When the Women Come out to Dance (2002) (18 page)

"You insulted Colonel Roosevelt and his Rough Riders,"
t he cowboy said, "and you insulted Wayman's brother, kille d in action over there in Cuba."

"How come," Catlett said, "you weren't there?"

"I was ready, don't worry, when the war ended. But we'r
e talking about you. I say you're a dirty lying nigger and hav e no respect for people better'n you are. I want you to apologiz e to the colonel and his men and to Wayman's dea d brother. . . ."

"Or what?" Catlett said.

"Answer to me," the cowboy said. "Are you armed? Yo
u aren't, you better get yourself a pistol."

"You want to shoot me," Catlett said, " 'cause I went t
o Cuba and you didn't?"

The cowboy was shaking his head. " 'Cause you lied. Hav
e you got a pistol or not?"

Catlett said, "You calling me out, huh? You want us t
o fight a duel?"

" 'Less you apologize. Else get a pistol."

"But if I'm the one being called out, I have my choice o
f weapons, don't I? That's how I seen it work, twenty-four year s in the U
. S
. Army in two wars. You hear what I'm saying?"

The cowboy was frowning now beneath his hat brim
, squinting up at Bo Catlett. He said, "Pistols, it's what yo u use."

Catlett nodded. "If I say so."

"Well, what else is there?"

Confused and getting a mean look.

Catlett slipped his hand into the upright end of his bedrol
l and began to tug at something inside--the cowboy watching , the Circle-Eye riders in the street watching, the desk cler k and manager in the doorway and several hotel guests nea r them who had come out to the porch, all watching as Catlet t drew a sword from the bedroll, a cavalry saber, the curve d blade flashing as it caught the sunlight. He came past th e people watching and down off the porch toward the cowbo y in his hat and boots fixed with spurs that chinged as he turne d to face Catlett, shorter than Catlett, appearing confused agai n holding the six-shooter at his side.

"If I choose to use sabers," Catlett said, "is that agreeable with you?"

"I don't have no saber."

Meanness showing now in his eyes.

"Well, you best get one."

"I never even had a sword in my hand."

Irritated. Drunk, too, his eyes not focusing as they should.

Now he was looking over his shoulder at the Circle-Eye riders, maybe wanting them to tell him what to do.

One of them, not Wayman but one of the others, calle
d out, "You got your forty-four in your hand, ain't you? What'r e you waiting on?"

Catlett raised the saber to lay the tip against Macon'
s breastbone, saying to him, "You use your pistol and I us e steel? All right, if that's how you want it. See if you can shoo t me 'fore this blade is sticking out your back. You game? . . .

Speak up, boy."

In the hotel dining room having a cup of coffee
, Catlett heard the noise outside, the cheering that meant Captain Early had arrived. Catlett waited. He wished one of the waitresses would refill his cup, but they weren't around now , nobody was. A half hour passed before Captain Early entere d the dining room and came over to the table, leaving the people he was with. Catlett rose and they embraced, the hotel people and guests watching. It was while they stood this wa y that Bren saw, over Catlett's shoulder, the saber lying on th e table, the curved steel on white linen. Catlett sat down. Bre n looked closely at the saber's hilt. He picked it up and ther e was applause from the people watching. The captain bowed t o them and sat down with the sergeant major.

"You went up the hill with this?"

"Somebody had to."

"I'm being recommended for a medal. 'For courage an
d pluck in continuing to advance under fire on the Spanish fortified position at the battle of Las Guasimas, Cuba, June 24th, 1898.' "

Catlett nodded. After a moment he said, "Will you tell m
e something? What was that war about?"

"You mean why'd we fight the dons?"

"Yeah, tell me."

"To free the oppressed Cuban people. Relieve them o
f Spanish domination."

"That's what I thought."

"You didn't know why you went to war?"

"I guess I knew," Catlett said. "I just wasn't sure."

*

*

THE TONTO WOMAN.

A time would come, within a few years, when Ruben Vega would go to the church i n Benson, kneel in the confessional, and say to th e priest, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I t has been thirty-seven years since my last confession. . . . Since then I have fornicated with many women, maybe eight hundred. No, not that many , considering my work. Maybe six hundred only."

And the priest would say, "Do you mean ba
d women or good women?" And Ruben Vega woul d say, "They are all good, Father." He would tell th e priest he had stolen, in that time, about twent y thousand head of cattle but only maybe fiftee n horses. The priest would ask him if he had committed murder. Ruben Vega would say no. "All that stealing you've done," the priest would say , "you've never killed anyone?" And Ruben Veg a would say, "Yes, of course, but it was not to commit murder. You understand the distinction? Not to kill someone to take a life, but only to sav e my own."

Even in this time to come, concerned with dying in a stat
e of sin, he would be confident. Ruben Vega knew himself , when he was right, when he was wrong.

Now, in a time before, with no thought o
f dying, but with the same confidence and caution that kep t him alive, he watched a woman bathe. Watched from a mesquite thicket on the high bank of a wash.

She bathed at the pump that stood in the yard of the adobe
, the woman pumping and then stooping to scoop the wate r from the basin of the irrigation ditch that led off to a vegetable patch of corn and beans. Her dark hair was pinned up in a swirl, piled on top of her head. She was bare to her gra y skirt, her upper body pale white, glistening wet in the late afternoon sunlight. Her arms were very thin, her breasts small, but there they were with the rosy blossoms on the tips an d Ruben Vega watched them as she bathed, as she raised on e arm and her hand rubbed soap under the arm and down ove r her ribs. Ruben Vega could almost feel those ribs, she was s o thin. He felt sorry for her, for all the women like her, stic k women drying up in the desert, waiting for a husband to rid e in smelling of horse and sweat and leather, lice living in hi s hair.

There was a stock tank and rickety windmill off in the pasture, but it was empty graze, all dust and scrub. So the man of the house had moved his cows to grass somewhere and woul d be coming home soon, maybe with his sons. The woman appeared old enough to have young sons. Maybe there was a little girl in the house. The chimney appeared cold. Animals W
s tood in a mesquite-pole corral off to one side of the house, a cow and a calf and a dun-colored horse, that was all. Ther e were a few chickens. No buckboard or wagon. No clothes drying on the line. A lone woman here at day's end.

From fifty yards he watched her. She stood looking thi
s way now, into the red sun, her face raised. There was something strange about her face. Like shadow marks on it, though there was nothing near enough to her to cast shadows.

He waited until she finished bathing and returned to th
e house before he mounted his bay and came down the wash t o the pasture. Now as he crossed the yard, walking his horse , she would watch him from the darkness of the house an d make a judgment about him. When she appeared again i t might be with a rifle, depending on how she saw him.

Ruben Vega said to himself, Look, I'm a kind person. I'
m not going to hurt nobody.

She would see a bearded man in a cracked straw hat wit
h the brim bent to his eyes. Black beard, with a revolver on hi s hip and another beneath the leather vest. But look at my eyes , Ruben Vega thought. Let me get close enough so you can se e my eyes.

Stepping down from the bay he ignored the house, let th
e horse drink from the basin of the irrigation ditch as h e pumped water and knelt to the wooden platform and put hi s mouth to the rusted pump spout. Yes, she was watching him.

Looking up now at the doorway he could see part of her:
a coarse shirt with sleeves too long and the gray skirt. He coul d see strands of dark hair against the whiteness of the shirt, bu t could not see her face.

As he rose, straightening, wiping his mouth, he said, "Ma
y we use some of your water, please?"

The woman didn't answer him.

He moved away from the pump to the hardpack, hearin
g the ching of his spurs, removed his hat and gave her a littl e bow. "Ruben Vega, at your service. Do you know Diego Luz , the horse-breaker?" He pointed off toward a haze of foothills.

"He lives up there with his family and delivers horses to th
e big ranch, the Circle-Eye. Ask Diego Luz, he'll tell you I'm a person of trust." He waited a moment. "May I ask how you'r e called?" Again he waited.

"You watched me," the woman said.

Ruben Vega stood with his hat in his hand facing th
e woman, who was half in shadow in the doorway. He said, "I w aited. I didn't want to frighten you."

"You watched me," she said again.

"No, I respect your privacy."

She said, "The others look. They come and watch."

He wasn't sure who she meant. Maybe anyone passing by.

He said, "You see them watching?"

She said, "What difference does it make?" She said then
, "You come from Mexico, don't you?"

"Yes, I was there. I'm here and there, working as a drover."

Ruben Vega shrugged. "What else is there to do, uh?" Showing her he was resigned to his station in life.

"You'd better leave," she said.

When he didn't move, the woman came out of the doorwa
y into light and he saw her face clearly for the first time. He fel t a shock within him and tried to think of something to say , but could only stare at the blue lines tattooed on her face: three straight lines on each cheek that extended from he r cheekbones to her jaw, markings that seemed familiar, thoug h he could not in this moment identify them.

He was conscious of himself standing in the open wit
h nothing to say, the woman staring at him with curiosity, a s though wondering if he would hold her gaze and look at her.

Like there was nothing unusual about her countenance. Lik
e it was common to see a woman with her face tattooed and yo u might be expected to comment, if you said anything at all , "Oh, that's a nice design you have there. Where did you hav e it done?" That would be one way--if you couldn't say something interesting about the weather or about the price of cows in Benson.

Ruben Vega, his mind empty of pleasantries, certain h
e would never see the woman again, said, "Who did that t o you?"

She cocked her head in an easy manner, studying him as h
e studied her, and said, "Do you know, you're the first perso n who's come right out and asked."

"Mojave," Ruben Vega said, "but there's something different. Mojaves tattoo their chins only, I believe."

"And look like they were eating berries," the woman said.

"I told them if you're going to do it, do it all the way. No
t like a blue dribble."

It was in her eyes and in the tone of her voice, a glimpse o
f the rage she must have felt. No trace of fear in the memory , only cold anger. He could hear her telling the Indians--thi s skinny woman, probably a girl then--until they did it he r way and marked her good for all time. Imprisoned her behin d the blue marks on her face.

"How old were you?"

"You've seen me and had your water," the woman said
, "now leave."

It was the same type of adobe house as th
e woman's but with a great difference. There was life here, th e warmth of family: children sleeping now, Diego Luz's wif e and her mother cleaning up after the meal as the two men sa t outside in horsehide chairs and smoked and looked at th e night. At one time they had both worked for a man name d Sundeen and packed running irons to vent the brands on th e cattle they stole. Ruben Vega was still an outlaw, in his fashion, while Diego Luz broke green horses and sold them to cattle companies.

They sat at the edge of the ramada, an awning made o
f mesquite, and stared at pinpoints of light in the universe.

Ruben Vega asked about the extent of graze this season, wher
e the large herds were that belonged to the Maricopa and th e Circle-Eye. He had been thinking of cutting out maybe a hundred--he wasn't greedy--and driving them south to sel l to the mine companies. He had been scouting the Circle-Ey e range, he said, when he came to the strange woman. . . .

The Tonto woman, Diego Luz said. Everyone called he
r that now.