I gawped. It was Lill Martine.
Dressed in drab brown, her hair caught in a braid down her back, she lifted the child into the air, her belly a swollen sphere, then nose-to-nose scolded the baby. “What am I to do with this little rabbit!” She looked not just well but happy.
Osterlund materialized at the door, leaned languidly against the jamb, and regarded the pair with pleasure.
I wish I could say it wasn’t so, but my first reaction was anger. My face heating, my hands shaking, I had too long thought of Osterlund as the enemy. But then Lill grimaced, and Osterlund strode from the porch and took the baby from her, putting a hand on her arm as Lill waved him off, one hand on her back. “It’s nothing.”
He led her back to the porch, pulled a chair from the shadows, and helped her sit, before turning the little girl upside down to make her laugh.
What does one do, realizing his shining armor is pure imagination? I was as naked as the emperor, and my future, my reason, my past as spectral as any flight of fancy. Can one blame the catalyst of desire for the fan of action that follows?
I couldn’t. As I watched the little family on the cozy porch, my heat slowly dissipated into the cool evening and was replaced by longing. Not for Lill, but for what it seemed she had. The three spent a quiet hour in small talk and baby games as the sun played its colorful set. I watched, a hungry man witnessing the feast, until they went inside at dark, Ry holding the door for Lill, the child half asleep now in his arms.
I turned away, desperate to escape the abandoned yard, leave them to their chickens, their tomatoes, their happiness. She had done well without me. I hoped the same for my mother. And, though it pained horribly, I knew deep down I wished the same for Phaegin.
Curly was bitterly disappointed when I returned with nothing edible. He scowled. “No fault a yers you cain’t forrige, I s’pose.” He shook his head. “I shoulda gone. I woulda brought somethin’ back, that’s fer sure. Wouldna been eatin’ porridge fer supper. If I never see another pot of cornmeal it’ll be too soon; never eat another bean, OK with me. I want some meat, some potato, and brown gravy.”
I didn’t have the energy to deal with him. “Fine. Next time you go. I’m sure we’ll be eating like kings.”
Halfway through the next morning we heard lowing and bawling, so we pulled the cart to the slow rise of a hill and looked over. A couple hundred red and black cattle skirted a line of cottonwoods that themselves skirted a dry creek. Half a dozen men rode along, drifting up and down and keeping the herd in a shifting bunch. Farther downcountry beyond the herd was the remuda and, in a little flat on the creek bottom, the roundup wagon and camp of the outfit.
Curly hunkered down with a hungry look on his face and watched, imagining himself one of them and accompanying the silent actions of the cowboys with dime-novel dialogue. “You’s the cow boss? I’m looking to fill in on yer spread. I broke ever’ horse thrown me, but fer two that broke their necks while I was in the middle of ’em. Won’ give me a post? I’ll show you punkin’ rollers what fer. Take a look at the busy end of my gun, gonna comb yer hair with my forty-five, knock yer jaw so far back you’ll scratch the back o’ yer neck with yer front teeth. I ain’t never drunk milk, much less pumped a cow. Seein’ things different, are ye? Sure. Gimme that cayuse right there, make a shine cow pony, bunch them dogies.” He sighed and glanced at me. “Look at ’em. That’s the life.”
“It’s work, Curly. Give it a week for the glow to wear off, and you’d be complaining about that too.” I inclined my head, indicating Go.
“Wouldn’t complain.” He looked at me pleadingly. “Let’s join up with ’em.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to tell him real cowboys would be as likely to want Curly along on their trail as they would desire a hippopotamus to nursemaid. “They’re going the wrong way, Curly, likely heading for Leavenworth. Besides, it’s too risky. They might figure out who we are.”
“You stopped with the dirty Mormons!”
“That didn’t turn out so well, did it?”
I felt kind of bad, the desire on his face so raw I relented and let him watch for another half hour as the cattle headed northeast and out of our way. When the cattle and the men were distant enough, I prodded him. “Let’s go.”
“Don’t want to.”
“Curly.” I trudged forward with the cart. When I was some distance away and beginning to worry he might just trade me in for the wranglers, creating yet another fiasco, he caught up. Though I was relieved not to have to fight to make him come with me, my relief was short-lived. The cowboy bug had given Curly a new head of steam in trying to ride Chin.
Chin wasn’t about to let Curly near. I tried not to resent the energy the two consumed as they zigzagged, trading off to pursue or elude, trotting in front and behind the cart I strained against. I gritted my teeth and told myself that at least it was keeping Curly moving at a decent clip.
He hollered, “Here, Chin, come on now, gimme a little ride, you’ll like it, you know you will.” He whined. He yelled invectives. He wheedled.
Finally Curly picked up a dirt clod and threw it at Chin. “Stump-sucking, shad-bellied, pot-gutted, hog-backed piece of crow bait! You’re no horse. Pig was a better horse’n you! You’re a pile of pig crap!” Curly picked up a juniper stem and with a whistling thwack laid a stripe across her haunch. Chin neighed and bucked. I grabbed Curly’s arm and shook him. “She doesn’t want to be ridden, she doesn’t like you, and, believe me, beating her isn’t going to make her warm up!”
Curly shook free and glared at me. “Leave it to you to have a no-good horse.”
I laughed. “Leave it to me to have a no-good Curly!”
“Fuck you, Ned. I don’ blame Phaegin for not comin’ with us. You cain’t be nice to anybody.”
The comment on Phaegin smarted and I gave up to my temper, rounding on Curly. “I was nice enough to you to get myself on a wanted poster, you damned hoodlum.”
“I ain’t no damned hoodlum!” He balled his fists and advanced on me.
“You’re worse than a hoodlum. You’re a petty thief and about as far from a cowboy as a snot-nosed tiddler can get.” I balled my own fists. Chin shook her head at the commotion, blowing and stamping.
“If you’d get a decent horse I’d be a cowboy for sure, but you cain’t get nothin’, not a horse, not a girl, not even anythin’ good to eat.”
Chin, Curly, and I circled one another.
“You want a horse, Curly, do some work for one. Couldn’t even stir yourself to pick up a few bones. For Pete’s sake, you can’t even manage to put your back into your own escape.”
“I done more work in my lifetime than you ever have, and you know it.”
I did know it, but I didn’t care. “You ruin my life, and you have the gall to complain about me?”
“You ruint mine. I shoulda stayed where I was. My mother woulda come to get me by now.”
“Your mother couldn’t care less.”
He dropped his fists. I dropped mine. His lip quivered but his eyes narrowed. “Sure enough my ma could care less, Ned. She could care about me like your mam cared ’bout you.”
The three of us stood our ground, ten feet between each of us and no means to draw closer, so we merely faced the sun and went on, in an unforgiving triangle of grass, for miles of misery.
At day’s end we built a fire. It was cold now in the evenings; our blankets did not do the weather justice. Curly and I ate our wormy cornmeal and glared at each other across the flames. The only pleasure in the night, hating each other for our own misfortunes.
I woke in the morning to a skin of hoarfrost on my blanket. The longer hair along Chin’s back was white as well. I laughed and went to shake Curly awake to see Chin looking like a skunk, but he was gone. I figured he’d gone to take a pee, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. I waited for some time, playing one possibility in my head out and then another. His bedroll was slept in and still here. If he was leaving for good, he would’ve take
n that. Nobody could’ve abducted him. First of all, who would want to; second of all, I was a light sleeper and I would have heard. Could he have fallen, knocked himself out rolling down an embankment? I circled the camp in wider and wider passes, calling Curly’s name, finding nothing. Chin acted peculiarly, trotting off a few paces then back. Not finding him after an hour of searching, I gave in.
“You think you know where he is? Fine. Show me.”
I followed Chin at a jog. She took me toward where Curly had lain on his stomach and watched the cowboys. He must have walked half the night to reach the new camp.
“Of course.” I hunkered down and watched the men, hoping to catch sight of Curly and get a sense of what was waiting for me. I discerned a strangeness to the cowboys’ movements. Some of them drifted along the lines of cattle as before, but a crew of four or five were scouring the grass near where the remuda had been picketed. There was no sign of Curly. I’d have to go down and figure out what was going on. To do that I needed to ride Chin. Men in this country did not treat horses like pets.
I patted the big horse. “Girl. Let’s go.” Chin bobbed her head and stood patiently while I grabbed her mane, took a leap, and swung my leg over her back.
Riding like the farmer I hoped they’d take me for, I rode down to where the cowboys were traversing a square of grass.
“Hey, there,” I called from some distance. If they were going to be unfriendly, I wanted some head start. But they nodded. A slight youth took off a hat and waved it.
When I got within twenty feet I asked, “What are you doing?”
An old cowboy, hunched and puckered like his strings had pulled too tight, spit and snarled, “May as well look for a hair on a frog.”
The freckle-faced kid, already bowlegged and squint-eyed though he looked barely sixteen, grinned. “We had a horse thief last night. Meaner’n a basket of snakes!”
My pulse picked up. It couldn’t be, I told myself. The old cowboy straightened as much as he could, which seemed to make his legs bow wider in recompense, snapped, “Who’re you?”
I pointed east. “I homestead out that way. Wheat farmer. Heard your dogies bawlin’, thought I’d check it out.”
The old man guffawed. “Wheat. You people don’t learn nothin’.” He went back to kicking the grass, moving slowly forward.
“So. What happened with this horse thief you saw?”
“Saw nothing!” The young one beamed. “We got him! He was trying to take one of the cow ponies and they put up a fuss. Fred over there was first on the scene, and there was this little shrimp cussing like a sailor with the foreman’s horse in hand. Fred said, ‘Reach for the sky, pardner!’”
The cowboy with the full beard spat and shook his head. “Danny, you’re so full of shit. Fred didn’t say no fool thing like reach for the sky. He prob’ly said, Let go the horse if he said anything.”
Danny shrugged. “So the thief pulls his gun, but he’s got a case of slow and Fred fires back and lets sunshine through him like he was a pane of glass!”
I relaxed my jaw enough to try to effect a nonchalant, “Yeah, he hit ’im?” and willed my stomach to keep in place.
“You bet. Nailed him in the arm. But he got fight enough left, we wore him out. Time his horns was clipped. He’s so skinned up, looked like the U.S. flag! We tied him up—”
“I ain’t never seen a horse thief before.” I cut him off. “You mind if I take a look?”
The bearded cowboy looked up. “Fred took him in to Ogallala. We was gonna hang him ourselves, but he was no bigger ’n a badger.”
“Mean as one too, cross as a snappin’ turtle, crooked as a snake in a cactus patch, could swaller nails and spit out corkscrews. A redhead loco!”
The old cowboy swore and shouted at the young fellow. “Would you put a plug in your talk box?”
I turned Chin and headed back toward the handcart. After a couple of steps I called out, “What are you fellas looking for?”
The young cowboy didn’t reply, looking hot and embarrassed. The bearded cowboy grunted. “When Fred shot the little bastard, the kid threw his pistol somewheres.”
When I got back to camp I looked through my bag. Sure enough, my pistol was gone and all the ammunition. They hadn’t known who Curly was in the cattle outfit, but when the law got ahold of him in Ogallala, they’d figure it out in a minute. “God damn stupid, stupid, stupid!” I kicked Curly’s bedroll. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”
I sat down. Chin stuck her muzzle on the top of my head, denting my hat. I reached up and stroked her pie-plate cheek. “They shot him, Chin. He’s a boy, and they shot him. And now they’ll hang him.” They’d hang him twice if they could.
“And we can’t do anything about it!” I put my head on my knees and let misery wash over me. Misery and guilt, panic, and no little amount of pure pity for myself. After some time Chin pushed at me. I pushed back. She shoved hard enough I was pitched onto my side.
“Fine. I suppose we should go take a look.” It wouldn’t be any good for me to be caught as well, so I trimmed my beard as neatly as I could with a knife and no mirror, dug my long coat from my bag, then ripped a piece of cloth from Curly’s blanket into a collar, hoping that would give me the look of a preacher. Once we commenced on our journey, I was glad of the coat. The weather had suddenly turned cold. Seventy degrees the week before, and now a chill wind blew the temperatures down enough I was wishing for gloves and glad of Chin’s warmth underneath me.
Ogallala was not much more than a row of thrown-together pine boards, masquerading as mercantiles, bars, and a boxlike structure that served as jailhouse. I rode sedately in, circled the buildings and tents, and headed back to the jail. As I neared I saw a familiar face I couldn’t place. He was leaned against the door, frowning and stroking his goatee and mustache as he talked to the sheriff. The sheriff wore a circular pin on which was stamped a star. I glanced at the other man several times, trying to figure where I had seen him before: the fort, the train? Then it hit me. On the poster Dawbs had shown me. The man leaning against the door was Coy Hayes. The bounty hunter, mean as a snake, who always got his man.
I kept going. When I rounded the corner by the saloon, I stopped, got off Chin, and told her to stay put. I wandered back toward the jail. The two men had left. I walked around the jail, looking for anyone who might be keeping a lookout on the premises. Nothing. I went round back. There was a small barred window up high. I pushed a rain barrel from the corner, stood on it, and looked in.
Curly was sitting on a narrow slat bed, his left arm wrapped in bandages, his head down.
“Curly!”
His head shot up. His face was streaked with dirt, he looked like he had a black eye, and blood crusted from his nose to his chin. Still, he smiled. “Ah, Ned, you came.”
“Of course I came, Curly. Are you all right?”
Curly shrugged and lifted his arm. “Lost a little meat’s all. Worse ’n that is the pants rats I caught sitting in here.”
I laughed, then shook my head. “Curly, what the hell have you done?”
He clouded. “I’m in big trouble, Ned. Huge trouble. That fella Dawbs tol’ us about says he’s gonna hang me. I don’t wanna be hanged, Ned. I don’ mind bein’ shot, but they say dyin’ on the rope goes real slow. Feels like hours, all the time being strangulated, and yer eyes pop out. I wouldn’t mind if they shot me….” He tightened his lips and looked away. “You gotta get outta here, Ned, they’re lookin’ for you too. Tryin’ to help me’s like barkin’ at a knot. I just gotta tell you one thing, ask you one favor.”
“No, you don’t. We’ll get you out of this, Curly.”
He shook his head. “You know that snooker you saw in the coal mine? It warn’t me.”
I frowned. “It wasn’t?”
“Nah, the lady in that office, she just gave you my name to get me out of the mine. I was playin’ poker in the mule barn when it happened.”
“Why would she do that?”
H
is eyes filled. “She’s my mam.”
I thought back to that day in the office. The secretary fluttering along the edges, pretty woman, red curly hair pulled back in a bun. So she was the woman who worked for the rich man, who saved Curly cakes from tea when she could. I’d thought it all yarn.
Curly nodded. “She put me in the orphanage when I’s born. She weren’t married and all, but she always kep’ track. She and I were gonna get chickens.” He paused. “Would you tell her, Ned, that … I don’t know. If I say I’m OK she’ll wonder why I don’ come for her. Tell her I was some kinda hero, tell her I did something good, I can’t even think what but you’re good with words, come up with somethin’. Tell her I bit it while I was doin’ the good thing. That’d be best.”
Someone pulled at the back of my jacket. “What’s going on here?”
I jumped off the barrel and faced a thin man with an entirely bald head. I put out my hand. “Preacher Owens. I hear this man is on trial for horse thievery.”
“Thievery ain’t the half of it.” The man ran his hand over his slick scalp. “He’s an anarchist. Getting the rope tomorrow. Coy Hayes hisself is in town.” He rubbed his head again. “Say, you got a dime for a drink?”
I drew myself up. “God does not want you to salve your sins with drink. Go to Him and feel the rapture of the soul.”
He waved me off. “Faw! Go t’hell.”
Coy Hayes came around the corner. I put up my hand and shouted after the bald man. “Seek Him and He will provide the solace the bottle promises and never truly offers.”
Coy Hayes eyed me.
I stuck out my hand and shook his. “Preacher Owens. From outpost to outpost of Satan’s constabulary, I preach to the wicked, the lost, and those waiting to be saved. Sixty-eight jailhouses in this year alone.”
Coy rubbed his chin. “Get out of here. He needs savin’ like a steer needs a saddle blanket.”
“All God’s creatures—”
“I said get the hell out.”
I shrugged and walked away, Coy Hayes’s formidable stare burning into my back. Halfway down the street, Coy seemed to think better of my proscription. He yelled, “Hold up there, preacher!” And the way he said it made me think there was no good in letting on I heard his call. Though he shouted again, I held myself to a walk for a few more steps, turned the corner, and then I ran. I zigzagged through the alleys of tents and squatters’ huts and headed for the livery. Once there, I dove into the hay. Five minutes later three men came in, looked around, and called, “He’s not here!”
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