The Comanche Kid, page 24
I said, “Yes, sir,” and he was off, and I was left standing there, feeling like a fool.
They got the herds sorted out and the strays brought in after a week or more of hot, dusty work, then one after the other the herds were lined out and pointed north, a couple of days between each one to give them some space as they traveled.
At night, I had bad dreams. Several times I woke up screaming because I thought rattlesnakes were crawling over me. Shakespeare got to me first, but when I come to myself I told him to stay the fuck away from me, that I could handle myself. He’d back off, but the nightmares were so scary and so real all I really wanted was for him to hold me and calm me down and tell me everything was going to be OK. Often I couldn’t go back to sleep and sometimes I’d try not to fall asleep, knowing the nightmares were going to come, and once I heard Hard Luck Luke Bronson say to Abraham, “She’s going to stampede the herd if she keeps that goddamn caterwauling up. I liked her better when she was a boy.”
Sometimes at night I’d go down to the remuda and stand with Ghost and lean into her and just breathe for a few minutes. I begged over and over again for the nightmares to stop, but after a while I was just repeating myself, so I leaned up against her neck and she put her head over my shoulder and I swear I felt the fear leave my body. For a while, there would be peace.
One time when I was visiting her during the day, I turned away from her to go back to the wagon and Shakespeare was standing there, holding the reins to his horse, just standing there and looking at me with that soft, sad smile of his, and I hadn’t even heard him come up.
I was startled and I took a step back, and he said, “You see anyone around?”
I looked around and I said, “No.”
“Does anyone see us?”
I didn’t understand what he was driving at. “No, not that I can see.”
He stepped in close and before I understood what he was doing, he pulled my hat off and tossed it down and then he put his hand in my hair and he drew me in and he kissed me, and then I was kissing him back, and then I stepped away real quick and I said, “You can’t do that,” but it was everything I had wanted ever since I had first seen him swim the river and turn the herd midstream.
He said, “No?”
He mounted up and I reached out and put my hand on him before he could ride off and I said, “I’ve never been kissed before.”
He leaned way down, grabbed me by my good arm, hauled me up closer to him, and he kissed me again, and I kissed him back, and then he set me down. “Well, now you’ve been kissed twice.”
He did that smile of his, turned his horse away, and rode off. He looked tall and lean and he rode with such an easy grace. I swore I could see the sun glinting off copper in his sandy hair, and I told myself I loved him and I put my fingers to my hair where he had touched it, and then to my lips, and my lips felt beautiful, and my shoulder hurt even though he’d hauled me up by my good arm, but I didn’t mind because it meant I had been there, held by him, if only for a few seconds.
One night I was crawling into my bedroll under the wagon, when I saw Shakespeare coming up from the remuda leading Ghost. I thought, What’s he doing with my pony? I crawled back out and I said, “What’s this?”
He began to saddle her up. “What’re you going to do if there’s a stampede?” I hadn’t even thought about that so I just stood there real dumb, and he said, “Hmmm?”
I said, “Get in the wagon, I guess.”
“Yeah, that’s real smart. Hope they don’t knock the wagon over, right? Look around you. Every hand here has a horse saddled nearby so he can nightguard or mount up if there’s trouble. What the hell kind of a ranny doesn’t have his horse by him?” Then he corrected himself and said, “Or her.” He handed me the reins. “So I saddled her for you, or are you going to get all salty and tell me you could have managed that all by yourself?”
He winked at me and he started to walk away but he turned back and he came in close and he said, real low, “I’ve seen you talk to that horse, haven’t I?”
I got real embarrassed at that. “So what if I have?”
“Well, crawl into that bedroll and keep ahold of the reins and try talking to her. It might help with the nightmares.”
Before he could leave, I whispered to him, “You can’t stand real close like this and talk to me. It’s not good for your reputation.”
He laughed out loud and several of the hands looked over and he whispered back to me, “Reputation, reputation, I’ve lost my reputation,” and he walked away shaking his head and laughing and I just knew he was quoting something from one of those Shakespeare plays.
But I kept Ghost hobbled close to me at night and I’d hold on to her reins and I’d lie there and imagine her heart beating and listen to her chuffing and breathing. I could smell her hide and I could smell the leather of her reins and sometimes there was a breeze that blew the smell of the cattle and the prairie grasses across me. I’d feel my heart slow down and I’d feel her strength flow into my hand and down my arm and into my body, and the hate I felt for the Comanches who had destroyed my family would ebb away. I’d stop imagining all the different ways I would like to have killed the three who beat me, and I’d start thinking about how beautiful Ghost was and what a mystery she was, so powerful and fast and graceful. Who was she that she was so patient and always willing to listen to me?
I remembered Ma telling me no horse could really understand what I was saying, but I knew she was wrong. I told her, “You said you talked to God and God talked to you, so what is the difference if I can talk to a horse? At least the horse is really there.”
She got sharp with me, saying, “Unverschämt! Don’t be impudent! God is not a horse!”
I tried to tell myself I was making things up, but night after night, as I held Ghost’s reins, the nightmares eased off, and when I woke before dawn to help Monty, her reins wouldn’t be in my hand anymore, but I could feel her with me still.
TWENTY-SIX
The days were hot and the drive was slow and relentless. There was rain sometimes and it was miserable getting the bait ready. When it wasn’t wet there was wind, hard and constant, the dust blowing into the cooking and ashes from the fire blowing in as well. It wasn’t any damn picnic.
I kept Ghost by the wagon at night but I rode one of the other horses in my string during the day, snaking in firewood and sometimes bringing Monty quail eggs or chokecherries or prairie turnips. I always stayed in sight of the wagon like Big Mike said. I’d wave to Monty and he’d wave back, and at some point during the day I’d drive the wagon myself, sitting next to Monty.
If we saw a herd of whitetail he’d send one of the hands out to see if we couldn’t get some venison. Sometimes we’d stop the wagon by a creek and pick wild plums for jelly or pies, or some herb he could use in a stew or for medicine, such as greasewood leaves for colds or a sore throat. As my body healed I made a point of being up before him and already have the cook fire going and the coffee brewing. He’d smile and nod in approval, and I got to where I could hook up the mules by myself, with both hands.
As we rode he taught me words in Mexican, la camisa for shirt and el guante for glove and el caballo, and he’d ask me, “¿Que es la vaca?”
I’d point at the herd and say, “La vaca es otro animal doméstico,” and he’d laugh and say, “¡Sí! ¡Sí!” as if I’d just given some big long speech in Mexican.
I pointed out flowers, him saying girasol or primavera, then he laughed at my pronunciation when I repeated him. One time I pointed out a plant and told him I was surprised to see it this far north, and Pa called it dead man’s walking stick. I asked him what it was in Mexican.
He said, “Ocotillo.”
I said I liked that name better, but I got quiet remembering the bloody red blossoms on it when I found Ma and Pa and Jamie dead. We didn’t talk anymore for a while.
One time I asked him what was his daughters’ names and he said, “Angelina and Gabriela.” I told him they were pretty names, but what I really wanted to ask was how he was able to go on after losing his daughters. It seemed to me if you lost everything, then you might as well put a gun to your head, because what was the point?
I’d thought of that off and on. There were times at night when I thought Sally might be dead or gone forever to Mexico, so why not kill myself, because there was nothing left. I’d put my hand on the Schofield and close my eyes and I wondered what the explosion would be like, whether or not I’d feel anything or even hear it, and I’d realize I couldn’t breathe. Then Ghost would nicker or pull on the reins and I’d come to myself and breathe again, and I told myself I’d think about that another day.
One day I hinted to Monty that if I couldn’t find Sally I didn’t know what I’d do. He just shrugged and said, “Hey, you go on.” That seemed awfully simple, if not impossible, but then Shakespeare’s words came back to me.
Only the dead stay down.
At night, the hands played dominoes or read the Police Gazette over and over. Some of them encouraged Shakespeare to tell another story, so he started in on some comedy about two sets of twins who were separated at birth and then found each other, but there was confusion over which twin was married to what wife, the wives confused by it and getting it wrong. He acted out the roles and got the hands to say lines and everybody laughed and some of them called out insults to the characters. They told this one wife—who was mad at the husband, who wasn’t really her husband, but she didn’t realize it, her telling him what a bad husband he was—they told her, “Boy have you got the prod on!” or “What a highbinder you are!”
I found myself wondering why Shakespeare wrote about twins all the time. Didn’t he have plays where kings were murdered or lovers ran away? Hearing about twins was a sore subject with me.
Shakespeare took the hint about staying away from me but he found ways to get a word in anyway, saying things when no one was around, such as, “Your hair is getting longer,” but he said it like he liked how it looked.
I’d get beet red and say, “Well, whose isn’t? We been out here long enough, yours is getting longer too.”
Sometimes when I handed him coffee his hand touched mine, and I knew he’d done it on purpose, and sometimes when he was just passing by he’d wink at me and I’d turn red again and I’d get mad at myself for being so hungry for him to notice me. I told myself I needed to lock the door on those feelings.
We would stop outside of some town and Monty would go in for supplies. The hands would go in all rollicky and get drunk and visit the doves or play games of chance and come back looking like they’d been beaten with sticks. I didn’t want any part of it, so I stayed back at the camp. Once the hurrahing was over, we’d push north again, crossing the plains, and the sky was high and blue and hot and the land level and the wind hard and constant. You could see for miles and miles, and day after day we got closer to Dodge.
Sometimes at night, when I was lying under the wagon, I’d close my eyes and run my hand through my hair where Shakespeare had touched it, or with my fingers I’d touch my lips and remember him kissing me. Sometimes I’d slip my hand under my shirt and put it on my breast and wonder what it would be like to have him touch me there.
One night I woke up with a jolt, hearing something moving under the wagon. I got panicky, wondering if it was a rattlesnake or a Comanche who knew where I was hiding, or some coyote or wolf edging closer to kill me like I’d dreamed before. I pulled the Schofield out and cocked it, and then I heard Shakespeare’s voice saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy, Kid.”
I whispered, “What are you doing here? You can’t be here!”
He shushed me and said, “Put that thing away before you kill one of us.” He moved up beside me and lay down on his back next to me. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d check in on you.”
“You can check in on me during the day. You need to check out of here right now.”
“Shush. You know very well if I try to check in on you during the day you won’t talk to me. So just take it easy. How’re you doing?”
I stayed silent, and then he reached up and touched the bottom of the tarpaulin cradle above us filled with wood and chips, “Whoa, sure can’t see the stars from under here, can you?”
I stayed silent.
He said, “Now we’re at the point when you would say, ‘So how are you doing, Shakespeare?’ And I’d tell you I had a close call when I was riding the rough off of that ugly sorrel this morning and damned if I didn’t get thrown, but I fell where it wasn’t so hard, so I’m pretty lucky, and you’d tell me you’re glad I didn’t get hurt, and then I’d tell you how the moon looked when I was out nightriding earlier this evening and wondering if you’d noticed it, and we’d both start talking about how full it looked coming up over the horizon. Any of this seem like a possibility to you? Just talking to each other?”
I didn’t answer him.
Then he asked, “So how old are you really?”
“Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, what does it matter?”
He thought about that for a minute. Then he touched my hair again, only just barely, so I let him do it. “What’s your name?”
I turned and looked straight at him. “That’s mine. It’s all I got left.”
“OK. Even if I knew your name I’d probably still call you Kid.”
While he was touching my hair he eased the back of his hand up against my face, right against my cheek. I let him leave it there, then I reached up and grabbed it and held it to my face. “How’d you know I was a girl?”
“Easy,” he said. “You’re too pretty to be a boy.”
He couldn’t see me blush but I turned away because it hurt to hear something so sweet, and it was how I always hoped a man would talk to me. Then he turned my face to him and he ran his fingers over my lips and then he kissed me again. I kissed him back, and then I took his hand and slipped it under my shirt and placed it on my breast. His hand was rough and hard from hauling on ropes and wrangling horses and I liked how it felt against my bare skin. But of a sudden I started getting panicky and shaky and my breath was shallow and fast and I remembered the Comanches having their hands on me, and he pulled his hand away.
He said, “It’s OK, Kid. Everything is going to be OK.”
“It is not,” I said. “I don’t want you to touch me and I don’t want you close to me. I don’t want to be friends with you. You’re going to get killed, and then where will I be? One more fucking loss.”
“I’m Shakespeare,” he whispered. “You can’t kill me.” Then he touched the cradle above us and said, “I always keep cases on the stars. Don’t you miss the stars?”
“No, it’s safe in here, and you need to stay away.”
“I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow night I’m going to come check in on you again. Now, you can stay silent when I try to talk to you, or you can talk with me, or you can tell me to leave. But it’s too late. We’re already friends, more than friends, aren’t we?”
I didn’t answer him and he added, “But I’ll do whatever you say.”
“I’m saying don’t come under the wagon tomorrow night or I swear to God I’ll shoot you and I’ll say I thought it was a coyote.”
He rolled over onto his stomach and propped himself up onto his elbows. “I’m going to put my hand on your face one last time, and I’m going to kiss you, and you’re going to let me do it, OK? And then I’ll stay away.”
So he ran his fingers through my hair and then he put his hand on my cheek and he leaned over me, and I liked how much bigger he was than me and how strong he was and I wished I could have just held him against me that way, and he kissed me real gently.
Then he looked me in the eyes. “I don’t blame you for being so hard. You’ve had a tough time.” And he added, “You know you’ve got a failing for me, right?”
And with that he kissed me again, and then he pushed himself out from under the wagon, not waiting for an answer.
Every night after that I wanted him to crawl back under the wagon and kiss me and touch me, but I wouldn’t tell him I wanted him like that, and he stayed away. But sometimes I crawled under the wagon and discovered he’d tossed prairie flowers in to surprise me. I kept them alongside me all night long and smelled them, then threw them away in the morning where he could see me do it.
At the wagon he’d casually start a conversation and tell me and Monty about some fox he’d seen, or about a nest of baby rabbits or a hawk in the air, or a black snake swallowing a frog whole, no different than the way he’d talk to any of the other hands. But he wouldn’t take his eyes off me until I’d given him some answer, and then he’d act like what I said was just about the most interesting thing he’d ever heard.
One time I was coming back from some far-off cottonwoods where I’d gone to relieve myself and he come riding up from out of nowhere, reined up and took his foot out of the stirrup, and said, “Mount up, I’ll give you a ride back.”
“No, thank you, I like walking.”
“No cowhand likes walking. Get the fuck aboard and quit being such a hard case,” he said, and he wasn’t smiling.
So I thought about it and it was unbearably hot, so I put my foot in the stirrup and mounted up behind him and I put my arms around him. At that he took off at a gallop, away from camp, and I said, “What’re you doing?”
He didn’t answer, so I held on to him and leaned into his back and he was wet and hot from the sun and I could smell him and he was just as lean and hard as when they had tied me to him, and I wanted to take his shirt off and run my hands all over the muscles in his back.
He took me a good mile away from the camp before he finally reined up, and I said, “What’s going on?”
“It’s too far for you to walk back,” he said, “so I guess you’re going to have to ride along with me and we’re going to have a nice easy conversation.”
