Marathon Cowboys (2 page)

just superglue it back together. But you’re too good-looking

for that. I’ll use the very finest silk, I promise, and it’ll look

just like a dueling scar.” She patted the exam table, and I lay

down. She angled a big light until it was playing over the

laceration. “So was it a duel?”

I thought about Jesse’s pretty face, stormy-blue eyes,

his red sneakers with the white toes. “Sort of. A West Texas

Friday night sort of duel.”

“You got in a fight in a bar? Broken beer bottle?”

“Yep.”

“In that case I better look for fragments of glass, don’t

you think? And maybe we should get you a tetanus shot.”

JC3 and I waited at the police station for the original Jesse

Clayton to show up and bail us out. That’s what Jesse called

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9

him, The Original. “What’s with JC3? It sounds ridiculous.

People don’t really call you that, do they?”

He huffed a little. “It’s a San Francisco sort of name,” he

admitted. “You know, a clever and bright sort of name. It’s

fun when identity is fluid. What do people call you? Lorenzo?

Renzo? You could be Z-O. Like the initials. Or zo-zo. No

capitals. That would be cool.”

“People call me Maryboy.”

“Really?”

“I’ve been in the Marine Corps.”

“Of course, that explains the butch haircut. What sort of

name is Maryboy? You’re Navajo, right?”

“Yeah, my family comes from up around Shonto, Navajo

Mountain. Lots of Maryboys up there.”

“Can I call you MB for short?”

“No. You can call me Maryboy.”

“I bet your platoon mates called you Mary.”

“Only when they were suicidal. Have we got the names

issue settled yet?”

JC3 crossed his arms, slouched down a bit in his seat.

“I’m just a little anxious, I guess. I screwed up. I should have

told The Original I was coming. I don’t want to mess

anything up for you.”

“It’s cool. Don’t worry about it.”

That got me a look, just shy of major eye rolling. This

boy was a piece of work. I was starting to like him, though

his being here might just fuck up the only chance like this I

would ever get.

He seemed to be reading my wavelength. “Tell me about

your cartoons.”

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“Your granddad’s cartoon was
Jarhead
, right? The one

I’ve been doing is called
Devil Dog
. It’s a series for Marines.

About being in the Corps. I guess sort of insider humor, you

know? Like his was. I started sending them out over the

Internet when I was in Afghanistan, and they started getting

a lot more hits than I was expecting. Then I started getting

these offers from people, let-me-make-you-rich deals, but I

just ignored them all. Then your granddad wrote to me. He’s

like a legend, you know?” I looked at him, and Jesse nodded.

“Only other USMC cartoonist, far as I know, and he’s been

doing this for, what, forty years? More? Anyway, he said the

one thing nobody else said.”

“He said you could come work at the studio?”

“Not really. I mean, that was part of it. He said, ‘If you’re

looking for a mentor, maybe I can help you get on your feet

as a cartoonist.’ I nearly fell over. I said, ‘Hell, yeah, I’m

looking for a mentor. I don’t have a clue what to do.’ So he

said, ‘What do you think of your cartoons?’ That seemed

strange to me, but I told him the truth. I said I thought they

were okay, but not really good enough. Not yet. I couldn’t

concentrate on them full time. I needed to work on them

some more before they were ready to go anywhere. He said

he agreed with me, and why didn’t I come down to his place

in Texas, a little town called Marathon. It was quiet and still

and he had a studio I could use. So I could concentrate

enough to get down to the bones.”

“That sounds like him. He really believes in the value of

working on something till it’s good enough. Not rushing out

the door with a rough draft. It took me a long time before I

really got that lesson.”

“What are you working on now?”

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11

He shifted in his seat, sat up a bit. “Well, that’s why I

came down here. I had an idea about a series of paintings,

but I just couldn’t get…. What was it you said? Down into

the bones. I couldn’t get into the bones of the work. I was

painting cowboys, and I thought I needed to come down here

and soak it up a bit.” Jesse studied me out of the corner of

his eye. “Maybe you want to let me paint you? I heard the

best cowboys were Indians.”

“Well, that’s very true.”

“I’ve been working on icons for a while now, exploring

iconic American images. I thought about The Original’s

studio because it’s down here, of course, and Texas is

Umbilicus Mundi
for cowboys. But it’s also big, with a really

high ceiling, and I wanted to make these paintings physically

big. You know? Cowboys are big.”

I thought about his first hour back in Texas, in a

cowboy bar. “So, what do you think about cowboys so far?”

He sneered at the blood spattered on his beautiful

trousers. “I don’t confuse redneck crackers drinking PBR

with real cowboys.”

“I think they were drinking Bud.”

“Whatever. You know what I mean.” He turned around

and looked at me. “Thanks. I should have said it before. I

know they were dangerous. They had that crazy, reckless

look, like they would enjoy hurting somebody. They were

scaring me. I appreciate you helping me out.”

“No problem.”

He studied me for a moment more, then went back to

leaning up against the wall. “I have always had excellent

gaydar.”

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12

I sighed, rubbed a hand over my face. The stitches were

throbbing and my mouth tasted like the inside of an old

boot. “Can I pay you to shut up so I can suffer in silence

here?”

He smirked at me. “Sure, cowboy. Don’t want to get too

close, you know? Don’t want to tie a pink ribbon on any

fierce, brooding warrior feelings. Or get in
too close to the

bone.
That must have been fun, being in the USMC with a

rainbow flag tattooed on your ass.”

Ouch. “If you’re so smart, why’d you wear red sneakers

into a bar on Friday night in Alpine?”

His eyes were closed. “They’re comfortable.”

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13

Chapter Two

AFTER another hour of waiting, the duty officer stuck his

head out of his office and gestured to us. I nudged JC3.

“Hey. Cowboy at ten o’clock.” He followed me into the office.

There was an old man in a sharply pressed sheriff’s

uniform standing behind the desk. I stood at attention, and

Jesse gave me a look, like he was trying to keep from rolling

his eyes. “Staff Sergeant Maryboy? I spoke to the Officer of

the Day back in Quantico, and he put me on the phone with

your former CO. He confirmed the report by Jesse Clayton

Senior about what you were doing in Alpine. And he also

confirmed that as far as he knew, you had never before been

in a bar brawl.”

“No, sir.”

“Lots of boys have trouble adjusting to civilian life when

they leave the corps. That gonna be a problem for you?”

“No, sir.” I could hear something in his voice made me

think he had an old devil dog tattooed on his arm.

He turned to JC3. “Jesse, what are you doing, coming

down here and stirring up trouble?”

“It wasn’t me! I was just looking for a burger.” He looked

at me. “Tell him, Mary!”

“It’s true, sir. Those boys were drinking too much and

looking for an easy mark.” I glanced down at the red

sneakers, and the old man sighed and put his hands on his

hips.

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“I talked to Jesse, told him not to make the trip up here

so late. I’m gonna send you boys on down there to Marathon.

Then you stay put until I get this squared away.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Thanks, Uncle George.”

I looked at JC3, then back at the old man.

“Your Aunt Becky will expect to see you before you go

flying off to wherever you live now. Disneyland, or wherever.

You come in on the bus? You better ask Staff Sergeant

Maryboy nicely if you can have a ride down to Marathon.”

He looked at me and grinned. “Pretty please? I know

where we’re go-ing!” He was using a singsong voice. “I can be

the navigator!”

Uncle George was shaking his head, but he spoke to me.

“I would take it as a personal favor if you would deliver this

boy to his grandfather and not give in to the natural and

totally understandable urge to kick his little fairy butt along

the way.”

“I’ll try, sir.”

“That’s good. You boys get on home, now, so I can get

some work done.”

We walked outside, and JC3 tugged on my sleeve. “I left

my bags in the locker at the bus station. Can we swing by

and get them?”

“Sure. That was your Uncle George?”

“He’s not my real uncle. He and my granddad were in

the Marine Corps together. I’ve always called him my uncle.”

“They served in Vietnam?”

“Yeah. Two tours each.”

“You don’t mind him calling you a fairy?”

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“I used to do this thing, my own interpretation of the

‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.’ It was a favorite around our

house at Christmastime.”

“Gotcha. Okay, you can call me Mary, if you can’t

remember Maryboy, and I won’t bust your ass. Don’t call me

zo-zo. I’m gonna call you Jesse. JC sounds too much like

Jesus Christ, and I am not calling you JC3. So, that’s names

settled.”

“What are you going to call The Original if you’re calling

me Jesse?”

“I’m gonna call him Sir.”

“Ooo, nice one!”

“Are we getting burgers first, or do we need to hit the

road?”

“Burgers. I know where to go.”

THE road to Marathon was a two-lane that went through

empty Southwestern mountain desert, the country they call

the High Lonesome. It was already dark, but it didn’t smell

like home. The rocks were a different color, and the creosote

and ocotillo that crowded the road’s edge gave the air an

astringent smell that I liked. It was so dark the stars were

brighter than I had ever seen before, almost thick across the

sky. Some of the guys in my platoon had taken to stargazing

in Afghanistan, because the dark made the starshine so

bright. I never did. I didn’t want to get too comfortable there.

It wasn’t my land.

Jesse pulled open his backpack and brought out a

sketchbook, opened it to a new page. He made some notes,

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16

turned to me. “Do Marine infantry guys carry machine

guns?”

I could feel my eyebrows fly up. What was this about?

“No, they carry an M27 IAR. Infantry Automatic Rifle. It’s

something like the portable version.” I waited a minute while

he wrote this down. “Why?”

“Oh, you know. Just thinking about icons. Warriors and

their tools, cowboys and their tools. I always thought of

cowboys and Indians together, but they’re really not. Not

anymore. Since World War II, the Navajo have been Marines,

right? The Code Talkers and all that. I was thinking about

what you said to that guy in the bar, that they let Indians

back into Texas when they needed a war fought. It’s more

like, now, when the country needs warriors, they turn to

men with brown skin, and names like Maryboy and Sanchez

and Washington.”

I thought about the guys in my platoon. “You could be

right.”

“But cowboys are in the American imagination as the

iconic tough guys. I’ll have to figure out some way to merge

these ideas.”

I watched the road for a while, and the stars, and

listened to him sketch in his book, the whispery sounds of

pencil over good watercolor paper. “So you’re an artist? I

mean, a real artist? You make your living with your art.”

He looked up and smiled at me. “Yes. It’s actually a lot

more work than it seems.”

“I wouldn’t mind being around a real artist. Seeing what

it’s like, the process, you know? How you concentrate. How