Red Sky at Morning (23 page)

"Both of 'em," he said, "both of 'em is pumped up like a nickel balloon."

He surveyed the line of boys with his eyes and the muzzle of his shotgun. "Both of 'em," he repeated. "Three months gone and startin' to pooch out. There's a whole bunch of you fellers I've seen out to my house, sniffing around like a pack of hounds. You, whatsyer-name, the skinny feller." He pointed the gun at Parker.

"No, sir," Parker answered up. "Not me. All I ever did was take Venery Ann to the movies. Isn't that right, Josh?"

"That's right, Park," I said, grateful that he had brought me to Cloyd's attention. "Just the movies."

"And you," Cloyd said to me.

"Just the movies." I said again. " 'Sergeant York.'"

"What?"

" 'Sergeant York.' You know, about this guy from Tennessee or Kentucky somewhere that believed in the Bible and didn't want to kill anybody and was going to be a conscientious objector only they drafted him and he used to get into arguments with this officer. . . ." I knew I was rattling on like a baboon, but I couldn't stop. The gun was pointed at me. ". . . about whether God wanted you to kill people if it was a good cause and York said 'No' but they finally talked him into going to France and put him in this infantry company and. . . ."

"Goddamn it, shut up!" Cloyd yelled. "Jesus Bird Christ, ain't there nobody around here to give me a straight answer?" He limped quickly to the door and jerked it open. Four or five teachers stood outside, bent over as if to hear better. They straightened up when they saw him.

"Git outa here!" They scattered down the hall, and Cloyd turned back to us. Mrs. Loughran had taken the opportunity to crawl under her desk.

"Mr. Cloyd?" It was Marcia, naturally, always ready to join in anything that wasn't her business. "Have you tried asking the girls?"

Cloyd looked at her truculently. "What'd you say?"

"Did you ask the girls who the . . . who was responsible? It might be a better idea than going around scaring people."

"Oh, I asked 'em, but do you think they'd tell me, their own daddy? No ma'am, not them little whores." Several of the girls started at this, being more afraid of the word than they were of the shotgun, as far as I could tell. "You know what they told me? They told me they didn't know. How you like
them
berries? Don't that beat all?"

"Probably true," Steenie whispered to me.

The door opened again, and Ratoncito came back in with the sheriff. Chamaco was wearing his official hat and badge. His pistol, in a tooled leather holster, was strapped low on his thigh in the manner of Wild Bill Hickok. Ratoncito pointed dramatically at Cloyd, and said, "There's your man, Sheriff," which seemed unnecessary. Cloyd was obviously too old to be a student, and he was the only person in the room carrying a gun.

"Hello there, Mr. Cloyd," Chamaco said easily. "You got some trouble?"

"Goddamn little mouse-turd boys won't answer up," Cloyd said. "I wasn't really gonna shoot any; just wanted to stir 'em up."

"I'm sure of that, Mr. Cloyd," Chamaco said. "Why don't you let them get back to their estudies now? I think you got them estirred up enough. How about we all go down to the office and talk about it?"

"Goddamn little humphoppers," Cloyd said, losing steam and lowering the shotgun. "It was one of 'em, I'm sure of it. Maybe two of 'em. Ought to speak out like a man and take their medicine."

"You're sure right about that, Mr. Cloyd," Chamaco said. "Yessir, you're right there."

"Damn right," said Cloyd.

"Let's leave 'em alone now for a while, Mr. Cloyd."

"Sure, this bunch of little pissants ain't worth my time. They ought to all have their ass blowed off, but it ain't worth my ammunition." Cloyd broke his shotgun and extracted the shells, putting them in his coat pocket. Then, as Chamaco led the way out to the corridor, he grabbed Ratoncito's tie and pulled him up to his toes. "It wasn't you, was it Shorty?" Ratoncito said, "Guh guh guh" and began to turn red again. "Naw, it sure wasn't you," said Cloyd, releasing him, then catching him as he started to sag and pushing him out the door.

We left our places near the wall and went back to our desks. Some of the girls—not Marcia, of course—were embarrassed and crying, and wouldn't meet our glances. Marcia went to help Mrs. Loughran, who was having difficulty getting out from under the kneehole of her desk. When she was extricated, she went off to the room marked Faculty Women.

"My," Marcia said, "wasn't that breath-taking! Were you scared, Steenie?"

"I remained cool and clear-headed at all times," Steenie said. "It would take more than a twelve-gauge side-by-side to ruffle my calm."

"Then how come there's sweat all over your face?"

"Well, it
is
a warm day."

"It was about eighteen above when I came in this morning," she pointed out.

"I admit it. I feared for Josh's life. Boy, you came within a centimeter of violent death at the hands of an irate father."

"You know Josh had nothing to do with it."

"Maybe, but he looked guilty. Did you ever see guilt written so clearly on a human face? And did you hear him raving about that movie? He was gibbering in terror."

"I'll bet the old brute did it himself," Marcia said. "He looks like he wouldn't be above incest. Filthy old man."

"I'm sure you're wrong about that," Steenie said. "I have a candidate for it, but I don't want to slander him. He's bigger and stronger than I am."

"By the way," Marcia said, "did you see the way Chamaco handled that man? It was masterful. I'll never yell at him again."

"I was hoping he'd drop him with a thirty-eight to the left eyeball," I said, "on the order of the Lone Ranger. I was ready for shooting. I even had a place all picked out to hide: behind Steenie."

"Don't underrate Chamaco," Steenie said. "I admit he's an idiot, but he doesn't go shooting people unless he has to. In fact, the first time he's drawn his pistol for years was the time he shot the elk down at the bank. He'd have tried to reason with it if it had understood Spanish."

Mrs. Loughran came back into the buzzing room and pleaded for order. "We were discussing the Lame Duck Amendment, Mrs. Loughran," Steenie told her. "You brought out some very interesting points on the subject, particularly the issue of presidential death or disability."

"One more word, William Stenopolous," she said. "Just one more word."

Chango caught me when the lunch bell rang at noon. "Hey, man," he said, "I don't like to bother you, and if you got something else to do forget I asked you, but could you come home with me? I think I ought to at least ask Viola about what you said."

"It doesn't matter," I said. "I probably mistook her for somebody else. It was dark up there."

"Come on, man. Please."

Viola was helping her mother get lunch ready for the family when Chango and I walked in. Mrs. Lopez said she'd be happy if I'd stay for lunch, and I said I appreciated it, which was true. They were having
sopa de menudo.
Viola had a purple mouse under her left eye, and looked generally very un-nunnish.

After lunch, we went into Chango's room, Viola protesting that she had to do the dishes, and Chango insisting. He'd changed the décor a little. The old magazine photograph of Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll was gone from the wall over his dresser, and he'd replaced it with portraits of Pope Pius XII and General Eisenhower.

"Where'd you get the black eye?" he began.

"I told you where," she said.

"Where?" I asked her.

"None of your business."

"Tell him," Chango said.

"I fell off the sidewalk by the chancery, on the ice. It was slippery, and I wasn't looking where I was going. I was thinking about Saint Teresa. Father McIlhenny said she was a great mystic, just like Sister Polycarp."

"I can telephone Father McIlhenny right now," Chango said, "and ask him if you were there Saturday night."

"Don't do that," she said quickly. "He's out of town. He . . . he went to Phoenix, Arizona, to open a new church. Our Lady of the Ocotillos."

"He was on the Plaza at quarter to eight this morning, having a snowball fight with one of the brothers."

"He was going to leave at ten o'clock, he told me."

"Did somebody hit you in the eye? Punch you?"

"Of course not. Listen, I have to go wash dishes. I don't have to sit here."

"Josh said he saw you up in La Cima Saturday night."

"He's crazy." She looked at me. "Why did you tell him that? I couldn't have been in La Cima. I've never even
been
to La Cima."

"I guess it was somebody else," I said. "It sure looked like you, though."

"What was the girl you saw wearing?" Chango asked me

"I don't know. A coat, a long coat, black or dark blue. With a scarf over her head. It was cold up there."

"Viola has an overcoat."

"Lots of people have overcoats," she said. "Anybody around here who doesn't have an overcoat is crazy."

"All of a sudden everybody's crazy," said Chango. "You want me to tell Papa?"

"There isn't anything to tell Papa," she said. "I didn't go anywhere. I was at the chancery. You stop being such a damn
jodido."

"You hear what my sister calls me?" Chango said. "That's some nun she's gonna be. Next thing she'll be telling me
'toma la verga.'"

"I was probably wrong," I said. "Anyway, I don't want to get anybody in trouble. We're friends, huh, Viola?"

"Not any more, you bastard."

"Oh, you're gonna make a fine nun," said Chango.

Viola left us and returned to the dishes. Chango lay back on his bed and put his hands behind his head. "You're right," he said. "She's lying. She never lied before, so she doesn't have any practice at it."

"I was pretty sure it was Viola I saw up there."

"You know," he went on, "all those people off in La Cima have been kicked out of the church. Every once in a while the priest gives a sermon about them. They don't have a priest any more. They made him leave about five years ago because they said he was interfering with their religion. I know that sounds funny, but that's what they said. So they've all been excommunicated, and they're all going to hell."

"That's rough on them," I said.

"They don't care. They're a mean bunch of guys up there. That's why I can't figure what Viola's doing with them. Man, she's a good Catholic. She's the best Catholic I ever saw most of the time. She likes Mass better than the movies."

"Maybe she was just trying to find out how the other half lives," I suggested.

"She's not even supposed to go there. Nobody's supposed to watch that stuff they do up there. One of the priests said they were witches, they put spells on people."

"Nobody put a spell on me," I said. "They just kicked the crap out of me."

"Did Viola watch that?"

"No. When she saw me, she ran off somewhere. She wasn't around for the fun."

"Man, I don't know what to do about it. If I tell the folks they probably won't believe me. I already have a sixteen-year record as a no-good bum, and Viola's kind of the family favorite. I mean, all these years she'd bring a bird home and fix its wing, and I'd be out kicking dogs."

Mrs. Lopez called us to say it was time to get back to school. As we left, Chango said something to Viola in rapid Spanish, and she dropped a dish. As her mother bent to help pick up the pieces, Viola gave us the finger in a professional manner. She seemed to be picking up most of Chango's old, bad habits.

Ratoncito called an all-male 10th, 11th and 12th Grade assembly that afternoon and, as Marcia put it, his balls were in an uproar, an expression she'd evidently picked up in her father's Episcopal Bible Class. The Mouse wasn't the most stable member of the faculty at best; he generally felt that the students weren't respectful enough of him, and his voice tended to squeak when he was under tension, which was most of the time.

"I heard him chewing out Mrs. Loughran at noon," Marcia said, "as if it were all her fault that Mr. Cloyd came into her room in the first place. He's probably chewed out everybody but Cloyd. I think he's afraid he'll get picked up by his tie again."

"I hope he doesn't give us a lecture on morality," Steenie said. "I don't want to start laughing and get thrown out of assembly."

"I think you guys are getting movies," she said. "They're setting up a projector in the auditorium. I wish they'd let the girls see it. We all have to go out in the snow and play field hockey this afternoon."

"That's understandable," Steenie said. "They believe that violent exercise will slow you down in the passion department. I could tell them it doesn't work, but I'd hate to destroy their childlike faith."

"We're already getting a reputation as the horniest school in the state. I hear boys are coming from as far away as Denver to try the goodies," Marcia said. "They're going to start chartering special busses now, probably."

"This kind of thing has happened before, then," I said.

"Oh, sure," Marcia answered. "Every once in a while a girl disappears from school and her family leaves town and the rumors start going around. But this is the first time we've had all this action, as far as I know, with shotguns and all."

"The Cloyd girls were a special case," Steenie said. "They were a couple of walking scandals. It was just a matter of time before somebody rang the bell. Of course, both at one time is pretty crude. It wouldn't surprise me if it was on the same night in the same car."

"In a car?" I asked.

"Where else? They'll do anything for a ride in a car. One of them told me that whenever their old man moves he gets a beat-up truck and puts his wife and dog in the cab, with the girls riding in back. That's why a genuine automobile looks so good to them."

"Steenie, I want you to give me all the details on your movie this afternoon," Marcia said. "Don't spare me a thing."

"You mean, you want a complete anatomic report, with every pustule?"

"Is that what it's going to be? A Syphilis Special?"

"Sure," Steenie said, "just like a Commando training film. Ratoncito's going to try to scare us into virtue."