grade. His years with the Human Beings had taught him a lot but not how to read. He had
even forgotten what little reading he had learned before he was taken. So he more or less had to start all over at the bottom. When he and his cousins reached the schoolhouse, Jimmy entered the first room with eight-year-old Rhoda and six-year-old Naomi. But fourteen-year-old Jeff, who was four years and three months younger than Jimmy, got to go in the second room with the big boys and girls. It was a daily humiliation for the eighteen-year-old second-grader.
“Take out your readers,” said Mr. Dobbins, the skinny, bald-headed teacher.
Jimmy had come to hate the tattered old book by William McGuffey. He couldn’t even read the title of this reading book. What didEclectic Reader mean, anyhow? It was discouraging to take out a book day after day and not be able to read the very first word on the cover.
“Turn to page fourteen,” Mr. Dobbins said, and then started calling on different “scholars” to read aloud.
Jimmy hated reading out loud more than he hated milking in the cold, more than he hated just about anything. Afraid to look up—he might get called on—he studied a drawing of a boy walking along with books under his arm. Jimmy thought: Poor boy, he’s on his way to school.
“I once knew a boy,” read a seven-year-old girl named Sally who had huge freckles even in winter. “He was not a big boy.”
The big boy in the second grade wondered if everybody was look ing at him. He didn’t dare look around to find out.
The teacher called on his cousin Naomi to read next.
“If he had been a big boy,” redheaded Naomi read perfectly, “he would have been wiser.”
Jimmy was even more embarrassed now. Big boys were supposed to be wise, but this big boy couldn’t even read. He felt even worse when he heard Mr. Dobbins call his name.
“Buh, buh, but he was a, uh, a, luh, luh—” Jimmy tried but got bogged down.
“That’s right,” Mr. Dobbins said. “Sound it out. You can do it.”
“Luh-eye-tuh.”
“No, theI is short. Like in ‘big.’”
Jimmy flinched. “Luh-ih-tuh, tuh, tuh—”
“Somebody help him,” said Mr. Dobbins.
Naomi raised her hand and got called on.
“‘Little,’” she said.
“That’s right, Naomi. Very good. Go on, Jimmy.”
“Buh, but he was a little boy. He was not much uh—”
He heard somebody laugh.
“‘Taller,’ Jimmy, ‘taller,’” said Mr. Dobbins. “‘He was not much taller than a table.’”
Jimmy wished he were like that boy, that little boy, no taller than a table, no bigger than the rest of the kids. Or else he wished he were in the big kids’ room. Or better yet, he wished he were in the big red canyon. He heard the teacher say something, but he didn’t pay any attention. He thought Mr. Dobbins was talking to somebody else. After all, he had already had his turn reading.
“Jimmy,” Mr. Dobbins said more sharply, “I’m talking to you. What’s the matter with you?”
“He’s daydreamin’ about his canyon ag’in,” said Naomi. “The biggest canyon in the whole world.”
All the kids laughed. He knew they thought he wasn’t quite right in the head. He would show them. But how? More and more, he felt as if he really might be going crazy, like everybody thought he was. Someday he would show them.
92
Revelie was crying. She had always wanted to hear the story, and now it had made her unhappy. She was not shedding the kind of tears that one weeps at the end of a sad tale. She was sobbing as if her child had died—even though she had no child. She cried uncontrollably, hysterically.
“What’s wrong?” asked Goodnight.
“Nothing,” said Revelie.
“Really, you can tell me,” he reassured her.
“It’s nothing,” she sobbed.
“Now who’s got secrets?” Goodnight said with a laugh, meant to cheer her up.
She just kept on crying, her body jerking, breathing as if she were choking.
“I thought that’s what you wanted,” he said.
“I did,” she sobbed.
She pulled him close to her, wetting his cheek and chest.
BOOK FOUR
CLAWING
93
When Goodnight emerged onto his front porch just after daylight, he scanned the great red walls of his fortress, as he did every day. He saw, coming down the north wall, a lone rider. He was tiny in the distance, but the rancher already had a bad feeling about him. The stranger was carrying something over his shoulder as he rode, which made him resemble a scorpion with its tail curled over its back. The rancher shrugged and wondered what this newcomer wanted. The ranch didn’t need any more hands just now.
Goodnight couldn’t understand his feeling about the stranger because he generally cherished visitors. They brought news and gossip from the outside world, and they provided diversion for Revelie. Besides, in this cruel country, everybody had to help everybody else or they would all be defeated. But nonetheless, he felt hostile to the approaching horseman. Well, he wouldn’t be here for a while.
Remembering that he was hungry, Goodnight headed for the cookshack to have breakfast with his cowboys. Soon he smelled coffee and bubbling grease, which made him hungrier. Entering the small whitewashed building, Goodnight sat down beside Loving on a long bench at a long table. When Coffee appeared and put three bowls of scrambled eggs on the long table, the sleepy hands woke up and started grabbing for their share. Then the cook put out platters of bacon, which provoked more reaching.
After breakfast, the cowboys, sleepy again, shuffled and stumbled to their horses as another workday began. Goodnight mounted up and rode out with them. They happened to head up the canyon on a course that would intersect with the stranger’s. Most of the herd was well up-canyon at the moment. Goodnight and Loving rode side by side at the head of the pack. After they had been riding for a little over half an hour, Goodnight saw the stranger approaching along the canyon’s flat floor.
“Company,” said Goodnight. “What’s that over his dang shoulder, huh?”
“I dunno,” said Loving, squinting. “Kinda looks like a damn ax. Funny way to ride, ain’t it?”
Goodnight nudged his horse into a fast trot to go out to meet the stranger. Loving spurred his horse, also, but the others trudged on behind. The newcomer kicked his horse, too. When Goodnight raised his hat in greeting, the stranger lifted his ax and waved it over his head.
“I reckon that’s one way to say hello,” said Loving. “Not my favorite way, but one way.”
When the three of them met beside the red river, Goodnight tipped his hat again, and the stranger wobbled his ax. The newcomer turned out to be not much more than a boy. He looked to be about fifteen or sixteen.
“Hello,” Goodnight said.
“Hello,” said the stranger.
“I couldn’t help noticin’ that there ax. How come you’re ridin’ around the country with an ax over your shoulder like that?”
“Truth is, I like axes. And I heard you liked ’em, too. So I figure we got somethin’ in common there. Thought it might do as some kinda introduction.”
Lifting his ax off his shoulder, the stranger drew back and threw it overhand, hard, so that it went spinning in the air. Then the blade bit and dug into the broad trunk of a nearby cottonwood tree. It hung there quivering.
“Nice throwin’,” said Goodnight.
Then he reached down and pulled his ax from the scabbard that was built for a rifle. He lifted it over his head, took aim, and threw. The ax somersaulted toward the cottonwood tree. It hit so close to the other ax, cheek-to-cheek, that it knocked the other blade out of the tree trunk. The stranger’s ax fell to the ground.
“Nicer throwin’,” said the stranger.
“Thanks,” said Goodnight. “You’re a long way from home, ain’tcha, mister?”
“I ain’t got no home,” said the stranger. “But I’m sorta lookin’ for one.”
“Well, you’ll be our guest for as long as you wanta
stay.” Goodnight hated to make such an open-ended offer, because he didn’t trust this scorpion, but he owed it to his Code of the West. Strangers simply couldn’t be turned away. “We got a fair-to-middlin’ cook and good beds. Anyhow, we think so. The cook’s name’s Coffee. He’ll give you breakfast.”
“Uh, well, I was hopin’ to be a little more’n a guest.”
“I’m real sorry, but we done got enough hands. Sorry, but thass how it is.”
“Well, see, I was hopin’ to be more’n a hand.”
Goodnight looked at the stranger quizzically. He thought maybe he had misheard.
“What?”
“Well, look at me.”
“Iam lookin’ at you. I been lookin’ at you for some time. Whaddaya mean you wanta be more’n a hand? You applyin’ for the position of foreman or somethin’? I don’t git you!”
“Take agood look at me, and tell me” –the stranger paused in mid-sentence—“don’t I look familiar?”
Goodnight shrugged and continued to study the presumptuous cowboy. Was there something familiar about the boy, something he seemed to have seen before, some sleeping memory that refused to wake up?
“Don’t you know me?” asked the stranger.
“Cain’t say as I do,” Goodnight said.
The longer he stared at the unrecognized face before him, the more uneasy he felt. Maybe he was one of the Robbers’ Roost boys. He studied the cowboy’s hands. Were the thumbs busted? No, he was too young. But there was something strange about the fingers. The right hand was perfectly normal with the right number of fingers, but the left hand was another matter. There were just—one, two, three— three fingers. Not only were there too few fingers, but they were twisted. The left hand looked like a claw.
“Don’t you know me? Really?” said the stranger. “I’m your son.”
“You’re a liar,” Goodnight said. “I don’t have no son.”
“You raped my mama.”
“What?”
Goodnight’s mind reeled. He knew it couldn’t be true. Knew he hadn’t ever raped anybody’s mother. Knew he had never raped anybody at all. Knew he wasn’t that kind of man. And yet his innocent brain was nauseous.