Cities of the Plain (3 page)

You dont want to leave Mac.

I dont know. Not without some cause to.

Loyal to the outfit.

It aint just that. You need to find you a hole at some point. Hell, I'm twentyeight years
old.

You dont look it.

Yeah?

You look fortyeight. Pass the whiskey.

Billy peered out at the high desert. The bellied lightwires raced against the night.

They wont care for us drinkin?

She dont particularly like it. But there aint much she can do about it. Anyway it aint
like we was goin to show up down there kneewalkin drunk.

Will your brother take a drink?

Troy nodded solemnly. Quicker than a minnow can swim a dipper.

Billy drank and handed over the bottle.

What was the kid goin to do? said Troy.

I dont know.

Did you and him have a fallin out?

No. He's all right. He just said he had somethin he needed to do.

He can flat ride a horse. I'll say that.

Yes he can.

He's a salty little booger.

He's all right. He's just got his own notions about things.

That horse he thinks so much of is just a damned outlaw if you want my opinion.

Billy nodded. Yep.

So what's he want with it?

I guess that's what he wants with it.

You still think he's going to have it follerin him around like a dog?

Yeah. I think it.

I'll believe it when I see it.

You want to lay some money?

Troy shook a cigarette from the pack on the dash and put it in his mouth and pushed in the
lighter. I dont want to take your money.

Hell, dont be backwards about talon my money.

I think I'll pass. He aint goin to like them crutches.

Not even a little bit.

How long is he supposed to be on em?

I dont know. A couple of weeks. Doctor told him a sprain could be worse than a break.

I'll bet he aint on em a week.

I'll bet he aint either.

A jackrabbit froze in the road. Its red eye shone.

Go on dumbass, Billy said.

The rabbit made a soft thud under the truck. Troy took the lighter from the dashboard and
lit his cigarette with it and put the lighter back in the receptacle.

When I got out of the army I went up to Amarillo with Gene Edmonds for the rodeo and stock
show. He'd fixed us up with dates and all. We was supposed to be at their house to pick em
up at ten oclock in the mornin and it was after midnight fore we left out of El Paso. Gene
had a brand new Olds Eightyeight and he pitched me the keys and told me to drive. Quick as
we hit highway eighty he looked over at me, told me to shower down on it. That thing would
strictly motivate. I pushed it up to about eighty, eightyfive. Still had about a yard of
pedal left. He looked over again. I said: How fast do you want to go? He said just
whatever you feel comfortable with. Hell. I didnt do nothin but roll her on up to about a
hundred and ten and here we went. Old long flat road. Had about six hundred miles of it in
front of us.

Well there was all these jackrabbits in the road. They'd set there and freeze in the
lights. Blap. Blap. I looked over at Gene and I said: What do you want to do about these
rabbits? He looked at me and he said: Rabbits? I mean if you were lookin for somebody to
give a shit I can tell you right now it sure as hell wasnt Gene. He didnt care if syrup
went to thirty cents a sop.

We pulled into a filling station at Dimmitt Texas just about daybreak. Pulled up to the
pumps and shut her down and set there and there was a car on the other side of the pumps
and the old boy that worked there was fillin the tank and cleanin the windshield. Woman
settin there in the car. The old boy drivin had gone in to take a leak or whatever. Anyway
we pulled in facin this other car and I'm kindly layin there with my head back waitin on
the old boy and I wasnt even thinkin about this woman but I could see her. Just settin
there, sort of lookin around. Well directly she sat straight up and commenced to holler
like she was bein murdered. I mean just a hollerin. I raised up, I didnt know what had
happened. She was lookin over at us and I thought Gene had done somethin. Exposed hisself
or somethin. You never knew what he was goin to do. I looked at Gene but he didnt know
what the hell was goin on any more than I did. Well here come the old boy out of the men's
room and I mean he was a big son of a bitch too. I got out and walked around the car. I
thought I was goin crazy. The Oldsmobile had this big ovalshaped grille in the front of it
was like a big scoop and when I got around to the front of the car it was just packed
completely full of jackrabbit heads. I mean there was a hundred of em jammed in there and
the front of the car the bumper and all just covered with blood and rabbit guts and them
rabbits I reckon they'd sort of turned their heads away just at impact cause they was all
lookin out, eyes all crazy lookin. Teeth sideways. Grinnin. I cant tell you what it looked
like. I come damn near hollerin myself. I'd noticed the car was overheatin but I just put
that down to the speed we was makin. This old boy wanted to fight us over it. I said:
Damn, Sam. Rabbits. You know? Hell. Gene got out and started mouthin at him and I told him
to get his ass back in the car and shut up. Old boy went over and told the woman to hush
up and quit slobberin and all but I like to never got him pacified. I started to just go
on and hit the big son of a bitch and be done with it.

Billy sat watching the night spool past. The roadside chaparral, the flat black scrim of
the mountains cut into the starblown desert sky above them. Troy smoked. He reached for
the whiskey and unscrewed the cap and sat holding the bottle.

I got discharged in San Diego. Took the first bus out. Me and another old boy got drunk on
the bus and like to got throwed off. I got off in Tucson and went in a store and bought a
new pair of Judson boots and a suit. I dont know what the hell I bought the suit for. I
thought you was supposed to have one. I got on another bus and come on to El Paso and went
up that evenin to Alamogordo and got my horses. I wandered all over this country. Worked
in Colorado. Worked up in the panhandle. Got throwed in jail in this little old
chickenshit town I wont even name it to you. State of Texas though. State of Texas. I
hadnt done nothin. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I like to never got out of
there. I'd got in a fight with a Mexican and like to killed him. I was in jail up there
for nine months to the day. I wouldnt of wrote home for nothin. Time I got out and went to
see about my horses they'd been sold for the feedbill. I didnt care about the one but I
did the other cause I'd had him a long time. Nobody seemed to know nothin about it. I knew
if I grabbed the old boy I'd be right back in the damn jail again. Asked all around.
Finally somebody told me they'd sold my horse out of the state. They thought the buyer was
from Alabama or some damn place. I'd had that horse since I was thirteen years old.

I lost a horse in Mexico I was awful partial to, Billy said. I'd had him since I was nine.

It's easy to do.

What, lose a horse?

Troy had tipped the bottle up and he drank and lowered it and screwed the cap back on and
wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and laid the bottle on the seat. No, he said.
Get partial to one.

Half an hour later they pulled off the highway and rumbled over the pipes of a cattleguard
and drove up the milelong dirt road to the ranch house. The porchlight was on and three
heeler dogs came out and ran beside the truck barking. Elton came out and stood on the
porch with his hands in his back pockets and his hat on.

They ate at a long table in the kitchen, passing bowls of hominy and okra and a great
platter of fried steaks and biscuits.

This is awful good, mam, Billy said.

Elton's wife looked at him. You wouldnt mind not callin me mam would you?

No mam.

It makes me feel like a old woman.

Yes mam.

He cant help hisself, Troy said.

That's all right, the woman said.

You never let me off that easy.

Bein let off easy was never somethin you needed more of, the woman said.

I'll try not to say it, Billy said.

There was a seven year old girl at the table and she watched them with wide eyes. They
ate. After a while she said: What's wrong with it?

What's wrong with what?

Sayin mam.

Elton looked up. There aint nothin wrong with it, honey. Your mama's just one of them
modern kinds of women.

What's a modern kind of woman?

Eat your supper, the woman said. If your daddy had his way we wouldnt even have the wheel
yet.

They sat in old canebottomed chairs on the porch and Elton set the three glass tumblers on
the board floor between his feet and unscrewed the cap from the bottle and poured three
measures and put the cap back and stood the bottle on the floor and passed the glasses
round and leaned back in his rocker. Salud, he said.

He'd turned off the porchlight and they sat in the soft square of light from the window.
He raised his glass to the light and looked through it like a chemist. You wont guess
who's back at Bell's, he said.

Dont even say her name.

Well you did guess.

Who else would it be?

Elton leaned back in the chair and rocked. The dogs stood in the yard at the foot of the
steps looking up at him.

What, said Troy. Did her old man finally run her off?

I dont know. She's supposed to be visitin. It's turned out to be kindly a long visit.

Yeah.

For whatever consolation there might be in that.

It aint no consolation.

Elton nodded. You're right, he said. It aint.

Billy sipped the whiskey and looked out at the shapes of the mountains. Stars were falling
everywhere.

Rachel run smack into her in Alpine, said Elton. Little darlin just smiled and hidied like
butter wouldnt melt in her mouth.

Troy sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, the glass in both hands before him.
Elton rocked.

You remember we used to go down to Bloy's to try and pick up girls? That's where he met
her at. Camp meetin. That'll make you ponder the ways of God. He asked her out and she
told him she wouldnt go out with a man that drank. He looked her straight in the eye and
told her he didnt drink. She like to fell over backwards. I guess it come as somethin of a
shock to her to meet a even bigger liar than what she was. But he told the naked truth. Of
course she called his hand on it. Said she knew for a fact he drank. Said everbody in Jeff
Davis County knew he drank and drank plenty and was wild as a buck. He never batted a eye.
Said he used to but he quit. She asked him when did he quit and he said I just now did.
And she went out with him. And as far as I know he never took another drink. Till she quit
him of course. By then he had a lot of catchin up to do. Tell me about the evils of
liquor. Liquor aint nothin. But he was changed from that day.

Is she still as good lookin?

I dont know. I aint seen her. Rachel said she was. Satan hath power to assume a pleasing
form. Them big blue eyes. Knew more ways to turn a man's head than the devil's
grandmother. I dont know where they learn it at. Hell, she wasnt but seventeen.

They're born with it, Troy said. They dont have to learn it.

I hear you.

What they dont seem to learn is not to just run over the top of some poor son of a bitch
for the pure enjoyment of it.

Billy sipped his whiskey.

Let me have your glass, Elton said.

He set it on the floor between his feet and poured the whiskey and recapped the bottle and
reached and passed the glass across.

Thanks, said Billy.

Were you in the war? Elton said.

No. I was fourE

Elton nodded.

I tried to enlist three different times but they wouldnt take me.

I know you did. I tried to get overseas but I spent the whole war at Camp Pendleton.
Johnny fought all over the Pacific theatre. He had whole companies shot out from under
him. Never got a scratch. I think it bothered him.

Troy handed across his glass and Elton set it on the floor and poured it and passed it
back. Then he poured his own. He sat back. What are you lookin at? he asked the dog. The
dog looked away.

The thing that bothers me and then I'll shut up about it is that we had a hell of a row
that mornin and I never had the chance to make it up. I told him to his face that he was a
damn foolwhich he wasand that the worst thing he could do to the old boy was to let him
have her. Which it was. I knew all about her by then. We like to come to blows over it. I
never told you that. It was bad. I never saw him alive again. I should of just kept out of
it. Anybody in the state he was in you cant talk to em noway. No use to try even.

Troy watched him. You told me, he said.

Yeah. I guess I did. I dont dream about him anymore. I used to all the time. I'd have
these conversations with him.

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 o£ Just bring your
all's glasses. I got the bottle.

*Ê*Ê*

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.