The Comanche Kid, page 20
I curled up against the wall of the stable, glad that the night was still warm given how wet I was, and I slept the sleep of the dead.
TWENTY-ONE
I heard angels singing, only they weren’t very good angels, or maybe they were good angels but not very good singers, or maybe it didn’t sound like good singing because I had a bad headache and it made the singing sound bad.
I could feel the heat of the sun on my face and I could smell the dirt on me from the corral as well as the vomit on my clothes from last night, and my head felt like a wagon had run over it. My face was sore from where Preacher had hit me, and I couldn’t figure out why there’d be angels singing in this godforsaken town.
I opened my eyes to the glare of the sun and it was blinding already, and it was going to be another brutal day. I squinted across the dusty street and there was a tent, brown with dust, a wooden cross hanging from the top of the tent pole, and there were folks already up and sitting on benches. They were singing, and I realized that was the sound of the angels I’d heard.
I thought to myself, Some angels. If that’s the best that can be drummed up, no wonder God deserted Texas.
I uncurled as slowly as I could, my head feeling like it was going to crack open, and I heard a voice say, “What the hell you doing?”
It was the hostler unlocking the doors to the stable, so I pulled myself onto all fours and I croaked out, “Catching forty winks.”
“Good God,” he said, “can’t you do any better than sleeping in horseshit?”
“I been sleeping on the ground for weeks on end. This ain’t no different. Besides,” I said, “it’s OK. I’m part horse.”
“God forbid you should go and get a room like a decent person. Bet you lost all your money, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“See? That’s why I ask to get paid up front and then all you punchers complain, but I ain’t no fool.” He added, “Hell, you’re just a kid, ain’t you? You got no business getting drunk and losing your money. What the hell would your mother say?”
“She’d be mighty disappointed.”
“There’s a pump on the other side of the stable. Try to get yourself cleaned up, you damned fool child.”
I couldn’t argue with him about that, so I hauled myself to my feet and I had to steady myself with a hand on the stable walls as I walked around to the pump.
I pumped the handle until I got cool water and I threw it all over my face and hair and I soaked my neck scarf and tied it around my neck. I took a long drink and then splashed water all over me again. I wished I could take my new clothes off and wash the dirt and vomit off, and wash myself as well, but I couldn’t do that.
Then the singing angels caught my attention again so I stumbled across the street, struggling to walk a straight line, my brain trying to pound its way out of my skull.
I stood outside the tent watching, and when the singing ended, lo and behold, whoever was leading the services introduced Preacher to the congregation of about a dozen souls. Preacher got up and said his text was from Matthew, and he read from his Bible the verses about the mustard seed.
He put the Bible down and sermonized about how hope and love and mercy and repentance and forgiveness live in all of us, but sometimes they’re only the size of a mustard seed because they’ve been beaten down by life’s sorrows, as well as by our own desire for vengeance, and the temptations of the flesh, and the temptations of pride and power and money. But the seeds of those virtues that live within us must be watered by the love of the Lord if they’re to grow.
Then he got into how the devil’s desires are the size of a mustard seed as well, and slowly he began to hop around and skip and talk in a louder voice and wave his arms around in big gestures, illustrating his words, saying, “Because we give into temptation, we pour water on those evil desires and vines grow from the seeds of those desires and they wrap around our heart and choke it, turning it into a dried-out, unloving, hard heart of stone.”
Then he was on the ground and in the air and exhorting people to let the love of the Lord prune those vines away and fill that heart with the waters of redemption so the seeds of the virtues could grow, and people were saying “Hosanna” and “Hallelujah” and “Amen.”
Then he pointed at me standing outside the tent and he said, “There, right there, is a young man who has given in to temptation because he is filled with the desire for vengeance as well as the desires of the flesh, but he is now filled with regret and remorse and shame, are you not, young man?”
I was looking around thinking someone else must have showed up and been watching and he was pointing at them, but I realized I was the only one there and it was me he was pointing out, and he was saying, “Look at this young man! This young man is no more than a child but his innocence has not protected him, has it, child?”
And that was the second time I’d been called a child that morning.
I wanted to blurt out, “I’m older than you think” and “You don’t know who I really am” and “What about yourself, you hypocrite, gambling and drinking and having your way with whichever one it was last night, and how did I end up in an alley with you anyway?”
But I knew I had to trail a herd to Dodge with him and I figured I’d best keep my mouth shut, and the thought of keeping my mouth shut made me mad and I wanted to backhand him like he’d done me. But now I just wanted to back out of there.
He ran back and forth between the benches, inviting me into the tent and exhorting me to confess my sins, saying there wasn’t a one of them sitting there that wasn’t a sinner as well, and that included even him. I thought, Well, at least that’s the truth. Then a gentleman with a beard and a large handlebar mustache, holding his hat in his hand, got to his feet, weeping, and said he wanted to confess his sins. Preacher turned to him and embraced him and led him up to the front, and I backed away as quickly as I could. I turned and I ran as best I could, stumbling all the way back to the livery stable.
I grabbed my saddle and my blanket and bridle and I hauled them out to the corral and whistled for Ghost and she nickered and ambled over to me. I was surprised she responded to me but she seemed to be throwing me a favor, so I bridled her and saddled her and then I let the two of us out through the corral gate. I hauled myself onto the hurricane deck and headed out of town before Preacher could see me and start in on me again.
It felt good to hit the camp even though the day was already blistering hot. I was bathed in sweat, more from the liquor, I guessed, than from the sun, but the cook fire was going by the wagon and Monty had coffee on. The hands were sitting around in the shade of the wagon since the herd wouldn’t be moving until the rest of the hands got in.
Shakespeare was on the ground leaning up against his bedroll with his legs stretched out and a tin cup of coffee in his hands, his hat low on his head. He said something about the prodigal and asked why was I back so early, saying, “Did you get chased out of town for raising too much hell?”
The other hands called out, “Did you see the elephant?” or “Did you get all the circus you wanted?” and asked if I’d met Miss Rose and wanted to know who I picked, then laughing
at that.
I pulled my saddle and bridle off Ghost and threw them down and Ghost turned and headed for the remuda by herself. Monty pointed to the flapjacks and fried salt pork and biscuits and gravy and coffee. I poured myself a cup and took a biscuit, not knowing if I’d be able to get it down. Even I was aware I needed to be eating something, so I thought I’d give it a try.
I sat down, leaning up against my saddle and stretching out my legs like Shakespeare, tipping my hat over my eyes like him, and I took a sip of the coffee and a bite of the biscuit, and Shakespeare said, “Well?”
With my mouth full I said, “I’m sure Tommy Deuce will tell you all about it.”
Then the hands all said things like, “We want some details!” and “You a man now?”
Shakespeare said, “I’d like to hear about it from you, not from Tommy Deuce. Got to be a verrrry interesting story,” and the way he said it I kept wondering if he knew something I didn’t want him to know.
There wasn’t any point dragging it out, so I said, “I spent some time with one of the doves and she bragged to Tommy Deuce about how well I done. Said I wore her out. I drank rye for the first time ever and I got drunk and I lost all my money playing games of chance.”
At that the boys all said, “Whooo-eee!” and “Good for you, Kid!” and “Welcome to hard times!”
Shakespeare didn’t say anything and I was glad he didn’t do to me what I’d done to him, bullyragging him about losing all his money. At the time I’d wanted to reprimand him about drinking as well, and now I was glad I hadn’t done that. He didn’t ask me any questions about what I’d done with the dove I picked, and again I was sorry I hadn’t had a chance to tell her thanks.
The hands left me alone and commenced to talking among themselves about their own adventures, and Shakespeare and I just sat there in silence. I was mad at him all over again because he was fighting back against a smile that made him look like a damned know-it-all. Once again I felt like some kind of a
fool kid.
The rest of the hands made it in by early afternoon, most of them the worse for wear and some of them barely staying upright in the saddle. Not too long after they’d got something to eat and changed mounts, Big Mike moved the herd out, reminding us that there was a herd behind us and one in front of us, and if there was a stampede, there’d be hell in Georgia.
Things went smoothly, in spite of the relentless heat. For a day or two a couple of the hands were still in such bad shape they were called greeners because they used both hands to stay in the saddle, or took a spill when their horse got out from under them taking a tight turn to recover a stray.
At night the hands all regaled one another with their prowess with the doves using terrible language I’d never heard before, or bragged on the fortune they’d almost made, or bemoaned what they’d lost, or boasted how much they’d drunk, or vowed it was the straight and narrow from here on out. Preacher reminded them he had told them they were all sinners, and they all chimed in that he was the worst sinner of them all.
One night, when we were on nightguard, I passed Preacher as he was singing hymns and I asked him how I ended up in the alley with him. He said, “Hell, Kid, it was that or let you throw up all over the table.”
I still felt like there was something I wasn’t remembering and I was mad at myself for drinking so much that I couldn’t remember. You’re a damn fool kid, I told myself over and over.
Another night, when we were sitting around the fire, somebody reminded Shakespeare we hadn’t heard the end of that story about the girl disguised as a boy, and for some reason I guess he didn’t feel like putting on a show. I swear I caught him throwing a look at me, or maybe I just imagined it because I still didn’t know what he knew. “Well, it all ends happy,” he said. “The duke discovers she’s a girl and he’s fallen in love with her even though he thought she was a boy at first … ”
At that Jack Straw said, “Now, that’s not right!”
Shakespeare ignored him and went on. “So it turns out her twin brother is still alive and didn’t drown to death after all, and when Olivia meets the twin brother she falls for him instead because he looks just like the boy who was actually a girl … ”
And at that Tommy Deuce said, “This is getting real confusing.”
Shakespeare ignored him too. “So the girl who’s disguised as a servant boy is off the hook now, and she can reveal herself as a girl who is actually a noblewoman, and she can marry the duke, who realizes he was in love with her all along even though he thought she was a boy, and he isn’t interested in Olivia anymore, and it ends with everybody happy, mostly.” I swear he threw a look at me again, but in the shadows of the firelight I couldn’t be sure.
Then Shady spoke up. “Now, there’s a whole lot that ain’t right about this story.”
Shakespeare just left it all there. “Well, that’s how it ends.”
I thought that sounded like a bunch of nonsense and it made me mad. It was all so tricky and made up so that it turned out all right for everybody, not like how things happen in real life, so I spoke up. “You can’t tell me that son-of-a-bitch twin brother survived the shipwreck. There’s no way he could survive that.”
Everyone was silent and Shakespeare just looked at me, then he spoke like he was trying to talk me down, as if I had a gun in my hand and was pointing it at someone. He said, “She survived the shipwreck, didn’t she? And her twin brother did too. He just washed up on another part of the shore. That’s not so hard to believe, is it?”
I said, “That’s a bunch of nonsense. Good luck like that don’t happen and it’s not fair to make everyone believe the twin brother was dead and then suddenly he’s alive again.”
That was when the stampede hit.
TWENTY-TWO
We heard thunder first, or what sounded like thunder, but coming from behind us. Coffee cups were thrown down and Jack Straw said, “Looks like the lid is off, boys!”
Hats were grabbed and they all hit their saddles. It was too late to get the mules hooked to the wagon to get it out of the way. No one knew which way to take it anyway, and who knew if the mules would have survived if the herd smashed into them.
There was a peculiar high-pitched yell in the dark and Hard Luck Luke Bronson said, “Comanches!” They were hazing the herd behind us into ours, and that meant we would stampede and hit the herd in front of us. There were going to be some seven or eight thousand cow brutes on the run.
Shakespeare called out to me, “The remuda!”
My anger was gone in an instant and we got into the saddle and pulled away from the camp at a run, heading for the remuda to push it away from the stampede. Our cattle started running before the other herd even hit due to all the yelling and the commotion, and everything was moving one way or another.
Shakespeare and I hurrahed the remuda in an easterly direction, then swung them north, keeping the remuda alongside the herd so they would be available to the hands when they needed to change mounts during the run. Once mounted, the hands all pulled away from the herd, knowing there wasn’t much they could do to stop what was coming at them, and they needed to get the lay of the land first.
When the herd from behind hit, riders from both outfits tried to turn the herds into a mill, but their efforts went for nothing. Turning the herd now was like trying to keep a flash flood from rolling down a dry wash. All they could do was let the herd run, keep apace, and look out for the herd coming up.
A few miles on they caught up with that herd, and now there were some forty hands from all three outfits on horseback, most of their efforts being spent trying to keep themselves from getting hurt. I told myself that Texas was bad enough, but if this is what hell in Georgia is like, I never wanted to go there.
It was a hot run. The day’s heat hadn’t let up when the sun went down and everyone was drenched in sweat and hands were coming in to change out mounts that were covered in lather. Dust was in the air and we were all choking on it even with neck scarves up around our faces, our sweat turning the dust on our scarves to mud. In spite of the dust, a full moon made it easier to see the terrain, and moonlight glinted off the clacking horns in some sort of hazy strange beauty.
Hands peeled off when strays spilled out and they tried to drive them back, leaving some behind and hoping the flankers and drags would catch them and drive them back in, but it was like Sally trying to grab the chickens.
The herds ran until dawn. The sun was getting close to breaking through a copper-colored horizon and the three herds must have decided they’d done enough damage and it was time to stop, so they all just stopped. They stood there with their tongues hanging out, looking like the stupid fools they were, thirsty and panting and hot, and all the hands reined up and canvassed each other, counting heads, making sure no one was lost or hurt, riding back along the line and checking on their outfit.
Early in the run when we knew we were clear of the herd behind us, Shakespeare stopped the remuda and cut the mules out and drove them back to Monty while I then trailed the remuda forward. He caught up and said the wagon had escaped being turned over because the longhorns, as dumb as they were, would rather go around something than run into it.
Later, when Monty joined us and was making bait and coffee and everyone was hot and exhausted, Hard Luck Luke Bronson claimed, “Once upon a time my pony gone down and I got caught on foot in front of a stampede. The whole damn herd went around me instead of over me, and it felt like God was protecting me, or angels was surrounding me.”
Preacher said, “Now, see, boys? That is what you call the grace of God.”
I was still mad about Shakespeare’s story so I said, “That sounds about as believable as that twin brother being washed up onshore. If that was true, where was God and his angels when other hands got run down and trampled to death or got hit by lightning or drowned in a river crossing or burned alive by Comanches? For a man called Hard Luck, you were nothing but lucky.” I added, “I’ll tell you what. The next time we have a stampede why don’t you go out front and get off your pony and show us how it works.”
Then Hard Luck come at me. “Are you calling me a liar, you little bastard?”
I was so mad I didn’t let him scare me. “Yes, I think you’re a goddamned liar.”
“So are you going to cry about it?”
“You son of a bitch!” But before I could hit him the hands separated both of us, Abraham saying, “Calm down, Bronson, there’s no glory in beating up an ignorant child.”
Preacher got between us, arms outstretched, but he said to me, “You got a problem, Kid. You don’t believe in the grace of the Lord.”
“To hell with your belief and your Lord and your grace, Preacher. You’re a fucking hypocrite.”
