The Desperado

I AWOKE SUDDENLY and lay there in the darkness, listening to the
rapid, faraway thud of hoofbeats. The horse was traveling fast, and
occasionally the rhythmic gait would falter and become uneven, then
catch and come on again in the direction of the ranch house. It was a
tired horse. It had been pushed hard and for too long. I could tell by
the way it was running.

Pa had heard it too. I heard the bedsprings screech downstairs as he
got up. Then the old wall clock began to clang monotonously. I didn't
bother to count the strokes, but I knew it must be twelve o'clock. The
hoof-beats were getting louder now.

I got up and pulled on my pants. I found my boots under the bed and
stuffed my feet into them without bothering to light the lamp. Then,
holding onto the banister, I felt my way downstairs and into the
parlor.

Pa was standing at the front door, a slight breeze coming through the
doorway and flapping the white cotton nightshirt against his bare legs.
He was standing there peering into the darkness, holding a shotgun in
the crook of his arm.

“Tall?” he said without looking around.

“Yes, sir.”

“You better get that forty-four out of the bureau drawer. It's in
there with my shirts somewhere. You can find it.”

I said, “Yes, sir,” and turned and felt my way into the downstairs
bedroom that Pa and Ma used. Ma was sitting up in bed, her nightgown a
white blob in the darkness and her nightcap a smaller blob above it. I
went to the bureau and started feeling around in the drawer until I
found the pistol.

“Talbert,” Ma said anxiously, “what is it, son?”

“Just a rider, Ma. Nothing to worry about.”

“What are you looking for there in the bureau?”

“Pa's pistol,” I said. “Just in case.”

She didn't say anything for a moment. But she was worried. She had
been worried ever since I'd got into that scrape with the state police
down at Garner's Store. But that had been a long time ago, almost six
months. Anyway, I hadn't killed anybody; I'd just beaten hell out of a
carpetbagger with the butt end of a Winchester. There had been a big
stir about it for a while, but Pa had fixed it up with the bluebelly
police for fifty head of three-year-old cattle. So I wasn't worried
about that.

I said, “Rest easy, Ma. It's probably one of the neighbors. Maybe
somebody's sick.”

She still didn't say anything, so I went back into the parlor where
Pa was. We heard the horse pull up and scamper nervously, and we knew
the rider was swinging open the rail gate about two hundred yards south
of the house.

Pa said, “Tall?” That's the way Pa would do when he was worrying
something in his mind. He'd call your name and wait for you to answer
before he'd come out and say what he was thinking.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Tall, you haven't been up to anything, have you? You haven't got
into any trouble that you haven't told us about?”

“No, sir,” I said.

I could feel Pa relax. Then he reached over and roughed up my hair,
the way he used to do when I was just a kid, when he was feeling good.
Pa could stand just about anything but a liar, and he knew I'd tell him
the truth, no matter what it was.

The rider was coming on now, and we could hear the horse blowing and
grunting. The rider swung down at the hitching rack by our front porch
and called out:

“Mr. Cameron! Tall!”

“It was Ray Novak's voice. I would have known it anywhere. He was two
or three years older than me, and his pa used to be town marshal in
John's City, before the scalawags and turncoats came in and elected
their own man. Ray was old enough to have fought a year for the
Confederacy, and that set him apart from the rest of us who had been
too young. Ordinarily, he was an easygoing, likable man, and the only
thing I had against him was that he had been seeing a little too much
of Laurin Bannerman. But that wasn't important. I knew how Laurin felt,
and I knew I didn't have anything to be afraid of On that score. From
Ray Novak or anybody else.

Pa pushed the screen door open and stepped out on the front porch.
“Ray?” he said. “Ray Novak?”

“Yes, sir,” Ray said.

“Well, come on in,” Pa said. “Tall, light the table lamp, will you?
And see if the kitchen stove's still warm. Pull the coffee pot up on
the front lid if it is.”

I lit the lamp and went back to the kitchen. The fire had gone out in
the stove. When I came back to the parlor, Ray was saying, “I'm afraid
I can't stay, Mr. Cameron. The truth is I just stopped by to see if I
could change my horse for a fresh mount. That animal of mine is about
played out.” He saw me then and we nodded to each other.

Ray Novak didn't look scared exactly, but he looked worried. He took
off his hat and ran his fingers through thick, straw-colored hair. “I
played the fool down in John's City this afternoon,” he said. “I let
myself get suckered into a scrape with the police. I guess I'll have to
get out of the country for a while, until things cool off a little.”

Pa looked at him sharply. “You... didn't kill anybody, did you, Ray?”

Killing a state policeman in Texas, in 1869, was the same as buying a
one-way ticket to a hanging. The blue-bellies from the North had their
own judges and juries, and their verdict was always the same.

But Ray shook his head. “It was just a fist fight,” he said. “But
they're pretty riled up. I was in the harness shop getting a splice
made in a stirrup strap and this private cavalryman came in and started
passing remarks about all the families around John's City—all the
families that amounted to anything before the war. When he started on
'that goddamn Novak white trash that used to be town marshal,' I hit
him. I busted a couple of teeth, I think. I expect a detachment of
cavalry will be along pretty soon, looking for me. I don't aim to be
around.”

Pa nodded soberly. “It was a damn fool thing to do all right,” he
said. “And you won't be able to fix it with the police this time. First
Tall, and now you. The Yankees'll feel bound to do something about it
this time.”

Ray looked down at his feet and shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, sir,” he
said. “That's about the way I figured it. That's one reason I came by
your place. If they don't find me they might get to remembering Tall
and start on him again.” Then he looked up at me, his big bland face as
serious as a preacher's. “I'm sorry, Tall, I didn't figure to get you
mixed up in it.”

“What the hell,” I said. “The only thing I'm sorry about is that you
didn't put a bullet in the bluebelly's gut.”

“Tall?” Pa said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Now just hold your head. Ray's right. This could be serious for both
of you. We better take a little time and figure something out. Ray,
have you figured on anything?”

“I thought maybe I'd go up to the Panhandle for a while, sir. I've
got an older brother up there that has a little spread. I could work
with him through the spring gathering season and come back in the
summer. That ought to be time enough to let it blow over.”

Pa thought about it, standing there in his nightshirt, still holding
that shotgun in the crook of his arm. “Maybe,” he said. “But the
Panhandle isn't far enough. Tail's got an uncle down on the Brazos. You
boys could stay there. I could write you a letter when it looks all
right to come back.”

Maybe I was still half asleep. Anyway, it was just coming to me what
they were talking about. I said, “Just a minute, Pa. I don't aim to
run. This isn't my scrape, it's Ray's.”

“Tall?”

“Yes, sir,” I said from force of habit.

“Now listen to me,” Pa said soberly. “Pretty soon they'll be coming.
When they don't find Ray they're going to be mad, and it won't take
them long to remember that carpetbagger you clubbed with a rifle stock.
You know what kind of a chance you'll have if the scalawags decide to
bring it to court.”

For a minute I didn't say anything. I knew Pa was right. If they
didn't find Ray, they would be coming for me. The smart thing to do
would be to get out of the country for a while. But knowing it didn't
make me like it.

I liked things just the way they were. I liked it here on the
ranch—being able to ride over to the Bannerman spread every day or so
to see Laurin, going into John's City once a month when they held the
dances in Community Hall. I liked it just fine right where I was, and I
hated the idea of being chased away by a bunch of damned Yankee
bluebellies and blacks who had been slaves only a few years ago. And
pretty soon some of that hate began to direct itself at Ray Novak.

I looked at Ray and he knew how I was beginning to feel about it. He
was sorry. But a hell of a lot of good that was going to do. He stood
there shifting from one foot to the other, uncomfortably. He was a big
man, and he couldn't have been more than twenty-one years old. But that
didn't make him young. In this country a boy started being a man as
soon as he could strap on a gun. And about the first thing a boy did,
after he learned to walk and ride, was to strap on a gun.

Before I could say what I was thinking, before Ray Novak could put
his discomfort into words, Ma came out of the bedroom and stood looking
at us with worried eyes. Ma was a thin, work-weary woman, not really
old, but looking old. There were deep lines around her pale eyes that
came from worry and trying to gouge a living from this wild land. Ma
had been pretty as a girl. There were faded pictures of her in an old
album that gave you an idea how she must have looked when she married
Pa. The pictures showed a young girl dressed in the rather daring
fashion of the day—those low-cut dresses that all the great ladies of
the Confederacy used to wear with such a casual air, as they sat
queenlike, smiling and pouring tea from silver pots into delicate china
cups. It was hard to believe that Ma had been one of those great ladies
once. Her father had been a rich tobacco buyer in Virginia, but he lost
everything in the war and died soon afterward.

I never saw Virginia myself. And those pictures in the album were
just pictures to me, but I guess Pa still saw her as she had looked
then, because something happened to him every time he looked at her.
His wind-reddened face softened and his stern eyes became gentle —
even as they did now as he saw her standing in the doorway.

She stood there, holding her cotton wrap-around together, smiling
quickly at Ray.

“Good evening, Ray,” she said.

“Good evening, Mrs. Cameron,” Ray said uneasily.

“Mother,” Pa said, “why don't you go back to bed? I'll be along in a
few minutes.”

But she shook her head. “I want to know what it's about. Tell me,
Rodger, because I'll find out sooner or later.”

“It's nothing serious,” Pa said gently. “Ray just had some trouble in
John's City with the state police. It's nothing to worry about.”

“I don't understand,” Ma said vaguely. “What has that to do with
Talbert?”

“I just think it's best if they both go away for a while, until it
blows over. There's been no killing. Just a fist fight. But there's no
telling what the Yankee troopers will do while they're riled up. I'll
send Ray and Tall down to my brother's place on the Brazos. You know
how the police shift from one place to another. In a few months there
won't be anybody around John's City to remember or hold a grudge, and
then they can come back.”

She considered it carefully, but I knew she wouldn't question Pa's
word. That's the way it always had been.