Cities of the Plain(9)
I thought you was goin to get off the subject.
All right. It still seems like about the only subject there is, though. Dont it?
He rose heavily from the chair with bottle and glass in hand. Let’s walk out to the barn. I’ll show you the foal that Jones mare throwed you never did think much of. Just bring your all’s glasses. I got the bottle.
* * *
THEY RODE ALL MORNING through the open juniper country, keeping to the gravelly ridges. A storm was making up over the Sierra Viejas to the west and over the broad plain that ran south from the Guadalupes down around the Cuesta del Burro range and on to Presidio and the border. They crossed the upper reaches of the creek at noon and sat among the yellow leaves and watched leaves turn and drift in a pool while they ate the lunch that Rachel had packed for them.
Look at this, said Troy.
What is it?
A tablecloth.
Damn.
He poured coffee from a thermos into their cups. The turkey sandwiches they ate were wrapped in cloth.
What’s in the other thermos?
Soup.
Soup?
Soup.
Damn.
They ate.
How long has he been manager down here?
About two years.
Billy nodded. Did he not offer to hire you on before now?
He did. I told him I didnt mind workin with him but I wasnt all that sure about workin for him.
What made you change your mind?
I aint changed it. I’m just thinkin about it.
They ate. Troy nodded downcountry. They say there’s been a white man ambushed ever mile of this draw.
Billy studied the country. Looks like they’d of learned to stay out of it.
When they’d done eating Troy poured the rest of the coffee into their cups and screwed the cap back on the thermos and laid it by with the soup and the sandwich cloths and the still folded tablecloth to pack back in the saddlebags. They sat sipping the coffee. The horses standing downstream side by side looked up from their drinking in the creek. They had wet leaves stuck to their noses.
Elton’s got his own notions about what happened, Troy said. Johnny if he hadnt of found that girl would of found somethin else. You couldnt head him. Elton says he changed. He never changed. He was four years older than me. Not a lot of years. But he walked ground I’ll never see. Glad not to see. People always said he was bullheaded, but it wasnt just that. He fought Daddy one time he wasnt but fifteen. Fistfought him. Made the old man fight him. Told him to his face that he respected him and all but that he wasnt goin to take what he’d said. Somethin the old man had chewed him out over. I cried like a baby. He didnt cry. Kept gettin up. Nose all busted and all. The old man kept tellin him to stay down. Hell, the old man was cryin. I hope I never see nothin like it again. I can think about it now and it makes me sick. And there was nothin any mortal man could of done to of stopped it.
What happened?
The old man finally walked off. He was beat and he knew it. Johnny standin there. Couldnt hardly stand up. Callin to him to come back. The old man wouldnt even turn around. He just went on to the house.
Troy looked into the bottom of his cup. He slung the dregs out across the leaves.
It wasnt just her. There’s a kind of man that when he cant have what he wants he wont take the next best thing but the worst he can find. Elton thinks he was that kind and maybe he was. But I think he loved that girl. I think he knew what she was and he didnt care. I think it was his own self he was blind to. I think he was just lost. This world was never made for him. He’d outlived it before he could walk. Get married. Hell. He couldnt even stand to wear lace-up shoes.
You liked him though.
Troy looked off down through the trees. Well, he said. I dont guess like really says it. I cant talk about it. I wanted to be like him. But I wasnt. I tried.
He was your dad’s favorite I reckon.
Oh yeah. It wasnt a problem with anybody. It was just known. Accepted. Hell. It wasnt even a contest. You ready?
I’m ready.
He rose. He placed the flat of his hand in the small of his back and stretched. He looked at Billy. I loved him, he said. So did Elton. You couldnt not. That was all there was to it.
He folded the cloths under his arm together with the thermos bottles. They hadnt even looked to see what the soup was. He turned and looked back at Billy. So how do you like this country?
I like it.
I do too. Always have.
So you comin down here?
No.
It was dusk when they rode into Fort Davis. Nighthawks were circling over the old parade grounds when they passed and the sky over the mountains behind them was blood red. Elton was waiting with the truck and horsetrailer in front of the Limpia Hotel. They unsaddled the horses in the graveled parking lot and put the saddles in the bed of the truck and wiped the horses down and loaded them in the trailer and went into the hotel and through the lobby to the coffeeshop.