by J P S Brown
Now that he was in position and had taken the steps to accomplish the stunt, his legs were so shaky that he knew he would not be able to stand until the stunt was over. He might not even be able to push his butt off the limb. Even the fabric of his trousers seemed to take a death grip on the limb. He was so scared his spit dried up. The theory and planning stage was over. Performance was imminent. His bowels turned cold. He looked down at the ground, tried his grip with both hands around the rope above the knot, saw how far he would drop before he took up the slack, and was almost sure that if the fall did not tear the rope from his grasp, the green limb that anchored the rope in the top of the tree would bow with his weight and break.
Then, all of a sudden, terrified as he was, he knew he would do it. A breeze moved the whole tree around him. A thrill went through his gizzards. He could not back down. Billy Shane watched. Mr. Karns was due any minute. If Michael Paul Summers sat there like a coward and watched him go on by, his courageous friend Billy Shane would look down from heaven and call him a chickenshit, something he had never done when he was alive. Bica came out the back door with clothes to hang on the line and this almost spurred Mikey off the limb to show off. All he needed to do was holler for her to watch and he would have to go, but he did not do it. Bica would be dealt such a fright that she would tell on him and put an end to the whole sashay.
Then, Lord of all Lords, Mr. Karns's new Studebaker tooled around the Nogales curve toward him. lt was about the same color as Maggie's car, but Mikey imagined that Maggie's was a year or two older.
The sight of the car sent a thrill from Mikey's toes to the roots of his hair. Nothing, not fear, not conscience, threats of Saint Michael's, or the anger and disapproval of Viv and Maggie could stop him from piling his and Billy's enemy into the ditch below the tree. The ghost of Billy Shane sat on the limb beside him and strengthened his hold on the rope.
"Bica, watch," Mikey shouted just before the car came into range. He kicked off and fell into the wind, bounced at the end of the slack, felt the high limb bend and straighten like a bow with his weight, saw that he would intercept the car at the very bottom of his arc, and tucked up his legs so he could skim over the car an inch above the windshield. The light of the setting sun glanced off the windshield into his eyes. Mr. Karns's pasty face was a blur in the sun's reflection as it turned to look at him. The car's horn blared and tires shrieked. The reflection of the sun on the windshield dimmed and Mikey looked straight into Maggie Sorrells Summers O'Brien's startled eyes.
Mikey wanted to stop right there, but he flew on to the top of his swing. As he returned to his landing, he saw his mom crash into the ditch beside the road. The car lurched, scraped, and banged to a stop and its front wheel spun in the space over the ditch. His mom did not move to get out of the car. Her door was over the mouth of a culvert. Mikey let go the rope, fell to the ground, and ran to the passenger door. Maggie stared straight ahead. "Mom, I'm sorry," Mikey cried.
After a while Maggie slowly turned her head toward him and said, "Well, this time you almost killed us both. Do you realize, if you keep this up, you will cause both our deaths?"
"Mom . . . "
"Get in and sit down."
Mikey quickly placed his butt in the seat beside her. He did not have to worry about being hit or slapped if his butt was in the seat. Nobody in his family struck a kid or a horse on the head for fear they would make him head shy. The butt was the only place any body ever got hit.
"Mom, I'm sorry. I thought you were somebody else."
"Oh, you wouldn't mind if you scared somebody else to death?"
"Well, yes, but I didn't want to scare you. I only wanted to see if I could do the stunt."
"Mikey, this decides me. You want adventure? I'm going to send you on an adventure that will mean something, an adventure in the education that you sorely lack."
Mikey kept quiet. After this largest of all the scares he had given her, he was ready to give up his life. He could not blame her. He was lost and as good as gone and it was all his own fault. The worst fear of his life would finally be realized. Everybody he loved would live on in his home without him, not because he had been killed or was dangerous to himself or because his parents had forgotten him somewhere and lost him, but because they could not live with him. Maggie was finally justified to ship him clear out of sight and be rid of him.
"Mikey, you're going to Saint Michael's."
"Oh," Mikey muttered softly. That time he was hit in the heart. Maggie glanced quickly into his eyes because he had made the kind of sound she hoped he would not make. His eyes filled with water because his banishment was finally real. He looked up and saw his Nina hurry up the road toward them. The sight of Maggie's car hanging awry and astraddle of the ditch had put her in a frenzy. The buttons were popping open on her dress, which clung to her as though to keep from being shed as her shoulders and thighs bared themselves.
"Now, be a man," Maggie said. "I don't want to have to take a lot of lip from my comadre."
Nina ran up on Mikey's side of the car and shrilled, "Apago el motor, comadre. Shut off the motor, comadre. Turn off the motor. The motor."
Maggie shut it off. Nina looked into Mikey's face. "Are you hurt, mi hijo?"
Mikey shook his head.
"No, only your feelings. What are you two doing in a car that is about to fall into a ditch? Get out of there. Why is this boy crying?"
Mikey wiped his eye with the heel of his hand. "I'm not crying," he said.
"You are crying, and why not, you've been betrayed by your own mother. Isn't it true, comadre? You're finally really going to send your son away? Have you even told him?"
"I just told him and he's all right, aren't you, son?"
"Yes."
"Huh, it's yes, is it?" Nina said. "Those religious will make a priest of him. Is that what you want, comadre?"
"No, comadre," Maggie said. "I only want him to be what he wants to be."
"So he can be anything as long as he becomes a priest or brother or some other kind of prisoner? Shame on you, comadre."
Nina took three steps toward her house and turned back to Maggie again. "Don't send him away without letting me see him again. I will pack a suitcase for him myself."
"We've decided to drive him to Santa Fe."
"Are you sure he needs that much mothering? Any nine-yea-old ought to be able to pack himself away to a boarding school. Why not just set his suitcase out on the highway and let him flag down a bus? Wouldn't that be better than driving him all the way to Santa Fe?"
"Viv and I want to see Santa Fe and the school."
"Lucky for your kid, comadre. Ay, comadre," Nina cried. She turned and walked home.
Mikey and Maggie sat in the stranded car and did not speak until Nina turned into her driveway and disappeared.
Maggie sighed. "Well, son, you don't have to go if you don't want to. I thought you'd be pleased. Doesn't this go along with the plan we made a long time ago? We've talked about getting you a good education ever since I taught you how to read Dick Tracy."
"I know."
"Sooner or later every little boy becomes a man, son. This starts you on that journey"
"I know"
"We'll take you to Santa Fe and stay right with you until you're settled/'
"When do we have to go?"
"Your classes start next Monday, so we have to be there Saturday."
"When will we leave?"
"Friday"
That was when Mikey began to count the days that remained for him to be at home, a sorrowful accounting that he would do the rest of his life. He would have Monday night, then Tuesday, then Wednesday, then Thursday. Three more days and four more nights. Time to go was not here, yet. Not too close, yet. The joy he anticipated with the accomplishment of his feat on the swing had definitely not been realized. He climbed to the top of the tree, took down his grandfather's lariat, coiled it up carefully, stored it in his Granny's closet, and forgot it. Billy Shane was gone. Mikey would
be gone. Spike Shane, Little Bea, his Nina, and Uncle Bill would still be at home every day. Maggie, Bica, Maudy Marie, Baxter, and Pancho would get to stay home. His Granny's place would be absolutely unchanged. He would be a stranger who might be allowed to visit from time to time.
Still, the realization of his banishment was not as bad as he thought it would be. He did not drop dead from sorrow. The shade under his alamo was still sweet when he climbed down with the lariat. Bica called to Maggie that supper was ready and Maggie's answer was cheerful. Not many cars ventured by on the highway. The ones that did timidly passed his house on tiptoes for fear that Tarzan would fall on them. Nothing was wrong at home because of Maggie and Viv's decision to send him away to school. Nina and Maggie threw fits of frenzy over him at least once a week, so this last one would not have extraordinary consequences. Mikey climbed to the top of the corral post that evening to rub the adobes out of the corners of Pancho's eyes. The horse stood so close that he impaled Mikey's belly with his chin whiskers.
"Well, Panchito, you've gone away from time to time to become a horse and now I have to go away to become a man," Mikey said. "We've never been able to stay together long because you had to be a good horse. Now I have to go. I'll send you my thoughts and you send me yours like horses do. I hope you get mine because I'll be clear over in New Mexico.
"I might come home for Christmas, but you'll probably be at work with the remuda at the Baca Float. You'll have to pay for your feed that way because I won't earn money while I'm gone.
Maggie won't pay for your feed and Paul will probably stay down in Mexico."
Mikey looked into Pancho's eye and started to bawl, but he kept talking to get through it.
"Anyway," he squeaked, "I'm just glad that you're such a good horse and I'm grateful for every cow you turned back for me. I know which of us was the one who did it and which one of us got to look good."
Mikey stopped there. He loved Pancho, but he had never said anything like that to him. He was not dumb enough to believe that Pancho loved anybody but another horse. Nobody else was good enough to be loved. He fed Pancho his grain and hay and the horse forgot him. Mikey figured that Pancho liked to be petted, but only if it kept the flies off. He was all business and did not look around to be loved or petted when he was at work because that was the way he made his living. He was in his own world now with his supper because that was his pay for being Pancho.
At the supper table, Viv asked Mikey if he would be ready to cowboy on a drive from Nogales the next day. Mikey looked away from him and said he would not help because he needed to pack and say good-bye to people. Viv then decided that if Mikey was not going to work anymore, Pancho could be turned out to pasture on the Baca Float to save his feed bill.
The next day when the Adams, Cunningham, and O'Brien herd came by, Manuel Valenzuela rode into the yard without looking to the right or to the left, caught Pancho, and led him away. As Pancho lined out to leave the yard, Mikey saw that his eye was on business and he did not look back for Mikey or anything else. The three days went fast and Mikey did not have time for sentiment. Uncle Joe came by with a new football for him. Uncle Fred stopped by, sat, and visited with him in his car and then drove away. Mikey did not expect attention from his other uncles because the cattle needed them.
Nina came in and out of Maggie's with pan de huevo, care, and advice. Bea and Spike came with her at times, but Mikey did not notice them. Maudy Marie was away with Viv all the time. He went over to say good-bye to the Wingos. They were nice, stiff, cool, impersonal, and polite and wished him luck, as always.
He went over to say good-bye to Uncle Bill and caught him as he backed out of his driveway on his way to work. Uncle Bill always kept himself stern, untouchable, and crusty if he thought Mikey was about to bawl. Mikey knew he would bawl if he smelled his Prince Albert tobacco, so he stood away from the car window. Uncle Bill kept his hands on the steering wheel, but he looked into Mikey's eyes. He told Mikey to write to his Nina and be a good boy, then backed out and left for work.
Mikey decided that driveways were the saddest places on earth. The Shanes' driveway was where he and Billy were playing the day Billy's favorite little dog Gypsy dragged in her broken body after a car hit her. That first sight of Gypsy made Billy go mad with grief. Mikey had not seen that kind of grief again until the cars and people gathered there to take Billy's body away for burial. Uncle Bill had treated Mikey like a man so he could go off to school without more pain than necessary.
The grief that he knew from the driveways was not the kind that made him bawl. They were much worse and much more painful. Driveway grief was dry, a drought-stricken grief that tapped everybody's deepest well, the dark well with a bottom that could not be seen or even guessed. A lot of water welled up somewhere inside Mikey at that moment, but he could not tap it. The water was there, but he dare not stop and draw on it.
On the night before they were to leave for Santa Fe, Viv and his partners were tied up with cattle, so Maggie decided to drive Mikey to Phoenix and put him on the train. Mikey was relieved. He and Maggie both knew that two days cooped up in a car on a trip all the way to Santa Fe would probably cause them psychological damage. A drive to Phoenix was just right. He did not want to leave Maggie, but at least he would have a last ride alone with her when he left home. A drive to Phoenix was also short enough so he might not get on her nerves.
The Cunninghams owned a home in Phoenix, and Frankie had driven down to visit Herb. When she heard that Mikey needed a ride to Phoenix, Frankie offered to take him and save Maggie the drive. Maggie did not consider taking him herself for another minute.
Mikey loaded his suitcases into Frankie's car. Nina brought him a shiny new cardboard valise, but her eyes filled with tears and she would not answer when he asked what was in it. Mikey climbed Granny's stoop for a hug and a kiss. He was sure that she would still be right there behind her screen door with her sweet no-lipped kiss if he ever came back. She inverted her little lips when she kissed him. He was lucky. Uncle Buster was the only other one she ever kissed. Something could happen to the whole world, but Granny did not allow anything to happen to her. A hug and a kiss was all he got with the usual "be a good boy," but that was all he wanted.
Baxter climbed the stoop to smile and beat Mikey's leg with his tail. Mikey gave him his hug when he turned away from Granny. He did not love any of his family more than usual that day, but he wanted them all to show it back. Only Nina and Baxter seemed compelled to show anything extra. His mom showed the semblance of a tear, but he knew from experience he could be mistaken about that.
He did right for his mothers when he took his leave. He wanted to bawl, but not from being banished. This was not his first exile, so he would survive, but he had gone away on the other banishments in the company of people he loved. He was not afraid to be alone under the care of people he did not know, either. He felt like bawling because the one he loved most took his going away the way Pancho did. His mothers would go on after he was gone as though he was no longer part of their lives, but Maggie would be the least affected.
Nina smooched him a shrill good-bye, hugged him until his ribs popped, and went home. Maggie kissed him with her straight, full, cool lips. Frankie backed her car out of the driveway and headed down the road to Phoenix. Mikey did not see his Nina when they passed her house.
After that, he looked miserably out his window and did not see or think for a long time. The telephone poles were appropriately bare, weathered, and unaffected by his sorrow as they stuttered by The railroad rails looked as dirty on their smelly ties as he knew them to be. He did not like to be around railroad ties, except the one that had been used all his life as a corner post on Pancho's corral.
Slowly he began to breathe the load off his chest because he owned a spirit that could not stay sad. Before he reached Tucson he and Frankie laughed hard about the way Uncle Herb sat his horse when he was drunk.
Mikey realized that he was seldom free of sadness over Maggie anyway.
He knew that he needed to be able to laugh in spite of being exiled, or he would never know any fun at all. Frankie stood by him, fed him supper, and put him to bed in Uncle Herb's sister Tootie's bed that night in Phoenix. She woke him up, gave him breakfast, took him to the station, and gave him to the train conductor the next morning. She stood outside the window by his seat and waved when she saw him on his way and never once commented about how awful a turn poor Mikey's life had taken.
Because of Frankie's friendship, Mikey did not dwell on the awful turn in his life. Frankie told him how much she loved train depots and trains, so for the rest of his life Mikey saw what she saw about train depots. He sat comfortably in his own seat by his own window and set out to see the world the way adventurers did. The lady who sat across from him cried into her handkerchief and would not look at him, so he did not have to talk to anyone.
Mikey felt a glimmer of happiness when he first realized that he was alone in the world with his first look at new country with no grown-up commentary, opinion, or judgment to influence him. He saw a lot of cow country that turned green as soon as the train crossed the Arizona-New Mexico border. He saw sheep, cattle, and horses of the Indian country with people traveling horseback and in buckboards. He stepped off the train for a thirty-minute rest stop in Albuquerque and squatted to visit with a Pueblo Indian in the shade of the El Tovar Harvey House. The Indian said he lived in a pueblo between Albuquerque and Gallup. He told Mikey that he had competed in football, basketball, track, and boxing on Albuquerque Indian School teams against the Saint Michael's Horsemen when he was in school. He said everybody in New Mexico respected the Horsemen. After Mikey told him he wanted to be an athlete at Saint Michael's, the Indian asked him his name because he said he wanted to be able to tell his friends that he knew him when he became a star.