Marathon Cowboys (22 page)

squared away is sometimes irresistible. We need to get home,

and not just so we can keep Jesse safe. Buying the Bambi

tapped out nearly half my reserves. Then we’ve got a charter

plane to pay for, and I can’t even imagine the hospital bill.

I’m not sure Jesse has health insurance.” I stared down at

the bottle of beer in my hand. “We may have to start

drinking PBR.”

“That’s a little extreme. In this family, we drink Shiner

Bock, made in Shiner, Texas.”

We both sat back, let a waitress set a plastic basket of

fried hush puppies on the table. “You boys can snack on

these while we’re fixing your supper.” She gave me a curious

look, thinking I might be a movie star, one of the uglier ones,

because for sure she had seen my face before. And not just

my face, I thought, and hoped she was kept too busy

delivering food to think on it.

“I can always get a job,” I said. “At least make sure we

get caught up on the bills.”

“Didn’t Jesse sell his painting to those museum people?”

“He said so, but you can be sure Sam took his cut, and

then the IRS was right in line behind him. And he’s been

staying in New York and DC, doing whatever promotion Sam

arranged. I can’t imagine there is a whole lot left. And I

would bet he has no idea how much there is, or even where

it is.”

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“If they gave him anything at all.” I looked up at this. “I

got the feeling he contracted with them to do the whole

series of eight cowboy angels. Though how in the hell he is

going to top this one is beyond me.”

I closed my eyes, took a long swallow of Shiner Bock,

and ate a hush puppy. “Hey, those are good!”

He tried one. “Damn! Somebody in the back’s frying

hush puppies in lard. This is my kind of place.”

I closed my eyes again, rested my head in my hands.

Lard? Did the old man have any idea what his cholesterol

reading was?

“Lorenzo, you don’t need to worry about all this.” I

looked up at him. “I may have been retired for twenty years,

but I love a simple life.” He stared at my blank face. “And I’m

still getting royalties from my comics, which are running

today in the
Stars and Stripes
. We’ve got enough, unless

Jesse tries to buy the Queen Mary to float out back in the

Rio Grande.”

I smiled at him. “First thing the guys did when we got

the paper was open up the
Stars and Stripes
and look for

Jarhead
. Then they looked for
Devil Dog
.”

“Son, you need to do what you came to Marathon to do.

Get your comic off the ground. We seem to have derailed

somewhat, these last few months, but let’s keep our eye on

the ball here. Let’s do what you came here to do, and we’ll

just both batten down the hatches and work through

whatever Hurricane Jesse blows our way. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” I ate another hush puppy and thought it

might be the best food in the world, bar none. Then I sat

back while our waitress loaded up the table with ribs and

steaks and coleslaw and potato salad.

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When we were leaving, I asked the waitress if we could

take a small order of ribs and potato salad back with us, for

my friend in the hospital. She must have put it together

then, because when she brought the food out, she gave me a

little hug, said to remember that Jesus loved me. “And tell

that boy in the hospital too.”

“Thank you. I will.”

“My son’s in the Army. He’s somewhere over there. I

don’t know where exactly.”

The Original put his arm around her waist, gave her a

squeeze. “It’s the mothers suffer the most.”

“Yes, sir, that’s true.” She handed him a little brown

bag, grease staining the bottom. “Here’re a couple of extra

hush puppies. I saw how much you liked them.”

He tipped his hat, strolled out of the place with his old

back a little straighter. Texas charm. Cowboy angels, they

were everywhere.

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Epilogue

THE house was full of people. We were having a launch

party, because
Devil Dogs at War
was live in a hundred

papers across the country, and Uncle George had most of a

pig on the barbecue pit in the back yard.

Jesse had finished the second painting, and he called

this one
American Angels
. It was as different from the first

painting as a painting could be, and the museum was

worried. “No, you’re going to love it, I promise.” He was on

the phone to Sam. “Yes, he’s in it. Nope, fully dressed. Look,

Sammy, I can’t paint that one again, you know? I just….

You’ve got to trust me.” He looked at me, shook his empty

beer bottle in my direction. “You’ll get it when the paint

dries. A week, okay?”

He closed the phone, and I handed him another beer.

“Sammy said give you some hugs and kisses from him.”

“Yeah, I bet.” I hadn’t said a word about Sam continuing

to represent Jesse’s paintings. After some private soul-

searching, I thought maybe Jesse was right, and I just had

some extra mad I hadn’t used up. And I was trying not to act

controlling.
But I still thought Sammy was a fuckhead, and

trying to crawl back into Jesse’s bed.

“Can I see it?”

“Yeah. It’s out in the studio.”

We walked out to the porch, and Anna-Maria, Miguel’s

little daughter, saw me and came running, her arms raised.

“Uncle Mary!” She was four.

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She adored me, and I had been Uncle Mary since we’d

posed for Jesse’s painting. I spent a lot of time carrying her

around Marathon on my shoulders, and I was starting to

understand a little better Jesse’s blind spot for Sadie. “Hey,

apple blossom! Ready to go see our painting?” I swung her

up on my shoulders.

American Angels
was long instead of tall, and it showed

a wide sweep of Texas countryside, the verdant and beautiful

hill country. A group of people were having a picnic under a

pecan tree. There was Uncle George, The Original, me, Anna-

Maria, and Miguel. Anna-Maria was wearing an adult-sized

Army fatigue cap, with the double silver bars of a captain,

her chubby little arms holding the hat in place on her head.

She was laughing up at her father. It looked like a sweet all-

American scene, a Texas scene, but then you saw the grave,

up on the hill. He’d painted it so it was just a little less

bright than the rest of the painting, so your eye wasn’t

drawn to it first. And then your eye slid over it, a plain white

cross, a military cross, and in front of it was a photo of a

young woman in uniform, smiling, with Anna-Maria’s face,

all grown-up.

Anna-Maria’s mother was not actually dead. She was in

the kitchen, making salad, and Miguel was not very happy

with Jesse about this painting. She was a reserve nurse, and

had been back from her last deployment for three months,

but Miguel was convinced painting her already in her grave

was the worst sort of omen. Jesse had made quite a few trips

out to his favorite Bathtub Mary, trying to make it right.

But it was a brilliant painting, full of beauty and life,

haunted by an American angel. Anna-Maria pointed to

herself in the painting, wearing her mom’s cap, and then she

found me. “Uncle Mary! There you are!”

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“Yep, there I am. You want to come over to my side and

draw something?”

I set her up with some paper and a marker, watched

while she tried to draw a picture of the Devil Dog on my arm.

“You’re gonna be a cartoonist when you grow up, right?”

She hopped from one foot to the next in excitement. “No!

No! I’m going to be a nurse, like my mommy. I will take care

of you if you go to the war. I will take care of everyone who

goes to the war.”

I picked her up and sat her down on my lap, let her

draw a pony on my hand with her marker. There would be a

war somewhere for her. I closed my eyes, said a little prayer.

Please, let there not be a war for her.

“She’s pretty good for four,” Jesse said, studying the

pony. Anna-Maria had been fetched by her mom for her nap.

We could hear her wailing all the way across the yard.

“Better than I was. Maybe I should start teaching her to

paint.”

“I like the new painting.”

“It’s not as good as
Death of a Grievous Angel
.”

“It’s not as shocking. It’s not in-your-face, like the first

one was. But it’s beautiful, Jesse. It’s going to be more

popular. People are going to feel this one, take it to their

hearts.”

“You think Miguel is going to forgive me? He really

seems mad this time.” I looked at him. “He’s been mad at me

before, lots of times.”

“I believe that. I think he’ll get over it. Eventually.

Probably.”

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Sarah Black

166

JESSE drank three beers and got weepy, loving us all, so I

put him to bed to sleep it off, walked around Marathon with

Miguel and Uncle George. Looking for strangers. Looking for

trouble heading our way. Miguel broke the silence. “Have you

heard anything from the FBI?”

I shook my head. Uncle George gave a quiet grunt. “I

don’t believe they’re still looking, tell you the truth.”

“Maybe we just need to stay down here, keep quiet.

Keep our heads down. We can keep him safe in Marathon.”

I looked at both of them. “This is America. He should be

able to go into town if he wants.”

Uncle George put his hand on my shoulder, the same

gesture The Original made when he didn’t know what to say.

“You just keep watching his back.”

I went back home, lonely all of a sudden for Jesse. They

walked on in silence, watching night fall across Marathon.

The Original was on the porch, and he raised his bottle of

Shiner Bock in a salute as I went into the house. Jesse was

in bed, but he scooted over when I climbed in. I pulled him

into my arms, and he curled up against my neck.

“Tell me you love me again.”

“I love you again. Maybe more today than I did

yesterday.”

“Really?” He smiled up at me, sleepy-eyed. His hair was

growing out since we’d been home, and it was falling across

his forehead, down into his eyes. I wrapped a piece around

my finger. Like honey, or sunlight. Soft as corn silk. “I love

you too. Mary?”

“Yes?”

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“Okay, now, don’t get mad, but do you remember that

riata?”

“I remember you took a picture of me with the thing

wrapped around my waist. Dangling down around my balls.”

“I was thinking about the next painting.”

I sighed. “Of course you were. Don’t you think America

has seen enough of my balls? No, forget it. I don’t want to

know. Just do it. Do whatever you want to do.”

“Mary?”

“What?”

“Have you ever worn chaps?”

“Jesse, I swear….”

He was up on his knees now, putting his beautiful

hands on either side of my face. “Okay, just listen. I’m going

to call it
Rodeo Angels
. Or maybe
Ride of the Rodeo Angels
. I

don’t know yet. Just think about it. We could get Gary to

make the chaps, do the designs. You know, roses, and little

cowboys on bucking broncos, designs like that. Like the

shirts Roy Rogers used to wear.”

Chaps? With little bucking broncos? Oh, God. I closed

my eyes. “I am not getting on a bull for you, my friend. Don’t

even ask.”

He was quiet above me, and his fingers started moving

over my face, tracing the lines of my mouth. “Okay. I won’t

ask, zo-zo.” He thought a moment, his fingers in my hair. I

opened my eyes, looked up at him. “You could be one of the

clowns. Wearing the chaps and holding off the bull with the

riata. Bare butt, and I could put a little tattoo on your ass.

That would be cool.”

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I stared at the ceiling, and he snuggled down against me

until I could feel his warm breath against my neck. There