The Last Cowboy

by Lee Gowan

  The cowboy looks from Sam to me and raises his eyebrows. “Sam, she’s a guest. I wouldn’t want her to get lost. I’ll take her there.”

  Sam keeps staring at the ground. For an uncomfortably long time, no one speaks. I go over to the car and get a smoke and light it up. When I look back, I see that the cowboy is still watching me. Sam breaks the silence, speaking very softly, and for a moment I think he’s talking to me: “Whatever happened to that rifle Dad used to have? You know the little one we used to hunt gophers with when we were kids?”

  The cowboy raises his hand to his chin. “Why, you got a gopher problem?”

  “Yeah. I was hoping it was here.”

  “No, no. It’s over at Dad’s with the others. The only gun here is that old handgun Grandpa pointed at Mr. Chong that time. The Colt .45.”

  “Pointed at who?”

  “Mr. Chong. You remember that.”

  “No. What do you mean?”

  “That time we went up there to look for Grandpa’s horse. Nitro. You remember that.”

  “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You were there. It’s an old Colt. You want it? I think I’ve even got a few shells. It’d obliterate a gopher.”

  “It would, would it?”

  “Yeah. It would blow it to pieces. Do you want it?”

  “Who’s Mr. Chong?” I ask.

  “A neighbour,” the cowboy says. “Used to be a neighbour. He moved away, must be over twenty-five years ago.”

  “I don’t even remember him,” Sam says.

  The cowboy looks at me. “Sam has one of those memories.”

  “I remember you shooting my favourite toy car with that little rifle,” Sam says.

  “What?” the cowboy says. “I never did. I don’t remember that.”

  “There’s another side to every story,” Sam says.

  The cowboy shrugs. “Do you want me to get you that gun?”

  “That’s all right,” Sam says.

  I see now, as he raises his head, that tears are tracing their way down his cheeks, and he shakes his head slowly from side to side as he stares into his brother’s eyes with an expression that is either of the deepest love or deepest hatred I’ve ever seen. I look away.

  When I look back, Sam has walked across the yard and is getting into an old pickup truck.

  “What are you doing?” the cowboy asks.

  “Since the car’s not fixed yet, I thought I’d borrow your truck.”

  His voice cracks.

  “Feel free,” the cowboy says.

  For a moment the starter grinds, and then it catches.

  “Thanks for the ride. Nice to meet you,” he calls to me, his eyes suddenly softer, as though he’s reached another plateau in his grief.

  “You’re welcome,” I say.

  The truck leaps forwards as he pops the clutch and drives away.

  The cowboy watches the truck out of the yard and turns to me.

  “Well, he’s in a bit of a lather today, isn’t he?”

  JANUARY 2nd, 1971: NEAR BROKEN HEAD

  IS IT POSSIBLE the geese are flying in this disaster? I could swear I heard geese honking for a second there. Course not. It’s January. Or it was when we left the house and walked out into this bit of weather, however many centuries ago that was. Couldn’t be geese. Probably only one of them Injun wind spirits that suck your blood out.

  Much prefer geese.

  Yep, the boy’s still back there.

  Is it really January already? After Christmas, at any rate, ’cause I remember the boys unwrapping their presents, and Christ’s pagan tree’s still in the corner of the living room. Ah, there’s worse sins than tree worship. Geese might not agree, but they’ve got other reasons to dislike Christmas. Bit too late for honking off on their winter vacation, though I suppose better late than never is all that counts on a day like today. Even the few stragglers who were stuffing themselves a little heavy on what was left under the swaths when the harvester got through would be frozen solid by now. Deliberating a little too long over the last supper. A little body, a little blood. And what’s that you say, Judas? You’re buying the next round? Where’d you collect all that silver? Must have returned the empties. Thanks for the thought, but if you need to put your lips to me, I’d prefer you plant one on my other end. That’s right. Just like the goose taught ya.

  My ass is pretty near the only part of me left that’s got any feeling. The boy’s still back there, hunched close to his pony to break the wind from hitting him in the face. Wind’s shifting a bit, so I’m not as sure as I should be which way we’re going. Maybe we should turn back. But I’d like to check that clump of poplar near the cutbank. That’s likely where they’d be. Though you never know with a cow. She’ll drop a calf on the highest hill in the coldest wind, just to make sure she’s truly alone. But she’s an older cow, so should have enough sense to find some shelter. Better check the poplars while we’re this close. Just so long as we’ve got enough warmth left in us to get back home.

  Likely couldn’t hear any geese even if they were up there in the blowing. But it is nice to imagine them gliding over the storm. Who knows, it may be okay once you’re up above the snow. If only this horse were a little taller. A little smarter. A little blacker. A little softer in the saddle area. Too long in the barn, I’ve been. This wind’s colder than the Statue of Liberty’s pussy in January. It is January, isn’t it? At least for the birds it’s a tailwind, pushing them on south. Old, grey goose looking down on a shroud of winter and dreaming of Mexico as he sails over my fool head. Never did get to Mexico myself. Missed all that warm water and all those sweet señoritas. And getting my gringo throat slit.

  Won’t worry about falling shit. Be frozen by the time it got to me at any rate. Might smart when it hits, but won’t make much mess.

  Yeah, it’s January. Christmas is definitely over. Forgot to get Him anything for His birthday this year. So this is what He got me. And it’s not even my birthday. That picture Mary once gave me is hanging in the bedroom now. Used to hang in the living room, but the boy’s wife wanted it moved so she could put up one of her pictures. Some stupid thing with mountains. Mary’s is a good picture: a collie in a blizzard, standing over a calf and howling for help. The collie’s Christ, Mary told me, and I suppose she was right. Blind seekers, we are searching out the weakest of the flock to save its sorry soul. Wish to Christ I was Christ, ’cause in that case I’d most likely be in a whorehouse or a lady’s chamber and could maybe get a piece on the side. Evening, ladies, are you prepared to service your Lord? I can see by your eyes you have need of a little bit of Jesus in ya. What’s the going rate for the redemption of a soul? Ask Mary Magdalene. Don’t tell me that our Lord didn’t have her oiling more than his feet.

  My mind seems to be in the gutter. Riding’s always done that to me. Simple physics, I suppose. Objects in motion. Friction keeps the one essential organ warm. DeWho’s third law of whatever. Where was DeWho when the butler was inventing gravity? Not much point making it a law if it can’t be broken. Leastways, that’s what the doctor told me, just before he burst into flames. Goodbye, Doctor. Goodbye, Dad. Write if you get work. Close the door behind you. Wouldn’t want snow blowing into the foyer. All I ever lacked in life was a foyer.

  I’m losing it here. Better watch I don’t drift off in a drift.

  Boy’s still back there.

  God, I wish there was something to look at besides this white on white on white on white. If I use my wrist to wipe the snotsicle off my nose again, maybe I’ll be able to get enough air to wake up my brain and smell my way to that stupid cow. What the hell was she doing out on a day like today anyway? Giving birth. That’s a poor sort of excuse. Certainly not one I’d ever use myself, at any rate.

  You’d think he’d have realized by now, after having two boys himself, and after being woke up in the middle of the night by the fearful bawling, and after wiping the endless river of drool off their chins and the snot off their
upper lips and the shit off their bums—after all of that, you’d think he’d have come to some kind of understanding of what I, his father for Chrissakes, did for him, and of what he owes to me. The grunting and sweating between his mother’s legs was the fun part, but after that there’s not much to recommend the process. I soon began to realize that the prize I thought I’d got when I caught her, those luscious breasts and that lovely moist purse to put one more deposit in whenever the mood came over me, was a mirage that faded away as soon as the boy took root inside her. All of a sudden, she was never in the mood. And so, I was patient. Or not so patient really, but I had to take solace in depositing in purses that weren’t quite so handy to come by. Once the baby was born, she kept right on rolling away and telling me she didn’t feel the need for me, until I thought maybe she’d felt the last of my need. And then she surprised me. With a rope.

  That’s what he hates me for. I never replaced her with anything warm and filling. Suckling happily away at her nipples all day long, he was the only lover she ever needed or wanted. I soon began to realize I hadn’t caught her at all; it was she who had caught me. And now that my usefulness in that respect was over—now that she had the seed she wanted out of me—I could be assigned to the far side of the bed, my rifle and shovel at the ready should the wolf come to the door. Which is all well and fine, so far as she and the boy were concerned, but what’s in the bargain for the wolf?

  A cow.

  A blob, really. Just a slightly greyer shade in a field of white and greyish white. Not in the shelter of the poplars. Out here in the middle of nowhere. Miracle we found her. I wave and point to let the boy know, but he seems to be studying the back of his horse. I pull the reins and prescribe that particular direction, and only then realize that the horse has been leading me, which means we must already be heading home and all of my efforts to force the ball-less wonder out could very well have been what caused us to miss our mark in the first place. I thought he just wanted back in the barn, but maybe he was trying to lead me right to her. I don’t know him well enough. I didn’t trust him. You’ve got to trust your horse, or you end up trusting in your own simple plans, and there’s not much percentage in that.

  By the time the boy sees her, we’re not ten feet away, which doesn’t at all diminish the effects of her shape upon his dark, deprived eyes. He sits up straight for the first time since we left the barn, and I can see him squinting his eyes up as though he can’t really believe what’s there, or maybe thinks he’s approaching the pearly gates and had better start checking for his passport and figuring out what he ought to declare.

  “She’s there,” he yells so loud I can actually hear him. Maybe thinks he’s the one who discovered her. A regular Columbus. He lifts his bum right up off the saddle trying to make sure he really sees her there in front of him, nosing down at a patch of snow at her feet. And she is there, all right. All cow. All mother.

  That, surely, is what John hates me for. Killing his mother and not even bothering to find him another. Except old Molly, who was harder than flint, and twice as sharp. Mary would have been a good mother. Except that she left him behind, didn’t she? I never left him behind. But do I get any credit for that?

  I get down and reach into the lump of snow the old boss’s nose is giving attention to, and that white mound shivers under my hands. It’s alive. Praise the Lord, the whiteness lives! I grab a handful of white and pull it up into the too-light world, the second time this has happened to the poor thing in the last few hours. A boy, wouldn’t you know. Steer material. Nothing born in this kind of weather has a scarecrow’s chance in hell of keeping its balls. Too much hard living to overcome. But we’ll keep you around for the sacrifice, little fellow. No sense dying on your birthday.

  Sam the Younger’s eyes are open so wide he’s liable to go blind from letting in too much light. He jumps down from the horse to help me, so I let him pat the calf’s hind end while its mother bawls, a bit concerned, and licks at its head. She seems to know that we’re not planning on eating her baby, for the moment, at least, and lets me sling him over the horse, in front of my saddle. That’ll warm his empty belly. Maybe even get a little friction going in his willy, like it’s done for me. Got to look for pleasure wherever you can find it in this cold world. Let that be your first lesson in life.

  “Let’s get home,” I say to the boy, and he gets back on his horse without even a hand up from me. That’s the fastest he’s ever obeyed an order in all his decade of soft living.

  I climb back on, myself. No need to think about steering now. Just let the horses take us home. The sun must be getting pretty low: the world glows like a fair lady’s bracelet on a sunny evening in June. Shot of whiskey would be good right at this moment. Even hot chocolate would do fine.

  The boy’s almost smiling, like he’s thinking of hot chocolate too.

  JUNE 29th, 2000: NEAR BROKEN HEAD

  THE SPRINKLERS WHIRLED, arcing into a million droplets, making Sam’s yard the only patch of green in a brown world. Gwen’s roses along the driveway were beginning to bloom. Michael was still on the swing set, throwing his head back to make himself drunk with the motion. Sam parked Vern’s truck and stepped out into the oppressively bright sunshine. Was the boy wearing his sunscreen? Would Vern ever remember about such things? Not bloody likely.

  When Michael saw it was Sam, he pumped himself harder, sprang from the swing, landed on the run and threw his arms around his father, hugging with all his nine-year-old might. This was love, pure and simple: the flesh and the blood and bone of it. How could he have ever greeted his sons without knowing what love meant? How could he have ever doubted that he was loved?

  “Bring me anything?”

  Sam shook his head. “Sorry. Not this time.”

  “What happened to your shirt, Dad?”

  “Nothing. I just got a little grease on it.”

  “Cool. Why do you have Uncle Vern’s truck?”

  Uncle Vern. He remembered that he’d left his jacket lying there in Uncle Vern’s yard.

  “Just borrowed it.”

  “The starter’s going. He said I could help him change it. I got my report card.”

  “You did. And did you do okay?”

  “Yeah.” He looked at the ground.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I didn’t do that good at math.”

  “That’s okay. I’m sure you did your best. We’ll work on it together.”

  Sam gave him a bear hug, squeezing him too hard in an attempt to prevent himself from losing all control.

  “Daaad!”

  He held Michael’s head to his chest so that the boy could not look up and see the stupid tears in his father’s eyes. “You know your mom and dad love you, don’t you?”

  “I sure hope so,” Michael said.

  “And you know … you know that whatever happens, you can always tell me anything?”

  Michael didn’t answer. Sam released him, and the boy stepped back and turned away, as if to look at the flowering plum growing beside the lilacs. Sam pushed him out to arm’s length so he could study him, but the boy would not look at him. Instead, he stared down between his feet at the grass. He reached down and picked up a pebble.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nuthin’.”

  “You can, you know? You can tell your dad anything.”

  Michael shook his head solemnly, his eyes fixed on the pebble in his hand. Sam looked hard too. It was a black stone shot through with a vein of quartz. It would go well in Michael’s rock collection. Almost any stone went well in Michael’s rock collection. His criterion was quite inclusive. A stone only had to be pretty, and, God knows, most stones were.

  “Sure you can,” Sam insisted. “What is it? Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did you break something?” Sam glanced towards the wall of glass.

  “Nope.”

  The venetian blinds were all lowered and drawn as a guard against th
e afternoon sun; the private world withheld from nature’s prying eye. No hawk would get an eyeful of breast, spy the mute fumbling for buttons.

  “What is it, Michael?”

  “Nuthin’.”

  “Come over here, and let’s sit down.”

  He drew his son over to the patio furniture, and the boy came on stiff legs, still staring at the pebble in his hand. Sam sat, and Michael collapsed heavily into a chair.

  “I know I haven’t always been … Daddy works too hard. I know that. That’s going to change. I want to spend more time with you and your brother. And your mother.”

  The boy shrugged and kicked at a corner of a paving stone. “What do you mean? We don’t mind if you work. You have to work. We know that. You got to buy things. For everybody.”

  “That’s true, Michael, but I don’t need to work so much, and I want to spend more time with you. I want you to know how much you mean to me. If there’s something bothering you, I want you to know that you can talk to me about it.”

  The boy threw the pebble. It bounced into tall grass and was gone. They would not likely ever find it again.

  “Okay. I know. Okay.”

  “So what is it you want to tell me?”

  “Nuthin’.”

  “Michael!”

  His son looked him in the eye now, and Sam could see tears beginning to form.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “No, I can’t.” Michael looked at the ground.

  “You can tell me anything. Anything at all.”

  Michael sucked in a breath. “It would make you feel bad.”

  Sam took his own deep breath, trying to fight back tears. “What do you mean, Michael? What is it? You can tell me. You can tell me anything.”

  Michael shook his head more slowly, biting both his bottom and top lips so that his mouth was just a hard line of flesh. “It’ll make you sad.”

  Sam knelt before the boy, his hands on his shoulders, wondering what had come to pass in a world where a nine-year-old boy could feel it necessary to protect his father from some terrible sorrow.