News of the World

by Paulette Jiles

  Four years ago he had come up this road to North Texas. It was a year after Maria Luisa died. He had moved out of that graceful Spanish town of San Antonio with its two-story stone buildings and the ornate cast-iron balconies, their cottage roofs shingled with slate. The old Spanish houses all had their backs to the river. The owners of those homes carefully kept record of their descent from the original settlers from the Canary Islands who had come in 1733, the Betancorts, the Reales, they had retreated behind polished wooden window bars. They retreated into the cool of tiled floors. Into the gestures of fans and mantillas and morning mass at San Fernando, increasingly hemmed in by German Catholics and Irish Catholics in the pews, people with incomprehensible languages. Spain, Daughter of Light, Defender of the Faith, Hammer of the Moors, sadly faded.

  He recalled excursions on the river, the girls so like their mother with gray eyes and dark curling hair and boats passing by offering melons. The immense cypresses. The one that was a hundred feet tall knee deep in the San Antonio River. Joyous memories.

  When he met her he had been setting up his own print shop on Plaza de Armas, slinging ink and type, deeply engaged in the process of making words appear on paper. He could pick up a stick of type and read it backward, he knew from the sound of the paten if it would be a good print or not. He knew his inks and his papers. He delighted in these perfectly printed messages to the world even if he were not carrying them personally.

  What good was a beautiful town like that when she was not there? He turned his face to the sky in an effort to clear his head. They went away and never said another word to you again. In some strange way it made him mad. Not a word, not a sign. No messages from the Other World, or perhaps there were signs and he did not see them. He watched two caracara eagles sailing on their black pirate wings, their red hoods and white vests, and heard Johanna singing “Hard Times”: Iss the song and the sigh of the willy . . .

  Weary, he corrected her, smiling.

  Yes Kep-dun, is willy, sigh of a willy.

  They were only a few miles from Lampasas now; around them the creosote bushes were stiff as bones. Their rounded leaves vibrated in the wind. To the north streams of cirrus were like a frosted sandstorm, veils of high-borne mist poured out of the Polar regions. Perhaps more storms to come.

  Soon they would come to the hill country. It was scored by deep canyons and high bluffs. Clear streams cut through layers of limestone. There would be more cover there for raiding parties of Kiowa and Comanche but they would deal with that when they came to it. They pressed on. The wheels of the excursion wagon lifted a spume of dust in yellow and pink. For a long time he could see no other wagons but themselves.

  But after a while they came upon an elderly lady in a gig. He could see it from a long way off as a jiggling dark roundish thing like a beetle that resolved itself into a vehicle with the quavering legs of a long bony horse pulling it. An accordion top rose over the two wheels.

  Well, here is somebody, she said. She pulled up beside them. She was trim and small and wore a new-fashioned pancake hat in straw tipped rakishly to one side. Her white hair was done up in a roll all around the bottom of her head and she wore tight brown driving gloves.

  Yes ma’am, and where are you going?

  I am going all the way to Durand. I believe I can make it in three days. People have tried to discourage me from this journey but I ignore them. I have a lawsuit to pursue.

  I see, said the Captain. From . . . ?

  Lampasas.

  Then you will do me a favor, please. He reached down for his canvas bag of coins. I would be obliged if you would take these two fifty-cent pieces to the fellow at the stave mill there in Durand. The one that makes the brooms.

  That animal, she said. Whatever you are paying him for he doesn’t deserve it. I have half a mind to refuse.

  I wish you wouldn’t. We inadvertently came away with two of his hens and I would not be known as a chicken thief. It has been bothering me.

  There is no chicken in Texas worth half a dollar in silver, sir.

  I consider it an apology, of a sort.

  You have a tender conscience.

  Chicken thieves are not highly regarded.

  True. Give it here, then.

  He stepped down and brought the coins over to her. Many thanks, he said. He lifted his sweat-stained old field hat.

  And where are you going?

  To Castroville, the Captain said. I’m a seed buyer.

  Very well. That girl has a peculiar stare. Is she disturbed in her mind in some way?

  The Captain got back into the wagon and picked up the reins from the driver’s post. No, he said. I wish you a safe journey.

  AT NOON HE put the saddle on Pasha. He would ride alongside the packhorse’s head. This was not friendly country. As he put the saddle on he finally gave in to old age and reached for one of the sheep fleeces out of their stack of blankets and threw it across the saddle seat. So much more comfortable than the hard leather. Johanna watched, her dark blue eyes mild and understanding now that the strange old woman was gone. He snapped a lead on a ring of Fancy’s driving bridle and held the lead in one hand as they went on. Their water bottles were full. It would do. They would be at Lampasas soon. Pasha’s easy smooth walk was a joy to ride and the Captain could not help but pat his neck and fool with his mane and try to get it to lie all on one side.

  THERE WAS QUITE a lot of trouble in Lampasas. He knew this from when he had passed through years earlier. It was one of those feuds between two families, each with a large number of sons. It seemed to be one of the rules or laws of human nature. The boys all grow up together and then they become young men and they fight, at first in play, and then somebody gets hurt, and before you know it the revenge drama is on.

  Around them the dun-colored pelt of grasses shone in the thin sunlight as if it were studded with mica and quartz and now with the days growing longer the first green shoots grew up beneath. He began to see more people on the road going toward Lampasas. As best he could calculate it was a Saturday and perhaps the people in this region found it their custom to come to town to shop or celebrate or seek out company on a Saturday and stay all night to sleep off a hangover or go to church in the morning or both.

  It was now the second week in March and a time of tender growth, when it slowly dawned on people that the world would not always be cold and brown. This high level country was like something unexpectedly and suddenly loved and responding to the bounty of young rain and longer hours of sunlight. Awake, awake, ye drowsy sleeper. The wind was fresh and wet. They drove through the Brooke crossing of the Lampasas River. As in all semi-arid regions the green was all in the riverbeds, the ravines, the stream crossings where water gathered and the wind sailed overhead. Thick colonies of Carrizo cane grew in the little valley of the Lampasas and they shook their glossy plumes in concert.

  When they reached the level again, the Captain and Johanna came across a group of four men on horseback, with stampede strings hanging down their backs and hair-tassels at the end of the strings. They were all armed. They pulled up their horses strung straight across the road. They were the people now being called “cowboys,” an occupational specialty that moved into place as the buffalo were shot in their millions.

  He pulled up Pasha and Fancy. Johanna would be troubled and so he got down and came to stand beside her where she sat on the front seat. After a moment’s stillness she stood up and vaulted over the backrest with her skirts flying and dropped down in the wagon bed between the water butt and the box of food and cooking supplies. She took to the jorongo as an otter slides into his hole.

  Curative Waters, said one of the men.

  Bullet holes, said another.

  They wore broad-brimmed hats against the relentless sun, the brims shading the V of skin showing in their open shirt collars. They carried reatas at the right-hand side of their saddles. All of them right-handed. They were riding Mother Hubbard saddles with big flat horns and a flank cinch. Bunches of pig
gin’ strings tied on the left side.

  Where y’all coming from?

  Durand, the Captain said. And we are headed to Castroville, fifteen miles west of San Antonio. Would you like me to get out a map and show you?

  No sir, said another. I know where it is. Shooter Weiss gets seed from there. He paused. I don’t know how to spell his name. He’s a Kraut.

  Then it would be S-c-h-u-t-e-r, said the Captain. Now, is there any particular reason you are blocking my road?

  They turned to one another and their horses shifted. They were small horses with thick, long manes and tails that swept the road. Mustangs. The horses had sloped back ends like whippets.

  There’s been a lot of raiding between here and Castroville, said one. The Comanches and the Kiowa are driving people out of the hill country. They got cover down there. Can’t see them coming, like up here. It’s almost empty down there. People driven out. You had best take care.

  I will.

  Well, are you going into Lampasas?

  That’s where this road goes. And since it is apparently the only one, I did not contemplate riding straight off into the trackless wilds of Lampasas County. Is there some other road you could recommend?

  The tallest one among them said, Sir, I remember you from when you read your newspapers there one time in Meridian. I was most interested to hear all the news. So I tell you what. You might not want to go into Wiley and Toland’s saloon, it’s called The Gem. I am telling you because you ought to know that the Horrell brothers find refreshment there when they are not out shooting down Mexican persons.

  You don’t say. And they would object to my appearing there?

  They all looked at one another.

  Tell him, said one.

  Well then, the tallest one said. They are all wrapped around the axle about the Eastern newspapers, the ones that show engravings of cowboys, and they think they ought to be appearing in them. And if you show up to read the news they are going to start hassling you to read about them.

  You are joking.

  I am not. They are mentally not very fast. They are every one of them one brick short of a load. And when we heard of you coming I said, Well, by God—excuse me young lady—(he touched his hat)—that there must be the Captain come to read his newspapers. And so, me and my brothers, we heard you read in Meridian one time and we were impressed by all the happenings everywhere and everything, and we sure liked your reading.

  The others nodded. Johanna saw the man touch his hat and look at her and wondered what it meant. Perhaps a warning. He might throw it at her, he might be directing a curse of some sort at her.

  You are very kind, said the Captain.

  And I said, I bet the Horrell brothers is going to expect themselves to be in the Eastern newspapers and when they are not they are going to raise Old Jack with the Captain. And besides there’s going to be some kind of a meeting about a farmer’s union and a dance and they get all excited. Benjamin starts in stuttering.

  That’s thinking ahead, said one of the others. He turned, loose and supple at the waist, to keep the Captain in view as his restive little horse spun to the left in a quick move to unseat him. He kept it going right on around and brought it back to where it had been in the first place, facing the Captain and said, Quit that you son of a bitch. He touched his hat. Excuse me young lady.

  Johanna sat with a stilled face inside the jorongo, her favorite cave of red wool, her magical protection.

  I appreciate your concern, the Captain said.

  Happy to be of service, said the tall one. We are busting cattle out of the brush over there on Bean Creek and we come across old Mrs. Becker going north on the Durand road and she said she seen you and you was worried about some stolen chickens. So we came riding back to find you.

  Ah well, a minor matter, said the Captain. He stood beside Pasha and patted his jaw, sat his hat lower on his forehead.

  Yes sir. So my brother here said, Well, that’s Captain Kidd and we’d best leave our work and go warn him. Those cows can stay laid up one more day. They ain’t going to get no wilder than they already are.

  Another brother said, Not possible.

  A third said, We’ll be around here somewhere, you know, for the night.

  Kidd nodded slowly. You have no bedrolls, he said.

  Yes sir, well, we just lay down on the ground and sleep.

  I see. The Captain was silent a moment, puzzling over the Horrell brothers, people whose minds were lost in such delusions, such avid desire for worldly fame.

  And what about the English newspapers? said the Captain. Do they expect themselves to be on the front page of the London Times?

  Sir, said the taller one. The Horrells don’t know there is a England.

  Well. Thank you so much for this excellent information. The Captain stepped into the stirrup and was proud of the fact that at age seventy-one he could step up from the ground onto a sixteen-hand horse. With some pain but no flinching he swung into the saddle. Clearly there was no question of doing a reading at all. He said, I will be sure to park my traps and gear and this delicate young lady nearby the springs and never stir until I can get the hell out of Lampasas.

  No, seventy-two. He had just turned seventy-two on March 15, yesterday, as he had turned sixteen just before Horseshoe Bend and at that time it would have been beyond belief that he would even live to see this age, much less be traveling along a distant road far to the west, still in one piece, alive and unaccountably happy.

  SEVENTEEN

  HE HAD DECIDED to avoid the Horrell brothers at all costs, but the Horrell brothers found them.

  The Captain was unlimbering where they had parked beside the beautiful Lampasas springs and the giant live oaks that surrounded them. The spring was in a low place, one of the soothing green low places of this high and dry country, and made a reflective pond. The surface tossed glittering reflections against the trunks. On one side was a stand of Carrizo cane, graceful and green. It had tall plumed heads. Great limbs overhead were alive with birds on their spring migration to the north, lately come up from Mexico; the quick and nervous robins, the low song of a yellow oriole, painted buntings in their outrageous clown colors.

  The Horrell brothers sat on their horses and watched as the Captain and Johanna began unloading their gear. They rode good horses, Copperbottom breeds, Steel Dust lineage. The Captain could see it in the lines of their bodies. They sat and watched Pasha narrowly as he grazed in the long grasses at the verge of the spring. The live oaks were high overhead and the evening breeze moved over the surface of the water. The Captain ignored them.

  You’re the man that reads the news.

  Yes, I am.

  Well how come we ain’t in the news?

  I don’t know, the Captain said. I don’t write the newspapers.

  I’m Merritt Horrell and this is Tom and he’s my brother, and these are my other brothers here. Mart and Benjamin and Sam.

  The five brothers wore various articles of dress that had been pieced together out of military uniforms from both sides, missing buttons and faded to an unvarying slate color. One had two different kinds of stirrups, one metal, one wood, and none of their hats seemed to fit. The youngest, or at least the smallest, no more than fourteen by the look of him, wore a derby far too big for his head and the Captain realized the boy had stuffed the inside band with rags or paper to make it fit. It seemed suspended over his small head. Whatever woman had raised these five boys must now be in the county asylum, if Lampasas County had one, and if they did not, they had best build one soon.

  Enchanted, gentlemen, he said. Maybe you are in the news. You could well be in the news back in the east. Say, Chicago or the little one-sheet paper in Ball Ground, Georgia. Just think. The Captain shook out his newspapers. Perhaps London or even California.

  Well, we should be, said Merritt. He had a dull stare that was also strangely intent. We killed a right smart of Mexicans. You’d think they’d put in something.

  He took off
his hat and slapped the edge of his hand into the crown to straighten the crease. He looked as if he had combed his stiff yellow hair with a skillet.

  Kidd nodded and said, And nobody objects to your killing a right smart of Mexicans?

  Ain’t nobody. Merritt replaced his hat and then crossed his hands on the saddle horn. Governor Davis chucked out everbody that was with the Confederacy and never replaced them. Some Army people come around sometimes. I guess they would object probably.

  Could be. The Captain reached for a roll of rope and turned and strung it between two trees and began to throw the blankets over it to air them.

  Would they be doing a wood engraving of us?

  I have no idea.

  He looked up and saw Johanna on the far side of the spring, watching from the Carrizo cane. This surprised him. She could move so silently when she wanted. She was an apparition of flying hair and bare feet in the deepening shadows. The cane plumes rose and fell with the chilly breeze, all around and above her head.

  Well, said Merritt. Come to the saloon in town, it’s called The Gem, the other one is The Great Western, but come to The Gem and read your news. Telling how we pursued the hated Red Man and everthing, how the Higgins brothers cruelly murdered, et cetera. Despite Davis’s pitiless state police and like that.

  I hope you won’t mind if I am late.

  No sir, not at all. You come anytime. If people don’t want to hear you read about us, well then, we would not object to them leaving.

  And so he did not go, but sat up and waited and before nine o’clock by his hunting watch he could tell from the noise in town the Horrells were probably drunk. He could hear them all the way from the springs; sounds of music and shouts, far away and thin. He watched the night world and heard its sounds. He smelled tobacco smoke. He watched Pasha; the horse lifted his head from his grazing and stared across the spring at what Kidd guessed were other horses but did not call out. The Captain saw the glow of a cigarette. The Merritt brothers were there and guarding him and Johanna as they said they would. They would take turns, watch on watch. He did not sleep at all that night but sat leaning against a wheel with his revolver in hand and they left before it was daylight.