The Brave Cowboy (12 page)

They had talked quietly and respectfully and for a long time—nearly three hours—and had grown to like each other almost as much as two men can in such a situation, and of such different ages, backgrounds, income, status, metabolisms. The Judge had been exceedingly sympathetic, and persuasive, and wise; so much so that Bondi had felt a little ashamed of himself for putting such a gracious and kindly gentleman in such a difficult position. But there had seemed to be no compromise possible, and neither would or could yield on the fundamental question: respect for and obedience to the written law of the land. The old man, bound by a thousand hoops of habit and tradition and profession, held that the law must be obeyed whatever its social or political or moral significance; the young man, sustained by the vague but apparently limitless strength of conviction, could not agree. Therefore, after those nearly three hours of comfortable and mutually-enriching conversation, together with the rich dark atmosphere of age and smoke that had brought them together in the gloom, like father and son, leaving impressions on the mind and emotions of each that no span of time would ever completely efface, United States District Court Judge George Willem van Heest had found it necessary, in conclusion, to inform the prospective defendant Paul Maynard Bondi that he would certainly be sentenced, under the provisions of the Selective Service Act of 1948, to at least two and possibly five years of imprisonment, to be served in whatever Federal Penitentiary the appropriate officials found most convenient. Bondi shook hands with the Judge and left. Formal proceedings took place one week later; Bondi, pleading
nolo contendere
, was given two years; that is, was deprived of two years.

At this point an awkward if trifling misfire developed in the massive machinery of the law: the United States Marshal was unable to find immediate accommodations for the prisoner in any of the Federal prisons situated in adjoining states. Until the necessary arrangements
were completed, then, Bondi was turned over to the Sheriff’s Department for temporary incarceration in the Bernal County Jail. The prisoner had shaken hands with three friends down from the University, kissed his wife farewell, and in the custody of a Sheriff’s officer disappeared into a brass-doored elevator on the main floor of the County Courthouse.

Never to return, he muttered to himself. He remembered that elevator: the ugliest, most stifling, most slow-moving elevator he had ever known—like a freight elevator in a meatpacking plant. There had been other formalities and courtesies: he was searched, questioned, registered, fingerprinted, numbered and photographed. And finally he had been led down a long yellow corridor, up a flight of stairs, through an iron gate, through a steel door, down another corridor and into the steel cage where he rested now, brooding on his memories.

He stood up and stretched his legs. Miserable dreams, he thought, these wretched… Through the open window beyond the bars and below he saw an automobile glide under a yellow traffic light. Police on aluminum-painted motorcycles followed. These wretched dreams, he thought. Stale and unprofitable, barren as a spayed spinster. What I need to fill these gray hours is a plan, a project, a metaphysic of damnation. He noticed that the shadow of the mailbox on the corner had contracted eastward over the sidewalk, uncovering one concrete slab, half covering a second. Time for lunch, he observed. Damnation, beans, coffee…

He let his thoughts lapse and mused over nothing, staring vacantly down at the fragments of free life in the air and sun outside.

Chow!
someone shouted.
Chow down!
Within seconds the line had formed along the grid of bars. The men waited.

A guard entered and stood in the corridor. On his signal the food slot was opened from the outside and the first tray shoved in. The old man from Laguna
grabbed it and sat down in his dark corner. The others filed by rapidly, silently, while the guard counted heads.

Bondi, last in line, picked up his rations and found a seat at the end of a table. Beside him, absorbed in mastication, sat the Reverend Hoskins. Bondi fished a spoon out of the beans and slowly, without enthusiasm, began to eat. Pinto beans without sauce or chili or even much salt; a slice of bread; a tincup of coffee. Out of loyalty to life and the immortal spirit of man, he ate.

When he had chewed and swallowed the final mouthful of beans, he got up and returned his tray to the stack by the slot. He took his private paper cup out of his shirt pocket and filled it with water from the tap, and had himself a slow thoughtful drink. He thought about Burns, about Jerry, about the last decent meal he had eaten: a steak fry out in the hills—steak, beer, fresh sweet corn baked on the cob. In the evening, with an amber moon edging up over the shoulder of the mountain, another world gigantic and close, with mountains and craters and a strange inner radiance, translucent and cool, like the heart of a ghost. Against the red flare of the west the nighthawks were circling, crying, killing—they plunged toward the earth through invisible swarms of insects, leveled and rose again, wings flitting like those of bats; each dive was accompanied by the soft muted startling roar of air rushing through feathers. Somewhere in the canyon behind them a mockingbird sang: a derisive song beginning on a high clear note and sliding down through a microtonal scale to an awkward, quavering stop. And the odor of burning juniper: three of them around the fire, Jerry, himself and a friend with harmonica. The steaks were crisp and carbonized on the surface, pink and hot toward the interior, the beer cool, the sweetcorn smoky and fresh. Red meat and fire, moon, mountain, the music of birds and cicada and man, the great city glittering in the valley, his woman beside him—the compound image was distinctly painful; Bondi tried to think of something else. Of something practical, like war.

He sat down on a bench and buried his face in his hands, closing his eyes. A darkening emotion flooded his heart, drowned his nostalgia in loneliness and helplessness and doubt. So that he scarcely heard and did not care about the opening of the cellblock door, the tramp and shuffle of prisoners, the clang of the bullpen gate, the sudden flurry of talk and laughter among the men. Bondi was conscious of nothing but his own darkness, until he became aware of the light steady pressure of a hand on his shoulder. He did not look up immediately; he uncovered his face, looked at the gray windows beyond the bars and then turned his head, slowly, and saw the cowboy standing beside him, and looking up saw the smile and the lean nose and the eyes of Jack Burns.

H
INTON
STOPPED
FOR
THE
RED
LIGHT
AND
WATCHED
the suburban traffic roll by. Sweat dripped down from his ribs; the air was hot in the cab when the truck was not in motion, despite the buzzing electric fan mounted on the dashboard. Around him the traffic clashed and roared, the smell of hot tar, rubber, oil and metal permeated the air and the blue smoke from the cars and the black smoke from the diesel trucks mounted toward the sky. He watched the women crossing the street—middleaged domesticated cows, long-legged schoolgirls, fat pigs from the reservations—and found nothing worthy of his attention. He puffed nervously and irritably on a cigarette, letting the ashes fall on his T-shirt.

The light changed from red to yellow, from yellow to green: Hinton stepped on the throttle, engaged the clutch and guided his great rumbling truck forward into the glare and haze of the afternoon.

“M
Y
G
OD
,” B
ONDI SAID SOFTLY
. H
E
STOOD
UP
, staring at Burns. “You really
are
here.” He reached out and put a hand on the cowboy’s shoulder, and squeezed a little on the tangible skin and bone. “In the flesh—or what there is of it.” He began to smile. “You’re as skinny as ever—and not a bit prettier.”

“
How kola
,” Burns said, grinning. “What’d you expect?—a goddamned ghost?”

“No… yes… I’m not sure.” Bondi paused, staring happily at his friend. “I don’t know—but I was never so glad to see anyone in my life. Whatever you are.”

“Well, I’m the same old Burns.” The cowboy returned the scrutiny: “You look pretty good—kinda sleek, like you been in high grass for a while.”

“Me? Yes, I guess so…” Bondi blinked his eyes. “This is a comfortable little jail. I’m so happy here.”

“We’ll leave tonight,” Burns said, still grinning.

“Sure, we’ll break out.” Bondi hesitated, staring helplessly at the familiar, homely face of the cowboy. “Well, damnit—shake hands.” They shook. “Now sit down. Make yourself at home.”

The Reverend Hoskins, who had been watching them, moved over on the bench. “Make yourselves comfortable, boys.”

“Thank you, tovarish,” Bondi said. He offered a seat to Burns. “Sit down, Jack.”

“I’ve been sittin too long already,” Burns said, “but
I guess a little more won’t hurt me.” He sat down and Bondi sat beside him.

“Now,” Bondi said, “start talking. Where’ve you been for the last year or so? What’ve you been up to? And how’d you get in here?”

Burns grinned and rubbed the back of his neck. “That was easy enough,” he said. “No trouble to that.”

“You look like you were in a fight.”

“I guess I was. I guess you might call it that. I don’t recollect too well.”

“Wonderful,” Bondi said irrationally, as if the other had announced some personal triumph. He could not keep his eyes off Burns’ face. “Holy Mary, you’re really here.”

Burns looked around at their cage of bars. “No doubt about that.” He pushed back his trampled black hat. “No sir.”

“Well, tell me about yourself. Everything—what you’ve been doing, where you’ve been, what you’re thinking these days.”

The cowboy smiled amiably, looking at Bondi. “Not much to tell, Paul. Specially on that last item. Whenever I get in jail I only think about one thing.”

“Getting out?”

“That’s right?”

“You’ll never be a philosopher,” Bond! said. “Not at that rate. Only a philosopher can transcend these bars and walls without getting off his actual entity. Or opening his eyes.” Even in the surprise and delight of this meeting Bondi was conscious of a third party present, the objective monitor in his brain surveying and appraising the appearance, speech and reactions of his old friend with a certain critical detachment. He seems a little slow, the monitor observed, a trifle dulled by too much wind and sun and animal company—as if not yet fully emerged from the wild wolfs dream of rock and black shadow. The drugged absorption in the natural world.

“Maybe I’ll never be a philosopher,” Burns agreed.
And then he added: “I can only think of one thing worse—you’ll always be one.”

Bondi laughed. “I’ll fool you yet, tovarish: I like that prophecy. I’m flattered.” What was I thinking? he said to himself; a kind of wild glaze on his mind? I should know better. Look at those eyes of his—clear and piercing as jets of light. Undimmed by print, the lucky devil.

“You like it?” Burns said. He rubbed his chin, smiling a little. “Well, it takes a mighty wise man to be flattered by insults. I’m beat.” He grinned at Bondi. “Why don’t you tell me what
you’re doin in here?

“It was all a mistake. A silly misunderstanding.” Bondi squeezed his nose carefully and looked at the floor. “Let’s talk about my case later. It’s a sad one. I want to hear about yours. You got in a fight, you said. Was it a good fight?”

“No,” Burns said; “I lost.”

“You look it, all right. But what brought you to Duke City, anyway? I thought you were up in Montana or Wyoming; weren’t you going to pan for gold along the Yampa?”

“Never got that far. Never got out of New Mexico. I been herdin sheep for the last six months. Just foolin around before then. Wastin my time.”

“You were herding sheep?” Bondi looked more incredulous than he felt. “Were you sick or something?”

“Well, I guess I was. I was sick of starvin to death. Fell in love with a no-good horse, too—a crazy little mare called Whisky.” Burns felt his shirtpockets. He grinned. “Also, I thought it might be a good idea to get back in touch with civilization. A sheep camp is a good place for that.” Again he felt through his pockets. “You got any smokes, Paul?”

“No, I haven’t. But I can get you the materials, maybe.” Bondi nudged the Reverend Hoskins. The dark worn face turned toward him. “Reverend, if you’ll give my friend here the makings of a cigarette I’ll give you my supper coffee.”

Hoskins’ face wrinkled into a painful smile.

“All of it,” Bondi said.

The smile broadened. The Reverend Hoskins had a mouthful of teeth as corroded and awry as the tombstones in an old graveyard. “Well, now, Mister Bondi,” he said, “I thought you was a Christian but that ain’t no very Christian deal you offers me.”

’That’s true,” Bondi admitted.

“Anyways I don’t smoke,” Hoskins said, “I don’t believe in it. It’s sinful.”

“You were smoking this morning.”

“I was a-backslidin this mornin,” Hoskins said; “I’m mendin my ways this afternoon.” He looked at the cowboy. “You look like a good man to me,” he said. He unbuttoned his greasy coat, pulled a sack of Bull durham from a vest pocket. “Take this, young man, and enjoy yourself. You look like an honest man to me.”

“Much obliged,” said Burns, taking the tobacco. “Got any papers?” The sack of tobacco was nearly empty.

“No sir, that I haven’t.” Hoskins explored his innumerable pockets. “Yes sir, I got this.” He drew out a ragged sheet of thin tissue, the wrapping off a roll of toilet paper. “I got this.”

“I sure do thank you,” said Burns. He folded the paper, tore off a rectangular section and began making himself a cigarette.

“Then you came to town to see me off to Leavenworth?” Bondi asked, turning back to the cowboy. “A lot of trouble for little pleasure, I think.”

Burns completed his cigarette and put it in his mouth. “Not exactly, Paul.” He looked at Hoskins. “Got a match too?”