“I love you,” I said.
“Then stay away. You’re no good for me.”
I don’t know why exactly, some kind of hurt or something, but I went back to the club that night.
I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised. There was Tiny hanging out in the pool room. There was Sandy. Both of them. Alive.
*
A few days after Jim reads his story, Dave comes into his office.
“What did you think?”
“Not bad,” Jim says. “Interesting.” He looks out the window. Picks up his manuscript about the family summer trip to Spain, fiddles with the edges of the manuscript. “Hey,” he says, “would you mind looking at this? Maybe help me jazz it up a little?”
Escape
Tom knows he must save Alice. She complies with White Crane, but does not give White Crane any love or enthusiasm. White Crane is sad. He wants her love. He wants a happy family. He does not know that Tom loves Alice and that it makes Tom furious to see her with him.
One night, in the dead of winter, just as White Crane is settling down with Alice for the night, Tom wallops him in the back of the head with the blunt side of a tomahawk. White Crane keels over on the bearskin blankets. Will is still asleep, so before he can protest or raise an alarm, Tom and Alice tie his hands and feet and gag his mouth.
They carry the squirming little bobcat out to the horses and they set out in a blizzard.
A white-out. Riding through the dread winter with the beautiful young woman and the wild beast of a tied brother.
The great whirling whiteness. He’s suddenly horrified to realize that Will isn’t on his horse any more. His brother. The person he loves more than anyone or anything in the world, even Alice, is lost in the white whirling madness. He screams Will’s name into the white vastness. Sees faintly a figure through falling sheets of snow. He rides back and lifts the nearly frozen body from the snow. He leads them into a grove of trees. They take shelter. He digs a snow cave.
White Crane wakes with a howl of grief. He does not think of revenge, only of regaining his wife and children. They have gone mad. They must come back to their senses. He must save them. He gathers a band of warriors and sets off in pursuit. The other warriors ride without much enthusiasm. They think White Crane might be better off without this lot. They worry he’s starting to lose it.
*
Edmund, father of Tom and Will, drives his wagon toward Fort Belknap. No hope really. It’s just what you do when you hear captives have been brought in.
Tom and Will, after straggling half-frozen into the fort, wait with the other children in a makeshift holding cell in one of the barracks. Alice has already been claimed by an uncle. There is a guard at the cell because the children often run off to rejoin the Comanches. They think they are in the clutches of the enemy.
Will is furious with Tom for bringing them here. He misses the camp, misses White Crane. He cries every night. They hardly recognize themselves with their baths, their haircuts, their white man’s clothes.
Tom misses Alice. She was one of the lucky ones. She had an uncle who loved her, who wanted her back. He can hardly picture his real parents now, after six years. When he was first taken, he had thought of nothing but them. He had hated the Comanches. But that began to change as they treated him kindly, as one of their own. Are they his real people now? He has fought for so long to keep the memory of his old life, but he no longer knows if he has an old life to return to.
He struggles to summon his father up. A bearded laughing man, hoisting him and tossing him up in his bunk bed. A moment of giddy flight before landing in the soft warmth of blankets and pillows. The fisherman’s toss, his father had called it. Ready for the fisherman’s toss, Tommy old lad?
A winter’s day, a week before Christmas, and Edmund drives the wagon through the snow to Fort Belknap to take a look at the boys who certainly won’t be his boys . . .
No use getting the hopes up. No joy in life now. Memories. A broken heart. Everything you ever dreamed of up in
smoke . . . futility . . . futility . . . endure . . .
He pauses beside a chilly creek. An idea comes over him. A strong and alluring desire to hang it all up. To go sit beside the creek and pull his gun and end it, fall on his side and let the snow cover him up. What is it that keeps a man going?
He drives on. Past hope. But full of longing which springs up dangerous as a snake as he drives the wagon through the gates of Fort Belknap.
Tom’s remembering the soaring moment of flight as his father tossed him over the top railing of the bunk bed . . . Ready for the fisherman’s toss, Tommy old lad?
Sullivan, he whispers to himself. I’m Tom Sullivan. You’re Will Sullivan, he says to his younger brother. You’re Will Sullivan. Shut up, Will says in the Comanche tongue. Whatever words Tom is speaking are horrible words, horrible English words, he wants nothing to do with them.
Why has Tom brought him here? He wants to go home. Back to his father. Back to White Crane. There’s nothing, nothing in Will’s memory of the old home, not even an image . . .
Mother singing? Mother reading?
Shut up! Will says fiercely.
But his lips move as if something is trying to dent the block.
I can’t, he says to Tom in Comanche, nothing comes back.
So Tom loans Will his own memory. Makes it Will who is being given the fisherman’s toss, Will landing amidst soft blankets and pillows.
Will shuts his eyes. They sit side by side against the adobe wall, closing out everyone, the soldiers, the other returned children.
Will he even know his own father if he comes? What if he does not know his father and his father does not know him? What if his father does not want him back?
Edmund has not changed so much physically in the last six years. There’s more gray in his beard now. The crow’s feet have deepened around his eyes. But the biggest change is a more subtle one. There is no more laughter in his face. It is as if someone has turned a light off.
No more, Edmund thinks, as he ties up the horse and wagon to the hitching post and walks with the sergeant toward the barracks. No more. This is the last time. He won’t go through this again. The boys must be dead by now. They’ll never come back. It’s over. That part of his life is over. Leave it at that.
He has searched and searched. Ridden the badlands with the Rangers. Been away so much he hardly knows Rebecca any more or his little girl, Ellie. He has seen things that have changed him. Come across burned out cabins, mutilated bodies. Seen also the terrible things the Rangers have done as they wiped out camps of the Comanches, the slaughter of women and children, even friendly ones. He has witnessed horror, has been powerless to stop it. A merciless, pitiless war.
And even if you do get your children back, what then? Some friends did. Brought back a seventeen-year-old, Tom’s age. He slipped off in the night, went back to the Indians. They can’t come home. They’ve turned wild, their hearts still out on the prairie. Kinder to let them be.
The settlers come and go through the holding barracks, looking over the children.
A stocky bearded man enters the barracks. But it is not his father. His father’s face was sunshine and laughter. This man’s face is tired and gloomy and fearful.
The man looks at Will and him as they sit against the wall, crouches down to look at their faces. He licks his dry lips. Mumbles to the escorting sergeant who stands over them. Mumbles as if soup is dripping out of the corners of his mouth and gathering in his beard. His shoulders sag. His eyes fall away from the boys.
He rises. Walks out in the snowy quadrangle of the fort. The snow has stopped falling. Now it is a bright, piercing winter day.
Edmund lowers his shoulders, wags his neck like a tired old bull. He loosens the bandana around his throat. He breathes with difficulty, chest tight. A look at the sky. His lips tremble. He rem
embers the cautions: Do not tell them your name; they may claim to be yours, do not use their names, they may think they are those boys. You may not recognize them, they may not recognize you. They won’t be as you remembered them. The child you loved will be no more. They may feel nothing for you. They may hate you. They may blame you for being taken. They may hate you for being returned. They may want nothing of your clothes, your smell, your food, your religion. Your whole way of being in the world may revolt them. They may not want to come back; you may not want them back. You may wish that they were dead so you can remember them the way they were.
The sergeant comes out of the holding cell and his hand falls on Edmund’s back. “I’m sorry, mister,” the sergeant says.
Edmund’s voice chokes up. “I’ve ridden . . . I’ve looked . . . I’ve prayed . . . ”
The sergeant spits. “The damn Comanches.”
“We’ve killed their children, too. I’ve seen it . . . I’ve . . . I’ve got blood on my own hands.”
The sergeant stiffens. “Now, sir.”
“We do. We kill them, too. Women and children . . . ”
“Get a hold of yourself, sir.”
He turns, grips the sergeant’s shoulders with his strong hands. “How many did we kill? How many parents did we leave crying?”
“We’re talking about the goddamn Comanches, sir.” The sergeant touches the butt of his holstered pistol. He spits, and the toe of his boot mixes the great brown loogey into the sand. “I wouldn’t want none of those boys back. They’ve gone over. They ain’t right.”
Edmund’s hands twitch. He could go for the sergeant’s windpipe. Rip it out. It wouldn’t take much . . .
“Those are my boys,” he whispers. His throat is closing off.
“No, sir,” the sergeant says. “You’re imagining things. I’ve seen this happen many times. There’s only so much misery a man can take. The mind just snaps.” He drapes a heavy arm around Edmund’s shoulders, tries to lead him away. “It’s a damn shame. They’re worthless now. Better to shoot them and be done with it.” His eyes narrow and his voice turns to a raspy whisper. “I could do that for you. Take them out tonight on detail, put a bullet in them.”
Edmund rolls his shoulders, weaves, and delivers a punch to the sergeant’s solar plexus. The sergeant has never been punched by an ex-professional boxer before. It’s a stunning experience. All the breath goes out of him. He doubles up. Edmund leaves him gut-punched and dry puking in the snowy quadrangle.
He comes back through the door, into the dimness and squalid scent of the air. Stares at the boys from just inside the doorway. Can’t speak. Stretches a shaking hand out for the boys.
Tom’s heart lurches.
The man’s voice quavers. “Tom? Will? Boys?”
With a keening wail, Tom hurls himself at his father. Edmund collapses with him to the ground. They clench together, sobbing, rolling about on the dirt floor in a death grip and Edmund thinks through the madness of his emotions: how strong he is, how strong my son has become.
It’s minutes, the both of them crying, before he can free himself and go to Will, who sits stone-faced, arms wrapped around his knees. He stares ahead, jaw tightened.
Edmund squats in front of him. Then kneels down before the boy as if begging forgiveness. “Will?”
A boy across the room stands up and shouts, “I’m Will! I’m Will, Daddy, take me home!” He runs to Edmund, throws himself around Edmund’s legs.
“I’m Will, Daddy!” the boy shrieks, “Take me home! Take me home!”
The sergeant staggers in, drags the shrieking child from Edmund, pulls him into a corner and beats at him.
Edmund grabs him in a headlock, drags him off the boy.
“Kill them!” the sergeant screams. “Kill them all!”
The captain comes in with two soldiers. They restrain the sergeant, drag him away kicking and screaming.
The captain stands over Edmund. “You’re sure?” he says. “Don’t rush.”
Edmund reaches out to touch Will’s cheek. He traces the line of his jaw with his fingertip. Will snaps his teeth, getting a piece of the finger.
Edmund cries out and flinches away. He gives a mad laugh of joy. “It’s Will!” he shouts deliriously. “It’s my Will!”
He scoops Will up, does a kind of wild dance with him across the cell as Will kicks and flails at him. The other strange young boy lies in the corner crying, “Take me home, Daddy, take me home!”
And in the coming months, Edmund almost wishes at times that he had taken that poor boy home instead of Will. The only reason Will does not run away is because of Tom. He has brought home a wild child, a creature from another world. The boy will not speak except through Tom. He speaks Comanche to Tom, who translates for him, though Tom often chooses not to translate accurately.
They’re at the dinner table, an evening in spring. They have prayed, blessed the food.
Will won’t touch his dinner.
“Is there something wrong with the meat?” Rebecca asks.
Tom starts to translate, and Will says, “I know what she said. Tell her I want raw meat.”
“I don’t want to tell her that.”
“Tell her I want to eat the bloody liver of a buffalo.”
“You tell her.”
“I don’t speak her language.”
“You just don’t want to.”
“Why should I? I’m Comanche.”
“You’re not Comanche. You’re white like me.”
“Tell her I want raw meat.”
Rebecca looks at Tom. “What does he say is wrong?”
“I think he wants his meat a little more rare.”
“It is rare.”
“I mean you might try . . . not cooking it.”
Edmund laughs. Tries to make the best of it. Like always. “Kind of a trail rider’s steak?” He winks at Tom, at Will. His chuckles fade under Rebecca’s stern gaze.
“Tell your brother,” she says slowly, “that we eat our meat cooked in this house. We are not savages.”
“She said . . . ”
“I know what she said.” Will stares at her. He lifts a hunk of meat in his hands and lifts it to his mouth.
“We use a knife and fork in this home,” she says. “We showed you. Now do it.”
He snarls and throws the steak across the table. It strikes her in the nose, leaves a trail of grease across her cheek and drops into her lap. Edmund stares and holds his breath.
She sits unmoving, grease on the side of her nose. She picks the steak up from her lap and lets it fly at his face.
The steak bounces off his head and drops to the floor. He stares at her, startled. Ellie covers her mouth and giggles. Rebecca dips her hands in her mashed potatoes and flings a handful in Will’s face.
Will goes for his carrots. Then they’re all in the thick of it, food flying everywhere, as Ellie cries giddily, “This is fun! We’ve never done this before! We’re having fun!”
For Your Eyes Only
I jogged around a lake this morning. A mountain lion chased me. I thwarted it with a quick twirling motion followed by a sidekick. But that won’t put it off for long. It will be after me again tomorrow. The mountain lion situation is bad here. They’re dragging down joggers by the dozens. You can hardly water your lawn without one springing over the hedges at you.
But I don’t want to bore you with tales of suburbia. You and I are different, we will roam the cobblestone streets of southern Spain, Grenada, with plenty of dough from our latest success. That’s some news! A mini-series? Who do you like for the part of Jim O’Brien? Well, yes, you really think so? Perhaps you’re right. I could play myself, if you insist, if you really think I’m right for the part.
Ordinary things? You really want to hear? Well, yes, these pages are full of kidnappings and murder and death, b
ut I would like to write of the glory of small things . . . It’s just that when I do, Dr. Dalton passes me a note and sends me into a frenzy or Jammer hits me with the gas . . .
I want to be in Grenada with you.
What is true? I live in an ordinary neighborhood, I suppose, if you insist. A short walk and you are in an old town full of old houses and old porches and we all feel sleepy and old; why would I rather be out riding today?
The Frontier Remains a
Dangerous Place
Tom rides. A year has passed. He knows where Alice lives and he rides the ten miles to her uncle’s ranch. He had seen her in town again. She ducked her head, avoided him, afraid to be drawn back into those dread times, afraid of what he knows of her, of what her life had been with White Crane.
He is not sure of his feelings. He only knows that he can’t stop thinking about her, can’t speak to anyone of his feelings. He sits on his horse on the hill overlooking her cabin. Hidden in the trees, he watches in the evening as Alice and her aunt and uncle go about their chores.
He will not act upon it, but he wants to ride in, throw her up on his horse and gallop off to Mexico.
His mother and father are kind, give him chores, make him go to school, but in the evenings they turn him loose to ride his horse. At school, his main job is to watch over Will. In the beginning, he had to break up fights. Bigger, older kids would pick fights with Will, who wore buckskins. They called him Injun Boy and other names, and soon he would be pulling Will off some screaming boy, a hunk of ear in Will’s teeth.
I never start it, Will says.
But you don’t have to half-kill the kids once it starts.
He fights like a wild animal. Biting, scratching, gouging for eyes. No mercy. He hurts kids years older and a hundred pounds heavier. Kids who insult him, taunt him, shove him . . .
But after a while they stop . . . Now they just avoid him . . . Give him their stony silence . . .
He’s lonely. The loneliest boy on earth.
He has Tom. He’s better now with his mother and father, and he likes his sister, but at night he cries himself to sleep.
The Western Lonesome Society Page 8