Cities of the Plain (4 page)

What's in the other thermos?

Soup.

Soup?

Soup.

Damn.

They ate.

How long has he been manager down here?

About two years.

Billy nodded. Did he not offer to hire you on before now?

He did. I told him I didnt mind workin with him but I wasnt all that sure about workin for
him.

What made you change your mind?

I aint changed it. I'm just thinkin about it.

They ate. Troy nodded downcountry. They say there's been a white man ambushed ever mile of
this draw.

Billy studied the country. Looks like they'd of learned to stay out of it.

When they'd done eating Troy poured the rest of the coffee into their cups and screwed the
cap back on the thermos and laid it by with the soup and the sandwich cloths and the still
folded tablecloth to pack back in the saddlebags. They sat sipping the coffee. The horses
standing downstream side by side looked up from their drinking in the creek. They had wet
leaves stuck to their noses.

Elton's got his own notions about what happened, Troy said. Johnny if he hadnt of found
that girl would of found somethin else. You couldnt head him. Elton says he changed. He
never changed. He was four years older than me. Not a lot of years. But he walked ground
I'll never see. Glad not to see. People always said he was bullheaded, but it wasnt just
that. He fought Daddy one time he wasnt but fifteen. Fistfought him. Made the old man
fight him. Told him to his face that he respected him and all but that he wasnt goin to
take what he'd said. Somethin the old man had chewed him out over. I cried like a baby. He
didnt cry. Kept gettin up. Nose all busted and all. The old man kept tellin him to stay
down. Hell, the old man was cryin. I hope I never see nothin like it again. I can think
about it now and it makes me sick. And there was nothin any mortal man could of done to of
stopped it.

What happened?

The old man finally walked off. He was beat and he knew it. Johnny standin there. Couldnt
hardly stand up. Callin to him to come back. The old man wouldnt even turn around. He just
went on to the house.

Troy looked into the bottom of his cup. He slung the dregs out across the leaves.

It wasnt just her. There's a kind of man that when he cant have what he wants he wont take
the next best thing but the worst he can find. Elton thinks he was that kind and maybe he
was. But I think he loved that girl. I think he knew what she was and he didnt care. I
think it was his own self he was blind to. I think he was just lost. This world was never
made for him. He'd outlived it before he could walk. Get married. Hell. He couldnt even
stand to wear laceup shoes.

You liked him though.

Troy looked off down through the trees. Well, he said. I dont guess like really says it. I
cant talk about it. I wanted to be like him. But I wasnt. I tried.

He was your dad's favorite I reckon.

Oh yeah. It wasnt a problem with anybody. It was just known. Accepted. Hell. It wasnt even
a contest. You ready?

I'm ready.

He rose. He placed the flat of his hand in the small of his back and stretched. He looked
at Billy. I loved him, he said. So did Elton. You couldnt not. That was all there was to
it.

He folded the cloths under his arm together with the thermos bottles. They hadnt even
looked to see what the soup was. He turned and looked back at Billy. So how do you like
this country?

I like it.

I do too. Always have.

So you comin down here?

No.

It was dusk when they rode into Fort Davis. Nighthawks were circling over the old parade
grounds when they passed and the sky over the mountains behind them was blood red. Elton
was waiting with the truck and horsetrailer in front of the Limpia Hotel. They unsaddled
the horses in the graveled parking lot and put the saddles in the bed of the truck and
wiped the horses down and loaded them in the trailer and went into the hotel and through
the lobby to the coffeeshop.

How did you like that little horse? said Elton.

I liked him fine, said Billy. We got along good.

They sat and studied the menus. What are you all havin? said Elton.

They left around ten oclock. Elton stood in the yard with his hands in his back pockets.
He was still standing there, just the silhouette of him against the porchlight, when they
rounded the curve at the end of the drive and went on toward the highway.

Billy drove. He looked over at Troy. You goin to stay awake aint you?

Yeah. I'm awake.

You've done decided?

Yeah, I think so.

We're goin to have to go somewheres.

Yeah. I know it.

You aint asked me what I thought.

Well. You aint comin down here unless I do and I aint. So what would be the use in me
askin?

Billy didnt answer.

After a while Troy said: Hell, I knew I wasnt comin back down here.

Yeah.

You go back home and everthing you wished was different is still the same and everthing
you wished was the same is different.

I know what you mean.

I think especially if you're the youngest. You wasnt the youngest in your family was you?

No. I was the oldest.

You dont want to be the youngest. I can tell you right now. There aint no percentage in it.

They drove on through the mountains. About a mile past the intersection with highway 166
there was a truckload of Mexicans pulled off onto the grass. They stood almost into the
road waving their hats. Billy slowed.

The hell with that, said Troy.

Billy drove past. He looked in the rearview mirror but he could see nothing but the dark
of the road and the deep of the desert night. He pulled the truck slowly to a halt.

Damn it, Parham, Troy said.

I know. I just cant do it.

You're fixin to get us in a jackpot here we wont get home till daylight.

I know it.

He put the truck into reverse and began to grind slowly back down the highway, using the
white line running from under the front of the truck to steer by. When the other truck
hove into view alongside them he could see that the right front tire was down.

They gathered around the cab. Punchada, they said. Tenemos una Manta punchada.

Puedo verlo, said Billy. He pulled off the road and climbed out. Troy lit a cigarette and
shook his head.

They needed a jack. Did they have a spare? S’. Por supuesto.

He got the jack out of the bed and they carried it back to the truck and commenced to jack
the front end up. They had two spares and neither of them would hold air. They spelled
each other at the antique tirepump. Finally they raised up and looked at Billy.

He got the tiretools out of the truckbed and came around and got the patchkit and a
flashlight from under the seat. They carried one of the spares out into the road and laid
it down and stood on it to break the bead and then the man who'd taken the tools from
Billy stepped forward and began to pry the tire up off the rim while the others watched.
The innertube that he snaked out of the tire's inner cavity was made of red rubber and
there was a whole plague of patches upon it. He laid it out on the macadam and Billy
trained the light over it. Hay parches sobre los parches, he said.

Es verdad, the man said.

La otra?

Est‡ peon

One of the younger men manned the tirepump and the tube bloated slowly up in the road and
sat hissing. He knelt and put his ear to the various leaks. Billy flipped open the tin lid
of the patchcan and thumbed the number of repairs it contained. Troy had climbed out of
the truck and he walked back and stood smoking quietly and looking at the tire and the
tube and the Mexicans.

The Mexicans wheeled the blown tire around the side of the truck and Billy put the light
on it. There was a great ragged hole in the sidewall. It looked like it had been chewed by
bulldogs. Troy spat quietly in the road. The Mexicans threw the tire up onto the bed of
the truck.

Billy took the stub of chalk from the patchkit and circled the leaks in the tube and they
unscrewed the valvestem from the valve and sat on the tube and then walked it down till it
was dead flat. Then they sat in the road with the white line running past their elbows and
the gaudy desert night overhead, the myriad constellations moving upon the blackness
subtly as sealife, and they worked with the dull red shape of rubber in their laps,
squatting like tailors or menders of nets. They scuffed the rubber with the little tin
grater stamped into the lid of the kit and they laid on the patches and fired them with a
match one by one till all were fused and all were done. When they had the tube pumped up
again they sat in the road in the quiet desert dark and listened.

Oye algo? said Billy.

Nada.

They sat listening.

He unscrewed the valvestem again and when they had the tube deflated the man slid it down
inside the tire and worked it around the rim and fitted the valve and the boy came forward
with the pump and began to pump up the tire. He was a long time pumping. When the bead
popped on the rim he stopped and they unscrewed the hose from the valve and the man took
the valvestem from his mouth and screwed it into the hissing valve and then they stepped
back and looked at Billy. He spat and turned and walked back to the truck to get the
tiregauge.

Troy was asleep in the front seat. Billy got the gauge out of the glovebox and walked back
and they gauged the tire and then rolled it over to the truck and slid it onto the hub and
tightened down the lugnuts with a wrench made from a socket welded onto a length of heavy
iron pipe. Then they let down the jack and pulled it from under the truck and handed it to
Billy.

He took the jack and tiretools and put the patchkit and the gauge in his shirtpocket and
the flashlight in the back pocket of his jeans. Then they shook hands all the way around.

Ad—nde van? said Billy.

The man shrugged. He said that they were going to Sanderson Texas. He turned and looked
off across the dark headlands to the east. The younger men stood about them.

Hay trabajo all‡?

He shrugged again. Espero que s’, he said. He looked at Billy. Es vaquero?

S’. Vaquero.

The man nodded. It was a vaquero's country and other men's troubles were alien to it and
that was about all that could be said. They shook hands again and the Mexicans clambered
aboard the truck and the truck cranked and coughed and started and lumbered slowly out
onto the roadway. The men and boys in the bed of the truck stood and raised their hands.
He could see them above the dark hump of the cab, against the deep burnt cobalt of the
sky. The single taillight had a short in the wiring and it winked on and off like a signal
until the truck had rounded the curve and vanished.

He put the jack and tools in the pickup and opened the door and nudged Troy awake.

Let's go, cowboy.

Troy sat and stared out at the empty road. He looked back behind them.

Where'd they go?

They're done gone.

What time is it do you reckon?

I dont know.

Are you done bein a Samaritan?

I'm done.

He leaned and opened the glovebox door and put the patchkit and the tiregauge and the
flashlight in and shut the door and started the engine.

Where were they headed? Troy said.

Sanderson.

Sanderson?

Yeah.

Where were they comin from?

I dont know. They didnt say.

I bet they aint even goin to Sanderson, Troy said.

Where do you think they're goin?

Hell, who knows.

Why would anybody lie about goin to Sanderson Texas?

I dont know.

They drove on. Rounding a curve with a steep bank to the right of the road there was a
sudden white flare and a solid whump of a sound. The truck veered, the tires squealing.
When they got stopped they were halfway off the road into the bar ditch.

What in the hell, said Troy. What in the hell.

A large owl lay cruciform across the driver's windshield of the truck. The laminate of the
glass was belied in softly to hold him and his wings were spread wide and he lay in the
concentric rings and rays of the wrecked glass like an enormous moth in a web.

Billy shut off the engine. They sat looking at it. One of its feet shuddered and drew up
into a claw and slowly relaxed again and it moved its head slightly as if to better see
them and then it died.

Troy opened the door and got out. Billy sat looking at the owl. Then he turned off the
headlights and got out too.

The owl was all soft and downy. Its head slumped and rolled. It was soft and warm to the
touch and it felt loose inside its feathers. He lifted it free and carried it over to the
fence and hung it from the wires and came back. He sat in the truck and turned the lights
on to judge if he could drive with the windshield in that condition or whether he might
have to kick it out completely. There was a clear place in the lower right corner and he
thought he could see if he hunkered down and looked through the windshield there. Troy had
walked up the road and was standing taking a leak.

He started the truck and pulled back onto the road. Troy had walked further up and was
sitting in the roadside grass. He drove up and rolled down the window and looked at him.

What's wrong with you? he said.

Nothin, Troy said.

Are you ready to go?

Yeah.

He rose and walked around in front of the truck and got in. Billy looked over at him.

Are you all right?

Yeah. I'm all right.

It was just a owl.

I know. It aint that.

Well what is it?

Troy didnt answer.

He pulled the shiftlever in the floor down into first and let the clutch out. They moved
down the highway. He could see pretty well. He could lean over and see through the glass
on the other side of the division bar. Are you all right? he said. What is it?