“She’s sick.”
“It’s not in the best interest, Pete.”
“The best interest.”
“There are three events regarding this woman. The first is her brother-in-law shot your son. The second is that, with a half-dozen law enforcement officers present, we went to capture the guilty parties. Unfortunately things did not go as hoped.”
“That is an inaccuracy, at best.”
He waved his hand furiously, as if my words were a stale odor. “The final thing is her father’s land was put up in a tax sale by the State of Texas, which would have happened sooner or later, whether they were living on the property or not, as they had not been paying their taxes.”
I snorted.
“It is in the records.”
“Which makes it all the more likely to be a lie.”
“Pete, there are many things I have wanted to save: the Indians, the buffalo, a prairie where you could look twenty miles and not see a fence post. But time has passed those things by.”
How about your wife,
I thought, but I remained silent.
“Give her some money and get rid of her. By the weekend.”
“She will leave over my dead body.”
He opened his mouth but nothing came out. By his color, he must have been very hot.
“Now don’t go getting up on your ear,” I heard him start, but I was already walking away, my hands hidden in my pockets as they were shaking. They did not stop shaking until after I got back to the house.
C
ALLED
S
ALLY, HOPING
she might be a voice of reason. We had not spoken in a month—she does her communicating through Consuela—and she was surprised to hear from me. Says she has no interest in returning to McCullough Springs. Greatest mistake of her life. We discussed Charlie and Glenn, who are still in training. We both agreed it was unlikely they would ever make it to the war. I suspected Charlie would be disappointed by this, but I did not say it.
After a time she mentioned that she spent two weeks in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts with a “friend.” She wondered if I had heard anything of it, if perhaps that was the reason I had called. Ridiculousness of asking her opinion about María Garcia suddenly apparent; I became annoyed at myself for calling her, annoyed at my own desperation. But she thought I was annoyed at her tryst and immediately became conciliatory.
“I’m sad you’re not here,” she said. “It would be more fun if you were.”
“I’m just working.”
Silence.
“Are we separated?”
“I don’t know.”
“But we are taking some time away from each other.”
“I don’t care what you do,” I told her.
“I’m just asking. I’m trying to figure out our status.”
“You can do whatever you want.”
“I know you don’t care, Peter. You don’t care about anyone but yourself and your sadness. That is what you care about the most, making sure you are as unhappy as possible.”
“The things you do haven’t bothered me before,” I said. “I don’t know why they would now.”
“I am trying to figure out how it’s possible that I still love you, but I do. I want you to know that. You can still save this whenever you want.”
“That’s nice,” I told her.
Silence.
“Say,” she finally said. “How is that drilling going?”
W
ENT DOWN TO
see about dinner.
“Your father says I am not to cook for her,” said Consuela.
I shrugged.
“I’ll make extra for you,” she said.
Of course there is no one to talk to, even Consuela; I know what her answer will be. What anyone’s answer will be. The right thing is to get rid of her. Perhaps for her own good.
A
FTER A TEN-MINUTE
search I find her in the library. The nicest spot in the house, as most of the windows face north and there are a few seeps hidden among the rocks to keep the view green.
“What’s wrong?” she says.
I shrug.
“I saw you walking back from your father’s house.”
I shrug again.
“Of course. Consuela’s given me a few things, I’ll get them together.”
“Didn’t your family have a bank account?”
“They did,” she said, “and what little I could withdraw I used to live.”
“Is there really nowhere else?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“He’s always done this,” I say, referring to the Colonel.
“The land makes people crazy.”
“It’s not the land.”
“No, my great-uncle was the same. A person to him was an obstacle, like a drought, or a cow that would not do what he wanted. If you crossed him he might cut your heart out before he came to his senses. If his sons had lived . . .” She shrugs. “Of course we didn’t belong here, my father was two years into university when his uncle died. But . . .” She shrugs again. “He was a romantic.”
“He was a good man,” I say.
“He was vain. He loved the idea of being a hidalgo, he was always telling us how blessed we were to live on the land. But really, there was no
we
. It was only him. He could not accept that his neighbors might one day kill him, and so he kept us all there, despite the risks, which we were all aware of.”
It gets quiet.
“You don’t belong here, either,” she says. “You’ve probably always known it and here you are.”
Not always, of course, but perhaps since my mother died. Though I cannot tell her that story; it does not compare to her own. Instead I tell her another:
“I remember when I was a kid, we caught this boy who my father thought had stolen cattle from us. He was maybe twelve or so, but he wouldn’t tell my father anything so my father threw a rope over the top of the gate, put it around the boy’s neck, and tied the other end to a horse. When they let him down he started talking. He scratched a map in the dirt and said the men we were looking for were white, that they’d made him come along because they didn’t know the land.”
She nods. I can’t tell if I should continue or not. But I do:
“I was taking the noose off him when my father slapped the horse and the boy went back up in the air.”
“And then?”
“He died.”
“Did they catch the others?”
“He hanged the ones he didn’t shoot.”
“The sheriff?”
“No, my father.”
T
HERE WERE NINE
of them but the last four gave themselves up and my father stripped the saddles off their horses and found a proper cottonwood and hung them with their own ropes. I held the camphene lamp while Phineas put the nooses on. At first Phineas was nervous but the last man he noosed he told:
It’ll all be over in a minute, partner.
That is real kind of you,
said the man.
My father said:
Either way you’re hanging, Paco. It’s just whether it’s now or in a few weeks in Laredo.
I’ll take the few weeks.
Spit popping in his mouth.
You ought to be happy we aren’t skinning you,
said my father.
M
ARÍA HAS COME
to sit next to me. The sun is going down, the light in the room is dim. She brushes a hair behind her ear and I swallow. Her eyes are soft. She touches my hand. “You should stop thinking about it,” she says.
I can’t. But that is difficult to explain to people, so I don’t say anything.
P
HINEAS STOOD BESIDE
one of the horses and slapped it, then moved down the line to slap the next one. When the last man dropped it was quiet except for the ropes creaking and the men gurgling and shitting as they pedaled their legs. They were still kicking when my father said:
There’s some nice saddles here.
“P
ETER?
”
Her hand is covering mine and I am afraid to move.
“That is in me somewhere,” I say.
We sit there like that and I wonder if something might happen but we both know there is nothing right about it.
Eli McCullough
Early 1852
I
arrived in Bastrop and found the address of my new home, a rickety frame house with multiple rooms added, built before statehood when materials were thin. But there was a large front yard with flowers and grass and a whitewashed fence.
My stepmother was in her forties, with a harsh expression and a tightly tied bonnet. She looked like she’d been raised on sour milk and when the Indians thought of white people, she is the person they imagined, from the look she gave, she did not exactly think me nickel-plated, either. Her two sons were both taller than me and they smirked. I made up my mind to bash their heads.
“You must be Eli.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, we found some clothes for you. You can change out of those things. You better give that pistol to Jacob.”
The taller one was reaching for my Colt. I slapped his hand away.
“We lock our guns up here,” she said.
I slapped his hand away again.
“Mother.”
She looked at me for a long time and then said: “Let him be.”
I had a pallet in the same room as the other two boys, who were eyeing my bow, knife, pistol; everything I owned. As soon as I’d been given the tour I went on a walk, and, after losing my stepbrothers, who were trying to follow me, I buried the pistol and everything else I cared about in my bag, taking only my bow and arrow and a small wallet of things I did not think would interest anyone.
On the way back I saw my stepbrothers walking in circles, trying to cut my trail, considered ambushing them but decided against it, and made my way back to the house.
That night we had salt pork, which I would not touch. I ate most of the corn bread and all the butter, though. The family was originally from East Texas and did not believe in buying wheat. The fact they had butter was a small miracle.
I could not fault my stepmother as she had bought me a new set of clothes, including shoes, and the next morning I was dressed up like her sons, tripping over my shoes the first time I walked in them, which inspired great hilarity in everyone but myself.
The state was paying for my schooling, on the judge’s orders, and there was one room and a very young teacher trying to teach two dozen children of all ages. After sitting a few minutes I stood up so I would not fall asleep. I felt sorry for the other students, who could not imagine saying no to this teacher or anyone else; they were going to spend entire lives doing things just like this. I felt so sorry for them I nearly burst out crying. The teacher forgot how nice she was and came after me with a paddle and I let her chase me awhile before going out the window.
I spent the rest of the day building snares and setting them, walking in and out of people’s barns. I stole a mare, rode her for an hour, and returned her to her stall. I watched a pretty older woman reading a book on her back porch, her fine brown hair going gray, just wearing a shift on account of it being warm. She adjusted one breast and then the other and then reached up under her shift and left her hand there, which was too much. I ran off and had a few moments to myself. I thought I could probably make it in Bastrop.
When I got back home, my stepmother was waiting.
“I heard you left school,” she said, “and I heard you were seen on Mr. Wilson’s horse and I heard you were walking around the yard of the Edmunds, looking in their windows.”
How she had learned this I did not know. I expected her to check my hands for the mark of Onan. Then I noticed a strange smell. Something was burning and I went to the fireplace and saw that some person had put my moccasins, bow, arrows, and loincloth into the flames.
“The man who built that bow is dead,” I told her. “It cannot be replaced.”
“You need to put those days behind you, Eli.”
If she had been male I would have killed her and not thought another thing about it. Later I would consider this and decide we were both lucky.
“Jacob and Stuart brought your shoes back for you.”
“I’m not wearing those fucking things,” I said.
I went to my pallet and took the wool blanket off it, then went into the kitchen. I took a knife and some things I found in the drawers, a ball of sisal, a needle and thread, a half loaf of corn pone.
“Eli, you may take whatever you want,” said my stepmother. “It all belongs to you. This is your home now.”
It was a queer way to act. She was either softheaded or a Quaker.
I
WAS SURE
I’d be followed by my stepbrothers so the trail I left them led right to a patch of quicksand. From there I made some footprints that led to a rattlesnake den. Finally I went to the tree where I’d buried my things and dug up my bag, which contained my revolver and various other pieces of gear, all in fine condition.
After walking another hour I found a high overlook with a stream running in front of it and plenty of shade. I made a fire and fell asleep wrapped in the blanket, listening to the wolves howl. I howled back and we went on for a while like that. I kept my Colt under my knees, Indian-style, but I knew I was not going to need it for anything, the country was too settled up.
The next morning I hacked down a bunch of saplings with my stolen bowie knife, which was indeed a very good knife, heavy but nicely balanced; even after batoning through some of the saplings it was not dulled at all. I wondered if Jim Bowie had actually owned it but by then for him to own all the knives attributed to him he would have had to live a thousand years. I made a drying rack and a frame for a brush arbor. But there was not much point in working so hard. I lay down in the sun and looked out over the green hills; I had forgotten how warm it was in the lowlands. I thought of all my friends buried up on the snowy Llano, cried for a while, and fell asleep.
That afternoon I shot two does and skinned and flayed out the meat and hung it on the racks to dry. I teased out the long sinew from the backbones and cleaned and washed the stomachs. One of the legbones I sharpened into a passable scraper and fleshed both the hides. By then the sun was almost down so I built a fire and had a fine supper of venison rubbed with cedar berries, and marrow mixed with dried sugarberries. The next day I decided to find a bee tree.