Red Sky at Morning (7 page)

"Your turn, Josh," Marcia said. "You'd do better if you ran."

If I hadn't tripped just as I got to the horse, I believe I could have made it. It's hard to hold your breath for a long time when the air's thin, and I wasn't used to the altitude yet. I honestly think I could have carried it off if my foot hadn't slipped on a beer bottle. When my chest hit the horse about midships it made a noise like an orange being squeezed, and the horse's ribs began a slow caving-in movement. I pushed myself away and my hand went through his skin, surprising me so I took a deep breath without meaning to.

Later, still pale and weak-kneed, I told Marcia and Steenie that they didn't need to help me walk and they let go of my arms and stood back.

"A real sport," Steenie said. "Just threw himself on that horse and hugged him like a brother."

"I didn't realize until now that we've been playing the game wrong all this time," Marcia said. "It doesn't mean a thing until you crawl right
into
the horse."

"I'd throw up some more if I had anything left to throw," I said.

"Mucho puko,
guy."

"Maybe it was something you ate," Steenie said.

We climbed some more hills and came back into sight of Sagrado, now perhaps a mile away, peaceful-looking. We admired the view; even old-time residents of Sagrado liked to spend part of each day looking at the landscape. Soon the wind blew away the lingering scent of deceased horse. Clouds began to build and the air became chilly, so We tramped back to the Plaza.

Near a cotton candy booth we saw Chango Lopez, holding his beautiful sister's hand. Viola's face was calm and happy, like a saint's. Chango was trying to look mean, but her presence seemed to embarrass him.

"Hello, Viola," Marcia said. "Happy Fiesta."

"I think I have a vocation," Viola said. "I'm going to be a nun."

"That's wonderful," Marcia said. "You must be very happy."

"Jew are a
pendejo
bahstair," Chango said softly to me. "Eeef I deen have my seester weeth me, I bahss your ass."

"And a happy Fiesta to you, Maximiliano," Steenie said heartily. "Are you going to follow your sister into God's service?"

"Estoff eet op your
culo,"
Chango said. "I gat you too."

"Reverend Mother's been telling me all about it," Viola continued. "You can't talk to anyone for a whole year, and they cut off all your hair."

"It sounds very . . . exciting," Marcia said.

"I'm going poot on my boots and estomp the cheat out of you,
jodido.
Jew barter keep your eyes open."

"Chango," Marcia said. "You give me a pain in the behind."

Chango fell back alarmed. "Don' talk dorty," he said in anguish. "Not een front of my seester."

"No seas tonto, hombre,"
Viola told him.
"Tú lo hablas así tú mismo.
You talk the same way all the time."

"Ees deeferent. I got a reputation."

"I tried to get him to talk to Father McIlhenny about the language, and he said something dirty about the Church."

"Come on," Chango said. "Less geet outa here. I don' wan talk to bonch of Anglos."

Viola took her brother's hand and led him away, like a nanny and a little boy. He turned around and gave me the finger.
"Toma, pendejo,"
he yelled. Viola jerked his arm and he nearly stumbled.

"Viola's a nice girl," Marcia said, "but she has endocrine trouble. She began getting breasts when she was nine."

"And they're still growing," Steenie pointed out.

"Don't talk dorty," Marcia said, imitating Chango. "Not een front of my honcho."

With the cooling air the crowd in the Plaza began to thin out. Only a straggly group of tourists remained to buy the
burritos
and the
tacos
and the Indian pottery. A wind was coming from Bernal Peak, scattering paper cups and wooden spoons in the street. On the bandstand, Chamaco Trujillo, who combined the job of sheriff with that of uncrowned King of Resta, was exhorting the people vainly through a public-address system. "We going to have folk dancing in jost a few minutes, folks. Estick around and have a good time. We got the Mariachi Bustamente up from Mexico gone play your old time favorites. Whatsa matter? You escared of a little wind?"

"Hey, Chamaco," Marcia called to him. "You better get home before you catch pneumonia."

Steenie joined the chorus. "I saw the bass player from the Mariachis piled up drunk behind the Elks Club. He had puke all over his costume."

"Why don' you kids try to have a good time and estop
chingando
with the Fiesta?"

"Why don't you get your
taco
salesmen to put some fresh grease in their griddles?" Marcia asked him. "They're giving the trots to all the tourists."

"It's snowing," Steenie told him.

"It never snows in September," Chamaco yelled back through the p.a. system.

"Suit yourself," Steenie said.

It was snowing, heavy wet flakes that stuck to people's hats and fringed the
taco
stands with white awnings. I had never seen snow before, except in photographs. We walked through the deepening slush to the hotel and stood under the arcade, watching the snow drive the tourists off the streets. We could see Chamaco dimly through the snowflakes on the bandstand, still trying to get the crowd in. As we watched, the folk dancers came into the Plaza in a bus. They were dressed in the national costume of Lithuania, or Liechtenstein. Chamaco hollered once more into his microphone before the snow shorted it out. "Look, everybody, here's the dancers." The male dancers were wearing short leather pants and their knees were turning blue. The women had their overcoats on, and wouldn't take them off. There wasn't anyone around to watch the dancing, anyway.

"Poor old Chamaco," Marcia said. "He tries so hard."

"Is it always like this?" I asked her.

"It doesn't always snow," she said, "but something always happens. One year his bandstand collapsed and the dancers got all cut up. One year everybody in the band got thrown in jail for illegal entry. One year we had a rabies epidemic and the tourists went to Colorado instead."

"Last year was the best," Steenie said. "Chamaco arranged with the Elks Club for a fireworks demonstration out by the ball park. Some Elk got drunk and fell into the fireworks with a lighted cigar. They all went up at once, like dynamite. Half of the Elks got their hair burned off."

The snow had become so heavy that we couldn't see the bandstand, but We could hear Chamaco screaming, even with his p.a. system shorted out. "Dance! Dance! I paid you to dance, and you're gonna dance!"

We decided to go home before the snow got too deep. Camino Tuerto is half a mile from the Plaza, uphill, and I was almost frozen before I arrived. By that time I knew all I needed to know about snow. Excilda met me at the door, looking like the Madonna of the Chile Peppers. "We got company," she told me. "Three weeks Mr. Arnold's been gone, and we got company already."

"What kind of company?"

"I don't know. He looks like some kind of
maricón
to me."

My mother came to the door, with a glass of sherry. "Joshua," she said, "I have a wonderful surprise for you."

"Is the war over?"

"Better than that." She took my hand and led me, still dripping melted snow, into the living room. A piñon fire was blazing in the corner fireplace, the curtains were open to let in the cold, snowy light. The Navajo rugs were bright and cheerful, and the sherry bottle sat nearly empty on a copper tray.

"Well, now. How's our little cowboy doing?" Jimbob Buel said from my father's leather armchair. "I'm sorry I can't offer you a glass of sherry, but it just isn't good for growing boys. Excilda! Bring this growing boy a glass of milk."

The wonderful surprise turned out to be permanent, and Jimbob stayed on, giving orders to Excilda and Amadeo, helping Mother get rid of all that sherry cluttering up the cellar, taking over the spare bedroom and complaining about the cold weather. Mother was drawing five hundred dollars a month, which should have been plenty, but it didn't seem to cover Jimbob's expenses. He didn't like the way Excilda ironed his shirts and had the laundry do them. There were never quite enough eggs in the morning, even though he contributed his ration cards, a point Mother liked to bring up. He had a big collection of ascot cravats, and wore a different one every day, with the same tweed coat. He didn't like Excilda's cooking, and made some nasty scenes about it, but even he couldn't change that, and the food was still good. Mother and Jimbob played bridge almost every day with her summer friends, and he seldom left the house. He brought news from Mobile.

"That delicious little Courtney Conway was just sailing her pretty head off the last time I saw her," he told me. "She was always with Earl and Mary Gagnier's boy. Aren't you sorry you let that slip through your fingers?"

"Not very."

"What are you doing for companionship here in the desert? Have you got some little squaw girl on the string?"

"I got a whole tribe of them. They fight among themselves all the time to see who gets to sew moccasins for me."

"That's very nice to hear. I thought you'd go native as soon as you left civilization."

"Mr. Buel, how come
you
left civilization? Isn't life around here a little too crude for you?"

"I thought it would be beneficial if I brought a little breath of culture here. There apparently isn't a decent bridge player or a drinkable bottle of bourbon in the area."

Excilda grumbled to me about him, but she liked her job and she liked me. When Jimbob got too arrogant, and started shouting orders, she pretended she couldn't understand English. Amadeo spoke to him only in Spanish, and as I got more familiar with the language from the chatter at school I enjoyed the conversations.

"Amadeo," Jimbob would say, "now that the last snow has melted, don't you think it would be a good idea to mound some humus around those rose trees?"

Amadeo would touch the bill of his hat. "I think you have a face like a peccary and smell like a Taos whore."

"I thought you'd see it my way. We don't want Mr Arnold's roses to die, do we?"

"You can make a rose tree die just by walking past it, with all that whore's perfume you wear. Why don't you come out to my place and make love to one of my goats? It might be a change from all those sheep you're so famous with."

The Conquistador
carried a story in the society column about James Robert Buel, scion of a distinguished Virginia family, who was a house guest of Mrs. Francis Arnold and her son Joshua. (Mr. Arnold, a well-known summer visitor, is serving in the U. S. Navy.) I cut it out and mailed it to Dad, just the clipping. The boys overseas like to get news from home.

"Who's that guy staying at your house?" Marcia asked me one day. "An uncle or something?"

"Not a relative," I said. "Just a friend."

"Your mother just doesn't look like the type," she said.

"If you want to stay honchos with me, you'd better lay off," I said.

"Don't be so sensitive. War is hell."

"Maybe you'd better go study up in your venereal disease book," I suggested. "You know the name for everything, but that's all you know."

"Maybe I'll go out to the football field and watch Bucky flex his muscles. He's got the best-looking greater trochanter in town." She looked at me sharply, and pointed to my scar. "That's cute," she said, "but it isn't as cute as Bucky's greater trochanter."

Marcia walked away, and I picked up some rocks from the De Crispin playground and threw them at the big cottonwood tree where we parked our bicycles, missing the tree and breaking someone's taillight. The sound of breaking glass attracted one of the Cloyd girls, and she jounced over.

"You busted the livin' crap outa somebody's taillight, boy," she said, licking her lips. "You must be pretty mean."

I threw another rock, which hit the tree without causing breakage. "I'm feeling mean," I told her, pushing my jaw out. There was something about those girls that made you want to strut. "Which one are you?"

"I'm Velva Mae," she said, swinging the lower part of her body so that her skirt swished against her legs. "Venery Ann's yonder by the drinkin' fountain wavin' her butt around."

"How do people tell you two apart," I asked her. They did look alike, both growing out of their clothes at about the same rate, both with dirty knees.

"I'm the friendly one," she said. "You got a car?"

"Bicycle," I said. "A Schwinn."

"Not even a motorcycle?" She looked very disappointed.

"Can't you be friendly on a bicycle?"

"You kin stick your little old bicycle," she said prettily. "I'm too old to go muffin' around on bicycles."

I felt low and sad about having only a bicycle to muff around on with Velva Mae, but I didn't know what to say to her. She stood there, swishing her skirt, and looking up sideways at me, as if anything went as long as I came up with a 1940 La Salle. Her knees were really dirty, with old mud ground into the wrinkles and a gray blotch down her calves, but her dress was clean and her short socks were shiny white. Her mother probably had a washing machine but no bathtub. "Maybe I can get hold of a car," I said. "Maybe you and I could double date with old Parker or somebody." If she had just stopped swishing her skirt I might have stopped all this silly talk, but she went on swishing away.

"That's a deal, Arnold," Velva Mae said. "Me and Venery Ann and you and Parker can drive out somewhere and watch the moon come up. You just get the car." She paused and looked down, and took her dress hem in both hands to spread it out. "We'll wash up," she said. "Just stay away from Davidson in the meantime."

I saw Parker later that day; he'd shared his roast javelina sandwich with me at lunch, and said I was the first guy he'd ever seen that didn't gag on it the first time. I asked him if he could get his father's car for a date with the Cloyd girls.

"Which one you got, Velva or Venery?" he asked.

"It's Velva, I think."

"It's one and the same," he said. "They're just like a couple of she otters anyhow. Maybe Daddy'll loan me his car, if he doesn't have to drive out to Seven Springs and plant trout. He don't mind. He's real keen on nature study, and damn if the Cloyds ain't nature study. Venery like to bite my mouth off one time. Hey, who's that guy staying up at your place I heard about?"