Leaving Cheyenne Read online

  “It’s so much more pleasant when you do it,” he said. “You can rub my back a little if you just insist.”

  That was another difference in Johnny and Gid. Once Johnny got in a bed, no matter for what reason, he’d think of excuses to stay there for hours on end. Gid was just the opposite. You practically had to tie him down to keep him in bed ten minutes. I had been trying to break him of it for nearly twenty years; I hadn’t made no progress, and in fact I’d lost ground. When we were both younger I could entice him to relax once in a while, but the older we got the less luck I had. Mostly, I guess, it was because Gid had so much energy he couldn’t hardly stay still; but partly it was because he was ashamed of himself for being there in the first place, especially if it was in the daytime. At night he wasn’t as bad, but then I never got to see much of him at night.

  Not Johnny. He could lay around and enjoy himself for hours.

  “Say, Molly,” he said. He was lying there watching me; he was such a watcher it tickled me sometimes. “What’ll you take to patch my britches pocket before I get them back on? I’m afraid I’ll lose my billfold and all them valuables in it.”

  “I may not have any blue thread,” I said.

  “That’s all right, I ain’t particular.”

  I put my brassière on and patched them for him, while he dozed. His clothes were always just on the verge of being worn out; I think he just wore that kind when he visited me so there would be something for me to patch. I watched him sleep. Joe had his features to a T, and his eyes, and his recklessness; if he hadn’t had the recklessness he wouldn’t have got in no bomber crew to begin with. But that pleased Johnny. One day after Joe had already been reported missing, Johnny told me he’d rather have a dead hero for a son than a live coward.

  “I’d rather have Joe than either one,” I said, and I don’t think he knew what I meant. Men don’t think like women, or maybe it’s that they don’t feel the same kind of feelings. Gid had said practically the same thing to me when Jimmy got sent to the Pacific. And the boys were the same way, I guess. Joe actually enjoyed living over in England and flying in the bomber. I guess he had a million girl friends over there; I was always afraid he’d marry one of those English girls and bring her home to Texas and not know what to do with her. In his letters he never mentioned things like that. “How’s the place, Momma?” or “What’s Gid and Johnny doing?” or “Momma, I sure do miss your cooking, these army chefs sure can’t cook like you. Why don’t you send me some cookies?” Letters like that. Joe was the liveliest kid in the world, and the best natured. I waited till he was sixteen to tell him Johnny was his dad—it had bothered Jim so much when he found out Gid was his. But it tickled Joe flat to death. I imagine he pretty well suspected it anyway, but when he grinned at the news I cried for half an hour I was so relieved. I doubt Johnny and him ever talked about it. They usually just talked about horses and ballplaying and rodeos, things they were interested in. They probably never even mentioned it. Things like that just didn’t worry Joe like they did Jimmy.

  Johnny was sound asleep. He was woman-crazy all right, at least where I was concerned, and he tickled me the way he let me know it. But he wasn’t as crazy as he had been. One time years before he had come charging into the kitchen in such a hurry that he hadn’t even seen me and knocked me flat on my back—it scared Jimmy to death. I guess the time was coming when Johnny wouldn’t barge in on me in the afternoons, and I would miss that, mood or no mood. I put the needle in the pincushion and got back in bed and made him turn over so I could lay against him, under one of his arms. I never did doze off, I just lay and looked out the window and counted Johnny’s pulse once in a while, for the fun of it. It looked like a cloud was building up in the south. Ever once in a while Johnny would grunt like a hog, just one grunt, and then be quiet agin. One time straightening out his leg he stratched me, so I jumped; he was the worst in the world about toenails. Once I gave him a pair of clippers and he kept them about two days and broke them trying to cut a piece of baling wire. The arm I was holding had his watch on it, and when it got to be six o’clock I got up right quiet and put on my dress and cooked supper. Steak and gravy and black-eyed peas was about all we had, but I had a few fresh onions from the garden, and Johnny loved fresh onions.

  When I went back to the bedroom the room was full of shadows, except for the one west window where the last of the sunlight was coming in. I sat down on the bed and gave Johnny a shake.

  “Get up if you want any supper,” I said.

  He opened his eyes and stretched. “Aw hell, you’re done dressed,” he said, and grinned.

  “You heard me,” I said.

  “We ain’t wrestled in a long time,” he said. “You want to?”

  “Not specially,” I said. “I’ve lost my girlish strength.”

  “You never had none, you was just awful wiggly,” he said.

  I went on and set the table and he stomped around dressing and washing up for ten minutes before he ever showed himself in the kitchen.

  “Boy, where’d you get them onions?” he said. “Have you milked?”

  “No,” I said. “You can milk while I wash the dishes.”

  “These dishes won’t need washing,” he said, and they didn’t much.

  He went to the barn with me but I did the milking. He let the cow in and made conversation, but milking was a little beneath his dignity. Gid would grab ahold and do anything, but Johnny was finicky about the things he worked at. A lot of that rubbed off on Joe, only I never let Joe get away with it. One time I sent him out to hoe goatheads, and when I went out to see about him he was playing with a stick horse and hadn’t hoed a lick.

  “What are you doing?” I said. “I thought I sent you out here with a hoe.”

  He had really worked his nerve up by that time. “Momma, go to hell,” he said. “I’m riding. Cowboys don’t hoe.”

  “I’ll cowboy you, sonny,” I said, and I did. Johnny, he laughed about the whole thing and just made Joe worse, so the next time he came loving up to me I told him a thing or two. “Go court your horse,” I said, “cowboys don’t fool around with girls.”

  “Aw, honey, now you ain’t mad at me,” he said, but he didn’t get nowhere that day.

  When I finished the milking Johnny opened the gate so old Muley could go out, and I started to the house with the milk bucket. He came up and put his arm around me and made me slosh some milk out on my foot, so I gave him the bucket to carry.

  “I never was no hand at milking,” he said. “Think of the time it’s saved me.”

  The only time I ever got Johnny to do chores was the winter after Eddie got killed, when I come down with the flu so bad. Gid and him took turns with my chores until I got over it. Both the boys had it too.

  It was a warm, pretty evening. I strained the milk and Johnny poured himself some coffee. I got a jar of plum preserves and opened it for him; he loved to drink coffee and eat plum preserves. After he had spit about a hundred seeds into his coffee saucer I took the jar away from him and put it back in the icebox.

  “It’s a wonder you haven’t took sugar diabetes, as much sweet stuff as you eat,” I said.

  “It’s a wonder I haven’t tooken something worse than that from associating with old widow women like you,” he said.

  I walked over behind him and squeezed his neck a little. “I always get old after supper,” I said. “In the afternoon I’m still young and pretty.”

  “I’ve noticed that,” he said. “I wonder why it is.”

  We sat around awhile and then he put his hat on and we walked out to the back gate. There were plenty of stars showing, but there was a good bit of lightning back in the west.

  “Well, I guess Gid’s bought him another five sections by now,” he said. “It’s all I can do to keep him from working me to death. You’d think a man forty-seven years old would begin to slow down.”

  “Gid got a late start,” I said. “He didn’t really catch hold till after his dad died.”

/>   “He’s making up for it.”

  “Tell him to come and see me,” I said. “I don’t get to see too much of him since they moved to town.” And when he did come by he was in such a hurry I didn’t get to talk to him long.

  “He comes by often enough without me telling him to,” Johnny said. “I’d just as soon not encourage the competition.”

  “How are him and Mabel making it?” I said.

  “Oh, they’re having trouble, Molly. But when ain’t they? At least now they got a house big enough that they can kinda keep out of one another’s way.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Gid deserves better.”

  “I think so too,” he said.

  “We never heard the news tonight. I forgot about it.”

  “We didn’t miss nothing,” he said. “You keep up with this war stuff too close.”

  “Well, you’re an American,” I said. “Don’t you want to know what’s happening?”

  “Not particularly,” he said. “When the Japs or the Germans cross the county line, then I’ll be interested.”

  I didn’t say no more; it was a sore spot with us. There was no changing Johnny. But I think he was sorry he said it, because he knew it made me blue.

  “I ’pologize, honey,” he said, patting my arm. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Sure enjoyed the meal.”

  “I’m glad,” I said. I kissed him on the cheek and he got in the pickup and started off. Then he stopped and leaned out the window.

  “Much obliged for patching them pants,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.” He bounced on across the hill, hitting all the bumps. I could see the taillights bouncing. Johnny was a sorry driver and so was Gid. Joe and Jimmy could drive circles around either one of their dads. I stood by the fence until the taillights went out of sight. It seemed like I’d spent a lot of my life watching Gid or Johnny or one of the boys drive off across the hill. That was all right. I enjoyed being there where they could find me if they took a notion to come back—and they always had. After I watched the clouds awhile I decided it wasn’t stormy looking enough to worry, so I went in and went to bed.

  two

  It wasn’t but a few nights after that that it come a real bad cloud. Just before I went to bed I stepped outside to look around, and it was as pretty a night as anybody could want—I could see ever star in the Milky Way. I went back in and read a piece or two in the Reader’s Digest and went to sleep. When I woke up the wind was blowing a gale and the limbs of the old sycamore tree were thrashing against the roof. I got out of bed and made sure the windows were all down, and then went out on the back porch to see if I could tell anything about the cloud. The wind was out of the southwest and just about took my nightgown off. That was too much wind to sleep under, so I went back to the bedroom and got my bathrobe and a pillow. There was a cot with several quilts on it already made up in the storm cellar; I had learned long ago to have things like that ready.

  I sat down at the radio a minute and tried to get a weather report, but all I got was static. Anyway, the way the sycamore thrashed was weather report enough. I put an apple in my pocket, in case I got hungry, and shut the back door good when I went out. Just as I stepped off the porch the big raindrops began to splatter me; there was an awful wind, and a big old tumbleweed came swooshing across the yard from the south and bounced right into me. In the dark I never seen it coming, and it scared me, and stung a little, but I got loose from it and went on to the cellar and shut the door after me. The sandstone steps felt cool on my feet; it was pitch dark. I had a kerosene lantern sitting on a table, but before I could work my way over to it I stumped my toe on an old pressure cooker that was sitting on the floor. I never could remember to throw it away, and I stumped my toe on it practically ever time I went to the cellar. From down there I could still hear the wind singing, but it didn’t sound dangerous; nothing sounded dangerous from down in the cellar. I lit the lantern and looked through the quilts to be sure there wasn’t no stinging lizard in them. The cellar was clean, and there never had been many stinging lizards down there, but it never hurt to look; not near as much as it hurt to get stung. Then I blew out the lantern and snuggled down in the quilts and ate my apple. It was a nice sweet one and smelled fresh, like it had just come off the tree that day.

  When I got done I dropped the core under the cot. I had such a good taste in my mouth; it was one thing I liked about apples. Lately I had got so I always belched peaches, so I didn’t eat them much, except in homemade ice cream. I felt nice and cozy and relaxed snuggled in the quilts, and I wasn’t too worried about the storm. Where cyclones were concerned I was awful lucky. One time one went right between the house and the barn, and all it done was turn Dad’s old wagon over; it never even hurt the chickenhouse.

  I thought I would doze right off to sleep, but I didn’t. I lay there wide awake. It began to rain real hard; I heard it beating against the tin door of the cellar. After I lay there thirty minutes or an hour I knew I was going to get real blue before the night was over, and in a little while I began to cry. I didn’t even try to stop myself. At first I was just barely sniffing, but then all my feelings rushed up to my chest and my head and I heard myself crying over the rain on the door. I was crying so hard I thought I had fallen off the cot; when I was coughing and trying to get my breath I pulled back one of the quilts and felt the canvas with my hand, so I hadn’t fallen. My breasts just felt like empty sacks. I turned the pillow over on the dry side and cried some more hard crying, and finally I quit and pushed the pillow off the cot and lay on my stomach with my head on my arms. I was all upset and knew I wouldn’t go to sleep, but I didn’t feel any more like I was going to die.

  There was no cure for being upset that way; I just had to grit my teeth and wait for the feelings to die down. Being lonesome itself was just part of it—mostly I couldn’t stand not having anybody to do for. I never was happy when I just had myself to do for, or even when I had somebody else wanting to do for me. That was nice, but that wasn’t the main point about loving, at least not with me. The main point was having somebody I could let my feelings out on. And I couldn’t do that very well at a distance, I needed to have somebody right around close, so I could touch them and cook for them and do little things like that. It was always men or boys, with me. I never knew a woman I cared for—not even Ma. Men need a lot of things they don’t even know about themselves, and most of them they can’t get nowhere but from women. It was easy to do for them, most of the time, and it made me feel so comfortable. A lot of times it wasn’t easy, of course, but it still felt better to try. With Johnny and Joe it was easy; they were just alike and needed exactly the same kind of handling. With Gid it was sometimes awful hard because Gid was too honest; he never would fool himself or let nobody else fool him, even if it was for his own good. I tried it enough times to know it couldn’t be done, especially if he was having hard times with Mabel. It had nearly always been hard with Dad, and with Eddie, and it was hardest of all with Jimmy, who was just Gid times two. At least Dad and Eddie liked themselves, even if they didn’t like me, and I could figure out what to do from that. But Jimmy, he never liked himself or me, and that made life hell for him. And he hadn’t changed. Wherever he was, over there in the Pacific, he was wishing he was somebody else’s son besides mine. I never even put my hand on Jimmy, not even on his arm, after he found out that Gid was his daddy, and that I was still letting Gid and Johnny get in bed with me. Only I wasn’t letting them come, I was wanting them to: Jimmy didn’t know that, or didn’t understand it, but if he had he would have just hated me more. I blame some of Jimmy’s troubles on religion, but I can’t blame them all on it; I have to blame most of them on myself. If I had married Gid instead of Eddie, Jim might have been a happy boy. But if that had happened, Eddie would have killed Gid, or Gid and Johnny would have fell apart, and there might not have even been a Joe. I don’t know that I done very wrong. But I know that Jimmy’s miserable; some of the time I am too. Four men and two bo
ys were what I’d had for a life, and laying there on the cot I could picture every one of them, plain as day. But there wasn’t a one of them I could get my arms around, and right then, that was what I wanted; I would rather have been blind and had the touch than like I was, with just the picture.

  Everybody gets hard nights, though, I guess. It wasn’t the first time I’d ever felt sick with my feelings, and I wasn’t girl enough to think it would be the last. When you lay around feeling cut off from folks, crazy things go through your mind. I would see men’s hands and faces and other parts of them, sometimes even their stomachs, Eddie’s or Johnny’s or Gid’s. Probably if I had gone on and married Johnny, it would have been good for both of us, but he wouldn’t have done it, even if I had really wanted to. He was too responsibility-shy. Besides it would have made Gid feel terrible; he had wanted to marry me all his life.

  Once I almost decided to marry Gid—I guess I was just jealous of Mabel. We were in my bedroom.

  “If you’ve got the guts to quit her, I’ll marry you,” I said. “If you don’t, I wish you’d quit wishing out loud.”

  That was when Gid was having terrible times at home, and when I said that he looked like he was about to split in two.

  “Honey, you know it ain’t a matter of guts,” he said. “If I didn’t have that much guts, I wouldn’t be here now. But I don’t believe in divorcement—it ain’t right. If Mabel wants to do it, she can. I ain’t going to.”

  “If it was conscience, you wouldn’t be here,” I said. “So I still think it’s guts.” I talked awful to Gid sometimes; I don’t know why he didn’t choke me. I would nearly drive him crazy.

  “Well, let’s just be quiet for a little while,” he said. “Honey, I got to go in fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  That made me feel terrible, and I pulled him over to me. We had some rough times, me and Gid, a lot rougher than any I ever had with Johnny. Or with Eddie either. Nothing was rough with Johnny, and when things were bad with me and Eddie it was just because he plain enjoyed being rough and mean to women; I was hardly ever hard on him like I was on Gid. Sometimes I hated Gid, and I never felt that strong about Eddie one way or the other.