Horseman, Pass By

by Larry McMurtry

  There were a couple of police cars around the house most of the day. I saw the deputy sheriff out in the back yard looking around a time or two, but he didn’t come to the barn. Late in the afternoon Hud and Lily and Grandma came out on the back porch and stood awhile, and then Hud and Lily got in the Cadillac and drove away. The Cadillac’s grille was still all mashed in, but Hud had managed to get it running. Hud looked okay, and he acted like he was running things. I tried to decide for myself why he really killed Granddad, but I couldn’t. I never could tell why Hud did things; he was too much a mystery to me. But I could sure tell that he was in control, and that Truman Peters, or the law, or anybody else wasn’t going to get him stopped for a while. I knew they’d probably have some kind of a trial about Granddad’s killing, but they wouldn’t give Hud much trouble. I had watched a good many trials in Thalia, and I’d seen a lot dumber people than Hud get away with doing a lot worse things than he had done. Even if they hung a sentence on him it would be suspended. With Granddad gone, nobody would slow Hud down.

  During the heat of the day the loft was like an oven, and I had to sneak down to the water tank a time or two to drink. Finally I wet my shirt and spread it under me for a pallet, but I didn’t go to sleep. Cars kept driving up to the house, and I watched the people go in. Most of them were womenfolks, bringing things to eat. Later in the afternoon, when it began to cool off, they really came thick, and a lot of people were milling around in the back yard. The sky was the same big sky I had always known, the same blues and whites and grays, and the same hawks circling around in it. About dark I climbed down and went to the house. The people tried to make a fuss over me, but I told them I didn’t feel good, and I went to my room and changed clothes. There were piles of food in the kitchen, and I was hungry, so I went back down and ate a little. It turned out the food was mostly cakes and potato salad. Nobody paid much attention to me, because a carload of Granny’s kinfolk had come in about that time. When I was full, I slipped out of the back door and left in the pickup.

  It was Halmea I wanted to talk to, and I drove to her house first. I felt like Halmea would have heard all about it, and would be waiting for me to come and talk. When I drove up to the house there were a few colored boys and a couple of girls standing in the street. They were laughing and hugging themselves and pushing each other around for the fun of it. I saw one girl who was Halmea’s friend. It seems like her name was Eunice. I went over to them and they all quit laughing, and I asked them if they knew where I could find Halmea.

  “You too late,” Eunice said. “She done left fo’ Dee-troit. She been gone since yesterdy.”

  “Already left?” I said. I felt silly and disappointed. It was an awful letdown, and for a minute I didn’t know what to say.

  “She tol’ me you’d be comin’ aroun’,” the girl said. “But she didn’t say why she goin’, and she didn’t leave no ’dress with me. You might get it from Aunt Beulah.”

  But the address wouldn’t have given me what I wanted, and I didn’t waste any time trying to explain it all to the old deaf woman who was rocking on the porch. If Halmea was gone, they were all gone, and Thalia might as well be empty. I was so disappointed I almost turned around and went back home, but finally I drove down to Hermy’s. I thought there might at least be some news about him. Sometimes rodeo performers aren’t hurt as bad as it looks like at first, and I thought he might even be home from the hospital.

  Hermy’s little sister met me at the door. She said her folks were still at the hospital, and that she’d been left at home with the littlest kids. She was about sixteen, and her name was Grace. I had dated her once or twice, but I’d known her so long, and Hermy and I were such close buddies, that we didn’t accomplish much together. She said she didn’t know anything. She thought Hermy was still pretty bad off. I found out which hospital he was in, and left. I meant to go see him as soon as I could get away. When I left Hermy’s house I went downtown and made the square a time or two, but it was Sunday night, and only one night after the rodeo, and nobody was there but old Buttermilk and his dog. I began to feel like I was the only person left in the country, and it was a shitty feeling. On my way home, though, I stopped in at Bill’s a minute for a hamburger and ran into Buddy Andrews and another kid or two, and we sat around and fed the jukebox until it was pretty late.

  2.

  There didn’t seem to be a soul there when I came up to the church, and that suited me fine. It was Monday afternoon, right in the hottest part of the day. I had taken all I could stand of Grandma and her kinfolks, and once I was dressed up there wasn’t anyplace to go but to the church house. When I saw there wasn’t any cars parked out in front I felt better, and I hurried up the steps. Inside it would at least be cool and quiet and peaceful, not like the ranch house.

  But when I opened the doors I saw that I had been mistaken. They must have just driven the hearse away to gas it up. I stood inside, on the thick carpet, and the black coffin set right in front of me, below the pulpit. I didn’t want to sit in the family section that they had marked off with blue ribbon, so I sat down close to the back. I picked up a songbook to hold in my hands.

  Two of the funeral people were there waiting: the man from the home, and Old Lady Singer, who played the piano. The minute I sat down Old Lady Singer began to play “Abide with Me,” and she kept on playing it for hours it seemed like, all the time the people were coming in. The piano didn’t sound too well in tune, and the old lady wasn’t too good at playing it, either. I squeezed the song-book in my hand and made it bend. The man from the funeral home was one of the sorriest shits I had ever seen. Watching him, I wasn’t so sad, not even with the sorrowful music the old lady was playing. He made me feel cold, and scornful, I guess. I had seen him the day before at the house, late in the afternoon. He had been whining around Granny about providence, when all he wanted was to get both hands in somebody’s pocket. He was really spruced up for the big occasion, wearing a tar-paper-black suit and black shoes with flashy wing tips. There were a lot of big springy piles of flowers around the coffin, and he was arranging them. Once in a while he sneaked a glance at me or the old lady, to see if we appreciated his labor. The little black button of his hearing aid stuck on the side of his head like a woman’s earring. I wanted to go up and see Granddad someway and have my good-by over with, but all I could do was listen to the sorrowful music, and squeeze the songbook. I squeezed it and squeezed it until I thought the notes would drip out and splash on the floor.

  But anyhow, it was dark in the church, and the deep-blue glass windows were cool as shady water. I always liked those blue windows, and I liked the rich brown wood of the church seats, wood that was the color of Halmea’s breasts. But they had a sweety-sweet picture of Jesus over the choir booths that I didn’t like at all. Jesus looked like he was a Boy Scout, waiting to get his twenty-first merit badge from the head Scout Master.

  I was trying to decide to leave, when the people began to come through the church doors. A world of ranch people came. The bosses were there from all the headquarters, and a lot of hired hands with them, and a few that were just loose cowboys. A good many of them had worked for Granddad at one time or another, and nearly all of them had worked with him. Then the old ladies from Thalia trooped in, whispering to one another and shaking powder on the aisles. I could hear them whispering how Granddad had gone to a better place. They could think so and go to hell; I didn’t believe it. Not unless dirt is a better place than air. I could see Granddad in my mind a thousand ways, but always he was on the ranch doing something, he wasn’t in any loaf-around eternal life. I could see him riding, enjoying his good horses; or I could see him tending the cattle; or see him just standing in the grass, looking at the land and trying to figure out ways to beat the dry weather and the wind. Those were good places to me, and any one of them was a damn sight better than being in a church house, in a coffin, with a chicken-shit snooping around you and a lot of old ladies talking. They could talk Bible till they were blue in
the face, and end up dirt too someday. The longer I sat and watched it—the man, the old ladies, the little girls coming in fluffed up like cotton candy—the colder I got, and the worse I hated it all. More people came than Granddad would ever have dreamed of having: store people and businessmen and oil drillers and strangers by the swarm. People were at the funeral that Granddad hadn’t ever seen. Some were there that he’d forgotten, and some that he hated and despised. Their wives were with them, all wearing slick black dresses, with little veils hanging down over their eyes and white gloves on their hands. In a little while the whole church was full, except for the two rows they saved for Grandma and her people. The funeral-home man put some of the late ones to bringing in chairs from the Sunday-school rooms, so they could fill the aisles.

  Finally I saw Grandma and one of her sisters go by, and I knew it was fixing to start. Grandma didn’t look at me. Then somebody took hold of my arm, and I saw Hud. He was wearing a new, expensive-looking suit, and a necktie with it.

  “You come on,” he said. “You got to sit with us.”

  I didn’t want to move, so I didn’t say anything. But Hud squeezed my arm till I felt his fingers pinching the bone, and I knew I had to go or be dragged. I got up, but I kept the songbook in my hand.

  He sat me down so close to the front that I could see the glass cover of the coffin, and the satin padding around the inside rim. Seeing it made me feel weak. Two of the ladies on the row behind me were sniffling, and hearing them made me cold again.

  Then Old Lady Singer stopped playing for a minute. When she did, the choir trailed in, and the two preachers right behind them. One of the preachers was Brother Barstow, and the other one I didn’t know. They sat down without saying a word. Then the choir got up again, and began to sing “Rock of Ages.” When they got to the line about the water and the blood I began to shiver, and I couldn’t stop myself.

  When the song was finished, the preacher I didn’t know got up and went to the pulpit. He leaned on it for a long time and looked down at us without saying anything. He took his handkerchief out of his coat pocket, and I thought he was going to cry like the old ladies. But he just cleaned his glasses. When he got them clean, he fished a little card out of his pocket and began to read about Granddad.

  He read his name to be Homer Lisle Bannon—born in Texas in 1868, and died there 1954. Died the last day of July. He told how Granddad had come to the Panhandle when he was just a boy, and how he had been a cowboy and a cattleman all his life. He told about him marrying my real grandmother, and when she died; and he told about when my daddy was born, and when he died; and he told about Granddad marrying Grandma, and he mentioned me. Then he went on and told a lot that wasn’t true, about Granddad and the church. He told some more that wasn’t true about Granddad’s being respected and loved by people all over the state. There wasn’t hardly anybody cared much for Granddad. Some liked him and some were scared of him and a good many hated his guts. Me and a few cowmen and a few hands and an old-timer or two loved and respected him some.

  Hud hadn’t changed expression the whole time, but Grandma had quit sniffling and was sitting up looking proud. The tears had rutted out the powder on her cheeks until her face looked like wet plaster. Then Mrs. Turner, the lady who sang the high parts for the choir, came down to the piano to sing a solo. She sang solos for everything, but she practiced her singing, and was good at it. The song she sang was “Yes, We’ll Gather at the River,” and she sang it too fine for me to stay cold. Yes, she sung, we’ll gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river. She sang out, and I could see the cords quivering in her throat. While she was singing I wasn’t mad, and my eyes got hot and I had to wipe the wetness away with my fingers. She made the song go higher and higher, and as long as it lasted everything was different, and I thought again that Granddad might be moving above the pastures. I saw the river, running down the canyon and out under the trees, with cattle standing in it, and horses watering at the pools. It was a sight Granddad always loved, a flowing river. But Mrs. Turner finished too soon, and sat down, and I knew she wouldn’t sing any more by herself. I lost the river, and heard the women sniffling, and I knew Granddad was done with flowing water for good and all.

  Brother Barstow got up, then, to do the sermon, and I got dry quick. Brother Barstow was Grandma’s crony, and Granddad’s mortal enemy. He was a big man, proud as a peafowl, always gossiping with widow women, and trying to get something on everybody, just in case. Grandma used to have him out to the ranch a lot, to devil Granddad. The first time he came, Granddad was polite enough, but he told the preacher plain as day that he had got along without churches for a good long while, and that he didn’t intend to start with them so late. Then one day Brother Barstow came out, during a revival week, and tried to get Granddad to say he’d go with Jesus. He didn’t explain where. Granddad thought it was ignorant talk, and told him so. But Brother Barstow kept on about it till he made Granddad mad, and Granddad run him off. Granny had him back, but after that Granddad stayed out of his way.

  When he got to the pulpit he took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead and his eyes. Then he looked up at the ceiling, and stuck the handkerchief back in his pocket. “Let us pray,” he said.

  “Our dear Heavenly Father,” he said. “One of our beloved neighbors has been called up to dwell with Thee. We that are left here with our anguish and loss pray that You will receive him into Glory, and feast him, and keep him in Your holy Love, throughout Eternity. Homer Bannon was one of Your faithful servants. He was a herdsman, and he tended his flocks and Yours well; and we know that You will grant him his reward. We bow our heads to You, oh God, and put our trust in Thy love and Thy mercy. And we won’t fear for Homer Bannon, because we know he is with You. But for those of you Your children who must remain longer in this place of trials and sorrows, we pray You will send strength. We pray that You will plant Your rod, that we may lean on it and grow strong, so that when the day comes for us to lay down our earthly husks, as Brother Homer has, we may come humbly and penitent to Thee. Be with us now, and give us courage, as we ask these things in the name of Thy son our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

  Granny and her kinfolks and the old ladies were crying like they were all about to die, and Brother Barstow stood looking down at them, calm and shiny-eyed, like they were just little kids with skint knees. He waited till they got a little quieter, and then he began to turn through his Bible. He acted like he had lost his place, and he kept turning pages, looking for it. Then-all he found the place he wanted, and he bent over it and nodded. The people got quiet, and he raised his head and popped the Bible shut.

  “Good people,” he said, “we have gathered here in this holy place today to mourn the closing of another great book of life. Brother Homer Bannon, whom we all knew and loved, has at last been called to his rest.” Hud leaned over then and whispered in my ear—it was the only time he moved during the whole sermon. “Called, my ass,” he said. “It looked to me like he was driven.”

  Brother Barstow went right on.

  “As his good friend and pastor, I knew Homer Bannon well, and in his declining years I visited him often. We grew to know one another, and as our friendship ripened, Homer and I often sat and talked about the day when he would be going to his reward.

  “And so, my friends, my own heart was as grieved as yours to hear of Homer’s passing. This morning it grieved me so that I couldn’t sleep. I got out of bed and went out on my porch, and I watched the night turn to morning. And when I saw God’s sun come up, when I saw it shed the message of His glory over the world, I thought of Homer Bannon, and I was reassured.”

  He stood there a minute, solemn, and he opened his Bible and began to read. I wished I could have laughed out loud at all he said. I wish I could have laughed and laughed and laughed. Or I wish Hud would have done it. But we didn’t.

  “In the Book of Genesis, Fifth Chapter, Twenty-fourth verse, it says: ‘And Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took h
im.’” He closed the Bible again and leaned on it with his elbow.

  “And friends, that is how it was with Homer Bannon,” he said. “He walked with God, and God took him. Homer raised his horses and his cattle on God’s earth. He watched over them like a good shepherd, and because he did, God made his life a Glory.

  “Homer was a friend to God, and God gave him a long life. He gave him material abundance, and He gave him a loving family to watch over him in the days of his feebleness. And now God has taken him, taken him where he will never have to labor in the sun and the sleet again. He has taken him to a range it is not ours to trod, where the grass withereth not, and neither does the water fail. Homer made a date with God, an appointment, and he kept it. Many’s the time, before the days of his infirmities, when I have seen Homer Bannon riding out to tend his herds, and I have thought: There is a good man. There is a man for God.’ And now, he has not perished, he has merely kept his contract with God, and ridden on. And we who are left have a contract with God also, and if we follow Homer’s example we will someday be granted our appointment. When that appointment comes, when we get to that place, that land beyond the river, richer than even this land, finer than even this land, we will find our friend Homer Bannon there ahead of us, ranging on Eternity. ‘And Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him.’”