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  The Brave Cowboy

  (1956)

  She came slowly out of sleep, dreaming of the surrealistic past, hearing in the present and not far away the click of a light switch, light footsteps on the kitchen floor, the scraping sounds of a heavy object in motion. Alarmed, she reached out to touch Paul—he was not there. The weary pain of loss and separation swept over her; in the twilight of consciousness between sleep and awakening she felt the full weight of all the fear and sorrow and loneliness that in her waking hours she had partially suppressed beneath a routine of activity and facile optimism. Again she heard the unfamiliar sounds; unwillingly she opened her eyes and turned her head and saw, under the door to the kitchen, a splinter of yellow light. She was startled, then afraid, caught for a moment in the paralysis of the unknown and unexpected. She wanted to get out of bed but was afraid to make any noise; she caught at her breath, swallowed hard and finally forced herself to speak. She called out:

  “Who is it?”—a scarcely articulate croak.

  Which brought no answer; the sounds of activity in the kitchen continued: she heard something hard and heavy strike the wooden floor. “Who’s there?” she said, louder and clearer.

  A moment of silence, then the voice of Jack Burns: “It’s me, Jerry. It’s Jack. You awake?”

  She slid out of bed, gave her hair one quick brush with her hand and went to the door and opened it. There was Jack, grinning wanly at her, blinking in the light; he had his saddlebags on one shoulder, his rifle in his right hand. She stared at him and rubbed her eyes. “Where’ve you been?” she said. “Were you in jail?”

  “I was. In and out. How about—”

  “Where’s Paul? Is he all right? Has anything happened?”

  “Everything’s fine. Paul’s right where he wants to be. How about makin some coffee? I gotta start off in a few minutes.”

  “What happened to your face?” she said. “You look awful.”

  “It’s nothin much—just a little trouble.”

  “But good God, Jack …” She hesitated, floundering among her fears and impressions, still not fully awake. “What happened, tell me. Did you break out of jail?”

  “You’re shiverin,” he said; “why don’t you put somethin warm on?” She stared at him. “Go ahead—I’ll start a fire in the stove and tell you everything that happened. Hurry up; I can’t stay long.”

  She heard his words, became aware then of the chill in the air, of the taut roughness of her skin. She went back in the bedroom and shuffled into her slippers and put a heavy jacket on over her pajamas. When she re-entered the kitchen she found Jack stuffing paper and kindling-wood into the firebox of the stove. “Matches on the shelf,” she said, and in a continuation of that reflex act she went to the cupboard and measured four table-spoonfuls of fresh coffee into the coffeepot. Burns lit the paper under the kindling, set several chunks of juniper on top of that and replaced the stove lid; the fire began to crackle and roar. Jerry dipped about four cupfuls of water out of the bucket, then set the pot on the stove; she closed the damper and the fire settled down to a muted, steady rumble. All of this required no more than a few minutes; they worked quickly and without speaking, conscious of the cold and the approaching dawn.

  When she had finished Jerry said: “What are you going to do?” She stood close to the stove, catching the first radiations of heat from the old iron. “You did break out, didn’t you?”

  “Sure,” he said, “what else could I do?” He had one foot on a chair, buckling his spurs to his boots.

  “Are the police after you now?”

  “I hope not. They’ll be scramblin around pretty soon, though. There’s a good chance they’ll be lookin for me right here, too.” He stood up and stretched his arms and yawned mightily. “God, it sure is good to be outa that cage!” He relaxed and smiled awkwardly at Jerry—the condition of his face made normal smiling difficult. “How’s that coffee comin along?”

  “What?” she said. Then: “It’ll take a few more minutes.”

  He picked the saddlebags up from the floor. “I’ll go out and saddle up.” He opened the back door and looked out into the darkness. “Won’t be long,” he said; “there’s a light blue streak above the mountains now.” He could see, through the miles of starlit space, a faint sheen of snow on the crest of the range. Jerry, looking out the doorway over his shoulder, saw the white gleam and shivered again. “Wouldn’t wanta be up there now with only my spurs on,” Burns said. He grinned at her, lifted the saddlebags to his shoulder, ducked under the top of the doorway and walked out; she watched his thin legs and narrow back retreat in the direction of the corral, fading into the purple night. Feeling cold and desolate, she closed the door, hearing a whinny from the mare at the same time, and went back to the stove and moved the coffeepot to what appeared to be the hottest area on the stove. She stared at the black charred handle of the vessel, at the round lid under it, at the yellow glint of fire visible through the crack between stove lid and center section. She roused herself again, set the skillet on the stove and peeled half a dozen strips of bacon into it. She put another skillet on the stove, poured a little bacon grease into it, and cracked five eggs and let them fry. She tossed the cracked eggshells toward the woodbox and missed; she did not bother to pick them up.

  Something has happened, she decided; something terrible has happened.

  From outside came the sound of hoofs beating on the hard earth, the soft coaxing voice of Burns, the mare Whisky’s answering nicker. Again she heard, as in a dream, the jingle of spurs and the cowboy’s steps across the porch.

  “Hey, somethin smells mighty good,” he said, coming in; he spotted the bacon and eggs on the stove. “Jerry, you’re my angel.”

  “I’m a damned worried angel,” she said, setting a plate, knife, fork, two cups, on the table.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong? What’s right?” The coffee began to perk and bubble; she flipped the eggs over, forked the strips of bacon out of the skillet and onto a doubled-up paper towel. “Sit down,” she said. “Soon as you eat I’m going to put something on that massacred face of yours. What on earth happened to you?”

  “Is that all that’s frettin you?” Burns sat down at the table and gave the plate a spin; he remembered his hat, took it off and set it on the floor beside his chair. “Huh?”

  “You men make me sick,” she said. “You act like children. Even my son or that mare out there would have better sense. Here you are with your face cut up and running away from the police and there Paul is in the county jail waiting to go to a Federal prison for a year or two. What’s the matter with you people?” She dished out the eggs and bacon onto his plate and turned back to the stove to rescue the coffee, already beginning to boil over. “I think you’re both crazy, that’s all.”

  “You might be right there,” Burns agreed. “Question is—what can you do about it?”

  “Don’t make me angry,” Jerry said; she filled his cup with coffee, then her own. “There’s plenty I could do,” she added.

  Burns gazed sombrely into his black coffee. “Maybe so,” he said, “maybe so.” The vapor rising from the coffee clouded his face, giving him a temporary intangibility.

  Jerry sat down. “What kind of extra trouble is Paul in now?” she asked.

  “None that I know of.” Burns began to eat. “He helped me get out but there’s no call for anybody to learn that.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  Burns spoke between mouthfuls of bacon and egg. “… Up to the mountains. Hide—” He gulped down some of the steaming coffee. “—Hide out maybe a few days. Get some meat, make jerky.”

  “I can give you some things.”

  “Can’t take canned goods—too heavy, too bulky.”

  “I baked yesterday. I’ll give you some bread.”

  “That’d be fine, Jerry.”

  “You say you’re going to hide for a few days—what does that mean? What then? Where
will you go?”

  Burns ate heartily; a touch of egg adorned his beard. “I can go north, west or south. Winter’s comin so I guess I’ll go south: Chihuahua or maybe Sonora, dependin on how things look.”

  “What will you do down there?”

  “I dunno. Just live, I guess.” He swabbed his plate with a piece of bread. “I like Mexico—I have friends there.”

  “But Jack—” Jerry hesitated. “You’ll be back, won’t you?”

  “Sure. When I’m nothin but a face on the post office wall I’ll come a-sneakin back. You’ll see me comin down across the mesa out there some evening when things are peaceful.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that. You know you can’t go on like this—you’re in the Twentieth Century now.”

  “I don’t tune my life to the numbers on a calendar.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Jack. You’re a social animal, whether you like it or not. You’ve got to make some concessions—or they’ll hunt you down like a … like a … What do people hunt down nowadays?”

  “Coyotes,” Burns said. “With cyanide guns.” He finished his coffee and wiped his mouth. “I better get a move on.”

  Jerry gripped her cup tightly, though it burnt her fingers. “Jack—” she said.

  He looked at her over his hand. His lean worn face, beaten and discolored, harsh, asymmetrical, homely as a hound, touched her to the heart. She wanted to reach out to him, laugh and weep for him; instead she forced a smile, saying: “Like some more to eat?”

  He stared at her for a long moment before answering. “Thanks, Jerry … I’ve had enough.”

  “I’ll fix you something to take with you.”

  “That’d be mighty nice of you, Jerry.” He pushed back his chair, put on his hat and stood up. “I gotta get goin right away, though.”

  “Won’t take me but a minute.” She got up too and started to demonstrate her words. Burns was about to interfere, changed his mind, picked up his rifle and bedroll, and went outside. Jerry finished packing a paper sack with a half loaf of dark bread wrapped in tin foil, with cheese and salami and oranges. She hurried out after him. “Don’t run off,” she said.

  Burns had slipped the rifle into the saddle scabbard and was tying the bedroll on behind the cantle when she came out. “Here,” she said, “take this. It’s bread.”

  “Thanks a lot,” he said, taking the package and jamming it into the top of the saddlebag. He knotted the last thong, then went to the pump to fill his canteen; she followed him. The air was chill enough to vaporize their exhalations, lending their speech a vague, smoky visibility.

  “I want to give you back the money,” she said.

  Burns unscrewed the cap of the canteen, held it under the spout and began pumping. Jerry picked up a can full of water and poured the water slowly into the top of the pump. “You have to prime this damn thing,” she said. Flecks of ice glittered in the starlight.

  “I forgot.” He pumped the handle up and down and after much groaning and gasping the pump started to give water, splashing over the cowboy’s hand and over the canteen.

  “I don’t need the money, you know. Not really …” She turned to go back to the house. “I’ll get it.”

  “I could use the ammunition,” he said at last. “And I’ll take back half the money.” Jerry started toward the porch. “No more,” he said after her.

  She went inside; Burns walked to his outfit and hung the canteen on the saddlehorn. He waited; the mare snorted and twitched her ears, pawing the ground, eager for the dawn and the ride. He looked to the east: the mountains seemed darker now, the snow almost blue; above the rim the sky was fading in waves of green and yellow, a hint of the sun burning below the horizon. But far in the west the night still held, deep and brilliant with the ice-blue crackling points of light from the stars.

  Jerry hurried out of the house toward him, the bandoleer in her hands. “All right, I kept half the money. Now take it.”

  He accepted the bandoleer without a word.

  “I almost forgot,” she said. “I want to do something for your face.”

  “My face is hopeless,” he said, trying to grin. “What can you do for it?”

  “That broken tooth may give you trouble.”

  “Broken tooth?”

  “You might at least let me wash the blood off your cheek.”

  “That ain’t blood, that’s skin. I washed everything off that would come off before I got here.”

  “Where?”

  He smiled painfully. “In an irrigation ditch.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. “Come on inside; there’s warm water on the stove.”

  He patted the mare on the shoulder and the horse turned nervously and blew some of her foggy breath in his face. “Jerry, I gotta vamoose. Me and Whisky got a long ways to go.” Awkwardly he faced the mare. “Ain’t that right, girl?” he said, slapping and rubbing the gleaming shoulder.

  “Don’t start loving up that damned horse in front of me,” Jerry said. “Anything else you need?”

  Burns put a hand on the pommel, a foot in the stirrup, ready to mount. “No,” he said, and stopped to think. “Well I don’t have any tobacco. They took it—”

  “Wait,” she said, “just one more minute!” And shuffled in her slippers as fast as she could back into the kitchen.

  “They took it all away from me …” Burns concluded, addressing the kitchen door. He surveyed the eastern horizon again, then turned his narrowed and anxious eyes toward the house and past it and looked up the road that led toward the city.

  Jerry came out of the kitchen. “Here,” she said, a little breathlessly, “here’s some of Paul’s old pipe tobacco.”

  “I ain’t got a pipe, Jerry,” he said softly. “Could you find any cigarette papers?”

  “I know, I know,” she said. “No, I couldn’t find any papers. But here’s a pipe he never uses.” She gave Burns a handsome briar pipe with a slender stem. “I know he wouldn’t miss it,” she added, as the cowboy hesitated; “it’s one I bought him for his birthday. Please take it, Jack.”

  “Well … okay,” he said. “I’m sure obliged to you. To both of you. Just hope this fancy tobacco don’t spoil me.” He put the pipe and tobacco inside his shirt. “Pockets all fulla junk,” he explained sheepishly.

  “Jack—”

  “Yeah?” Again he prepared to mount, his foot in the stirrup, his back toward her.

  “Jack …” She stepped forward and touched his shoulder and he faced her again, waiting. “Kiss me,” she said.

  “I want to,” he said. But he made no move. “I want to.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “I don’t know. Nothin, I guess.” He reached out then and embraced her and kissed her gently and quickly on the lips. “What I’m afraid of,” he said slowly, “is me. That’s all.”

  “We’re both afraid of the same thing, then,” Jerry said. She smiled at him while her vision dimmed. “You’d better go,” she managed to say.