Redeye (25 page)

Mrs. Thorpe was up spooning oatmeal on our plates. “Bishop Thorpe sees it both ways,” she said. “He's not for the railroads, but he's glad that the Saints can now more easily find their way to the Kingdom.”

“You tell him about that cross,” I said. “He might want to go on that expedition. Is he around, by the way?”

“Yes, he's down at the ferry.”

“And he
ain't
your husband?” asked one of the fellows.

She stood still and looked at him. “He's a very good friend and provider.”

“The last newspaper I seen,” said the ugly one, “said they was trying a man somewhere in Kansas for pigamy. A Mormon.”

“Polygamy,” said the other one.

“That's what I said,” said the ugly one.

“You said ‘pigamy.'”

“I know. That's what I said I said.”

“You said—”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “
You
said
pig
amy and he said
poly
gamy.”

“It means the same thing,” said the ugly one.

“No, it don't,” said the other one. “A pigamy is from Africa.”

“That's Pygmy,” I said.

“How do you know?” he said.

“Because I goddamn lived with them . . . I was married to one. I had Pygmy children and grandchildren. Don't tell me it's pigamy.”

I wished I had somebody to tell that conversation to.

“All we can do,” said the little lady, “is live by the word of God, and Jesus, and the
Book of Mormon
, in spite of all the troubles we've been up against.”

“Well,” I said, “I think I'll go on down to the ferry and speak to the Bishop. Good day to you gentlemen, and ma'am, might I have a piece of cornpone for my little dog?”

“Why, certainly.” She gave me a good-size hunk of pone.

———

Some men were on the far side of the ferry crossing, loading two wagonloads of logs. Looked like Thorpe was helping.

By the time the ferry got over to the near side, the two fellows who'd been inside eating were standing with me, waiting.

“I wisht I had me seven or eight wives,” said the ugly one.

“I wisht I just had me that one in there,” said the other one. “She sure was a feisty little thing.”

“I'd settle for a Pygmy woman,” I said. “Them women think the man ain't supposed to do nothing but lay around all day and drink and eat and fish in the river. I gained about a hundred pounds while I was over there.”

Thorpe was poling the raft—a pole raft slung on a wire running between big cottonwoods. “Gentlemen,” he said to us, when he drifted to a stop, “the fee is twenty-five cents per person and wagon, ten cents per animal. Welcome aboard. May God bless ye.”

I watched him carefully, and while he was talking to the two men, he smiled, and I finally got a good look at the turn of his lip.

The relic show was in late October and the purpose was to get people to sign up for the first tourist trip up to the cliff dwellings, which would happen in April. But on the second day of the show hadn't nobody come to see it except people who was leaving or coming in on the train, as far as we could tell. So Mr. Blankenship talked Mr. Merriwether into letting us bring the mummies in, both of them, and so that's what started out happening today. Mr. Blankenship got to the saddle shop at about eight o'clock this morning with Cleopatra in the wagon in a box—Mr. Copeland has built her a glass-top box, too, because she had started to wrinkle like the baby had. I was supposed to have the baby mummy ready out in the yard when he got there.

Mr. Copeland was going to stay in town with the mummies the first day they was showed, Zack the second day, then I was going in the third day and bring both mummies back home on the fourth day.

The trouble started when Mr. Copeland couldn't get the baby mummy separated from Grandma Copeland. He had planned to take it away from her in the night, and then tell her next morning that it was sick and they had taken it to the doctor's office. But when he sneaked in there to get it, she had her arm up over the glass and when he went to move it, she woke up. He went ahead and tried to take the mummy and she started moaning that moan. By the time he give her the mummy back and quieted her down and we'd all eat breakfast, Mr. Blankenship was there, and Mr. Copeland started in explaining to Grandma Copeland about the baby being sick and us having to take her into town and she started up moaning that moan again. It gets Mr. Copeland nervous.

This is where Mr. Blankenship got one of his ideas. He was on the front porch waiting, and he called Mr. Copeland out there. I went out there, too.

“Listen,” he says, “why don't we do this—now listen me through before you say anything, P.J. We could build Grandma Copeland a box too, with a glass top—now wait a minute, P.J.—but with air holes, but make it big enough to where the baby mummy can slide right in there beside her. Tell her the truth: that we're going to put the baby out for people to look at and she can come along. Then—now whoa, listen to this, P.J.—remember the shock experiment? Well, what we do is this: we dress Cleopatra up like a man, she looks like one anyway, then we dress your mama up like a mama mummy and announce that we got a entire complete mummy family. We fix—”

“Billy, if you think—”

“Hold on. We fix your mama up with smut on her face or something, and then we can say that she was a mummy that we brought—”

“No.”

“—say we brought back to life by shocking her. See? We could, let's see, hook up wires to her and tell her to move when we flip a switch or something.”

“That's the most—”

“That ought to get some attention,” I said.

Mr. Copeland looked at me, then at Mr. Blankenship like he'd been shot. “That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of. That's my
mama
you're talking about.”

“I know that, P.J. I know that. But I'm also talking about
business
. I'm also talking about capital. I'm also talking about money. I'm also talking about what tourists is going to do for your saddle trade. I'm also talking what those two fine coffins on display will do for Modern Mortuary Science Services, Incorporated. In short, I'm talking about
life
. Weaver at the train station is all for it; I done talked to him. And look—”

“No, Billy . . . No. I—”

“Just hear me out, P.J. Just hear me out. I ain't finished. I hear you out all the time, and generally go along, too. Now. It ain't like we're making your mama into a mummy. That don't have to be it at all. There are all sorts of ways to look at this. We could come at it from a strict funeral home perspective. We could say something like, ‘Guess which one is alive.' Or leave the smut off your mama's face and say, ‘Which one do you want to look like when
you walk through the pearly gates,' and then hand them a brochure. There are so many ways to get this done I can't count them. Hell, she can sit there beside the baby mummy in a rocking chair. Very normal kind of thing. Happy family kind of thing. Get her into town. I don't care. You do not recognize a
gold mine
. And Merriwether is going to be very pleased with this idea. Trust me. Merriwether needs the business. Merriwether will not get business until he gets attention. He's about to realize that. He says he don't want no part in all this, but he'll change his mind. This idea will get us all more attention than we know what to do with, and attention can be turned into money. I am doing this, P.J. . . . I am doing all this for you and me and our families.”

“You ain't got no family, Billy.”

“You're missing the entire point, P.J. Listen to me. Cleopatra is in the wagon.
She
ain't dragging her feet. In the coming few years half the world is going to get rich entertaining the other half, which is going to be poor. I want to be in that first half. I want you to be in that first half. I got . . .” Right here Mr. Blankenship sat down on the steps. “Sit down, P.J.”

Mr. Copeland sat down and I knew then he was a goner.

Mr. Blankenship says real soft and slow, “P.J., how long has it been since your sweet mama went to town?”

“Billy.”

“How long?”

“Six or eight years. I don't know. That ain't—”

“Then okay. Then what we do is ask your sweet mama if she wants to go to town. That's it. Let's just do it this way, and I
promise you that I'll live with the consequences. We just simply ask her. Ask her what
her
will is. This here is the best and most fairest way to do it. By your mama's will. She says yes or she says no. I'll ask her. And I'll bet you a five-dollar gold piece she says yes.”

“No, oh no. Wait. I'll ask her. You'll see.”

How can I feel pity for this happy woman selling meals? She will have to suffer the loss of this man who without penitence, remorse, without suffering, still breathes sweet air because the balance hasn't happened, the leveling hasn't burned his life's breath, hasn't taken up his parched breath, thrown it to the wind.

Markham Thorpe–Christian Boyle is
done
.

So I leave the happy little woman, and the happy little house, with flowers hanging from pots on the front porch, with rocking chairs whitewashed on the front porch. I can't think about that.

We weren't more than halfway along the road from the ferry back to Mumford Rock when I spied a couple of strays amongst a stand of scrub cedar at the base of a sheer rock cliff about thirty feet high. As we ambled over toward them they raised their heads and stared at us, lazy, chewing their cuds. I stopped maybe fifty yards out from them and got down, got Redeye's bag loose and on the ground. He come out of it, stood looking at them steers, his hair ruffed on his neck. “Go git 'em, Redeye. Go
git
'em.
Sic
'em.” He started in on that crouched-down walk and I said, “
Sic
'em, Redeye,
sic
'em,” and that walk turned into a trot and then a run with him kicking up dirt and them cows had just started turning to run, turning away from each other, leaning, fixing to break away, eyes getting big, when old Redeye left the ground like he's been slung-shot into the air and clamped onto that old steer's nose—the one breaking to the left. He clamped in and just hung there, his weight holding that steer's head down so that the steer had to stop, and then sort of spread his legs, and square away so as to fight whatever it was had hold to him. I guess he was having problems figuring out what's going on because he was just standing there when the pain sure enough hits him, or else he tastes blood, because he lets out this muffled bellow and tries to toss his head—a sort of a half toss, a neck roll—and Redeye is holding on so it looks like this cow has got a great big old leech fastened into his nose, and then I hollered, “Halt, Redeye,” and I will be damned if the old boy didn't turn loose, fall off, scramble up, and head right at me with his mouth red and a wildness in his good eye, a red glow in the other one.

He was about back in form.

“Well, old boy,” I said, “have a little drink of water. Good dog. Now . . .”

The other steer was standing off a ways, puzzling. I started trotting toward that skinny old critter—some descendant of the real Texas longhorns it looked like, a little more scraggly than that other one—like they had took up from different herds. “Get 'em, Redeye, get 'em. Come on,
sic
'em.” He started out and
I called him off—“Halt, Redeye!”—before he'd got far. He slid to a halt. He's back in form.

. . . The conditions inside the corral were very bad . . . The women and children crowded around us, very excited at the prospect of deliverance . . . Just after we thought the ordeal was over, I saw a girl some nine or ten years old covered with blood, running towards us, from a place in the rear. An Indian shot her at about ten yards out. That was the last person that I saw killed on that occasion.